Danger at the Fair (17 page)

Furious, Mitch hoisted himself onto the landing and pushed open the door. “Joan?” he whispered.

Where was she?

He heard voices now, excited voices. A loud babble came from the front side of The River of Fear. He had to get out of there before the girl talked to anyone.

“Joan?”

If she had climbed up to tell Tucker to turn the ride off, she would be on the front side of the ride by now. Surely, if the voices were guards or cops, Joan would hightail it back to warn him. Unless she couldn’t. Maybe Joan had no choice but to talk to them, too. She’d figure out some lie, some way to throw them off the track until Mitch got away. He just hoped that idiot, Tucker, kept his mouth shut and let Joan do the talking.

Silently, keeping as close to the back side of the ride as he could, Mitch glided down the maintenance steps. When his feet were on solid ground, he looked around carefully, still hoping to find Joan waiting for him. He didn’t like going to the car without her. He decided to wait a few minutes, just in case she returned.

There were more voices now and lights shone over the top of The River of Fear. Mitch chewed on his lip and wished he could light up a cigarette.

A siren shrieked. Mitch jumped at the sudden, close sound. Sirens, any kind of sirens, were bad news. He could wait no longer. Joan had probably gone back to the car and was waiting for him there.

Mitch hurried through the darkness, away from the back of The River of Fear. His mind raced ahead to what he would do if Joan was
not
waiting in the car. Should he take Alan and leave, trusting Joan would contact him through their man in Portland? Or maybe her mother. Joan could always go to her mother’s place, knowing Mitch would eventually come for her there.

He concentrated so hard on his own thoughts that he did not hear the footsteps behind him. When the police officer
spoke, Mitch tried to run but by then it was too late. A second officer quickly cut him off.

“We’d like to talk to you,” one officer said.

Mitch silently cursed himself for hanging around so long, waiting for Joan.

“How did you get so wet?” the older officer, Sergeant Hall, said. “Your clothes are soaked, clear to your waist.”

“Some kid spilled his Coke on me. I tried to wash it out in the rest room.”

“Sure.”

Mitch said, “I’m a hard working, law-abiding citizen and if you don’t have anything better to do than harass me, I suggest you let me be on my way before I file suit for unlawful arrest.”

The two officers exchanged a glance. “Something doesn’t add up,” Sergeant Hall said. “Why would he try to kill some girl he doesn’t know? What is he hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything,” Mitch said, “and I certainly did not try to kill anyone.”

“I want a fingerprint check,” Sergeant Hall said.

“I want a lawyer,” Mitch replied.

The younger officer began to read Mitch his rights.

ELLEN RODE
in the back seat of the police car, with Sybil beside her. She felt disconnected from reality, as if she were watching herself in a home video. People in the cars they passed peered curiously in the window at her, no doubt wondering what crime she had committed. If Ellen had not been so worried about Corey, she would have enjoyed the adventure.

The police car pulled into the hospital’s emergency entrance
and dropped Ellen and Sybil off. The admitting clerk gave them directions to a family waiting area. When they got there, it was empty. Ellen paced nervously until, a few minutes later, Mrs. Streater came in. She hugged Ellen and said, “They’re X-raying Corey now. He’s still unconscious.”

Ellen introduced The Great Sybil to her mother.

“I’m going in to stay with Corey,” Mrs. Streater said. “I’ll come back as soon as I know anything.”

A nurse stopped to tell them there was free coffee, tea, or cocoa in the small kitchen adjoining the waiting area. After Ellen got a cup of cocoa and The Great Sybil fixed some tea, they returned to the waiting room.

“I’ve finally quit shaking,” Ellen said.

“You had a terrible scare.”

“If you had not helped me get the last message about the sign and the tunnel,” Ellen said, “we would not have found Corey in time. How can I ever thank you?”

“You already have. Because of you, my psychic gifts have been returned to me.”

“Me?” Ellen said. “What did I do?”

“You made me care enough to try to help with no thought of benefit for myself.” She told Ellen how she received the word
help
as a message.

“Who sent it?” Ellen asked.

The Great Sybil smiled and shrugged. “Maybe the same spirit who sent your messages.”

“I wish I knew who that was,” Ellen said. “Without the messages, we would never have thought to look for Corey in The River of Fear. Who helped us?”

“Who helped us? Your grandfather? God? A guardian angel?
Who knows?” The Great Sybil sipped her tea and gazed out the window. “Some questions have no answers,” she said. “They only have possibilities.”

“I’d like to believe my messages were from Grandpa,” Ellen said, “but since there’s no way to prove it, I’m not going to try to get any more messages. I have my memories of Grandpa and that is enough.”

“You are wise, just as your name implies.”

Mr. Streater hurried into the waiting room. “Corey’s awake,” he said. “He woke up as he was leaving the X-ray room.”

Feeling giddy with relief, Ellen hugged her father. Then, for good measure, she hugged The Great Sybil, too.

“There’s something wrong with his voice,” Mr. Streater said, “but the doctors don’t think it’s related to the bump on his head. They’re getting Corey settled in a room now; you can see him in a few minutes.”

The Great Sybil said she would stay in the waiting room but Ellen insisted that she go in to see Corey, too. “If it weren’t for you,” she said, “Corey might not be alive.”

They found Corey lying in bed, sucking on lemon throat lozenges.

“He has a concussion,” Mrs. Streater said, “but the doctors think there will be no lasting problems.”

“What about his voice?” Ellen asked.

“He screamed too much at the fair,” Mrs. Streater said.

Laughter bubbled out of Ellen as she looked at Corey.

The police officer who had driven Ellen and The Great Sybil to the hospital came into Corey’s room. “I thought you would like to know that Tucker Garrenger was picked up when he tried to leave the fairgrounds with a woman driving a stolen
Mercedes. It turns out he was wanted in Oklahoma on an insurance fraud charge.”

“I’m not surprised,” The Great Sybil said. “He had guilt written all over him.”

“We suspect the woman, Joan Lagrange, and her husband are responsible for a string of car thefts in recent weeks, both in Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.”

“What about the man who tried to drown me?” Ellen asked.

“That was Joan’s husband, Mitch. We caught him behind The River of Fear ride. His real name is Michael Garrenger; he’s Tucker’s brother. When we put his fingerprints into the system, we learned the F.B.I. has been looking for him for years.”

“I knew it!” rasped Corey. “I told the guard that the man with the shopping bag was wanted by the F.B.I. I bet that woman whose purse he took was really a movie actress in disguise, too.”

“Hush, Corey,” Mrs. Streater said. “Save your voice.”

“So they tried to kill Ellen to avoid being questioned by the police,” The Great Sybil said.

“What about the things they stole?” Corey said. “The purse and the wallets?” The throat lozenges were helping; he could actually be understood.

“It was all in the trunk of the car,” the officer said. “We found cameras, purses, even a cellular telephone. There were shopping bags full of stolen goods.”

“White shopping bags,” squeaked Corey triumphantly, “with blue and red lettering on the side, just like I said.” He coughed and put another lozenge in his mouth.

“Joan’s nine-year-old son helped them pick pockets,” the officer said. “He dropped his ice cream, to distract the victims.”
The officer shook his head sadly. “He’ll go into a foster home now. I hope it isn’t too late to straighten him out.”

A doctor came in to check Corey.

“When can I go home?” Corey asked.

“It’s a little early to say,” the doctor said. “Probably a day or two.”

“I have to leave tomorrow morning,” Corey said, “while the fair is still on.”

“Surely you don’t want to go back to the fair, after all that happened,” The Great Sybil said.

“I have to spy on the bottle-booth man,” Corey said. “He is cheating.”

“This family,” said Mrs. Streater, “will be the death of me.”

“You’ve done quite enough spying,” said Mr. Streater. “You’ll have to wait until next year to go to the fair again.”

“Will you be back next year?” Ellen asked The Great Sybil.

The Great Sybil shook her head. “The Great Sybil is retiring. From now on, I’m just plain Sybil.”

“No more contacting the spirits?” Ellen asked.

“No. At least, not for money.”

“Next year,” whispered Corey, “I’m going to ride The River of Fear before I ride the roller coaster, so I can be sure to scream loud.”

“Next year,” said Mrs. Streater firmly, “you are going to the fair with us and we are staying far away from The River of Fear.”

“But I never got to see the monsters of Mutilation Mountain,” Corey said.

“They were stupid,” said Ellen. “Just a bunch of werewolves and Dracula look-alikes.”

“You
went on The River of Fear?” In his astonishment,
Corey started to sit up, then groaned and lay back down again.

“I didn’t have much choice,” Ellen said.

“Were you scared?”

Ellen thought about the fake monsters and started to say,
no.
Then she remembered the face of Mitch Lagrange as he shoved her backwards into the dark water.

“I was scared,” she said. “I was absolutely terrified.”

Corey smiled happily. “I can hardly wait for next year,” he said.

THE HALL
clock chimed once.

One o’clock in the morning. Ellen was astonished to realize she had whispered into the darkness for a whole hour. In all that time, she had never had any reason to think that Grandpa’s spirit heard her, yet she felt serene for the first time since the day of the accident.

“Thanks for listening, Grandpa,” Ellen said. “I miss you and love you. I always will.”

She opened her hand, feeling in the dark for the ends of the silver chain. Holding one end in each hand, she reached behind her neck and fastened the clasp.

She slid back into bed, letting the silver elephant remain on the outside of her nightgown.

Her anger that Grandpa had been cruelly snatched away, his life snuffed out like a heel grinding a match, was gone. In
its place was the belief that Grandpa had merely crossed an invisible line into a new state of being.

Ellen could not begin to imagine where he was or how he looked. Oddly, it didn’t matter. As Sybil said, some questions don’t have answers. They only have possibilities.

Peg Kehret’s
books for young readers are regularly recommended by the American Library Association and the International Reading Association. She has won numerous state awards, as well as the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the PEN Award for Children’s Literature.

Ms. Kehret and her husband live in a log house near Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State. From her home office she watches deer, elk, hummingbirds, and hawks. The couple have two grown children, four grandchildren, a dog, and two cats. When she is not writing, Ms. Kehret likes to read, watch baseball, and pump her old player piano.