“Maybe. Makes me wonder. Well, whoever he is, if he gets on the Ventura Freeway with us, we’ll ditch him.”
But when we hit downtown LA, traffic slowed to a crawl, and short of getting off the freeway all together or driving on the shoulders, there was no real opportunity to lose the green Olds. It was two cars behind us now, and in our lane. I still wasn’t entirely convinced that we were being followed. The Olds had moved to the Ventura Freeway, but so did most of the other cars in our lanes. Tens of thousands of drivers would make this same set of lane changes on these same freeways every day.
We had two concerns by then: ditching the Olds and arriving at the library before Travis left. But traffic finally eased up and Rachel began to weave her way along, watching to see if the Olds followed. When it did, I heard her laugh. It was the kind of laugh you hear the mad scientist make in monster movies. I checked my seat belt and scrunched down.
We were approaching the Hollywood Freeway, the last one we needed to take to get to the library, but Rachel seemed determined to stay on the Ventura. She stayed on it beyond what a reasonable person would call the last minute, crossing two lanes and that wedge-shaped separation point between freeways known as the gore point. “Gore point” was an old term that had nothing to do with what you’d make of yourself if you didn’t get across this dividing point in time, but seeing concrete and steel suddenly loom up in front of us made me wonder if we’d be hosed off of this one.
The Olds stayed on the Ventura. Rachel didn’t take anything for granted, though, and made the trip up the Hollywood Freeway to the Victory Boulevard off-ramp at a speed that made me wonder if Travis’s family was about to become even thinner of company.
She slowed on the surface streets, but my heart didn’t.
“What time is it?” Rachel asked, turning at Whitsett.
“Ten-thirty,” I said.
She sped up a little and made a quick right on Vanowen, and we soon saw Valley Plaza Park, which surrounds the library. We passed back under the freeway. The left she made onto Laurel Grove took out the last of my adrenaline but she slowed the car once she was through the intersection, and pulled cautiously into the parking lot behind the library.
Our fears of missing Travis were immediately relieved. Parked in a space along the back wall of the library was a purple pickup truck with an equally purple camper attached, both covered with yellow stars. On the sides of the camper, the words “Cosmo the Storyteller” and
“Just in case he walks out of the library while we walk in,” she said.
The Valley Plaza Branch Library is not an imposing structure, and there isn’t anything fancy about its architecture, but there is also nothing lacking in its warmth or friendliness. A librarian, whose name tag identified her as “I. Galvan,” saw us looking around anxiously, and asked if she could be of help.
“Cosmo the Storyteller?” I asked, seeing that the children’s section was all but empty.
“Oh, he’s outside, in the park!” She led us back out to the parking lot and pointed to a cluster of people sitting on the grass a little distance away. We could see a brightly clad figure standing before them. Travis, I thought, although we weren’t close enough to make out his features.
We thanked her and walked quietly toward the group, slowing as we neared a cluster of young mothers seated on the lawn near their preschoolers. One of the women held a sleeping baby on her lap. The attention of both parents and children was riveted on a tall man wearing black booties and tights, white gloves, a colorful tunic and a comically large red beret.
Travis? Yes. Dramatic clothing or no, I recognized his face from Briana’s collection of photographs.
He was moving with an exaggerated tiptoeing step. “Shhhh,” he said, gesturing with his gloved finger to his lips, although his wide-eyed audience wasn’t making a sound.
We came nearer, and sat on the grass a few yards behind the mothers. A couple of them glanced back at us. Neither Travis nor the enthralled children seemed to notice us.
He crept forward, eyes wide, saying, “Wally was very scared. He didn’t know if the dragon was really asleep. But then he heard the dragon snore.”
He held his hand to his ear. The children began making loud snoring sounds. Travis smiled. “Ah, yes, that dragon is sound asleep!”
Stepping quietly around the invisible dragon, he moved to a big steamer trunk and gingerly removed a pair of square, papier-mache boxes-one red, one yellow. He held the yellow one out to the audience with a questioning look.
“No!” they said, nearly in unison.
“What color is this box?” he asked, scratching his head.
“Yellow!” they chorused.
“Oh, isn’t this the box I want?”
“No! The red one!”
“That’s right, that’s right!” he said, as if remembering, while the children laughed.
He put the yellow one back inside the trunk again. From time to time, he peered cautiously over his shoulder at the place on the lawn where the audience knew the beast still lay sleeping. Taking the red box closer to the children, he asked, “What did Wally find in the box?”
“The key!” A boy shouted. “The key!”
“Yes!” Travis said, bestowing a smile on the boy as he took a large gold key from the box. “He found the golden key. Now what did Wally do? Did he run home?”
“No!” A resounding chorus.
“But he’s afraid of the dragon!”
There was a jumble of answers, which Travis seemed to understand perfectly. “Oh, he rescues the knight?”
“Yes!” The chorus again.
“You’re absolutely right!” Acting out the story, he said, “Wally sneaked past the dragon and out of the dragon’s fine hall. Then, carefully tucking the golden key in his pocket, Wally ran down the long staircase to…” He paused, scratching his head again. “Now where did that dragon put that knight?”
“The dungeon!” the children shouted.
“Oh, yes, that’s where he went.” More running. “And when he got to the door of the dungeon-uh-oh!” He began patting the tunic. “Where did I put that golden key?”
“Your pocket!” a girl yelled.
“Oh, yes! Thank you,” he said with a bow.
“You’re welcome!” the girl said in a quieter voice.
As the rest of the story unfolded, Wally freed the knight; Wally and the knight went safely back to their home; the sleeping dragon awoke and, seeing his meal missing, decided to become a vegetarian-a term which one of the children already knew. The same one who asked, “Was he a vegan?”
“I believe he was,” Travis said. When the story ended the children and parents cheered him. He bowed humbly, sat on the grass with them, and began asking them about their favorite stories and books. To their delight, he gave away stickers of dragons. “Let’s go back inside the library,” he said at last.
He picked up one end of the trunk, which I could now see had wheels on the other end. He rolled it along as the children and their mothers followed him.
Rachel and I looked at one another, then tagged after him and his troops at a distance.
“Is that him?” Rachel asked, and I could see a look of unholy glee on her face.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Love the outfit,” she whispered. “Do you suppose he makes his own booties?”
I didn’t answer.
“And the panty hose. You think he has to wear queen-sized?”
“Tights. I’m sure he has many costumes-” I began.
“Oh, I’m sure he does, too!” she said, laughing.
“What’s your problem?” I asked, losing patience. “Didn’t you see how those kids looked at him?”
