The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun (6 page)

Julian asked, “Marshall what?”

“Not Marshall What. Marshall. Frank Marshall. Okay?”

He looked to find his place in his book when Julian said, “Mr. Marshall?”

The man gave up. Okay, so he was going to have to cope with the kid. He said, “Just Marshall will do.”

Julian then asked, “Why did you make that man go away?”

Marshall was aware that kids were a lot smarter and more hip than they used to be but he had the feeling that this boy had a peculiar kind of innocence and trust and probably would not have known what that son of a bitch was up to. He therefore produced that completely phony expression and voice used by adults when they are telling to their young a thumping lie which they are convinced will be believed.

He said, “Well, you see, kid, I recognized him. I’ve seen him before. He was a—pickpocket.”

Julian clapped his hand to his jacket where the Bubble Gun design reposed. “Would he have picked my pocket?”

“Maybe he would have. He was a rat.”

Julian said, “Why didn’t you call the police?”

It stumped Marshall for a moment. This made his voice even phonier when he explained, “Well, now you see, sonny, that would have just held everything up and made a lot of trouble for everybody. And anyway, he didn’t have his hand in anybody’s pocket so I just scared the . . .” He pulled himself up in time. “. . . the pickpocket.”

Julian considered this. Well maybe, but it didn’t entirely make sense. Gresham hadn’t looked at all like a pickpocket ought to. For an instant that same sense of dark foreboding which he had felt during that moment when Marshall had frightened Gresham away returned to Julian. Something else had been involved from which Marshall had protected him. His doubts caused him to look into Marshall’s face half questioningly, to be greeted with the man’s dazzling, frank and open smile as Marshall said, “See?”

Julian reached into his pocket and produced the folded paper of his diagram and looking at it with satisfaction said, “He didn’t get it, did he?”

Marshall was grimly aware of the double meaning as he replied, “That’s right. He didn’t get it.” Then, indicating the paper, “What’s that?”

Julian replied, “My invention. After I g-g-get a patent for it I’m g-g-going to make a lot of m-m-money with it.”

The word “money” startled Marshall for a moment and a slight change of expression came over his countenance. He was about to reach for the paper but thought better of it. He said, “What are you talking about? Let’s have a look at it.”

Julian did not comply but said, “I g-g-got to work on it some more.”

Marshall said carelessly, “Okay, so don’t,” which, of course, produced an immediate unfolding of the sheet of paper revealing the diagram of the Bubble Gun. Glancing at it Marshall was surprised and even more surprised that he should be so. He studied it for a moment and then asked, “You did that?”

“Uh huh.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Julian replied, “I dunno. Sometimes when you pull the trigger it shoots a lot of little b-b-bubbles instead of a b-b-big one. I’ve g-g-got to figure it out.”

Marshall took the paper out of the boy’s fingers and examined it more closely including Julian’s name and address at the bottom.

He said, “It looks all right to me,” and then added, “Why don’t you ask him?” and he nodded his head towards the front of the bus.

Julian asked, “Who?”

Marshall replied, “That guy up there. The one who spilled his papers all over the floor. I had a look at ’em. That was ordnance.”

“What’s ordnance?”

“Guns and stuff. He’s probably army in civvies. He could tell you.”

“Do you think he would?”

“You could try.” Marshall studied Julian for a moment with considerably more interest. “Where are your folks?”

Julian replied, “Home. In San Diego.”

Marshall queried, “Do they know where you are?”

Julian shook his head in negation. “. . . but I left a note saying I was g-g-going.”

Marshall’s curiosity was driving him past the mild interest stage. He said, “It doesn’t make sense. What’s the plot, kid. Come on, give.”

“My d-d-dad thinks I’m a sissy and no g-g-good. When I showed him my invention and said I was going to m-m-make a million dollars he laughed at me.”

Marshall asked, “What do you mean, he laughed at you?”

“He said to stop bothering him and to come b-b-back after I had made my m-m-million dollars. That’s why I’m g-g-going to Washington.”

It was making less and less sense. A million dollars had a sweet ring in Marshall’s ears but, of course, it was crazy. The whole thing was absurd. A kid going to Washington because his father had laughed at him.

He said to Julian, “You’ve got to be putting me on. What’s with your old man? What does he do?” The printing on the diagram caught Marshall’s eye again and he said suddenly, “Hey! West! Is your pop Aldrin West, the guy who owns the San Diego Bullets? Say, they’re going to have a good team this year with Korvalski throwing the passes. I’ll bet you’re a real football freak.”

Julian shook his head. “I’m not. It makes dad mad. I think football’s crazy.”

Suddenly a vista opened for Marshall as though a curtain had been lifted. A kid that didn’t like football. He said, “I get it. What do you like?”

Julian shrugged and said, “I dunno. M-m-making things.”

Marshall glanced at the diagram more intently and then again at Julian. He said, “He must know you’re gone. Your Pop’s probably having a fit right now. You say you left a note? Did you say where you were going?”

Julian said, “No. Anyway, he wouldn’t care.”

Marshall sat back for a moment and wondered just how true this was. These were such funny times that one couldn’t believe half of what one heard.

But, of course, Aldrin West did care, his concern intensified by a feeling of guilt and further whipped up by one of his wife’s few genuine hysterics at the thought of Julian, to whom she only referred as “my baby”, somewhere loose in the United States to the point where there had to be a doctor and sedatives.

The repercussion soon reached into a corner of the Missing Persons Bureau of the San Diego Police Department where a bored sergeant in shirtsleeves put on a headset to take a call and poised a pencil to take notes.

He said, “Missing Persons Bureau, Sergeant Cassidy speaking . . . Who? . . . Oh, yes, Mr. West. Your address? . . . What’s the trouble, Mr. West? . . . Did you say bubblegum? . . . Oh, a Bubble Gun. A gun? Has he got a licence for it?”

West’s voice nearly deafened him, “For Chrissakes, sergeant, will you listen.”

“Sure, sure, Mr. West, I’m listening. You say he invented this Bubble Gun and left a note. Can you give me some details?” He repeated what he heard as he wrote, “Julian West, age nine and a half, reddish hair, wears glasses, has slight stammer . . . How was he dressed? . . . Oh, I see, you’re not sure. And he didn’t say where he was going?” He listened, wrote and repeated slowly, “Didn’t . . . say . . . where . . . was . . . going . . . Okay, Mr. West, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Kids usually hitch-hike. We’ll put it out on the radio. Some guy will pick it up in his car. I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”

And a short while later the police teleprinter was tapping out the alarm for Julian, “
MISSING FROM HOME, JULIAN WEST, AGE NINETEEN AND A HALF, RED HAIR, GLASSES, STAMMER. THOUGHT TO BE WEARING DENIM PANTS AND T-SHIRT WITH LEATHER JACKET. ANYONE SEEING PLEASE CONTACT LOCAL POLICE.
”

By mid-morning Bus 396 had metamorphosed from a Transcontinental transporter to a cosy social centre of passenger activity, relaxation and the usual familiarization. Two men, chess fiends, had already discovered one another by the thought transference that leads one player to find a second and were engrossed in what was to become a perpetual battle on a pocket set. They were already face to face, each with that gleam of fierce hatred in his eye that only a chess player knows for his opponent.

Four other passengers, two men and two women, had become involved in a gin rummy game, all strangers to one another. One of the women was a black, a large comfortable-looking person with the most deliciously rich laugh which rang through the bus each time she filled and laid down her hand. She always seemed to be filling and laying down and the others were not liking it.

There was so much going on to be seen and done that any fears Julian might have had at being off by himself vanished. The passenger across the aisle, a cadaverous, unhealthy-looking man with a long blue jaw had a cup of water in his hand which he had obtained from the dispenser at the back of the bus and he popped a pill into it. His eyes nearly bulged from his head as the effervescence erupted from the cup in a foamy cloud which began to engulf the back of the neck and the hair of the lady sitting in front of him, who had a good deal to say about it.

Horror-stricken, the man was trying to explain. “Ma’am, I’m mighty sorry. See, I got to take one of these pills every hour, but it never done that before. It must be this here water.”

Three seats to the rear the dark-haired musician whose name was Milo Balzare withdrew an odd-looking instrument from its case and began to tune it. Julian, of course, had to go and look at it. He asked, “Is that it—what you called it . . . ?”

Balzare replied, “Yes! This is a symphonium, hurdy-gurdy. Would you like me to play something?”

Julian said, “Yes, please.”

The instrument had the neck, frets and strings and body of a mandolin except that at the bottom there was a curious kind of handle. Balzare began to turn this handle, which caused the thing to give forth a low humming drone against which he plucked out a gay little melody with a pick.

The character across the aisle said, “Say, that’s great. Can you play any country music?”

“That was a little country dance—from the Auvergne,” Balzare said, looking puzzled.

“Naw, you know, down on the farm stuff.”

Balzare said, “I do not know yet. I have come to this country to give concerts and to learn.”

Marshall had put his book aside and had on his lap a small transistor radio turned down, to which he was listening with interest. The broadcast was not audible in the general racket now going on in the bus.

Julian wandered away from the group that had gathered around the musician. He was hungry. He climbed up into his seat to enable him to take down his suitcase from the rack.

Marshall said, “Watch yourself. What are you after?”

Julian said, “I’m hungry. Are you?”

Marshall said, “Not yet. I want to listen to the news.”

Julian took his suitcase and strolled a few seats down the aisle and addressed himself to Marge and Bill who were holding hands. “Hello.”

Marge quickly withdrew her hand from Bill’s, sat up and smiled at Julian. “Hello. What’s your name?”

“Julian. Are you two on your honeymoon?”

Here Marge almost gave the show away by repeating “Honeymoon!” as though the word were something poisonous before she realized that what with the ring on her finger it wasn’t quite the right reaction and said, “Oh dear, how did you know?”

Julian said, “Aw, I’ve been watching you. Would you like a tuna-fish sandwich?”

Marge exclaimed, “Would I!”

Bill was not too taken with Julian’s presence. Small boys meant nuisance to him. He said, “Where are you gonna get a tuna-fish sandwich from?”

Julian said, “Make it.”

Bill looked surly. “Come on, who are you trying to kid? Why don’t you beat it?”

Julian said, “I wasn’t kidding. I’ll make you one.”

He knelt down in the aisle and opened his suitcase, displaying its contents, which also included a small, very dirty teddy bear with one ear missing and most of the stuffing out of it.

Curious now, Bill leaned over to have a look inside and was surprised to see a half loaf of white bread wrapped in cellophane, a plastic container of tuna-fish, a smaller one of mayonnaise, some lettuce leaves in transparent wrapping, and a knife. With expertise from long-time practice Julian whipped up three tuna-fish sandwiches, handing one each to Marge and Bill.

The latter had the grace to say, “Sorry, kid. You’re great.”

Julian said, “That’s okay,” reflected for a moment and then made a fourth which he took back to Marshall, saying as he handed to it him, “I’ll bet you’d like this if you tried it.” He sat down beside Marshall, his case beneath his feet, and chomped contentedly.

Marshall regarded him quizzically, bit into his sandwich and said, “Not bad. What else can you do?”

Julian had a mouthful at the time and so replied only with a shrug. He could also make a bang-up peanut butter, cream cheese and jam sandwich if he had the ingredients.

Marshall ate silently, glancing every so often over at Julian. He had the air of a man with something on his mind.

When they were both close to their last bite and Julian was licking his fingers, Marshall said, “Did you know the cops were after you?”

“W-w-what?”

Marshall indicated his now silent transistor set. “I just heard it after the news. General police alarm.”

Wide-eyed with terror at what must surely mean the collapse of his grandiose dream, Julian asked, “Are you going to give me away?”

Marshall replied half truculently, “What do you think I am? Why should I?”

Julian glanced at the transistor. “Could everybody hear it?”

Marshall shook his head in negation. “Not unless they were listening. And what if they did?”

Julian said miserably, “I don’t want them to catch me until I get my patent.”

Marshall nodded, “Yeah, I got that. Keep your hair on. How old are you? The cops gummed it up as usual. I’d say maybe nine, nine and a half. That right?”

Julian nodded.

Marshall said, “Cheer up, the fuzz added ten years. The broadcast said a boy nineteen and a half years old was missing. They’ll be looking for some jerk of a dropout. People don’t like to get mixed up with the cops anyway.” Casually, and only half meaning it, he added, “If anybody asks you, you can say you’re my kid brother.”

Relief, wonder and admiration glowed in Julian’s eyes as he gazed up at Marshall. “Say, can I?”