Josh and the Magic Vial (5 page)

“There's a word for that,” she frowned. “Auto-something-or-other.”

“You think it's crazy, don't you?”

Millie bit her lip.

“It's okay, Mil. It
is
crazy. Mum and Dad think I'm insane, and they might be right.”

He told her about how he'd dreamed of the birdman in Rogers Park, how it had swooped down and murdered Gorp the Hurler. “I hated him then, Mil, because Gorp was my friend,” he recalled. “But he keeps coming back. I draw, and draw, and draw, and every time I draw him, I hate him a little less. I feel like a traitor, but I also feel like maybe I have been on the wrong side all along.”

“Traitor to who, Josh?” Millie wanted to know.

He thought the question over. “To myself, mostly,” Josh said at last. “In the end, isn't that always the person you betray?”

“I suppose so,” she said, doubtfully.

“Never mind,” he laughed. “It's all psycho-babble.”

“Hey!” Millie chided. “Lighten up. This is what you want to do, isn't it?”

A breeze blew in at the balcony door, ruffling the drawings like feathers.

He nodded.

“Then why so glum! Let's go down to Café Java and have a latte — and to heck with what your Mom says about coffee stunting your growth.”

He smiled. Trust Millie to come up with an idea. Dear, hard-nosed, wonderful Millie.

7

S
tupid old hag,” Ian grumbled.

He'd been skulking around Josh Dempster's neighbourhood for two days, and he hadn't seen anything worth reporting. A couple of times the Dempster kid had stepped out onto a little balcony above the front porch, but that was it. Two days of sitting around, walking, riding his bike, trying not to be noticed . . . and for what? You'd stand a better chance of spotting the Queen at Buckingham Palace than you would of seeing Josh Dempster on Tenth Avenue.

For a few hours Ian had camped out on the church steps at the corner of Quebec and Tenth. He'd retreated as far into the shadows as he could, and put his cap out in front of him as if he were panhandling. It was an unlikely disguise, but probably enough to keep anyone from challenging him.

Now he'd have to move on because of the girl. The last thing you wanted to do was look someone in the eye when you were trying to maintain your cover, but she had caught him off guard. When she'd stepped out of the courtyard across the street, he had been drawn to the blaze of her frizzy red hair. Then he'd been transfixed by her shocking green eyes.

Too late, he looked down. She would recognize him if she ever saw him again, and there was a pretty good chance she would, since she was somehow connected with Josh Dempster. At least she had gone directly to the Dempster house and knocked on the door. A man Ian took to be Josh's father let her in.

Family friend?
he wondered.
No
. He snatched his hat from the pavement and jammed it on.
Don't be stupid
.The girl must have been Josh's friend. Now that
was
interesting. He looked up and down the street. He needed to find a new post. He needed to be ready to follow if the girl and Dempster left the house. And he needed to be sure she did not see him again.

It was good to get out, and Josh had Millie to thank for that. They clumped down the front steps, turning right on Tenth. Sunlight filtered through the chestnut trees, a breeze riffled Josh's T-shirt and hair, the distant honk and rumble of traffic rolled up the hill from Broadway. Josh smiled. He liked being a city kid. More than any of that, though, he was glad to be with Millie. She chattered on and on about the deplorable state of Planet Earth: pollution, global warming, third world poverty, wars everywhere. She was always yakking about that kind of stuff. That's what was special about Millie — she was determined
to do
something with her life.

“Are you listening Josh Dempster?” she scolded.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “You're going to form a club called Kids For Global Justice at school next year. The motto will be ‘Raising Money and Raising Awareness' and you're going to plan fund-raising events.”

“And?”

He squirmed. “And you want me to be a member.”

“That's right,” Millie went on. “I want you to design a logo and do some illustrations for our newsletter.”

Josh laughed. “Okay, okay. As long as I don't have to attend any boring meetings.”

“The meetings won't be boring,” she assured him.

“Or go out shaking cans to raise money.”

She nodded.

“Or make any speeches.”

She nodded again.

So intent were Josh and Millie on their conversation, they didn't notice a scrawny kid slip out from between two buildings a half block behind. He skimmed along close to hedges and parked cars, ready to duck for cover any instant. When they turned down Main, he sprinted to catch up.

Josh had excused himself from walk-a-thons, dances, raffle sales, protests, class presentations, and workshops. She'd held the line at sign painting, and finally told him to “shut up,” laughing and shoving him so hard that Josh almost fell off the curb.

“Honestly,” Millie groaned, “I don't know why I want you for a friend at all. You're such a lout!”

He grinned. “Fixing the world isn't my thing, Mil. You know that.”

“Yeah,” she conceded. “I just wish I knew what your thing is, Josh.”

“I'm an animator, remember,” he said peevishly. “But, jeez Millie, can't we just be kids for a while? Do we always have to be
doing something
? I mean we'll have a whole lifetime of doing things once we get into high school, and even more things after that. Why start any sooner than we have to? We're only kids once.”

She gave him a sour look.

“Besides,” he continued, “we can't all be do-gooders. Some of us have to have fun even as grown-ups.”

He smiled, impressed with his own logic.

“Some of us never grow up,” Millie retorted. “A lot of guys spend their whole lives looking for excuses not to behave like adults.”

“Ouch!” Josh yelped.

They pushed open the glass door of Café Java and took their spot in the queue. The espresso machine hissed; the operator punctuated his conversation with bangs and thumps, tamping coffee into the steel filters, or emptying cakes of old coffee into the garbage; the Saturday crowd murmured in the background. When they got to the counter Millie ordered two lattes. “My treat,” she said, scrounging in her satchel for the money.

“Thanks!”

Josh found a table halfway down the narrow aisle and settled in. Millie followed a minute later with their lattes.

“Cheers!” Josh said, raising his glass.

“To the birdman!” Millie joined in.

Their glasses clinked in the air between them.

He took a sip, and was savouring the taste of the hot, velvety liquid, when suddenly Millie bolted forward in her chair, glaring over his shoulder. “Shoot!” she exploded. “It's him.”

“Huh?” Josh croaked.

“Him! The guy I saw panhandling at the Lutheran church. He was staring through the window at us. He's following us!”

Before Josh could say anything she catapulted out of her seat and charged down the aisle. Patrons murmured and complained as she shot by, Josh on her heels. They tumbled out of the café, Millie searching one way, then the other down Broadway. Her quarry had melted into the crowds jostling along the sidewalk outside.

“Darn it!” Millie cursed. “The little weasel.”

“Who are you talking about Mil?”

“When I came out of the apartment this afternoon, heading for your place, there was a guy panhandling on the steps of the Lutheran church. I caught him looking at me, the creep. And he was out here just a second ago, staring in through the café window.”

“Are you sure it was him?”

“Yes!” she shouted. “It was him!”

“Maybe he just happened to be passing by.”

“Don't be stupid!” Millie huffed.

Well, maybe his explanation was pretty dumb, but she needn't have been quite so blunt about it.

“What's going on, Josh,” Millie demanded as they re-entered the café.

Josh gave her a puzzled look. “How should I know?” he said.

8

I
f it hadn't been for his sister, Adele, Ian would have left home long ago. He couldn't abandon her, though, and that was the end of it.

I Home sweet friggin' home,” he mocked, turning up his street.

The place
was
something of a landmark. In a neighbourhood of run down tenements it stood out as
the
most dilapidated heap of all. It sagged, too exhausted to stand. Its yellow paint and white trim were blistered and mouldy. Instead of a flower bed or even a tacky fountain in the scrubby front yard, their house featured the rusting hulk of a pickup truck, which had been parked there with its hood open for at least three months. As soon as Richard Lytle got enough scratch together, he was going to fix it and get back into the carpet-laying business. Or so he promised.

“Sure,” Ian spat.

In the meantime, Mr. Lytle made money other ways — ways that were best left unmentioned.

“Like father, like son,” Ian grinned.

“Ian!” a tiny voice shouted from the upstairs window.

“Hi Sis!” he beamed.

She ducked inside. He could hear her charging through the house, then she was skipping down the porch steps and into his arms, demanding to be swung round in a helicopter.

For Ian Lytle there was only one promise in life worth keeping — to get Adele the hell out of there. Once he'd saved enough money he'd rent an apartment of his own, and take her with him. Take her to a place away from the drunken parties, the fights, the weirdos.

“What happened to your knee?” she said when he put her down.

He glanced at the ragged, bloodied hole in his pants and winced. “I fell down,” he answered, showing Adele the scrapes on his hands, too. “I was running and I tripped.”

“What were you running from?”

Ian blushed, remembering how the girl in Café Java had looked up suddenly and recognized him. He'd bolted, jostling his way through the sidewalk crowd, escaping down a lane. Then he ran, ran so fast that his body's momentum outpaced his pumping legs, pitching him forward onto the rough pavement.

“I was in a hurry, that's all,” he said.

Adele gave him a curious look. She always knew when he was keeping something from her.

“Where's Dad?” Ian asked.

“Napping.”

That meant one of two things: the old man was drunk and passed out on the sofa, or he was planning to “work” that night, and needed to get some shut-eye. Either way, there wouldn't be any dinner unless Ian did something about it himself.

“You hungry Sis?” he asked.

Adele gave him a poor-me look.

“How would you like to go out then?”

“Yahoo!” she whooped “Okay!” Ian hushed, heading into the house. “You wait here.

I'll be down in a minute.”

On his way by, he glanced into the living room. “Drunk,” he figured. His father snored on the sofa. A collection of beer cans littered the end table, some toppling onto the floor. The TV blared, unwatched.

Ian took the steps two at a time, heading for his room. Closing the door behind him, he listened for a second, just to be sure no one had followed. Then he crossed to the closet and yanked open the door. He peeled back the threadbare carpet, then pried up a floorboard. His stash was stored in an old pickle jar. At last count he'd saved more than five hundred dollars.

The money was for Adele, not burgers. But he hadn't been able to work for a couple of days, thanks to Endorathlil and her stupid Tenth Avenue assignment. “Hunger's an emergency, I suppose,” he muttered, stripping a twenty from the roll then returning the jar to its makeshift vault.

Most of the money he'd earned selling merchandise to Lil's Magic Emporium and Second Hand. She was his only source of steady income. That's why Ian worried about his growing feud with Conky McDougal. Get booted out of the Street Level Gang, and he'd lose his connection with Endorathlil. Lose his connection with her, and he wouldn't have anywhere to sell his stuff. Then what?

Ian didn't want to think about it. “Later man,” he said, clumping down the stairs. He'd worry about that problem when it came.

9

Josh hardly ever got mail. Occasionally he'd receive a rejection notice from the magazines he sent strips to, or cards from his grandparents. These his mother would find stuck in the heaps of bills, promotional literature, and packages addressed to her bookkeeping business. But usually there was nothing for Josh, so when two letters arrived on the same day, Mrs. Dempster made a big deal of it.

“Well,” she said. “You must be getting very important. Hand delivered, too.”

Now
that
was strange.

He turned the first letter over, examining it closely. A crooked wand with a bolt of lightening shooting out the end had been printed in the upper left corner The words “Lil's Magic Emporium and Second Hand” formed a circle over and under the logo.

“I didn't know you had any dealings with that place,” Mrs.

Dempster said.

“I don't, Mom,” Josh explained. “I stopped in the other day to look at some drawings, but I never gave her my name or anything.”

“Then I guess she must have got it through ESP, because it's obvious that Lil — whoever she is — knows who
you
are. Take a look at the other letter, though. That's even more curious.”

The envelope was addressed simply
To Josh Dempster
.There was no return address. In the bottom right corner the word U-R-G-E-N-T had been printed in block letters.

“Any ideas?” Mrs. Dempster probed.

“No Mom,” Josh bridled. “If it's interesting, I'll let you know, okay?”