by Ron Roy
“It’s a barn,” Dink said. “They’re flying into a barn through that window where farmers used to load hay.”
A sentence under the drawing said: IN BAD WEATHER, SOME PIGEONS ROOST IN GARAGES, BARNS, AND OTHER BUILDINGS.
“You’re right,” Ruth Rose said. “See, there’s the top of the barn door, with those sliding things. Just like you have on your barn, Josh.”
Josh stared at the picture. “Maybe that’s what the note means!” he said. “We leave our barn door open sometimes so Polly gets fresh air. Pigeons go in all the time. You can hear them up on the beams!”
Dink glanced around the dim attic space. “We’ve been looking in the wrong place,” he said. “Pigeons fly in and out of Josh’s barn, not up here!”
“So we should go check it out,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe there’s a card there for Josh.”
Josh smiled. “You mean I have two secret admirers?” he asked.
“Lots of people like you,” Ruth Rose told him.
“Don’t tell him that!” Dink said.
“Come on, let’s check out Josh’s barn,” Ruth Rose said.
Dink dropped the book back into the box. “Okay, let’s go,” he said.
The kids started backing down the steep, narrow stairs.
Dink walked up to Mr. Linkletter, who was standing behind the counter.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” the hotel manager asked.
“We found the old coop,” Josh said. “But no pigeons, just pigeon poop.”
“Any—um—spiders?” Mr. Linkletter asked.
“Nope, just lots of cobwebs,” Josh answered. “Oh, and Dink tried to scare me with a pigeon feather. But I just laughed.”
“You laughed after you jumped ten feet in the air!” Dink said.
“We found something else,” Ruth Rose said. “Show him, Dink.”
Dink pulled the three silvery tubes from his pocket. He laid them on the counter.
“Oh, yes, I remember those,” Mr. Linkletter said. “My uncle and his cousin Lucas used to send messages back and forth. They’d tuck notes inside these tubes and send a pigeon on its way.”
Dink pulled the old note from its tube. “Look what else we found,” he said. He unrolled the paper and handed it to Mr. Linkletter.
The tall man read the note, holding it carefully by its edges. “My stars,” he said. “This is from my aunt Flo to Uncle Eb the year they were married!”
“Did your aunt have pigeons, too?” asked Ruth Rose.
“No, but her father did,” Mr. Linkletter said. “Flo’s father and my uncle Eb began exchanging notes, and one day Uncle Eb met Aunt Flo. Then they began sending notes, using the pigeons.” Mr. Linkletter almost smiled. “And that turned into love.”
“What does the note mean, My answer is yes?” Ruth Rose asked.
“I’m guessing Uncle Eb sent a note to Flo asking her to marry him,” Mr. Linkletter said. “She must have returned this note with her answer. They were married two months later, in April 1950.”
“Did you go to the wedding?” Josh asked.
“Goodness no!” Mr. Linkletter said. “That was over sixty-five years ago, and I wasn’t even born!”
“Would your aunt and uncle like to have these tubes and the note?” Dink asked.
“I’m sure they will be thrilled,” Mr. Linkletter said. He slid the tubes into an envelope and put it in a drawer under the counter. “I’ll make sure they get them.”
The kids said good-bye to Mr. Linkletter and walked outside. The snow had stopped, but it was still cold.
Dink looked toward the clock on the town hall. “It’s almost three o’clock,” he said. “We’ve been following clues all day, and we still don’t know who our secret admirer is!”
“Let’s hope we find something at my barn,” Josh said. “Otherwise, we have to find some other place where pigeons fly in and out.”
Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose took the shortest route to Josh’s house. They hiked across the town tennis courts, cut through the high school playing fields, and crossed Woody Street to Farm Lane.
“Let’s go in and make some hot chocolate,” Josh suggested as they passed his house.
“But don’t you want to find the next clue?” Ruth Rose asked. “Where pigeons fly in and out?”
They all looked at the tall barn. Snow covered the roof and windowsills. Someone had shoveled a wide path from the house to the barn.
“I guess my dad got back from sledding,” Josh said.
“Josh, what’s that on the barn door?” Dink asked. “It’s red!”
They raced across Josh’s backyard, kicking snow out of their way.
Josh reached the door first. Someone had tied a red envelope to a nail. “I guess I do have two secret admirers!” Josh said.
Dink grinned. “Open the card.”
Josh pulled the envelope from the nail, opened it, and peeked inside.
“Why don’t we go in your house to read it?” Dink asked. “My nose is freezing!”
The kids turned and ran to Josh’s back door. They kicked their boots off, dropped their jackets, and sat at the kitchen table.
Josh pulled the Valentine’s card from its envelope and put it on the table. Like Dink’s, this card had glitter all over a big red heart. Josh opened the card. He read the message and started to laugh.
“What’s it say?” Ruth Rose asked.
Josh read it out loud:
Noses are red,
berries are blue.
You helped me, and I love you!
From your sekret admirer
“The same great speller,” Josh said.
“Someone loves you,” Dink said, grinning at his friend.
“Someone you helped,” Ruth Rose said. “Who have you helped, Josh?”
“I help a lot of people,” Josh said. “I help my mom and dad. I help the twins with homework and stuff.”
Dink grinned. “You help the twins with their homework?” he asked. “Or do they help you with yours?”
Josh looked at Dink. “Very funny,” he said. “Oh, and I help you, Dink, by being your friend. Without me, you wouldn’t have any friends at all!”
Dink laughed. “Gee, I thought it was the other way around,” he said.
“Do you think someone in your family wrote this?” Ruth Rose tapped the card.
Josh shook his head. “Nope. My mom and dad know how to spell secret,” he said. “And the twins can’t spell admirer. They probably don’t even know what it means!”
“Someone else you helped, then,” Dink said. “How about a neighbor?”
Josh laughed. “A neighbor wrote I love you in a card and hung it on my barn door?” he said. “I don’t think so.”
Ruth Rose tapped the envelope. “Let’s look at what else is in there,” she said.
Josh emptied the envelope onto the table. Four little squares of paper fell out. Josh arranged them so they could read the letters: K, O, L, O.
“There’s no piece of cardboard?” Dink asked.
Josh peeked inside the envelope. “Nope. Just the card and these letters.”
“So there’s no new clue,” Ruth Rose said.
“Good!” Josh said. “I’m tired of running all over town in the snow!”
“Yeah, me too,” Dink said. “But we still don’t know anything. We all have a secret admirer, but we don’t know who it is.”
“I have two,” Josh said. He wiggled two fingers in front of Dink’s face.
“Whatever,” Dink answered.
“Let’s go over the four clues,” Ruth Rose suggested. “Dink, your first one asked where Abe Lincoln hangs out, right?”
Dink nodded. “I remembered he hangs out on pennies, and I found my card under my penny jug. The second clue asked where a buddy snores.”
“So then we came here,” Josh said, “and I found a card with the third clue under Pal’s sweater. The clue asked where jungle animals drink.”
“Then we went to my house, and I found my card
under Tiger’s water dish,” Ruth Rose added. “The fourth clue asked where pigeons fly in and out.”
“Then we came to my barn,” Josh said. “I got another envelope and card, but no new clue inside.”
“But we do have your new letters,” Ruth Rose said.
“And we still don’t know what they mean,” Josh said.
“Why don’t we try to make words out of all of them?” Dink asked. “The secret admirer must have put the letters in the envelopes because they spell something, right?”
They emptied their pockets and laid all the letters on the table.
Dink arranged them into four rows with five letters in each row. “Twenty in all,” he said. “How should we do this?”
“Well, there are four E’s,” Ruth Rose said. “And four L’s.” She moved the E’s and L’s into two separate piles.
“Three O’s, two P’s, and two S’s,” Josh said, making more piles. “There are five letters left over: R, H, W, Y, and K.” He made a pile of the single letters.
Ruth Rose counted the E’s and the O’s. “Seven vowels, and all the rest are consonants,” she said.
The kids stared at the little piles of letters. “It’s impossible,” Dink said. “We could probably make a hundred different words out of these.”
“What if we tried using the letters the way we found them?” Ruth Rose asked. “Dink, do you remember which letters were in your envelope?”
“Sure,” he said, reaching for the piles. “My letters were two E’s, two S’s, an L, and a P.” He pulled those letters away from the others.
“How about you, Josh?” Ruth Rose asked. “What letters were in the envelope you found under Pal’s sweater?”
“Easy peasy,” Josh said. He dragged R, E, H, E, and W and placed them in front of him at the table. “These were in my first envelope.”
“Okay, and mine were L, Y, L, P, and O,” Ruth Rose said. She arranged those letters in front of her on the table.
“And the ones we just found on the barn door are O, L, O, and K,” Dink said. He pushed those letters in front of Josh.
Josh looked at Ruth Rose. “Now what?” he asked. “This is still alphabet soup!”
Dink laughed. “Josh is still hungry.”
“I think our secret admirer put these letters in our envelopes so we’d make words,” Ruth Rose said. “So let’s try.”
“Josh has two piles,” Dink said. “He has to make two words.”
“Right,” Josh said. “Because I’m twice as smart!”
Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose moved their letters around, trying to create words.
“It’s sort of like Scrabble,” Josh muttered. He had two little piles of letters in front of him. “Hey, I made kool!” he cried.
Ruth Rose and Dink looked at Josh’s word.
“That’s not how you spell cool,” Dink said.
“But we know that our secret admirer can’t spell, either,” Josh said.
“Keep trying,” Ruth Rose said.
“You guys are no fun,” Josh mumbled. He moved letters around. “How about kloo?”
“Nope,” Dink said. “Clue is spelled C-L-U-E. But if you move the K, you get look. That’s a real word!”
“Awesome,” Josh said. “I’d call you brilliant, but I don’t want you to get all proud of yourself.”
“No problem,” Dink said. He moved P, E, S, E, L, and S around quickly. “What if I put an S at the beginning and kept the other S at the end?”
He tried it, then said, “Is speels a word?”
Ruth Rose looked over. “I don’t think so, but sleeps is!” she said. “Just switch the P and the L.”
“Thanks, Ruth Rose,” Dink said. “It’s easier when we help each other.”
“Okay, then help me with my second word,” Josh said. His letters were arranged to read R, E, H, E, and W.
“Rehew isn’t a word,” Dink said.
“I know that,” Josh said.
“Try putting the W in front of the H,” Ruth Rose suggested. “Like in who, what, when…”
Josh did, and then he yelled, “Hey, what about where?”
“I don’t see any other possibilities,” Dink said. “So now we have three words: look, sleeps, and where.”
“Remember, all the other clues started with the word where,” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe this is another clue starting the same way!”
“Where look sleeps,” Josh attempted. “Nope.”
“Where sleeps look,” Dink said. “Double nope.”
“We need your word,” Josh told Ruth Rose.
“Okay, but help me,” she said.
The boys looked at her letters: L, Y, L, P, O.
“Maybe the two L’s should go together,” Dink said. “Like in Sally, Billy, silly, Molly…”
“Polly!” Ruth Rose screamed. “You are a genius, Dink!”
“Don’t tell him that!” Josh said.
The kids put the four words together in a row. They looked down at the sentence they had created: Look where Polly sleeps.
“Polly, my pony?” Josh said. “She sleeps in her stall in the barn.”
“Then that’s where we should look next!” Ruth Rose said.
Dink looked out the window at the bright sun on the white snow. The barn’s shadow covered half the yard. “You think our secret admirer is in a cold barn?” he asked.
“We won’t know till we look,” Ruth Rose said. She was already pulling on her jacket. “So far, every time we followed a clue, we found something new.”
Dink and Josh grabbed their jackets, and the three headed outside. They crossed the yard on the hard-packed snow.
“Look,” Dink said, pointing at something on the ground. “Tire tracks. But there are no cars here.”
“My dad must have been here,” Josh said. “Because the driveway is shoveled. Maybe he went out again.”
The barn door was closed, and the kids shoved it open. Inside, it was dark except for a little light coming through the small windows.
“Where’s the light switch?” Ruth Rose asked.
“Next to the door,” Josh said. He reached past Dink and flipped a switch. Nothing happened.
“Bulb must be out,” Josh muttered.
“If you leave the door open, we can still see what’s in Polly’s stall,” Dink said.
The kids walked down the center of the barn, toward the end. The barn had four horse stalls, but three of them were empty. Polly’s was the fourth.
Above them, they could hear pigeons cooing and fluttering their wings. Dink smelled the hay. Under their feet, the barn floorboards creaked.
They stopped in front of Polly’s stall door. The pony reached her head out to give Josh a nuzzle.
“Hey, Polly,” Josh said. “Do you have a clue for us?”
Suddenly the overhead lights went on. People came running out of the three empty stalls. They were laughing and yelling, “SURPRISE! HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! BE MY VALENTINE!”
Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose froze in their tracks. Polly rose up on her hind legs and whinnied. Pal ran around everyone, barking and wagging his tail.
“What’s going on?” Josh said to his parents, who were hugging him. “You guys almost gave me a heart attack!”
Dink’s parents were there, too. And Ruth Rose’s. Her brother, Nate, ran out of a stall, followed by Brian and Bradley. The three boys tossed pink and red streamers all over the older kids.
“It’s a party for you guys!” Brian yelled. “You said you never got anything on Valentine’s Day!”
“How do you know I said that?” Josh asked. “You weren’t there.”
“But we were listening!” Bradley said. “You should keep your door closed, bro.”
Suddenly Mrs. Wong appeared, then Mr. Linkletter. They each held plates of cupcakes and cookies. The other adults made tables out of hay bales and sheets of plywood. More food came out of the empty stalls. Pink heart-shaped cookies, tubs of ice cream, containers of hot chocolate.
“Are you our s
ecret admirers?” Josh asked Mrs. Wong and Mr. Linkletter.
Mrs. Wong made a little bow. “No, but we were happy to play along,” she said.
“We do admire you,” Mr. Linkletter added. “But we’re not your secret admirers.”
“Then who is?” asked Ruth Rose.
Ruth Rose’s father reached behind him, then held out Tiger, wearing a red heart on her collar. “Tiger is your secret admirer!” he told Ruth Rose. “Because you brush her and make sure she has food and water every day.”
Dink’s mother opened her carryall and pulled out his guinea pig. Loretta was wearing a red heart around her furry neck. “Loretta is your secret admirer!” his mom told him. “She loves you because you talk to her and keep her cage clean.”
“Hey, what about me?” Josh asked. “Who’s my secret admirer?”
“Actually, you don’t have one,” his father said. Then he smiled. “You have two!”
He led Polly out of her stall. The pony was wearing a red heart on her halter. “Polly loves you because you brush her and feed her and let her give you pony kisses!”
Just then Pal jumped up on Josh’s knee and barked. Josh could see a red heart on his collar.
“Pal loves you most,” Josh’s mother said. “Because you rescued him when his owners went to jail. You brought him home, even when I didn’t want a dog. Pal will never forget your kindness.”
Josh laughed. “So our pets are our secret admirers?” he asked.
“Yes, your pets, who love you,” his mom said.
Dink smiled, remembering the clues that he, Josh, and Ruth Rose had found. “Which one of our pets doesn’t know how to spell secret?” he asked.
“You’ll have to ask them,” his father said with a big grin.
They all sat on bales of hay and ate pink cookies, ice cream, and cupcakes with red frosting.
—
The next Saturday, the sun came out. The snow started to melt. Icicles dripped outside Josh’s bedroom window. He and Dink and Ruth Rose were playing Scrabble on the floor.
Next to Josh, Pal lay on his orange sweater, snoring. He was still wearing a red heart on his collar.
