The Wonderful Baron Doppelgänger Device

by Eric Bower

  “I’m not saying you are!” M argued. “I’m saying that you might have accidentally added some ingredients to your pie that caused it to explode! It was your pie that exploded, Rose, that’s a fact. We all saw it.”

  “Hmmm,” P murmured to himself again. “Very interesting.”

  “What is it this time?” I asked. “You forgot to wash your feet too?”

  My father had gathered some more of the ash, as well as the charred remains of the exploding pie crust, and the blackened pie tin.

  “There are traces of explosives in here,” P announced. “This exploding pie wasn’t an accident. Whoever did this, did it on purpose.”

  I gulped as I glanced over at Rose, who looked shocked by what my father had just said.

  “Are you sure, P?” I asked quietly.

  Instead of answering me with a yes or no, he reached into his pocket and produced a match. He lit it and put the match head to the pile, which immediately sizzled and spat sparks. He was right. There were definitely traces of explosive powder. This wasn’t a recipe gone bad, it was an explosion gone good. Or something like that.

  Sorry, I guess that sounded better in my head.

  Rose’s painted lower lip began to quiver. She stared at the pile of explosive powder in disbelief, and then she turned to my mother.

  “Mrs. Baron,” she said, “thank you for allowing me to work for you and your husband. It was a wonderful experience and a dream come true. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like I was a part of a family. I quit.”

  As my mother accepted Rose’s resignation, one of the deputies came by and placed a set of handcuffs on her wrists.

  “Rose Blackwood,” the deputy said, “you are under arrest.”

  My parents and I were silent for the entire horseless carriage ride back home. My mother buried her face in her hands, while my father steered the carriage with a troubled look on his face. Aunt Dorcas muttered about her wasted pies and tarts, and how no one in town had any taste. I lay in the backseat and tried to keep my moaning to myself. My stomach was still in awful shape from all the pie and fair food I’d eaten, and the carriage ride wasn’t helping. Every bump we hit felt like a fist to my swollen belly. It seemed wrong that something I loved so much could have hurt me so badly—and by that I meant both Rose Blackwood and pie.

  B.W. had offered to ride Geoffrey back to the Baron Estate for us. He’d missed most of the excitement following the explosion, because he was using the outhouse at the time. He couldn’t believe it when we’d told him that it looked as though Rose Blackwood had finally turned as evil as her brother.

  “But she’s nothing like Benedict Blackwood,” B.W. had said, as he shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve read all about him in Sheriff Hoyt Graham’s books. Rose is kind and sweet and generous, and Benedict is cruel and evil and greedy. There must be some sort of mistake.”

  But it didn’t seem as though there had been a mistake, no matter how badly we all wished otherwise. Rose was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister, and though she’d only been staying with us for a few months, we all considered her an honorary member of the Baron family. I was going to miss her terribly.

  When we pulled up to the Baron Estate, P and M had to roll me out of the carriage like a barrel full of rainwater. I was so bloated with pie that two of my shirt buttons had popped off and hit Aunt Dorcas on the back of the head during the carriage ride.

  “I think your supper tonight will be some light vegetable broth,” M told me as she helped me up the front steps to the house. “And then some weak tea.”

  “Could we drop some chicken and dumplings into the vegetable broth?” I asked hopefully.“And maybe serve the tea with a little cake or two?”

  M stared at me for a moment, before slowly shaking her head as we went inside.

  I guess that meant no.

  The following week was filled with loneliness. When I went to school the next day, I found out that B.W. had come down with a terrible and contagious flu, which meant he would be staying out of school for a while, and I wouldn’t be able to visit him. Shorty was still spending all her time with her father, who was having a difficult time coping with the fact that he would never be able to grow the thick and bushy mustache of his dreams. Aunt Dorcas was pouting because she had lost the contest, and because her best friend Madge Tweetie had spread a nasty rumor all over town that Dorcas had helped Rose bake her exploding pie.

  And Rose, of course, was gone. She was locked up in the Pitchfork jail. Her trial would be coming up soon, and I hoped that she would be proven innocent. I couldn’t imagine her doing anything evil, I really couldn’t. The thought of her stuck in a lonely jail cell made me terribly sad.

  My parents refused to talk about Rose. They were quite upset that an assistant of theirs had been linked to a horrible crime, and they grew even more upset anytime that I mentioned her name. They were so upset about the whole exploding pie incident that they refused to talk about anything that had happened at the fair. In fact, my parents were barely speaking at all, except for a couple of words during mealtimes. Following the fair, M and P spent most of their time quietly tinkering with the inventions and devices in their work garage. I asked if they were working on a new and exciting invention that could lead us on another adventure, perhaps something that would send us up to the stars, or down into the center of the earth, or something that could allow us to travel back in time to prevent a terrible explosion from happening at a certain local fair.

  “I’m afraid not,” M told me with a sigh as she tinkered with a metal contraption that looked like a miniature cannon. “It looks like a lot of our old inventions have begun to fail, so we’re just repairing them. You’re welcome to stay and help us if you like. I could explain some of the inventions to you, so you can understand how to properly fix them. Take this invention, for instance. I explained to your friend B.W. that this particular invention is a rapid-fire gun, which actually makes new bullets while it’s firing. It does that through—”

  “That’s alright,” I said quickly, before the wacky music could start playing in my head. “I think I’ll just go for a walk.”

  “Ask Geoffrey if he wants to go with you!” P called. “He worries that you and he haven’t really bonded yet. Be nice to your new brother, W.B., he’s a good horse.”

  “I talked to Geoffrey earlier today. He said that he was feeling a little tired and wanted to take a nap. But we promised to bond with each other later.”

  In truth, I had not spoken to the horse, mostly because you can’t have a real conversation with a horse, unless you happen to have a mind as odd as my father’s.

  I just felt the need to clear that up.

  I went for a walk on my own, past the border of the Baron Estate, and down the path which cut through the Pitchfork Desert and led into town. I’m not usually the sort of person who enjoys walking, because why waste time walking when there are sandwiches to be eaten? But I was lonely and bored and upset. And sitting by myself in the house only reminded me of my loneliness and boredom and upset feelings. I decided to see what nature had in store for me.

  It was a lovely day, but I really wasn’t in the mood for a lovely day. When I’m in a bad mood, I want to see dark clouds and thunderstorms, and flurries of snow and ice, or at the very least, the sort of powerful winds strong enough to lift a cow in the air and set it gently on your neighbor’s roof. But, unfortunately, everything was just lovely in the Pitchfork Desert. It was bright and sunny. There was a nice, cool breeze in the air, and there were actually songbirds chirping in the sky instead of squawking vultures and crows.

  As I walked down the desert path, I grumbled to myself about how annoying it was that everything was so sickeningly nice and lovely.

  And because I was so busy grumbling, I didn’t notice that someone had snuck up behind me. They grabbed me by the neck and threw a heavy sack over my head so I cou
ldn’t see. I was then hit over the head so hard that I could actually feel my back teeth vibrate from the impact, and soon pink and purple squirrels were performing cartwheels in my slowly swimming mind. As I fell to the ground and began to slip into unconsciousness, I tried to call for help. But the only sound my mouth made was MERRrrrgggg . . .

  Bouncing Halfway Across the Country on My Backside

  “MERRrrrgggg . . .” I merggged as my eyes began to flutter.

  “Did you hear that?” a strange voice asked. “The little feller merggged again.”

  “He sure does a lot of merggging, don’t he?” another strange voice answered.

  Once my eyes were open and adjusted to the light, I found myself feeling quite confused, which was actually pretty normal for me. I’m often confused. In fact, sometimes I get a bit concerned if I’m not confused. It just doesn’t feel right.

  But this time I was more confused than usual.

  I was lying on a splintered wood floor. I could see several bales of hay stacked across from me. I smelled animals, but strangely enough, I couldn’t see any animals. I did see two men though, who were dressed in shabby coats, shoes with holes in the toe, wrinkled ties that were cut in half, stained shirts without collars, vests missing half the buttons, and high hats with holes punched into the top. They were looking at me with amused expressions on their dirty and unshaven faces.

  At first I thought that I must have stumbled into a barn, but then I noticed that the barn appeared to be moving.

  “Is this a movable room?” I asked the men, and then winced when my hand accidentally brushed against the back of my head.

  There was a big lump there from when I’d been hit. I must have been hit really, really hard. I’ve had many heavy things land on my head before (a bookshelf, an anvil, a cannon ball, a baby grand piano, a wheelbarrow filled with turnips, a goat, a shed), but this felt like the biggest beating that my hard head had ever taken.

  “I suppose you could call it that,” one of the men said with a toothless grin. “Ain’t you never been on a dangler before, buckaroo?”

  “My name is W.B.,” I told him as I struggled to stand, then gave up and remained seated. “What’s a ‘dangler’? It sounds gross, like something that’s hanging out of your nose that you don’t know about.”

  “A dangler is an express train, kid.”

  “A train?” I repeated. “Oh. No, I’ve never been on a train before.”

  “Well, you’re on one now!” the other one cackled, slapping his knee with his palm. “The Old 44 Express! The fastest dangler in the U.S. of A! Hah hee!”

  “Hah hee!” the other man echoed.

  “Hah hee!” I echoed too, though I didn’t know why. “Wait, why am I on a train?”

  “Good question, chickabiddy,” one of the cackling men said as he sat down beside me and pulled out a pocket knife and a can of Newer Oldtown Old Fashioned Beans. “When we hopped aboard to beat the road, we found you lying here, unconscious. I’m not usually a betting man, but I’d be willing to bet all the tulips in Tallahassee that someone knocked you on the noggin and then dumped you in here. I bet the feller who did that to you most likely wanted to get you out of the way. Looks like you made yourself an enemy, jackeroo.”

  Knocked me on the noggin and dumped me in here? Get me out of the way? Made an enemy? Tulips in Tallahassee? Jackeroo?

  “What do you mean by ‘get me out of the way’?” I asked.

  “He means that the person who bonked you on the cabbage and tossed you into this train car must have wanted you on the other side of the country as quickly as possible, probably so you couldn’t cause them any trouble,” the other man explained, as he pulled out a box of crackers. “We see it happen all the time. You must have seen something you shouldn’t have seen, or heard something that you shouldn’t have heard, or smelled something you shouldn’t have smelled, or tasted something you shouldn’t have tasted, and now someone wants to get you out of the picture, understand?”

  “No,” I said, my throbbing brain still spinning in my skull. “I don’t understand any of that. Smelled something I shouldn’t have smelled? What?”

  “You know too much, kid, much too much,” one of the men said while he opened the can of baked beans with his knife. “And trust me, I know what I’m talking about. My name is Lefty.”

  Lefty bowed, and pointed to the man holding the box of crackers.

  “And he’s Lefty Also. You look like you’re hungry, little lubber, though you strike me as the sort of feller who’s always hungry, ain’t you? I mean, your eyes ain’t left this can of baked beans since I pulled it from my pocket. Would you like some beans on crackers? You might not believe me, but I know from personal experience that beans on crackers is the preferred breakfast of the kings over in Europe.”

  I didn’t believe him. First of all, he pronounced “Europe” like “your-oppy,” which I was pretty sure wasn’t correct. Secondly, I’d met several kings in Europe during my last adventure with my parents, and I didn’t see a single one of them eating baked beans on crackers. But I still thanked Lefty and Lefty Also for their generosity. The way that the orange-colored sun slowly began to pour through the lone window of the chugging train car led me to believe that I must have been unconscious for quite some time. It was the early hours of the morning, and I was very hungry.

  I ate all the crackers and beans that Lefty and Lefty Also gave to me, as well as some that they didn’t—I sneaked them while they weren’t looking. While I ate the beans and crackers, they told me all about their fascinating lives.

  “Well, let me tell you a thing or two about a thing or three,” Lefty Also began, leaning back and crossing his hands behind his head. “We weren’t always drifters, me and Lefty. In fact, we used to be successful and respected members of society, the biggest toads in the puddle, believe it or not.”

  “Not,” I said.

  “Don’t interrupt me, tenderfoot. You see, back in the old days, Lefty and I used to attend all sorts of fancy parties and fancy dinners, and we’d stay in fancy hotels, while dressed up in our fancy clothes without any holes or mysterious stains on them. By the way, what do you think this mysterious stain on my shoulder is? Mustard? I hope it’s mustard. I’ve been licking it all morning. Anyway, Lefty and I used to be world famous inventors.”

  “Oh really?” I asked, sneaking another cracker. “You don’t say.”

  “I do say. And stop sneaking crackers.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We invented wonderful and fantastic things that the world had never seen before,” Lefty Also continued, as he put the rest of the crackers in his pocket. “Our most famous invention was an indoor outhouse that we built over thirty-five years ago.”

  “How did you build that?” I asked, thinking about our own indoor bathroom at the Baron Estate, which my parents had designed and built long before I was born. “Did you attach lots of pipes filled with water that lead outdoors into an underground metal tank?”

  “Nope, we just put a regular outhouse inside a house,” Lefty answered. “No pipes. No water. No tanks. No nothing. We just cut a big hole in the floor and placed the outhouse on top of it. As it turns out, it wasn’t a very good invention. In fact, it was pretty terrible. The people who had our indoor outhouses built in their homes said they were disgusting. And they were right, by gum. After a few days, their houses all stunk pretty badly.”

  “Very badly,” Lefty Also agreed. “The indoor outhouses also attracted a lot of flies. In fact, they attracted so many flies that we were forced to invent a bug zapper to get rid of them all.”

  “What’s a ‘bug zapper’?” I asked.

  “It’s an invention that we came up with, which gets rid of pesky bugs. What you do is take a stick, dip it into kerosene, and then you light the end of the stick on fire. Then, when you see a bug in your house, you hit it with the flaming stick and yell ‘ZA
P!’”

  “ZAP!” Lefty echoed, cackling wildly.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked.

  “It was incredibly dangerous!” Lefty Also exclaimed. “In fact, everyone who used our bug zapper ended up burning down their home.”

  “It did get rid of the bugs though,” Lefty assured me.

  “That’s right,” Lefty Also nodded. “But folks still got angry with us and demanded that we give them money to buy new homes. People care way too much about money, in my humble opinion. Well, by that point, Lefty and I were broke. We didn’t have a tailfeather left between us. So we decided to quit inventing things. Instead, we would live life on the road, as two merry drifters, traveling across the country with no home, job, family, or crippling lawsuits to weigh us down. We’re making hay while the sun shines. Some might call us hobos or bums, but I prefer to use the word drifter or traveler. It just sounds better.”

  “Yep,” Lefty confirmed. “We’re just two merry travelers who are on a mission to see every inch of this great land, traveling by the skin of our teeth. This is a mighty big country, and a high-speed train is the best way to see as much of it as you can, as quickly as you can. You’d be amazed how fast this dangler travels.”

  Lefty opened the sliding door of the train car and tossed the empty bean can outside. I could see that we were riding across a long, grassy area that I didn’t recognize. It didn’t look like any part of Arizona Territory.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “That’s a darn good question, little shaver,” Lefty said as he peered across the fields, which appeared to run all the way to the horizon. “If I had to guess, and I tell you I ain’t no fancy guessing feller, I’d have to say that we’re somewhere in the northern part of the great state of Texas.”