Mrs. Reynolds was a few
minutes late to work that morning—she’d forgotten her driver’s license. The insurance agency wasn’t so far from her
home, but she actually needed an ID for somewhere she was doing today, so she
had to go back and get it. By the time
she reached her office, her secretary was waiting for her, all abuzz with the
latest news.
“You’ll never believe
what the Purple Porcupine did last night!”
Mrs. Reynolds’s face went
white. “Did another kid go missing?”
“No. Even weirder,” said the secretary, handing
Mrs. Reynolds a photo. “No one knows
what to make of it.”
Mrs. Reynolds looked down
at the picture, taken sometime last night.
The classic green-and-yellow sign was on in all its glory, still
spreading that same subtle thought, You’d
be really happy if you went and saw a movie right now. Below it, though…that was the focus of the
photograph. Underneath, in the part that
had once displayed the movie titles, a new message was displayed.
RICHARDS
IS NOT THE PURPLE PORCUPINE.
Blank letters were on
both sides of the message, only these had purple porcupine stickers on top of
them.
“What happened?” Mrs.
Reynolds asked. “Did he try to rob the
club?”
“No!” said the
secretary. “My husband’s friends with
Lauderdale; that’s where the picture came from.
He didn’t put the sign up himself—”
“Oh, I know that,” said
Mrs. Reynolds. “Nothing happened to the
club, though?”
“Nothing,” said the
secretary. “The police are baffled.”
“So am I,” said Mrs.
Reynolds. “Why would—why would anyone
think that message was necessary?
Richards is the last guy in the world someone would suspect of being
that awful criminal. A sign like that’s
like—it’s like a sign that says EGGS ARE NOT DURABLE. That’s basic knowledge—more basic than basic
knowledge itself. It’s a message that
has absolutely no point.”
Mrs. Reynolds was
forgetting that some eggs are hard-boiled.
And those are actually pretty durable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Auburn’s grin was as wide
as it could be as she walked to the gas station that morning. Why shouldn’t it be? Everyone in town was talking about her sign.
Two neighbors, out
walking their dogs, puzzled over it as the dogs growled and snapped at each
other. A car radio, playing a music
station, had a headline about it during a station break. A car had broken down on Highway 11, and what
do you suppose the owner was talking to the tow truck driver about? It wasn’t rocket science.
And then, as she was
almost at the gas station, she saw Jimmy Redford riding his bike.
Hmm. I was going to go ahead and tell Brittany,
but I might as well…
“Hey, Jimmy!”
Jimmy slowed and came to
a stop right by Auburn. “Do I know you?”
he asked.
“You thought I was in
that club a few weeks ago,” said Auburn.
“Did you hear about that sign the other night?”
“Oh, that!” said
Jimmy. “I don’t know why—”
“Jimmy, look. I’m not in the club, but I know exactly what’s
going on, which means I know you know exactly what that sign means.”
To her delight, Jimmy’s
face lit up a bit. “So you’ve heard
about it somehow?” he said. “Boy, when
Richards made that announcement to us Wednesday night, I didn’t think I could
ever be happy again…”
“What if I told you,”
said Auburn, “that the Purple Porcupine is someone who hates Richards and wants
to see him stopped just as much as you do?
You had to do everything Richards told you, so long as Valerie was in danger. What’s the only way you could stop having to
obey Richards without having to worry about her safety?”
“Have him arrested?”
Jimmy asked.
“Okay, I suppose there
are a few ways,” realized Auburn, “but if your sister were to disappear,
Richards would have no idea where she was.
And if he had no idea where she was, he wouldn’t be able to hurt her,
would he?”
“Goodness, you’re right!”
said Jimmy. “I hadn’t thought about it
that way before. Oh, if only it were a
friend that had taken her, and not—”
“It was a friend,” said
Auburn. “Your sister is perfectly safe
right now.”
“How could you possibly
know that?!” burst out Jimmy.
“Unless—unless—”
Auburn grinned back at
him.
“You don’t mean you’re—”
Auburn nodded.
“Then, this master criminal
that the police say is so dangerous—”
“No more harmful than
myself,” said Auburn, “and I can assure you, I’d never hurt a flea.” She glanced around to see if anyone was
listening, then whispered, “Would you like to see her?”
“You can do that?”
“If you’re not being
followed,” said Auburn. “Know where the
Larkin Hotel is?”
Jimmy nodded.
“Meet me in the alley
beside it around three, and I’ll take you to her then.”
“Oh, boy!” said
Jimmy. “You don’t know what a load off
my mind this—”
“I can guess,” said
Auburn. “You realize, though, that you
can’t tell anybody where she is. Not
until we get evidence against Richards.
Otherwise, there’s no way we’re gonna make all the parents—”
“He’s got them eating out
of his hat!” said Jimmy. “I wasn’t even
that interested in the club—well, back when I thought—”
“I know,” said Auburn.
“I wasn’t interested in
signing up to begin with, but my dad thought it would be a great experience for
me,” said Jimmy. “Then, when I found out
what it was about—”
“It was too late to get
out,” said Auburn. “Jimmy, for right
now, we need you to stay in the club. If
you stop going to the meetings, Richards will suspect that you know where your
sister is. Also, I need someone who can
talk to keep tabs on the meetings.”
“I see,” said Jimmy. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess I’ll have to keep going—but what if
Richards tries to get me to do something illegal again?”
“If you don’t show up for
the job,” said Auburn, “he might get suspicious—but remember. Failure is now an option.”
Jimmy laughed. “You’re right! You’re absolutely right! I’m not gonna let that Richards control me
any longer—”
“Save your celebration
for three o’clock this afternoon,” said Auburn.
“Then you’ll see that everything I said is true. Have a nice day.”
“Oh, I will,” said
Jimmy. “I will!” He pedaled off as fast as he could go,
propelled by an excitement he probably hadn’t had since the club began.
Auburn stared after him,
feeling even more wonderful by the minute.
“And that’s just him,” she thought.
“Wait ‘till Brittany hears about this.”
The Conoco was now in
sight, and Auburn broke into a run. It
wasn’t right in front of her, and her sides were heaving when she reached the
parking lot, but her excitement over the reaction Brittany was about to have
carried her on. She burst through the
door and, between breaths, blurted out, “Brittany! Guess what—”
Then, she stopped and
stared in surprise at the counter. The
heavyset, middle-aged clerk wasn’t Brittany, unless she’d changed A LOT—AND I
MEAN, A WHOLE LOT—since Auburn had last seen her. A nametag that said “Francis” confirmed that
this was, indeed, a different person.
Francis smiled wryly at
Auburn. “Brittany was supposed to be here today,” she
said. “But, I get a call from the boss
at nine that she hasn’t shown up. Called
her house—all I got there was a policeman.
Thought I was making a ransom call or something.”
“Was she sick?”
Francis shrugged. “He didn’t know where she was. I guess she just wanted a day off.”
“That’s strange,” said
Auburn. “Well, if she shows up, don’t
tell her I was in. I’ve got kind of a
surprise for her.”
The lady nodded. “I’ve never even seen you before, so I
couldn’t tell her even if I wanted to.”
“Thanks,” laughed Auburn,
heading back outside. Immediately, a
frown crossed her face. This was the
first time she’d ever been at that gas station that Brittany hadn’t been
around.
She
seems pretty dependable, thought Auburn to herself. I
wonder if Richards gave her an assignment.
Yes, maybe that was
it. After all, Brittany had no way of
guessing just what Auburn knew about the Purple Porcupine. If the town’s new “villain” were as dangerous
as commonly supposed, it wouldn’t be that much of a comfort to Brittany to
learn that it wasn’t Richards. It’d be
as refreshing as not having to worry about Adolf Hitler because Joseph Stalin
was your dictator.
Auburn checked her
watch. 10:47. She could wait around for Brittany to show
up…
Or, she could go and get
some other stuff done.
She glanced up the
road. Her house wasn’t too far away from
the gas station. She could go run her
other errands, then come back and poke her head in before she went back
home. This seemed the best plan, so
Auburn went with it.
Even though she was
starting to tell the club members what was going on, Auburn wasn’t done—er,
kidnapping, if you will. She didn’t know
anyone else on the list, but she’d been going over it, trying to figure out who
to “kidnap” next.
Her leading candidate
right now was Hal Rowan, brother of Steve Rowan, who was in the club. Richards’s plan for bumping off Hal had
involved sneaking into his bedroom, but Hal’s bedroom was on the second
floor. However, according to Richards,
there was a very conveniently-placed tree that would be easy to climb up and
enter Hal’s bedroom with. Auburn figured
this was true, but she wanted to see the tree for herself in the daytime, so
she’d have a better idea on how to climb it at night.
The house was on
Blackwell Avenue, but Auburn wasn’t quite sure where it was either, so she
wanted to get that straightened out as well.
She slipped down Sixth Street and found herself too far west of the
correct address. As she walked along,
she checked the houses, watching the numbers get closer and closer to the right
one—
Then, just a few
addresses away, the houses stopped. The
next few buildings were businesses—a grain elevator, or something like
that. Then came the railroad
crossing. Across this, however, another
house seemed to poke out from behind a clump of trees.
That
must be it, thought Auburn, but
I’ll go over and make sure.
Crossing the tracks on
Blackwell Avenue took a while. In
Oklahoma, most railroads were single-tracked, which meant trains used the same
one for both directions. Passing sidings
kept train wrecks from happening on a regular basis. Other places had double track, which meant trains
didn’t have to stop to wait for each other to go buy.
Blackwell, however, had a
railyard. Not as big as the one in Ponca
City, but still a pretty good size. Big
enough that when Auburn started over the crossing, she would cross no less than
five tracks. Granted, most of these were
just sidings, with cars stored on either side of the crossing (they only
crossed when trains were being hitched up).
Only one saw freight trains (the ones that weren’t stopping) actually go
whizzing through.
In the midst of this
five-track mess sat Blackwell’s old Santa Fe Depot. Apparently, Blackwell had once been an
important town on the line. The brick,
mission-style building was significantly larger than many of the others in
comparably-sized towns. Part of the reason
for this was the huge baggage area, which bore three loading doors down its
front. Large, white letters at either
end of the depot still made it very clear to the engineer which town he’d come
to.
Of course, the station
itself hadn’t been used in years. Since
passenger service had ended, it hadn’t been used for anything, really. Crumbling boards covered all the windows and
doors, though these wouldn’t stop anyone from getting in—there was even a hole
in the brick at one point. Like the
Larkin Hotel, the station stood, a crumbling monument to Blackwell’s former
glory.
Auburn started across the
tracks, eyeing all the parked cars carefully.
Blackwell was such a small town that there were no crossing gates, and
only a horn or movement would alert Auburn to danger. These cars all seemed still; in fact, Auburn
didn’t hear any activity in the railyard.
Her eyes focused on
something at the edge of it. Ah, yes,
there was the house. A thick clump of
trees grew on one side—one of these, Auburn surmised, must be the one that
would lead her into—
HONK!!!!!
The horn blared itself
into Auburn’s consciousness; she hadn’t noticed any trains coming. She peeked down the mainline and saw a
freight train, only travelling twenty miles an hour, but still not far from the
crossing. This one wasn’t stopping.
Auburn scurried to
safety, but not before something on the platform caught her attention. Once fully across, she turned to see what it
was. Her mouth dropped in astonishment.
It was Brittany
McPherson, still wearing her store uniform (complete with nametag). She stood on the crumbling brick platform,
hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun, gazing calmly at the
approaching train.
Auburn watched too,
wondering what was going on. Brittany
hadn’t struck her as a train lover, but maybe she was mistaken. She thought about crossing over, then decided
to wait until the train passed, just to be safe. In the meantime, she started wandering down
the path by the tracks, waving to try to get Brittany’s attention.
It was probably too noisy
for Brittany to hear Auburn; even if she could, she was focused entirely on the
train. Unnaturally so, and Auburn
quickened her pace. She wasn’t sure what
Brittany was up to, but she was about to find out.
All
at once, Brittany stepped off the platform, right into the middle of the track.
Auburn stared in
horror. Is she crazy? she thought. That train’s getting close—it could hit her—
Then, the real horror
hit, as Auburn figured out what Brittany was doing.
“BRITTANY!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!” she screamed, breaking into a dead run.
The engineer saw
Brittany. He was too close not to. However, he was also too close to stop. He could stop the motor, apply the brake, get
it so the front wheels weren’t even turning, and the train still wouldn’t stop
in time. Not with all the momentum it
was carrying. The horn blared loudly, a
signal that wouldn’t be heeded, warning Brittany to get out of her way.
Who knew how long
Brittany McPherson had been planning her fate.
Auburn had seen that she was stressed out, but she hadn’t realized it
was this bad. The train plowed on, less
than a half mile away from ending her fate.
Unfazed, Brittany stood calmly in the middle of the tracks, gazing
calmly at the red front of the warbonnet engine headed towards her. The letters Santa Fe were growing bigger and
bigger in her eyes.
Meanwhile, Auburn was
still running towards her friend. “No!
Brittany! Get back! Don’t just stand—” She gave up, saving her breath for
running. Her friend was still several yards
off, and that train was getting closer and closer.
Brittany could see the
engineer now. One of his arms flailed
wildly, signaling her to get out of the way.
The other yanked the horn in one continuous blare, deafening to the girls’
ears. So close was the train now that
Brittany could feel the mighty diesel engines vibrating as they yanked several
thousand tons towards the seventeen-year-old girl. Still, there was no panic in her eyes as she
watched the train come closer and closer.
It was now a thousand feet away…nine hundred…eight hundred…
All at once, Auburn came
hurtling up to the tracks and tackled Brittany as hard as she could.
Brittany hadn’t been
expecting the blow, but Auburn hadn’t counted on her strength. She stumbled, but she didn’t fall off the
tracks…Auburn, meanwhile, went rolling past her onto the platform and bumped
into the wall.
She sprang to her feet
and looked back. Brittany was picking
herself up, wanting to take the blow standing.
The horn was louder than anything Auburn had ever heard in her life as
the engine continued to barrel down on—
Six
hundred feet…five hundred feet…four hundred…three…
Auburn rushed back to
Brittany, grabbed her right hand, and gave a mighty yank. Still off balance, Brittany toppled over, and
Auburn dragged her onto the platform, where she threw herself on top of her.
“No…No…” Brittany cried
weakly. “Get off…”
“Too late,” said
Auburn. “The train’s going by.”
The engineer peeked out
his window, stunned at what he’d just seen.
Both the girls seemed alright, though, and he had a schedule to
make. He decided to keep going, wanting
to get out of town before any other potential suicides showed up.
Brittany finally managed
to throw Auburn off and started to struggle to her feet—then, she realized that
Auburn was right—she was too late. She
curled into a ball and starting sobbing profusely, head between her knees.
Auburn sat next to her,
pulse dropping back to normal, listening as the wheels of tank cars went clickety-clack, clickety-clack,
clickety-clack on the track next to her.
She didn’t say anything, wanting her friend to make the first move. About fifty cars passed before Brittany
finally spoke.
“You shouldn’t have done
it,” she said. “This was the only way.”
“It was stupid, and you
know it.”
Brittany looked up, anger
mixed in with the tears. “Do you know
how hard it was for me to step off that platform?” she asked. “I’ve been forced into crime. I’ve done a dozen awful things I’d never
dreamed of, all to protect my sister, who for all I know might be dead at this
point—”
“—she’s not—”
“You’re just saying
that,” said Brittany. “She’s probably
dead, my whole life’s ruined, and I can’t bear to go on—”
“Brittany!” Auburn said
sternly, as the last of the cars rolled past.
“Get a hold of yourself!”
As Brittany looked up,
Auburn tried to stand, planning to go over and give Brittany a firm
shaking. She never reached her
feet. The world started spinning, her
ears started humming, and she collapsed to the ground, overcome by another one
of her dizzy spells.
Brittany watched,
perplexed. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Grab me!” yelled
Auburn. “Grab me, please!”
Brittany pulled herself
across the platform and grabbed Auburn’s hand, just in time to keep her from
banging her head on the brick wall.
Auburn rolled around, eyes darting wildly from place to place, the
humming getting as loud as that diesel horn had been.
“What is it?” said
Brittany. “What’s the matter?”
Auburn was terrified and
embarrassed, but she forced herself to answer.
“Dizzy spell!” she said, unable to hide the panic in her voice. “They come every so often. Ooooohhhh!”
She wasn’t in pain, but
the noise was driving her mad. Auburn
slammed her eyes shut and tried not look at anything. Then, she felt Brittany grab her with her other
hand and pull her tight in a hug. The
thrashing stopped, and Auburn’s pulse started to return to normal.
In about a moment, the
humming started to go away. Auburn
opened her eyes and was relieved to see objects coming back to focus. She worked her way free of Brittany’s grip
and sat on the platform, trying to calm down.
“Is it over now?”
Brittany asked. Seeing a blank nod from
Auburn, she asked, “Do you get those often?”
“Every now and then,”
Auburn said, still trembling. “I never
know when one’s about to come.”
“If that one had come a
minute sooner—” Brittany gasped. “You could
have been killed!”
“I try not to think about
that,” Auburn said, still shaking like a leaf.
“You mean, you knew that
might happen, and you still jumped on the tracks to save me?” said
Brittany. “Why?”
“You’re a nice girl,
Brittany.” Auburn’s teeth
chattered. “I couldn’t stand to see what
Richards was doing to you, to the rest of the kids in the town. I had to get you out of this, and I couldn’t
very well do it if you were dead.”
“But…I was trying to kill
myself. It’s not like I fell on the
tracks—”
“Makes no difference to
me,” said Auburn. “Especially since I
wasn’t going to let you do it. Did you
hear what happened at the Rivoli last night?”
“I haven’t heard anything,”
Brittany said. “I slept through my alarm
this morning and was ten minutes late for work.
When I got there, Richards was waiting for me.” Tears leapt back in to Brittany’s eyes, as
she said, “He wanted me to burn down the baseball field.”
“Oh,” said Auburn,
sympathetically.
“I think I went
hysterical after that,” said Brittany.
“Told him that I’d been doing all this stuff to keep my sister out of
trouble, and I wasn’t going to do another thing for him until she turned up
safe and sound. He just looked at me,
and then he laughed. That’s when I
decided to do it.”
“Well, it’s a good thing
I stopped you,” said Auburn, “because Richards doesn’t have your sister. I do.”
Brittany looked up,
puzzled. “Are you crazy? Richards has—”
“That again.” Auburn rolled her eyes. “If you’d seen the news, you would have
realized that last night, someone put letters on the sign at the Rivoli saying,
‘Richards is not the Purple Porcupine.’”
“Why would he—”
“He didn’t do that,
Brittany! He’s lying when he says he’s
the Purple Porcupine, and I know because I know who it is. Look, I’ll show you!”
Reaching into her pocket,
Auburn pulled out a half-used sheet of stickers, which she shoved into
Brittany’s hand. “Take a good look at
those!”
“You!—but how—why—?”
Brittany stared incredulously at the stickers.
“Think about it,
Brittany. If Richards doesn’t know where
your sister is, she’s out of harm’s way.
No matter what you do, there’s nothing he can do to her. I hid her, and Valerie, and Will Thurston all
in a place where Richards will never find them.”
“No…you couldn’t have…”
“Who else could have
known?” said Auburn. “Who’s the only
person not involved with the club that knows Richards’s true secret?”
“Then…if he doesn’t know
where Allie is…” Hope flooded into
Brittany’s face as she realized what Auburn was saying. “You mean—”
“They’re all safe, in a
place that’s not going to get searched.
You want to go see Allie? Right
now?”
“Can we?” said Brittany.
“Sure!” said Auburn. “I know she misses you, but she knows your
situation, and she’s going to remain hidden until we get Richards behind
bars. In the meantime, there’s no reason
you can’t go see her—”
“So now that Allie’s
missing—” Brittany began to
realize. “I don’t have to take orders
from Richards any more?”
“Not at all!”
Next thing Auburn knew,
Brittany had grabbed her again, this time to give her a big hug. “This means more to me than you’ll ever
know,” she said. “I’m sorry for the way
I acted—”
“Forget it,” said
Auburn. “I might have acted the same
way, under that sort of stress—
At that moment, a gunshot shattered the air. Startled, the girls looked around to see
where it had come from.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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