Far Far Away (22 page)

Dauntless Crinklaw sighed. “I’ll tell you what, son. Thirty years ago you might have kept it as a bookstore and made a few dollars, but not today. And just because that don’t make you or me happy don’t mean it’s not true.”

Again the only sound in the bookstore was the
tickentock
of the old clock.

“What will you do with it, then?”

Dauntless Crinklaw released one of his crackly laughs. “Maybe nothing. But maybe something. My granddaddy had this crazy idea of taking all the buildings together and using those old hot springs out back to run a fancy spa to cater to high muckety-mucks, or at least their aging brides.” He was again grinning. “I said crazy, but sometimes it don’t seem so crazy, if you know what I mean.” He paused. “But what I do with it isn’t the issue at hand. The issue at hand is my lending you the money so you can keep the place long enough to give yourself a shot at paying it off.”

The mayor unfolded a document and laid a pen on the library table. At the top it said
PROMISSORY NOTE
. “This is absolutely no-interest, you understand. You buy some time, but you don’t pay a penny.”

Jeremy was staring at the document. “How much time?”

“Six weeks,” the mayor said.

Jeremy touched a finger to his temple.

It is not good
, I said,
but the alternative is worse. This gives you a small reprieve. If you go on the show, we can win the money
.

“We can win the money,” Jeremy repeated in a small voice.

“We?” the mayor said. “Who’s
we
?”

Jeremy did not answer. He stared out the window for a long time. Then he turned, picked up the pen, and signed his name to the promissory note.

There was another line for his father’s signature. “My dad’s gone right now,” Jeremy said. “I’ll have him sign when he gets back.”

“And that won’t be a problem?” the mayor asked.

“No,” Jeremy said. He was looking down at the floor. “It won’t be a problem.”

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Jeremy said the moment the mayor stepped from the shop.

Wie bitte?
I said, and repeated it in English:
Pardon me?

“Now I have to hope the game show calls me. And if they do, I have to go on.”

But think of it, Jeremy. This is a chance to be free of debt. To restore quietude to your life. To return to our summer classics and prepare for university
.

For a long while, Jeremy stared out onto Main Street, and then finally he sighed and said, “I think I need to be alone for a while, Jacob.”

Well! At least the Boultinghouse girl and I agreed on this much: we would not stay where we were not wanted. And so I ventured out, enshrouded in my own dour mood, a wanderer
without intentions. For a time, I caught a breeze from the south, and then I allowed a gliding trio of starlings to draw me along. Presently, I heard waves of clamorous cheering, and I followed it to the knolltop home of Mayor Crinklaw.

In his wide, shaded yard, a crowd of agitated young villagers had gathered in a tight circle, watching something. Conk Crinklaw was among the onlookers, and so were Ginger’s two girlfriends, but I did not see Ginger herself.

As I slipped close, I discovered why. Ginger lay on her back on the ground opposite a boy I recognized as one of Conk’s churlish friends. They lay with their heads at reverse ends, and their hips evenly aligned. Both wore expressions of confidence.

Some kind of event was about to ensue, for the boy sat forward and, staring at Ginger, made a strange pronouncement: “My name is Burpo Bowen. You, Ginger Boultinghouse, have insulted the universe. Prepare to die.”

The girlfriends hooted at this. “How did she insult the universe, Burpo?”

“By beating
him
,” Burpo Bowen said, tipping his gaze toward another of Conk’s friends, a tall boy with stiff, strawlike hair, who looked deeply abashed. Burpo Bowen said, “Thoust girly-girl shall not beat a maley-male in a manly-man sporting event.” He blinked slowly. “And so it is written.”

“Well, it just got erased!” Maddy said, and the boy on the ground said, “And I am about to rewrite it in idyllics.”

“
Italics
, you idiot,” Ginger said. “And oh, by the way … no, you’re not.”

Another of Conk’s friends stepped in. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “for the global championship of Never Better County, we have Ginger Boultinghouse, the temporary
champeen, and Burpo Bowen, her worthy challenger.” He glanced at Ginger and the boy, both now lying flat on the ground, their nearest arms interlinked. “All right, contestants,” he said, rhythmically chopping his hand through the air, “one … two …”

As he counted, the two rivals each raised a leg up into the air like an inverted pendulum. Twice they swung past each other. On the third such swing, their legs suddenly interlocked, and each contestant began straining to pull the other forward.

The boy grunted and heaved.

Ginger, to my very great surprise, began to smile.

The boys in the crowd shouted, “Do it, Burpo!” and “Nail her, dude!” and more of that sort of inane encouragement.

Ginger yawned, then flipped the boy ferociously forward, where he lay sprawled on the lawn.

Ginger’s girlfriends exploded with shrieks of laughter. The boys stared in stony silence. Ginger rose and, with a pitying look, extended the boy on the ground a hand. “My condolences, Burpatoid.”

Burpo Bowen was not a gracious loser. He batted away her hand, pushed himself up, and slipped sulkingly to the back of the gathering.

“Well,” Ginger said, dusting off her shorts and looking around, “I guess that concludes the festivities.”

After a still moment, somebody said, “Not quite.”

The crowd parted as Conk Crinklaw strode forward.

A mischievous grin spread across Ginger’s face. “Really?”

Conk gave his broad shoulders a modest shrug. “I’ve done a little of this Indian leg-wrestling thing.” He gave his friends a wink of the eye. “And I don’t ever recall getting beat.”

“Not until now,” Ginger said pleasantly.

“Well, let’s just us see,” Conk said, and lowering himself onto the ground, he began methodically to stretch this way and that.

His confidence seemed warranted. The boy was the quintessential specimen of brutal power—all muscle and gristle and grit. I found myself fearing that Ginger might actually get hurt.

And so, when the legs again began to swing and the count again reached three, I was not surprised when in that first flashing instant, Conk pulled Ginger quickly forward. But it was only for a moment. In the next instant, Ginger had regained her position, and their upright legs were locked in a state of fiercely resistant equilibrium.

Three times Conk gathered himself and with a great throaty grunt launched a surging offensive.

Three times these attempts had no effect whatsoever on Ginger.

In truth, while Conk strained and grunted and his friends coaxed and cajoled, Ginger seemed to be studying the clouds overhead. After a time, she held out an open hand and said, “Beverage, please.”

One of the girlfriends gave her a bottle of water, from which she sipped while Conk again groaned and heaved and strained to overcome her.

But Ginger, holding Conk’s leg steadily in place, merely passed back the water and said, “Napkin, please,” and, with Conk still straining and red-faced, she daintily daubed her lips.

Mein Gott!
She was trifling with the boy! Even Conk’s friends grew quiet.

“Had enough, Conklodite?” Ginger teased after a time.

“Just … going … to …,” the boy huffed, “ask … you … the … same … question.”

His face had moved beyond red to purple, and truly, it seemed his bulging eyes might pop from their sockets.

“You could call Ouchies,” Ginger teased. “I could mercy you if you called Ouchies.”

This was too much for Conk, who, straining harder, said, “Why … don’t … you … just … go …”

Well! Whatever indecorous remark was about to spill from his lips Ginger preempted with a pull of her leg that was as startling for its suddenness as for its ferocity.

It was a thing to see! Conk Crinklaw flew forward, as if flung from a catapult, and landed flat on his back with a severe
whump!

The girlfriends filled the air with loud whoops, and it took several moments for the shock on Conk’s face to drain away. He sat up and looked around questioningly, as if wondering how he, Conk Crinklaw, could possibly have come to this. But Conk Crinklaw was no Burpo Bowen. He rose, grinned, and with as much graciousness as he could muster, shook Ginger’s hand.

“That was flat-out impressive,” he said. His square-jawed grin widened slightly. “And you know what you won, don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“A big ol’ smoochy kiss from the likes of me.”

Once the ensuing raucous laughter began to wane, Ginger said, “Sounds more like the booby prize.”

Conk grinned and said he’d always been partial to the booby prize himself, which drew more hooting laughter from his friends.

This raucous interplay went on a while and might have gone
on a good deal longer had Deputy McRaven’s patrol car not wheeled around the corner. The deputy slowed the vehicle and stared pointedly at the young people until one of Conk’s friends called out, “Loverly day, ain’t it, Deputy?”

Deputy McRaven stared at them another long moment before moving slowly on. Once his patrol car had turned the corner, Ginger said, “That guy is
everywhere
. It’s like there are three of him or something.”

No one responded to this, but Burpo Bowen said, “Know why McRaven has never gone to Disneyland?” and before anyone could speak, he answered his own question: “Because he’s not tall enough to get on any of the rides!”

This struck everyone as richly comical, though I myself had no knowledge of what this Disneyland might be, nor of the rides for which the deputy might be judged too short. In any case, it was poor timing that Frank Bailey should pass by at this boisterous moment. He carried a Green Oven Bakery bag and walked head down, as if lost in thought. If he saw the gathering in the mayor’s yard, he gave no indication of it.

“Hey, Frank, how’re you doing?” Burpo Bowen called out in a false, bright tone, and when Frank Bailey looked up, Burpo said with exaggerated politeness, “You’ll be glad to know you’re looking more like a cream puff every day.”

It took a moment for these words and the laughter that followed them to deliver their sting. Then Frank Bailey again ducked his head and trudged forward, as if cruelty, like rain or wind, was just another element he had learned to move through.

“Don’t rush off!” Burpo called. “It’s not that often we get to see a real, live Frankopotamus!”

Harsh laughter followed, but once it was quiet, Ginger fixed her eyes on Burpo Bowen and said, “You’d be more interesting, Burpo, if you had a brain.”

“Ouch,” somebody said, but before the banter could be taken further, Ginger broke away from the group and headed through the yard gate.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Marjory called after her.

Ginger stopped and turned. Her face was stone. “To Jeremy’s,” she said, her gaze moving from one girlfriend to the other. “Want to come?”

The girlfriends lowered their eyes.

“Okay, then,” Ginger said in a tone that seemed to mix disappointment with acceptance. “See ya.”

In a few long, purposeful strides, she rounded the corner out of view.

“Weirder by the day,” said Marjory, and Maddy replied, “I’d say by the minute.”

Conk Crinklaw stared at the corner Ginger had just turned, then finally broke his gaze, manufactured his trademark grin, and said to those who remained, “Okay, what’ll it be? Pitch horseshoes, shoot pool, or swim at Klimmer’s Bridge?”

Maddy said, “We don’t have our suits,” and Conk Crinklaw, slipping mischief into his voice, grinned at her and said, “That settles it then. We swim at Klimmer’s Bridge.”

When I found Ginger, she had caught up to the baker’s apprentice from behind. “Hey, Frank,” she said.

“Leave me alone,” he said over his shoulder.

“Burpo’s an idiot, Frank.” She stepped in front of him to cut him off. “It makes a difference whether the person insulting you is an idiot or not.”