Mucum joined in with a quavering voice. “Ooooh Diana! It’s Ark’s … ghost! He’s come to haunt us for treatin’ him bad!”

Their boss’s eyes bulged out. Nothing made sense, so it couldn’t be real. His high-pitched voice squeaked, “Stop being stupid and get back to …”

Ark wasn’t going to give up the ghost so easily. He stomped slowly toward his hated bully of a boss. The limp from his earlier fall was suddenly an advantage. “Jobby Jo-ones! Jobby Jo-ones!” he wailed. “I have come from the Copse of the Slumbering Dead, crossing the River Sticks to take my revenge on yoooooou!” Ark added a final, throat-rattling “warghhhhhhhh!” for effect.

By this point Little Squirt was sitting up on the floor, sucking an unsavory-looking thumb, watching the entertainment unfold. He wasn’t too sure if the stinky fumes were making him hallucinate.

As Ark let a string of saliva dribble from his lips, the dumber part of Jobby Jones’s brain made a decision. Shutdown time. Their boss fainted, collapsing none too gracefully in a heap on the floor.

Mucum and Ark made a run for the door. “Squirt! I’ll explain later! Do us a favor and tell Jobby he imagined the ‘ole thing.” Mucum shouted as they dived out to freedom.

As they sprinted away from the sewage station, Ark couldn’t get rid of the smile on his face. “That was —”

“Brilliant! Forget plumbing, you should be onstage! You’d slay them … every time!”

“His eyes nearly popped out!” Ark could feel giggles bubbling up. It beat plunging through the roof of the kirk any day. “Warghhhh!” he wailed again, not caring who heard, for a second not caring about anything. He suddenly came to a skidding halt. “Do you think we got away with it?”

“Listen, Malikum. Old Jonesy ain’t gonna report a ghost, is he? He’d be laughed out of town. And Little Squirt will spin ’im a good tale. Let’s move it!”

“I suppose so.”

“By the way, what’s with the limp?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, though his butt throbbed as if it had a life of its own. Not surprising after a fall of over three hundred feet. Maybe Warden Goodwoody was right about miracles, and Ark wasn’t just clutching at straws. “Wait a second.” Ark deftly changed the subject. “You’d better have this.” Ark took his hat off and passed it over.

“Look, I know you wanna say thanks for gettin’ you out of trouble, but …” Mucum inspected the greasy, stain-ridden cap.

Ark rolled his eyes. “Your hair stands out like poppies on a pile of poo. Put it on.”

“Right you are!” As Mucum covered up his orange fuzz, he transformed from being a tall, lumbering brute who could be seen a mile away, to a tall, lumbering brute. “So, will I do for an audience with the King?”