The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper

by E. L. Konigsburg

  “Well, then, so long,” Andy said. He waved limply, not cool. He walked down the steps and waited for Edie on the porch. But he wasn’t comfortable there. He decided to walk to the main road to meet her. She seemed to be taking an awful long time. A normal sidekick would be a better judge of time, using as a measure all the other times they had stopped at Brother Banks’s. As he walked, he kicked the dust in the rut. He was walking and kicking and thinking when the oleander that lined the sides of the road parted, and a man jumped into his path.

  “Hold it a minute, son,” the man said. He stood spread-eagled across the path. He lifted his chin, keeping his eyes on Andy. The oleander on the other side of the path parted, and a second man appeared. This one stood behind Andy.

  Andy was furious. How could such a cool, tough detective-in-(high) training get himself caught in such a primitive trap? “Whadya want?” he snarled. His heart was pounding; his eyes seemed to have suddenly developed blisters, and something was hammering at his head from the inside. Everything was hot, very, very hot.

  “Take it easy, fella,” the first man said. “We would just like for you to empty your pockets.”

  “A man’s pants are his castle. You got a search warrant?”

  “Listen, kid, suppose you just tell us what you carried into that house.”

  At that moment the man turned. Edie had raced into the road from the highway, her horn blasting. She pulled to a screeching halt, just pennies short of hitting the first man. She opened the door to the car, jumped out and yelled Catch! at the same time as she threw a five pound sack of rice toward him. The man turned and held out his arms and caught it. She leaned back into the car, took out a second five pound sack, yelled Catch! again, and the second man did the same. While they were clutching the stuffings of Mary Janes pillow, Andy used the time to dive toward the car and get in. Edie didn’t give the men a chance to have even first thoughts about what they would do with their catch. She got into the car a second behind Andy, shifted into reverse and zoomed out of the drive, like a comic motion picture run backward.

  “Well, boss,” Edie said after they were safely driving in the right-hand lane of the Interstate, “how’d we do?”

  “Aw, for God’s sake, Edie, you go around acting like a rough and tough mess-’em-up kind when I expect to be cool. I was handling everything perfectly all right. I had told them that a man’s pants are his castle and…”

  “Those guys had guns, Andy.”

  “Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Sure they did.”

  “I saw them.”

  “Well, that doesn’t make sense. You were there just a second, and I was there longer, and I am a trained observer.”

  “Actually, I didn’t know until they caught the rice. And actually, I didn’t see the guns.”

  “Aha! It is dangerous to jump to conclusions, Yakots. Very dangerous. Besides, a sidekick isn’t supposed to make conclusions, let alone jump to them.”

  “They had guns, all right. They were in shoulder straps or harnesses or whatever they’re called.”

  “Oh, those straps. I noticed those. They were under their jackets. I thought it was funny that they should wear suspenders when they had belts, too. My father only wears suspenders when he wears a tuxedo.” Andy fell back against the seat and whistled. “For God’s sake,” he said. And that was the last thing he said until they pulled up in front of his house, and he said, “So long, Yakots.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  If Andys nerves were bad that evening at supper, no one noticed. Because everyone’s nerves played second string to Mrs. Chronister’s. She came to the supper table with her nerve endings hanging out like a box of moist excelsior that had suddenly been opened and allowed to dry. Every day closer to the wedding it got worse. As of that Thursday, Mrs. Vivian J. Chronister of 8129 Serena Road, Foxmeadow, Gainesboro had 4,326 extra feet of nerve endings that no one could stuff back into her five-foot-four-inch frame.

  “The caterers are coming tomorrow,” Mrs. Chronister began. She didn’t even wait for the preliminaries: And how was your day, dear? Just delicious, and how was yours? It was like starting a basketball game without singing “The StarSpangled Banner,” for God’s sake. “The caterers are coming, and so are the tent makers. The caterers are going to set up the tables, and the tent makers are going to set up the tent.”

  “The detectives will be coming also,” Mr. Chronister said. “Everyone can take a tour of the premises together. You can have a preparty party.”

  “Detectives?” Andy asked. “What do you need detectives for, for God’s sake?”

  “To guard the gifts and the furs.”

  “What furs? In May, for God’s sake?”

  “Many of our guests will be wearing fur wraps. It gets chilly in air conditioning. Your father, at my suggestion, has hired two off-duty city detectives to guard them.”

  “Why do you need the fuzz to guard the furs when you’ve got me? I’m going to be a detective.”

  “But,” said Mr. Chronister, “you will be busy with our guests. You and I must be gracious hosts.”

  “If the people that you have invited are our friends, then why do you have to guard against them?”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Chronister said, “whatever made you think that a person invites only friends to a wedding? Heaven knows, we had to invite relatives, too, and we have as many of your father’s business acquaintances and clients coming as we have friends. Besides, this wedding has had so much publicity in the society columns that everyone knows our place will be as loaded with jewelry as a bank vault. It would take only one carload of crooks to fleece everyone who comes to dinner. Old Tim Feagin wouldn’t know a carload of crooks from a carload of your father’s relatives. And we can’t ask him to check everyone to see if he has an invitation. We wouldn’t want our guests to feel that we don’t trust them.”

  “What I want to know,” Mary Jane said, “is how we’re going to fit in two odd males? Two men no one will know. Where will the caterer seat them?”

  “Now, that’s the last thing that you have to worry about,” Mr. Chronister explained. “They won’t look odd at all. No one will know that they’re here. One will help park the cars; he’ll keep an eye on things on the outside. The other will be dressed as a waiter; he’ll keep an eye on things on the inside, the furs, the guests and the wedding gifts.”

  Andrew could stand it no longer. He exploded. “Do you mean to tell me that you hired two detectives when you have me, Andrew Jackson Chronister, available? What kind of parents are you, showing no faith in your son? Your son who has been in training for months and months and practically a year?” He glared at his father. “I’m sitting out this whole wedding.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Mr. Chronister said, “providing that you sit it out first at the church and then very quietly here at home. And that you smile while sitting it out.”

  Andy left the table in disgust. His fury at his father was piled on top of his rage at Yakots. What kind of a sidekick saved a cool, tough detective by throwing five pounds of rice and yelling Catch! Not once but twice. No human being could be expected to survive as much heat as he felt. He would have to ditch Yakots. He would have to ditch his father, too. Someday. After he had finished Emerson, high school, and college.

  Why would his father hire two detectives when he already had Andy? He could easily handle security at the wedding. He could recognize a shoulder holster now. He could tell one even if the person were also wearing a tuxedo and suspenders.

  Of course, when he was famous, he wouldn’t have to be involved with rough-’em-up types. He would just make appointments to solve famous but dignified murders.

  He went up to his room and saw the pysanky on his desk. He took the basket and put it in the trash. Very carefully. Then he took down a piece of drawing paper and drew dragons. He drew (maybe) a hundred dragons, all chasing each other around the page and off it. In one corner a dragon was sitting at a table eating (supper) and in another corner two were driving a car. He colo
red the car gray.

  Andy stopped at Edie’s the next day after school, even though he usually didn’t on Fridays. He had thought about it the whole night and the whole morning and the whole day at school, and he had to do something. He would give her back the Easter eggs. (He had taken them out of the wastepaper basket the night before, immediately after he had made up his mind. Or maybe immediately before.) Today he would tell Edie that she was dismissed. He would go it alone for a while. He would return the pysanky. Edie would be fired, and that would be that. After all these weeks she still had no idea of what a cool detective really did. Or how a sidekick worked. He certainly didn’t need her talking about life and art and dragons instead of helping with his training. Even though sidekicks weren’t supposed to help with the training, they certainly weren’t supposed to discuss life and art and dragons. And he certainly didn’t need her yelling Catch! and leaping into cars and making him follow. Of course he had had to follow, how else could he have gotten home?

  Edie answered the door and began talking a stream. “I bought more rice, and I stayed up until two o’clock in the morning finishing. And laurel is bay leaves, so I bought some at the same store I got the rice, and I found a penny from the year that Mary Jane was born, and do you want to hold or pour?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Sure, Andy,” Edie said. She dropped everything and sat with her hands folded across her lap, ready to listen. “What do you want to talk about, boss?”

  “This business of your being my sidekick.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, you’re ruining my reputation as a cool detective.”

  “I thought that a person had to have a reputation before he got it ruined.”

  “That may be so,” Andy replied, “but if you insist on being the punch-’em-up, fast getaway, Catch! type, I can’t go along with it. My style is to be cool and smooth. You can’t solve a mystery if you don’t stay cool.”

  “But you can’t find one if you do,” Edie answered. “You have to find the mystery before you can solve it. Sometimes finding it is all there is. Sometimes you never solve it.”

  “That’s not so. I’ll be the one detective who can.”

  “Maybe,” Edie said, “but I doubt it. You’re trying to be a detective for the same reason that I started carrying Sister Henderson. We’re both looking for the same thing. We’re both on the same trail, but I know where I’m going.”

  “Just where are you going?”

  “Right now, I’m going into the kitchen to clean this penny with copper cleaner. I think it’s much nicer to put a shining penny into a wedding pillow. Will you pour?”

  “I came here to fire you.”

  Edie said, “Later.”

  So Edie held the bag, and Andy poured the rice into the pillow after she had put in the penny and the laurel. “I’ll have it all sewn up and wrapped before Harry—he’s my husband—comes home, and I’m married again. We’ll be there tomorrow, and I can hardly wait. Andy, will you please carry the dragon over to your house? Just put it with the other presents that have arrived today. I have a card all signed and ready. I know that I’ll say everything wrong if I deliver it. I got a new dress for the party, and Harry—he’s my husband—says that I look as normal as gooseberry pie. Actually, that’s quite a compliment because people usually say ‘as normal as blueberry pie.’” She bit off the thread as she finished the final seam, and she smiled up at Andy. “I can’t believe that I’m going. It’s my first big party since we moved here.”

  Here was Edie Yakots, a grown-up person, excited and nervous, too nervous even to take a present over to the house. She had bought a new dress for a wedding that wasn’t even hers. Everyone else in Foxmeadow, except Mrs. Chronister and Ms. Chronister, he was sure, would wear something that they had worn to the Debutante Ball or to the Foxmeadow Frolics. Tor God’s sake,” Andy told her, “Mary Jane is more cool about her very own wedding than you are.”

  “Oh, yes,” Edie agreed. “That’s why Mary Jane needs a dragon.” Andy looked puzzled. “Not that I believe that you can ever really give anyone a dragon. Everyone has to find his own. But it doesn’t hurt to try. Especially when they’re not even looking. I guess it is mostly when you know that someone is looking for a dragon that you should not give it to him. Just try to help him find it.”

  The pillow was awkward. Well, Andy thought, dragons were awkward. They had to wrap it in tissue paper because Edie wrapped it raw, without a box, and normal gift wrap wouldn’t work. They had used tissue paper of primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Well, Andy thought, dragons were primary. He carried the present up to Mary Jane’s room. Andy thought that if they recycled all the gift wrap there, it would make enough Coca-Cola cartons for seven years of drought. Edie’s was the only gift not wrapped in white. For a wedding present it looked as normal as gooseberry pie. Well, Andy thought, dragons were as normal as gooseberry pie.

  He’d have to fire Edie later. After the weekend. After Mary Jane’s marriage.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Andy was made to sit in the front row of seats, those reserved for members of the family. He kept turning around to see who was coming in. Edie arrived early. She looked different. Maybe because he had never seen her out of context. Like once he saw his first-grade teacher in the supermarket, dressed in shorts, for God’s sake. He hadn’t known what to do, so he had ducked down one aisle after another until they ran into each other (cart to cart) at the ice-cream counter, and Andy had been so taken aback that he had saluted.

  Edie didn’t wave at Andy at all. He had expected her to carry on insanely when she spotted him; he had made up his mind that he wouldn’t pay any attention, that the minute he spotted her, he would keep his eyes on his lap. But he kept looking back at her to catch her eye. But he couldn’t. She looked at everyone coming down the aisle. Maybe Harry—her husband—had warned her about behaving. She looked different. Then Andy realized that she was not wearing her glasses. She probably couldn’t see him. He’d help. He twisted around in his seat and waved

  his hand until he caught Harry—her husbands—attention. Harry smiled and gently tapped Edie and pointed to Andy. Finally, Edie herself waved. Andy sat around in his seat, staring ahead and realizing that he had been waving like an antenna in a high wind, for God’s sake.

  The ceremony took too long. Mary Jane was not satisfied with simply walking down the aisle and having the minister say things to her and to Alton. She had had to put in her two cents, too. She said poetry to Alton, and he said some to her. And then they both said the same things at the same time to the minister. None of them were things they had made up. They were memorized from some book that was not the Bible. Andy looked back at Edie to exchange a smirk with her, but there was no chance of catching her eye. She was smiling and squeezing Harry—her husbands—hand. And she had put on her glasses. She wasn’t missing one single thing except Andy’s smirk. She could have seen Andy if she had wanted to, if she weren’t concentrating so hard on the ceremony.

  After the part in the church, everyone who was in the wedding party or who was a member of the family went to the Chronisters’ house and formed a line. The guests walked past the line one by one. Most of them shook hands with everyone, but a lot of them kissed everyone, and after seven minutes, Mr. Chronister looked as if he had a case of terminal poison ivy. But he smiled and took it; he took it all: Revlon, Estee Lauder, Max Factor and Yardley.

  When Harry and Edie Yakots walked through the receiving line, they shook hands with everyone. Until Edie got to Andy. She had taken her glasses off again, and she was starting to shake hands with him before she noticed that the short person whose hand she was shaking was her boss, Andy. When she did, it was sayonara for Andy. She hugged him.

  “Oh, boss,” she said. “I’m so glad we came. And there’s more to come, and it was so already beautiful.”

  After the Yakotses had passed the whole length of the receiving line, Mr. Chronister turned his decorated face to his son a
nd asked, “Who was that wild woman? One of your mother’s relatives, I suspect.”

  “An impostor,” Andy answered. “Why don’t you have your two detectives arrest her?” That was all that Andy had a chance to say before he had to shake the next few hands.

  As soon as they had passed through the line, the guests, each and every one, picked up a glass of champagne and began the real party. Andy figured that he had spent more time in line than any of the guests and that he deserved a glass of champagne more than any of them. So he helped himself. In that room crowded with friends, relatives, business associates, two detectives (somewhere) and one crazy lady named Edie Yakots, Andy drank alone. Everyone else was drinking toasts to Mary Jane and Alton; but Andy was toasting Andy.

  His first glass of champagne tasted more like Alka-Seltzer than anything else. His second tasted like Alka-Seltzer with a dash of ginger ale. His third tasted like ginger ale altogether, and the fourth simply tasted wet. He lifted his fifth glass from the tray of the passing waiter. The waiter gave him a puzzled look; he gave the waiter a defiant look in return. His father took the glass from him and told him that it was time to eat.

  Andy looked up at his father. His father was swimming. No, just his father’s head was swimming. Andy thought that it was logical for his father’s head to be swimming. How else could his father have washed himself clean of all those kisses? He smiled, pleased with his logic. His father seemed to be not smiling. He pulled Andy toward one of the round tables where he was to sit between Alton’s brother and Alton’s sister. He stared at the shrimp that was in place before him and wondered why shrimp that had been boiled, peeled and deveined should still be swimming. Through cocktail sauce. Andy looked at Alton’s brother and Alton’s sister. They were much older than he was. They looked old enough to have college or kids. It would be nice to ask them how old they really were, but he decided not to. No one could talk underwater. They weren’t under as much water as his father had been. Their heads were just swaying with the tide like seaweed caught on a piling.