Tag: timmy and the bad place

Ah, my old friend/enemy in media res.

This wasn’t the first time Timmy had to run away on a wet winter’s night. It wasn’t even his — fourth, fifth time? He wasn’t really sure. Timmy got chased a lot, in this kind of weather. That’s why he wore boots that wouldn’t slip in the snow. You never knew.

He didn’t like being chased, but at least he knew how to do it now. You kept your eyes open, and your ears even wider. And you didn’t run faster than you had to, either. You did that, you lost your breath fast, and then you were caught.

Timmy figured he was gonna get caught at some point anyway. But that was why you kept your eyes open. You only cut and run when you want to find a good place to turn, and fight. Or at least a better place.

You didn’t waste your breath whining, either. That’s why he didn’t even mutter, “Where’s the garbage cans?” as he ran. He just thought it real hard.

Just like he thought about how Frostvile Pines absolutely sucked.

Damned if watching the movie didn’t help.

Maggie Henderson wasn’t the mayor of Frostvale Pines. That was an old guy named Bob. She wasn’t the fire or police chief, either. No, Mrs. Henderson owned the local coffee shop, which made her the person running the town. Timmy could get his head around that. He’d seen lots of people run things from behind the scenes.

What got Timmy was the way Mrs. Henderson talked. Nobody was that nice all the time and meant it. And her smile! It reached her eyes! That was way crazy, too.

“We first noticed something was wrong a week ago, Tim.” (He was apparently too old for ‘Timmy,’ and too young for ‘Timothy.’ It’d been weird for a second when she’d asked what his name was, too.) “Little things, like a garbage can knocked down, or a light left on. We weren’t sure what was going on until food started going missing. Then we knew.” Mrs. Henderson’s smile went worried. Really worried. “Somebody from Out Of Town had shown up.”

Timmy could hear the capitals in the words. “You mean, somebody like me. Not somebody from, um…”

“The Big City?” Timmy noted those capitals, too. “Oh, no, definitely not like one of those folks. They’re always welcome to visit our little town! In fact, they come here all the time, especially around the turn of the year. But they’re not the sort who’d just hide and steal food. That’s a… well, that’s a problem.”

Not as much done as I’d like, but I’m still feeling my way in this story.

Timmy wasn’t surprised that Frostvale Pines was really clean, especially the parts that were supposed to be dirty. The worst parts of the town didn’t smell bad at all, and were one good sweeping from being pristine. The people were different, too. No bad breath, no skin problems, nobody skinny or too fat, and everybody’s teeth gleamed. They all looked like they were from what Timmy remembered of TV, but they would, wouldn’t they? Everybody sounded the same, too. Even the bums — who looked like everybody else, except for a couple of smudges on their faces — talked like they went to college.

He’d been warned about that ahead of time. It wasn’t a glamour, or anything like that. The rules were just different here. Things either didn’t break, or were really easy to fix.

What surprised Timmy was that he wasn’t resentful about how nice Frostvale Pines was. He was sort of expecting to be, since he’d grown up rough and everything, but the town just wasn’t real enough to be worth getting mad over. It’d be like getting mad at a play.

TIMMY!

“I am uncertain of this assignment, young Mister Timothy.”

That made Timmy jerk his head up. The Headmaster didn’t use that word a lot. As he liked to say, it was his job to know what was really going on.

The Headmaster didn’t mind being asked questions, as long as you understood that he didn’t care if you liked the answers or not. “Is it because of me, or the task?”

“Oh, the task, I assure you.” The Headmaster gave a smile that Timmy at least found reassuring, and not at all nightmarish. “If I thought you were incapable of handling an operation this simple, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“It did seem pretty easy. There’s somebody where he shouldn’t be, we need to yank him out of the realm he’s in, and the people running the place don’t even want him there, so I can just go in.” Timmy frowned. “Oh. It’s too easy?”