The Storyteller by Brandon Hobson

Author:Brandon Hobson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

“It’s a lie,” Gaddith says into his glass. “I’m no ghost. I am very much alive.”

“Never mind all that,” Alice says. “The poem is in iambic pentameter. Every other syllable is stressed. Each line has ten syllables.”

“Correct,” O’Doul says. “A poem of youthful love and ghosts in all its madness, composed in my own avuncular loneliness.”

“Madness indeed,” Gaddith says, looking at me. “I told you he was a prevaricator, twisting words, bending the truth.”

“An equivocator,” I say.

“Precisely.”

O’Doul sits forward in his chair, his eyes watery. “O fair Moon—where art thou? But what see I? No Moon do we see, alack! Alack!”

I still can’t eat my pie, too worried about Moon and Corso. I ask Gaddith, “Can we leave now and look for them?”

O’Doul crams another handful of pie into his mouth. Blueberry stains are on his robe and bits of blueberry in his beard. For the first time, I sense he is looking at me with sincerity.

“This boy with a full head of hair looks glum,” he says.

“We need to find them,” I tell him. “They can’t be too far away. I’m sure of it.”

“I hear the Storyteller is quite the mischievous one,” Gaddith says. “I’ve never seen the Storyteller, but some say it’s a spirit who prowls the desert at night. You hear all kinds of strange tales. One involves the Storyteller flying around at night and telling stories. A trickster.”

“We were on our way to find a secret cave or some sort of clue to help me find where my mom went,” I say. I explain everything, and when I’m finished, O’Doul nods slowly, eyes watery.

“You have bereft me of all words,” he says, taking a drink, then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “And to this I say thus: On the roof of this mansion sits a fine telescope, good for scouring the deserts or the stars. I beg thee of dearest discretion. It was launched into space, unfolded among water vapors and chlorofluorocarbons. What judgment shall I dread—I am not bound to please thee, but for the sake of gentle Gaddith, sweet and tender hooligan, I forfeit my heart and say thus: Go. Go to the roof and search for your fair sister, Moon!”

Gaddith sets his glass down and motions for us to leave.

“I got it!” Alice suddenly yells, rattling the dishes on the table. “The answer to your riddle—if you recite your poem backward and forward, how do you recite it? Inverse and in verse. Right? Am I right, Peter O’Doul?”

I stare in amazement at Alice. I can’t believe she was able to figure all that out just from listening to O’Doul recite that poem.

“Gentle and fair maiden hath solved the old riddle,” he says. “O vineyards. As the thin and outrageously handsome Rolling Stones sang: ‘Thank you for your sweet and bitter fruits.’ ”

O’Doul drinks the last of his wine, sets his cup down, and belches loudly. Then he reaches into his pie and pinches off more blueberry and tosses it in his mouth.

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