"Maybe the diseases are adapting," Bran said with a fake gasp.
Mabel spun and went pale. "You’re right!" she whispered. "They
are
adapting! Help, help!" She clutched her throat. "The spores! The spores! They’re coming to get me!"
At that moment, there was a knock at the front door.
"There they are!" Mabel cried, running for the antihistamines. Rosie took the pancakes off the stove and dashed to answer the door, when who should come bounding along but Sewey to answer it himself.
"I’ve got it," he said, practically tripping over his own legs as he came down the hall.
"I’ll get it!" Rosie insisted.
"I said that I’ve got it!" Sewey said, pushing her aside.
"No, Sewey, don’t answer it!" Rosie shouted, pushing him back.
Bran slid to the kitchen door, taken aback at how Rosie was acting. Baldretta, who was sitting on the stairs and munching on a box of chocolates, looked from Rosie to Sewey, her eyes swaying like a pendulum.
"I’m the owner of this house, and I want to answer my door," Sewey snapped, pushing Rosie out of the way, and before she could stop him, he jerked opened the door. Standing there was Bill the milkman, dressed up in his suit with a crate of milk.
"Hello, chap. Hello, Rosie. Just here to deliver a bit o’ milk," Bill said.
Sewey eyed Rosie suspiciously, but then stepped forward and left her standing there. "You’re late," he growled. "Besides, idiot, you don’t deliver on Sundays."
"Sorry," Bill said, his smile not wavering. "Wasn’t enough to bring last time. The ice cream company took all we had to make up for a batch lost in a road accident. Company policy."
Sewey took the tray amid grumbles. With a quick tip of his hat to Rosie, Bill turned to leave. Sewey’s eyes lit up like strobes when he saw Bill look at her. "Aha!" he said when he shut the door. "No wonder you were acting ridiculous about answering the door!
He’s
the secret B from the roses!"
"But I don’t even like Bill!" Rosie protested.
"Well, I don’t like him either," Sewey said with a snicker. "But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t like
you.
"
Rosie went red but refused to speak any further on the matter. Half an hour later, they sat down to eat. The pancakes were steaming and had butter smeared across each one. Balder plopped his into an ocean of syrup as Sewey pulled out his day book.
"Today we have the picnic," he proclaimed. "Then we’re going to the bookstore."
"Whatever for?" Mabel asked. Sewey was hardly seen touching, much less reading, a book.
"Because I’m not paying for another exterminator who can’t even keep regular gnomes away," Sewey said. "So I’m getting a book on pest control."
"Pests!" Mabel shrieked, slinging out her bottle of disinfectant.
"Yes," Sewey nodded. "Gnomes on the roof, in the house, on the streets, at work.
Pests.
"
He started to read the rest of the page in his day book. As they ate, Bran glanced at Rosie. She still seemed to be a little nervous, the same as when she had run to answer the door. It was very unlike her to be that way, and he could tell she was trying to hide it.
Sewey poked another pancake. "I checked the clock in the kitchen," he said. "The picnic doesn’t start until eleven, and we’ve got a good hour and a half till then at least."
At that, Mabel furrowed her brow. Sewey looked at her.
"I just remembered," she said. "I think Mrs. Yankerbank said it started at nine this week…"
All of a sudden, everyone stopped chewing, even Baldretta.
"She what?" Sewey said.
"I think she said they moved the time two hours earlier this week, for some reason…" Mabel said. Realization hit Sewey like an anvil from the sky.
"Oh, rot!" he shouted.
"We’re not early," Bran said. "We’re half an hour
late!
"
They leapt from their places in horror and left their dishes, stampeding to the stairs.
"How could this happen?" Sewey gasped, fixing his hair in the mirror. Mabel grabbed her purse, and Rosie seized Baldretta so she wouldn’t be trampled underfoot. Balder started to scamper back up the stairs, but Sewey caught him like a tiny piglet.
"No time, we’ve got to go!" he said.
"But I forgot my jelly beans!" Balder squealed as Sewey carried him out the door and Mabel locked it behind them. The streets were abandoned—the neighbors were all at Givvyng Park.
"They’re probably talking about us right now!" Mabel gasped.
Sewey ran to the Schweezer and grabbed the door handle, and almost pulled it clean off. The door was locked. And all his emergency keys were inside the house.
Luckily, Mabel had a key of her own. Sewey sped to sixty immediately after turning the ignition. Mabel, who hadn’t yet buckled her seat belt, slammed into Balder, nearly crushing him. Rosie sat between Bran and Baldretta’s car seat in the back, holding them in as the Schweezer took off like an old rocket. Mabel went pale.
"What is it
now?
" Sewey whined at her.
"I forgot my neoplytoplismo," she whispered. "What if there are lepers at the picnic?"
Baldretta offered a chocolate, but Mabel didn’t think it would help. Sewey shoved on the horn to let everyone know he was coming and they had better move. The Schweezer slid around corners, jetting over curb and crosswalk. Bran tried to hold on, but all the movement jostled him back and forth against the seat belt. Luckily, the road ahead of them was clear of cars. However, as Bran distractedly glanced behind them, he saw something.
"Look, Sewey, it’s the black van!" he said. Sewey jerked about.
"WHERE?!" he roared. The car screamed from one side of the road to the other.
"Just drive!" Bran shouted, but he had to laugh at Sewey’s reaction. "Look, it’s only a black van, right there behind us. See?"
Bran pointed. The black van was far, but it was the only other vehicle in sight behind them. Sewey looked at the road, then at the mirror, then the road again, back and forth.
"It’s bloody following me
again!
" he hissed.
"No, listen," Bran said. "It’s a coincidence. I shouldn’t have pointed it out. Now just drive."
Sewey, however, would not, and instead chose to watch the mirror instead of where they were going. They were coming closer to a railroad crossing, and Sewey gunned the engine further, not even watching the road in front of him, or the flashing lights.
"Sewey," Rosie said. "You had better put on your brakes—"
"Hush!" Sewey said. "That black van is actually
gaining
on us!"
"But Sewey," Rosie shouted, "you had
better put on your brakes!
"
"What?" Sewey protested. "Brakes? Great Moby, don’t you know that’ll slow us down?"
"That’s the point!" Bran shouted.
Everyone screamed as the car rocketed up the tracks and the crossing arms came down. Sewey had missed seeing this altogether, and he had even missed the steaming train rapidly approaching around the bend.
"GREAT MOBY!" Sewey shouted, turning the wheel to miss the first guard arm.
"GREAT GOODNESS!" he shouted again, as he swerved and faced the oncoming train.
"GREAT ROT!" he roared, as he slammed on the accelerator and swerved away from the second arm and off the track, just a second before the train crossed. And they were back on the road, as if nothing had happened at all. Baldretta clapped with glee in her eyes and a sucker in her mouth, and they hit a bump.
"Whoopee!" Balder squealed, looking back. "We could have been smashed!"
"Rot," Sewey said, shaking a fist and trying to catch his breath. "I’ll have the law on that van
and
that reckless locomotive!"
"Well, it’s gone now, Sewey," Bran said, catching his breath. "Look, the black van isn’t behind us anymore, either. The train blocked it off."
"That would be the
only
good thing that has happened this morning," Sewey growled. Still, he checked the mirrors. As the train cars rumbled by, he could see the black van waiting behind it, as if staring him down. It was menacing and made Sewey nervous, so he punched on the gas and started off on the shortest shortcut he knew.
The rest of the drive was tense and still. Sewey turned on the radio. Unfortunately, he only listened to Radio Dunce, whose music library consisted entirely of dull rock bands like Harmonious Sticky and Glumpius Fiest. It did nothing to alleviate the misery in the air.
"I’m hungry," Balder complained.
"You just ate breakfast, dear," Rosie said. "Now be quiet. Deary daddy is trying to drive."
"
Deary daddy…
" Sewey mimicked in a low, childish voice. "Bah!"
"Bah!" Balder said, and then straightened up to see better. "Look, look! It’s Givvyng Park!"
Sewey narrowed his eyes as they drove closer.
"No," he gave a dull laugh. "That’s not the park. Our picnic is much more civil than that."
"I do believe that’s it…" Rosie said. The park came closer, and the closer it got, the more worried Sewey looked. He punched off the radio.
"What is this?" he murmured.
Bran looked out his window as the park came into view, and it looked so different from their usual picnic spot that even
he
wondered if they had come to the right place. Brightly colored tents and banners dotted acres of the grounds, with flags waving in the wind and animal pens all around. There was a bull in one, nearly twenty pigs in another, and sheep and goats and huge display cages spread about. He couldn’t see the whole lot of them, there were so many. It looked almost like a circus, or
the mayor’s birthday—both of which were very much the same after the kegs of Duncelander Ale had been cracked open.
"Blabl!" Baldretta said frantically, pointing ahead at the road.
"Sewey, a chicken!" Mabel shouted. Sewey swerved off the path to avoid the squawking hen as she crossed the gravel that led up to the park gate. There were hundreds of cars in neat patterns in the parking area, and even more people with balloons and cotton candy running all around. Balder, of course, looked delighted.
"Look, pigs!" he squealed with delight, as if he were finally coming home. Bran sat up straighter to see out. There were lines of people to get in, and even more already inside the gates.
"This can’t be the picnic," Bran said. "Where’s OldMrs. Rankle and her doorknob collection? And Crazy Tom with his latest invention?"
"I haven’t the slightest idea," Sewey said, his head turning from one direction to the other. "I must have taken a wrong turn back there…maybe this fellow will give me directions." He sped up closer to a college-aged young man in a brown sweater walking in a slow, carefree stride toward the gate. Sewey caught up with him and rolled his window down. "You there!
Stop!
" he ordered.
The man grinned politely as he came forward.
"Yes, sir?" he said, looking down at Sewey through the window. He looked as polished as an antique dresser, with a plain blue shirt under his sweater and orange hair combed just right.
"What are all these chickens and pigs and goats and cows doing at
my
picnic?" Sewey fumed, shaking his hand at each animal as he said their names.
"Dontcha know? It’s the Duncelander Fair!" the man replied with glee.
"What?" Sewey exclaimed, very much without glee.
"The…Duncelander…Fair," the man said slowly, enunciating each word.
"Why is it
today!?
" Sewey moaned. "Here! Now!
Why!?
"
"Oh, sir, you see… it rained on Tuesday, which was when we were supposed to hold it. It was Twoo’s Day—has been for centuries!"
Twoo’s Day was, in fact, nationally held every year on April tenth, which was coincidentally on a Tuesday that year. Twoo himself had been the famous Mezzleheimer Twoo, the first Prime Minister over the Senate in Hildem. He was quite a respected figure, but since it seemed that the mayor could change the date of celebrations because of the rain, it didn’t have as much meaning in Dunce and only meant yet another large party and one of the mayor’s boring speeches.
"Thank you very much." Sewey rolled the window up. "We’re leaving!" he said firmly, shifting gears to plow through the cars behind them.
"Oh, no! Let’s stay!" Rosie burst out, so suddenly that Sewey hit the brakes.
"Give me
one
good reason to stay
here,
" he growled.
Rosie looked around the car as if expecting to find an answer on the walls, then down at her feet, then up to the ceiling. "Um…we can listen to the speeches?" she squeaked.
"Well, that’s settled," Sewey said, moving the car again. "We’re going home and…"
Rosie must have been desperate, because suddenly she thought of the precise thing to say.
"What would the neighbors say?" she said loudly over the engine, and again everyone was thrown in their seats.
"What?" Sewey and Mabel both said at the same time.
"W-what would the neighbors say?" Rosie stammered. Sewey and Mabel just stared at her, and she seemed to melt like a piece of wax in a fiery furnace. Cars started to go around them, drivers waving their fists at Sewey.
"In fact," Rosie added, "they might all just talk about us for the whole Duncelander Fair!"
Mabel gasped. "As if we’re not infamous enough!" she turned to Sewey. "That settles it: we’re
not
leaving."
"But I don’t want to stay," Sewey spat. "I’d rather go home and sit in a rot heap."
"We’re not leaving!" Mabel screeched.
Sewey grumbled and growled, but in the end he switched gears.
"All right, have it your way," he said angrily. "Everyone
out!
"
Chapter 8
The Duncelander Fair
Bran Closed the door and heard Sewey slam his. He took a deep breath of the fresh air and stretched his legs after being in the cramped car. "Oh, goody-goody!" Balder squealed with delight as he hopped to the ground.
"Certainly not," Sewey grumbled. Bran gave the menagerie of colorful tents and wooden booths another look. Hundreds of banners waved in the wind, and farmers’ trucks drove in and out to drop off even more animals from the farms.