CHAPTER 26

Hitching Post

I got to the Hitching Post movie theater at 8:50 A.M. Seamus was there. He was wearing my engineer’s hat. I was wearing his cowboy hat. There was a huge mob of kids milling around on the sidewalk.

“Neddie!” Seamus Finn said. “You showed up!”

The kids who had bought their tickets were sort of surging up against the doors, which were locked. Seamus and I paid our thirty-five cents at the little box office, and surged too. When the doors were opened we sort of popped through and flowed into the lobby.

The Hitching Post was pretty similar to the Julian. The same shuffling of feet, the same low rumble of lots of kids talking and hollering, the same smell of popcorn and cinnamon red-hot candy, the same feeling of popcorn and spitwads bouncing off your head in the dark. First they showed a Farmer Gray cartoon, then a Flip the Frog, and a Porky Pig. Next came the serials, an episode apiece of The Phantom Empire and The Fighting Devil Dogs—both excellent. The feature films were Wild Horse Valley with Bob Steele, and The Mask of Wu Shumai. This movie had a villian, Dr. Wu Shumai, who was a genius and a master criminal. He wanted to steal this valuable jade frog because whoever had it could control the ancient underground gods, and take over the whole planet. This was an extremely good movie, with lots of scary stuff in it. Dr. Wu Shumai doesn’t get the frog, but he gets away, and at the end of the movie there’s a close-up, and he’s looking right into the camera. He says, “You have not heard the last of Dr. Wu Shumai,” and then he laughs a crazy evil laugh, and the last thing you see are his eyes.

When we came out of the Hitching Post, blinking in the sunlight, Seamus Finn said, “Let me show you the best place to get something to eat.” He took me into a drugstore where a large root beer was a nickel and an order of french fries was fifteen cents. We shared the french fries, and put lots of catsup on them.

“Lunch for two for a quarter,” Seamus said. “Best deal in town.”

“That was a pretty good movie,” I said. “Sort of reminded me of something.”

“You mean how Dr. Wu Shumai was trying to get the jade frog, like Sandor Eucalyptus tried to get your turtle?” Seamus asked. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Do you think it’s something like that? Do you think Sandor Eucalyptus is a master criminal and the turtle is some kind of magic?” I asked Seamus.

“I don’t see how it could be anything else,” Seamus Finn said.

“I got a letter from Melvin the shaman,” I said. “He thinks Sandor Eucalyptus may be in Los Angeles. He said I should be careful and trust no one.”

“I wish my father and Billy the Phantom Bellboy would come back,” Seamus Finn said. “We could use some help. Meanwhile, we’ll just have to deal with Sandor Eucalyptus ourselves.”

“You don’t think we should tell anyone? Like some adult?”

“He said trust no one, didn’t he? Remember, in the movie, the police chief and the professor were in Dr. Wu Shumai’s power. If we tell an adult, how do we know it won’t be like that?”

Seamus had a point. Melvin the shaman had said to trust no one.

“I think we might tell Sergeant Caleb,” Seamus said. “Sergeant Caleb is in nobody’s power.”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s a guy at the school. Let’s walk over there now. I’ll show you around, and you’ll meet him. Did you decide to enroll?”

“Well, I think my father is willing to keep me out of school as long as I want—but he’d probably let me go if I asked. And my mother is all for me wearing a nice uniform and being polite. Let’s look the place over.”