Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question

by Martha Freeman

  Molly Z Survives Crash Landing in Pacific

  SOLAR PLANE SINKS, ENDING ROUND-THE-WORLD QUEST

  Effie skimmed the story, most of it exactly what her father had said the day before, plus the statement from Mrs. McMinty—old news. Then Effie turned the page to where the story was continued:

  The loss of the experimental plane on top of the loss of sponsor backing for the pioneering round-the-world expedition will in all likelihood deal a crushing blow to the Zook family fortune, according to information amassed in an ongoing investigation by the Patriot-News.

  A complaint due to be adjudicated today, Wednesday, in the Cambria County Court of Common Pleas offers compelling evidence that Gustavus Zook’s estate should have been divided among three surviving children rather than the one child known to the court at the time of the demise of the widow of the inventor-philanthropist.

  The estate includes property in and around Penn Creek as well as vast revenue generated by Mr. Zook’s patents. If the new findings are deemed relevant and upheld, the scions of the original heir, Robert Zook, who died in Boca Raton, Fla., in 2010, could be ordered to pay to claimants a two-thirds share of all monies derived from those patents dating back to Mr. Zook’s widow’s death in 1983.

  The judgment could also result in the transfer, sale, or liquidation of substantial real property in and around Penn Creek, with untold but in all likelihood profound effects on the small community’s character and economic well-being.

  Effie read the article twice. When she looked up after the second time, she was surprised to see that there was an omelet in front of her along with toast and coffee. She put her napkin in her lap, picked up her fork, took a bite of the omelet, and swallowed. She buttered the toast. She sipped the coffee.

  But she didn’t taste a thing.

  She wished she read newspaper stories more often. The writing style and some of the words confused her. But she thought she got the idea. When Sunspot I sank, the people and companies that had helped pay for the trip decided not to pay anymore. So that explained why her dad and mom weren’t going to stay in Hawaii to find out what went wrong. There wasn’t enough money.

  That was the first part of the story; the second part was even more amazing.

  Somebody was claiming that Effie’s great-grandfather didn’t have only one child—her Grandpa Bob—he had three children. The case was being decided today, at this very moment maybe. If the judge said so, her family was going to have to pay back most of the money and property her great-grandparents had left to them. Plus they’d have to pay back most of the barf bag money, past and future.

  Effie did the math in her head. Instead of 1.7 cents per barf bag, her mom would now earn roughly half a cent.

  We’re broke, Effie thought.

  But even that wasn’t the most amazing part.

  This was: If the story was right, her grandfather had siblings no one had ever told her about. Why hadn’t they told her? Why weren’t there photos somewhere? There were family photos at her house. There were family photos at the museum. But there were no photos of children except for her grandfather.

  Maybe there was something wrong with the other children, Effie thought. Maybe they were sick, or crazy, or criminals.

  “How’s everything taste?” Terry appeared on the other side of the counter.

  Effie blinked. “What?”

  “You okay, honey? You look a little piqued, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “I’m fine,” Effie said. “Sorry. The omelet’s good. I’m just—”

  “Reading about your mom, huh?” Terry had glanced down at the newspaper. “I haven’t taken a look at this yet, but I hear she’s unhurt.”

  As often as it had happened in Penn Creek, being recognized still surprised Effie sometimes. “Oh, so you know who I am too,” she said.

  “Sure I do, hon. Us Greeks gotta stick together.”

  “I am one-eighth Greek,” Effie said.

  “Same here,” said Terry. “And you look it more than me, if you don’t mind my saying so. All that beautiful black hair.”

  “Do you think it’s beautiful?” Effie tugged a curl by her ear.

  “Oh yeah.” Terry nodded. “My own hair’s blah and no color at all. What I wouldn’t give to have yours.”

  “Thank you,” Effie said. “I mean, not that your hair isn’t perfectly nice because it is. May I ask you a question? Do other people around here know about this? Not the airplane part, but about my great-grandparents’ money?”

  “It could be that some people knew before today,” Terry said, “but not me. See, the complaint wasn’t filed in the local court. It was filed in Cambria County. I don’t think anyone around here pays attention to filings out of town. That was smart on somebody’s part, keep it quiet as long as possible.”

  “Where is Cambria County?” Effie asked.

  “Maybe seventy miles south?” said Terry. “The county seat is Johnstown.”

  Effie felt her heart skip. “My aunt and uncle are there right now!”

  “Stands to reason, hon,” said Terry. “They’re probably having their day in court right along with the plaintiffs.”

  “Plaintiffs? What does that mean?” Effie asked.

  “The people who are complaining,” said Terry. “In other words, whoever it is that claims they’re kin to your great-grandpa and wants a share of the money.”

  Effie breathed in and out. So the mystery children, grown up by now, were in Johnstown today too.

  “Can I ask you one more question?” Effie said.

  “Sure, hon. Shoot,” said Terry.

  “How come the diner is ‘the Alpha and Omega of Penn Creek’?”

  Terry nodded. “I get that one a lot. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, right? So if you’re coming into town from the south, the diner’s the first thing you come to, the alpha. And if you’re leaving town from the north, it’s the last thing you leave, the omega.”

  “Finally I’ve asked a question with an answer,” Effie said.

  “May it be the beginning of a trend,” said Terry.

  Effie left the rest of her omelet, which had turned rubbery by this time, and finished the coffee. Terry offered her more, but she declined and asked for the check. When Terry brought it, she remembered she had one more question.

  “Sure, hon. Let’s see if we can go two for two,” said Terry.

  “Is there a place in town I can buy a cat carrier?”

  “You know what?” Terry laughed. “That is not a question I was expecting.”

  Effie laughed too, and laughing felt good. “I guess it wasn’t,” she said, and then she explained about Chop Suey. Terry thought it was a shame that the only bookstore for miles around had closed. And she was a cat lover herself.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Another girl comes in to take care of lunch. I’ll be off in about an hour. If you can wait till then, I can give you a hand with the kitty. Shouldn’t take long to run you both to Zook Farm.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  With an hour to kill, Effie’s destination was obvious. Soon she was leaning her bike against the steps at the Museum of the Town of Penn Creek. She had done exactly the same thing the day before—before Sunspot I went down, before the family secrets started to spill.

  Inside, she rang the call bell and—what the heck—signed the guest book again. Soon Mr. Barnes came tripping down the stairs, smiling and happy to see her. “Welcome, welcome. The men’s grooming exhibit is coming along very well, in case you were wondering. Did you know Chester Arthur’s election in 1880 started a Pennsylvania-wide fad for muttonchop whiskers? Oh—and I was so glad to hear that your mother is all right.”

  “I didn’t know that about whiskers,” said Effie. “And I’m glad about my mother too.”

  She noticed that there was stubble on Mr. Barnes’s face, as if he hadn’t been shaving. He must have seen her look because he rubbed his chin. “They tell me that the itching
goes away.”

  “I’m sure you’ll look very handsome with a beard,” Effie said.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Barnes. “Your great-grandfather, of course, believed that men should grow beards, that a beard was an emblem of manly vigor.”

  “That must be where BFA got the idea,” Effie said.

  “I believe so,” said Mr. Barnes.

  “Are you growing a beard because of BFA? Did you join?” Effie asked.

  Mr. Barnes didn’t answer directly. “As I mentioned yesterday, Mr. Yoder is a great friend of the museum. And I can’t deny that some of BFA’s precepts are appealing. I’ll certainly be supporting him in his run for mayor.”

  “Mr. Barnes,” said Effie patiently, “no offense to you or to Moriah, but those guys are crackpots.”

  Mr. Barnes was not a tall man, but he was taller than Effie, and now he drew himself up to full height. “Crackpots?” he repeated. “Or visionaries ahead of their time, same as your great-grandfather was?”

  “The barf bag was visionary?” Effie said doubtfully.

  “Sure it was,” said Mr. Barnes, “and so were his many other inventions.”

  Effie was as fond of the barf bag as anyone, but she thought “visionary” might be an exaggeration. “What were his other visionary inventions?” she asked.

  Mr. Barnes hesitated. “Well, here’s the thing. Do you remember my telling you yesterday how there is a gap in the record? You see, it’s because of that gap that his later inventions largely remain obscure.”

  Now Effie was confused. “So how do you know they ever existed?” she asked. “And if you do know they existed, how do you know they were visionary, et cetera?”

  Mr. Barnes sighed. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  Effie nodded. “I do. It’s the way I learn stuff. And Gus Zook was a great man, I guess, but it sounds to me like he might have had some crackpot ideas too.”

  Mr. Barnes looked horrified. “I wouldn’t say that too loudly if I were you.”

  “I’m just trying to get at the truth,” Effie said. “And I have another question. Did you talk to this person?” Effie pointed at the guest book entry from Saturday. “I can’t read the name, but the initials look like ‘T.S.’, and whoever it is is from Harrisburg.”

  Mr. Barnes shook his head. “Not me. I wasn’t here over the weekend.”

  Effie was disappointed. As of this morning, she thought she might know who this T.S. person was, and he (or she?) just might have some answers—but that would have to wait. “Okay. Last one—I promise,” Effie said. “Did you know that if Mr. Yoder gets to be mayor, he wants to put foot-washing stations in every business?”

  Mr. Barnes frowned. “He does?”

  “Unh-hunh,” Effie said. “And I can picture a school group right here on the floor, washing their feet before the tour. There will definitely be some splashing—you know how kids are. You might have to shorten your talk.”

  “I’ll have to think about that one,” said Mr. Barnes. “And now if you’ll excuse me?”

  “I know you have to get back to Grooming Trends,” said Effie. “I don’t have much time either.”

  Back in the Zook Room, Effie studied the portrait over the fireplace. Her great-grandmother had not yet spoken to her from her silver frame. Would her great-grandfather speak to her now?

  “So what’s the deep, dark family secret?” Effie asked out loud. “Why was my great-grandmother unhappy? Were there three children? What happened to the other two? For that matter, who were the other two? Oh, and while I’ve got your attention, what’s all this about bad blood between Zooks and Yoders? Did that have anything to do with you?”

  The smiling portrait only smiled. But maybe that was an answer too. Gus Zook had been a self-made man, no fortune behind him at all. And now there was no fortune behind Effie either. Maybe he was telling her to get to work.

  Without much time, Effie decided to look first at what she’d missed the day before. She hoped she would be able to come back to the museum before going home to New York. Her parents were traveling such a long way. No chance they would arrive before next week.

  The last Zook display case contained miscellaneous items. There were several varieties of barf bag, including a rainbow tie-dye edition from the late 1960s and one with yellow happy faces from the eighties. There were proclamations, medals, and newspaper clippings telling of Gus Zook’s generosity and accomplishments. There was Grandpa Bob’s diploma from Penn State.

  What Effie really hoped for was a family photo that she hadn’t noticed yesterday, one that included two mysterious unidentified children, but she found nothing like that. Instead there were photos similar to the ones her family had at home—Gus Zook with celebrities, generals, and politicians. On the wall behind the display case was a color photo of a wooden shack shaded by an elm tree. This photo had no label.

  Effie checked her phone—almost time to meet Terry. Quickly, she read the final panel of Gustavus Zook’s life story, the one entitled Legacy:

  Gustavus Zook’s declining years were marked by erratic behavior that may have been the result of failing health. This behavior sullied the reputation he deserved as a visionary. Thus, it is left to us, the living, to carry forward Zook’s pioneering work and, in the fullness of time, to implement his plan for a better civilization, one that is at once more united, more hygienic, and more content.

  Effie blinked. All her family ever said about Gus Zook was “great man,” “great inventor.” Nobody ever said anything about erratic behavior or a better civilization. Was this what BFA was about? A plan for the future based on her great-grandfather’s ideas?

  Now she had even more to think about.

  Meanwhile, there was a cat to rescue.

  Effie called good-bye to Mr. Barnes upstairs and headed for the door. Thinking back on what she’d just seen, she realized something. The shack in the color photo had looked kind of familiar.

  Effie didn’t want to be late. Terry was doing her a favor. But something made her return to take a closer look. The elm tree wasn’t there anymore, but she knew that building. It stood at the far end of her aunt and uncle’s driveway, about a quarter mile beyond the barn.

  Effie slipped the picture off its hook and flipped it over. Written on the brown backing paper was a note in Gus Zook’s small, precise print: Workshop 1965, where the magic happens.

  Workshop? Effie thought.

  That wasn’t what Aunt Clare and Uncle Ted had called it. They had called it the shed.

  And it was the one place at Zook Farm they had told her was off-limits.

  CHAPTER

  26

  At Zook Farm half an hour later, Effie waved good-bye to Terry and, dodging Boris all the way, carried Chop Suey into the yellow farmhouse and up the stairs to set him on her bed.

  “Stay!” she commanded.

  Chop Suey didn’t.

  Instead, he jumped from the bed to the lamp table, knocking one of Effie’s books to the floor on the way. It was Pippi Longstocking. Effie bent down and grabbed the book, which opened to the flyleaf. There was the handwritten note from Effie the First to Aunt Clare: May you always be as brave as Pippi.

  My mom is almost as brave as Pippi, Effie thought. I’m not sure about Aunt Clare, though, or me either.

  “You have to stay indoors,” she told Chop Suey. “Boris acts all friendly, but you can’t trust him. He’d turn you into chop suey for real if he got the chance.”

  The cat was uninterested in Effie’s warnings, so Effie went downstairs to set up the litter box and food dishes. She was in the mudroom pouring out kitty chow when Chop Suey appeared beside her.

  “Is this acceptable?” she asked the cat.

  Chop Suey body-rubbed her shin and purred.

  “Good,” she said. “Time for my lunch now.”

  Effie fixed a peanut butter sandwich and poured a glass of milk. Then she sat down at the kitchen table to think.

  Aunt Clare and Uncle Ted had dodged most of her questions. Th
ey had also told her to stay away from the shed. Was it really to protect her from falling towers of junk? From snakes and rats and opossums? Or was it because the shed held answers they didn’t want her to have?

  Thanks to Tapper Sprocket’s story in the newspaper, Mrs. McMinty, the museum, and Terry, she was putting pieces together. Two people were suing her family to get the share of Gus Zook’s money they thought was rightfully theirs. Whoever they were, they were in Johnstown in court today—just like her aunt and uncle. She was very close to the truth, and to her surprise that felt a little scary. What if Moriah was right, and there were some things a kid shouldn’t know?

  Speaking of Moriah, she was still the only kid her own age Effie had met in all of Pennsylvania. It was too bad they were having a fight. She would feel a lot less anxious if she had Moriah with her.

  Maybe it wasn’t that big a fight, she thought. I’ve had bigger fights with Jasmine, and we’re still friends. I could declare this an emergency, couldn’t I? The worst she can do is ignore me.

  Effie got up from the table, rinsed her dishes, went to the coat closet by the front door, and rooted there till she found a scarf. It was plaid with only a little pink in it, but it would do. She tied it around her waist, went out the back door, and ran.

  “Hi, Alfred,” she said as she rushed by, “and Boris, you can go back to sleep.”

  Effie was a girl on a mission.

  The field south of the house was about an acre square. Mowed every few weeks to keep the weeds down, it was otherwise a collection of ruts, roots, and gopher holes. In the hot sun, it seemed to Effie it took forever before, sweaty and a little dizzy, she came into the shade of the woods. Through the trees, she could just make out the split-rail fence that marked the edge of the Yoders’ property.