Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret (6 page)

The next day, as the Harbortown trolley rattled through the early-morning mist, Peter held his knapsack to his chest and thought about the night before. If he'd slept at all, he would have thought meeting Horus was a dream. It seemed surreal, compared with this moment. The streetcar was filled mostly with women and men presumably going to work, the women in knit day suits, the men in subdued coats and flat hats and trousers. He was heading to Franklin Street to follow up on Horus's clue from the night before and feeling decidedly guilty.

I certainly will share the reward with Tunie, and Horus, too, if I can find a way,
Peter thought, to make himself feel better. Tunie had seemed nice, but what if she got the reward? Would she really share it with him? Peter couldn't take the chance. He gently placed a hand on his ribs where they still ached from Randall shoving him against the hard sink. He had to get away from his stepbrothers. It wasn't just that they hurt him; it was how they made him feel—helpless, weak, and ashamed somehow. He clenched the bag in his hands harder, just thinking about it. Going to the camp wouldn't be a simple escape, either; it would be something he'd achieved himself, proof that he could do anything if he tried hard enough.

As the trolley approached Franklin Street, Peter pulled the string, ringing the brass bell up front and signaling the driver to stop.

On the relatively empty street, Peter donned the headpiece he'd spent the entire night creating. It was a metal headband affixed to two ear trumpets, like weird, twisty tin rabbit's ears. He'd designed his own with modifications from pictures of ones Beethoven had used. They were like funnels, with a wider end to collect sound waves and a smaller end to direct the waves to the ears.

“Time to try them out, WindUp,” Peter said over his shoulder to the robot, who was peeking out from the back of his knapsack.

“Lookin' for space aliens, kid? Or are you one yourself?” Two men in boaters and linen suits laughed together as they passed Peter on the street. Their voices were loud in his ears, and Peter flinched. Still, he was pleased—the ear trumpets worked amazingly well. He could hear the creak of shutters as someone opened a window over a shop.

A woman carrying a basket of bread passed by and smiled at Peter. “Bit early for a costume party, isn't it, hon?”

Peter only shrugged, listening for any voice that was particularly nasal, as Horus had mentioned. None yet. Peter had been to this part of town only a few times; it was near the wharf, and there was a whole section of high-crime neighborhoods farther south. This stretch, however, was a fairly viable commercial neighborhood, with two- and three-story buildings that had shops on the ground-level floors and residences above. Most of the shops weren't open yet. Here and there, homeless people lay across the sidewalks, sleeping. There weren't as many as there had been a couple of years ago, but Peter's father said the country was still recovering from the Great Depression.

He was too early. There weren't many people around to investigate. Peter decided to sit on a bench with WindUp, read an old
Weird Tales
comic, and eat the breakfast he'd packed, until the day's hubbub was really under way. He kept his headpiece on, just in case, but soon became absorbed in the comic. After a while, a traffic cop's shrill whistle reverberated in his ears. He looked up, startled to see that the morning bustle had begun in earnest when he wasn't paying attention.

Peter started making his way up the busy sidewalk, eavesdropping on conversations between shopkeepers:

“That display of pumps is looking snazzy, Lila.”

“I hope the customers think so!”

“Good morning!” Peter said to the people who were walking alone beneath the scalloped awnings of the ice-cream parlor and café, and to the man in the straw panama hat lingering outside the radio repair shop. Most of them returned the greeting, surprised at this odd-looking but friendly child, and he listened to their voices to hear if they were nasal. No luck.

Then, walking into a crowd, Peter realized his mistake.

When he'd passed people one at a time, the listening device had worked well, but in a group the din of voices was overwhelming, the cacophony painful and impossible to parse. He cringed at the earsplitting clamor. He'd never be able to pick out a nasally voice from this ruckus! Peter turned and tried to get away from the clutch of people. He bumped into someone and looked up. There, waiting outside a woman's dress shop, were Larry and Randall, looking dully displeased, their wet yellow hair neatly combed across their foreheads. He'd forgotten that their mother was dragging the twins around today to buy new summer clothes, as they'd outgrown last year's. Larry's eyes lit upon Peter, and he smiled.

Peter spun around, ready to run, but a flock of sunbonneted old ladies outside a tea shop blocked his path.

Randall charged forward and grabbed Peter by one arm, dragging him into a narrow alley between two buildings.

Larry flicked his fingers against one of Peter's ear horns.

“What do we have here?” Larry asked in his taunting voice. Peter grimaced at the volume.

Larry continued gibing.

“I thought it was our
genius
stepbrother, but now I see it's a little rabbit! Let's hang this rabbit upside down, Randall,” he ordered.

Randall knocked Peter down onto the gritty, puddled ground and then jerked him up so he was dangling from his ankles.

Here we go again,
Peter thought dismally.

The clang of a metal pot woke Tunie. Her eyes stung, but she pulled aside the curtain that was the wall of her room anyhow.

“Dad? What time is it?” she asked, yawning.

Her father was rifling through the cabinets. “The cupboards are bare! Why don't you take some money from the emergency jar and get us some breakfast?” He seemed unfocused, looking around with watery eyes.

Tunie leaped to her feet, hurrying to hide the empty, cobweb-covered emergency fund jar.

“Have a pastry, Dad,” she said.

He took a bite of a two-day-old strawberry Danish and chewed without pleasure. “Eh, this bakery. These always taste stale,” he said. He finished it nevertheless, but when he stood for a glass of water, he crumpled against the sink.

Tunie rushed to his side and helped him to his chair by the window. The morning was warm, but he shivered anyway, and Tunie covered his legs with a worn blanket. She saw that his legs were wasting away, hardly thicker than the spindly legs of the chair now.

“You need to see a doctor, Dad,” she said tearfully. “Let's just go to the physician's office. Please! They couldn't turn you away, not if they saw how sick you are.”

But her father was firm. “No. We won't go begging.” He coughed with a horrible barking sound into his handkerchief and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “I just need a little rest, that's all. And maybe some soup later.”

Tunie watched as her father fell back asleep, his breath rattling in his chest. Then, with renewed determination, she kissed his gaunt cheek and whistled for Perch. She placed her blue headband on her head firmly, as if donning armor.

“Come on, Perch,” she said, grabbing a bucket and sponge from beside the sink. “We have a kidnapping to solve.”

Once on Franklin Street, Tunie explained her plan to Perch. “I'm going to wash windows, to give me an excuse for staying on this street all day. I'll keep an eye out for anybody with a cane—I think that might be the tapping sound Horus heard when one of them walked. You fly up over the people here, see if you spy anybody with a cane. Got it?”

The bat seemed to salute Tunie with one tiny claw and flapped away, up over the rooftops.

Tunie started washing the windows of a butcher shop with a sign that read
PEPPERMAN'S PRIME CUTS
. A heavyset man in an apron came out.

He gave Tunie a disgruntled look. “I didn't ask anyone to clean my windows.”

Tunie feigned surprise. “Isn't this the address?” She pretended to peer at the number on the shop's door. “Oops.” She shrugged. “I might as well finish the job. Don't worry—I'll do it for free. The guy I work for will pay me, s'long as I get to the right one eventually.”

She shot him her most winning grin.

The butcher softened. “That's all right, then. Come see me when you're done for the day and heading home. I might have something for you.”

Tunie smiled. “I sure will. Thank you, sir,” she said, and continued scrubbing the cloudy glass—which really did need a cleaning. There was an empty fruit crate outside the shop, and Tunie stood on it, stretching to reach the top of the pane. The job took much longer than Tunie had anticipated, and the only person she saw with a cane was a hunched old woman moving at a tortoise crawl. She could hardly be a kidnapper.

The sun was hot on the back of Tunie's neck, her fingers were pruning, and she was beginning to doubt her entire plan. At this rate, it'd take her a week to make it up and down the street. And what if the tapping hadn't been a cane? What if the sound had been something else entirely? Her spirits plummeted.

Just as she finished the window, Tunie heard voices around the corner. She peered down the alley, and to her surprise, there was Peter! He had something crazy on his head and was being shaken, upside down, by two bigger kids.

“What's a little rabbit afraid of ?” the leaner one of the bullies jeered. “A fox? A fox's pointy fangs?” He jabbed at Peter's midsection with a stick.

“Ouch!” Peter said in a strained voice. His face was turning an alarming purple red. “What, do you just carry sharp sticks around in case you need to torture somebody?”

Tunie whistled for Perch and then stepped into the shadowy alley.

“Two against one?” she said loudly. “And bigger to boot. You are some kind of cowardly bullies.”

The larger boy holding Peter's ankles stared at Tunie. “Who are you?”

Tunie caught sight of Perch flying overhead. She lifted her chin toward the one holding Peter and saw Perch begin his dive.

She smiled. “I'm the one who's going to even these odds.”

In one rapid move, she sloshed water from her bucket into the face of the angular twin with the stick. The soapy water stung his eyes.

“Argh!” the boy shouted, bending over, with his hands covering his eyes.

There was a muffled grunt as Peter dropped to the ground. The twin who'd been holding him began running in great, lumbering circles and flailing his arms. He shrieked in a high-pitched voice.

“A bat! It's a vampire bat! Help! It's attacking me! Aaaaargh!”

Perch was clearly enjoying himself, flapping with gusto around the boy's face.

Peter scrambled to his feet, and he and Tunie took off, with Perch soon flying behind them.

They ran up the road until they were sure the twins weren't following them, and stopped to catch their breath on the street corner.

Tunie looked with concern at Peter. There was a spot of blood seeping through his shirt where one of the boys had poked him.

“Those two are plenty rugged. I'm guessing they're the ones you want to get away from this summer?” Tunie said.

“Yeah,” said Peter glumly. “They're my new stepbrothers.”

“That's unlucky.”

“I can avoid them most of the time, and when my dad's in the room, they won't touch me. He's leaving, though, for the summer, and now that school's out…I can't fend them off forever. If I had enough money, I'd go to camp to get away.” He sighed and started fiddling with one bent ear of his strange helmet. “Thanks for helping me out. Most folks aren't interested in tangling with the twins.” He looked up to meet Tunie's eyes. “I'm sorry I ran off last night. I really am planning to share the reward with you.”

“I guess you're out of practice trusting people. I'm beginning to see why.” Tunie gave him a wry smile. “I'm on the lookout for someone with a cane—I figure that's the tapping sound Horus mentioned.”

“That's a good theory,” Peter said.

Tunie shrugged. “Actually, I'm not having much luck. So far the only person with a cane was a frail old lady just barely on this side of heaven.”

Peter looked dolefully at his headpiece. “This device was supposed to help me find the man with the nasal voice, but in these crowds it's useless. So far I've got nothing.”

“Look. This street is really long,” Tunie said. She waved her hand from one side to the other. “It'll take forever to comb over it alone, and by then it might be too late. Let's work together. You and I can split the money, fifty-fifty, and find some way to share with Horus, too. I promise I won't let you down.”

Peter shook Tunie's hand. “It's a deal. I'm not sure either one of us is going about this the right way, though. No offense. I just…I don't see how we'll ever find these guys.”

Tunie drooped. Perch fluttered down and landed on her shoulder, emitting a series of unhappy squeaks.

Peter observed the bat. “You know, Horus is extraordinary, but your bat is also extremely abnormal. If you'd asked me last week whether such bizarre things existed, I would have laughed. I still can't quite accept it.”

“Most people couldn't. I keep thinking maybe last night didn't happen.”

“Me too,” Peter said. “But since we're both here talking about a mummy we met, I guess it did.”

“We haven't been able to use what he told us, though,” Tunie said. She dropped her sponge into the soapy bucket. “Perch hasn't seen anyone else with a cane, and he's been up and down the street a bunch of times. This whole day has been one big wild-goose chase.”

Tunie took a deep breath and sighed. Then she hesitated and took another deep breath. And another.

She sniffed at Perch, her eyes widening. “Perch! You smell like hickory smoke—that strong, sweet smell? My old neighbor used to cure meat with hickory woodsmoke, and the fire smelled just like you!”

Peter's head had lifted at Tunie's statement. “That's the smell Horus described! He said the man with the nasal voice smelled like hickory smoke!”

Tunie grinned at Perch. “Do you think you can take us to wherever that hickory smell is coming from?”

Perch flapped happily and took off. Tunie and Peter followed him all the way down the road, toward the end of the commercial stretch. Set back from the street, and near the water's edge, was a wooden building with a sign that read
BILLOWING SAILS SHIPPING, INC.
From across the small lawn in front of it, Tunie could see purple-gray smoke curling from the building's chimney.

“Excellent work, Perch,” Tunie said, scratching him behind his pointed ears. The bat gave her a satisfied look. “Now what? Do we go inside?”

Peter mused. “I think we shouldn't go in, not yet. Once we go in, they might notice us snooping around. Right now they don't even know anybody's looking. Let's wait and see if anyone comes out, so we can follow him.”

“Okeydokey.” Tunie started washing the window of the corner shop nearest the shipping company. The ruse was starting to seem a little silly, especially now that there was only a half inch of water in the bucket. She didn't know what else to do with herself, though. From this spot across the small green, she could keep an eye on the front door of the shipping company. Peter sat on a bench with his strange headpiece on and WindUp sticking up from the pack beside him, pretending to read his comic book.

“Someone's coming!” Tunie whispered to Peter as the door to the building swung open and a tall, thin man emerged. Peter tilted his head in the man's direction.

“No cane,” Tunie said.

The figure turned back and shouted something through the open door.

“It's him!” Peter called softly. “It's got to be! I've never heard such a nasal voice!”

The man stalked out toward the street on long legs. His loose-cut trousers looked worn and slightly dirty, and he wore a scuffed brimmed hat pulled down over narrow eyes. He had a black mustache that curled at the ends. Tunie and Peter struggled to keep up as they followed him down the street.

For a moment, looking over her shoulder for Perch, Tunie thought she saw a face at the second-story window of the shipping company. She squinted. It was only a reflection on the glass.

The mustached man stopped outside a bank as a plump fellow with spectacles and a cane—from his neat suit, obviously a banker—stepped out. The thin man barred the banker's way until the banker reluctantly turned around, and both men went inside.

“Look at the cane!” Tunie said. “This has got to be it. Those two are working together.”

Peter nodded. He seemed to be thinking. They watched the bank for a while. The thin man strode out and stepped immediately into a departing streetcar. The children couldn't trail him.

“We could take this information to the police—that the man from the shipping company is one of the kidnappers,” Peter said. “It might be enough to earn the reward.”

Tunie nodded thoughtfully. “But we don't have any proof, and how would we explain what we know? We can't say a mummy told us to find a man with a nasal voice.” Perch glided down and landed expertly on the underside of a shop sign.

Peter agreed. “Yes, I think we need more.”

Tunie pushed back her headband, and Peter blinked.

“Where did you get that?”

“What?” Tunie asked. She looked around.