Chapter the 24th
“Of course, I haven't heard anything, Lilly,” said Harvey Armstrong over the phone. “The reason I haven’t called with any news is because there isn’t any news. Do you really think I’d hide any news if the police told me anything? Now if you’ll stop calling me, I'll get my work done faster and I’ll get home sooner and then we can worry about Sheila together all the sooner.”
Harvey hung up the phone without giving his wife a chance to reply and shuffled the papers on his desk. He felt guilty about abandoning his wife when he knew she needed him, but he knew he would go to pieces if he just sat at home with Lilly and fretted about Sheila. Somehow, aimlessly pushing papers around his desk helped him cope with his anxiety, even though the light of his desk lamp was so weak he could hardly see anything. He also felt guilty about not telling Lilly about the three dark people who visited him and hinted at the possibility of foul play, but he the memory of that strange visit was so unsettling that he could not stand the thought of saying anything about it to anyone.
Harvey looked down at a brief he was supposed to be studying, but his fears about Sheila drove all meaning away from the words. Scenario after scenario of what might be happening to Sheila flitted through his mind, each one worse than the one before. Just as he was picturing a group of police officers solemnly carrying a stretcher with a blanket covering a little corpse, there was a rude knock on his office door. Without waiting for an answer, a heavy-set man with faded blond hair staggered into the room. Harvey didn't need much light to see that the man was drunk.
“Will you please go back the way you came right this minute,” Harvey ordered, trying to sound firm.
“I'll go back to where I came from as soon as we make a deal,” said the intruder, slurring his words.
“The office is closed for business.”
“Your office isn’t closed for my business,” replied the drunken man.
“Do you want to make a bet?” asked Harvey.
“Yea, I’ll bet you three banks that you’ll hear me out.”
“You can hand your stinking banks over to me right now, then,” said Harvey.
The drunken man extended a hand.
“I’m Bill Harrison.”
Harvey pinned his own hands against his chest.
“I told you to get out of here,” said the lawyer, his voice shaking involuntarily.
Ignoring the lawyer’s words, Bill Harrison plopped down on a chair and sprawled himself all over it.
“First you have to help me buy a bank in town. It’s not for me; it’s for my son. You have kids? Then you know how you want to provide for them. Now all I need is a lawyer who can make it legal to buy the bank I want. I know you lawyers. You can make anything legal when the price is right. Like I said, you want to do right by your kids, don’t you?”
“Yes, I want to do right by my kids,” said Harvey in as steely a tone of voice as he could mange, “and one way I can do right by my daughter is show her what it means to lead an honest life.
As he said those words, Harvey remembered that the dark visitors must have been talking about this very drunken man, and his fears about his daughter tripled. The drunken visitor slipped to an upright position and leaned forward toward Harvey’s desk.
“Don’t you want to make some money for your kids?”
“Not that way I don’t.”
“Too bad. Too bad for that kid of yours.”
“Where is Sheila?” Harvey asked suddenly.
“Who’s that? Is that your little girl’s name? Hope she’s all right. I’ll bet she’ll be better off if you make a deal with me.”
“Where-is-Sheila?” Harvey asked a second time. “If you hurt her in any way, I’ll set the law on you and keep the law on you until you’ve been put into prison for five centuries.”
“Well, if you want to do business that way. . .” said Bill as he whipped a pistol out from under his suit coat.
“Put-that-away,” Harvey ordered the drunk, amazed that he was standing up to the man.
“Not until we make our little deal,” said Bill.
With hands shaking so hard he could hardly pick up the phone, he managed to punch out 9-1-1.
“Aw, just kidding,” said Bill as he realized what Harvey was doing.
Then he bolted out the door. Harvey heard the operator’s voice from the phone but he didn’t feel like saying anything with the drunk gone, so he hung up.
Harvey dropped back into his chair and stared again at his papers, but he knew there was no way he was going to be able to put two words on the same page together. He sat in a stupor a crash outside his office snapped him out of it. It sounded like the crash of metal on metal as in an automobile accident. Several more crashes of the same sort followed in quick succession. Harvey ran to the door and looked out. He first thought he was looking into a huge, blinding kaleidoscope. After a few seconds, his eyes adjusted to seeing the colors confined to a sparkling fountain shooting fireworks in the middle of the street. Right next to the fountain, a large, dark tower loomed over the street. Right behind the tower, there was a pile of wrecked cars that had crashed into the tower. Harvey looked at the scene with his mouth open until what light was left outside suddenly went off as if instantly as if he cosmic light switch had been turned off.
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Bill Harrison felt like a drunkard as he stumbled out of his car, but he knew he was sober. He only felt drunk because he was in shock over being in his car when it was totaled. Who wouldn’t be unsteady on his feet after walking away from an accident like that? He was certain he had only had two drinks at the bar before going to visit the lawyer who refused to cooperate with his plans to aid the depressed town of Milton. One drink. Two drinks. Then he left the bar to go see the lawyer. Or was it three drinks? Bill wasn’t so sure about that. He hoped he wasn’t losing the ability to count his drinks. If he was, he was in trouble.
And what about the accident? Did he plow his car straight into a brick wall because he was too drunk to see straight? But he wasn’t drunk when he went to the lawyer’s office. He was perfectly rational and lucid the whole time he tried to talk sense into the stubborn man who was too much of an old maid to use enough common sense to bend the law in favor of his clients. If he was sober when he visited the lawyer, then he must have been just as sober when he got back into the car and drove off. If he was drunk, he was drunk with anger. That was the lawyer’s fault for calling the police on him, a law-abiding citizen if there ever was one. He paid his taxes fair and square. Well, maybe not square, but he made sure he paid his fair share of taxes, if not a penny more. But how could he have crashed his car into a brick wall in the middle of the street? What was a brick wall doing in the middle of the street in the first place? Besides, he wasn’t the only one to get his car smashed up. At least two cars smashed into his from behind. When he got out of the car, he confirmed the fact that he was driving in the street, on his rightful side of the road when he ran into the brick wall. He confirmed further that the brick wall was in the middle of the street where it had no right to be. So, he didn’t steered the car in the wrong direction after all. That proved he was sober. More unnerving, the wall he thought he ran into turned out to be a tower standing right in the middle of the street. Would a sober man see a tower like that in the middle of the street? Bill asked himself. Everyone knows that drunks see pink elephants. Once he’d seen the situation for what it was, he walked away from his car. Obviously it was totaled. The insurance check would be about as good as a trade-in. It wouldn’t take long to walk up to his sister’s house and find out how Shawn was doing. But Bill didn’t get any further than the tower when his eyes filled up with pink elephants.
“I must be dead drunk after all,” said Bill as he tried to steady himself on his feet.
Something moist hit him in the face and that cleared Bill’s mind a bit. He no longer saw pink elephants cavorting on Main Street. Instead, he saw, or thought he saw, a fountain spewing out colored bubbles. Children were sticking bubble pipes into the fountain and blowing bubbles all up and down the street while police officers tried to chase them away with no success.
“Want a bubble pipe?” a boy asked him as he held out a clay pipe.
“No, too busy,” Bill answered.
“But Amarilla said we have to blow as many bubbles as possible,” said a girl.
“I don’t care what Amarilla said,” Bill replied. “Never heard of her in my life. She can’t tell me what to do.”
Something in the way he looked seemed to scare the children, for they backed away from him and chased after other people. The idea of blowing bubbles tugged at Bill’s heart but, as he said, he was too busy. He had things to do. One of them was to go see his sister. The house was just up the hill and then down again. In his sober state, he could get there on his feet easily.
As Bill started up the street, a boy barreled down the hill and brushed him off to the side.
“Hey! Look where you’re going!” Bill yelled at the boy.
“No time for that!” the boy yelled back without breaking his stride.
Bill didn’t get much farther up the street before the lights went out. There was no other way Bill could describe it. The brownout in town had just turned into a blackout. The streetlights were so dim they were nearly useless. The only relief from the darkness was a pale light that cast a soft glow on the street corner. Bill wondered if the boy who had brushed him back tripped in the dark and hurt himself. He hoped so.
“Hey!” a boy cried out. “Amarilla made a whole slew of roses? Want to see them?”
“YEA!” a bunch of children cried out in a ragged chorus.
“Come on!”
Shaking his head in mild disappointment, Bill slowly moved on in the direction of his sister’s house, using that pale light at the next corner to keep himself oriented. From behind, he heard the footsteps of several children running up the hill in the dark. That gave Bill new hope that some of them would trip and fall. As he approached the corner with the light, Bill began to hear voices.
“Get away from my roses!” screeched a woman.
In response, the other voices grew louder and more menacing.
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Ted Sloane fell backwards against a store front as if the sudden darkness were a blow to the jaw. Then the store itself seemed to disintegrate and Ted fell further back. Somebody screamed nearby. One hand found a solid piece of building to break his fall and another pair of hands pushed him back up.
“Almost lost our mayor,” said a woman.
“What better place to almost crack your head than at the foot of a neurologist,” said a man with a deep voice.
Still in a daze, Ted Sloane took in Father Clement and Marion Rosskill.
“There is never a good time or place for a cracked head,” said the doctor. Then she turned to face Ted. “Are you okay?”
“As—far as I can tell,” Ted answered. “I wish I knew what just happened.
“Don’t we all?” Father Clement replied.
When Ted looked at the storefront that had collapsed, he felt that he had just suffered another blow to the stomach. Where there had been a store just a minute ago, there was nothing at all; just a patch of darkness.
“I—I think the town is disintegrating,” said the mayor.
“That seems to be a good way of putting it,” said Father Clement.
“Get out of the way of the tow trucks!” Everett McAlister yelled at the drivers blocking the way but with no room to maneuver between the cars wrecked against the tower that had appeared so suddenly and traffic stuck behind them.
“Joseph! Don’t let anybody run off into the Dark Lake!” cried a girl.
A child screamed and Ted reached over where he himself had nearly fallen and pulled a little boy back before he knew he was doing it. Before Ted could even get much of a look at the child, he was snatched out of his arms by an older boy
“When are you going to listen to Amarilla?” asked the older boy.
“Thank you, Joseph,” said a distraught Amarilla as she took the crying boy in hand. “Keep a watch on everybody else.”
“All right!” Joseph yelled. “Amarilla says: Don’t fall into the Dark Lake!”
“What dark lake?” asked a girl that Ted recognized as one who did belong in Milton.
“I don’t have time to explain right now,” said Amarilla. “Just do as I say if you don’t want to fall into darkness for the rest of your life.”
“Oooooh!” cried a few other children.
“She’s not joking,” said Joseph. “This is just as serious as blowing bubbles”
“Are we supposed to blow some more bubbles?” asked a little boy.
“Yes!” Amarilla replied. “You most certainly are supposed to blow more bubble. We need them more than ever. Stay close to the fountain. You’ll be safe there—I hope.”
Joseph herded all of the children anywhere near him back toward the fountain where all of the colors of the rainbow still sparkled in the near total darkness. What made it all so weird for the mayor was that the sun was still visible, but only as a distant, ineffectual light. The light sensors had turned the streetlights on, but they, too, were so dim as to be nearly useless.
“Get away from that fountain!” Everett yelled at the children.
“Amarilla told us to come here and stay here!” a girl protested.
“This Amarilla is not in charge of this town; I am!” the police chief roared back.
“I thought I was in charge of this town,” Ted muttered through his teeth.
“Hey!” a boy cried out from about a block away. “Amarilla made a whole slew of roses? Want to see them?”
“YEA!” the children cried out in a ragged chorus.
“Come on!”
“Hey! Come back here!” yelled a boy who was taller than the other children. “I’ll tell Amarilla!”
“She can come and get us!” a smaller boy yelled back as he followed a small crowd of children
“Uh-oh,” said Amarilla softly. “I wonder if I did the right thing.”
“Is this yet another problem?” Ted asked her.
Amarilla nodded. Joseph came running up to her.
“Amarilla!” Joseph yelled. “A bunch of kids just ran up the street because Alexander said we saw a bunch of roses you made!”
“I heard Alexander from here,” said Amarilla.
“What should we do?” asked Joseph, who hopping in every direction, trying to keep an eye on everybody.
“I hate to leave you with the kids who are still here,” said Amarilla, “and I especially hate to leave you with that tower when I still don’t know how it brought on this extra darkness, but I have a special responsibility for those roses, so I have to assume somebody else will help you take responsibility for the tower if that is necessary.”
“I won’t let even one more piece of darkness get out of that tower,” Joseph boasted. “And we will keep blowing bubbles until they fill this whole town.”
Joseph ran off, yelling at children right and left. Amarilla turned and faced the mayor.
“Can you come with me?” Amarilla asked. “This might be very important.”
“I suppose so,” said the mayor, amazed and ashamed that he was following the lead of this girl a second time.
“Might I be of service with this?” asked Father Clement. “It’s on the way to the rectory anyway. And perhaps it will be just as well to have a doctor along.”
“Yea, sure,” said Ted.
“Hey chief!” another officer called out. “There’s a riot on Third Street! Bad News. Report says a mob is stealing roses from Eleanor Gleason! We’ll need a bunch for this!”
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For the second time in only a few minutes, Bill Harrison was brushed aside, this time by a stampede of kids. He yelled a few choice words at them, but he knew they paid him no heed. He saw the children turn the corner to the street the light was coming from, and when he reached the street himself, he saw a crowd of young people gathering around a house that looked like it had its Christmas lights out early, or had kept them on since Christmas.
“There they are!” cried a boy.
“Amarilla’s really done it this time!” cried another boy.
The children ran toward the house and melted into the crowd before the police could get them. There was no question that two or three officers wouldn’t be enough to take care of this disturbance. Bill stopped to look at the spectacle for himself. With the help of a second look and the cries of the children he had followed, Bill saw for himself that what he thought took for Christmas lights were white roses glowing in the dark.
“How many times do I have to tell you to go away and leave my roses alone?” yelled a tall, thin woman from the front porch.
“But we need these roses, Miss!” a boy yelled back.
“You only need to torment an old woman with your greedy paws!” the woman shouted back.
So much for a Christmas spirit, Bill thought to himself. Several children blew bubbles and several others rushed the house. Bill concluded that he didn’t need a rose for himself if he had to brave a crowd like that and a woman who was even worse than the crowd to get one. He shrugged his shoulder and put himself back on track to his sister’s house. He walked as briskly as he could up the hill and down it again until he found his way to Agnes’ house. When he reached it, there was not even a hint of light. Were Shawn and Agnes both out? They ought to be expecting him. He had assumed that Shawn would be poised behind the door, ready to spring out and grab the latest gift out of his father’s fat little hands and duck away and run up to his room before his father could put his arms around him. Finding the door unlocked, as usual, Bill let himself in and stumbled into the vestibule. The house was strangely quiet. There was no sound from the piano. Agnes wasn't even playing something “to wash her students’ playing out of her ears,” as she put it. Neither did Bill hear the sound of Shawn’s train set from upstairs. Where could he be?
“Agnes? Shawn?” Bill called out.
“Is that you, Bill?” Agnes called out in a weak voice.
“Yea.”
Bill Followed the direction of his sister’s voice and found Agnes sitting in the dark living room as if she were quietly waiting for the world to come to an end.
“What’s wrong?” asked Bill. “Where's Shawn? Sulking in some corner because I’ve only been able to give him half the world so far?”
“I don’t know,” Agnes replied. “He’s gone. That’s all I know. He’s gone and his train set is gone with him.”
Bill started to break out into a cold sweat. He took a firm hold of the piano to keep from fainting.
“Do you mean he tucked his train set under his arm and just walked away?”
“I don’t know what he did. I only know he’s gone and the train set is gone.”
Bill found his way to a chair and plopped down.
“Why would Shawn run away?” asked Bill. “I’ve tried to give him everything he wants. How’s he going to get anything else from me if I can’t find him?”
“Who knows what Shawn really wants?” Agnes asked in return. “He never says anything. He lives in his own little world. Now he’s—now he’s lost in it and we can’t find him.”
Agnes burst into tears. Bill shrank back into himself. He badly wanted a drink, but he did not have the energy to get up and fix himself one, or even to ask for it.
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Harvey Armstrong slammed the door and leaned hard against it as if that would keep the terrors outside from getting in to his office. After panting for a couple of minutes he realized that he had to run home to back sure Lilly was okay, much as he dreaded the idea of walking across the street. He dived into his office to snatch his briefcase, but to his shock, a tall, thin man in full coat and tails was bent over an old-fashioned roll-top desk and furiously writing away with a quill pen. A dimly flickering on the edge of what Harvey saw was an old-fashioned roll-top desk showed Harvey that the tall, thin man was copying music from a manuscript.
“May I ask who you are and what you are doing in my office?” Harvey asked, wishing that his voice was not trembling so badly.
The man looked up with an open and friendly expression.
“Of course you may ask what I am doing,” answered the man. “I am copying out the Lost Mass of Christopher Tye for my choristers so that it will be ready for them to sing it when they return from their quest. As for who I am, I am Engelbert Schnitzelbergen, the conductor of the Royal Carelin Boys’ Choir. As for what I am doing in your office, I have not the slightest idea as I really thought this was my office.”
“Well, I thought—you see—I thought this was my office,” Harvey stuttered, fully disarmed by the stranger’s friendliness, and further disarmed by not seeing anything at all of his own office. “It was—it was my office a minute ago.”
“Ah! Well, I never know where my office is going to be from one minute to the next,” said the choirmaster, “and so it is not surprising if you are having the same problem. If all of my choristers weren’t sailing with the national pirates of Carelin just now, I’d think one of them moved my office into yours.”
“What is—this city called Carelin?” Harvey asked in a quivering voice.
“Why, Carelin is the Kingdom of Carelin. It’s hard to see you in this poor light, but you don’t look at all familiar as far as I can tell. Are you from Correlee?”
“I haven’t heard of that, either,” said Harvey, his head going in circles. “I am in Milton, Pennsylvania. Or at least I thought I was and I hope I am.”
“Hmm. Milton. It seems to me that the Queen Mother mentioned a town of that name once. Ah yes! She lived there after her exile. My favorite chorister, Edmund, sang at the funeral at your church, come to think of it. Have you seen any choirboys about?”
“Not that I know of. But then I don’t know a choirboy when I see one unless he wears a choir robe or a sailor suit like the Vienna Boys’ Choir.”
“Vee-enna? That’s a new one on me. Well, if you run into the boys, you’ll probably hear them sing something before long and you’ll know they have to be choristers to sing like that. How wholesome a song you’ll hear is something I wouldn’t guarantee unless if I’m conducting the music myself.”
“Have you seen a lost little girl?” asked Harvey hopefully.
“Hmm, come to think of it, I did see a girl not so long ago. I don’t know how lost she was. She found this manuscript of the Lost Mass of Christopher Tye for me in Taverner & Tye’s Candle Shop. That’s a good place to find a mass by Christopher Tye, don’t you think?”
“Did she have brown hair and. . .”
“I believe her name was Sheila.”
“That’s my girl! Where is she?”
“Oh, I have no idea. She’s off on a quest, I’m pretty sure of that. She could be on the pirate ship with the choirboys?”
“A pirate ship?” Harvey cried.
“Well, maybe not. I’m sure that many quests are needed right now and Sheila could be on any one of them.”
“What kind of quest?” asked a bewildered Harvey Armstrong.
“Well, a quest to bring back the light, I should think, since almost all of the world’s light is missing just now. Quite a nuisance for copying music, let me tell you.”
“I hope Sheila’s all right,” said Harvey. “Earlier today, three horrible people, dressed in black, came into my office and hinted that they might subject Sheila to foul play if I didn’t help with a dishonest transaction. But if you think she’s on a quest. . .”
“Do you mean them?” Mr. Schnitzelbergen asked in alarm. “I see that you do. Well, you can never believe a word they say, thank goodness. As for Sheila, I most deeply hope that, as the finder of Christopher Tye’s lost mass, she is all right and will be all right for all time. In fact, I could hardly be more frantic with worry about any of my choristers than I am about her.”
“How can I find her?”
“Find her? I suggest you stay here and help me copy out the music. That’s the best way to find my choristers and I’m sure it’s the best way to find your daughter.”
A telephone rang. Without even thinking of what the telephone was doing in Mr. Schnitzelbergen’s office, Harvey followed the sound of the ringing until he somehow put a hand on a telephone receiver.
“Hello?”
“Harvey,” said Lilly, her voice cold, “I’m just calling to let you know that I’m at the rectory, visiting with Mary Clement, who has also been kindly deserted by her husband. You’ll know where to find me if you happen to care about me again some day.”
Lilly hung up before Harvey could say anything. He toyed with the idea of calling back but gave up the idea of trying to explain that he had just been told by a man from another universe that Sheila was on a quest and could be anywhere. By this time, even the light in the lantern was gone and Harvey wasn’t even sure if Mr. Schnitzelbergen was still there.
“Ah!” said the choirmaster, confirming that he was still in the same room with Harvey. “I think we will have to postpone any further copying of the Lost Mass until the light comes back, something that Sheila and my choirboys may help to bring about. Perhaps we could look outside to see if we are in Carelin or Milton, or a combination of both.”
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Everett McAlister thought he had seen everything, until he saw the pale glowing roses covering the whole front of Eleanore Gleason’s house. Having an unruly crowd in front of the house to deal with was more like Everett’s normal world. Crowd control was part of his training. Controlling roses and bubble-blowing children were not.
“Hold them off!” Everett ordered his officers.
“Please let us have some of your roses,” A girl pleaded with Eleanore Gleason. “They’ll give us light all over town.”
“This is why Amarilla made all those roses,” said a boy. “She knew we’d need the light. Please let everybody have one.”
“If you give the roses away,” said a girl, “they won’t run out.”
“No! No! A thousand times No!” the English teacher yelled. “I’m not giving my roses away to hoodlums who wreck people’s gardens.”
“I didn’t wreck your garden,” said a boy, “honest.”
“And how do I know that?”
“‘Cause I never saw you before,” the boy replied.
“And that means you never saw him before,” added a girl.
A child blew a big bubble in Eleanore’s face.
“Will you please stop blowing bubbles in my face!” Eleanore ordered.
“But the bubbles are the only other thing that’s giving us light,” said a boy. “Amarilla told us to make all the bubbles we can.”
“I don’t see why I should do what this Amarilla says when I don’t even know her,” snapped Eleanore.
“My sentiments exactly,” Everett muttered to himself.
Seeing that several of the children in the crowd were strangers who had suddenly grown out of the sidewalk like mushrooms gave the police chief a clammy feeling. A group of children suddenly rushed the house, but his officers held firm and repulsed the attack. Everybody began yelling at once and Everett began to fear that he would have to radio for more police to come up from Main Street, although he knew they were busy writing out accident reports and controlling the crowds there. Before Everett could make up his mind about what to do, he saw Ted Sloane approach the house with Father Clement, Marion Rosskill, and the strange girl, Amarilla herself Suspicious thoughts rose up in the police chief’s mind as the girl wedged her way through the crowd and forced her way to the porch and stood next to the besieged English teacher. Then she held up her hands to bring a hush over the crowd.
“Can you try requesting each rose in an orderly manner?” Amarilla asked.
“We tried that!” one boy yelled back. “It didn’t work.”
“I didn’t ask you to make such a spectacle of my house!” Eleanore complained to AMarilla. “This so-called good turn of yours has proved to be another curse as you can see well enough.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you were meant to share these roses?” Amarilla asked her.
“Amarilla’s white roses are the best roses in the world,” said a girl who followed her words with a flow of bubbles from her pipe. “I thought everybody shared Amarilla’s roses when she makes them.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Caroline,” Amarilla replied cooly.
Amarilla proceed to pick one of the white roses.
“How dare you?” Eleanore raged. “Just because you made them appear doesn’t mean you can take them!”
“I said nothing about taking roses away from you,” the girl replied. “Do there appear to be any less roses on the house now that I have picked this one?”
“No, but there has to be,” said Eleanor. “Maybe I could give away one or two, but everybody in this town will want one and next thing I know, they'll all be gone.”
Amarilla picked another rose and handed it to an adolescent boy whose eyes showed he coveted the flower. But once he received it, his face lit up with awe, and he guiltily swallowed over his good fortune.
“Now does it look like any roses are missing?” Amarilla asked again.
“Who cares what it looks like?” asked Eleanor. “you know that two roses are missing now. This is my property and these are my roses and I don't want to hear any more about it.”
Those words triggered another uproar from the crowd and another rush at the house that almost broke the police line.
“Arrest everybody!” Everett yelled.
But it wasn’t possible for any of the police to grab a hold of even one person without being jostled away by others in the crowd. Everett noticed the boy who had been given a rose by Amarilla hid his flower under his jacket and tried to slip away. Seeing him, Eleanore Gleason chased after him.
“He’s running off with my rose!” the English teacher yelled.
“Arrest him!” Everett ordered, pointing at the boy.
“You can’t arrest him for getting a rose from Amarilla,” a child with a bubble pipe protested.
“Yea! Yea!” several other children chimed in.
“Arrest them all!” cried Everett.
In response, children blew bubbles into the police chief’s face from all directions, temporarily blinding him with their brilliant colors.
“I said: arrest them!” Everett cried once more, fearing that he was losing all control of the situation.
Another barrage of bubbles incapacitated the police chief for several minutes. By the time he had wiped the slimy liquid off his face, the block had become eerily dark and quiet. The children with their bubble pipes were gone, leaving behind only a few befuddled police officers. Eleanore Gleason’s house which had been so bright just minutes before was shrouded in total darkness. Eleanore must have slipped inside her house. Amarilla was nowhere to be seen. When the police chief squinted at the house, he could barely make out the wilted remains of the roses that had mysteriously grown all over its front.
“Want me to write the report?” asked one of the officers to his chief.
“Don’t bother,” Everett grunted. “Better get back to Main Street. Arrest anybody who has a bubble pipe.”
“That girl is taking control of the town fast,” said the older man who suddenly appeared in the shadows next to the police chief.
“She has the mayor twirled about her finger,” added the woman.
“Better keep an eye on her,” said the younger man.
“Don’t worry, I will,” Everett replied to his mysterious companions.