by Beth Kephart
“He busted the lady’s box,” Hawk says.
“Jeez,” I say, and I feel my heart beating hard, because it looks like someone took a hammer to the thing, and that someone could only be The Mister, but that’s crazy. I think of The Mister holding Phooey. I think of the splatters on his shoe shine. I think of how really old he is. You’d have to be a super mad man to bust a box like that.
“How’d you know?” I ask, handing the Spyglass back, pressing the thud of my heart with the palm of my hand. “How’d you know that he was out there?”
“Been out here on the roof since before dawn. Been watching, trying to see.”
“We should tell Mom,” I say, saying nothing about the crying or the dream or my own museum where I try so hard not to scream. We should tell Mom, I think, because sometimes secrets can get too big.
“Not telling Mom. Mom doesn’t have to know. She’s got other things to worry about.”
“She should know.”
“Yeah? And what would we tell her? The guy is weird is all. Mom doesn’t have to know. She’s got other things to worry on.”
“Give me back the Spyglass,” I say.
Hawk’s hand through the leaves.
My hand through the leaves.
“Wait a minute,” I say. Dialing in.
That box busted open. Those stones in a circle. Those white sheets still hanging in a crisscross on a line. And now The Mister is pulling the white sheets off the line. He’s stuffing the sheets inside the stone circle. He’s leaning down and striking a match, and a zip of red and yellow starts, a puff of smoke, more smoke, like what we need in this drought season is another fire.
“Hawk!” I say. “You see it?”
“See it!”
“We have to stop him!” I say.
I push the Spyglass back at him, start to climb down. He grabs my wrist to stop me.
“You can’t go,” Hawk says. “Remember Mom? What she said? Man wants his privacy.”
“He’s starting a fire! In drought season.”
“Yeah. But it’s staying put, inside the stones. Guy knows what he’s doing. Watch.”
I grab the Spyglass back and watch how, one by one, piece by piece, all the sheets of white on the crisscrossed ropes are getting yanked into the fire. Dying there. Sending up more smoke. More sheets. More flames. More smoke. All inside the stone circle.
“We’re finding out what he’s doing,” Hawk says. “We’re finding out before we tell Mom and Dad. We’re not worrying them if they don’t need to be worried, because they don’t need to be worried. Plan?”
I hand him the Spyglass. He looks long and hard. He lists the things we already know, trying to puzzle out the story. “The Mister moves in,” he says. “Lady shows up and knocks. The Mister won’t answer. Lady leaves the box. The Mister busts the box. The Mister sets a fire and burns the things inside the box. The Mister says that what he needs is lots of privacy. The Mister understands fire.”
“The Mister steals, too,” I say. “The lawn chair. The feed bucket.”
Hawk shrugs. The leaves ripple. “Stealing seems pretty minor. You think the stealing’s part of this?”
“How’d I know?”
“So we keep the stealing on the list,” Hawk says. “For now. Even if it might not actually matter.” I can hear Hawk breathing hard. I can hear my own heart flopping. “Real-live mystery,” he says. “And we’re investigating.”
“Sara!” We hear Dad now. “Hawk!” Dad’s voice through a megaphone. Dad’s voice coming up the hill.
Hawk bursts through the leaves. He jumps to the ground. The dust rises up. He’s running.
“Last one to the house feeds the pigs,” he calls out.
Little Santas
When Mom asks Hawk why he left ahead of breakfast without saying where he was going, he says he doesn’t know; it was just an itch.
When Dad asks, he says it’s because he couldn’t sleep.
When Mom and Dad ask me how I knew where to find my brother, I say, “Had a hunch, is all.”
When they ask us why it took so long to get back down the mountain, we say we’re sorry.
Flapjacks are just as good cold as they are hot, please pass the honey. Mom watches and she doesn’t talk and we eat, we eat, we eat, and now Dad shows up from the back bedroom, dressed in his idea of a suit.
The jacket’s the color of denim.
The pants are burnt-orange corduroy.
The tie has little Santas on it.
“It’s August,” Mom says. That’s all.
It’s almost ten a.m. and already hot.
Mom follows Dad out of the kitchen, to the back door, then out the door to his Ford, and I can’t hear what they say. The Ford revs up and pulls away and Mom calls, “I love you.”
And now what? That’s the question.
Shadows on the Barn Floor
Farms are full of losing. Fruit to flies, seeds to breeze, chicks to coons, fences to time, crops to drought, goats to the mistakes you make, like giving the kids too much feed, or not sterilizing the teats, or not tying the goat up tight. It’s the milking hour, and the goats are bleating.
Their heads are soft.
Their friendship’s easy.
I grab my buckets and my pan, the sterile wipes, my tie-in rope. I let the screen door flap behind me, watch the guinea fowls squabble at my feet, like a speckled storm cloud. The goats are high in their bleat by now, watching me walk the bridge over the dusty bed where, up until June, there was a creek. The guineas bump up into the barn and then bump back out again. They scramble in and out of my shadow.
Goats don’t look to where the fire burned, to where the hay shed was, but they smell it. I try not to look, try not to think, about Dad at the bank, Dad asking questions. Dad with more to ask for now. A good face-to-face meeting can do the trick, Dad likes to say. But the banks spot a trick a mile away. They know the farmers who can’t pay, the ones who are so deep into the money hole that the farm they call theirs isn’t really theirs, and the cows aren’t either, or the goats, or the pigs, or the house they live in. The banks always know.
The goat shack is three-sided. The fourth side is just plain weather. I set my tools down, keep my rope in hand, and call to Polly. When she doesn’t come, I catch one hand inside her collar to knot the rope. She’s not one for excessive fuss. She paws at me, but she doesn’t mean it. I lead her to the milking post and tie her in and clean her teats and squirt her first blue milk into the pan.
When the good milk comes in, I trade the pan for the bucket. The milk hisses. Polly stomps one hoof and fixes me with her jewelry eyes. I tell her some of the trouble we’re in. She’s a listener. When her milk is gone, I rub her head and pull one soft ear and set her free and now I start the whole thing again, calling to Jo to come. Jo bucks Verdi the rooster out of her way with her hornless head.
I tug and the milk hisses. The sun glisten shifts. It’s Molly’s turn. I let Jo go and wrangle Molly. I look around and think of Mom and how, sometimes, she’ll come out here in her flip-flops and a scuff of flour on her cheek and stand in the sun and look at the float of the dust of the farm. How, if I come up around beside her, she’ll make me look too. She’ll call it a miracle, and I’ll believe her.
Dad’s in his truck on the way to the bank. Mom’s out by the pasture fence, fixing the hitch in the gate. Hawk is wherever Hawk is, and now Jolly pricks her ears and turns. She faces the day full on. The shadows on the barn floor change—two arms and two legs blacken the thick beam of sun.
I turn.
Nothing.
I call out, “Hey!”
I finish up with Jolly, fast, untie her. Stand and hurry from the barn, the pail of sloshing goat milk in my hand. I walk the bridge over the missing creek, walk not too fast, because if I do, I’ll spill. The shadows are all gone.
“Hey,” I call.
“Hey. Mister?”
But nobody answers, and the middle distance blurs.
Ridiculous Hitch
In the kitchen I pour the milk into tall glass jars, write the date on the lids with erasable ink, and put them in the cooler. I head down the long road to the trees and the pigs, and the cats come with me, good as two dogs, until they quit inside some shade. Mom’s way out there on the south side fixing the gate latch, and now, closer to the Pig Village, I call Hawk’s name. The pigs start running. The sunflowers swish.
“Hawk?”
No sign of my brother.
“Hawk!”
Figgis and the calico cat, Scaredy, pick themselves up out of the shade and follow me to the house, where there’s nothing I can do with the thing I thought I saw, and what I’m actually supposed to do is start lunch, because today’s my turn. Shake the salt. Shake the pepper. Find the cheese. Get started.
I hear boots on the porch.
“Where’ve you been?” I ask Hawk.
He puts a shhhh finger to his lips. Makes it clear that Mom is coming, that there’s news but he can’t say. Something is happening. Hawk has his highest spirits on. He washes the dirt from his hands at the sink. Puts the toast in. Compliments my cooking just in time for Mom to show up and thank me with a kiss.
“Ridiculous hitch,” she says as she sits down. “Rust’s got the best of it.”
She looks at Hawk. She looks at me.
“Dad’s in town by now,” she says.
We eat.
We eat.
Black Dog Goes Missing
Took off?” I say. “What do you mean?”
“Old pig shot out of the pig house like he’d been stuffed inside a cannon,” Hawk says. “Headed north, straight for the loop road. Ran for the lighthouse.”
I narrow my eyes. “You sure you just didn’t spook him?”
“I showed up. Black Dog started running.”
I sit back and give my brother another squinty stare. I shield my eyes from the sun that’s falling straight through the sky, no clouds, onto us, on the pier, where it must be one hundred degrees and hotter the higher you are in the sky. I’ve already told my shadows-in-the-goat-shed story, and now Hawk is telling this, and I should just sit and listen, but everything Hawk says is the start of a new question.
“So you followed Black Dog,” I say.
“I did.”
“Couldn’t help it?”
“Couldn’t be helped.”
“You followed Black Dog and then you saw her.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. Right there in the flesh. High heels. Green dress. She was banging on his door, looking mad as a bug on its back. ‘Seen a pig?’ I asked her. Dusting off my jeans before I did. I’d pulled up easy, gave an easy hello. ‘Black Dog’s his name,’ I said, to be specific. Lady didn’t answer.”
“ ’Course she didn’t.”
“She didn’t even turn around.”
“You were talking about a pig.”
“She kept banging on the door. I thought she’d fall off of those shoes. There was heat still coming from her Rover. I asked her, ‘Can I help you?’ Finally she turned. She stopped.”
“Looked right at you?”
“Yes. Asked me if I’d seen M.B. I said, ‘Who?’ She said, ‘M.B.?’ I said, ‘You mean The Mister.’ ‘The Mister?’ she said. ‘You call him The Mister?’ ”
“So that’s his name,” I say. “M.B.”
“Not much of a name, if you ask me. I asked again, ‘Did you see Black Dog?’ She looked at me like I was crazy.”
“She didn’t drive all the way here to meet some pig.”
“No harm in being friendly.”
I lie back on my elbows, but the tar is too hot. I sit up straight and there’s the sun.
“She gave me a good look up and down,” Hawk says. “She had a pocketbook hanging from her shoulder. She moved it to the other arm and watched me hard. I could tell that she was talking to herself inside, wondering if she could trust me. I stood up straight. Clapped the knees of my jeans again. Shook away the dust. I thought that might help. Respectability is the brother of trust. Just like Dad says.”
“Did she? Trust you?”
“Guess she did, after a lot of looking. After a lot of thinking, too, and banging on that door some more, after calling out that name: M.B. ‘Give this to your Mister,’ she finally said, her voice like some surrender. ‘When you see him, please do.’ She handed me an envelope, this one right here. I took it. Businesslike. Trustworthy. High respectable. ‘Make sure you deliver it straight to him, nobody else,’ she said. ‘And make sure you get an answer.’ She told me not to look inside, not to tarnish up the package, not to let any curiosity get the best of me. ‘Give it straight to your Mister, nobody else,’ she said it again. ‘Do it quick and just as soon as you can find him. Stand there while he reads it. Stand there while he answers. Can I trust you, sir, with this?’ She gave me her speech, and then she gave me this. Put it into the palm of my hand.” Hawk pulls a card from the pocket of his shirt. “Right here.” He points. “Her name and number.”
ILKE VANDERVEER. BRIGHT STAR PUBLISHING, the little blue type on the bright white card says. FLATIRON BUILDING. NEW YORK CITY. Hawk reads the whole thing out loud, the phone number, too. He raises his eyebrows. Smiles.
“She told me to call her when the mission was complete. Said there’d be a reward in it. To do it all untarnished.”
“Untarnished?”
Hawk shrugs. “Her word. Just repeating.”
“What kind of reward?”
“She didn’t say.”
“What else did she say?”
“She said The Mister was in trouble. That they’re waiting in the city. That the faster he receives what I’m to deliver, the better off he will be. Also, the better off the world will be.”
I gape at him. “The whole world?”
“I’m just repeating. One other thing.” Hawk is so full of this that I think he’ll pop. If he doesn’t tell me, he’ll pop. If he tells me, he’ll pop. Hawk is going to blow.
“What?”
“Nobody else is allowed to know. My special delivery is a first-class secret.” He stretches his arms out, even though he’s sitting. He rocks forward, and I catch him.
“You’re telling me.”
“ ’Cause I tell you things. Unlike you sometimes, Sara.”
“Hawk,” I say. “Forget it. All right? I already said that I’m sorry.”
“All right.”
Hawk hands me the envelope. I turn it over. M.B., it says, in spidery handwriting. The back flap is glued down. The glue is taped tight. The whole thing is wrapped with plastic thin as Saran. There’s no messing with this without getting caught, no taking a peek and fixing it back up, and Hawk hasn’t messed. Hawk is full of story hope. He believes in treasure.
“There’s a reward,” Hawk says. “If I follow instructions. Reward, maybe not your twenty grand, maybe not everything, but definitely something, which is something better than nothing. I’m doing what she asked me, Sara.” And the more he talks, the more hope he shows, and the more hope he shows, the more sad I feel, because why would Hawk, my freaky-smart brother, Hawk, trust this lady and her request, and why would she trust a kid she barely met, and why is she is so desperate, anyway, and why do I have Marfan, because if I didn’t, Hawk wouldn’t be even dreaming of this.
“Our ship is coming in,” he says.
“It’s an envelope, Hawk. A single special delivery. Minor reward. Gotta be.”
“Anything’s possible, with a guy like The Mister. He’s important, right? We know that much.” He wraps his skinny arms across his skinny chest, like he can’t hold everything in. He rocks again.
“He’s important,” I tell Hawk, give him that. “That’s a definite thing.”
“This is our lucky day,” Hawk says. “Our actual lucky day.”
“No luck in it until you make the delivery. Until he answers, and who knows how he would, or will. Answer to you? Call her up? Send a letter? This isn’t good business, Hawk. This makes no sense.”
“It’
ll make sense.”
“You’re too sure, Hawk.”
“I’m an optimist,” he says.
“No way this works,” I say. “And besides, you know what Mom said. You know what she’d say if you told her.”
“We won’t tell them. Not until the reward is ours.”
“Hawk.”
“What do Mom and Dad want, Sara?” Hawk says, tilting his big eyes up at me. “What do they want most?”
I don’t answer, but I know.
“They want the money to buy you the fix. They want the money for the shed. We surprise them with cash, they won’t care about the rest of it.”
“But Hawk. Seriously. You don’t know what this trouble is. You don’t know what it means.”
“Can’t be that hard. Doing what she wants. Right?” Hawk says, practically pleading.
“Hard isn’t the point, Hawk. Hard is—”
But before I finish, I hear the churn of Dad’s Ford, the white stones in a crush beneath his tires.
“Dad’s back,” I say.
“Yeah.” Hawk nods.
I stand and Hawk stands. He slips the envelope inside his shirt and smooths down the shirt, like a regular spy.
There’s bank news on the way.
Bad Math
Dad’s tie is stuffed inside the pocket of his cords. His jacket hangs from the hook of his finger. He’s got five o’clock shadow at the four o’clock hour, and he comes in and here we are, Mom, too, with Figgis. She lets her go and she paws around. Mom doesn’t scold and I hardly breathe, because Dad hasn’t said yet, because he doesn’t have to say. His eyes are full of shadows. Side to side he shakes his head. Mom curses Jersey Shore words.
“Wouldn’t budge,” Dad explains. Mom curses again, hides the tears she has been crying behind her shades. She rubs her eyes, won’t look at me, won’t look anywhere near any one of us, just watches the scratched planks of the pine floor until Scaredy shows up, rubbing his affection against Mom’s legs. There’s a fly in a fight with the loose screen on the back door.