Pretending he hadn't seen them, Benjamin walked nonchalantly on, but from the corner of his eye he saw Dagbert nudge Joshua and point across the road.37Benjamin lost his nerve. Instead of continuing up the road, he darted down a side street. For a few minutes
he stood in the shadows, watching the two boys. He was being silly, he told himself. Why should he be afraid of two boys from Charlie's school? He hardly knew them. All the same, they gave him the creeps. Joshua had a reputation for making people do things against their will, not hypnotism exactly. They called it magnetism. As for Dagbert, he drowned people. Recently, he'd tried to drown Charlie in the river.
Glancing up the street behind him, Benjamin was relieved to find that he knew where he was. He began to run.
"What's up, Benjamin Brown?" called a voice., "Lost your dog?"
Benjamin didn't look back. Joshua and Dagbert must have raced across the road and followed him.
"You're not frightened of us, little Ben, are you?" Dagbert shouted. "Where's Charlie?"38Almost tripping over his own feet, Benjamin bounded into a cobblestoned square. In the center of the square stood an old single-family house. It was surrounded by a low wall and a weedy garden. Nailed to the gate was a weathered board that read Gunn House. The rest of the board was filled with music notes: crochets, quavers, minims, and semibreves, though one hardly needed the musical notation to know that a family of musicians lived here. The noise coming from within the house made it obvious. The walls shook with the sound of drums, violins, flutes, cellos, and singing voices.
Benjamin pressed the doorbell, and a deep recorded voice announced, "DOOR! DOOR!
DOOR!"
The Gunns' door-voice always unnerved Benjamin, but then a tinkling bell would have been drowned by the music, and visitors would have waited on the step in vain.
The door was opened by Fidelio Gunn, a violin in one hand and a bow in the other. "Hi, Ben, where's Charlie?" said the freckle-faced boy.39"Hey!" came a shout behind Benjamin.
"Charlie's - er - can I come in, PLEASE?" asked Benjamin.
Catching sight of Benjamin's pursuers, Fidelio said, "You'd better."
Benjamin leaped into Gunn House and Fidelio slammed the door.
"What's going on, Ben?" Fidelio led the way into a chaotic kitchen. A gray cat was eating the remains of a breakfast that still hadn't been cleared from the table, and a woman, in a long colorful skirt, was singing at the sink. A small girl, also freckle-faced, tuned her violin beside her.
"Pianissimo, please, Mom!" Fidelio shouted. "Mimi, take your violin somewhere else."
Mrs. Gunn looked over her shoulder. "Benjamin Brown," she sang. "What a surprise!
Can't believe my eyes! Where's the dog of impressive size?"
"Where's Charlie Bone?" asked Mimi, plucking a string.40"Look, Benjamin is a person in his own right," said Fidelio. "He doesn't have to have an appendage."
"A what?" said Mimi, plucking another string.
"An attachment," replied her brother. "Benjamin's dog is not permanently attached to him, nor is Charlie. Sit down, Ben."
Benjamin pulled out a chair and sat down. Feeling hungry, he picked up a piece of dry toast and took a bite out of it.
"Pudding has just licked that," Mimi informed him.
Benjamin eyed the gray cat and sadly replaced the toast.
Fidelio took a chair beside him and leaned forward, his elbows on the table. Mimi stopped plucking at her violin and perched on the other side of the table. Mrs. Gunn hummed softly while she scraped at something in the sink.
"What's happened, Ben?" asked Fidelio. "It's not just those morons outside, is it?"
"No." Benjamin looked at Mimi.41"Mimi always knows what's going on," said Fidelio.
"You can't keep secrets from her, but she can keep a secret, can't you, Mims?"
"My lips are already sealed." Mimi gave Benjamin a big, sealed smile.
"OK." Benjamin began his story rather slowly, but then the drama of Runner Bean's disappearance got the better of him, and he poured it all out in a tearful rush.
"I can't believe it." Fidelio sat back. "Charlie's never taken a dog with him before. I didn't know he could."
"He didn't take him," wailed Benjamin. "Runner Bean vanished long after Charlie went in. At least I think so. But Charlie's never gone right into anything, has he? He always stays outside. It's only his mind that goes in."
"Until now," Fidelio remarked. "Perhaps his endowment is developing."
Benjamin shook his head. "Something's wrong, Fido." He got up and walked over to a window that42overlooked the square. "My stalkers have gone. I think I'll take a chance and run up to the bookstore. Charlie's uncle will know what to do."
"Has he... has he... has he... popped the question?" sang Mrs. Gunn.
"Excuse me?" said Benjamin.
"Uncle Paton. Mr. Yewbeam." Mrs. Gunn dropped her musical tone temporarily. "He's surely going to make an honest woman of Miss Ingledew. How can he resist? He really ought to marry her. The whole city is waiting."
"You mean, you're waiting, Mom," said Fidelio. He turned to Benjamin. "I'll come with you, Ben. Don't like to think of you alone in this city without your dog."
"I am eleven." Benjamin sighed at having to explain this again.
"And I'm twelve," said Fidelio firmly. "There's a difference."
After weeks of dark skies and frosty winds, today a few rays of frail sunshine had begun to filter into43the city. They did nothing to lift Ben's spirits, though. He felt quite resentful toward Charlie for doing something so risky. But that was Charlie all over. He was always rushing into situations without thinking them through.
Fidelio, who seemed to have read Benjamin's mind, said, "It's possible that Charlie never meant to go into that painting. He might have been sucked in, against his will, just like Runner Bean."
"Hmm," Benjamin grunted.
The boys were now entering the narrow cobble-stoned street that led to the cathedral. On either side of them Tudor houses with ancient, crooked roofs leaned over the cobblestones at dangerous angles. The bookstore stood directly opposite the great domed cathedral; a sign above the door read Ingledew's, in old-world script, and in the window two large leather-bound books were displayed against a curtain of dark red velvet. Miss Ingledew sold rare and precious books.
If the boys had paid attention to the gleaming44black car that stood outside the store, they might have had second thoughts, but they were in such a hurry they rushed straight in. A small bell, attached to the inside of the door, tinkled pleasantly as they entered the store.
The sight that met their eyes, however, was not at all pleasant.
Sitting in a wheelchair beside the counter was Mr. Ezekiel Bloor, the owner of Bloor's Academy. Mr. Ezekiel, as he liked to be called, was a hundred and one years old and his head was as close a thing to a living skull as you're ever likely to see. He was covered in a tartan blanket and wore a red woolen hat pulled well down over his large wrinkled ears.
There was very little flesh covering his huge nose with its high knobbly ridge or the sharp cheekbones and long chin. Mr. Ezekiel's eyes, however, were another matter. They glittered beneath the protruding forehead, as black and lively as the eyes of a devious ten-year-old.
Behind the ancient man's wheelchair stood a burly, bald-headed man - Mr. Weedon, the school45janitor, chauffeur, handyman, and gardener. There was nothing he would not have done for Mr. Ezekiel, including murder.
Fidelio and Benjamin would gladly have stepped back out the door, but it was too late to escape. They reluctantly descended the three steps into the store.
"Aha!" croaked Mr. Ezekiel. "What have we here? Odd customers for a rare book, I'd say. I bet you haven't got a hundred pounds to spare, Fidelio Gunn, not coming from a family of eight. You can't even afford a pair of shoes, I'd say." He directed his mocking gaze at Fidelio's worn-out sneakers.
Fidelio shifted his feet self-consciously, but he was not the sort to be outdone, even by the owner of Bloor's Academy. "I save my best for school, sir," he said. "And we've come to see Emma Tolly."