The Shells Of Chanticleer (25 page)

No, he hadn’t.
How awful for him,
I thought.

“Is that what is going on between you two?”

“Yeah, we have a past. I never told you this, but I was Bing’s shadow. We got along great at first but he’s always been a bit of a wild child, riling everyone up. He realized that he could blow off the coursework and the readings and just hang out here without any consequences; he convinced his friends not to cooperate so they could goof off together. As a result it started to get too crowded here.”

So that was their history. I had heard this story from Zooey. She had been referring to Bing back then.

“Not exactly the perfect student then. Are you still mad at him for that?”

“No, not anymore,” he said, smirking a little. “To be honest, I was just starting out as a shadow here and Bing made me look bad. It took a while for the powers that be to realize how stubborn he was. Until then I got blamed for his failure. We didn’t have a plan in place to deal with Bing and his goonies’ organized resistance. It wasn’t our shining moment.

“Basically what happened was that, in the end, Bing refused to address his final challenge. For reasons too complicated to get into here we gave in and let him stay; he and Sinclair made their own deal. They both benefitted. But that was the last straw for Crispin. That’s when he went ahead with his idea for the shells so that we would always have the upper hand. Bing’s friends were the first shells; he had to help us make them. Four of them are in the display case.” He laughed, “Eenie, Meenie, Miney and Moe, I call them. The point is, Bing can never forget that he started all this, although I know he still blames me for not warning him about what Sinclair was going to do to his friends.”

“He does seem to be holding some kind of grudge,” I agreed.

“He believed that I could stop Crispin, and when I didn’t, I violated some type of man code between all of us. The truth is, I can’t stop what is bound to happen here. I don’t have any power.” He set his hand on my shoulder, his warning subtle but pointed.

Suddenly, the very real possibility that I could become a shell reared its ugly head again. I was aligning myself with Bing, like one of his misguided friends. Was I risking the same fate? I knew what it meant to become a shell, I knew that it didn’t hurt, that you never knew it happened, but that didn’t mean I could laugh off the idea of a Macy in the museum. Would I stand next to Bing’s friends for eternity?

I think I looked scared to death right then and Sebastian knew it. I could tell by the gentleness in his voice as he kept talking.

“We’re not fools. We know this place can feel like a little slice of heaven. We accept some of you good ones dragging out your coursework just to stay a little longer. We’re okay with that, up to a point. After all, we get attached too, and aren’t always in a hurry to say goodbye. However the shells are always an option; they are absolutely the right approach. Everyone is vain, no one wants to be captured forever in an ugly form. It’s just a little deterrent that doesn’t hurt, yet keeps everyone in line. Now everything runs right on schedule here. And when we get a doozy, like Aria, we don’t waste any time getting rid of her.”

“So please, Macy, didn’t I warn you not to let Bing convince you of anything? It’s okay if you skip a few coursework appointments now and then to stall off tipping home towards the end. But just a few, no more.” He paused, and despite knowing the answer, asked anyway. “You don’t really have allergies, do you?”

I shook my head no, a little embarrassed. I looked out over Chanticleer. In the distance, I could see the road to the shell museum, and the area where I knew Sinclair’s house was, but it was covered by clumps of trees and hard to distinguish.

“Don’t get me wrong about Bing. He’s a very positive person; we wouldn’t keep him around if he wasn’t, but he has no power here. He only likes people to think he does. I was surprised they let him shadow you, but I told you, I don’t call the shots. So please, don’t feed into Bing’s ego by asking him to help you stay. He really can’t do anything.”

I bristled at the realization that I had been fooled by Bing, when all along I prided myself on believing that I wasn’t gullible, that Sebastian’s incessant warnings about him were insulting my intelligence. I was only trying to stay to be with Sebastian as long as I could; he had to have guessed my motivation.

“I don’t want to go home,” I admitted, sadly. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Sebastian was standing in the shadows, and I couldn’t see his face. I stepped back into the dark interior of the tower. That was better.

“I know,” he said. “I wish….”

He didn’t finish. I thought he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. I didn’t press. I knew he was doing the best he could. I trusted him when he said there was nothing he could do to help me stay there. We had decided to keep going knowing that it would hurt to be parted. We didn’t have to. The conversation was depressing. To change the mood I thought I’d play a trick.

“What’s that over there?” I asked, pointing over the ledge to the distance, suddenly fascinated.

“What?” Sebastian asked, leaning over the ledge of the tower toward where I was pointing.

“That, can’t you see that round thing?” Sebastian peered into the horizon, confused at my misdirection.

I stepped behind him and purposely poked my fingers into his sides to make him jump so I could laugh at him. The ruse worked perfectly and he yelped at the unexpectedness of it. He stumbled away from the ledge but lost his balance, crashing backwards into the enormous bell. Immediately, the low gonging started as the heavy old bell swung back and forth.

“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing his back with my hand. I hadn’t meant for him to fall. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine, but you are in big trouble now girl,” he laughed, as he tried to grab the immense bell with his hands but its momentum was unstoppable.

Gong. Gong. Gong.

Shoot. We looked at each other, half speechless, half hysterical. I glanced at the streets far below us. Doors were opening. People had stopped what they were doing.

Gong. Gong. Gong.

One by one, or in small groups, people began to gather in the square expectantly.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sebastian said, and he grabbed my hand and we sped down the staircase, circling, circling, circling, until I thought I’d have a heart attack.

Gong. Gong. Gong.

When we made it to the bottom, we paused to be sure no one could see us exit. Maybe one or two people did see us, but we walked right into the middle of the crowd, pretending to be as confused as everyone else.

“What is going on?” Sebastian asked a staff person, seemingly bewildered at the bell ringing.

“Nothing. False alarm,” he replied, obviously irritated, and shouted to the gathering crowd, “Nothing to see here. False alarm.”

We took a seat on a bench and had a hard time containing our mischievous smiles as we watched expectant faces being told that no new shell would be revealed.

“No harm done, really,” Sebastian whispered, assessing the impact of his stumble. “Except to you. Wait until I get you back for that one.” He sounded slightly too excited about the prospect of revenge.

I just laughed.

Reluctantly I came to accept Sebastian’s version of how Chanticleer worked. Sebastian and Zooey were the good ones, and they both said the same thing about Bing. That he was not to be trusted. And it turned out they were right. They saw through Bing’s antics. Sebastian and Miss Clarice must have sat back and chuckled at our lame attempts to deceive them. I felt a little embarrassed, but not enough to make me want to speed up my departure and leave Sebastian. I just read even slower.

Yet my conversation with Sebastian in the bell tower had given me hope. Learning that Bing had started out a student there was news to me.
So it wasn’t impossible to stay in Chanticleer, after all.
Bing had paid some price to do so and I was going to find out what that was. It wouldn’t be too hard to wrangle the details out of Bing. He was terrible at keeping secrets.

As for Zooey, I did wind up missing her more than I cared to admit.

One day Sebastian asked me to meet him at the corner near the Prime Minister’s home for an excursion. He said he’d be waiting for me around 11 am.

Walking down the street, I was flooded with memories of my first day in Chanticleer. I looked the same, but that girl was a stranger to me now. I remembered how scared I had been, and Bing’s words came back to me: “Laugh at yourself, Macy, laugh at who you are.” I did laugh now. It felt good.

The street was deserted as I walked past all the grand houses. It was a quiet time of the morning. Sebastian was standing at the end of the block and I skipped quickly to meet him. He put his finger to his lips and said, “Quiet.”

We turned the corner and walked down a few more blocks, not meeting anyone. Eventually we came to a large two-story red brick building. Sebastian pulled a key ring out of his pocket and led me down an outdoor staircase to a small entrance door, hidden in shadows. He found the key, turned it into the lock and motioned me in.

We were in a large warehouse. Disassembled beds and mattresses, spare chairs, racks of medieval gowns I recognized from the festival, clocks, white bureaus and fur bedding, were stacked and labeled in organized rows. Sebastian hurried me past it all to the back where he opened another door. It was a small dark room with an antiseptic scent, as if the floors and counters had been wiped down minutes before. He snapped on the light. There were racks of tiny bottles and file cabinets locked tight. Nothing was labeled, but Sebastian never hesitated. He knew what he was doing.

He pulled out a drawer from a small dresser and took out an envelope made out of wax paper. He shoved it in his coat pocket, smiled, and said, “Let’s go.”

We retraced our steps and in a minute we were back in the dark outdoor stairwell. Sebastian took the key and locked the door, and we were back on our way.

I whispered, “Can I talk now?”

“Sure, sorry, yes, it’s safe now,” he said.

“Why did you take me there? What did you get?”

“I took you there because I thought it would be more fun than going by myself,” he said. “But I went there to get you this.” He pulled the sealed wax envelope out of his pocket. He handed it to me.

“What is it? Can I open it?”

“No, not until you need it,” Sebastian said.

“How will I know when I need it?”

“Oh, you’ll know,” was all he replied. “So please, trust me. Keep it in your pocket at all times.”

“But why?”

“Because I want you to have everything you need. I have a meeting now, so I have to say goodbye.”

He left me there and from that moment on I did as I was told and always kept that small, strange waxy envelope stuffed in the back pocket of my shorts.

I was rescheduled for that coursework Bing had delayed, the one he had said would help me want to travel places on my own and work out my fear of being snatched off the streets by a predator. And it did turn out to be fun. The challenge required me to follow a map all over Chanticleer and pay attention to my feelings as I traveled. Did people stop to speak with me, did I feel lonely, did anyone look at me funny, and did anyone try to lure me anywhere? Miss Clarice had given me a large card with an illustrated map of Chanticleer inside.

I traveled to places I had never been, the gatehouse at the entrance, the laundry building where all our things were cleaned …. I had never thought about who was doing all these chores for us. It reminded me of the back lot tour at a movie studio, only I wished I had a tram to ride in. I covered so much ground on my feet.

I had to find someplace called the Pig’s Pub in the staff residential area. It was a dimly lit alehouse that smelled of beer, not warm caramel sugar. It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dark. When they did, I approached the bearded man at the bar.

“Do you have something for me?” I asked.

“Your Sebastian’s friend, aren’t you? You look just how he described. Wait here. I do have something for you.”

I had never seen that man before. How did he know about me? He was perfectly nice and cheerful, but I didn’t like it. Did Sebastian hang out there? He must. It made me realize I knew very little about what he did when we were not together.

“Here you go,” he said returning with a yapping, furry puppy on a leash. “Just for the day, she’s all yours. You and Bing can bring her back at the end of the day.”

“Oh my goodness,” I exclaimed, kneeling down and burying my face in the sweet soft fur.

He waved me off, “You have fun now!”

I picked up the leash and headed out of the Pig’s Pub with the little bundle of fur bounding and jumping ahead, collapsing on her back, and delightedly rubbing herself on the grass. I had always wanted a puppy even if she was only mine for a day.

When I arrived at the final destination on my map, I sighed with relief. I was tired and my feet hurt, but I had loved my day touring Chanticleer alone. I had enjoyed my independence. Crispin Sinclair hadn’t popped out at me from behind a tree. The grey van from the shell museum hadn’t pulled over to whisk me away. My last destination was the loch behind Cornish Manor. There, I met up with Bing. He gave me a cup of warm caramel sugar and a box of chocolate-covered chocolate balls to nibble on.

We broke open the box of candy and sat under an old walnut tree, caressing my pet for a day that had collapsed from our hike. Bing cracked open the walnuts with his bare hands, picking out the morsels with deliberation. I needed a few minutes to sit and breathe before starting back to the Pig’s Pub. I loved it there, where Sebastian and I had watched the fireworks from the stone ledge, but I didn’t mention that to Bing. We both felt stupid that we hadn’t fooled anyone with our charade to stall my coursework.

That day, Bing was especially irritating. Or maybe I was reacting to being recognized in the pub. Sometimes Sebastian’s presence loomed larger than life around Chanticleer and I couldn’t understand why. I also didn’t like the fact that Bing seemed to regularly criticize Sebastian. Clearly, he had to know that might bother me.