I almost bolted. It was my first reaction to seeing the police coming toward me—marching toward me as if they were coming to arrest me for breaking into St. Agnes. Detective Sims was dressed in an overcoat, but it was unbuttoned so you could see the suit and tie beneath. You could also see his round, snowman-like shape. You could also see that little smile of his, as if he found this whole situation very amusing, in a not-very-pleasant kind of way. As for the two patrolmen—one striding along on each side of him—they didn’t look amused at all.
“Why, if it isn’t Master Sam Hopkins,” said Detective Sims in a sarcastic drawl, “aka the magic friend.”
I think I actually blushed. But I guess I knew Jennifer would blabber about all that eventually.
“Funny thing,” Sims went on. “We were at your house this morning, Magic.” The three policemen—Sims and the two patrolmen—had now reached me. They were standing over me—towering over me—where I stood in front of the shed.
“Listen . . .,” I said.
But Sims didn’t listen. “We figured there was a good chance you were home at that hour,” he went on. “Especially because we know you had a kind of late night last night, didn’t you?”
“Look, I’ll tell you all about that, but . . .”
“And here’s something odd. Your mom figured you were home too,” said Sims. “But when we looked in your room—what do you know? You weren’t there at all. There was nothing to be seen but an open window—almost as if someone had climbed out and shimmied down the waterspout in order to avoid talking to the police.”
“Okay, okay, but you have to listen. You have to look at this, read this,” I said, holding the notebook out to him.
“Luckily this is a small town,” said Sims, ignoring the notebook completely. “One of our dispatchers was having her morning coffee when she looked out her kitchen window and, son of a gun, what should she behold?”
“Read the notebook. I’m telling you, this is an emergency,” I said. I was practically jumping up and down with the urgency of it.
“She beholds young Sam Hopkins,” Sims went on, “running through her backyard, heading toward Arthur Street.”
“Please listen.”
“Also luckily, as a trained detective,” Sims went on sarcastically, “I was able to guess you’d be heading for Jennifer’s house. After all, you’re her magic friend.”
“Mark Sales and his friends, Nathan and Justin—they’re going to kill people. Lots of people. In, like”—I looked at my watch—“twenty minutes.”
That—finally—stopped Detective Sims. He stared at me. The quirk at the corner of his mouth got even quirkier as his smile got wider. “What are you talking about?”
“Mark and Nathan and Justin . . .”
“Mark Sales,” he said drily.
“Yes. He’s got guns. Lots of guns. And a bomb.”
“The Mark Sales? The track star?”
“Look at the notebook! They have this whole incredible plan. They’re gonna set off a bomb at the stadium . . . They’re going to hide in the woods . . . They’ve got rifles . . .” I was so desperate to make him understand, I could hardly finish my sentences.
I kept holding the notebook out to him. For another second, Detective Sims didn’t take it. Then he took it, but he just held it and went on looking at me. Finally, he gave a sort of sniff—as if to say, Oh well, all right, I’ll have a look. He glanced down at the book and started flipping through its pages.
“You see the diagrams?” I said. “Of the stadium. They’re about today. About the track meet. See where it says, ‘Explosion, 9:15’? That’s just twenty minutes from now. We need to get there!”
For a second my hopes rose as I saw the detective’s expression grow serious. He could see what horrible stuff was on those pages as clearly as I could.
But then he looked up, held the notebook up. “Did you write this?”
“Me? No!” I cried. “No! I found it in there.” I gestured at the shed. “It’s Mark’s. Jennifer saw him with his friends making plans. That’s what she’s been having hallucinations about. That’s why her hallucinations showed the truth.”
“This is pretty sick stuff, Hopkins,” Sims said sternly. “What, did you come here to plant this on Mark, try to make him look bad?”
“What?” I practically screamed. “No! Why would I do that?”
“Maybe to get back at him for getting your friend Jeff Winger in trouble,” said Sims.
I opened my mouth, about to answer, but nothing came out. I just stood there with my mouth open.
Because suddenly I understood: It didn’t matter what I said to Sims. Nothing I could tell him was going to make any difference. It’s not that the detective was a bad guy—or even a bad detective. Actually, I think he was a good guy and a good detective. I mean, I think he wanted to protect people and keep his town safe and get the bad guys off the streets and into jail and all that. It’s just that I was trying to tell him something so different from what he already believed that it was going to take time to convince him. And I didn’t have time. Dozens of people were about to be murdered. Hundreds maybe.
“All right,” said Sims. “I might as well tell you, kid, you are in a super lot of trouble here. Your dad’s not going to get you out of this so easily. You better come down to the department with us and we’ll talk it all over, get to the bottom of it.”
I could have shouted at him: “There’s no time!” I could’ve shouted, “We have to get to the stadium now, right now!”
But I knew he wouldn’t believe me. I knew he wouldn’t understand. Not quickly enough. Not before the killing started.
Sims gestured to the patrolmen, and they both stepped forward to take me into custody. One came at me from the left and one from the right.
I bolted.
I dodged left. The patrolman on the left grabbed at me. I swerved and dashed to the right. The cop on the right reached out. I’ve never been so glad to be a little guy in all my life. I ducked and went right under his arm and took off across the backyard.
I raced to the edge of the house. I felt a little breath of air on my neck and knew that one of the cops was right behind me, reaching for me, his fingers just missing me. I put on a burst of extra speed.
“Where you gonna go?” I heard Sims yelling after me. “Where do you think you can hide?”
I didn’t look back. I didn’t want anything to slow me down. I just ran with all my might, with all my speed, down the side of the house, out into the front yard, across the street and down the side of the next house into the next backyard.
When I finally did glance back, I saw there was no one there. The cops weren’t chasing me—not yet. But I knew Sims was right. There was nowhere to hide. I couldn’t escape them forever.
But I didn’t have to escape them forever. Just for—I glanced at my watch—just for seventeen minutes. Just long enough to get to the stadium and somehow warn the people there about the bomb, about Mark and the others waiting in the woods.
I stumbled out from behind the house. Onto the next sidewalk—Buchanan Street. More houses, more cars parked along the curb.
I stopped. I put my hands on my knees, breathing hard.
What now? The stadium was all the way across town. I knew I’d never make it in time. I thought of Jennifer’s voice on the phone:
“So many dead. So many dead.”
I had to do something to stop it. But what? How?
Then slowly, I raised my head, looked around me. I had an idea. It was a crazy idea. Dangerous. It would probably get me killed.
But it was the only thing I could think of.