The Vandemark Mummy

by Cynthia Voigt

  “You’re kidding,” Mr. Hall said. His fingers scratched at his frizzy hair. “But why would anyone?”

  Althea had stopped to put on her bathrobe over the flannel nightgown, and her slippers. The light in her room would have already been on, because Althea always slept with the light on. The switch for the hall light was right outside her door, so she’d turned it on, on her way to join Phineas, so she wouldn’t ever have to be in darkness.

  “No, I’ll be right over,” their father said. Althea sat on the step beside Phineas. “I won’t be able to get back to sleep anyway,” Mr. Hall said. He turned around and saw his children watching him. “Everything’s okay,” he told them. “No, talking to my kids. Just give me a couple of minutes to get dressed. I’m glad you called me.”

  “What time—” Althea wondered.

  “Three,” Phineas answered without thinking. He wondered if he was right. He’d never tested his time sense in the middle of the night. Althea was the one who slept restlessly, and had bad dreams. Phineas put his head on the pillow, and was out until hunger, or the alarm, woke him.

  “I’ll be with you shortly,” Mr. Hall said. He hung up the receiver and turned around. “That’s enough to give a man a cardiac arrest.”

  “What happened?” Althea asked.

  “I thought—” Phineas started to say.

  “Me too,” his father said. Then he laughed. “We could call her, to make ourselves feel better, but we’d probably wake her up, and scare her out of her wits too.”

  “Who was that?” Althea asked.

  “Dan Lewis, head of security. Somebody, apparently, tried to break into room oh-fifteen. Dan said it looks like the alarms chased off whoever it was. Nothing’s been taken.”

  “Is he sure?”

  “That’s why I’m going over.”

  “Me too,” Althea said. She ran up the stairs.

  “I’ll get my shoes,” Phineas said. He slept in his clothes, so shoes were the only thing he was missing.

  “There’s no need,” his father said.

  “Yeah but I want to,” Phineas said. He didn’t want to be left out of the excitement, if there was any.

  * * *

  They drove to the library and parked by the rear entrance. Mr. Hall had brought along his big flashlight, because the library lights were automatically turned off at night. A man waited in the yellow light by the door. He was a slight man, in a gray uniform that looked like a police uniform but wasn’t. He had gray hair, in a military cut, and stood with a soldier’s erectness.

  “Phineas, Althea—Mr. Lewis,” Mr. Hall introduced them. “Shall we take a look? The kids have worked with the collection from the start, Dan.”

  “Well”—he considered Althea and Phineas and made up his mind—“I guess it’s okay. I’ve been through the whole place, and it looks like he’s long gone. Come on in, Professor, kids. I’ve got the lights switched on, so you won’t need that flashlight.”

  “I’m not a professor,” Mr. Hall said, “just an instructor. Call me Sam.” He led the way inside.

  Lights shone in the corridors, and they hurried along, turning left, turning right, turning left and then right again. At the door, they all stopped. The door was just slightly ajar. On the door itself, and on the frame, there were concave dents, like a car after a fender bender.

  “I figure, he must have used a crowbar. The same kind of marks are on the door from the library.”

  “So he got back into the cellar from inside the library?” Althea asked. “How did he get in the library?”

  “Good thinking, young lady. A window, it must have been left unlocked, open, into the reading room.”

  “Well,” Mr. Hall said, and pushed with his shoulder against the door. It swung open. He pulled his sweatshirt down over his hand to switch on the light.

  At first glance, the room looked exactly the way they’d left it the evening before. The mummy lay on her table, the artifacts were lined up on the shelves. While his father and sister went to look at the shelves, Phineas checked on the mummy. She looked up at him, with her sad little smile. She hadn’t been touched.

  “I think the alarm probably scared him off,” Mr. Lewis said from the door. “Everything present and accounted for Pro—Sam?”

  “As far as I can tell. Althea?”

  She nodded.

  “It took me maybe five minutes to get over here once the alarm sounded in the office. I figure he’s long gone.”

  “If the door was like that, he probably never even went inside,” Phineas said.

  “My guess exactly,” Mr. Lewis said. “Of course, I could be surprised. I’ve been surprised a few times in my life.”

  “I thought things were pretty crime free up here,” Phineas said. “Who do you think—?”

  Mr. Lewis shook his head. “No idea.”

  “It’s a good thing you put in that alarm,” Althea said.

  “It’s an even better thing only the four of us knew about it,” her father answered.

  “You two kids,” Mr. Lewis said, “why don’t you go back to bed, now you’ve seen what there is to see?”

  Phineas hesitated. He would rather have stayed, to find out what it was like being questioned by the police. One look at Mr. Lewis’s face, however, convinced him that it was a good idea to go back home. Mr. Lewis was looking him straight in the eye, waiting to be obeyed. He looked like the kind of man accustomed to having people do what he told them.

  Mr. Lewis thought he was hesitating for a different reason. “You’ll be perfectly safe, walking back. You’ll be fine alone in the house.”

  “That wasn’t—” Phineas didn’t want Mr. Lewis thinking he was afraid, but his father cut him off.

  “Tell me something, Dan, why is it that everyone seems to know all about my private life? I haven’t even been here four weeks.”

  “Is that getting to you?” Mr. Lewis asked. “If it is, my advice is, you better get used to it. Vandemark’s a small place. You show up with two kids and no wife—or wife equivalent these days—and people want to know why. If it helps, the gossip’s mostly done with good intentions. There’s never more than just a little spicing of malice.”

  The two men looked at one another, and laughed. “Okay,” Mr. Hall said. “Then how about you? How long have you been here? I know you’re ex-service, but what else is there? A family? Where did you serve? What branch were you in?”

  Phineas and Althea left them to it.

  * * *

  They walked across the empty campus without speaking. Phineas wasn’t sleepy, just the opposite. The night silence, the trees looming over the deserted pathway, the vast dark sky full of stars—it all made him feel as if something was about to happen, and he was ready for it.

  When they got home, Althea went straight to the kitchen. She took down two mugs and the box of cocoa mix, put milk on to heat, and emptied two packets into the mugs. “Incredible cocoa,” she read from the box. “I’m going to write them a letter.”

  Phineas looked at her.

  “I am. I want credible cocoa, real cocoa—think about it, Phineas. Don’t you ever think about that? Incredible cocoa—you know what that is?”

  Phineas shook his head.

  Althea stared at him. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t say anything, but all the words she wasn’t saying seemed to be crowding up inside her mouth, trying to get out, like lava trying to find the weak spot in a volcano’s surface. She turned her back on him and poured the milk into the mugs. Phineas accepted his and blew across the top, sniffed in the chocolaty-milky smell, and waited for whatever was bothering Althea.

  “You never say anything,” finally burst out of her.

  Phineas knew what she meant. He had thought that was it. He wished the phone would ring again, or the police would come to ask them questions, anything for her to use this worked-up excitement on. Althea wanted to talk, but she’d just try to blame someone, and work herself up to anger; then she’d probably cry and run out of the room. He had t
o say something. “Lay off, Althea, will you? Please? I’m twelve years old—I break things and my feet smell and teachers yell at me—what is there for me to say?”

  “I mean Mom.”

  He knew that.

  “You don’t do anything.”

  “What could I do?” he asked. “Nobody can do anything. And who’re you to talk? All you’ve done is bury your face in some book. Some Greek book.”

  “She shouldn’t be doing it. It isn’t as if he hasn’t always let her run things before. Do you imagine that he wanted to teach high school? He’s got a PhD, Phineas.”

  “He liked teaching high school,” Phineas protested.

  “He always likes things, that’s the way he is. That doesn’t excuse her. She should have come along, when he got this job. He always went along with her for her jobs.”

  “So you blame her.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Phineas shook his head. “No.” He figured, his mother got tired of having them around to pick up after and nag, to make up her second full-time job. She’d said that pretty often, about having two full-time jobs, and he’d never let it get through to him; he figured, she was a grown-up, she knew what she was doing, if she didn’t like it she could take care of it herself. He was sorry, and he wished now he had tried to help out instead of trying to get away with not doing things, but he didn’t blame his mother. “You don’t understand.”

  “Just because you look like her doesn’t mean you can read her mind. How do you think Dad feels, having to explain to people? Do you ever think about that?”

  “Look, Althea,” Phineas said. He couldn’t believe that she didn’t already know this. She was the smart one. “It doesn’t have anything to do with us. It’s not our marriage, and we can’t do anything about it. It’s not even our business,” he pointed out. “We’re just kids.”

  Althea was looking thoughtfully at him. He lifted his mug and drank down some cocoa, so he wouldn’t have to look back at her. “Sappho was a woman,” Althea said.

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “Tradition says she was married, to a merchant, a businessman. She definitely had a daughter, named Kleis. That’s proved by her poems. There are also stories that she was a lesbian—she lived on Lesbos, and that’s where the name comes from, from Sappho of Lesbos. There’s proof for that in the poems too.”

  So what? Phineas wondered, and drank. “Are you saying you think Mom’s gay?”

  “You take everything so personally, that isn’t—I’m trying to say that it must have been a lot the same for her,” Althea said. “Conflicts and choices. I’m trying to say maybe it isn’t all that different now. Nothing much has changed for women.” She waited. “You must think something, Fin—what do you think about that?”

  “If that’s true, it’s pretty depressing,” Phineas said.

  “If it’s true, I guess it could be depressing. Except—Sappho’s a great poet, everybody agrees, so something worked right in her life. I don’t know if Mom is right about taking the job, I don’t even know if I’m so sure she’s wrong. That’s depressing too.” She drank at her cocoa, looking at him but not seeing him. Phineas let his mind drift, now that she wasn’t going to blow up at him. “Who do you think did it?” she asked.

  “Huh? Did what?”

  “Broke into the collection.”

  “How would I know?”

  “You wouldn’t, I didn’t ask you if you knew. I just asked you who you thought. We could probably figure it out.”

  “Why us?”

  “Because,” Althea explained, “we’re on the scene. We know as much as anyone else. Except whoever did it.”

  “Who’d want to?” Phineas asked, meaning he couldn’t imagine who would want to take the collection or any part of it.

  Althea took that as a real question. “That’s a good idea. Motive. If we think about who might want to steal something, then you narrow down the possibilities. Somebody who thought something in there was worth stealing. Somebody who read that article in the paper and thought the emerald necklace was inside the mummy?”

  “But Ken said it wasn’t. He said they didn’t bury people with their jewels on, then.”

  “So someone who didn’t know that. Unless,” Althea said, “our mummy is an exception, and she is wearing the necklace.”

  “That would show up in an X ray,” Phineas said. “Dad’s going to have X rays done.”

  “So we’ll find out, pretty soon. Ken acts like he knows everything, but he could be wrong.”

  “I bet it was just some kids. Some kids who read the article in the paper and don’t have anything better to do, just seeing if they could get in. That sounds likely, doesn’t it?”

  “It does to me,” Althea said, sipping thoughtfully, “but that could just be because I’m a kid. It’s easier to imagine why someone who’s like you would do something, even if it’s something you’d never do. I bet neither Dad nor Mr. Lewis have thought of kids. I wonder if the police will.”

  It was kind of fun, thinking up all the possibilities. “Wait,” Phineas asked, getting up. “Let me get paper.”

  “Why?”

  “To write things down. We can make a list.” Althea made a face. “Yeah, but if we write it down, then we’ll avoid repeating ideas.”

  “Mr. Efficiency,” she said, but she waited.

  “First, a thief,” Phineas said, writing that down. “To steal the necklace.”

  “Or thinking that the collection has some cash value,” Althea added. “If you read the article in the paper, you might think it did. Especially the crown. The way O’Meara wrote it—she should go get a job on the National Enquirer, the way she writes.”

  “What about her?” Phineas asked. “No, listen. If there’s a big story and she gets to cover it, her career will profit. Or, what if they’re about to fire her, and she knows it, she might steal something from the collection so she’d be too important to fire. Because she’s the reporter on the story.” He could really get into this.

  “You can write that down if you want to, but that’s like writing down Ken because he wants the necklace—and lied to us about it being there, to convince us it wasn’t.”

  “Why would he do that?” That was a possibility. Anything was possible.

  “I don’t know, for the money, maybe he wants money.”

  “He has money, they do—he said, remember? Or anyway hinted, about how much she makes?”

  “Maybe she keeps it herself? Unless he gambles or something, or has another woman or . . . can we find any of this out?” Phineas was busy writing. “Is there any way to find out if O’Meara’s about to be fired, or if Ken needs money?”

  Althea’s mind ran along a different track. “What about Mrs. Prynn? She’s afraid Old Felix will get ahead of dear Olivia in the donation race.”

  “Or that Mr. Fletcher, with the same reason, only the other way around. I can’t imagine it, but then I’m not a grown-up so I can’t imagine what they might get up to.”

  Althea grinned. “This is getting crazy, Fin.”

  “I don’t mind. I think we have to put down Mrs. Batchelor too.”

  “Why her?”

  “Because she was so angry, that first day, remember? It didn’t make sense, and it still doesn’t—Why should she be so angry?” Phineas answered his own question. “Maybe she wants to protect her library, keep it pure, just books. Or keep absolute control over it?” Phineas suggested. “Or preserve the architecture?”

  “It’s ugly,” Althea said.

  “She might not think so.” Phineas couldn’t imagine what someone like Mrs. Batchelor would care so much about that she’d do something weird to get what she wanted. He couldn’t imagine an adult caring that much—so that, in a way, he could imagine almost anything, even Mrs. Batchelor sneaking around at night to steal the collection.

  “But there’s her husband. Maybe she hopes if the college loses the collection her husband’s museum will get it. Maybe”—Althea reached acros
s to grab Phineas by the wrist, her eyes sort of glittering and not even stopping to think over her newest idea—“Listen, Fin, maybe we’ve got it backward. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Who says anyone really intended to succeed, to break into the room and take something out. It could be that someone just wanted to show that a break-in could occur.”

  “Why?” he asked, but what he was thinking was that his sister really was smart, was seriously smart.

  “To make Dad look bad. It does make him look bad.”

  “So the collection would be taken away from him? And go to someone else? Who would want it? Or maybe it would go to somewhere else? From the college too. Where would it go?” It made sense to Phineas, this new idea of Althea’s.

  “To the MFA in Boston, which is where Mr. Vandemark said the family wants it to be. He did say that, didn’t he?”

  “Or to the museum here. Mr. Batchelor said they didn’t have room, but that—or, the valuable pieces at least might go there. But, Althea, you’d have to be a little crazy to go to those lengths—doing something criminal—just because you wanted a certain museum to have something. Or a certain man not to have it. Or a certain place not to. Mrs. Batchelor is weird, but is she crazy enough to do something criminal just to show that something criminal can be done?”

  “She’s a better candidate than Mr. Vandemark.”

  “I don’t know about that. Someone who’s used to getting his own way, like a dictator, like Noriega. If people like that are crossed, they don’t take it lightly.”

  Once he’d started thinking suspiciously, Phineas couldn’t stop himself. He looked at his sister, and wondered how far she would go to get their parents back together. It took a minute for it to sink in that Althea was looking at him in the same wondering way.

  Or how far his father might go, he wondered, not meeting Althea’s eyes.

  CHAPTER 9

  By the time Phineas came down to the kitchen the next morning, Althea was already there, already dressed, reading, ignoring him. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, topped it generously with sugar, and doused it with milk. He ate standing up, staring into the glass-fronted shelves that held plates and glasses. He knew what his mother would have to say about those shelves: Glass might let you see in, but glass had to be kept clean. Give her formica cupboards, preferably white, so you could see the dirt right away, and get it.