straight into the sky to rendezvous with some great glowing craft out of
a Spielberg movie.
Clint drove two blocks, turned at the corner, and pulled the curb as
soon as they were out of sight.
“Bobby, where the hell did Frank get that thing?” Bobby could only
answer him with another question:
“H many different places does he go when he teleports?
money, the red diamonds and the bug, the black sand-a how far away are
some of those places? Really far away?’
“And who is he?”
Clint asked.
“Frank Pollard from El Encanto Heights.”
“But I mean, who is that?” Clint thumped one fist again the steering
wheel.
“Who the hell is Frank Pollard from El canto?”
“I think what you really want to know is not who he is. More important
… what is he?” By SURPRISE Bobby came to visit.
Lunch was eaten before Bobby came. Dessert was still in Thomas’s mind.
Not the taste of it. The memory. Vanilla ice cream, fresh
strawberries. The way dessert made you feel.
He was alone in his room, sitting in his armchair, thinking about making
a picture poem that would have the feeling of eating ice cream and
strawberries, not the taste but the good feeling, so some day when you
didn’t have any ice cream or strawberries, you could just look at the
poem and get that same good feeling even without eating anything. Of
course, you couldn’t use pictures of ice cream or strawberries in the
poem, because that wouldn’t be a poem, that would be only saying how
good ice cream and strawberries made you feel. A poem didn’t just say,
it showed you and made you feel.
Then Bobby came through the door, and Thomas was so happy he forgot the
poem, and they hugged. Somebody was with Bobby, but it wasn’t Julie, so
Thomas was disappointed. He was embarrassed, too, because it turned out
he’d met the person with Bobby a couple times before, over the years,
but he didn’t remember him right away, which made him feel dumb. It was
Clint. Thomas said the name to himself, over and over, so maybe he’d
remember next time: Clint, Clint, Clint, Clint, Clint.
“Julie couldn’t come,” Bobby said,
“she’s babysitting a client.” Thomas wondered why a baby would ever
need a private eye, but he didn’t ask. In TV only grownups needed
private eyes, which were called private eyes because they looked out for
you, though he wasn’t sure why they were called private. He also
wondered how a baby could pay for a private eye, because he knew eyes
like Bobby and Julie worked for money like everyone else, but babies
didn’t work, they were too little to do anything. So where’d this one
get the money to Bobby and Julie? He hoped they didn’t get cheated out
of their money, they worked hard for it.
Bobby said,
“She told me to tell you she loves you even more than she did yesterday,
and she’ll love you even more torn row.” They hugged again because this
time Thomas was giving hug to Bobby for Julie.
Clint asked if he could see the latest scrapbook of poe He took it
across the room and sat in Derek’s armchair, who was okay because Derek
wasn’t in it, he was in the wreck room Bobby moved the chair from the
worktable, putting it close to the armchair that belonged to Thomas. He
sat, and talked about what a big blue day it was and how nice the
flowers looked where they were all bright outside Thomas’s room.
For a while they talked about lots of things, and Bobby funny-except
when they talked about Julie, he changed.
was worried for Julie, you could tell. When he talked about her, he was
like a good picture poem-he didn’t say his words but he showed it and
made you feel it.
Thomas was already worried for Julie, so Bobby’s worry made him feel
even worse, made him scared for her.
“We’ve got our hands full with the current case,” Bob said,
“so neither one of us might be able to visit again this weekend or the
first of the week.”