Free Shadows on the Train by Melanie Jackson Page B

was pestering me.
    Nobody else on or near the raft. I might as well let ’er rip.
    Black socks, they never get dirty,
    The longer you wear them, the blacker they get.
    The words echoed satisfyingly around Annette Lake. This was fun. When I sang, I didn’t care about freckles or anything.
    Someday I think I will wash them,
    But something keeps telling me…
    â€œYou can do better songs than that.”
    I stopped in mid-note. As, a few seconds later, did my echo around Annette Lake. A man in a gray tracksuit was regarding me comfortably from a rowboat close to the raft. A fishing pole and metal tackle box lay in the boat. The man, who had a pointed beard, wore a gray tweed hat, gleaming all over with the lures and hooks stuck into it.
    Based on my experience in the observation dome, I wasn’t in the mood to welcome new acquaintances. Talbot and Pantelli, thrashing through the water again, were still far away. But the fisherman looked so harmless, almost sleepy, that the scream I’d considered volleying to shore limped out as an “Um…”
    â€œI would’ve thought the old standards would be more your type of song,” the fisherman said as, glasses-less, I squinted at him. “Cole Porter, say. Or Irving Berlin. Now there was a guy who knew how to write belter-outers. Why, in a few years I could see you playing Annie in Annie Get Your Gun .”
    My jaw did a slow amazed drop. Playing Annie—she’s the rootin’ tootin’ cowgirl who gets to sing “There’s No Business Like Show Business”—was a secret dream of mine. Annie was so like me: untidy and troublesome, but good-hearted in a wacky kind of way, and, of course, equipped with volume, volume , VOLUME.
    â€œYou’re right,” I said meekly. “I do know better songs. It’s just that ‘Black Socks’ reminds me of something. Of a problem.”
    The fisherman trailed his paddles in the lake. The surface water skimmed silkily over them. “Of a king?”
    Instantly suspicious, I scrambled up and stood at the opposite end of the raft from him.
    â€œThere are kings and kings,” the fisherman said easily. By squinting fiercely, I could see that he was smiling. “Britain’s Charles the Second, for example. Did you know that to escape his enemies, the Roundheads, he fled up an oak tree? They didn’t notice him, and he was able to escape to France. Very clever of Charles the Second, not to mention quite spry of him.
    â€œA shame his dad, Charles the First, didn’t take a—wait for it— leaf out of his book.” The fisherman’s shoulders heaved with merriment. “Charles the First, not a good hider at all, was easily captured by the Roundheads.”
    â€œHuh,” I commented, wondering just how much time this guy had spent in the sun. I also wondered if it was time to start hollering. Maybe Bowl Cut and/or the Whisperer had sent him to pry information from me.
    â€œAh, yes, Charles the First,” the fisherman went on, as if we had all day to muse about dead monarchs. “Handsome fellow. Not the brightest, though.”
    I would’ve frowned at the man except that I was already squinting. “Who are you?”
    The fisherman winked. “Someone who hopes for an answer from you, Dinah Galloway. About where a king might be hidden. Not in a tree this time. Somewhere much harder to detect.”
    Talbot and Pantelli were chopping ever closer through the water. Growing bolder, I marched across the raft to glare at the fisherman. “I don’t have any answers for you. None.”
    The fisherman smiled, his teeth showing very white against his pointy beard. “But you will. I’d bet on you anytime.”
    With comfortable backward strokes, he began rowing away. “Now just a minute,” I called angrily. “You’re being cryptic. I hate cryptic.”
    He was fast turning into a speck. “COME BACK