"It’s got to be a misery for those farmers driving with
animals
in their trucks," Sewey said. "Well, it’s not much different than driving up with the Wilomases," Bran replied with a shrug. "Oh, hush!" Sewey said. "The sooner we finish this nonsense, the sooner we can go!"
Sewey started off for the line of people. Everyone else seemed to be having a good time, but Sewey and Mabel walked with frowning, stony faces. Rosie closed her door when she got out on the other side, breathing a sigh of relief. She picked up Baldretta and started to follow.
"We leave at the
first
chance we get," Sewey decreed, looking
over his shoulder. "And we are definitely
not
going to listen to one of the mayor’s speeches."
"But
I
am going see his wife!" Mabel stated. "I’ll see if she has some neoplytoplismo on her."
"You and that sickly friend of yours," Sewey said. "She’s the one with all the diseases!"
"She does
not
have a disease," Mabel replied. "She takes double the medicines I do!"
They made their way down the line, coming through into a large open space where everyone was gathered, with roads and paths going in all directions toward rows of booths.
"Bran, do you see those dark clouds?" Sewey pointed to the sky. "Whoopee! It’ll rain!"
"You’ve made up your mind we’re not going home, so just try to enjoy yourself." Bran sighed
"Bah! Won’t happen
here,
" he spat, but then he jumped. "Look! The van from Radio Dunce!" He started to rush in its direction, but Mabel caught him by the arm.
"You’re not going see that vulgar Dan!" she said. "I can’t stand the sound of him!"
"But he’s Dan
the Man,
" Sewey protested, dusting her hand off his shoulder.
Mabel would hear none of it. Bran looked around at all the people and the booths. Tents were everywhere, some advertising animal performances, others auctions or games for prizes. Bran saw a booth for Performing Cockroaches and another for Visual Tricks Which Do Not Involve Magic. There was a booth for nearly every association in Dunce, including AARS, the Association Against Rabbit Stew, TAZTARD, the Anti-Zofleman’s Tavern Association of Responsible Duncelanders, and DUMB, Duncelanders for Underground Mining Boys. Rosie touched his arm and broke him from his thoughts.
"Come on, they’re walking fast," she said softly, and they followed the Wilomases through the jostling crowds. There were so many people that they must have come from all over the city.
"Cotton candy, anyone?" Rosie offered, pointing toward a yellow booth. Baldretta clapped.
"Candy! Gimme some!" Balder squealed.
"No," Sewey said flatly. He kept to the side of the road and was suddenly stopped by a voice.
"Excuse me, sir! SIR!"
"WHAT!" Sewey burst, spinning around to face the woman in the booth. It was painted white with red lines in a rather confusing pattern.
"I’m from the Society to Upgrade People’s Intelligent Demeanors, and I was wondering—"
"No!" Sewey stopped her. "My name will not go on your list of donors today!"
"You wish to remain anonymous?" the woman asked, confused.
"I wish to be left alone!" Sewey snapped, pulling everyone away. They stumbled through the crowds again, until Sewey spun about at another one of the booths.
"So why’re you wasting
your
time today?" he asked the man behind the counter.
"Me?" the man turned to face Sewey. He wore a ridiculous, purple top hat and grinned at Sewey, then at Balder. In his hand was a waffle cone.
"ICE CREAM!" Balder yelled. "Gimme some! Gimme some!"
"No!" Sewey said, and Balder flipped backward in a screaming fury of whines and squeals.
"WAHHHH!" He hit the ground with his hands and feet and rolled about in the dirt. The crowds around them looked down at Balder, then up at Sewey and Mabel, and hurried away from the scene, whispering about those strange Bolton Roaders.
"Quick, two double scoops!" Sewey ordered, as more people started to look in their direction.
"Triple!" Balder commanded, sitting up with his lip out.
"No!" Sewey said, stomping his foot. "
Double.
"
"Triple!" Balder whined.
"Double!"
The ice cream man was now very confused and looked from Balder to Sewey, and then back again, trying to decide who to listen to. Baldretta pursed her lips—she just wanted
anything.
"Triple!" Balder screamed.
"No!"
"WAHHHH!" Balder fell to the ground again, picking up dirt and throwing it at everyone. Duncelanders around them dodged the flying clods, huffing and puffing in Sewey’s direction about how he should more extensively restrain his offspring.
"Make it two triples, on the double," Sewey hissed, going red under their disdainful glances.
"And make it Tattered Da-Chocolate!" Balder demanded. He dusted his clothes off.
"I’m sorry," the man replied. "There was an unfortunate accident on the road last week, and all the Tattered Da-Chocolate was lost."
"I’ll settle for Vanilla Vonsway," Balder pouted.
"That’s gone too," the man said, shrugging.
"Blagh!" Balder spat. "Then just give me Honkerbutton Supreme!"
"Now that we
do
have," the man said, and he stacked three scoops into each cone. "Twenty sib, thank you," he told Sewey, handing one to Balder and the other to Baldretta.
"
Twenty?
" Sewey gasped. "Outrageous! Completely absurd!"
"Twenty sib, please," the man insisted, not giving in. Sewey growled, but finally pulled the money out of his wallet with reluctance. The man counted it, grinned, and nodded.
"Come again!" he said. Baldretta giggled as she licked the ice cream.
"This is why I
hate
Duncelander Fairs!" Sewey grumbled. "Twenty sib. Banditry!"
He stormed off, but Rosie caught Bran by the shoulder and held him back.
"Wait." She dug about in her purse. "What kind of ice cream do you want? My treat."
Bran was so surprised that he didn’t know what to say.
"Not on your life!" Mabel squealed. "It’ll ruin him, all that sugar!"
"But a single scoop won’t…" Rosie protested, digging around in her purse for some money.
"No! I say
no!
" And Mabel followed Sewey. Bran shrugged.
"I’ll make it up to you later," Rosie said. Balder licked his ice cream and grinned at them, little honkerbuttons sticking to the edges of his mouth.
All of a sudden, there was the sound of horns blasting behind them. They all spun around, and Bran saw a large group of men in white suits carrying trumpets and blasting loud tunes in unison, their faces red and puffed up. Sewey pushed everyone to the side of the path as the trumpeters came by, not even glancing at the people who had begun to cheer in the sidelines.
"Look!" Rosie said. "That must be the mayor coming!"
Indeed it was, but no one could see him. Around the bend came a baby elephant, and on its back was a canopied box. The elephant looked as if it was having a rather hard time carrying the box, and it wobbled to and fro among the acrobats that were doing flips under its feet. The box on its back was covered with thick cloths, all different colors, so no one could see the inside, but so there wasn’t any confusion, there was a sign above the box that read:
IN THIS BOX IS THE MAYOR OF DUNCE
AND HIS WIFE.
STAY OUT OF THE WAY AND DO NOT FEED
THE ELEPHANT.
The towering, four-footed beast walked slowly with the parade, and more men in blue suits came behind it, clanging cymbals and banging bells. Bran stood on the tips of his toes to see better as the elephant neared the bend, heading toward a clearing in the distance where the mayor was going to give his speech. The sounds of the parade disappeared into the distance, and soon the conversations started up again among the people.
"Well, now that they’re here, I’ve got to go talk to Mrs. Demark," Mabel said, starting off.
"No!" Sewey said. "I most certainly will
not
stand there and listen to you gab about influenza and Midhampton’s disease with the mayor’s wife for two hours again!"
"Then
you
can just go off by yourself," Mabel retorted. "And when something terrible happens, you can find us over there at the picnic tables!"
"Fine!" Sewey said, and he started off in the opposite direction.
"I hope you come running back for your life to those picnic tables!" Mabel called after him.
"Nyah!" Sewey stuck his tongue out. Some people looked at them again, whispering more things about those strange Bolton Roaders.
Bran watched Sewey disappear into the crowds. "I’ve got a feeling he’ll be running back in about five minutes," he said, grinning at Rosie.
Sewey grumbled his way through the crowds, jostling everyone aside like a big ape.
What I need is a bunch of trumpeters,
he thought.
And an elephant. Then people would move out of my way!
But he had neither, so he kept pushing. He looked up and down the rows for anything to do. He came to a tent with about eighteen different cakes sitting all in a row on a long table. He tried a bite of each one, and then saw a blue ribbon on the last, awarding it for Best Cake Design.
"Whoops…" he said, still covered with blue icing.
The next tent he came to had a sign strictly prohibiting children to enter.
"Hmmm…" he said curiously, and he looked both ways before going in. It was dimly lit with a small wall set up in the middle. There was a basket of apples to throw at short people running back and forth behind it. The people were dressed up as gnomes, complete with red felt hats and long white beards. Sewey dashed out of the tent, covering his eyes.
"The indecency one finds at these fairs," he gasped. "And they got those gnomes all wrong!"
He moved on to the next tent, and then the next, but there simply wasn’t anything to do. He was getting so bored he almost considered going to listen to the mayor’s speech. "No, never," he told himself, rushing on. He passed nearly a dozen booths and paused to wipe his forehead, when he was stopped by a hoarse whisper.
"Psst!" It came from his left and between two large tents.
Sewey darted his gaze around. "What do you want?" he growled into the darkness. "You had better not be another charity."
"Come here," the low voice said. Sewey peered into the shadows and saw a man with an unshaven face and a closed umbrella in his hand. The man looked warily about, his uncut, sandy hair so thin it went off in every direction like tiny sprouts. The man was nearly as thin as his hair, his eyes searching the road furtively in case anyone noticed him. Sewey stepped closer.
"Yes?" Sewey asked, his voice filled with irritation.
"You look respectable," the man mumbled. "The name’s Rat, Mr. Rat…"
He stepped backward and ushered Sewey deeper into the shadows. Sewey looked around and saw that most of the people were ignoring them, despite their strange position.
"Yes, what is it?" Sewey asked impatiently, crossing his arms.
"It’s what’s in the umbrella, that’s what," Mr. Rat said conspiratorially, patting the umbrella.
"And what’s in the umbrella?" Sewey asked, getting tired of the little game being played. The man placed it handle-up on the ground, standing back as he opened it up to reveal…
"Papers," Sewey said, not impressed. "Just plain old papers."
"Not just any normal papers, no siree." Mr. Rat looked around. "
Magic
papers!"
Sewey gasped with shock and his hand came up to cover his mouth. He gulped and looked inside the open umbrella: the sheets were completely blank.
"M-m-magic…?" Sewey’s voice was even lower than Mr. Rat’s. His heart nearly stopped.
"Yes,
magic,
" Mr. Rat said with a twinkle in his cautious eyes. "Any businessman’s got to be interested, but given the, er, circumstances, we’ve got to keep it quiet around the police. To make it work, you write with a pen here on the page." Mr. Rat proceeded to pull a pen from his shirt pocket, taking up one of the papers and closing the umbrella.
"See, look: I write a five here, and here I write a multiplication sign, then an eight." He wrote on the paper, much to the astonishment of Sewey, who was in too much shock to stop him.
"And now watch—
it changes!
"
And indeed it did. Right before Sewey’s eyes, the two numbers and the multiplication sign both wavered and disappeared and were replaced, in clean black ink, by the number forty. It was as shocking as if the man had turned into a rooster.
"See, a calculator, anytime, anywhere. Yours for three sib."
"What?" Sewey squawked. He felt faint.
"Well, it is low, isn’t it? But got to take what I can get in Dunce," Mr. Rat said. "I ain’t no mage, either, just a simple salesma…"
"NO!" Sewey exploded, screaming even louder than the babbling crowds. "Magic! MAGIC!"
"Shhh! Sir!" the man pleaded. He waved his hands frantically to try and quiet Sewey.
"Magic! Magic!" Sewey screeched like an old woman, running away. "Officer!" he shouted, waving his arms and dashing from the tents. His shouts had already gotten the attention a rotund officer, pushing through the crowds.
After a few gasping words from Sewey, the officer seized the whimpering Mr. Rat, but because he was so thin, Mr. Rat just slipped right out like a weasel.
The officer barely caught hold of him by the hairs of his bushy head. "C’mere!" the officer wheezed, dragging Mr. Rat away and seizing the umbrella. He radioed for two more officers to come quick, and they appeared from either side, attempting to subdue the screaming Mr. Rat. "I need the magecuffs!"
One of the officers yanked the special handcuffs off his belt. They were battery powered and mechanically designed to keep mages from doing magic.
"No!" Mr. Rat protested. "I’m not a mage! Not the
magecuffs!
"
They slapped them on anyway. Sewey clutched at his heart as if it had stopped.