by Gayle Trent
Matlock went to stand by the back door.
“Oh, yeah. You need to go pee, don’t you?” I opened the door and he raced into the yard. I filled his food and water bowls and told him “bye.” Then I ate me a quick bite of breakfast, finished loading up the car, and headed for the school. It wasn’t even daylight yet.
DIVIDER HERE
Five minutes after I got those brownies in the oven, the whole front of the school smelled wonderful. I imagined young ‘uns gettin’ off the school bus thinking, “I smell brownies! Homemade brownies! Hallelujah! I can’t wait until lunch!” I even imagined Sunny sniffin’ the air and saying to her friends—maybe even this Alicia, “I smell Mimi’s brownies! Mimi makes the best brownies in the world!”
But did any of that happen? Who knows? My little daydreaming session was interrupted by a cross between Joan Crawford and Frankenstein…wearing one of them Ruth-Buzzy-Laugh-In hairnets. Of course, I had on one, too; but I don’t think I looked as scary in mine as she did in hers.
“Just what is the meaning of this?” she asked me.
“I’m makin’ brownies for the school children to have with their lunch.”
“You most certainly are not. I’m Jane Kershaw, and I’m over this cafeteria. Anything prepared here must be approved by me.”
“Well, I’m Myrtle Crumb, and I’m doin’ you people a favor just by being here. Furthermore, I’ve invested my own time—not to mention money—to give these young ‘uns a decent dessert.”
“I’m sorry that your time and money were wasted,” Jane Kershaw said, glaring at me with her dark beady eyes.
“My money and time were not wasted,” I said, stiffening my back to make sure I was every bit of my full five feet and seven inches. This Jane had to be every bit of six feet. She must be descended from Goliath…or Frankenstein, like I’d first thought. I decided I’d go with my first inclination on that.
“I’m working here undercover on behalf of Officer Wilbur Brody and Chief Cooper Norville. We’re investigating the recent school thefts.” I nodded at the cameo brooch attached to her white polyester lapel. “Interesting bauble you’ve got there. Looks like it might’ve cost—oh, I don’t know—twenty bucks or so.”
Jane Kershaw’s beady eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare accuse me—”
“Everyone’s a suspect,” I said, “and you’re awfully defensive about my being here.”
She huffed. “What’re you doing making brownies if you’re here as an investigator?”
“I’m making brownies because I was ashamed of that mess you all had me doling out to those poor young ‘uns yesterday. Does every single thing you all serve come pre-packaged or out of a can?”
“Not everything. But it’s very difficult and expensive to prepare too many things from scratch.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I found that out the hard way.”
“I’m reluctant to give the children something I didn’t pre-approve,” she said with a sigh.
“Got any coffee around here?”
“In the teacher’s lounge.”
“You go get us some coffee, and I’ll cut us each a brownie. That way you can make sure they’re all right.”
“Okay,” she said. “But from now on, there will be no unauthorized baking.”
“Fair enough.” I couldn’t afford to do anymore “unauthorized baking” anyway. “By the way, that is a pretty pin.”
“Thank you. But I certainly didn’t—”
I raised a hand like a traffic cop. “I’m sure you didn’t. I take cream and sugar in my coffee, thanks.”
Chapter Three
Well, honey, I want you to know my brownies were a hit. Other than my brownies, we gave the young ‘uns cornbread—not homemade, naturally, the kind that comes from a mix and tastes like it don’t have no butter in it at all—brown beans and corndogs. Now, I saw trays come back to that kitchen that didn’t look like they’d been touched except that the brownie was gone. Granted, I saw some trays that appeared to have been purt near licked clean and everything in between the two extremes. But nary a tray came back to the kitchen with a brownie on it. I felt just as proud as punch. Or at least, I did until Sunny came through the line.
When I first saw her, my heart gave a little flip like it always does. You should’ve seen her. She looked so cute. She was wearing a cream-colored sweater with a little bow at the left shoulder and black jeans. She had that corn silk hair of hers pulled back off her face, and she looked like a little angel.
But as soon as she saw me, she looked away. I could see she was goin’ to give me the cold shoulder. That hurt me so bad that I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes. Then I got mad and blinked them suckers back to where they came from. Although it might do Sunny good to see her Mimi standing here in the lunchroom with a tear on her cheek like that Indian in that trash commercial, it’d do me good to give her a piece of my mind.
“I need to talk to you after lunch,” I said when she came on through the line.
“Can’t,” she said, not looking at me. “I’ve got class.”
“Then you’d better bring your tray around here and talk with me now.”
She huffed. “I can’t. I’m—”
“You will, or I’ll have the principal call you to his office and the three of us will talk there.”
By now, everybody was watching us and Sunny was glaring at me.
“Fine,” she said, through her little gritted teeth. She took her tray, went on through the line, and then flounced around to my side of the counter. “Where do we sit?”
“Back here,” I said, leading her to a table where the lunch ladies eat.
Sunny slammed her tray down, sloshing beans out onto the table.
“You’ll clean that up when you’re finished,” I said.
“Wait and see.” She sat down.
“I will.”
“What’s all this about anyway?” She grabbed up her corndog and bit the top out of it.
“It’s about the clarinet that wound up in your locker.”
She stopped chewing and raised her eyes to look at me. Then she shrugged and went back to chewing.
I sat down across from her. “Tell me about the clarinet.”
Again with the shrug. “What’s to tell?” She opened a mustard packet and squeezed the contents onto her tray.
“I don’t think you’re a thief, Sunny.”
“Good.” She dabbed the corndog in the mustard. “’Cause I’m not.”
“Then tell me about the clarinet.”
She took another bite of the corndog. I could see I wasn’t gonna get a blasted thing out of her unless I scared her a little.
“If you don’t talk to me,” I said, “I’m gonna have to tell Brody and the principal about that clarinet bein’ in your locker.”
Her jaw dropped and she had to close it right quick to keep chewed-up corndog from falling out. She gulped. “You’d do that to me?”
“If you don’t talk to me, I’ll have to. Who’re you covering for?”
“Nobody. I had it in there for a friend, that’s all.”
“Who? That Al? Did she steal it and ask you to keep it for her?”
“No, she didn’t steal it! You’re just like everybody else! You’re jealous of her because she’s the coolest friend I have!”
“How do you know she didn’t steal it?”
She blew a big angry, corndog-smelling breath at me. “Look. I came out of class that day, went to put my books in my locker, and there it was. I don’t know how it got there, okay?”
“Who all has the combination to your locker?”
If looks could kill, I’d have dropped dead right there on that table in Sunny’s glob of bean soup.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Said, my foot. Lied is what she done.
“A lot of people,” she went on. “People who are my friends. Okay?”
“No,” I told her. “It’s not okay. One of your friends is a thief. And if you don’t figure o
ut who it is, you’re gonna wind up takin’ the blame for ‘em.”
“You are so whack.” She got up. “I’m outta here.”
“Sit back down and eat your lunch.”
“I’m done.” She turned around and started walking off.
Well, that flew all over me, and I got up and started after her. “I made that brownie from scratch for you!”
She turned and looked at me with a snotty little look on her face. “I know. That’s why I’m throwing it away.”
I had to trot to get up beside her; but when I did, I reached and got that brownie and crammed the whole thing in my mouth.
“Whatever,” Sunny said, and she walked on off.
Naturally, I couldn’t say a thing. I was out of breath and choking on a brownie. I hate it when I don’t get the last word. And, true to her word, she didn’t clean up the little mess she’d made, and I had to do that, too.
DIVIDER HERE
After we got everybody fed and got everything cleaned up, I went lookin’ for Officer Brody. They told me in the office that he was down at the auditorium watchin’ play try-outs. They said he wanted to be there in case some of the smart alecks started pickin’ on them that was tryin’ out for the play.
I didn’t know nothin’ about no play, but sure enough, that’s where I found Wilbur Brody.
I sat down on the fold-out chair beside him. “What play are they doin’?”
“Macbeth.”
“Huh. That ought to be good.”
“Awful good brownies today.” He grinned. “Heard you had a run-in with Ms. K over ‘em, but I’m glad you stuck to your guns.”
“Me, too,” I said. “I paid too much for all that stuff to have it go to waste.”
“Well, it sure didn’t go to waste. We’ve got a school full of happy kids, thanks to you.”
“Happy or sugared up?”
Brody laughed. “’Bout the same difference, ain’t it?”
I glanced up at the stage and saw a painfully skinny boy wearin’ straight-leg jeans and cowboy boots clomp up to the microphone. He looked uncomfortable about this whole business, and I wondered if some well-meanin’ English teacher had put him up to tryin’ out. Some sort of confidence-booster or somethin’.
He cleared his throat. “Tomare an’ tomare an’ tomare creeps in this petty pace from day to day ‘til the last syllable of recorded time. An’ all our yestiddies have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”
Here the boy paused and grinned up at somebody in the bleachers behind me and Brody and the English department. Makes sense now. He’s tryin’ to impress some girl.
“Out! Out, brief candle!” he hollered.
“Thank you,” called one of the English teachers, a woman with gun-metal gray hair and reading glasses perched on her nose. “Very good. Next!”
“Have you found out anything about the robberies?” Brody asked me.
“Not much,” I said, “and as much as I hate to admit it, I think my granddaughter knows more about what’s been goin’ on that she’s tellin’ me. I get the feelin’ she’s covering up for somebody.”
“Well, keep after her. Maybe she’ll break down and tell you what she knows.”
I gotta say, I started getting interested in them try-outs. Some of those young ‘uns were really good…almost like they were born to the stage or somethin’. And some of them, God love their little hearts, were so awful I nearly choked to death trying to keep from laughing.
Let me tell you, though, I wasn’t laughing when little Miss Alicia Granger flounced across the stage. And nobody else was either. There she stood in her black tee-shirt and tight black jeans lookin’ more like Wednesday Addams than Lady Macbeth, but then she opened her mouth.
“I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me,” she quoted, holding her arm like there really was a baby in them. “I would, while it was smiling in my face—” Her face lost its motherly serenity and took on a look of pure hatred as she gazed out at the audience. “—have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.”
Honey, I looked down and had goose bumps on my arms a mile high. Either that Al was quite the little actress, or she had a genuine mean streak.
DIVIDER HERE
As soon as Lenny got off the school bus, he came right to the house. He must’ve cleared it with Delphine ahead of time. Anyway, he put his backpack down by the door and loved on Matlock first thing. Then he asked me how the brownies went over.
“They went over fine with everybody except Sunny.”
“Huh,” he said, “I thought Sunny liked brownies.”
“She does. It’s me she don’t like.” My voice broke, and Lenny got up and hugged me.
“Now, Ms. Crumb, you know that ain’t so. That girl’s crazy about you.”
I took a deep shuddering breath. “She used to be, but she ain’t now.” I reached and got a tissue from the box on the table next to the recliner. “Not since Alicia Granger came along.”
Lenny sat back down on the floor next to Matlock and went back to pettin’ the dog’s head. “I’m sorry. You want me to talk to Sunny?”
I shook my head. “No, honey, I can’t see where that’d do any good, and it might make matters even worse if she knew I was talkin’ to you about it.”
“I don’t know whether it’d do any good either,” he said, “but I’ll try if you want me to.”
I smiled. “You’re awful sweet, you know that?”
He grinned. “That’s what all the girls say.”
I laughed, glad he was here and glad he could cheer me up. Sunny would get over her mad spell. Right now I needed to concentrate on ferreting out that thief.
“Let’s go in here to the kitchen and make you some candy,” I said. “We’ve gotta keep you sweet, you know.”
“You gonna make that kind usin’ the sweet condensed milk?” he asked.
“I thought I would.”
His grin got even wider. “Can I sop the milk can?”
“Yeah,” I said, laughing, “and the bowl, too.” I tapped him on the nose. “Rotten young-un.”
DIVIDER HERE
When I went in the school the next morning, the first thing I saw was a big poster announcing who got what parts in “Macbeth.” Billy Carpenter got the role of Macbeth. I wondered if he was the young-un in the cowboy boots, but somehow I doubted it. I hoped he got some part, though. You hate to see somebody work that hard at somethin’ and then not get a thing to show for it.
And guess who was Lady Macbeth? You got it—Alicia Granger.
I went on into the lunchroom. “Morning, ladies.”
They all spoke back, and then Jane Kershaw nearly shocked the life out of me when she said, “Glad to see you back today.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “It’s nice to be back…although I will be glad when this case is solved.”
“Bet you hope it gets solved before winter sets in,” said one of the other ladies whose name, I believe, was Kate.
I smiled. “Yeah, but not just so I don’t have to go out in the snow. I want to see my granddaughter’s good name restored.”
Now, I know you’ve heard that old sayin’ about speak of the devil and he appears? Well, I swanee, it was like I spoke somethin’ right into happening because I hadn’t no more got them words out of my mouth than the principal came over the loudspeaker callin’ Sunny to the office.
Chapter Four
I dropped my jacket and pocketbook onto a nearby chair. “I’ll be back,” I said, and then I took off like a shot for the principal’s office.
That old sour-faced Mrs. Anderson sat there lookin’ like she hadn’t had a good bowel movement in at least two weeks.
“Has Sunny—I mean, Crimson Dailey—come in here yet?” I asked.
“Yes, she’s with the principal.”
I headed for the principal’s office.
“You can’t go in there!” Mrs. Anderson shouted.
“Watch me,” I said, opening the door. “What’s goin’ on here?” I looked from Sunny’s big scared eyes to the principal’s stern face before sitting down on the chair next to Sunny and puttin’ my arm around her.
I’d left the door open, so Mr. Jenkins—the principal—got up and closed it. He was a tall, well-built man—used to be a gym teacher or a coach of some sort, I believe—but he didn’t intimidate me. All right, maybe a little, but I wouldn’t have let on if my life depended on it.
Mr. Jenkins sat back down at his desk. “I take it you’re Ms. Crumb, Crimson’s grandmother?”
“I am.”
He nodded. “I’ve been kept apprised of your volunteer work here at the school, that relating to cafeteria help as well as looking into our recent thefts.”
“Thank you.” I realize he hadn’t exactly paid me a compliment, but I felt obliged to say something at that point and that’s all I could come up with.
“No, uh, thank you,” he said, pushing a lock of wavy brown hair off his forehead. “We appreciate your concern and involvement. However, you do not have the authority or permission to interfere with any disciplinary action.”
“I didn’t realize I was,” I said, taking my arm from around Sunny and squaring my shoulders. “I heard you call Sunny down here, and I came to see what’s the matter. Is there anything wrong with that?”
Mr. Jenkins huffed out a breath. “No, but—”
“Then could somebody tell me what is the matter?”
Sunny, who’d been sitting there as silent and still as a rock, spoke up. “They think I stole Mrs. Anderson’s bracelet.”
“Why, that’s ridiculous,” I said. “Why would a young girl like Sunny want anything that belonged to that dried-up prune?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” said Mr. Jenkins, “and yet the bracelet in question was found in Crimson’s locker.”
