practical joke. He always suspected me of practical jokes. Sometimes he was right. I, at least, never put anything in his orange juice. I was constantly finding samples of various drugs unknown to Modem Science in mine.
Jake Holmes, the world’s foremost WASP ethnic folk singer, was tuning up on the stage. I affected a strong interest in Jake’s lead-in routine while Chester turned the glower on me.
“Boston,” Chester said.
“It’s in Massachusetts Commonwealth,” the girl told him.
Jake finished the tuning process and broke into song. Several teenybrats and a few of their mothers wiggled silently in their seats; their eyes intent on Jake’s clean-cut, boyish profile. I wouldn’t call the look one of wanton desire, but then I’m no expert on those things.
A very old red leather face
Sits by itself watching nothing ground....
“Commonwealth,” Chester said clearly.
“Do you know where you misplaced your unicorn?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say that I misplaced him, exactly.”
“Good for you,” Chester agreed. “I wouldn’t exactly say that either.”
“It was when I got off the train.”
“Train?” I asked.
She nodded. “The train. Adolphus seemed rather excited and nervous. We all were after what happened. Then he just bolted and ran off into the woods. It’s very unlike him. The whole crew is out looking for him now.”
I looked at Chester. Chester looked at me. “Do you remember when the last one was?” he asked.
I nodded. “About six years ago. They made quite a ceremony of it. The end of an era and all that sort of thing.”
“The last what?” Sylvia asked. Jake sang a few more lines while Chester and I didn’t answer.
Reality staggers and weaves
Takes it away from the doorway it lives in....
“The last train,” I told her. “The very last train into San Francisco before they tore up the tracks. The engine’s in the Museum of Science and Industry now.”
Sylvia looked puzzled. “San Francisco?”
“Or at least Oakland. The city across the bay. We’re thirty miles south of it now.”
“Oh,” Sylvia said. “I’m afraid I know the names of few of the local towns.”
I glanced at Chester. It occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one capable of practical jokes.
“Is it near New Camelot?” Sylvia asked.
Chester leaned back. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. He slipped the sopranino recorder out of his belt and put it to his lips.
“At any rate, you must be mistaken about the train,” Sylvia told me calmly.
“I must,” I agreed, “it’s a compulsion.”
Jake started another song. Chester played back-of-the-room accompaniment on the recorder very softly. His face had the distinct bland look that meant he was deep in thought.
“You said the whole crew is out looking for the unicorn now?” I asked. Sylvia nodded. ‘What crew is that?’
“From the circus,” Sylvia told me. “Everyone that wasn’t too busy is out looking for Adolphus. I followed the twisty road, calling his name, until I got here. I thought he’d come to me, since I’m his keeper now and we’re rather fond of each other, but he didn’t. Maybe one of the others has found him by now, but I doubt it. If he won’t come to me, then he won’t let anyone else near him.”
Twisty road? I wondered.
“You’re from a circus?” Chester asked.
“Of course. Where else would you find a unicorn?”
“Yes,” Chester agreed. “Where else indeed?” Jake had finished his set and was going offstage. In the silence Chester played a variant of an old circus song that we called “MacDougal Street Saturday Night” on the recorder. He followed that with a complicated baroque version of “Greensleeves.”
“You play that well,” Sylvia said.
“Thank you.”
“Adolphus is quite fond of woodwind music. Do you happen to know ‘Barkus Is Willing’?”
“Barkus Is Willing?”
“Yes. That’s his favorite. It goes ‘ta ti dum-dum ti de diddly di, ta dum reedle fiddle fap’.” She had a strong, clear soprano voice.
“I, er, think I know it under a different name,” Chester said. He played it for her:
“That’s it,” she said. “But could you play it lower?”
“Lower?” Chester asked. Putting the sopranino down, he took the alto recorder from its canvas case and started adjusting the sections in that mysterious way recorder players put their machines together. “What key?”
“Fa, I think.”
“Right,” Chester agreed. “The key of fa it is.” He blew note through the hardwood tube, and then a riff. “How’s that?”
“Very good. Excellent,” the girl agreed. “If you’d come out into the woods with me, you could play ‘Barkus is Willing’ while I call Adolphus. He must be around somewhere.”
I was, I freely admit, miffed. Pied Piper Anderson was doing it again. Just because he could make music come out of that petrified pipe, while the best I could ever do was a startled pheep.
Sylvia turned to me. She had the largest eyes I’d ever seen off of an oil painting. “Of course you’ll come, Michael, and help. Please?”
Wild gryphons couldn’t have kept me away.
CHAPTER TWO
If you ever find yourself at a romantically lit table in the rear of an old roadhouse cum gambling casino that’s been turned into an entertainment coffeehouse, staring into a beautiful girl’s large eyes and telling her that she’s your princess and you’re going to help her find her unicorn, there’s a cure. Go outside with her into the parking lot. It’s impossible to keep any sort of romantic illusions intact in a parking lot —even if it fronts the Pacific Ocean thirty miles south of San Francisco. There we were, standing among orderly rows of squat electric cars and hulking gas buggies, feeling silly. At least, I was feeling silly. It was hard to tell what Chester was feeling, with his collar turned up against the damp breeze and the recorder clutched like a club in his right hand, but somehow I knew that neither of us looked like a gallant unicorn-rescuer.
