‘I mean,’ said Tom, ‘Time’s still moving. Nothing’s changed. Running home, I looked at all the lights around us and none of them had gone out. I saw some policemen in the distance, down the street, and they hadn’t been stopped. I kept waiting for all the lights to go out or something to happen to show that we’d really done something. But instead it looks as if someone might have been hurt. I mean, when you think about Will and Bo and the others, kinda limping home from the courthouse. I’ve got a feeling nobody’s gonna sleep tonight and maybe when they do get to sleep, they’ll sleep late, my gosh, they’re gonna lie around, doing nothin’, staying in bed, keeping quiet, and here I am for the first time in years, wide awake. I can’t even shut my eyes. What are we going to do about it, Doug? I mean, you kept saying we had to kill the clock, but how do we make it live again, if we have to?’
‘The clock wasn’t alive,’ said Doug softly.
‘But you said,’ said Tom. ‘Well, I said. I guess I started it. We all kept saying that we had to do it in, so we did, but what now? It looks like we’ll all be in trouble now,’ Tom finished.
‘Only me,’ said Doug. ‘Grandpa will give me a talking–to.’
‘But we went along, Doug. It was swell. We liked it. We had fun. But now, if the clock was never alive, how do we bring it back from the dead? We can’t have it both ways, but something’s got to be done. What’s next?’
‘Maybe I’ve got to go down to the courthouse and sign some sort of paper,’ said Doug. ‘I could tell ’em I’ll give them my allowance for eight or ten years, so they can fix that clock.’
‘Ohmigosh, Doug!’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ said Doug, ‘when you want to revive a big thing like that. Eight or ten years. But what the heck, I guess I deserve it. So maybe tomorrow I’ll go down and turn myself in.’
‘I’ll go with you, Doug.’
‘No, sir,’ said Doug.
‘Yes, I will. You’re not going anywhere without old Tom.’
‘Tom,’ said Doug. ‘I got only one thing to say to you.’
‘What?’
‘I’m glad I’ve got you for a younger brother.’
Doug turned, his face flushed, and started to walk out of the room.
‘I think I can make you gladder,’ said Tom.
Doug halted.
‘When you think about the money,’ said Tom. ‘What if the whole gang of us, the whole mob, went up in the clock tower and cleaned it up, if we did the whole machine over somehow? We couldn’t repair the whole darned thing, no, but we could spend a couple hours and make it look right and maybe run right, maybe we could save all the expenses and save you from being a slave for the rest of your life.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Doug.
‘We could give it a try,’ said Tom. ‘Ask Grandpa. He’ll ask the courthouse people if they’ll let us up there again, this time with lots of polish and oil and sweat, and maybe we could bring the darn dead machine back to life. It’s gotta work. It’s gonna work, Doug. Let’s do it.’
Doug turned and walked back to Tom’s bed and sat on the edge. ‘Dibs on some of that ice cream,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ said Tom. ‘You get the first bite.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next day, at noon, Douglas walked home from school to have lunch. When he got there, his mother sent him straight next door to his grandparents’ house. Grandpa was waiting, sitting in his favorite chair in a pool of light from his favorite lamp, in the library, where all was stillness and all the books on the shelves were standing alert and ready to be read.
Hearing the front door open, Grandpa, without looking up from his book, said, ‘Douglas?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Come in, boy, and sit down.’
It wasn’t often that Grandpa offered you a chance to sit down, which meant there was very serious business ahead.
Douglas entered quietly and sat on the sofa across from Grandpa and waited.
Finally Grandpa put aside his book, which was also a sign of the serious nature of things, and took off his gold–rimmed specs, which was even more serious, and looked at Douglas with what could only be called a piercing stare.