The Evil Wizard Smallbone (9 page)

He hung the jacket from a peg to dry, then sat on a bale of hay next to the pigpen with his back to the rails.

He was wondering how you apologized to a pig when he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder and a rubbery snout snuffled at his neck.

After supper, when Smallbone was at the barn, Nick fished
E-Z Spelz
out from under the bed and opened it, prepared for another lecture on patience and control and maybe kindness to animals.

Nick found himself nodding.

O
ne morning Nick woke to silence and a hard, pale sky. The snow had stopped, but the air was cold enough to freeze snot. By the time he’d finished the chores, the weather had cleared. In the sunlight, Evil Wizard Books looked like a crystal palace in a snow globe, chimneys and roofs all frosted and glittering.

When Nick returned with the milk and eggs, Smallbone had already made breakfast. “Eat up, Foxkin. We’re going into town. I’m out of tobacco and I haven’t picked up my Christmas ham.”

Nick’s heart gave a lurch. A town meant people, a telephone, maybe even a police station. A town meant a possibility of escape. Which was all he really wanted, right? The bookshop and the animals and magic were all fine, but they didn’t make up for Smallbone and his acid tongue and the constant fear of bug-hood.

Smallbone gave Nick a look under his bushy brows. “Just in case you’re thinking of making a break for it, remember that the townsfolk are Smallbones, every one of them. They know what’s due their evil wizard, even if you don’t.”

Nick returned the look with interest. “I can’t wait to meet them.”

A little while later, Nick was trudging through the woods behind Smallbone. He was carrying an empty straw basket on his arm for purchases, and he’d tucked a bacon sandwich and
E-Z Spelz for Little Wizardz
in his jacket pockets, just in case.

Smallbone’s path wound through the woods, climbed a steep rise covered with prickly blackberry, then plunged downhill to a rocky beach. Nick squinted up at the seagulls mewing and gliding down the sapphire sky, and wondered where he was.

“When you’re done gawking,” Smallbone said, “you can help me with the skiff.”

A sturdy boat was turned upside down on the rocks like a turtle, with its oars beneath it. Nick brushed the snow off and helped the old man drag it down to the water.

Smallbone’s beard twitched. “Don’t suppose it’s any use asking if you can row.”

“Nope.”

“I’ll teach you come spring. Hop in and don’t fidget.”

Nick threw the basket in the boat and stepped in gingerly, gripping the sides as he felt the boat lift and stir under him. Smallbone pushed the skiff off the sand, scrambled aboard, sat down facing Nick, and headed out into the Reach.

Nick had never been in a boat before. He gripped the sides while the wind cut through his jacket like a saw and the cold waves stung his hands. When he looked ahead, there was Smallbone, all bristly white hair and glittering glasses, scowling as he pulled on the oars. Nick turned his eyes to the little islands that were scattered along the Reach, ringed with rocks like massive loaves of brown bread sprinkled with floury snow. Some were big enough to walk around on, but most were too small to hold more than a few trees. The world smelled of pine and wood smoke and cold.

Nick felt like laughing.

Before long, they rounded a rocky point and headed into a deep, sheltered cove. Nick made out a weathered dock surrounded by a flock of boats like oversize geese. Behind them was a row of gray and white buildings and a white clapboard church with a sharply pointed steeple topped with a black weathervane shaped like a seal. The whole scene was dusted with glittering snow, like the most touristy kind of Christmas card.

Nick tucked his frozen hands into his armpits. He didn’t care what Smallbone said: somebody was bound to help him. He’d find a nice woman — women usually felt sorry for Nick until they got to know him — and spin her a tale about family in Bath or Boothbay or whatever, and he’d be on his way in no time.

With an expert flick of his oars, Smallbone pulled up against the dock, threw a rope over a post, tied it fast, and took off, his black coat flapping, his black hat jammed down over his wild white hair like a stovepipe over a bird’s nest. Nick scrambled after with the basket.

There weren’t many people around. An old guy was coiling rope next to the gas pump on the wharf, and there were a couple of pickups parked in the lot, but Nick didn’t see anybody he felt he could talk to. The stores were boarded up tight for the season. With nowhere to run, Nick followed Smallbone down the street. They passed a neat white clapboard house with an old-fashioned public phone booth to one side of the front walk and a sign to the other identifying it as the Smallbone Cove Public Library. A woman was looking out one of the windows. Maybe she’d lend him a quarter for the phone. Maybe she’d hide him in her cellar.

Nick caught her eye and smiled. She looked a little startled but smiled back.

Down the street, a woman in a red parka was heading toward them, waving a red-mittened hand. “Mr. Smallbone,” she called, her voice ringing in the nippy air. “Thank heaven you’re here! I was just coming to see you.”

Smallbone ignored her.

She patted the basket hanging on her arm. “I’ve got your meat order right here. And there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Smallbone didn’t answer.

“Please listen, Mr. Smallbone,” she said, tight and desperate. “I invoke the Contract.”

Smallbone stopped so suddenly that Nick nearly crashed into him. “The Contract, eh? You making a formal petition, Lily Smallbone?”

The woman gripped the basket. “I am.”

Smallbone scowled, his hat tipping forward. “Land o’ Goshen, Lily, you know better than this. There’s a time and a place for petitions and this ain’t neither the one or the other.”

Lily opened her mouth. Smallbone trained his spectacles on her. She closed it again, turned, and stomped back the way she had come.

Wondering what had just happened, Nick followed Smallbone and the woman to what looked to be the only open shop in town. It had “country store” written all over it, from the rustic wooden benches on its porch to its sparkling bay window filled with jars of candy and homemade jam. There was a wooden plaque over the door:
SMALLBONE COVE MERCANTILE EST. 1780
,
LILY AND ZERUBABBLE SMALLBONE
,
PROPS
. A red gingham sign on the door told passersby that it was
OPEN
.

Nick followed Smallbone into the warmth and took a deep breath flavored with vinegar, wood smoke, and fresh-baked bread. Two men in heavy sweaters playing checkers on a pickle barrel beside the shop window looked up and stared at him with eyes so dark they were almost black. Nick smiled, trying to look pathetic and trustworthy. They returned to their game.

The woman called Lily deposited her basket on the shop counter next to a glass case filled with fancy baked goods. She took off her parka, revealing a sweater decorated with seals and a round face that was probably pleasant when she wasn’t in a temper. Her sleek brown hair was splotched and streaked with gray.

“So, Mr. Smallbone,” she said briskly, “how can I help you?”

Smallbone produced a creased paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Here’s my list. Cornmeal, salt, tobacco, ham, vanilla, washing powder, ammonia, bacon, corned beef — the usual. Oh, and you can give me some of them fresh cinnamon buns — a dozen will suffice. Some other odds and ends. You can see for yourself.”

Lily took the list without looking at it. “With respect, Mr. Smallbone —”

Smallbone’s beard bunched. Lily looked at the list. “Jeans. Wool jacket. Underwear, boy’s size fourteen. Flannel shirts.” She cocked her chin toward Nick. “This gear for him?”

“Ayuh,” Smallbone said. “This here’s my new apprentice. You’ll be seeing him from time to time, running errands and suchlike.” He leaned forward confidentially. “You’ll want to keep a sharp eye on him. He’s crooked as a hairpin.”

Lily turned to Nick. Her eyes were like polished black stones. Nick called up his best smile. If he wanted these folks on his side, he had to pretend to be the kind of kid they’d like — a kid with manners, a kid they could trust. He whipped off his cap and stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said, making firm eye contact. “My name’s N —, um, Jerry.”

“Call him Foxkin,” Smallbone said. “Better yet, don’t call him anything at all. There’s nothing you can say he needs to hear, barring ‘Put that candy bar back where you got it.’ ”

“My name really is Jerry, ma’am,” Nick said. “Jerry Reynaud. And I’m not a thief. My bicycle broke when I was on my way to my cousin’s house, and then it started to snow and I got lost. Mr. Smallbone took me in, which was nice of him, I guess, except now he won’t let me leave.”

Lily quirked her eyebrow. Nick dropped his hand.

“Crackerjack liar, ain’t he?” Smallbone asked cheerfully. “I might almost believe he had a cousin if I didn’t know better.” He gave Lily a graveyard smile. “Come around to Eb’s in half an hour, and we’ll see about that petition.”

Eb’s turned out to be a clam shack, or rather, a Klam Shak. Its tiny-paned windows were draped with old fishing nets hung with glittery red and green glass balls for Christmas. A slate sidewalk board listed the specials: mackerel, fresh and fried; fish pie; salt cod. Nick, who didn’t like fish, hoped they had hot dogs, too.

Inside, a dozen broad-faced men and women with dark eyes and streaky hair like Lily’s sat at Formica-topped tables. They stopped talking when Nick and Smallbone came in. A couple with two kids — all of whom, strangely, had gray hair — slid hastily out of the last booth and moved to an empty table as a tall man in a stained apron bustled up, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. “ ’Morning, Mr. Smallbone, sir.”

Smallbone bared his teeth. “If I could just get everybody’s attention here, Ebenezer, I got something I want to say.”

And then he launched right into his speech about what a big liar and thief Nick was. If anything, he laid it on thicker than he had at Smallbone Cove Mercantile. Nick’s hope of making friends with the locals, already pretty weak, lay down and died.

“That about covers it.” Smallbone turned to the man in the apron. “We’ll have a couple of bowls of clam chowder, Eb, and a Coke for Foxkin here.” And then he sat in the empty booth.

After the speech, Nick figured he couldn’t ask for a hot dog instead. But the clam chowder turned out to be better than he expected. His bowl was just about empty when Lily appeared at Smallbone’s elbow.

Smallbone put down his spoon. “Couldn’t wait for me to finish, could you?”

“It’s been thirty minutes,” Lily said. “Zachariah Smallbone, I petition you to hear me in the name of the Contract between you and your people.”

Smallbone munched his jaws irritably. “All right, all right, I’m coming.” He drained his bowl and dried his beard with his napkin. “I’ll be gone for a spell, Foxkin. You can wait for me here.”

Alone in the booth, Nick scraped up the last drops of chowder and finished his Coke and wondered if there was any chance of pie. The bench wiggled as bodies slid into the booth behind him.

“Evil wizard’s in town, I hear,” a deep voice said.

A woman answered. “Ayuh, Saul, he is that.”

“ ’Bout time,” said a third voice — a man’s, nasal and whiny. “Things’re going to hell in a handcart around here. What about that coyote we saw in the street? Never seen a coyote in town before.”