Magic Street Page 0,92

inside the - "

He fell silent for a moment, Yo Yo's hand on his shoulder. Then he got an urgent look about him and took off running for the garage of his own house. "Come on, Mack! You come along and help me dig that coffin up!"

"Better get a crowbar to open the lid!" cried Mack as he followed him over to his yard, his driveway. Before they got a pick and shovel and crowbar into the back of his SUV, they could hear Yo Yo's motorcycle taking off at top volume.

Ralph Chum was working late on a client's quarterlies when the phone rang. He picked it up.

"Barbara?" he said.

"Mr. Chum?" asked a male voice.

"Who is this?"

"This is Cecil Tucker, sir. I apologize for calling this late, but it might be an emergency." Ralph vaguely knew that Ceese Tucker was a policeman. Sabrina had mentioned it - she once had a thing for him, though of course it came to nothing.

A policeman calls at this time of night.

"Might be? Is something wrong with Barbara? Was there an accident?"

"Nothing like that," said Ceese. "Sir, is your daughter Sabrina at home?"

"She's asleep, Ceese." Was he actually asking her out, this long after her high school crush on him?

"I know she is, sir. I just wanted to make sure she was home. Sir, would you be willing to go and check on her?"

"Check on her? What are you talking about?"

"Sir, this is going to sound insane. Or like a cruel joke. But I assure you it is not a joke, and I am not insane. Please go into her room and look at her face."

"Look at her - "

"Make sure that nothing has happened to her face."

"What could happen to her face!"

"I told you it would sound crazy. All I can tell you is, think of how much Curtis Brown wishes he had checked on his daughter Tamika a little bit earlier."

"Please check your daughter, sir."

Ralph knew that this was insane, but Ceese sounded so grave, and the thought of this somehow being linked to what happened to poor Tamika Brown... "All right," he said, but he still let annoyance come out in his voice.

"With the light on, sir," said Ceese.

"Yes, with the light on!"

Angrily, Ralph Chum got up from his desk, left his office, and padded through the house on slippered feet until he got to Sabrina's room. From the door he could see that she was fine. There was no need to turn the light on. This was some stupid prank, and now that Ceese was a cop, Ralph could complain about him to somebody with more influence on him than his parents.

He turned away but now the fear came to the surface. Was it possible that Curtis Brown was telling the truth? That something strange and terrible had happened to Tamika and, as he said when he wept on the stand, he might have saved her in time if only he had believed that such things were even possible.

What was it Ceese wanted him to check for? Poor Sabrina, with her nose that seemed to spread halfway across her face. Should he wake her up by turning on the light, and then tell her that Ceese Tucker wanted him to look at her face to see if anything was wrong with it? He knew what Sabrina would say: Of course something's wrong with it. Even plastic surgeons refuse to work on it because narrowing my nostrils enough to make a difference would leave scars and make me look like a monster instead of just a freak. And then she'd cry. And when Barbara got home from her office retreat she'd be furious at him and...

And he had to look.

He turned on the light. Sabrina stirred a little but did not wake. Ralph walked into the room and looked at her. She was lying on her side, facing the wall. Ralph couldn't really see. When he leaned over her, his own shadow obscured her features.

So he sighed, reached out, and pulled at her shoulder.

She rolled over and opened her eyes.

There was a growth the size and texture of a walnut on the right side of her nose, the side that had been on the pillow.

"What is that," murmured Ralph.

"What?" said Sabrina.

"There's something growing there. Near your... eye."

"Ow," she said.

Where she had touched it, a little blood came to the surface.

"What is it, Daddy? It hurts. Oh, it hurts."

"Get up and get dressed," he said. "We're taking you to the emergency room."

"What