Captain Bontoc opened the door into the library and flicked on the lights. “Follow me,” he said. He passed between rows of silent books and hurried up a staircase that climbed the wall at the rear, with Ma following at his heels and the others close behind. At the top of the stairs the captain opened the door to a small office. The lights were on inside, and to Bea’s surprise she could hear the clacking of an old typewriter.
“Someone’s working late,” muttered Pa.
They shuffled in through the narrow door, all except for Phoebe, who could not resist sliding back down the banister, oblivious to the sheer drop beside it.
The office was a small room in the attic of the building. It had a sloping ceiling with wooden beams. Two desks stood side by side in the middle of the room, and at the far wall was a long bench. A number of people sat there in the gloom. Most of them seemed to be asleep.
On one of the desks sat an iron typewriter that must have been at least fifty years old. A woman of around the same age was tapping away at it with fingers like dancing sausages. “Won’t be a second!” she called out, without looking up. “I’m just typing up your cards.”
Captain Bontoc strode to the larger desk and unrolled a chart that lay on the desktop. He leaned forward, frowning, and began to trace the lines with a bitten fingernail. Bea looked at the chart with interest. As far as she could see it was an exact copy of the one that the brush-haired man had been filling out at the car wash. She was sure she even recognized some of the strange little annotations the man had made in between the planets. It seemed a long time ago.
“Will the chart show us where Theo is?” she asked the captain.
“The little tyke’s gotten himself lost already, has he?” said the lady at the typewriter. She looked up and smiled. She had a double chin and gaps between her teeth. She seemed to know who Theo was.
“Not exactly, Miss ’opkins,” said Captain Bontoc. “Boy disappeared on the crossing.”
Miss Hopkins stopped typing and her smile grew puzzled. “On the crossing?” she repeated. “That’s impossible!”
“Of course it’s impossible,” snapped Ma. She turned to Captain Bontoc. “You said yourself the bus was sealed. He must have gotten off before we started. He’s still at the car wash, and I demand you take us back at once.” She folded her arms and glared. “He’s barely seven.”
Captain Bontoc looked up from the chart. “You’re in luck,” he said with a nervous smile. “There’ll be another crossing in three weeks.”
“Three weeks?” said Ma sharply.
The lady at the typewriter flinched, and those on the bench who were still asleep woke up with a start.
“Have you found him on the chart?” asked Bea.
Captain Bontoc scratched his head. “Afraid not, missy. I only know how to plot a crossing, really. Mr. Waxy’s the one who interprets the chart. He’ll find the boy for sure. Everyone has to be somewhere.”
“But we can’t wait three weeks!” said Ma. “What will happen to Theo in the meantime?”
“Nothing, ma’am. Long as young…Bea can hear him we know he’s safe.” He gestured at a shelf behind him, where another large jar perched among the dusty books. “My parrot Trigger’s still going strong after thirty years. I talk to him often. Can’t tell me where he is, that’s the problem.”
Bea could feel Nails the meerkat shifting in the backpack that she carried over her shoulder, and the guilty feeling in her chest shifted with him. She knew she should tell the captain that the meerkat had survived the crossing, but she could not pluck up the courage. She was afraid of what Granny Delphine would say to her, and more than that she dreaded facing her mother with the news that Bea herself might somehow be responsible for Theo’s disappearance.
“Why don’t you just phone him?” said Ma. “Mr. Waxy, or whatever he calls himself.”
“Phone him?” said Bontoc. “Phone him?” He looked at Granny Delphine as though for help, but the old lady’s lips were thin and she appeared to be staring at the rafters. “There…er…isn’t a phone line to the Other Side,” said Bontoc. He clapped his hands together briskly. “Now, if you’ll just wait for a moment we’ll sort you out with—”
He got no further with what he was saying. Without anyone noticing, Pa’s face had been turning slowly redder, like an iron in the fire. Now it had reached a rich plum color. He started toward the captain. Bea stepped hurriedly to one side. Pa had been famous for his bear hugs back in the days when he rode with the Flying Rascals Motorcycle Club. Legend had it that when Bald Mountain put the squeeze on somebody they came around very rapidly to his point of view. Indeed, there were many people who had found themselves a good deal thinner after a disagreement with Bald Mountain than they had been before.
He stepped around behind Captain Bontoc with surprising nimbleness. He picked the captain clean off the floor in his massive tattooed arms, and he began to squeeze. Bea winced. Ma looked triumphant, as though she expected the solutions to all their problems to be squeezed out of the captain like toothpaste. Bea stole a look at Granny Delphine and so she missed what happened when Bald Mountain achieved maximum squeeze. From the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the captain giving a mighty wriggle. A croaking sound escaped him. His shiny skin and whiskered face gave a fleeting impression of a plump seal escaping from a trawler net, and a moment later he was free.
There was chaos in the room. The typewriter woman let out a delayed shriek. Captain Bontoc, now standing several feet away from Pa, shook himself back into shape. Pa was hugging himself, a surprised look replacing the anger on his face, and there was a nervous rumble from the people on the bench.
It was at this point that Granny Delphine took command. “Enough!” she said in a shrill voice.
Everything stopped.
“There’s nothing more we can do tonight.” She swept the room with her owl eyes, and even the strangers fell silent. “It seems that Theo is in no immediate danger. In the morning we will organize a proper search, and in the meantime Captain Bontoc will show us where we are to stay.”
“Ah, yes,” said the captain. He turned to the typewriter lady. “If you please, Miss ’opkins?”
Miss Hopkins opened a drawer in her desk. She took out a small wooden box, placed it carefully on the corner of the desk, and opened it. The people on the bench shifted nervously. One of them, a stooped man in a shapeless felt hat, stood up hastily and addressed the typewriter woman. “Beg your pardon, Miss Hopkins. I’d like to be excused from the line. Just remembered I’ve got to get the plumegranates in this week.”
“Aye,” said a woman sitting at the end. “And I’ve got to get my ears adjusted on Tuesday. I’ll volunteer another time.”
“Nonsense!” said Miss Hopkins brightly. She tapped the box with a pudgy finger. A large striped grasshopper appeared, first his long curling antennae, then a triangular green head with eyes like coffee beans. He climbed out of the box in a leisurely fashion and surveyed the row of people on the bench. The man in the hat sat down quickly. The people shrank slowly into their collars, and Bea had the distinct impression that they were all trying to avoid catching the grasshopper’s attention. The insect made up his mind. He jumped suddenly and flew across the room with a clatter of wings, landing squarely on the felt hat of the man with the plumegranates. The man muttered something under his breath. The rest of the people looked relieved.
“Mr. Miller,” said Miss Hopkins. “You’re the lucky host!”
Mr. Miller stood up. A reluctant smile broke across his wrinkled face, and he walked forward and stuck out a large bony hand. “Welcome to Bell Hoot,” he said. The grasshopper was still perched on his hat.
Ma looked at him blankly, her eyes rimmed with tears. Bea shook hands with the man instead.
“You’ll be staying with the Millers until we get you settled,” said Captain Bontoc.
Ma and Pa said nothing. It seemed the fight had gone out of them. Ma looked tired and pale, and there was a thin streamer of pond weed glued to Pa’s cheek.
They filed out through the narrow door and down the wooden staircase, following Mr. Miller out into the warm, chirping night. Bea thought about the peculiar animals she had glimpsed on the brochure through Granny Delphine’s spectacles, teeming in the undergrowth. A thrill of excitement made her forget for a moment about Theo. She ran a few steps to catch up with their host.
“Are there any big animals here?” she asked in a loud whisper.
“Some,” said Mr. Miller. He held up a lantern that cast a pool of light around them. His head turned from side to side, peering into the darkness between the trees. He seemed distracted.
“Where are we going?” asked Bea. “Is it a sort of guesthouse?”
Mr. Miller shook his head. “It’s our home.”
“Do you normally have lodgers?”
“Nope. It’s our turn, is all. You’ll get your own place by and by.”
“We’re only here for three weeks.”
Mr. Miller gave Bea a strange look. He seemed about to say something, then thought better of it.
“That’s enough questions for now,” said Granny Delphine at her shoulder.
Bea heard her mother’s voice from the darkness behind. “I have a few questions of my own,” she muttered, “and there had better be some answers.”