The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  Trina felt every hair on her body stand straight up.

  But her dad laughed. “Anyone who believes in haunted houses needs to have their head examined.”

  “So you’re one of those,” Miss Kitty said, slipping paper place mats in front of them. “Believe you can explain everything away with a fact.”

  This time he shook his head. “All I’m saying is old houses shift and creak with the weather and suddenly everyone thinks they’re haunted.”

  “Town council voted to tear down that eyesore—” Miss Kitty stopped midsentence and stared at them with eyes like red-hot laser beams. “Now I know who you are. You folks are the whole reason that place is still standing. Come here to fix it up. Well, good luck with that.”

  Miss Kitty slapped a fork wrapped in a paper napkin on each place mat, making it clear she wanted to get on with her business. “So what do two newcomers like yourselves want for breakfast?”

  “Two eggs with bacon,” Trina’s dad said. “Sunny-side up.”

  “Mile-high pancakes for me,” Trina said. Miss Kitty waited. “Please,” Trina added.

  Miss Kitty didn’t write down the order; she just stepped up to the griddle and started cooking. She cracked the eggs with one hand as she whipped up the pancake batter with the other, shouting the whole time above the sizzling bacon and the rattling roar of the fan. “That house has caused nothing but trouble since it was built. Crops and businesses have been drying up around here for generations.”

  Trina’s dad set down his coffee. “You can say that about any small town in the Midwest. Blame it on the interstate. It’s simple American history.”

  Trina winced. Sometimes she wished her dad wouldn’t sound like he thought he knew everything—and this was one of those times. “Poppo, shh,” she whispered, but it was too late.

  Miss Kitty whirled around. Her eyes were glossy and for a second Trina wondered if she had seen a tear in one of them, until Miss Kitty pointed the spatula at her dad and poked the air with it as she talked. “Unless you’ve lived in this town your whole life and can tell me something I don’t know about it, you can just zip your lip.”

  Trina’s dad took a sip of his coffee.

  Miss Kitty was still fuming. “You just wait until you set foot in that house.”

  “We spent last night there and we’re still standing,” he said in his usual playful way.

  “You spent a night there?” whispered Miss Kitty. The hand squeezing the spatula dropped to her side. “Did anything strange happen?”

  Trina’s ears pricked up. Strange? How about lights that flickered as if they heard what you said, and a chimney flue and a front door that shut when they felt like it, a furnace that turned on by itself, and a toilet that flushed on its own—not to mention the strange feeling that someone else was there with them? But Trina kept her mouth shut. She didn’t need to add any more fuel to Miss Kitty’s fire.

  “Nope. Nada. Zip,” said her dad.

  “Well, that’s pretty strange all by itself,” Miss Kitty said, turning back to her cooking. “When I was a kid, we used to play a game we called The Dare. We placed our bets and then whoever spent the whole night at Goldenrod would win the money. Hash browns?”

  “Sure,” Trina’s dad said.

  “No, thank you,” said Trina.

  Miss Kitty slapped a slab of frozen potatoes on the griddle. “We put all the money in a coffee can and that prize just kept getting bigger and bigger ’til it was up over $300, which was a lot of money when I was a kid. Still is,” she said, giving the hash browns a hefty flip. “I’ll bet every kid in town tried to spend the night there. But nobody ever made it through the whole night.”

  Trina thought back to the bill on the kitchen counter. No wonder the cleaners came all the way from Davenport. Anyone who lived in New Royal would be afraid to enter the house.

  “What happened?” Trina whispered.

  “What happened?” Miss Kitty said. “What didn’t happen?”

  With that, two eggs, sunny-side up, slipped from Miss Kitty’s spatula onto a plain white plate, followed by a pile of bacon and the hash browns. Then she stacked up Trina’s pancakes. “If you want my advice,” she said, setting the plates down in front of them so hard the silverware clattered, “don’t take anything for granted out there. Whatever you think that house isn’t, it is.”

  When Miss Kitty stared into Trina’s eyes and Trina stared back, she wondered if Miss Kitty could tell Trina believed every word she said.

  “Funny there’s no sign of vandalism with all those kids breaking in,” Trina’s dad said, winking at Trina while he poured ketchup all over his fried eggs.

  Miss Kitty refilled his coffee cup. “You mean to tell me you don’t know why?”

  Trina felt bold enough to speak up. After all, she and Miss Kitty had something in common: fear of Goldenrod. “Because the house scared them away before they could do anything?” Or the real truth, which she kept to herself: the invisible old lady wouldn’t let them stay.

  “Smart girl,” Miss Kitty said, nodding. Then she paused. “Hey, if you’re so smart, how come you’re not in school today?”

  Trina gagged on her bite of pancake. “School? Already?”

  Miss Kitty nodded. “It started last week. My granddaughter, Charlotte, is in the fifth grade, so I know when school starts and when it doesn’t.”

  Last week? Trina slumped on her stool. “But it’s not even Labor Day yet,” she said, as welling tears stung her eyes. She blinked hard. She didn’t want to cry about school. She didn’t want to cry about anything, but there was nothing she hated more than being the new kid in class, and now she was going to be a whole week late, which made it ten times worse.

  “Where is the school?” her dad asked.

  Miss Kitty switched off the fan and started scraping the griddle with her spatula. “Straight up Main. East side.” She pointed in the opposite direction of the way they came into town. “Past Millie’s Grocery Store and up the hill. By the cemetery. You can’t miss it.”

  Trina set her fork down at the side of her plate. “Come on, Poppo,” she said, tugging on his arm. “You have to take me to school. Right now.”

  Miss Kitty shook her head. “Not so fast, there, young lady. You’re going to eat those pancakes first.”

  Chapter Four

  Trina couldn’t sit still on the way up Main Street. She rolled down her window and leaned out of the truck. “There’s Millie’s,” she said, pointing to a little store on the corner, the last corner of the last block of New Royal businesses.

  Without a word, her dad shifted into low gear and proceeded up the steep hill. “Royal Hill Cemetery,” Trina read out loud as they drove past a wrought iron gate exactly like the gate at Goldenrod.

  As soon as they passed the cemetery, there was the school. Miss Kitty was right; you couldn’t miss it. It was another red brick building way too big for the 397 people who lived in New Royal.

  They drove past the front of the school: three stories with broad steps and shiny brass doors. When they turned the corner, the school seemed to get bigger and bigger. “Not exactly the one-room schoolhouse I was expecting,” her dad said as they came to a small parking lot next to an overgrown field with bleachers and swings. “It looks more like a college.”

  Trina was barely listening to him. All she could think about was what she was wearing—why had she picked this stupid T-shirt? and cutoffs?—and how she didn’t have any school supplies. What if she was already behind on her homework? Worse yet, what if the kids laughed at her for being late?

  Her dad didn’t show an ounce of urgency as he pulled in next to one of the three cars parked in the lot, but Trina didn’t want to miss another second of school. She hopped out of the truck before he shut off the engine and ran to the front entrance.

  Trina dragged open the big brass door to a long, dark hallway. And, just like everything else in New Royal, it was empty. It didn’t even have any kids in it. She kept walking down the hall until sh
e came to a room with a big glass window and an open door. It had to be the office, so she walked in.

  A prim woman with gray hair rolled tightly into a bun on top her head sat at a big wooden desk behind the nameplate, Miss Lincoln, Secretary. A loose-leaf notebook was opened to a page labeled KINDERGARTEN in big black letters, and a stack of plain white envelopes was next to it. The woman was carefully addressing the envelopes with perfect handwriting and placing the finished ones in a neat pile next to another nameplate, which read Principal.

  Trina was confused. Was Miss Lincoln the secretary, the principal, or both? She had never seen a principal address envelopes before, but there was no one else in the office.

  “Excuse me?” Trina eked out in a tiny voice. She tried again, a little louder this time. “Miss Lincoln?”

  Miss Lincoln held up her index finger, indicating that she was concentrating and Trina should wait until she was done. After she placed another finished envelope in the pile, Miss Lincoln peered at Trina above her bifocals. “May I help you?”

  Trina tried to sound grown-up. “My name is Trina Maxwell. I’m in fifth grade and I’m new.”

  “I can see that you are new,” Miss Lincoln said. She licked her thumb and turned the pages in the notebook until she came to one labeled FIFTH GRADE. “Is Trina your given name or a nickname?”

  No one had ever asked Trina that question before. She wondered why it mattered but she wasn’t about to question Miss Lincoln. “My real name is Citrine, but everyone calls me—”

  “Capital C,” Miss Lincoln said as if she were vying for first place in a spelling bee, “-i-t-r-i-n-e,” she continued, spelling Trina’s name as she wrote it down at the bottom of a very short list. “Maxwell, is that correct?”

  “Yes, but everyone calls me—”

  “Fifth grade is with Miss Dale. Room 216.” Trina was too anxious to get started to worry about her name. She turned for the door, all set to find room 216 when Miss Lincoln said, “I’m afraid you will need to register before you can go to class.”

  Trina felt her face flush with embarrassment. Where was her dad? Why wasn’t he ever there when she really needed him?

  Miss Lincoln pulled a form from a drawer that was as perfectly organized as her desk. “Now tell me your address, please.”

  “Um,” Trina said, watching the doorway for her dad. What was taking him so long anyway? “I don’t know the address. We’re living at Goldenrod, the big mansion out—”

  “Goldenrod!” Miss Lincoln dropped her pen. “No one lives out there.”

  Trina couldn’t tell if Miss Lincoln was scared of Goldenrod or accusing her of lying, so she kept her eyes on the office window and didn’t say anything. “Ahem,” Miss Lincoln said, but in the nick of time Trina saw her dad hurrying toward the office. She relaxed until she saw a woman in a flowered skirt approaching the door from the other direction. Trina squeezed her eyes shut, thinking her dad would run right into the woman.

  “Whoa,” he said, grabbing onto the door frame to slow down. “Sorry about that. I forgot. There’s no running in school.” The woman, who was young and pretty, with long dark hair, smiled. Miss Lincoln frowned and Trina rolled her eyes. Why couldn’t Poppo be serious just once in his life?

  “We do make a few exceptions on occasion,” the pretty woman said with a twinkle in her eye. “It’s still early in the year.”

  “I’m Mike. Mike Maxwell,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “I’m Carrie Dale,” she said, shaking his hand.

  “Miss Dale?” Trina exclaimed, picking out the most important part of this silly conversation. “Then you’re my new teacher.”

  “And what is your name?” Miss Dale said, looking at Trina with the kindest green eyes Trina had ever seen.

  “That would be Citrine,” Miss Lincoln interjected before Trina could open her mouth. “Citrine Maxwell.”

  “No,” said her dad. “Her name is—”

  Trina glared at him and shook her head. She didn’t want him to correct Miss Lincoln and start the year off on the wrong foot when she was already late. Her dad shut his mouth, startled.

  “Citrine,” Miss Dale repeated. “What a lovely name.”

  A lovely name. Trina felt a swoop of confidence, maybe even excitement. Being called Citrine made her want to stand taller. It made her feel more grown-up.

  “She’s my daughter,” he said. “And she loves school.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Miss Dale said.

  Trina did love school, but her dad was getting more embarrassing by the second. Now she wished he had stayed in the truck.

  Miss Dale reached out and took Trina’s hand in hers, a beautiful, smooth hand with perfect half-moon shaped fingernails the color of watermelon. And she smelled like springtime. With her other hand she lifted Trina’s baseball hat from her head and handed it to her dad. “We don’t allow hats in school.” And finally she said, “You can come with me, Citrine. We’ll get you settled.”

  Trina sighed with relief as all of her first-day jitters melted away.

  “Hold your horses,” Miss Lincoln said sternly. “We’re still waiting on the paperwork.”

  Trina turned and stared at her dad. “My dad will bring it this afternoon. Won’t you, Poppo?”

  “Sure, Trina,” he said, but Trina glared at him again. “I mean, Citrine,” he said, quickly correcting himself. “I thought it was in the truck. That’s why I was so late—”

  “School lets out at three thirty, Mr. Maxwell,” Miss Lincoln interrupted. “I go home at three forty-five. Sharp.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be here in plenty of time, Miss Lincoln,” Miss Dale said in her soothing voice. “And could you please let Mr. Bert know I need a couple mousetraps set in my classroom? It’s that time of year again.” Then she smiled at Trina. “My classroom is upstairs.”

  Halfway down the hall, Trina looked over her shoulder and saw her dad standing there, twirling her baseball cap in his hands. What was he doing? Was he waiting for her to wave? Didn’t he know that fifth graders didn’t wave at their dads? She gave a quick nod and turned around again.

  Walking next to Miss Dale, Trina felt as if she floated up the marble stairs and down the hall, all the way to the threshold of room 216. A dark-haired boy was doing jumping jacks at the front of the room. Everyone was laughing, but when the kids saw Miss Dale, they took their seats. “Fifth graders, you have a new classmate,” said Miss Dale.

  Eons seemed to pass while Trina stood there with all the kids staring at her. She was trying to take in everything at once. Miss Dale’s old desk looked like it belonged at Goldenrod. A long chalkboard ran the whole width of the classroom at the front, and the alphabet, with both uppercase and lowercase letters in a swirly script, was painted on the back wall. There was a big white sink in one corner and some cabinets and dark wood bookcases in the other, but there wasn’t a single computer in the room. Trina had no idea that moving up a grade would mean going back in time.

  The desks were in neat rows, but the kids were scattered around the room and at least half the desks were empty. Trina counted eleven new faces, excited to think she would soon make new friends. But twelve kids total meant there weren’t enough girls for a softball team. And even if the boys and girls played together on one team, who would they play against?

  “Everyone, please welcome Citrine,” Miss Dale said.

  “Welcome, Citrine,” they said in unison, and Trina instantly felt like she was in kindergarten.

  Miss Dale pointed at an empty desk behind a prissy-looking girl. Her shiny brown hair was in a perfect ponytail, her hands were perfectly crossed on top of the desk, and she was the only girl in the classroom wearing a dress. She looked like a little-girl version of Miss Lincoln. “Please sit behind Missy, Citrine.”

  Trina smiled at Missy, but Missy didn’t smile back, which meant Missy didn’t just look like Miss Lincoln; she acted like her too. As Trina walked to her desk, she noticed the girl who would be sitting behind her, a very ta
ll girl with long red braids, two pink barrettes holding back her overgrown bangs, and a mass of freckles on her face. She didn’t smile either. Looking down, Trina slipped into the empty desk between Prissy Missy and the tall girl, who immediately leaned over and whispered.

  “Welcome, Latrine.”

  Latrine? Did the tall girl really say Latrine? Maybe she had misunderstood. Maybe she didn’t know that a latrine was an outhouse they used on construction sites when there wasn’t any plumbing. Trina turned around, trying to be friendly. “It’s Ci-trine, not La—”

  The tall girl smiled and slowly mouthed the word again: LA-TRINE. A terrible taste bubbled in Trina’s mouth. She swallowed and swallowed, trying to make it go away. Being the new girl was awful, but throwing up in front of everyone would be a lot worse.

  “Charlotte, Citrine, is everything okay?” Miss Dale asked.

  Charlotte? Scary old Miss Kitty’s granddaughter? No wonder. Sawdust didn’t fall far from the wood, as Poppo liked to say.

  “It’s just fine, Miss Dale,” Charlotte said, using the same smile to be nice that she had used to be mean. “I was just telling Citrine how wonderful it is to have a new girl in class.”

  Trina also smiled as if nothing had happened. “Everything’s just perfect,” she said.

  Perfect? Right. Why couldn’t she sit in one of the other desks? Why did her name have to sound like an outhouse? Why didn’t she tell Miss Lincoln her real name was Trina when she had the chance?

  “Citrine, most of your classmates have been in school together since kindergarten, so they all know each other. It’s very rare that we get a new student.”

  “Nu-uh,” said the jumping-jacks boy. “We moved here from Cedar Rapids when I was seven.”

  “No wonder you think you’re so special,” Charlotte sneered, prompting a round of snickers.

  “Edward, please raise your hand to speak. Charlotte, I expect you to mind your manners.”

  Prissy Missy raised her hand and waved it until Miss Dale nodded at her. “Maybe we should introduce ourselves, Miss Dale.”