The Cracks in the Kingdom Read online

  There was a pause, then, “O-o-oh! You mean, how’s her work getting on. Well, I understand it is utterly important — her work — and I really cannot fathom how glad I am. That she’s doing it.”

  The Commissioner blinked.

  “Marvelous,” he said, and scratched the back of his neck. “And did she mention whether she’d — received my proposals, by any chance?”

  “Did she ever! She was turning somersaults of ecstasy about them! As Finance Commissioner, you, sir, rock this Kingdom so hard you put it to sleep! Those were her words! But there’s no doubt or consequence in my mind either.”

  “In that case, perhaps I could trouble you, in your mother’s absence …”

  Princess Ko kept her left hand pressed over the mint, while she reached, with her right, for the Royal Stamp. Carved of sandalwood, tall as a wine bottle, this stood beside a stack of folders.

  Ca-clamp.

  She blew on the ink.

  The Commissioner nodded his thanks and pushed back his chair, glancing toward the nearest window as he did so.

  “That view.” He shook his head. “You must never tire of it.”

  Politely, the Princess turned to look.

  Snowfields drew the eye across a dazzle of blue-white, silver-white, and white-white. The only interruptions were splashes of azure blue (lakes) or galloping specks (bears or wolves — or possibly werewolves; it was hard to tell the difference these days) — and, in the vast distance, the crags of a drifting mountain range.

  “Does a scarecrow tire of turning cartwheels!” Princess Ko exclaimed.

  The Commissioner bowed to hide his bewilderment, and quickly withdrew from the conference room.

  As the door closed behind him, the Princess put the mint in her mouth. She swiveled her chair 180 degrees.

  A man and a woman stood shoulder to shoulder against the wall behind her. These were her security agents.

  “One down, seventeen to go,” said the Princess.

  The female agent nodded briskly. “Mmhmm.”

  The man stared hard at Princess Ko, as if trying to sort through her mind.

  “You two always look as if you’re lined up before a firing squad,” Princess Ko observed. “And yet my efforts to persuade you to sit down never come to more than a whipplespit of horse dung.”

  The man allowed himself a smile.

  “Too much?” she said.

  “The image of the Queen turning somersaults of ecstasy might have gone a little too far,” he replied.

  Princess Ko smiled faintly. “The Commissioner of Finance,” she mused. “He’s questionable on interest rate policy, but on tax matters he’s sound. Fiscally speaking, he seems astute even if, in other ways, he’s almost as moronic as I am.”

  Both agents snorted.

  Before the conversation could continue, the door opened to an announcement: “The Commissioner for Public Transport, Your Highness.”

  Princess Ko reached for the second folder in the pile.

  The day carried on.

  Three junior PR officers wanted to express their distress about the Queen’s preferred brand of sunglasses. The Army General needed an advance on next year’s budget. Skirmishes with Wandering Hostiles in the province of Nature Strip. The Assistant Chair of the Illumination Society was excited about a potential breakthrough in Color bending. The Royal Chef, a tall redhead wearing crimson lipstick, needed approval of the menu for the Welcome Banquet.

  “Welcome Banquet?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. The Royal Youth Alliance. Its inaugural convention is next week — surely, you …”

  “Forgotten! Had I forgotten! Why, I’m tossing and turning in my sleep with the excitement. Or I would be if I were asleep.”

  The Chef smiled. “It’s a pity your sister, Princess Jupiter, will not be here for the feast. We’re serving delicacies from each of the participant’s provinces — and there’s one boy coming from the Farms….”

  “Elliot Baranski,” said Princess Ko.

  “Is that his name? All right. Well, so there’ll be pecan pies, pumpkin pies, sugar pies, and cinnamon pies in honor of Elliot’s province. Fortunately our dessert chef is Farms-trained. Anyway, my point is, we all know how fond Princess Jupiter is of pastries!”

  “I know! She’d be scaling the walls of that rehab center if she — oops. Just try to unhear that, would you? Princess Jupiter is nowhere near a rehab center! As everyone knows, she’s in a mathematics college, enhancing her knowledge of that — field of — subject.”

  The Chef widened her eyes in confusion and thrust the menu at the Princess.

  Ca-clamp! Ca-clamp! Ca-clamp! went the Royal Stamp.

  Some visitors were formal and straight-backed, wiping sweaty palms on trouser legs. Others affected nonchalance, leaning back or reaching to pour themselves iced water from the silver jug. Some had trouble hiding their amazement at the Princess’s stupidity.

  All made reference to the view.

  The final meeting of the day was with the Social Secretary. He was a short, droll man who liked to wear shirts with upright collars, usually in shades of green. He always rocked back in his chair, both hands in his pockets, then drew the hands out to point to the next item on his list. After which, the hands would return to his pockets. It seemed a wasteful ritual.

  Eventually he rocked back, drew out his hands, and tapped firmly on the final item. “I have saved the best for last,” he declared.

  “You have,” agreed Princess Ko, and paused. “Have you?”

  “An invitation that arrived just this morning, Princess. I’ve already forwarded the details to your father — to the extent that you can forward things to a ship crossing the Narraburra — and I’ve given a heads-up to all manner of departments. Diplomacy, Security, Foreign Relations, Armed Forces, not to mention Etiquette and Protocol. Can you guess what the invitation is?”

  He twinkled and the Princess twinkled back.

  “No,” she admitted after they’d exchanged several more twinkles.

  “It’s from the King of Aldhibah! He has invited your father to attend the namesaking of his son, in the role of … wait for it! … Candlemaker! Also known as Light Guide! That is to say, the King of Aldhibah is asking your father to be the role model for his firstborn child throughout his life! Now, you’ll already know about the rather strained relations between our two Kingdoms — to put it mildly — and hence you will know, Princess, that this invitation is …!”

  He paused, flourishing a white card the size of his palm.

  “Quite small,” murmured the Princess.

  “HUGE!!” cried the Social Secretary, undeterred. “Am I right?!”

  “Is the sea the same color as a scallywag?!” Princess Ko got into the swing of things.

  “Well, no, it’s not, actually. Scallywags are pale apricot, whereas the sea is — but I see from your demeanor you agree with me! It’s massive, right? When I mentioned it to Foreign Relations, they practically knocked me over with their excitement. It’s better than the offer of a peace treaty! It’s more than an alliance! It could mark the end of centuries of conflict!”

  “It’s a rainbow of fantastic,” agreed Princess Ko. “And in Jagged Edge the scallywags are blue-green like the sea. Just for your reference.”

  “Thank you. Your father will be home from the Narraburra in time, won’t he? Or if not, he’ll cut the trip short?”

  “Of course he’d cut the trip short if he had to — but you haven’t said: When is it?”

  The Social Secretary flipped the card over.

  “Exactly three months from today.”

  “Reply at once,” Princess Ko declared. “Let’s not wait for my father to respond from his ship — that could take days, and seem like an insult. Send an answer saying that he’s honored to accept and —”

  Behind Princess Ko, there was a sharp sound like the flick of an elastic band. Ko and the Social Secretary turned. The security agents stood motionless, gazing at a middle distance.

 
“Are they real?” whispered the Social Secretary.

  “I don’t know. How can you tell?”

  They both studied the agents awhile.

  “Whoop!” cried the Social Secretary. “He’s trying not to yawn! He’s got a yawn all caught up in his cheeks, see that? Do you see?”

  “So he has. They are real.” The Princess swiveled back again. “That’s a relief. Of course, the yawn was probably boredom on account of everyone making that joke, but yes, please accept on Dad’s behalf, and say he can’t hardly wait, and the honor, and our two great Kingdoms, and blahdy blah, hooray! You know the words. And get Diplomacy to check it — and all those other official channels you were on about. Where shall I stamp?”

  Ca-clamp! Ca-clamp!

  The Social Secretary gathered his files.

  “You,” he exclaimed, “are the best princess in the room! And far smarter than you let on.”

  He spun around to gaze through the window.

  “But this!” he exclaimed. “It’s almost as dazzling as you are! Would you look at this view?! Ah, snowfields at twilight — ooh, there are dragons in the distance. See the light picking up their scales? And the sky is just ablaze with tangerines and silv — wait, is that an actual Silver?”

  The Princess, still seated, studied the view.

  “No,” she said. “Not a Silver, just a sunset. But certainly it is a headspin of a view.”

  “Ahh,” murmured the Social Secretary. “Lucky you!”

  Then he bowed, tilting a sly grin toward the security agents, and Princess Ko tilted and grinned back.

  The door closed behind him.

  The Princess took a mint and rolled it around on the palm of her hand.

  The security agents watched her.

  “We have exactly three months,” she said, “to get my family back.”

  Then she stood and strode to the window, unhooked the cords from around the drapes, and whooshed them closed. The room shook itself into dimness.

  Two weeks of summer in Bonfire, the Farms, Kingdom of Cello, and the heat was creeping underneath collars.

  The sun stretched its legs across dry gray fields, and pressed its elbows hard onto the searing roofs of barns.

  Elliot Baranski was sitting in the corner of a barn, surrounded by papers and open drawers. This was the space that Elliot’s dad used to use as a workshop — back before he disappeared — whenever he brought appliances home from his electronics repair shop downtown.

  Music was playing. His dad’s old soundplayer was still on the bench, and Elliot had scraped away the cobwebs from the speakers. As he leafed through papers, he was tapping his hand on his leg now and then, in time to the music. Simultaneously, ever so faintly, his whole body was moving — foot trembling, fingers vibrating — but that was in time to the agitation in his mind.

  This was the craziest feeling. He’d spent a year living with his dad’s disappearance — either taken by a Purple or run off with a woman — but in the last few weeks, that year had toppled sideways. There were people up high, with low-down voices, who knew just where his dad was. Or practically anyway.

  In a Hostile compound, they said. Most likely in the province of Jagged Edge. A prisoner, but healthy, well-fed, taken care of — they had intel that confirmed this — and these people, with their voices and cuff links, were working on how to get him out.

  It was as if a giant had lifted the blue right off the world like a lid, guffawing as it did: “You thought this was the sky?!”

  Elated, terrified, and dazzled all at once, that’s how Elliot felt.

  He had looked through his dad’s papers before. They were work records, invoices, manuals, specifications. Some personal stuff too: Elliot’s own school reports, a recipe book, birthday cards, a handful of photographs. There’d never been anything relevant before, but now he had this whole new slant.

  It seemed — the smooth voices had told him — that his father had been working undercover for the Loyalists, and that’s why the Hostiles had taken him.

  So Elliot was looking again. Seeing if these papers might have shifted themselves, might be singing in a different key.

  Tricky to concentrate with the jitters, though. The figures and diagrams swayed. Heat squeezed his shoulders. Everything was different and the same.

  Ah, how could you know which words were clues and which said exactly what they said? He’d have to leave it to those voices. Well, not leave it to them. He’d make them delegate to him. He needed to be helping, working, moving.

  He packed up the papers, ready to return them to the filing cabinets. That recipe book made him smile. Like all good Farmers, Abel Baranski could bake up a storm, and he used to relax by reading recipes, often with a pencil in his hand so he could make adjustments. Add nutmeg or raisins, orange peels or cloves. This book looked to be standard Farms fare — there were recipes for plum cake and lemon meringue pie, blueberry muffins and pecan-maple brownies.

  Ah, pecan-maple brownies. Elliot’s eyes ran down the ingredients, breathing in an imagining of his dad back in their kitchen — his mother shouting as she stamped up the front steps — the oven door opening — that deep, round smell of roasting pecan, the sweet, high maple —

  He closed the book, smiling.

  Then he opened it again.

  Reread the recipe. Turned a page. Read another. Turned another page.

  He laughed aloud.

  He stood in the corner of that sweltering barn and laughed and shook, the crazy feeling just about doing his head in. He felt like swinging from a rope into a river. Driving fast through a rainstorm, music pounding. Kissing a girl.

  He checked his watch.

  For crying out loud, it was that late already? He looked down at himself. His jeans were dust-covered and torn at the right knee. Dirty, beat-up sneakers. His oldest T-shirt, the one with the collar that looked as if he’d taken both hands and given it a good wrench to the side.

  Ah, well, he’d do. He stuck the recipe book in his back pocket, and ran from the barn.

  If he took the truck, he’d make it — nope. That’s right. His mother had the truck. She’d driven a load of blueberries to the Sugarloaf markets.

  He’d have to take his bike.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Elliot’s bike spun into the parking lot of the Watermelon Inn.

  He got off so fast that he tripped a little; steadied himself against a car, which burned his hand. Sun on metal.

  A couple of guests were sprawled on the sun lounges in the front garden, getting some river breeze. Elliot’s little cousin, Corrie-Lynn, was jumping back and forth over the sprinklers.

  “Hey,” she said when she saw him. “You look like your skin’s melting right off your face. But I guess that’s just sweat. Come over here.”

  He obliged her. She held up a sprinkler, and he stood still. The splash hit his face and closed his eyes.

  “More?” she offered, and he said, “Hang on,” holding up a hand. She waited while he took the recipe book from his back pocket, and set it on the front steps of the Inn. “Go for your life.”

  Now she aimed the sprinkler until he was well drenched.

  “Corrie-Lynn,” he said, “that was beautiful,” wringing out his T-shirt. “I’ve got to meet some people” — indicating the Inn, then looking at his watch — “right now, so I’ll see what’s up with them, then we can talk more.”

  “You mean the Central Intelligence agents?” Corrie-Lynn asked. “They got here late last night, and we put them in 7B and 7C. They both had the waffles for breakfast — nothing else, just the waffles — well, with maple syrup, of course. And housekeeping say they’ve both used two sets of towels already, so I guess they’re super clean.”

  “Good to know,” Elliot said. “See you soon, kid.”

  He ran up the stairs of the Inn.

  * * *

  They were eating apple pie.

  The CI agents had their backs to Elliot. They were sitting on a two-seater couch by the pi
cture window, and Hector and Jimmy — County and Deputy Sheriff — were facing them in separate armchairs. There was a low table between the men, and this was scattered with a coffeepot, mugs, plates of pie, notepads, and pens.

  Hector and Jimmy were both talking at once, both leaning so far forward in their chairs they were practically standing.

  As Elliot approached, it seemed to him that the agents were the cabin of a front-end loader, while Hector and Jimmy were the scoop.

  Hector spotted Elliot and raised a hand, so the agents turned to look.

  Now he could see their faces. He studied them a moment.

  They were built on different scales, one much bigger than the other. But you couldn’t say one was fat, the other skinny. It was more a hardcover book and a paperback. Neither wore glasses, so Elliot could see their eyes, which now were caught in serious-listening mode.

  But as they took in Elliot — his wet hair, water-stained T-shirt, dripping jeans, muddy sneakers — their eyes lit into grins.

  Neither agent said a word. They let Hector and Jimmy do the welcomes and introductions — the big guy was Agent Tovey, the smaller one, Agent Kim — only nodding or reaching to shake Elliot’s hand at the appropriate moments. Agent Kim sipped from his coffee, Agent Tovey sat back and watched. But those smiles didn’t leave their eyes, as if Elliot had brightened their day somehow, turning up in this bedraggled state. Maybe they’d have liked to get wet and muddy themselves, instead of sitting here in suit pants and button-up shirts.

  By the time Elliot had dragged over a chair, slapped his dad’s recipe book on the table and poured himself a coffee, the agents were serious again.

  Agent Tovey looked hard at Elliot and started talking. While he spoke, Agent Kim sketched in a notebook.

  “Here’s the situation as I see it,” Tovey said. “Just over a year ago, your father went missing and so did the local physics teacher. On the same night, your Uncle Jon was found dead on the side of the road.” He paused, and turned to look through the picture window. “That’s Uncle Jon’s little girl playing there now,” he said — not a question, but a fact — and they all watched Corrie-Lynn, who had moved from the sprinklers and was climbing one of the mulberry trees.