The Old House
Page 15
It wasn’t until bedtime that Buddy remembered that she’d prayed about finding the money, and about restoring her mother’s reputation, and that she’d not yet given thanks for the answers to her prayers. She hoped God would understand that she wasn’t ungrateful, just too excited to think straight.
She awoke Sunday morning to the sound of the telephone, and then Cassie calling her. “Buddy, it’s your father!”
She practically flew out of bed, not worrying about being in her pajamas. “Daddy? Where are you?”
Her father’s voice, sounding normal and cheerful, came over the wires. “Still in the hospital, honey. It’s taken longer than they thought it would, but now they say I’ll probably get out in a few days, as soon as I’ve finished this course of IV-antibiotics. Then Bart will drive me to Montana. It was nice of Cassie to agree to have us stay there until I can go back to work, which will be another few weeks, probably. I’ve talked to the dispatcher at Edmonds Trucking, and they may have an opening at their headquarters in Missoula when I’m ready to drive again. It may work out that the sensible thing for right now is to set ourselves up somewhere near Haysville, so there’ll be relatives nearby. The company does some of its dispatching from Kalispell, and that’s not too far for me to get home between trips.”
“Haysville!” Buddy blurted out, stunned. Did she want to stay here, in Mr. Faulkner’s old school, with Mrs. Hope for a teacher, and all those strange kids? Yet, she’d been there two weeks now, and it hadn’t been too bad.
“Well, we’ll have to work that out. I just wanted to talk to you, be sure you were okay. Let you know I’m doing better.”
“I’m okay. Dad, Aunt Addie sold two books for quite a bit of money. And the money that was missing—well, you don’t know about it, but the money Grandpa got for the store, that disappeared, we found it last night. Do you remember seeing a little flowered bag—I think it was purple and pink—in Mama’s stuff? It probably had some family letters in it.”
Dad didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, I think I remember it. And the things inside of it were packed away with some of her other belongings, after she died, to look at later. Is it important?”
“Maybe. I’ll look for it when we get our stuff out of storage. Mama thought she might try to publish the letters. I’m glad you’re maybe going to be here by next weekend,” Buddy told him. “You’ll be here for Grandpa’s birthday party. He’s going to be ninety-two.”
Dad laughed. “Good for him. I always liked the old boy. Well, I have to go, but we’ll see you in a few days, Okay? And . . . I love you, Buddy.”
She sucked in a deep breath. “Dad—I hope it won’t hurt your feelings, but I’ve got a favor to ask of you.”
“I’m about as susceptible now as I’m ever going to be,” he said. “Ask away.”
“Could—would you be willing to call me by my real name from now on? Amy Kate? Buddy is such a stupid name for a girl.”
There was a silence, and then Dad sighed. “I guess you’re getting too grown up to be my Buddy, aren’t you? Well, it’ll take some getting used to. And I’ll probably forget and have to be reminded quite a few times. But I’ll try.”
She hung up and went to get dressed, feeling happy and encouraged, even if there was a chance they’d be stuck here in Haysville for a while.
She didn’t smell anything good from the kitchen. Everybody else was already around the table when she got there, even Gus, though he was grousing because there wasn’t any fresh orange juice. “You said you’d get some oranges for today,” he complained as Amy Kate slid into her place.
“I didn’t have time to think about oranges,” Cassie told him. “I was too busy with June Boardman and her father-in-law at the hospital.” She glanced at Amy Kate. “June and I went all the way through school together, ever since first grade. I wish there was something I could do to help her now. I’m afraid we’re running out of time this morning. I didn’t have time to fix anything fancy, so we’re just having cold cereal.”
“I like cornflakes,” Grandpa said. “Used to have them when I was a little boy.”
“I like them, too,” Amy Kate said, and upended the box over her bowl.
Addie stirred sugar into her coffee. “You know, Cassie, I had trouble going to sleep last night, and I got to thinking. Maybe we could help June and solve some of our own problems, too.”
“At least we’re not broke anymore,” Cassie said, encouraged. “But I don’t want to put Grandpa in a home—”
“I am home,” Grandpa said, proving that he didn’t always miss it when they talked about him.
“Of course you are,” Addie agreed. “And once the rest of that mess is cleared out of your room, there’d be room for another bed in there.”
Grandpa put down his spoon. “What would I want with another bed?” he asked.
“I was thinking that you might be willing to share your room with poor Don Boardman. He’s got a broken hip, and when he gets out of the hospital in a few days, he can’t come home because his bedroom’s on the second floor, and there’s no one home to take care of him while June works.”
Cassie’s mouth dropped open. “But you keep saying it’s too much work to look after one old man, so how do we look after two?”
“We hire someone to come in and look after both of them. Two someones, probably. A night-shift person so the rest of us can sleep, and then someone in the daytime to spell you so you can shop and go to church meetings, things like that. Remember how we used to sleep out on the screened porch when we were kids? It wouldn’t take much to fully enclose the back porch: windows instead of only screens, and put some sort of heating system out there. Make a place for a live-in worker, maybe. Don may never be able to navigate stairs again, and since his son and daughter-in-law live right next door, they could all visit back and forth as often as they wanted to. It wouldn’t cost much to put in a ramp so he wouldn’t have to use stairs.”
“Easy to put in a ramp,” Gus said unexpectedly. When they all looked at him, he added defensively, “I don’t mean me. Not with my bad back. But I could tell Max how to build it. Or with all that money you came up with, we could hire somebody to do it.”
“What a terrific idea.” Cassie glanced at her watch, then jumped to her feet. “Hurry up, everybody. We need to leave for church in half an hour. Leave the dishes, just move!”
They scattered in all directions; Max to pour milk into a bowl for Scamp.
“You think they’ll make us finish cleaning up the mess this afternoon? On Sunday?” Amy Kate asked.
Max looked at her with a grin. “Maybe, now that everybody’s rich, we can talk them into hiring someone to do that, too.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “Uh, listen, Max—”
“What?” He gave her his full attention now.
“I’ve decided I want to be called by my real name, Amy Kate. I’m not going to be Buddy anymore.”
“Good deal. I always thought you were too pretty to be called such a stupid name,” Max said, and headed for the stairs, leaving Amy Kate staring after him in total astonishment.
And then, smiling, she went to join the others to go to church.
WILLO DAVIS ROBERTS wrote many mystery and suspense novels for children during her long and illustrious career, including The Girl with the Silver Eyes, The View from the Cherry Tree, Twisted Summer, Megan’s Island, Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job, Hostage, Scared Stiff, and The Kidnappers. Three of her children’s books won Edgar® Awards, while others received great reviews and accolades, including the Sunshine State Young Reader Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and the Georgia Children’s Book
Aladdin
Simon & Schuster, New York
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DON’T MISS THESE OTHER WILLO DAVIS ROBERTS MYSTERIES:
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The Kidnappers
Hostage
The Pet-Sitting Peril
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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This Aladdin hardcover edition August 2016
Text copyright © 2001 by Willo Davis Roberts
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The text of this book was set in New Century Schoolbook.
Library of Congress Control Number 2016934686
ISBN 978-1-4814-5786-6 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-5785-9 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-5787-3 (eBook)