Rattled

by Lisa Harrington

  “I know,” she said sadly. “I’m never getting those three hours back, either.”

  I sat down beside her and rubbed her back in the most comforting way I could muster, the whole time thinking that sometimes things just work out.

  Chapter 15

  “Holy crap! What’s that smell?” I squished up my nose as I entered the kitchen.

  Jilly was standing in front of the oven looking puzzled. “I dunno. Mom left us this frozen pizza for supper. I followed the directions.”

  Smoke began to fill the inside of the oven. I hip-checked her out of the way and whipped open the oven door. “Jilly! You’re supposed to take it off the cardboard!” I grabbed an oven mitt and a flipper and pulled out the smoking pizza, tossing it on the stovetop. “God, Jilly, next time just leave the plastic wrapper on so we can laminate the damn thing!” I fanned the air with the oven mitt.

  “It didn’t say anything about the cardboard!” she said, grabbing the box and scanning the directions.

  “Look,” I pointed, “Place pizza directly on rack!”

  “Still doesn’t say anything about the cardboard! You know, that’s kind of like false advertising or something. It’s obviously not as easy as they make it seem on the box!”

  I seriously didn’t know if I was going to be able to hang in another year until my parents shipped her off to some university. Halifax is a university town, and I lived in constant fear that she’d want to go to one here and, you guessed it, live at home. I’d gotten into the habit of dropping little tidbits of information here and there, like, “You know, Jilly, Mount Allison” (three hours away) “was voted best party university.” Or, “I think Mom would be so touched if you went to Acadia,” (an hour away) “it being her alma mater and all that.”

  I heard a clunk as Jilly frisbee’d the empty box across the kitchen and it hit a chair.

  “Well, what are we going to do now?” she whined.

  I peeled the pizza off the cardboard. The crust was totally raw. “I’ll try putting it on the lowest rack, maybe the crust will catch up to the top.” I slid the pizza back into the oven and pulled my butt up onto the counter. I looked out the window, across the street to the Swickers’ house. I squinted, looking for signs of movement.

  Jilly was watching me. “You better knock it off. Mom’s really ticked at you. I heard her talking to Dad. They’re thinking about sending you away to boarding school.”

  “What?!”

  “Okay, they’re not, but still…I’d watch it if I were you.”

  I gave Jilly a dirty look, but she was right. For all I knew, I was on double secret probation at this very moment. Mom loved springing that one on us when we least expected it. It was so secret it wasn’t even on the punishment pyramid.

  Jilly opened the oven to check the progress of the pizza. “This is totally gross. I’m not eating this.”

  I rolled my eyes and continued watching the Swickers’. I wanted so badly to get back into their basement, to go through that box again. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Megan hadn’t asked for the key again. I just needed to hold onto it till tomorrow. Tomorrow was Thursday, Sam’s thing at the conservatory. But I didn’t want to go in alone. I needed a lookout.

  “I’m ordering out!” Jilly slammed the phone book on the table.

  But who?

  “If you want some of my pizza, you’re paying for half !”

  I need someone I can trust.

  “I mean it. Go get your wallet. I want the money up front!”

  Someone who’s smart.

  “You know, it’s so weird that there’s no T in pizza. No one says peeza or pieza, everyone says peetza.”

  I swung my head to look at Jilly. She was still flipping through the phone book. I need someone besides her.

  “Quit staring at me and go get some cash,” she ordered.

  I slid off the counter and headed to my room. The hamster in my head was going a mile a minute, round and round on his wheel. There was no way it could work. The number of things that could go wrong with Jilly as my accomplice was endless. If only Vicki and William weren’t at their cottages…but they were. I really had no other choice. The upside was, at least Jilly agreed with me that Mrs. Swicker was a nut job.

  I looked around my room for my wallet. I dug through a few drawers. Success. I grabbed a five and a toonie and jammed them in my pocket.

  As I walked back to the kitchen, I wondered if I could maybe blackmail Jilly into helping me. Racking my brains, I searched for anything I had seen or heard that I could hold over her, but there wasn’t anything. She was nearing the end of Phase Two, and counting the days until she was able to move onto probation. She knew she’d better not step one toe out of line.

  I handed her my money. How much I could trust her? How desperate was I?

  We both sat at the table and waited for the pizza. Jilly was scraping the mascara off her eyelashes. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off her. Using her thumb and finger, she methodically moved down her lash line, stopping to look at the black on her fingers before flicking the claylike crust onto the floor. It was fascinating in a disturbing kind of way.

  “Oh! Get this!” she exclaimed. “I broke it off with Sam this morning. I swear he looked at me like I had four heads or something!”

  “Yeah…probably just didn’t see it coming.” I could only imagine what he must have been thinking. It was one movie. With his mother!

  “Damn.” Jilly stared at her fingers, a giant frown on her face. “I pulled a bunch out! Didn’t I read somewhere that eyelashes take forever to grow back in?”

  “I doubt it.” Of course I was referring to the implication that she had actually read something. I didn’t have a clue how long it took eyelashes to grow in.

  “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

  I began carrying on a whole conversation in my head. Jilly? Or no Jilly? Weighing the pros and cons.

  She was watching me with a weird look on her face. I’d probably been moving my lips.

  “Are you having some kind of spell or something?”

  I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. “Jilly, I think I might need your help.”

  The doorbell rang. The pizza was here.

  “Hold that thought,” she said.

  Maybe that was a sign. It wasn’t too late. I could make something up, like I wanted her to highlight my hair or give me a pedicure.

  Jilly put the box on the table and opened the lid. She poked the pizza. “It’s still pretty hot.” She looked up. “So what do you need my help with?”

  That kind of threw me off. She actually seemed interested. “Well.” I paused to swallow, my throat felt dry all of a sudden. “If you really want to know, I want to sneak into the Swickers’, when they’re not home, obviously, and I need someone to come with me, someone to be a lookout.”

  “Sure.” She slid a piece of pizza onto a plate.

  “What?”

  “I said sure.”

  “Don’t you even want to know why?”

  “No.”

  Now this was an unexpected surprise. “What, no ‘What’s in it for me?’ or ‘How much is it worth to ya?’?”

  “No,” she said, as she flicked her finger and broke the foot-long string of cheese that stretched from the slice to her mouth.

  This was way too easy. “I don’t get it.”

  “Nothing to get,” she stated. “I know you think Mrs. Swicker is some crazed, psychotic, killing machine. I actually believe at least two out of those three adverbs.”

  “You mean adjectives.”

  “Whatever.”

  “But you took Mom’s side when I told her.”

  “Well yeah. I know you don’t think I’m the sharpest pencil in the drawer, but I’m not the dumbest either.”

  I bit my lip to stop myself from smiling.

  “Plus,” she continued. “You can’t expect me to take your side while Mom’s jumping down your throat, that just puts me in more trouble than I am already. I want that
extra hour back on my curfew in this lifetime.”

  “If we get caught, though, you’re toast. We both are.”

  “Pfft, we’re not gonna get caught.” She waved a hand in the air. “This is going to be totally awesome. I’ve always wanted to do something like this, you know, break in under the cover of darkness and all that.”

  “I got a key.”

  “Dark clothing, surveillance, hiding in bushes…wait. You got a key?”

  “From when I fed Peter.”

  “Oh.” She seemed a little less enthusiastic now that we weren’t physically breaking and entering.

  “Come on, Jilly, don’t you want to hear my plan?” I had to reel her back in.

  “Okay, lay it on me.”

  “All right. They’re not going to be home tomorrow night. Sam’s playing a solo. Megan will go too because Mrs. Swicker won’t leave her home alone. It’s at the conservatory, so that’s a good twenty minutes travel time both ways, plus the actual performance. We should have loads of time—a quick in-out.” I picked a piece of pizza up from out of the box and bit off the end.

  “So what are we looking for? A knife? A gun? Weapons of some sort?”

  I almost choked on a wad of cheese. “No, nothing like that.” I grabbed a napkin and wiped my mouth. “There’s a box in the furnace room. Inside are two silver rattles. I have to get a better look at them, see what else is in there. I ran out of time before.”

  She gave me a look like she thought I was crazy. “You think she beat her husband to death with a couple of rattles?”

  I sighed heavily. “No, Jilly.”

  “Well what in the world could a couple rattles have to do with anything?”

  “I dunno.” I got up and poured two glasses of milk. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out. I can’t get rid of this feeling that she’s hiding something.”

  “Hmmm,” Jilly rubbed her chin, deep in thought (or wiping off tomato sauce). “Okay, I’m in. And by the way, you owe me another loonie for half the pizza guy’s tip.”

  Chapter 16

  The Swickers’ van pulled away at seven o’clock. We’d have at least an hour and a half. I went to look for Jilly, even though I had told her about twenty times to be ready before seven.

  She was in her room filing her nails, her hair wrapped up in a towel, turban style.

  It felt like my head was going to explode. “Jilly! I told you to be ready! What’s the matter with you?!”

  “Chillax, would ya? I’ll be ready in two secs.” She bit her lip. “I don’t suppose I have time to dry my hair, do I?”

  “Uh, no…you don’t.” My blood was boiling.

  Jilly got ready surprisingly fast, finishing off with a dab of lip gloss.

  We stood on our front step, looking up and down the street. I wished it was later, darker.

  “Where’s Mom and Dad?” Jilly asked.

  “They went to Sears to look at lawn mowers.”

  “Oh.” She looked down and pointed to the envelope in my hand. “What’s that?”

  “I thought of this at the last minute. If someone sees us going up to their house, we could say we’re returning a letter that was delivered to our house by mistake.” I held it up so she could see it had the Swickers’ address on it. There was even a stamp.

  She looked impressed and nodded her head.

  We tried so hard to look nonchalant and casual as we crossed the street, but our body language was screaming “Guilty!” I was so nervous, tiny giggles kept erupting from my body.

  My heart was pounding loudly in my ears as we stood at the Swickers’ front door. I pulled the key from my pocket. The bell on the end of the key chain tinkled, sounding like cymbals crashing. Why is it when you try to be super quiet, every little noise seems extra loud? Peter appeared, purring at our feet.

  “Hurry up,” Jilly whispered urgently.

  I got the door open and she pushed me inside. We each took a deep breath and I wiped my sweaty hands on my shorts.

  “Okay,” I said. “You stay here and watch the street. I’m going downstairs.”

  “Oh no you don’t. I’m coming too.”

  “Jilly! That was the deal! You’re the lookout, remember?”

  “Uh-uh, there’s no way I’m going to be the one standing here if Mrs. Swicker walks in the front door. I’m coming with you.”

  “Apparently I should have held some kind of seminar to explain the role of lookout,” I hissed.

  “Just stop talking. You’re wasting time.”

  I sighed. She was right. We could always fight about this later. “Come on then.”

  We hurried downstairs. I led the way to the furnace room and flicked on the light.

  Jilly nudged me. “Check it out.” She was pointing to a box with a bunch of vodka bottles. All empty. “Someone has issues.”

  I nodded my head. But that wasn’t the box I was interested in right then.

  “There it is.” I lifted it down off the pile. It seemed to be the way I’d left it.

  Handing the pink blanket to Jilly, I told her to unroll it. I lifted out the blue one and felt for the rattle inside. We both pulled them out at the same time.

  “Amy Elizabeth,” Jilly whispered. “What’s yours say?” She leaned over.

  Her long wet hair draped across my face. “Give me some room!” I pushed her back. The heat in the furnace room, the stress, and the smell of Jilly’s strawberry shampoo was making me feel sick to my stomach. I held up the rattle and read the engraving. “Michael Edward.”

  Jilly and I looked at each other, the same confused expression on our faces. We held both rattles out in front of us, side by side.

  Same rattle, same style of engraving.

  “Look,” I pointed. “Same date. July 1, 1994.”

  Jilly turned to me. “Twins!”

  “Who are these kids?” I frantically dug around in the bottom of the box to see if there was anything else that could be a clue. A couple soothers, a tube of diaper cream, and a flattened, quilted diaper bag. I lifted up the diaper bag to check underneath. It felt kind of heavy. I unzipped the zipper and stuck my hand in and felt around. “I think there might be something else…” My voice trailed off as my brain registered what I’d found. Even though it was wrapped in a blanket, there was no doubt what I’d grabbed onto.

  Jilly took one look at me. Her eyes widened. “What? What is it?”

  I pulled it out. I peeled back the baby blanket. A gun.

  Jilly shot to her feet. “I asked if we were looking for a gun! You said no!”

  “Well I didn’t know it was here, now did I?”

  “Just put it back, put it back, put it back,” Jilly frantically whispered.

  “I am, I am.” But for a second I just stared at it. I’d never seen one close up. Even against the blanket of cartoon yellow duckies—it totally scared me. It scared me more to think it might be loaded.

  There was a loud noise. My entire body jerked and my stomach dropped like an elevator.

  “Just the furnace,” Jilly breathed.

  My eyes darted to the huge metal contraption clunking away in the corner. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. With shaking hands, I quickly wrapped the gun and put it back in the bag.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to get freaked out.”

  My legs were wobbly when I stood up. Jilly helped re-roll the rattles and I placed the box back on top of the pile.

  I took a final glance around the furnace room, turned out the light, did the same thing upstairs, and locked the front door. Jilly and I forced ourselves to walk at a normal pace back to our house. Once inside, we bolted up to my room. Jilly closed the door firmly behind us.

  “We’re okay. Mom and Dad are still out,” I said, sitting down at my desk and resting my head in my hands.

  Jilly sat down on the corner of my bed. She was breathing deeply, trying to calm herself down.

  The thoughts in my head were whipping around like a windstorm. Amy and Michael. Who were they? Where were they? And the
gun? What about the gun?

  Jilly must have been thinking the same thing. “You know…people are allowed to own guns,” she said, almost like she was reasoning with herself.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Like, she is a single woman, living alone.”

  Jilly was right. Someone in Mrs. Swicker’s situation might think they needed a gun, but, “If she had it for protection, wouldn’t it be in her bedside table, or in a kitchen canister or something? Somewhere she could get to it quickly? Not hidden in a diaper bag in the basement.”

  “Yeah…you’re right.” Jilly looked stressed.

  The gun thing was kind of stressing me out too. Then I had a thought. “I suppose we could be way off. Maybe at one time she had a gun for some reason, like they lived in a bad neighbourhood or something, and now she’s packed it away because she doesn’t feel she needs it anymore.” I wasn’t sure if I believed that, but it was possible, and it definitely lowered the scariness level.

  Jilly looked thoughtful, but didn’t agree or disagree. “So who do you think these kids are then?” she asked.

  I shook my head slowly.

  “I guess all we know is that they’re twins,” she said.

  “They’d be about my age…” My birthday was June twenty-third.

  “And about Megan’s age,” Jilly pointed out. “Maybe she has another brother and sister, besides Sam, I mean.”

  “Her age? No, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe she’s a triplet.”

  “No…I can’t imagine that’s it. And where are they, then?”

  Jilly looked at me with raised eyebrows. “You’re the one who thinks Mrs. Swicker’s capable of murder. And now you have a weapon.”

  “Yeah, but I’m thinking worst-case scenario she did something to her husband, not her kids. Even I don’t think she’s capable of that. And Megan would have told me if she had another brother and sister.” I started to doubt myself. “At least I think she would have…” I drummed my fingers impatiently on the desk.

  “Well, who could they be?”

  I stared back at her blankly. I was as puzzled as she was.

  The sound of car doors slamming drifted in through the window.