by Bobbie Pyron
Click!
I pull open the metal door. We both lean in to look.
Crammed inside is a small black suitcase, the kind with wheels on it.
“Huh,” Noah says.
“Yeah,” I say. I reach in and pull out the suitcase. What’s inside? More clues? More mysteries? A million dollars? Underwear?
“We’ll take a look, see if there’s anything worth keeping, then lock it back up.”
“We can’t,” Noah says. “You just told that lady we’re picking up the suitcase for our grandma. It’d look weird if we didn’t take it with us.”
“Plus, she said to return the key,” Noah reminds me.
Crud. Mama always says one lie leads to another, until you’re all tangled up like in a spider’s web.
“Okay, you’re right. We’ll have to take it with us.”
We wheel the suitcase back over to the ticket office. The wheels go bu-bump, bu-bump on the tile floor.
I smile and slide the key across the desk. “Here you go,” I say as friendly and confident as I can. “We found our grandma’s suitcase.” I’m glad she can’t see over her desk to my shaking knees.
She eyes us and the suitcase. She looks from me to Noah. Her eyebrows bunch together in a frown.
My stomach clenches up. Noah’s black. I’m white. How could we have the same grandma?
“We gotta get home,” Noah says, “or Mom’s going to be super worried.”
The woman sits up a little straighter and opens her mouth.
Before she can say anything, I grab Noah’s hand and dash for the door.
“Thanks for your help,” I call as we bang out the door, the suitcase bu-bumping behind.
We walk as fast as we can to the train station.
We find the platform for the train we’ll take back and plop down on a bench.
“Whew!” I say. “I tell you what, that was close!”
Noah nods, panting. “Too close for me.”
We look at each other. Noah nods. Slowly, I unzip the suitcase.
No bundles of dollar bills. No underwear (well, maybe a little), and no clues as far as I can see. What I do see are a few sweaters, a pair of nice leather shoes, a scarf smooth as water, and a couple of ziplock baggies. One has medicine bottles in it, the other has photographs. Maybe the photos will help.
I rummage around the corners and bottom to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
“What’s that?” Noah says, pointing at a small, thin paper bag. I pull it out. It has something in it.
Postcards. I flip through them—there must be about seven. I study each one, then hand them to Noah.
“They’re all from different places,” he says. One has a picture of a big, gleaming arch. It says “Greetings from Missouri!” Another has a picture of row after row of cornfields. Corncobs spell out “Iowa!”
One with a picture of beautiful smoky blue mountains catches my eye. “North Carolina Is Calling,” it says. I flip it over. On the back Jewel has written, “I know you’d love these mountains, Sis. They remind me of home.”
“Sis!”
I look at the backs of each of the postcards. All are written to Sis. All are addressed to the same place: Heartwell Manor, Room 23-B. All of them have stamps. And none were ever mailed.
“These are all addressed to Sis,” I say. “And they all have the same address.”
“Do you think that’s where Jewel was going?” Noah asks.
“If Sis is her sister, I bet you anything that’s where she and Baby were going. To family.” A chill runs up and down my arms.
I grin. “We may not have found a million dollars, but I think we struck gold, finding Jewel’s sister!”
Noah grins back. “I think you’re right.”
We slap two high fives. “I cannot believe we’ve found her sister!” I crow. “This will fix everything!”
A computer-type voice announces the next train coming in. It’s the train we need to take back to our part of the city.
I put everything back into the suitcase as the train comes to a stop. Everything except the postcards. I can’t believe our luck. I’m so happy, I feel like I could fly all the way back to Hope House!
The subway train rocks side to side as Noah lays the postcards out on his thighs in a line. “See,” he says, pointing, “it’s like they’re going east to west.”
He’s right. The farthest-east card is the one from North Carolina.
“That would make sense,” I say. “We’re pretty sure she lived in Lexington, Kentucky.”
Noah nods. He touches each card gently. “North Carolina. Tennessee. Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska.” His finger comes to rest on the last one. “Colorado.”
“You sure there’s no more?” he asks, frowning.
I nod. “And Colorado is still a ways from here. I wonder why she stopped writing to Sis?”
The train slows. “Next stop, Library Square,” the computer voice announces.
Noah gathers up the postcards and hands them to me. “Who knows. But I’d say these are the best clue you could have hoped for.”
The train lurches to a stop. Noah stands. “At least if you can figure out where the heck Heartwell Manor is.”
I laugh as I follow him off the train, pulling Jewel’s suitcase behind.
“You might want to get you some glasses, Noah,” I say. “The address is right there on the cards.”
He shakes his head. “You might want to get you some glasses, Piper,” he says.
I take the postcards out and look at the back. “Surely not,” I mutter. I shuffle through them, my heart sinking with each one. They’re all addressed the exact same way:
Sis
Heartwell Manor, Room 23-B
No town and no state.
35
Some Dogs
All day
people come and go,
come and go,
up and down the rows of
barking
jumping
tail-wagging
body-wiggling
dogs.
But not all dogs bark, jump,
wag, and wiggle.
Some dogs
look from one face to the next,
their eyes full of please,
furry vessels of barely contained
hope.
Some dogs,
not wanting to take chances
look sideways and wag
just the tip of their tail.
Some dogs
have had their hopes broken
too many times to risk
any kind of foolishness.
These dogs refuse to look
at all.
Some dogs huddle as far away from humans as they
can,
shivering from memories of hands
hurting.
Some people say
“Too big,” or
“Too old.”
Some people say
“Too shy,” or
“Too furry.”
Some dogs leave with people
and do not come back.
Some dogs leave with people
only to come back again
smelling of disappointment.
People stop in front of Baby’s cage
and smile.
“So cute!”
They kneel down and coo and cajole.
They snap their fingers and call,
“Come here! Come to me!”
Baby does not want to go to any of these people.
They are not his.
They are not his Jewel,
they are not the girl.
He turns his back, lies down with his little bunny
and licks his white paws
over and
over and over.
And waits.
36
Clues
Let’s just say, Mama was not a happy camper when I got back from the bus station. And pulling what she calls a “stolen” suitcase behind me doesn’t help.
“I left you a note.”
Dylan whimpered. Mama turned to our bed. “You call that a note?” she said, soothing Dylan. “All it said was ‘Be back soon.’”
“Yeah, but, Mama—”
Mama whirled, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you ‘but Mama’ me. You think I don’t have enough to worry about with your little brother sick and your dad working all the time?”
The doctor at the free clinic put Dylan on a new inhaler, but his breathing still sounded like Grandma Bess’s teakettle.
“I’m just trying to help Jewel and Baby,” I said quietly.
Mama sank down on the bed and stroked Dylan’s hair away from his face. “How about me?” she said. “I need help too, you know, especially right now.”
“Yeah, but we have each other,” I point out. “Baby and Jewel don’t have anybody.”
Somehow, I talk Mama into letting me meet up with Karina, Daria, and Fire in the computer room. “A half hour, Piper, that’s all,” she says. I start to argue, but when I see the mix of mad and worry on her face, I change my mind.
“Thanks, Mama,” I say, giving her a quick hug.
We look over the postcards I found in Jewel’s suitcase. Fire isn’t her usual self, but at least she’s here.
Me, I’m still buzzing with excitement about finding Jewel’s sister. Well, almost.
“Noah’s right,” Karina says. “Jewel was going east to west when she wrote these.”
“And she has family,” I say. “At least a sister. That’s huge!”
“It is,” Daria says, “but I wonder if she wrote any more?”
Fire shrugs. “So? What does it matter?” I miss the old Fire, full of spit and vinegar. And hope.
Mr. Yee, the only dad who comes to the Firefly meetings, gets up from a computer where he’s been writing a résumé.
He stretches his back.
“Can we use that computer, Mr. Yee?” Karina asks.
“Be my guest,” he says, pulling out the chair.
Karina settles into the chair and logs on. “So, let’s see just how many Heartwell Manors there are.”
“There’s probably a bunch,” Fire says.
I send up a little prayer that she’s wrong.
“Oh!” Daria says, pointing to the screen. “Only three!”
I glance up. Thank you!
The first one is in Georgia. “Too close to Kentucky,” I say.
The next one is in Texas. “No,” Daria says, “Texas is east of Colorado. That wouldn’t make sense.”
Karina clicks on the link to the last one. Idaho.
We look at each other with the exact same expression. I nod. “I think we might have a winner.”
Karina brings up the home page of Heartwell Manor.
Daria reads out loud, “Heartwell Manor of Boise is an affordable alternative in senior living for those on a fixed income. Accommodations and amenities are based on a sliding scale.”
“In other words, it’s for old poor people,” Fire says.
Ignoring her, Daria continues, “Along with individual suites, Heartwell Manor provides community dining, a library, a community garden, and daily enrichment activities.”
“Doesn’t sound too bad,” I say.
“So what do we do now?” Karina asks, scrolling down the screen. “Call up and ask if they have somebody living there named Sis Knight? I seriously doubt her first name is actually Sis.”
“And what if her last name’s not Knight?” I know Mama’s last name was Wolfe before she married Daddy and became a Trudeau. “Sis could have a married name.”
“Or Knight could be Jewel’s married name,” Daria points out.
“Crud.” I sigh. “This is getting complicated.” I glance at the clock. “I have to leave in five minutes,” I say. I don’t want to make Mama any madder than she already is.
“Look.” Karina points to a small photo at the bottom of the homepage. It shows a smiling woman holding a cat in her lap. Beneath it, it says in big letters “Pets Welcome!”
“That has to be where Jewel was going!” I say. “She knew she could have Baby there with her and be with her sister.”
“Then why did she end up here, living on the streets?” Daria says.
No one answers. The clock ticks. I’m about to say I have to go when Fire says, “I think I know.”
She’s holding up the bag with the empty medicine bottles. She reads the names on the labels. “Lithium. Zyprexa. Klonopin.” She recites the names like she knows them by heart.
She looks at us with sad eyes. “These pills are for someone with bipolar.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
She swallows. “It’s a mental illness. My mom has it.” She takes out the empty bottles and studies the labels. “These were last filled almost six months ago. Who knows how long ago she ran out.”
“But she’s been in the hospital,” Karina points out. “Wouldn’t she get her medication there?”
Fire shakes her head. “How would they know? If she hasn’t been taking her pills for a long time, she probably doesn’t remember she needs them.”
Fire glances at us and says in a sad voice, “Sometimes, my mom doesn’t think she needs her pills anymore—that she’s well now—or she can’t stand the side effects and she just . . . stops. Trust me,” Fire says in an old, old voice, “it’s not a good thing.”
I look at the clock.
“I have to go or Mama’s going to kill me.” I put the postcards and pill bottles back in my pack. My fingers touch the other plastic ziplock. Photos. Dang. Too late to look at them now.
“Let’s each think tonight about what we know and what to do next,” Karina says like the troop leader she is. “We’ll meet after school tomorrow and come up with a plan.” Like I said, her superpower.
Fire and I ride the elevator up. She and her mom live on the fourth floor. For once, I’m glad this elevator is so dang slow.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” I say. “That must be hard.”
She nods. “I know how important those pills are because I know what my mom’s like when she doesn’t take them.”
Fire’s a head shorter than me and a year younger, but right now, she seems a lot older.
I give her a sideways hug. “You may have figured out the most important clue yet.”
We reach the fourth floor. The doors slide open.
Fire raises her chin, the old glint back in her eyes. “Just call me Sherlock Holmes,” she cracks.
Watching her walk off down the hall with her shoulders thrown back, I think of a word Mr. Koehler taught us: resilient. It means being able to bounce back from something really bad and move ahead. That’s Fire, for sure. Now that I think about it, resilient would describe most of us kids in Hope House.
We have to be.
37
Questions
White coats come and go in and out of Jewel’s hospital room.
The people in white coats ask more questions.
“What year is it?”
The Year of Loss.
“Who is the president of the United States?”
Jewel refuses to say his name.
“What was your mother’s name before she married your father?”
What a silly question. It’s her own middle name.
“Can you count to one hundred by sevens?”
Who needs to count by sevens?
Why don’t they ask her something important, like, “What year did the hummingbirds come early and the dogwood bloom blood red?”
The year she was born.
“How many movements are there in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony?”
Four.
“Who wrote ‘Hope is a thing with feathers’?”
Her favorite poet.
“Where is Baby?” Jewel asks.
The nurse, the kind one with eyes the color of cornflowers, says to one of the white coats, “She keep
s talking about her baby.”
They shake their heads.
Jewel did not know she had spoken this question out loud.
She clenches her teeth. She kicks off the covers.
Sometimes she feels like she’s going to bust right out of her skin.
Sometimes she feels like she has fireworks going off in her brain.
She doesn’t believe God talks to her but she thinks he should.
Then, just as soon, the Dark eats her soul.
She taps the side of her head over and over. “Things get mixed up in here.”
She had been going somewhere to see someone, hadn’t she? Someone important? Someone she loved?
A million lights explode in her brain.
She grabs the hand of the nurse with cornflower-blue eyes. “Sis! I have to find Sis!”
The nurse winces and tries to take her hand away.
Jewel’s hands are strong from so many years of playing all four movements of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Something stings her arm.
Suffocating warmth flows through her veins. Why does she feel like her body is melting?
“Please,” she says one last time as her eyes close.
38
Anything for Jewel
We scuff through piles of leaves as we walk across the park after school. The sky is so blue it makes your eyes hurt. Except for pools of snow underneath the trees, it’s hard to remember there was such a big storm just the other day.
“It sure does feel empty in the park without Baby,” I say, “even though he’s just a little thing.”
“Good things come in small packages,” Fire says with a skip. She’s back to her old self, and that makes the world better.
“I know you’re worried about Baby, Piper,” Karina says, “but we need to focus on Jewel right now.”
We sit on the picnic table near the bathroom where Baby lived.
“Here’s what we know about her so far.” Karina holds up one finger after another as she ticks off the facts. “One: she used to teach piano. Two: she lived in Lexington, Kentucky. Three and maybe most important, she has a sister.”
“And Jewel was probably going to see her,” I interrupt.
“It’s also a fact Baby and Jewel need each other,” I say. “And it’s another fact that the shelter will put Baby up for adoption in ten days if we don’t figure something out.” My heart shivers like a cloud has covered up the sun.