There were short gnomes. Fat gnomes. Skinny gnomes. They had bushy beards and long beards. Pointy hats and floppy hats. Blue jackets and red jackets. Red cheeks and… more red cheeks.
“It looks like a theme park,” said Max-Ernest. “Like we’re on the gnome ride or something.”
“I think they look freakin’ scary,” said Yo-Yoji.
Cass studied the gnomes. They did seem menacing. Like a Lilliputian army.
“Are we going to knock on the door?” asked Max-Ernest.
“No!” Cass answered immediately. “She might answer and what would we do then…? Besides, I’m not sure she’s home anyway. Follow me—”
Cass trudged through the ivy, past the watchful eyes of one hundred gnomes, and made her way to the side of the house.
The path was blocked by an overflowing trash can. She was about to walk around it when—
“Look—!” she whispered. “Can you believe it?”
They all made faces as they inspected their principal’s garbage: it was topped by an unappetizing mix of half-eaten lasagna, used teabags, and soiled newspapers.
“Wait—it’s definitely gross, but what are we looking at?” asked Yo-Yoji.
“Mrs. Johnson doesn’t recycle!” said Cass, as if it were the most obvious—and most heinous—crime in the world. “Everything’s mixed together.”
Max-Ernest shook his head: “What happened to ‘green living is clean living’? Isn’t that the motto written above the trash at school?”
“And look at that—” Cass pointed to the last bit of incriminating evidence: the ugly gray contents of an ashtray dumped into a frozen-dinner tin.
Max-Ernest gaped, unable to hide his shock: “Mrs. Johnson smokes?!”
Yo-Yoji motioned his friends forward. “C’mon, the garbage is making me ill.”
A moment later, they were standing outside their principal’s bedroom window.
“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Max-Ernest muttered. But he peered in all the same.
“How can she sleep in there? It’s so… crowded,” said Cass.
Indeed, every available surface in Mrs. Johnson’s bedroom was covered with figurines and knickknacks. Mostly gnomes. But also a few fairies and witches—including a small fabric witch of the kind you often see in a kitchen, this one hanging from a lamp shade.
And at the foot of Mrs. Johnson’s bed there was a wicker basket containing a St. Bernard puppy curled up in a ball.
“Poor puppy—he has to live with Mrs. Johnson,” said Yo-Yoji.
Cass studied the puppy more closely. “What’s wrong with it? It’s like it’s sleeping with its eyes open. Are you sure it’s… alive?”
“It’s stuffed,” said Max-Ernest. “Like a plushy puppy. Just super realistic. You know, like those fake babies people get when their kids grow up and they want to keep being parents…”
“Hey, I think she’s in the next room,” whispered Yo-Yoji.
As quietly as they could, they all crouched down and made their way to the next window—Mrs. Johnson’s study.
His friends pressed their noses against the glass: they could see Mrs. Johnson in profile, her face lit green by the computer screen in front of her. On the screen was a card game.
“Poker!” said Yo-Yoji. “Our principal is playing poker. Look at her—she’s a full-on gambler.”
Next to Mrs. Johnson, a cigarette rested in an ashtray. She picked it up and took a drag. Smoke curled like dragon’s breath out of her mouth.
While Yo-Yoji and Max-Ernest stared in horrified fascination, Cass crept along to the other end of the window.
Here, right on the other side of the glass, sitting on top of a file cabinet, was a small metal object. Cass couldn’t see it in detail—it was half hidden by a stack of paper—but the two prongs were unmistakable.
She turned to her friends: “OK, this is the plan: you two go knock on the door and talk to Mrs. Johnson while I slip in through the window and get the Tuning Fork.”
“That’s stealing!” said Max-Ernest in alarm.
“She doesn’t have proof she owns it, remember? For all anybody knows, it could be ours.”
“It’s still stealing.”
Cass knew Max-Ernest was right; breaking and entering was hardly model behavior. But her mother’s life was on the line.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell him that.
Before the kids could debate further, a high-pitched wail sounded and the side of the house was flooded with light.
One of the gnomes was spinning in a circle, his eyes glowing red. Evidently, the fantasy creature hid a very real alarm system.
“Who’s there?! I’m warning you, I have a very vicious dog!”
* * *
Two minutes later, the three kids were standing in the doorway facing a furious, sputtering principal.
“Not only do you barge in on my house uninvited—you have the gall to ask me to give up a precious family heirloom? Why on earth should I?”
“Well, that guy said you couldn’t sell it without documentation—so what are you going to do with it? Throw it away?” asked Cass. “And not recycle it just like you don’t recycle anything else,” she couldn’t help adding.
Mrs. Johnson stared at the kids in disbelief. “Have you been… rifling through my… my trash?!”
They shrugged.
“How very, very… dare you!” Mrs. Johnson exclaimed.
“Yeah, and we saw everything in it—everything,” said Yo-Yoji, drawing out the word.
“And we’re going to tell the whole school if you don’t give us the Tuning Fork,” said Cass, immediately catching on.
Max-Ernest nodded. “How ’bout that?”
Mrs. Johnson, still wearing her violet pantsuit, was rapidly turning a matching shade. “I see—and how do you know this trash is mine?”
“Does anybody else live here?” asked Cass. “Are they the ones smoking the cigarettes and getting cancer?”
“It will be your word against mine,” Mrs. Johnson snapped. “Nobody will believe you. You’ll all be expelled!”
Yo-Yoji held up his cell phone. “What if we have pictures?”
Mrs. Johnson recoiled from the image of her un-recycled trash. “You children are horrors.”
“Maybe we’re horrors, but you’re a hypocrite,” said Cass.
“This is blackmail!”
“Hey, Cass…,” Max- Ernest whispered in her ear.
She nodded and he reached into his pocket.
“Mrs. Johnson,” Max-Ernest said, “I think your dog had an accident.”
“What do you mean? What dog?”
“We saw a puppy sleeping by your bed…”
Mrs. Johnson nodded cautiously.
Max-Ernest pointed down to the ground where he had discreetly dropped the piece of molded brown plastic that he’d tricked Cass with earlier. It looked awfully lifelike lying in the dirt.
“But how in the world—?”
Max-Ernest shrugged. “It’s only natural right? That’s what dogs do.”
As the distressed Mrs. Johnson puzzled over how her fake puppy could possibly have defecated on her doorstep, Cass pushed past her and ran inside—
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?!”
—and then returned with the Tuning Fork tight in her hand.
Mrs. Johnson trembled with rage. “You know what—take the fork. My mother always said it was cursed—and for your sake I hope it is.”
“Great. Thanks,” said Cass, already starting to run down the steps.
“I never want to see it or any of you again!” shouted Mrs. Johnson as the three kids disappeared from her view. “Don’t bother coming back to school as long as I’m principal!”
Blackmail is an ugly word. And I leave it to you to judge whether it applies in this case.
Cass was trying to save her mother’s life. Perhaps that excuses her. Perhaps it doesn’t. I wouldn’t venture to say.
All I know is that against all odds s
he got hold of the Tuning Fork just as instructed by Señor Hugo. And she would have brought it to his restaurant with time to spare.
Had he not come for her first.
When Cass entered her house, it was quiet inside. So quiet she heard the ticking of the clock in the entry hall. And the whistle of a train half a mile away.
She’d intended to stay only five minutes—long enough for Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji to get safely out of sight. Then she would leave for Señor Hugo’s restaurant.
She knew immediately that that wouldn’t be necessary.
The vase she’d left by the front door was still intact. None of her alarm systems had been triggered. There was no sign of a break-in whatsoever. But he was here—she could feel it.
She turned the corner and looked into the kitchen—
“Hello, Cassandra.”
Señor Hugo was sitting at the kitchen table, just as comfortably as if he’d been invited. He was turned to face her and Cass could see herself reflected in his dark glasses.
Unaccountably, she was not afraid.
“Hello, Señor Hugo. I have it—what you wanted.”
“I know.”
She did not ask how he knew. She did not even ask how he got into her house.
With surprising calm, she took the Tuning Fork out of her backpack and set it on the table in front of him. The ancient object looked sorely out of place on the yellow Formica.
The blind chef showed no reaction.
“I just put it in front of you. Now, where’s my mom?”
“First, let us make sure it’s real. Fetch me a glass of water.”
Trying not to let her impatience get the better of her, Cass went to the sink and rinsed the milk out of a glass.
“You know, the Tuning Fork is very dangerous,” she said, returning with the glass. “You really shouldn’t use it.”
“Thank you for the warning,” said Hugo with more than a hint of what even Max-Ernest would have recognized as sarcasm. “Now sit down.”
Frowning with concentration, he picked up the Tuning Fork and experimentally dipped it into the water. Then he rolled the handle of the Tuning Fork between his palms, so that the prongs twice rotated back and forth.
As Cass watched in astonishment from across the table, the water clouded, fizzed, foamed, and turned ruby red.
A ghostly smile flitted across Señor Hugo’s lips.
“Is it… wine? Or… blood?” Cass asked nervously.
“Cranberry juice. Beautiful color, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” Cass stared at him, realizing the implications of what he’d just said. “I knew you could see!”
Señor Hugo nodded, removing his sunglasses. “You know what they say, among the blind…” He paused.
One eye, his left, was dull and lifeless. The other stared directly and cruelly at Cass.
“The one-eyed is king,” he finished the sentence.
Cass froze. Now she was scared.
“I trust my secret is safe with you?”
“As long as you give me back my mother,” she managed to say.
“I think you mean, as long as I don’t give you back your mother. She’s my collateral, after all.”
“But you… promised!”
“I also said you would never see her again if you told your friends.”
“I didn’t! I mean, I didn’t tell them about you. They thought we were finding the Tuning Fork for… for…,” she stammered.
“For the Terces Society? You’re splitting hairs.”
Cass turned a shade paler. “How do you know about that?”
“How do you think?” He clenched and unclenched his gloved fist in demonstration.
“You’re… in… the… Midnight… Sun?” asked Cass, the full horror sinking in.
Señor Hugo laughed. “Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais told me to watch out for you. They said you were smart. I think they overestimated you.”
The chef stood up, slipping the Tuning Fork into his satchel.
“Relax, Cassandra. Your mother is safe. For the moment, she’s worth more to us alive. As insurance. In fact, I seem to remember her saying she worked in the insurance industry. How ironic.”
As he walked out, he turned over his shoulder. “Oh, I wouldn’t drink that cranberry juice if I were you. Like you said, it’s very dangerous.”
The front door closed behind him.
Cass slouched in her chair, drowning in despair.
She had betrayed the Terces Society.
Blackmailed her school principal.
Lied to her friends.
Put a cursed object with unlimited power in the hands of the Midnight Sun.
And she hadn’t even succeeded in getting back her mother.
For the first time in her life, Cass, the survivalist, felt very little will to survive.
She stared at the glass of cranberry juice in front of her—if cranberry juice it was. Why not? she thought. What could happen that would be worse than what had already happened? She had no doubt the juice would taste extraordinary.
If it killed her, at least her last sip would be memorable.
Slowly and deliberately, she stood up, picked up the glass, and—
—marched back to the sink and poured.
The red liquid splashed angrily against the white porcelain. It circled the drain several times as if giving Cass a last chance to stick her finger in and get a taste. But when it finally went down, the liquid left no trace. As if it had been only water all along.
With a heavy sigh, Cass turned and walked over to the kitchen phone. She had a friend to visit. And a mother to save.
As soon as Simone woke, she knew she was not alone.
Her vision was too blurred to see who—or what—was in the cell with her. She only hoped it wasn’t the mamba.
“ --, ---’ -- -------! ---’ -- ---- ------ --- -----.”
It wasn’t a snake; it was a woman. Talking to her. In English.
Simone had been trying to learn the language by reading the old newspapers in her cell—most of them were in English—but the woman was speaking too fast for her to understand.
Shakily, Simone sat up and tried to make her eyes focus. She had a headache so excruciating it felt like a drill was boring into her skull.
At least I’m alive, she thought. Somehow, she had recovered from eating that dark and terrible chocolate. That last Palet d’Or.
“Can you speak more slowly?” she asked. “I speak English very little.”
“I said, oh, you’re awake. You’ve been asleep for hours,” answered the woman. “I’m Melanie. What’s your name?”
“Simone.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Simone. I’m glad to see you’re OK.”
Gradually, Simone’s eyesight was returning. Her cell looked much the same as it always had. Grim and gray.
The woman—Melanie—was sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the cell. Her hair was bedraggled and her shirt was torn. She looked tired. And scared.
“Are you a supertaster, too?” Simone asked.
“A what?”
“Do they make you taste the chocolate?”
Melanie shook her head, confused. “No…”
“So then why are you here?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
Now that she was fully conscious, Simone was remembering more and more about her excruciating experience eating the chocolate. And about the memories—of her past, of her family, of her home—that the chocolate had brought back to her.
A tear slid down her cheek.
“Has the bird been here?” she asked.
She didn’t know why it seemed important, but it did. She could tell by the sky that it was late in the afternoon. A full day had passed. Or had it been several days? There was no way to tell.
“Bird?”
“A green bird with a long tail?”
“Oh! Yes. About an hour ago. He kept squawking. He seemed angry.”
�
��He has hunger. He has anger if you do not feed him.”
“Just like my daughter.” Melanie smiled—sadly. “And they keep you here… to taste chocolate? Against your will?”
Simone nodded.
Melanie was silent a moment, absorbing this strange and terrible information.
“Where are your parents?” she asked finally.
“I do not know. For three years.”
“They must miss you very much.”
“Then why did they give me to these bad people?” Simone blurted out.
“I don’t know,” said Melanie. “But I bet it was because they love you and they thought you would have a better life with them. If your parents knew what it was like, I’m sure they would try to rescue you.”
“You think so?” asked Simone in small voice.
Melanie crawled over and grasped Simone’s hands. “Yes, I think so.”
Simone smiled gratefully. “Your daughter misses you, too. I know it.”
“I just hope she’s OK. She’s a tough girl, but she’s never been on her own for such a long time.…” Melanie trailed off. “The last time I saw her, we had a fight. Well, not a fight really. But we were angry at each other. She said… she said I wasn’t her real mother… I adopted her, you see.”
Simone nodded. “Probably she is not angry at you. Probably she is angry at her old parents. For giving her away.”
Melanie looked at Simone in surprise. “I never thought of that! You may be right.”
She released Simone’s hands. “Where did you grow up?”
“The countryside. East of Abidjan.”
“Abidjan? That’s in Africa, isn’t it?”
Simone laughed. Was this woman serious? “Who does not know where Abidjan is? It’s the biggest city in the country.”
“What country?”
“This country. The Cote d’Ivoire.”
The older woman looked shocked. “We’re in the Cote d’Ivoire? I had no idea we traveled so far…”
Simone thought about it: all this time, she’d simply assumed they were in her home country. But she’d been asleep when she arrived. She had no idea how far she’d traveled either.
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