Wax (27 page)

“For being helpless lambs to the slaughter,” Poppy whispered under her breath. “For falling blind to the crimes and atrocities being committed under their noses​—”

“Pops, we're in public,” Jill said. “Try and dial back the insanity a smidge.”

Poppy exhaled. “Jill, I know you've had a hard time believing me up until now, but trust me: there is some really weird,
really
messed-up stuff going on in this town. And I really have proof this time.”

The crowd burst into a raucous round of applause at whatever lies the Bursaws had spewed forth. “And now,” Wax Miss Bea added, “for the final event of the day​—​the raffle drawing! Colt, would you like to do the honors?”

Colt Lamberty, radiant smile in place and microphone in hand, bounded up the gazebo steps in a pair of blindingly polished, expensive-looking shoes. He beamed out over the crowd. “Good afternoon, Paraffin!”

Paraffin responded with hoots and whistles.

“What a beautiful crowd. Gary, get on up here and get a shot of this beautiful crowd.”

Colt's long-suffering cameraman obeyed his cruel master and joined Colt onstage, sweeping the lens of the camera over the townspeople. “Stunning,” Colt said. “Just stunning. Now! Who's ready for the big raffle drawing?”

More hoots. More hollers.

“Councilman Bursaw, the entries please!”

Wax Big Bob wheeled out the raffle drum, a large gold cylinder into which the citizens of Paraffin had stuffed their hopes and dreams. The crowd oohed.

“I can't take this,” said Poppy, the sickness rising again. “Look at them​—​happy, careless, no idea that their demise is imminent and that their elected officials have been transformed into diabolical wax pod people! We have to tell them! We have to!”

With that, Jill yanked her out of the crowd, all the way down to the edge of the lake.

“What are you doing?” Poppy said, pulling out of Jill's grip. “They have a right to know! How can you​—”

“Well, well, well!” The Giddy Committee appeared, now changed out of their Bavarian frocks and back into their civilian clothes​—​except for Connor, who was still wearing his cape. “Look, everyone,” he said, glaring at Poppy. “It's Benedict Arnold von Trapp.”

Jesus snorted. “Weak, bro.”

“I think that I, Connor Galpert, speak for all of us when I say that when our fearless leader abandons us, we have the right to know why.”

Poppy looked at Jill, who shrugged. “They have a point.”

Poppy swallowed. “Um​—” She swept her gaze around the circle, meeting five pairs of betrayed, inquisitive eyes.

“Let me guess,” said Banks. “It has something to do with that pile of insanity you heaped upon us yesterday.”

“Yeah, but​—”

Louisa grasped Poppy's fluffy collar in her hands and pulled her close. “We brought the
hills
to
life
with the
sound
of
music
for you,” she spat with venom. “You owe us an explanation!”

And of course, Dud chose that moment to barrel into her circle of friends and yell, “Poppy, my finger fell off!”

He held out his hand. Where once his thumb resided was a cleanly shorn stub, a flat beige surface​—​that was noticeably not spurting blood.

Poppy gaped. “It
fell
off?
”

“Yes! Well, no. I was petting one of the police monsters, and he ate it.”

“You mean a horse? A horse ate your finger?”

“Yep!”

Those same five pairs of eyes switched from being miffed to being baffled, horrified, and about to cause a panic.

“Okay,” Poppy said carefully, not wanting to spark the powder keg of hysteria. “Nobody freak out. Let's all sit down and talk about this.”

The Giddy Committee sat down on the grass in a circle, staring at Dud. Dud sat next to Poppy, staring at the spot where his thumb used to be.

“To start, this is Dud,” Poppy told the group. Dud waved. “He is made of wax. As you can see.”

“And he's​—​what, on our team?” said Louisa. “I thought the wax people were the bad guys!”

“I assure you, Dud is harmless.”

“So are beluga whales. That doesn't mean you should adopt one and welcome it into your home.”

“
Dud
is not the problem here,” Poppy told them. “The problem is that all that stuff I told you yesterday is
true.
The wax imposters, the lighting of the Hollows​—​it all checks out.” She described what she'd seen in the storage tank. “They've stockpiled Hollows of
everyone.
Every single citizen in Paraffin!”

Louisa rolled her eyes. “One wonders where they find the time.”

“They've got plenty of time. They don't sleep! Why do you think the factory runs so many market research tests? Almost everyone in town has gone to one of those sessions, answered exhaustive questionnaires about themselves, had their speech patterns and mannerisms filmed, all in the name of market research​—​when in fact, the Chandlers have been studying how to act once they inhabit them. They took plenty of photos of us for Madame Grosholtz to sculpt from. Now they're kidnapping townspeople, two at a time. Every day, two new Chandler clones released out into the town. Every day, two new evil wax-pod-people doppelgangers out there, disguised as our fellow citizens. We have to stop them!”

“You keep using the word ‘we,'” Louisa said. “Why is that?”

“Because
we
are the only ones who know about this. And we can't tip anyone else off, because everyone else is a suspect. Smitty is one of them! And so is Principal Lincoln! I saw them stiffening the real Principal Lincoln's body, and who knows what they did with it​—” She tried to make herself stop yelling and speak more calmly. “We are essentially responsible for saving Paraffin. Why is that so hard to understand?”

Louisa gave Banks a disbelieving look. “Is she listening to herself?”

“Look,” Poppy said, “if you don't want to help, fine. Dud and I can tackle it on our own. I just thought​—” And here she adopted a mock-innocent face. “I thought that, you know, who better to help identify imposters acting like other people than actors themselves?” She let out a plaintive breath. “But if you guys don't think you can do it, then . . . forget it.”

The Giddy Committee was insulted.

“
I
could do it,” Connor said. “
I'm
a real actor.”

Louisa scoffed. “She never said you weren't. She's just trying to manipulate us.”

Poppy held her gaze. “Is it working?”

Louisa relented with a sigh.

“Wait a second,” Banks said. “Does this mean they can, like, read each other's minds? If they're all offshoots from Anita and Preston, are Anita and Preston controlling all of them, all at once?”

“That's . . . a good question.” Poppy thought for a moment. “No, I don't think so. When I was at the Bursaws'”​—​she winced at the name​—​“I'm pretty sure Big Bob had to call Anita to tell her that I was there. They're more like clones. That's how Madame Grosholtz described it in her message, anyway. They're duplicates of Anita and Preston, but they don't share the same consciousness, so there's no automatic communication between them. I'm guessing Preston is in Big Bob and Anita is in Miss Bea, but I suppose it could also be the other way around​—”

“Yeah,” said Banks dryly, “we wouldn't want to impose gender stereotypes onto the monstrous wax people.”

“What's the big deal?” asked Jesus. “If they're only taking the place of assholes anyway, aren't we better off?”

“No, Jesus, we're not,” said Poppy, “because (a) immortal beings hell-bent on supreme power are not in fact preferable to the Bursaws, hard as that may be to believe, (b) they're killing the people they're replacing, and (c) you can do simple math, right?”

From the look he gave her, Jesus could not do simple math.

“There are only one thousand and fourteen citizens in Paraffin,” she said. “At the rate of two per day, they'll have replaced us completely within a year and a half. And I'm betting that they'll increase that rate as soon as they make enough Hollows to overpower us. I mean, since Saturday they've already made seven clones of themselves​—​most of whom hold strong positions of power or influence in the community, who will be able to keep up the charade and convince people that nothing out of the ordinary is going on. And before long, it'll hit a tipping point. In no time at all, they'll get you, me, your families.
Everyone.
”

That seemed to do it. The members of the Giddy Committee went silent, going over the math in their heads.

Then Jesus abruptly got to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Poppy asked.

“I just got an idea.”

“Can you run it by me first?”

“Nope! Gotta go!”

“Jesus, wait​—”

But he ran off before anyone could stop him.

Connor scowled. “Truly, Madame Director, I implore you, a hooligan such as Jesus is not fit for the part of the son of God​—”

“Connor. Bigger fish to fry here.”

“Poppy, what's your plan to deal with this?” asked Jill. “Do you
have
a plan?”

“Of course I do. We're going to look at people. Hard. If you think they're acting suspicious, follow them. Study them. From now on,
everyone in town
is a suspect.”

“That narrows it down,” Louisa muttered.

“Louisa, I am
this
close to knocking your block off.” Pause. Deep breath. “But you're right. Let's be smart about this.”

Poppy took out her notebook. Everyone groaned.

“We need to be organized!” she insisted. “And the best place to start is by listing what we know. Or
who
we know for sure are Hollows.” She drew a crude calendar. “Now, Sunday was the first day the BiScentennial candles went on sale. That was Big Bob and Miss Bea. The next day, yesterday, was Blake and Smitty. Today was Principal Lincoln and . . . I don't know who yet. The scent is Italian Leather.”

“Palladino is an Italian name,” said Louisa.

“Louisa, I am this close.
This close.
” She wrote down a big question mark. “Tomorrow will be my neighbor, Mrs. Goodwin, and​—​well, it was supposed to be me. And the next day it'll be two more people, unless we figure out a way to stop all this by the end of the day. Which seems kind of impossible.”

But Poppy felt a little better. Having a plan made her feel less helpless, and things were falling into place. She just had to figure out what that place was. “Here's what's going to happen: I'm going to go home, lock myself in my room, and not come out until I've figured out what to do about all this. Behold: The Plan.” She removed her new notebook and held it up as if it were the Holy Bible. “In the meantime, you guys try and figure out who Italian Leather could be. Ask around. Find out who's acting slightly less than normal. Then call me if you learn anything important, if you think of anything new, or if you see or hear anything odd.”

“And if we encounter a Hollow?” asked Banks. “What do we do, bash their heads in?”

“No. I mean, I don't know yet. We'll have to destroy them somehow, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. Until then, just focus on ID'ing them. Keep your eyes peeled as you have never kept them peeled before!”

The Giddy Committee agreed to the plan, then gathered their stuff and left the park. “How do you peel an eye?” Dud asked Poppy and Jill as they walked up the small hill toward the town square.

“With an eye peeler,” Jill said.

“What's an eye peeler?”

“It peels eyes.”

They walked for a moment in an awkward silence.

“So, are we okay?” Poppy asked Jill somewhat desperately. “Because I really need us to be okay.”

“We are. I'm sorry about what I said to Crawford.”

“And I'm sorry I've been such a lunatic.”

“Yeah, but​—” Jill looked repentant. It looked strange on her. “If you're right about all this stuff, then
I've
been a triple dick for not believing you. And if, heaven forbid, you were in danger or got hurt because I ignored you . . .”

Poppy couldn't help but smile. “It's okay, Jill. Out of respect for you, I won't even do the I-told-you-so dance.”

“You are too kind.” Jill nodded at something behind Poppy. “Incoming.”

“
There
you are!” Poppy's mother emerged from the crowd. “You kids sounded great! It was so crowded, though, it was hard to see you — especially you, Poppy — ”

“What have you got there?” Poppy interjected as her father and Owen came into view.

“We won the raffle!” said her father. “A limited-edition copy of Paraffin-opoly. Isn't that exciting?”

“I suppose ‘exciting' could conceivably be a word used to describe that, sure.”

“And the Grosholtz Candle Factory was selling surplus wax at their booth,” her mother added. “So we bought a whole bunch for you to sculpt, Dud! It's waiting in the car!”

“Cool!” Dud spread out his hands excitedly. Poppy grabbed the one that did not have a thumb and, not knowing how else to explain that away, held it in a loosely romantic manner.

“Aww,” her parents sighed simultaneously.

∗ ∗ ∗

When the Palladino family got home around one o'clock​—​and after Poppy made Dud surreptitiously resculpt his thumb from the surplus wax​—​she immediately brushed off her family's pleas for merriment. “I know it's family fun day, but seriously, I'm exhausted,” she announced, itching to get started on The Plan.

“But it's a holiday,” her mom said, and held up a plate. “I made pie.”