Super Max and the Mystery of Thornwood's Revenge

by Susan Vaught

  “What important things?”

  “Valuable stuff he wants to steal and sell?” Lavender sat up. “The best spots to spy on your house?”

  I leaned my head against my headrest and stared at the dusty ceiling. Mom moved lamps again, and then she clicked away, taking her photos. Outside, Trooper Nelsen cleared his throat. “What if there’s something here he needs?” I asked Lavender. “Or that he needed—for Thornwood’s Revenge? For whatever he’s planning to do to Toppy or the town?”

  Lavender wrapped her arms around her knees and looked thoughtful. “Money? Valuables? A cache of smallpox?”

  “Very funny.” I lifted my head and glared at her. “Not.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Trooper Nelsen called. “I’ll need you to stop right there.”

  My heart gave a quick thump, and Lavender scrambled to her feet. I wheeled around in a hurry, heading back for the hall as outside, a man said something sharp to our guard.

  The trooper answered with, “That may be, but again, stop where you are, and we’ll sort this out.”

  “Max?” Mom said quietly as I rolled up next to her.

  Lavender moved Mom’s lamps against the far wall and stood on her other side. The three of us faced the entryway.

  “But it’s my house,” came a familiar deep voice.

  “Oh, great,” Lavender muttered. “That’s Junior.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified.

  “Should we go out the back?” Mom asked, gripping my shoulder.

  I just stared at her.

  Reality dawned slowly, and then she looked miserable. “Oh, right. The chair. Only one ramp.”

  “I respect that, sir,” said Trooper Nelsen. “But I’m responsible for the safety of the ladies inside.”

  “Ladies?” Junior sounded surprised. Maybe a little bit happy. “Is one of them Joy Springfield?”

  “No, sir,” Trooper Nelsen said. “Her daughter, Lavender, is here with Max and Max’s mother.”

  Lavender gave Mom and me an oh-great look, then marched to the front door and opened it.

  “Hi!” Junior said to her, still sounding sort of happy.

  The trooper gazed at Lavender, waiting for her to indicate Junior was okay. Lavender didn’t. She just gazed steadily at Junior and asked, “Do you want us to leave?”

  “Well, I don’t—no, I guess not.” He stepped into view at the doorway, next to the trooper, looking huge in his jeans and black biker sweatshirt. “But what are you doing here?”

  I rolled closer and tried to take the measure of him like Toppy would, studying everything from his jeans and Harley Hog T-shirt to his posture to the narrowing of his brown eyes and the sort-of-friendly look on his hairy face. Lavender leaned toward my chair, using her coat fuzz to hide the fact that she was messing with the zipper pouch under my chair arm.

  Mom’s eyebrows lifted, and I could tell she saw what Lavender was doing. Since I had no idea what that was, I kept my focus on Junior.

  “We’re searching for clues and trying to figure out who the hacker is,” I told him, watching for any reaction. “Did you move the stairs that led down into the hole?”

  “I see.” Junior looked surprised, then interested. “And yes, I put them out back. And, did you find anything new?”

  “We didn’t,” I said. “But when you came here as a kid—ever see any ghosts?”

  Junior offered me a quick grin. “Used to think I did. Sparkles in the hall. Cold places. Sometimes movement that I couldn’t chase down. But honestly, Max, I think it was just kid stuff. My mind playing tricks.”

  “Do you have any idea how Vivienne Thornwood smuggled out her youngest daughter? The one that got killed by a carriage a few weeks later.”

  “Not really,” Junior said. “Pleaded with some workers, my mother said, but I’ve never found that part of the story in any books. Maybe she handed her out a window.”

  “What do you know about the room underneath the floor?” Lavender asked him.

  Junior’s head swiveled to her. “Nothing.”

  I took my turn. “Any idea what your great-however- many-greats-grandfather might have kept in there?”

  Back to me. He was probably getting a crick. “Knowing that crackpot old miser, it was probably money or gold or guns to shoot at anybody he thought was coming after his money or gold.”

  Lavender lobbed a big one with, “Do you think you’ll get a lot at auction for your motorcycle lot?”

  Big reaction: check!

  Junior’s face turned red so fast, I was worried the heat might burst through the top of his head. The trooper straightened and actually moved toward Junior, like he might step between us, but the porch chose that moment to shake and crack like it was trying to shoot us all.

  “Whoa!” Junior stepped backward on the stairs, stumbled, then plopped on his rear end.

  Mom ran past Trooper Nelsen, her camera bouncing as she hurried to the fallen man. “Are you all right, Mr. Thornwood? Here, give me your hand.”

  “Ladies,” the trooper said, gesturing to the ramp. Lavender moved to the side, and I hit my joystick.

  The chair shut off.

  “Cripes!” I banged on the box. “What is wrong with you? I gave you all new fuses!”

  I switched it off, then on again. Nothing. Off, on. My breath caught funny.

  “Can I push you?” Trooper Nelsen asked.

  I felt the back of my chair rattle as he took hold of it, heard Lavender explaining about the toggles in front of my big back wheels, and then Mom and Junior came up the stairs, and the porch really popped and cracked.

  “Everybody off!” Trooper Nelsen ordered.

  Mom and Junior hurried back down the steps, and the trooper was just bending down to flip the right manual push toggle when I tried my power button again, and this time it worked.

  “Got it,” I told him.

  And since that was as good a time as any, I flipped my special superhero switch for extra speed and gave the joystick a push.

  My chair didn’t just roll. It shot down the ramp so fast I nearly peed myself in sheer terror. The end of the ramp flew toward me, and I knew I’d go airborne if I hit it going that fast. I hauled back on the joystick, engaging the stabilizers and brakes, but I forgot the turbo switch was still on and the chair lurched so hard it nearly tipped and splattered me face-first in the parking lot. My big wheels ground and spun, and I smelled all sorts of burning, melting nasty stuff, and the chair fishtailed before flinging itself backward and almost taking out Trooper Nelsen and Lavender, too.

  They both bailed into the yard.

  I smacked headrest-first into the ramp rails and my teeth rattled. My wheels were still spinning, burning rubber, trying to bash the chair straight through the railing. I imagined myself in freefall, tumbling and bouncing all the way down the hill to my house like some cartoon.

  Hand shaking, I fumbled with the speed switch until I turned it off, took my hand away from the control, and sat trying to breathe while my wheels gradually stopped buzzing and turning.

  Lavender pulled herself underneath the railing and back onto the ramp, looking frayed at the edges and really, really pissed. The trooper walked around and came up to me, mouth open.

  “What,” he asked, “was that?”

  “Improvements,” Lavender snarled before I could say anything.

  “I—um.” Breathe out. Breathe in. My face burned, half embarrassment, half frustration. “Uh, I might have overclocked.”

  “If that means you turned yourself into a cruise missile, then yeah.” Lavender glared at me. “Max, that was almost worse than the manure pile.”

  “Manure?” This from Junior Thornwood, who had walked over to the ramp. He was standing wide-eyed at the bottom, blocking my way down.

  “Never mind.” Lavender pointed at me. “You’re fixing THAT immediately, or I’m telling Toppy.”

  I glared right back at her. “Back off. If I’d run too fast and busted my head, nobody would freak
out.”

  Lavender looked like I had slapped her.

  Instant guilt.

  It was enough to throw cold water all over any anger I had.

  “Sorry,” I said to her. “Really sorry.”

  She nodded.

  Right about that very second, I remembered that my mother was here. She was standing next to Junior, tight-lipped, arms folded, and she wasn’t saying a thing. Her expression was a mix of fear and something else. Something a lot like . . . admiration?

  “Running too fast doesn’t usually knock people over and nearly tear down wooden ramps,” Trooper Nelsen pointed out.

  The heat came roaring back, all of it, and it seemed to coalesce in my mouth and fire straight at him. “Aren’t you just supposed to keep us safe? I don’t think that includes opinions about wheelchair modifications.”

  He raised both hands and backed away, and immediately I felt like a jerk all over again After a few more breaths and closing my eyes for a count of three, I said, “Sorry,” for the second time, and when I opened my eyes, he inclined his head, accepting my apology.

  “Kid’s got a temper,” Junior said to my mother.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Lavender shot back. Then to me she said, “And I’m sorry, too, Max. Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” When I looked down at my control box, I was shocked to see how little power I had left. “But that burst drained my juice to nearly nothing.” I smacked my forehead. “I didn’t think about the fact that the battery can’t handle that much speed. Good thing I wasn’t running from a bad guy for real, or I’d have run out of gas in about a minute.”

  “Can you fix that?” Lavender asked, sounding like she hoped I couldn’t.

  “Probably only with a better battery,” I said.

  “Or a second one,” Trooper Nelsen said. “Not that I have opinions about wheelchair modifications.”

  I had to smile at him, all the while wondering where I could put a second battery without increasing mass and drag on the chair too much, because yeah, that probably would work.

  My attention shifted to my mother, who still wasn’t saying anything. Now she seemed distant, and maybe a little sad. Whatever. My wheelchair revisions weren’t any of her business, either.

  After another minute of deep breathing all around, we moved to the parking lot. It was Junior who broke the silence, saying to Mom, “I guess I need to tell the city to shut the place up for real, parking lot and all. Sounds like the porch is going.”

  Mom didn’t talk to him, either.

  “It’s too bad, I know,” he said like she might be listening anyway. His eyes darted to me, then shifted to Lavender. “But, as the girls have already dug up from somewhere, I don’t really have the money to fix it. I’d have to sell cheap, or turn it over to the city.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one meaty paw. “Honestly, I came down here to scope it out myself, to see what I could do to repair it, maybe with some friends.”

  “It’s way past do-it-yourself,” the trooper noted. “Unless you guys work in construction.”

  “We don’t.” Junior sounded defeated.

  Lavender looked confused. I could tell she wanted Junior to act suspicious or mysterious, but other than the little blast of anger we got when she embarrassed him, he seemed mostly like a sad, worried guy, not a bad guy.

  “Well,” he said, gesturing toward the house, “I’ll let myself in a side door and poke around—see what’s sound, and what’s gone beyond hope of saving.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that, sir,” Trooper Nelsen said. “I don’t think the old wood’s appreciating this cold.”

  “Thanks,” Junior said. “I’ve got my cell, so I can call if I get in real trouble.” Then, to us he said, “I’m sorry, ladies, but I probably need to get all my keys back. If something happened to you up here, it’d be on me.”

  He held out his hand.

  My heart sank.

  “I don’t have a key,” Mom said. “And neither does Max.” She glanced at Lavender, who made an irritated noise, put her hand to her collar to pull out her necklace, and then felt around, looking bewildered.

  “My chain,” she said. “The one I had the key on, it’s gone.” Her gaze jumped from me to Mom, then at the trooper, and finally back to the ramp. “Maybe it broke when I jumped.”

  This resulted in all of us poking around in the grass around the ramp, and the trooper doing a fairly thorough search with his flashlight, to see if anything glittered. Finally, he gave up and switched off the bulb.

  “Don’t see it, sir,” he said. “It might just stay lost.”

  “I liked that chain,” Lavender complained.

  “Okay,” Junior said. “I’ll talk to your mom and get the rest of the keys—and if you find your chain, you can have her get the key back to me.”

  Lavender smiled at him, but I noticed she didn’t agree to anything. As he walked away, Mom gave Lavender a look. Lavender’s face filled with fake innocence. I thought about the pouch under my chair arm, and about how Lavender had messed with it. Carefully, without letting the trooper see, I felt the bag.

  Something very chain-and-key-like seemed to be inside.

  “Back to the house, ladies?” Trooper Nelsen asked us.

  I reached over and touched Mom’s hand. “Mom, Toppy left us the van. Would you drive Lavender and me to Bot’s?”

  She focused on me as she fiddled with her camera. “The electronics shop? Honey, it’s Sunday afternoon. They’ll be—”

  “Open,” Lavender and Trooper Nelsen and I chorused.

  “This near to the holidays,” I said, “trust me. Bot won’t close until every light in Blue Creek shuts off.”

  16

  It was nearing dark when we parked outside of Bot’s, but the shop’s lights blazed brightly out over Town Square.

  Bot had fake-snow-sprayed HAVE A JOYOUS EVERYTHING!!! in all his windows, and other colored spray-snow statements bid everyone Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Gracious Wishes for Tet, Excellent Festivus, Blessings on the Solstice, and Ramadan Mubarak.

  Lavender paused as the wheelchair ramp was lowering. “I thought Ramadan was in the middle of summer.”

  “It is,” I said, barely missing her toes as I rolled off and peeled to the right, toward the shop door.

  “I believe the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday is around now,” Mom mentioned as she folded the ramp up, then shut the van door.

  “Don’t tell Bot that,” I said. “He’ll accidentally do something offensive trying to sell more computers.”

  “He only researches stuff so far,” Lavender agreed.

  When we got into the shop, I smelled pine and popcorn. Bot had on his Santa suit, and he was helping a young couple examining a toddler-proof iPad case. Ellis, obviously rebelling against the shop theme in his jeans and black T-shirt, showed off three different types of cell phones to another set of customers. Riley met us at the door, dressed in a green elf suit complete with bells, and handing out chocolate Kisses from a green felt bag.

  “My favorite super-ladies,” he crowed, and then eyeing Mom and the trooper taking up a position by the front door, he added, “And . . . escorts?”

  Lavender’s eyes rolled so high I wondered if she could see her own brain.

  “If they freeze like that,” I whispered to her, “Riley’s going to accuse you of putting on the Irisless Eyemask of Mystery.”

  “I’m Batman,” she mumbled, unrolling them and crossing them instead.

  “You’re Riley, right?” Mom stuck out her hand. “I think you had just come to live with Bot when I moved to California.”

  Riley took Mom’s hand, planted a smack on her knuckles, then turned her hand over and pressed red and green candy Kisses into her palm. “My foster dad loves a challenge, m’lady. Says helping me out is penance for his past grievous sins.”

  “You’re talking like an English court servant, not an elf,” Lavender said.

  He shrugged. “Other than Lord of the Rin
gs, I got nothing.”

  I poked him in the shoulder. “Can we have Ellis for a few, when he’s through with those people?”

  “Sure, if we don’t get a run.” Riley’s smile made him so cute I had to give Lavender a few taste points. “I can help for a while if you’ll play greeter.”

  He turned his megawatt smile on Lavender and gave her a sweeping bow. She examined her frontal lobe again. But as soon as he wasn’t looking, she grinned at him, then at me, and gave me a he’s-completely-adorable wink.

  “I’ll greet,” Mom said, and took his bag of Kisses.

  She was off to man the door before I could thank her.

  A few minutes later, Riley took over a few customer newcomers, and Ellis fired up his desktop with Lavender and me standing by on either side.

  “What can I do you for this evening, Ms. Sherlock Max?” He flexed his fingers and let them hover over his keyboard.

  “We need architectural plans for Thornwood Manor,” I said. “I looked, but nothing’s readily accessible except for state library archives that charge a fee.”

  Ellis pulled his hands back from the keyboard and studied me, his blue eyes lacking any expression I could identify. “Please tell me you’re not driving your chair around that tumbledown junk-heap of a mansion.”

  “We’re being careful,” I assured him.

  He still didn’t move to type anything. “Why do you want the architectural plans? Did you find something?”

  “Not really, no. We’re just trying to look deeper. Cover every base—you know, since the hacker’s so focused on Thornwood’s Revenge.”

  Ellis glanced from me to Lavender, then came back to me. “Okay. But you might have more luck at the local library.”

  “Maybe we can go Tuesday,” I said. “Because I want to know more about Vivienne Thornwood, too.”

  “Girls!” Bot boomed as his customers left the store, packages tucked beneath their arms. He came over to us and hugged Lavender, then me. He smelled like the chocolate Mom was giving out.

  “Hey,” I said as Bot let me go.

  Ellis brought up one of his programs and typed in search phrases related to Thornwood. Then he stopped entering things and asked me, “How do you think Monday night will go?”