Spy in the Alley

by Melanie Jackson

  A minute later, clutching the gelati cones Julio had pressed into our hands, we dodged the cars against a lifetime of mothers’ orders and bounded up to Carole.

  “You are Carole, right?” I demanded.

  “Oh, she’s Carole, all right,” Pantelli assured me.

  We both took big licks of our gelatis, because, having been piled so high by the grateful Julio, these were about to topple.

  “Okay, what is this?” asked Carole. As she talked, her bangles and earrings clanked alarmingly.

  I pulled the by-now-squished sun hat from my shorts pocket. “Sorry to bug you, but we’re looking for the owner of this. He dropped it in a neighbor’s garden after a high-speed chase away from my house. I caught him spying on my sister.”

  “Oka-a-ay,” Carole said, with a faint lift of her eyebrows. She unlocked the door to the shop again. “Let’s go in and talk about it. Haven’t I seen you before?” she asked Pantelli.

  “Yup,” Pantelli responded cheerfully. “Sometimes I come in with my sister. She spends all her babysitting money here. My dad says that’s the reason she resembles a ragbag.”

  “Thank you very much,” Carole said dryly.

  The bells on the door jangled as it swung open. We passed through rows and rows of hanging beads that chattered at our touch before falling gently away from us, like water.

  The shop was dim, lit only by Tiffany lamps, through whose glass-paned shades flowed rich, deep colors of orange, crimson and violet. These gave magical hues to the clothes and jewelry scattered about on tables. Secretly I bet that Mr. Audia was right: out in the light of day, this stuff didn’t look like much. But in here, Carole’s wares glittered like the contents of a treasure chest.

  “Is there any way you can tell us who bought the hat?” I asked. “It’d be satisfying to track down this guy and, I dunno, paint whiteout on the ends of his binoculars.”

  “I hope you wouldn’t track him down on your own,” Carole said. She’d switched on her desk lamp, which shone out a weird, bright violet.

  Turning the sun hat over in her hands, Carole said regretfully, “I wish I could remember who bought this. It was probably in my bargain bin,” she gestured to a large, silver garbage can decorated with stars, “for a dollar or less. Not a high-end item, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t have given it much attention.”

  Our faces dropped. So did our fists, holding the cones. Quickly, Carole shoved a wastepaper basket between us, under the cones, in case the gelati dripped.

  “There’s one chance,” she mused. She pulled a goldfish bowl, also decorated with stars but minus any goldfish, toward her across the desk.

  “The Carole’s Old Friends monthly draw,” she explained. “My customers fill out a contest form, stating the amount they spent here. If their name gets drawn, they get to spend twice that amount next time, on the house.”

  Pantelli and I exchanged dubious glances. Somehow Carole’s contest didn’t quite seem to match up to, say, the ones where you win a week in Waikiki.

  Carole’s heavily ringed fingers descended into the bowl like grapple hooks, closed on the pieces of paper and removed them. She examined each piece of paper. “Nope,” she’d murmur, then plunk it back into the bowl. Soon the pieces were filling up the bowl again, like snow. “Nope. Nope. Oh, here’s a buck-twenty-five receipt,” our faces perked up, “but it’s a woman’s name. Your person is a man, right? Nope.”

  The pieces on the desk were dwindling, and the nopes continued. “Wait a minute,” I said suddenly. “Could I please see that one receipt again?”

  Shrugging, Carole fished it out.

  “After all,” I explained to her and Pantelli, “Buckteeth’s sister could have bought it for him. Or his mother.”

  Borrowing a pen from Carole’s desk, I copied down the name and address on the back of my hand. Meanwhile Carole finished sifting through the other pieces of paper. “Nope. Nope. Nope.”

  I handed her back the piece I’d copied from. “I really appreciate your help,” I said.

  “Good luck with finding your spy,” Carole returned. With deafening clanks of her bangle bracelets and earrings, she reached over to switch off the desk lamp.

  “Just a sec,” said Pantelli. “Let’s see who our suspect is.” He turned my wrist toward the lamp. Since he turned it with the hand he was holding his cone in, melted gelati immediately began trickling down my arm. Suave, Pantelli was not.

  The violet lamplight illuminated the name luridly. He read it aloud: “Rosalie Nickablock, 2206 Clunk … Clump … Clod … ”

  Chapter Six

  A dampening experience

  “Clark, you idiot,” I corrected, as we tramped the blocks from Commercial to Clark Drive on that hot day.

  “It’s not my fault you have messy handwriting,” Pantelli replied crossly.

  “It’s not my fault your brain is the size of a stunted pea,” I retorted.

  We were bickering because of the heat, and we knew it, so we lapsed into a hot, glum silence. The cool gelatis were a distant memory now.

  At Clark, where we took a right, a huge soft drink machine at the gas station beckoned, wavering in the heat like a mirage. Man, we were thirsty. But Pantelli no longer had his money. On the way I had mistakenly convinced him to blow it on a pack of hockey cards.

  “C’mon,” I said to Pantelli, who was gazing dumbly across at the soft drink machine as if in a trance. “Maybe Rosalie Nickablock will offer us a frosted pitcher of lemonade.”

  This prospect cheered us up. After all, 2206 Clark, Clark Rose Gardens, was a seniors-only group of townhouses, shut off from busy Clark Drive by a high iron fence and facing on to a peaceful courtyard. The inhabitants, on greeting visitors, spoke sweetly to them and plied them with treats.

  I knew this about the Clark Rose Gardens inhabitants because I’d been there once before, with my mom. She’d been delivering a casserole to old Mrs. Gumboldt, our church friend. Mrs. Gumboldt and a couple of neighbors had instantly cooed over me and produced fudge and brownies. Confident of Rosalie Nickablock’s hospitality, I could practically taste the frosty lemonade. “Let’s hurry,” I urged Pantelli.

  We ran under the large, wrought-iron 2206 poised over the pedestrian entrance. The gate was usually kept locked for security, but a couple of moving men were just teetering toward the entrance with a loveseat on their shoulders. The thin old lady holding the gate open didn’t pay attention to us as we scooted through.

  “Mind the corners,” she snapped at the two sweating men. “Clumsy idiots! I’ve a good mind not to tip you!” Her glacial blue eyes shot daggers at the poor guys. One of them was red with the heat and looked about ready to faint.

  “What a meany,” I muttered to Pantelli. “Hey, here’s the list of occupants. Let’s find out where Rosalie Nickablock lives.”

  The list of occupants was in a glass case fixed to a wrought-iron table. “Mrs. R. Nickablock, Number 9,” said Pantelli, running a sticky finger down the glass top.

  We followed a winding path through rosebushes and beds of sweet-smelling pansies till we reached door number nine, which was ajar. A hose stretched across the doorstep, pouring onto a small bed of yet more pansies. I like pansies, but in that heat their fragrance was getting a bit too strong. Holding my nose, I pushed the doorbell.

  Just as I was noticing how painfully neat the living room was, the pinewood floor gleaming, the cushions all set at tidy diagonals, not a book or newspaper strewn anywhere, jittery footsteps pattered up behind us and an equally jittery voice proclaimed: “I don’t want any trespassers here! Get out!”

  Wheeling, Pantelli and I saw the thin old lady with the glacial blue eyes. This was Rosalie Nickablock. It was unfortunate that on Mrs. Nickablock’s first glimpse of me I was holding my nose. I knew, I mean, I just knew, I was giving a bad impression.

  The two moving men came staggering up behind Mrs. Nickablock, swiping roses off the bushes with the corners of the loveseat.

  I felt I had to state my case qui
ckly. I held up the hat. “We were wondering if you could tell us who — ”

  But the instant, angry mottling of Mrs. Nickablock’s face stopped any further words. If those eyes had shot daggers at the moving men, they were shooting swords at me.

  “That’s MY hat,” she shrieked. “Thief! THIEF!”

  Pantelli and I were astonished into silence. “Um, no,” I objected at last, but it was no use. Mrs. Nickablock kept yelling. “THIEF! THIEF! I’ve had it with this place! My realtor promised me a smooth transition — smooth?! Ha! This morning the shower spigot fell on my head, practically killing me. Now I find out the place is swarming with THIEVES! THIEVES!”

  As the poor guys balancing the loveseat swayed unhappily in the heat, other seniors started peek ing around the rosebushes. “The move has been stressful for Rosalie,” one offered. “Seniors often don’t handle big changes well.”

  This comment, no doubt intended helpfully, enraged Mrs. Nickablock even more. “I’ll show you how I handle thieves,” she snapped.

  She stomped up to us; we dodged to the side. Pantelli put on an unconvincing smile. “Nice to meetcha. Guess we oughtta be going now — ”

  SSSPLAT! Water hit us. Mrs. Nickablock had grabbed the hose and aimed. I shrieked and started to run, but Pantelli held my wrist. “Hey, Di,” he hissed. “This is great. Just what we want!”

  Water got into my mouth. Gulping it down, I realized what he meant: delicious, cold water, running down our parched throats and cooling our perspiring bodies. Mrs. Nickablock aimed the blast of water, back and forth, too occupied in her own fury to notice our blissful grins. We stuck our arms out and reveled in the water, whose arcs were turning into rainbows.

  Madge, whom I’d expected to be scornful about our failed expedition, was quite sympathetic. Teenagers are certainly unpredictable! She went out and bought us a gigantic bag of ketchup-flavored potato chips.

  She even sat with us in the TV room and mar veled over our skill at racing different cars along Los Angeles freeways in a PlayStation game.

  “Mrs. Nickablock is a horrible, mean old woman,” Madge commented at one point, showing that her mind wasn’t really on the race. “To think that you two trudged all that way, in this heat, to be treated like that! Horrid old thing.” She gave me a hug, which was all very well, but it ruined the particular steering maneuver I’d been attempting.

  “Awesome fatality,” gloated Pantelli, as my car flipped upside down.

  Of course, I was able to right the car and proceed again, this being the somewhat unrealistic world of video games, but now I was down on points. I was about to instruct Madge to control her impulses of sisterly affection when I heard, “Yup. The Buzzer triumphs again.”

  Buzz Bewford was leaning in the open window, his muscular arms crushing the lilacs that grew along the sill.

  It was Pantelli’s turn to be distracted. His car crashed against the ramp.

  Madge gave Buzz a quizzical, and rather cool, look. Huh! Madge, I realized, didn’t like Buzz, even if his presence here was a Roderick Wellman production. “Is there something we can help you with?” she asked him.

  Buzz puffed out his chest. His box-like head grew pink with self-satisfaction, right to the tips of his ears. “I helped you, Miss Galloway. I just caught that bucktoothed dude, the guy who’s been spying on you.”

  Buckteeth caught? We gaped at Buzz. Smirking at the effect of his announcement, Buzz reached over, stuck a box-like hand into our bag of ketchup potato chips and helped himself to a large handful.

  I clambered up on the arm of the sofa and peered out the window over Buzz’s shoulder. “Well? Where is he?”

  Buzz had to swallow the potato chips before he could reply. Actually, he replied before he’d quite finished swallowing, so his voice was kind of muffled. “I sent him packing, but pronto. Warned him I’d beat the daylights outta him if anyone ever caught him skulkin’ around here again. Threatened him with — ”

  “All right, all right,” Madge interrupted hastily. “But who was this guy?”

  Buzz gave her a condescending, aren’t-you-a-purdy-lil-thing kind of smile that made her bristle. “He’s just some nerd,” he said off-handedly. “You must be used to nerds hangin’ around you, huh?” he leered.

  “As of this minute, yes,” said Madge icily. I edged past her to block his view of her. I really didn’t like the way he was looking at my sister.

  Buzz glared at me. Obviously he was much happier leering at Madge. “I’ll tell ya one thing, Miss Dinah Smart Alec. The nerd was wearing an anti-smoking-type T-shirt. Looks like he’s one of your friend Jack’s pals. How do you like that?”

  I pushed my glasses up and demanded, “If you sent him packing, but pronto, how did you have time to make all those threats to him?”

  Buzz’s box-like face darkened. “Listen, I took care of it, okay? Which is more ’n you managed, Miss Kid Detective!”

  “I’m a Ms. to you,” I replied, feelings hurt. “Anyhow, if it hadn’t been for me, nobody would’ve known about Buckteeth spying on Madge.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Kids think they are so-o-o superior,” sneered Buzz.

  Behind me, Madge got up so abruptly that she knocked me off the sofa arm. I tumbled onto the floor, jiggling Pantelli’s arm and ruining his game once and for all.

  “There isn’t any more need for you to be here,” Madge told Buzz. Her voice was trembling with anger. I extricated myself from the PlayStation wires and remote controls and regarded her in amazement. Anger in Madge was about as frequent as sightings of the dodo bird. Usually, when she was displeased, she just got frosty.

  “No, I gotta stick around for a few more days,” Buzz contradicted her, distorting his boxy features into something I assumed was meant to be a smile. “Rod Wellman’s orders. Ya know, to keep an eye out for trouble. For the peeping toms that a pretty gal like you just naturally attracts.”

  “Really,” Madge said furiously. Gripping the handles of the window, she brought it down with a crash that shook the pane. Buzz barely withdrew his navy-jacketed forearms in time.

  “Wow,” Pantelli said admiringly. He and I laughed at the sight of Buzz backing away, puzzled and offended. Buzz must’ve heard our deliberately loud laughs because he gritted his teeth.

  Then I didn’t feel like laughing. So Buckteeth was a GASP volunteer! Jack was just getting to know the local GASPers — maybe he could track this particular bucktoothed one down for us.

  Too bad Buckteeth had to be a member of the same organization as Jack. That’d make Jack look even worse in Madge’s eyes.

  For now, Madge’s lupine-blue eyes were fiery about Buzz. “Imagine him talking to you like that,” Madge fumed. “Imagine!”

  I could only look at her in renewed amazement. So Madge minded if somebody was rotten to me; that sure violated all older sister-younger sister rules from the beginning of time. Imagine!

  Chapter Seven

  The dim-witted thief again

  Screams pierced my sleep.

  I’d been dreaming about Buckteeth sticking his buckteeth through bluebells and foxgloves at me. I sat bolt upright, rudely awakened, ready to let off a few screams of my own.

  Red lights flickered on the bedroom ceiling. Police car lights. I blinked my eyes. Those piercing noises hadn’t been screams.

  “ALARM!” I yelled.

  Somebody’s security alarm was sure going with a vengeance. Checking the glowing green numbers on my cat’s-face clock, 2:13 a.m., I scrambled out of bed, stuffed myself into jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed my pen and notebook and shot down the two flights of stairs from my attic bedroom to the main floor.

  “Do you have to take your Junior Block Watch activities so seriously?” came an exasperated, bedclothes-muffled mutter from Madge’s bedroom.

  From Mother’s bedroom, the usual command: “Do not, repeat, do NOT, step off the deck.”

  Depending on where the alarm was, I used either the back deck or front porch as my command post for observing police cars and flee
ing burglars. Well, okay, I’d never actually seen any fleeing burglars, but you never knew. The alarm was blaring from behind our house. Turning off our own alarm system, I stepped onto the deck to see just where.

  The Rinaldis’! “Jack!” I exclaimed. “It’s JACK!” I called up to Madge’s and Mom’s windows. All of our bedrooms faced this direction, north, to views of Burrard Inlet, the mountains and occasional crimes-in-progress.

  Other neighbors were venturing out onto decks and balconies to squint blearily at the commotion. A police car was parked behind the tomato patch. In the flashing light, I could make out Jack talking to a couple of police officers.

  Pantelli’s dad, who was Block Watch captain over our block as well as his, hurried by in the alley. Pantelli was with him. If Pantelli was getting to go along, no way I was going to miss out. “Mom,” I called up. “I’m joining Mr. Audia to investigate. I promise I’ll stick close to him.”

  In response, the light in Mother’s room came on. Haste was in order. I took off through our back gate. This was still lockless, Buzz having explained to us that it was easier for him to patrol if he had access to our property. Huh! Some patroller he was, with burglaries being committed a Frisbee’s throw from our place.

  Pantelli also had a pen and notebook. Twisting his mouth, he spoke out of it sideways, the way gangsters do in old movies. We were both deadly serious about our Junior Block Watch duties. “Maybe more tomato pictures got swiped,” he suggested. “Wonder what’s so special about tomatoes? Could be old man Rinaldi’s hidden something in ’em. Diamonds. Or heroin.”

  Arriving at the Rinaldis’, we scrutinized the tomato stalks suspiciously.

  “Now here’s a pair of tough-nosed detectives,” came Jack’s voice. We looked up to see him and two police officers. The officers gave us nice smiles, but ignored us after that, whereas Jack included us in everything he said, by glancing at us, or remarking, “How ’bout that, guys?” For an older person, he wasn’t at all bad.