Vanishing Passenger (6 page)

Mr. Van Buren smiled. “Ah, you’d rather have Gil at your library than me, huh?”

The children were quick to say no, of course not, but Mr. Van Buren knew better.

“That’s okay, his books have always been a bit more popular than mine, the little rat. But that’ll change someday,” he said.

“For now, though,” Jessie said, “We should go find him.”

“And get Max back to his family!” Benny added.

Mr. Van Buren nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “Okay, everyone, I’ll do the driving. To the garage!”

The main road between Allerton and Greenfield was a three-lane highway bustling with cars and trucks moving at high speeds. Van Buren drove a big car that groaned like an old lawn mower. The children, strapped into their seats, looked everywhere for signs of Mr. Finch as they bounced along.

“I was building that other car in my free time,” Van Buren told them, speaking loudly because of all the road noise. “It’s sort of my hobby, fixing up old cars. Then I sell them and give the money to charity.”

“That’s so nice!” Violet said.

Van Buren nodded. “I get to do something I enjoy, and people who really need money, get it. That way, everybody wins.”

“If Mr. Finch took the car in the first place,” Jessie said, “then it must run okay, right?”

“Well,” Van Buren replied, “I don’t want to bore you with technical details, but no. It’ll run for awhile, but then it’ll get too hot and conk out. He certainly won’t be able to make it to Greenfield. He’s got to be on the road somewhere, broken down.”

Jessie checked her watch again. It was nearly four o’clock. They only had a few hours left.

One hour was wasted zooming up and down the highway, looking for any signs of Van Buren’s car. The children called Ms. Connally to find out if perhaps Finch had somehow made it and was already there. He hadn’t.

By five-thirty, the Aldens began to lose hope.

“He’s not anywhere on this road,” Violet said. “We’ve been up and down twice already. There’s no way we could have missed him!”

Henry was still looking out the window, saying nothing. Then he suddenly turned around, his eyes wide. “Wait a minute!”

“Do you see him?” Benny asked.

“No, but I was just thinking … Mr. Finch probably left a few hours ago. The housekeeper said he wasn’t there when she got back.”

“So?” Jessie asked. She didn’t see where Henry was going with any of this. Neither did anyone else.

“So, why would Mr. Finch take this road? He wouldn’t need to hurry. He would’ve had plenty of time!”

A smile broke out on Jessie’s face. “Oh yeah …”

“And that got me thinking about something else in his books,” Henry went on. “Have you ever noticed how his characters always avoid main roads when they can?

How they always take back roads instead?” Mr. Van Buren nodded. “Ah yes, that’s right. And that reminds me of something else, too—I remember the first time Gil went down your way. He was visiting some old college friends who lived close to Greenfield. He decided to drive down instead of taking the train. The day after, he called and told me about this beautiful back road he’d discovered. He said it was so much prettier than the highway. All rolling hills and trees, which he likes. Quiet and beautiful.”

“That has to be where he is now!” Benny said. “Let’s go!”

The back road was exactly as Mr. Van Buren had described it—quiet and beautiful. It cut through a valley surrounded by tree-covered hills. And a lazy river followed it most of the way, the sun sparkling on its rippled surface.

For the first half hour they saw no other cars at all. Jessie checked her watch one last time. “Six o’clock. Only an hour left. And it’ll take us almost that long just to get back to the library!”

Henry nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “It looks like he’s not here. And we shouldn’t be late.”

Mr. Van Buren added, “Oh well—I guess everyone in Greenfield is going to have to settle for me tonight!”

He pulled off to the side and began turning around. He decided to head back to the highway, where he could get to Greenfield faster.

Then Benny spotted something out the back window.

“Hey, wait a minute!” he said. “What’s that over there? It looks like smoke!”

They all looked. Sure enough, far in the distance, there was a faint puff of smoke rising from behind the next hill.

Jessie said, “We should definitely check it out, but we have to hurry!”

Van Buren spun the wheel and sped off. As they neared the top of the hill, everyone strained to see over it. The moment they reached the peak, they saw the old green car, sitting on the shoulder with its hood up and smoke billowing from the radiator.

The Aldens let out a group cheer.

Then they had one last scare—when Van Buren pulled up alongside the old car, there was no one in it.

“Oh no!” Violet said. “He’s not here!”

“Yes he is,” Jessie replied, pointing through the windshield. “Right there!”

They saw a man a few hundred feet ahead, going down the lonely road on foot, with a little white dog next to him. Since Mr. Finch didn’t have a leash, he had attached his necktie to Max’s collar.

Gilbert Finch was walking to Greenfield.

Van Buren pulled up alongside him and said, “Hey, stranger, need a lift?”

Finch looked more tired than anyone the Aldens had ever seen. He was filthy and sweaty.

He still managed a smile, though.

“Danny boy! Fancy meeting you out here! Here in … uh … “

“The middle of nowhere?” Van Buren asked.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Then Finch noticed the Aldens. He pointed to them and looked back to Van Buren. “Nieces and nephews?” he asked.

Van Buren laughed. “No, but I believe you already know them—they’re the Aldens, from Greenfield.”

“The Aldens!” Mr. Finch said, clearly shocked. He stepped forward and stuck his head in the window. “What are you doing all the way out here? Shouldn’t you be back at the library, waiting for me to not show up?”

The children were almost out of breath from laughter.

“Hop in and they can tell you the whole story on the way,” said Mr. Van Buren.

“Okay,” Finch said. He opened the door and let Max jump in. The dog scurried to the back and jumped right into Benny’s lap. Finch shut the door and put on his seatbelt.

“If we hurry, we should make it just in time for our talk,” Van Buren said.

“Sounds good,” Finch replied, then said, “Wait a minute.
Our
talk? What does that mean?”

“Uh, we’ll have to explain that, too,” Mr. Van Buren replied, smiling.

Mr. Finch looked back at the Aldens helplessly. They just shrugged.

As they got moving, Henry whispered, “This should be a very interesting trip.”

The two authors argued all the way down to Greenfield—whose books were better and why, whose books would still be famous in a hundred years, whose books had spelling mistakes, and so on. But through it all, the Aldens could tell that Finch and Van Buren were old friends.

Just as they reached town, Henry said, “Mr. Finch? Can I ask you something?”

Finch turned around, leaning an arm over the back of the seat. “Sure, Henry.”

“It’s about Max,” he said, nodding towards the dog. Max hadn’t moved from Benny’s lap the entire trip. “How did he get loose in the first place?”

“Ah, well, that was my fault I’m afraid.

When the train passed through the rainstorm, Max began whimpering. I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, so I unlocked his cage, took him out, and sat him on my lap. I tried to quiet him down by stroking his fur and talking softly to him, but it didn’t seem to help. So I put him back in the cage, and I guess I didn’t lock it right, because a few moments later he was jumping off the train!”

“But how did he get out of the car in the first place?” Violet asked. “Surely he wasn’t strong enough to open that heavy metal door!”

“No, but I was,” Finch told them. “You see, one of my favorite smells in the world is the air on a rainy day. After I put Max back in his cage, I opened the door when we stopped in Allerton to take a deep breath. The rain was coming down really hard, and it smelled wonderful. So I was standing there with the door open and my eyes closed, and the train started pulling out of the station. That’s when Max scurried past me and jumped out the door!”

“Ah,” said Henry, “and you felt you had to go after him—”

“Right, because I’m the one who let him out in the first place.”

“Okay,” Henry said, nodding. “That makes sense.”

“That also explains why you left your bag on the train,” Jessie said. “You didn’t have time to get it.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about it,” Finch told her. “By the time I realized I’d left it on the train, I’d already caught our little friend over there.” Then he asked, “And how did you know I was in the fourth car on the train? No one was supposed to be there.”

“The granola-bar wrapper,” Jessie said. “We found one there, then another one in the parking lot, and in your briefcase.”

“You used one to try to get Max out from under that red truck, right?” Violet asked.

“That’s correct.”

“And what about that note in your notepad?” Violet went on. “The one about Mr. Van Buren? You wrote, ‘What should I do about Van Buren?’”

Finch laughed and looked at Van Buren. “Just a reminder to myself. I was trying to figure out whether or not I should stop in and visit him on the way back from Greenfield.”

“No need to worry about that now,” Van Buren said.

“Nope.”

“And your cell phone? It stopped working?”

“Right, it got all wet. I managed to make that one call to your house before it died. I had no charger, either, and none of the phones in Allerton worked.” He laughed and shook his head. “Can you believe it? With all the technology we have today, I couldn’t get a message through just a few towns away.”

They pulled into the library parking lot and were shocked to find the entire crowd standing outside on the lawn, waiting. Jessie had called Ms. Connally during the trip to let her know what was happening. Ms. Connally was thrilled that they would have not one but two great authors appearing that evening. Grandfather was there, too, looking very proud. So was Mrs. Blake, holding copies of all her Finch books, ready for him to sign.

The Taylors had made it as well. The moment Finch opened the door of Van Buren’s car, Max jumped out and raced over to them. The two children were so happy to see their dog again! Max jumped on them and licked their faces, his tail whirling around like a propeller.

As everyone got out of the car, the crowd began clapping and cheering. Finch and Van Buren waved and smiled. The Aldens stepped aside, but then Ms. Connally told them the crowd was applauding for them, too.

“If it wasn’t for the four of you, this wonderful night would never have happened!” she said.

The children grinned. When the applause finally died down, everyone began walking inside.

Mr. Finch turned to Mr. Van Buren and said, “You know what, Danny Boy?”

“What’s that?”

“I suddenly have a fantastic idea for a story. It’s about these four smart youngsters who have to find a crazy old man who foolishly got lost on his way to see them.”

He turned around and smiled at the Aldens, who were too startled to say anything.

“Sounds like a winner to me,” Van Buren said, patting his old friend on the shoulder. “I wonder what our faithful readers will think?”

“I’m pretty sure
I’ll
like it!” Benny said, grinning.

THE END

G
ERTRUDE
C
HANDLER
W
ARNER
discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book,
The Boxcar Children,
quickly proved she had succeeded.

Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car — the situation the Alden children find themselves in.

When Miss Warner received requests for more adventures involving Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden, she began additional stories. In each, she chose a special setting and introduced unusual or eccentric characters who liked the unpredictable.

While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner’s books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens’ independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible — something else that delights young readers.

Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her books.

The Boxcar Children Mysteries

T
HE
B
OXCAR
C
HILDREN