A whistle blew. Jasper looked about and said, “Chaps, we are now all home free. We have pulled away from the shore.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Agent O. He pointed. “It is not long before we are at the middle of the river, and out of the jurisdiction of the Autarch. No one can stop us now.”
“Unless,” joked Katie, “there were one of those things like in a James Bond movie, and after you think you’ve defeated everyone, there’s one spy left who puts up a little fight in the last chapter.”
“No,” said the table, shrugging their weight off his shoulders and standing up. “No, even I do not have such heart to fight on.” He crossed his arms and looked wistfully back across the river.
Needless to say, it was Mrglik. Delaware’s leading furniture-imitating spy.
“Bntno, he is down in automo-car waiting for a chase, yes? But why, I ask? We could fight, smack-smick, here. And you punch, and me punch.”
“And I’d throw the food on you from behind,” said Lily, coming up with the lunches.
“And Mr. Committee would run down the steps with his coat a-flap-flap,” said Mrglik wearily. “And then he into the automo-car with Bntno. And they start the car up.”
“But there’s no place to go, since we’re on a ferry,” said Jasper.
“Exact. So then, if we can get car out, then we both drive—you drive in you van, Bntno drive in him automo-car—have very slow car chase, three mile per hour, in circles around boat. Maybe we get tired, stop to get out and have a slushie. Then get back in, keep up chase. But for what?”
“Who would really be chasing who?” asked Agent O. “When you’re both chasing in a circle?”
(“Ah!” crowed Brother Grzo, clapping. “Brother! By Saint Lrtguzl’s bones! You were made to be a monk!”)
Mrglik said dolorously, “We could have such chase.”
“That sounds great,” said Bvletch. “Like just what we want to do right now.”
“No,” said Mrglik. “No, no chase. What would be win? What would be lose? I call it even if you gets me a fish sandwich.”
“Sure,” said Lily.
“And for Bntno, some Jolly Ranchers.”
“It’s a deal,” said Lily, smiling.
“I’d offer you a seat,” said Katie, “but it might be one of your relatives.”
“No, no seat,” said Mrglik, waving his hand faintly. “I go rest by that binnacle there. Much to learn from that binnacle.” He twisted up his mouth in some private sorrow. He said to them all, “So. We meet again, and yes, all that.”
Then he clumped off with his huge Formica tabletop on his back. He sat by the binnacle and made a study of its rivets.
They were at the middle of the Delaware River. It was strange, but now when they looked back over the water, there was a funny kind of haze. They couldn’t quite make out Wilmington anymore. Or at least, they couldn’t see the Castle anymore. It was almost as if there weren’t any Castle there at all. They could no longer see the sailing ships in the harbor. Just normal streets and houses. Power lines.
And then they were in New Jersey.
When they got off the ferry, there were two FBI agents waiting to take the Committee away. He hissed and glowered, but there was nothing he could do.
The friends looked for Mrglik, but he was nowhere to be seen.
As they got into the van, they saw Bntno in his car. He waved to them in a friendly kind of way, and opened up his mouth and stuck out his tongue to show them that a Jolly Rancher had turned it blue.
He didn’t get off the ferry, but headed right back to Delaware.
The monks donned again their monkish robes, the green of Vbngoom. They and the kids got in the van and started driving.
They drove for hours. They drove past New York City, and Brother Drgnan’s eyes were huge. He had never seen so many buildings, so many people. And he could not believe when they had traveled farther even than that—well into Connecticut—and still the sprawl continued. “It is the most amazing city I have ever seen!” he said. “It is like no place in Delaware!”
“It isn’t the same city,” Katie explained. “These places all have different names.”
“But it all looks like one city,” said Drgnan. “It is miraculous—it is like you people of the other states have made all places one. Truly, this is a marvel.”
Katie grinned. “I’m glad you like it,” she said.
“All of the houses, they are similar, and the stores, they are similar, and the roads—I cannot tell one from another. You see, to me, this is like nothing I have ever seen. To see it all spread like this for miles and miles and miles. I am filled with such joy.”
“Cool,” said Katie.
“Oh,” said Drgnan, gripping the window’s rubber seal, “if Rhode Island is exactly the same as Connecticut, with these same houses and roads and stores, I shall burst!”
“You can bet on it,” said Katie. “It doesn’t stop: It just gets thicker and thinner.”
Lily was not quite so sure that she was glad to be back in the midst of all the towns that looked identical from the highways, all the supermarkets laid out the same way, the stores that sold the same old pants. She already missed the smell of spices and the bleating of livestock, the danger of dragons and bears.
But also, she knew from having been to Delaware that in each one of these identical houses was a strange world too, with people as various as those who lined the market stalls of Dover. In these homes there were collections of butterflies mounted on boards, and there were women who spent their nights calling bakeries to check on orders they’d never left. There were children who ran multimillion-dollar businesses over the Internet, and dogs asleep, dreaming of pork chops the size of Stonehenge, and people of different religions who lit candles in their dining rooms to pray that they would never again be apart from those they loved. Best friends were sitting under trees as night fell, and in some room, a girl was lying on her bed, staring at her posters, in love with a boy who didn’t know she existed.
Lily wondered what kind of adventures they would have now. Drgnan would be staying with Jasper for a while, and Lily had no doubt that all four of them would soon be photographing microfilm in someone’s private jet or fighting off a horde of giant shrews. She wondered what conversations she would have with Drgnan, what they might talk about, whether he would tell her more about Delaware, so she could dream that she was there again. She looked forward to everything that would happen, so long as the four of them could be together.
So she was happy when, late at night, they pulled off the highway and spun down an off-ramp; when they passed the Halt ’n’ Buy she knew was hers, and the O’Dermott’s Drive-thru, and the Fashion Hole. She was happy when they drove past the center of Pelt, with its post office like any post office and its town hall like any town hall. She was happy when they passed a soccer field and went down a dip and past a fake stone wall. And she was happy when they pulled into the driveway of a house that looked like every other house in the neighborhood—because, though it looked like any other house, the people who ran out of it, crying with relief, were the people she loved—and this house, in this place, at this time, was home.
* Taylor Quizmo, on the other hand, had somehow gotten away in the confusion. He’s probably gone for good. I don’t suppose he’ll ever return in a sequel when our friends least expect him.
APPENDIX
ADDITIONAL LYRICS TO “THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS”
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my fr
iends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
And they’ll continue singing it forever just because
This is the song that never ends,
It just goes on and on, my friends.
M. T. Anderson, Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger!
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