Nothing seemed out of the
ordinary at the Conoco Friday morning.
Gas had taken a three-cent dip since the last time Auburn had been
there, but only one car was filling up at the pump. The same bell jingled as Auburn went in the
store; no products had moved around.
Brittany was on duty, head on the counter, looking as dejected as she
always did when Auburn saw her. It
wasn’t until they started talking that Auburn could tell something more than
usual was wrong.
“Hi, Brittany,” she said,
in a cheery tone of voice.
Brittany looked up, and
Auburn could tell she’d been crying. A
look of total disinterest was in her eyes as she stared blankly back at
Auburn. “Go away,” she said in a
hopeless voice, like she knew that wasn’t going to happen either.
Auburn wasn’t to be
swayed. “Your sister’s alright,” she
said.
“No, she isn’t!” Fear rolled down Brittany’s face. “She’s at the mercy of the most heartless brute that’s ever walked
the streets of Blackwell!”
“What if I told you,”
said Auburn, not offended at the comment, “that I know who the Purple Porcupine
is?”
“So do I,” said Brittany,
giving Auburn a jolt. Oh, well…I was here to confess anyway,
she thought. But Brittany’s next words
were the shocker. “It’s Richards!”
“WHAT!!!” Auburn exclaimed.
“I guess he thought I
wasn’t doing enough,” Brittany said, “so he’s already gone ahead and take
her. Now, there’s no way to get her out
of this. If I don’t do everything he
says—”
“Richards isn’t the
Purple Porcupine!” said Auburn.
“He admitted it,” said
Brittany. “At the last meeting. He’s got Valerie, and Allie, and now he’s
gone and grabbed that Thurston kid…Bill or whatever his name is. He says he’s getting nervous about us, and
unless we start doing some bigger jobs, he’s going to kill them…”
“He’s lying,” said
Auburn. “Richards knows absolutely
nothing about it.”
Brittany glared back
across the counter. “Didn’t I just tell
you he admitted it?” she asked. “Who
else would be evil enough in this town to go around, snatching children from
their homes—especially when they’re related to these club members? I thought you said you knew who it was. It’s not hard to figure out.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Auburn,
“for the right people, but I guess he’s trying to—oh, never mind! You won’t believe me over that villain
Richards, I know that. But next time I’m
in here, I’ll have proof that he’s lying—absolute proof.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Auburn paid a call to the
Larkin Hotel that afternoon—alone. She’d
been hoping to bring Brittany with her, but that couldn’t happen—yet. She didn’t stay long, just for enough time to
go over with Valerie and Allie what to do that weekend. With her parents home from work, Auburn knew
she wouldn’t get a chance to visit the hotel again until next Monday.
She wouldn’t get a chance
to go out as the Purple Porcupine either.
Until Sunday night, that is.
Actually, she could even go Saturday, but there’d be no point. Auburn wanted to strike again and
triumphantly march into Conoco the next day, with proof for Brittany that
Richards knew nothing about the missing children’s whereabouts.
But what proof could she
bring? If she took Brittany to the hotel
right now, Brittany might suspect her of being in line with Richards. She had to do something that would totally
set her aside, something Richards would never do, something big enough to make
the news.
Friday night passed
uneventfully. The police were on red
alert, but nothing was going on that night—Auburn could have told them
that. At least, she thought she could
have told them that, but when she awoke the next morning, she found out she was
wrong. Richards’s gang had struck
again. The Kay County courthouse had
been burglarized the previous evening, and an important deed had vanished. The document established ownership of a
property currently being contested in court; without that piece of paper, Mrs.
Jennings would lose her house to a developer.
Police interrogated the man, but he denied any knowledge of the
crime. Security cameras caught footage
of the robber, but he/she was masked, and the only notable feature was that
he/she was really short. “When the
Purple Porcupine finally takes the night off, the midgets strike,” Blackwell’s
newscaster said to introduce the story.
Eating cold oatmeal,
Auburn glowered at the radio.
Saturday night, a house
one block from the fire station caught fire.
It was saveable, only when the firefighters hopped in their trucks, they
found the gas tanks empty and the tires slashed. Some of the faster ones ran down to the house
with a hose, only to watch water come spraying out of dozens of little holes
that had been poked in it. The property
was a total loss, and the vandalized fire property would cost quite a bit of
money. “Fire equipment up in smoke,” an
announcer reported. “Purple Porcupine
not involved.”
You
better believe I wasn’t behind that, Auburn thought, chasing
soggy Froot Loops around her bowl. Drat that Richards.
And Sunday evening, a
full half-hour before twelve, Auburn made her move.
She couldn’t wait any
longer. Usually, she tried to get some
sleep before going out on her nightly rounds, but her plan had been nagging her
all day. Watching the hands on the clocks
slowly spin around had been sheer torture for her. Now that it was 11:30, she couldn’t wait any
longer. Nothing was going to stop
her…not even rain.
Oh, yes, did I mention it
was raining? It was, at a pretty good
rate too. Auburn brought an umbrella,
but ten minutes into her walk, torrential gusts had twisted her umbrella into a
practically unrecognizable shape. I’d better just throw this out, Auburn
thought, plodding through the pouring storm.
Too much explaining if Mom finds
it.
The funny thing about
torrential downpours, though, is that they never last very long. By the time Auburn started down Main Street,
the blasts had subsided to a steady drizzle.
Auburn was thoroughly soaked, and she’d left her umbrella in a trash
can, but the rain wouldn’t be bad enough to prevent her from doing what she was
about to do.
Though downtown Blackwell
wasn’t as thriving as it once had been, it was still a business district, for
the most part. No one lived on it, so
the police weren’t looking for a kidnapper on that street. They were concentrating mostly on the
neighborhoods this evening, expecting the Purple Porcupine to kidnap
again. They had no idea what Auburn was
really up to.
Still, Auburn knew,
there’d be a squad car before long. The
police always patrolled business districts at night—had to. That was where all the money was. Even when kidnapping wasn’t a big worry,
there’d still be that car with the two headlights, one a little dimmer than the
other, driving around just to show that the police were on guard.
Hiding behind a garbage
dumpster, though, Auburn began to get impatient. She checked her watch. Ten minutes since she’d entered the alley,
and still no sign of a squad car. She
was just thinking of stepping out when, suddenly, she heard the swish of tires,
and the cruiser pulled down the street, making sure everything was right with
the world.
Auburn let out a deep
breath; then, she went into action.
She’d brought something besides the umbrella along; a fold-up ladder
from her family’s garage. Unless the
smoke detectors went off, there was no chance her father would miss it tonight,
which was good, because Auburn needed it.
She wandered out to the
front of the Rivoli and leaned the ladder against the platform above the
door. Then, inhaling deeply, Auburn
began to climb up. A lot of theaters had
the sign on the side of the awning over the door; if that had been the case,
Auburn would have had to work from the ladder, climbing off and pulling it
around whenever she needed to go farther to the left or right. Not so at the Rivoli. Below the meager sign announcing the name of
the theater was a white rectangle, all set up so letters could be put in
spelling out the names of movies. A
couple letters still remained in it; however, it was blank for the most
part. Characters once used to announce
the premiere of Citizen Kane now
spelled out Eat at Dave’s on one of
the many little arrow-signboards that dotted the Oklahoma countryside.
Auburn wanted new ones
anyway, though. Her message, which she
had all planned out, used no z and
was quite a bit longer than that two letter title. Ripping open the package of letters she’d
bought, she got to work decorating the left side of the sign, still on despite
not displaying a message. It would again
in a few seconds.
R…I…C…H
(that was hard to find)…A…R…
All the rain was making
it hard to see straight, and Auburn rubbed her eyes. Yes, that was six she’d put down; she needed
a D now. She pulled open her bag and
started going through it.
A…S…V…you’d
think they’d sort the letters better… Auburn thought. She stared at the V, wondering why it suddenly seemed to be turning into a W.
No, it was a V. Wait, now it was a W, now it was a V! It seemed to be spinning, too.
Auburn
was going into a dizzy spell!
“Oh, no!” she said aloud. “Not here, not now. Not while I’m ten feet off the ground! Not on Richards’s doorstep…anywhere but
here…oh, no!!!”
The humming was starting
now. It wasn’t as loud as the rain yet,
but it would get louder, and the spinning would get worse, until there’d be no
way for Auburn to keep herself on top of the awning.
“Lord, help me!” she
screamed. Extending her arms, she
grabbed desperately for something, anything that would keep her from going over
the edge…
Her left arm clutched the
rod that held the sign in place. The
metal was smooth, wet, and slippery.
Auburn wasn’t a lefty either, but she gripped it as tightly as she
could!
Her right arm still
flopped about, unable to find something to grab. Auburn touched the sign several times, but
she couldn’t manage to get a handhold with her right arm. Now the spinning was so bad, Auburn wasn’t
even sure where the sign was anymore.
All she knew was that her left arm was holding a bar, and she wasn’t
letting go.
The wind tore at her
sleeves. She rocked back and forth,
repeatedly banging into the marble front of the theater. Anything, though, was better than losing that
grip and falling—down—down—down to the ground below.
And then, a minute into
the episode, Auburn realized the humming was getting softer. She opened her eyes, and saw that the world
wasn’t spinning as fast as it had before.
Her left hand was so damp and cold from the rain, she barely had any
feeling left in it, but the grip had held.
Auburn’s panic began to subside.
When the spinning had
almost entirely gone away, Auburn let go of the bar and slumped down, over the
awning. She lay, panting, for a moment
before she pulled herself up and reminded her that her task had only just begun.
Now, though, she could
proceed more confidently. Those dizzy
spells almost never came twice in one day.
The closest two had come to each other was five hours, once a few months
ago. Five hours from now, Auburn would
be back in bed, sleeping—
How she wished she was there
now. But no, she had a job to do first…
Auburn finished putting
the letters on the left side. She took a
couple objects out of her pocket, stuck them on blanks, and put one on either
end of the message. Then, she turned to
the other side.
Over here, she’d be
facing the cop when he returned again.
It seemed like an hour had passed since he’d last gone by; in reality,
it was more like ten minutes. Those fits
caused Auburn to lose all track of time, but they had no actual effect on the
clock itself.
Still, Auburn
hurried. She finished the message on the
right side and was relieved to see that there were still two blanks left
over. Applying the same things she’d
applied to the last ones, she was just putting the second one on when she saw
headlights from Route 11.
The
cop!
He was just turning back
onto the street, and he was headed her way.
Fortunately, there were several blocks between 11 and Bridge, and Auburn
was wearing a dark raincoat. It would
take a while before the officer would be close enough to make out Auburn, but
she’d better hurry!
Auburn scampered down the
ladder, then raced up the street, towards the oncoming car. When it seemed to be getting too close, she
pulled herself into the doorway of a closed store. She watched the lights from the car speed by
outside; then, she stepped out and went jogging up the street.
Behind her, the car
continued down the thoroughfare, Officer Porter on the lookout for any
trouble. Since the fire Friday
night—shame it didn’t rain then—Blackwell had been quiet enough, and Porter was
finally starting to relax. Right now, he
had the radio on, and he was singing along to one of his favorite songs.
“It’s a simple little
move,
But what improvements
it’ll show!
Move the state of
Arkansas to Nebraska,
Then move Nebraska to
Idaho,
Then move the state of
Idaho to Alaska,
And move Alaska to O-hi—OH!”
Porter was nearly at the
Rivoli; close enough to see the sign.
His face went white as he saw what Auburn had done to it. Hands trembling, he picked up his radio and
hit the button.
“Chief, you’d better get
down to the Rivoli right away. There’s
something you need to see!”
Another cliffhanger???
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