It was obvious at a glance that nothing had been disturbed.
But something was still wrong.
The cats were going crazy.
As we tried to move through the front room to the rooms beyond, they kept circling our feet and tripping us up.
"What is the matter with all of you?" Annie said, in her annoyance speaking louder than she had been. "Now look what you've done! You've made me speak too loudly, as a result of which the jig is probably up!"
Anthrax would normally have been cowed by the tone in Annie's voice. But instead, she continued to meow! loudly, as though she really were trying to tell us something.
"What is it?" Annie hissed.
Anthrax tilted her head upward, making a great show of inhaling. She kept doing it, flaring her nostrils each time.
"I really do think she is trying to tell us something," Zinnia offered.
"Yes, but what?" Annie said.
"I think she wants us to try doing what she's doing," Zinnia said, tilting her own head upward. "Maybe then we'll find out."
Feeling ridiculous, we all did what Anthrax and Zinnia were doing. At first, we smelled nothing. Perhaps the long walk up the driveway had interfered with our sense of smell. Could our nostrils be frozen?
But then, there it was: the faint odor of ... what was that?
"Fruitcake," Annie said with certainty. "I smell fruitcake."
"Are you quite sure?" Marcia asked. "But that's not possible. You threw out the fruitcake the Wicket brought us right after she left that night. The odor should be long gone." She turned to Durinda. "Haven't you taken out the trash since then?"
"Of course," Durinda said. "What kind of slob do you take me for?"
Annie, with Anthrax at her side, led us toward the kitchen, our noses sniffing the air all the while.
But when we got there, it was like playing the game Too Hot, Too Cold, and the scent was almost nonexistent.
"Let's try the other rooms," Annie suggested.
And so we moved on, noses in the air, turning on lights as we went.
We checked the drawing room, cautiously peeking our heads around the corner, one head topping the next from shortest to tallest. We were relieved to find Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally still having tea. The scent seemed slightly stronger than in the front room, but we looked around and couldn't see anything that had been disturbed.
"Check behind the loose stone to see if another note or something has been left there," Jackie suggested.
But when we looked, there was only empty darkness.
Next we tried Daddy's study, with similar results: a stronger scent than the front room, but no disturbances.
We checked Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. There was nothing except for in Summer, where the cats had apparently used the beach sand there as a litter box, in a sign of protest.
"Let's check upstairs next," Annie said.
"But shouldn't we first—" Jackie started, but Annie cut her off.
"No," Annie said. "We'll leave that room"—and we all knew which room she was talking about—"for last."
But upstairs, the scent was dead cold: no fruitcake aroma at all. Not to mention the cats were going crazy again. They kept circling us, jerking their little heads toward the hallway and the stairs. They were looking at us like we were crazy. Or stupid.
"I guess there really is no avoiding it any longer," Annie said, and we followed once again as she and Anthrax led us all back downstairs.
Once we were at the bottom, Annie placed her hand on Georgia's arm and in a tone of total seriousness said, "Please get the spear now."
Which Georgia did, looking very grim.
With Annie armed ahead of us, we at last approached the closed door to ... Mommy's study.
It was the one room in the house our parents had never allowed us to roam through freely. And since they'd disappeared—or died—other than briefly checking it on New Year's Eve, we'd avoided it like, well, the plague, or at the very least a nest of hornets. Even though our parents were gone, we couldn't disobey their strictest orders. We might eat pink frosting straight from the can or drive their car, but we wouldn't go in Mommy's private study.
But now we had to. There was no other choice.
The smell there was the strongest it'd been yet. More, there was a cold draft coming from beneath the closed door.
"It hasn't been cold like this back here before," Durinda said. "I'm sure I'd have noticed that when I vacuumed the hallways."
"This is no time to defend your cleaning practices," Annie whispered, and she slowly turned the knob on Mommy's study door.
But as she pushed the door open, some force on the other side shoved it closed.
Annie turned the knob again, pressed back against the door with all her might, and wedged the door open a half inch.
The force on the other side pressed harder, and it slammed it shut.
Not even thinking of the danger, we threw our bodies against the closed door, helping Annie push. All we knew was we needed to get in.
This time, we succeeded in pushing the door open a full inch.
But the force on the other side must have been very strong, for the door then slammed shut, and we heard the click of a lock.
"Quick! Get the key!" Annie commanded to someone, anyone.
Jackie raced off and quickly returned with the key.
The key turned with ease, and this time the door gave easily as we pressed against it.
The smell hit us as soon as the door was opened, a smell of fruitcake so big and awful, we gagged.
Worse, the light on Mommy's desk was on and the window behind the desk was wide open. The wind made the sheer white curtains dance into the room.
We all tried to settle our racing hearts and not think that just a short time ago a stranger, possibly a ^jHr dangerous stranger, had been in our home, in this very room.
It had been so long since anyone had been in there, a fine layer of dust covered everything. There were even cobwebs in the corners. But the purple walls still looked pretty.
"I'll need to get a ladder to see to those," Durinda said of the cobwebs.
"Never mind that now," Annie said.
"But, um," Petal said, "aren't we in danger?"
"I don't think so," Annie said, "at least not at the moment. Whoever was in here must have escaped by that window."
"But they could come back at any time," Jackie said sensibly, "and then we'd be in danger again."
"True," Annie admitted, "but they're not here right now. The danger has passed for the time being. Look: even the cats are calm again."
It was true. Despite the overwhelming smell of fruitcake in the air, the cats looked peaceful now, all but Anthrax settling themselves in for a nice nap in various spots around the room.
"What's this?" Annie said. She had moved to the other side of Mommy's desk to close the window. She bent down and picked up a manila envelope from the floor.
She showed us the front. In big red block letters that almost screamed, it said TOP SECRET.
Annie opened it, spreading the leaves outward, but nothing fell out.
It was empty.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"I can't believe this," Annie said, awe in her voice.
"What?" Jackie asked.
"I told the Wicket that Mommy was working on something top secret ... and there really is a Top Secret folder!"
"What does it mean?" Marcia said.
"Who cares about some stupid folder?" Rebecca said. "Someone's been in our home, and they left this wretched fruitcake smell!"
"I care about some stupid folder," Annie said. She propped her spear against the wall, then lowered herself into the black leather seat behind Mommy's desk. "As should we all."
"But why?" Rebecca countered. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just—"
"Of course it means something," Annie said. " Everything means something, even when that something isn't important. Think."
So we all thought, the only sound in the room the sound of c
ats purring in their sleep. Loudly.
"Who's the only person we know," Annie said, "that makes fruitcakes?"
"The Wicket!" Jackie said, the gleam of knowledge entering her eye.
"Exactly," Annie said. "Too bad I made my smooth move of lying about Mommy working on something top secret in front of the wrong person."
"How do you mean?" Marcia asked.
"Think back to that night," Annie said. "Think back to how interested the Wicket got when I said Mommy was working on something."
It was true.
"And," Annie went on, "what sort of person asks questions about the work of a scientist? That's never happened to us before. Everyone asks questions about Daddy's being a model. They think it must be glamorous, I suppose. But no one asks questions about Mommy's work."
That was true too. And who makes fruitcakes anyway?
"This is the way I figure it." Annie paused, causing us to lean forward.
"Yes?" we prompted.
"The way I figure it, the Wicket's always been curious about Mommy's work, only we never noticed. But as soon as I said 'top secret,' she waited for an opportunity. She must have followed us, tampering with our car so we wouldn't surprise her as she tossed Mommy's study." A light dawned in Annie's eyes. "She must know we're alone!"
"But couldn't she have come when we were at school?" Marcia asked.
"You'd think so," Annie said. "But even bad people can be scared. Who knows how criminal minds think?"
We certainly didn't. But we realized we were going to have to learn.
"Maybe she wanted to kill us in our sleep!" Petal said.
"But what did the Wicket want so desperately that she was willing to go to such lengths?" Jackie asked, ignoring Petal. "What could Mommy have been working on that was so important?"
"That's the thing." Annie lifted the Top Secret folder once more, opening it again to reveal its emptiness. "Whatever it is, it's gone now."
"It may be a mystery," Georgia said, "but it doesn't have to be."
"How do you mean?" Annie asked.
There was real fire in Georgia's eyes. She went behind the desk and grabbed the spear from where Annie had propped it against the wall.
"I say," Georgia said, "we go over to the Wicket's right now and demand she tell us what's going on. We can be like the thumbscrew boys. We'll torture her if we have to."
"I'm afraid we can't do that," Annie said sadly, then she patted Georgia's arm and gently removed the spear from her grip. "Although I do appreciate the gesture."
"But why can't we?" Georgia countered. "There are eight of us and only one of her. Plus, she's barely as tall as we are. We can take her."
"Or we could just blow up her house!" Rebecca suggested.
"It's not a matter of size," Annie said, ignoring Rebecca. She tapped the side of her head. "It's a matter of brains. We need to be smarter than she is. She's probably expecting us. So we need to bide our time, like she did."
"But why?" Durinda asked. "Even I don't understand the idea behind waiting. I'm with Georgia on this. I say we go over there and smash her."
"What good would that do? And how would we be better off? She'd know we were on to her and we'd be no wiser. No, there was something she came here for tonight. We need to wait until she's out of the house and then search her place."
"Wow," Georgia said earnestly, "it must take all kinds of energy to be inside your brain right now."
Annie smiled, for the first time in hours, it seemed. "Thank you," she said. The smile disappeared. "But it is exhausting, thinking this much."
We all thought about that for a moment, about what it must be like to be Annie right now.
Then, into the sound of the silence made by our thinking, we heard someone crying. We looked around at the usual suspects.
Petal? No.
Zinnia? No.
It wasn't any of the people we thought it might be. It was Rebecca.
"What's wrong?" Annie asked gently.
"This!" Rebecca gestured wildly with her arms, the tears streaking her cheeks. "All of this!"
"What this do you mean?" Annie asked.
"Maybe," Rebecca said, wiping at her eyes fiercely, "you should be asking what isn't wrong, since nearly everything is."
"I still don't understand," Annie said, "but I'm trying to."
"It's just that ... it's just that ... it's just that tonight makes everything seem so final!" Rebecca burst out. "Before"—she brushed fresh tears from her cheek with a sleeve—"I could tell myself that Mommy and Daddy disappeared into some magical place, but that they'd be coming back any minute now. It was just a matter of waiting. Nothing awful had happened, not really. It was just a game."
"But we all thought you were glad Mommy and Daddy were gone," Jackie said. "In fact, we thought you wanted them gone forever."
"No." Rebecca shook her head. "I only wanted them to be gone for a little while. I wanted them to be gone long enough for me to eat a can of pink frosting and slide down the banister and swing from the chandelier. But I never wanted them to be gone forever." She paused. "But all of this: with our house getting broken into and the Wicket smelling like fruitcake and that empty Top Secret folder. It's all too real now. Mommy and Daddy didn't disappear on a lark. They disappeared for a reason. And—"
"Shh, shh." Annie soothed her, stopping Rebecca's words as she took her in her arms. "It's still a game," she said. "We just haven't quite figured out how to play it yet."
Then Durinda made us all cocoa while Annie and Georgia moved around the house, making sure all the doors and windows were locked.
Even robot Betty seemed to feel sorry for us now. When Durinda asked her to clean off the kitchen table, she actually did it properly.
"I yelled at Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally," Annie said, at last taking her seat at the head of the table. "Fine pair of watchdogs they are."
"It's not really their fault though, is it?" Zinnia said. Then she yawned, setting off a round of yawning among us. We were all so tired. It had been a long day.
"The refrigerator said this is the last of the milk," Durinda said with a sigh, taking a sip of her cocoa. It was good cocoa, with mini marshmallows floating on the top. "So what's our next move?" she asked Annie.
"I'm not sure," Annie admitted. "But this all started with that note on New Year's Eve. The note said we each had to find our power and our gift. I've got the first, but I still don't have the second." She yawned. "And none of you have your powers or gifts yet."
We sipped some more cocoa.
"So what's next?" Durinda asked again.
"Bed," Annie said. "Bed."
CHAPTER TWELVE
We bided our time, as Annie had instructed, but as we moved through the closing days of January, there was no opportunity to act.
The Wicket never left the house anymore, even though a thaw had come; the snow was melting so quickly, small rivers were running down the sides of the streets, and the icicles that had previously hung from the rooftops had long since drip-dripped away. We watched the Wicket's front door through binoculars, but she was even having her food delivered. There was no chance to investigate. Nor were there any gifts in sight.
Finally, on the last day of January, Annie had had enough.
"I have to find my gift today!" she said. "I just have to!"
"Why today?" Rebecca asked. "Is there some special reason?"
"I don't know," Annie said. "But I have this feeling that if I don't find my gift today, my time to do so will have expired!"
"Why not check the loose stone in the drawing room again?" Zinnia said, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the table. Annie's insistence that we all eat five fruits and veggies a day was finally starting to rub off on us.
"Well, that's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard," Annie said. "We check there every morning, but there's never anything there."
"But Zither swore she saw that loose stone move while we were out," Zinnia insisted. "All the cats are talking about it."
&
nbsp; We rolled our eyes. Talking cats! What would this kid think of next?
"Fine. Then I'll check." Zinnia shrugged, chomping her apple as she left the kitchen.
A moment later, we heard: "Annie! Come quick!"
We raced to the drawing room, where Zinnia was standing in front of the rectangular hole. She'd removed the loose stone, and whatever she saw must have shocked her, because she'd stopped chomping her apple.
"What is it?" Annie asked, looking almost scared.
"I think I see something glittering in there," Zinnia said. "But I'm too scared to touch it. What if it's magic? Bad magic?" Then: "Hey, do you think it might be for me? Maybe it's my gift. After all, I found it."
"Don't touch it!" Georgia shouted at Zinnia. Then she nodded her head at Annie. "Go ahead," she said. "I'm sure it will be all right."
Annie moved forward to see what was in the darkness of the hole, still looking scared. Slowly, she put her hand inside, and when her hand came back out, she was holding a ring. It was a beautiful ring, the stone large and diamond shaped, in an old-fashioned gold setting. The stone in the ring was purple, our mother's favorite color.
"Put it on," Jackie urged.
Annie did so. Even though the ring had looked big enough to fit an adult, when Annie tried it on, it fit perfectly.
"Oh," Zinnia said, her face falling. "It must be your gift and not mine, after all. My fingers"—she held one hand out sadly—"are much too small to wear something like that."
"You'll find your gift," Annie said soothingly. "Everyone will. I'm sure of it."
"But do you think it can possibly work that way?" Jackie asked. "One of us finding the gift for another of us, like Zinnia did for you, Annie?"
Annie shrugged. "I don't see why it couldn't." She thought about it for a moment. "I think we each have to find our powers on our own. But our gifts?" She shrugged again. "I suppose there's no reason we can't help each other with those."
"But how do you know all that?" Rebecca asked.
"I don't know." Annie shrugged one last time. "I just feel like I do."
Annie moved to put the loose stone back in place, and her eyes lit on something else.
Annie's Adventures Page 8
