The Mapmaker and the Ghost(6)
“I’ll give you fifty bucks.” The doctor obviously had to have some brains to be a doctor, after all.
“Make it two hundred,” Drew said.
“Two hundred?!” the doctor said in alarm.
“All in the name of colossal medical breakthroughs,” Drew said.
The doctor thought for a second. “Okay, fine.”
“But I can’t do it now.”
“How about tomorrow? Would you make an appointment with my secretary for then?”
“Maybe. If I get a deposit today.”
“A deposit?”
“Fifty bucks. Just so I know you won’t bail on me and my valuable time, Doctor.”
The doctor was looking grouchy now. “Oh, fine, come along then,” he said and led Drew into his office.
Goldenrod was a little angry at herself for getting distracted by the odd conversation, so she immediately got back to work. A few minutes later, she had just finished putting the duct tape down by the edge of the museum door when a large foot almost stepped on her pinkie. She looked up to see Charlie Cookman, carrying two bottles of his orange energy soda and a small striped ball. He did a double take upon seeing her.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked her. He said the word “you” like it was a moldy piece of toast he needed to get out of his mouth as quickly as possible.
She really was about to ask him the same thing. Surely he hadn’t just come out of the science museum, as it was highly unlikely that Charlie would be found anywhere near something educational in his spare time. But then Goldenrod glimpsed the small vitamin shop next to the museum and things became a little clearer.
“I’m allowed to be here, you know,” she said coolly. “It’s a free strip mall.” She made a point of glaring at his soda bottles as she gripped her pencil tighter.
Charlie looked a little alarmed and held his soda closer to his body as he walked away. Despite the summer heat, he was wearing a black hoodie, and as he pressed the bottles to it, it was obvious the pockets bulged with something. Goldenrod frowned. Just what is he up to now?
Across the street, Drew was coming out of the doctor’s office. Charlie went over to him.
“Everything okay?” Drew asked.
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “What were you doing in there?”
“Just a little extra business. Come on, let’s go,” Drew said as they both walked away together, Charlie bouncing his rubber ball.
Distracted again, Goldenrod thought to herself. She really needed to focus a little better if she ever wanted to get her map done.
Ten minutes later, she had an even bigger problem on her hands. Although she had a symbol for dogs on her legend, it was impossible to measure the tiny, yapping dog’s exact distance from the hydrant because he kept moving. It made her realize that perhaps it would be necessary to edit down her legend to include only those things that would remain stationary. After all, what good would an extraordinary map be if it was made inaccurate almost the moment she had drawn it?
There was a slight possibility that the dog might be an undiscovered breed, though. True, Goldenrod was pretty sure that the dog was Ulysses, the beloved Labradoodle of Old Sue, who owned the nail salon. But it never hurts to check, she thought to herself as she kneeled down and gently picked up one of the dog’s tiny paws.
This did not help with the yapping situation, and it wasn’t very long before Old Sue herself came walking out of the chiropractor’s office.
“What are you doing?” She looked at Goldenrod oddly as she untied Ulysses’s leash from the hydrant that Goldenrod had hastily started to measure.
“Oh, nothing. Just … a little project, Mrs. McNamara.” Goldenrod smiled at Old Sue.
Sue continued to look at her a little doubtfully but left with Ulysses without further comment.
The truth was that Goldenrod hadn’t told anyone about her map; she didn’t think anybody besides Charla would understand. She’d talked to her parents about wanting to explore Pilmilton but hadn’t given the exact reason why. And as Old Sue walked away, eyebrows still arched, Goldenrod thought that she was probably right to keep it to herself.
By five thirty, Goldenrod was exhausted. Not only had she spent the day bending over and duct taping every which way, but she also felt like she had spent it under suspicious scrutiny from everyone from the museum security guard to the chiropractor’s secretary to any passersby.
As Goldenrod zipped up her backpack and headed home (she had a strict curfew of six o’clock), she wondered to herself if maybe west was not the way to go first. What Goldenrod needed was somewhere a little more private to start out with, somewhere she could hone her mapmaking speed and precision.
By the time she turned the corner onto her block, she had made her decision. Tomorrow, she would go to the forest. Not only was it the most private part of town, but it was also probably the place most likely to discover uncharted territory or a new variety of flower or furry creature. In other words, the likelihood of it being the most important part of her map was very great, and she could see no reason at all to wait to explore it.
4
THE OLD LADY WHO LIVES BY THE WOODS
The very next day found Goldenrod standing at the edge of Pilmilton Woods with her backpack and a head full of possibility. She hadn’t walked more than thirty steps inside her forest barrier when she saw something that proved her hunch from the day before had been correct. There was a house right on the very edge of the woods that she had never, ever seen before. Had never even known existed! Of course, that wasn’t terribly shocking, considering the house was blocked by a grove of very dense maple trees that she had never been allowed to walk behind before. Needless to say, a discovery of this magnitude could prove to be a very important moment in the life of a mapmaker.