The Diamond of Darkhold - 4 (25 page)

Gradually, as the news of the roamers’ arrival spread through town, people gathered in the plaza to see them. A murmur of disappointment ran through the crowd when the sorry-looking troop appeared. The man who seemed to be their leader was a short, stocky person with wild hair springing from every part of him. He wore a pair of big square-rimmed glasses, though anyone could see that the frames were empty, because a few of his eyebrow bristles poked right through. He jumped up onto a stack of boxes and began his spiel in a loud, growly voice.

“Come and look!” he cried. “Bring your best goods, because you’ll see that we have what you want! Unusual items! Things never seen before! Gather around!”

Doon had come into town that day to pick up some leftover scraps of lumber from the old town hall. Lina was at the bakery, buying bread. When the roamers came into the plaza and the man began to shout, both of them felt a jolt, as if they’d been suddenly struck by a flying stone, and they turned from their tasks and saw that they were right: the Troggs had come to Sparks.

Doon spotted Lina coming out of the bakery and waved urgently at her. She saw him right away and hurried toward him through the growing crowd.

“It’s them, isn’t it?” she said.

Doon nodded. The sight of the Troggs was doing strange things to his stomach and stirring up unpleasant thoughts in his mind.

“That woman is the roamer who sold you the book,” said Lina. “That’s Maggs, the shepherd, Trogg’s sister. She looks even worse than before.”

“And that thin, sad-looking boy with the twisted leg is Scawgo,” said Doon. Seeing Scawgo struck him with a special pain. It was a complicated pain—sadness that he hadn’t been able to rescue Scawgo, as well as gratitude for Scawgo’s help. He hoped Scawgo had not had to take the blame for the diamond’s disappearance.

“Step up!” Trogg shouted. “Look! I have canned corn and canned greens—it’s from the ancient days and yet just as good as when it was cooked. I have thirty-seven pairs of eyeglasses! I have sweaters, I have mittens, I have shoes for babies. I have four bottles of cough medicine, only partly used.”

People pressed a little closer. Lina whispered to Doon, “Are you going to say something to him?”

Doon’s thoughts felt like moths fluttering in his head. What to do? Speak out against Trogg? Dash up and snatch Scawgo away?

“I have bags of wool,” Trogg called. “Good for stuffing pillows, good for weaving. You’ll need it for next winter, when that blasted cold weather comes again.” He heaved three fat bags from the back of the truck and plunked them down.

“Nice, fluffy wool,” said Maggs. “No burrs in it. No dirt.”

“I don’t believe
that,
” Lina whispered.

“Also useful rainjackets.” Maggs held up a garment that looked very much like the covering of her old wagon, patched together from crinkled old pieces of plastic. “I made them myself.”

“Step right up,” called Trogg, “and offer me some good trades for these exceptional wares. Especially welcome would be the fire-lighting gadgets I know you have in this town—matches. Special deals for those with matches.”

People sighed and shrugged and shook their heads. They wouldn’t get those special deals, because the town had no matches. They’d used the last one just a few weeks ago.

Doon felt a stab of a very unexpected emotion: he felt sorry for Trogg, who thought he knew everything. Trogg had had the key to light and power in his hands, but it did him no good, because he didn’t know what it was.

The trading would start soon. Doon still wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do, but he knew he had to make himself known to the Troggs and to Scawgo. He had to speak up. He turned to Lina. “I’m going to . . . I’m going up there.” He edged between the people in the crowd until he came to the front, and then he stood as tall as he could and called out, “Wash-ton Trogg!”

Trogg jerked his head up. He spotted Doon instantly. His mouth opened as if he were going to speak, but there was a long pause before he did. Kanza and Yorick made noises of surprise in that pause, Minny wailed, and Scawgo cried out, “Doon!” in his high, wavery voice. But Trogg just glared for a long moment. Then his eyebrows came down like storm clouds, and his face crunched into a scowl. “Thief!” he shouted. “Sneaking, treacherous thief!”

The crowd of villagers went silent, except for a few people at the back, saying, “What? Why is he shouting? What’s going on?”

“It’s true,” Doon said. “I stole from you.”

“And after I was so good to you, taking you into my own family!” Trogg was purple with rage. He shook his hairy fist at Doon. “Traitor, ingrate, robber!” he screamed.

“Criminal!” yelled Yorick.

Trogg reached sideways and socked him on the shoulder. “Quiet!” He glared at Doon. “You stole from me,” he said, “and you should pay.”

“I
have
paid you,” said Doon. “With my time. And my labor.”

Kanza shouted out. “That’s not enough! We were going to buy a castle with that thing!”

Minny let out a piercing wail.

Currents of excited talk ran through the crowd as people realized who these roamers were. The Emberites especially stared in fascination at the strange grubby people who had taken over their city. Lina, still standing at the back, heard them whispering to each other in tones of horror and outrage.

“My daughter is right!” shouted Trogg. “It’s not enough!” He spread his arms wide and stared out at the villagers. “It’s wrong to protect a thief!” he roared. “I demand justice!”

Before Doon could respond, another voice rang out. It was Scawgo, limping toward Trogg, then tugging at his sleeve. “It’s my fault, not his!
I
stole the diamond. Don’t blame him, please don’t.”

And that was when it occurred to Doon that he could make everything right—he could do it easily, right here and now. “No,” he said. “I’m the one who wanted it, and I’m the one who took it away. So—I will give it back.”

Trogg had been about to burst into another bout of rage. He had his fist in the air, ready to shake it at Doon. When he heard this, he stopped short. “What?”

“I will return what I took,” said Doon. But he realized then that he couldn’t—not right here, not this moment. He had no diamond with him. He stood there uncertainly, reluctant to walk away, not sure what to do next.

But Lina knew. “Doon!” she cried. “Wait one minute!” She elbowed her way through the crowd and darted into the nearest shop. In a moment, she was pressing through the crowd again, this time holding a diamond, and when she got to Doon, she gave it to him. He held it up so Trogg could see it. “Here it is!”Doon cried. “For you.”

All the bluster went out of Trogg. He took the diamond and gaped at it, and his family gathered around him and stared, too. Minny stretched out a hand and stroked the diamond, as if it were a little animal. Kanza chuckled in glee.

Scawgo, though, was looking at Doon, and his face was sad.

The villagers watched all this, murmuring and muttering.

“Well,” said Trogg finally. “You did the right and proper thing, Droon. Now that we have our property back, let’s get on with the trading.”

“All right,” said Doon, “but first you have to listen to what I’m going to say.”

Trogg shrugged. “Say it, then.”

Everyone else listened, too, pressing up close. The mutterings and murmurings stopped.

“My name is not Droon; it’s Doon. Doon Harrow. This town, Sparks, is where I live. And the city of Ember—which you called Darkhold—is where I was born and grew up. And so did about four hundred of the people who now live in this town.”

“No,” said Trogg. Kanza giggled nervously, and Yorick’s jaw dropped open.

“Yes,” said Doon, and a chorus of agreement rose from the Emberites in the crowd.

Trogg scratched his neck, frowning. “Now, hold on a minute here—” he said.

“No,” said Doon. “You hold on.” He told him about the people of Ember and how they’d left the city and come to Sparks. He told him how he and Lina Mayfleet had returned to the city and how their plan had been so horribly interrupted by Trogg and his family. “It’s true,” he said. “I took your diamond when Scawgo offered it to me. I knew it belonged out in the world, not with you.”

Trogg made a noise of disgust. “Pfffft. How could you possibly know that?”

“I knew it because of the book you found with it,” Doon said. “The book I bought from your sister. It said, ‘For the people from Ember’ on the cover. Besides,” he added, “I was sure you didn’t know what the diamond really was.”

“I did, too.” Trogg folded his arms and stuck his chin out stubbornly.

“What was it, then?” asked Doon.

“A
jewel,
nutbrain! I don’t suppose you miserable, poverty-stricken people have ever come across enough jewels to know one when you see one.”

“Maybe not,” said Doon, “but I knew the diamond was more than a jewel.” Trogg sputtered, but Doon held up a hand. “Never mind,” he said. “Go on with your trading now. Pretty soon, you’ll see.”

Trogg scowled at him, but he put the diamond in the front of his truck and then went back to his bags and boxes, and he and his family finished laying out their wares. Trogg held up each of his items in turn, and people called out their offers. The sun dropped lower in the sky; the shadow of the town hall and the shadows of the trees by the river lengthened across the plaza’s stones. As the darkness deepened and Trogg carried on with his trading, Doon and Lina quietly walked all the way around the plaza, going into each shop and stall and speaking briefly with its owner. One by one, the shopkeepers came out of their shops, each with a diamond, its light bulb attached and lit. They stood in their doorways. Soon the whole plaza sparkled and glowed.

Trogg looked up. He ripped his glasses off, as if they might be interfering with his vision, and gazed into the brightness. He seemed utterly stunned. Doon went up to him and grinned. He couldn’t resist. “It’s called e-lec-tricity,” he said. “Have you heard of it?”

CHAPTER 27
_____________

A Bright Future

After some long and heated conversations, the leaders and people of Sparks agreed to invite the Trogg family to become citizens of the town. There were many arguments against this: (1) the Troggs had treated Doon very badly; (2) they had treated Scawgo badly, too; and (3) they weren’t especially pleasant people. But there were also a few arguments in their favor: (1) they could have been worse to Scawgo than they were; (2) Maggs had helped Lina; (3) Trogg was ingenious in some ways; and (4) they were clearly not doing at all well as roamers and needed help to become civilized people.

The Troggs were given an old four-car garage in back of the Pioneer to fix up for themselves. Doon taught them how to use their diamond, and Lina offered to teach them how to read. In time, they settled down fairly well. Maggs’s flock grew healthier and increased, and eventually provided wool for many coats and blankets. Trogg invented a clever way to make collapsible shop awnings, and Yorick and Kanza learned that gloating, sniggering, pinching, and punching were not acceptable kinds of behavior and made some efforts to reform.

Lizzie changed her mind about becoming Doon’s girlfriend. He was too serious, she decided, and besides, it was clear that he liked Lina best. Instead, she began trying to get to know Scawgo, the strange boy who had come with the Troggs. It was hard to get to know him, because he was very shy; but Lizzie was sure that someone as charming as herself could get through to him. She could tell that he needed laughter and encouragement and kindness.

Scawgo went back to his real name, which was Tim. He explained to Doon that the reason he hadn’t ever tried to leave the Troggs was that he had no place else to go; he knew he couldn’t make it in the world on his own. But now that he’d come to Sparks, he decided he’d like to live with someone else. He moved into the Pioneer Hotel with the Noam family, in a room on the first floor so he wouldn’t have to climb stairs, and he made himself useful by helping in the kitchen. One day, he showed his treasures to Lina and Doon, the ones Doon had retrieved for him from the high shelf in the Troggs’ apartment. There was a bracelet of glittery red stones that had been his mother’s; a boar’s tooth on a string that came from his father; three shiny pebbles he’d found in a stream; an ancient silver coin; and two things he’d found in Ember: a book full of beautiful hand-drawn pictures of insects and several drawings of a strange city that he’d discovered on the wall of one of the apartments he’d helped to loot. “My bug book!” cried Doon. “My city pictures!” cried Lina. When Scawgo found out that Doon and Lina had made these things, he offered to give them back. But Doon said he was planning to start a whole new bug book, and Lina said she’d like one or two of her pictures but that he could keep the rest. “I can always do more,” she said. “There’s endless drawings in my imagination.”

Kenny sat on a log for a great part of the summer. He’d come across a fox’s den up toward the woods, and if he was extremely quiet, the cubs would come out and play and he could watch them. Once he took Doon up to see them, too, and Doon told him about the fox that helped them when they came out of Ember.

The months following that hard winter were also hard, but in a different way. People were no longer struggling to survive. They were simply doing the hard but satisfying work of life: building, planting, cooking, sewing, trading, repairing, learning. Sometimes Doon complained to his father about working so much, when he was tired or when work hadn’t been going well. His father had moments of weariness and discouragement, too; his right hand had never healed quite properly and still didn’t work very well. But what he said to Doon was, “You know, son, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an easy life. There’s always going to be hard work, and there will always be misfortunes we can’t control lurking out at the edges—storms, sickness, wolves. But there
is
such a thing as a good life, and I think we have one here.” Doon had to agree.