Chapter Eleven:
Big Trouble
An hour later, the four of us had explained to Pop-Pop in detail about our haunted house plan to scare away the couple. At times, he seemed to be fighting back a smile.
After sending Scott and Phyllis home to explain the situation to their mother, Pop-Pop gave us a lecture that I will never forget.
“I am so very disappointed in you two,” he stated in a firm voice. “How could you pull such a stunt? Do you realize that you just prevented the sale of this house? Do you also realize that word of this will spread, and that no one will want the house because it is ‘haunted'? Have you any idea how big a mess you have just made for Uncle Harold?”
Tears filled my eyes as I shook my head. “No, sir. I didn’t think about all of that. I just wanted to scare those people away so that we could have more time to look for the treasure. I didn’t mean to cause a big problem. I’m so sorry, Pop-Pop. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”
Pop-Pop’s tone became gentler. “The problem, Abby, is that you were thinking—but only of yourself. You knew what you were doing was wrong, yet you did it anyway because you thought it would get you what you wanted. The Bible is full of stories of men and women who did the same thing. Why, think about it. Sin came into this world because Adam and Eve did what they wanted to do instead of what they knew was right. But look at the consequences. There are always consequences for sin. I believe God put all of those stories in the Bible to remind us that if we don’t do things right, we will have to pay the price. It has been proven time and time again. I guess you just learned the hard way.”
I sniffed and wiped my wet cheeks with the back of my hand. “Yeah, but it didn’t just cost me. I got everyone in trouble, and I probably ruined your chances of ever selling this house. It’s not fair that everyone should have to pay for my mistake.”
Pop-Pop sat beside me on the couch and put his arm around my shoulder. “As far as everyone being in trouble, that was not entirely your fault. They chose to go along with your plan. They did wrong by agreeing to help. Concerning the house, no, it isn’t fair, but that’s the problem with sin—its price is very great and rarely fair.” He squeezed me in a hug and stood up. “Now, you are both grounded for the remainder of the day. You are to stay in your own rooms, and I want you to use that time to think about the importance of doing right.”
The afternoon seemed to last forever, but I didn’t mind the time to myself. I felt terrible about what had happened. I kept remembering the anger in Pop-Pop’s eyes and hearing his words about sin and its consequences. He was right about everything. I knew that I was doing wrong, but I did it anyway.
“I’m so sorry, Lord,” I whispered from my bed as tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. “I know you are disappointed in me, but I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ll try to make things right, and I will remember the lesson I learned today.”
I realized I had dozed off when Pop-Pop came in to get me for dinner. After rising from the bed, I gave him a big hug and apologized again for my behavior. He assured me that all would be well and hurried me down the stairs for dinner. He paused at the top and looked at the empty space on the wall.
“That reminds me,” he said, pointing to the place where the stuffed owl once hung. “Tomorrow, I want you two to go back to Uncle Harold’s and clean up the mess you made. I want all of your booby traps undone and everything back in its proper place. Understood?”
I looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, sir. We will fix everything. I promise.”
At dinner, Pop-Pop surprised me by bringing up some questions about the treasure. “It looks like we have a little more time to search for that treasure of yours. Do you have any idea where to look next?”
Jamie had just shoved a forkful of spaghetti in his mouth, so I answered. “No, sir. The last clue said that we would have to go to war, but I don’t have any idea what it’s talking about. I don’t even know anything about war. I feel like we’re never going to find that treasure.”
Pop-Pop nodded. “Don’t give up just yet. Have you thought about doing some research? Maybe if you understood a little more about war, it would help you to understand the clue. The library is not that far. I’m sure they have plenty of material you could look through.”
I smiled. “That’s a great idea. Would it be alright if we went there tomorrow morning and then went to work on Uncle Harold’s house after lunch?”
Jamie looked pleadingly at Pop-Pop.
“That would be fine. Just don’t be too long at the library. Remember, you promised to get everything cleaned up and put back in its rightful place.”
“We will,” I assured him.
The rest of the evening passed in slow motion as I lay on the bed in my room. I thought about the clue and any possible meaning it might have, but I just couldn’t make sense of it. I was looking forward to our library trip and hoped that I would find the answers I was looking for.
I awoke the next morning to the sound of rain on the tin roof. The sound was soothing, but the thought of the walk to the library and Uncle Harold’s was not a pleasant one. At breakfast, Pop-Pop offered to drive us to both places. He said he could drop us off at the library on his way to work and then take us to Uncle Harold’s house during his lunch break. With that settled, we finished eating and left the house.
Had it not been for the sign above the door, I would have thought we were at the wrong place. The library didn’t look like any library I was used to. In fact, it looked like a house to me.
It was a cute little yellow building with a dark brown roof and shutters of light red that matched the underpinning and the chimney that poked through the roof. Pop-Pop dropped us off at the front door with a promise to return after a while.
Since it was such a small library, I was surprised to find a great number of books on different wars. There were even a few magazine and newspaper articles. Where to begin? Jamie and I set our things down on a table in the corner, then walked over and began pulling books off the shelves.
“Have you found anything?” I asked Jamie nearly two hours later as I returned to the table with another armload of books.
He looked at me with a sheepish grin. “Um, no. Not yet.”
I looked at the material he was reading. “Jamie, you’re not here to read comic books. You’re supposed to be helping me look for clues. Put that away and get back to work.”
“I was looking for clues,” Jamie stated. “But I got bored looking at all that war stuff. I was just taking a break. I’m sorry. I’ll start again in a minute. Just let me finish this one story. Okay?”
“Fine,” I said, setting down my load of books. I was just about to open the cover when I paused. “Hey, you know what I just noticed?”
Jamie didn’t look up from his magazine but questioned, “What?”
“We haven’t fought at all today, and we didn’t fight yesterday or the day before that, either.”
This time Jamie did look at me. “You’re right. We haven’t. I guess we can get along if we really want to. Huh?”
I nodded my head and smiled. “Yeah, I guess so.”
After another two hours of flipping through history books, war manuals, and other such books, Pop-Pop arrived to pick us up. “Find anything?”
I looked over at Jamie whose red, puffy eyes appeared as mine felt. “Oh, yeah. I’ve learned a lot about war. I just don’t know that any of it will help us.”
Pop-Pop smiled and said, “Well, let’s go have some lunch, and you kids can tell me about what you’ve learned. Maybe if we all have the facts, we can come up with a solution.”
After putting our books away, we made a quick trip to the restroom, then piled into Pop-Pop’s truck. We drove to a cafeteria-style restaurant, piled food onto our plates, and sat down at a round table in the middle of the room. Over lunch, Jamie and I told Pop-Pop some of the things we had learned that day.
Jamie started. “I read about the Revolutionary War and how it was started because the
people in America didn’t want Great Britain to tell them what to do anymore. They wanted to be their own country, but England didn’t like that. So, they fought, and America won. George Washington fought in that war, and Benjamin Franklin did a lot of work behind the scenes to help America.”
I wiped my mouth, then set my napkin down beside my plate. “I read a lot about World War II. It seemed to be in just about all of the books I looked at. It was a horrible war that affected millions of people. A wicked man named Adolf Hitler was ruling Germany at the time. He began by attacking little countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia. Then when his armies became stronger, he attacked France and Britain. The United States was going to stay out of the war, but the Japanese, who were friends with the Germans, attacked Pearl Harbor, one of the U.S.’s navy bases. Even then, President Roosevelt declared war against Japan and not Germany, but Germany decided to stand up for their friends, and America became part of the war.”
Pop-Pop took a drink of his tea, then set the glass on the table. “It’s horrible, isn’t it? So many people died because of one man’s hatred.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it was so bad that the people in America had to take precautions. Even after they had defeated Germany, they still had to deal with the Soviet Union. Can you imagine?”
Pop-Pop’s face saddened. “Yes, Abby, I can. I was alive during those days. I was just a boy, but I remember seeing the anxiety in people's faces.” He was quiet for a few minutes. Then his face brightened, and he looked at us. “Well, I think that’s enough about war for today. Are you kids finished?”
Jamie and I nodded and helped Pop-Pop clear the table. The rain had stopped when we walked out to the truck, but the sky was still dark, and the air still felt heavy. We jumped into the truck, and within a few minutes, Jamie and I were walking in the front door of Uncle Harold’s house.
The Delaware Detectives Page 11
