by Doug Cornett
“It was…,” she started, carefully choosing her words, “a difficult birth. See, honey, normally women are pregnant for forty weeks or so before they give birth. Alexander’s mom is a little older than most moms, and that means there is a higher risk of complications. Thirty-two weeks is early. The baby is very premature.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, hearing panic in my voice.
“It means that she’s smaller than most babies.”
“How small?”
“Well, you weighed eight pounds, nine ounces when you were born. Alexander’s little sister is not even four pounds. Because she’s so small, she needs help to do certain things.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like eat.” She paused, shifting her eyes to my dad. “And breathe. She’ll be staying in the hospital for a while, hooked up to machines that will help her get bigger and stronger.”
“But she’ll be okay, right?”
“Of course she will,” my mom said. But then she added, “We hope so. Paul? Have you spoken to Alexander recently?”
I cringed at the question, remembering the last thing I said to him yesterday. “Not today. And he’s not answering his phone.”
My mom bit her lip again. “I don’t want you to get worried, honey…but he seems to have…wandered away.”
“Wandered away?” my dad asked.
“He was with his mom and dad all night and day, but Dwight lost track of him a couple of hours ago. It’s all so emotional,” my mom said in a soft tone, but I could tell she was worried. “It’s a lot for poor Alexander to handle right now. Dwight thinks he might have gone off for some time to think, but it’s been quite a while. He’s not answering his phone. And they’ve searched, but he doesn’t seem to be in the hospital anywhere.”
“Peephole is…missing?” I said.
“Honey,” my mom said gently, “do you have any idea where he might have gone? Think….Is there a place that he would go…to be alone?”
I didn’t have to think long. I had a pretty good idea of where Peephole was. “Can I take my bike out and look for him?”
“Of course,” my dad said. “Be careful, and take your phone.”
On my way out the door, I called back to my mom. “What’s her name? Peephole’s sister?”
“Trillium,” she answered. “So pretty. They named her after one of the earliest-blooming flowers of the spring.”
I hopped on my bike, but before pedaling off, I took out my phone and texted Shanks.
Peephole’s little sister is here and he’s freaking out. Biking to HQ now. Meet me there!
Big trucks and construction equipment were parked all around the edges of the abandoned drive-in. Somebody had spray-painted the grass itself with various numbers and markings I didn’t understand. A small mountain of rocks and dirt jutted up from one corner of the field, and the tiny sign that had previously given me chills was now enormous and bold and in color: THE CONQUISTADOR IS COMING!
The megastore looked like it was about to plop itself right on top of the One and Onlys’ headquarters. Again, a cold tickle touched my spine, but I didn’t have time to linger on it. I was here to find my friend. Peering across the field to the edge of the Bell Woods, I could see that I’d come to the right place.
Peephole was sitting outside the lean-to, hugging his legs, his back to me. His face was tilted upward at the hand-carved ONE AND ONLYS sign that I’d made for our secret headquarters. As I pedaled toward him, dodging and weaving around the churned-up landscape, I could see that he was rocking gently back and forth.
My bike clicked to a stop at the lean-to, and I silently took a seat on the ground across from him. He kept his gaze fixed on the sign for a few seconds more, then looked at me. His eyes were glassy and red. I wanted to ask him a million questions. What does Trillium look like? How is your mom doing? Why did you run away? I wanted to say something to make him feel better. To promise him that Trillium would grow bigger and get healthy. To tell him not to worry about it. To let him know that I was there for him. To apologize for being a huge jerk the day before.
But I didn’t know how to say any of that stuff.
“We might need to make a new sign,” I said instead, “now that Trillium has arrived.”
Peephole sniffled and dragged the back of his hand across his nose. He turned and looked at the field. “What’s the point? Pretty soon we won’t have a headquarters. This will all be a parking lot for the Conquistador.”
His tone was sharp, but his voice was weak, like he could break and float away at any moment. I wondered if he was right about our headquarters, but that was a question for later. Right now I had a best friend to talk to. And it looked like I wasn’t going to have to do it alone.
Shanks wheeled up, dismounted, and stood in front of Peephole, all in one swift motion. He looked up at her, and his expression seemed almost scared about what she might say. She crossed her arms, tilted her head, and gave him a hard look. Even I wasn’t sure what she was going to do. These two had their history, and they didn’t always see eye to eye.
Shanks stepped forward, leaned down, and gave Peephole a bear hug around the neck. I guess you don’t always have to speak to say the right thing.
“Your parents are flipping out,” she said after finally letting go.
“I know.” Peephole rubbed his eyes. “I should call them.”
“You should,” Shanks agreed. “But first, we want to hear about your little sister. Is she half-squirrel, like I guessed?”
Peephole cracked a slight smile and flicked his eyes up at Shanks and then at me. “Trill is all human. She’s so small and pink.” He cupped his hands like he was trying to catch water dripping from a faucet. “She could fit right in my hands. I’ve never seen anything so…fragile.”
I tried to imagine what Trill must look like. Four pounds seemed too light for a person, even for a baby. Could she really fit in the palm of Peephole’s hand? Would she ever be tall and lanky like her older brother?
“She’s hooked up to this machine,” he continued. “It’s called a CPAP. It helps her breathe. And there are a few other babies in the same room with her. It’s like something out of a science-fiction movie. Tiny people everywhere, hooked up to tubes and computers that are always beeping. Nobody pays attention to most of the beeps. Like a parking lot full of cars and everybody’s alarm is going off and nobody cares. But every once in a while, there’s a particular kind of beep, more like a ringing, and then all the nurses and doctors rush over to see.”
“Sounds kind of scary,” I said.
Peephole shifted on the grass. “It is, I guess.”
“But what happens if Trill’s machine is ringing but nobody hears it? What if all the doctors are looking after another baby, and they forget about Trill?” As soon as I asked this, I knew that it was a mistake. Peephole’s face said that he’d been worrying about the same thing. I had only managed to make him more nervous.
“All I know is,” he said slowly, “you have to breathe to live.”
It didn’t seem fair. The Calloways were nice people. So what if Mrs. Calloway was a little bit older? She was always smiling. Always saying nice things to everybody. Didn’t that count for something?
All I could think about was how gigantically, monumentally, astronomically lucky I was. To have both of my parents. To have such good friends. It wasn’t a thought I’d ever had before. But it wasn’t really a thought at all. It was more like a feeling. Kind of a wave of gratitude, I guess.
Peephole broke the silence. “I always thought that everybody would be happy.” He was squinting across the field at the old drive-in screen. “Things have been so hard on my mom these past few weeks and…I want to help. I just don’t know how. I figured that as soon as the baby came, things would be easier. I know that babies are a lot of hard work, but at least people would feel better, you
know? Maybe there would be some kind of celebration.” He shook his head. “But everybody is so nervous and exhausted. My mom and dad whisper everything they say. It’s like we’re all too worried to be happy yet. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” He wiped his eyes. “Being useless sucks.”
“Trill is going to be okay,” Shanks said. “And you’re not useless. We’re in the middle of a big case, remember? We need you.” She sounded so certain that it gave me a moment’s relief. Shanks had this strange power: sometimes when she said things, you couldn’t help but believe her.
But Peephole didn’t look convinced. “For what?”
“Because…,” I said, but then I paused. The words weren’t coming.
Peephole’s red-rimmed eyes met mine. There was a tiny bead of snot trickling from his nose, but this wasn’t the time to mention it.
“…because we’re not the One and Onlys without you,” I said.
He blinked and wiped the snot from his nose. Finally, he nodded.
“You know,” Shanks said, her voice perking up, “this whole thing reminds me of Waffle the Dolphin and the world’s tallest man.”
“Waffle the what?”
“Waffle the Famous Dolphin.”
“If he’s so famous, how come I’ve never heard of him?” Peephole asked.
“Her,” Shanks said. “Because this happened a while ago, and in another part of the world. As I was saying, everybody loved Waffle the Dolphin. People would come from miles around to see her perform her tricks. But one day Waffle the Dolphin didn’t perform any of her tricks. Something was wrong with her. She didn’t have any energy, and she kept making this I’m-a-dolphin-and-I’m-in-pain noise. So they called in all the leading dolphin doctors, but none of—”
“Dolphin doctors?” I asked.
Shanks ignored my interruption. “None of them could figure out what was wrong with Waffle. Finally, one doctor noticed something: there were chunks of plastic scratched away from the sides of her tank. The doctor guessed that Waffle had swallowed a bunch of the plastic, and that was what had made her sick!”
“That’s stupid. Why would she eat a bunch of plastic?” Peephole said. He seemed annoyed, which was a great sign. He was coming back to life.
“Asks the guy who once chugged so much lake water that he barfed,” Shanks responded.
I snorted a laugh, and even Peephole grinned.
“Anyway,” Shanks went on, “they tried everything they could to get the plastic out of Waffle’s stomach. The leading dolphin doctors said that surgery would be too risky. They tried to make Waffle barf, but she wouldn’t. They even created a long metal arm to reach into Waffle’s mouth and down to her stomach to grab the plastic, but Waffle’s throat kept clamping up as soon as she felt the cold metal. They realized what needed to happen. Somebody had to reach with their own arm into Waffle’s stomach and grab all the bad stuff.”
“So did it work?” I asked.
“Well, yes and no. It turns out they were right—Waffle’s throat didn’t close up at the touch of a human arm. But there was a problem. Nobody’s arm was long enough to reach all the way into her stomach. So they did the most logical thing they could think of: called the world’s tallest man and asked for his help.”
Peephole was doubtful. “How do you come up with this stuff?”
“I didn’t come up with it. There is truth in every story I tell! Now, where was I? Oh, yeah—they called up the world’s tallest man, who lived alone in a hut up in the mountains. He’d moved there a long time ago because he was tired of all the attention he got for being so tall. People liked to take their picture with him, but nobody needed him. But when he heard about how sick Waffle was, he knew that this was his chance to make a difference. So he hiked down from the mountains, which took him about three days.”
“Couldn’t fit in a cab, I suppose,” Peephole said.
Shanks flashed him a look, then continued the story. “By the time he got to Waffle the Dolphin, she was in real bad shape. Everybody was worried that she was going to die. The world’s tallest man took a long look at Waffle, then asked for a tall glass of water.”
“The world’s tallest glass of water?” I asked.
“Did he pour it on his arm?” Peephole asked.
“Did he pour it down Waffle’s throat?” I asked.
“No. He drank it,” Shanks said. “You’d be thirsty, too, if you hiked for three days straight. So after he finished his glass of water, which was tall but not the world’s tallest, he rolled up his sleeve and crouched next to Waffle. He leaned close to her and asked if it would be all right if he reached into her tummy to get the harmful stuff out. Waffle said yes.”
“I wonder about your definition of ‘truth,’ ” Peephole said.
“I don’t mean out loud. That would be ridiculous! She said yes telepathically. So the world’s tallest man carefully reached into her mouth, down her throat, and into her stomach, and then he gathered up all the sharp little pieces of plastic and brought them back out. And guess what?”
“That’s when she barfed,” Peephole said.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Waffle was immediately better,” Shanks said, ignoring Peephole’s comment. “She started doing all her tricks: flipping, spitting water, shaking fins. The world’s tallest man had saved the day!”
“That’s an incredible story,” I said. “So the point is, even when a situation seems hopeless, there’s always a solution? And you never know when you might be called upon to help?”
“Point?” Shanks shrugged. “Beats me. I just thought Waffle was a funny name for a dolphin.”
Classic Shanks.
A clanging sound arose from the field, sending up a flutter of birds from a nearby tree. We turned to watch a pair of construction workers in yellow hard hats swinging sledgehammers at the metal base of the old drive-in screen. It was just a matter of time before that piece of Bellwood’s past was torn down forever.
I imagined everyone in Bellwood gathering outside the Conquistador’s front doors at the end of the summer, waiting for them to yawn open, and then all of us feeding ourselves to it at once.
“It’s been a crazy week, huh?” I said.
“You’re telling me,” Peephole agreed. “I feel like I can’t make sense of anything.”
“Don’t worry,” Shanks said. “You’ll figure out how to be a big brother one day at a time. And, by the way, you should probably call your parents. But now, can we try to make sense of the duckies case, please?”
“Good idea,” I said. “Let’s review what we know. First, the duckies showed up at Babbage’s house on Tuesday morning. And nobody knows where they came from.”
“Don’t forget Tina Fish,” Peephole said. “She was in Babbage’s yard, too. And we do know where she came from—Schuylerville Lake. At least, that’s what Bella Tuff says. But I’m not sure we can trust her. After all, she used to date Babbage back in high school, so she could have a vendetta against him. Maybe she’s purposely leading us astray.”
“Maybe we can trust her,” I said but added, “and maybe we can’t. But I think she’s right about Tina. And what if the duckies were in Schuylerville Lake, too? But how would they get to Bellwood? And why Babbage’s yard?”
“That’s what we need to figure out,” Shanks said. “Let’s get back to the facts of the case. Babbage is convinced that Mr. Pocus put the duckies in his yard as a kind of weird mental roundhouse kick to screw him up for the Triple B. Mr. Pocus is the chief taster, but would he sabotage Babbage’s efforts just to be able to give somebody else the sausage crown?”
“Pocus is pure evil,” Peephole grumbled.
“Yeah, but if Pocus did it, then why did we find evidence of Darrel Sullivan’s car at the police storage shed break-in?” I asked. “Darrel Sullivan is a shady dude, and he works for Dunning Toy Com
pany, which is the company that made the duckies. There’s got to be a connection!”
“True,” Shanks admitted, “but Darrel Sullivan’s truck didn’t match the description you gave of the car fleeing the Bell Woods the night the duckies were dumped in the swamp…”
I did see two red taillights, not one.
“…and you’ve seen Janice Wagner sneaking around late at night, including at the swamp with the duckies.”
Shanks was right, and I couldn’t deny it. But I remembered another clue. “There was a second set of footprints at the swamp,” I reminded them. “Somebody with bigger feet than Janice was out there, and their tracks actually went from the pile of ducks to the tire tracks. Whoever that person was, they’re definitely the ducky dumper.”
“Those tracks could belong to any of our suspects except Janice,” Shanks said.
But who? I didn’t want to admit it, but Peephole’s “cahoots” theory was beginning to make sense. I bit my fingernails and looked out into the Bell Woods. In the winter, when all the trees were bare and there was snow on the ground, it seemed like you could see forever into the forest. But now, when all the trees were leafy and the underbrush was thick, it was hard to see anything at all.
I sighed and looked back at the One and Onlys. “I meant what I said earlier, Peephole.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “About the One and Onlys. We do need you. This is the best case we’ve ever had, and we can’t solve it without you.”
Peephole blew his nose on his shirt sleeve. It sounded like somebody karate-chopping a goose. “Thanks, Paul. But you might have to. My parents are going to kill me when I get back to the hospital. Besides, Trillium needs her older brother by her side. You know what’s funny? I almost forgot the Triple B was tomorrow. We’ll probably be the only family in Bellwood who’s not there.”
“You’re absolutely right, Peephole,” Shanks said, her eyes wide with excitement. “Everybody in Bellwood will be at the Triple B!”
“So?” I said.
“So the person responsible for all the ducky shenanigans will probably be there, too. What other chance will we get to have all of our suspects in the same place? If we’re ever going to solve the case, it’s got to be tomorrow!”