Trollhunters (7 page)

We were giggling; the danger of this trip never failed to thrill. Straight ahead was a door marked
STAFF ONLY
, but we knew it was unconnected to an alarm. Tub pushed through it and we
emerged into the same old ugly stairwell, onto the same old unpainted concrete steps. What was different this time was that Professor Lempke was standing half a flight above us, clipboard in hand,
staring at us in shock.

Kids could talk all day about the backbreaking Ms. Pinkton or the overbearing Coach Lawrence. But they didn’t know Professor Lempke. Quite possibly the most arrogant man in all of Southern
California, he clearly believed himself to be the rightful heir to the secretary of the Smithsonian and was just polishing up his résumé before he got the call. He ruled the San
Bernardino Historical Society Museum with a dictator’s fist, and though that was probably why it was a such an esteemed institution, it was also why kids avoided it. The guy expected everyone
to stand before art as one would stand before God, silent and penitent. If you were a little kid and squealed with delight, he’d ask you to leave. If you were elderly and coughed too much,
he’d make the same demand.

He was our nemesis and we were his.

Lempke whipped off his horn-rimmed glasses.

“For the last time, boys, this is not your playpen! Nor is this your playground shortcut!” He stuffed the glasses into the pocket of his tweed jacket and began stamping his way down
the stairs. Each step revealed argyle socks so scrupulously arranged that the diamond patterns on either ankle were in dizzying alignment.

Tub affected a contrite posture. I followed suit, hanging my head.

“This is a vaunted institution,” Lempke continued, “filled with works beyond your conceptions of value. Should your horseplay knock a bust from its pedestal or a canvas from
its frame, your parents would be in so much debt you’d be in the poorhouse before you could—”

“The poorhouse,” that was our cue. Tub jerked from his apologetic pose and went scrambling down the stairs. I was right behind him, beating at his shoulders, panicked and giddy all
at once. Lempke knew he’d never catch us in his stiff jacket and argyle socks, but he bent himself over the railing and raised his clipboard as if it were a throwing spear.

“By my count, you each owe me over nine-hundred dollars in admission fees! Don’t think I won’t collect! As soon as I get a free minute, there’s a call coming to your
mothers and fathers, mark my words!”

He had no idea that Tub lived with his grandmother and I only had one parent. Depressing thoughts usually, but for the moment the joke was on Lempke. We burst from a service entrance onto a
loading dock, laughing like mad, and we didn’t stop running until we were back on the road. We hung on to each other for a few minutes until we got to the first intersection, reliving the
escape through gasped sentence fragments.

We gathered our breath and grinned at each other. Our wounds from the long day no longer looked so pathetic. They looked like tattoos shared by warriors of the same tribe. I felt great. Then I
noticed the sky. It was dark, almost full night. We must have spent more time in that parking lot than I had thought.

Tub grabbed me around the neck and expelled an affectionate sigh.

“I know your pop’s uptight,” he said. “But, seriously, how worried could he be?”

A siren squelched. We looked down the perpendicular road and were bathed in swirling red-and-blue light.

Word on the street was that Sergeant Ben Gulager had been born with that lush mustache, and many a playground bounty had been placed on photographic evidence. It was just
Gulager’s third most notable physical feature. His hairpiece was also awe-inspiring, though only in its ineptitude, a black bowl-cut mop that always looked as if he had put it on
sideways.

Yet no one dared laugh at Sergeant Gulager. The hairpiece existed to conceal his most defining characteristic, a gruesome, puckered scar on his right temple. Ten years before he had been the
first responder to a domestic disturbance on the south side of the city, a garden-variety case of plate-throwing between husband and wife. But after Gulager arrived, things turned ugly, and the
father whipped out a gun and started waving it at the triplets huddled behind the sofa. Gulager had not hesitated to throw himself in front of the girls, taking a bullet to the skull at nearly
point-blank range.

His survival had been one of those miracles of physics at which doctors shrug. Surgeons judged it too risky to remove the nine-millimeter bullet from its position halfway between skull plate and
brain matter, and six months later Gulager was back on the force, no different except for a relentless stutter. The hair around the wound never grew back.

The mustache, though, that was pure style.

I can tell you from experience that one thing worse than being handed to your dad by a cop is being handed to your dad by a cop who is a local hero, a man who has never, as far as anyone can
tell, done anything wrong in his entire life, and would certainly never come home late enough to make his family worry.

“You realize, Mr. St-St-Sturges, that this can’t go on muh-muh-muh-much longer.”

Released from Gulager’s grip, I slunk across the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator. Through the open front door, I could see Tub slumped in the back of the police cruiser,
looking despondent behind the fiberglass.

Dad threw me a baleful glance before giving Gulager his most chastened look.

“Sergeant, you have my word. Jim Jr.’s a good boy, but in this matter I’m at a loss, same as you. I have told him, again and again,
emphasized
to him,
stressed
to him the importance of getting home on time. Nighttime is dangerous for everyone, but especially boys of Jim’s age—”

Gulager cleared his throat.

“Sir, it’s not J-J-Jim that I’m talking about.”

Dad adjusted his glasses by the Band-Aid and squinted.

Gulager drew a report book from his back pocket and flipped it open.

“May the twenty-sixth, seven-oh-five p.m. We picked him up a bluh-bluh-bluh-bluh-block away—”

“Well, that’s two blocks, really, if you count Oak Street—”

“June the fifth, seven-ten p.m., two huh-huh-hundred feet away—”

“It was raining that night. Anything can happen in the rain—”

“July the ninth. August the tenth. September the th-th-th-th-third.”

“Sergeant. I’d like to stop calling you. I would. But the world is a dangerous place. Surely, you of all people…”

Gulager raised an eyebrow and a portion of his gnarled scar dipped beneath the edge of the shaggy toupee. For a few seconds Dad looked obstinate before his shoulders sagged.

“I know,” he whispered. “I apologize.”

While he wasn’t being looked at, Gulager’s eyes flitted about the room, taking in the steel shutters, the three control panels’ worth of blinking lights, the front porch
security camera buzzing above his head. Lastly his eyes landed on me and I read his sympathy. I felt both grateful and offended. I stuck out my chin and Gulager sighed.

“Luh-luh-look, Mr. Sturges.” He crooked a thumb at his cruiser. “I need to drop off the portly one. I’m not going to raise any k-k-k-k-kind of official stink about this.
But I want to explain something, and I wuh-wuh-want you to pay attention. There
are
dangerous things out there. And those dangerous things n-n-n-n-n-need our attention. That’s why
you are not to call us again. Not for something like th-th-this. We cannot spare the manpower. Am I muh-muh-making myself perfectly clear?”

“Of course.” Dad’s voice was soft. “Thank you.”

Gulager held our eyes for a moment longer as if showing his willingness to listen if there was something else we wanted to say. But one thing we Sturgeses were good at was keeping our mouths
shut. Gulager nodded briskly enough that his boyish wig shimmied, snapped shut his report book, and turned away, donning his hat. The security camera tracked him on his way to the cruiser.

Dad closed the door and began the safety song of the ten different locks, though this rendition was more maudlin than I’d ever heard it:
Click. Rattle. Zing. Rattle. Clack-clack-clack.
Thunk. Crunch. Whisk. Rattle-rattle
. I held my breath for the final note, the conclusive
thud
. But Dad’s hand had quit working. His thumb slid off the deadbolt and dangled at
his side.

When he faced me, his lips were quivering.

“I have my reasons, Jimmy. I know it seems unfair. All I’m asking is that you honor my request. Be home before dark. Son? Please? Be home before dark?”

I felt anger. I felt frustration. I felt pity. All were emotions I didn’t like feeling about my dad. He was losing it. Year by year, day by day, he was getting worse, and it reminded me
too much of myself in the school parking lot that afternoon, jumping at shadows and hallucinating monsters.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I just don’t get why.”

He leaned in, so close I could smell the salt of his welling tears.

“Because it is not safe.”
His jaw shook; the teeth rattled. “I’ve lost too much already, and I promised myself it wouldn’t happen again. And it
won’t, not on my watch.”

I don’t know what he saw when he looked at me. It wasn’t the cheekbone bruise from my trash compacting or the blisters on my hands from the gymnasium rope or the scuffed knees from
the parking lot chase. As always he was distracted by his own murky memories of the older brother who once called him “Jimbo.” He turned, punched complicated codes into all three
control panels and waited for the varied automated responses:
Residence Secured. Total Lockdown Achieved. Safety Mode 3-A Initiated
. He flicked a switch and nighttime floodlights bathed
the front and back yards. Neighbor dogs to both sides of our house howled their nightly disapproval.

Dad moved down the hall in his slippers, not making a sound. He entered his bedroom, closed the door, and after thirty seconds I heard the soft sounds of a familiar song playing from his old
speakers, a syrupy tune I’d been hearing all of my life, some song by an oldies group called Don and Juan.

“I stood on this corner, / Waiting for you to come along, / So my heart could feel satisfi-i-i-ied
.…
”