Far Far Away (43 page)

When Mr. Johnson awakened to Jenny Applegarth tapping frantically on his window glass, he rose at once and hurried to the front door.

She took several deep breaths and composed herself. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, “but I might have an idea where Jeremy and Ginger are.”

“What?” he said. “Where?”

“The baker’s house.”

For one long, still moment, Jenny Applegarth and Mr. Johnson stared at one another. Then he said, “Let’s go get the sheriff.”

He fetched her an old robe and turned toward the sheriff’s house, but Jenny Applegarth grabbed his arm.

“It’s Friday night,” she said. “He’ll be playing cards at the bar.”

As they hurried down the deserted street, they saw something and stopped short. Across the street, the lights of the Green Oven bakery burned bright, and there, in the back kitchen, one could see the dark shadow of the baker moving about.

“Look,” Jenny said, pointing. Above the bakery, rising in front of the round white moon, was a steady plume of green smoke.

There were four or five trucks parked in front of the Intrepid Bar & Grill. Inside, men sat or stood at various stations drinking and playing at cards. Several friends of Conk were also there, intently
playing a table game that involved a ball kicked by hand-operated players. They had been whooping loudly, but upon seeing Jenny Applegarth and Mr. Johnson come through the door, they fell quiet. So did all the other men, and no wonder.

Mr. Johnson was dressed in pants, boots, and a nightshirt—unusual attire for public appearance—and Jenny Applegarth—barefooted, dressed in a nightgown and old robe—was even more informal.

Sheriff Pittswort, looking up from his game of cards, regarded their dress and said, “Well, howdy-do, folks. Did you lose your way from the
bou-doir
?”

A remark that seemed more cruel than comical, but no matter—it received appreciative chuckles from the cardplayers at his table, and even from Conk’s school friends, though not from Conk himself, whom I now saw seated at a corner table, along with Maddy and Marjory. He’d been sitting sideways on a bench with his legs extended, but he straightened himself and gave Mr. Johnson and Jenny Applegarth a little nod.

Jenny Applegarth turned to the sheriff and said, “I think I know where the missing kids are.”

“They’re in the remote regions, Jenny.
Living off the grid
. That’s what they wrote us themselves.”

“No. They’re not. They’re here. They’re here and can’t get out.”

Sheriff Pittswort’s attention became keener. “Can’t get out of where?”

Jenny Applegarth glanced around the room. She did not want the whole room to hear what she had to say, so she moved close to Sheriff Pittswort and whispered what I had told her in song.

The sheriff leaned back, stared at her a long moment, then broke into a harsh laugh. “They’re in the baker’s house?” he said loudly, and wagged his eyebrows at the other men. “You suppose Sten’s fattening ’em up to cook ’em?”

Oh, how impenetrable this man was! And how indulgent his companions, who murmured and chuckled at his witless remark.

“I didn’t say that,” Jenny Applegarth protested. “I just said I think they’re there.”

Sheriff Pittswort’s eyes narrowed on her. “Why do you think that?”

“I heard it.”

“Who from?”

Jenny Applegarth cast her eyes down. “A voice told me,” she whispered.

“What?”

A little louder, Jenny said, “A voice told me. A singing voice. It woke me up and told me.”

The cardplayers and cowmen joined in low laughter, and Sheriff Pittswort’s tight focus loosened to amusement. “Well,
who exactly
did this singing voice belong to?” he asked.

Jenny was flustered, and even Mr. Johnson was now looking at her anxiously. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just know I heard it. And the voice said the kids are in the baker’s house.”

Snickers and murmurs spread through the room. The only ones who did not seem amused were the ones off in the corner: Conk and Maddy and Marjory. And there was someone else, too: Deputy McRaven, sitting by himself on a high stool at the dimmest end of the bar.

Jenny Applegarth straightened her back. “The voice said they’re being poisoned in the baker’s house.”

This was a new revelation to Mr. Johnson, who turned to her in shock and began to speak, but Sheriff Pittswort intervened. “Now, my question is,” he said, grinning, “where exactly would the baker be hiding and poisoning grown kids?”

“In the dungeon,” Jenny said.

“In the
dungeon
, you say … So the baker’s got himself a
dungeon
?” Sheriff Pittswort was nodding and smiling. “Now, I just got to ask. Did you and Harold have a tipple or two tonight, Jenny?”

All at once Jenny Applegarth’s face stiffened and reddened. She moved toward the door, but before she left, she turned back. “You’re supposed to help find these kids, Victor Pittswort, not make fun of people who bring you leads.”

The sheriff grinned and lazily scratched his neck. “Well, first of all, Jenny, those kids are runaways who’ll come back when they’re good and ready. And second of all, it’s a little bit hard to take real seriously a
lead
that comes from a man who’s spent most of his adult life laying up in bed and from a mysterious singing voice that your town waitress hears while trying to sleep on a hot September night.”

This did not seem funny, but several of the men in the room found it so, and their laughter followed us out. Well, that is how people can be.

On the street, Jenny Applegarth turned to Mr. Johnson. “Now what?”

Mr. Johnson glanced toward the bakery. The lights still blazed and green smoke still rose from the chimney. I sensed the quiet approach of footsteps from behind, but Mr. Johnson did not. “Looks like the baker’s in his shop,” he said. “So I guess we better go over to his house alone.”

A low, steady voice from behind said, “We’ll come, too.”

It was Conk Crinklaw. Behind him stood Maddy and Marjory. Jenny Applegarth looked at the three of them. “You know,” she said, “if I’m wrong—”

But another voice from the shadows cut her off. “We’re burning time here,” the voice said.

They all turned around and had to adjust their gazes downward. It was Deputy McRaven.

“Not in uniform,” he said. “Acting only as a concerned citizen.” The look on his oversized face was deadly serious. “So what are we waiting for?”

The group moved as one down the street, but something caused me to look back. There, in the door of the Green Oven Bakery, Sten Blix was observing the movement in the street. He stepped onto the sidewalk and watched until the group turned the corner, out of view. He stood there another moment or two, as if in contemplation, then went back inside his shop.

In the alley behind the baker’s house, Conk and the others helped Jenny Applegarth and Mr. Johnson climb onto the trash cans and over the fence. Everyone hurried. No one worried about noise. No one worried about the mud. They all slogged straight through it to the front door, which was locked.

Conk and the girlfriends quickly circled the house in search
of open windows, but they were all secured. The party gathered again near the very window through which Jeremy and Ginger had peered that fateful night long ago. Maddy and Marjory cupped their hands around their eyes and stared into the darkened house. Mr. Johnson and Jenny looked at each other, wondering what to do next. Deputy McRaven did not look at anyone. He took off his outer shirt, wrapped it around his fisted hand, and turned to Conk.

“Boost me up,” he said.

The deputy was built like a boulder, but Conk, straining mightily, raised him up, and McRaven, without hesitation, drove his covered hand through the window.

A clamorous crash of glass.

Immediately, a light went on in a yard across the street.

McRaven punched free a few more shards of glass and hoisted himself through. Moments later, he was opening the front door from within, and the party streamed through, branching off in every direction, searching every room. Jenny and Mr. Johnson were the first to find the stairs and follow them down to the storage rooms, but when they did not know where to look next, I began again to sing.

She stopped and looked sharply at Mr. Johnson. “There. Quiet! It’s the voice again!—the singing voice! Did you hear it?”

Mr. Johnson had not, of course, and shook his head.

What he has done you must go and look
, I sang, moving toward the third storeroom, and Jenny followed my voice as if in a trance.

“What?” she asked, her eyes darting around. And then, with others spilling down the stairs, she yelled, “Quiet! For God’s sake! Everybody quiet!”

I sang the line again and she repeated it: “Hidden on the wall a numbered square?”

At once Conk and McRaven were searching the walls. It was Conk who swung the plate cover away to reveal the numbers. When he touched one of them, it lighted dimly from within. He turned to Jenny. “Now what?”

I spoke the code first, and though it was quiet, no one heard, so then I sang:

“What?” Jenny Applegarth said. “Again?”

And so I sang it again, and she said, “Thirteen seventeen?” Then, to Conk, “Try it—thirteen seventeen.”

At his touch, the wall moaned open and they pushed through.

The dungeon was in low light, so we could all see our way, but when I rushed ahead and spied the enclosures, my ancient heart fell.

Frank Bailey lay very still.

Jeremy and Ginger lay with their arms extended through the bars and entwined. They also were motionless. I swept in and searched frantically for the subtlest movement of faint breathing but found none.

Jeremy!
I cried.
Jeremy! Listen, if you will!

Conk remembered the numbers—1317—and by pushing them on the keypad near the enclosures, the gate latches dropped.

Conk slipped his arms under Ginger’s head, and Mr. Johnson took his son’s limp body and pulled it to his chest. Empty, dreadful seconds passed. And then Mr. Johnson’s face contorted into a strange expression of flooding, grateful relief.

“Alive,” he said in a low, strangled voice, his eyes squeezed shut, as if the only wish that ever mattered had just been granted. “He’s alive.”

“Ginger, too,” Conk said, holding his face close to hers. “I can feel her breath.”

Just outside the cell, Deputy McRaven had been standing rigid and brittle, but upon hearing that Ginger was alive, his big face gathered around his mouth and then—he could not help it—the strange, dwarfish deputy began quietly to cry.

Jenny Applegarth had slipped into Frank Bailey’s cell and lifted his unconscious head. After a moment, she, too, nodded and said, “Alive.”

She turned to Maddy and Marjory and said, “Go get the sheriff.”