The Thing at the Edge of Blundertown

by Jane M. Bloom

  But there it was: right in front of me, my welcome home celebration!

  I fell into a comforting sleep and began a whole new series of dreams. Many of them have been remarkable, fantastic. And many have come true.

  RAELYN LEFT THE HOSPITAL ON CRUTCHES with get-well balloons, cards, and bundles of bouquets from friends and strangers alike. She also left with a shiny, silver bullet the size of a baby pea—the one that had lodged itself in the back of her right calf, a souvenir for her scrapbook. She would have a life-long scar there, like Mr. Pumpkin Head, eight stitches apiece.

  Penelope came home a couple of weeks later, after being nursed back to health by Doc Goodman. Doc had immediately opened an emergency clinic and treated all of the survivors, many of whom, like Penny, had been airlifted or otherwise transported from the Compound to safety. Once they were stabilized, Doc kept the clinic open indefinitely as a welcome center. For those convalescing, there were warm bubble baths and a beautiful, hand-stitched scarf for each and every one. Two scrumptious meals a day! Daily walks and games of catch. New beds, brushings as their tufts of fur grew back. And as soon as Penelope was well enough, she and Raelyn taught them all how to spell.

  Swarms of volunteers came to help. Gil was among them, as was Night, the little black puppy he’d rescued from the pile of fur and instantly adopted. Night pranced a half-step behind him everywhere he went. Her parents were there, of course. Even the neighbor, Kelly Davis, dared to show up once (gag), always aligning herself with whatever team was winning. Megan, Cierra, and Angelica were among the volunteers, too. Angie couldn’t help with the baths because she’d come directly from the nail salon. But she was there nonetheless, side-by-side with her best friend.

  “Here to give moral support?” Raelyn teased. Her stylish new crop highlighted her cheekbones and radiant smile.

  And one afternoon, in walked Jackson Devine, the prodigal son. He lifted Penelope gently to his chest. When he attempted to do the same with his sister, Raelyn squirmed out of his embrace and punched him in the arm. “Hey, Jackass. Better late than never.”

  She wanted her prize. She had more than earned it. She unfolded a piece of paper from Doc’s desk with the answers to his treasure hunt. “G,” “E,” “I,” “V,” and the fifth was a question mark: “?”. She had solved that one in a dream a few days after the rescue:

  Look overhead in Springtime

  For the Great Bear in the sky

  A tilt of your head

  (You should be in bed)

  Marks who-what-when-where-why.

  Jackson’s “Great Bear,” of course, was Ursa Major, the most easily identified constellation—also known as the Big Dipper. At a certain angle, it became the abstract question mark of the heavens, the existential symbol humans have faced throughout history. It was that very same question mark that she’d seen during the rescue mission that desperate April night. At the time, she’d thought it was a useless, even cruel, response to her plea for help. But perhaps she had misunderstood. Perhaps it had been heaven’s eternal question back to her: How can I help you?

  “So,” Raelyn guessed, “I think they probably spell, ‘G, I, V, E, ?’ But I don’t know what it means.”

  “That’s because you’re missing the answer to my last clue,” her brother explained. “How come?”

  “Tell me you’re kidding, Jackass?” She pulled an envelope from the drawer. “I never even looked at the last clue. I’ve been a little busy, you know.” She tore it open and read his hand-written words aloud:

  I wear my feelings on my arm

  Both my sadness and my charm

  But something guides me there, as well

  The right direction it does tell.

  N, S, E, West

  These points know what’s best.

  As she read, Jack flexed his left biceps to show off his tattoo. She broke into a smile. “Oh! I get it. It’s the ‘cardinal’ points.” But the pause on his face told her she was wrong, and a “C” wouldn’t fit anywhere. North, South, East, West, she thought. And then she knew the answer. “Four. These 4 points!” She continued, “so the final answer is: ‘GIVE 4?’ Or, ‘4-GIVE?’ Like, ‘do you FORGIVE?’” She bounced off her heels in triumph. “I’m right! Am I right?”

  He still remained silent.

  Suddenly, a flash of rage overtook her. “No. I will never forgive. Any of them!”

  Again, he said nothing, but his eyes were misty.

  “. . .Jack?”

  He held out his arms to her.

  “Do I forgive. . .you?” She gathered all ten of his fingers and squeezed. “You, yes.” They shared several moments of silence, knuckles knotted. Then she tossed all hands up to the wind and announced, “Enough of that. How about my treasure!”

  Jackson pulled something out of his back pocket. Initially, it reminded her of one of his magic tricks, where an endless string of fabrics came slithering out of his jacket sleeve. But this wasn’t magic. He gave it to her. It was a long silken scarf, an exquisite rainbow of stunning beauty. It seemed to breathe in her hands. She examined the tiny, imperfect stitching and brought it to her face. It was as soft as Penelope’s ears.

  THE BLUNDERTOWN COMPOUND was shut down for good. All of them were. Yes, there had been others scattered across the entire state—pin marks on an expanding map in Chief Jerkins’ private office. Once Penelope’s compound fell, the others followed like dominoes. The locals learned that, while resistance and rescue efforts had been made at many of the compounds, the Blunder-town Compound rescue had by far been the most successful.

  At first, people went out of their way to avoid the streets on which the wretched ghost towns stood. Over time, though, they went out of their way to travel down those very roads, to peek through the padlocked fences, to bear witness, in a small way, to a most shameful time in their history.

  Ollie Jerkins went to trial, as did Angie’s father, Ted Quinn. They now live somewhere upstate with a huge, smelly cafeteria and a Wall of Vending Machines. They arrived there at about the time Jackson celebrated his seventeenth birthday at home, just as he had predicted. Angelica will see her father age over the course of her bi-weekly visits, but he’ll be released one day. He expressed genuine remorse and has come to see that dogs were our earliest best friends and are no less worthy than himself.

  Mr. Pumpkin Head, on the other hand, will grow very, very old there. He has become famous—or rather, infamous; far and wide, his murderous ways have come to be known as Ollie’s Folly, and he the Most Despicable Man Alive. With not the slightest interest in changing his heart, he will never be released in this lifetime.

  The Canine Laws were abolished, and the parks once again welcomed dogs of every kind. Blundertown Park was renamed Penelope Park. She, Atlas, Prince, and Night meet there almost daily. As a member of The Underground Squad who lived to tell her tale, she enjoys a certain cachet and occasionally draws a small crowd. We almost made it, she tells them. Our tunnel was nearly complete! But more often than not she lies under a shade tree and studies the smell of worms under the grass, the beetles, the sweet roots sprawling beneath the surface. She watches the younger ones play and frolic. The truth is, she will never be quite the same. Her plight aged her immensely. None of them are the same, really; how could they be? For, right behind their excitable tails and animated eyes is a whiff of sadness that will forever belong to them—a sadness they have for keeps.

  But, oh, the puppies! Over time, there are more and more puppies at Penelope Park. And many more at all the newly opened parks throughout the land. They trip and stumble over their oversized paws and banter in high-pitched yelps. These pups are once removed from their parents’ ordeal, and their litters will be twice removed from their grandparents’. But make no mistake: That ordeal remains an integral part of them, and is never far away. As they play, chase, dig, sniff, guard, and bark as puppies always have, the stories and histories are passed down from one generation to the next. This, to ensure: Never again!

  And guess
what? Penelope was finally allowed to sleep upstairs in Raelyn’s bedroom. Her luxurious bed, fit for a queen, remained permanently at Rae’s bedside. Really, Mom, Dad? It took all of this for you to finally say yes?

  EPILOGUE

  SO, YOU SEE, ALL OF MY CHILDHOOD dreams came true—the good, the bad and the ugly: from plunging into the deepest pit to viewing my life through the eyes of God.

  I ask myself, did saving Penelope and her companions, when so many others were killed, tip the scales of justice at all? How many good deeds are needed to overcome the weight of evil? To restore equilibrium?

  There is a granite plaque where the Blundertown Compound once stood. It memorializes the victims and recognizes the individuals (one being me) who saved the last of them on that early morning Aprils ago.

  But when I look in the mirror each day, I don’t see a hero. I see two of me: one, losing my balance and falling full speed into a black hole; the other, climbing out—first one muscled grip, then a foot, another grip, and so forth, upward.

  After all, it was Angelica’s dad—a most loving, doting father and husband, the one who brought a dozen roses to every performance, who sculpted a palace out of mud with his bare hands, who attended church every Sunday, the very same man who ultimately came to account.

  In the mirror, I see my family staring blankly in my direction in their winter coats on a snow-covered walk, with me beckoning from the tulips and the bursting, spring magnolia. The Devine SUV, me in the driver’s seat(!) on our way to a dangerous mission. I see my parents, bobble heads both, yessing their bosses and worrying about their children. My father keenly watching the ups and downs and inching one direction over the other. My lovely, steadfast, but stubborn mother, who came through only in the very end, but with guns blazing: what style! I see my brother, who forfeited the strings of his own life for a time but quickly found his way, a king among misfits spinning straw into gold from behind bars. No matter the constraints, there is always something you can do.

  Next in my view appears Angie, who drew her own safe line in the sand. And Gil, a cocky middle-school athlete with a heart of gold, who wept like a baby. In the looking glass, I see Kelly Davis, once Penelope’s favorite neighbor. Masked, she was phony and warm; unmasked, true and cold. I see the inhabitants behind the curtained windows along the edge of Blundertown where the Compound used to be, eyes, ears and noses pinched shut.

  Penelope is before me now, the face of dignified simplicity, my true best friend. She would have dug to the ends of the Earth for me had it been the other way around.

  Finally, my twenty-year-old face takes on the features of Mr. Pumpkin Head himself, whose sick obsessions got the best of him and whose charisma and hatred got the best of everyone else. And selfless Doc Goodman, who saw things as they were, and are, and never wavered.

  In other words, when I look in the mirror, I see you and me.

  When you close your eyes at night before drifting off to sleep, can you see the Glitter?

  Jonathan C. Hyman © arthoops55@gmail.com

  About the Author

  Born and raised in Michigan, Jane M. Bloom has spent most of her adult life in the beautiful Catskills of upstate New York, enjoying the balance of life, work, and family. As a practicing attorney, she has represented hundreds of children (as well as adults) in Sullivan County, where she resides with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and her law degree from Pace University School of Law.

  Ms. Bloom is equally passionate about the big things—Alaska’s mighty glaciers; attending the largest march in U.S. history—as she is the small things like walking the dogs or hiking to the waterfall near her home. She enjoys music festivals, travel, and volunteering for Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

  Visit her website at janembloom.com.