Voices at Whisper Bend

by Katherine Ayres

  “That’s ridiculous. Do you know how heavy those magnets are? Your whole class couldn’t lift one. It takes a crane.”

  “We could too lift one. I’m gonna ask Ma. She’ll get one for us from the mill. Just you wait and see, Charlotte Campbell. You’re not the only person around here with a brain.”

  The next morning before school, kids again stood around talking quietly about the theft. Charlotte and Betsy stood close together in a sunny corner next to the low brick wall whispering, polishing their plan. “It’s good we hadn’t started cleaning out our own houses yet. We’ll have lots of stuff for bait.”

  Charlotte pointed to Paul Rossi. He and some other boys were smacking each other’s hands. It looked like a game of some sort. “Him. I know he’s the one. So all we have to do is make sure he hears us talking about all the junk we’ve still got in our cellars. How we’ll put it outside ready to haul tomorrow night. Then we stay up late and watch. When he shows up to steal it, we catch him.”

  “Catch who?” Sophie Jaworski asked. “That teacher?”

  Charlotte’s head snapped up. How had Sophie sneaked up on them? “What teacher?”

  Sophie lowered her voice. “Mr. Costa. You know the one. He’s new this year. Teaches science to the eighth grade.”

  “How do you know him, Sophie?” Betsy asked.

  “I don’t. But my sister has him. He’s mean. He really stinks. She and her friends think he’s the one. I listened outside her door last night. One of Helen’s friends says Mr. Costa could be working for that Italian dictator guy, you know, Mussolini. Mr. Costa is Italian.”

  “So’s Paul Rossi,” Charlotte whispered to Betsy. “Could be they’re working together.”

  Betsy shook her head. “A teacher? Come on, Sophie.”

  “I’m telling you, Helen and her friends have it all figured out. You know how that history teacher, Mr. Debevec, has signed up for the Marines, and Mrs. Alexander’s son is training to be a Navy pilot?”

  “What’s that got to do with Mr. Costa?” Charlotte asked.

  “Well, he’s young like them, and he’s not married either. So how come he didn’t sign up to fight?” Sophie lowered her voice to a sly whisper. “Maybe he’s a traitor. Or maybe he’s just a yellow-bellied slacker. Either way, he’s rotten enough to steal our metal.”

  “Gosh, Sophie,” Betsy said. She shook her head. “Do you really think a teacher would steal the metal?”

  “Somebody did. That scrap didn’t walk away by itself. So my sister and her friends are gonna keep their eyes on Mr. Costa. Shh.” Sophie put her hand to her lips and pretended to turn a key, then walked toward another group of girls.

  “That Sophie, she’s nuts,” Charlotte said. “She’s blabbing to the whole school, but she wants us to keep quiet. Besides, it’s got to be Paul Rossi.”

  “I don’t know, Charlotte,” Betsy began. She stopped talking as two big eighth-grade boys came right up to her.

  “You Betsy Schmidt?” one asked.

  His voice had an ugly sound. Charlotte reached for her friend’s hand and Betsy took it.

  “Yes. I’m Betsy.”

  “We’re watching you. Me and my friends, we’re gonna keep you in our sights all the time. You and your Kraut family.”

  “Wait a minute,” Charlotte said. “What do you mean, Kraut?”

  The boy sneered at her. “Lousy German. Stinkin’ Nazi. You understand them words?”

  “But Betsy’s not—” Charlotte began. Betsy squeezed her hand tightly.

  The other boy stuck his finger right under Betsy’s nose. “You tell us. If you ain’t a Kraut, where’d you get your last name?”

  “My great-great-grandparents came from Germany. But that was a long time ago.”

  “See.” The first boy glared at Charlotte. Then he turned his attention to Betsy. “It’s just plain rotten, how they let scum like you into the U. S. of A. Don’t make another move, or you’ll be sorry.”

  “Who are you calling scum?” Charlotte demanded. “You leave Betsy alone. Her brother’s fighting for the U. S. of A.”

  She tugged Betsy’s hand and they ducked away from the boys toward the door.

  Betsy’s face had turned pale and her blue eyes looked wet.

  “Come on, don’t listen to them,” Charlotte said. “They don’t know anything. The one in the blue sweater, Frankie Zalenchak, he’s a bully, always picking on younger kids. And that Danny Merkow just sticks with Frankie because he likes to sound tough.”

  “But they called me a Kraut, Charlotte. I can’t help my last name.” The tears spilled over and Betsy rubbed at them with her fists.

  Charlotte flung her arm around Betsy’s shaking shoulders. “They’re crazy, Bets. Your family’s been in America for a long time. If anybody’s a foreigner here, they are.” She turned and glared at the boys, but they had their backs to her and couldn’t see.

  “Oh, no. Look, Charlotte. They’re going after my cousin Pete. They got into an argument with Pete last week, and now it’s starting up again. He’s got a temper. They’re going to get him in trouble. Charlotte, we’ve got to—”

  The bell rang, and just in time. Another minute and war would have erupted in the school yard.

  As they marched back to their classroom, they passed the cellar door. Mr. Willis knelt on the floor with a screwdriver in his hand. As she stepped closer, Charlotte could see that he was installing a new lock on the door. Well, good.

  “Look, Bets,” she whispered. “The new metal we collect will stay safe. We’ll collect so much, nobody will dare say another word about your last name.”

  Betsy shook her head like she didn’t believe Charlotte. “What if they talk to their parents? What if somebody says something to my dad at the mill? He’s got a temper just like Pete’s.”

  “All the more reason for us to collect the most metal of anybody. And find the real thief. Once we catch him, we’ll be heroes. Come on, we’ll drop the first hints now, when we get close to Paul Rossi’s desk.”

  “I don’t know,” Betsy said.

  “Well, I do.” Charlotte stepped quickly past Sophie and the Cussick twins. She was practically leaning on Paul’s desk. “Okay, Betsy, let’s stack it all in my back alley tomorrow night. Wednesday,” she added loudly, just in case Paul wasn’t listening the first time. “We’ll have a ton of metal by then. We’ll show them. Nobody can beat the team of Campbell and Schmidt.”

  CHAPTER 5

  SUSPICIOUS CHARACTERS

  The commotion didn’t stop when Charlotte got home. Robbie and his friends had been busy, too. “I got two ideas about the thief,” he announced to Charlotte. “Two real good ones.”

  “Oh, come on,” Charlotte said. “You’re in fourth grade.” She unlocked the back door. How did nine-year-olds come up with suspects?

  “Just ’cause we’re smaller than you doesn’t mean we’re dumb.” He stomped inside behind her and slammed down his books on the kitchen table.

  “Okay, who’s on your list?”

  “I’m not gonna tell.”

  Oh, great. Mr. Stubborn. “Please, Robbie. You were good at finding scrap. You might be good at finding the thief, too.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Come on, tell me. Who knows, if you’re right, we might catch the thief in the act. How about that?”

  He grinned. “Okay Most of my class thinks one thing. But I’m not ready to make up my mind yet. I’m still looking at the clues.”

  “What clues? Who does your class think took the metal?”

  “Wagon Willie.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Wagon Willie. You know, the janitor.”

  “You mean Mr. Willis? Why would he …”

  “He already goes around collecting stuff. All summer long, he pushes that big wagon of his around the streets collecting stuff to sell.”

  “And you think he took our metal?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But he could have. He’s always around school. Some kids say he sleeps
there. And he’s, you know, strange.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “He just has trouble getting his words out sometimes. I don’t think he’d steal. He’s always nice to us.” She frowned. She’d known Mr. Willis ever since she’d started school. A lot of kids made fun of him, but Charlotte thought he was nice.

  Once in second grade she’d gotten sick in the hall and he’d cleaned it up. She’d said she was sorry, but Mr. Willis had shaken his head and smiled. “N-n-no, Missy. Can’t help getting sick. F-f-feel better.”

  And she had. No, Mr. Willis couldn’t be the thief. She refused to believe it. “You said you had two good ideas, Robbie. Who else?”

  “There’s this kid in my class, Tommy Stankowski. I don’t like him anyway. He’s always dirty and he talks rough.”

  “You think a fourth grader took all that stuff? Impossible. It’s too heavy.”

  “Okay, maybe it’s a long shot, but he could have had help. Listen, Charlie, he brought a lunch pail to school that looked exactly like the one we found in old Mrs. Dubner’s cellar. It was even busted in the same place.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Half the kids in school have metal lunch pails. And I bet a lot of them are broken. Nope, I’m betting on Paul Rossi, buster. And we’re going to set a trap to catch him. Want to help?”

  “A trap? Sure.”

  As soon as Charlotte had changed clothes, she headed to Betsy’s house and knocked on the door. Mrs. Schmidt answered. “She’s not feeling too good, Charlotte. And to tell you the truth, neither am I. She’ll see you tomorrow.” Betsy’s ma looked tired and didn’t even try to smile.

  Charlotte couldn’t blame her. The way those eighth graders had gone after Betsy, it was wicked. She told Robbie about it when she returned home and they started down the steps to their own cellar.

  “For real? Some guys said Betsy was the thief? And called her a Kraut? That’s dumb.”

  “You want more dumbness? Sophie Jaworski thinks one of the teachers did it.”

  “Which one? How come?”

  “Mr. Costa, because he’s got an Italian name.” A shadow of guilt flitted across Charlotte’s mind. She’d said the same thing about Paul Rossi. That maybe he and Mr. Costa were in it together because they were Italian. Her cheeks felt hot as she remembered.

  Well, that wasn’t the real reason she suspected him, she told herself. With all those crime stories, he made himself look guilty. “Come on, Robbie. Let’s start in the back room. The more metal we collect, the better trap we can build.”

  Instead of hauling the day’s collection to school the next morning, Charlotte and Robbie stacked it in the alley behind their house. Bait.

  She pointed it out to Betsy on the way to school.

  “That’s nice, Charlotte,” she said. Her voice was quiet.

  “You’re still upset, aren’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Yeah. But you can’t let those dumb boys get to you. They don’t have one brain between the two of them. Come on, let’s get to school fast. So we can talk real loud about our stash of metal in front of you-know-who. If we catch him, that’ll take care of Zalenchak and Merkow.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Betsy still didn’t sound convinced.

  That made Charlotte even more determined. She walked faster. When they got to the school yard, the early bell hadn’t even rung and kids were milling around. Charlotte spotted Paul Rossi and headed toward him, dragging Betsy along.

  “Hi, Paul,” she said. “Find any pots and pans lately?”

  “Some. How about you?”

  “Lots. We found so much, we can’t carry it,” Charlotte said. “We’ll have to wait till Betsy’s pa can drive it to school.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. And we’ll have even more by tomorrow. If you don’t believe me, just take a look in the alley behind our house.”

  “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. You know, you’ve got to watch out for dark alleys. Two guys busted out of jail yesterday down in Pittsburgh. They could be headed this way. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He raised his eyebrows, then walked away.

  Charlotte frowned. The early bell rang and Betsy tugged on her sweater, pulling her toward some girls in their class who were stretching out a jump rope. “Come on, you two,” they called. “You want to try double Dutch?”

  “Sure,” Betsy said.

  Sophie Jaworski turned and stopped them as they got close to the girls with the rope. “Charlotte, Betsy, what’s going on? I saw you talking to that Paul Rossi. If I didn’t know better, I’d think one of you had a crush on him.”

  Betsy shook her head. “Not me.”

  “Me either,” Charlotte said. She stuck out her tongue and wrinkled her nose. “He’s the worst boy in our class.”

  “That’s what I’ve always thought,” Sophie said. “Still, you went over to him. You better watch out, Charlotte. People will talk …”

  “Forget it, Sophie. I’ve got better things to do.” Charlotte and Betsy joined the group of girls and took turns jumping.

  When the bell rang again, Charlotte and Betsy shoved through the crowd and up the worn stone steps into the main hallway, where little kids’ drawings of spring flowers decorated the walls. Sophie’s words still bounced around in Charlotte’s mind. A crush on Paul Rossi? She couldn’t get far enough away from Sophie and her crazy ideas. As they reached the door to their classroom, Frankie Zalenchak and Danny Merkow practically knocked them down.

  “Watch where you’re going, you big bullies,” Charlotte called after them.

  Betsy turned to Charlotte, a worried look in her eyes. “What are they doing here? The eighth graders use the stairs at the other end of the hall. I don’t like this one bit.”

  “You can’t let them get on your nerves, Bets. If they see you’re scared, they’ll bother you more. Come on, Mrs. Alexander is waiting for us.”

  When she walked into her classroom, Charlotte sniffed. Something smelled funny. The smell grew stronger as she and Betsy moved down the row toward their desks. “Hey, what is that smell, anyway?” she asked.

  She was about to slip into her seat when she caught sight of Betsy, pale like somebody had painted her face with flour.

  “No! Oh, Charlotte, no!” Betsy dropped her books and covered her eyes.

  Charlotte stepped closer and looked into Betsy’s opened desk. The smell hit her nose like a stink bomb. Somebody—two somebodies, Charlotte figured—had dumped a big can of sauerkraut all over the inside of Betsy’s desk.

  The sixth grade got to play dodgeball for an hour that morning while Mr. Willis cleaned up the mess and brought in a new desk for Betsy. Frankie Zalenchak and Danny Merkow got kicked out of school for the rest of the week.

  Mrs. Alexander asked Betsy if she’d like to go home, but Betsy refused. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “I’ll stay.”

  “Good for you,” Charlotte said. “You’re not letting those bullies turn you into mush.”

  And Betsy didn’t. For a soft-looking girl, with rosy cheeks and pale brown hair, Betsy flung the ball that morning like she was training for the dodgeball Olympics. Charlotte felt sorry for the kids in the middle.

  By lunchtime, the whole school was buzzing about the sauerkraut incident. The sixth and seventh grades stuck up for the Schmidt family, angry that Betsy and her cousin Pete were being treated like enemies. The eighth grade was split. The boys stuck with Zalenchak and Merkow, but the girls thought they were bullies. Besides, according to Sophie, the eighth-grade girls still believed that Mr. Costa was the thief.

  “They’re going to get some evidence on him. This week,” Sophie promised. “They have plans, but I couldn’t hear what. I’ll keep spying on my sister and her friends to see what they’re up to.”

  Charlotte shook her head. Anybody who thought she had a crush on Paul Rossi couldn’t be trusted. She’d keep to her original plan and make sure Paul heard again about the big pile of metal she’d collected. She’d catch him tonight, red-hande
d, and prove Betsy innocent in the bargain.

  Late that night, she sat in the dark and peered out her bedroom window. In the distance, factory lights lit up the riverbanks as the Mon flowed on, a wide black ribbon, smooth and treacherous, broken only by the tiny star-points of buoy lights.

  She shifted her attention back to the dark alley below. Among the shadows, she could just make out the heap of scrap she and Robbie had carefully piled up, ready to come crashing down at the slightest touch. Next door, Betsy was awake and watching, too. They were probably the only people awake in the whole neighborhood, Charlotte thought. But they were ready. They each had a flashlight for signaling. Charlotte had borrowed Jim’s baseball bat and propped it right next to the window.

  At about eleven, Charlotte heard a loud, clattering clank. The thief! She pressed her nose to the glass, but all she could see were black trees, spidery bushes, and the shadowy pile of bait. She flashed her light out the side window twice, toward Betsy’s house, and waited. No reply.

  Had Betsy fallen asleep? Charlotte signaled again. Nothing. Maybe she should get Robbie. But he slept like a stone. And she didn’t dare wake Ma or Pa …

  Charlotte’s mouth went dry. This couldn’t be happening. She and Betsy had made plans to catch the thief together. Now she was all by herself. She peered out the window.

  What if Paul wasn’t working alone? What if it wasn’t even Paul out there? Suddenly his warning popped back into her head. Watch out for dark alleys, he’d said. Hadn’t two men just broken out of jail in Pittsburgh? Would they come to Braddock?

  No, of course they wouldn’t. Besides, if her trap was working, she couldn’t give up the chance to catch the thief red-handed. Heart pounding, she tucked the flashlight under her arm, grabbed the baseball bat, and eased open the door to her room. On tiptoe she made it to the top of the stairs, then crept down through the inky blackness and into the kitchen. With shaking fingers, she eased open the back door. The night air chilled her face; as she tiptoed out to the porch her bare feet felt damp. One step at a time, she inched toward the alley.