Charlie and Frog

by Karen Kane

  Charlie took a deep breath. Okay. A library is filled with letters and numbers. Not as many numbers as letters, though. So let’s look at the numbers we wrote down first.

  Charlie pointed to the numbers of the day, month, hour, and minute. These were written in a unique way. Maybe it means something.

  Charlie and Frog studied how D.J.’s death had been recorded.

  Died on the 4th Day of the 1st Month, at the 9.th Hour and 7th Minute.

  Below Charlie had written out the numbers by themselves, plus REF because those three letters were in the same kind of font.

  4197 REF.

  What’s this? Frog pointed to the inscription.

  When Charlie had copied down the inscription, he had put a period after the nine because that was what he saw on the headstone: 9.th hour.

  It’s a period, Charlie wrote.

  But why? Frog asked. Why is there a period?

  Charlie looked around the library and then back at the number. Miss Tweedy explained to me about Dewey decimal numbers.

  So? Frog wrote.

  So what if it’s not a period? Charlie replied. What if it’s—

  A decimal point! Of course!

  Charlie added the decimal point after the nine.

  419.7 REF

  Wait. Charlie knew this number. This is the same Dewey decimal number as my ASL book! Could my ASL book be the one we’re looking for?

  Frog bounced up and down in her chair. Maybe! Or another ASL book! Books about the same subject have the same Dewey decimal number. Let’s look!

  Charlie and Frog went to the shelves by the grandfather clock, where Charlie had found his ASL book. They studied the spine of each book. There were no books with the Dewey decimal number 419.7.

  They hurried to the circulation desk.

  “Miss Tweedy, can you check if someone else besides me borrowed a book with this Dewey decimal number?” Charlie asked.

  Miss Tweedy looked at Charlie’s paper. “Absolutely not!” She shook her head vehemently and gave the circulation desk a couple of hard pounds with her fist—“absolutely not” in Tweedy Sign Language.

  “Why?” Frog signed.

  “Frog Castle, what kind of a librarian do you think I am?” Miss Tweedy did some TSL finger waves. “I would never allow that!”

  “Why?” Frog patiently asked again.

  “Because,” Miss Tweedy said, “even though this book has the Dewey decimal number 419.7, it is also a reference book.” Miss Tweedy’s finger jabbed at the letters REF Charlie had written down next to 419.7. “REF means reference! Reference books stay in the library at all times. Reference books may not be checked out!”

  Charlie wrote this down for Frog. Then he realized—if the book they were looking for was a reference book, it must still be in the library. Charlie was about to ask where to find the reference section when Frog beat him to it.

  “Where?” Frog signed.

  “Reference books are over there.” Miss Tweedy pointed to the section of the library Aggie had been in. “However”—Miss Tweedy shook her head and waved her finger—“you will not find the book.”

  “WHY?” Charlie and Frog both shouted in sign.

  “Because,” Miss Tweedy said, “it was stolen from the library.”

  “Stolen?”

  Frog slid the letter V up the outside of her opposite forearm while bending her fingers. Both Charlie and Miss Tweedy copied Frog’s sign. “Stolen.”

  “When?” Charlie and Frog signed.

  Miss Tweedy started to use TSL. Frog stopped her. Tweedy Sign Language, unlike a real language like ASL, wasn’t enough for Miss Tweedy to tell her tale. Instead Charlie wrote furiously as Miss Tweedy used the one language she did know fluently.

  “Yesterday,” Miss Tweedy spoke in English, “two men came into the library. They went to the four hundred section. When they couldn’t find the book they were looking for they came to me. They told me the Dewey decimal number. I knew exactly which book they wanted.”

  Miss Tweedy stopped talking so Charlie could catch up.

  “How did you know?” Frog signed.

  “I knew,” Miss Tweedy said, “because I always remember numbers and because of Vince Vinelli and Harold Woo.”

  “Vince Vinelli?” Charlie said as he scribbled. Frog’s eyes lit up when she saw his name.

  “Oh, yes,” Miss Tweedy said. “Vince Vinelli says good people do good things. So I would come to the library and dust books because”—Miss Tweedy looked at the portrait above the fireplace—“Harold hated to dust.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  Frog gave Miss Tweedy’s arm a patient pat. Charlie and Frog waited for Miss Tweedy to go on because none of this made any sense yet.

  “One day,” Miss Tweedy continued, “I was dusting the reference section. I was on a chair, cleaning the very top shelf. I noticed one book had been assigned the wrong Dewey decimal number. I didn’t even need to open the book to know the number was wrong. The Dewey decimal number was four one nine point seven—an American Sign Language book. Our library has many ASL books, all currently checked out because they are very popular—Charlie has one of them! Harold Woo made this particular ASL book a reference book. What puzzled me, however, was the title of this book had nothing to do with ASL. It had to do with something horrendous!

  “‘Harold,’ I said, ‘this Dewey decimal number is wrong.’ ‘Elspeth,’ Harold replied, ‘leave it be.’ ‘But, Harold,’ I said, ‘the Dewey decimal number is four one nine point seven. It cannot be right.’

  “‘Elspeth,’ Harold said, ‘put the book back.’ And that was all he would say. He would not tell me why the Dewey decimal number was allowed to be wrong. So that’s how I knew that was the book those men wanted. They simply did not seem the sort who would want an ASL book. They seemed the sort who wanted a horrendous book.”

  Miss Tweedy blew her nose loudly into her tissue.

  Charlie’s hand was cramping he was writing so fast. Finally he got it all down. Charlie spoke and Frog signed the same question: “What was the name of the book?”

  “The name of the book was”—Miss Tweedy’s voice dropped to a whisper—“A Dead Author and Her Secret Treasure.” Miss Tweedy shuddered.

  “Why is that a horrendous book?” Charlie asked after he had written that down.

  “Anything with the word ‘dead’ is horrendous!” Miss Tweedy said.

  This had to be the book Aggie had been looking for the day Charlie met her! Charlie shook out his left hand and gripped his pen once more.

  “So you see,” Miss Tweedy said, “I knew about that book even though I hadn’t thought about it since Harold left us and I took over his duties. I told the men the name of the book and directed them to the reference section. I couldn’t show them myself because at that very moment it was imperative, absolutely imperative, that I visit Mrs. Murphy.”

  Charlie finished writing that last sentence and decided he had to ask. “Miss Tweedy, why doesn’t Mrs. Murphy”—Charlie pointed to her name—“ever visit you?” Charlie pointed to Miss Tweedy.

  Frog gave Charlie a stop-talking-right-now look as she signed something down by her leg. “Bathroom.” Frog was signing “bathroom.”

  Bathroom? Visiting Mrs. Murphy was a secret code for “bathroom”?

  Oh.

  “As I was saying, Charles,” Miss Tweedy said in a frosty voice, “I had no one to watch the circulation desk for me. You certainly weren’t here! When I came back the two men were gone. I went to the reference section, and the book was gone, too! There is no worse crime than stealing a book!”

  “Actually,” Charlie said, “I can think of a lot worse—”

  Miss Tweedy gave him a cold look. Once again Charlie stopped talking.

  Charlie and Frog sat on the library steps, the same place Charlie had sat with Aggie. They looked at each other in amazement. They couldn’t believe it—their detective work had paid off! They had found what Aggie (and Dex and Ray) were looking for.

 
Well, not really found because it wasn’t there anymore. But they knew what it was.

  A kid on a skateboard flew by. He waved to Frog, pointed to Charlie, and signed, “Who?” He turned his head backward so he could watch Frog’s answer.

  Charlie wondered how Frog had answered the question. Did she say, “This is my friend Charlie”? Maybe Frog had simply said what’s true: “This is Charlie, a boy helping me solve a mystery to put on my résumé before he leaves.”

  Because Charlie was sure, just in the short time he had known her, that Frog already had a million friends. She definitely didn’t need one more.

  Frog was writing something. Charlie forced himself to focus on her words.

  Dex and Ray only stole the book yesterday, Frog pointed out. So why didn’t Aggie find the Dead book when she first looked for it?

  And, Charlie added, why would Dex and Ray steal a book? This mystery is very strange.

  Frog’s eyes gleamed. You mean MURDER mystery! The book IS about a dead author!

  Dead doesn’t mean murder!

  Denial, Frog wrote. It’s a powerful thing.

  Charlie realized something. When I saw Aggie signing “dead,” I bet she was telling me the name of the book. I wish we knew where she was.

  We’ll find her! Frog assured him. Blythe and Bone might have the book. Let’s go!

  • • •

  Thelonious Bone glared at Frog when they entered the shop. He obviously hadn’t forgiven Frog for suggesting that his friend Harold Woo had been poisoned. Matilda Blythe, however, greeted them each with a warm hug.

  Once again one of them was left out of the conversation. This time it was Charlie.

  Charlie watched Frog sign to Matilda. He knew, of course, what Frog would be asking her. Matilda’s eyebrows furrowed. She signed the letter C, and with a flick of her wrist, swooped the C downward across the middle of her face.

  “What’s that mean?” Charlie asked as he copied the sign.

  “It means ‘strange,’” Matilda said. “Strange because two guys asked for that exact same book yesterday.”

  Frog signed to Matilda, who signed back and then interpreted what she had just said for Charlie. “They didn’t buy it because we don’t have it. And I couldn’t find any information about the book anywhere, so I asked Bone. He also said something strange. He told me some books aren’t meant to be read.”

  Frog signed. Matilda replied, and then said to Charlie, “Bone didn’t explain what he meant. But Bone can be a book snob. I’ll ask again.”

  Matilda stamped on the wooden floor twice. Bone looked up with a scowl. Matilda signed to him. Bone’s scowl deepened. He held his palm facing inward, fingers spread wide. Then he turned his palm outward with a sharp twist. Charlie remembered Mrs. Castle had made the same sign to Frog. With the same face, too.

  Matilda shrugged, signed something to Frog, and then went to ring up a customer. Frog thought for a moment. Her face lit up.

  Dex and Ray, Frog wrote, told Matilda the author of the book is D. J. McKinnon. I thought I had every book written by her. I don’t have the Dead Author book, but I know where we can find it. Hint: It’s in the castle!

  Frog waited for Charlie to figure it out. Charlie thought for a moment.

  Question: Where did you find books in the castle?

  Answer: In the school library.

  Except the school library was locked. And they had no way to get in without the key.

  Then Charlie remembered—in his study, Grandpa Sol had a copy of every book written by a graduate of Castle School for the Deaf.

  • • •

  Charlie and Frog arrived just as Mr. Simple was getting ready to close the gondola door. They were both quiet as the gondola swayed over the Hudson River. They were closer and closer to solving the mystery. Charlie couldn’t believe they were actually doing it.

  Frog led the way to a back entrance of the castle—through hallways and up a narrow staircase to the superintendent’s study. Frog cautiously opened the door. Her father was not there. Dust motes hovered in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Frog pointed to the top shelves next to the fireplace. That’s where Grandpa kept alumni books. Charlie went to the tall rolling ladder. He pushed off and rode the ladder across the rows of bookshelves to where Frog pointed. He held the ladder while she climbed to the top. Frog signaled when to move the ladder as she searched for the book.

  At the very end of the bookshelf, on the very top corner, Frog found it.

  Charlie and Frog sat cross-legged on the floor with the book between them. Frog took a deep breath. Charlie did the same.

  The answer to what Aggie and Dex and Ray were looking for was inside this book.

  Frog reached out her hand. She opened A Dead Author and Her Secret Treasure.

  Blank pages.

  The pages in the book were all blank, except for the first page.

  To Sol, keeper of secrets. With love and gratitude, D.J.

  Frog flipped through the book once more. She shook it to see if anything fell out. Nothing did.

  Grandpa Sol? Frog wrote. A secret keeper?

  How did any of this make sense?

  Remember what the yearbook said about Aggie? Charlie wrote.

  Frog nodded. Aggie is a secret teller. Aggie must have told someone about the secret message on D.J.’s headstone, about how to find the book A Dead Author and Her Secret Treasure.

  Charlie thought for a moment.

  WHY is there a secret message on D. J. McKinnon’s headstone? And why is THIS book the secret? What’s so special about this book?

  Something that’s inside this book, Frog answered. But there’s nothing inside this book!

  A secret code written in invisible ink? Charlie wondered.

  On which page? And even if we had something to make it visible, how do we find it without ruining the book? Frog looked at the binding. No Dewey decimal number. This isn’t the library’s Dead Author book. Maybe the secret is only in that one.

  Frog stood and did her pacing-while-twisting-her-pearl-necklace thing. She stopped and studied the shelf from which she had taken A Dead Author and Her Secret Treasure. Frog frowned. She went up the ladder and put the book back where she had found it. She pulled it out again and came down.

  Grandpa always keeps his books packed tight together. When he takes out a book he always moves the bookends in to hold the books perfectly straight. But the Dead Author book was leaning sideways. There’s space for one more book. A book is missing.

  “Your dad?” Charlie asked.

  Frog shook her head. Dad knows how Grandpa keeps his books. We all do! Someone took a book who doesn’t know Grandpa keeps his books this way.

  As Charlie thought about this he noticed the computer on Grandpa Sol’s desk. He thought about his parents. There wasn’t enough time for a letter to be mailed from South Africa, but maybe…

  Frog, could you check something for me?

  Frog logged on to the computer. Charlie couldn’t believe it. His parents had actually written an e-mail to him.

  The study lights flashed, startling them both. It was Oliver, flicking the lights off and on to get their attention.

  He marched over to Frog and launched a tirade of signs at her. Frog raised her hands and signed, “Okay, okay!”

  Oliver turned to Charlie. “Mom is furious!”

  Oliver swiped a claw-hand upward in front of his face. “Furious.” Charlie copied the sign.

  “That!” Oliver signed. “That is what I am telling you! Frog is in massive trouble,” Oliver said. “Mom is mad she disappeared. Millie disappeared for a while, too. And Grandpa is still not home. Frog needs to find Mom and you need to catch the next gondola out of here.”

  • • •

  The sky looked dark and angry, ready to storm again. Charlie leaned his head against the cool glass as the gondola pitched over the water. Charlie couldn’t stop thinking about everything he and Frog had just discovered. And he couldn’t stop thinking about the e-mail from
his mom and dad. Charlie hadn’t looked at it yet. Because as long as Charlie hadn’t looked at it yet, the e-mail could say whatever Charlie wanted it to say. He crossed his fingers. On both hands.

  The rain pattered as Charlie walked, plunked as he ran, and then, just as he reached his grandparents’ front door, poured. Charlie sat at the kitchen table and finally unfolded the e-mail Frog had printed out for him. Underneath what his parents had written was a slightly blurry photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Tickler next to a giant golden mole.

  Dear Charlie,

  We are sending you a photograph of Mugwump, one of the giant golden moles we have been helping. Doesn’t he look pleased we are in South Africa with him? We have had plenty of time for swimming as well. We are most grateful both of us brought an extra bathing suit.

  How are your grandparents doing? Have you explored the village? After we return home to take you to the faraway boarding school we plan to return to South Africa. Mugwump has indicated he would like to see more of us, and three weeks is simply not enough time.

  See you soon!

  Your parents (Alistair and Myra Tickler)

  Charlie studied the picture. His parents were grinning, but contrary to what they had written, Mugwump did not seem pleased. He did not seem like anything at all. He looked like a furry lump with no eyes and a pink nose. And he was not golden. He was brown.

  Charlie left the letter and the picture of Mugwump and his parents on the kitchen table. His grandparents were staring at the television in the living room, watching people yelling at one another. Charlie stood there, waiting for his grandparents to notice him. He swallowed hard. He tried to keep his watery eyes wide open.

  But it didn’t work.

  Charlie raced up the stairs to his bedroom, hot tears leaking down his face. He curled up in the window seat and stared at the rain pelting the glass.

  Why didn’t his parents want to be with him? Why was a giant golden mole more important to them than Charlie? And he was out of ideas for how to get his grandparents to care about him and want him to stay—to be there if Charlie needed them, which he did.