Authors: Rob Levandoski

Serendipity Green (33 page)

BOOK: Serendipity Green

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Howie Dornick and Katherine Hardihood reach the square. Even though the food tents and craft booths are still open, the square is empty. Everyone is at the Re-Enactment. The gazebo looks nice now that it's been re-painted white. Just the other day the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
published a big story on the bath Bison-Prickert took on all that leftover Serendipity GreenÂ® paint. Myron Bison III told the paper that while the company's debt is wrecking havoc with its stock values, the relocation of its production facility to Matamoros, Mexico will return it to profitability by the third quarter. Helping, said Myron Bison III, will be its new line of white paints, an amazing seventy-seven shades offered in both latex and rust-resistant enamel.

Howie Dornick makes sure they skirt the gazeboâhe did the repainting and he'll be damned if Matisse and Rhubarb are going to piss it. They head toward the library.

Katherine Hardihood had worked at the library for so many years. Helped make so many just-average kids smarter. So many smart kids smarter yet. Steered so many people toward the truth. Found them the facts they wanted and needed. But the drug test for employees pushed through by D. William Aitchbone was the last straw. She resigned and as soon as she and Howie were back from their honeymoon in the Poconos, she opened a little bookstore on the square, filling the window with every book EDIT didn't like.

Megan Burroughs is head librarian at the Tuttwyler branch now. And right now Megan's amplified voice is echoing across the village as she reads to the crowd about John and Amos Tuttwyler who, while hunting for a spot on Three Fish Creek to build their grist mill, happened across the Indian squaw Pogawedka, and perhaps thinking they were in danger of being attacked by other noble savages hiding in the trees, clubbed her and her baby to death. For many years Katherine Hardihood read this crap.

When Megan Burroughs finishes reading, The Marching Wildcat Band of West Wyssock High begins its peppy marshal version of Pachebel's “Canon in D major.”

They pull Matisse and Rhubarb across the street and into the black lawn surrounding the library.

Howie Dornick could never admit this to his woman, of course, but he finds the noise of the Re-Enactment comforting. It's another sign that things are finally getting back to normal. The royalty checks have stopped coming and the Serendipity GreenÂ® paint on his clapboards is beginning to chip and fade. It has been months since daytrippers left cookies on his porch and reporters from foreign lands banged on his door.

Best of all, people are ignoring him again. Oh sure, sometimes someone waves when he's mowing the cemetery grass or cleaning out a storm sewer, and sometimes when he's shopping for food or buying socks at Kmart someone will ask, “How's it going?” But by and large things are getting back to where they were. He's nobody again. He gets up and goes to work and comes home and watches TV. At night he and Katherine walk Matisse and Rhubarb. Sometimes on a Saturday or a Sunday they drive to Hinckley Lake and watch the ducks swim in circles in the shallow bay by the boathouse. Every month or so they drive over to Wooster to see how the Bittinger boy is coming along with his new business ventures. The espresso bar and gift shop aren't doing so well, but the gourmet grocery is a big success and the Bittinger boy is talking about opening one in Tuttwyler. He's got his eyes on the empty auto parts store.

So Howie Dornick happily pulls Matisse along on his leash and Katherine Hardihood happily pulls Rhubarb along on his clothesline.

There is a dark shape moving along the back wall of the library. It is a strange dark shape. It is wide and round and flat on top. And it has two legs and two arms. And those arms are carrying something. During the festival teenagers are always lurking in the shadows, necking and smoking cigarettes, but this is a strange shape and Howie and Katherine are more than a little curious.

They advance, quietly, until they reach the azalea bushes by the rock garden. Matisse and Rhubarb want to piss the bushes, so they stop and let them. They can see the dark shape more clearly now. It is a large cupcake. Which, of course, means it is Darren Frost, the village expert on pornography. They watch as Darren Frost carefully places one of the things in his arms against the wall. It is a long and cylindrical thing. It's a pipe bomb, that's what it is. Darren Frost intends to blow up the library.

They watch as Darren Frost disappears around the corner. Matisse and Rhubarb are finished pissing and so they follow. They stop by the bomb he has already planted. They listen to it ticking. They slip to the end of the building and look around the corner. Darren Frost is hiding another bomb, this one between the Rhododendrons planted two Arbor Days ago by Jamie Vanderpike's kindergarten class.

Howie Dornick and Katherine Hardihood are not happy about this bomb thing. They frown at each other and search each other's eyes. Of course they should stop Darren Frost from doing this. Howie could tackle that cupcake and punch and kick it until the idiot inside tells him how to stop those pipes from ticking. Katherine could yell and scream and maybe throw a rock through a window so the burglar alarm goes off.

These are the things they could do. These are the things they should do. Right this second they should do these things. But they know what happens to people who stop idiots from blowing off bombs. They become the same thing soldiers who save Seabees become. They become heroes. And heroes become public property, like storm sewers and parking meters and rumors. Heroes are forced to ride on floats in parades. Their eyes agree that they do not want to be heroes.

But sneaking away is a cowardly thing. Artie Brown not only remained on the bank of the Matanikau shooting and shooting at those advancing Japanese, he advanced on them, driving that Seabee bulldozer right onto that flimsy bridge.

So it comes to this: Do they sneak forward and become heroes? Or do they sneak away and become cowards? Finding Darren Frost hiding his pipe bombs is anything but serendipitous.

Why doesn't Matisse bark? Why doesn't Rhubarb yowl? Let them be the heroes.

The Marching Wildcat Band of West Wyssock High is playing “Turkey in the Straw” and in just a minute the Singing Doves will begin their medley of “My Country 'Tis of Thee,” “She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain,” the famous Shaker hymn “Tis The Gift to Be Simple,” and Canned Heat's “Going Up the Country.” And then there will be an explosion of fake fire and smoke and Princess Pogawedka will rise above the stumps. Some in the crowd will gasp. Others will applaud and cheer. Howie Dornick and Katherine Hardihood know that any second now they will have to decide. Let it happen or stop it from happening. Their eyes weigh the pros and cons. Their eyes test each other's conscience. Each other's soul. Either they will have to sneak forward or sneak away.

Then Katherine Hardihood whispers: “Jiminy Cricket, Howard.”

And so Howie Dornick lets go of Matisse's leash and sneaks forward on all-fours, toward the huge cupcake fiddling with a bomb by the library wall.

And when he has the cupcake firmly by the ankles, and the cupcake is swearing and flopping, Katherine Hardihood starts yelling “Fire-fire-fire!”

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1196-9

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