Sewey went red. "Those elephants were real! And I refuse to speak to you anymore."
"Well then." The officer took a pen out. "I’d say Judge Rhine will be pretty hard—"
"All right, I was chasing a burglar," Sewey interrupted, spinning on him. "Maybe you should be looking for him instead of patrolling for
me.
"
Officer McMason looked confused, but only for a moment. Then he just scratched his moustache and paged through his ticket book. "I’m afraid a different burglar ploy was used five weeks ago, and the one about the runaway bugbears was used two weeks ago—"
"Those bugbears were real," Sewey interrupted.
"Whatever." The officer waved his hand. "I think that means you’ve run out of excuses."
"But the burglar is real too!" Sewey insisted. "There’s a burglar on the loose!"
The officer nodded as if consoling a little child, looking into the air and preparing for another of Sewey’s wild stories. He began to write on his pad.
"Wait," Sewey begged madly. "I have a perfectly good excuse for speeding. I was…I was…" He threw his hands in the air. "I was chasing a
gnome!
"
Officer McMason instantly dropped his pen, paper, and jaw, his eyes going wide.
Bran blinked with shock and the patrol car’s lights flickered. Even the Schweezer gave a shudder, as if it also was stunned to hear of such conduct.
"A…
gnome?
" the officer asked slowly, blinking at him.
Sewey gulped.
Bran had heard about gnomes, from whispers about the simple indecency of them. He had overheard the news on television once saying that the mayor had declared a day of celebration when the police had caught a gnome who had been sneaking around Givvyng Park. There were three basic rules in Dunce that no one could get past: no gnomes, no mages, and nothing that could even be imagined as an etcetera to the first two.
"Yes, a n-n-gnome," Sewey whispered nervously. They knew what happened to gnomes in Dunce: tossed in jail for life without trial or, more commonly, worse.
"Tell me about this gnome…" the officer said, blinking.
"He was tall and thin and bony, and his skin was dark, and his eyes were green," Sewey described. "He didn’t have a hat, but he was definitely a gnome!"
The officer’s shoulders dropped. "No hat? A gnome wouldn’t be caught dead without a hat."
"But it
was
a gnome," Sewey objected. "I’m sure of it."
"As a matter of science," the officer explained with a shrug, "gnomes are short, have beards, and wear pointy red hats. Sounds pretty much the opposite of your burglar."
"He’s not
my burglar,
" Sewey said. "It was a
gnome.
"
The officer picked up his ticket book and began writing.
"It’s true!" Sewey whined. He looked left and right, and finding no way to avoid the ticket, promptly punched both hands on the car horn. The alley filled with noise, rising to the sky like a concert of bad tuba players. The officer jumped and started to shout, but Sewey didn’t hear him. He just pressed on the horn, eyes closed, and Bran covered his ears.
"Mr. Wilomas!" the officer shouted. "
Mr. Wilomas!
"
He didn’t listen. The officer, growing tired of this game, drew his pistol, pointed it toward the sky, and shot. At the sudden explosion, Sewey went as stiff and pale as a whitewashed board.
"Officer?" he croaked. Officer McMason blew on the muzzle of his gun. Sewey trembled.
"I think I’ve changed my mind about this ticket," the officer said.
"I’m going free?" Sewey said with elation.
"No."
"I’m going to jail?" Sewey whined.
"Worse," the officer said. "I have a better idea to deal with you." He raised a finger. "You hereby have
one week
to convince me there was a gnome—"
"A fortnight, for pity’s sake," Sewey begged.
The officer sighed. "A fortnight then. If by that time you haven’t caught me this…
gnome,
then…" He blew on the muzzle of his gun again.
Sewey swallowed. "Goodness," he said.
The officer stared hard at Sewey, but gave himself away when he glanced across at Bran—he was hiding a smile. "A fortnight!" he added, louder for effect.
Sewey coughed. The officer tipped his hat and started for his car. Slowly, the flashing lights disappeared, leaving Sewey and Bran all alone in the alley.
After a while of sitting in silence, Sewey rattled the car into gear and pulled out of the alley.
"How long is a fortnight?" he asked.
"Fourteen days, I think," Bran answered.
"Fourteen days?" Sewey moaned. "I’m finished."
And as he pushed on the gas for home, he didn’t even notice he was speeding again.
Shambles ran through the gloomy darkness, down alleys and up empty roads, keeping out of sight like a specter. His eyes swept the streets, his ears alert for any noise, keeping him out of view as he crossed bridges and railroad tracks. Twice the lights of a car came close, but he slid into the safety of darkness before anyone could catch more than a glimpse of him.
Following him were voices—playing in his head, distant now, the pain from his arm from the shards of the chimney bricks drowning their words out with burning screams in his brain. But he knew the voices would return, seizing him fully once more, as they always did.
Moving on foot, he crossed the district and came to another: a dirty, unkempt place, with old buildings that had broken windows, houses without lights, and roadways with more holes than gravel. It was quiet, but his ears picked up on cars rushing down the highway far away. Shambles crept to an abandoned building. There were garage doors at the bottom, facing the road. One was open. Shambles moved for it.
"Well, well, well," a voice called out when he came through, and suddenly four blinding headlights were trained on him.
Shambles froze and heard the mechanical sound of the garage door closing behind him. He tried to shield his eyes from the bright beams.
"Bring him here to me," the man ordered. "He can tell us why he’s come back alone. Again."
Shambles felt two sets of hands take hold of his shoulders. He didn’t fight. He knew them, and he knew they were stronger than he was. They pulled him to a black van, both of them big men with bald heads and long black coats, identical in every way, their muscles taut and their necks thick. They shoved him against the hood of the van, holding him backward against it. He saw two other men, leaning against a second black van a few feet away: Craig had long brown hair and was unshaven, and Marcus’s black hair was cut short. Both held pistols.
"Hold him there," the strong voice said, and Shambles saw the man’s shoes slide out from under the open door. The man’s footsteps scraped against the concrete as he came around the side, until he was standing in front of Shambles. He was tall and strong, his hair a deep blond and down to his shoulders. He stared at Shambles icily.
"I see you’ve come back alone again," he said in a soft tone. "Where’s the boy?"
Shambles only hissed at him with contempt, and the man looked down for a moment.
"I don’t ask things twice," he said, stepping forward. He glanced at the two men holding Shambles down, and then back into his eyes. He leaned close to his ear, his lips inches away.
"I can give her a call…" he whispered, holding a silver cell phone in front of Shambles’s face.
"She will know of it, and she will not be pleased," the man said. His eyes moved down Shambles’s arm to his wrist. Shambles’s eyes moved also, to the black bracelet: a thick piece of material, wrapped twice, in which there was a perfectly smooth piece of rock, clear green. It seemed to glow a dark color, and just peering at it made Shambles’s heart beat faster. The man looked back to his eyes.
"No…" Shambles whimpered. "Pleassse, tell her nothing of it!" He clenched his teeth, his breath quickening, his arms shaking in the grasp of the men. He could almost feel the sting rushing through his body, like it had so many times before— his screams echoing until it didn’t seem to be his voice anymore, only a distant sound in the dark. "Pleassse, Joris, don’t tell her. I found the boy, and I saw him." He felt sweat trickling down his back, onto the metal of the van.
The man leaned closer.
"And where," Joris whispered, "did you see him?"
Shambles’s eyes rolled around. The room swayed in front of him as he tried to clear his throat.
"Pleassse," he begged them. "Releassse me, and I will tell you."
Joris studied his face. He finally looked satisfied and nodded to the men. They bent Shambles up and held onto his arms loosely.
"I saw him on Bolton Road," Shambles gasped. "Where the addresss leadsss."
"Was it the same as last night?" Joris asked.
Shambles coughed. "Yesss."
"Are you’re sure it was the boy?" Joris shot another question at him like a bullet.
"Yesss, I am sure."
"And why did you not bring him to us?"
"I was ssshot at!" Shambles looked up at him with fiery eyes, waving his bloodied arm. "It wasss a man with a car, and I couldn’t get to the boy."
All of a sudden, Joris hit the side of the van in fury. Shambles jerked, but Joris seized him by the neck, slamming him back against the metal, his grip tightening like a vice on Shambles’s throat.
"Shambles!" Joris shouted in his face. "Who saw you—
tell me who saw you!
"
Shambles choked for air, and Joris squeezed tighter, but then threw him back against the van. Spluttering, he felt his head hit the metal, and Joris spun around, running his hands nervously through his thick hair. Shambles fell to the ground against the side of the van, weak.
"What do we do now?" one of the men asked.
"Shut up, Craig!" Joris shouted, spinning on him with fury.
"We can go to the house and take the boy tonight, if we have to," the other man said.
"Someone might see us!" Joris barked. "The boy should have been brought to us tonight."
He slammed his fist against the hood of the other van and clenched his teeth. "Beat him," he added, pointing to Shambles, his voice echoing in the garage.
"No!" Shambles pleaded, looking from one man to the other.
"Beat him until he tells you everything!" Joris shouted, starting to pace the floor. Neither of the bald men showed any emotion, spinning Shambles around and pushing him against the metal.
"Pleassse!" Shambles begged, sliding out of their grasp. One of the men tried to grab him, but Shambles bit his hand. The man didn’t shout or show any reaction at all, only hit Shambles hard across the back, so that he tripped onto the concrete. They bent his arms back, and Craig came forward, tossing his cigarette to the ground and cracking his knuckles. Shambles cried out, fighting them, but Craig laughed cruelly as the men straightened up Shambles against the van for him. He lifted his fist to strike.
"Wait," Joris hissed all of a sudden, stopping them. Shambles fought, but the men held him like two blocks of stone. He looked at Joris with fear, begging him silently for mercy. Joris stared at him, thinking hard. Finally, he shook his head.
"Just put him in the van," he whispered. "There’s been a change of plans." He looked at Shambles. "You’ve got one last chance, or else Clarence will die—" He turned, and under his breath, Shambles heard him finish, "—just like Emry."
Chapter 4
The Note in the Grass
By the time sewey and Bran got home, it wasn’t even that night anymore, but very early Friday morning. Mabel, Rosie, and the children were already downstairs in their pajamas.
"Bran!" Rosie gasped when he came through the door. She rushed forward and hugged him. "Oh, you’re back. I was so worried!"
"Of course we’re back," Sewey growled, hanging up his coat and getting no hug from anyone. He ordered them back to bed and not another word about it.
Bran lay awake for a long time, thinking about the gnome, or whatever it was, and the things he had said on the roof. He wondered how the creature had found him and what he had meant by that name…
Emry Hambric.
Was the creature making it up? Or was there something true behind it? Had Shambles been trying to tell him something? Questions rolled through Bran’s mind. Twice he got out of bed and sat shivering in his room. An attic is a very cold place to sleep, and not simply because of the chill—it kept him clearly away from the rest of the household, as if the others might catch some disease if he slept too close. Years ago, when the Wilomases had finally come to accept the fact that he would not disappear, they had given him the choice of the basement or the attic, and as he had no desire to become further acquainted with roaches and rats, he chose the latter. The way Bran saw it, he had the largest suite in the house.
Since there was so little between him and outside, when it rained he could hear the drops against the hard roof above his head. The place wasn’t like most attics because it was walled in and didn’t smell so much of wood and insulation. There was a tiny air conditioner unit stuck to the wall on the farthest end. It was a mess since nobody except Bran went up there, and thus everyone felt they could haphazardly toss junk up the hole in the ceiling and let it sort itself out. Bran had scavenged together a lamp, a desk, a bed, and an old, framed cork board on which he pinned various things he drew—not because he particularly liked how they came out, but because when he looked at them, they reminded him of why he had drawn them in the first place.
He did his sketches in pencil, the topmost one on the board depicting a fat, grim-faced turtle with a sling, taking potshots at the Schweezer. It had been inspired by one of Sewey’s previous excuses to Officer McMason. Below that was one of a dozen clones of a blank-eyed Sewey, all teetering down the street on old bicycles that were much too small for them. It had come about when Sewey had refused to get Bran a slightly better bike, even though it was so old that it still had Sewey’s name carved on the handlebars from
his
school days. Bran snickered at the drawing when the Wilomases put him in a bad humor. The board was covered with sketches like those, and each had a story, but since no one ever came up and Bran had no friends to visit him there, he was the only one in the world who really knew what each of them meant.