The Hedges

1

It was already raining hard outside and had been for an hour, so when Wayne heard a knock at his door he assumed the little girl had used one of the escape paths and wanted her money back. Or maybe she just didn’t want to get wet and sick. Maybe her mother raised her well. But when he opened the front door, she stood in the gravel just beyond the porch with her hands on her hips. And she was smiling. An angry little smile. A knowing little smile. Like she was thinking, I’m onto you.

Wayne shifted his weight from one foot to the other, surprised to find himself nervous.

“I solved your puzzle,” the girl said. “Unsolvable my butt.”

“That’s unlikely,” Wayne said.

Her eyes got wide.

“Oh no, it’s not,” she said. “It is not unlikely at all, Mr. Sherman.”

Wayne brought a hand up to his face. He hadn’t shaved in a week and his beard was catching up to his mustache.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “What did it look like?”

The girl tapped the toe of a black dance shoe. Her hands still on her hips. Her posture suggested Wayne had done something very bad, indeed.

“I’m turning you in,” she said.

These words, Wayne knew, were exactly what someone would say if they solved The Hedges.

Shit.

“Now, hang on a minute here,” he said, buying time.

What he wanted to do was bring her inside, sit her down, talk her out of it. But in the end, what good would that do? If she didn’t turn him in right now she was bound to tell one of her little friends at school.

Hey, Mary, I got to the end of The Hedges. You won’t believe what he’s got in there.

“Come on, little girl,” Wayne said, smiling. His thick brown-and-gray hair hung messy about his surprised face. “Do you have to do it right now? Can’t you give me a little…time?”

The girl looked offended. “What? So you can hide everything and make me look like a little liar?”

She’s smart, Wayne thought.

“Nu-uh, mister. The Goblin Police need to know what you’ve been hiding out here.”

Wayne felt a stab of crazy rage. He could kill her. It’d be easy. Right now. He could grab her by the throat and bash her little head against the patio till it split.

But Wayne Sherman had never hurt a person in his life. He’d never even cut the arm or head off one of his many topiary statues throughout the city.

No, he wasn’t gonna hurt her. What he had to do was get the hell out of Goblin this second.

“All right, all right,” Wayne said. “Do what you have to. But before you go, will you tell me how you did it?”

The girl frowned. “It wasn’t hard, mister. I don’t mean to burst your bubbley, but it was easy.”

“Easy? Nobody’s ever done it before, girl.”