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Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the Catapult

By A.B. Brownell

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1. WHERE ARE MOM AND DAD?
Joe Baker looked at the kitchen window again, hoping headlights would turn in to the driveway. Instead, an image moved on the other side of the glass. A tremble ricocheted from Joe’s chest to his fingers and toes. A hotdog chunk he bit off almost lodged in his throat.
“What time is it?” Brown hair framed the scowl on Penny’s slightly freckled face as she sat across from him at the glass-topped table. “I’m worried about Mom and Dad.”
Joe swallowed. Tangy mustard taste lingered on his dry tongue.
“They’re probably fine,” he choked out. He dropped what was left of his bun on his plate and ran over to see if a friend peeped at them. At first, Joe’s tan face, thick mop of black hair, and frightened brown eyes reflected in the window. He leaned closer. A bald head he’d never seen before glistened. Huge eyes glared from the other side of the glass. The man’s drooping jowls jiggled as a hand tried to push the window open.
“Get out of here!” Joe yelled blood and panic pulsing through him as he flipped the blind shut and pulled his cell from his pocket. He dialed 911.
“A man I don’t know is peeking through our windows, and our parents aren’t home,” he told the dispatcher. He couldn’t keep his voice from trembling. “I’m fourteen, and my sister is ten.”
He was telling the dispatcher the address and giving other information when Penny jumped up from the table. “Oh, bother! You’re just playing with the phone and trying to scare me.”
She lifted a slat in the blinds and looked out. Her scream almost made Joe drop the phone.
Joe stuck his open hand toward Penny’s mouth and shook his head to try to stop her screaming. “Quit freakin’ out while I talk to 911!” He couldn’t hear above her shrieks.
“That’s my sister screaming,” he explained to the woman on the phone. “She just looked at him.”
Joe grabbed Penny’s hand and hurried to the outside doors. He checked the locks and then the burglar alarm, trying to hear the dispatcher and answer her questions.
Finally, Penny stopped her cries long enough for Joe to hear, “We’ll have an officer there right away.” Joe let out a sigh of relief.
“Call Mom and Dad again.” Penny jerked Joe’s arm. Tears plastered brown hair to her slightly pink cheeks.
“I’m going to try to find my dad again,” Joe told the dispatcher.
“Call us back if the man at your window attempts to enter,” she said.
Joe punched his father’s number. Voice mail—again.
“Pop still doesn’t answer.” His fingers moved over the numbers for Mom’s cell. Her mailbox was full.
The doorbell echoed. Penny let out another scream, and Hefley’s bark vibrated through the house. Paralyzing heat flooded Joe. On legs like gelatin, he trotted to the entry and looked out the peep hole. The man who had glared through the window now stood on the porch, pushing the doorbell over and over.
Shaking from his cap to his socks, Joe dialed 911 again, and after he identified himself, told the dispatcher, “He’s on the porch! I think he’s trying to get in. I’m going to see if my aunt knows where my parents are while the police are coming.”
Joe’s insides squeezed tight as he darted to the lamp table, grabbed a phone book, and searched for Aunt Anna Shaw’s number. The doorbell kept ringing. Then the house rattled under the banging of a heavy fist. Joe jumped.
He dropped the phone book. The man was now kicking the door. He motioned for Penny to follow him into their parents’ bedroom. Listening for police sirens, he mentally repeated the Shaws’ number. He slammed the door, flipped open his cell phone again, and punched. As he waited for the answer, Penny’s wet eyes, instead of her mouth, screamed for help.
“Faulkner here,” a deep voice answered.
“Mom and Pop aren’t here, and a man is banging on the door. Do you know where our parents are?” Joe’s jaw twitched.
“Pardon?” demanded Uncle Faulkner. “Slow down and run that by me again. Is this Joe? You should identify yourself!”
Joe slowly repeated, “Do you or Aunt Anna know where my parents are?”
“Haven’t heard a thing,” Faulkner said. “Answer the door. And shut your dog up while you’re trying to talk on the phone!”
“But this dude peeked in—” The dial tone buzzed.
A loud BAAAAM echoed, and Joe grabbed Penny. “Into Mom and Dad’s closet!”
Just as they closed themselves into the closet, the front door crashed open. The burglar alarm screamed. Hefley snarled.
The home phone rang and kept ringing. It had to be the home security company.
Joe lifted the door to the storage area under the carpeted closet floor, shoved Penny toward the small ladder, and almost tumbled down himself. He closed the opening, hoping it wouldn’t be noticed.
A little light shone from the cell as he dialed 911 again. Where were the police?
Breathing hard, Joe gave his name and address again. “The man who peeped in the window broke into the house! Our parents aren’t here.”
“We’ve heard from the home security people,” a deep male voice said. “Is the intruder still inside?”
“Yes. My sister and I are hiding in the crawl space.”
“The police are on the way. Stay on the line until they get there.”
Loud footsteps pounded above, and Hefley sounded as if he were a Doberman about to tear someone apart, instead of the docile Lab the kids knew.
“Shut up!” the man demanded, and Hefley yelped.
Above Hefly’s bark, the phone’s ring, and the alarm’s scream, Joe could hear stuff crashing, glass breaking, loud thumps, and heavy footsteps. Then the house shook as a heavy door slammed with a bang. The footsteps ceased, and the phone stopped ringing, but the alarm’s deafening peal screamed on. Joe and Penny didn’t move.
“I think whoever was here left, but we’ll stay down here until the police arrive,” Joe told the police dispatcher.
“Why did the other phone ring?” Penny asked softly. “It might be Mom and Dad.”
Joe took the phone away from his mouth and told Penny, “Mom and Dad would have called me on the cell. When the alarm goes off, the security company calls our house phone, and if we don’t answer or turn off the alarm, they call the law.”
Penny whimpered and trembled in Joe’s arms.
“Police!” The shout finally came.
Joe stepped up the short ladder, raised the trap door, and then reached down and helped Penny through. The dripping from her eyes and nose wet his shirt sleeve.
“We’re here!” Joe yelled. “Did you catch him?”
Two policemen pointed their guns into the room. The short cop’s gaze darted about. “Not yet. He still may be here.”
“Oh, no!” Penny cried behind Joe as they walked into the next room. “Look what he did to our house. He broke the bookcase doors—and the coffee table. Look at the lamp, and Mom’s chair looks like it was cut with a knife.”
The policemen searched inside, outside, and went with Joe when he turned off the alarm. Sirens echoed in the distance. The law enforcement radio crackled and Joe only caught part of the message: “We chased a black luxury car leaving the neighborhood —and lost it. We weren’t close enough to get the tag ID.”
After signing off, the policeman placed the radio in the slot in his uniform. “Well at least we have a description of the car. The tall, thin policeman stuck out his hand as they returned to the living room and gripped Joe’s hand. “I’m Sergeant Plummet, and this is my partner, Detective Blick.”
Blick, short, with a tummy like the courthouse dome, wore a friendly smile on his face. He nodded as he shook Joe’s sweaty palm, then he patted Penny on the head.
“Now tell us about this intruder.” The tall officer sat on the chocolate-colored sofa.
Joe gulped. “He had a slanted forehead almost like a gorilla.” He remembered the face. “He looked in the kitchen window while we were eating and tried to open it. He was big. Tall, bald, and his cheeks were really fat.”
The short policeman touched keys on his palm computer. “How old would you say the man is?”
“Old. About my parents’ age.”
“How old is that?”
“About forty.”
“How old are you?
“Fourteen.”
He looked at Penny, who still had tears on her shiny freckled cheeks. “And you, darlin’?”
Joe could see Penny start to relax. “I’m ten. Do parents ever get kidnapped?”
“Where are your parents?”
“I don’t know.” Joe related how mom always was home before Penny walked in the door from her swimming class at the neighborhood pool. But today, when Joe had arrived after his piano lesson, Penny perched on the front step. She left her emergency house key at home.
Joe told the officers how every phone call to find his parents came to a dead end. No one at the computer software company where his dad worked knew where Darin Baker was. His mom left her job at the apparel store at noon.
“Our friends and people at the church have no clue where they are.”
“Your front door is broken,” the shorter cop said.
“Anything missing?” asked the tall policeman.
Joe surveyed the living room before walking through the house as the policemen followed.
“I don’t know,” Joe said. “He wasn’t in here very long. I think our dog or the alarm might have scared him off.”
When Joe glanced into his room, though, his heart landed in his sports shoes. “He took my computer! Dad gave it to me when he got his new laptop.”
The detective entered that information into the electronic gadget in his hand.
Hefley licked his hairy side, whining. “I think the burglar kicked our dog,” Joe explained.
“Watch him. He might have a broken rib or something,” the chubby officer said.
“Look! The burglar stole our picture!” cried Penny, her brown eyes a mixture of anger and fright.
Sure enough, the family photo’s usual spot was empty. Joe glanced around at the broken and overturned things on the floor, but the picture wasn’t there.
“Do you have relatives nearby?” asked Sergeant Plummet.
“We have an uncle and aunt. Faulkner Shaw, the newspaper editor, is my uncle. I talked to him a few minutes ago. But our parents should be home any minute.”
“Who are your parents?”
“Darin and Rose Baker.” Joe gave the officers additional information on his folks, including the spelling of their names, while Blick entered the data into a small computer.
“Excuse me,” Blick said and then made a phone call, apparently to headquarters. “We have a break-in at 210 Linden Road, home of Darin and Rose Baker.” He spelled the names. “Their two children, a fourteen-year-old and a ten-year-old, are alone and have no idea where their parents are. They’ve been alone approximately five hours.” He paused. “So no records and no warrants.”
“Mom and Pop always keep in touch with us,” Joe said in a low voice to Plummet. “I don’t know why they aren’t home yet. Dad works at Computer Software Industries and Mom works at Vanby’s. But they help people a lot, so I think that’s where they are. They visit them in the hospital…”
“Take food to poor and sick people,” interrupted Penny.
Blick was still on the phone. Plummet tapped him on the shoulder. “Could you check the hospital and ER admissions? Thanks.”
At the mention of hospital, Penny gasped. Joe knew she was about ready to flip out again.
“Chill,” he whispered. “Everything’ll be all right.” He circled his arm around her. But his stomach felt like he swallowed a rock.
Blick concluded his phone conversation and turned to the kids. “Headquarters doesn’t have anything on them. Give us more information. We might need to file a missing persons report. Give me descriptions of both of them.”
The lump in Joe’s stomach moved to his throat and started to melt into tears. He swallowed and choked them back. “Mom has long black hair.”
“What color are her eyes?”
“Brown. Like chocolate,” Penny answered, her eyes rimmed with red.
“How tall?”
“I’m three inches taller than Mom is.” Joe felt as if he might throw up.
“So. She’s—”
“Five feet, four inches tall.”
“Your dad?”
“He has short brown hair and blue eyes, and he’s six feet.”
“He…he also has a little beard on his chin.” Penny twisted her hands together. “They…they’re not really missing. They’ll be home in a minute.”
“Yeah.” Joe’s heart skipped a beat.
“How long have you lived at this address?”
“Two years.”
“Where did you live before?”
“On Twelfth Street.”
“How long there?”
Joe was getting tired of answering questions. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare. “Since I was a baby.”
Blick finished texting the information, and then Plummet and Blick went through the house again.
Joe and Penny watched while Detective Blick collected fingerprints, including Joe’s and Penny’s. The police officers went outside and made a cast of the footprints under the window. They tried to find fingerprints on the window.
“Detective Blick is a fingerprint specialist. He usually comes to a crime scene later, but today he’s working with me,” said Plummet with a gentle smile.
“Cool,” said Penny. “Did you get the thief’s prints?”
“Don’t know. Was he wearing gloves?”
Joe concentrated on that. “Yes. I think he was. But I’m not sure. I saw him pushing on the window, but it was dark.”
“Probably been wasting our time,” Plummet grumbled. “Burglaries are difficult to solve sometimes.”
When they were finished, Plummet sat on the sofa again. “You need to go somewhere you’ll be safe. You better call your uncle.”
The sickness in Joe’s stomach intensified. “How about I call my friend? I already told his mom my parents weren’t home. Maybe we could stay there until Mom and Dad get back. ”
“Well, call them.”
Joe called Pete Alcock’s house. Mrs. Alcock answered.
“Mom and Pop still aren’t here.” Joe choked out the words, his voice a little raspy. “Someone broke into our house. The police want us to go somewhere until Mom and Pop get here.”
“Mercy! You can stay here. We’ll come get you.”
In ten minutes, the Alcocks pulled into the driveway.
“Here, let me give you a hug.” Mrs. Alcock bustled into the house, her round pink cheeks pulled into a gentle smile. She hugged Penny, and then pulled Joe gently against her soft body that had a faint smell like flowers.
Joe’s friend, Pete, his straight blond hair squashed under a backward ball cap, stared at the mess the burglar made of the house. “This must make you mad enough to spit.” He picked up part of a broken vase. Joe’s friend’s eyes looked worried behind his new eyeglasses as he adjusted his ball cap. “Who broke in? What’d he want?”
“Well, he took my computer.”
“Unfunny. The dirt bag.”
“You got it.”
“Kids do a lot of break-ins.”
“Pete. I saw ‘im. Great big guy. Bald. Looked like a gorilla.”
“That must have freaked you out,” added Petra, Pete’s twin sister. She hugged Penny. Her golden pony tail swung back and forth as she looked tenderly at the smaller girl.
Dressed in a cute denim jacket, she looked at Joe. “So sorry. This is really out there.” She glared at the policemen. “I hope when you catch the scumbag you make him pay for all the damage and come back and clean all this up! Then put him in jail.”
Mr. and Mrs. Alcock smiled at their daughter’s outburst. They introduced themselves to the officers. “We’ll take good care of Joe and Penny until their parents come.”
Plummet and Blick shook hands with the Alcocks and took their names, address, and phone number. Then Mr. Alcock, still dressed in the clothes he wore while laying bricks, looked at the broken door and started messing with it.
Plummet watched a moment, and then turned to Joe. “I’m ready to go. We’ll keep in touch. If your parents haven’t returned by tomorrow, we’ll talk with your uncle. It is against the law to walk off and leave children. But I expect someone just delayed them. Their disappearance could be connected to the man who broke in, and it might not be.”
“Mom and Dad didn’t just go off and leave us.” Joe felt that truth clear to his bones. He glanced at the police officer, who dug into his pocket and then pulled out keys.
When the police drove away, Joe’s breath came in gasps. What had happened to his parents?
***
About fifty miles away, two big hairy men shoved Darin and Rose Baker across the drawbridge into Sir Henry’s castle.
They stumbled up a wide marble-tiled stairway, hands tied behind their backs.
“We got ‘im,” said the beast who pushed Darin into the room. “But his wife was with ‘im. Couldn’t leave a witness.”
Darin’s eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room. Rose seemed to be in shock. Then he turned his gaze so he could see what his wife stared at.
It couldn’t be true!
“Untie these folks,” Kermesis told the goons.
“Kermesis! You’re involved in this? I thought when you turned the business over to Caleb—” Darin’s voice echoed in the chamber-like room.
“That I forgot you have a computer software design I want?”
“It’s mine.” Darin watched as the big thug released the bonds.
“Now listen here, Darin. I was paying you good money when you created that design.”
“I created the program at home on my own time. It’s not yours.”
“Where is it?”
Over in a corner, Darin recognized several leaders of local churches and a priest. Apparently they had been abducted, too.
“I want that software design, Darin. If you don’t tell us where it is, we’ll get your children.”
“No!” Rose screamed. Her high-pitched shrieks continued until the monster who had nabbed her in the parking lot put his pillow-sized hand over her nose and mouth. She pulled at the massive fingers as she struggled for air, her face turning red, then bluish.

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