“Take it back, jerk,” Louanne said, spitting the words through her teeth.
It was only a matter of time before Gary got control and hurt her. I tried to drag her away, but she wouldn’t let me. Finally, Maggie and I grabbed her arms and pulled her up. Gary’s nose was bleeding, his face was scratched, and he was sweating like a pig.
“You stuck up little bitch! If you weren’t a girl…” he said, jumping up and wiping the blood off of his face with the back of his hand. “You’re as crazy as your uncle.”
That’s all it took—Louanne wrenched away from us and went after him again. Maggie jumped on his back; I piled on, and the three of us took him down to the ground. He was swinging wildly, and one of his punches got me smack in the eye.
The next thing I knew, Vinnie the butcher jerked me to my feet. “You kids stop. Enough! What’s this about anyway?”
Louanne straightened her shoulders, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and pointed at Gary. “He called my uncle crazy and me crazy too.”
“You girls are crazy. You’re just like your stupid uncle, and Grace is like her father, crazy.” Blood poured out of Gary’s nose—his shirt was ripped.
“Oh yeah? You’re the crazy one, wiener,” Louanne said. “Letting a girl beat you up.”
The twinnies giggled like wackadoos.
Vinnie wagged his finger at us. “Everyone go home. The party’s over.”
“Just wait, bitches. You’ll be sorry,” Gary said.
“Watch your language, Mister,” Vinnie said, giving him a push. “You get on home before I go back in the bar and find your father.”
“Hurry. Let’s get out of here before my father comes,” Maggie said with a worried look. “He’ll be mad I was fighting.”
I touched my left eye—it wouldn’t open all the way. My new red shorts were grass stained, one of the pockets was torn, and my elbow was bleeding again. Louanne’s white outfit was a mess—she’d never be able to wear it again. My mother was going to kill me, but nobody was going to get away with calling my father crazy and insulting my best friend’s uncle—especially not Gary Cannon.
We walked our bikes back to my house, washed up, and took some sodas and chocolate chip cookies outside to the tree house. The moon was high in the summer sky. We watched the lightning bugs flash in and out of the lilac leaves and tried to pull ourselves together.
“My mother called this morning,” Louanne said, taking a deep breath. “My dad’s not coming back—he wants a divorce.”
“That stinks,” Maggie said, shaking her head, “But at least you’ll see your dad sometimes. The Smiths are divorced, and it’s not bad.”
Mandy Smith was in my class at school, and she always looked sad to me.
“Mandy’s dad never yells at her,” Maggie continued, “and he always buys her presents. Your dad will do that too. It’s not like he’s dead or anything.”
“Maggie,” Louanne gasped, looking at me. “What are you saying?”
“Oh my God, Grace,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry; I forgot all about your father.”
“It’s okay,” I said, thinking sometimes it was okay, but other times I’d give anything if my dad were alive. Some nights when I couldn’t sleep, I pretended to have conversations with him, and I tried to feel his bear hug, but it was getting harder and harder to remember his voice—his laugh.
“Maggie’s right, Lou,” I said. “If I could see my dad every other weekend, I wouldn’t care about the presents.”
“Grace,” Louanne said. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I don’t know how…”
I waited for her to go on.
“Look. It’s different for me,” she finally said. “You know your dad loved you. He was in an accident. He couldn’t help leaving you. My dad doesn’t love me enough to stay.”
No one said anything for a long time.
“Let’s just hold hands and promise that we’ll always be there for each other, no matter what,” I whispered, holding up the little fingers on each of my hands. “Pinky swear.”
“Pinky swear,” Lou and Maggie whispered, twining their pinkies around mine.
CHAPTER 16
The next morning I slept in. After I woke up, I took a long bath and washed my hair. The cut on my elbow had scabbed over during the night, the bump on my head had gone down, and it didn’t hurt too much when I touched it. My eye was the problem—I had a black eye, a big ugly shiner.
When I walked into the kitchen, there was a note from my mother propped up against the toaster. She and Denny had gone shopping and wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. Thank heavens. Mom had freaked out about last night’s fight with Gary Cannon, and she’d grounded me from the movies for two weeks. She said that until she could trust me to act like a respectable young lady, I could stay home and watch shows like Lassie with her and Denny.
I drank some juice, found sunglasses to hide my black eye, and went downstairs to see if Doc had some extra notebooks in his office. He was sitting at the kitchen studying the racing form.
“Well, Grace, you’ve had quite the couple of days,” he said, setting his mouth in a thin, firm line.
I should’ve skipped the notebooks and gone straight to Louanne’s.
He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses down on his nose and looked at me. “Towing the boys down a hill and getting all banged up, getting into a knockdown drag-’em-out at the baseball field.” Doc set the paper down, picked up his coffee cup, and looked at my face. “Why the sunglasses?”
“My eye’s black,” I said, sliding the glasses up to show him and looked out the window at the river. It was a beautiful morning; the sun was shining, and the sky was deep blue. Some people were out on the river rowing around in an aluminum boat.
“I know Gary teased Louanne about Tony, but—”
“Gary didn’t just ‘tease’ her.” I jumped in before Doc could finish his sentence. “He called my father crazy and Uncle Tony crazy and a fire setter, and he said that Louanne was crazy too.”
“Did he change his mind after the three of you pummeled him?” Doc raised his voice a bit and leaned toward me.
“No,” I said, rubbing the cut on my elbow.
“Did beating the heck out of him make things better for Tony?”
“No.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.
“Worse for you?”
“Yes. But Doc, you said just because Uncle Tony’s always at the fires first, it doesn’t mean he started them. You said he’s sick and—”
“I know what I said, Grace. The difference is that I said it; I didn’t fight anyone who disagreed with me. I gave them room to think. I didn’t try to cram my opinion down their throats. You know that old jump rope rhyme? Sticks and stones may break my bones? Names can never hurt me?”
I nodded.
“Sometimes that makes a lot of sense.”
Doc was right.
“Grace, everybody in town’s in an uproar about the fires. Folks are scared. The kids hear their parents blaming Tony—saying incredibly cruel things with no pity, things they shouldn’t say. Lies. The kids don’t understand, but they parrot what their parents said with no compassion. My guess is that’s what Gary did. It’s not right, but it happens.”
I hadn’t thought about him just repeating what his parents said.
“Violence never solves a problem, Grace,” Doc said, shaking his head. “It just creates new ones. Next time remember that.”
I nodded.
“I need another cup of coffee, Grace,” Doc said, patting me on the shoulder on his way over to the stove for the coffee pot.
“Doc, do you have three extra notebooks?” I said, glad he wasn’t upset anymore. “Mom told me to ask you.”
“On the bookcase in my office,” Doc said, filling his cup. “I’m cleaning in there. Stuff’s all over the place, but I think the notebooks are on one of the shelves. Help yourself.”
Doc wasn’t kidding. Piles of old magazines, Louis L’Amour novels, and newspaper
s covered the bookcase—manila files too. The notebooks were perched precariously on top of some files, which were stacked on top of some paperbacks. I grabbed the notebooks, and everything crashed to the floor. The first file I picked up had “Dennis Bryant Funeral” written on it in my mother’s careful handwriting.
“Just put everything on my desk, Grace,” Doc said from the door. “I’ll take care of it later.”
I covered the file with the notebooks so he wouldn’t see it.
“What a mess.” He sighed and went back into the kitchen.
I put everything except the funeral file on the rolltop desk. The file was my chance to find out how my father died—what kind of accident it was. My mother and Doc were never going to tell me, but maybe the answers were in this file. I glanced at the door, knowing Doc could walk in any minute, but I opened the file anyway and quickly rifled through it. There was an autopsy report, but before I could check it out, I heard Doc moving around.
“Grace,” Doc called from the kitchen. “You get lost in there?”
“I’m all set,” I said, hoping my voice sounded normal. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. Doc would notice the file if I took it with me—it was too big to hide. I slid the file under the bookcase, where it would be safe until I could come back.
When I got to Louanne’s, her grandmother opened the front door wearing a blue-and-white seersucker bathrobe and pointy red slippers. “Louanne will be so glad to see you,” she said, giving me a hug. “She had a tough night.”
She rubbed her eyes and motioned me into the front hall.
“The divorce is so hard on the poor little thing,” she continued, smiling at me. “But I know you’ll cheer her up, Grace. You always make everybody feel good.”
“I’ll try,” I said, heading upstairs with the notebooks, thinking maybe Lou wouldn’t feel like investigating; her whole life was falling apart.
Maggie and Louanne were sprawled on their backs on the double bed in Louanne’s room. Her eyes were closed, her arms were raised, and she was chanting, “I’m beautiful. I’m bea-u-ti-ful.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Louanne’s amazing horoscope, you gotta hear it to understand.” She picked up a magazine from the floor and read. “You need more encouragement than usual. Think of something positive to say to yourself at least fifty times today.”
“I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful…”
Maggie tossed the magazine on the bed. “She’s been doing this since I got here. Make her stop. Please.”
“Maggie.” Lou jumped off the bed. “What do you want me to say? I don’t care if my parents divorce? Or if I have to move into another house? And go to a different school? I’ll just think positive and live happily ever after.” Her face turned bright red; she pushed her hair behind her ears and took a deep breath.
Maggie’s jaw dropped.
“Louanne, I didn’t…” Maggie grabbed her hand.
“Well, that’s saying something positive, isn’t it?” Lou pulled her hand away and stuck it in her back pocket.
“Lou,” I said, trying to smooth things over. “It’s just, we don’t know what to say.”
Louanne blinked back tears. “It’s me. It’s not Maggie. It’s my stupid life.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, trying to make her feel better.
“I’ve got to stop thinking about it,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It’s making me crazy. Talk about something else. I can’t stand it anymore.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
“Sure,” Louanne said, pushing her shoulders back. “No more tears.” She sat back down and picked up the magazine. “I’m sure. Tell Grace her horoscope—she’ll like it.”
“You read it to her.”
“Okay,” she said, looking for my sign. “Grace, check this out—it says you’ll figure out the answers to the most complex problems thrown your way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It predicts what’s going to happen in your life on a certain day or month,” Louanne said. “It’s based on your birthday and where the planets are. Your horoscope could mean good things for our arson investigation.”
“Great,” I said, giving them their notebooks.
“Aunt Michelle and I believe in horoscopes,” Lou said, sounding excited. “I’ve got pencils. Let’s start writing things down—first, likely suspects.”
“Wait, on the first page, put down the definition of arson. It’s the crime of deliberately setting fire to something,” I said, writing as I spoke.
“We all know that,” Louanne said, but she did write it down. “We need to make a list of suspects.”
“Louanne, please don’t get mad again, but,” Maggie said, pointing down the hall, “look at your uncle Tony’s door. He’s the only suspect—the prime suspect. He prowls around town at night, he’s always there ahead of the fire department, and he tapes psycho notes to his door.”
“Maggie,” I said, glaring at her. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“And just so you know,” Lou said, “I am mad.”
“Follow me,” Maggie said, walking out of Louanne’s bedroom.
We trailed her down the hall to Uncle Tony’s room. The “Stay Out” warning on his closed door still got my heart going, but everything else looked the same. Only when I got closer did I notice that he’d added a few things to his notes.
“Write everything down,” I whispered, scribbling the notes in my notebook as fast as I could. “I want to check the newspapers for the dates.”
“Yeah,” Maggie whispered back. “Maybe he’s just making the dates up.”
“Shush,” Louanne mouthed. “You’re making too much noise.”
“What the heck,” Maggie whispered back. “He upped his UFO sightings. He’s got twenty-two this year—five just this month.”
“Shhh!” I said. “I think Uncle Tony’s moving around.”
“Quick, the carriage house,” Louanne said, running toward the stairs. “We can go over the notes there.”
The Dodds’ carriage house was way back by the riverbank. It was a pretty old Victorian building that hadn’t been painted in years. The inside had been neglected too—bales of hay were still piled up in the loft even though no horses had been stabled there in ages. Uncle Tony kept his bicycle locked up in there, and Aunt Michelle kept her car inside when it rained or snowed.
We thought of it as a giant playhouse. When we were about five years old and loved the circus, Vinnie the butcher had tied thick ropes to the beams so we could pretend to be trapeze artists. Our career as trapeze artists ended the very first day because Maggie fell off the bar and broke her ankle. Vinnie felt so bad he took the ropes down, and we moved on to safer activities like playing house and school.
The three of us raced across the back lawn and ducked under Aunt Michelle’s clothesline to reach the carriage house. Louanne pulled up the latch, and the wide door swung open. Two little kittens meowed and wobbled over on their tiny feet.
“I didn’t know you had kittens,” I said, scooping up the gray one and nuzzling my face into the soft fur on his back.
“I didn’t know,” Louanne said, crouching down beside me. “The mother must be one of the river cats that Aunt Michelle feeds. She must’ve snuck in here to have her babies. The kittens are so little—their eyes are barely open.”
Maggie cornered the other kitten. He arched his little back and hissed when she picked him up. A skinny gray cat jumped out of an old wicker basket and raced over to us.
“Here’s your baby,” I said, taking my kitten back to the basket. “This isn’t a very good bed for them. There’s no blanket or anything soft in here.”
“Look around,” Louanne said. “There’s gotta be a blanket here someplace. I’ll go get the mother some food.”
I wandered around, looking for something to make the kittens a comfy bed. Uncle Tony’s bicycle was leaned against the wall near the front door. An old rocking horse with no ears stood behind the ca
t’s basket, and a couple of sleighs were propped against the back wall. A porcelain doll with a cracked face and one eye sat in a wicker doll carriage and stared at me out of her good eye. There wasn’t anything on the shelves but old paint cans and stiff brushes sticking out of empty Maxwell House coffee cans.
“What’s taking Louanne so long?” Maggie asked in a bored voice. “It’s hot, and there’s so much junk in here. There are two grandfather clocks, a million cigar boxes, broken lamps, and chairs with three legs. Why do they keep this stuff? And why didn’t they save one measly blanket?”
“Wait,” I said, squinting in the dim light. “That’s a blanket over there.”
I pulled the blanket off of a kid’s ride-on fire truck. It was old and faded but still looked pretty good. I pushed it forward, and the pedals moved. Two little ladders were hooked to the sides, and there was a step on the back of the truck where another kid could ride.
“Holy moly,” Maggie said, pointing to the license plate on the front of the truck. “Fireman Tony.”
Louanne walked in with the cat food.
“Hey, you gotta see this,” Maggie yelled. “Your uncle—”
The carriage house door opened, and Uncle Tony walked in. “Cover that back up,” he said, walking over to the fire truck. “That’s mine.”
Maggie stepped back and knocked Louanne into the truck, and the silver bell on the hood dinged. Uncle Tony leaned down and clamped his hand around it.
“Why did you uncover his fire truck?” Lou whispered, grabbing my wrist and digging her nails in so hard it hurt.
“How did I know what it was?” I whispered back, keeping my eyes on Uncle Tony.
The cat finished eating and walked over to Uncle Tony. She rubbed herself against his leg and purred like she knew him. He reached down and stroked her behind the ears.
“I took your blanket for the kittens,” I said, watching his face. “They didn’t have anything soft, and they’re so little.”
Uncle Tony didn’t say anything, but he picked the blanket up and walked over to the cat’s basket. He took the kittens out and set them on the floor beside their mother. He shook the dust out of the blanket, scrunched it down inside the basket, and gently put the kittens back. Without giving us another look, he walked over, unlocked his bike, and rode away.
Stillwater Page 8
