Harp's Song:

by

Aaron Aachen

A Harp (and his mother) Mystery

The court-appointed attorney admitted it: Harp was a little odd. But he loved his mother. He wouldn't hurt her, let alone kill her. He said Harp was a nice lad, gentle and soft-spoken. He'd had a rough childhood, but he wasn't a bad kid at heart.

The prosecutor said the evidence proved it was arson, not an accident. Harp was the only suspect.

So the judge took the two attorneys to his chambers and they sat in big comfortable chairs to talk about what to do with this strange young man who had no family and nowhere to go. They had a little bourbon in their coffee and they talked for a while about whether Tennessee whiskey was as good as Kentucky whiskey. Then they agreed on a compromise: Harp should be locked up in the East Aurora State Mental Hospital. Forever.

Wake up.

Harp wakes up. Is someone there?

He listens.

He doesn't hear anything except the sound of his own breathing. Maybe it was just a bad dream.

He smells the sharp, tarry smell of the old wood and realizes he's safe, hiding in his secret little hole up under the pier. He's like the boy who got away by hiding in the witch's hut in the deep, dark forest. Nobody can hurt you if they can't find you.

No, no, no, he can't let this happen again. He'll . . . he'll get up and run away.

He pushes the sand away and crawls out. It's still dark, and really cold. The fog is so thick it makes the dark seem even darker. He piles the sand back up to hide his secret place and slides down to the flat part of the beach.

Above him, the old pier looks dark and spooky in the fog. It's like . . . like the dark skeleton of the evil giant in the story about the boy who had the magic sword. All the boy had to do was cry out, "All heads off but mine," and the giants would lie dead right at his feet--with no heads on any of them. If only he had a magic sword like that he could--

Oh no, it is her. And she's talking again, just like she did after the funeral. He has to get away.

He starts to run, but he trips over something and falls down.

What did he trip over? He sits up and tries to see through the fog. There's a dark shape on the sand. It looks like . . . Is it a person? "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to step on you."

The shape doesn't move.

Harp crawls a little closer. The shape is a person. It must be somebody else without a home to go to, somebody else who slept under the pier last night. The person is all curled up, close to the water's edge. Maybe he's drunk. Harp has seen some of the homeless men get so drunk you'd think they were dead. Maybe he's so drunk he doesn't even realize he's lying too close to the water. He'd better wake him up. He cautiously touches the person. "Wake up. You'll get all wet."

The person still doesn't move.

Harp pulls away his hand and feels wetness between his fingers. It feels thick and . . . sticky, not like water.

Oh no, Harp doesn't want it to be blood. He wipes his hand on his jacket. It can't be blood.

"No you're not. Besides, I told you I'm not listening to you anymore." He puts his fingers in his ears. That's how to stop her. He'll shut her out. He'll shut everything out, like when the witch stopped up the ears of the white maiden so she couldn't hear anything but her own crying. He rocks forward and back, listening to the roaring inside his head, waiting for his heart to slow down.

Is she gone? He cautiously takes his fingers out of his ears.

"No. Stop that. I don't want to think about that old Cock Robin rhyme anymore. I hate that one. That one makes the bad dreams come."

"My fault? I didn't do anything."

"What should I do?"

"But shouldn't I do something for him?"

Dead? No, no, no, Harp doesn't want to think about the person being dead. This can't be happening, not really. Maybe he's dreaming. Maybe he'll wake up and it will be morning. A nice warm sun. And there won't be any dead people lying on the sand.

He looks out of the corner of his eye. The dark shape is still there. He has the very bad feeling that he may not be able to stop this reality. Mother always said reality works like walking on a carpet that's unrolling out in front of you. As it unrolls, you begin to see the patterns. And when you see the whole pattern, it's too late to change it because it's already happened. Harp is beginning to think this is one of those. This is real.

"I do?" He looks closer. From the person's small size, it could be . . . Is it Little Hilly?

He'd been talking to Little Hilly only yesterday. Little Hilly'd found a broken crutch in the trash and said he was going to do some panhandling down at Venice Beach. He said the crutch would make people want to give him money so he borrowed Harp's Hat to hold out to the people.

Harp quickly crawls back up to his secret hiding place under the pier and digs his backpack out of the sand. He feels around inside it until he finds his little flashlight. He slides back down and shines the light on the body. Oh no. It is Little Hilly. And his eyes are open.

Harp jumps back. He quickly turns around in a circle, then he goes back the other way to confuse Little Hilly's ghost. He doesn't want to go wherever Little Hilly is going. He knows all about that look of eyes staring at nothing. When he was back on Ward D-4, he woke up one morning and saw Bacon Benny in his cot across the aisle, staring just like that. He soon found out Benny wasn't really staring at anything. He was dead.

He shines his light on the back of Little Hilly's old coat. It's wet with dark red blood and there are long tears in it. Somebody must have stabbed poor Little Hilly, and then did it some more. It's like they didn't want to stop.

But why would somebody want to kill Little Hilly? He didn't have anything to steal. Nobody who lives on the beach has anything to steal.

Wait a minute, where's Big Hilly? Big Hilly and Little Hilly were always together. That's why they were called Big Hilly and Little Hilly. Big Hilly was tall with a big chest. Little Hilly was . . . little.

"So what? Why should that matter?"

"I don't need to think about him being the same size as me. That's not important."

"No, it's not important. I'm not going to listen to you anymore. What's important is Big Hilly's missing. Maybe he did it."

Harp stares at Little Hilly's body, wondering what he should do. One time, Little Hilly found some pizza in the dumpster and shared it with him. It must mean Little Hilly wanted to be his friend. Nobody else ever shared anything. While they ate the pizza, Little Hilly asked him questions. Nobody else ever did that either. Little Hilly even asked him if he was happy. Harp wasn't sure how to answer that question so he just said, "I don't know. Are you happy?" Little Hilly didn't look up at first. He stared at his piece of pizza for a long time, then he said, "I've never once been happy in my whole life." Then he took a bite of his pizza and shook his head. He had a sad look on his face. He said, "Why don't we get to be happy like other people? It's not fair. If we can't be happy, we might as well be dead."

Ever since then, Harp often thought about what Little Hilly'd said. Now he wonders if Little Hilly was right. Is it really better to be dead if you aren't happy?

Harp remembers being unhappy when he was little, but he's not unhappy now, is he? Being happy isn't important anyway, not really. What's important is staying warm, and finding things to eat.

And being careful. So you don't end up dead, like Little Hilly.

He snaps off his flashlight and stares down at the dark shape of Little Hilly's body.

That's right. Maybe there isn't anything he can do for Little Hilly. He's already dead and once something is really, really real, there's no way to make it not real again. Mother used to say that once the milk is already spilt there's no use crying about it. Maybe he should just run away before somebody finds out.

He puts his backpack on and hurries away from the pier. He doesn't want to think about Little Hilly's staring eyes anymore.

He stops. "What?"

Maybe he should check one more time. He goes back under the pier and creeps close to Little Hilly, staying behind him to make sure those staring eyes can't get him. "What am I looking for?"

Harp sits down on the sand and looks in Little Hilly's pockets. In one pocket he finds a broken plastic hospital bracelet. He shines his flashlight on the writing. It says, Santa Monica General Hospital Emergency Room. John Doe. February 11, 1986.

Who is John Doe? And when was February the eleventh? Yesterday? Maybe. But why had Little Hilly been in the emergency room? Was he sick?

He looks in Little Hilly's other pocket and finds three one-dollar bills, all crumpled up. They're wet. He also finds three quarters. It must be money he got from yesterday's panhandling. So if he made some money from panhandling, why didn't he share it like he said he would?

Harp stuffs the money and the hospital bracelet into his pocket. Little Hilly can't use the money now. And he shouldn't have kept it all for himself anyhow.

Harp gets up and stands over Little Hilly's body. What are you supposed to do when you find a dead person? Aren't you supposed to tell somebody? The police?

Better not tell the police. Even if he tells them he didn't do it, they might not believe him. They'd look up his record and find out the judge said he had to be locked up in that mental hospital and then they'd find out when they closed down the hospital he wasn't supposed to be let out with the others.

Maybe it is better to go somewhere else. A lot of people will come to the beach as soon as the fog goes away. They'll find Little Hilly. They'll know what to do. He turns to go.

He turns back and shines his flashlight on Little Hilly's head. No hat.

Harp frantically shines his flashlight everywhere under the pier. There's no sign of it. He rolls Little Hilly over to look under him. It's not there.

"It's not my fault. Little Hilly lost it. It's his fault."

Harp grabs his backpack and heads down the beach away from the pier, staying close to the water. The fog surrounds him. It makes him feel like he's all alone, as if the world is gone and he's the only one left, only him and poor dead Little Hilly lying back there on the cold, wet sand.

A shape in the fog is coming toward him, moving fast.

"Morning." The shape waves and goes on past.

It's only a runner. Harp knows those runners come early every morning to run back and forth on the beach.

The runner disappears into the fog, heading toward the pier.

Harp hurries on. Maybe she's wrong. Maybe that runner didn't notice him.

Then, from somewhere in the fog farther down the beach, he hears a strange sound. What is it?

She's right. It's a dog, and it's . . . howling. But then it stops.

Using his left hand, Harp makes the secret sign of the upside-down cross, like Mother taught him. It will fool death into passing on by. He repeats the magic sign twice more, just to make sure.

He hurries on, shivering. Why does it have to be so cold and foggy? Why won't the sun come up? The night is going on too long, like the long, long nights in the closet.

He walks faster, trying to get warm. He wishes his jacket wasn't so thin. He turns up the collar and pulls his jacket tighter around himself. He hopes the sun will come up soon so somebody will find poor Little Hilly and take care of him.

No, no, no, Harp doesn't want to think about that. He shakes off that bad thought. Maybe he's too hungry so his brain is making up bad things. That's it, he should go find something to eat.

The best place to find food is in the dumpsters back on the pier. Should he go back there?

But the pier is the only place to find food. There's almost always something good to eat in those dumpsters. Maybe even pizza. Compared to everything else in the garbage, pizza is the best. When it's still in it's nice cardboard box it means it's hardly been touched by anybody. But you have to get there before anyone else. He'd better hurry.

He hurries across the sand toward the lights of the strand sidewalk. When he gets there, he heads back toward the pier as fast as he can, walking head-down against the cold breeze that's coming straight from the north. He hums the little song Mother taught him about the north wind: "The north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will poor Cock Robin do then? Poor thing. He'll sit in a barn, and keep himself warm, and hide his head under his wing."

That bad north wind is pushing newspapers along the sidewalk right at him.

He sees one coming and jumps to the side to make sure it doesn't touch him.

Two young girls walking the other way laugh out loud. One of them hides some words behind her hand and they both laugh again and hurry on.

Harp looks the other way. He doesn't care if they laugh. He remembers a story Mother read to him about Simpleton, the king's youngest son. They all laughed at that boy too, just because he believed in magic toads. But in the end Simpleton showed them. The toads brought out their magic box and gave him everything he ever wanted. Harp hurries on, whispering a good poem from that story: "Little green toad, hopping hither and thither. Hop to the door and see who is there."

Harp soon sees why there were so many papers blowing: the trash cans along the sidewalk are overflowing with paper and beer bottles and paper cups and plastic bags. There's as much trash lying around the cans as inside of them. But then Harp realizes it's not only dangerous, it means something. It means it must be the weekend. People aren't careful on the weekends.

He hurries on and when he gets to the pier, he goes up the steps and heads straight for the dumpsters. But before he can get there, he sees some people lined up at the railing along the side of the pier. They're all leaning out, looking down. Did they find Little Hilly already?

He wants to go find out what they're looking at, but the lights are too bright out there. What would those regular people think of him? His clothes are all worn out and dirty. Maybe he even smells funny. How long since it's been warm enough to get under the outdoor beach showers to get clean? He can't remember.

He looks down at his old jacket. It's not only worn out, it has something all over the front of it. What is it?

He whispers, "Blood? Oh no. What should I do?"

"No, stop that. I told you I don't want to hear that bad old Cock Robin rhyme anymore."

"I'm not listening. I'm not listening." If all she can say is that stupid old rhyme, he doesn't have to listen to her.

But she may be right. It does look like blood. He must have got some of Little Hilly's blood on himself. How did that happen? His throat is starting to feel that tightness again.

He looks around to see if anybody is watching. Luckily, they're all too busy looking over the railing. He quickly takes off his jacket and stuffs it into his backpack. Without his jacket on, it feels even colder. When is that sun going to come up? He looks up at the sky. There is a slight glow out over the city, a bit of orange light coming through the dirty fog. It means the sun has got to be out there somewhere. If only it would come up now.

He quickly turns away. He knows the sun will take even longer to come up if he wants it too much. He won't be like the silly boy in that story who was so afraid of the dark he wished the sun would never go down. When that boy got his wish, the sun got stuck up in the sky and nobody could ever go to sleep anymore.

He looks back at the people out by the railing. A man in a cap that says "Dodgers" on the front of it, has climbed over the railing and is leaning way out, hanging onto the light pole.

Harp goes a little closer to listen.

The man yells, "A guy in a suit just went under the pier. I bet it's the coroner."

"Did they say who the dead man is?" says a woman who's dressed in a big brown coat that has lots of pockets. That tells Harp she's one of the fisherpeople who come out early every morning to try to catch fish off the end of the pier.

The Dodgers hat man looks back at her and shrugs. "Probably just another homeless guy. Got drunk and froze down there, I bet."

"It was sort of cold last night," says the fisherwoman," but it wasn't that cold. He couldn't have froze."

Another man with no hair except for a little bit on the sides shakes his head. "I was down there before they put up the yellow tape. It was a little guy. I think he got shot."

"Who says he got shot?" says the Dodgers-hat guy, climbing back over the railing. "I bet he just got drunk and froze."

"It wasn't that cold," insists the fisherwoman.

"He had blood all over his back," says the little-bit-of-hair man. "I saw it."

The Dodgers-hat man and the fisherwoman look at each other and shrug. Everyone goes back to leaning over the railing, looking down.

He'd better forget about finding something to eat and go to the outdoor wash-basins by the Pavilion restrooms and give his jacket a good washing. People might get suspicious of somebody who has blood all over their jacket.

But before Harp can get off the pier, he sees Detective Olivera coming up the stairs from the beach. The policeman has on his usual brown suit, but this time he's got his badge out and pinned to his front pocket. Everybody on the beach knows Detective Olivera. His black car with the silver spotlight on it is the only car that's allowed to drive on the strand sidewalk.

Harp looks the other way and keeps going.

But it's too late. Olivera spots him and yells, "Hey, wait up, kid. I got to ask you something."

Harp slows, but doesn't turn to face the detective. All of a sudden he's worried that maybe he got some of Little Hilly's blood on him somewhere besides his jacket. He puts his hands in his pants pockets and keeps on walking.

"Come on now, kid, stop. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Harp has a moment's hope that maybe Detective Olivera is going to ask him about something else. Maybe it's not about Little Hilly. He stops and turns around.

Olivera stares at him, frowning. "I know you, don't I? Haven't I seen you around here before?"

Harp shrugs and tries not to look at Olivera's square face and his funny little mustache. That thin little mustache is so silly it makes Harp want to laugh.

But then he remembers about maybe having blood on his hands and the funny thought goes away.

"You live around here? You got a home?"

Harp shakes his head.

The policeman gets his face close to Harp's face. His breath smells like beans and onions. "No home, eh? You live on the beach?"

Harp doesn't like to answer questions because he never knows how people want you to answer. They might even ask you questions when they don't really want an answer. When he was little and went to school, one teacher said, "Now Harper, we don't just get up and walk out of class anytime we want to, now do we?" Those kinds of questions were not real questions. Mother used to ask those kinds of questions too. Like, "Harp, why don't you listen when I tell you something? Why are you always daydreaming?" Mother didn't really want an answer to those questions either.

It feels like Olivera's dark eyes are drilling into his head. It makes it hard to look away.

"Are you listening to me, kid? Wake up. What's your name?"

"Uh, Harp."

"Okay, Harp, now listen close. This is important. You know the guy they call Big Hilly? Big guy. Bout this tall." Olivera holds his hand up higher than his own head.

Harp shrugs.

"Damn it, gimme a yes or no. Getting anything out of you guys is like pullin' teeth. Do you know where I might find this Big Hilly guy or not?"

Harp shakes his head.

"Out loud."

"Uh, no, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I know him, but I don't know where he is."

"Did you see him yesterday? He was probably with a little guy, the one you people call Little Hilly."

Harp nods.

"Where were they?"

"By Papa Pan's."

"Papa Pan's? Oh, you mean Papa's Pan Pizza. Down at Venice Beach?"

"Uh huh."

"What were they doing down there? Panhandling as usual?"

"I guess so."

The detective pokes at the weathered wood of the pier with the front of his shoe. Harp notices that most of the policeman's black shoes are all scuffed and dirty, but the front parts are very shiny. Harp wonders why the policeman doesn't make all of his shoes shine instead of just the front parts.

"Let me tell you somethin', Harp. We found the little guy, Little Hilly, down there under the pier. Dead. He got stabbed. Buncha times. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Harp shakes his head and tries not to change the expression on his face. He stares over the detective's shoulder and tries not to think about Little Hilly lying there with his eyes staring. He tries to think about beans and onions, even though he doesn't like them. His stomach complains out loud.

"Are you hungry, Harp? We could go up to Denny's and talk. I'll buy you some bacon and eggs."

Harp's stomach thinks bacon and eggs sounds very good.

Harp shakes his head.

"Not hungry, eh? I'll bet you are, but have it your way. What I need to know is what the guys down here are saying about Little Hilly. You get me?"

Harp nods and starts to turn away, but the policeman gets ahold of his sleeve. "Wait a minute, kid. How old are you?"

Harp shrugs.

"What does that mean? You don't know? Or you won't tell me."

"Eighteen?"

Olivera stares at him.

Harp stands up taller and shrugs. He smiles at the policeman and tries to keep an innocent, but older, look on his face.

"Yeah, well, maybe you're eighteen and maybe you're not. Little guy like you, hard to say. One of these days I may have to see if we've got anything written up on you downtown."

Olivera seems to be trying to look inside of Harp's eyes. Harp doesn't want the detective to see inside his head so he looks down at the old dark wood of the pier. At the mental hospital, he learned not to look authority in the eye. You got punished for that. You got put on Mitch's shit-list for that, and getting on Mitch's shit-list meant you were in big trouble. As soon as Harp got put on Ward D-4 he learned fast: don't look anyone in the eye, do what you're told, pay attention.

"Hey, listen to what I'm sayin'. Where did you sleep last night? Around here?"

Harp shakes his head.

"No? Well, let's forget where you slept, for now. You see anything funny going on last night?"

Harp shrugs and looks down at his own shoes. They're all scuffed up and they're very dirty. They need a good cleaning. He hears something and he looks up to see that a few of the fisherpeople have come up behind the policeman to find out what's going on. They're whispering among themselves and pointing at Harp.

Detective Olivera notices Harp is looking past him and turns around. He waves his hands to make the people go away. "All right, all right, move it along. We're just talking here."

"Is he the one who did it, officer?" It's the fisherwoman in the brown coat with all the big pockets. She's looking at Harp like she's just caught some kind of bad fish she doesn't like the looks of.

The policeman waves his hands again. "Like I said, we're just having a little chat. Get out of here. All of you!"

The fisherwoman shrugs and walks away. The others slowly drift off too.

Olivera turns back to Harp. Harp smells the beans and onions again and tries to turn away. But the policeman grabs his chin and says, "Don't look away when I'm talking to you, kid."

He has such a tight grip on Harp's chin, it hurts. But then he lets go and smiles. He puts his arm over Harp's shoulders and leads him to the railing. "Let's have a little talk, Harp. I got a proposition for you."

Harp doesn't like being out there by the edge of the pier where everybody can see him talking to Olivera. If some of the other homeless men come by and see them talking together like that they won't like it. Nobody on the beach likes it when the police come around, especially if it's Detective Olivera. He's always snooping around, stopping homeless people to ask them questions, even though nobody ever tells him anything. Harp hasn't been on the beach all that long, but he's been there long enough to know you aren't supposed to talk to the police because people might think you're telling on them.

"Okay, Harp, here's the deal. You help me and I'll help you. I don't know where you came from or what it was made you end up down here on the beach, but I can forget to check on that if you help me out with this little situation we got here. You get along with me and things will go a lot easier for you here. Ask anybody about that. They'll tell you. But get on my wrong side and it'll be a different story. You get my meaning?"

Harp looks past Detective Olivera and tries to think what to say. Out over the water, he sees two seagulls dancing together in the air. They swoop and dive and rise up again to circle around each other. They seem to be having fun. If only he could be a bird like that and fly away above everybody.

"Hey, kid, are you listening to me? I'm giving you a break here. All you got to do is ask around a bit, let me know what your homeless pals are saying about this Little Hilly thing. You and me can be friends, get it? Tight, like this." Olivera crosses one of fingers over and holds his hand up in front of Harp's face. "You be my eyes and ears down here on the beach and maybe sometime I'll be in a position to do you a little favor or two in return. You get my drift?"

"Yes, sir."

"On the other hand, you give me trouble and maybe I'll just have to take you downtown and see what we got on you. A kid like you, hangin' out down here on the beach. It ain't right. Gotta be some reason for it. You wouldn't like that would you, goin' downtown with me?"

"No, sir."

"All right. That's better. Gimme your hand." Olivera takes a pen out of his pocket.

"My hand?" Harp puts his hands behind him.

"I said hold out your damn hand."

Harp doesn't want to hold out his hand. What if he sees the blood? Olivera's waiting, frowning at him. Harp knows he has to do something.

Then he has an idea. If there is blood on his hands, maybe it will be mostly on his right hand, the one he touched Little Hilly with. He holds out his left hand and tries to keep it from shaking. He looks past the policeman, but the two dancing seagulls are gone.

Olivera grabs Harp's fingers really tight and writes a number on the back of his hand.

Harp looks at the number.

"That's my phone number down at the station. You hear anything, you go to a pay phone and call this number. Got it?"

Harp nods. "Yes, sir, but . . ."

Olivera frowns. "But what?"

"Never mind."

"Come on, kid, out with it. I got things to do."

"But what if . . . Big Hilly . . . didn't do it?"

Olivera puts the end of his pen in his mouth and chews on it. "You know something? What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing, sir. Really. It's just that . . . Big Hilly . . . really liked his little buddy."

Olivera takes the pen out of his mouth and taps Harp on the chest with it. "So maybe they had a lover's quarrel. Ever think of that?"

Harp shakes his head. "I didn't think they are . . . were . . . like that."

"Oh no? You think not? I hear things too, you know."

Now Harp isn't so sure about the Hillys. Maybe Detective Olivera does know something. But Harp never saw Big Hilly kissing Little Hilly, or doing anything with his hands like he's seen the ones who are like that do.

He shrugs.

"Well, that doesn't matter anyhow," says Olivera. "I'm pretty sure one of you people did it. I'll find out which one sooner or later. You know, if you don't help me, maybe I'll get suspicious of you. You wouldn't like that, would you?"

"No, sir."

"Well then, your job is to find out who really did it. Let me know anything you hear. If people are saying somebody else besides Big Hilly did it, then I want to know about it. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"And don't tell anybody you talked to me. Just ask around like you're curious or something. You know, nose around, act like you're trying to solve the case yourself. Okay?"

"Yes, sir, but . . ."

"Now what?"

"How do I . . . I mean, how do you . . . solve a case?"

"Like I said, use your eyes and ears. Ask people questions. Look for clues. First thing I'd do is find out who had it in for this Little Hilly character. That'll lead you to the main suspects. You with me?"

"I guess so."

"Right. Now get goin'." Olivera waves him away and Harp hurries off the pier without looking back.

Harp feels a sense of doom. It's like in the story about the king's youngest son who could only stay out of prison by bringing back the golden bird. Except now he has to bring back Little Hilly's killer, instead of only a golden bird. He wishes he had the magic fox to help him like that boy did.

"Why did Olivera pick on me? Why do I have to be Olivera's eyes and ears?"

Harp chews at the inside of his cheek. What if Olivera does go downtown to look up his record?

Harp doesn't want to think about scary things like getting locked up again. He'll just concentrate on walking and not think about anything else. He'll keep up a good rhythm and walk fast and everything will be fine. He whispers an old rhyme. "As I walked by myself and talked to myself, myself said to me." He stamps his left foot, right on time with the last word. "Look to thyself, take care of thyself, for nobody cares for thee but me." He stamps again.

Harp looks up. A man sitting on a bench is watching him. The man only has one leg and two crutches are lying on the bench next to him. The man is smiling, like he's happy about something.

Harp keeps his eyes on the ground and goes on past. It doesn't matter if people are staring. He glances up at the sky. The sun has finally decided to come out from behind the fog and it's starting to get nice and warm. It makes him smile. If that man with one leg can smile, why can't he? Normally, Harp doesn't like to let his face show what he's feeling, but Little Hilly said he should try to be happier, so he maybe he should. Maybe if he smiles he'll feel happier inside.

Now that the sun has come up, there are a lot more people on the sidewalk. Harp stays to the side, out of their way. Are they looking at him? Do any of them suspect him? He has to get to the outdoor wash basins and get his jacket washed up before they find out what's on it.

He stops. "What?"

Oh no. He completely forgot to write in his diary that morning. A mistake. Break the pattern and the carpet of reality might start to unravel.

He hurries to the nearest bench. Ignoring the people passing by, he takes his diary out of his backpack and opens it to where he left off. It tells about walking, looking at people, searching for food. He can see right away the writing is bad, as if he wasn't caring enough when he wrote the story of that day. To make it right he'll have to do it all over again. He crosses out all of that day's words and turns to a new page. He stares at it, waiting.

Oh, that's right. He almost forgot to start with the morning prayer. He writes:

Thank you Lord for letting me live today.

Let others die instead of me, this I pray.

Now for yesterday's story. He closes his eyes and goes back to waiting. He will just have to wait until the words are ready to come. When they're ready, they'll fly down out of the sky and jump right into his head. If he tries to make them talk when they're not ready, they'll just cause trouble.

"No, I have to wait for the words."

He waits. He's being patient.

"But the words aren't coming."

He opens his eyes. Maybe he shouldn't waste time writing yesterday's story. Nothing happened yesterday anyhow except Little Hilly borrowed his hat. Better to write what happened today. He licks the tip of his pencil and begins:

I woke up. It was still dark. It was cold.

I couldn't remember how I got to the pier last night.

I got up and I tripped over

He stops writing and reads the words. They're no good. It's not a story, it's only words. The words say what happened, but they don't feel like what happened. When he reads it again later, how will he remember how it felt?

He looks up at the sky, looking for the words. But all he sees is the last wisps of fog swirling around his head. Maybe that thick fog last night got inside his brain and made everything all cloudy and evil. Or maybe it's because of what happened to Little Hilly. His brain might be all filled up with thinking about all those slashes in the back of Little Hilly's coat. Or with thinking about Little Hilly's staring eyes. Remembering that makes him feel very sad. Maybe he's too sad to write this morning.

But shouldn't he at least write down what happened, even if he can't get the feeling right? If he doesn't write down everything that happens every single day how will he know it really happened and he didn't make it up? He begins to write again:

1. Little Hilly got stabbed.

Lots of times. Was somebody mad at him?

2. Hospital bracelet in his pocket.

February 11. Who is John Doe?

3. Where is Big Hilly? Why wasn't he there to protect his little buddy?

Cain and Abel?

Harp looks up from his writing. "Like what?"

"My hat? Should I write something about Little Hilly borrowing my hat?"

"So what? Why should I write that down?"

"No, no, no, I already said I didn't want to write that. So what if it was dark? So what if Little Hilly was wearing my hat?"

Harp looks around. The people are just passing by, like usual. Everybody is looking the other way like they don't want to look at him.

"It's a mistake to write down bad things," he whispers. "It might make the bad things really happen."

"No, they're not. Nobody would want to kill me. You're the one who's crazy."

He puts his fingers in his ears. It's not true. Who would want to hurt him? No and no again. And that's final. The carpet of that reality is still rolled up tight. It's Little Hilly who's dead, not him, and that's all there is to it. It's too bad somebody had to die, but there's nothing he can do about it now. It's time to put away the diary and stop thinking bad thoughts. It's time to get up and go back to walking. He has to find something to eat. And besides, there's clues that have to be looked for. Detective Olivera said so.

He slaps his diary closed. He's written enough. Everything is going to be all right now.

He puts his diary away in his backpack and stands up. Now, what's next?

"Oh, that's right." He has to go get that blood washed off of his jacket.

He starts walking again, keeping his head down, being careful not to look at anybody. That way nobody can use their eyes to cast a spell on him. Mother always warned him that some people's eyes were like cat's eyes; they could mesmerize you and make you do things you didn't want to do. And she said there are some people who have eyes like mirrors that can make you hate yourself. And mirrors can be bad too. Mother only allowed one mirror in the house, the one she had in her room. It was always covered with a special black cloth so no light could get through to it.

Now that he thinks about it, he hardly ever went into Mother's room. Honest.

To keep away from the people's eyes, he concentrates on looking down at the sidewalk.

That's right, the night forces. In the months he's been on the beach, he's learned a secret about that sidewalk. There are night forces hidden under there, bad things that are trying to get out. In the night, when nobody is looking, the night forces make cracks in the sidewalk that look like terrible pictures. One time, in the night, the entire world shook and it woke him up. To calm himself after the shaking, he went to walking and found a bunch of new cracks in the strand sidewalk that made pictures: crazy-looking animals, mean things with big eyes in the wrong places and upside down noses and mouths big enough to swallow you. Some of those mouths had sharp-looking teeth, but a lot of the teeth had fallen out and were scattered all over the place, little points and angles of sidewalk pieces that would never find their way back into the evil mouths again.

Harp decides not to think about the scary pictures in the sidewalk anymore. He should be looking for clues. Detective Olivera said he should nose around and act like he was trying to solve the case himself. But how do you nose around? Did it mean he should go up and down the strand asking people questions like Olivera does?

Maybe he should just stop thinking about who killed Little Hilly. Maybe he should only think more important things, like . . . like being hungry. That's right, he never did find anything to eat.

As he passes the stand where they stir the caramel corn around and around in their great big pot, his stomach complains out loud. He looks around to see if anybody heard, but the people are still going right on by like they don't even notice him. His stomach is telling him he's got to find something to eat soon. Where to look? Then his brain remembers something. What about the big stack of garbage where people throw stuff behind the sea wall on their way off the beach? Sometimes there's food left over from their beach picnics. There might even be some pizza in there. Harp's stomach grumbles again and urges him to go take a look.

This will only take a minute, then he'll go take care of the blood. He cuts through the parking lot and when he gets to the pile of garbage, he's happy to see that it's really big this time. His stomach aches with hope.

Harp knows he shouldn't eat things that have been touched by strangers, but how else is he going to take care of his complaining stomach?

He starts to paw through the pile, but it's mostly the regular stuff, dirty paper plates and paper cups and plastic bags and deflated balloons and wadded-up paper napkins and really smelly plastic baby diapers.

There's an old tennis shoe, but it looks too big for him. Besides, he can't see the other one. He spots a bottle, but after he digs it out, he sees that it's only a beer bottle. Not returnable for money. He throws it down and digs deeper into the pile. Wet newspapers. Cardboard. Somebody's dirty underpants. What are they doing here?

He holds them up. How could somebody lose their underpants? It's suspicious, but he can't think why it would have anything to do with Little Hilly so he throws them aside.

Then he sees the corner of a fairly clean looking pizza box, way out in the middle of the pile. The pile is really stinky, but he holds his nose and wades in, kicking aside bags and cups and bottles and cans and newspapers and sticky paper plates and a single sandy sock that's no good because it has a hole in the toe part.

When he finally makes it to the pizza box and opens it, it's a big disappointment. It's empty, except for a little bit of cheese stuck to the sides. He smells the inside of the box. It smells like pepperoni. His stomach aches at the yummy smell of it. He shouldn't have smelled it because it only makes him hungrier. He drops the pizza box and digs some more. Soon he finds another pizza box, buried way down deep in the pile. He pulls it out. The outside doesn't look too dirty. This may be it. He takes a second to hope. "Help me, Lord, for I am really hungry." He opens the lid just a little bit and peeks in. There is something in there. Is it pizza? He opens it up. Yes, pizza, a whole piece. But there's something else in there too. Harp opens the box up wider. It's a mouse, a little teeny mouse. It looks up at him, wiggling its whiskers. Then, suddenly, it runs right across the back of Harp's hand and jumps away into the pile. It scares Harp so much he drops the box and the piece of pizza lands upside down right on top of all the dirty garbage. He quickly picks it up and tries to blow the dirt off of it. Maybe it's still clean enough to eat.

Harp puts down the piece of pizza, being careful to place it on top of a fairly clean-looking newspaper, just in case he doesn't find anything else. But then the mouse pops out from under the garbage and heads straight to the piece of pizza. Harp tries to shoo the little fellow away, but it bites the piece of pizza and won't let go. It starts to drag it away. Harp hesitates just a second too long before he makes a grab for it The mouse pulls the pizza under a stained white sack that says "Coffee Crazy" on it. It peeks back out, wiggles its whiskers, and then it's gone. Harp carefully moves the sack aside and sees a little hole. He peers down into it. It's dark down there and there's a strong smell of mouse coming out. The mouse must have a secret hiding place under there. Maybe there's hundreds and hundreds of mice down under the garbage pile, a kind of mouse city. Do they come out at night to eat the garbage, just like the homeless do?

That little mouse reminds him of what his teacher said when he was little. She told the class that mice and humans had evolved from a common ancestor.

When he told Mother about it, she got mad and said it wasn't true. She said God had created Adam and then made woman out of one of Adam's ribs. The next day, Harp went to the library to find out what was true and what wasn't true. He found a book that said mice were mammals, just like man, but all mammals had originally been fish. The book said the fish crawled up on the land and eventually turned into monkeys and it said it was an easy step from there to becoming human beings.

So, the book had disagreed with Mother. When he went home and told Mother what he'd read in the book, she wasn't happy about being a fish, or even a mammal. She got really mad and hit him a whole bunch of times.

He had to stay locked up in the closet all that night and it was soon after that when she said he couldn't go to school anymore. She said he had to stay home and help her because she was sick and needed him there with her all the time. From then on, Harp kept things he read to himself.

Harp tries to turn off those old thoughts. He looks up at the sky. The sun is getting warm. He should just think about the sun and nice things like that. But he always wondered if there were other things in those books that disagreed with what Mother said.

Harp remembers how nice and quiet it was at the library. Almost nobody else went there. At the library he could read as much as he wanted. He could even look at the big books full of famous paintings and some of them had pictures of women with no clothes on. He could look at those pictures all he wanted to and nobody could stop him.

Harp looks up at the sky, thinking about those pictures. Some of them showed women who . . .

Harp suddenly realizes he's still standing up to his knees in the middle of a big stinky pile of garbage. How long has he been there? He'd better keep track of where he is or who knows what could happen.

He must have been daydreaming again. Mother always said daydreaming was bad for him.

He struggles out of the garbage pile and heads back to the strand sidewalk.

He didn't find any food and he's still very hungry. But he can't worry about that right now. Right now he has to go get that blood washed off of his jacket. He can't keep on letting himself get distracted. Getting that blood washed off before anybody finds out is the most important thing in the world.

Harp hurries toward the public wash-basins, but he doesn't get far before he notices a lot of people gathered on the sidewalk in front of Billy Goat's Emporium. Billy's store is never open this early. So what are all those people doing there?

He goes closer and sees that it's only Bailey the Balancing Man with a chair balanced on his chin.

Maybe he doesn't have time to stop and watch. There's that blood that has to be taken care of. But he can at least wait until Bailey's cute little wife comes out in her bikini swimming suit.

The people watch as Bailey staggers around. He's pretending the chair is really heavy against his chin, but Harp knows Bailey balances that same chair up there every day.

Harp wonders why nobody is putting money in Bailey's jar. Maybe they're waiting for Bailey's cute little wife to come out. He hopes she'll come out soon.

Bailey keeps on balancing things until his wife finally comes dancing out, smiling and bowing and spinning around. Harp is always amazed at how tiny she is. She's really pretty in her little bikini swimming suit and some of the men whistle as she dances around. Today, she has on her red sparkly bikini. Harp likes that one the best.

Harp knows he shouldn't be watching her when she's dressed so skimpy like that, but she seems nice. She seems to like it when the men whistle at her and she puts her hand behind her head and smiles at them.

He'll just wait until she's up in the air. Then he'll go.

Harp concentrates on watching her and tries not to hear anything else.

Harp thinks it's funny that Bailey's wife doesn't pay any attention to Bailey. But when he puts his balancing chair down, she goes right over and sits on it. Bailey acts like he's surprised to see somebody sitting in his balancing chair. He scratches his head and circles around her. She crosses her legs and won't look at him. Bailey walks around and around her until suddenly he grabs the chair and lifts it right up into the air with her still sitting in it. He staggers around like he's about to drop her. She pretends to look really scared with her eyes opened up wide and her hands up to her mouth. Just when it looks like he can't hold her up much longer, he puts the chair leg on top of his chin and balances her there.

Everybody claps, but Harp is worried. Something's wrong. Bailey really does seem to be having trouble holding her up this time. He's shaking and he has a funny look on his face. He doesn't usually act like that. Is he only pretending?

Then it happens, just like Harp was afraid it would: the chair slips off of Bailey's chin and his little wife goes tumbling. Oh no, is she hurt?

Harp doesn't think everything should have to be his fault. He can't always keep the worried thoughts out of his head, but he didn't mean to make her fall down and get hurt.

She jumps right up, rubbing her bottom. She doesn't seem to be hurt very bad. She looks at Bailey and says, "What the hell's the matter with you today, Fred?"

Bailey shrugs and says, "I told you you were putting on weight."

She turns away from him and goes back to smiling and dancing and spinning around in front of all the people. Bailey grabs up his jar and goes to the people to try to get them to put money in it. But a lot of the people just walk away.

Harp decides he'd better not wait for the part where Bailey's wife stands on top of Bailey's head while he staggers around and acts like he's about to fall down. He might have more of those worried feelings and make her fall off again. But he waits until she comes dancing by with the jar to try to get money from the people. He smiles at her and she smiles back, just a little.

Maybe she wasn't really smiling at him. Maybe she was just smiling at everybody. He'll just walk away. No reason to look back. Let her smile at the other people. He doesn't care.

He hurries on down the sidewalk. Now he's really determined. He isn't going to stop anymore, not for anything. He'll keep right on going until he gets to the outdoor wash sinks and he'll get his jacket-washing and hand-washing taken care of. He'll be like the boy in the story who pushed the ghost down the stairs and just walked away without looking back.

Harp doesn't think that boy was a silly blockhead, not really. In fact, he was pretty smart. In the end he got the princess and the three chests full of gold, didn't he?

Harp puts his fingers in his ears and walks on. He thinks about all that money Bailey's cute little wife gets by holding the jar out to the people after Bailey finishes balancing her. Harp wishes he could balance things so he could get some of that money. As he walks, he holds his hands out wide like Bailey does and pretends to balance Bailey's cute little wife on top of his head. He can almost feel the weight of her up there. She's not very heavy, not really. He balances her very carefully, looking up at her ...

Harp looks around. A young boy is pointing at him. The little boy is holding a silver balloon that says, "Happy Birthday" on it. Harp smiles at him, but his mother takes him by the hand and quickly pulls him away.

Harp goes on down the strand, thinking about that silver birthday balloon. Why didn't he ever get to have a nice birthday balloon like that?

Harp stops thinking about silly old things. He's got to focus on what he's supposed to be doing. He was trying to find something to eat, wasn't he? He was thinking if only he could get some of Bailey's money he could buy himself something good to eat.

He doesn't want to think about blood. He wants to think about good things to eat.

But Harp doesn't want to think about dead things anymore. He especially doesn't want to think about that blood all over Little Hilly's back. But wait a minute, what about that money he found in Little Hilly's pocket, the money he made from panhandling and forgot to share. Little Hilly is dead now so he doesn't need money any more. He could use Little Hilly's money to buy something to eat if he wants to. His stomach murmurs that it likes that idea. He's almost to the Sunnysidewalk Cafe. He could walk right in there and get something good to eat.

But what if somebody in that restaurant starts to wonder where he got the money? And what if Little Hilly's money has blood on it? Better not take a chance.

He goes on down the strand, but now that the sun is out a lot more people are filling up the sidewalk. It's getting hard to stay out of their way.

He has to be very, very careful to not let anybody touch his body. You never know where those people's hands have been. He has to weave through the people like he's a snake, always watching their hands. It's scary because any one of them might sneak up and touch him when he's not looking and that might let them come into his dreams at night and make him do things he doesn't want to. There are roller skaters too. They're the worst. They come at you so fast you have to be ready to jump out of their way or else they might crash right into you. And not only that, now that it's getting warmer and sunnier there are people with cameras taking pictures.

He has to especially watch out for those people with cameras because Mother said they might take his picture and sell his soul to the Devil. But wait a minute. Who are those people with cameras? Would Detective Olivera think any of them are suspects? How were you supposed to tell? Are there certain clues that tell you what people to suspect?

He remembers Olivera's eyes, looking him over, trying to see inside his head. Good thing he hid his jacket in his backpack. If Olivera would have seen that blood on the front of his jacket he might have locked him up and thrown away the key.

When he got put on Ward D-4, the first thing Mitch told him was if he didn't mind his Ps and Qs the Growler would lock him in the Time-Out Closet. Mitch said he might throw away the key and leave him locked in that closet forever. Harp promised never to be bad, but Mitch locked him in that closet for a while anyhow, just to show him what it was like. The Time-Out Closet was very small and dark.

But Harp didn't mind the dark because it felt safe, like when Mother locked him in her little closet at home. But it was too cold in Mitch's closet and it was too small to move around so that made it feel even colder. Harp didn't like being cold and not able to move so from then on he made sure he never did everything exactly the way Mitch wanted them done. After a while, there was nobody better at doing things perfect on Ward D-4 than Harp. He was so good at doing everything exactly the right way he hardly ever got put into the Time-Out Closet again.

"No, it was because I did things right. The other men did things wrong. That's why they got put in there." Harp remembers the sound of them screaming inside that little closet, and clawing at the door. When they finally got out, they were even crazier than they were when they went in. "I'll just have to learn what Detective Olivera wants me to do."

But what if he can't figure out what Olivera wants? He might have to run away from the beach and go somewhere else. But where could he go? The thought of leaving the beach is really scary. What if he went somewhere else and they thought he acted funny and sent him back to some place like that mental hospital? Maybe Mitch would be there, waiting to get revenge on him.

Harp shakes off that scary thought. That can't happen. They took Mitch away even before the mental hospital was closed down. And Carl the Older said the President of the United States closed down all the other state mental hospitals like that so all the other men from Ward D-4 were gone away too. Where did they all go? He's never seen a single one of them on the beach.

But that's a good thing, isn't it? If anybody from that mental hospital saw him, they'd know where he came from. On the beach nobody knows who anybody used to be or where they came from or what they did that was so wrong.

But Olivera doesn't really suspect him, does he? He suspects Big Hilly. Maybe that's why Big Hilly went away. Maybe he found out Detective Olivera suspected him so he just ran away. Maybe his running away had something to do with the hospital bracelet. Harp takes out the broken plastic emergency room bracelet.

He stares at the bracelet. Maybe he should get rid of it. But so far it's his only clue. It was the only thing Little Hilly had in his pocket besides the money so it must be an important clue. He looks at the writing on the bracelet. Santa Monica General Hospital Emergency Room. Why was Little Hilly in the emergency room? Does it have something to do with why he was killed? Maybe he should go there and ask questions. Where is the Santa Monica General Hospital? It's not on the beach, that's for sure. It makes Harp nervous even to think about going away from the beach.

Harp puts the hospital bracelet back in his pocket, thinking about how hard it is to know what's an important clue and what isn't. Maybe everything is a clue and you just have to figure out what each thing means.

No really, it makes sense that a person who watches everything would see a lot of important clues. It would be like in the story when the grinning skull in the tower window watched everybody go by on the road below.

Oh, that's right. It was the brave little girl who watched, the one who brought her sisters back to life after they'd been hacked to pieces by the Devil. That little girl watched the Devil through her little window and saw how to trick him. Harp whispers the girl's words softly to himself. "I am looking through my little window. I see what you are doing."

Harp goes on down the strand sidewalk, determined to be the watcher who sees everything. He can't let himself get confused by things that don't matter, but he still has to watch for the things that do. Yesterday Little Hilly was alive and today he isn't. When one thing changes, other things have to change too. It's only logical. Some other things must have changed since yesterday. All he's got to do is keep on looking until he sees them. Now, what should he look at next?

Oh, that's right. The blood. Harp puts his head down and walks as fast as he can. He's not going to even look for any more clues until he gets that blood washed off.

When he gets to the outdoor sinks, some surfer boys are already there washing off their rubber clothes. Harp hangs back until they're finished. Then he goes to the sink that's farthest away from the sidewalk and quickly washes the phone number off of his hand. With that taken care of, he pulls his jacket out of his backpack. He's surprised to see how much blood is on it. How did that happen?

Well, no time now to worry about how it got on there, the important thing is to get it off. He frantically scrubs away at it. But it's stubborn. The darkest blood is washed off, but the outline of it is still there. He needs something to scrub with. He gets an idea. He takes off a shoe and sock and uses the sock to scrub the jacket. He scrubs it really hard, keeping the water running all the time.

That works pretty well. He's got most of the blood off, but now that part of the jacket looks too clean. It might make people notice it even more. Maybe he should make that part of the jacket really dirty so nobody will notice the blood underneath the dirt.

It's a good idea, really it is. He leaves his shoe on the sink and limps over to the grass. He finds a place where the grass has been worn thin by all the kids playing on it and he rubs the wet part of the jacket into the dirt.

He looks around to see if anybody's watching. Some kids are playing in the sand nearby, digging a big hole with plastic red shovels. One of them is staring at him. Harp waves to the boy, but he turns away and goes back to digging. That digging in the sand looks like fun. Harp tries to remember if Mother ever took him to the beach to dig in the sand.

Oh well, no time to think about that now. He picks up his jacket and inspects it. It's very dirty. Now nobody can see the blood underneath the dirt.

But as he stares at the big brown spot he begins to have doubts. Maybe people will wonder why he has mud all over the front of his jacket.

Maybe the dirt wasn't such a good idea after all.

He limps back over to the sink and washes the dirt off. But some of the dirt doesn't go away. Oh well, maybe there's just enough dirt to cover up the blood stain. See there, it was a good idea after all.

Just in time, Harp looks up to see Kate and Ralph, the beach bicycle cops, coming down the sidewalk. They're riding slow, looking in his direction.

He rolls up his wet jacket, grabs his sock and his shoe, and runs around to the front of the restroom building. He ducks inside and hides inside one of the stalls to wait until they go by.

But what if they come in after him and ask why his jacket is all wet? And they would say, "Why do you only have one shoe on?" He holds his breath and listens. Voices. Somebody is coming in.

"Did you see the knockers on that chick?"

"Which one?"

"The one with the knockers. You didn't see her?"

It's not Kate and Ralph. It's two boys. They go on saying bad things about girls while they pee, their voices echoing inside the small room. Harp stays perfectly still, not making a sound.

When the two boys finally go out, Harp sits down on the toilet and puts his wet sock back on. He looks at his old beat-up shoes. They are really dirty. He hates to put them back on without giving them a good washing too, but he'd better get away from there if Kate and Ralph are nosing around. Before he leaves, he takes out the three dollar bills and looks at them. They're still a little damp and there's some brown spots on them. Is that blood? It's not red like blood, but maybe blood changes color when it's on money. He decides to look again later, when he's out in the sunshine.

He puts the dollars back in his pocket and puts his jacket back on. The wet jacket soaks through and gets his shirt wet too. It feels cold against his skin.

Harp doesn't mind having a wet jacket and a wet shirt, not really. They'll dry eventually.

When he gets back outside, he peeks around the edge of the restroom building. The two bicycle cops are bicycling away down the sidewalk.

He hurries away in the opposite direction. His wet sock squishes inside his shoe as he walks, but he knows from experience that walking is the fastest way to get a wet sock dry. But what if the bottom of his shoe is so worn out the wet sock soaks through and leaves behind a wet footprint? That would make it easy for them to follow him. He whispers one of Mother's favorite Bible prayers to make sure they don't: "Dear Lord, save me from all them that persecute me lest they tear me apart like a lion. Diggeth them a pit and maketh them to fall into it so their mischief may falleth upon their own heads. Amen."

Harp sees them and quickly turns away, his hands over his eyes. That was close. He almost didn't see them in time. The Devil boys with their shaved heads and their big sign that says "Hare Krishna" always wait for him in front of the cotton candy stand. They're wearing their magic yellowish-orange clothes, trying to fool him because they look like the pajamas he used to wear when he was little.

Harp isn't fooled by their magic clothes. He knows if you get too close to the Devil boys they'll try to touch you and put their evil thoughts inside your mind. He makes the magic sign of the upside-down cross to ward off their eyes and walks seven steps backward so they won't be able to see him anymore. He counts each step, counting back from seven down to one.

It works. They don't notice him. But they're still there on the sidewalk, passing out their Devil papers to the off-beacher people. Harp gets completely off the sidewalk and goes around to the other side of the palm trees. He continues to walk backwards until he's way past them.

They don't see him. Good. Once he's far enough away to be safe, he gets back onto the sidewalk and hurries away, hoping the Devil boys won't try to follow him.

That's right. The devil worshippers should be swallowed up by the Lord's fire. But that makes Harp think of something else. What if those devil worshipers did it? Maybe they caught Little Hilly in the night and killed him.

Harp whispers that part of the rhyme: "Who caught his blood? I, said the Fish, with my little dish, I caught his blood." Could that be the answer? Did they want his blood?

That's right, the Devil boys could have killed Little Hilly to get his blood. Maybe he should call Detective Olivera and tell him.

But maybe Detective Olivera would want proof. All right, he'll find out by himself and then he'll tell Olivera. He'll keep his eye on those Devil worshipers until he gets some evidence on them. And he'll watch everybody else too. He'll be like the watcher king who watched all night to see who was eating the fruit from his magic pear tree. That king watched and watched until he caught the girl whose hands had been cut off by her father so the Devil wouldn't want her.

Harp decides he doesn't really want to be like that bad king. Instead, he'll be like . . . like the smart boy who learned what the dogs were saying when they barked, what the frogs were saying when they croaked, and what the birds were saying when they sang. If he was like that smart boy he could ask the dogs and the frogs and the birds to help him find out who killed Little Hilly.

Harp puts his fingers in his ears. He will too figure it out. All he has to do is watch for clues like Detective Olivera said he should. Sooner or later he'll figure out who did it. "I will," he whispers. "I really will."

-- Continued in Chapter 8 --

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