The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder Page 2

"Oh, finally. He says he's going to get some waterproofing gloop from the hardware store and fix the leaks. I'll let you know if he glues himself to the floor or anything."

  "It could be worse," said Johnny. "Your dad could have asked Professor Childermass to help."

  Sarah chuckled. Professor Roderick R. Childermass taught history at the same college where Sarah's dad taught English. The professor lived across Fillmore Street from Johnny and his grandparents, and he was a crabby, cranky old man whose explosive temper was a legend in Duston Heights. A short man with gold-rimmed eyeglasses, wild white muttonchop whiskers, and a red, pitted nose like a very ripe strawberry, Professor Childermass was no good with tools and repairs, even though he liked to think of himself as quite a handyman. His building projects usually resulted in his wrecking some part of his big old stucco house. After spending a few hours in his fuss closet—a specially soundproofed room where he could rant and rage and let off steam— the professor would call some real repairmen and then make their lives miserable until they had undone his damage. Oddly, even though Professor Childermass had the sociability of an angry porcupine, he was a good friend of Johnny's, and he liked Johnny's friends Sarah and Fergie too. The elderly man and the young friends got along well, even though most people in the small town would give Professor Childermass a very wide berth.

  "Hey," Sarah said, straightening up in her chair. "There goes Fergie now."

  She and Johnny hurried out of Peter's Sweet Shop. "Fergie!" yelled Johnny. "Wait up!"

  A strange thing happened. Fergie jumped as if he had just been scared out of his wits. He looked over his shoulder at them, his face pale, and then he ducked into an alley. Sarah's expression looked just as puzzled as Johnny felt. "What's with him?" she asked.

  "C'mon." Johnny and Sarah trotted to the alley, but Fergie was nowhere in sight. "He must've run off somewhere," said Johnny. "I wonder what's the matter with him."

  "Who knows?" Sarah said. "Sometimes I think your friend Fergie is just a little weird, Dixon."

  Soon after that, Sarah went home. Fergie's strange behavior still bothered Johnny, and he trudged to Fillmore Street sunk deep in thought. He dropped his schoolbooks off at his house, then went across the street to see Professor Childermass.

  The professor was just taking some walnut brownies from his oven. He loved to bake gooey chocolate treats, and these smelled delicious. "We'll let them cool," said the professor, "until they are exactly the right temperature, not hot but wonderfully warm, and then we'll wade in and see what damage we can do. Now, John Michael, what do you have on your mind besides your hair? You look woebegone and befuddled."

  Johnny pulled up a chair and sat at the professor's kitchen table. "It's Fergie," he said. "He's acting strange. Today he ran away from me for no reason at all."

  "That does sound odd," agreed the professor. "Are you sure he was running away from you?"

  With a shrug, Johnny explained what had happened. "He looked right at us," he finished. "He had to know it was Sarah and me. But he dived into the alley, and then he must have run away."

  "Strange," said Professor Childermass. "But maybe Byron has something worrying him. You know, John, I have spells when I just have to be alone. So do you, for that matter. I suspect that Byron has some reason for behaving so peculiarly. He's your good friend, after all."

  "I know. But if he's in trouble or something, I'd like to help him if I could."

  The professor got up, cut the brownies, and poured two tall, foamy glasses of milk. "This is going to spoil your dinner," he warned. "So if you tell your grandmother I gave you this heavenly treat, I shall insist that you held me at gunpoint and forced it out of me." He set a saucer with a huge brownie in front of Johnny. Then he lifted his glass solemnly. "To our friend Byron. May his problems be over soon."

  Johnny clinked his glass of milk against the professor's, and then he dug in. The brownie was indeed tasty, and Johnny could have eaten another, but Professor Childermass drew the line at one. "Your grandmother might eventually forgive me if you can bring yourself to eat a few bites of dinner," he pronounced. "If I let you gorge yourself so that you can only look at your peas and carrots with the expression of a sick puppy, she'll run me out of town." He took Johnny's saucer and glass and added them to a perilous stack of dirty dishes in the sink. "John, I tell you what. You go home and call Byron and ask him if he wants to see a movie tonight. I'll treat. Maybe if he goes with us, he'll break down and tell us what is going on. Anyway, it can't hurt to try."

  Johnny agreed. As soon as he got home, he called Fergie, who answered in a wary voice. "Hi," said Johnny cheerfully. He had decided not to mention what had happened outside Peter's Sweet Shop. "Want to go to the movies tonight?"

  "I dunno," Fergie said. "I have a lot of homework an' stuff."

  Johnny laughed. "Fergie, it's Friday afternoon! You've got the whole weekend for homework." It was true. And both Fergie and Johnny always put off homework until the last possible minute.

  "Well, all right," Fergie said at last.

  Johnny picked up the Duston Heights newspaper that his grandfather had left on the dining room table. He leafed to the movie and comic-strip pages. "The show's at seven forty-five," he said. "So Professor Childermass and I will meet you at the theater at seven-thirty, okay?"

  "Sure," Fergie said without much enthusiasm.

  Johnny said good-bye and hung up. He could hear his grandmother bustling around the kitchen, preparing dinner, and he could smell a wonderful aroma of chicken, gravy, and pastry. Despite the malted he had drunk at Peter's Sweet Shop and the brownie and milk the professor had given him, Johnny's mouth watered. Gramma Dixon's chicken potpie was one of her best dishes, and she was a fabulous cook. He went into the kitchen and helped set the table. Grampa came downstairs from his nap, and they all had dinner together. A little after seven Johnny went over to the professor's house and the two of them strolled downtown.

  "There he is," Johnny said in a low voice.

  Fergie was leaning against the wall of the theater with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets. He was wearing his motorcycle jacket, jeans, and boots, and looked like a young roughneck. As the professor and Johnny approached, Fergie looked up and gave them a sickly kind of smile.

  "So, Byron," said Professor Childermass. "How is every little thing?"

  "Fine," Fergie said shortly.

  The professor stared at him hard through his gold- rimmed glasses. He waited, but Fergie added nothing else. Johnny bit his lip. Fergie was definitely acting strange. Usually he was a real smart aleck, the kind of kid who didn't hesitate to make a wisecrack to an adult. But the professor made no remark. He bought the tickets, and the three stocked up on popcorn and orange sodas before going into the auditorium.

  The picture wasn't a very good one. It was a Western about a singing cowboy who was trying to run a gang of rustlers out of a frontier town, apparently by organizing a chorus of cowpokes to sing at the bad guys until they gave up. The professor snorted and made grumpy exclamations whenever something really dumb happened in the movie, and Johnny laughed in all the wrong places. Fergie just sat slouched in his seat, like a lump.

  When the movie ended, Professor Childermass stood, stretched, and said, "Well, that was as fine a waste of three dollars as anything I have seen lately. Come along with us, Byron, and we'll finish off a plate of brownies. Then I'll drive you home."

  They walked through the cool darkness. After minutes of silence, suddenly Fergie blurted out, "Professor, I gotta ask you something. Did you ever hear of a guy by the name of Jarmyn Thanatos?"

  Professor Childermass stopped abruptly underneath a lamppost. The yellow light made highlights in his white hair and side-whiskers and cast deep shadows that hid his eyes. "Where in the world did you hear that name?" he demanded.

  Fergie shrugged. "Aw, I read it in a book or somethin'. It's no big deal—"

  "Come along." The professor strode off briskly, and both Johnny and Fergie had to trot to catch up
to him. When Fergie tried to ask him about Jarmyn Thanatos again, the professor waved an impatient hand. "Later, Byron! I'll tell you everything I know about that wretched miscreant, but I will do it only in the comfort of my own little home."

  When they reached the professor's house, he led them up to his cluttered second-floor study. As usual, blue-bound exam papers and essays all but hid his desktop, and more had fallen to the floor, forming little academic paper dunes. From its round stand near the desk, the professor's stuffed owl stared at them with wide eyes, its miniature Red Sox cap tilted at a jaunty angle. "Sit down," growled Professor Childermass. He settled into the chair behind his desk, and the two boys moved stacks of books from a couple of armchairs and sat facing him. "Now, first things first," said the professor. "Byron, where on earth did you come across the name Jarmyn Thanatos?"

  Fergie looked uncomfortable. He twisted his feet back, hooking them around the short front legs of his armchair. "Well, I dunno. Like I started to say, it was just somethin' in a book. It's no big deal or anything."

  "It is not a name you should concern yourself with," returned the professor sharply. "The late unlamented Mr. Thanatos is no business of yours."

  Fergie's face got red. "Well, gee! Excuse me for breathing, Prof. I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers or anything. What's so bad about old Whosis, anyway?"

  Professor Childermass drummed his fingers on the desk, then pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. After he had readjusted his spectacles, he muttered, "I apologize, Byron. I was unreasonable."

  Fergie mumbled something that Johnny couldn't quite hear. Johnny asked, "Is it a secret?"

  With a sharp bark of a laugh, Professor Childermass said, "No secret, John. Just an embarrassing family skeleton, that's all. Now, let me see. You boys know all about such charlatans as Comte de Saint-Germain and Cagliostro, don't you?"

  Johnny and Fergie exchanged a glance, and Fergie shrugged. "Yeah, I've read about 'em. They lived in France back in the eighteenth century and pretended to be wizards who had the secret of eternal life, right?"

  "Close enough," answered the professor. "Well, Jarmyn Thanatos was their brother under the skin. He was active in Vermont, New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts late in the last century and made quite a name for himself—as a medicine-show quack, a con artist, and a miserable mountebank, that is. He claimed to have the secrets of the Hand of Glory, the philosopher's stone to turn lead into gold, and the universal elixir that cured every disease and disorder from athlete's foot to yaws. Anyone with half a brain could see the man was a catchpenny swindler—anyone but my dear father, that is."

  The professor fell silent. Johnny licked his lips. "Professor, did Thanatos cheat your father or something?"

  With a sigh, the old man said, "Give the man a cigar. Right you are, John. And not only my father—around 1885 or 1886, the scoundrel bilked thousands of dollars from a half dozen people in my hometown, all because he assured them that some harebrained scheme of his was a super-duper ironclad investment."

  "What kind of scheme, Prof?" asked Fergie.

  Frowning, Professor Childermass said, "Well...it was a scheme to discover the secret of eternal life. Old Jarmyn Thanatos convinced those people that if they trusted him, he would find a way to let them live forever!"

  With a strangled cry, Fergie jumped up from his chair. He clapped his hands to his ears. The other two stared at him as if he had lost his mind. He had turned so pale that he looked as if he were about to faint. "Fergie?" asked Johnny. "What's the matter?"

  Fergie dropped his hands and stammered, "D-didn't you h-hear that?"

  "Hear what?" asked the professor in a quiet voice.

  "The bell!" Fergie shouted. "That awful bell!" He looked from Johnny to the professor and back, and then he turned and ran out of the study. Johnny heard his friend's feet clattering on the stairs, and a moment later the front door slammed.

  Professor Childermass cleared his throat. "Did you hear a bell, John?"

  Johnny shook his head. "No."

  "Nor did I. Because no bell rang."

  "Professor?" said Johnny in a small voice. "What do you suppose happened to Fergie?"

  Professor Childermass crossed his arms and scowled. "I don't know, John. Byron has either lost his mind— or else he's enjoying some kind of practical joke. Knowing our friend's warped sense of humor, I'd guess it was the latter."

  But Johnny wasn't sure. He wasn't sure at all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next day was Saturday. When Fergie woke up that morning, he had the strange feeling that he had been having a horrible dream—but he couldn't remember anything about it. Except that it was bad. He had a confused impression that someone was yanking him this way and that, shaking him the way a terrier shakes a rat. But nothing else was clear. He got out of bed and slowly got dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.

  His mom was sitting at the kitchen table, and she looked up from the morning newspaper when he came in. "Good morning," she said brightly. She was a worn-looking woman with stringy gray hair, and she was wearing an apron over a red flower-patterned dress. Years of pinching pennies and hard work had left her with a tired expression, but she always perked up when talking to Fergie or his dad. Mrs. Ferguson put the paper aside and asked, "What do you want for breakfast today?"

  "I dunno," mumbled Fergie. "What're you having, Mom?"

  "Coffee and Cream of Wheat," she told him.

  Fergie made a face. He hated all hot cereals and would just as soon eat a big pot of steaming library paste. He went to the refrigerator and got out a quart milk bottle. He rattled the cereal bowls, put one on the table, and then retrieved a box of cornflakes from the cabinet. He shook some of these into the bowl, spilling a few, and then sloshed milk over them. Some of it splashed out onto the table.

  Mrs. Ferguson said, "Here, I'll get a towel—"

  "Mom!" Fergie rolled his eyes. "For Pete's sake, you'd think I was a baby or somethin'." He got up and found a kitchen towel, which he used to swab up the spilled milk. Then he wolfed down his bowl of cereal. He dumped the empty bowl and the spoon into the sink. After breakfast Fergie hurried back upstairs to his room and locked the door. His heart was beating fast. The closet door had a frame that stuck out about an inch all the way around. Long ago he had rigged up a secret hiding place by taping a flap of cardboard across the top of the frame and to the inside wall of the closet. The cardboard made a sort of pocket that he could put private stuff in. The book he had taken from the public library was there now. He had meant to look at it long before this, but somehow he had never had the courage. Every time he had taken the book down, he remembered the loud, eerie bell—and the mysterious old man. Three times before, he had replaced the unopened book in his secret spot, but he promised himself that this morning he was actually going to read some of its pages.

  Pushing a chair over to the open closet door, Fergie climbed up and reached inside, felt for the top of the cardboard pocket, and then fished the book out. It felt strangely heavy in his hands, as if it were bound in sheets of lead instead of cardboard and cloth. He got off the chair, sprawled on his bed, and turned the book this way and that, just studying it.

  In the light of morning, it didn't look frightening at all. The black cloth cover was fine grained and might once have looked expensive and neat. Now, though, the corners were battered and smashed, with frayed threads and the gray cardboard showing. The spine was cracked along its length, and the pages didn't quite meet smoothly in the center. The stamped red title-and- author label looked as if it had been a shiny metallic color, but now it was a dusty crimson, with tiny flakes missing here and there.

  "The Book of True Wishes,'' muttered Fergie. "Yeah. Like fun it is." He was a sensible boy who always looked for the logical and rational explanation of anything odd. He didn't believe for a moment in genies' lamps or wishing rings, and he knew there was no such thing as a fairy godmother who made your dreams come true. Still, he had to admit that the book gave him a very unusua
l feeling. A feeling of, well, power, as if he knew something that no one else on earth even suspected.

  Fergie clenched his teeth and opened the book.

  Bo-o-o-n-nng! The windows of his room actually vibrated as the heavy bell tolled. Fergie caught his breath and waited for his mother to come rushing up the stairs to ask what in the world he was doing. But nothing happened.

  He looked down and frowned. He had meant to open the book to the first page, but the thin leaves had stuck together, and he had cracked the volume to two full pages. He tried to turn back, but the left page seemed stuck to the cover. With a grunt, Fergie read the incomplete first paragraph:

  warnings, you must freely choose to read. That is an easy choice, my boy, for you are always eager for knowledge. And the knowledge you gain from this book will never leave you. Like the book itself, it cannot be destroyed.

  "Oh, man," said Fergie, shaking his head. This was too much. He knew that it would be easy to destroy this little volume—it was only a thin book about six by nine inches. It could be burned or ground to a pulp or the pages could just be ripped out and scattered. It—

  Fergie paused, feeling a chill creep up his spine. His eye had gone to the next sentence in the book: "Of course, you're thinking the book can be burned or ground to a pulp. Or maybe the pages could just be ripped out and scattered. But you are wrong. You may try now."

  "Okay," said Fergie, feeling suddenly angry. He grasped the right sheet and tore it—or tried to tear it.

  To Fergie's astonishment, he could neither rip the page nor pull it out of the book. The paper felt flimsy and thin, so smooth that it was almost oily, but it was too sturdy for him to injure it in any way. And he had the sick feeling that even if he threw it on a blazing fire, the book wouldn't be scorched. When he let go of the page, it turned itself. The reverse side of that sheet was blank, and the right page held only five words, in big black letters:

  What Is Your First Wish?