The Thing At The Edge of Blundertown: A Young Adult Novel

THE NIGHT AFTER MY THIRD-GRADE field trip to a glass- blowing exposition, I dreamed of the beautiful, molten-hot liquid expanding before me. Whether liquid or solid, glass could hurt you. At 1,800 degrees, it could burn a hole right through your heart; as a solid, it could slice you into pieces. Suddenly, the glowing mound exploded before my eyes into a solid burst of silver daggers. I huddled with Penelope in the corner as the particles came down like rain.

WHEN RAELYN WAS NINE, Doc Goodman had dark wavy hair. When she was eleven, it had gone all white, a thick coat of snow on his tall head. He was quickly aging, but he was still the best veterinarian in Daffy County. He’d been named Best Vet for eight of the last ten years. If I were a dog, she thought, and had to be poked and pricked, prodded and restrained, if I had to be subjected to someone shoving a sharp instrument up my tush and inspecting my privates, I’d want that person to be Doc Goodman.

Penelope would agree. She had a love-hate relationship with her doctor, his staff, his waiting room, and the parking lot outside his office. She knew as soon as the car made the right-hand turn onto Chestnut Street. At nine, she had relieved herself the instant she entered the waiting room, surprised again by the power he still had over her after all these years. When she was a puppy, what an ignorant fool she’d been! He would play with her ears, paws, tail—what a fine friend! Only to learn it was all a ruse. Out of nowhere, among the frolicking, a poke and a yelping pinch right on the rump! Not a hint of playfulness anymore, but a stern expression behind the wire-framed glasses. “Good Girl,” he praised. Oh, those pesky annual shots.

Passersby often stopped at the large bay window overlooking the street to admire Atlas, Doc’s silver Weimaraner. Atlas spent business hours lounging on his plush, monogrammed bed in the window, his translucent velvet coat on full display. He wasn’t the only one treated like royalty. No waiting room was more inviting. When you opened the front door, you were greeted with the lovely voice of Patty Paige singing the old, “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” The recording was motion-sensored, so Doc and Atlas heard this endearing tune dozens of times a day. They never tired of it. Rae especially adored the part when the puppy chimed in “Woof, woof!’ There were dog and kitty beds next to each chair, a basket of toys, and a jar of treats on the counter.

It was after nine o’clock and long dark outside. The light in the waiting area had been turned off and the door locked. Doc was finishing up a busy day. Both his vet technician and his receptionist had recently resigned after nearly twenty years with him. The field of veterinary medicine had become oppressive, to say the least. They’d left when Doc was handed a paint brush and ordered by Chief Jerkins to paint the sign on his door. It had read Doc’s Place. In front of a crowd of gawkers and a gun-toting officer, he’d added a brush stroke to the letter “C” to convert it to a “G”, so that the door read Dog’s Place. Dog had become the number two dirty word on the street, second only to canine. The two loyal employees had fled in tears. Without his staff, he had his hands full handling all aspects of his practice, which had shrunk by about thirty percent in the last month. Some dogs had moved out of Daffy County; others were keeping a low profile.

“Come, Atlas. I need your help,” he called. Atlas jumped from his bed in the window and galloped through the swinging door to the back office. Doc grabbed the broom from the utility closet and swept the floor. He hung his white doctor’s coat on a closet hook and buttoned his winter jacket, car keys in hand.

Suddenly, a tremendous crash came from the front room. He nearly fell backward. Atlas immediately obeyed Doc’s cue to remain quiet. It was an identifiable sound though Doc had never heard it before, the way you know it’s a bear without ever before having heard a live growl.

He regained steadiness when he heard a second crash just as jarring as the first. It left him with no doubt: He was under attack. He waved Atlas into the closet with him and turned off the lights. He gripped Atlas at the nape and held his breath.

Someone was pounding on the front door, which flew open. Patty Paige’s sweet voice floated out, singing “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?"

“Woof, woof,” barked the puppy. The innocence of the music, a child’s carefree melody, had suddenly become eerily out of place. Heavy footsteps assaulted Patty and her little pup and barged through the swinging door into the back office, a mere arm’s length away. Doc remained crouched in a tight ball, Atlas’ silver head buried in his jacket—sitting ducks at the mercy of the intruders. There were sounds of opening cabinets, spilling paper, tossing books. Laughter and whoops came from a deep voice and from another only halfway to manhood. Within moments, the footsteps rumbled back into the waiting room and out the front door.

Then, utter silence. Neither of them moved. After a few tense moments, Doc pulled himself up and cracked open the closet door. The clock ticked, and the oil burner hissed gently. He didn’t dare turn on the light, but he could see through the darkness that he had been ransacked. Papers and books cluttered the floor. His financial records were scattered, his appointment book gone.

As much as he dreaded it, he inched the swinging door open. A gust of frigid air engulfed him, and he knew his instincts had been right. The large bay window had been shattered. A few sharp daggers of glass remained intact, jutting out at violent angles. Atlas’ fancy bed sparkled in a pool of broken glass reflecting off the street light. Silicate shards and debris blanketed the floor and covered the beds and chairs.

Doc let out a single cry, keys still clutched in his fist. He knelt on the shattered remains of twenty-five years of his career. Something trickled down his face, and he wondered if he’d been hit by a maverick shard. But when he wiped his cheek, it was not blood that he saw. It was tears.

He would be cleaning meticulously through the night. But first he swept only a small area in the center of the room and a path for Atlas. He turned on the music. It was a jazzy tune, one of Violet’s favorites. He began to hum along in the aching, streetlit shadows. “Atlas,” he asked, “do you want to dance?” The Weimaraner pranced toward him, his front paws nearly reaching Doc’s chest. Doc held him so that Atlas was standing majestic and tall.

They danced. Doc lead the way, the two making slow, careful rotations the way he and his wife, Violet, had on her last good morning. By then, only a few wispy strands had been left of her hair, and darkness had circled her eyes. It had been five years, but it felt like yesterday. On the morning before hospice took over, it was this song they had danced to. Her arms had been limp in his, with Doc humming in her ear.

THE BAND OF ROGUE CITIZENS FANNED OUT, shouting and bellowing through the business sections of Blundertown and the surrounding villages. They carried out a wild spree leaving a sickening trail of destruction and glass behind them. They were a team of thugs emboldened by their numbers and by the night, when no one was present to defend their businesses—neither the pet stores nor the veterinarians, the groomers, the boarders. At each business the glass was left strewn on the sidewalks, the interiors ransacked and looted. The officer on duty sat idly by, chewing her gum in a marked car at the curb, watching. She was following instructions.

What a mess the streets were the next morning! The officer took a report from Doc straight away. He pulled out his note pad and began to write as Doc described the incident. But before he was finished telling his account of what happened, the officer ripped the top page from his pad and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“A citation,” the officer said matter-of-factly. “As the business owner of these premises, you’re responsible for maintaining the public sidewalk in front here. You’ve got twenty-four hours to clean it up.” He didn’t look at Doc when he said it. Had he, he would have seen a crushed man behind the wire-framed lenses. And if he had looked more closely still, he would have seen a small flame of anger, stoked and raging, burning through the glass.