Thumb and the Bad Guys (8 page)

“It was kind of obvious that you and Thumb were sneaking around and
having fun, so we decided just to see what you'd do next. Hey, it was fun for us,
too. We liked following you and trying to figure out just what in the world you were
doing. And, Thumb, since you put pillows in your bed and climbed out the window, you
will be punished.”

“We knew you'd be hiding in that fire truck tonight so we told you we
had to go to a meeting and came up earlier and waited for you,” added Mayor Semanov.
“Kirk led you right to us. We had fun being sneaky, right?”

“Right,” echoed voices around us.

“Doesn't anyone want to hear me play the bagpipes?” asked Kirk
McKenna.

“Actually,” said Susan. “I do.”

“Me, too,” I said.

So Kirk McKenna led us into his shed and closed the door so that the
sounds he made wouldn't drift down to the village and across the bay and scare kids
or call wolves or confuse the sonar systems in whales and submarines under the
ocean.

Susan and I learned something very important that night. We learned
that even though no bad guys lived in New Auckland, British Columbia, one very bad
bagpipe player did.

13
BELONGING

THE TOWN MEETING HAD
BEEN
called so that everyone could hear more about what we had found on
Black Bear Hump.

The provincial museum would be sending up a crew of archeologists to
dig for evidence that New Auckland was the earliest known site of any European
artifacts on the north coast. Our village would be famous.

Mayor Semanov was already trying to figure out where the tourists would
sleep and how much they might pay for food and souvenirs and guided tours and
pictures taken with the cannonball that had sat on the sand in front of his house
for years, ignored. He'd built a small hut around it, like a doghouse, so that it
wasn't exposed to the sun and the rain.

There was another reason for the meeting, of course.

It was a chance for me to pretend to take off my thumb for Ms.
Weatherly and then wiggle my real thumb and scare her in front of the entire
village.

People had been stopping her on the sidewalk and grinning and shaking
her hand and telling her that they wouldn't dream of missing such an exciting
morning. She'd even been told that the fishing boats would stay in the harbor so that
all of the fishermen could attend.

She did not know that the reason everyone was so excited was not so
that they could celebrate our remarkable discovery, but so that they could see her
reaction when my thumb, lying in a bed of cotton inside the beautiful wooden box
that Annie Pritchard had carved for this very purpose, wiggled.

I have to confess that while I had a nickname that I liked far more
than my real name, I didn't always like wiggling my thumb and scaring people. I
particularly didn't like it when the person who was being fooled was a nice person
like Ms. Weatherly, who was also my teacher and who would be giving me a grade at
the end of the school year.

I dressed in my favorite shirt and pants and combed my hair a little
more than usual. Then I slipped Annie Pritchard's wooden box into my jacket pocket
and made my way to the gym.

The bleachers were filled. People smiled at me and winked. I waved and
sat by Susan near the front.

Dad came over and nodded toward the door. I looked. Kirk McKenna stood
at his usual spot, but he was wearing a kilt and long plaid socks and a dark jacket
with a plaid shawl over one shoulder. The hat on his head looked like a flat, burnt
pancake.

He seemed a little less grumpy as he turned his head and spat. A black
suitcase with silver clasps rested close to his feet.

Dad leaned over and whispered, “We decided you were right. Kirk
McKenna shouldn't have to hide in the woods. We're going to let him play.”

I was sort of disappointed. Susan and I had solved a mystery and been
told a secret that only the adults shared. Now everyone would know.

Dad nodded at Kirk and then walked to the middle of the gym so he
could sit beside our mayor behind a table.

Kirk McKenna quickly put together his favorite bagpipe, blew air into
the bag and marched into the gym, playing. He finished and smiled at the audience.
Nobody asked for an encore but he left grinning.

After everyone had recovered their hearing, Dad and Mayor Semanov
motioned for Ms. Weatherly to join them.

Ms. Weatherly was wearing a dark blue dress, and she carried a purse.
I don't think I had ever seen anyone carry a purse before, at least not in New
Auckland. She had decided not to wear make-up but she still wore her wig with the
tight nylon curls. Big Charlie stood up and held out a chair for her.

She sat down, and Big Charlie cleared his voice and began.

“Thank all of you for coming. We are here, of course, to honor our new
teacher, Ms. Weatherly. She discovered something about our village that we had never
noticed. Sometimes, when you live in a place and pass by objects every day, you just
don't question what they are or why they are where they happen to be. Ms.
Weatherly,” said Big Charlie Semanov, our sometimes mayor, “thank you.”

Big Charlie started to clap and everyone in the bleachers clapped,
too.

Ms. Weatherly blushed and, at Big Charlie's urging, she stood up to
say a few words.

“Thank you all,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I must say
that I have enjoyed my short time here in New Auckland. It is one of the most
beautiful places I have ever seen and you people have been so nice. You seem to have
everything.”

“Except a doctor,” broke in Big Charlie. “Although we can get good
medical care pretty quickly. I mean, they didn't manage to sew Thumb's thumb back on
but they did manage to stuff it and put some tiny screws in the side. It looks
almost real. Has Thumb taken it off for you yet?”

I thought he was being a little too obvious, but Ms. Weatherly didn't
seem to notice.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Well, come on down here, Thumb, and show Ms. Weatherly that medical
miracle, your very re-attached thumb which you can definitely and without question or
doubt remove.”

People clapped again, for me this time, and I could see my friends and
neighbors start to lean forward.

Big Bette never could manage to keep a straight face whenever I was
about to pretend to take off my thumb. I glanced at her. She was trying to hide her
grin behind a book. Her eyes, filled with excitement, peered over the top.

I walked down to the table and stood beside it, facing the audience.
Ms. Weatherly stood beside me. I wiggled my thumb for her and then pulled Annie's
wooden box out of my pocket. I put the box in my other hand and reached back inside
my pocket for a small screwdriver. The screwdriver was part of the act.

“I'm a little shy about taking my thumb off in front of people,” I
muttered and then turned my back to Ms. Weatherly and the crowd.

I knew that Big Charlie would be moving into position. He always tried
to stand behind my victims so he could catch them if they fainted.

I pretended to screw off my thumb and then I put the screwdriver back
into my pocket. I slid my perfectly good and perfectly attached thumb into the hole
at the bottom of the wooden box and then up and onto the cotton where it was
supposed to rest. I adjusted the cotton and then closed the lid to the box.

Holding the wooden box in both hands, I sighed, fixed a smile on my
face and then turned around again, showing Ms. Weatherly and the audience the wooden
box in my hands.

“I'll open the box,” I said softly. And I did.

Ms. Weatherly looked inside. She moved her head a little closer,
trying to get a better look.

When she'd had a good long look, I wiggled my thumb.

I'd wiggled my thumb for maybe twenty visitors to our village. Most
screamed. One fainted. Two just laughed. One backed off the dock and fell into the
bay. Three sort of looked puzzled. One grinned and said, “Do that again.”

Until Ms. Weatherly I had never had anyone stand up straight, scream
and then pull hair out of her wig. Actually, Ms. Weatherly probably didn't pull. She
just ran her hands along the sides of her head and dozens of tiny nylon curls fell
to the floor.

Instead of catching Ms. Weatherly, Mayor Semanov tried to catch her
curls.

Ms. Weatherly stopped screaming and looked back at Big Charlie. She
glanced at her hands, each of which was full of blonde ringlets.

“I never lost my thumb,” I told her quietly. “It's just a dumb
joke.”

Ms. Weatherly looked at me and then at the curls in her hand,
mystified. I knew she wouldn't stay mystified for much longer, a few seconds at most.

For the first time, I was ashamed of being Thumb. Ms. Weatherly had
done something good for the whole village and we ruined it by embarrassing her. I
felt like a groom at a wedding who decides to wear one of those bow ties that lights
up and twirls.

It just wasn't a very good idea.

I liked Ms. Weatherly. She was a good teacher. And now she'd probably
leave on the Thursday plane.

“So, taking off your thumb is like some kind of initiation rite?”
asked Ms. Weatherly, turning to look at the entire audience. People had stopped
laughing and just looked at her. I could tell by their faces that they didn't want
her to be hurt or embarrassed. They liked her.

“It's exactly like an initiation rite,” I said softly.

“And did I pass?” she asked, starting to smile.

“Definitely.”

“Are there any more surprises?”

“Nope.”

“So, I belong now?”

“Belong to what?”

“To the village.”

“Yeah. You do.”

“Then I'll stop wearing this stupid wig,” Ms. Weatherly said as she
pulled the bathing cap off her head. She had very short, very white hair. “Since
I've passed your initiation rite, can I stay?” she asked loudly.

“Yes,” everyone said together.

She bowed to the audience and said, loudly enough for everyone to
hear, “Then you've got me.”

People clapped and cheered more loudly than they had when she'd merely
been introduced as a teacher who'd discovered something amazing.

Ms. Weatherly smiled, and I knew that she'd be our teacher for the
rest of that year and for years to come and that, after she finally retired, she
would stay.

She couldn't possibly leave.

She belonged.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KEN ROBERTS
is
the author of several popular books for young readers, including
Hiccup Champion of the World, Crazy Ideas, Pop Bottles, Nothing
Wright, Past Tense
(shortlisted for a Governor General's Award) and two
highly praised previous Thumb books –
The Thumb in the
Box
and
Thumb on a Diamond
. Ken is chief
librarian of the Hamilton Public Library and is currently president of the Canadian
Library Association. He lives with his family near Brantford, Ontario.