Maguire, Gregory - What-The-Dickens by Maguire Gregory

Author:Maguire, Gregory [Maguire, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult, Children's Books, Fairy Tales; Folk Tales & Myths, Other, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy & Magic, Literature & Fiction, Humor & Satire, Humorous, Mythology & Folk Tales, Fantasy, Children's eBooks, Collections, General Humor, Fairy Tales
ISBN: 0763629618
Amazon: B003EINO4Y
Publisher: Candlewick
Published: 2007-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

The evacuations weren’t voluntary anymore. What was the word? Forced. Bossed. Mandatory.

The deputies didn’t like kids roaming around alone.

But somewhere in there, hardly a separate point but more a general background noise, something else figured in:

For their own safety, those skibbereen stayed hidden, and they were forbidden to show themselves.

Then Dinah had an idea. She could even see where it came from: by overlaying a story notion atop the way the world was working on this most peculiar night.

She told it to Zeke and gave him cues on how to play it. “You’re going to have to be convincing,” she whispered. “You’re going to have to lie. I know how much you hate to do that, but there’s no other choice.”

“Act like I’m terrifed? I can be convincing at that,” he said. “I’ve been practicing that for most of this week. As for lying — I’ll deal with that in my own conscience. It’s none of your business. Get on, if you’re going; she might wake up any second.”

Dinah flicked her eyes this way and that. Quietly she slipped into the shadows between the sloping back of the sofa and the front door, up against which the threadbare thing had been lodged. From there, she could hear everything.

When Gage and Deputy Campbell returned in a few moments, Deputy Herrera jerked herself awake and yawned. “Coulda stayed like that till morning — morning the day after tomorrow,” she groaned. Dinah pictured her getting up stiffy and rubbing the small of her back. “Any luck with the generator, Frank?”

“No. Not my field of expertise, I’m afraid,” said the voice of Deputy Campbell. “So, come on now, better wrap that young ’un up against the winds, which are gonna rev up again within the hour. We have a small window of opportunity in which to get you safely down to the shelter. Let’s shake a leg, now.”

“Come on, Zeke,” said Gage. His voice was low. “I guess there’s nothing else to do. We held out for as long as we could.”

“We can’t go,” said Zeke.

Dinah guessed that Deputy Campbell was aiming the beam of light in Zeke’s face, trying to smoke out the meaning behind those words.

“It’s my fault,” said Zeke. His voice sounded softer, embarrassed. Good job, thought Dinah. “My lousy example. Dinah got the idea from me, I guess. She lit out herself. I don’t know where she went.”

“She didn’t,” said Deputy Herrera. “My eyes were closed only a second!”

The flashlights poked at the corners of the room, and Deputy Herrera then left to make a swift circuit of the small house. “I don’t be-lieve it!” she railed from a bedroom, slamming a closet door. “You people want to get yourselves killed? Is that it?”

Dinah heard Gage say nothing — he must be just standing there like a goon. A bodyguard, dumb and unblinking.

Deputy Herrera wouldn’t let it go. “You know a couple of folks got electrocuted by stepping on a downed power line, the only live line still left in the whole godforsaken county?” Her voice was shrill, nearly teary.

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