The Bungled Bike Burglaries (The Gabby St. Claire Diaries Book 3)

by Christy Barritt

  I gave up on the garage and tried Pete again. Still busy. I rounded up cooking oil and slathered it into the space between lid and tin. I tried opening it again. The lid might have wiggled. I grabbed a can opener and pried.

  The tool shot off the tin and out of my hand and sailed across the kitchen, clattering against the cupboard under the sink. I tried again with less force and more finesse.

  It worked! The lid pulled free, and the faint scent of baby powder mixed with rusty metal floated out.

  I peered inside. Papers formed a ring around the inside perimeter of the can. Something wrapped in newspaper was nestled in the center. My hands were smeared with oil, so I headed to the sink before touching anything.

  The phone rang, but I ignored it. I scooped out the center bundle, laying it gently on the kitchen table. A small, dark coin dropped out of the wrapping and rolled across the kitchen table. I grabbed it before it tumbled over the edge.

  “Gabby, get the phone!” yelled my dad.

  Frustrated because I was so close to making my big discovery, I followed the ringing up the stairs and into my room. I dug under a pile of not-going-to-wear-todays and answered while hurrying back to the kitchen.

  “Now is the time to consider upgrading to Seaside Aluminum Siding. Seaside—” I punched disconnect as I checked out the coin. It had wheat sheaves on one side and Abe Lincoln on the other. The date read 1956.

  I did the math. This was old old, which could make it a valuable antique. A few more of these rare coins, and I’d be rolling in the dough. My next house would not need Seaside or any type of siding. It would be a gorgeous stone mansion with towering marble columns and horses. Or a log lodge in the mountains of Colorado backed up to my own private ski resort. Or maybe backed up to Disneyworld . . .

  I, Gabby St. Claire, was about to become a millionaire.

  CHAPTER 4

  The phone rang again. I rolled my eyes and wanted to scream. Punching the button to answer it, I cradled the phone awkwardly between my ear and shoulder so I could unwrap the newspaper surrounding my next treasure.

  “Gabby?” It was Becca. She and I talked every night.

  I skipped the greeting and shared my fabulous news. “Guess what I have?”

  “The measles?”

  “No!”

  “A new pair of flip-flops?”

  “No! A treasure chest. Kind of.”

  “From where? What’s in it?”

  I quickly filled her in on what had happened and, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder, described each discovery as I encountered it. “Seashells, buttons, papers, maybe a letter or two.”

  “What do they say?”

  “I dunno. I’ll read them later. I want to get to the good stuff first.” Knowing Becca, she would have read the papers first because her parents made her read every word on a card before she opened birthday gifts.

  “A couple of earrings, a golden metal thing shaped like a walnut, gum balls, pinecones, and this old-timey sewing machine hanging upside down from a table.”

  “Sewing machine? How did it ever fit in a flour tin?”

  “It’s just a toy. Plastic, like something you might find in a kid’s dollhouse,” I clarified. “Hang on, I gotta put down the phone and use two hands.”

  I gently fiddled with the toy in case it might be worth a small fortune. The two tiny drawers below the tabletop opened and closed. Eventually, I manipulated the back flap and hinged tabletop until the sewing machine swung up on top of the table. The little wheel on one side actually turned just like the real thing.

  It was adorable and I told Becca so.

  “Plus an antique 1956 Lincoln head penny.”

  “To be an antique, something has to be one hundred years old.”

  “So it’s worthless?” My shoulders slumped.

  “No, it’s still worth one cent.”

  “Very funny.” I twisted my mouth in disgust that my take was so tiny.

  “Check out the papers. Maybe one of them is a primary resource. That might be worth something.”

  “Okay.” I fanned them out on the kitchen table. “Three Jet magazines and a letter addressed to Finder.”

  “Read it to me.” Becca sounded excited, but I was skeptical.

  I mean, how interesting could a letter be?

  I pulled the lined loose-leaf paper from the yellowed envelope and carefully smoothed it flat on the table. The message was printed neatly in pencil, like someone had taken their time writing it.

  “Dear Finder,

  “Greetings. You have discovered my time capsule. I got the idea from Uncle Martin. The place where he works, American Iron and Steel, placed one inside the cornerstone of their office building in New York City this year. He said they’ll dig it up in one hundred years so people can see what life was like now.”

  “Is the letter dated?” Becca asked.

  “No.”

  “Keep reading.”

  “Uncle Martin says we should move up to New York with him, but Momma says it’s too cold. We’d freeze to death first snow they got. Momma doesn’t want to go to Memaw’s with all the trouble, especially on the buses. I’m voting for out west. I’d like to see Hollywood and the Pacific Ocean.”

  Sounded good to me. So did Broadway, for that matter.

  “The second reason for this time capsule is: ‘forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.’” I paused. “That sounded odd.”

  “It’s from the Bible, I just can’t remember where,” Becca said.

  “When the construction guys clear out, I’ll hide it in the skeleton of the new school they are building. Maybe one day I’ll come back, things will be different, and I’ll be allowed to go to school there.” I paused again. “She must have gotten expelled. I wonder what—”

  Becca interrupted. “Stop wasting time and wonder later. It’s after eight fifteen. Read before my dad makes me get off the phone.”

  “Okay, already,” I continued. “So much trouble over schools. Momma lost her cleaning jobs because of it. Daddy said everything would work together for good in the end. He says going to good schools is worth these temporary setbacks. With good educations, we’ll have better jobs than cleaning. The lawyer, Oliver Hill, from the NAACP said we might change the course of history.”

  “NAACP? We studied about that last year.”

  “Now who’s wasting time?” I reminded her.

  “Just saying. Go on.”

  “Then the bank called in the note on our house and we got threatening letters, but Daddy said we’d stay because he and the others in the Norfolk Ministers Association believed it was our Christian duty to fight for what was right.” I paused.

  “Interesting.”

  “Maybe he got kicked out of school for praying out loud,” I suggested, then hastened on before Becca had a cow or anything over my microsecond delay. “But when Hazel killed Daddy, Momma packed us off to Princess Anne.”

  My stomach did a cartwheel. A murder had been committed.

  “Whoa! Read it again,” Becca demanded.

  “But when Hazel killed Daddy, Momma packed us off to Princess Anne. Now Betsy is threatening to kill us all, so we’re moving again, if Momma can make up her mind where.”

  Hazel and Betsy? Killers? I swallowed, and goose bumps popped out on my arms. I dropped my voice to a stage whisper. “This is evidence in a murder! Maybe I should bring it over so your dad can check it out?”

  “It’s too late on a school night. Besides, Dad’s out jogging. Finish the letter.” Becca’s dad had recently joined the police force, but his devotion to exercise hadn’t been diminished just because he exited the Marine Corps. He was a fitness fanatic.

  “Okay. ‘I don’t know what else to tell you except I’m thirteen years old. I’d put a picture of myself in, but I don’t have one.

  “Sincerely yours,

  “Hope Q.’”

  Hope Q. was the same age as both Becca and me. She lived so close she cou
ld see our school. But unlike us, Hope’s dad had been killed by Horrible Hazel. Another chill swept over my arms.

  “This came from OMS, right?” Becca’s voice had shifted into analysis mode.

  “Yeah. The electrician guy said it was stuck up in the eaves. How old is Oceanside?”

  “I think it was built in the 1950s, so this is really old,” Becca said.

  “This could be a cold case murder!” I exclaimed. The goose bumps grew another millimeter. “I really should tell your dad.”

  “The letter sounds like one of those primary resources we examined in civics, don’t you think?”

  I rolled my eyes. How could Becca fail to see the significance of what I had found: evidence connected to one or more murders? How could it be so obvious to me and not to a straight-A student who remembered everything, even after the test?

  “Bec, we’re talking murder here! Maybe Hope hid this stuff because she knew this cold-blooded killer was still stalking her family and—” I halted midsentence as a gruesome thought flashed through my mind like lightning during a spooky storm. The chill ran up my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention.

  Maybe the rumors of a theater ghost weren’t just rumor.

  Maybe Hope had died at OMS or just haunted the place where she left this evidence.

  The eighth-grade members of drama club always told the new kids that our auditorium was haunted by the ghost of a student who fell from the catwalk during a production of Macbeth. But no one really believed it. In fact, I had helped quell ghost talk when I solved my first mystery.

  “Maybe Hope is the theater ghost,” I whispered as I put the letter down and wiped my moist palms on my jeans.

  “Gabby, there are no such things as ghosts.” Becca sounded like she was talking to a preschooler spooked by the prospect of passing by a graveyard at night.

  My eyes roamed to the May 17, 1956, issue of Jet magazine. “Dayton’s Strangest Murder Case” headlined the cover. Underneath was a photo of a man I recognized from history: Martin Luther King!

  Before I could catch my breath, Becca spoke. “Dad just walked—”

  I cut my BFF off quicker than chocolate disappears at a slumber party as a second brilliant deduction illuminated the entire situation.

  “Bec, this stuff has to do with the assassination of Martin Luther King!”

  CHAPTER 5

  Ten minutes later, I was frustrated and disappointed. Not only had Mr. Chapman shot down my theory about Dr. King and the possibility I had discovered evidence of a crime, he hadn’t put Becca back on the phone because of his stupid eight-thirty-is-the-cutoff-for-fun rule. No one under the age of forty at the Chapmans’ could use the phone after half past eight.

  I was just glad I hadn’t brought up the ghost theory and gotten laughed at about that too.

  But I couldn’t shake the idea of Hope as the theater ghost. What if this had been her way of trying to bring Hazel to justice? What if the other assassin, Betsy, finished the job Hazel had started, by killing the whole family?

  In my mind’s eye I pictured the two as female Russian weightlifters wearing those ugly black bodysuits under trench coats. I could imagine them slinking around the wooded area on the south side of OMS, slipping through the shadows, crouching in the alley that ran between the school and my street.

  I felt a whisper of a cold breeze coming from behind me. I whirled around, half-expecting to see a ghost materializing.

  The back door slowly crept open. I heard a scuffling noise on the back step. My eyes widened in horror. The door swung inward even farther as a scream froze on the tip of my tongue.

  “Gabby.”

  Was a ghost or an assassin calling my name? I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

  Light from the moon was blocked by Something Large on the back step. Something human sized. The gap between the door and frame widened as a foot invaded my home.

  “Gabby!” The voice sounded annoyed.

  A voice I recognized.

  It wasn’t a ghost. It wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. It was my dad.

  I sucked in a breath of air and sagged with relief. I realized I was clenching the cordless phone in a white-knuckled grip and set it down.

  “You left the garage door open. Anyone could have walked in and taken my championship surfboard, your bike, anything and everything,” he scolded.

  “Sorry, Dad. I’ll be more careful. I promise.”

  Dad shook his head and ambled out of the kitchen. I opened my mouth to call him back. Immediately, I felt foolish.

  I, Gabby St. Claire, am not afraid of things that go bump in the night.

  Had I called him back, it would only have been to mention that we hadn’t gotten a replacement padlock for the garage door yet. Dad had misplaced the other one last summer and kept saying it would turn up soon. In the meantime we jammed a piece of wood through the hasp and hoped it held.

  Locking up at night was a responsible thing to do, so I hurriedly secured the back door, gathered everything up, and headed to my room, not because it was safer than the kitchen or because it was upstairs and I would be harder to find if assassins were tracking the whereabouts of the tin.

  I went because it was the responsible thing to do on a school night.

  CHAPTER 6

  Snuggled safely in bed with my curtains closed and the door locked, I pulled my diary off my nightstand and scrawled “Dear Watson,” across a fresh page. I’d named my diary after Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick, and so far, Watson had been a great assistant in solving mysteries. I listed my treasures.

  • Finder letter, envelope with three-cent stamp

  • Three Jet magazines from 1956

  • 1956 penny

  • Buttons

  • Two earrings, not matching

  • Golden walnut

  • Play sewing machine

  • Eleven seashells

  • Three pinecones

  • Three gum balls (the kind off trees)

  I have discovered a time capsule. Watson and I will begin investigating the value of its contents.

  I had no delusions that the gum balls, seashells, or pinecones would be of value, so I checked the two earrings more closely.

  Both were made of a gold-colored metal and clipped on. I jotted “antiques?” next to them on the list. One had two blue-green gems, while the other was studded with tiny red stones.

  Rubies? If so, this earring could be worth a fortune. From a previous case, I knew real rubies would scratch glass. After a quick appraisal of the glass in my room, I ruled out using either my mirror or the window to test my precious-gem theory.

  What in the house is made of glass that can be scratched without getting into trouble?

  Glass jars!

  I flew downstairs, and after assuring myself the back door was still securely locked, I scrounged around in the fridge. Most everything was plastic except the jar of mayo. It would do. I hurried back to my room and drew the earring carefully across the side of the jar without paper. No scratch.

  I tore off the label and tried again, going for a longer stroke. Still no scratch. I picked up the other earring, the one with two aqua stones, about the diameter of a pencil eraser, and the empty slot where a third had been. The gems sparkled under my overhead light, creating a pale kaleidoscope of colors on my walls and ceiling.

  What gemstone is this? Is it real? How much might it be worth if it were real?

  I dragged it across the mayo jar. Nothing. I tried harder. I nearly popped a second gem out of the setting, so I quit, disappointed again, and set my testing equipment to the side.

  Next I examined the hinged walnut shell. I slipped the tiny ring off the small projections on each side opposite the hinge so the two halves would open. The walnut yawned to reveal a red lining, some thread, and two black buttons. A flap of red cloth was attached near the hinge. I giggled, imagining the flap to be the walnut’s tongue.

  “Mr. Walnut, tell me your secrets,” I commanded with
my best gypsy accent. “Are you real gold? Will you make me rich?”

  Mr. Walnut must have had laryngitis because, even though I coaxed him by opening and closing his mouth, he didn’t answer.

  I jotted “gold?” next to “walnut” on my list, then transferred the objects, except for the letter, back into the canister. Flakes of rust littered my bedspread like dandruff dropping onto Amy Snyder’s dark-colored sweaters. I flicked most of it off and considered where I could stash the can for safekeeping.

  My room was pretty small, ten by ten with a bed, dresser, nightstand, and closet. I peered under my bed but decided against keeping my stash there for three reasons: one, the space wasn’t high enough; two, a lot of junk was already shoved under there; and three, I did not want to take the time to clear out the junk.

  My closet was pretty full too, and I made a mental note that I should go through my room and purge stuff sometime. As I imagined what I’d get rid of, a distracting thought elbowed its way into my mind.

  The monologue! I have to pick someone for my monologue!

  I glanced at my clock and was shocked to see 9:45 staring back at me. I’d missed dinner and done no homework. As I rushed to don PJs, brush my teeth, and wash my face, I vowed to figure out the perfect character and where to hide the canister tomorrow.

  I went to sleep with the sound of me in a Little Orphan Annie costume singing Tomorrow. It kept the ghosts, assassins, and everything else that went bump in the night away.

  At least for that night.

  CHAPTER 7

  “I would be happy to extend extra credit to any student who does a monologue on a famous mathematician.” Ms. Lynnet’s mouth moved unnaturally into a jack-o’-lantern grimace, probably because it was the first time she ever tried to smile.

  I covered my lips in a pretend cough to hide my giggle.

  “Famous mathematician” was an oxymoron if ever I had heard one. It made about as much sense as “plastic glasses” or “hurry up and wait” or “freezer burn.”

  Who cares about famous mathematicians?

  Apparently Becca did, because she raised her hand. “Could I do Hypatia for extra credit?”