'People are gonna come by,' he said to Benny and Norrie. 'Probably lots of people, once they get tired of playing in the supermarket. We'll just have to hope they don't pay any attention to us.'
In his mind he heard Miz Shumway telling his mom how important this could be to the town. She didn't have to tell him; he probably understood it better than they did.
'But if any cops come by...' Norrie said.
Joe nodded. 'Back into the bag it goes. And out comes the Frisbee.'
'You really think there's some kind of alien generator buried under the town common?' Benny asked.
'I said there might be,' Joe replied, more sharply than he had intended. 'Anything's possible.'
In truth, Joe thought it more than possible; he thought it likely. If the Dome wasn't supernatural in origin, then it was a force field. A force field had to be generated. It looked like a QED situation to him, but he didn't want to get their hopes up too high. Or his own, for that matter.
'Let's start looking,' Norrie said. She ducked under the sagging yellow police tape. 'I just hope you two prayed enough.'
Joe didn't believe in praying for things he could do for himself, but he had sent up a brief one on a different subject: that if they found the generator, Norrie Calvert would give him another kiss. A nice long one.
4
Earlier that morning, during their pre-exploration meeting in the McClatchey living room, Scarecrow Joe had taken off his right sneaker, then the white athletic sock beneath.
"Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat,' Benny said cheerfully.
'Shut up, stupid,'Joe replied.
'Don't call your friend stupid,' Claire McClatchey said, but she gave Benny a reproachful look.
Morrie added no repartee of her own, only watched with interest as Joe! laid the sock on the living room rug and smoothed it out with the flat of his hand.
'This is Chester's Mill,' Joe said. 'Same shape, right?'
'You are correctamundo,' Benny agreed. 'It's our fate to live in a town that looks like one of Joe McClatchey's athletic socks.'
'Or the old woman's shoe,' Norrie put in.
'"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,"' Mrs McClatchey recited. She was sitting on the couch with the picture of het husband in her lap, just as she had been when Miz Shumway came by with the Geiger counter late yesterday afternoon.'"She had so many children she didn't know what to do."'
'Good one, Mom,' Joe said, trying not to grin. The middle-school version had been revised to She had so many children her cunt fell off
He looked down at the sock again. 'So does a sock have a middle?'
Benny and Norrie thought it over. Joe let them. The fact that such a question could interest them was one of the things he dug about them.
'Not like a circle or square has a center,' Norrie said at last. 'Thdse are geometric shapes.'
Benny said, 'I guess a sock is also a geometric shape - technically - but I don't know what you'd call it. A socktagon?'
Norrie laughed. Even Claire smiled a little.
'On the map, The Mill's closer to a hexagon,'Joe said,'but never mind that. Just use common sense.'
Norrie pointed to the place on the sock where the foot-shaped bott?bm flowed into the tube top. 'There. That's the middle.'
Joe dotted it with the tip of his pen.
'I'm not sure that'll come out, mister.' Claire sighed. 'But you need new ones anyway, I suppose.' And, before he could ask the next question, she said: 'On a map, that would be about where the town common is. Is that where you're going to look?'
'It's where we're going to look first' Joe said, a little deflated at having his explicatory thunder stolen.
'Because if there's a generator,' Mrs McClatchey mused, 'you think it should be in the middle of the township. Or as close to it as possible.'
Joe nodded.
'Cool, Mrs McClatchey,' Benny said. He raised one hand. 'Give me five, mother of my soul-brother.'
Smiling wanly, still holding the picture of her husband, Claire McClatchey slapped Benny five. Then she said, 'At least the town common's a safe place.' She paused to consider that, frowning slightly. 'I hope so, anyway, but who really knows?'
'Don't worry,' Norrie said. 'I'll watch out for them.'
'Just promise me that if you do find something, you'll let the experts handle things,' Claire said.
Mom, Joe thought, I think maybe we're the experts. But he didn't say it. He knew it would bum her out even more.
'Word up,' Benny said, and held his hand up again. 'Five more, o mother of my - '
This time she kept both hands on the picture.'I love you, Benny, but sometimes you tire me out.'
He smiled sadly. 'My mom says the exact same thing.'
5
Joe and his friends walked downhill to the bandstand that stood in the center of the common. Behind them, the Prestile murmured. It was lower now, dammed up by the Dome where it crossed into Chester's Mill from the northwest. If the Dome was still in place tomorrow, Joe thought it would be nothing but a mudslick.
'Okay,' Benny said. 'Enough with the Freddy Fuckaround. Time for the board-bangers to rescue Chester's Mill. Let's fire that baby up.'
Carefully (and with real reverence), Joe lifted the Geiger counter out of the shopping bag. The battery that powered it had been a long-dead soldier and the terminals had been thick with gunk, but a little baking soda took care of the corrosion, and Norrie had found not just one but three six-volt dry cells in her father's tool closet. 'He's kind of a freak when it comes to batteries,' she had confided, 'and he's gonna kill himself trying to learn boarding, but I love him.'
Joe put his thumb on the power switch, then looked at them grimly. 'You know, this thing could read zilch everywhere we take it and tjiere still might be a generator, just not one that emits alpha or beta wa - '
'Do it, for God's sakes!' Benny said. 'The suspense is killin me.'