WARNING
Beware of the Hit-List!
14
THE DISAPPEARING ACT
THE COSMIC EXTRAVAGANZA was hard to leave. Lucas let Maxx and Sloane go on ahead. After one last look he was sliding back to his low-budget life on the inside of the window frame. If it wasn’t for the sgraggy branch swishing his ear and giving him a swift smack in the head, he might not have looked back. He would have missed it. But the walloping did make him turn to steal another look and one more gulp of frosty clean air.
The fiery streak came shooting out of nowhere… like a missile! After a quick duck and a hard blink came a ker-plunk. Something hit the roof-tip. All at once it was bouncing, then speeding down, racing like a boulder on a bobsled straight towards him. His eyes popped wide.
After a slow-down skid, a smoldering hand-sized lump of glassy rock wobbled to a stop just in front of his nose. Wow! It was a chunk off a shooting star!
“Awesome! Thanks!” Lucas yelled into the ocean of space. This was a gift. Just for him. He just knew it.
It was still simmering hot. He dropped it several times trying to pick it up too fast. He blew it cool.
“What are you still doing up there?” Sloane hollered up.
Lucas finally scooped up the star-piece and slid back inside. The window bumped closed.
“Look what I have!” He cried with the rock still hot in his hand. He shimmied down, anxious to show off his prize.
When Lucas landed on the main floor Sloane was distracted. She was immersed in something she was writing. After jotting the last word, she dropped her pen and looked up from the paper she was scribbling her note on.
She and Maxx went starry-eyed when Lucas opened his hand for them. The rock was like a twinkling jewel.
Down at the base of the tree, Mrs. Warbuck was heaping the rope-strung dinner basket. The kids were rowdy today. She didn’t know what had them chattering like chipmunks, but finally, the fat rope was rolling on the pulley, hoisting the basket up. Soon after, she heard Sloane squealing. She could only guess it was because she had found the pigs-in-blankets nestled in the basket. Martha Warbuck smiled and headed into the house. She had her reward.
They were all starving. Mrs. Warbuck’s amazing knack for making every meal a celebration delighted them. Today they sipped iced pineapple fizz from paper cups dropped into halved coconut shells. The tree fort was well stocked with coconut shells. They were used for all kinds of things. The ones nailed onto poles against the outside railings cupped yellow wax. At dusk, they were tiki-torches.
Today they were on an exotic island, just the three of them, fresh from a mystery expedition. The gobbling and munching of the delicious dinner brought their chatter to a quiet jabbering. All seemed calm. Maybe a little too calm.
A gentle breeze ruffled the palm grass window-fringe and drifted inside to lullaby the mosquito net into a dreamy sway. While the afternoon wound down and flat-lined the three of them lazily twisted, slung in the rope strung chairs. And… they thought they were alone. Why wouldn’t they?
The evening sky was melting from blue to yellow to pink. It was the time of day when goings-on stalled for a while. This time of year the daylight hours snubbed the night.
No one was looking when the intruder snuck in. Neatly tucked and comfy, he too found the mood intriguing, while it lasted.
All at once a strong wind gust gave the tree branch a hard shove; hard enough to rattle the whole fort. The tree branch shook violently and the wind whistled harshly, “Be off with you, you scoundrel!”
Suddenly a beefy black raven popped out of the tiki-torch shell he was hiding in and kicked up a fuss. He screamed furiously!
The rascal took flight! Or was he a crook? If it wasn’t that the gusty wind seemed to blow up out of the blue, it may have looked like the whole thing was planned. And maybe it was.
“Whoa,” Sloane yelled. The kerfuffle energised everyone again.
“It’s nearly time for Charles to pick me up,” Maxx was getting up to leave. “I think I’ll go wait out front,” he said.
“Ok. Oh yeah, you have something special to do tonight?” Lucas asked.
Maxx was mysterious. “It’s a surprise. I’ll show you later,” he said with a smirk.
“Ok,” Lucas shrugged. Now he was even more curious.
While Maxx took the ladder, Lucas shimmied down with him on the rope. Sloane stayed put. Slumped in the swing chair, her feet did a slow dance on the floor while she waited for Lucas to come back.
“I wonder what he’s up too?” Sloane said to Lucas when he sprawled out on the bench across from her.
But Lucas wasn’t thinking about Maxx anymore. “I wish I could remember what Nunzio said,” he complained.
“What do you mean?” Sloane asked. “He said lots of things. What part are you trying to remember?” she said.
“You know… the riddle,” Lucas said with a deepening wrinkle in the middle of his forehead.
“Oh Lucas, I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you,” Sloane was tripping over her words. “We were all so excited about your star-rock, or should we call it your rock star,” she giggled. “I wrote it down.”
“You wrote what down?” Lucas asked.
“I wrote down the riddle,” Sloane replied.
“What do you mean; you wrote it down… when?” Lucas was smiling in disbelief, trying to figure out how she could have done that.
Sloane started to tell him, with a slow-breaking smile. “Well, I knew that Nunzio was telling you something really important. I just had to remember it. I repeated it over and over to myself while we were climbing back down. I scribbled it on a piece of paper, somewhere between your rock-star and your mom’s pigs-in-blankets,” she laughed.
“I remembered the whole thing. At least I think I did.” She was proud of herself and smiling big. “I did forget to give it to you though,” she added with a silly grin.
“Wow Sloane, that’s amazing! Thanks!” Lucas could hardly believe it. She was such an awesome friend. He didn’t know what he would ever do without her.
“Where is it?” Lucas asked. “Let’s have a look.”
“Um….” Sloane was thinking. “Now what did I do with it? I remember moving it aside to pull up the dinner basket. Oh, yeah,” she said with a sure look on her face. She jumped to a cubby by the window; it ended with a frown. She turned back to rummage through it. “I know I put it here,” she pouted. “Where could it be?” With a slow twirl, she scanned the room.
“I’m sure I put it here,” Sloane kept on. “We can even ask Maxx. He was right here too.” Now she was muttering. “There’s really no use in asking him because I remember I put it here. But I guess it wouldn’t hurt. Maybe he moved it,” she guessed. “I doubt it, but you never know,” she said.
Lucas was just itching to get his hands on that note. They both were. He was already heading for the ladder. “I’ll go and call Maxx,” he told Sloane without looking back.
“He might not even be home yet,” Sloane called after him. A moment later the screen door slammed shut. It slammed once more and Lucas was back. By then, Sloane had rifled through everything she could think of searching for the note. “Did you talk to him?” she asked hopefully.
Lucas nodded.
“Really? He was home already?” Sloane was relieved.
“Yeah, he just got in,” Lucas replied. “He said he didn’t know. He saw you writing something, but he wasn’t paying attention. He thought the basket looked cool coming up the pulley rope. He said he was busy watching that.”
Sloane moaned.
“Do you think you can still remember it?” Lucas asked. “Maybe you can write it again,” he urged.
Sloane’s face was skewed, “Oh, I don’t know. I could try,” she said wistfully. She wasn’t settled down enough to concentrate yet. Where could it have gone? She wondered to herself again. Her eyes zig-zagged through the room. “Things just can’t dis-appear out of thin air, can they?” she asked.
The sequence of even
ts was surprising. At least it would have been if anyone else besides Felix had noticed. And no, things usually don’t just disappear out of thin air; but then it depends what you mean by, out of thin air.
Until he heard the screen door’s racket, Felix was jelly-rolled on a kitchen chair where Mrs. Warbuck was stacking hot-dog pieces into pyramids, and dodging flour puffs from stretching out her pastry dough. The erratic rhythm of the knife thumping the cutting board lulled him in and out of his siesta. Jibber-jabbering drifted out of the open windows of the fort. Occasionally, the screens were allowing snippets of it into the kitchen.
Curiosity was getting to him. After a lion-sized yawn and a Pilates-stretch he was ready to prowl. It took some fancy frolicking to catch Mrs. Warbuck’s attention, but his antics finally wore her down and she opened up the screen door for him.
If Felix wanted to avoid the drama of a rush of kisses from Sloane, and he did, his best tactic would be to camouflage with the scenery. After slinking off the porch he tiptoed along the rock garden, stopping short to strike a statue pose. The only thing moving were the clouds gliding through the sky. All seemed well. He coiled, then sprung with ease onto one of the sturdy fence posts that corralled the back yard.
His cover was blown. The black birds next door must have noticed. A moment ago they were calm and dozing, but now, mad squabbling broke out. Just to prove they couldn’t ruffle him, Felix made a spectacle of selecting just the right spot to lounge on the fence rail. It was a good excuse anyway to rest-up for his usual routine. It was right around here that he noticed something most peculiar.
Felix’s balancing talents could rival any circus tightrope walker. Today it was perfect. The sun burned a spotlight on the back of his head. He would show-off a perilous stroll across the tiny top of the fence line. Like other days, the crowd of ravens assembled on the roof of the Voyance house was his audience, even if they were a hostile bunch.
After only three steps, he stopped short. It was part of the act. An attention grabber. A furious licking of his hind leg followed. He was sure this stunt alone was worth a rowdy applause.
Suddenly, without warning, a tumultuous wind ripped through the yard in a tantrum! It nearly blew his fur coat off! It was so wild that even the flea family that had only just taken up residence took flight, nest and all! Felix found himself scratching in a frenzy to anchor his nails into the wood rail. With wild eyes, he happened to look up… just in time.
Just in time to see a black-as-tar raven flapping freakishly around the tree fort. And how weird is this? Could it be a fluke? At first glance, it seemed that a delicate white flower was fluttering out of the tree fort window, sailing up like a kite, flipping and twirling up, up, up, until it was floating, suspended, straight in the bird’s flight path.
And wouldn’t you know it! That old raven was ready with his beak opened up like a trap door. Snap! The bird floated past like a hero, with what turned out to be a scrappy piece of paper, hanging out of his mouth.
Felix’s head yo-yoed trailing it. If it wasn’t for what happened next, this would have already been strange enough.Almost as if it was normal, the winds feisty charade suddenly stopped. The flowers bowing side-ways under the fence bounced back up, straight as nails again. Except for the raven flying like a lone ranger on what looked like a fixed flight path, everything was dead still, for the moment.
The raven flapped hard, then he was smooth-soaring. His eyes were locked on his target zone, a spot on the roof’s edge above an upstairs window. His twiggy legs stretched forward. His landing gear was out.
Felix’s eyes were stalking the bird. He was much too high for a pounce. What happened next scared his lion-heart, just a little. Now his eyes were pinwheeling. It was too perfect. Like the whole thing was rehearsed. Even the window shutters shuttered!
The raven’s beak dropped open and Felix’s mouth did too. With the hijacking over, the paper broke into a free-falling dance. It twirled down, down, down, as straight as an arrow, right for the mark. Then, with a flash, a skinny arm swung out of the window like a mechanical lever. As stiff as a hockey stick, it snatched the drooping paper, tumbling like a dead flower, right out of thin air!
The black birds went wild! What an applause! At first Felix was ready to believe it was all for him. But after what he just saw, he wasn’t so sure. His gaze zoomed to the window. He blinked wide. He froze. In a freakish brain-freeze, his eyes locked onto another’s. It was Clair Voyance!
She was watching him, watching her. His coppery fur glowed like a bonfire in the sun. He had seen the whole thing. She would add him to her hit list. A moment later the curtains shifted still and she was gone.