The sign turns out to be a great big strawberry. TODAY IS STRAWBERRY FEST!!! is written below it. What, Ty Marshall wonders, is a Strawberry Fest? A party, something strictly for old folks? It's a question, but not a very interesting one. After mulling it over for a few seconds, he turns his bike and prepares to ride back down to Chase Street.
Charles Burnside enters the men's room at the head of the Daisy corridor, still grinning and clutching Butch's pet rock. To his right is a line of sinks with a mirror over each one — they are the sort of metal mirrors one finds in the toilets of lower-class bars and saloons. In one of these, Burny sees his own grinning reflection. In another, the one closest the window, he sees a small boy in a Milwaukee Brewers T-shirt. The boy is standing astride his bike, just outside the gate, reading the Strawberry Fest! sign.
Burny begins to drool. There is nothing discreet about it, either. Burny drools like a wolf in a fairy tale, white curds of foamy spit leaking from the corners of his mouth and flowing over the slack, liver-colored roll of his lower lip. The drool runs down his chin like a stream of soapsuds. He wipes at it absently with the back of one gnarled hand and shakes it to the floor in a splatter, never taking his eyes from the mirror. The boy in the mirror is not one of this creature's poor lost babies — Ty Marshall has lived in French Landing his whole life and knows exactly where he is — but he could be. He could very easily become lost, and wind up in a certain room. A certain cell. Or trudging toward a strange horizon on burning, bleeding footsies.
Especially if Burny has his way. He will have to move fast, but as we have already noted, Charles Burnside can, with the proper motivation, move very fast indeed.
"Gorg," he says to the mirror. He speaks this nonsense word in a perfectly clear, perfectly flat midwestern accent. "Come, Gorg."
And without waiting to see what comes next — he knows what comes next — Burny turns and walks toward the line of four toilet stalls. He steps into the second from the left and closes the door.
Tyler has just remounted his bike when the hedge rustles ten feet from the Strawberry Fest! sign. A large black crow shrugs its way out of the greenery and onto the Queen Street sidewalk. It regards the boy with a lively, intelligent eye. It stands with its black legs spread, opens its beak, and speaks. "Gorg!"
Tyler looks at it, beginning to smile, not sure he heard this but ready to be delighted (at ten, he's always ready to be delighted, always primed to believe the unbelievable). "What? Did you say something?"
The crow flutters its glossy wings and cocks its head in a way that renders the ugly almost charming.
"Gorg! Ty!"
The boy laughs. It said his name! The crow said his name!
He dismounts his bike, puts it on the kickstand, and takes a couple of steps toward the crow. Thoughts of Amy St. Pierre and Johnny Irkenham are — unfortunately — the furthest things from his mind.
He thinks the crow will surely fly away when he steps toward it, but it only flutters its wings a little and takes a slide-step toward the bushy darkness of the hedge.
"Did you say my name?"
"Gorg! Ty! Abbalah!"
For a moment Ty's smile falters. That last word is almost familiar to him, and the associations, although faint, are not exactly pleasant. It makes him think of his mother, for some reason. Then the crow says his name again; surely it is saying Ty.
Tyler takes another step away from Queen Street and toward the black bird. The crow takes a corresponding step, sidling closer still to the bulk of the hedge. There is no one on the street; this part of French Landing is dreaming in the morning sunshine. Ty takes another step toward his doom, and all the worlds tremble.
Ebbie, Ronnie, and T.J. come swaggering out of the 7-Eleven, where the raghead behind the counter has just served them blueberry Slurpees (raghead is just one of many pejorative terms Ebbie has picked up from his dad). They also have fresh packs of Magic cards, two packs each.
Ebbie, his lips already smeared blue, turns to T.J. "Go on downstreet and get the slowpoke."
T.J. looks injured. "Why me?"
"Because Ronnie bought the cards, dumbwit. Go on, hurry up."
"Why do we need him, Ebbie?" Ronnie asks. He leans against the bike rack, noshing on the cold, sweet chips of ice.
"Because I say so," Ebbie replies loftily. The fact is, Tyler Marshall usually has money on Fridays. In fact, Tyler has money almost every day. His parents are loaded. Ebbie, who is being raised (if you can call it that) by a single father who has a crappy janitor's job, has already conceived a vague hate for Tyler on this account; the first humiliations aren't far away, and the first beatings will follow soon after. But now all he wants is more Magic cards, a third pack for each of them. The fact that Tyler doesn't even like Magic that much will only make getting him to pony up that much sweeter.
But first they have to get the little slowpoke up here. Or the little po-sloke, as mush-mouthed Ronnie calls him. Ebbie likes that, and thinks he will start using it. Po-sloke. A good word. Makes fun of Ty and Ronnie at the same time. Two for the price of one.