The Madrona Heroes Register: Underneath It All

Chapter 35 - The Ice Cream Break

“Fair enough Gabe. And points for honesty!” Kay laughed heartily. “And to be quite honest myself, I kind of agree. I know you all have your favorites, but I have some new items I’ve been experimenting with. Would you be willing to be my guinea pigs?”

From the freezer below, Kay pulled out several trays of frozen confections. One tray was filled with what looked like watermelon slices. In reality they were entirely made of ice cream, with little white and dark chocolate ‘seeds’. Summer seemed to be the theme as another tray had little cups filled with what looked like local blackberries but each turned out to be made from Kay’s renowned blackberry sorbet set into blackberry-shaped molds.

The final tray was the oddest of all as it was filled with what looked just like baseballs.

“That’s ice cream?” Penny asked.

Kay’s eyes went large as she nodded, smiling. “Yep.”

“They look just like baseballs.” Gabe said in admiration.

The kids all huddled closer to marvel at Kay’s creations.

“They look so real.” Penny marveled.

“They come in a bunch of flavors. Each one is draped in white chocolate. And I can’t even begin to tell you how long it took me to get the stitching to look so realistic. I was worried by the time I figured it out, baseball season would be over.”

As Kay distributed the last of the ice cream, she added, “And remember, these are for eating, not for playing with. They would just melt all over your gloves and make a big mess.”

Most of the ice cream baseballs were well on their way to being eaten. Cassie was going the slowest as usual. She had taken a watermelon slice and was claiming she wanted it to last cause it was “so watermelonly delicious”. By this time the kids were the only customers in Soul Repair.

“Everyone feeling replenished I hope?” Kay sat down at the table with the kids. “OK. Let’s talk about where you’re going to look next for your furry friend.”

“We’ve been everywhere.” Zoe sounded hopeless.

“Well, you haven’t been everywhere.” Kay said confidently. “Or you would have found him already.”

“We’ve looked in all the parks, the alleys, the woods, everywhere he likes to walk.” Penny said.

“So you’ve looked in all the places you think he should be. Now it’s time for you to look in places he shouldn’t be.” Kay nodded seriously.

“If he’s not where we think he is, then he must be where we think he isn’t?” Zach asked.

“Exactly.” Kay smiled.

§

Gore Grater felt lucky that he’d met that old man in the baseball cap. He was even feeling kind of happy. The emotion surprised him. The old guy had been absolutely sure no kids ever came into the woods. And that made sense to Gore as the woods made his skin crawl. Gore wasn’t afraid of much, but that place was positively frightening. But thanks to the old man’s assurances that the kids were just as scared of the woods, Gore could avoid them as part of his surveillance.

Gore fished around on his front seat for the ever-present bag of chips, but to his disappointment, it was already empty. It had been so hot out, that chips weren’t what he really wanted anyway. He was still sweaty from his adventure in the woods, and really wanted to cool down. 

Gore had driven by Soul Repair, the neighborhood ice cream shop several times already, but had never had the time to stop in. He knew Dr. Trace was eager for him to make progress, but he was human after all and deserved a break. A quick stop into the ice cream shop wouldn’t hurt anyone. Gore eased his black sedan into a parking spot across the street.

As he raised his considerable bulk out of the front seat, he glanced over to the ice cream shop and saw a mass of curly hair sticking out the front door. Several children behind her. That was the girl who had cried over the cat a couple of weeks earlier. Once again Gore Grater had found his quarry when he least expected it. Gore started moving faster.

§

“What are you doing?” Gabe whined as Zoe shoved him back into the shop.

“It’s him!” Zoe said, almost gasping for air.

“Who?” Binny peeked out of the window. “Oh no.” She answered the question herself.

“Everything okay?” Kay appeared by the door.

“There’s a man following us. He’s coming straight here. We need to get away.” Binny said the words as fast as she could.

Cassie and Gabe were trembling. The older kids weren’t doing much better.

If they’d expected Kay to not take them seriously, they were wrong. She didn’t question. She didn’t doubt. She pointed in the direction of the back of the shop and said two words, “This way.”

Kay glided across Soul Repair’s smooth wood floors to the back wall. Centered in the wall with a chimney rising to Soul Repair’s second floor loft area, was a fireplace. When Madrona was icy, the fireplace would be called into action, and Soul Repair would get extra toasty and everyone would want to come in for hot chocolate.

Kay pushed hard on a brick on the right side of the chimney and the entire inner chamber of the fireplace moved to the left a few inches. Kay then grabbed the now exposed edge and pulled the bricks all the way to the left revealing a passage beyond.

“No dallying please. Let’s go. One by one.” Kay ushered each of the six children through the makeshift brick gateway. When the last of them were through, Kay put her index finger to her lips and then pulled the inner portion of the fireplace back into place.

§

Zach found the light switch just in time before the secret sliding fireplace closed them in total darkness. A small table lamp lit the room. Little pale yellow ‘shingles’ made of glass, and outlined in lead covered the surface of the shade. At the bottom of the shade brown, green, and red panes of different shapes seemed to make a ring of owls, silently watching the children.

The lamp sat on a small but tall table. Like what you would see at the entrance to a restaurant. Behind the table was a floor to ceiling curtain in deep burgundy crushed velvet. The space the children were in was small and cramped but none of them dared say a word. Through the recently repositioned fireplace they could hear yelling.

“I know what I saw.” Gore Grater boomed.

“You look like you’ve been working hard. Maybe your eyes are a little tired?” Kay Athanasios responded calmly.

Grater returned from poking his head out the back door off the small kitchen in Kay’s store. He’d seen no signs of anything other than a lone garbage dumpster in either direction down the long alley behind the row of shops. They must be inside.

“We have some new flavors.” Kay said, keeping her voice light.

The children heard Grater’s considerable bulk pounding up the stairs.

“They must have gone somewhere.” Grater sounded deeply frustrated to the children.

“Why don’t we set you up with some ice cream.” Kay’s voice carried gently from behind the wall.

“That sounds great actually, because guess what? I’m not leaving until those kids come out of whatever hole you’ve stuffed them in.”

The next sound they heard was one of Grater plopping down in the big easy chair right in front of the fireplace.