by Karen Kane
Frog gazed at Bone with an angelic look and folded her hands in her lap.
Matilda nodded approvingly. “Brilliant. Now Frog waits. If she waits long enough, Bone will talk.” Matilda moved around the counter. “Coffee?” she asked, pouring herself a cup. “No? All right, then. Why all the questions about Harold Woo and how he died?”
“Well,” Charlie began. What could Charlie say to Matilda that Frog wouldn’t mind him sharing? “Harold Woo died so suddenly—”
“Suddenly? He was ninety-nine years old!”
“He was?”
“Granted he was the most active ninety-nine-year-old I’d ever met. But he was ninety-nine! Somehow the village was gobsmacked he didn’t make it to one hundred. Especially Miss Tweedy. She had all these ‘Congratulations! You’re One Hundred Years Old!’ party decorations she had purchased. I suggested cutting off the extra zeros and finding a nine-year-old who was about to have a birthday. She was not amused.”
Did Frog really think Harold Woo had been poisoned? Charlie wondered. Or was she just trying to find any reason for Aggie to have signed “dead”?
Charlie changed the subject.
“How did you learn sign language?” he asked. “From your grandfather?”
“My parents are also Deaf,” Matilda said. “So I’m bilingual—I learned to sign before I could speak—Oh, look! Bone’s ready to talk.”
Bone capped his pen. He itched his ear. He played with a paper clip.
“You’re still here,” Bone signed to Frog as Matilda interpreted for Charlie.
“Yes I am,” Frog said.
“Why,” Bone asked, “do you want to know about Harold Woo?”
“I just want to make sure he died of natural causes.”
“Harold Woo died,” Bone said, “the best way possible—reading a book. Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was lying on his chest when I found him.”
Frog perked up at the book title.
“Isn’t that suspicious?” Frog said. “That he was reading that book when he died? Maybe Mr. Woo was sending you a message.”
“Message? What message?” Bone’s bow tie quivered.
“A message,” Frog said, “that his death was not what it appeared to be.” Frog sat calmly in her chair and let that sink in. Bone’s face turned red.
“What are you saying?”
Frog narrowed her eyes as she leaned closer to Bone. “I’m saying…maybe Mr. Woo was poisoned.”
Mr. Bone pushed off the desk and stood.
“Impossible!” Bone signed the letter Y and smacked it twice on the palm of his opposite hand. He jerked his suit jacket off the back of his chair while Charlie practiced the sign. “Impossible.”
“Why?” Frog asked. “Many poisons are undetectable.”
“Rude, rude girl!” Bone stomped out of the bookshop.
Matilda turned to Charlie. “Frog thinks Harold was murdered?”
“I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding,” Charlie said vaguely. He tried changing the subject again. “Matilda, do you have a criminology section? And a financial planning section? Frog and I are looking for a book.”
Charlie and Frog stared at the bowl of ice cream with bright green flecks in it.
“See, it’s butterscotch ice cream,” Nate of Nathan’s Ice Cream Emporium explained, “but with broccoli in it.” Nate haltingly signed and at the same time spoke in a hoarse-sandpapery voice. “No more telling kids they have to eat their vegetables before they get dessert. The vegetables are the dessert. Butterscotch. Broccoli. Ice cream.”
Frog leaned back on her stool as if butterscotch broccoli ice cream were contagious.
“Why can’t vegetables and ice cream go together?” Nate continued. “Why does it have to be one or the other? I’m a hard-of-hearing man in the hearing world and I’m a Deaf man with a little hearing in the Deaf world. I’m not one or the other—I’m both! Because Deaf people come all different ways—just like ice cream.”
Frog didn’t understand what Nate was saying. So he stopped speaking English while using signs, and instead tried communicating in ASL to explain his vegetable ice cream theory.
This time Frog nodded. Then she arched an eyebrow at Nate.
“Come on, Frog,” Nate said and signed. “You’re only going to eat coffee ice cream the rest of your life? That’s boring!”
Charlie liked the sign for “boring”: Nate placed the side of his index finger next to his nose, and then twisted it so his palm faced inward. “Boring.” Maybe butterscotch broccoli ice cream would taste good. Charlie remembered Yvette’s meat loaf. He remembered what Grandpa Tickler had said about the angel food cake. It may not look good but it could still be good.
“I’ll try it,” Charlie said.
“What?” Nate signed.
Charlie pointed to the vegetable ice cream and then to himself.
“You’ll try it?” Nate said. “Beautiful!”
While Nate went to scoop ice cream, Frog wrote: Butterscotch broccoli ice cream? You live on the edge, Charlie Tickler.
The US Department of Agriculture says vegetables should be eaten daily.
Frog snorted. Right.
Charlie paused. You don’t really think Mr. Woo was poisoned, do you?
Detectives keep all possibilities open until they’re closed for certain, Frog wrote. And until we know for certain, Mr. Woo COULD have been poisoned. Which would explain why Aggie signed “dead” to you in the library. Just saying.
Nate handed Frog coffee ice cream in a cone and Charlie butterscotch broccoli ice cream in a bowl. Charlie licked a crunchy spoonful. Nate leaned his elbows on the counter and watched. Charlie swirled the ice cream in his mouth. It tasted like chopped-up broccoli mixed with butterscotch ice cream. Except it was hard to appreciate how fantastic the butterscotch tasted with the crunchy broccoli getting in the way. On the other hand, Charlie hadn’t eaten a vegetable in a few days.
“Well?” Nate said and signed.
Charlie fingerspelled HEALTHY!
Nate waited for Charlie to continue, so Charlie felt he had to add DELICIOUS!
Nate grinned broadly. “Healthy and delicious—I think I’m onto something.”
Frog asked Nate if he had seen a tiny old woman with a black mole on her cheek.
“Nope,” Nate said and signed. He wiped the counter with a towel. “But this is the second time I’ve been asked about her.”
Frog and Charlie stopped eating.
“Who?” they both signed.
“Two guys,” Nate said. “They wanted to know if I’d seen a little old woman with a mole on her cheek. She’s their great-aunt and wandered away from home. Not quite right in the head. Why are you asking? You know her?” Nate spoke and then signed this in ASL.
Charlie and Frog glanced at each other. Frog was suddenly busy licking her ice cream while Charlie focused on chewing his.
“What gives?” Nate asked.
Frog smacked her forehead with an I-almost-forgot-something-really-important look and reached into her leather bag. She pulled out an ice cream order for the Founders’ Day Dinner.
“Beautiful!” Nate said and signed. “I’ve been waiting for this!” He scanned the order. “What would your mother think about a few healthy-delicious flavors thrown in? A couple of gallons of chocolate asparagus? Maybe strawberry spinach? I know—caramel cabbage!”
“No!” Frog signed. Another customer came in. Nate went to serve him.
Charlie thought about Dex and Ray telling Nate that Aggie was their great-aunt. He remembered something he had heard Dex say in the library.
Dex told Ray he had only seen Aggie once before, Charlie wrote. On someone named Tony’s phone.
Who’s Tony? And why didn’t you tell me this before?
I don’t know who Tony is. And I didn’t tell you because I just remembered!
Frog shook her head at Charlie’s disappointing detective work.
We should go to the police, Charlie told Frog. Dex and Ray are lying. Aggie is not
their aunt. And if you think Mr. Woo was poisoned, we should tell them that, too.
Frog licked her ice cream.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie signed.
Frog took her pen back. Okay, I don’t really think Mr. Woo was poisoned. But I STILL think it could be a murder mystery! If we go to the police and tell them about Aggie signing “dead,” it won’t be our investigation anymore. This was going to be MY first murder mystery. It’s easy for hearing people to become detectives. It’s not that easy if you’re Deaf.
Charlie hadn’t thought about that before.
You’ll be an awesome detective, he told Frog. There’s no way you won’t become one.
“Thanks,” Frog said. She bit into her sugar cone with a loud crunch.
What do you want to be? Frog asked.
Charlie shrugged. He couldn’t think about someday. He had to think about now. He had to think about how to make sure Aggie was safe and how not to ruin Frog’s first case. He had to think about whether he would soon be sent to boarding school or not.
Maybe we could just tell the police Aggie is missing so they can look for her, Charlie wrote. We can tell them Dex and Ray are looking for her, too. They said she was lost, right? If that’s true, I am sure they want help finding her. We don’t have to say anything about the secret Aggie told or what Aggie signed to me.
Frog gave Charlie a thumbs-up and popped the rest of the cone into her mouth. Charlie let his ice cream melt into a butterscotch broccoli puddle.
They went to the cash register. Frog and Nate stared as Charlie, who had spent all the quarters he had riding the gondola, pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill.
“It was my all my father had,” Charlie said. “Can you make change?”
• • •
Out on the sidewalk, Frog reached for her pen.
I have to get back for my shift after we stop at the police station.
It’s too bad you have to work so much, Charlie told her.
Are you kidding? Frog wrote. More work = more money = more books + more jewelry!
As they passed Coffee, Tea & Me, Charlie glanced in the window. He did this with every shop they passed, to see if Aggie was there. She wasn’t.
But Dex and Ray were.
Dex was sipping a cup of coffee. He looked over the rim of his cup just as Charlie was peering through the window. Their eyes met. Without taking his gaze off Charlie, Dex said something to Ray and stood up.
Charlie grabbed Frog’s arm. He fingerspelled DEX as they raced down the sidewalk. Frog looked over her shoulder and came to a sudden stop. She flung open a door and pulled Charlie into Junk and Stuff. The chimes above the door jingled. A pimply-faced teenager was playing an electric guitar behind the counter.
Eyes closed, he warbled along to music—
“Girl, why don’t you listen?”
—that only he could hear through his headphones.
Frog’s eyes flitted to the jewelry display case before she ran down an aisle. She dove under a rickety table, pulling Charlie with her. They sat with knees to their chests, heads bent, breathing hard. Charlie motioned for Frog’s pen and paper.
Police! We should have run to the police! What’s the sign?
Frog made the letter C and tapped it twice near her opposite shoulder. “Police.”
No time! Frog wrote. Don’t think they saw us, though.
The front door of Junk and Stuff jingled open.
They saw us, Charlie wrote.
“Girl, why don’t you care?”
“His voice stinks,” Charlie heard Ray say. “Someone ought to tell him.”
Charlie and Frog scrunched as small and far back as they could under the table.
Dex and Ray began walking down aisles.
“What a bunch of junk,” Ray said.
“Girl, I’m standing right here in front of you!”
The dust under the table tickled Charlie’s nose. He clasped his hands over his face and willed the sneeze away.
Dex’s and Ray’s footsteps came closer.
And closer.
Two pairs of black shoes stood right in front of the table.
Frog’s eyes were round and unblinking.
Someone bent down. A face appeared in front of them. Ray.
“Hello,” Ray said.
Charlie and Frog did not move.
“Out,” Dex said. “Now.”
Charlie crawled out from under the table. Frog followed.
“Girl, how can you not see me?”
“You’re the kid we met in the library,” Dex said. Once again his voice was nice. Polite even. His eyes told a different story.
Sweat dripped down from Charlie’s forehead. Frog’s eyes were locked on Dex’s face.
“We’re looking for someone,” Dex said. “My aunt. She’s somewhere in this village. She’s about this tall, has white hair and a black mole on her cheek. Always knitting. You seen her?”
“Girl, open your eyes!”
Charlie shook his head no.
“You sure?” Dex said.
Charlie nodded. A bead of sweat plummeted to the floor.
“Girl, open your ears!”
“How about you?” Dex asked Frog.
Frog shook her head.
“You’re Deaf?” Dex signed.
Frog’s eyes widened. She nodded. Dex signed something else. Frog shook her head harder this time.
Ray moved closer. “I don’t believe them,” Ray said.
Charlie reached for his key. Before he could pull it out, Dex said, “Enough, Ray.”
He studied Charlie and Frog for a moment. “Let’s go.”
“Just like that? I know they’re lying.” Ray pulled out a stick of sugar-free cinnamon gum, tossed the wrapper on the floor, and followed after Dex. “Tony’s not gonna be happy.”
“Girl, I’m begging you, please? Open your heart!”
Ray lifted up the clerk’s headphones. “Get a new line of work, kid,” Ray advised. “Your voice stinks.”
Castle-on-the-Hudson’s police station may have been small, but its chief of police was big. The chief sat with her large feet propped up on her metal desk talking on the phone. Mountains of whirling, blinking, buzzing electronic devices surrounded her. The nameplate on her desk read CHIEF AUGUSTA V. PALEY.
Chief Paley motioned for Charlie and Frog to sit in the two chairs facing her desk. Frog signed the letter T and shook it back and forth. She fingerspelled BATHROOM.
Charlie practiced this useful sign as Frog went down a hallway. “Bathroom.”
“No, sir, I don’t concur,” Chief Paley shouted into the phone. “I think your argument is fallacious and your attitude is”—the chief picked up a list and scanned it, looking for just the right word—“egregious!”
Chief Paley listened and then said, “I am speaking in English, sir.” She paused. “No, sir, I am not being disrespectful. I am trying to improve my vocabulary so that—Hello? Sir?”
The chief hung up the phone. “Hey, did you understand what I was saying?” she asked Charlie.
“Sort of,” Charlie said.
“My writing teacher said writers need an extensive vocabulary. The problem is, once you have an extensive vocabulary, no one understands you.” The chief leaned over her desk and stuck out her hand. “Gus Paley.”
“Charlie Tickler.” Charlie winced as his fingers were momentarily crushed.
“You’re a friend of Frog?”
Charlie liked how that sounded. He wanted very much to be Frog’s friend. But wanting it didn’t make it so.
“Well,” Charlie said, avoiding the question, “I just moved here.”
“You couldn’t have picked a better place to live. I mean, Deaf people? ASL? This village is awesome! The only downside is we’re in the epicenter of the Bermuda Triangle for technology. Cell phone signals, high speed Internet—they all disappear when you’re in Castle-on-the-Hudson. No one can figure it out. I’ve got all this equipment to crush crime, and I can’t use most of it!”
>
Frog came back. Chief Paley put her feet back on the floor and came around the desk to squish Frog with a hug.
Frog and Chief Paley signed to each other. Charlie watched Chief Paley ask Frog to repeat things. He watched Frog correct Chief Paley each time she signed something wrong. Charlie thought how frustrating it must feel to be around hearing people you can’t talk to because they don’t know how to sign. And how annoying it must be to always have to teach people your language.
“Okay, I think I got it.” Chief Paley turned to Charlie as Frog watched her closely. “There’s a Deaf woman named Aggie and two men are trying to find her. The men are claiming they’re her nephews and that Aggie wandered away from home. Did I discern Frog’s meaning?”
“Yes,” Charlie signed. Frog gave Chief Paley a thumbs-up.
“Awesome,” Chief Paley said with a fist-pump. “But you don’t think Aggie is lost. And you don’t think the men are really her nephews. Why?” Chief Paley signed and then spoke this question. Frog thought for a moment and then gestured to Charlie to tell the chief. So Charlie told Chief Paley about meeting Aggie on the steps and what had happened inside the library. He didn’t tell the chief about what had happened in Junk and Stuff. He didn’t want the chief to stop their investigation. He just wanted her to help find Aggie.
“So you don’t think the men are her nephews, but you have no proof of this, just what you heard the men say,” Chief Paley said. Then she signed to Frog who signed something back. The chief nodded. “And detective intuition,” Chief Paley added thoughtfully, “just like Dorrie McCann.”
“You read Dorrie McCann?” Charlie asked.
“Of course! Those books are stellar! D. J. McKinnon sure knows how to spin a mystery. I’m learning a ton from her. Did you know D. J. McKinnon was also a printer?”
Frog signed something to Chief Paley. “Right.” Chief Paley nodded. “Frog wants me to explain to you that D.J. printed the old-fashioned way—with a roller that pressed paper onto inked metal letters, set into place by hand. Here’s a cool fact: D.J. printed the first Dorrie McCann books herself! And her protagonist is amazing. Deaf can! That’s Dorrie McCann’s motto.”
Frog signed to Chief Paley, who turned to Charlie. “What? You promised to read a Dorrie McCann mystery and you haven’t yet?”
