Chapter 8
“Cicadaaaa,” Ellis and Sara said together as the old fashioned camera flashed with a pop.
An image of the real 1841 Anderson was printed on a screen behind them with Cicada Song 2004 written along the top and Anderson 1841 below that.
“Your pictures will be ready sometime tomorrow,” said an Italian-looking man in a bowler hat. “It’ll have your names on it and everything.”
“Thank you, Sammy,” Sara said in her overly-friendly way, and they continued on.
Besides having their picture taken, they chopped wood with a lumberjack and participated in a quick inning of baseball against a team of overweight, elderly men dressed in very old uniforms. Sara swung and missed twice before an insulting underhand pitch allowed her to drill the ball just over the pitcher’s head for a base hit. Ellis hit the ball on the second swing and batted Sara in for a run.
Between chopping wood, hitting baseballs, and getting their picture taken, they had begun playing a game of questions.
“Okay,” Sara said, resuming where they had left off. “Your favorite color is green, you prefer your toilet paper over not under, and you were a comic book nerd growing up?”
“Hey!” he replied with a smile. “Comic books are a genuine media that’s shunned the respect they deserve. They taught me a lot growing up.”
“Like how to fly with a towel properly tied around your neck?”
“No, Ms. Sass. Through comic books I discovered certain terms before having to learn them in school. I knew what words like colloquial meant a full three years before anyone else in class had even heard of them. I knew some people who learned valuable lessons of right and wrong from comic books and others who’d found mother and father figures written on those panels. And they were very instrumental in my learning how to write proper cliffhangers.”
“Somehow,” Sara said with a smile, “that doesn’t make you sound any less dorkish. Let me guess, you wanted to be Superman when you grew up?”
Ellis sighed with a shrug. “No, I wanted to be Green Lantern.”
“Never heard of him.”
“And your cool factor is steadily declining due to that.”
Sara raised a sarcastic eyebrow.
“My cool factor is declining? Okay, fine then,” she said, obviously ready to change the subject. “Tell me about your book.”
“That, lady, would be a command, not a question.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said with a stern finger pointed at his nose. “A command is my telling you what to do, which you promised to obey, and a question, per the unofficial rules of the question game, requires a truthful response. You’re answering either way.”
Ellis held out his palms as an act of surrender. “Fine, but I’m surprised your mother hasn’t discussed my writings with you.”
“It’s never come up, believe it or not.”
He nodded and thought over his plot. Then he shrugged and decided to just wing it. “It’s a very important story that I believe can change how the world sees things.”
“Is Green Lantern in it?”
He gave Sara a menacing glare but she just smiled. He took a breath and playfully shook his head, the menacing scowl fading. “Anyhow, as I was saying, it’s an important story that I believe can change the way people think about life. The focus character is molded after Lilly, and I think people can learn a lot from what she’s gone through.”
“Ooh,” she said sarcastically, dragging out the word. “A series about Lilly, is it? Is that how you won her over? Cast her in your book?”
“I don’t like you much anymore.”
“What’s the matter? Can the writer not take a little ribbing?”
“I didn’t know I was befriending a creativity-Nazi.”
“Better call Captain America.”
“Hey!” he said, genuinely surprised by the reference to the superhero who fought Nazi Germany in the comic book version of World War II.
“Stan taught me some stuff.”
Upon hearing Stan’s name, Ellis wondered if there could be any harm in asking about him. He ultimately decided that there wouldn’t be.
“You guys seem close.”
“Since second grade,” she answered. “He rescued me from—a bully—and we’ve been close ever since. He actually used to date Annie, from the motel, but that was a long time ago.”
Ellis nodded, remembering the girl who had given him the key to his motel room. “Did you two ever date?”
“Annie and me? No. She’s never really been my type.” Ellis offered an exasperated but playful look. “Oh, you mean Stan and me? Absolutely,” she said with a sly smile. “He proposed with a plastic ring in the fourth grade and we got married right there on the playground.”
Ellis smiled playfully, hiding his relief. “And I suppose Pastor Woolsey married you?”
Sara’s smile dimmed but then returned as she dwelt on the memory. “A friend named Jake married us. We called him Jacob back then, though.”
“Have I met him yet?” Ellis asked, not recognizing the name.
Sara’s smile genuinely faded this time as she turned away from Ellis. “No. You haven’t met Jake yet.”
“I’m sure I’ll run into him eventually,” Ellis said, noting the discomfort in Sara’s demeanor. He changed the subject. “So Melba’s eager to be a grandmother, I hear.”
Sara came back to him with a shrug. “She wants grandchildren, and Stan certainly wants to be a father; but Leslie, Stan’s wife, she’s not so sure. It’s caused a lot of arguments between them.”
Ellis was surprised by this. Melba had made it sound as if her grandchildren were only a short time away from being conceived. “Stan’s wife doesn’t want kids?”
“No. She’s afraid childbearing would ruin her pristine figure. Leslie’s pretty shallow. I’ve never liked her personally, but Stan’s in love, so I try to be supportive. They met in college and he brought her home after they dropped out.”
“Why’d they drop out?”
“Multiple reasons, but his father’s passing was the main one. He felt obligated to take care of his mother after Stanley Sr.’s death, so he and Leslie eloped and came home. Melba wasn’t very happy about the eloping, but Stan knew she wouldn’t have let Leslie live with them if they weren’t married, so he thought he was doing her a favor. He was pretty messed up after his father died, made some bad choices, but he got some help and he’s better for it.”
“Do you mind if I ask what those bad choices were?”
Sara began to answer but then stopped herself.
“It’s not really my place,” she said. “He might bring it up if you get to know him better.”
“Fair enough.”
Having nothing else to say on the topic, they innocently returned to the question game. Ellis learned that Sara was a teacher’s aid at the school and helped Annie clean the motel for extra cash. That was how she found out what room he was staying in. They were discussing this when he suddenly realized he was being herded.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Remember, if I’m to be your guide, you have to do whatever I tell you.”
Ellis’ shoulders sagged a moment later. Waiting for him was a dunk booth full of water with a sign beside it reading Dunk a writer today, win an autograph tomorrow. Ms. Beverly stood beside the booth wearing a green, frilly gown and a mischievous grin.
Ellis sighed slowly. “I’m pretty sure I don’t like either of you.”
Ms. Beverly motioned toward the sign playfully. “Publicity, Mr. Barnes.”
Sara led Ellis toward the dunk booth; he noted the gathering crowd and growing smiles as he removed his coat and tie. He couldn’t help but feel nervous when he climbed into the booth, but his nerves gave way to terror as he dipped a toe in the icy cold water.
“Ladies and gentlemen of 1841 Anderson,” Ms. Beverly suddenly belted out. “Before you sits a man of potentially great importance named Ellis Barnes. Mr. Barnes is a writer who may one d
ay become a household name, and you have the opportunity to be the first person in all of Anderson to receive his autograph. He will have a booth of his own tomorrow, and the first person who dunks him today will be first in line to receive an autograph in the morning.”
“A real author,” an elderly woman said dreamily as others murmured among themselves.
Now Ellis really was abash, and as the elderly woman stepped forward, he gripped the plank and simply smiled. The throw veered right and missed the target entirely. Ellis soon realized just how bad the people of Anderson were at hitting targets with baseballs. He began to mock them as Sara and Ms. Beverly played devil’s advocate, encouraging people to make him eat his words. Ellis wasn’t worried. The only target hit thus far was a single cicada that had gotten in the way of a wild pitch; the poor innocent thing. Ellis’ nerves returned, however, when a familiar voice spoke from the crowd.
“And what do we have here?” Stan asked, tossing a baseball from hand to hand.
“This is Ellis Barnes,” Sara said with a smile. “He’s a Green Lantern fan.”
Stan shook his head with a look of disappointment.
“Spider-Man, Ellis. Spider-Man.”
And with that, the ball was thrown, the bell dinged, and the visiting writer, half-dressed in 1840s attire, was submerged in the coldest water he’d ever felt in his life.