Chapter III. – A Description of a Nearly Indescribably Heinous Crime, and of How Byron Warren Stopped It.
The city in which Byron Warren grew up was never known to have a particularly bad crime problem. In fact, the incident which caused the greatest commotion in recent memory happened just a few months before Byron was born. The town was shocked when Old Man Lester went missing in the dead of winter, and there was hardly a man (or a woman, for that matter) who didn’t suspect foul play of some kind – especially since the Lesters were suspected of having marital problems, and especially since their old neighbor Specs Wilder was known to have a romantic interest in Mrs. Lester. Specs, for his part, denied every word of it, even though the fact that he was seen sipping tea with Mrs. Lester at the café five days after the disappearance didn’t help matters in the least, at least as far as Specs was concerned. But the whole thing was cleared up just three weeks after the disappearance, when Old Man Lester reappeared as if out of thin air, right back in his own front yard, muttering something to the effect of, he had gone down to the Creek because he “needed some time”.
Since that very notable public spectacle, things had died down quite a bit – at least until the time of our present story, well after Byron Warren’s sixth birthday. Young Byron had just started going to school, and he was very excited about it. He had a newfound sense of independence, as all young schoolchildren usually do, and he even made some very close friends in his class. For instance, he and Chet Westminster became fast pals after they discovered they had a common admiration for Gunther Booth, the pitcher for the local minor-league baseball team (whom everybody else made fun of for the gap between his two bottom teeth). Byron and Albert Sikes were “study buddies” and liked to challenge one another to impromptu spelling competitions. It was widely thought that Raquel Proudfoot had a crush on Byron, but like most six-year-old boys will, he paid her no mind. However, Byron was very open in saying that he thought his teacher, Ms. Gaffney, was very pretty indeed, and he made an effort to bring her an apple at least once a week.
But before any school day could get started, there had to be the customary school bus ride, and that is where our tale takes place. The rickety old school bus (which was not yellow, but green) was driven by elderly Mr. Pickens, a retired barber who loved children almost as much as he loved taking them to school. And the children loved Mr. Pickens, for not a one was ever known to act up while on the school bus; part of this was due to the fact that Mr. Pickens used to mesmerize the youngsters with his yarns, which he would deliver in his trembling but very dramatic voice as he drove (and the fact that he did this while he drove did not often endanger other drivers, because the traffic was light weekday mornings).
It was a crisp fall morning when it all happened. The rickety green school bus was coughing and sputtering its merry way down the road, and all the kids were all ears as Mr. Pickens held forth concerning the adventures of Jerry Miller, a common character in his yarns (and probably somewhat autobiographical to boot). Jerry had just caught his friend’s runaway cat when the story paused – for the bus had ground quite noisily to a halt. Old Mr. Pickens couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise over the commotion of the brakes, and besides, he didn’t care to, because he would always pause when he had a pickup to make. And this was the last pickup of the morning, outside Norbert Caldwell’s residence.
“Mornin’, Norb!” croaked Mr. Pickens as he opened wide the door of the bus. “Hop on in! It’s just gettin’ good!” By that he meant the story, which he would always be considerate enough to briefly recap when a new student entered the bus. However, this morning Norbert Caldwell was not quite himself, for he was ashen-faced and shaking with obvious fright as he clung to his sack lunch. This in itself was cause for alarm, because Norbert was almost always a jovial young man, except on the first day of school and test days, when he would keep to himself; but never was he known to be this visibly disturbed. The cause for his unease was not clearly visible, but it soon would be.
Norbert Caldwell cautiously approached the steps to get on the bus and hesitated with each step up.
“Why s’scared, Norb? Come on in – we won’t bite!”
Mr. Pickens’ appeal was lost on the young man, who stared out at nothing in particular as he reached the inside of the bus. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he never did – he only scrunched his face up as if he was going to cry.
Byron Warren quickly arose from his front-row seat and extended his hand to Norbert.
“C’mon, Norb, sit down here with Chet ‘n’ me; it’s okay – what’s botherin’ you?”
“Stay where you are!” came a voice that was most definitely not Norbert Caldwell’s. It was far too gruff and deep, and besides, it had a strange accent to it – very foreign to those parts.
The owner of that voice quickly stepped out from behind Norbert, and I doubt that either you or I have ever seen a sight so comical while at the same time so strangely disturbing. It had to be a full-grown man (he had a big black mustache on his lip and black stubble on his chin), but he was not even as tall as Norbert Caldwell. He wore almost all black, even his hat, boots, and mask with eye-holes, but he also sported a bold red cape that dragged along on the ground behind him. He looked like a mix of Yosemite Sam, Zorro, and the Hamburgler all rolled into one small but scowling package. The only reason not to laugh (and it was good enough) was the gleaming silver revolver he was pointing at Norbert Caldwell’s back. Still, some of the children did giggle a bit, at which the little man scowled all the more.
“Quiet!” he hissed. Mr. Pickens probably didn’t hear him, because he was hard of hearing to begin with.
“Hey, what is this?” the driver asked simply. “Are you tryin’ to hijack us?” Mr. Pickens had a very straightforward way of putting things.
“You will keep silent and do as you’re told,” said the little man. “Drive this bus to the bank!”
“Hold on a minute!” croaked Mr. Pickens. “I’m not stopping anywhere until I drop these kids off, so just hold your horses! You can do whatever you like to me, but these kids are going to school!”
“Silence!” the man barked as he whipped his gun as close as he could reach it to Mr. Pickens’ face. “You are going to the bank – am I understood?”
Mr. Pickens just frowned and faced the road again as he began to drive. Truth be told, in his younger days he would have picked the little hijacker up and tossed him unceremoniously out into the ditch without thinking twice about it; but now he was nearing eighty, and he had very bad arthritis in his wrists. And so he drove.
“Who are you?” inquired Chet Westminster, who was sitting calmly beside Byron.
The little man flipped his cape with his free hand and struck a dramatic pose. “I – am Shorty McManus!”
There was no name recognition whatsoever on that bus, but there was more amusement, for several children laughed and one (it sounded like Albert Sikes) piped up, “Yeah, you’re short, all right!”
At this the little man narrowed his eyes through his mask and pursed his lips. “That will be enough talking! You will all remain seated!” This caught the children’s attention enough so that a little girl in the back began to whimper and then cry. Byron Warren sneaked a peek and found that it was Raquel Proudfoot; then he furrowed his brow and began to think.
Meanwhile, it was not a very long drive to the bank; in fact, in that town it was never a particularly long drive to anywhere one might have a mind to go. Mr. Pickens pulled up to the bank and then stopped. He turned to face Shorty McManus.
“Is this where you wanted me to go?” he asked with no little annoyance in his voice.
“Yes, if this is the bank,” answered the small hijacker. “I assume it is?”
“Well, read the sign!” snapped Mr. Pickens. “Or can you read?”
This was not the time to be comedic, even if your comedy did have a deliberately sarcastic edge to it. McManus furiously reached back his free hand (which almost got caught in the folds of his over-large red cape) and slapped Mr. Pickens. However, since Shorty McManus was no taller than the level of the seated Mr. Pickens’ knees, that was the body part with which his hand collided. Mr. Pickens having a bad case of arthritis in his knees as well as his wrists, that was enough to make the old man howl in pain.
“Ow! Why you little…” Mr. Pickens remembered that there were children on the bus – and thus he didn’t say what he wanted to say.
“Now, listen! You will go into the bank and do exactly as I say.” McManus reached into his pocket with his free hand and produced a piece of paper, which he thrust toward Mr. Pickens. “Give the bank teller this note – and no funny business! I will be watching you very carefully from here…and if you do anything at all…” With a significant look he pointed his gun toward the seated children.
Mr. Pickens was very flustered. “And what if I don’t?”
Shorty McManus smiled wickedly. “I’m afraid you don’t have that choice.”
Mr. Pickens, still flustered, slowly got up and began to walk toward the door of the bus. Just as he was about to reluctantly exit, he was stopped cold by a sound that even he could hear very clearly.
“AAAAAAHHHH!!!! AAAARRGGHHH – GAAAACK!!!” With these garbled screams, the little would-be bank robber was thrown to the floor by the flying body of one Byron Warren, who had hurled himself out of his seat to tackle his enemy. As the two were struggling on the floor, Byron reached for McManus’s gun hand, which he bit with all his might (and, incidentally, left deep in Shorty’s flesh the tooth that had been loose for six weeks). Just before he dropped his gun, Shorty fired a fortunately harmless bullet up into the roof of the bus.
“I’ve got his gun!” Chet Westminster screamed as he leapt up, eager to help nab a real-live bad guy in any way he could. He snatched the weapon up and then shakily trained it on McManus, who was now pinned to the ground by the huffing and puffing Byron Warren, who was having surprisingly little trouble keeping him down.
“That’s the way, boys!” cried Mr. Pickens, who was no longer looking to exit the bus. However, he did peer out the door for a moment and at that precise second he spied a police officer across the street. However weakened he was physically with age, there was still one thing that Mr. Pickens could do better than anyone else in the county – whistle through his teeth. And that he did with a shrillness which would have temporarily deafened either of us had we been there.
The police officer heard it from across the street, and he jerked around with a start. Mr. Pickens urgently beckoned him to come to their aid, and the policeman, quite frankly, did not come all at once. He was quite unused to having to be called for anything.
But he eventually did come, and when he did, and saw what the situation was, he too whistled through his teeth (albeit quite a bit more weakly than the old man had).
“Well! What do ya know about that?” he said with a chuckle in his voice. “If it’s not Shorty McManus himself! We’ve been hearin’ about this guy for months down at the station. And to think we’d catch him right here in town! Boy!”
The officer was so amazed that he almost forgot to slap the handcuffs on his new prisoner, but he fortunately was not completely forgetful. The cuffs had no sooner clicked into place than Shorty McManus was carried away – quite literally – by the policeman, darting an unspeakably disgusted and ugly look at Mr. Pickens and his young charges as he went.
I don’t need to tell you how Mr. Pickens and all the children were the toast of the town for the rest of the year. Indeed, they held not one, but four parades in their honor, and in each one they rode in the very same rickety green school bus in which the whole thing happened. Mr. Pickens refused to take much credit for it all, saying that the children had done all the dirty work; however, he loved to tell the story to anyone who asked to hear it. He was indeed proud of the bullet hole in the roof above his seat, and he turned down several offers to repair it for free.
As for Byron Warren, the main hero of the day, he was quite humble in his fame. In fact, the thing he was proudest of was the fact that he had lost his loose tooth. Imagine his and Chet Westminster’s surprised elation when they discovered that the empty space left in between Byron’s bottom teeth made him look just like Gunther Booth! And ever afterward, when young Byron would stand up to some bully who was pestering Raquel Proudfoot, and say, “Aw, go pick on somebody your own size!”, his words had a profound and added weight. For Byron Warren had once done just that, but in a way nobody would have believed if it had not been entirely true.
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