"Yeah." Mike nodded. "Dale, tell him what happened." Dale described the confrontation between Mrs. Cooke and Dr. Roon and J. P. Congden. "Old Double-Butt was there, too," he concluded. "She said she saw Tubby leave. Cordie's ma said that was bullshit." Duane raised an eyebrow.

"So what's your idea, O'Rourke?" asked Harlen. He was using twigs and leaves to build a small dam in the groove in the bottom of the culvert. Water was already backing up and pooling on the cement.

Lawrence moved his sneakers before they got wet. "You want us to go give Cordie a smooch so she's not unhappy anymore?" asked Harlen.

"Uh-uh," said Mike. "I want to find Tubby."

Kevin had been tossing pebbles into the pond. Now he stopped. His freshly laundered t-shirt looked very white in the gloom. "How are we supposed to do that if Congden and Barney can't? And why should we?"

"The Bike Patrol should," said Mike. "That's the kind of thing we wanted to do when we made up the club. And we can because we can go places and see things that Barney and Congden can't."

"I don't get it," said Lawrence. "How do we find Tubby if he ran away?''

Harlen leaned over and pretended to grab Lawrence's nose. "We use you as a bloodhound, punk. We give you an old pair of Tubby's stinky socks and you sniff him out. OK?"

"Shut up, Harlen," said Dale.

"Make me," said Jim Harlen, flicking some water toward Dale's face.

"Shut up both of you," said Mike. He went on as if he hadn't been interrupted. "What we do is, we follow Roon and Old Double-Butt and Van Syke and the others, find out if they did anything to Tubby."

Duane was playing cat's cradle with a string he'd found in his pocket. "Why would they do anything to Tubby Cooke?"

Mike shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because they're creeps. Don't you think they're weirdos?"

Duane didn't smile. "I think a lot of people are weirdos, but that doesn't give them a motive to go around kidnapping fat kids."

"If it did," said Harlen, "you'd be a goner."

Duane smiled, but turned slightly toward the other boy. Harlen was a foot shorter than Duane and weighed about half as much. "Et tu, Brute?" Duane said.

"What's that mean?" asked Harlen, his eyes narrowing.

Duane went back to his cat's cradle. "That's what Caesar said when Brutus asked him if he'd eaten any Harlenburgers that day."

"Hey," said Dale, "let's get this decided. I have to get home to mow the yard."

"And I'm helping my father clean the milk truck's tank this afternoon," said Kevin. "Let's decide."

"Decide what?" said Harlen. "Whether we're following Roon and Double-Butt around to see if they killed and ate Tubby Cooke?"

"Yeah," said Mike. "Or if they know what happened to him and are covering it up for some reason."

"Do you want to follow Van Syke around?" Harlen asked Mike. "That guy's the only one of the Old Central weirdos nuts enough to kill a kid. And he'd kill us if he found us following him."

"I'll take Van Syke," said Mike. "Who wants Roon?" "Me," said Kevin. "He never goes anywhere except the school and that room he rents, so it shouldn't be hard to follow him."

"How about Mrs. Doubbet?" asked Mike.

"Me!" said Harlen and Dale at the same time. Mike pointed at Harlen. "You take her. But make sure she doesn't know you're following her." "I'll blend in with the trees, man." Lawrence knocked Harlen's dam apart with his stick. "Who do Dale and I get?"

"Somebody should check on Cordie and her family," said Mike. "Tubby might come back while we're farting around and we wouldn't know it."

"Aw," said Dale. "They live way out by the dump." "You don't have to go every hour. Just check on them every day or two, keep your eye out for Cordie coming into town, that sort of thing." "OK."

"What about Duane?" said Kevin. Mike tossed a rock into the pond and looked at the bigger boy. "What do you want to do, Duano?"

Duane's string now resembled Lawrence's spiderweb in complexity. He sighed and collapsed the intricate arrangement. "What you guys really want to do is nuts, you know. You want to know if Old Central is behind this somehow. So I'll follow Old Central."

"Think you can keep up with it, lard bucket?" asked Harlen. He'd stepped to the edge of the culvert and was urinating into the dark pool.

"What do you mean you'll follow it?" asked Mike. Duane rubbed his nose and adjusted his glasses. "I agree that something's strange about that school. I'll research it. Get some background information. Maybe I can dig up something on Roon and the others, too."

"Roon's a vampire," said Harlen, flicking away the last few drops and zipping up. "Van Syke's a werewolf." "What's Old Double-Butt?" asked Lawrence. "She's an old bitch who gives too much homework." "Hey," said Mike. "Watch the anguagelay in front of the idkay."

"I'm no idkay," said Lawrence.

Mike said to Duane, "Where would you get this information?"

The bigger boy shrugged. "There's almost nothing in Elm Haven's pitiful excuse for a library, but I'll try to get over to Oak Hill."

Mike nodded. "OK, well, we can get back together in a couple of days to . . ." He stopped. One or two cars had roared overhead while they had been talking, gravel flying into the leaves and dust drifting down after each vehicle passed, but now there came a rumbling so deep that it sounded like a semitrailer was lumbering overhead. The truck stopped with a screech of brakes.

"Shhh!" whispered Mike and the six of them lay on their bellies in the culvert as if that might conceal them further. Harlen moved back from the opening.

Overhead, an engine idled roughly. There came the sound of a truck door opening just as a terrible stench drifted down and settled around them like invisible but poison gas. "Oh, fuck," whispered Harlen. "The Rendering Truck." "Shut up," hissed Mike. Jim obeyed. Boots crunched on gravel above them. Then silence as Van Syke or whoever it was stood at the edge of the road directly above the pool.

Dale picked up Lawrence's dropped stick and held it like a skinny club. Mike's face seemed pale as cream. Kevin looked around at the others, his Adam's apple working. Duane folded his hands between his knees and waited.

Something heavy ripped through leaves and splashed into the pool, throwing water on Harlen.

"Shit!" cried Harlen and started to say more until Mike clamped a hand over his mouth.

More gravel crunched, then came the sound of weeds snapping as if Van Syke was starting down the hillside. Another car's engine became audible as a car or pickup came down the hill from Calvary Cemetery. Then the sound of brakes and a horn honking.

"He can't get around," whispered Kevin. Mike nodded. The crunch of weeds paused, receded. A truck door slammed again and the Rendering Truck moved uphill toward the Black Tree with a grinding of gears. The car behind it honked again. Within a minute it was quiet again and the stench had almost gone. Almost.

Mike stood up and moved to the edge of the culvert. "Holy shit," he whispered. Mike almost never cussed. The others crowded to the lip of the culvert. "What the hell is it?" whispered Kevin. He held his t-shirt up to his face to get away from the smell that seemed to rise from the dark water.

Dale looked over Kevin's shoulder. The ripples and disturbed mud were just settling down, the water was not quite clear, but he could make out the white flesh, bloated belly, thin arms, fingers, and the dead brown eyes staring up through the water.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, Jesus," gasped Harlen. "It's a baby. He threw a dead baby in there."

Duane took Dale's stick, got down on his stomach, reached his arm into the water, and poked at the dead thing, turning it over. Hair on the corpse's arms moved and fingers seemed to waggle. Duane brought the head almost to the surface.