The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  They hesitated and then Maryann said, “Fine. We’ll leave you two alone, but not because you said so.”

  “Right,” Connie agreed, crinkling her freckled nose. “We don’t want to be near enough to catch the weird off of you.”

  “It was pathetic enough when she was hanging around Becky Cornflower.”

  “Ugh. I don’t blame Becky for moving away. I wish I could move far, far away, too,” Connie taunted. “Arizona wouldn’t be far enough for me if you were my only friend, Hazel. I’d move all the way to Alaska. If it ever becomes a state, it’ll be so good Americans will have a place to get away from weirdos like you.”

  “Actually, it would likely have more to do with Alaska’s strategic location,” Samuel said. “With its closeness to Russia, it would be militarily advantageous for Alaska to be a state rather than a territory.”

  Maryann sneered, and no one looks pretty when they sneer, not even girls with perfect blond hair. “You two are just perfect for each other. Triangle people. You’re practically adorable.”

  “So adorable it makes me sick,” Connie added. They both made retching and dinging noises as they walked away.

  When Hazel looked back at Samuel, he was bright red and wouldn’t catch her eye. Now it was her turn to look away. She tucked her knees up to her chest and tried to stop herself from blushing as madly as he was.

  Samuel cleared his throat. “The one thing we know about Alice is that she’s connected to Mr. Jones.” He held up his hand to stop her from interrupting him. “Maybe you’re right and we do need to investigate him.”

  “Really?” Hazel didn’t even care that he still wasn’t buying her theory about Alice being just a name. “You know what this means, don’t you? Stakeout!”

  Samuel frowned. “That’s not the appropriate form of investigation for this situation.”

  “How can you say that? It’s the perfect form.”

  “We can’t see each other out of school, so how could we even get together to do it?”

  “Can’t you just say you’re going over to do a grave rubbing? We don’t even have to talk. I bet we’d get better information if we were spying from different viewpoints.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think my grandmother wants me to leave the neighborhood.”

  Then a brilliant thought came to her. “Halloween! You, me, stakeout in the cemetery, then trick-or-treating. It will be fantastic!”

  “There’s the small matter that we aren’t supposed to be talking to each other.”

  “It’s all in how you present it, Samuel. Trust me.” She explained her plan to him, and even told him just what to say to his grandmother.

  “You think this will work?” Samuel asked.

  “Oh, sure,” she said, though really all she had was hope.

  Later that night, Hazel laid out the argument before her parents:

  “Insomuch as I have only been able to trick-or-treat once in my life,” she began. Her parents had taken her trick-or-treating when she was three, but the town teenagers, sensing the lack of authority, took the opportunity to vandalize the graveyard. Hazel had been allowed to dress up after that, but they never left the house: her mom handed out candy while her dad patrolled the graveyard with a flashlight. “And insomuch as this was meant to be my first time trick-or-treating by myself. And insomuch as Samuel is not allowed to go trick-or-treating alone, and so won’t be allowed to go if I don’t go with him, and we all know what a sad, sad childhood he’s had, I hereby propose that you allow me a one-night reprieve from indefinite groundation—which, by the way, I’m pretty sure violates the Geneva convention—to go trick-or-treating. Samuel will even help with weeding beforehand.”

  Her mother looked up from her Horticultural Digest and swallowed her soup. “What was that, dear?”

  “She wants to go trick-or-treating.”

  “But she’s grounded.”

  “It’s for Samuel,” Hazel reiterated. “His grandmother won’t let him go alone and he doesn’t have any other friends.”

  Her parents exchanged a look. Playing the Samuel card was risky. She knew her parents felt sympathy for him, but they also were convinced that he was somehow responsible for all her recent bad behavior.

  “Did you hear the part where Samuel was going to help me weed?”

  Her parents exchanged a look. More like several looks, as if they were trying to come to an agreement using only their eyes.

  “Will Mrs. Switzer allow Samuel to go trick-or-treating with you?”

  “Oh, I’m sure she will if you say it’s okay. Don’t you see that Samuel’s joy and happiness is in your hands?”

  “That’s a little much, Hazel,” her father said.

  “Quite a bit much,” her mother concurred.

  “Sorry,” Hazel mumbled. She tried to make her eyes as wide as she could so they could see how sad and pathetic her plight was.

  Her dad shook his magazine. “You know, when I was your age, we didn’t do any of this trick-or-treating.”

  Hazel tried not to look exasperated.

  “It’s a form of extortion,” her mom said. “Kids going from house to house and begging for candy. My mother never would have let me do something like that.”

  Hazel wiggled in her seat. She wished they would just tell her one way or the other.

  “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give them another chance,” her father said.

  “Oh, all right,” her mother said. “But the grounding isn’t over.”

  “What are you going to be?” her dad asked.

  “I was thinking maybe a historical figure like Eleanor Roosevelt or Amelia Earhart. Do you think I could make a plane out of cardboard boxes before Saturday?”

  “I don’t know about a plane, but I think I have an aviator cap up in the attic,” her mom said. “Your great-grandfather used to fly, you know.”

  Hazel imagined herself with her cap and goggles, a scarf blowing back in the breeze. This was shaping up to be the best Halloween yet. Of course, as she herself should have known, life didn’t always live up to expectations.

  22

  Parade of Ghouls

  “Gum?” Hazel demanded. “Gum? Who brings gum to a Halloween party?”

  Her mother pushed a long strand of her hair back from her face. “Girls who don’t tell their mothers about the Halloween party and the need for snacks until the night before, that’s who.” She plunged her hands into a sink full of soapy dishes.

  “You could have made chocolate chip cookies. Those take no time at all.”

  “Everybody loves gum,” her father said. “After World War II, American soldiers used to give it to German kids. They’d come running for blocks.”

  “We don’t live in Germany.”

  “Hazel,” her mother said, but her tone said the rest: zip it. She wiped at her hair again, leaving a trail of soap bubbles across her forehead.

  It’s true that the night before Hazel had been so excited about going trick-or-treating and making her costume that she’d forgotten until bedtime to tell her mother that she needed to bring something to share for the classroom Halloween party. “Now?” her mother had demanded. “You tell me now?” But then she had said she would take care of it, and Hazel had gone to bed. Four packs of Wrigley’s gum was not what she had expected when she woke up, but it was too late: she had to go to school. And she wasn’t going to let the gum ruin her excitement for the day.

  She tucked the packages into her knapsack, and headed out to her bike.

  She pulled her goggles down over her eyes. They were darkened and a little cracked, which made seeing and thus bike riding a bit difficult, but she wasn’t going to take them off. She had woven wire through her white scarf so it would look like it was blowing behind her. Her father had an old bomber jacket. “From my rebel days.” He had laughed, and Hazel wondered what on earth that could mean. She wore khaki pants and canvas sneakers. As she sped down the hill to school, she felt like she really was Amelia Earhart, flying over the ocean
, nothing but blue sky and blue water in front of her, no place to go but around the world.

  “I don’t think Amelia Earhart wore sneakers,” Samuel said when he saw her.

  “Well, Amelia Earhart got to fly her plane. We have to walk in the Halloween parade. What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

  Samuel was wearing the same clothes he always wore. He bent over and took something out of his satchel. “I’m a ghost,” he said, and threw a sheet over his head. He adjusted it so that he was looking through two cut-out eyes.

  “No one ever actually dresses as a ghost,” she said.

  “Exactly,” he replied.

  They walked together through the school toward the front door, where the annual Halloween parade was getting set to begin. Students of all ages were dressed in their costumes: skeletons laughed with clowns, Howdy Doody chatted with a Rocket Ranger, a pack of hobos drifted down the hall. The Halloween parade was one of Hazel’s absolute favorite times of the year. She’d been Raggedy Ann, a gypsy, a flower (at her parents’ insistence in first grade), and a wizard, but Amelia Earhart was certainly her best costume yet.

  When Hazel and Samuel stepped into the bright sun, they saw Maryann and Connie dressed as identical bunnies. They wore pink jumpsuits made out of some soft material, pink ears on headbands—each with the right ear folded down—and had pink noses and black whiskers drawn on their faces.

  “A rabbit’s ears would never look like that in real life,” Hazel whispered. “One up and one down? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Almost as ridiculous as a pink rabbit,” Samuel replied.

  Hazel grinned. It was nice to have someone else who valued truth and integrity and sticking up for the facts.

  Mrs. Sinclair came hurrying out dressed as Annie Oakley and begun ushering her students into a line. She was one of the only teachers who dressed up, which made Hazel like her even more. “Ready, children, let’s get ready!”

  They lined up as best they could, each jostling to see the parents along the street below. It was all mothers, except for one man, who— Hazel squinted. She couldn’t believe it. What was her father doing at the Halloween parade?

  Behind her, Otis Logan was shifting from foot to foot. He had on a gray jumpsuit. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?” she asked.

  Normally Otis would have made a snide remark, but instead he wrinkled up his freckled nose and said, “I’m one of the spies at the factory.”

  “That is scary!” Anthony said, laughing. “My father says the whole place is crawling with them.”

  Otis replied, “My mother says when they catch the spies, they ought to put them out in those things they used in the old times, where the guy was all propped up in the town square and folks threw garbage at them.”

  “The stocks?” Hazel prompted. She didn’t think that sounded very Christian of Otis’s mother, but she didn’t say anything. She noticed that Maryann took Connie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

  Timmy cleared his throat. “My father works at the factory, and he says there’s no way any of them are spies.” He spoke to the ground, and the skin under his freckles turned as pink as Maryann’s and Connie’s bunny ears.

  “Then why won’t they say anything?” Otis asked. “Why won’t any of those union guys sign the loyalty pledge to prove they’re all American?”

  “They’ve got nothing to prove. The committee has it all wrong,” Timmy said.

  “Are you calling Senator McCarthy a liar?” Otis asked. “’Cause I’m pretty sure that’s treason.”

  “I’m saying you should watch your fat mouth,” Timmy said.

  To which Otis responded the only way he knew how: he shoved Timmy. Otis was a lot bigger than Timmy, but Timmy barely tumbled back. Maryann and Connie emitted simultaneous squeals with their hands over their mouths.

  Mr. Hiccolm was on them in a moment, pulling apart the boys before they could start something. He dragged Otis back to the end of the line, where he wouldn’t bother anyone.

  Connie and Maryann were in front of Hazel and Samuel. Their bunny ears flopped as they spoke. “What a brute,” Maryann said.

  “Sure is,” Connie agreed, without her usual enthusiasm for echoing Maryann.

  “Hey, don’t worry about them,” Maryann said. “What’s that your mom has?”

  Connie squinted. “Oh, that’s a movie camera that my dad got the last time he was down in New York.”

  Timmy let out a low whistle. “That’s pretty nifty,” he said. “My dad wants to get one, but he says he’s going to wait until they come down in price a bit, which means he will get it in 1967.” He shook his head.

  A movie camera? Hazel elbowed Samuel and mouthed the words “Spy gear.”

  “What?” Samuel asked. He was going to have to get better at lip reading if he was going to be any good as a spy.

  Hazel leaned in closer. “Spy gear. He got that camera because he’s a spy.”

  Connie tugged at her bent rabbit ear. “Where’s your mom, Maryann?”

  Maryann pointed. “She’s down the street with Mrs. O’Malley and Mrs. Logan.”

  “I wonder why my mother isn’t with them,” Connie said, chewing her lip, and for a second Hazel, who was eavesdropping as a matter of course—detectives don’t get to take a break in the middle of a case—wondered why Connie sounded so concerned.

  “My mom’s probably jealous of that new camera. She likes to have everything new first and can’t stand when someone else has something nicer than her.”

  Hazel thought that seemed a lot like Maryann herself.

  “Sure, I guess,” Connie said.

  “Don’t sweat it, Connie,” Maryann told her. “Jeez, I’ve never met anyone who worries as much as you do.”

  Just then Hazel heard someone calling her name. “Hazel! Over here! Hazel!” Her dad was standing on the sidelines, in between Mrs. Short and the clump of other mothers. He was waving like crazy, and of course dressed in his short-sleeved button-down shirt, even though it was cold and all the mothers had on winter coats. Hazel gave a small wave and her father responded with a thumbs-up.

  “Is that your dad, Hazel?” Maryann asked. She and Connie laughed.

  Now, Hazel knew that her father was a little odd, with his goofy grin and the dirt stains on his knees, but she didn’t know what was so funny about it. “Sure is!” she replied, and plastered on a manufactured smile.

  Mrs. Sinclair took her place at the front of the line and the parade began. Connie had her waddling walk and Samuel had trouble with his cut-out eyes, so they moved in sort of a jerking, lurching fashion, which Hazel thought was rather undignified. Still, the mothers—and Hazel’s dad—clapped and waved and the kids all waved back. Except for the little first graders, who were terrified by the whole thing.

  Samuel leaned a little closer to her. “My grandmother finally gave in,” he said. “We can go trick-or-treating tomorrow. And, you know, the other thing.”

  Maryann looked over her shoulder and seemed ready to say something mean, but then Samuel stumbled on the edge of his sheet and nearly crashed into her. She screamed, then snickered and muttered, “Triangle people.”

  Hazel patted Samuel on the back and said, “Maybe we should hem that sheet before we go trick-or-treating.”

  They did a loop around the parking lot and then it was time to go inside for the Halloween party, after which they’d be let out early for the day, which was another reason why Halloween was one of Hazel’s favorite days of the year. Before she went inside, she rushed over to her father. “Look at you, Amelia Earhart!” he said. “Looks like a great day for a fly-around. Not a cloud in the sky!”

  “What are you doing here?” Hazel demanded.

  The smile on her father’s face faltered. “I came to see the parade.”

  “You’ve never come before.”

  “Well, the truth is, Mom felt a little bad about the gum, so we decided I should just head on down to the parade. And I’m glad I did. What a sight!”

  “Why did
n’t Mom come if she felt so bad?”

  “The bulbs finally arrived, the right ones, and she’s getting them in the ground. What’s the big deal? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  Hazel couldn’t believe her dad didn’t notice that he was the only father there. This wasn’t a Dad Event, this was a Mom Event, not that her mom ever came to these sorts of things. She was always working. But even the moms who worked in the Switzer factory managed to switch shifts and come to at least some of the things at school. “Sure I am, Dad. I’ve got to go inside now.”

  He ruffled her hair and sent her on her way.

  As she walked to her classroom, she could hear Maryann’s voice echoing all the way down the hall. “Gum? What kind of a square brought gum to the party?”

  23

  The Stakeout

  Samuel walked over to Hazel’s house on Halloween, his costume in his satchel. She found him a pair of work gloves and they went out into the graveyard. She had her Mysteries Notebook tucked into the pocket of her overalls. She still hadn’t been able to find a magnifying glass, and decided that binoculars would make her too obvious.

  “We’re going out to weed!” Hazel called to her father, who was pecking with his index fingers at the typewriter in the office. Hazel’s mother usually did the typing.

  “Make sure you get around all the sculptures,” he replied without looking up.

  Hazel turned to Samuel and whispered, “Our cover story is set.” She looked at her watch. “Time is currently …” She paused to do some quick computations. “Fifteen hundred hours. Dusk is at approximately seventeen hundred hours, giving us nearly two hours to complete our mission.”

  “I’m still not so sure about this,” Samuel said.

  “You’re the one who said we could find out about Alice by learning about The Comrade.”

  “Mr. Jones,” he corrected. She decided not to argue, and together they went outside in search of their subject. There were no funerals scheduled, so Mr. Jones didn’t have any graves to dig, but usually her parents found some odd jobs for him to do. She pushed the wheelbarrow and they stopped occasionally to pick weeds. They did a few loops around the cemetery, but didn’t see him. Hazel glanced at the garden shed. Locked up tight.