by Jo Ann Yhard
“Mai, wait!” Grace called.
“Nice going, Grace!” Fred shook his head, then sped after Mai.
Why did I yell like that? Grace scolded herself. I didn’t mean to. She rubbed her temples. Things just kept getting worse. “Can you follow them and make sure they get home okay?” she asked Jeeter.
“Who’s going to make sure you get home okay?” he responded.
“I can take care of myself. Besides, if Stuckless knows I was out here, I’m already in bags of trouble. He’ll tell my mom for sure this time. It’s no good if you get grounded too.”
“You’re not going anywhere by yourself. Stuckless likely doesn’t know for sure that we were here. If he found our bikes, he would have taken them.”
“You’re probably right,” Grace conceded.
“We’ll take the shorter route back, but we’ll both watch out for Stuckless,” Jeeter said. “And don’t worry about me. I don’t get grounded.”
As it turned out, it was dark when Grace and Jeeter finally reached Sydney Mines. They hadn’t seen Stuckless at all on their way back. Jeeter rode with Grace to her street and then continued home. As she stood in the driveway, Grace looked up at the dark windows. The thought of being alone in an empty house was not appealing.
She closed her eyes and hugged her dad’s field bag. The lilac hedges her grandmother had planted around the house were in bloom and the delicious perfume filled her nostrils. Lilacs meant June, which meant school would be over soon. She used to get so excited for the fossil-hunting trips she’d take with her dad over summer break. Not this year.
Overwhelmed by a sudden urge to see the spot where the accident happened, she found herself pedalling down Huron Avenue and onto Richard Street. She turned onto Shore Road and coasted by homes that were now abandoned, decorated with condemned signs and broken windows. Their once-manicured lawns were now minimeadows, where the weeds grew waist-high. Everything looked neglected under the pale light of the flickering street lamps.
Shore Road used to be the main thoroughfare between Sydney Mines and North Sydney. But erosion and bootleg mines had eaten away the cliffs and now the road drooped dangerously low in spots. Hardly anyone used it anymore. All the people who lived along the road had been relocated, like in Point Aconi.
As Grace approached the Fraser Avenue intersection, she stopped pedalling. There it was—the spot.
Grace couldn’t resist. She slid off her bike and walked it over to the shoulder. She gazed down at the water. Moonlight danced on the ocean waves. She and her dad had gone fossil-hunting below on the beach at Sutherland’s Corner. The steep path down to the shore was only a few hundred metres from where she stood. They had probably even walked along the beach under this very spot.
Grace laid her bike in the grass and ran her hands over the smooth guardrail at the side of the road. They had replaced it shortly after the accident, but not before Grace had snuck out to see it the morning after. She shuddered at the memory of the ripped and twisted metal.
She climbed over the rail and sat down gingerly on the curved metal edge. Her legs dangled and her feet brushed the tips of the grass. A warm breeze ruffled her hair as a whirring June bug droned past. What if the note was true? If it hadn’t been an accident, what did that mean?
The police report had said that her dad’s car had lost control at the bottom of Fraser Avenue, where it intersected with Shore Road. It was where the old Hartigan coal mine had been. They’d attributed it to poor road conditions due to torrential rains. A tragic accident, the papers had called it.
Grace gripped the guardrail with one hand and leaned over the edge. She tried to see the rocks below, but couldn’t. How far was it? If he had been in the car, could he have gotten out somehow? She’d seen lots of movies where people got amnesia from accidents and didn’t remember who they were. What if that had happened to her dad and he was somewhere out there, alone and afraid?
Suddenly the road lit up brightly behind her. Someone was coming! Grace ducked behind the guardrail and peeked out between the metal slats.
The vehicle slowed down. Her body tensed. It was Stuckless’s truck and there was someone with him in the passenger seat. Her heart was playing the drums on her ribs.
The passenger turned and Grace saw the outline of a cap on his head. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place what it was. He reached up and turned on the overhead light, but his face was hidden in shadow.
Grace gasped. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. The hat the passenger was wearing—she could read it as plain as day. DAL!
Chapter
13
“DAD?” SHE WHISPERED, REACHING HER HAND OUT TOWARD the truck.
The passenger turned the interior light off and the truck continued on, turning up Fraser Avenue. At that same moment the moon turned off too, hidden behind a cloud. It was like Grace had been suddenly blindfolded.
Grace leapt after the car, forgetting the guardrail was in her way. She banged into the metal slats and stumbled backward. There was only a metre or so between the guardrail and the cliff face. She gasped as her foot slipped. The earth was falling away beneath her.
She was at the edge!
Grace lost her balance and fell forward. Her face smacked into the dirt. She could feel her legs dangling in the air behind her.
She tried to wriggle forward. But as soon as she started moving, she could feel more earth eroding away beneath her legs. She was going to fall!
She desperately felt around for something to grab onto. The guardrail was too far away. Her rock hammer! She could use it to dig into the ground and climb to safety. Where was her pack? She’d dropped it beside her when she’d sat down. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the sudden darkness and she could see faint outlines.
There it was!
She clenched one hand tightly around a clump of grass and stretched the other toward her pack. Her fingertips brushed the strap, but she couldn’t quite grab it. Her other hand slipped on the grass.
She wasn’t going to make it!
Dad, help me! she screamed in her head.
A pair of hands grabbed her. “Come on, Grace! Climb!” her rescuer yelled, pulling her upward.
She reached up to grab his arms, and used all her strength to climb up. Suddenly she was on solid ground again. Gasping, she lay against the rail. Her rescuer was stretched out beside her, his ragged breathing matching her own.
At that moment the moon reappeared and Grace turned to her knight in shining armour. “Dad?” She stopped. “Jeeter? What are you doing here?”
“Who were you expecting?” Jeeter grumbled. “You’re welcome, by the way. You know, for saving your life.”
“I was fine,” she muttered, feeling her face flush.
“Uh-huh.” Jeeter stood up and tugged Grace to her feet.
She brushed the dirt off her clothes, fingering a tear in her jeans. “How did you know I was here?”
“I wanted to tell you something. By the time I came back around the corner, I saw you biking away. So I followed you.”
“Why?”
“Wherever you were going in the dark, I wasn’t going to let you go by yourself.” He peered down at her. “What are you doing here?”
“I just felt like I had to come here. Finding my dad’s bag today…I don’t know, I needed to see the spot…where it happened.” Grace brushed a tear from her eye. “Anyways, thanks…for pulling me up.”
“No sweat. You can save me some day,” Jeeter replied. “Ready to go?”
She nodded.
The grabbed their bikes and turned back toward town.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jeeter asked as they slowly pedalled home. “It sounded like you called me ‘Dad’ back there. I thought you must be sleepwalking or something!”
Grace told him about seeing the man with the Dalhousie hat in Stuckless’s truck.
“You think it was your dad’s hat?” Jeeter asked.
“I don’t know.” Grace
stopped her bike and sat back on the seat. “Dad was wearing it that day.” She rubbed her temples. “I’ve never seen anyone else wearing one.”
“But how would the guy with Stuckless get it? Could the other guy have been Stanley? Do they know each other?”
“Know each other? Well, the other guy did look familiar…. Oh, I don’t know!” Frustrated, she gazed down the hill behind her at Shore Road. “Nothing makes sense anymore!”
“What do you mean?”
“When I was sitting on the guardrail I remembered something. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Everything was crazy, I guess.”
“What was it?”
“Dad would never have willingly driven on Shore Road. He always said it wasn’t safe, because of the erosion.” She pointed to the droops in the pavement. “He was convinced it would all fall into the Atlantic one day. He called it a death trap. Whenever we drove to North Sydney, we always went a different way. I never really thought about it, until now.”
Jeeter frowned. “So why would he go on Shore Road that day? And then he just happened to have a car accident? That is weird!”
“Maybe he knew it would happen someday, a feeling. That could be why he never trusted the road…. Geez, now I really sound crazy!” she sighed, closing her eyes.
“It’s been hard on you.”
“It’s just that my head hasn’t stopped spinning since that mystery guy put the note in my locker. It won’t turn off. Who was he? Why didn’t he tell me to my face? If he knows it wasn’t an accident, why didn’t he go to the police?”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Grace,” Jeeter said. “You’re really smart.”
“I don’t feel very smart.”
“Well, think about it. What if his accident did have something to do with his work at the fossil museum?” Jeeter said.
“Or…maybe it had something to do with the strip mines? Lots of people were mad about the protests he organized. But then…that wasn’t new. He was always against strip mining.” Grace swallowed and kneaded the handlebars of her bike. “Everything was fine that morning—I mean, we had pancakes…”
They rode the rest of the way home in silence and coasted to a stop in front of Grace’s house on Queen Street.
“So what did you want to tell me, anyways?” Grace asked.
Jeeter looked startled. “What?”
“You know, when you said before that you came back to find me because you needed to tell me something?”
“Oh, that!” Jeeter glanced down at the fossil bag Grace was clutching in her arms. “Never mind…it can wait.”
“Are you sure?”
Jeeter hesitated for a second. “Forget it. I’d better get going. If you can’t sleep and want to talk later, call me.” He sped away and disappeared around the turn.
Grace went inside and hobbled up the stairs. She slid her jeans off and examined the rip in the thigh. They were a total write-off. There was a long, deep scrape on her leg to match the hole in her pants. That needs peroxide, she thought, and she headed to the bathroom to clean off her wound.
As she entered the washroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped. Her face was covered in tiny scratches from the tree branches. Great! she thought sarcastically.
She washed her face gently, hoping the scratches would disappear overnight. After cleaning the scrape on her leg, she crawled into bed, yawning deeply as she got under the covers.
Just then, Grace heard an engine. She tiptoed to the window and carefully pulled back the curtain, watching as Stuckless got out of his truck. He was alone now. He unlocked his door and paused in the open doorway. He turned and seemed to look directly at Grace’s window. Grace jumped back. Did he see her? She waited a minute and peeked out again, but he was gone.
Grace returned to bed, her head filled with unanswered questions. Why had Stuckless been following her? Was this about the strip mines, after all? She thought about seeing Stuckless at the Halfway Road pit. How had he managed to get the mining lease for that area? What had he done?
She tried to sleep, but after hours of tossing and turning, she realized it was hopeless. Her mom had already come home and gone to bed.
Grace pulled out her walkie-talkie. Jeeter would help.
“What else was your dad working on? Maybe there’s another site we could check,” Jeeter suggested.
They’d been brainstorming, trying to make sense of everything.
“As far as I know, he was only working at Point Aconi. But if there was another site, it would be on his map.” She pulled his field bag onto her lap and dug out his map. “Hold on a sec.” There was a moment of silence as she examined his notes. “I’m looking at it right now,” she finally said, “and there’s nothing new here.”
Jeeter’s frustrated sigh echoed her own feelings. “How about his office in the basement? Maybe there are clues in there.”
“Mom locked it and she can’t find the key, but I’m going to find a way to get in there. I think Stanley might have been trying to get in there when he was over for dinner—”
“WHAT?” Jeeter’s voice vibrated through the air. “He was in your house?”
“Yeah…Mom invited him after he found her when her car broke down on the side of the road, but that’s another story. Sorry I didn’t mention it. I told Mai—I guess you weren’t there. She didn’t seem to think it was a big deal.”
“He actually tried to break into your dad’s office? I can’t believe it!”
“Well, I don’t know that for sure. It seemed like he was trying to get into the basement. And the only thing down there is my dad’s office…. Hang on, how did you know he had an office in the basement?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I guess I just assumed he’d have one…Roger does.”
“Oh.”
“Grace, you have to get into that office!”
Chapter
14
GRACE COULD HEAR HER MOTHER’S SHOWER GOING AS SHE tromped down into the kitchen the next morning. She was chugging some orange juice out of the container when her eyes spied the calendar on the fridge.
Her mom was on an extra shift at the ferry terminal this morning. Yes! Grace thought. This was the perfect time to look for the office key and then sneak in. But how would she get out of school? Pacing back and forth, it came to her—sick day. She’d definitely need some convincing symptoms, though. Her mom was tough to fool.
Fever? No, too hard. Hmmm…stomach cramps? Iffy.
Where was Fred when she needed him? He’d have loads of suggestions—he could probably make her look almost dead. Suddenly it was like Fred’s genius in the ways of all things crazy spoke to her.
Vomit!
And the quickest way to make herself vomit was to eat peanut butter. Brilliant! The only problem was that she’d actually have to eat it. She shuddered, totally grossed out at the thought. Well, this was an emergency and it called for drastic measures. She was only a little allergic, anyway—not the drop-dead kind, just the barf-’til-your-insides-are-outside kind.
There wasn’t much time. She dropped a bagel in the toaster and waited for it to pop. Then she grabbed the peanut butter and spread it on the bagel, watching as the gooey brown substance oozed over the sides. Baby poop. That’s what it looked like. Her stomach flipped and rolled. She felt like she was going to barf and she hadn’t even eaten it yet.
The shower stopped. Crap! Her Mom would be down any minute to make coffee. She stared at the brown goo. It was now or never. Closing her eyes, she bit a chunk off the bagel—and gagged. Keep it together, she told herself. Think happy thoughts. You’re on the beach. It’s summer. The water is blue—no, it’s brown goo! Yeeeuckk! Who am I kidding? Swallow! Swallow now!
The poo-covered bagel fell into her belly like a rock. Her stomach was not happy about it. She tossed the rest in the garbage and threw a paper towel overtop to hide the evidence.
“Grace, what in heaven’s name—?”
She barely made it. Slamming the bathroom door shut, the geyser started when she was still a metre from the toilet. Good thing she aimed right. It didn’t stop—it kept coming and coming and coming….
“Uhhh,” she moaned. She rested her head on her arms, which were draped across the toilet seat. The taste of vomit filled her mouth. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.
Her mother knocked on the door. “Grace, you’ve been in there a long time. Are you okay?”
Grace mumbled something indecipherable between retches.
“I can’t hear you. I’m coming in,” her mother said as she opened the door.
Grace buried her head deeper in the bowl to hide her face. “Mom, I think I have the flu,” she groaned.
“You poor baby. Maybe I could get someone to take my shift this morning.”
“No!” Grace yelled a bit too eagerly. “I mean, no, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
“Well…” Her mother paused.
Grace thought she could feel her mother’s eyes trying to see through the toilet bowl.
“I don’t like the thought of you being here alone when you’re sick. Get into bed and I’ll be back up in a few minutes to check on you.” Her mother closed the door.
Grace listened to her mom’s footsteps on the stairs. Sighing, she realized the barfing had finally stopped. Phase One was complete. She looked at herself in the mirror. Not good. The scratches on her face looked like trails of angry fire ants on her still-pasty, post-puking-white skin. Camouflage, she thought. I need camouflage. Teasing her hair into a tangled rat’s nest, she pulled it down to cover her face and checked out the effect. Perfect. Her mom wouldn’t be able to see a thing through that mop.