by Philip Kerr
“How old is she?”
“Twelve, I think.”
“Estranged, you say? That means they don’t like each other, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t like to say. Either way, she doesn’t live with him. She lives with her mother, who’s not much interested in books either.”
“But I love books,” insisted Billy. He looked up just in time to see some fantastic-looking rats scurrying across the ceiling, upside down. “I can’t honestly imagine a life without books.”
“Unfortunately, the majority of kids these days don’t seem to share your opinion,” said a voice.
Billy looked around to see Mr. Rapscallion standing in the door of the Vampires and Voodoo Section. He was looking tired and irritated. Just like before.
“They’re too busy with their nerdy electronic games and their stupid televisions and their annoying cell phones and their geeky computers to think of reading books,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “It makes you wonder why people even bother to teach reading in schools.” Mr. Rapscallion sighed loudly. “It makes me worry for the future of the human race. Always supposing that I do actually care about something like that.”
“Oh, come now, Mr. Rapscallion,” said Father Merrin. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?” Mr. Rapscallion grunted. “Don’t I?”
“No,” insisted Father Merrin. “I don’t think you do.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Mr. Rapscallion frowned. “Maybe.”
“I know I’m right.” He pointed at Billy. “This is young Billy Shivers.”
Mr. Rapscallion grunted.
“How do you do, sir?” said Billy.
“You’ll forgive me for being nosy, I hope,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “But, this being a shop ’n’ all, I have to ask. Is either of you two colorful characters actually planning to buy a book? Because otherwise we’re closing up for the night.”
Father Merrin handed Mr. Rapscallion the book he had been reading. It was titled Résumé for a Vampire.
“This one looks good,” he said. “What do you think?”
Mr. Rapscallion looked at it and shrugged. “Could be.” He looked at Billy. “What about you, sonny? Find anything you want to read?”
“Oh, there were plenty of books I wanted to read. And while I was in the Red Room, I actually read several chapters of a book before the candles started to go out, and I got scared.” Billy looked awkward. “But to be honest, the plain fact of the matter is that I don’t have any money.”
“No money.” Mr. Rapscallion sighed.
“No. None at all. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Great,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Just what we need to have in a bookshop that’s almost on its knees. A customer who doesn’t have any money.”
“Usually I go to the Hitchcock Public Library,” explained Billy.
“Libraries.” Mr. Rapscallion stared at Billy and pulled a face. “Libraries are full of people like you who borrow books instead of buying them. Cheapskates who seem to think that books just grow on trees. I ask you, what kind of world would we have if everyone just borrowed stuff? Just imagine if people borrowed cars or bicycles or chicken dinners or jewelry or cellular telephones instead of buying them. The world would be broke. That’s the kind of world we’d have. But for some reason, people think it’s okay to borrow a book. And then we wonder why booksellers are going bankrupt.” He shook his head. “I hate libraries.”
Father Merrin and Billy followed Mr. Rapscallion down the curved wooden staircase to the big brass cash register near the entrance.
“But what about poor people?” asked Billy.
“You’re talking to poor people,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Please don’t make the mistake of thinking there’s any money selling books, kid. Because there isn’t. I’m the living proof of that.” He smiled a slow, sly smile. “Well, almost living, anyway. You couldn’t really call this a life.”
“I might not have any money,” said Billy. “Not a cent. But for what it’s worth, I love your bookshop, Mr. Rapscallion. In fact, I think it’s probably the most fantastic, the most wonderful, the best bookshop I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t tell me, sonny,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Tell your friends.”
The next day Billy went back to the Haunted House of Books on Hitchcock High Street. And the day after that. And then the day after that. He turned up at opening time. And he was usually there until the shop closed. He read a lot of books about ghosts and ghouls. And quite a few about vampires and voodoo.
Mr. Rapscallion didn’t seem to mind that Billy didn’t buy a book. Or at least he didn’t say so. Mr. Rapscallion wasn’t exactly friendly to Billy. Then again, he didn’t tell him to go away either. After a week or so, Mr. Rapscallion seemed to accept Billy being there, because one morning he nodded his head at the boy and mumbled something that sounded a little bit like a greeting. A bit like “Hello.”
Later on that same morning, when Mr. Rapscallion was going around the shop with a trolley, restocking the dusty bookshelves, he came across Billy in the Haunted Castles Section and forced a smile onto his whiskered face. And then he sort of grunted in Billy’s direction.
“How are you today, Mr. Rapscallion?” Billy asked politely.
Mr. Rapscallion nodded and then shrugged and then sighed a bit and then inclined his head a little and then made a difficult face. “I dunno,” he said. “Not too bad, I guess. I mean, I’ve had better, I guess. Like any other morning, you know? What can I tell you, kid? Life goes on, huh?”
“Yes,” said Billy. “It does.”
Mr. Rapscallion looked pained. “You know, you worry me, kid, do you know that? I mean, what are you doing in here? Every day. All day. Shouldn’t you be in school right now?”
“It’s the summer vacation,” explained Billy. “The Hitchcock schools are off for three months. Until Labor Day.”
“Three months?” Mr. Rapscallion grunted. “I didn’t know that.”
“Doesn’t your daughter go to school?”
“Who told you I had a daughter?”
“Father Merrin. What’s her name?”
“Altaira,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “We got it from an old movie called Forbidden Planet. It means ‘star.’ ”
“That’s a lovely name,” observed Billy.
Mr. Rapscallion sneered. “She hates it. Almost as much as she hates me. She calls herself something else just to bug me.” He shrugged, sheepishly. “She and I don’t exactly see eye to eye on a lot of things.”
“So what does she call herself now?”
“None of your business.” The bookseller shook his head. “What I wouldn’t give to be in school again. I can’t even remember that far back. You know something? It’s so far back I couldn’t even tell you if I enjoyed school or not. I guess I must have, though, with a three-month vacation in the summer. What’s not to enjoy about that?”
“Three months is too long for me,” said Billy. “It’s hard knowing what to do with yourself for that length of time.”
“Well, if you’re not at school, shouldn’t you be outside in the fresh air?” asked Mr. Rapscallion. “Doing what other kids do during the summer vacation. Going to summer camp. Spraying tags on walls. Playing sports. Stealing cars. Things like that?” His eyes narrowed. “I mean, look at you. Painfully thin, pigeon-chested, pale-faced, undernourished, shadows under your eyes. Being in here all day can’t be good for you. Frankly, you look like crap. You could use a little sun, kid.”
“I’m afraid there’s no money to spare in our home for things like summer camp,” admitted Billy. He’d decided to ignore the remark about stealing things. Billy had never stolen anything in his life. “I have to make the best of things. Besides, I’m still recovering from a car accident.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes it is.” And Billy told Mr. Rapscallion all about his car accident. “Now I know what it feels like to be a thin layer of strawberry jam between two thick slices of bread,” he joked.
“Forget about it. I’m almost over it. Honest. And your shop has really cheered me up.”
“That’s good,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Nice to know that there’s at least one kid who likes books in this miserable town.”
At that very moment, the grandfather clock in the entrance hall began to strike the hour and, from somewhere else in the house, the sound of a church organ was heard. It was a stirring sound but it was also a creepy one. “What’s that?”
“Sounds to me like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” said Mr. Rapscallion.
“But where’s it coming from?”
“The organ music? Where else but the basement, of course.”
“I didn’t know there was one,” admitted Billy. “A basement.”
“The arrogance of it,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “To think that you could know all the secrets of the Haunted House of Books in just the few days you’ve been coming here.”
Fortunately, he was smiling as he said this and so Billy didn’t think he was actually offended.
“And by the way,” he said. “Try not to use too many numbers when you’re talking to me. I have a thing about numbers. I mean, take my word for it. You wouldn’t like to see me start counting.”
Billy nodded. “Could we go and see?” he asked. “The organ.”
“Why certainly,” said Mr. Rapscallion, and led the way.
In the entrance hall, from behind the front sales desk, Mr. Rapscallion collected an enormous candelabra and lit the candles.
“Are those candles that blow out?” asked Billy.
“All candles blow out,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “It’s only scary when they keep on blowing out for no good reason and you end up thinking that someone or something is doing it deliberately. Right?”
“True enough,” said Billy.
Mr. Rapscallion opened an ordinary door that looked like a broom closet to reveal a set of descending stone steps. Their footsteps echoed as they went down into the basement. As well as the organ music, Billy could hear the sound of water.
“I keep all the antiquarian books down here,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “A little bit of damp helps the books to look properly old. We’ve got books and old manuscripts in our basement that no one has ever read.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. I never read them. Some of the books contain things a lot of people shouldn’t be allowed to know about, so I try to make it as difficult as I can for them down here. That way I can be sure that the customers who get as far as the books are really serious about the subject, you know?” He grinned. “I lay on a few extra surprises for them.”
“Such as?” asked Billy.
“Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”
At the bottom of the stairs they appeared to be in an old and forgotten windowless chamber, and in the farthest wall was a heavy wooden door. Still holding the candelabra aloft, Mr. Rapscallion turned a key in the lock and pulled open the creaking door.
Immediately a horrible smell filled the air.
“Ugh,” said Billy, holding his nose. “What’s that stink?”
“This is the oldest part of the house,” explained Mr. Rapscallion. “Down here dates back to eighteen hundred. The town sewers run straight through the building’s foundations.”
He pointed at what looked like a small canal, which was overrun with rats.
“And the rats certainly don’t make it smell any better.”
They walked along a stone path at the side of the stinky canal. The stone walls were covered with wet slime and a sign that read THIS WAY TO THE FORBIDDEN BOOKS ABOUT MAGIC AND SPELLS.
All the time the organ music grew louder.
At the end of the path there was an arched doorway, but just before they turned to go through, something vaguely human and as slimy as the walls came out of the black water of the canal and slapped a fishy-looking arm onto the path in front of Billy. Billy let out a yell as the creature burped loudly several times and made a grab for his ankle.
“Yikes,” said Billy, jumping clear of the creature’s scaly hand. “Is that one of the surprises?”
The creature grabbed at Billy again. Its eyes were huge and staring and its teeth as sharp as a shark’s. Then, still burping loudly, the creature slid back into the water.
Mr. Rapscallion laughed and showed Billy how standing on one of the slabs of stone operated a pneumatic pump that pushed the creature, which was made of rubber, clear of the water and onto the path in front of them.
“Ingenious,” said Billy.
“Come on, Billy,” said the shopkeeper, hurrying through the arched doorway. “Our resident Phantom only plays three organ pieces before he leaves, Billy.”
Billy smiled. This was the first time Mr. Rapscallion had used his name. Until now he had only ever called him “sonny” or “kid,” which made Billy feel just a little like a goat. But the fact that Mr. Rapscallion had used his name was almost enough to make Billy believe he might actually have made a new friend.
Billy followed Mr. Rapscallion through the arched doorway and found himself in a large subterranean library. There were ancient-looking globes, map tables, more candlesticks and tall shelves full of leather-bound books, some of which were as big as a car door. Everything was covered with yards of cobweb. In a huge fireplace an enormous log was burning. But dominating the room was a large church organ and playing it was a figure dressed in old-fashioned evening clothes.
That would have been remarkable enough in Billy’s eyes. But there was much more to come.
As soon as Mr. Rapscallion and Billy entered the subterranean library, the figure playing the organ turned around abruptly and stopped playing. The room was not well lit and Billy found it hard to decide if the organist was wearing a mask or a hat. Billy had just decided that it must be a mask when the organist’s head caught fire like an enormous candle and, cackling wildly, the figure jumped up and ran straight toward Billy and Mr. Rapscallion. If the bookseller had not been standing right next to him, Billy felt certain he would have turned and fled in terror.
As it was, Billy stepped quickly behind Mr. Rapscallion. The laughing organist sprinted past them, its black evening cape flying in the breeze of its own making, and the flame from its pointed head trailing like the tail of a blazing meteor.
“Yikes,” said Billy.
For a moment, the organist paused in the arched doorway, pointed, it seemed, straight at Billy and said, in a loud, bass voice, “Beware, Billy. Beware!”
Then he disappeared around the corner, in a cloud of smoke and gasoline vapor.
Plucking up his courage, Billy chased after him.
He stopped in the doorway, peered carefully around the corner and was horrified to find the organist standing there. A split second later, the still-flaming head dipped down to Billy’s level. It was close enough to singe the boy’s eyebrows and for his flaring nostrils to detect a strong smell of lighter fluid.
The organist laughed a horrible, loud laugh that seemed to generate more heat and once again spoke to Billy. “Beware, Billy. Beware!”
Billy shrank back and then curled around the corner to shelter in the comparative safety of the other side of the wall.
“Yikes,” he said.
“Yikes?” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Is that all you can say, kid? Yikes? Jeez, you can’t just say ‘yikes’ and leave it there. That was one of my most expensive and hopefully frightening installations. Much too frightening I would suggest for as small a word as ‘yikes.’ ‘Yikes’ is just pathetic.”
“But ‘yikes’ is what I say when I get scared.”
“Yes, but you also said it when the creature from the black canal attempted to grab your ankle.” Mr. Rapscallion shook his head. “It’s a little disappointing, to say the least. I was expecting an ear-splitting scream of terror. Or that you might be reduced, as they say, to a gibbering wreck. But you’re not gibbering. You’re not even muttering.”
“Perhaps it didn’t seem quite as frightening because I was with you, Mr. Rapscallion,” said Billy, by way of an apology. “All the same, it was pretty frightening. And impressive.”
“All right, but we’re certainly going to have to see what we can do about that ‘yikes’ of yours, Billy,” he said ominously. “I’m sorry, but I simply can’t have someone in the Haunted House of Books getting away with anything as lame as ‘yikes.’ It’s not good for my self-esteem. The fact is that now I’m going to have to render you a gibbering wreck before the day is out.”
Billy thought he’d better add some more adjectives just to make Mr. Rapscallion feel better.
“No, really, it was horrifying. Terrifying. Ghastly. I’m sure I’ll have a nightmare about that one, tonight. When I get to bed. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if the sight of that flaming head haunts me forever. It was very frightening when the organist’s head caught fire. And when the organist knew my name. By the way, how did he know my name? And what should I beware of, exactly? And how did his head catch fire? I mean, that was amazing. And how did you make a machine that could run so fast?”
Mr. Rapscallion grinned. “How did he know your name? Simple. Didn’t you hear me say your name twice as I came through the doorway? That’s how he knew. And it wasn’t a machine you saw just now. That’s Gary. Gary’s the organist at St. Mary’s Church, in Hitchcock. Father Merrin’s church. He comes here once a week to wear that costume, play the organ and generally scare the heck out of anyone who’s dumb enough to come down here.”
“But the head?” said Billy. “Doesn’t it hurt to set your head on fire?”
“Not if you’re wearing a flame-retardant hood underneath a mask soaked with a little lighter fluid,” explained Mr. Rapscallion. “That’s one of the reasons Gary runs away from the organ while his head is on fire. If he runs fast enough, the wind puts the flames out. Eventually. Most of the time. Although twice he has had to dive into the canal to make sure.”
“Ouch,” said Billy.