Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles (32 page)

“Sergeant Norton did that. He was the first adult to tell me that black skin is as beautiful as white, and that I was smart enough not to let stupid high school dropouts intimidate me. You started tutoring me about the same time, and I figured out that you both were telling me I can do anything if I only try.”

“And study hard to get the best education you can,” Dusty added.

“Yeah, that, too.” M’Velle stepped aside. “Mind if I get a cup of coffee in the lounge?”

“Sure, go ahead. I have a few things to do here: restock some books and candy, fill the bird feeders in the park. I’ll let you finish up the decorations here while I work on stringing cobwebs in the downstairs parlor.”

“Um… what brought on the effusive emotional display, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“That girl, Hope.” And Chase, but M’Velle didn’t need to know that.

“The runaway,” M’Velle said flatly. “She’s not talking yet?”

“Nope.”

“Want me to give it a try?” M’Velle didn’t look too happy at the prospect.

“Let’s give my mother a while longer. I’m just having trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of finding life at home so intolerable she needed to run away.”

“And yet you did the same thing, hiding in the basement for so many years.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” M’Velle left without waiting for an answer.

Dusty had to stop and think. She still wanted to play with artifacts and documents down in the basement rather than confront the people who scared her. Her heart raced, and she broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of giving tours or speaking up in town meetings. But she did it. Chase and Thistle had helped her find the confidence to stop running away from reality. With Chase by her side, reality might not be so bad after all.

Why should she worry how other people judged her when Chase approved of her in so many wonderful ways?

The bell jangled again. Harsher this time. Dusty pulled herself out of her thoughts. She looked up, expecting M’Velle.

Phelma Jo stood in the doorway, feet planted, arms straight at her sides, chin thrust out belligerently.

“What’s wrong?” Dusty asked. Her mind raced through a dozen horrors that might bring Phelma Jo to her doorstep this early.

“Nothing is wrong. What makes you say that?” Phelma Jo relaxed her clenched fists and stiff neck enough to look around the tiny gift shop.

“You just looked terribly angry or unhappy. I was sure you had bad news.” Dusty fiddled with a stack of chapbooks and pamphlets she needed to put on the spinning display,
proud that she had written two of the short books about local history and points of interest.

“Well, I guess it might be bad news. Mayor Seth told me to tell you there’s a town meeting in City Hall at noon to discuss the recent attacks by rabid birds or something. We may have to cancel the All Hallows Festival.”

“Birds don’t carry rabies. They carry West Nile or the bird flu virus.”

“Whatever.”

“Have there been more attacks?” Dusty asked anxiously. She bit her lip, remembering the six stitches on Chase’s temple and the migraine that left him almost blind. She didn’t want to think about the seven children who’d ended up at the clinic yesterday.

The basement sounded so very inviting.

She firmed her shoulders and chin, determined to face this.

“A teacher and two boys walking to school this morning got stabbed. The teacher may lose an eye. The boys should be okay, but they’ll have scars,” Phelma Jo said. For the first time in a long time she looked a little lost, vulnerable.

“This is bad.”

“Yeah,” Phelma Jo replied. “A bunch of parents are refusing to allow their kids outside on the playground, or to walk to school. And they certainly aren’t going to let them go trick-or-treating next Tuesday. The whole town is going to lose a big bunch of money if we cancel the parade on Saturday and the haunted maze in The Ten Acre Wood.”

“Thank you for stopping by, Phelma Jo. Tell Mayor Seth that I’ll be there. Perhaps if we have to cancel outdoor activities we can move some of them to the high school gym.”

“Whatever.” The familiar, forthright, and always angry Phelma Jo returned. “Draw up some plans and bring them. Oh, and take down all the bird feeders. They attract potentially dangerous birds.” She slammed the door as she left. The bells lost all sense of musicality.

“Pixies eat the millet more than the birds do,” Dusty protested to an empty room. “And birds aren’t the problem. Rogue Pixies are.” She desperately hoped that Thistle found a solution soon.

Phelma Jo looked around the crowded Council room in City Hall. She counted three, no four, camera crews from the local affiliate news programs, including Bill Tremaine, the senior and most respected of all the anchormen. More news people sat in the front row on either side of Tommy “Digger” Ledbetter from the Skene Falls
Post
—identifiable by their open notepads and huge cameras. Only a few of the one hundred folding chairs were left unoccupied. Twenty-some people stood against the marble walls. Angry frowns and worried brows dominated the room.

She frowned, too, for a different reason. She pushed her way through the crowd, not caring how many toes she stepped on, or whose ribs she elbowed.

“Mind if I sit here?” she asked Dusty, nodding toward the empty seat beside her.

“I was kind of saving it for Chase.” Dusty left her purse on the aisle seat.

“If he’s this late, he deserves to stand.” Phelma Jo picked up Dusty’s dainty little purse and deposited it in her lap. Then she sat, smoothing her slacks to keep the crease clean and crisp and even.

“There’s an empty chair over there.” Dusty pointed to the opposite side of the room. “I’ve never known you to pass up an opportunity to flirt with a handsome man.”

Phelma Jo deliberately refrained from looking at the tall red-haired man who kept his eyes on the dais, waiting for Mayor Seth and the City Council to emerge from the back room. “I prefer not to sit next to, or converse with
that
handsome man.” She couldn’t help but look at his profile, though. The spray of freckles across his nose softened the strong lines of his jaw and drew attention away from his slightly protuberant ears.

Dusty raised her eyebrows in question.

“That’s Ian McEwen, Mabel’s nephew. The one who wants to tear down the house you and Chase are about to inherit,” Phelma Jo whispered.

“I’ve been wanting to meet him. I need to explain some things about Mabel. She really needs her family right now.”

“She needs to know that you and Chase will respect her wishes,” Phelma Jo returned. “The property needs protection. For a variety of reasons. Preservation of a historical house and grounds is only part of it.”

Just then the door to the back room opened and City Councilman George Pepperidge strode out alone. Solemnly, he took the chair to the right of center on the dais. With great ceremony he lifted the gavel in front of the mayor’s seat and rapped the table twice.

The room quieted instantly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, most of you know that I’m running for mayor next month, unopposed,” Councilman Pepperidge began.

Phelma Jo’s face burned. She’d planned to run against George in the election, until the scandal of Haywood Wheatland and the fire in The Ten Acre Wood had terminated her plans.

Postponed, not terminated, she reminded herself.

Dusty’s hand covered her own and squeezed lightly in mute sympathy.

Phelma Jo held her breath. This was what it had felt like when Dusty was her friend back in grade school. Before the awful incident of name-calling and flying fists.

Then Dusty withdrew her comforting touch before Phelma Jo could reject it. Confusion warred with her anger and embarrassment.

“Mayor Seth is not well today. His latest stroke preys upon his strength. So I called this emergency meeting and will preside over the discussion,” George continued.

“What are we doing about those rabid birds?” a man called from the center of the room.

Front and center, Digger scribbled notes. Five cameras around him flashed.

“It’s not safe to walk outside anymore. Our kids are in danger,” a woman yelled from the back of the room.

The room erupted in sound. The cameras, single shot and video, caught it all.

“We are working with animal control and the medical community on that,” George held up his hand for order.

“What about the parade day after tomorrow? Are you
canceling that?” Digger asked. He snapped a picture with his enormous camera at the same time.

“The full City Council will make that decision later today when we’ve had a chance to talk to the authorities.”

“Why wait?” the first man asked. “I’m not letting my kids attend. And I’m taking them out of school until this town is safe again.”

“We need to get lab results from the blood samples taken from the victims,” George continued. “We need to know what disease we are dealing with and which animals or birds are responsible.”

“Well, I’m taking my shotgun to anything that flies through my yard or lands on a bird feeder anywhere in town,” the woman sitting right in front of Phelma Jo yelled. Only she was standing now and shaking her fist.

George pounded his gavel several times to no avail. Everyone in the room had something to say and wanted to say it right now.

George pounded his gavel hard. “People, stop and think a moment. We have to look at alternatives. Safe alternatives.”

“The only alternative is to kill every murdering bird in the county!”

“This town has a lot of tradition and money invested in the All Hallows Festival.” George spoke above the unruly shouters.

Good for him
, Phelma Jo thought. She was learning a lot about leadership here. Research for when she considered herself ready to take the reins and control this town.

“We on the City Council hoped to use profits from this year’s festival to fund the clinic another year. Think about what we lose if the clinic closes January first when state funds run out. Just today, Ms. DuBois, our kindergarten teacher, will have some vision impairment,
but not lose her eye,
because of the prompt response of our EMTs and the close proximity of the clinic. If she’d had to be transported to Portland, even by helicopter, treatment would have been too late.”

“That’s good news,” Dusty whispered. “I wonder why Dick didn’t answer the emergency call. It’s not like him to sleep through or refuse a call.”

“Probably still mooning over his lost Thistle.” Phelma Jo shrugged.

“Think about how much money our downtown merchants need to make this next week just to stay in business in these hard economic times,” George continued. “Now I called this meeting to hear some alternatives, not blind panic.”

“The only alternative is to cancel everything until we kill all those damn birds!”

Dusty pulled a sheaf of papers from the leather satchel at her feet. Her fists clenched so tight she almost tore the documents. “Where’s Chase?” she asked Phelma Jo. As if Phelma Jo should know. “He promised to help with this.”

“Get over yourself, Dusty, and just read the papers. Sometimes you take this shyness and vulnerability too far.”

Jerkily, Dusty raised her hand in mute request to be recognized by the chair. As she should. As they all should.

“Yes, Ms. Carrick?” George said with a huge sigh of relief.

Dusty stood up, holding her papers in shaking hands. “I contacted the Audubon Society. They said that since all of the reported attacks have taken place during daylight hours we need not cancel the Haunted Maze after sunset. The likelihood of a diurnal bird continuing to attack after dark…”

“What’s a diurnal bird? One that craps twice a day?” the woman in front of Phelma Jo sneered.

A ripple of muffled laughter went around the room.

“Oh, shut up and listen to someone who’s smarter than you, Jessica Marley,” Phelma Jo ordered. “Dusty may bore us to death with historical trivia, but when have any of you known her to be
wrong
? So listen to her. She’s got plans that can make the best of a bad situation and save the Festival.”

Across the room Ian McEwen started a round of applause. He nodded to Phelma Jo in approval.

Why did that make the whole day seem better, brighter, and worth fighting for?