From the back seat, Katherine said as casually as she could, “So, piano starts again tonight, Mom.”
“Oh, yes! I forgot! Do you remember how to get to Elaine’s?” her mother asked absentmindedly.
“Uh-huh. Take the bus down Christie to the subway, then go east to Castle Frank, then north one street to her house. I remember. You’ll pick me up at six o’clock outside her house, right?”
“Yes. I’ll be there. And please remember to call me when you get there. Promise?”
“Yeah, Mom, don’t worry, I’ll call.” Katherine bit her lip, kissed her mother goodbye, then jumped out of the car and bounded into the school. She was beginning to wonder how on earth she was going to get home, get Gargoth into her backpack, then dash downtown and back up to her piano lesson on time.
It wouldn’t be easy. The night before, she and Gargoth had agreed that he would be waiting at the back fence. She thought she could run home after school, take the shortcut to their backyard down the lane, then he could leap over the fence, and she’d save at least five minutes off going the long way to the front door.
The day at school seemed impossibly long and slow. But finally it ended, without mishap. At last three-thirty came, and Katherine took off like a shot. Her friend Rubie ran across the school field to try to catch her, but Katherine pretended not to hear her and kept running. The last thing she wanted was to explain why she needed to get home really quickly today.
It worked perfectly. The day was clear and cold, but most of the snow had melted, so Katherine could run as fast as she wanted over the sidewalks without slipping. She had her big yellow canvas backpack on, and she hoped Gargoth would fit. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to convince him to get in the night before, just to make sure there was enough room for him.
She smiled, in spite of herself. “Such pride!” she thought.
She arrived at the back fence at exactly 3:42. “Twelve minutes! That’s pretty good for two kilometres!” she thought. Then she whistled softly, as they had agreed.
A second later, she heard a loud thud beside her. There was Gargoth, lying in the muddy lane, looking very upset.
“You’re late, Katherine! And I’m all muddy and wet!” he complained.
She sighed. “Get in Gargoth, and be quiet.” She squatted down, and the little gargoyle clambered up onto her back, pulled himself over the rim of the sturdy canvas backpack and slid in, head first.
He grunted, then Katherine had an uncomfortable sensation as he wriggled and righted himself to rest on his large feet.
“Uh, Gargoth,” she began, as she stood up and adjusted the straps of the backpack to allow for more room for him, “would you mind turning the other way. Your, uh, claws are digging into my back.”
Gargoth grunted again, and after a few minutes of squirming and snorting and, Katherine was sure, quite unnecessary sighing, he had turned himself inside the backpack so his back was against Katherine’s back. She had to admit that scaly wings rubbing against her back were only slightly more comfortable than pointy claws sticking into her ribs.
She had been walking all the while. “Next week, we bring a soft towel for you to lean against,” Katherine whispered over her back. She was walking down Bloor Street now and didn’t want people to see her whispering into her backpack.
All she heard in response from Gargoth was a soft snort. He was asleep!
“That’s probably good,” she thought. “I don’t have to worry about him talking to me on the subway.”
She reached the subway entrance, paid her student fare, then waited on the eastbound platform for the next train. No one could possibly know what was inside her backpack, but she was nervous and jumpy all the same.
And Gargoth, small as he was, was beginning to feel quite heavy. Katherine hoped no one would notice that her backpack was snoring.
Chapter Eighteen
The First Store
Judging by Gargoth’s description of the store and the large red “locomotion machine,” as he called it, Katherine had decided that they should start looking in the stores along the streetcar route of Toronto’s Queen Street East. The area was full of antique shops, comic book stores and strange little boutiques which were an odd mixture of both. There were plenty to choose from, so to pick the first store, she simply ran her finger down the list in the phone book and stopped randomly at Crystal Knights; she liked the sound of it. That would be the first store they would visit.
Katherine had ridden in peace on the subway, since Gargoth slept the entire trip. When she transferred to the Queen streetcar, he stirred a little but still did not wake up.
She found Crystal Knights without any trouble, and finally had no choice but to wake Gargoth. She was really nervous about doing this, since gargoyles are notoriously grumpy when you wake them up from a sound sleep. Luckily, there was a bench right outside the store, where she sat heavily and took off her backpack. Gently she shook the bag, saying, “Gargoth, we’re here! Wake up!” It took a few shakes and whispers before she heard the familiar snarl and snap. She was glad this was a sturdy canvas backpack.
Once Gargoth was wide awake and no longer snarling at her, Katherine re-shouldered the backpack and went toward the store. Her heart was pounding. Gargoth had promised to keep still but insisted that his head peek out the top of the backpack, so he wouldn’t miss a thing.
As Katherine opened the door, a little bell tinkled their arrival to the proprietor working among the boxes in the storeroom at the back. The place was warm and smelled like incense.
“Just a minute!” a happy, loud woman’s voice called. Katherine could feel Gargoth’s body tense behind her. “Katherine! This seems right! It smells right! It looks right! And it’s a woman here!” Gargoth was practically yelling at her.
“Be quiet! You promised!” Katherine snapped over her shoulder, but she had to stop because the unseen owner had just appeared, beaming at them over the counter.
A short lady with thick glasses and frizzy hair smiled down at her. “Hello!” she said pleasantly. “Can I help you?”
Here we go, thought Katherine. “Um, yes, please,” she said. “I have a gargoyle here, and we are looking for a matching one. My mother really loves this one and wants to try and find another one just like it. Have you seen anything like this one before?”
The lady-owner bustled happily around the counter and peered into the backpack at Gargoth. “Please, Gargoth,” Katherine breathed to herself, “be good!”
He was. As good as gold. He stayed perfectly rigid and still while the lady looked him over, very closely.
“Oh, isn’t he beautiful? Can I take him out?” she asked. Katherine froze. She hadn’t thought of that. Of course, the owner would want to see him and touch him! “Okay, I guess...he’s pretty precious! Be careful!”
The lady carefully took hold of Gargoth and lifted him from the backpack. She placed him on the counter, and she and Katherine stood back to admire him. Katherine was very worried, but extremely impressed with Gargoth’s statue-like demeanour. He really did look like a perfect little gargoyle statue, grumpy and lifelike. But not necessarily real.
There was a long silence. “He really is remarkable, isn’t he? I mean, you’d swear he’s alive!” She was just going to touch Gargoth again when the front door bell tinkled. A delivery man came through the door with a hand-trolley overflowing with boxes marked “Skulls/candles”.
“Just one moment, dear.” The lady turned her back to Katherine and Gargoth for a moment, and Gargoth took the opportunity to sullenly stick his tongue out at her as she retreated. Then he shook his head sadly at Katherine. This wasn’t the right store.
While the lady was busy with the delivery man, Katherine took off her backpack and carefully stuffed Gargoth back in. It would have been easier if he’d climbed in himself, but of course, they couldn’t risk that.
The lady came back to them just as Katherine was strapping her backpack closed. “You know, I’ve never seen another gargoyle like
him, dear. He’s really one of a kind, don’t you think?” She smiled sweetly at Katherine.
“Yes.” Katherine smiled weakly back at her. “Yes, I’m quite sure he really is.”
Feeling sadder than she thought possible, Katherine left the store and headed back to the bus stop. She looked at her watch: 4:25! She’d have to hurry to make it to piano on time. She started at a trot. Gargoth was perfectly silent behind her, although he was being bumped and banged against her body mercilessly. She was sure she was getting bruised. Although he wasn’t very big, Gargoth was sturdy and pointy where he bumped against your body.
“I’m really sorry, Gargoth,” Katherine panted over her shoulder as she ran. “You couldn’t really expect the first store we tried to be the right one, though. Could you? I mean there are dozens of stores just like that one, near the street car lines. It could take us months to check them all, Gargoth.”
There was only silence behind her. And the occasional sniffle.
Katherine dashed to the Broadview bus, then ran all the way from the Castle Frank station to her piano lesson with just five minutes to spare.
As Katherine entered the timeless luxury of her piano teacher’s house, and the big oak door to the panelled piano room slid with a “shush” behind her, she realized she hadn’t thought of something: what was Gargoth going to do while she had her piano lesson?
Elaine, her teacher, was waiting at the piano bench for her. “Hello, Katherine! Just in time. How was your holiday?” she asked, happy to see her student.
Suddenly aching with worry and tired from her run, Katherine said, “Oh, sorry, Elaine! I just have to call my mother!” She bolted back out into the hallway, slid the door shut behind her and picked up the phone on the table. As she was dialing her mother, she whispered to her backpack, “Gargoth, you’ve got to be really, really quiet during my lesson. Can you breathe in there?”
Gargoth whispered back. “I will be quiet as long as you play well. I cannot endure poor piano playing.” Katherine caught a note of a sniff in Gargoth’s tone, just as though he was reminding her that he had listened to Mozart himself play, one of the greatest pianists the world has ever known.
Katherine sighed. There was nothing for it. Gargoth would have to listen to her piano lesson and stay perfectly quiet. Katherine left a message on her mother’s voicemail at work, propped her backpack up outside the sliding oak door and walked in.
“Katherine, are you okay?” Elaine asked her. She seemed a little worried.
Katherine really liked her piano teacher. She was a grandmotherly lady who dressed beautifully and who really enjoyed teaching kids how to read music. She’d been a piano teacher for thirty-five years, but unlike many others, she had never grown tired of the job. And she picked great music for Katherine to learn.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Thanks. Just a little tired.” She smiled.
“Where’s your music then?” Elaine asked, expectantly.
Music. Oh no, it was in her backpack! “Oh, yes, how silly of me! I’ll just get it.” She slid open the heavy oak door one final time and looked over at her backpack. To her dismay, there was her music sticking out the half-closed top, clutched in an all-too familiar claw.
She snatched it and slid the door closed once again. Luckily, Elaine hadn’t seen her music waving above her backpack in the hallway. She could breathe again.
Sadly, this wasn’t Katherine’s best lesson. And Elaine didn’t want to say anything to Katherine, but she was sure that every time Katherine hit a wrong note, which for some reason was rather frequent, her backpack sneezed. Or grunted. Or maybe it made a noise like the wind in the leaves.
They were both relieved when the lesson was finally over and Katherine’s mother beeped the car horn from the driveway.
“Thanks, Elaine. Sorry, I didn’t really practice much over the holidays. I think I’ll be better next week. Bye!”
Katherine grabbed her bag and dashed out the door to find her mother waiting. She was careful to stash her backpack in the trunk for the ride home, and she didn’t really care if certain individuals found it cold and uncomfortable back there.
Luckily, when they got home it was dark, and Katherine had enough time to sneak Gargoth into the backyard before her mother checked on him.
Katherine didn’t speak to Gargoth or even venture into the backyard for several days after that adventure. She was too shaken.
Chapter Nineteen
Candles by Daye
The next week, Katherine and Gargoth agreed on two things: he would stay hidden in the backpack during the entire time he was in each store, and he would wait outside in the bushes during her piano lesson.
Making the first change was easy. They just needed to make some adjustments to the backpack. Katherine made two eyeholes in the fabric so Gargoth could peek out and check each store without being seen.
The second change was much harder and more dangerous. Each time Katherine arrived, breathless, at Elaine’s house, she would take off her backpack and let Gargoth scramble out into the bushes by the front door. They had some very close calls, including one awful night when Elaine had been watching from the window and insisted on checking the bushes carefully for what she thought was a large “rodent”.
Luckily she hadn’t seen too much, most importantly where the “rodent” had come from, and Gargoth was able to hide from her in the bushes.
Getting him back in the backpack after the lesson was just as difficult, but since it was dark by the time her mother arrived, Gargoth could usually climb into it unseen. He was actually getting quite good at jumping onto Katherine and into the backpack as she bent next to the bush he was hiding in, pretending to tie her shoe.
It was a difficult time for them both. It was made even more difficult by the fact that they were having no luck finding the right store. But neither of them gave up. Winter was slowly turning to spring, but somehow neither Elaine nor Katherine’s mother figured out that the little gargoyle was hiding in Katherine’s backpack.
Each Wednesday, their adventure was the same. Katherine would rush home, pick up Gargoth, rush onto the subway and the streetcar, then dash into a store that turned out to be the wrong one. The only good thing was that the adjustments to the backpack worked perfectly. Gargoth was kept hidden and safe during each visit, and they didn’t have to endure the terror of nosy store owners trying to touch him.
They had been to every store along a good portion of Queen Street: Dungeons and Dragoons, Knyghtes and Ladies, Comix Culture, Gifties and Ghoulies, Starlite, Dragon’s Breath and several more. Katherine was a little disheartened at the pages of stores listed under “candles” and “novelties” in the Toronto phonebook. There were dozens and dozens of them. Who knew so many people wanted to buy skull-shaped candles, hanging bead curtains and healing chime balls?
Each store was essentially the same as the last. The door chimes tinkled when they entered. They were hit with the aroma of incense or candles, sometimes nearly overpowering them. They wandered up to the counter and faced some variation of an owner, tall and thin, short and chubby, angry, happy, frizzy haired, with or without glasses. The storeowners all became a version of one another after a while, each looking vaguely like the last.
Finally, after ten weeks of looking, Katherine and Gargoth were beginning to give up hope. It was early March, and the city was starting to smell once again like early spring.
This particular Wednesday, Katherine was trudging into yet another store, this one called Candles by Daye. By now it only took a few moments for Gargoth to let her know if they had found the right place. They had worked out a quiet, secret code which, unfortunately for Katherine, was a system of jabs from Gargoth. If the place was wrong, Gargoth jabbed her once (as gently as he could) on her left side. Theoretically, if it was the right store, he would jab her once on the right side, but this of course hadn’t happened yet. Needless to say, Katherine’s left side had developed a permanent bruise, which she was beginning to doubt would ever clear
up.
As she entered this particular store, a streetcar rumbled to a stop on Queen Street behind her. She could feel Gargoth tense up in the backpack behind her.
“It’s okay, Gargoth,” she whispered. “It’s just a streetcar, you know that.”
As she entered the store, Katherine was immediately hit with a heavy scent of cinnamon.
“I’ll never light another candle as long as I live,” she thought as she wandered up to the counter.
The little store and its entire contents shook as the streetcar outside pulled away. Dust puffed from between the shelves and shelves of self-help and yoga books. An assortment of small ornaments quivered dangerously. The gentle song of dozens of jiggling chimes and healing balls filled the air.
Katherine took a moment to look around. It was a very small, dark store, and as far as she could tell, it was packed with dragons, fairies, dwarves, and all manner of mythical creatures.
Except, or course, like every other store they had visited recently, there were no gargoyles.
She sighed. “Here we go again,” she whispered, but Gargoth did not answer. She could feel him squirming behind her. “Keep still, you’re hurting me,” she begged.
The store appeared to be deserted. She rang the bell on the counter. In what seemed a mind-bending flash of speed, a tall woman with long, curly red hair bounced from the back of the store to the front in one leap. She had been bending over a box of knick-knacks, and Katherine hadn’t seen her.
Katherine pulled back in surprise. She had to bend back to catch the full height of the woman, she was so tall.
But very friendly. Perhaps a little too friendly. “Hello! I’m Cassandra, can I help you?” She smiled a giantess smile at Katherine, who was so overcome for a moment she could only stand and stare.
The Gargoyle in My Yard Page 7