Firestarter(148)

Secrets, as Cap could have told Dr. Hofferitz, are even more unstable than U-235, and stability lessens proportionately as the secret is told. Shirley McKenzie kept the secret for almost a month before telling her best girlfriend, Hortense Barclay. Hortense kept the secret for about ten days before telling her best girlfriend, Christine Traegger. Christine told her husband and her best friends (all three of them) almost immediately.

This is how the truth spreads in small towns; and by the night in April when Irv and Norma had their overheard conversation, a good deal of Hastings Glen knew that they had taken in a mysterious girl. Curiosity ran high. Tongues wagged.

Eventually the news reached the wrong pair of ears. A telephone call was made from a scrambler phone.

Shop agents closed in on the Manders farm for the second time on the last day of April; this time they came across the dawn fields through a spring mist, like horrific invaders from Planet X in their bright flame-resistant suits. Backing them up was a National Guard unit who didn't know what the f**k they were doing or why they had been ordered out to the peaceful little town of Hastings Glen, New York.

They found Irv and Norma Manders sitting stunned in their kitchen, a note between them. Irv had found it that morning when he arose at five o'clock to milk the cows. It was one line: I think I know what to do now. Love, Charlie.

She had eluded the Shop again-but wherever she was, she was alone.

The only consolation was that this time she didn't have so far to hitch.

11

The librarian was a young man, twenty-six years old, bearded, long-haired. Standing in front of his desk was a little girl in a green blouse and bluejeans. In one hand she held a paper shopping bag. She was woefully thin, and the young man wondered what the hell her mother and father had been feeding her... if anything.

He listened to her question carefully and respectfully. Her daddy, she said, had told her that if you had a really hard question, you had to go to the library to find the answer, because at the library they knew the answers to almost all the questions. Behind them, the great lobby of the New York Public Library echoed dimly; outside, the stone lions kept their endless watch.

When she was done, the librarian recapitulated, ticking of the salient points on his fingers.

"Honest."

She nodded.

"Big... that is, nationwide."

She nodded again.

"No ties to the government."

For the third time, the thin girl nodded.

"Do you mind my asking why?"

"I"-she paused-"I have to tell them something."

The young man considered for several moments. He seemed about to speak, then held up a finger and went and conferred with another librarian. He came back to the little girl and spoke two words.

"Can you give me an address?" she asked.

He found the address and then printed it carefully on a square of yellow paper.

"Thank you," the girl said, and turned to go. "Listen," he said, "when was the last time you had something to eat, kid? You want a couple of bucks for lunch?" She smiled-an amazingly sweet and gentle smile. For a moment, the young librarian was almost in love.

"I have money," she said, and opened the sack so he could see.

The paper bag was filled with quarters.

Before he could say anything else-ask her if she had taken a hammer to her piggybank, or what-she was gone.

12

The little girl rode the elevator up to the sixteenth floor of the skyscraper. Several of the men and women who rode with her looked at her curiously-just a small girl in a green blouse and bluejeans, holding a crumpled paper bag in one hand and a Sunkist orange in the other. But they were New Yorkers, and the essence of the New York character is to mind your own business and let other people mind theirs.

She got off the elevator, read the signs, and turned left. Double glass doors gave on a handsome reception area at the end of the hall. Written below the two words the librarian had spoken to her was this motto: "All the News That Fits."

Charlie paused outside a moment longer.

"I'm doing it, Daddy," she whispered. "Oh, I hope I'm doing it right."

Charlie McGee tugged open one of the glass doors and went into the offices of Rolling Stone, where the librarian had sent her.

The receptionist was a young woman with clear gray eyes. She looked at Charlie for several seconds in silence, taking in the crumpled Shop and Save bag, the orange, the slightness of the girl herself she was slender almost to the point of emaciation, but tall for a child, and her face had a kind of serene, calm glow. She's going to be so beautiful, the receptionist thought.

"What can I do for you, little sister?" the receptionist asked, and smiled. "I need to see someone who writes for your magazine," Charlie said. Her voice was low, but it was clear and firm. "I have a story I want to tell. And something to show." "Just like show-and-tell in school, huh?" the receptionist asked. Charlie smiled. It was the smile that had so dazzled the librarian. "Yes," she said. "I've been waiting for a long time."