by Robin Yardi
Sasha shrugged. “Well, I would make her suspect number one,” she said, pointing to Mrs. Mantooth’s name.
“But . . .” Mattie stumbled, trying to explain why that couldn’t be. Mrs. Mantooth’s demands about the well had her worried, but she didn’t really think Mantooth was a glooper.
Sasha crunched on another handful of granola. “And Hermit Harriet should be number two. She’s definitely suspicious. There’s a trail that goes right behind her old shed. We should go snoop around.”
Mattie wasn’t so sure.
She felt like they were still missing something.
Her mind ticked through all the customers who’d come into Owl’s over the last few weeks. Lines and lines of people. Tourists, regulars, friends, neighbors. All the happy parents and kissy couples, the silly slug man, and old wrinkled grandparents driving swanky new motor homes. There were too many people to consider. They had to find some clue that narrowed it down.
Something from the night before had to point them in the right direction.
Mattie flipped to her next page of notes.
“Last night. When the truck pulled up, I grabbed the old phone and ran outside. But it was dead.” Mattie paused to shoot Beanie a look. “And then Sasha’s flash went off. I didn’t get the license number, again, because they drove off so fast.”
“Sorry,” Beanie said through a mouthful of cereal. “I didn’t mean to forget to plug it in. Besides, the stakeout was boring without Sasha.”
Mattie wasn’t mad. Well, she was a little bit mad about the phone, but she wasn’t mad about Beanie saying a sleepover was boring without Sasha.
It kind of was.
Mattie raised her eyebrows, wishing Sasha would say sorry too, but she didn’t. The flash from the disposable camera had scared the gloopers away, keeping Mattie from getting the license plate number. But it could also be their best hope of finding out who dumped the gloop.
“So, did you get a picture?” Mattie asked Sasha. “Was that flash worth it?”
Mattie had been wondering about the camera all morning. The flash had come from the boulders across the highway. If Sasha had been even halfway pointing the camera in the right direction—which, knowing Sasha, she absolutely was—then she would have to have a good picture of the gloopers. Maybe even their license plate.
“I snapped three pictures on the click camera,” Sasha said, finally sitting down. “Two before the one with the flash. But we can’t see them yet.”
She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the green and black click camera. The girls passed it around their little circle.
“Busted,” said Beanie.
“It’s so light,” Mattie said, lifting it up. It didn’t look promising, that smashed-up cardboard-and-plastic box. “Do you think it’ll still work?”
“Course it will,” Sasha said. But then she didn’t look so sure. “I mean . . . it got cracked after I took the pictures, so I bet they’re totally fine.”
She grabbed the camera back and stuffed it into her pocket.
Mattie knew Sasha didn’t want to admit that maybe there was no good picture on that camera. Mattie didn’t want to think it either. But they both knew it was a possibility.
“We just have to get the pictures developed,” Sasha said. “If I got a good picture, which I bet I did, then we can show it to that deputy guy. But let’s see the photos before telling anybody else. I’m not getting into trouble for sneaking out onto the highway if the pictures are all blurry and black. We can take the camera somewhere special, and they’ll print the pictures out on shiny paper just like in the olden days.”
This is when Mattie got nervous.
Really nervous.
Her head started to feel like a soda on a summer day. Fizzy. Bubbly. Warm. She knew that there was nowhere in Big Sur to get photos developed. There wasn’t even a big grocery store or a pharmacy. You had to go to Carmel or Monterey for stuff like that. You had to ride in a car or a bus for stuff like that.
Which was definitely going to be a problem.
One that Mattie couldn’t ignore.
Not anymore.
The Birthday Bar
Our biggest yeasted donut bar, iced with chocolate and exploding with sprinkles. Every birthday bar comes with a sparkler candle. Fizz-wizz-pop!
Once Mattie understood Sasha’s plan to get those pictures developed, she started to ramble. Hoping she could keep Sasha from saying what she was already thinking.
“I . . . I could ask the owl what we should do next,” Mattie suggested.
“No way. You’re not climbing that giant tree again. If the owl wants you to know something, it can fly down. We have to do something now. It’s our turn, Matt.”
Mattie squeezed her notebook, squishing the metal spirals into her palm.
“Come here,” Sasha said, grabbing a scrap of paper from a messy nightstand piled with books and half-finished water glasses. She held the slip of paper up like a tiny flag. “Dad said you can get pictures developed in like an hour at a drugstore. But I figured we should call this place just to be sure. It’s where my mom gets Beanie’s inhalers. I copied the number down from the prescription box.”
Mattie followed her into the kitchen. Beanie bumped along behind them. Sasha picked up the receiver of the ancient white telephone the Littles kept on their kitchen counter. She punched buttons, checking numbers on the scrap of paper every few punches.
Sasha waited while the phone rang, and then Mattie could hear the echoing of a voice recording. Sasha frowned and punched another number.
“Hi,” Sasha said, leaning closer so Mattie could hear. “We wanted to know if you still develop pictures. Like from a disposable camera?”
Mattie heard the answer float through the air. Yep, in the photo department. It’s $12.99 for a roll of twenty-four pictures.
Beanie climbed onto the kitchen counter, squishing her head up to the receiver so she could hear too.
“Cut it out,” Sasha whispered, pushing her off the counter.
Beanie bumped her head on a cabinet on the way down. She rubbed at her forehead once her feet were firmly on the kitchen floor. That’s when Mrs. Little walked up the back steps onto the porch, her arms full of groceries.
“Mom, Sasha hit me!” Beanie yelled through the screen door, still rubbing her forehead.
When Mrs. Little came through the door, Sasha already had her hands up in the air. “I did not hit Beanie,” she said.
“She didn’t Mrs. Little,” Mattie said. “Honest.”
Mrs. Little sighed and gave Sasha the look before setting down her grocery bags.
“Sorry, Mom,” Sasha said. “Come on, Beanie—let’s go play in our room.”
The girls escaped down the hall, and Sasha closed the door behind them.
“See?” she said. “I told you. They can develop the pictures, but we have to go there. It’s up in—”
“Monterey,” said Mattie.
“Yeah,” Sasha said. “And we’d have to take a—”
“Bus,” said Mattie.
“And the only one who’s ever taken the bus up to Monterey is—”
Mattie didn’t say anything.
“Who?” Beanie asked, boinging up onto her knees, forgetting about her banged forehead.
Sasha sighed. “Come on, Mattie. We’ll never get permission if you don’t go with us. No way is our mom saying yes if it’s just me and Beanie. But she trusts you. You know the trip. You did it a hundred times last summer. I know you’re not a chicken, Matt!”
Mattie stared at the dry scabs on Sasha’s knees.
Her breathing got faster.
Sasha was right. Mattie knew the bus route and she had done it about a hundred times. Every school break, starting when Mattie was eight, if Mattie’s mom couldn’t find a few days off from her law office, she would send Mattie down to Big Sur on the bus. Aunt Molly always met her at the stop by the campground. Mattie would stay a week, have fun with Sasha and Beanie, stuff herself with donuts, a
nd then Aunt Molly would send her back up to Monterey on the same bus.
A trip up the highway used to feel easy.
Fun, even.
Super grown-up and responsible.
She’d ride up front right behind the driver, Janelle, and they would play Jell-O together on the twisty roads. Miss Janelle would even let her pick the radio station sometimes.
The last time Mattie rode that bus, Janelle dropped her off like always. Aunt Molly met her out on the highway, and Mattie played with Sasha and Beanie all spring break. Then Mom decided to come down for the weekend. She left Monterey after work. Mattie wasn’t with Mom then, so she only knew a few things about what happened next.
She knew it was raining.
She knew there was a big dark truck.
She knew that it crossed the double yellow line, running her mom’s car off the road, and just drove away.
People said the accident wasn’t her mom’s fault. Mattie agreed with that.
It was hers. If she’d stayed at home for spring break, it wouldn’t have happened. If she’d taken the bus back, it wouldn’t have happened.
She’d been scared ever since. Hadn’t ridden in a single vehicle. But not getting into a car or a bus wasn’t just about being afraid. It wasn’t just about going too fast, swerving around corners, and maybe getting crunched.
It was more than that.
It had probably always been more than that.
She wanted to stay safe, sure, but she also wanted to stay put. Staying in Big Sur, she could feel like she wasn’t getting any older. It could still be spring break, and she could still believe that Mom was coming back to get her.
Mattie used to know what was waiting for her on the other side of a trip. Donuts with Aunt Molly or being home with Mom. Good snuggly things. Now the end of every possible trip seemed fuzzier. Darker. Dangerous. If she rode up to Monterey, she’d arrive in the place that used to be home, but her mom wouldn’t be waiting there when she did. Mattie knew it didn’t all make sense, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.
The feeling.
Even the idea of shorter rides made her nervous. She thought she’d be using the last days of summer to get ready to take the school bus. To feel ready. But she was starting to think that might never happen. The trip to school wasn’t going to be any different than a trip to Monterey. She’d have to start something new, and Mom wouldn’t be there.
She didn’t want that to feel real.
Not yet.
“I can’t do it, Sasha,” she said, trying not to cry. “We have to think of something else.” She squeezed at her notebook until her hand hurt and looked anywhere but at Sasha and Beanie.
Sasha didn’t get mad. She even gave Beanie a shut-up look when it seemed like Beanie was going to ask another question. But she also crossed her arms and waited, nibbling on her lip. Like she knew they weren’t about to think of any other plan.
Staring at Sasha’s sureness make Mattie feel hot and prickly sweaty.
“Let’s go look for the owl,” Mattie said, heading down the hall. “Maybe . . . maybe it knows something else. Something important. I can ask.”
Sasha didn’t bother to say no again. She nudged Beanie, and they followed Mattie toward the door. The sisters whispered a little behind her, but all Mattie heard was Sasha hissing, “Just wait, Beans.”
When the three girls got to the parking lot outside Owl’s Outstanding Donuts, the deputies’ cruiser was back. Plus another official looking car that said Environmental Services Agency on the side. The ditch across the road was still roped off with bright yellow caution tape. And there was a red sheet of paper posted in the window of the donut shop.
It said, NOTICE OF CLOSURE, and then a bunch of stuff in tiny print that Mattie didn’t really understand.
Mattie tugged at the shop’s front door. It was locked.
Inside, Aunt Molly was sitting at a booth with Deputy Nuñez, his partner, and some stranger. When Molly saw the girls, she rushed to the door to let them in.
If the bell jingled, Mattie didn’t hear it.
“Beanie, I’m sorry, but I can’t make you your Birthday Bar,” Aunt Molly said.
“What?” Beanie asked, all confused.
“It’s your birthday,” Sasha reminded her. “Didn’t Mom tell you?”
“Oh yeah,” Beanie said.
“Come on in, girls,” Aunt Molly said, waving them toward a booth. “I had to shut down the kitchen. Just temporarily.”
Aunt Molly signed a bunch of papers, and the deputies and the woman from the Environmental Services Agency finally walked out the door, leaving Aunt Molly with a stack of stuff to read.
Mattie had listened to every word those grown-ups said, but she was still confused.
“Aunt Molly, what’s going on?”
Molly rubbed her hands against her white apron, watching the cars back out and pull onto the highway. “Well, kiddo, it turns out you were right. That stuff across the road might be dangerous. Until they figure out how much of it was dumped and where it’s leaked, I have to keep Owl’s closed. They might shut down the campground too. And they’ve notified all the neighbors with wells. I might even have to pay for cleanup. And there’s something in these papers about daily fines for unresolved violations.”
“That’s not fair,” Mattie said, glaring out the window.
“Why would you have to pay to clean up somebody else’s gloop, Ms. Waters?” Sasha asked.
Mattie looked at Sasha sideways, but it was a good question.
“Well, that’s just it,” Aunt Molly said. “They think that gloop is from my kitchen. They think it’s old fryer oil, because of the smell. They think I dumped it because I didn’t want to pay to have it disposed of properly. And unless I can prove I didn’t, we’ve got to clean it up.”
Beanie pointed at Aunt Molly. “You weren’t even a suspect!”
Mattie’s brain whizzed like a donut fryer spitting hot oil. Pop. Sizzle. Fizz. How could anybody believe that Aunt Molly would do something like this?
Mattie snuck another look at her friend. Sasha was spitting mad. So mad she looked like she might smack somebody. Her arms were crossed, and her pokey elbows jutted out like broken branches.
But was she mad because the shop had to close?
Or did she think that Aunt Molly was the glooper?
“Don’t worry, Ms. Waters,” Sasha said. “Nobody will believe you did it. We’ll catch those gloopers.”
Aunt Molly sighed, walked to the door, and turned over the sign that had the shop’s hours on one side. “I don’t know, girls,” she said, flipping the deadbolt with a loud and very final click.
The back of the sign listed the shop’s hours. Open every day from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. It wasn’t even ten in the morning. Aunt Molly couldn’t close for the day.
If they weren’t selling donuts, how would they pay those cleanup fines?
And what about Mrs. Mantooth’s always wanting improvements on the well or the driveway? If the county sent her a letter about the well, Mattie knew Mantooth would go into attack mode and want everything tested and changed. How would they pay for all that?
Owl’s couldn’t close.
If Aunt Molly wasn’t running the donut shop . . . what would she and Mattie do?
Mattie sped across the kitchen and banged through the metal door out back. She stomped through the flowerbed alongside the shop before passing the front windows again. Something beside the notice of closure caught her eye.
Owl’s Outstanding Donuts. Sorry, We’re Closed. See You Again Soon!
The official-looking signs from the health department and the Monterey Environmental Services Agency were one thing, but staring at Aunt Molly’s cheerful pink Closed sign, flipped forward when it shouldn’t be, was another. The sight made Mattie feel sticky and sour inside. Not another donut would get made in the kitchen of Owl’s Outstanding Donuts that day.
The Boysenberry Beauty
A lime-zest-sprinkled cake donut with bright
boysenberry icing and pistachio crumbles
Aunt Molly kept up the Closed sign up for the next three days, which had never happened in the whole history of the Waters family. Whenever Mattie looked toward the ditch, the hazard tape flickered in the wind like the ghost of a giant mutant banana slug. She wished the gloop really had come from something like that. Something made up.
Thursday, the day after the shop shut down, Mattie borrowed Beanie’s binoculars and searched for the owl. She stood under the giant redwood tree, surrounded by ferns and sprinkle-filled owl pellets. She hooted deep and low.
But the owl didn’t come down or visit her trailer.
And it didn’t hoot back.
She hadn’t even heard him at night lately.
Mattie guessed the owl had gotten what he wanted from her. Nobody would be dumping gloop into the creek anymore. After all, the sheriff’s department had caught on. The gloopers would be crazy to come around again. Owl’s was closed, but she guessed the owl didn’t care about that.
Mrs. Mantooth sure didn’t care about Aunt Molly’s troubles either. When she opened a notice from the county about the dumping, she marched straight over to bang on the door to their trailer. She must have noticed the red sign posted in Owl’s front window, must have known money was about to get tight for Aunt Molly, but she didn’t say a word about it. Her pestering about the well pump exploded into demands and threats. Mattie hid her head under her pillow, but she could still hear every word.
And Mattie knew she couldn’t hide forever.
She had to do something.
On Friday, she snuck along the trail that skirted Mrs. Mantooth’s property. She’d decided to follow it southeast, until she reached the high wooden fence that hid Hermit Harriet’s house from view. She didn’t want to admit that Sasha could be right about Harriet. She didn’t really want the hermit to be a suspect. But Mattie couldn’t rule her out.
Once Mattie reached the high fence, she found a crooked oak tree that leaned close to the fence and shimmied herself into the tree’s branches. From up there, she had a view of Harriet’s place. And she was pretty sure that the scrubby oak branches would keep her mostly out of sight.
