“Righteous!” Lucy crowed as he began to dance in his seat without a care about where his elbows might land. Before long, everyone (excluding Miss Marblemaw) joined in, singing, move, hot rod, move me on down the line.
The village was bustling, crowds of people on the sidewalks in colorful summer wear and large hats, carrying tote bags and coolers filled to the brim with snacks and drinks as they walked toward one of the two public beaches available to those who chose Marsyas as their vacation destination.
Others milled about in front of store windows, oohing and ahhing about overpriced trinkets made of shells and cloudy sea glass, and row after row of freshly made fudge: peanut butter (delicious!), walnut (exemplary!), mint (toothpaste!), and orange creamsicle (revolting!). Crowds gathered in front of mobile carts, some selling funnel cakes with powdered sugar sprinkled on top, others hawking jerk chicken on wooden skewers. An enterprising young woman stood above a wool blanket spread out on the sidewalk at her feet, shouting that she had kites for sale, get your kites here!
No reporters in sight, which was a relief. Though their numbers had dwindled since the aftermath of the hearing, Helen told Arthur and Linus that a few of the more insistent journalists had stuck around, hoping for a sighting of the residents of Marsyas Island, and perhaps a quote or three. Luckily enough, after receiving a tip from an anonymous caller who claimed something cataclysmically magical was occurring two hours to the north, the reporters had piled into their vehicles and sped from the village. The directions were vague enough that the anonymous caller—who could it have been?—did not expect anyone to return until at least early evening.
Arthur pulled the van into the mostly empty lot behind Helen’s gardening store, parking next to her truck. The children all tried to leave the van at once, Theodore of the mind that beings with wings got to leave first. Phee agreed. Lucy did not, saying that if he didn’t get out of the van first, he was going to bring about the End of Days. As it turned out, most of the travelers in the van were used to such bons mots and didn’t pay him any mind.
Miss Marblemaw did, however, furiously scribbling on her clipboard. “Lucy,” she asked as he climbed over her, “what did you mean by End of Days?”
Lucy almost fell out of the van, but stopped himself at the doorway. “Why?”
“I’m a detail-oriented person. I want to make sure I understand everything.”
“Do you?” He leaned forward, face inches from hers. “You know, they say the devil’s in the details. Isn’t that funny?” With that, he jumped out of the van.
“Today is going to be exhausting,” Linus said as he pushed open the door.
As ever, Lucy was full of surprises.
Standing at the center of attention, he proudly announced that since it was his day, he got to decide what everyone was doing. Rather than something horrifying and/or life-threatening, Lucy told his captive audience that today, he’d planned something special for each of them. Phee and Talia would get to see some new (and definitely not poisonous) plants that Helen had gotten in.
Chauncey was given the chance to show Linus where he worked at the hotel, and what Chauncey’s day-to-day entailed in the exciting role of a bellhop. Chauncey practically shouted at Linus that he couldn’t wait to show him the break room where there was a microwave, a refrigerator, and a wall calendar from seventeen years ago that showed goats wearing hats. Miss August, as it turned out, was his favorite as she was brown and white and wore a daring pillbox hat that really complimented her snout.
For Sal and Theodore, a trip to the library where both would have access to the rare-book section, to be followed by a visit to the antique store where the proprietor had recently discovered an entire jar filled with buttons in storage, and had set it aside for the wyvern to peruse should there be any treasures hidden within.
“As for me, I’ll be hanging out with David and Arthur,” Lucy said as Miss Marblemaw frowned. “We’re going to have whiskey sours and talk about babes.” He suddenly frowned and ran over to Linus, tugging on his shirt. “Psst. Linus. What kind of babes do I like?”
“You can like whoever you want,” Linus said, patting his head.
Lucy looked relieved as he ran back to the others. “And by babes, I mean anyone who looks awesome. I don’t know who it’ll be yet, but when I do, you’ll all be the first to know.”
“Why are we still standing here?” Talia demanded. “I’ve been promised new plants. You don’t want to see what happens when a gnome loses their patience. Last time one did, it led to the Dark Age.”
“Is that true?” Linus whispered to Arthur.
“It could be,” Arthur murmured. “The fall of Rome and upsetting a gnome? It certainly sounds like an age of darkness to me.”
“And that leaves Miss Marblemaw,” Lucy said, and all the children turned their heads toward her slowly, a practiced move that caused the inspector to take a step back. Lucy seemed to catch on to this, taking a step forward, giggling when the inspector took another step back. “Miss Marblemaw,” he said in a singsong voice. “You get to decide who you want to go with. Isn’t that exciting? What will it be? Plants with Talia and Phee? Books and buttons with Theodore and Sal? Bellhopping with Linus and Chauncey? Or,” he said, taking yet another step toward her, “will you throw caution to the wind and follow me into the depths of despair?”
“Despair!” the children chanted, including David, who joined in, shouting with the best of them. “Despair! Despair!”
Miss Marblemaw huffed out an irritated breath as she glared at Arthur and Linus. “You allow the children to go off on their own?”
“We do,” Linus said. “It teaches them responsibility and time management, and gives them the opportunity to interact with our community.”
“Which means they mingle,” Miss Marblemaw retorted, clipboard clasped against her chest, “with humans.”
“And?” Arthur asked. “It sounds as if you believe they should be segregated.”
“Bup, bup, bup!” she trilled loudly. “We don’t use that word, given the negative connotations behind it. Rather, DICOMY performed focus group research and came to the conclusion that ‘voluntary separation’ sounds much better than ‘seg’—that other word.”
“Your tax dollars hard at work,” Linus muttered. Then, in a louder voice: “We will use neither, thank you very much. And as a DICOMY-sanctioned inspector, your role here is to observe and report back to your superiors. Anything above and beyond that is outside of your purview.”
She narrowed her eyes, the children’s heads on a swivel as they looked back and forth between them. “I do hope none of the children find themselves in a dangerous situation, especially when they don’t have adult supervision.”
“Let’s try this again,” Arthur said. “Talia and Phee will be with Helen and Zoe. Chauncey will be with Linus. Lucy will be with David and myself. That leaves Sal and Theodore without supervision. Sal is fifteen years old and both have proven they are more than responsible enough to go out on their own.”
“For now,” Miss Marblemaw said with a haughty sniff. She looked at the children as if she had discovered a new, perpetually wet insect with a thousand legs. Tapping her pen, she let the silence drag on, even as Arthur knew she’d already made her decision. “I will accompany Mr. Parnassus.”
“Lucky us,” Arthur said. “Children, we’ll meet in front of the ice cream parlor in exactly two hours. Please don’t be late. What do we say? Punctuality is not just about being on time.…”
“It’s also about respecting your commitments,” the children said.
“Yeah, that,” David said, bouncing on his heels. “Commitment!”
“And we’re off!” Arthur cried.
Naturally, Lucy led them directly to Rock and Soul, the record shop owned and operated by one Mr. J-Bone (not his real name; no one—not even J-Bone himself—could remember what it was). On the walk to the shop, Lucy regaled David with stories of visits past, the musical discoveries he and J-Bone had made, and the time a former employee tried to exorcise him in the back room.
“What was that?” Miss Marblemaw asked.
Lucy smiled up at her. “Exercise. We did lunges and jumping jacks.”
“Hmm,” she said, pen flying across the page.
“Is he nice?” David asked as they approached the record store, speaking for the first time since they’d left the parking lot. “J-Bone, I mean.”
