by Ron Roy
“Is it morning?” Ruth Rose asked.
“I think I know who stole the Royce Vase,” Dink said.
“You said it was Maria,” Josh mumbled.
“I know I did, but now I have a different idea,” Dink said.
Ruth Rose sat up. “Who do you think stole it?” she asked.
“Albert,” Dink said.
“Who’s Albert?” Josh asked.
“The guy in the cemetery,” Dink told him. “He was mowing the grass. We asked him how to find the crypt.”
“But how would he know my grandmother made a vase, and how would he steal it?” Ruth Rose asked.
“Because maybe Albert is Bertie,” Dink said.
“Who’s Bertie?” Josh asked. “I’m confused.”
“Remember that gravestone we saw at Kip’s?” Dink asked.
“Yeah, gross,” Josh said.
“Kip told us his cousin Bertie gave it to him,” Dink went on.
He explained why he thought Kip’s cousin Bertie and Albert, the cemetery guy, were the same person. “If Albert is Kip’s cousin, he might have seen your grandmother’s vase when he visited the art studio. And he could get the key to the studio from Kip. Albert could also get keys to the crypts, since he works at the cemetery. Maybe he goes inside the crypts and takes pictures of the stuff he sees, like the Royce Vase. If I’m right, Albert gave Kip the vase photo that’s tacked up in the studio. And I think Albert stole Ruth Rose’s grandmother’s vase, and broke the bathroom window to make Kip think some burglar did it.”
“So it was Albert who took Gram Hathaway’s vase into the crypt and switched it for the Royce Vase?” Josh asked.
“That makes a lot more sense than Maria doing it,” Dink said.
“Or my grandmother!” Ruth Rose said.
“Plus, I think Albert might have locked us in the crypt,” Dink went on. “The wind could have blown the door shut, but the wind didn’t jam a stick so the door wouldn’t open.”
“Why would he do that?” Ruth Rose asked.
“It makes sense,” Josh said before Dink could answer. “If he did steal the Royce Vase, he wouldn’t want us poking around in there, would he? I mean, if we found a clue, he wouldn’t want us going to the cops.”
They looked at each other. Josh gulped. “Maybe he was going to leave us in there,” he whispered. “Forever. Our bones would be—”
“Don’t talk about skeletons in the middle of the night, okay, Josh?” Ruth Rose said. She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “If Albert still has the Royce Vase and we can find it, they’ll have to let Gram come home!”
“How would we find it?” Dink asked. “He probably stashed it away somewhere until he has time to sell it.”
“If I were him, I’d hide it where no one would ever look,” Ruth Rose said.
“Where?” Josh asked.
“If Albert has keys to the other crypts in the cemetery,” she whispered, “maybe he hid it inside a different crypt!”
Josh let out a hoot. “There’s no way you’re getting me back in one of those crypts,” he said.
“Not one crypt,” Ruth Rose said, grinning. “There are at least a hundred in the cemetery. We have to search all of them!”
“I don’t think Albert would hide the vase inside a crypt,” Dink said. “He’d be afraid some family member would show up and find the Royce Vase in their crypt. Nobody expected Foley Royce to visit his family crypt, but he did.”
“You’re right,” Josh said. “So that leaves…the rest of the planet.”
The kids lay back in their sleeping bags. Dink thought about where Albert would hide a valuable stolen vase.
Ruth Rose thought about her grandmother.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Josh said in the darkness.
“Anything?” Dink joked.
“No, seriously,” Josh said, sitting up. “I get that Albert might have snuck into Kip’s and stolen Gram’s vase, then switched it for the Royce Vase. Maybe he hid the Royce Vase someplace and locked us in the crypt.”
“So what don’t you understand?” Ruth Rose asked.
“At first, Kip agreed your gram’s vase was broken in the kiln,” Josh said. “But later he told us it was stolen out of the kiln. Why did Kip change his story?”
“Because he found the smashed window and some other things got stolen,” Ruth Rose said. “He told us that.”
“You know what I don’t get?” Dink added. “How did Albert know your gram’s vase was in the kiln? And how did he get it out of the kiln? Kip kept it locked.”
Nobody had an answer.
“Anyway,” Ruth Rose said, “we have to prove Albert really is Kip’s cousin. Then we have to find the vase and prove Albert stole it.”
“Oh, that should be easy,” Josh said, sticking the lollipop in his mouth.
Dink shut off the light. “I have a plan,” he said after a few minutes.
“What’s the plan, Dan?” Josh asked. “No more cemeteries, I hope.”
“We search Kip’s Place,” Dink said.
“Why there?” Ruth Rose asked.
“Because I think Albert would hide the Royce Vase somewhere he could get to it easily,” Dink answered. “The perfect hiding place would be at Cousin Kip’s shop. Kip wouldn’t know it was there, and Albert could get the vase whenever he wanted to.”
“So we tell Kip we think his cousin is a crook and we want to search his shop?” Josh said. “That should go over big.”
“No, we don’t tell Kip until we can prove it,” Dink said. “We just snoop around.”
“I like the snooping part,” Ruth Rose said.
“So where will Kip be while we’re snooping?” Josh asked.
“Not you,” Dink said. “Ruth Rose and I will search while you keep Kip busy.”
“Busy how? And why do you guys get to do the fun part?” Josh asked.
“You’ll have fun, too,” Dink said. “You’ll be doing an art project.”
Josh pulled the lollipop from his mouth. “What kind of art project?” he asked.
“Ask Kip to show you how to do a gravestone rubbing,” Dink said. “While he’s doing that, we snoop!”
“But I hate gravestones, and I don’t want to rub one!” Josh cried.
“You don’t really rub it,” Ruth Rose said. “You put a paper over the gravestone, then rub the paper with a crayon. The letters come through onto the paper. It’s cool!”
“But while I’m playing with crayons, Kip will see you guys wandering around,” Josh said.
“No, he won’t. The gravestone is on the sidewalk. Kip will be with you, and we’ll be inside,” Dink said. “Just make sure not to learn too fast. Keep his attention on you while we—”
“Snoop,” Josh said.
“Try to help my grandmother,” Ruth Rose said.
Josh let out a big sigh. “Okay, when do we do this?” he asked.
Dink checked the time on his phone. “It’s ten p.m.,” he said. “How about after breakfast?”
“Wakey-wakey, darlings!” Maria called. She was in the kitchen, wearing an apron with a yellow smiley face. “If you don’t come and eat these pancakes, I’ll have to feed them to the pigeons!”
“No, please don’t do that!” Josh said as he struggled out of his sleeping bag. His hair stuck up like wires.
“Okay, but go wash first,” Maria said.
Josh ran into the bathroom while Dink and Ruth Rose rolled up the sleeping bags.
A few minutes later, they all sat at the table. They helped themselves to pancakes, syrup, and sliced bananas.
“How did you sleep?” Maria asked. “Was the floor too hard?”
“It was like camping!” Ruth Rose said. “My little brother and I sleep on the ground outside every summer.”
<
br /> “Josh had bad dreams,” Dink said. “He kept saying ‘I miss my giraffe!’ ”
“Did not,” said Josh.
Maria put her plate in the sink. “I’m going to the police station,” she said, placing two keys on the counter. “The big key opens the door downstairs. The small, shiny one is for my front door.”
“Say hi to Gram!” Ruth Rose said.
“I’ll do better than that!” Maria said. “With Lanny’s help, I’ll bring her home!”
The kids cleaned up the table, brushed their teeth, and headed out the door.
“So how do we work Operation Josh?” Josh asked.
“Who named it that?” Ruth Rose asked.
Josh grinned. “I did,” he said. “Since you get to search, I get to call it after myself.”
“Okay,” Dink said. “Remember: when we get there, you ask Kip to teach you how to do a gravestone rubbing.”
* * *
—
Five minutes later, they stopped in front of the dry cleaner’s. “What happens if you find it?” Josh asked. “The Royce Vase.”
“We show it to Kip,” Dink said. “That’s when we tell him his cousin Albert stole it.”
“And we text Maria at the police station,” Ruth Rose said. “She’ll tell the cops we found the vase. They’ll arrest Albert and let Gram go!”
The kids stepped into Kip’s Place. No one was there, not even Kip.
“He’s not here,” Josh whispered. “We can—”
Just then, Kip stepped through the door with the private sign. “Hi again,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Dink gave Josh a little push. “Josh has something to ask you,” he said. “Right, Josh?”
Josh put on his biggest smile. “You know that gravestone thing you have outside?” he said. “Can you teach me how to do a rubbing? I’d really like to learn, so I can show my art teacher in Connecticut.”
Kip stared at the kids. “Sure thing,” he said after a minute. “How about you two? Want to learn, too?”
“We’ll just watch,” Dink said. “We’re terrible at art, right, Ruth Rose?”
“Right,” Ruth Rose said. “Awful.”
Kip pulled a large sheet of paper from a box standing in a corner. He grabbed a few thick crayons, a roll of tape, and a damp sponge. “Let’s go outside,” he said.
The gravestone was leaning against one corner of his building. The sun shone on the stone’s markings, but they were too faint to read. “This thing is about one hundred years old, so first we clean it,” Kip said, handing the sponge to Josh. “Pat it gently. Try to get the dirt out of all the grooves.”
Dink wondered why Kip wasn’t wearing his purple sunglasses. The sun was bright as it reflected off the sidewalk and window glass.
Josh did a good job wiping the gravestone, turning the sponge black.
“Great,” Kip said. “Next, we tape this paper over the stone.” He did that, smoothing the paper with his hands. “The rest is easy. You just scribble the crayon over the paper. What color?”
Josh chose a blue crayon. Kip showed him how to hold it sideways. “Don’t rub too hard,” he said.
Josh began moving the crayon across the paper. Immediately, some bumpy blue impressions appeared. “Cool!” he said.
“Um, Kip, may I use your bathroom?” Dink asked.
“Sure, and the window is fixed,” Kip said. “You know where it is, right?”
Dink nodded and walked inside. Instead of heading straight to the restroom, he stopped in the art room, checking the shelves and corners for a tall silver vase. Feeling nervous, he peeked behind canvases and under tables. He even stuck his arm into a trash can filled with paper. No vase.
He walked down the hall to the bathroom. The window had new glass, and the floor had been swept clean. There was a cabinet under the sink, so Dink opened it. He saw rolls of toilet paper and a bottle of glass cleaner. No vase here, either.
Dink ran back to the art room. Kip had left the door with the private sign partly open, so he stepped inside. He eyed the drawers in Kip’s desk, but decided they were too small to hide a vase nearly two feet tall.
The desktop held a laptop and printer, a cell phone, and a tray holding pens, paper clips, and two pennies. There was no window, but a desk lamp lit the room.
A mirror hung on the wall over the desk. Dink glanced in the glass and saw his own sweaty face and blue eyes. Behind him was a bookshelf against the wall. The five shelves held a bunch of small clay animals.
Dink turned to look at them. He saw ducks, pigs, cats, and dogs. One dog with floppy ears reminded Dink of Josh’s basset hound, Pal. Then he noticed something behind the dog. A round object caught the lamp’s reflection.
He looked closer, then slid the dog to the right and saw a doorknob. Weird place for a doorknob, Dink thought. Then he realized the bookshelf was built onto a door.
Dink looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. He reached for the doorknob and turned it. He heard a click, and the bookshelf quietly moved toward him. On the other side of the door was a closet with more shelves. With the door shelf closed, no one would ever know there was a secret room.
Dink stared with his mouth open. On a shelf two feet from his nose stood the Royce Vase. Even he could tell the vase was real silver, not painted. It gleamed from the lamplight coming over Dink’s shoulder. The vase resembled some he’d seen in Maria’s book, and was exactly like the photo in Kip’s art room.
Then he saw something that made him nod and take a picture with his phone. He pushed the bookshelf closed and heard the latch click.
When he turned to leave, he nearly bumped into Kip.
Kip was standing in the office doorway. Josh stood behind him, holding his art paper covered with blue crayon marks. Ruth Rose was behind Josh with her eyes wide.
“Did you get lost?” Kip asked Dink. “This isn’t the bathroom.” He was smiling, but with his mouth only. His eyes were light brown and staring. They reminded Dink of a snake’s eyes he’d seen on TV. The guy on the show said snakes couldn’t blink because they had no eyelids.
Dink did blink, and he tried to smile back at Kip. “Yeah, I found it,” he said. “When I came out, I noticed these cool clay animals.” He held up his phone. “I wanted to get a picture.”
“Did you get it?” Kip asked. “The picture?” He nodded toward Dink’s phone.
“No,” Dink said. He tapped on the camera icon and held his phone out to Kip. “Would you take one of me in front of them?” He stepped to the side, hoping his body was blocking the secret doorknob.
Kip took the phone and aimed it at Dink’s face. “Smile,” he said. “Don’t look so scared.”
Dink grinned as Kip took the picture. “Want another, just in case?” Kip asked.
“No, thanks. We, um, have to get going,” Dink said. “Maria’s expecting us.”
“Look!” Josh said. He held up his rubbing. “This gravestone was for some guy named Donald Skane. He died in 1920!”
“That’s why my cousin Bertie brought it to me,” Kip said. “Same last name as ours, but no relation to us.”
“Does your cousin work in a cemetery?” Ruth Rose asked. “Is his name Albert?”
Kip nodded. “Yes, but we call him Bertie,” he said. “He’s a groundskeeper at Green-Wood. He finds all kinds of stuff.”
The kids moved back into the art room. Kip closed the door to his office. “Say hi to your grandmother,” he said to Ruth Rose. “I mean, is she still…?”
“She’ll be home today,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe.”
Kip took Josh’s rubbing and laid it across a worktable. Then he chose a can from a shelf. “Step back. This is a fixative, and you do not want to inhale the fumes,” Kip said. “It smells nasty, but it’ll keep the crayon from rubbing off.” He sprayed the sme
lly mist on the blue markings before rolling the paper into a tube. He slipped a rubber band around the tube and handed it to Josh. “Good to show your teacher.”
The kids thanked Kip and left. They passed the sandwich shop and waved through the window at Simon.
“Well, we didn’t find a silver vase worth a jillion dollars,” Josh said. “But I got a piece of paper with crayon marks on it!”
“Who says we didn’t find the vase?” Dink asked. He held up his phone and wiggled it. “Wait till you see!”
They walked to a bench near a statue of a soldier on a horse. Dink sat between Josh and Ruth Rose and opened up his photos. There was the picture Kip had just taken: Dink standing in front of the clay animals.
“Why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?” Ruth Rose asked.
“Wait,” Dink said, swiping back to the previous picture. “Take a look!”
It was the photo of the Royce Vase inside the hidden closet.
“Holy hippos!” Josh said. “You found it!”
Lined up on the other shelves were candlesticks, small statues, bowls, and more vases. Dink counted almost fifty items.
“Everything looks old and expensive!” Ruth Rose said.
The bottom shelf held three small panels made of stained glass. They were dusty, and the wood frames were scratched. Dink thought they looked like one of the pictures in an art book at Maria’s apartment.
“What is all that stuff?” Josh asked.
Dink explained how he had found the closet. “I’ll bet these things were all stolen from other crypts in the cemetery,” he said.
“Amazing!” Ruth Rose said. “So Albert hid this stuff behind that door, and Kip never knew!”
“Wait,” Dink said. He made the picture bigger and pointed to the shelf next to the Royce Vase. “See that?” He moved his finger to something small, flat, and purple.
Josh and Ruth Rose leaned closer.
