Spy in the Alley

by Melanie Jackson

  “Ooo, I hope so, Mr. Wellman,” the young woman breathed.

  So that was Roderick’s dad! I moved quickly past before the next scream erupted. They were kind of hard on the eardrums.

  Besides, I had my own Horrorville moment planned — for Roderick.

  As I approached the end of the hall, Roderick smirked at his audience. “I’m glad Ms. Galloway is dropping by. She’s the model you’ve seen in previous Bonna Terra commercials and ads promoting Fields Tobacco sports events. In fact,” Roderick beamed, “it’s part of Ms. Galloway’s contract with us that she appear in every commercial and ad we assign her.” He rubbed his hands together.

  I leaned against the door frame, too dismayed for the moment to stand up on my own. Madge — stuck in a contract to do photo shoots for a tobacco company! Now that she was a GASPer, she’d hate every minute of it. And what would that do to her budding romance with Jack? Maybe not kill it, but sure wither it for a while, I reflected glumly.

  Roderick’s audience consisted of stiff, proper types in corporate suits. A particularly starchy-looking man shot his hand up with a question. “Roderick, I was in your office yesterday when you had a rather irate call from some young woman. She was shouting insults at you. Was that not the Bonna Terra girl?” Sniffing scornfully, the starchy man fingered his tie clip — designed, I saw, in the shape of a cigarette pack with several tips jutting out.

  “Her? Oh no-o-o-o-o,” Roderick assured him, with a high, phony laugh.

  It didn’t take much brilliance to deduce that Starchy was a Fields Tobacco executive. He whined on, “All this presupposes our signing a contract with you. Granted, these GASP demonstrations seem to be fizzling, and public opinion is turning against those young idiots, what with all their spray-painting and so on. We just need to feel comfortable that everything will go smoothly, Roderick. See, we at Fields Tobacco, along with Bonna Terra, like to be sure we’re on terra firma, if you get what I mean.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Roderick promised, after out-laughing Starchy for an embarrassingly long time. “Everything is under control.”

  He held up a piece of paper and a fountain pen. “Now let’s put ink to paper, and seal the agreement. But first, as I mentioned, you’re about to meet the stunningly elegant Madge Galloway. You’ll be impressed. She’s the embodiment of every image we’re trying to project: coolness, classiness, slim sophistication … ”

  Wiping at some of the fake freckles that, in the heat, had began to run, I marched purposefully into the room.

  Roderick and his audience gawked at me.

  Admittedly, I wasn’t at my visual best. Aside from the smudged makeup, I had grape-juice stains on my T-shirt, shorts and shoes, the result of a satisfying food fight at lunch. So I was a chubby eleven-year-old, and not quite the model of cool sophistication Roderick had just described. I didn’t think they had to appear that dismayed.

  “Yeah, I’m Dinah Galloway,” I informed them, “and I’m here to spill the dirt on Roderick Wellman, professional dweeb.”

  “No, no,” gasped Roderick. Blanching, he began to twist his pointy head back and forth like a weathervane caught in a tornado. “You’re ruining my presentation … Somebody get her out of here.” Feebly, he began to snap his fingers.

  “Roderick has been sicking weirdos on my family and friends,” I told his guests. “One shaped like a box, one with buckteeth — ”

  The one with buckteeth emerged from an adjacent room. Summoned by Roderick’s snapping fingers, he hung awkwardly about in the doorway, ogling the people in the corporate suits.

  “Remove her, please,” Roderick said, with a distasteful grimace in my direction.

  Theo bore down on me.

  “Look here, Roderick,” a woman began un

  A scream from Cindi cut her off. Cindi, I decided, had the right idea.

  “HEL —” I started to yell, but Theo clamped a skinny hand over my mouth. He stuck his other hand under my armpit and wrenched me off the ground with surprising strength. These skinny types sure could be wiry.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine,” Roderick soothed his guests, as Theo carried me, squirming like a fish on a hook, into an adjoining room. “Yaletown is becoming more upscale, but we still get these loony types wandering in from time to time. Pay no mind to this unpleasant intrusion. Now, back to the business of signing our contract.”

  “Stop!” I tried to yell behind Theo’s hand, but it came out as “Mmmpp!!”

  Theo kicked the door shut. He lifted me higher, so he could glower into my face. “Now you gotta behave. Be a sport, and I’ll let you out in an hour.”

  We were in a storeroom with wall-to-wall filing cabinets, except in one corner.

  “A broom closet,” he mused. His teeth splayed in a grin. “Guess that ought to hold ya.”

  He hauled me over to it. To open the door, he had to remove his hand from my mouth.

  “‘Be a sport!’ ” I protested indignantly. “I don’t think you’re being much of a sport! Have you ever heard of kidnapping and forcible confinement?”

  He shrugged. “Not the company’s fault if you were snooping around and accidentally locked yourself in the broom closet.”

  Yet another scream from Cindi echoed through the office. Theo chuckled. “No point in you making a commotion, kid. No one will pay any attention with that going on! Now keep a lid on it and in a while I’ll buy ya an ice cream cone.”

  With that, he shoved me in the broom closet and slammed the door. I heard a soft click as he slid the outer bolt into place.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Broom-closet blues

  In books, closets have fake backs to them. These yield easily to Narnia, or else to convenient secret tunnels. The broom closet in the Wellman Talent storeroom failed to be that helpful, even though I heaved at the back of it with my shoulder. The frustrating thing was that I knew the wall was thin, and therefore must be flimsy. I could hear the murmur of voices from the boardroom.

  With my other shoulder I tried forcing open the broom-closet door. As a result I then had two bruised shoulders. Great — they matched! I tried screaming. As Theo had predicted, thanks to the already screaming Cindi, there was no reaction at all from the boardroom.

  Where Roderick was presenting Bonna Terra Sports and Fields Tobacco with a dastardly contract that would: a) promote tobacco products as being part of a healthy lifestyle (healthy schmealthy!); and b) seal Madge’s fate as the model helping to promote this image.

  I tried pounding on the walls and door, but this was difficult because the space was so tight. I tried my only other option. Crying.

  “Mom,” I bawled. “Where are you?”

  But she wouldn’t come. In my usual, irresponsible, act-first-ask-questions-later way, I’d charged off downtown without letting anyone know where I was going.

  If my singing instructor could see me now, I thought, he’d give me full marks for emoting. No one could say Dinah Galloway had only volume to offer.

  Only volume …

  What was I bawling for? I had my own personal godsend. I could sing.

  I took some deep breaths — not an easy task in that stuffy broom closet. Putting aside everything the instructor had taught me about careful vowel intonations and subtle delivery of certain types of notes, I opened my mouth and simply let loose:

  “After you’ve gone and left me cryin’, After you’ve gone there’s no denyin’

  You’re gonna feel blue And you’re gonna feel sad…”

  Talk about singing the broom-closet blues.

  I knew lots of songs, but I stuck to After You’ve Gone. I figured that sooner or later someone would get sick enough of hearing it that they’d come to investigate. So I sang, and sang, and imagined my voice volleying down the hall and into each room of Wellman Talent, and hurtling into the offices beyond, and up and down the elevator shafts to other offices. I imagined my voice blasting out to the sidewalk, where the hot dog vendors were set up, so that they’d tip their caps back, glan
ce around and say, “Huh?”

  Most important, I imagined it distracting the Bonna Terra and Fields executives, just as their pens were poised over Roderick’s contract.

  Imagining all this helped me, because it was sort of entertaining, which meant I sort of forgot I was in the broom closet, frantically singing for my freedom. Between breaths I became aware that the murmurs from the boardroom were getting louder, were turning into rumbling and were actually coming from outside the door of the closet

  The broom-closet latch was rattled aside. The door was wrenched open. Dignified, iron-gray-haired Roderick Wellman, Sr., peered in at me in mixed anger and bewilderment. “Young woman, that is one heck of a way to audition.”

  So, I’d successfully sung my way to freedom. Who needed a file and a saw to get out of prison? My advice — try a particularly loud middle C.

  But had I blasted into everyone’s eardrums in time? Was the Wellman-Bonna Terra-Fields contract already signed?

  Behind Mr. Wellman were Cindi the Screamer, Roderick and all the proper, corporate types. Their distasteful expressions showed clearly that they found the situation most improper.

  Besides singing, the other thing I was able to do at great volume and for extended lengths of time was trash Roderick. “Your son is such a dweeb,” I exploded. “He got Buckteeth to lock me in here and … ”

  I went on furiously, inserting the term dweeb as often as possible. Meanwhile, the crowd behind Mr. Wellman parted like the Red Sea. When the last of them separated, Roderick, Jr., was revealed, cringing. And holding the Wellman-Bonna Terra-Fields contract. I squinted. It had black type on it only. No ink. It was unsigned. I’d done it! Or rather, my vocal chords had done it. Thanks, guys.

  “I — I didn’t mean for Theo to shut Dinah in here,” Roderick was bleating. “I just intended, um, y’know, for him to escort her out.”

  A pinkly sunburned head popped up above Roderick’s. Theo protested, “I was sure I was just following orders, Mr. Wellman.”

  Mr. Wellman, Jr., paled. Mr. Wellman, Sr., scowled. “Orders? What orders?”

  Roderick was busy loosening his collar, so I piped up triumphantly, “To sabotage Jack French and GASP, of course. To make sure he got his big contract, with Bonna Terra and Fields Tobacco.”

  I turned to Roderick and pointed an accusing, makeup-smeared finger at him. “I was wondering why Theo would be so interested in us. Now it all makes sense: he wasn’t interested in us! The day I first saw Theo,” I went on excitedly to Roderick’s dad, “he was using our overgrown path as camouflage — for watching Jack!”

  Theo’s buckteeth, which he’d been using to chomp nervously on his lower lip, were thrust forward as he broke out in a pleased grin. “And I did a good job of watchin’, don’t ya think?”

  Roderick interrupted nervously, “Okay, show’s over, Dinah. Let’s take you home.”

  “No.” His dad was studying me. “Let Dinah continue.”

  “Well,” I said, “when we told Roderick about Theo, except that we were calling Theo Bu — oh never mind about that.” I didn’t want to embarrass Theo by referring to his buckteeth. After all, personal remarks are rude, even when applied to spies. “Anyhow, Roderick said he’d bring a security expert, Buzz Bewford, in to catch Theo. But he really brought Buzz in to help Theo sabotage Jack.”

  I stared accusingly at Theo, who’d at least had the decency to stop grinning, though not the intelligence to make a quick getaway. I accused him, “I did see you the other night, didn’t I? You were the thief, the only thief, and you were burgling Jack’s place again. The first time you botched it, by taking pictures of tomatoes. The second time, though, you helped yourself to a box of GASP supplies, including a T-shirt, right? Convenient — because then you could spray-paint Rod’s car and the billboard of Madge, and everyone would see the shirt and blame GASP. You’re the mad spray-painter!”

  Theo cleared his throat. He’d grown pale — kind of sickly-looking. “At school, I always did enjoy art class,” he mumbled.

  “Your second visit was when you really hit pay dirt,” I continued. “You saw some brochures on the kitchen table, so you dumped juice all over them.”

  “I also had a drink of it,” Theo defended himself. “I was thirsty. So the juice wasn’t totally wasted, if you know what I mean.”

  I forged on. “The box you stole also contained brochures for the next GASP rally. You handed the box over to Buzz — as well as Jack’s laptop, crammed with GASP information. Buzz then mangled it.”

  “Buzz was waiting in the alley with his car,” Theo admitted, looking even more sickly. “He took off in a hurry before I could climb in. The security alarm was going, see. So I had to make my own getaway. First I whipped on the GASP T-shirt, though. I’d spilled juice on my own shirt. I stuffed that in somebody’s garbage can while I was running down the alley.”

  “And then you skulked in the blackberries,” I accused.

  “No wonder Theo has scratches all over his arms,” remarked Cindi, who, to my surprise, had a mellifluous voice.

  Theo folded his arms behind his back. “Well, I gotta run now,” he announced — and began exiting the room sideways, to keep his arms concealed.

  Since he wasn’t looking too closely at where he was going, this maneuver led him smack into Madge, Jack and a bunch of GASPers.

  Grabbing Theo by the collar, Jack yelled, “I’ve been waiting for this!”

  He raised his free hand for a punch. He might well have flattened Theo’s buckteeth into place had not Madge and the intense-looking girl stopped him.

  A box-like hand clamped on Jack’s shoulder. Behind it, Buzz Bewford leered, “I’ve bin following these GASPers, like you asked, Roderick. Want me to call the cops and charge them with trespassing?”

  Jack wrenched out of Buzz’s grasp. He addressed Roderick: “We’re here to file a formal complaint against Wellman Talent for unethical business practices. I — ”

  “Accepted.” Mr. Wellman smiled into the stunned silence that greeted his remark. He said hi to Madge, then held out his hand to Jack, who shook it somewhat dazedly. “You must be Mr. French. I’m Rod Wellman, Senior. The owner of this agency.” And Mr. Wellman gave his son a much less friendly look than he’d given Jack.

  I was busy clutching my head, partly because I felt it had failed me sadly on several points. “Madge, I was just telling Mr. Wellman how we were totally taken in by Buzz. When he described a scowling thief with a forelock of brown hair, we believed him. Dumb! There was never any second thief.

  “You remember how we kept thinking we recognized him?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “All we knew was that we’d seen him somewhere around the neighborhood.”

  Even though I was still boiling at Roderick, I grinned. After all, detectives should be allowed their moment of triumph, and this was mine. I said, “The mysterious boy with brown hair is in our neighborhood, but not of it.”

  Stares all round. I loved it. “I saw him this afternoon in a commercial — a jeans commercial, just like the ad he’s in on the back cover of Vogue,” I explained. “That’s where Buzz got the idea for his phony description. He must’ve seen the cover the day you kept holding it up to avoid looking at Jack. Remember?”

  “Um,” said Madge, but her puzzled frown started to clear.

  “A red herring,” I went on. “Just like in Sherlock Holmes. Buzz wanted to throw me off the track when I figured out that Theo was the thief. So, on the spur of the moment, he invented this other thief, whose picture he’d seen on Vogue. Right, Buzz? Buzz …? ”

  Everyone stepped back to look around. Buzz’s box-like head was fast becoming a box-like speck down the hallway: he was making a prudent exit. I couldn’t blame him.

  “Madge,” Roderick interrupted, in a choked-sounding voice, “I know this looks unfavorable. And, in several respects, it is.”

  “Several!” snorted Cindi. “Wait’ll you guys hear about this poor kid being locked in a closet!”

  “What
!” shrieked Madge.

  Everyone began shouting then, GASPers and corporate types alike. Mr. Wellman bent down and inquired of me, “Those people with Jack and your sister. Are they all — ?”

  “GASP,” I replied.

  “My sentiments exactly,” sighed Roderick’s father.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pizza and paint

  Mr. Wellman turned out to be not such a bad guy. He ordered pizzas. Soon the GASPers were munching happily away and chatting in the boardroom.

  The corporate types from Bonna Terra and Fields Tobacco declined his offer of pizza. Twisting his cigarette-pack tie clip, the starchy-looking man sneered that we weren’t the sort of people he and his colleagues would wish to dine with. Instead, he barked at the receptionist to phone for cabs — and, as she did, they stood about making loud, insulting comments about Wellman Talent.

  Ignoring the executives, Mr. Wellman ordered Roderick to pack up his things and leave the office. “It seems I was a bit hasty in bringing you into work,” Mr. Wellman said. “I think a year’s community work would be much better for you. Give you some perspective.”

  He ordered Theo to go home and wait to hear from the police. At this, Madge whispered to Mr. Wellman that a phone call to Theo’s ornery aunt, Rosalie Nickablock, would probably result in much crueler punishment than anything the police could devise. “I like it,” said Mr. Wellman.

  He ordered his secretary to telephone my mother and tell her where I was, and then to call Buzz Bewford, and fire him. He ordered Cindi to go into another room and practice her screaming. Then he politely asked Madge, Jack and me to join him for pizza in his office.

  “This is my company. Therefore, these spy-in-the-alley shenanigans are my fault,” Mr. Wellman said, after the three of us had explained to him the events of the past few days.

  Madge beamed at him. “I knew it. Mother kept saying how nice you were, and so I got to thinking, maybe you would listen to GASP’s point of view. That’s why we came downtown to see you.”