Once in place, it only needed Frazier’s signal to come alive.
Aunt Mabel must think I’m three years old, Tick thought.
It all started at bedtime. Mabel followed Tick into the bathroom and pulled a container of floss from a dusty cabinet. She yanked off a three-foot long piece and handed it to Tick.
“Now, catch every nook and cranny,” she said as Tick started threading the minty string between his two front teeth. “You never can tell what nasty little monsters are having a nice meal of your gums.”
Tick finished and threw the used floss into a small wastebasket, wishing Mabel would leave him alone. When she didn’t move an inch, hovering behind him as he stared into the mirror, Tick reached over and grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste. Warily glancing back at Mabel, he finally turned on the water and started brushing.
“Here, let me take a turn,” Mabel said a few seconds later. To Tick’s horror, she reached around his shoulder and grabbed the toothbrush from his hand and began vigorously scrubbing his teeth, pushing his head down lower with her other hand. Tick never would’ve thought such an old and frail woman could have so much strength in her arms. “Gotta get those molars!” she yelled with enthusiasm.
Next came pajama time. Tick had brought a pair of flannel pants and a T-shirt to sleep in, but that was not good enough for Aunt Mabel. She went to the basement and dug through some boxes before returning with a musty old pair of long johns that were as red as her lipstick and looked like Santa’s underwear. Tick begrudgingly put them on, heeding his dad’s pleas that they do everything humanly possible to make the old woman happy so nothing jeopardized their trek the next day. He almost broke his promise when Mabel topped everything off by twisting a scratchy wool stocking cap onto his head. Instead, he forced a grin and followed her to the bed she’d prepared for him.
After tucking him in with no fewer than seven thick quilts, Mabel kissed him on the forehead and sang him a bedtime song, which sounded like a half-dead vulture warning its brothers that the chickenhawk he’d just eaten was poisonous. Tick closed his eyes, hoping that if Mabel thought he was asleep, he could avoid an encore. Satisfied, Aunt Mabel tiptoed out of the room-making sure before she closed the door that the night-light she’d plugged in worked properly.
Tick rolled over, wondering if his great-aunt would do the same routine with his dad. When he finally quit laughing at the image of Mabel brushing his dad’s teeth, Tick fell asleep.
The next morning, after a wonderful meal of eggs, bacon, sausage, cheese biscuits, and freshly-squeezed orange juice, and after a long lecture on how important it was not to talk to strangers, especially those holding guns or missing any teeth, Tick and his dad were able to escape for a day of “exploring the wonders of Alaska.” Aunt Mabel seemed exhausted from her efforts and couldn’t hide the fact that she was almost relieved to get some rest from taking care of the boys.
After filling up the car with gas and junk food, Tick and his dad began their three-hour journey, the Journal of Curious Letters sitting on the seat between them.
Next stop: Macadamia, Alaska.
Chapter 22
Going Postal
After driving down the straightest road Tick had ever seen-with nothing but huge piles of snow and ice on either side-they pulled into the small town of Macadamia right around noon. The first thing they did was stop at a gas station to fill up the car for the drive back so they wouldn’t have to do it later. The cracked and frozen streets were deserted, with only a few cars parked along the main road in front of various dilapidated shops and dirty service centers.
“Well, I figure we have about six hours until we need to head back,” Tick’s dad said as he started the car again. “Or, if we don’t discover anything today, we can always call Aunt Mabel and tell her we got stuck somewhere for the night and that we’ll come back tomorrow. She won’t want us taking any risks.”
“Yeah,” Tick said. “But she’ll be spitting nails if I’m stranded at some nasty hotel without her there to brush my teeth for me.”
His dad laughed. “You’re a good sport, Professor. Now you know why your mom and Lisa were just fine letting the two of us come up here alone.” He put the car into gear and drove away from the gas station. “The lady in the gas station said the post office was just up here on Main Street. That’ll be our first stop.”
~
Five minutes later, Tick followed his dad through the frosted glass door of the post office, loosening his scarf, not sure what to expect. But he did have an odd sensation in his stomach, knowing the original mysterious letter from M.G. had been mailed from this very building. It was almost like seeing the hospital room where you’d been born, or a house your ancestor had built. Despite how he felt, this was where any investigation would have to begin-he just hoped it didn’t end here as well.
The place was boring, nothing but gray walls and gray floors and gray counters-the only thing breaking the monotony was a tiny faded Christmas tree in a corner with six or seven ornaments hanging from the sparse branches. No worker was in sight.
“Hello?” Dad called into the emptiness. A little bell sat on the main counter; he gave it a ring.
A few seconds later, an old man with bushy eyebrows and white stubble on his cheeks and chin appeared from the back, looking none too happy that he actually had to serve a customer. “What can I do for you?” he asked in a gruff voice before his feeble attempt at a smile.
“Uh, yes, we have a question for you.” Dad stumbled on his words, as if not sure of himself now that the investigation had officially begun. “We received a letter-postmarked from this town-in the middle of last month. In November. And, we’re, uh, trying to find the person who sent it to us, and, um, so here we are.” He rubbed his eyes with both hands and groaned. “Tick, your turn.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Tick pulled the original envelope from his journal, where he’d stuck it between two pages, then placed it on the counter. “Here it is. Does this look familiar to you at all, or the handwriting?”
The man leaned forward and for some reason sniffed the envelope. “Doesn’t mean a thing to me. Good day.” He turned and took a step toward the back of the office.
Tick felt his heart sinking toward his stomach. His dad gave him a worried look, then quickly said to the man, “Wait! Does anyone else work here? Could we speak to them?”
The old man turned and gave them an evil glare. “This is a small town, you hear me? I retired a long time ago, until I was forced to come back last month because one of the workers decided he was a psycho and up and quit. Good riddance. If you want to talk to him, be my guest.”
“What was his name?” Tick asked. “Where does he live?”
The formerly retired postal worker sighed. “Norbert Johnson. Lives north of here, the very last house on Main Street. Don’t tell him I sent you.”
The man left the room without another word or a good-bye.
They pulled up in their car at the dead end of Main Street, staring at a small house that seemed to huddle in the cold, miserable and heartbroken. Tick didn’t know if it officially approached haunted-house status, but it was close-two stories, broken shutters hanging on for dear life, peeling white paint. A couple of dim lights shone through the windows like dying fires. Two wilted trees, looking as though they hadn’t sprouted leaves in decades, stood like undernourished sentinels on either side of the short and broken driveway.
“Son,” his dad said, “maybe this time you should do the talking.”
“Dad, you’re supposed to be the grown-up in this group.”
“Well, that’s why I’ll provide the muscle and protect you from harm. You’re the brains of this outfit; you do the talking.” He winked at his son then climbed out of the car.
Tick grabbed his journal and followed him down the icy driveway, up the creaky wooden stairs of the snow-covered porch, then to the sad-looking front door, brown and sagging on its hinges. His dad knocked without hesitating.
A long moment passed
with no answer or noise from inside. Tick shivered in the biting cold and rubbed his arms. His dad knocked again, then found a barely visible doorbell and pushed it, though it didn’t work. Another half-minute went by without so much as a creak from the house.
Dad moaned. “Don’t tell me we came all this way and the man we need to talk to is on vacation in sunny Florida.”
Tick craned his neck to look at a window on the second floor. “There’re lights on inside. Someone has to be home.”
“I don’t know-we always leave a light on when we go on vacation-scares the burglars away.” He knocked again, half-heartedly. “Come on, let’s go.”
With slumped shoulders, they started down the porch steps. They were halfway down the sidewalk when they heard a scraping sound from behind and above them, then a low, tired voice. “What do you folks a-want?”
Tick turned to see a disheveled, gray-haired man peeking out of an upstairs window, his eyes darting back and forth around the yard, looking for anything and everything.
“We’re trying to find Norbert Johnson,” Tick shouted up to the window. “We have some questions about a letter mailed from here.”
The man muttered something unintelligible before letting out a little shriek. “Do… do you work for Master George or Mistress Jane?”
Tick and his dad exchanged a baffled look. “Master George…” Dad said under his breath, then looked back up toward the man at the window. “Never heard of either one of them, but my son got a letter from someone named M.G. Could be the same person, I guess.”
The man paused, his squinty eyes scrutinizing the man and boy below him for signs of trouble. “Do you swear you’ve a-never heard of a woman named Mistress Jane in your life?”
“Never,” Tick and his dad said in unison.
“You’ve a-never seen or worked for a lady dressed all in yellow who’s as bald as Bigfoot is hairy?”
Tick couldn’t believe how weird this whole conversation had become. “Never.”
The man slammed his window shut without saying another word, leaving Tick to wonder if this Norbert guy really had gone bonkers like the old postal worker had suggested.
The front door popped open and Norbert stuck his head out, smoothing his thin gray hair. “Come on in,” he said in a quick, tight voice, looking around the yard again. “I’ve got something for you.”
Frazier had pulled to the side of the road two houses down from the one at the end of the street, curious as to what Tick and his dad would learn from the man who lived there. It seemed they merely wanted to discover if the postal workers knew who had mailed the letter they had received, but something about the whole thing seemed fishy.
With his spy equipment-conical sound trapper, thermo-magnetically heightened microphones, and molded earpieces-Frazier had heard every word exchanged in the post office and had found it quite interesting.
Norbert Johnson. The name didn’t ring a bell, but Mistress Jane certainly didn’t tell him about every person she came across in her travels. Maybe she’d interrogated Johnson about the whole affair. That would have been enough to drive any man crazy. The way Norbert had acted at his own house-all nervous and paranoid before finally letting the two strangers in-sure seemed to support the “crazy” theory.
Frazier picked up his eavesdropping gadget and pointed it at the house, then reinserted his earpieces. It took a few seconds to pinpoint the murmurs of the conversation before he locked it in place as best he could, settling back to have a listen. The first thing he heard made his eyes widen. It was the voice of the man named Norbert.
“Here you go. The big lady told me it’s called the sixth clue.”
Chapter 23
Bonding with Norbert
Big lady?” Tick asked, holding the yellow envelope like his life depended on it. “Who gave this to you?”
They sat in a messy living room, not a single piece of furniture matching any of the others. At least it’s warm, Tick thought. He and his dad sat on a frumpy couch that leaned toward the middle, facing Norbert on his rickety old chair, where he wrung his hands and rocked back and forth.
“Big ol’ tall woman. Looked like ugly on a stick,” Norbert answered in almost a whisper. “Just about scared me out of my pants, what with her a-coming out of the old graveyard behind my house.”
The mention of a cemetery made Tick’s ears perk up. It can’t be a coincidence… It must be related somehow to the fourth clue and where he was supposed to go on May sixth.
“Did she say anything else to you?” Dad asked. “Talk to you at all?”
“Not much.” Norbert’s fidgeting made Tick’s head dizzy. “Told me some real smart kids would come a-looking for me, and I should give that there letter to ’em. Gave me several copies. Don’t know about you fellas, but when an eight-foot monster lady tells me to do something, I’m gonna pretty much do it. So there you go.”
Tick inserted his thumb under the flap and started ripping open the envelope as Norbert kept talking.
“Since that piece of parcel looked just like the ones from the British fella, and since I figured the British fella was an enemy of the Banana Lady, I reckoned I’d be a-doing a good task.”
Tick stopped just before pulling out the white cardstock of the sixth clue. “British? Who was British?”
His dad leaned forward, a surprisingly difficult task that made the pitiful couch groan like a captured wolverine. “Mr. Johnson, I’m more confused than the Easter Bunny at a Christmas party. Could you please tell us everything you know about the letter we got from Alaska and who sent it? Maybe start from the beginning?”
“The Easter Bunny at a-” Tick began, a questioning smirk on his face.
“Quiet, son.”
Norbert finally settled back in his chair and began his story, seemingly relieved that he’d been given direction on how to go about this conversation. Though Tick desperately wanted to read the next clue, he slipped it inside his journal and listened to the strange man from Alaska.
“I’d worked there at the post office in Macadamia for twenty-plus years, and I was just as happy as can be. Well, as happy as a single man in his fifties who smells a little like boiled cabbage can be.” Tick involuntarily sniffed at this point, then tried to cover it up by scratching his nose. Norbert continued without noticing.
“Then they had to come along and ruin my life. It was a cold day in November-of course, every day is cold in November when you live up here, if you know what I mean. Anyway, first this busy little British gent named Master George, dressed all fancy-like, comes walking into my shop holding a box of letters that looked just like the one I gave you.” He pointed at the journal in Tick’s lap. “Goes off about how they need to get out right away, do-da, do-da.”
Tick decided that last part was Norbert’s way of saying “etcetera” and held in a laugh.
“I assured the fella I’d take care of it and he left. Wasn’t a half-hour later when the scariest woman I’ve ever laid eyes upon came a-stomping in, dressed from head to toe in nothing but yellow. And she was bald-not a hair on her noggin to be found. Called herself Mistress Jane, and she was mean. I’m telling you, mean. You could feel it coming off her in waves.” Norbert shivered.
“What did she want?” Dad asked.
“She was a-looking for Master George, which told me right away that the British gent must be a good guy, because Lemony Jane surely wasn’t.”
Tick felt like the final mystery of a great book had been revealed to him. The source of the letters suddenly had a name, a description. He was no longer a couple of initials and a blurred image. M.G. had become Master George. From England. And he was the good guy.
“She threatened me,” Norbert continued. “She was cruel. And I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Still can’t. She’s been in my dreams ever since, telling me she’s gonna find out I lied to her.”
“Lied to her?” Dad repeated.
“Yes, sir. Told her I’d never met anybody named Master George, and I hid the letters u
nder the counter before she could see them. Flat out lied to her, and she told me bad things would happen if she ever found I’d a-done it. And done it, I did.”
“So…” Tick started, “you quit your job because you were scared of her?”
Norbert looked down at his feet as if ashamed of himself. “You got me all figured out, boy. Poor Norbert Johnson hasn’t been the same since the day I met that golden devil. Quit my job, went on welfare, borrowed money. I been hiding in this house ever since. Only reason I met the tall lady who gave me the letters is because I heard a noise out in the backyard.”
“I thought you said she came out of a graveyard,” Dad said.
“She did. Like I said, back behind my house is an old, old cemetery. Got too old, I reckon, so they built another one closer to downtown.”
“Mothball,” Tick said quietly.
“Huh?” Norbert replied.
“Her name is Mothball. The lady who gave you this letter.” Tick slipped it from his journal and held it in his hand.
Norbert looked perplexed. “Well what in the Sears-and-Roebuck kind of name is that?”
“She said her dad was in a hurry when he named her, something about soldiers trying to kidnap them.”
Norbert did nothing but blink.
“Never mind.” Tick turned to his dad. “Why in the world would she have given him the sixth clue?”
His dad furrowed his brow for a moment, deep in thought. “Well, maybe it’s like I said-I think they wanted us to be proactive and seek out information, not just wait around to find it. Maybe they went back to all the towns they mailed the letters from and gave copies of the clues to the postal workers who would cooperate. They knew if we did some investigating, going to the source would be the most logical step.”
Tick thought for a second. “Dad, I think you nailed it.”
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