Clive Cussler (2 page)

"What can I do for you, friend?" asked Mr. Nicefolk.

"I'll help around the farm and work in the field if you can use a good hand."

Mr. Nicefolk shook his head. "Sorry, I can't afford to pay a hired hand. Times are hard, and I have too little acreage to make a profit."

"I won't charge you. I'll work for free except for food and a place to sleep."

Now, Ever Nicefolk was a man who took pride in tending the farm with just his wife and children, but it was an offer he could not refuse, especially since the herbs were due to be harvested in a few days and he needed every cent to feed his family. He was also two months behind on the mortgage on the farm and was afraid the bank might take his hard-worked land away, land that had belonged to his family for four generations.

"Take him on," said Ima Nicefolk, studying the stranger's body that was as skinny and gaunt as the trunk on a tall palm tree. "He doesn't look like he'll eat much."

An extra pair of hands would be welcome, thought Mr. Nicefolk. A kindly man, he took pity on the stranger, who looked as if he hadn't eaten since last Valentine's Day.

The stranger was unlike any man the twins had ever seen. He was tall, a foot taller than their father, and his rough hands with long, bony fingers hung down nearly to his knees. He was as quick in his movements as Ever Nicefolk was slow. His head turned from side to side, whipping his long gray beard back and forth like a child's swing. But his black eyes stared straight ahead with the intensity of a pair of headlights on a car.

To Lacey and Casey he looked like an under-stuffed scarecrow.

His appearance wasn't the only thing the Nicefolks found unusual about the curious stranger.

His donkey was as white as one of Mrs. Nicefolk's bed sheets, and the cart the animal was hitched to had been painted a gleaming gold.

When asked his name, the stranger replied, "I'm called Sucoh Sucop."

"That's an odd name," said Ever Nicefolk.

"It's the only one I've got," answered Sucop.

"You can take your meals with me and the family, but you'll have to sleep in the barn. And mind you, don't light any lanterns or candles. I don't want my barn burned down."

Sucop stared at the stone walls and shook his head. "Not much chance of that."

Ever Nicefolk nodded toward the wagon. "I'll give you room and board to bring the herbs to the barn with your wagon and mule."

Sucop smiled and patted the donkey. "Hear that, Mr. Periwinkle? These good folks are going to pay us to bring in their crops from the field."

Mr. Periwinkle lifted his head and brayed.

Then, without another word, Sucop set out for the barn, followed by Floopy, who had taken an obvious liking to him, and Mr. Periwinkle, who pulled the cart.

Lacey laughed and said, "Didn't any of you recognize his name?"

"It's dumb, that's all I know," said Casey, watching Sucop until he disappeared through the big barn door.

"He's nobody I ever heard of around these parts," Mr. Nicefolk said, shrugging.

"Sucoh Sucop is hocus pocus spelled backward," Lacey said triumphantly, having outthought the rest of her family.

Mrs. Nicefolk straightened her apron. "I do declare. No wonder he turned his name around."

Casey was not sure he liked the newcomer. He often thought things out for minutes, sometimes hours and even days, before making up his mind and drawing a logical conclusion. But Casey decided that Mr. Sucop posed no threat and that he would treat him with courtesy. After all, Ever Nicefolk always told his children that courtesy toward others did not cost a nickel.

For the next two months, Mr. Nicefolk and Sucoh Sucop harvested the herbs and carried them into the barn, then loaded the licorice, spearmint, ginseng and all the other herbs into their special bins until the barn reeked of wonderful smells. Lacey and Casey helped after school, soon becoming friends with Mr. Periwinkle, leading him to the barn with a full load of herbs in the cart and unloading it before bringing him back to the fields for another load. They spent the evening hours after homework listening to wondrous stories by Mr. Sucop, who treated them as if they were his very own children.

The days were warm and comfortable, and the weather cooperated with clear, cloudless skies with no rain, only early morning fog that drifted in during the morning from the ocean. It was the nights that seemed mysterious. After supper, Sucop would go to the barn, where he had wired a small generator to electric lights that shone all night. Soon a mystical glow surrounded the old barn. Neighbors passing on the nearby road often commented about the peculiar phenomenon of light streaming through the barn's windows.

During his spare time when he wasn't laboring in the fields, Sucop disappeared into the barn and didn't come out until dawn. He built an enclosed shop with a large workbench in one corner of the barn. Despite their curiosity, the children were afraid to enter the barn when Sucop was inside. In fact, their father cautioned them to stay away from their field hand to respect his privacy. When they put their ears to the door, which became, oddly, locked except when the herbs were brought in and later packaged, all they could hear were unexplainable tinkling and clinking noises. Then silence, then the tinkling and clinking would resume and go on for an hour at a time before stopping again. They could not begin to guess what their new friend was doing. Even when they were permitted to enter the barn during the workday, they found a big brass padlock on the door of the workshop in the corner with its newly built walls. Whatever was going on inside during the wee hours of the night was most puzzling to the children. They began to suspect that Sucop had a deep, dark secret he did not wish to share with the Nicefolks.

At last, when all the herbs were harvested, packaged and sent to buyers, Sucoh Sucop came to the door one morning and told Mr. Nicefolk that it was time for him to move on.

"Sorry to see you go," said Ever Nicefolk.

"We'll miss you," said Ima Nicefolk.

Lacey and Casey came and stood side by side, petting Mr. Periwinkle for the last time. "Will you come back next harvest season?" asked Casey.

Sucop tugged at his long gray beard and smiled. "I never know where my travels will take me. Mr. Periwinkle and I simply follow a road until it ends and then take another until that one ends. Should the roads take us in a circle and we arrive back here, we'll be happy to work for you again."

Ever Nicefolk tried to pay Sucop a little money as a bonus, but the man slipped both hands in his pocket, saying, "I can only take what we agreed upon, but thank you kindly." Then he looked down at Lacey and Casey. "Before I leave, there is something I'd like to show you in the barn."

Sucoh Sucop, looking very mysterious, walked into the barn with the children trailing behind him and Floopy loping beside Mr. Periwinkle. Inside, he stopped in front of the locked workshop. Then he dug into his pocket, produced a key and opened the door.

The interior was dark, but he pressed a tiny switch on the wall and the workshop was flooded with a light that shone with all the colors of the rainbow. The workshop was empty of all his paraphernalia—he had loaded all that on his cart. The walls and workbench were clean of tools except a small copper box with two levers protruding from the top. Other than the box, all the children could see was a large, square mat on the floor that shimmered under the mystical light. Sucoh Sucop took a toy out of a pocket on his overalls and placed it on the mat. It was a small hand-carved model of his cart.

"Now watch closely," he said in a measured voice, smiling widely, "and see what you have never seen."

Then he pressed the left lever on the box.

Slowly, very slowly, the little toy cart glimmered and sparkled. Next came a wisp of what looked like purple smoke but was really a heavy mist. The mist swirled and whirled for nearly a minute, then began to scatter in a shower of tiny glittering stars before fading away.

Suddenly, the toy cart seemed to grow and grow until it was as big as Sucop's real cart.

Lacey and Casey's eyes were as wide as the dishes on Mrs. Nicefolk's dinner table. They stood rooted in astonishment before jumping up and down with excitement. Then they began to calm down and wonder if their eyes were playing tricks inside their heads.

Reading their minds, Sucop said, "It's real. Go ahead and touch it."

Lacey was afraid, but Casey, wanting to show his sister that he was brave, approached the cart and cautiously extended his hand until his fingers touched one of the wheels. Quickly he pulled his hand back, then reached out again and ran his hand over the staked sides.

"It is real," he gasped. "I can feel it."

Still not fully convinced, Casey abruptly turned and looked toward the barn door. Believing that Sucop had somehow moved his cart into the barn during the mist, he ran outside. There was the cart, still hitched to Mr. Periwinkle, with Floopy sitting next to it, his tongue dangling out one side of his jaw.

Returning as if in a daze, Casey stared at the second cart, then looked up at Sucop and asked, "How did you do that?"

"Enchantment," Sucop answered easily.

"It must be a magic trick," said Lacey.

Sucop shook his head solemnly. "No trick. I have given you both the secret of enchantment. All you have to do to make a small toy big is set it on the mat and push the left lever of the mystical box. Then you must believe with all your heart that your toy will become as real as life itself."

"What does the right lever do?" Casey wondered, relying on his inquiring mind.

"That one makes the object tiny again. Just watch." He touched the lever, and in a puff of purple haze, the cart became little again.

Lacey threw her arms around Sucop—actually her arms couldn't quite reach around his waist—and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you for such a wonderful gift."

Casey, trying to act grown up, shook Sucop's hand. "How can we ever thank you?"

Sucop smiled. "Use the gift only for good and it will last you a lifetime. But if you use it for bad, it will vanish in a puff of red smoke."

"No, no," the children cried in unison. "We will never use it for wicked things."

"And remember, when you are finished with whatever toy you alter, you can make it small again."

"And if we don't, will it last forever and ever?" asked Lacey.

"Then it will remain real," Sucop assured her. "And one other thing. This is our secret. No one else must ever learn the magic."

"Not even our mother and father?"

Sucop ran his hand through her golden hair. "Not even your mother and father, or the spell will disappear, never to return. Love and cherish the secret and it will last until you're both grown up."

"Not after?" asked Casey.

Sucop slowly shook his head. "Then your dreams will take new directions, and the secret will fade in your mind and heart."

With that, he spun on his heels and walked from the barn. He never turned and looked back as he and Mr. Periwinkle set off down the road.

Lacey and Casey watched with tears of sadness in their eyes until their friend passed through the fields and became lost to their sight.

Finally, Lacey turned to Casey. "What should we do now?" she asked, wiping away her tears.

Casey thought a moment, then his eyes brightened and a wide grin spread across his face. "Let's see if we can make the magic work. I have an idea. You wait here."

Casey ran off to the house. A few minutes later, he returned. In one hand he held a small red toy tractor that he had played with in a sandbox behind the back porch. "We'll make a real tractor for Father and tell him it came from Mr. Sucop."

Lacey clapped her hands. "How wonderful. Father will be so pleased, and he'll have something to remember Mr. Sucop by."

"It's the least we can do," said Casey.

Quickly, they placed the little tractor, with its little yellow wheels on the front and big wheels on the back, on the magical mat. There was a tiny steering wheel and a little seat for the driver. The engine that could be seen under the open hood was painted silver.

Casey took the copper box and stared at Lacey. "You ready?"

"Yes, yes. Are you sure you know which lever to push?"

"He said the left one."

Nervous and gripped by suspense, Casey pushed the lever and held his breath. As with the cart, the tiny tractor glimmered and sparkled, followed by the thick, swirling, whirling purple mist.

But nothing happened. The toy tractor was still a toy tractor.

"You must have pushed the wrong lever," said Lacey.

Casey shook his head. "No, something doesn't work. Maybe it was a trick."

"Mr. Sucop said we must believe with all our hearts. That has to be it. We didn't believe. Let's try again, but this time we must have faith that the tractor will grow into a real one."

They closed their eyes and wished and wished and wished with all their hearts that the little tractor would grow into a big one. They did not see the mist or the miniature burst of stars or hear anything but a cooing dove nesting in the rafters far above them. After a full minute, they slowly opened their eyes.