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The best place to start telling you this story is when I jumped off my bike as it flew down a steep bank into a ditch full of water. I heard two giant splashes. One was my bike and the other was me.
Then came another, bigger giant splash. Marmy Albright and her bike had hit the cold weedy ditch together.
Not a good way to start the first Saturday in October.
So there I was again, in an uncomfortable mess, all because Dillon and Marmy wanted me to help them get Ripper Wilter. In case you don't know who Ripper is and then I'll explain why I was in the ditch he moved here to Bell Harbor last year from the big city. Everybody said he was really mean. I kept out of his way till the day I accidentally crashed into him in the cafeteria and spilled Tuna Surprise all over his front and shoes. That's when he leaned into my face and growled, "I'll get you, David Malloy! I eat people like you for lunch and nails for dessert!"
You see? I guess everybody has to have a Ripper in their lives, but why do I have to have one? That's what I keep asking Miss Wainwright.
And you know what she keeps telling me? "If your enemy is hungry, feed him."
That sounded okay in our classroom at church. Now, hiding in that cold ditch with my head barely out of the water, it sounded like advice from Neptune.
I mean, how could throwing Ripper a sandwich get me out of this?
Ripper's tires whizzed past on the road above, and I ducked. I didn't care if he was hungry. I just wanted to know, was he stopping? I sucked in a big breath and held it. I think my face was getting blue but of course I couldn't see if it was or not.
He was going on past. The buzz of the tires got smaller and farther away.
I breathed again, waited until I felt slightly less scared, and stood up among the weeds. Muddy water poured off me. A big wet cattail was hanging across my head. I spit out feathery seeds and looked around.
Nobody in sight.
"Marmy?"
No answer.
I hoped she hadn't drowned or something worse. I risked calling a little louder. "Marmy? Hey, where are you?"
A voice screeched close behind my right ear: "Quiet!! You want Ripper to catch us?!"
I picked myself up out of the water where I'd fallen on my face from shock. Then I turned around. Slowly because of my great self-control and also because I was freezing. Last night's chill was still in that ditch water.
"Marmalade," I said through my shivering teeth, "if you ever do that again . . ."
What I'd do I never found out, because directly between us Dillon McBride stood up through the cattails with water running off him from everywhere and hollered, "Will both of you shut up before Ripper comes back and finds us!" Dillon had been riding ahead and hit the ditch before Marmy and me. He gets me into all kinds of stuff and he's not very good at getting me out, but he can holler like anything.
I tried pulling my bike out of the water. It was tangled in weeds.
Frogs plopped around me, probably laughing their little green legs off at how silly I looked.
I yanked the cattail off my face and discovered I could see better. Dillon was twisting the water out of the tail of his T-shirt. Marmy was doing the same thing with her hair. "We've got to get back and warn the other Pointers," Dillon said, wiping his wet hands on his even wetter jeans. Marmy made an ugly face at an even uglier beetle she'd found in her hairdo. "Yeah," she said, "we've got to tell them Ripper Wilter just tried to make us into sausage. If he's after us, he's after all the Pointers."
That was true. See, my friends and I go to school in Bell Harbor, but we all live out on Jackpine Point. We ride the bus together and do practically everything together.
The Point is a great place to live. It's rocky and woodsy, and there's one road that runs the length of it the Point road, of course with the bay on one side and the Big Lake on the other. None of us would want to live anywhere else in Bell Harbor or for that matter anywhere else on earth.
But you need to understand, all kinds of things happen to us Pointers that don't happen to ordinary people.
I mean, we are ordinary people, sort of, but we're also champions at having adventures that don't start out that way and that we don't mean to be adventures. I guess Miss Wainwright said it best. "Wherever the Jackpine Pointers are," she said, "you know something is going to occur."
Well, things had been occurring left and right since the day Ripper Wilter came to town.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, still in the ditch. So anyway the three of us helped each other get our bikes out of the water. Pulling cattails out of his chain, Dillon said, "David, go up the bank and scout to see if everything is all clear."
I had a better idea. "Why don't you go scout and see if everything is all clear?"
"I have to get the cattails out of my chain."
"Well, I have to get the cattails out of my ears." I looked at Marmy for help, but she was busy dumping water out of her shoes. I sighed and pushed my bike up the bank.
The sun was warm and welcoming on the blacktop road. Nobody else was in sight.
"Come on," I called down to the others. "We'll stop at Brownie's orchard on the way home."
We rode along slowly, keeping a lookout and letting the sun warm us up. Dillon said I had to go first, but then he pedaled up beside me and asked a question that about knocked me off my bike. He asked, "Why do you suppose Ripper's after us?"
"Have you lost your memory?" I squawked. "Don't you remember last night we sneaked up the alley behind his house, got into his garage, tripped over a lawn mower, knocked his bike into a garbage bag full of pop cans, and made so much noise that the lights went on and every dog in town started barking and we got out of there just in time to save ourselves from . . . ." I was running out of breath, getting more and more worked up thinking about that awful night last night.
"He's got no right to get mad at us," Marmy said as she pedaled alongside. "We were just trying to get Dillon's roller blades back because Ripper stole them."
"Yeah," Dillon added. "It's not our fault his garage has one of those old wood doors that doesn't shut all the way. It's not like we were breaking and entering. We just . . . . slipped in."
Marmy wasn't finished. She never is. "Anyhow, how does he know it was us? Lots of people are mad at Ripper Wilter. He's stolen a lot of people's stuff. I heard in the city he was in some kind of gang, and they went around swiping anything they felt like."
"Maybe," I said, "just maybe he guessed who it was because he heard both of you screaming at the top of your lungs as you ran off down the alley."
Dillon changed the subject like he always does. "Here's Brownie's orchard. We'd better tell him to be on the lookout for Ripper."
We turned our bikes into the lane that leads through Brownie's orchard to his trailer.
I should explain, it isn't really Brownie's own personal orchard. His parents work there taking care of it, so he gets to live there. It's an apple orchard. His family, the Browns his real name's Bobby Brown his family doesn't have much money, so we're all supposed to feel sorry for him and give him our old clothes and stuff. Actually we all think he's kind of lucky. He's got miles of apple trees to run around in, and a Labrador retriever, and he wears shirts with holes in them, but if I get a hole in one of my shirts I have to throw it away.
I was thinking how unfair it is that life is unfair when I saw Brownie running down the lane toward us, waving both arms. "Wow, is he glad to see us!" Marmy said, waving back. Brownie waved even harder. Dillon and I waved too, and Brownie waved even more.
My arms were getting tired when he got close enough to talk to us. In the world's loudest whisper he ordered, "Stop waving! Ripper Wilter's up at my house looking for you! He's checking out my tree house this minute because he thinks you're hiding there."
I didn't like how Brownie looked at me when he said "you." "You mean he thinks all of us are hiding there?"
"I mean you, David Malloy! He says last night you stole something out of his garage."
"Me! What does he think I stole?"
"His Little League batting trophy. He says it's his most prized possession. He also says you knocked over two thousand pop cans and made so much noise he knew it was a real amateur, because nobody in the city would do things that way. Anyway he heard you screaming at the top of your lungs as you ran off down the alley. Look, in two seconds he'll be down from that tree, so get going!"
I started to protest that I hadn't stolen anything, but Brownie pushed me toward the ditch at the edge of the lane. "He's coming! And he's mad!"
No. Not another ditch. I was trying to explain how I'd promised myself I'd never hide in another wet ditch when Brownie put both hands on top of my head and shoved me down. The last thing I heard him say was "Malloy, why are you so wet? You look like you just got out of a ditch." Then I heard ferocious barking and bike tires on gravel and somebody yelling "Call her off! Call her off! You'll be sorry for this, Brownie!" and what sounded like a Fourth of July parade shot past me going out toward the road and then it was gone.
I waited a few seconds and stuck my head up. Brownie was standing there grinning, looking in the direction where the noise had gone. Then he whistled and clapped, and his black Lab, Sugar, galloped up holding a Twins cap in her teeth. It looked a lot like the one Ripper Wilter wears 25 hours a day. Well, he wasn't wearing it now.
Sugar dropped the cap at Brownie's feet and sat smiling and panting and drooling and thumping her tail on the ground.
Marmy screeched, "David, it's all over for you! That's Ripper's Twins cap! He wears it all the time! Look what that dog did to it! You're in for it now!" I think she would have gone on all day.
"Who cares?" I said. "I'm going home." Just between us, I sounded braver than I felt. "Ripper can't think much of his Little League trophy if he keeps it out in that leaky garage. Anyway he was so scared by that dog he's probably home hiding under his bed right now." I hoped that was true, but I can't say I totally believed it.
I patted Sugar on the head, wrung out Ripper's Twins cap, put it on, took it off, and tossed it to Dillon, who jumped back like I'd tossed him a lit bottle rocket.
Brownie picked up the cap. "I'll wash it and give it to Ripper next week," he said, and I should have known something would go wrong with that, but I was too cold and tired. Dillon and Marmy and I went back out to the road and started coasting down the long hill toward home.
I felt better heading home from Brownie's orchard. I'm crazy about that part of the road. You come over the top of the hill and it's the most awesome sight in the world. There's the end of Jackpine Point below you and the Big Lake to your right, deep blue or reddish-brown or foggy or stirred up with whitecaps, and in winter there's ice stretching out from shore, sometimes farther than you can see. To your left the shore curves around into the bay, and that's where the town of Bell Harbor is.
This October morning the lake was shining blue. The woods glowed gold and orange, mixed with deep green spruce and pine for accents. Facing the bay, the town of Bell Harbor looked peaceful and friendly in the sunshine. You see all that and you thank God you live up here, even if
"here" includes enemies like Ripper Wilter and friends whose great ideas get me into all kinds of tight spots because I'm a nice guy and I'm loyal to the Pointers. I was getting mad all over again.
Sorry, it just gets to me sometimes.
At the bottom of the hill we saw the fifth Jackpine Pointer coming toward us. It was Cathy Knutson out for her daily thinking walk.
I believe Cathy invented virtual reality. Anyway she sure lives there. She looks at you like you're one of those shapes on the computer screen made out of lines and she's trying to figure out how to rotate you in space. She takes walks by herself to think about big ideas that the rest of us don't understand.
We all said "Hey Cath!"
She looked at my face without exactly looking at me. In her head I could tell she was rolling that mouse around, walking inside those squares and circles.
"Cathy!" I said, "Listen! Ripper Wilter is after the Pointers. He stole Dillon's roller blades. He thinks we stole some dumb batting trophy of his. But we didn't steal anything. We've also got his Twins cap. I mean Brownie's dog has it. It's probably in the washing machine now. So watch out for yourself, okay?"
"Let's have a meeting Monday after school to figure out what to do." That was Marmy's suggestion.
"Let's ask Miss Wainwright what to do Sunday." That was Dillon's suggestion.
"Let's interface with Cath's operating system so she can read us." That was my suggestion.
I jumped when I heard Cathy's voice. I wasn't sure she was even occupying the same planet with us. "Oh, I get it," she said. "You think Ripper's a thief and he thinks we're thieves. But he is and we're not. So he's out to smash us."
I'd gotten through after all. You never know with her.
"Okay then," I told everybody, "watch out for yourselves and we'll meet at my house on . . ." I never was good at keeping a calendar in my head. "What day is this anyway?"
Cath punched a button on her watch. "It's Saturday, October the wunth."
I blinked and said "Saturday October the what?"
"Saturday, October the wunth."
I thought about that. "Don't you mean the first?"
"Oh, yeah, thanks. Saturday, October the first."
That's Cath for you. When she can't remember a word, she makes up a new one, and the one she makes up is so much better than the one she forgot that you wonder why they didn't put it in the dictionary in the first place.
I got curious about something. "What's tomorrow?"
She punched the button on her watch again and said "I don't know, it doesn't say yet."
That was disappointing. I wanted to hear her say "Sunday, October the tooth."
Actually it was Monday, October the threeth when all five of us Pointers got together again at my house after school.
Marmy and Dillon and I had told Miss Wainwright a little about the situation on Sunday when we went to her class. Brownie and Cathy don't go to church, except now and then the rest of us have dragged them to a special youth event or something.
When we told Miss Wainwright about Ripper and his trophy, all she said was "Tell the truth and trust the Lord to take care of the rest. And don't forget, if your enemy is hungry, feed him."
I wondered what kind of candy Ripper liked. Probably Rusty Nail Bars.
The other Pointers had arrived at my house and we were in the basement rec room digging into some of my Mom's chocolate chip cookies, when my Dad came downstairs.
"David," he said, "I need to ask you and your friends about something."
"Can it wait a minute, Dad?" I said, stuffing my mouth with cookies with my back to him. "We're having a mrdg."
"You're having a what?"
"A mrdg," I said, spitting crumbs.
"He means a meeting, Mr. Malloy," Dillon explained. "He's got his mouth full as usual."
But Dads aren't discouraged easily. "Isn't there somebody in your class named Richard Wilter?"
Marmy spoke up, "You bet there is! That's Ripper." She had a mouthful of cookies too, but nothing stops her from talking. "You've heard us talk about Ripper. He was new last year. From the city. He was in a gang or something and he hates the Pointers and he'd like to turn us into sausage."
I heard Dad say, "Well then don't you think it's funny that I found this in our garage?"
I couldn't see what he meant by "this." But I felt cold all the way through, like I'd taken another dive into freezing water. I turned slowly around like I was back in that ditch.
In my Dad's hands I saw a shiny, silvery object. It was shaped amazingly like a person with a baseball bat about to hit a homer.
In big letters on the wooden base it said:
And in even bigger letters it said: