Thumb and the Bad Guys (2 page)

“I know. But wouldn't our lives be a little less boring if we spent
just a little time looking for a bad guy? Sure, we know that nothing ever happens
during the daytime. But what about at night?”

“Night?”

“Most criminals work at night, right?” I asked excitedly. “So if
anybody here is doing bad-guy stuff then they probably work at night.”

I stopped and thought for a moment and then whispered, “We need to
stake out the village.”

“Stake out this village? Nobody even jaywalks here.”

“That's because there aren't any streets.”

“Well, nobody would jaywalk if there were streets. We know everybody
here. We know their favorite colors and their hobbies and what books they have on
their shelves. There are no bad guys living in New Auckland, Thumb.”

I smiled.

“Maybe not,” I said. “But even the possible existence of one single
bad guy could be a little exciting, right? We could stay out late and watch the
village for a couple of nights, couldn't we? We could be sneaky but in a good way
since we'd be crime fighters. We'd have a secret that nobody else would know.”

“A secret?” asked Susan.

I knew she liked secrets.

“Our secret,” I said softly, making sure that nobody else could
hear.

“Our secret,” said Susan, more to herself than to me.

“Tomorrow night? Ten o'clock?”

“Why wait?”

“Tonight is a school night.”

“I'll meet you by the fire truck,” said Susan, her eyes glancing around
to make sure nobody else could hear. “At dusk.”

2
STAKEOUT

IT'S HARD TO SNEAK
OUT
of a house that only has four rooms – two bedrooms, a living room/
kitchen and a bathroom. It's even harder when only the bathroom has walls that go
all the way to the ceiling. It's harder still when you share the house with your dad
and he's the principal of the school so he stays up most nights grading papers and
filling out reports.

I knew I could fit through my bedroom window, but I also knew that
trying to sneak out the window would make a lot of noise.

It would be easier on a Friday night. Dad didn't grade papers on
Fridays because Mayor Semanov usually came over to talk politics. Mayor Semanov was
our mayor when we needed one. He was mayor mostly because he had a loud voice.

We held all village meetings in the school gym. There was a microphone
and an amplifier up at the school, but it hissed and popped and tended to amplify
almost every sound except for voices. It was easier to make Big Charlie Semanov our
mayor than it was to fix the school's sound system.

Big Charlie liked to make speeches even when he was just sitting
around and talking with Dad. I knew that once he started a speech I could crawl out
the window and Dad wouldn't hear.

After dinner Mayor Semanov did come over. He wanted to talk about Miss
Mitchell, the teacher who had left on Thursday's seaplane. Miss Mitchell had been
the teacher for the older grades. She was a city woman who came to New Auckland
because she said she wanted to live close to nature.

It hardly ever snows in New Auckland and even when it does, the snow
melts by noon. But the wind from the ocean can work its way through the fabric of
any coat and the walls of any house.

After a winter in New Auckland, Miss Mitchell decided to keep nature
at a more respectful distance.

Yesterday, Max the pilot and a couple of fishermen unloaded our
groceries from the seaplane and set them on the dock. Just as Max started to climb
back inside his plane, Miss Mitchell ran out of the teacher's house where she'd been
living. She was rolling two huge suitcases along the wooden sidewalk behind her and
they clanked as the wheels hit the gaps between each board. As she ran, she yelled
for Max to wait.

As soon as Miss Mitchell stopped next to the seaplane Big Charlie, our
mayor, politely tossed her suitcases onto the back seat. Miss Mitchell caught her
breath, nodded a thank-you and scrambled into the plane.

Everyone on the dock just waved. They knew she was leaving for good
and there was nothing much to do except smile and say good luck.

Teachers and visitors often left New Auckland suddenly. People left
for lots of reasons.

One evening some fishermen from Florida arrived at our dock and asked
if we had a vacant house they could use for a week. We did but they left after one
night. They said they just couldn't sleep knowing the mountain behind the village
could drop boulders on their heads.

I don't know how people can be so afraid of boulders falling when they
live next to streets where cars speed by and airplanes fly over your house. I suppose
it's just a matter of being comfortable with what you know.

The night before they left, one of those fishermen told us about
swimming in a Florida spring that flows into the St. Johns River. The spring water
was cool and crystal clear and when you were underwater you could see alligators in
the warmer river waters a hundred yards away. The spring water was too cold for
those gators so they just licked their toothy lips and stared longingly at all the
swimmers splashing and yelling and having fun.

“Weren't you scared?” I asked the guy from Florida who told us about
swimming so close to gators.

“No,” he said, laughing. “You get used to it. Reptiles can't swim into
cold water. They just can't do it.”

I thought he was so brave but he left the village the next morning,
shaking and staring bug-eyed at the mountains like they were haunted.

The only mountains in Florida are in amusement parks.

Sitting in our living room, Dad was calmly telling Big Charlie that
the school board had already hired another teacher and she was coming soon, maybe
even that weekend. We needed another teacher fast. There were only two teachers at
the school, including Dad.

I wanted Big Charlie to start talking loudly to mask the sound of me
slipping through the window, so I said goodnight and then casually mentioned that
I'd heard on the radio that the federal government might reduce fishing quotas for
salmon. I knew that government decisions about fishing quotas made Big Charlie mad,
and when he was mad his voice could shake the walls of our house.

It worked, of course. I covered the pillows on my bed with sheets so
they looked like me and was out the window and sneaking toward the fire truck in less
than a minute.

Susan was late.

“Sorry,” she said when she finally arrived.

“What took you so long?”

“Mom always goes to bed early but Dad only goes to bed early when he
plans on fishing early. Tonight he wanted us all to sit around and talk.”

“So, how did you escape?”

“It was easy. Your dad and Big Charlie came over, all upset. Big
Charlie heard that fishing quotas might be reduced. He wants to start a
petition.”

I laughed.

“Shh,” said Susan. “I don't think we should be laughing on a
stakeout.”

“You're right. Let's hide inside the fire truck.”

Last year, after a small fire in a shed which we put out with a bucket
brigade, Big Charlie asked the federal government for a saltwater pump. Our federal
Member of Parliament, who was up for re-election, wrote back and said that he could
arrange for the government to send us a used fire truck. We reminded our MP that
there were no roads in New Auckland, but we got a fire truck anyway. We took out the
pump and used the truck as a huge piece of playground equipment.

The fire truck sat on the sand halfway between the school and the
houses in our village. New Auckland was tucked into a large bay with a narrow
entrance, and we actually faced away from the ocean with a huge mountain behind us.
All of the houses in our village were lined up in two rows that faced the beach.

Susan climbed behind the steering wheel, and I sat beside her. A light
breeze swept through the cab.

“Dad told Big Charlie that we're getting another teacher soon,” I
whispered. “Maybe even this weekend.”

“Good,” she said. And then she asked, “If there is a bad guy in our
village, do you have any suspects?”

I liked the word suspect.

“Do you?”

“I asked first.”

I paused.

“I know that really bad guys can be fake nice and pretend to be your
friend,” I said.

“How do you know that, Thumb?”

“Movies.”

“So you don't know anything, right?”

“Look, it doesn't make any difference. I have my suspect.”

“Who?”

“Kirk McKenna,” I said quietly.

Kirk McKenna was a toothless, bald fisherman who was always borrowing
Annie Pritchard's boat because his own broke down so often. He only weighed about
130 pounds, most of it skin that seemed to hang from his arms and legs and belly and
even his ears.

“Why?” asked Susan.

“He spits,” I said.

Susan's eyes narrowed. She knew I was right. Kirk McKenna was always
spitting. During Thursday night movies he didn't even sit in the stands. He stood
beside the gym door and kept turning his head so he could spit outside.

No plants grew close to that door.

When Kirk McKenna walked along the cedar sidewalk that ran in front of
all the houses in our village, he didn't turn his head and spit onto the sand.
Instead, he spat three feet in front of him.

It rains a lot in New Auckland, and the cedar sidewalk was usually wet
from the rain or fog or just the damp ocean air. But even though the sidewalk was
almost always wet, you could still see a stain every place Kirk McKenna's spit had
landed. Each drop looked like a tiny oil slick. Dad figured that every inch of that
sidewalk would eventually be soaked with Kirk McKenna's spit.

“So we're waiting to see if Mr. McKenna is a bad guy because he
spits?”

“A lot. He spits a lot. And if Kirk McKenna cared about people then
he'd at least turn his head and spit on the sand.”

“Good point.”

People started turning off their lights. We saw Dad and Mayor Semanov
and Susan's dad step out of her house. They all shook hands and said goodnight.

I was a little nervous, wondering if Dad might check on me before he
went to bed. He didn't, though. A few minutes after he got home, the lights in our
house went out, too.

I was used to seeing lots of stars but was surprised to see that the
number of stars seemed to double when the village was dark. The mountains around us
were visible mostly because they weren't visible at all. They were black shapes
where no stars could be seen.

“Next time let's bring a blanket,” I said.

“You think there's going to be a next time?”

“Aren't you having fun?”

“Well, I can only say that sitting here in the dark when I could be
sleeping is making me wonder why staking out the village seemed like such a good way
to fight boredom, especially when – ”

“Shh,” I said.

“What?”

“I see a shadow moving between the houses. It's coming this way.”

Susan and I both ducked lower so we couldn't be seen. I heard the
gentle lap of waves slapping the beach and the sound of boat hulls nudging against
the dock. I also heard the sound of a person trudging through the sand, heading
right toward us.

Susan heard it, too. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly. The
person stopped right beside the fire truck.

And then I heard a sound I recognized because I had heard it so many
times before.

Somebody, leaning against the fire truck and looking back at the
village, spat.

3
A SECRET HIDING PLACE

SUSAN AND I HUDDLED
TOGETHER
and listened. She wasn't bored any more. She was scared.

Kirk McKenna hummed a tuneless song while he tapped his fingers on the
fire truck. When the song was finished, he spat one last time before walking behind
the school.

We knew where he was heading. Only one trail left the village. It
sneaked through boulders behind the school and then slowly climbed Linda Evers
Mountain. Five minutes up the trail there was a large pond on a small plateau.

The pond was created by a clear mountain stream that flowed into it and
then back out, before cascading into the ocean not far from our village. The pond
was about the size of a little league baseball diamond, and it was very deep and
very clean. It was one of the main reasons we had a village. We piped fresh water
from it down to our houses.

We sent water samples out with Max the pilot about once a month. We'd
never had any problems with the water except for one time when a family of beavers
decided that our pond would make a good home. We never did figure out how those
beavers knew that if they climbed halfway up a mountain they'd find a place to live.
Maybe beavers can smell fresh water. Or maybe there were beavers wandering over all
our mountains, searching for places to settle.