Wanderville (9 page)

“W
here did all that stuff come from?”

Frances couldn't believe it. There was a coil of rope, a horse blanket, a small hammer, three horseshoes, and two muslin sheets. All of it laid out on the rock by the creek bank. Somehow it had all appeared in Alexander's arms the moment they'd come back to the ravine.

“No, really,” Frances demanded. “Where did it all
come
from?”

“I told you,” Alexander said. “I just liberated a few things from that stable in Whitmore. Plus some sheets from a clothesline.”

Jack was laughing. “This fellow is
fast
 . . . ,” he tried to explain to Frances. “I saw him pop back in the stable for just a second, and then—”

“He ‘liberated' some stuff,” Frances finished for him. Then she turned to Alexander. “You sure are clever,” she said sarcastically.

“I suppose I am,” said Alexander with a smirk.

“Your mug won't look too clever once I've liberated a few teeth from your head,” Frances snarled. “With my
fist
.”

Alexander's smirk vanished. His eyes got wide.

Frances burst out laughing. “Kidding,” she said. Jack and Harold joined in, and then finally Alexander shook his head and grinned.

“Okay, you got me,” he said sheepishly. “And, look, I know you don't approve of the . . . you know . . .”

“The stealing,” Frances said.

“But these are things we can
use
here in our town as we build it,” Alexander said.

“He's just following the second law of Wanderville,” Harold pointed out. He'd picked up the horse blanket and wrapped himself in it.

“Besides, you asked me to show you everything I know about surviving,” Alexander said. “And this is one of them.”

“He's right, Frances,” said Jack. He'd only just now stopped glancing over his shoulder to be sure that no one—not the sheriff, not Mrs. Routh, not that Pratcherd lady—had seen them.

“Fair enough,” she said. She walked over and picked up the hammer, nudging the rope with her foot. “So, Alexander the Great, what else can you show us between now and supper?”

They started with knot-tying lessons. Jack seemed to lack the patience to sit on the log bench practicing bowlines, so Alexander showed them how to get a rope looped around a tall tree branch without climbing the tree. Frances and Harold watched while Jack threw the rope and pulled it taut.

“Guess it's not too hard,” Jack said. It was like when he'd help his mother loop her clothesline over the fire escape rails.

Frances was looking up at the rope. “What kind of knots would you need to tie at the end to turn that rope into a good swing?” she asked.

“Excellent question!” Alexander replied. “A few figure eights would do the trick.”

“Then show me,” Frances said.

Frances proved to be a quick study with the knots. She figured it came from her needlework lessons at the orphanage. “Crochet's just a fancy kind of knotting,” she said.

An hour later, everyone had tried the rope swing and agreed that Frances deserved high marks
in knot-tying.

The berry-foraging lesson turned out to be a berry-foraging lecture, since it was still May and berries weren't in season yet. But Alexander still tried to give the others a few tips that were easy to remember.

“Do you like red licorice or the black kind?” Alexander asked Harold.

“Red!” Harold said. “The black licorice tastes funny.”

“Well, it's sort of the opposite with berries,” Alexander explained. “The black and dark purple ones are more likely to be edible than the red ones.”

Jack raised his hand. “Actually, I like black licorice better. Does that mean I should look for red berries instead?”

“No, no,” Alexander said. “I was just trying to illustrate a point about how it's better to look for black berries than red ones. Also, you should
never
eat white berries.”

Harold raised his hand. “What about white licorice?”

“There's no such thing as white licorice,” Jack said.

“There is too,” Harold insisted.

Frances raised her hand. “Wait, I was practicing my knots and I wasn't paying attention. Can you repeat the part about making licorice? Do you have to boil the berries or something?”

“Never mind,” Alexander sighed. “Let's just move on to building campfires.”

The fire lesson didn't start off so smoothly, either.

“You can start gathering fuel over there,” Alexander told Jack and Frances, pointing over to the wooded area across the creek. Then he watched as they paced back and forth around the trees, staring at the ground.

“What on earth are you looking for?” he called over to them.

“Coal,” Jack called back.

“Are we going to have to dig for it or something?” Frances asked.

“Criminy!” Alexander said, laughing. “City kids.”

Alexander showed them how to find flint rock in the creek.

“To start a fire,” he explained. “For when we don't have matches.”

Frances and Jack took turns chipping the flint against the hatchet until they'd lit the kindling that Harold had found. They all stood back to admire the blaze.

“It's beautiful,” Frances whispered.

“It's just the beginning,” Alexander said. “We can get some lanterns so that Wanderville will have streetlights. We'll build a lean-to against those trees over there for shelter when it rains. And then we'll set up a bridge over the creek, and a springhouse, so we can keep food cool when the weather gets warmer.” He turned and looked in every direction, even up at the sky, before turning back to stare at the fire.

“When is it going to be a real town?” Harold asked.

“You know,” Alexander said. “I think it's already becoming one. Look around.”

They all looked. There was the courthouse, with the sitting log and rock and the wall of small stones that Harold had lined up that morning. There was the rope swing, and over by the hotel trees, Jack had hung and knotted the muslin sheets to make hammocks. There were even nails on the trees for hanging clothes and tin cups—Frances had driven them in with the new hammer. And then there was the fireplace, where they were all gathered.

The place looked different than it had just that morning, Jack realized.

It looked like more than just a campsite, Frances thought.

Alexander was right. It was becoming a real town.

“H
ey, Alexander the Great,” Jack called over from the campfire that evening. “Who ‘donated' these sausages?”

Jack picked up the pan the sausages were cooking in and gave it a shake, just as Alexander had shown him. The sausages sizzled and gave off a savory-sweet fragrance, and he couldn't wait to have the drippings over corn bread at supper.

“There's a butcher's establishment on Second Street in Whitmore,” Alexander said. “It's run by a fellow who likes to sit out in front of his store and read dime novels when business is slow. It seems he leaves the back door unlatched.”

“Why, that's awfully nice of him,” Jack said, checking the corn bread.

“Fellow has no idea how generous he's been,” Alexander remarked as he stopped by the campfire. “Too bad those are the last of the sausages for now. But I have to say, Jack of All Trades, you're doing a fine job cooking them up.”

“No, cook faster!” Harold called. “I'm hungry!”

“Settle down, kid,” said Frances distractedly. She had taken out her book, the
Third Eclectic Reader
with the broken spine, and was looking through it. “We'll just have to wait.” But Harold kept squirming in his seat on the courthouse log, so Frances scooted over next to him. She turned to a page and began to read aloud.

I will tell you the story of three little mice,

If you will KEEP STILL and LISTEN TO ME,

(Frances read a few of the words extra loud.)

Who live in a cage that's NOT very nice,

But are just as cunning as cunning can be.

As she read, Alexander came over. He sat down on the rock and listened. Harold calmed down soon enough, but Alexander seemed transfixed by the verses about the clever white mice that lived in a cage and how one escaped.

“That was sort of like school,” he said when Frances was finished. “Except better, because there's no teacher to box my ears.”

“I can definitely see how this would be an improvement,” she said.

Alexander leaned over and peered at the pages. “I know this rhyme. But I thought all the mice escaped at the end.”

“Nope!” Harold said. “Just the one.”

“Maybe you're thinking of another rhyme,” Frances suggested.

“No,” Alexander said, puzzled. “Are you
sure
there aren't more verses?”

Just then, Jack came over with the cooking pan. “Nope,” he said, laughing. “Guess that one mouse didn't bother to help the others escape.”

Alexander got up suddenly and walked over to the fire. His hands hung at his sides, but Jack could see that they were balled up tight.

Frances put the book down. “Alex? Where are you going?”

But he didn't answer.

Jack set the pan aside and went over to Alexander. “Are you all right?”

The older boy had picked up a stick and was poking the coals. “It's nothing. It's just for a minute it made me think of . . .” Alexander's voice trailed off.

“The ranch,” Jack finished for him. He squeezed Alexander's shoulder. “How there were other kids there, but you were the only one who escaped.”

“It was awful there, Jack,” Alexander said softly.

Jack nodded. “I reckon it was.”

“I'm no good,” Alexander continued. “Can never do things right. I'm always just daydreaming stupid things. That's why I got in trouble at school, too.”

“But you're
smart
,” said a voice behind them. It was Harold. He and Frances had come closer.

“It's true,” Frances added.

“After all, who else would be smart enough to think up Wanderville?” Jack asked.

Alexander shrugged. “That's nothing,” he said. But he was finally smiling. It was a shy kind of smile, one that made Jack wonder what it would have been like to know Alexander back in New York. Alexander could have been one of the kids playing stickball in the alley. He couldn't know for sure, but he thought that whatever sort of kid Alexander had been in the city, he was definitely different here. And maybe Jack was different, too.

“Can we eat now?” Harold asked.

The sun was getting lower over the prairie, and long shadows stretched down the slope of the ravine. They ate right out of the pans again and drank clean cold water from the tin cups that Alexander had found. Harold and Frances shared the one spoon while Alexander and Jack ate using their pocketknives. But soon enough they all figured out that they could eat with their hands. They used the corn bread to pick up the steaming hot sausages, which made each bite even better.

“Delicious,” Frances said as she wiped her chin. “I think we've invented something new.”

“We'll have to go back to that butcher shop,” said Jack.

“We'll need more cornmeal, too,” Alexander told them. “We'll get up early tomorrow so we can get to the mercantile in Whitmore without any trouble.”

The thought of going back to town made Frances stop chewing. Just a few hours before, she'd bellyached about the idea of stealing. Now, though, she found herself wishing that they'd managed to get their provisions that morning—by whatever means necessary—so that they wouldn't have to leave the ravine.

“What if the skashers see us?” Harold asked.

“You mean the Pratcherds?” Alexander clarified. “Don't worry. We'll get to town before they do. Same with Sheriff Routh.”

Just then, Jack put down his corn bread. “Say, Alex?” he asked. “Have . . . have they ever come looking for you?”

“And what about the sheriff?” Frances added. “He's got to be looking for
us
.”

“I suppose he is,” Alexander said. “And I'm certain he's looking for me.”

They fell silent, the only sounds the rustle of the breeze through the trees and the soft cracks of the campfire.

“Well,” Frances said, “he's not welcome here in Wanderville, is he?” It was the first time she'd said the name of their town out loud.
Their
town.

“No way,” Alexander said. “And we'll show him.”

“How?” Jack asked.

Alexander seemed to think for a moment. He took a swig from his tin cup. Then he banged it hard against the rock with a loud
clank!
He banged it again, harder.
CLANG!
Then again and again and again.
CLANG CLANK KANG!!!

The others simply stared at him, dumbfounded.
“What are you
doing
?” Jack said, though he could hardly be heard over the din.

Alexander just grinned and kept clanging.
CLANK KANK CLANG!
“On your feet, everyone!” he shouted.

Then Frances's face lit up in a grin, too. “You're sounding the alarm, aren't you? The sheriff alarm!” She jumped to her feet.

Alexander banged the cup faster. “Citizens of Wanderville!” he yelled. “This is a drill!”