"Would you like me to be?"

"It doesn't matter to me. I was just asking a question."

"No, I have business here in London, but your contact there will be a Mr. Dempsey. Perhaps you should write that down. He will meet you at the Borders store in Manchester."

"Okay, Mr. Dempsey. And should I be there thirty minutes early?"

"It would be a good idea, though I don't expect the crowds there, like you had here. Much of the crowd here today came to see the Queen, and stayed to buy your book, just because the Queen did so."

"So I have not really attained rock star status?"

"Not hardly, though I must admit that I am surprised by the turnout so far. I am going back to your table, When you are ready, come on back and we will resume the signing."

Travis finished the meal, made a brief stop at the men's water closet, then returned to his table, to see that the line had once again formed all the way across the store. He sat down and resumed signing books.

He had signed thirty books when he recognized the person standing before him, though he couldn't remember his name. It was the professor from Speaker's Corner.

"Good evening, Mr. Lee! I tried to get a book signed this afternoon, but the line was intolerably long!"

"Yes, sorry about that."

"No apology necessary. You appear to be doing quite well."

"Professor Winthrop, right?"

"Yes, Rodney Winthrop. I can hardly wait to sit down and read your book. I have been reading the first chapter as I stood in line. Remember that you are invited to Benny's Pub, when this is over. I will be there with my friends, until quite late."

"I can't promise that I'll be there. My son might have other plans, but if not, I just might stop in for a while."

"Wonderful! I hope you can make it!"

The next hour and a half flew by. The line never slacked up, and there were a lot of disappointed people when the store owner announced that he was cutting the line off at fifteen, but they had to draw the line somewhere, or else they would be there all night. Even so, it was almost eight when Travis signed the last book. He had cramps in his writing hand, as he got up from the table.

"Thank goodness it's over!" he told Angel, as she finished her business with the store owner.

"A grueling ordeal?"

"No, not really. I enjoy the notoriety, but my hand is really tired."

"A good sort of tired?"

"Yes."

"Well, rest it up before tomorrow, because it will be more of the same. In the meantime, I know what is very good therapy for a tired writing hand, as well as the whole body. A good long soak in the hot tub! It just so happens that I have one at my apartment!"

"Sorry, I can't make it. Like I said, prior family commitments."

"Oh poo! Once you return home, you can spend all the time you wish with your family! But you may be here only once! Wouldn't you like to spend a little time with me?"

"I have spent most of the day with you already."

"Only since two, and that is only six hours! Just give me two more hours of your time!"

"Can't do it. Sorry."

"At least let me drop you off at your hotel."

"I can take the subway."

"Oh mercy, no! Not this time of the evening. There are shady characters riding the subway at night!"

"Characters that are probably no more shady than those who offer you a ride to their hot tub!"

Angel smiled, but seemed a little hurt nonetheless. "Just a ride to your hotel, I promise. The ride is from Jester Books, not from me. I have an obligation to make sure you get safely to your hotel from one of our events."

"Okay, since you put it that way, I'll accept a ride."

"The taxi should be here in a few minutes, after we have wrapped up things. Why don't you mingle with the customers while I finish up. Perhaps sign a few more books?"

"I'm surprised that we didn't run out of books."

"No chance of that. We brought 1500 over here this morning, just for the book signing. We also sent a truck out to Manchester with a load, for your signing tomorrow. No chance we will run out, when a book is in such demand as yours. We don't have a #1 bestseller every day, and we must take advantage of the demand, while it is there. I was impressed that the Queen came out. She almost never does that."

Within ten minutes, they were standing on the curb, waiting for their taxi. She was still trying to persuade him to soak in her hot tub, as the taxi arrived. As he was getting out at his hotel, she reminded him to be at the book store in Manchester thirty minutes early, if possible. Then she was gone.

Travis sighed with relief. There was just something about being around Angel that made him tense, and it was a relief to get away from her. The door man opened the door for him, and he went straight up to his room, to see what they wanted to do with what was left with the evening. What he found, was his Mom about to go to bed.

"What are you doing? It's only 8:30. I thought we might go out and see London at night."

"But I am bone tired, Travis, and my back is hurting. I did a lot more walking than I'm used to. Mrs. Parker and I stayed in the museum all day, and I am worn out! But I had a very good time."

"Where is Drew?"

"He went out with the girls."

"What girls?"

"The girls who came on this trip with us."

"You let Drew go out on the town with a group of college girls? Mom, what were you thinking?" (He could envision a video ent.i.tled 'Girls Gone Wild-London Edition', with a smiling Drew right in the middle of it.) "I was thinking he might have a good time."

"I'm sure he will! Would you have let me go out like that when I was 17?"

"Don't worry! They have a chaperone with them. Nikki said she would keep a close eye on them."

"On fourteen college girls? She can't possibly keep up with them all."

"I didn't say they all went. Just five or six, including that girl that Drew is kind of sweet on. What's her name?"

"Audrey?"

"Yes, Audrey. Nikki said they were just going to do some sidewalk shopping, and see the sights."

Bar-hopping, more like it, Travis thought, but if Nikki was with them, she wouldn't let things get out of control. "Okay, I guess they'll be all right."

"So, how did your book signing go? You are awfully late getting in! Have you been out cating around?"

Wasn't that just like his Mom? She let's Drew go bar-hopping with a group of college girls, then gives him the 3rd degree for being late. "The book signing was over at eight. I probably signed over 700 books, and my writing hand is numb!"

"Sounds like you did pretty well!"

"It was incredible! Even before I got there, the line was backed up out the front door! It didn't slack up all day! And oh yeah, you'll never guess who the first one in line was!"

"Who? Someone I know?"

"Not personally, but someone you have heard of, I'm sure."

"Tell me. I'm too tired to guess."

"The Queen!"

"What Queen?"

"THE Queen! Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen of England!"

In spite of her exhaustion, she laughed out loud. "Travis, Travis, Travis! What an imagination you have!"

"You don't believe me?"

"Travis, I am sure the Queen has a lot more important things to do, than stand in line at a book store! No, I don't believe you. Just like I didn't believe that you sat beside Princess Diana last year when you went to Greece!"

"That happened too!"

"I'm too tired for this. I'll see you in the morning."

Travis felt as though he was being treated like a kid who had told a whopper of a lie. Back when he was 9 or 10 years old, he kept seeing a black bear in the woods around his house, but no one would believe him. Black bears just did not live in Central Alabama, everyone told him. He decided that he would have to kill the bear, to prove it existed. But at the time, he was not allowed to carry a gun bigger than a pellet gun, so he hunted the bear with a pellet gun, and finally saw it again. It was occupied with digging in a rotten log for grub worms, when he popped him with the pellet gun. The bear didn't even feel it. He popped him again, and this time the bear felt it, because he scratched at the spot with his paw. He was pumping up his pellet gun for a third shot, when the bear heard him, and stood up on his hind legs and sniffed the air in his direction. Then the bear started running toward him. He dropped the pellet gun and ran to the nearest poplar tree, and shimmied up it fast as a squirrel. The bear stopped at the base of the tree and sniffed up toward him, then decided a tender little boy was probably a better treat than grub worms, and started climbing up the tree right behind him. Travis was terrified. He climbed higher in the tree, hoping that the bear was afraid of heights, but apparently he wasn't. He kept right on coming! When he got to the slender tree-top, he could go no farther without risking the tree top breaking out, but the bear kept coming, so he pushed the limits, and the tree began to fall over, with the weight of the two of them. He was hoping he would fall into a pine tree, so he could grab the pine limbs, and leave the bear stranded on the poplar tree. But poplar trees are very brittle, and right before he was close enough to grab the pine limbs, there was a loud 'SNAP', and the entire tree-top broke out. He and the bear both cried out as they went crashing toward the ground. As soon as he hit the ground, he was up and running, and didn't look back. A mile away, he realized he had a sprained ankle, and that the bear apparently did not pursue him. He limped on home with this fantastic tale of shooting this bear with his pellet gun, and how this bear had chased him up a tree, and the tree came crashing down, and that was how he got this sprained ankle.

Incredibly, no one believed him. He was once again told that bears simply did not roam Central Alabama any more. No one had seen a bear here in over fifty years. He was dismissed as a kid with a rich imagination. But to him, it was like being called a liar, and it didn't set well.

Three months later, a bewildered deer hunter killed a black bear in those same woods. The hunter killed his bear. It made all the local newspapers, the hunter posing with his trophy. Yet no one thought to apologize to him for calling him a liar.

That was the way he felt last year, when he flew from London to Paris sitting beside Princess Diana, and no one believed him. And now, his own mother didn't believe he had the Queen at his book signing. What did he have to do? Shoot the Queen and pose with her for the cameras?

"Where are you going, Travis?"

"Out. To a pub called Benny's. Don't wait up for me."

26.

The three Lee boys had been in Laurel Grove, playing basketball with friends, and now, nearing lunch time, they were hitching a ride back home in the back of old man Pickett's beat-up truck. Their neighbor, Mr. Pickett had been hauling goats to market, so the back of his truck was a tad smelly, but hitch-hikers could not be choosey. Joey was filling Calvin in on basically what they intended to do Wednesday night after the church play.

"Okay, we are already going to have a truck, a real casket, and a 'dead' guy in the casket, which will be Chris here. Chris is playing Lazarus in the church play, so he will already be dressed like a mummy. All we have to do, is drive him around in the back of the truck, and show him to a few people. See, Chris will ride in the casket, like a dead person. We pull up to a place like the Dari Delite, which will be swarming with people after church, and ask if anyone wants to see a dead body. Of course, everyone will, so we tell them to gather around the truck, but be ready to be grossed out, because the body is pretty ripe. So everybody is gathered around, as we slowly raise the lid to the casket, and there is Chris, laying there like a dead person! While everybody is gawking at him, Chris starts to raise up out of the casket! We scream, 'Everybody run, he's alive!' It will be great, because the girls will scream, and the guys will jump back all scared! It'll be neat!"

"Yeah! Sounds like a good Halloween prank!" Calvin said. "Why don't we wait until Halloween night to do this?"

"Are you kidding? Halloween is too far off! Besides, all our ducks will already be in a row to do it Wednesday night, after church. We'll have a truck, the casket, and a legitimate reason to be out with both, and Chris will already be dressed up like a mummy! It's perfect! All we got to do, is make a few stops to 'show him off'! No problem, n.o.body gets hurt! When we get back home, n.o.body will even know we did it, except us! It'll be a great prank!"

"Yeah, sounds good, and for once, I'm not going to be the guinea pig, Chris is!"

"Yeah, see! That makes it even better!"

"But we need to fix Chris up a little. Maybe put some fake blood on him, to make him look scary!"

"Yeah, we can do that! Make him look really dead and gruesome. Won't n.o.body get a real good look at him before he starts raising up, and by that time, everybody is going to be running for their lives!"

"Yeah, sounds good! Hey look, a fire truck!" Calvin pointed to a truck that just pa.s.sed them, headed back toward town. They looked back, to see the name 'Arlington' on the fire engine as it pa.s.sed. "Wow, must have been a big fire, for the Arlington Fire Department to come help with it."

"Well, Laurel Grove only has one truck, and I wouldn't count on them to put out a fire in a barrel!" Joey said, then added, "I wonder where the fire was?"

"It had to be out where we live somewhere. Look! There comes another one!" They watched another fire truck pa.s.s. It was not in a hurry, so it had to be coming back from putting a fire out.

"That one is from Montevallo! Wow, it must have been some fire. I wonder if Mom knows anything about it?"

"If she doesn't, she can call Mary. Mary keeps up with everything. Here's our stop." They banged on the top of the truck cab, and old man Pickett pulled over at their driveway. They piled out of the truck, thanked Mr. Pickett, and crossed the road, where Rebecca was waiting for them with her car. She had just come from her college summer school cla.s.s, and had stopped to get the mail.

"I thought you boys might want a ride to the house."

"Yeah, sure. Hey Rebecca, you know anything about a fire out this way?"

"No, but I saw the trucks just pa.s.s. I was at the University all day, so I don't know. At least we know it's not at our house." The three boys packed into the small car, and made the quarter mile ride home, then piled back out. They found their mother in the kitchen, with her hands clasped to her face, as though worried.

"Hey Mom!" Joey said, "Do you know where the fire was out this way?"

"Yes, I am afraid I do. Do you know Mr. Deason?"

"You mean Bob Deason?"

"Yes."

"His house burned to the ground this morning, . . . with him in it! I was watching it on the local news this afternoon."

"Wow. So he didn't make it out alive?"