The Boney Hand

by Karen Kane

  How did Frog understand that? Charlie looked at Frog in amazement.

  “Wouldn’t Mr. Simple have noticed a bony hand riding his gondola?” Frog asked Miss Tweedy.

  “Walter Simple,” said Miss Tweedy, “wouldn’t notice a bucket of bony hands riding his gondola!”

  Chief Paley walked up as Herman’s taxi returned.

  “Did you find it?” asked Frog.

  “I didn’t see anything,” signed Chief Paley. “By the way, what are you two doing here?”

  Frog didn’t answer the question. Instead she signed, “Mom knows I’m in the village.”

  Chief Paley turned her attention to the taxi. Grandma leaned out the window and Grandpa leaned over Grandma.

  “Irma and Irving, what are you doing here?” Chief Paley called. Herman was asleep at the wheel again.

  “We’re with Charlie and Frog,” said Grandma as Boris signed for Frog and Bone.

  “Why are you incognito?”

  “In cog what?”

  “Wearing disguises.”

  “These are not disguises! These are our work clothes!”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Detective work!” said Grandma.

  Charlie saw Frog shake her head ever so slightly. Grandma Tickler saw it, too.

  “I want my lawyer,” said Grandma. “That’s what criminals always say on our favorite crime shows. But mind you, we aren’t criminals!”

  “Ayuh!” said Grandpa Tickler.

  “Lawyers? Criminals? What are you talking about?” said Chief Paley.

  But Grandma made a zipping motion across her lips.

  “I’m disquieted and discomfited and yes, discombobulated by the idea of a bony hand on the loose,” said the chief as Boris signed. She turned to Miss Tweedy. “Elspeth, will you give me a statement? Tell me what you saw?”

  “This is horrendous,” said Miss Tweedy as Chief Paley led her inside. “Simply horrendous! I need to visit Mr. Murphy!” Bone followed them into the house.

  Frog saw the question in Charlie’s eyes. “Visiting Mr. Murphy,” she signed as Boris interpreted, “means I need to take a nap.”

  “Charlie!” called Grandma as Boris signed. “Let’s go search for the Boney Hand! Herman can drive us around the village. We have flashlights!”

  Grandma Tickler shined her flashlight in their eyes as they stood on the porch.

  “Grandma, we can’t see!” said Charlie. “And I need to talk to Frog first.”

  Frog asked Boris a question. Boris shook his head.

  “I told Frog I can interpret for a few more minutes,” Boris told Charlie, “but then I have to go back in. And no, I won’t tell Frog what the meeting with Chief Paley, Miss Tweedy, and Mr. Bone was about. Interpreters don’t interpret and tell.”

  “Well,” signed Frog as Boris spoke, “we’re right back where we started. Either the Boney Hand is alive and scaring people, or a real person stole it and now is scaring people with it. But we have no idea who that person might be.”

  Frog paced on the porch. She paused for a moment to add, “And I was so hoping it would be Bone! Now we need another suspect.”

  Just don’t let it be me, thought Charlie.

  But Charlie had left Frog for a few moments when they had spied on Bone to tell his grandparents to stop flashing their lights and beeping their horn. Did Frog think Charlie had been gone long enough for him to place the Boney Hand in Cornelius van Dyke’s yard?

  “If the hand is alive,” signed Frog, “then we have to be extra careful. The Boney Hand, as we just learned, could be anywhere.”

  Frog went back to pacing.

  While Frog paced, Boris said, “This is the coolest place—a village with no cell phone or Internet, lovable looney villagers, and a bony hand roaming around. But one thing is weird,” Boris added thoughtfully.

  “What?” asked Charlie as Frog continued to pace and think.

  “You were there,” said Boris, “when the Boney Hand first disappeared. Now you’re here when the Boney Hand shows up again. Weird that it’s always you.”

  The next morning Charlie was bleary-eyed.

  But not Grandma and Grandpa Tickler. Dressed in their detective outfits, they were playing cards at the kitchen table when Charlie came downstairs.

  “Morning,” said Yvette. “Heard you had an interesting time last night.”

  “It was an adventure!” said Grandma as Yvette served her scrambled eggs.

  “Ayuh!” said Grandpa as he bit into his toast.

  “Exciting is right, Irving!” said Grandma. “Charlie, we’re ready to start searching again this morning.”

  Charlie cringed as he remembered driving around the village the night before. It had been Charlie’s turn to lie low in his seat as his grandparents shined their flashlights out of the taxi windows in sweeping arcs, blinding villagers and visitors alike as Grandma shouted, “Anyone seen a hand?”

  And then there was what Boris had said to Charlie. What had Boris meant by that? And why was Charlie feeling guilty when he had no reason to feel that way?

  “I have school this morning,” said Charlie as he sat down.

  “We don’t need the B team,” said Grandma. “The A team has this case under control!”

  “The A Team needs to eat their eggs before they get cold,” said Yvette as she placed eggs and toast in front of Charlie. The eggs had bits and pieces of something unknown scrambled in with them. It didn’t look good, but Yvette’s cooking always tasted good.

  “Thank you, Yvette,” said Charlie. “What do you mean you have this case under control, Grandma?”

  “Irving and I made a plan last night. First, we’re going back to the scene of the crime, Cornelius van Dyke’s maple tree. And then”—Grandma Tickler took a sip of milk—“we are going to make someone confess!”

  Charlie stopped buttering his toast.

  “Confess?” he said. “How?”

  “We’re going to pin the guilty person to the wall,” said Grandma. “That’s detective talk.”

  “Ayuh!”

  “But,” said Charlie, desperate to find some reasonableness this morning, “how would you even know if someone is guilty?”

  “Oh, we can tell if someone is guilty,” said Grandma, “by how that person looks!”

  Yvette turned around from the sink. “How in the world can you do that, Irma?”

  “We have eyes, Yvette!”

  “Ayuh!”

  “That’s not how you really see someone,” said Yvette.

  “How else would you see someone?”

  “You have to know them!” said Yvette.

  “We don’t have time for that, do we, Irving? We have a bony hand to find and a suspect to catch!”

  “Grandma,” said Charlie, “promise me you won’t do anything until I get home. Please? For me?” Charlie gave her his best grandson smile, the one that he had seen TV grandsons give their TV grandparents when they wanted something.

  Grandma and Grandpa looked at each other and then looked at Charlie. To Charlie’s relief, they both nodded. As he ate his toast, he considered who could be his and Frog’s next suspect.

  They had to have a suspect.

  The other options—Frog thinking Charlie was the main suspect or, even worse, that the Boney Hand was really alive—were unthinkable.

  “While we’re waiting for you,” said Grandma, interrupting Charlie’s thoughts, “Irving and I can work on solving our other mystery.”

  Charlie stopped eating. “What other mystery?”

  “The Mystery of the Missing Remote Control!” said Grandma. “We woke up this morning and settled into our E-Z chair recliners, ready to watch all the terrible things happening in the world on our morning news program. I reached for the remote control, and it was gone! Irving had to get up and turn the TV on! And then, when I wanted to change the channel, he had to get up again!”

  “Ayuh!” said Grandpa.

  “It was awful, Irving,” said Grandma. “Our first suspect,
of course, was Yvette. But Yvette said—Yvette, what were your exact words?”

  Yvette was wiping crumbs from the kitchen counter. Without turning around she said, “Why would I take your remote control?”

  “That’s exactly what she said,” said Grandma. “So you’re our next suspect, Charlie.”

  “I didn’t take it,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Grandma Tickler. “We were hoping for something more exciting than ‘I didn’t take it.’”

  “I’m sorry,” said Charlie. “But I didn’t.”

  “Well”—Grandma Tickler brightened—“our next step will be to thoroughly search the premises.”

  Yvette shook her head as she put the milk back in the refrigerator.

  “I’m sure you’ll find it,” said Charlie.

  “Now that we have detective outfits,” said Grandma Tickler, “you can bet we will!”

  • • •

  As Charlie sat in math class, he saw his name and Frog’s name on the hands of other students.

  Names were funny things, Charlie realized.

  Why was Elspeth Tweedy called Miss Tweedy, yet her sister was called Enid? Why was Thelonious Bone just Bone instead of Mr. Bone or Thelonious? And yet Charlie could never think of Miss Tweedy as Elspeth or Enid as Miss Tweedy or Bone as Mr. Bone or Thelonious. Those names just wouldn’t fit. Or take Desdemona. Her real name was Debbie. But why wasn’t the name she chose for herself just as real as the name her mother and father had picked for her?

  In ASL, instead of repeatedly fingerspelling someone’s name, Deaf people often had name signs. Frog’s name sign was one she had given herself at the age of three, when she chose the name Frog and the sign “frog” to go with it.

  Frog had given Charlie his name sign. They had become friends because they decided to search for Aggie together. So Frog said Charlie’s name sign would be based on the sign for “search,” which was made with a C hand shape, the first letter in Charlie’s name. But over time, his name sign became smaller simply because it was easier to sign. His name sign had finally settled to be the letter C, shaken slightly.

  Now Charlie saw his name sign flying around the room. The signing was fast and furious. It stopped the minute Mr. Walth faced the class. It started up again once his back was turned. Everyone was talking about what had happened last night with the Boney Hand and how Charlie and Frog had been there. Charlie had no idea how everyone knew so quickly.

  Charlie did not have an interpreter in class today. Miss Davenport was working elsewhere, and Mr. Willoughby had wanted to discuss something with Boris.

  Rupert sat across from Charlie in the semicircle of desks. Frog and Jasper were in a different class. Charlie couldn’t understand all the signing, but he understood the language of bullies.

  He watched how Rupert would make a suggestion about Charlie and the Boney Hand. And then the other kids—not all, but most—would pick up the suggestion and stretch it like taffy, shaping it into a story about what happened.

  Charlie could only catch pieces of Rupert’s story. But he knew enough ASL that he could see Rupert was leading them to think Charlie was at the center of the mystery. And Rupert was signing something about Frog being connected, too. Many students still thought the Boney Hand could have disappeared on its own. But many of them believed Rupert’s story about Charlie and Frog.

  Charlie usually liked math because Mr. Walth made math interesting and fun, but today Charlie felt like his name sign: shaken.

  Shaken loose. His connection to the school being pulled and stretched like a rubber band with each accusation and sidelong glance.

  Until it would snap.

  And he would no longer be attached.

  “Charlie?” Mr. Walth held the dry erase marker out to him. “Can you solve this problem?”

  Charlie shook his head. He had no idea how to begin.

  Just before the end of class, a student came into Mr. Walth’s room with a note for Charlie. Grandpa Sol, the superintendent of the school, wanted to see him in his study. Mr. Walth told Charlie he could leave. It was obvious Charlie wasn’t able to think about math right now.

  As Charlie walked through the quiet hallways that led to the superintendent’s study, he knew why Grandpa Sol wanted to see him—it was because of last night and the Boney Hand.

  Everything right now was about the Boney Hand. Charlie wished school to be like it was before the hand had disappeared. When he had felt—or almost felt—part of it.

  He heard a faint knocking sound. He stopped and listened.

  Tap-tap, pound…tap-pound-pound, tap-pound, tap-tap-tap…pound-pound, tap.

  He couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. “Hello?” said Charlie.

  Tap-tap, pound…tap-pound-pound, tap-pound, tap-tap-tap…pound-pound, tap.

  Someone was deliberately knocking. He studied the closed doors up and down the hallway.

  “Who’s there?” he asked. Charlie felt silly for saying it. He was at a Deaf school where almost everyone was Deaf.

  Tap-tap, pound…tap-pound-pound, tap-pound, tap-tap-tap…pound-pound, tap.

  “Do you need help?” called Charlie. He tried a few doors, but they were locked. He still couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. But if someone was locked in somewhere, wouldn’t Charlie just hear loud pounding instead of a repeated pattern of knocking?

  Then the knocking stopped.

  Charlie stayed still and listened.

  He listened for a long time.

  But there was nothing else to hear.

  • • •

  When Charlie arrived at the superintendent’s study, he found Frog, Mrs. Castle, Boris, and Mr. Willoughby already there, along with Grandpa Sol. They were sitting in a semicircle on chairs next to the fireplace, where a cozy fire crackled and popped. An empty chair waited for Charlie. As he sat down, he caught Frog’s eye. She shrugged and crossed her arms.

  “We asked you here,” said Grandpa Sol as Boris interpreted, “because we want to know what happened last night. Frog already told us what she saw.”

  “We only knew to ask Frog,” signed Mr. Willoughby, “because Chief Paley told us!”

  “I was going to tell you!” signed Frog as her many silver bracelets jangled on her wrist. “Chief Paley just beat me to it!”

  Frog crossed her arms again with a big huffy sigh.

  “Charlie, what did you see last night?” signed Grandpa Sol.

  “I didn’t see anything.” Charlie faltered as Boris interpreted. “I mean, I heard Miss Tweedy scream. And then I saw her running toward us.”

  “What were you doing before you heard her scream?” asked Grandpa Sol.

  Charlie hesitated. He didn’t look at Frog, but he knew he couldn’t lie. Especially not with Mrs. Castle there.

  “Frog and I,” Charlie signed slowly, “were looking for Thelonious Bone.”

  Thelonious Bone was a long name to fingerspell.

  “Why were you looking for him?” signed Mr. Willoughby.

  Frog interrupted before Charlie could answer.

  “We want our lawyer!” demanded Frog, just like Grandma Tickler had said last night with Chief Paley.

  “Lawyer?” Mr. Willoughby’s left eye twitched.

  “Yes!” signed Frog. “Desdemona Finkelstein is my lawyer. And Charlie’s. We’re not answering any more questions until she’s here. Right, Charlie?”

  “Uh…” said Charlie.

  “This is ridiculous!” Mr. Willoughby slung his signs at everyone. “SOMEONE stole an important piece of my—of our history! I have talked with the Board of Trustees. They agree with me—if it was a student who stole the Boney Hand”—Mr. Willoughby looked right at Charlie and Frog—“then that student will be expelled!”

  He stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him. The sound reverberated through the wood floor and into Charlie’s body. A log fell inside the fireplace, shooting sparks into the air.

  “Edward Willoughby cares very deeply about the Boney Hand
,” signed Grandpa Sol to Charlie and Frog. “It’s part of his family’s history as well as the school’s history. He takes this very personally.”

  “And he thinks Charlie and I had something to do with it!” signed Frog, who was never afraid to say what everyone else might be thinking.

  Grandpa Sol didn’t say that Frog was wrong. Neither did Mrs. Castle. What was Mrs. Castle thinking? Did she think Charlie had something to do with the missing Boney Hand? He wished Mrs. Castle would say something. Anything.

  But she didn’t.

  “Mr. Willoughby doesn’t like me,” added Frog.

  “Or me,” Charlie signed quietly.

  Grandpa Sol didn’t say either one wasn’t true. He thought a moment before responding.

  “Adults are only human,” signed Grandpa Sol. “Edward should control himself, regardless of how he feels. But, Frog, you challenge him. He often thinks you’re disrespectful—”

  Grandpa Sol held up a hand as Frog started to protest.

  “You’re also a Castle, which holds its share of assumptions, fair or unfair. And, Charlie”—Grandpa Sol turned to him—“in Mr. Willoughby’s eyes, you are an outsider. Someone who hasn’t yet earned the trust of the community. Someone who is still learning to sign. Someone who is hearing.”

  “But Mr. Willoughby is a hearing person, too!” Frog signed “hearing person” by holding her index finger sideways in front of her lips and circling it outward twice.

  “With Deaf parents,” added Grandpa Sol. “That’s a big difference. In a way, Mr. Willoughby feels protective of our community.”

  “That’s absurd,” Mrs. Castle finally signed. “We don’t need protection!”

  “I’m not saying it’s rational. I’m saying it’s emotional. His family, the Bones, have been part of our school for more than one hundred years.”

  Mrs. Castle stood. “I need to get back to the café,” she signed. “That’s the one good thing that has come from this—business is booming! It seems everyone knows what happened to the Boney Hand and now wants to come here and see the castle for themselves.”

  Mrs. Castle left the office. Frog signed something to Grandpa Sol, but Charlie wasn’t watching anymore.