The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun by Paul Gallico Read Free Book Online Page B

less sense. A million dollars had a sweet ring in Marshall’s ears but, of course, it was crazy. The whole thing was absurd. A kid going to Washington because his father had laughed at him.
    He said to Julian, “You’ve got to be putting me on. What’s with your old man? What does he do?” The printing on the diagram caught Marshall’s eye again and he said suddenly, “Hey! West! Is your pop Aldrin West, the guy who owns the San Diego Bullets? Say, they’re going to have a good team this year with Korvalski throwing the passes. I’ll bet you’re a real football freak.”
    Julian shook his head. “I’m not. It makes dad mad. I think football’s crazy.”
    Suddenly a vista opened for Marshall as though a curtain had been lifted. A kid that didn’t like football. He said, “I get it. What do you like?”
    Julian shrugged and said, “I dunno. M-m-making things.”
    Marshall glanced at the diagram more intently and then again at Julian. He said, “He must know you’re gone. Your Pop’s probably having a fit right now. You say you left a note? Did you say where you were going?”
    Julian said, “No. Anyway, he wouldn’t care.”
    Marshall sat back for a moment and wondered just how true this was. These were such funny times that one couldn’t believe half of what one heard.
    But, of course, Aldrin West did care, his concern intensified by a feeling of guilt and further whipped up by one of his wife’s few genuine hysterics at the thought of Julian, to whom she only referred as “my baby”, somewhere loose in the United States to the point where there had to be a doctor and sedatives.
    The repercussion soon reached into a corner of the Missing Persons Bureau of the San Diego Police Department where a bored sergeant in shirtsleeves put on a headset to take a call and poised a pencil to take notes.
    He said, “Missing Persons Bureau, Sergeant Cassidy speaking . . . Who? . . . Oh, yes, Mr. West. Your address? . . . What’s the trouble, Mr. West? . . . Did you say bubblegum? . . . Oh, a Bubble Gun. A gun? Has he got a licence for it?”
    West’s voice nearly deafened him, “For Chrissakes, sergeant, will you listen.”
    “Sure, sure, Mr. West, I’m listening. You say he invented this Bubble Gun and left a note. Can you give me some details?” He repeated what he heard as he wrote, “Julian West, age nine and a half, reddish hair, wears glasses, has slight stammer . . . How was he dressed? . . . Oh, I see, you’re not sure. And he didn’t say where he was going?” He listened, wrote and repeated slowly, “Didn’t . . . say . . . where . . . was . . . going . . . Okay, Mr. West, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Kids usually hitch-hike. We’ll put it out on the radio. Some guy will pick it up in his car. I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”
    And a short while later the police teleprinter was tapping out the alarm for Julian, “ MISSING FROM HOME, JULIAN WEST, AGE NINETEEN AND A HALF, RED HAIR, GLASSES, STAMMER. THOUGHT TO BE WEARING DENIM PANTS AND T-SHIRT WITH LEATHER JACKET. ANYONE SEEING PLEASE CONTACT LOCAL POLICE. ”
    By mid-morning Bus 396 had metamorphosed from a Transcontinental transporter to a cosy social centre of passenger activity, relaxation and the usual familiarization. Two men, chess fiends, had already discovered one another by the thought transference that leads one player to find a second and were engrossed in what was to become a perpetual battle on a pocket set. They were already face to face, each with that gleam of fierce hatred in his eye that only a chess player knows for his opponent.
    Four other passengers, two men and two women, had become involved in a gin rummy game, all strangers to one another. One of the women was a black, a large comfortable-looking person with the most deliciously rich laugh which rang through the bus each time she filled and laid down her hand. She always seemed to be filling and laying down and the others were not liking