It is also not known who set the next two fires, the ones that burned down the restaurant and the library. It might have been the same person who burnt down Penny and Mary’s home, or it might have been somebody who appreciated the results.
Either way, they’d lost everything.
Officer Danbury, who was not entirely without empathy, allowed the sisters to visit Nathan in his cell on the last day of his imprisonment. They threw their arms around him and sobbed.
“Don’t cry,” he told them. “I don’t like it here, but it’s my last day and I’ve fared much worse in the past.”
They told him about the fires, and Nathan just sat there on his cold stone floor, stunned. Their home, burned to the ground? The restaurant, gone? All that food wasted?
“Didn’t they at least take out the books before they burned the library?” he asked.
“No,” said Mary. “They burned them all.”
Nathan could not even conceive such a thing. “What’s to become of us?”
“We have no home, no job, and no money,” said Penny. “Mary and I will be moving into the Poor House.”
The Poor House? It couldn’t be! The legendary Poor House was the most dreadful place imaginable, and grown-ups only lived there through the fault of their children!
“All right, you’ve told him,” said Officer Danbury, who was not entirely without empathy but had very little of it. “Off to the Poor House with you. Those rat traps won’t empty themselves.”
As Nathan sat in his cell all alone, he wished he could make himself unborn. Nobody needed him—not if having him around meant losing everything you owned. Why had he bit Will? Why hadn’t he merely broken his arm?
Would Penny and Mary let him back into their lives, or would they just leave him in jail, where he couldn’t ruin things for anybody else?
If they did come to pick him up, perhaps he’d stay here. “It’s very comfortable,” he’d say, propping his feet up against the wall. “Yes, I think I’ll grow old here.”
One hour before Nathan was due to be set free, Officer Danbury opened the door to his cell. A man stood next to him. He was a tall man, dressed in a black suit, with thick black eyebrows, a thin black mustache, and a short black beard. He wore glasses and carried a cane. The man looked at Nathan, right into his eyes, and it filled him with a strong sense of unease.
“There he is,” said Officer Danbury, gesturing to Nathan.
“Thank you for pointing him out,” said the man. “Otherwise I might never have figured out which little boy in the otherwise empty cell you’d brought me to find.”
Officer Danbury looked offended by this, but said nothing. The man stepped into the cell. He had the look of somebody who might cheerfully find his employment at the gallows. Was he here to strangle Nathan?
“You know why I’m here,” he said. “Go on, open your mouth and let me see them.”
He was a tall man, perhaps the tallest one Nathan had ever seen. Nathan saw no possible benefits and many possible repercussions if he refused, so he opened his mouth and let the man peer inside.
The man clapped his hands together with delight. “Fantastic! If that sight were to appear in front of my eyes before I shut them for the night, such nightmares would I have!” Then he stepped back, regarded Nathan, and frowned. “The rest of you is about as scary as a baby duck on a velvet pillow. That won’t do. Make a scary face for me.”
“I don’t want to be scary,” said Nathan.
“Do as you’re told!” said Officer Danbury.
The man looked back at him. “Don’t snap at the boy like an impatient simpleton! This is a performance.” He returned his attention to Nathan. “You don’t have to be scary, I merely want you to act scary. You can do that for me, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you can. All boys your age enjoy throwing a good scare into people, and you have more raw material to work with than most. Unleash your inner predator. If you scare me, I’ll give you a shiny new coin fresh out of my pocket.”
A coin merely for scaring somebody? That sounded too good to be true. Nathan scrunched up his face and bared his teeth.
“Make a frightening noise,” the man instructed. “A growling sound. Something like ‘Rrrarrr.’”
Nathan growled at him.
“Outstanding! I was almost compelled to clutch at my heart.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a coin, which he pressed into Nathan’s hand. “Spend it on whatever you like. I have more, many more, and could keep handing them to you, if you thought you could make that face and that noise on a regular basis. Doesn’t that sound like a lark?”
“It doesn’t, really.”
“Such disrespect!” shouted Officer Danbury. “Do you not realize to whom you’re speaking?”
“Enough!” The man gave the officer a dismissive wave. “Your mouth opens and closes, yet the sounds that spew forth contribute nothing worthwhile! Begone, dullard!”
Officer Danbury puffed out his chest and looked as if he were going to protest. Then he unpuffed his chest and sheepishly walked out of the area.
“It was impolite of me not to introduce myself earlier,” said the man, extending his hand. “My name is Professor Charleston Kleft.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Nathan, even though he wasn’t quite certain that he was pleased to meet him at all. He shook his hand. Kleft had a firm, almost painfully tight grip.
“Nathan, I’m going to offer you an opportunity that few boys ever receive. Do you like adventure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you like thrills?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you like to travel the globe, eating the finest foods, having your choice of the prettiest girls when you’re old enough to appreciate them?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? That’s hardly the degree of enthusiasm I’d expect from somebody whose life I’m going to change for the better. You’ll be the envy of everyone you meet. People will punch themselves in the head from the frustration of knowing that they aren’t you. You’ll hear somebody bragging that he’s been to dozens of places in his life, and you’ll be able to laugh in his face and tell him that you’ve been to hundreds of places in yours.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Nathan.
“Simply be a thespian. An actor. Provide a paying audience with some much needed entertainment after a hard day.”
“But I don’t want to leave Penny and Mary.”
“Ah, yes, the ladies who take care of you. Am I to understand that they’ve fallen on hard times?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A pity. I’m certain it wasn’t your fault. Tell me this, Nathan, how do you feel you could best benefit these poor ladies? By continuing to sponge off them in their time of hardship, or by going off into the world? You would not only lessen the burden of the amount of food you eat and the amount of space you take up, but you’d be able to send them money every single month. Imagine the look of delight on their faces as they opened up a package filled to the bursting point with coins! That seems to me like something that might make up for the wrongdoing one might have done in the past. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” said Nathan. His mouth had gone completely dry. “I believe I do.”
“Wonderful! You have about fifty minutes left in your sentence, but I’m sure that our bumbling officer friend won’t object to letting you go a bit early. Since your possessions have all burned, there’s nothing to pack, and we’ll be on our way immediately.”