Super Max and the Mystery of Thornwood's Revenge

by Susan Vaught

  The article went on to talk about the fire, and what happened to Blue Creek’s most famous home:

  The blaze, seen as a yellow glow in the winter sky from as far away as the Nashville city limits, did irreparable damage to Thornwood Manor. Blue Creek’s most famous home won’t be reopened in the near future. Owner Junior Thornwood stated, “It’s sad, but we’ll be able to salvage a lot of the antiques—the eBay listings won’t be back, though.”

  Thornwood noted that he plans to settle permanently in Blue Creek. His motorcycle dealership in Connecticut fetched a handsome sum at auction, and he reported that he and local business owner Joy Springfield are in the early stages of planning to use the proceeds to rebuild part of the mansion. “We’re considering a museum and tours for the stone maze, under management of Something Wicked, LLC,” Thornwood stated. “I might have the family problem with losing whatever money I make, but I’m counting on Joy Springfield’s good energy to chase all that darkness away.”

  Springfield reported that interest in Thornwood Manor and its previously overlooked occupant, Vivienne Thornwood, has never been higher. “Inquiries are pouring in from all over the world,” Springfield told reporters. “People keep asking about cursed antiques, and a Thornwood cousin mentioned that Vivienne kept a diary, which might be hidden somewhere in the warren she built to save her children from her husband’s cruelty.”

  I looked up from the article. New legends? A hidden diary. Awesome.

  Good thing I didn’t say that out loud, or I’d be having to write Toppy an essay on better words to use than “awesome.” He hated that one.

  I scrolled down and at the bottom, almost like a footnote, I found one last small paragraph:

  Ellis Pritchard, born Ellis Unger, son of felon Frank Unger who died in prison one year ago, was apprehended by Tennessee State Police on the ramp to Interstate 24, trying to flee the scene of his crimes.

  He was arraigned on a list of charges so long I didn’t even read them. It was too depressing. I doubted Ellis would ever get out of prison, at least not until he was older, like Junior Thornwood or Toppy. It kind of made me sad, the way his life got turned into a few lines of print, and his father was nobody to the world but a “felon” who “died in prison.” Like Ellis and his dad had become evil things, not people. I frowned and put down the phone to find Toppy staring at me.

  “I was reading a piece in the Gazette instead of working on my essays,” I confessed. “Lavender sent it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “The newspaper had another article? Have those ingrates on the City Council apologized to Maggie for threatening a recall vote when she blocked my termination?”

  “Keep dreaming,” I told him. “Have they apologized to you yet?”

  That earned me a grunt just as someone knocked on the back door.

  I grinned, because I knew who it was.

  Toppy got up immediately and let Mayor Chandler into our kitchen for what had become our new morning routine. She shifted a stack of magazines she was carrying to the crook of one arm, reached up with her free hand, pulled Toppy toward her, hugged him, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she surveyed his pajamas and said, “Nice. What was it Max said when you rescued her? Oh, yes. You need a cape.”

  Toppy actually smiled at her as the tops of his ears turned red.

  I drove my rattling contraption of a chair to the electric kettle and punched the button to make Toppy’s tea and hers, too.

  When I brought them their steaming mugs, Toppy was actually eating his vomit-with-blueberries with no complaints.

  Mayor Chandler gestured to the magazines she brought. “Look, Max. Mobility catalogues. Since Junior’s settlement covers the damage to your chair, you can have whatever model you want. Heck, you can probably get two.”

  I leaned forward and gazed at the amazing wheelchair models, and my mouth came open as I spotted one that actually stretched up so I could reach cabinets and things on high shelves.

  “Check this out,” I told Toppy. “And look! Here’s an all-terrain model for beaches and stuff.”

  “Wonderful,” he said. “Those will make it so much easier for you to get into trouble.”

  “I saw your friend Lavender and her mom up at Thornwood just now,” Mayor Chandler said. “Junior has a crew of archaeology students from Vanderbilt using ground-penetrating radar to map the chambers they haven’t excavated yet. He says there are caves, too.”

  “Can I go up later and help?” I asked Toppy. “Please?”

  He started to say no, but at a raised eyebrow from Mayor Chandler, he relented with, “Maybe. If today’s essays get finished.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. But before I could start back to work on the silly heroine summary, I got another text. This one was from Captain Coker:

  Hi, Max. I want you to look at this. If you’re interested, I’ll go as your aide so they’ll take you a little before age-limit. It’s accessible.

  I clicked the link she sent, to Camp CSI: Birmingham.

  “Oh, man,” I muttered, reading about the forensic science summer camp at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. “Listen to this! ‘Camp CSI: Birmingham is designed to show high school students the reality behind the forensic science depicted in such television dramas as CSI and NCIS, develop their interest in science and the scientific method, and provide information on forensic science education and career opportunities.’ ”

  “That sounds like a huge bunch of fun for you.” Mayor Chandler sipped her tea, then grinned at Toppy. “A way to channel all that investigative energy, maybe?”

  He took my phone and read more off the website, and even used his finger to scroll. As Elvis shifted to Peace in the Valley, he said, “Maybe.”

  “If I’m not grounded,” I said.

  “Something like that,” Toppy agreed.

  “I’m already legendary,” I said, going back to my too-silly-to-live essay. “Might as well become a crime-fighting superhero, right?”

  “Wrong,” said my grandfather, putting his pencil on one of the mobility catalogues and circling the wheelchair that stretched up to shelves and the all-terrain model, too.

  I thought about describing the two or three modifications I had already thought about making to both of those chairs, but I didn’t. There are times even legendary crime-fighting superheroes should keep their bright ideas completely, totally, and absolutely to themselves.

  For now, it was super enough that sunlight had found our kitchen, and the Elvis CD wasn’t hitching, and the air smelled like pine from Toppy and vanilla from Mayor Chandler and Earl Grey tea.

  “I wonder if any of the Thornwood antiques got cursed or something,” I said, glancing toward the hill above our house. “And what if Vivienne Thornwood really did hide a diary somewhere? And we should find out if the place is haunted or not. I mean, scientifically. One of those ghost-hunter shows—”

  “Essay, Max,” Toppy said.

  “Right.” I grinned at him as Mayor Chandler laughed, and I started writing.

  Epilogue

  FEBRUARY 14

  Super Max the Mighty Invincible can no longer see a haunted house from her bedroom window,” I told Lavender as freezing wind whipped the blanket on my legs. “Kinda sad, right?”

  When she pulled her purple scarf over her nose and mouth instead of answering, I rolled a little farther under the construction tent next to one of the dark front doors salvaged from Thornwood Manor and raised my iPad. “In years long past, sexism reigned,” I read from the screen as the door’s owl glared balefully in my general direction. “No one believed women had any brains. They all feared Hargrove and his threats dark and hairy, when Vivienne Thornwood was twice as scary.”

  Lavender’s eyebrows lifted so high they disappeared under her hair. Behind her, propped against a tent pole and waiting to go to storage, Vivienne Thornwood’s damaged portrait gave me an equally haughty stare from underneath her sooty red bonnet.

  “That was truly heinous, Max.” Lavender pulle
d her purple coat tight with both purple-gloved hands. “Poetry is not one of your superpowers.”

  “Well, somebody should do something to honor her,” I said. “You got anything better?”

  “I’m planning to write a novel,” Lavender announced. “It’ll be a best-seller, and I’ll make it into a play and a ballet—and I’ll do book signings at Something Wicked. Good enough?”

  “Maybe,” I grinned. “If Vivienne doesn’t like it, I’m sure she’ll haunt you.”

  Lavender groaned. “Look, it’s freezing out here. I’m waiting for the ghost hunters in the van.”

  She bounced off without another word, leaving me alone with the pile of rescued artifacts from the burned mansion, and the remnants of Vivienne’s long-ago life.

  “Lavender doesn’t believe in ghosts,” I told Vivienne, but it was hard to look at her for very long. The edges of her frame had been scorched, and she had rips that crossed her throat and hoop skirt. The canvas flapped in the icy breeze, making dull, sad pops. Even two months later, the air still smelled like char and ruin.

  I studied the painting in front of me. “It’s not supposed to be this cold in Blue Creek on Valentine’s Day. Are you doing this?”

  Pop, pop.

  “See, unlike my best friend, I do believe in ghosts.” I tucked the edges of my blanket around my jeans. “I know you beat Hargrove in the end—but you lost your youngest daughter, and that broke your heart, didn’t it?”

  Pop.

  The portrait’s torn pieces rippled as wind caught them, making it seem like Vivienne’s hands fluttered against her red-striped gown. Her painted eyes gazed into the distance, as if they could see the big sedan rumbling up the hill toward the parking lot, towing a white trailer with the ghost-hunter logo I recognized from television. Right behind them came Toppy in his patrol car, providing escort and scaring off any local autograph hounds.

  Would she hate her secret places being prodded and measured and shown on national TV?

  Probably.

  I didn’t know if the ghost-hunting team would find “proof” of haunting, or whatever. I did know that interest in Vivienne Thornwood’s life had picked up, and people had been writing articles online, wondering which of the Thornwoods would have most appreciated Ellis Pritchard’s attacks on our town.

  With Vivienne dead for nearly two centuries, there would be no fresh declaration of doom for Blue Creek, Tennessee—but there could be no denying that a new legend had been born.

  “You died sad, and probably furious, too.” I reached out and used my mitten to clean a bit of soot off the canvas. “I’m betting that if Thornwood Manor really is haunted, you’re the spirit to reckon with.”

  For a split second, the torn portrait blew back into place, making Vivienne Thornwood whole again. In that instant, her eyes seemed to drill through the approaching convoy, and that smile of hers turned colder than the frozen Valentine’s Day.

  I leaned back, heart thumping.

  “Max!” Lavender yelled from a distance. “Come on. All the people are here!”

  On the edges of the wind, I caught Toppy’s music as he opened his door—Elvis, of course. “Take a walk down lonely street to Heartbreak Hotel. . . .”

  I glanced at the parking lot, and Toppy lifted his hand to wave at me.

  I waved back.

  When I looked at Vivienne’s painting again, the torn pieces had sagged, leaving her damaged and quiet and pitiful. I gave her a moment of silence, and a respectful nod.

  Then, rolling away to the distant beat of the King, I left Vivienne Thornwood behind. Her portrait would be restored, and she would preside over the rebuilt section of the old house, and the new museum and tourist attraction at Thornwood Manor.

  I had no doubt I would see her again soon enough, vibrant and refusing to fade or disappear.

  She was a legend, after all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Susan Vaught is the author of Edgar Award–winning novel Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy. It was a Junior Library Guild Selection, a Bank Street Best Book, and the Horn Book called it “compelling, offbeat, and fearless.” Her most recent middle-grade novel, Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry, was called “a provocative, sensitive, and oh-so-timely read” by Kirkus Reviews in a starred review. Susan’s many books for teens include Trigger, which was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She works as a neuropsychologist at a state psychiatric facility, specializing in helping people with severe and persistent mental illness, intellectual disability, and traumatic brain injury. She lives on a farm with her family in rural western Kentucky. Learn more at susanvaught.com.

  A PAULA WISEMAN BOOK

  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster • New York

  VISIT US AT SIMONANDSCHUSTER.COM/KIDS

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Susan-Vaught

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In 2013, my son, JB Redmond, wrote a piece for Disability in Kidlit, titled “What You See . . . And What You Don’t See.” In that article, he wrote, “I’ve never found too many disabled characters in the books I enjoy, unless they’re villains or buffoons.” Then he talked about what he typically found when stories include characters in wheelchairs, and how it hurt him. He talked about how he wanted to see real characters with realistic disabilities, living their lives and not being pitied or seeing themselves as weak or ineffectual.

  Over the years, I have written many types of characters with many different issues, but I never gave my son the character he asked for—a person who uses a wheelchair, effective, strong, and realistic, having real-life adventures—until now. I think it was too emotional for me the first few times I tried. I couldn’t get the voice right. I couldn’t bear to delve deep enough to touch that character’s pain and fears. And then came Max. She burst into my head as I was reworking a piece, she rolled over my brain and took over the story, and sometimes I swear she typed for me. And I’m very glad she did. I’m glad Max had the courage I was struggling to find.

  Every day, I share Toppy’s role with my wife, Gisele, and we will keep that role until the day we both leave this world. Without us, given the current social programs and structure, there’s a very good chance JB would have no option but to leave his man cave and his extensive movie and book and Star Wars and Star Trek collections and all of his pets and move into a nursing home, and that’s not okay. Programs and supports and options need to be better. Wheelchairs and technology need to be better. JB (and Max) deserve full access to the same world we live in—all the time, every day, every moment of their lives.

  I hope everyone reading Super Max understands JB’s life and his dreams a bit more. I think I do. Most importantly, he thinks I do, and he feels like I understand him more. Mostly, he feels like Max is Da Boss, and he wants to explore the tunnels under Thornwood Manor (after he goes to another planet, becomes a wizard, stops a nuclear crisis like Jack Ryan, tries out being a werewolf, becomes a Shadowhunter, and . . .).

  —S. V.

  Find the article: Redmond, JB. “What You See . . . And What You Don’t See.” N.p., 11 Oct., 2013. Web.

  ALSO BY SUSAN VAUGHT

  Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy

  Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or

  real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are

  products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or

  places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Susan Vaught

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2017 by Alessia Trunfio

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction<
br />
  in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,

  please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or

  business@simonandschuster.com.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.

  For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Jacket design by Chloë Foglia

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2017 by Alessia Trunfio

  Interior design by Hilary Zarycky

  The text for this book was set in New Baskerville.

  0717 FFG

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Vaught, Susan, 1965– author.

  Title: Super Max and the mystery of Thornwood’s revenge / Susan Vaught.

  Other titles: Mystery of Thornwood’s revenge

  Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, [2017] | “A Paula Wiseman Book.” | Summary: Twelve-year-old Max is determined to investigate the connection between a hacker’s online attacks of her grandfather and other town officials and suspicious activity at the supposedly haunted Thornwood Manor, even though her grandfather, who is Blue Creek’s police chief, wants to keep Max and her souped-up wheelchair out of police business.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016050926 | ISBN 9781481486835 (hardback)

  ISBN 9781481486859 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Wheelchairs—Fiction. | People with disabilities—Fiction.

  Hackers—Fiction. | Robbers and outlaws—Fiction. | Haunted houses—Fiction.

  Mystery and detective stories.