The Mystery of Wandering Caveman - M. V. Carey [17]
The ice cream vendor had managed to get his truck close to the park and was doing a brisk business. Next to him was a young man with an immense bunch of helium-filled balloons, surrounded by a group of children.
When it seemed that the park was as crowded as it could possibly be, the mayor got up, tapped at the microphone, then raised his arms to signal silence.
Jupiter glimpsed Eleanor Hess. She was watching, and she wore her usual worried look.
“Okay, everybody!” pleaded the mayor. “Settle down now so Mr. Robertson, from the First Community Church, can ask a blessing on our new enterprise. After that the band from Centerdale High School — let’s have a nice hand for the band — they’ll lead the parade up the street to the cave man museum. And our own Patty Ferguson
— you know her as Miss Avocado at the county fair last year — she’ll cut the ribbon to open the cave.”
The mayor paused and scanned the crowd. “Where are you, Patty?” he called.
“Here she is!” someone shouted.
The crowd parted and a thin girl with long blonde hair came forward.
The crowd cheered as she went up the steps to the bandstand. Suddenly there was a rushing sound, and the lawn sprinklers in the park turned on!
People gasped and screamed. Some shouted and tried to run. They couldn’t. The crowd was too dense.
Jupiter felt the shock of cold water on his face and hands, and then his clothes were wet. He turned his head to exclaim to Pete, but suddenly Pete was collapsing to one side with his eyes closed.
Jupe’s knees gave way, and he was no longer standing. He felt himself floating, then dropping as if he were drifting down into the trough of a wave. There wasn’t even time to be scared before the darkness overwhelmed him.
**
Everything was cold. Jupe smelled wet earth. He felt cramped, and something was tickling his nose; He opened his eyes. He was on the ground, his face in the grass. The sprinklers were off.
“What the … ?” said a familiar voice.
Jupe hitched himself up on one elbow and saw Brandon. Pete’s head was against Brandon’s hip.
There were murmurs and cries as a park full of people tried to get up. The clock in the tower of the Community Church began to strike.
Jupe looked up at the tower and counted the chimes. It was eleven o’clock?
Somehow, in some unknown way, he — and the rest of the crowd — had been unconscious for more than forty minutes.
And then it came back to him — the sprinkler system. Someone must have put some chemical into the sprinkler system to make the whole town fall asleep!
Several small children were weeping at the edge of the park, and the balloon vendor was staring up at the sky. The balloons were gone — every one of them.
Jupe managed to stand up. He was giving Bob a hand when John the Gypsy came staggering down the road from McAfee’s house.
“The cave man!” shouted John the Gypsy. His voice was hoarser than usual, and his long arms sawed the air. “He’s gone! Somethin’ come and took him away!”
Chapter 9
Jupe Makes Deductions
FOR SEVERAL HOURS the field by Newt McAfee’s house was a scene of churning activity. Men from the sheriffs department took photographs and dusted the museum for fingerprints. People from the television stations interviewed Newt and Thalia McAfee as the pair spluttered with rage. The television reporters also interviewed James Brandon, who was quite upset, and they talked to the mayor of the town and to several other merchants. The reporters also interviewed John the Gypsy.
“Somethin’ come!” John told them. “I was keepin’ watch, just like Mr. Newt said, and I heard this noise behind me, and … and I turned around …”
He crouched and looked back over his shoulder.
“There was this thing!” he said. “A terrible thing with one big staring eye and …
and tusks like on an elephant! It wasn’t human! Then I was lyin’ on the ground, and the door to that museum