The Secrets of Tree Taylor

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  Eileen yawned. “Why are people crawling all over our street?”

  Mom jumped up from the table. “I’ll tell you about it later, honey … after you’ve had a chance to wake up.” She glanced over at me and shook her head. Mum’s the word. Mustn’t sully Eileen’s morning with upsetting news. “Breakfast?”

  “I’m off.” All hope of getting real answers out of my mother left the room the minute Eileen stepped in. Honesty went down the tubes as my sister slid into the breakfast booth and downed her OJ. Eileen never wanted to hear anything ugly or disturbing. She refused to watch The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock with Dad and me. As far as my big sister knew, everyone died in his or her sleep after a long and happy life. And “dead” wasn’t a word you said out loud.

  I needed to talk to Dad. He shot straight with me. When my grandmother was dying, he told me right out that he didn’t think she had long to live. I appreciated that. Grandmother Taylor and I had never gotten along too well. Knowing that my visit with her would probably be the last time I’d see her helped me be extra nice. Otherwise, I might have snapped back at her when she told me to stop my yelling, when all I was doing was talking normal.

  I had to get Dad off by himself if I wanted the truth. Besides, there was no way I could spend another minute in the house—not while everything was happening right down the street. Mom wouldn’t approve, and Dad wouldn’t be happy to see me at the Kinneys’. But that was just too bad. I flipped toward the back of my notebook, where I knew I’d written a tough writer’s quote:

  Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

  —E. B. White

  “Guess I’ll go get dressed,” I announced as casually as I could. “I’m working this afternoon.” I slipped back to my bedroom and changed into my swimsuit, white shorts, and a sleeveless tie-top.

  Crooked house, here I come!

  5

  Town Gossip

  It wasn’t easy sneaking out of my house. The tamarack tree that shaded our back door used to barely brush the screen when you opened it all the way. But since last summer, the delicate branches had grown so that we had to duck and turn sideways to get out.

  Then Midge pounced on me, barking her head off.

  “Shush, girl.” I scratched her floppy ears.

  She dashed off and trotted back with her chewed-up rubber ball. Her tail wagged so hard, her whole body swayed. Three years ago, somebody had dumped her by the side of the road. Dad spotted her on his way home from a house call and doctored her back to health.

  “Sorry, buddy. No fetch. I’ve got work to do.”

  Midge whined as I made my escape.

  About a dozen people were milling around the Kinneys’ front lawn. Mr. Kinney would have had a fit. Down at the Quiet House, a shade looked half hoisted. Even Mrs. Lynch must have gotten caught up in the ruckus.

  “Hello, Tree.” An older woman I recognized nodded at me. She belonged to a big group of Hamiltonians who knew Eileen and me because of our parents but whose names had never stuck in my brain.

  “Hello.” I nodded back.

  “Dreadful business.” She clutched her collar at her throat. Her black blouse and straight black skirt would have looked at home in a funeral parlor. “I’m surprised your daddy let you be here.”

  I shrugged and kept walking. Strolling around to the side yard, I couldn’t see Dad or Sheriff Robinson. No ambulance, either.

  Six or seven people huddled on the sidewalk. I sidled over there, close but not too close.

  Olan Stemple and his wife seemed to be talking at the same time. They farmed eighty acres east of town. Their seven grandkids ranged from kindergarten to high school. “We went to school with Alfred,” Mrs. Stemple began.

  “In a one-room schoolhouse in Mirable,” her husband continued. “Course, that school’s been tore down nigh onto forty years or better.”

  “Post office is still there,” Mrs. Stemple chimed in.

  I wanted them to stick to the subject. It would really help my article if I knew what Mr. Kinney was like when he was young.

  Thankfully, John Rounds asked my question for me: “What was the old man like back then?” Mr. Rounds ran the hardware store. His right hand clutched one suspender like he couldn’t quite trust it to hold up his baggy gray trousers.

  Both of the Stemples opened their mouths to speak, but Mrs. got words out first. “Young Alfred was the school bully.”

  “Even when there was other fellas bigger than him,” Mr. added.

  “My, yes.” Mrs. Stemple glanced at the Kinneys’ house as if Mr. Kinney were still in there and she wanted to make sure he couldn’t hear her. “He used to terrorize us at lunch.”

  “Just take whatever he dang well pleased from lunch pails. Money too, if a body had some.”

  “And fights,” his wife added. “Not just schoolyard scuffles, neither.”

  “All-out fights that he always started.”

  Mr. Rounds snapped his suspender. Everybody in the huddle jumped, including me. “So he was always a mean son-of-a-gun, eh? Shame, really. Wife seems okay. Good deal younger than Alfred.”

  “Don’t know how she puts up with him,” said a long-faced woman.

  “Alfred Kinney tried to kill himself once,” Mrs. Stemple whispered.

  “Years back, afore he took a wife,” her husband added. “Ran his car straight into the stone barn out yonder past our place.”

  Irma Jones, a woman in Mom’s bridge club, said, “That’s not how I’d commit suicide—not that I ever would, of course. I wouldn’t shoot myself, either.”

  Mr. Arndt, another farmer, took off his faded John Deere cap and wiped his bald head with a handkerchief. “You sure he didn’t just fall asleep at the wheel? That’s how I remember it.”

  The Stemples exchanged a look, but I couldn’t tell what it meant.

  “Doc ruled it an accident,” Mrs. Stemple said.

  “Old Doc Taylor, Senior,” Mr. Stemple added. “And that was that.”

  Mrs. Stemple got in the last word: “Course, Doc Junior reckons this here one’s an accident too.”

  I edged away from the group, which had begun breaking apart anyway. I pictured Mr. Kinney sitting on the porch, scowling like he hated the world and everybody in it. What did he do all day? I couldn’t ever remember hearing music coming from that house. Shoot—without music, I might kill myself.

  Maybe there was a way to tell when somebody had shot himself on purpose or by accident, or if somebody else did the shooting and if that was an accident or not. I needed to ask Dad.

  My dad never “talked doctor” or used fancy words I couldn’t understand. He paid attention to words. He hated language that colored over the truth of things. Like calling all that fighting in Korea a “conflict,” even though Dad said it must have felt like war to the soldiers there. The newspapers, when they wrote about Vietnam, called it “the Vietnam conflict.” But Dad said it was getting mighty close to a war, no matter what they called it.

  I couldn’t wait to talk to Dad. Only he was nowhere in sight. He’d probably ridden along in the ambulance.

  Mom would kill Dad when she found out he was riding all over the state of Missouri in his robe and slippers.

  6

  Basket Cases

  The day had turned into what Dad called “a real mugger,” and it wasn’t even June yet. School let out in early May, thanks to all the farmers who would have pulled their sons out anyway to get the planting done on time. It felt like sweat dangled in the air, an invisible curtain of yuck. The sun shone from straight up in the sky, which meant it could already be noon.

  I had to get to work. D. J. Bretz, the pool manager, said he hired me because I was never late to anything. I ran home, changed into flip-flops, and biked to the pool.

  When I got there, the stack of metal baskets reached from the floor to the counter. My job as basketgirl was to set out baskets for the swimmers to put their clothes in. Each basket had a number and a big safety pin with a matching number so I’d kn
ow which basket to get when swimmers wanted their clothes back.

  Sarah hadn’t shown up yet, so I got started on my own. I straightened out the pins and placed the empty baskets in order on the shelves. Easy as pie, which might have explained the quarter-an-hour pay.

  Every few minutes, I peered out to the road, hoping to see Sarah. I’d talked D.J. into hiring her. Sarah and I had been best friends since birth. Our moms started it, letting us play at one house or the other. I loved Sarah’s farm. I thought pumping water and using the outhouse were cool—they didn’t get indoor plumbing until we hit fourth grade.

  Sarah liked coming over to my house and playing in town. She loved my dad too. They had a funny routine going on for as long as I could remember. Dad used to teach our Sunday School class, and one Sunday he told us about the Bible verse that says nothing is impossible with God. So every Sunday after that, Sarah arrived with a new impossibility for Dad: “What if a guy got his head chopped off? It would be impossible for him to stay alive.” Then Dad would come up with some way it could be possible, like sewing ligaments or freezing the guy. Dad hadn’t taught our class for years, but Sarah still tried to stump him every time she saw him.

  Sarah finally showed almost a half hour late. “Before you say a word about me being late, I want you to know I’ve been ready for hours. I got up at dawn, thinking Dad would have to work the back forty acres today and I’d have to help. Turns out, he’s not planting the back forty this year. So that gave me and my big brother all kinds of time. But when I told Mack I wanted to get to the pool early for once, he couldn’t be bothered to get himself in gear. So, yes, I’m late as usual.”

  “No sweat.” I’d already figured Mack was to blame. He never wanted to drive Sarah anywhere.

  Sarah helped me clear the counter of loaded baskets. “So, what’s the skinny, Tree?” she asked.

  “You mean with the Kinneys?” I reached for the last metal basket waiting to be shelved. It had boy clothes in it, some of them pretty gross.

  “No. With the Russians and all those atomic bombs,” she said sarcastically. “Yeah, with the Kinneys. What’s your dad say about the old kook shooting himself?”

  “Haven’t seen Dad. I think he must have ridden in the ambulance to the hospital.”

  “This is your big chance, Tree.” She stopped long enough to face me. Her wrinkled green blouse clashed with her red plaid shorts.

  I faced her back. “Sarah, Mr. Kinney could have died, you know.”

  “That’s what I’m saying! Mrs. Woolsey has got to let you on the Blue and Gold staff if you nail this story. Besides, I heard the bullet barely grazed his arm.”

  Two little boys slid their basket onto the counter. Sarah didn’t move to get it, so I did. “Wait!” I hollered after them. “You forgot your pin.”

  Swimmers were supposed to take the numbered safety pin from their basket so they wouldn’t forget the number. If everybody did it right, this job was a piece of cake. If they didn’t, it was the crumbs.

  The bigger of the two kids hustled back and grabbed the pin from my hand. Then he ran to catch up with his brother.

  Like it would have killed him to say thank you?

  The whistle blew. “No running!” Lifeguard Laura Brown, my least favorite guard, lived to rule with her pool power. She and my sister, Eileen, liked the same guy, Butch, who had no problem dating both of them. Jack said Butch was a hound dog and he went out with Laura to get what he couldn’t get from Eileen. When Jack said that, I acted like I knew what he meant. But I wasn’t totally sure—at least, not until the following week, when Mom, Dad, Eileen, and I were all watching an episode of The Saint, a spy thriller series on TV. Mom made Dad change channels. But I caught enough of the Saint in action with a beautiful woman thief to know that the Saint was no saint. And things clicked into place so that I fully understood that Butch was no saint, either. And neither was Laura.

  “Hello? I’m talking to you, Tree.” Sarah stuck a green Life Saver in her mouth and gave me a red, my favorite. “You won’t get another break like this one. Not in Hamilton.” She was shorter than me, kind of stocky, with a really pretty face. Her hay-colored hair fell below her ears, thick and coarse. When we’d walked the midway at the carnival that stopped in Hamilton last summer, we tried to ignore the guys yelling at us to throw darts at balloons or baseballs at milk cans. Then one of them hollered after Sarah, “Hey, kid! Did your dad run over your hair with a lawn mower?” Sarah’s mom had cut her hair too short, and kind of uneven.

  When the guy made that crack about Sarah’s hair, I felt awful for her. But Sarah burst out laughing. She turned around and actually, sincerely laughed at what the guy said. Then he laughed too. A nice laugh—with Sarah, not at her. Plus, he gave her three free games.

  “Please tell me you’re going to write about this Kinney thing.” Sarah shoved a basket onto the shelf—the wrong shelf. “Of course, you could always write an exciting article on Hamilton’s first-ever Steam and Gas Engine Show instead.”

  Funny. I’d considered doing that. A lot of people in Hamilton were already fired up about having old steam engines and ancient farm machines come from all over the state on the Fourth of July. Dad hoped the tractor pulls and wheat-threshing competitions might cut down on the fireworks. My parents’ friends had been digging through attics for antiques to show. Mom had started sewing prairie dresses for Eileen and me. But apparently Sarah didn’t share their enthusiasm.

  I moved the misplaced basket to the right spot. “I’m investigating. I’m way ahead of you,” I insisted, hoping it was true.

  “Hey! Basketgirls!” Wanda Hopkins plopped her basket onto the counter and stuck out her chest—what there was to stick out.

  I did a double take. I’d seen two-piece suits at the pool. But never one this skimpy. Wanda had straight brown hair, glasses, and a bony figure. But she had everyone convinced she was the sexiest girl in our class. I didn’t get it. It made me wonder if “sexy” was something I would never understand. And never be.

  “My feet are burning on the pavement, you guys,” Wanda whined. “Do I have to stand here all day?”

  “I’ll take this one,” Sarah whispered. She trudged over to the counter and frowned at Wanda. “Didn’t you read the sign in the ladies’ room?”

  Wanda wrinkled her nose. “What sign?”

  “The one that explains that you’re supposed to wear your swimsuit and leave your bra and panties in the basket—not the other way around.”

  It took Wanda a moment to get it. “Guess you haven’t heard of bikinis down on the farm.” She studied Sarah from head to toe, her gaze resting too long on Sarah’s middle. “Just as well.”

  With that, she spun around and changed her voice from mean to syrupy sweet. “Ray! Wait up!”

  Ray Miller came strolling out of the locker room. Deeply tanned, he looked even better shirtless than he had in the T-shirts he wore to class. His was an honest tan, showing the lines left by his work shirt. A farmer’s tan. He was no sun worshipper. Not like Butch or Michael the Lifeguard, who babied their tans worse than girls. Ray’s denim swim trunks looked awesome on him. They could have passed for shorts and probably did.

  Wanda waved at Ray. She fumbled with the basket pin. Finding nothing on her bikini to pin the number to, she clutched it in her hand and trotted over to Ray. She ran like a girl.

  No punishing whistle warned Wanda the Wonderful to stop running. Where was Laura the Lifeguard when I needed her?

  I joined Sarah at the basket counter and watched Wanda and Ray lay their towels side by side. If this turned into a beach party movie and they rubbed suntan lotion on each other, I’d barf.

  “I don’t even think Wanda can swim,” I grumbled, staring at her basket. The rat-tailed comb she used to tease her bouffant back into shape was there, plus her frilly white blouse and the form-fitting red pedal pushers nobody could pedal in without splitting a seam.

  “If she ever did try to swim, I shudder to think what would happen to that suit
. I don’t want to be around to see it.” Sarah glanced back at me. “Can Ray swim?”

  “Of course.” I’d never seen him swim. But he could play football. And baseball. And basketball. He could do anything. He was Ray Miller.

  Ray.

  With the sky-blue eyes.

  So, if he really could do anything, why couldn’t he fulfill my second summer goal? For there was no doubt in my mind or soul that if I could choose any boy in my class to give me that kiss worth writing about, it would be Ray.

  7

  Rumors

  As the day wore on, I felt as if somebody had split me into two Trees. One Tree couldn’t stop thinking about Alfred Kinney. In the snippets of conversations I’d been hearing over the baskets (basketgirls were invisible, so we heard all kinds of gossip), the only thing everyone agreed on was that Mr. Kinney was a not-so-nice old man. People used other words to describe him, but I wasn’t allowed to say those.

  The other Tree couldn’t help watching the Wanda-and-Ray Show. She giggled. He grinned. She rolled over to face him, then stuck a wad of gum into her mouth. Purple. I knew this because she chewed the pale purple lump with her mouth open.

  “Why do people think it’s okay to do that?” I muttered to Sarah.

  “Do what?”

  “Chew gum with their mouths open!”

  Wanda chewed like a largemouth bass. Did guys think that was cute? As she talked, a snap and a pop came from behind the teeth of her half smile. She used pops as exclamation points. Some writer! “Oh, Raayy … pop!”

  Sometimes I felt like the youngest person in our class, which I was. And sometimes I felt like the oldest person in the world.

  A hand waved in front of my face. “Calling all Trees!” Sarah squinted into my eyes. “You okay?” She alone knew about my longtime crush on Ray, although neither of us would have reduced my feelings to a “crush.”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “I just wish we could get off early. I want to talk to my dad.” I glanced up at the fluffy clouds drifting across the sky. The whole Kinney incident already felt like it was drifting out of my reach.