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Brad Chiles and Judy Reeves had been reluctant about but ultimately quick to go away. The baby, who Fred Jones had snatched, was sleeping on the waste paper basket. The tuft of golden hair and the little button of a nose on him belonged to Judy, but the strong jaw was all Brad. His sympathy for the baby decreased with each look…
The night was quiet, Fred Jones stretched the old blueprints of the Planispheric Disk and tried to figure out Professor Pericles’s notes. Work advanced slowly. Fred’s mind was preoccupied with the ethical implications of his actions. Ransoming a kid had been his lowest point, but that was a temporary situation. One year, maybe two, and then Jones could return this little human to its progenitors.
The sooner he solved the mystery, the quicker he could return the baby.
The old ticking clock filled the air before the worst sound known to human ears. Fred Jones rolled up the blueprints and picked up the crying baby from the basket. As the eardrum-splitting cries filled the night, Fred checked the baby's diaper, offered him a bottle, rocked the baby but nothing stopped his inconsolable cries.
“It won’t be like this for long,” Fred Jones said out loud as he held the screaming child against his shoulder.
The baby clutched Fred’s collar and kicked as he cried.
Freddie ran through the big house, stumbling over the rolled-up banners for the next Mayoral Election. Fred Jones ended up calling the baby Fred Jones Jr. when someone asked for his son’s name. In his hurry to get Brad Chiles and Judy Reeves out of Crystal Cove he never asked for the kid’s name, nor did they utter it even once.
The more Fred Jones thought on the issue, the more he doubted those two felt particularly inconvenienced by the kidnapping of their child.
“Dad,” Freddie said and clung to Fred’s slacks, “I made something super cool in the background.”
“Later, Freddie,” Fred admonished as he pried Freddie’s fingers from his clothes. He had a crate of food to bring to the big kitchen.
So many things had changed in the last two years. Kids were expensive, so Fred Jones had to find a job with higher pay and many chances for economic advancement. This house was sold with all the furniture and the strange trophies, but it was in a good district with good schools. The next step in his plan was to win the next Election…
“YAY!” Freddie cried with happiness.
With a smile, Fred Jones peered through the window to the backyard. There was his son, dancing under a crude cage made with sticks and twine. A frantic squirrel was doing cartwheels inside the hanging trap.
“It won’t be like this for long,” Fred Jones muttered to himself and returned to his task.
Freddie was only four years old, Fred had all the time in the world to train him out of those bad habits his biological parents passed on to him. Freddie was his now, and he would make the boy a proper man.
Being called to the Principal’s office as a parent is bad enough; when you are the Mayor of the city, it is positively vexing. Freddie sat in front of the desk with an unconcerned expression on his face despite the colorful description he'd given of his main teacher. Fred Jones pinched the bridge of his nose in desperation.
“As you can see,” Mrs. Thomas began to sum up the issue, “Freddie is promoting a very unsafe environment for his peers.”
“They are fine,” Freddie dared to protest, as he crossed his arms over his white t-shirt with a blue round collar. “All my traps are safe!”
“Fred,” Mr. Jones called out. “Quiet. The adults are talking.”
Freddie sunk down into his seat and kicked his feet. Fred Jones turned his attention to Mrs. Thomas. The elder lady looked very unimpressed by his show of parenting.
“You were saying?”
“Freddie is suspended for a week.”
“A week?” Mr. Jones cried out. “I’m a single parent, don’t you know that?”
“I have taken that into consideration, Mr. Jones,” Mrs. Thomas conceded with a wry smile, “I also took into consideration that you are the Mayor. You have to understand, Freddie can’t go ensnaring other students in makeshift traps during recess without consequences.”
“I understand,” Fred Jones said and looked down.
Freddie was looking at him with big hurt eyes. Missing school meant he had to spend long hours locked inside that big house or sitting in a corner of his father’s office. A boring prospect to bear for any child, a thousand times worse for an active, adventurous kid like his son. Maybe this could be the time for them to talk about the importance of respecting private property.
“It won’t be like this for long,” Mayor Jones said after he let out his breath. “Come along, Freddie.”
Freddie was standing on the kitchen bay, smearing spread over two slices of bread. Freddie was twelve, but he had been growing like weeds. It was a good thing he was two cents short of a dollar or else he would have had to deal with questions about his height and his broad shoulders.
His son was growing up so fast…
Fred Jones Sr. had been so busy managing this son of his that he barely noticed ten years had passed like a breeze, and he had barely made any progress in his search for the other parts of the Planispheric Disk.
“Freddie,” Mayor Jones called out as he got inside the kitchen.
“Dad… We agreed that you will call me ‘Fred’ now,” his son complained as he usually did when Mayor Jones fell into old habits.
“We need to talk about this.”
A tattered magazine slid over the bar and Freddie turned red when the scantily clad women on the cover came into his range of view. Mayor Jones stood there with both arms crossed in the perfect effigy of a judging parent. Inside, he was elated because his son’s interests were finally branching out.
“I read it for the articles,” Freddie protested with his eyes down and his hands balled into tight fists.
“If that were true,” Mayor Jones argued back with a tired sigh, “you wouldn’t have to hide it.”
Mayor Jones walked over to Freddie and put his hand on his son's shoulder. Fred looked at him with slightly raised eyebrows and quivering lips.
“It’s perfectly natural to be curious about women,” Mayor Jones said with a soft voice.
“Women?!” Freddie exclaimed and raised his hands in a defensive posture as he took a step back. “I was only watching the traps, I swear!”
“Cripplingly cackling crickets, Fred!” Mayor Jones exclaimed in desperation and took a step back. “You are old enough to read whatever you like, just don’t go around hiding them around the house, and especially, not in my room!”
Freddie nodded and picked up his magazine. Mayor Jones took consolation in the fact that it won’t be like this for long. His son was growing up too fast, his obsessions wouldn’t last to his adult age.
Not many parents would like to see their only son behind bars, but Fred Jones Sr. was too used to the sight. Freddie and his friends got caught snooping around one of the many abandoned houses trying to solve another mystery…
“Sheriff Stone, please let the kids go,” Mayor Jones said, casting his son a disapproving look.
“But, Mayor…” Sheriff Bronson Stone whined as he did every time he caught Freddie and his friends meddling about town.
“I know, I know,” Fred Jones Sr. conceded. “They are putting the town tourist revenue in jeopardy, but they are minors, Sheriff. Minors with voting parents.”
Bronson Stone made a face before he took the key from his pocket. Mayor Jones always thought that it was a good thing he never involved this thickheaded man in all his dirty business with the touristic attractions. He was too shortsighted in the commercial sense.
The kids were released into the custody of their parents. Freddie began to smile when Mayor Jones escorted him out of the building with a strong grip over his shoulder.
“Don’t get used to it, Fred,” Mayor Jones said as his son strapped the seatbelt across his chest. “It won’t be like this for long. Once you’re an adult, there is nothing I can do for you.”
“Dad, we’re just solving mysteries,” Freddie dismissed the issue with all the confidence of his fifteen years. “It’s not like we are harming anyone.”
Mayor Fred Jones looked into the rearview mirror, and he noticed the weight of the obsession for chasing something. The way his skin wrinkled, the gray on his hair were the silent witnesses of not knowing when to stop…
And this young man by his side was following in his footsteps without knowing it.
The thought would be enough to break his heart, if he had one.
The water carried him away and by a stroke of luck, he could stand on solid ground. He knew he had to climb to safety, to escape with his prize… but he dithered in place. The kids’s—Suffering salamanders!, not all the kids, just his!—safety became a concern. Their heads began to pop up to the surface. They looked shocked but alive, and he couldn’t ask for more.
“Look, The Freak!” that stupid dog called out, and everyone turned to look at him.
Running in character was slow, but now that the eyes were on him, he had no other choice. The sharp claws of his disguise allowed him to climb easier over the cliff wall, but he was no match for a young man in his prime. Freddie caught him and, out of desperation, Fred Jones managed to kick him off.
The prospect of getting caught wasn’t as bad as the thought of Fred unmasking him.
He barely stepped into the ground and felt it crumbling. On the brink, and then he was on the hard stone ground again before his son’s quivering voice stopped him. That was the voice of the little boy who climbed into his bed each night, the same voice that once pierced his ears with joy…
He was a father, he didn’t think.
His hand barely snatched Fred’s hand, but that was enough to allow him to pull the boy into safety.
Fred, catching his breath on his knees, looked at him with gratitude.
Fred Jones Sr. turned around and ran. He knew his boy wouldn't look at him with love for long…