Flyers (9781481414449) (11 page)

When I got home and hit the shower, my mind, knowing it was out of physical danger there, was off and running again, tearing into Katie's parents with a vengeance. In one version I even had to block a swing from her father and hold him down while I set him straight. Later, as I helped Ethan tow Cappy around the yard, I was still rewriting and editing the whole scene. Ethan must have known something was up, but he's pretty used to me drifting off like that and he didn't say anything.

Rosasharn and Jeremy came by at about two. Sudie was at the school already, being one of the volunteers who'd be organizing the kids' games and then helping serve the barbecue in the evening. Ditto for Bo, who'd also be on stage afterward to introduce speakers and what not.

We dropped Ethan off at Pop's office, and he gave me his little wave as we pulled away. Then we drove over and helped Rosasharn sweep out the laundromat and collect the change and fix a washing machine that had been acting up. Finally we headed for the school.

Half the town was already there, it seemed, and we spent some time wandering around the athletic field watching different kids' games and races, which were just getting under way. I kind of wished I'd talked Ethan into signing up for a few of the races at least, but then again he always looked forward to helping Pop on Saturdays, so maybe it was just as well I hadn't. I kept my eyes peeled for Katie but didn't see her. Before too long Sudie spotted us and put us to work helping set up tables on the football field. The chickens were already barbecuing and volunteers were going up and down the rows of makeshift steel barbecue pits basting and turning them. Emmett was there, striding importantly from the games to the barbecue to the tables, delivering instructions (and an occasional manly hug) and holding small summit meetings with Bob Chirillo and Ray Phineas over issues unknown to the rest of us, but crucial to the future of the world, if their facial expressions were any indication. Antidrug and alcohol posters were everywhere. A kid couldn't run even the shortest sprint race without sailing past at least a couple of SAY NO messages. Emmett must have been in seventh heaven; probably never in the history of the town had the people of Wakefield had their attention so solidly focused on so many convenient ways to mess up their lives.

I had just set down my end of a table and turned back to the truck containing the rest of the tables when I felt myself wrapped in a bear hug. “It's coming off,
man,” Emmett said, flushed with the kind of exhausted warmth and goodwill you expect in the closing moments of a thirty-six hour telethon. “It's really coming off!”

He was gone before I had a chance to say anything, which was probably just as well. Why not let the guy have his big moment.

•   •   •

Pop didn't make it until almost six. He'd sent Ethan over earlier, saying he could manage in the office alone this one time. When Pop finally arrived, Ethan and I showed him around before we sat down to eat. Actually, Ethan did most of the showing, pointing out all the different booths and all the different games we'd played and whether or not we'd won anything at them. I was still keeping a pretty sharp lookout for Katie. I almost had the feeling that if I saw her (and she saw me), she'd recognize me as the guy who'd worked so tirelessly on her behalf against her parents that whole afternoon, and her face would light up with a shy smile. But I didn't see her, and I figured more than ever she must be away, spending the weekend with her father.

We were just finishing up eating when Rosasharn and Jeremy came up to our table. Rosasharn, after bowing dramatically and saying, “O kind and distinguished father of the great and not-too-shabby Riley clan” and on like that, asked Pop if he and Jeremy could borrow Ethan for a little while. Pop roared through the whole routine like he always does during a Rosasharn performance, and then said that if Ethan was agreeable to the idea, they were certainly most welcome to his good company. I didn't have a clue as to what Rosasharn was up to or why he needed Ethan,
and I didn't give it much thought. I'd long ago decided that trying to speculate about the day-to-day workings of a brain that vibrated at his particular frequency just wasn't worth the effort.

I watched as the three of them disappeared into the crowd and then asked Pop if he felt like heading up toward the bonfire behind the school It was when we were strolling up the hill that I spotted Katie. At first it didn't register with me that it was really her. I'd seen so much of her lately in my mind's eye that it took my brain a few seconds to grasp that she actually
was
there. When it did, my brain went into overload, leaving me light-headed and slack-jawed. She was with Heather Lutz, and they were just hanging there halfway up the slope as if they were waiting for somebody. As we ambled by them, I could feel Heather giving me the once-over, and then she gave a not-so-subtle jab to Katie. I think Katie looked over, but I can't be sure. As soon as I thought her eyes might be heading my way, my eyes went for the ground. I could've kicked myself for that, but it was an involuntary thing, like flinching when you first spot a snake.

“Ladies,”
I heard Pop say and I could picture just the kind of little bow he'd give them, “you're looking lovely as usual. I hope you're enjoying the evening.”

“Oh, hi, Mr. Riley. Yes, we are. Thanks.” Both of them kind of answered at once, so it was hard to tell who said what, especially since my eyes were still busy studying the grass. The fact that Katie seemed to know Pop shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did since practically everybody in the whole town does. I think in some sense I hadn't come to the full realization yet that she truly did exist outside my mental realm, and the fact that her physical existence
somehow intersected with mine caught me a little off guard.

I waited until we'd moseyed a little further up the hill and Pop had already greeted two or three other groups of people before I said anything.

“How well do you know Katie Lyons's family, Pop?”

“We go back a ways,” he told me. “I've known Mike and Allison for a good long while—since before they were married as a matter of fact.”

“But they're divorced now, huh?”

“Heavens, .no,” Pop said, sounding a little surprised. “They've remained one of the closest families it's ever been my privilege to know. And that Katie . . .” He paused and nodded his head thoughtfully. “As far as her parents are concerned, the sun absolutely rises and shines for that girl.”

Well, I thought, seeing my afternoon's rescue work going up in smoke, at least I was right about one thing.

•   •   •

It had just turned dark when it happened. We'd finally made it to the bonfire where, since just before sunset, the little kids had been gathering and staking out seats down in front where the ghost stories would be told. Of course they had to pay for that privilege by first sitting through a series of peer leadership activities which, among other things, included the obligatory mock beer party skit—you know, the one where a kid who doesn't want to drink is being harassed by other kids whose only purpose in life seems to be to get him to do it. The peer leaders playing the drinkers hammed it up for a good ten minutes, riding the non-drinking kid without mercy until finally, accompanied
by cheers from some junior high kids at the back, he popped open a tall one. The cheers from the back were not part of the official program. Neither was the “pfft” sound Pop made as he opened a beer of his own, leaning over and explaining to me that all that talk about drinking made a person thirsty. I had the feeling there was some wisdom in that statement that had eluded the planning committee.

Next came the postskit discussion, designed to get the little kids to tell how they'd never fall for that kind of peer pressure. The whole thing was pretty bizarre—especially considering that Bo was the only peer leader up there who didn't drink himself, and everybody knew it.

After all the peer pressure skits and assorted malarky, the kids got what they were
really
there for: Mr. Woodman's ghost stories. Mr. Woodman was a teacher in the middle school and a professional storyteller on the side. For my money, he was a little overly dramatic, with his bulging eyes and his alternately booming and then hushed voice, but younger kids really eat that stuff up. He told all the usual yarns like the one about the escaped mental patient with a hook for a hand who had hidden out in a rain forest just outside of town (it didn't matter that the nearest rain forest was probably in Costa Rica), and how a guy and a girl who were parking there one night got spooked by a noise outside their car, and peeled out of there, only to discover a bloody hook hanging from the door handle when they got to the girl's house. He followed with a couple of generic ghost stories before moving on to his grand finale—stories about our own Blood Red Pond swamp creature. His stories about this swamp monster had grown over the years, and he knew just when to
lower his voice for effect and when to pause and say “Hark” and to look bulgy-eyed out into the dark woods. He was doing a decent job on this night, even for my tastes, and it's ironic that I had just been feeling a little sorry that Ethan was missing the performance when it happened. Mr. Woodman was in the middle of his best swamp monster story and had done the “hark” business and was staring into the woods when all hell broke loose. First we heard a god-awful cry come from right where he was staring, and then out of the woods charged not one, but
three
creatures of the night.

If anybody there had kept his head, it wouldn't have been hard to see that these particular creatures of the night were pretty low-budget, not to mention exactly the same size and shape as Rosasharn and Jeremy and Ethan. But it all happened so fast and the little kids were going crazy knocking chairs over and crawling over each other to get as far away from the monsters as possible that nobody had time to think. One of the reasons the kids believed these creatures were the real thing was that Mr. Woodman's exaggerated fear-face scaled itself back to a look of genuine shock and for once in his life he gave the kind of understated performance that real people give in real situations. I looked over and saw Pop staring slack-jawed at the three creatures charging past the bonfire. Kids were already streaming around us, heading like an old-fashioned cattle stampede down the hill toward where most of their parents were still sitting around at the tables on the football field.

“It's Ethan,” I managed to say to Pop as he was giving the label on his current beer a second take. “It's Ethan, Rosasharn, and Jeremy.” I pointed them out as best I could, considering the confusion.

Pop isn't slow to catch on to things. No sooner had the words sunk into his head than his puzzled expression transformed itself into the most undiluted smile I'd ever seen on him, without even a hint of sadness lurking anywhere. At just that moment I spotted Katie over Pop's shoulder on the other side of the crowd of stampeding kids, her hand up to her mouth, her dark eyes taking in first the swamp creatures, then Heather, and then going back for another stare at the swamp creatures. I'd never seen her look more beautiful.

What followed ranks right up there with the greatest moments of my life so far. There was Katie off in the distance, looking more lovely and mysterious than ever in the flickering firelight, and yet so vulnerable it made my heart ache. And there was Pop, as happy as I'd ever seen him, practically dancing with joy and howling like some raspy-voiced kid. “Ethan,” he was saying whenever he could catch his breath enough to say anything. “God bless him! Our little Ethan!” And there was Ethan. I couldn't see his face, but the way he ran and the little trademark aloha wave he gave as he passed by us said it all. He was having the time of his life.

I'll never forget how I felt at that moment. It was the closest I've ever come to experiencing pure happiness with nothing else mixed in. I had no way of knowing that events were already starting to happen that would soon put a damper on things, but even if I'd known, I don't think it would have clouded the way I felt then. It was
that
pure.

I heard about
Mr. Lindstrom the next morning. I'd stayed overnight at Bo's house and Pop called around eight to break the news to me. He didn't know many details—just that Walter Owens had been driving by on his way to Stewart's for his morning coffee and had seen Mr. Lindstrom's pickup truck parked in front of his old barn with the barn door wide open. Nothing so strange in that, except Walter had seen the truck parked in exactly the same spot with the barn door open exactly the same way the night before. Walter thought at the time it was a little odd that Mr. Lindstrom would be out working around his property after dark, but didn't give it another thought until he saw a carbon copy of the scene the next morning, and decided to swing back to check on things. That's when he found Mr. Lindstrom, lying face up a couple hundred feet down the lane. He was alive—but just barely—and the rescue squad had come and rushed him off to Mary McClellan Hospital in Cambridge. That was all Pop knew.

I didn't show any big reaction to the news; I just stood listening quietly as Pop explained the situation. But I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I couldn't believe it. Right up until Pop called I'd been having one of the best mornings I'd had in a long time. I woke up around six with a pretty decent afterglow from the previous evening. While Bo meditated, I did a five-mile run in the cool morning air, smiling every time I
thought about Ethan and the attack of the swamp creatures and what a charge Pop had gotten out of the whole thing. I smiled some more, but in a different way, when I thought about how mysterious and beautiful Katie had looked standing there in the glow of the bonfire. As I was heading back up to Bo's room I could hear Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson bouncing around in their basement, and that made me smile too. Every bounce they took seemed like a bubble of hope, a promise of good things to come, and the feathery lightness of that promise seemed to pervade the entire house. Anyway, things that morning were looking bright, and by the time I climbed out of Bo's shower, feeling all clean and good, the last thing I expected was bad news. Then Pop called and told me about Mr. Lindstrom.