Frederik Sandwich and the Mayor Who Lost Her Marbles

by Kevin John Scott

  Frederik stared from the window, toward the Cisterns, and the crowd jostling at the gates to the International Midsummer Festival. “Thank you. I’d better go.”

  He found his way outside in glorious sunshine. He ran across the cobbles, leaving the brewery buildings behind. Frederik’s Hill was a modest rise by most nations’ standards, but running up it on a warm afternoon left him breathless. At the rear of the castle, his progress slowed. Most people were inside the park now, laughing and chatting, lugging picnic hampers, eager to claim their spot on the slopes, a view of the lake and the VIP banquet. But they’d left all their bikes, trikes, buggies, and trolleys outside. The sidewalk was blocked. He stepped out into the roadway to get by.

  A few stragglers, money in hand, were craning to read the menu on the side of a hot dog cart. A sour face sneered out of it. Henrik Hotdog, unloved vendor of fatty gristle and stale buns. That was strange. Why was he up here? His spot had been by the ice rink for as long as anyone remembered. A half mile away from here, at the main park entrance. “Chili dogs!” he hollered over their heads. “Low fat! Nutritious! Biodegradable!” His hot dogs were surely none of those things, but no one seemed to care.

  “Frederik!” Calamity Claus peeled away from the cart with a fistful of hot dog. Almost dropped it. “Want a bite?”

  “You came.”

  “I promised I would.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d make it unscathed. Let’s go.”

  Across the street, the lawn stretched flat above the Cisterns. At its far corner, the little glass gift shop reflected the glare of the sun. Two big, white trucks were parked on the lawn beside it.

  “Found you,” Frederik whispered.

  He rehearsed his speech. Walked to the trucks, head high. Accurate Anders appeared with his clipboard.

  Frederik cleared his throat.

  Accurate Anders glanced, uninterested. Sniffed. “Yes?”

  Frederik fished in his bag and retrieved the printed instructions. “Urgent message! The mayor’s instructions.” He handed the paper to the man.

  Accurate Anders studied the instructions with the precision he prided himself upon. “She wants the marbles taken to the front of the castle?”

  “It’s just over there.” Frederik pointed. “The yellow building.”

  “All of the marbles?” Anders pursed his lips and made a whistling noise. “That’s extremely irregular.”

  Frederik nodded. “But the customer is always right. If they’re paying enough.”

  Anders went to the back of the truck and banged on the doors. They rolled up like a giant blind. A man peered out. He was dressed the same as Anders. Brown overalls. Black cap.

  “Peter,” said Anders. “Take a look at this.”

  The other man studied the order. Made the same face that Anders had made. “Don’t know about that. That’s a UDC.”

  “Exactly. Precisely.” Accurate Anders turned to Frederik again. “Can’t do it.”

  Frederik blinked back, thrown.

  “Tell the mayor it’s a UDC,” Anders said. “Unreasonably Delayed Change. She should have read the contract. UDCs can only be accepted in the direst emergencies. Says so in the small print.”

  “But this is an emergency,” Frederik stammered. “The direst emergency.”

  Accurate Anders gazed across the peaceful, sunlit lawns. “Doesn’t seem like one to me.”

  Frederik’s head buzzed with nothing useful. Calamity looked clueless.

  “Are you all right?” Anders asked. “You look a bit shaken.”

  And Frederik’s eyes popped all the way open. “Shaken!” he said. “Oh!” He turned on his heels and sprinted across the lawns.

  He reached the brewery, red and sweating. The tour guide was closing the visitor door.

  “Wait!” he shouted.

  “Too late, young fellow,” she told him. “Everyone is leaving for the festival.”

  “Forgot my jacket!” he improvised. “Something is in it. Medicine. Direst emergency!”

  The woman hesitated just long enough for him to race inside.

  “I know where to find it,” he assured her. “Don’t worry. This will only take two shakes.”

  Chapter 20

  Two Shakes

  Ten minutes later, Frederik was climbing the hill again, gasping, flustered. Had he done it right? He wasn’t sure. He’d pulled the big lever and turned a tap. Water ought to be shooting through the unstable underground pipes by now, but nothing seemed to be happening. Did he turn the correct tap? He couldn’t remember. Too late to go back now.

  And then he felt them.

  Two shakes. Two vehement shakes. A trembling underfoot.

  “Yes!” he hissed.

  He ran the rest of the way, the street beginning to shudder.

  The sound of an orchestra drifted from the park. The festival had started. Henrik Hotdog’s line was gone. The lawn was distinctly unsteady. Frederik almost fell over.

  A muscular man in brown was backing slowly out of the gift shop, struggling with the weight of a statue. He had the head. The man named Peter had the legs. Calamity Claus was helping. The tremors weren’t. Accurate Anders steadied himself against the truck and made a mark on his clipboard.

  Frederik ran at them. Tipped his head back and yelled as loud as he possibly could. “Earthquake! Earthquake!”

  Anders stared at him. The trembling was getting stronger. Screeching birds scattered from the trees. The orchestra in the distance went distinctly off key.

  “Earthquake!” Frederik hollered. “Emergency! Direst emergency!”

  A fourth man in brown peered from the back of the truck. There were marbles in there already. Five of them. Sinister, leering.

  “Get them to the castle,” Frederik shouted. “Take the marbles to the castle.”

  Anders pulled a contract from his pocket and examined the small print very closely. Peter, Claus, and the other man heaved their statue onto the truck. The top of Frederik’s Hill seemed to convulse. A tremor that rocked the trucks on their wheels.

  Anders sighed. “All right,” he said. “This seems to meet requirements after all. We’ll take them to the front of the castle, per the mayor’s new instructions.”

  “We don’t have a plan for that,” said Peter. “We haven’t scouted the route.”

  “Let’s do it now. Can someone lock up? We’ll take these six and check for girth and ingress.”

  Peter took the keys and headed inside the gift shop.

  “Only six marbles?” Frederik said. “The mayor wants all of them. We should take all of them.”

  “Six for now,” said Anders. “Then we’ll see.”

  The lawn continued to shake. The festival orchestra had given up completely. Somewhere down the hill, an emergency vehicle’s siren howled. An amplified voice carried clear from the park. The mayor’s voice. “Please stay calm. It’s nothing, I promise!”

  And then Peter stumbled out of the gift shop, a strange look on his face. He gave a loud burp and went cross-eyed. “You won’t believe this,” he said. “The Cisterns are filling up with pop!”

  Heads turned. “Pop? Did you say pop?”

  “Some kind of energy beverage, I’d say. A rehydration infusion. You know the type?”

  “With the aloe?” Anders asked. “And the acai?”

  “No, no,” said Frederik, horrified. “That’s not right. It was meant to be water.”

  “Definitely pop,” the man said. “I tasted it.”

  “I could use some of that,” said Calamity. “This is thirsty work.” He disappeared inside the shop and down the stairs.

  The wrong tap. Frederik must have turned the wrong tap. This was a disaster. Or was it really? He’d broken some rules, but that was precisely the plan. He just needed the marbles in the park, to incriminate the mayor. And some extra fiz
z might help.

  The men climbed onto the truck and fired the engine. It curved slowly across the lawn to the street and the castle and the gates to the park. Frederik trotted behind. Would six marbles be enough? He didn’t think it would be enough. He could hear anxious cries from the festival as the hill continued to shudder. The mayor made another hurried announcement, appealing for calm.

  And then the truck stopped dead.

  “What are you doing?” Frederik called. “Why are you stopping?”

  Accurate Anders swung from the cab and disappeared around the front. Frederik hurried to see.

  He found Anders at the gate that led into the top of the Garden Park.

  It was an ornate iron gate. Black metal spikes with spaces in between. Six feet high, maybe ten feet wide. Accurate Anders pulled a tape measure from his pocket and verified exactly. Then he turned and measured the width of the truck. He sucked his teeth, whistled, and shook his head. “Never getting through there.”

  The other men dropped from the truck and stood in a group, inspecting the gate, doing nothing at all. Frederik, frantic, tugged at the gate to see if it would come off. “Perhaps if you took the fence apart?”

  “Can’t do that,” said Anders. “That would be a UPD. Unsanctioned Property Disassembly. I’d need the mayor’s signature.”

  “We have to get the marbles through there,” Frederik fretted.

  “That’ll be a long job,” said Peter. “We’ll have to carry them one by one. Two or three men to each marble.”

  Frederik clambered onto the back of the truck and grabbed the first of the marbles. It had a high forehead and a cap. Its beard was long and curled. It had no eyeballs. It gave him the willies. He wrapped his arms around it, tried to move it. It wobbled, but the weight was far more than he could manage. It would fall on him and crush him.

  “Fred!”

  He looked up to see Calamity Claus crossing the street, moving strangely.

  “Claus, you’re all wet!”

  “Fell in,” said Calamity. “Definitely soda. Lemon. And a hint of something else.” He dripped fizzing liquid all over the sidewalk. “What’s the holdup?”

  “The truck is too wide for the gate. And the marbles are too heavy to carry.”

  Calamity nodded. Pondered. “Wheels,” he said. “We need some wheels.” He turned to stare along the back of the castle. “Like those over there.”

  “The bicycles?” Frederik said. “The tricycles?”

  “The ones with the big buckets on the front. One marble in each of those. Maybe the strollers too. The baby carriages.”

  One of the men had overheard and wandered their direction. “That might work.”

  “We can still only move one at a time,” Frederik said. “Unless…”

  “Unless?”

  Frederik ran to Henrik Hotdog’s window, Calamity Claus at his heels.

  “What can I get you?” Henrik said. His apron was stained, and his face was smeared with grease.

  “I’m not buying.”

  “Not buying? No appetite?”

  “We need your help.”

  “I don’t do help,” Henrik said. “Not as a rule. Although I am in a good mood. I’ve had a much better day than expected. When the mayor kicked me off my usual spot, I thought I was finished. I’ve had that place by the ice rink since my old dad’s days. But it turned out there were plenty of people up here.”

  “The crowd inside the festival is even bigger,” Frederik said. “Thousands of people. You should take your cart in there.”

  “Not allowed,” Henrik grumbled. “No license.”

  “I can get you in.”

  Henrik Hotdog’s greedy eyes widened. “You can?”

  In no time, Henrik was wheeling his electric hot dog cart through the gate, with three heavy statues inside. The motor strained and whined with the weight. The wheels left deep grooves in the cinder path between the side of the castle and the edge of the zoo. Three stone faces stared out of the open hatch. Calamity Claus and Peter had a fourth marble in the bucket of a tricycle. One of the men had a fifth in a sturdy baby carriage. Frederik and Anders were rolling the final one along on a skateboard.

  They were making progress, but it was brutal work. The marbles weren’t marble at all, but maybe sandstone. They were unbelievably heavy nonetheless. The underground shudders had softened for now. Frederik could hear the mayor on the public-address system, apologizing, smoothing it over. “I hope you’re enjoying our specially arranged underground massage effect.” Inventing new lies. “We call it the, um, the Under Thunder. Ooh, there it goes again. How relaxing.” The orchestra started up once more. There was hesitant applause. Her festival was somehow back on track.

  They hauled the marbles along the side of the castle. He could finally see all the way into the park. The backs of thousands of heads spread all the way down the steep slope, to the boating lake. The crowd was enormous. Seated on the grass, on blankets, deck chairs. Dancing to the symphony composed for the event. Glasses of champagne held high, splintering the sunshine. The ground continued to shake from time to time, but incredibly, the mayor was glossing over it. The folk of Frederik’s Hill believed anything she told them.

  On a raft in the center of the lake, there was a giant stack of wood. As darkness fell, it would become the midsummer bonfire: an ancient tradition, banishing a mythical witch from the land in a blaze of defiance.

  But perhaps the witch wasn’t so mythical. Beyond the lake, long tables were laid with white cloths and silver settings and china plates. VIPs in dinner jackets and strapless dresses and fancy hats. A stage overlooked it all. A microphone. And the mayor. Frederik was too far away to see her expression, but she’d be schmoozing the high-powered dignitaries, ensuring nothing disrupted her long-awaited evening in the sun.

  “Keep those marbles in a line,” Accurate Anders called. “Make sure they’re completely stable.” Nothing was completely stable. Weird waves rippled through the hill. They edged along.

  “Nearly there,” Frederik wheezed. “Nearly there.”

  “Zombieees!”

  All the men stopped and stared to their left, through the fence and into the grounds of the zoo.

  Rasmus Rasmussen was thirty feet beyond, by the pelicans. Rasmus looked like a man who had seen a murder. His eyes were as wide as saucers. His mouth hung open. He was shaking, Frederik could see that from here. And he was pointing. At the marbles.

  The festival orchestra swelled, drowning out Rasmus’s cry. On the hillside below, no one had heard him. Yet.

  “Zombies are here!” Rasmus howled.

  “Be quiet!” Frederik called to him. “It’s me.”

  “Run away! Get away!”

  “Shush!”

  “Help! I’ve got to get my elephants away from those monsters.”

  “No,” Frederik hissed. And then a thought struck him from nowhere. An amazing, incredible thought. “Actually, yes. Yes, actually.” He let go of the marble and the man alongside him staggered under its weight. “Sorry,” he said. “Change of plan.”

  He raced to Accurate Anders. “Let’s leave these marbles right here.”

  “Here?”

  “By the fence, yes. Facing that way.” He pointed into the zoo.

  “Whatever the mayor wants,” Anders shrugged.

  “Yes. This is what she wants.”

  “And all the others?”

  “Please bring them out of the Cisterns, every one, and arrange them along the brow of the hill. Behind the crowd. Be discreet. We don’t want to distract her in the middle of her official event. She’s got a terrible temper.”

  Frederik grabbed Calamity Claus. “Wait for me,” he whispered. “Understand? Don’t reveal the marbles till I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “There are some people I need to find
,” he said. “And this is my chance.”

  Chapter 21

  Back the Other Way

  Frederik galloped through the zoo. The animals were indoors, despite the early-evening sunshine slanting across their enclosures. Mayor’s instructions, no doubt. Nothing was to distract the public tonight. Behind him, by the castle, he could see the mayor’s marbles. Six of them lined up side by side, staring through the fence.

  “Rasmus! Rasmus? Where are you?”

  He rushed into the muggy warmth of the new elephant house. The elephant keeper was cowering by his animals. “Zombies!” he hissed. “I warned you all. Get away! Get away!”

  “Get the elephants away. That’s the important thing, isn’t it? Rasmus?”

  “Yes! Get them away from the zombies.”

  “I know somewhere safe,” Frederik said. “Let’s go!”

  It took a series of sprints across unsuitable terrain. Rattling keys and opening locks. Steering the females across the dust. “This way! This way!” The bull was last. He stared at Rasmus and Frederik as his steel doors swung open. Then he strode out of his cell, trumpeted at his wives and sisters and daughters, and led them up the public walkways, seeming to know exactly where to go. Sharp left, then right, to another iron door rusty with age, leading into the back of the old, abandoned elephant house.

  “I can’t take them down there,” said Rasmus. “Not again.”

  Frederik pointed at the marbles.

  “Aaaagh,” Rasmus wailed.

  And it barely mattered now anyway. Rasmus was no longer in control of the elephants. The bull was going where he wanted, and the females were following. They moved swiftly through the old elephant house and down the dark, brick tunnel to the railway. There were snuffles and snorts, cascades of dust knocked from the ceiling. Deeper and deeper into the hill. They spilled into the muted light of the station. The wooden platform groaned under their weight. Where was Edna’s train?

  A breeze. A wind. A rumble, thunder, a screech of metal on metal, and the blue diesel hammered into view. The elephants twisted and cowered. Rasmus tried to calm them. The bull waved his trunk from side to side, furious. Swept his tusks in a terrifying arc. Then he marched to the front of the train and the enormous loading door to the elephant car. He pulled it open with his trunk. He edged his head inside the carriage, rounded his shoulders, dipped his back, and squeezed his whole enormous frame inside the train.