Emil and the Detectives (3 page)

O
UT IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE
E
MIL
'
S MOM SAID
, “I
F A HORSE
-drawn comes, then we'll ride to the station.”

Do any of you know what a horse-drawn streetcar looks like? Well, now that one is coming around the corner and just stopped because Emil waved it down, I guess I'll have to describe it for you. But quickly, before it trundles off again.

A horse-drawn streetcar is, first of all, an amazing thing. Second of all, it runs on rails, just like a real, grownup streetcar, and its cars look almost the same. The only difference is that it has a horse harnessed to it. Emil and his friends thought the horse-drawn was an outrage. They dreamed of an electric train with upper and lower decks and five headlights in front and three in back. But New Town's city council felt that the town's four miles of track could be handled well enough by living horsepower. So no one was even thinking of electricity yet, and the driver didn't have to deal with all sorts of cranks and levers. All he had to do was hold the reins in his left hand and the whip in his right. Giddy-up!

And if the person who lived at 12 Town Hall Street was in the horse-drawn and wanted to get out, he or she simply knocked on the glass pane. Then the driver said “Whoa!” and the passenger was home. The real streetcar stop was probably somewhere in front of house number 30 or 46. But the New Town Streetcar Co. didn't much care. It had time. The horse had time. The driver had time. New Town's inhabitants had time. And if people were really in a hurry, they went on foot…

Mrs. Tabletoe and her son got out on the square in front of the train station. As Emil was fishing his suitcase down from the top of the streetcar, a deep voice rumbled behind them, “So, off on a trip to Switzerland, are you?”

It was Officer Jeschke the police chief. Emil's mom answered, “No, my son is going for a week to Berlin to visit his relatives.” Emil suddenly felt the blood rush to his face, for he had a very guilty conscience. Recently, after they had gym class in the field by the river, he and a dozen kids went up to the statue of Grand Duke Charles, who was known as Crooked Cheek Charles, and slyly placed an old hat on his cold stone head. Then, because he could draw so well, Emil was lifted up by the others in order to draw a red nose and a tar-black moustache on the Grand Duke's face with colored markers. Then, while he was still drawing, Officer Jeschke appeared at the other end of the main square!

They all scattered like lightning. But of course he might have recognized them.

But he didn't say anything. Instead he just told Emil to have a good trip and asked Emil's mother how she was getting on and how business was going.

Emil still had a bad feeling, though. And as he was hauling his suitcase across the empty square to the station, his knees felt wobbly. He expected Jeschke to shout after him any minute, “Emil Tabletoe, you're under arrest! Hands up!” But nothing happened. Maybe the policeman was simply waiting until Emil got back?

Then Emil's mother went to the counter and bought the train ticket (third class, of course) and a platform ticket. Then they went to Platform 1—New Town has four platforms, I'll have you know—and waited there for the train to Berlin. Only a few minutes were left. “Don't forget anything, dear! And don't sit on the flowers! Have someone help you put the suitcase up on the luggage rack. But be polite and say please!”

“I can get the suitcase up there myself. I'm not made of cardboard, you know.”

“Fine. But don't forget to get off the train. You arrive at 6:17 p.m. at Frederick Street Station. Make sure you don't get out before then, at Zoo Station or any of the others!”

“Have no fear, young lady!”

“And don't be a smart-aleck with other people like you are with your mother! And don't leave the wax paper I wrapped your sandwiches in on the floor. And don't lose the money!”

Panicked, Emil clutched his suit jacket and checked the right inside pocket. Then he gave a sigh of relief and said, “All hands on deck!” He took his mother's arm and walked with her down the platform and back.

“And you, don't overwork yourself, Mom! And don't get sick! There'd be no one there to take care of you. I'd hop on the first airplane, though, and come home. And you should write to me, too. I'm not staying any more than a week, though, just so you know.” He gave his mom a hug, and she gave him a kiss on the nose.

Then the passenger train to Berlin pulled in, screeching and hissing, and came to a stop. Emil gave his mother another hug. Then he climbed up with his suitcase into a compartment. His mother handed the bouquet of flowers to him and the bag of sandwiches and asked if he had found a seat. He nodded.

“Remember to get out at Frederick Street!”

He nodded.

“Grandma will be waiting for you in front of the flower shop.”

He nodded.

“And behave yourself, you rascal!”

He nodded.

“And be nice to Pony the Hat. You'll hardly recognize each other.”

He nodded.

“And write to me.”

“Okay. You write, too.”

It could have gone on like that for hours if it weren't for the train schedule. The conductor with the little red bag called out, “All aboard! All aboard!” The train doors clapped shut. The engine lurched forward. And off they went.

Emil's mom waved her handkerchief until the train was out of sight. Then she turned around and went home. And since she was holding her handkerchief anyway, she cried a little, too.

But not for long. Because at home Mrs. Augustin the butcher's wife was already sitting in the living room, waiting to have her hair shampooed.

E
MIL TOOK OFF HIS CAP AND SAID
, “G
OOD AFTERNOON
everyone. Are any of these seats free?”

Of course there was a free seat. A heavyset woman, who had taken off her left shoe because it pinched, said to the man next to her, who wheezed horribly every time he breathed, “Children with manners like that are so rare these days. When I think back on my childhood… Goodness! Was the world ever different then!” As she talked, she would clench then release her crushed toes in her left stocking. Emil watched with interest. The man could hardly nod from all his wheezing.

Emil was already familiar with those people who always say, “Goodness, everything was better in the old days.” And he no longer listened when people told him that in the old days the air was cleaner or that cows had bigger heads. Because it usually wasn't true. Those people simply wanted to be dissatisfied, because otherwise they would have to be satisfied.

He patted the right side of his suit coat and was relieved to hear the envelope rustling in its pocket. The other passengers all looked fairly trustworthy, hardly like robbers or murderers. Next to the man with the wheezing problem sat a woman knitting a scarf. At the window, next to Emil, a gentleman in a bowler hat was reading the newspaper.

Suddenly the man in the bowler put his paper down, pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket, held it out to the boy and said, “Well, young man, how about some?”

“Don't mind if I do,” replied Emil and took the chocolate. Then as an afterthought, he quickly took off his cap, bowed a little, and said, “Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Emil Tabletoe.”

The other passengers all smiled, and the gentleman ceremoniously lifted his bowler and said, “Pleased to meet you. My name is Groundsnow.”

Then the fat woman who had taken off her shoe asked, “Does a Mr. Squatneck who sells drapes still live in New Town?”

“Of course Mr. Squatneck lives there,” Emil told her. “Do you know him? He just bought the property his store is on.”

“Well, say hello to him from Mrs. Jacob from Great Greenow.”

“But I'm on my way to Berlin.”

“Well it can wait until you get back,” said Mrs. Jacob, wiggling her toes and chuckling until her hat slipped down onto her forehead.

“So, you're going to Berlin, are you?” said Mr. Groundsnow.

“That's right! My grandmother is waiting for me by the flower shop at Frederick Street Station,” replied Emil. He patted his jacket again, and the envelope rustled. Thank God, it was still there!

“So, have you been to Berlin before?”

“No.”

“Well, you're in for a big surprise. In Berlin they have buildings now that are a hundred floors high. They have to fasten the roofs to the sky to keep them from blowing away…

“And if you're in a hurry to get to another part of town, you just have yourself packed in a box at the post office, dropped into a pneumatic tube, and shot straight to the post office in whatever neighborhood you‘re going to…

“And when you're broke, you can go to the bank, leave your brain there as collateral, and get a thousand marks. People can only live without their brain for two days, and you only get it back when you've given them twelve hundred marks in return. It's amazing what surgical equipment can do these days…”

“It looks like you left your brain at the bank as well,” said the man with the wheezing problem to the man in the bowler. Then he added, “Stop the nonsense already.”

Fat Mrs. Jacob stopped wiggling her toes out of fear. And the other woman put her knitting down.

Emil gave out a forced laugh. The two men started to argue. Emil thought, “Like I care!” and unpacked his salami sandwiches, although he had only just had lunch. As he was working on the third sandwich, the train came to a halt at a huge station. Emil couldn't see the sign for the station, and he didn't understand what the conductor was yelling outside the window. Almost all the other passengers got out—the wheezing man, the knitting woman, and even Mrs. Jacob. She had a hard time getting her shoe back on and almost didn't make it out the door.

“Say hello to Mr. Squatneck for me,” she said on the way out.

Emil nodded.

Then he and the man in the bowler hat were by themselves. Emil wasn't all too happy about that. A man who gives out chocolate and tells outlandish stories is pretty weird. Emil wanted to pat his suit coat, to check on the envelope, but he didn't dare. Instead, after the train started up again, he went to the washroom, and there he pulled the envelope from his pocket, counted the money—it was still all there—and really didn't know what to do.

Finally he had an idea. He found a pin in the lapel of his jacket, stuck it through the three bills, then through the envelope, and then through the suit lining. He had pinned his money down, so to speak. Well then, he thought, nothing can happen to it now. And he went back to the compartment.

Mr. Groundsnow had made himself at home in a corner and was sleeping. Emil was happy he didn't have to make conversation, and he looked out the window. Trees, windmills, fields, factories, herds of cows, and waving farmers all passed by outside. It was beautiful to look at, how everything spun around again and again, almost like on a turntable. But you can't spend all day looking through the window.

Mr. Groundsnow continued to sleep and snored a little. Emil would have liked nothing more than to get up and pace back and forth, but then his fellow traveler would have woken up, and that was the last thing he wanted. So he leaned back in the opposite corner of the compartment and observed the sleeping man. Why didn't the guy ever take his hat off, Emil wondered. He had a long face, a pencil-thin, black moustache, and hundreds of wrinkles around his mouth. His ears were as thin as paper and stuck straight out.

Yikes! Emil started with fright. He had almost dozed off! And sleeping was entirely out of the question. If only someone else were there in the compartment. Although the train had stopped a few times, no one came in. But it was only four o'clock, and Emil still had two more hours to go. He pinched his leg. That always helped when he was in Mr. Bremser's history class in school.

It worked for a while. Emil thought about how Pony the Hat must look now. But he couldn't picture her face any more. All he remembered was that the last time they saw each other—when she and Grandma and Aunt Martha were visiting New Town—she had wanted to box with him. He had refused, of course, because she was a featherweight and he was at least a light heavyweight. It would be unfair, he told her. What if he plastered her with an uppercut? They'd have to peel her down from the wall afterwards.

But she only stopped insisting on a match when Aunt Martha stepped in.

Whoa! He almost fell off the seat. Dozing off again? He kept pinching his legs. He probably had black and blue marks all over. But it was of no use.

He tried counting buttons. He counted downwards from the top and then upwards from the bottom. Top to bottom there were twenty-three buttons. But bottom to top there were twenty-four. Emil leaned back and tried to figure out how that happened.

And while he was at it, he fell asleep.