The Wig in the Window

by Kristen Kittscher

  “Oopsy-daisy,” Agford said in her falsetto, her eyes meeting mine. She pretended to consult her notebook and turned to Mr. Hiller. “Next is two eighty-three. Bottoms, Trista.” She flashed me a grin. “We’re conducting random locker searches,” she said, before clip-clopping down the outdoor hall.

  Trista was too smart to keep anything incriminating in her locker. I didn’t even worry much until lunch. However, when I brought my UFO burger and ETTs (Extraterrestrial Tater Tots) out to the patio and steeled myself for Trista’s rant against Space Day’s unhealthy fare, she wasn’t there. I pictured her sitting opposite Agford in a bare interrogation room with a spotlight and an overflowing ashtray as Agford tried to get at the truth. It was more likely Trista was locked behind Mr. Katz’s door, staring at a poster of an eagle exhorting her to excellence.

  S.M.I.L.E. sat down at the table next to me as I ate lunch alone, not even giving me so much as one of their usual Agford sympathy pouts. Marissa turned to another -issa—Clarissa, I think—and said very loudly, “Someone needs to do something about her passive-aggressive behavior patterns, don’t you think?”

  I turned around. “Someone missed the English class on irony,” I said. They ignored me. Eventually they rose, put on homemade plastic yellow aprons that read DON’T MESS AROUND! (Jenn’s was cream-colored), and formed an unsolicited litter patrol, making a grand show of avoiding my table. I wolfed down my last bites and went on a mission to find Trista.

  I found her, all right—bursting out of Katz’s Den of Inspiration, grinning. When she saw me, she slapped me a high five. “Guess who’s suspended?

  “Nah. Not me,” she said, when she saw my expression. “Trent Spinner,” she shouted. “After I reported him messing around in the parking lot yesterday, it so happened a search of his locker turned up evidence that he tampered with Dr. Agford’s car. Crazy coincidence, isn’t it?” She beamed.

  I smiled back. Leave it to Trista to get back at Agford and Trent all in one prank. The sixth graders Trent gave wedgies to all the time would have lined up to ask for autographs if they’d known Trista had gotten him suspended. I couldn’t help thinking of Rod, though. Would Trent earn congratulations on his “awesome” prank instead?

  Before we shuttled off to class, I managed to tell Trista I’d picked up the wig. “If the FBI can link anything in that car to their suspect, by tomorrow I think it’ll all be over,” I said.

  “They’d better arrest her at school,” Trista said. “I’ve got to see it for myself.”

  I raced out of pre-algebra last period and made a beeline toward the field, darting a glance behind me to check for S.M.I.L.E. spies. One or the other of them had seemed to be tailing me all day. I’d even caught Marissa trying to peer into my open backpack in French. It was obvious she and Agford had been talking about the wig. No doubt Marissa was operating under orders.

  I’d just passed the bike racks when a sound made me nearly jump out of my Pumas.

  “Psst!” Grace peered behind a pillar. She was dressed in a drab T-shirt and jeans, actually blending in for a change.

  My hand flew to my heart. “You’ve perfected the sneak attack, haven’t you?”

  “You think?” Grace looked proud. “Thought I’d come report for duty, General. You know, in case you need school backup.”

  “Did you see Ralston on the way over?”

  Grace shook her head. “Didn’t see her yesterday either.” She frowned. “But that meaty guy with the eyebrow drove right past me in his truck on his way down here, so the backup is definitely around.”

  “I think I’ve finally got some evidence,” I said. After a quick check to be sure the coast was clear, I led Grace across the soccer field to the beach trail. When she saw where we were going, Grace stopped short. The surf was practically nonexistent, the only sound a tiny static hiss as the waves lapped at the shore far below. Still, Grace refused to take a step closer.

  I looked back at the school. Agford’s office window was on the second floor, overlooking the field and trailhead. “I stashed it all just a few steps down the trail. Nowhere near the beach. I promise,” I said.

  Grace eyed me suspiciously but followed. I held her arm and coached her along as lizards hopped for cover. It didn’t matter that the bluff trail ran at least a quarter mile above the beach. To her, the damp salt air must have felt like waves closing around her. She breathed deeply and took a few wobbly steps before finding a surer footing. When we reached my hiding place, she sat with her back to the ocean.

  I dug out the papers and wig and held them up.

  “Oh my God, how did you . . . ?” Grace’s mouth turned into a perfect O. She let out a little laugh, seeming to forget the waves below.

  “Long story,” I said, handing her the wig. She took it from me as if it were a wad of used toilet paper.

  “Tell me on the way home,” Grace said, reaching for her backpack. “We shouldn’t be handling evidence. I’ve got a full kit at the house.”

  “Across the street from Agford? No way. It’s safer here.”

  “Hard to believe,” Grace said as she cast a look at the ocean behind us and shivered. She didn’t argue, though.

  As much as I wanted to tell Grace all about Agford’s total humiliation, I hesitated to bring up Trista. But I shouldn’t have worried at all. Grace bent over in silent, shaking laughter, and tears ran down her cheeks when I described the look on Agford’s face when her convertible ripped open. “I can’t believe I ever doubted Trista,” she said. “How’d she do it?”

  “She knew they sell remotes for convertible tops and made it work with the Mustang wiring. She’s good, isn’t she?” I said.

  Grace nodded. She wrinkled her nose and peered at the wig more closely. “One hundred percent acrylic,” she announced, reading a label inside the wig.

  “That describes Agford, all right,” I said. “You think there can be something in all this?” I began sifting through the various scraps Agford’s convertible had liberated: some grocery store coupons, receipts, a letter from Mr. Katz about changes to the academic calendar.

  “I can’t believe it!” Grace exclaimed.

  “What?” My breath quickened. I realized how close we were. If we found just one link, tomorrow Agford could be modeling her orange jumpsuit in jail.

  “She bought underwear at Victoria’s Secret,” Grace said, using her fingernails like tweezers to hold up a receipt. “Never let me set foot in that place again.”

  “Grace, this is serious!”

  “I know, I know, but so is buying anything at the same place Agford shops!”

  I shook my head, absentmindedly sliding my yin pendant back and forth on its chain. I noticed a tiny mileage logbook among the papers and picked it up. A folded piece of newspaper fluttered down. “This is weird,” I said, turning it over. It was a ripped-out photo of a girls’ cheerleading squad, dressed in orange and white. I almost tossed it back in the pile, thinking it was from our local paper, until I remembered. “Luna Vista is the Lightning, right?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The high school’s mascot. It’s not a cat. It’s a yellow lightning bolt.”

  “Soph. I’m homeschooled. I’ve no idea.”

  We squinted at the logo on the girls’ jerseys. “It’s definitely a cat of some sort,” I said.

  “The Luna Vista Tabbies,” Grace joked. “I’m not wrong, am I? That does look like a T next to the cat.”

  “T for Texas?”

  Grace nodded slowly. “Well, it’s sure not T for Luna Vista.”

  Two gulls glided together across the horizon, silhouetted by the sun. Above us on the field, Coach Knight blew his whistle and counted in rhythmic shouts.

  “This could be it, Grace. We have to get this to Agent Ralston,” I said. “Wherever she’s been hiding.”

  We made our way up the trail, agreeing to ride our bikes home separately. Each of us would keep a lookout for Ralston’s blue car or the white pickup. If we weren’t able to spot e
ither, Grace would secure the evidence in a secret drop location and email Ralston the location from home. Thank God one of us still had email access. Until next quarter, I wasn’t even allowed to go on the computers at school.

  “When you see her, ask Ralston if the FBI has any other cold cases we can wrap up for them,” I said with a smirk as we reached the top of the trail.

  “Roger. Ten-four,” Grace replied. “Over and outta here—” She pumped her fist and jogged off across the soccer field. In the late afternoon sun her shadow loomed before her like a giant.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Enemy Incoming

  “How many times I got to tell you?” Grandpa Young shouted to someone at the door. “I’m not gonna buy anything.”

  My family had just had dinner together for the first time that week because of all the long hours my parents had been putting in before next Thursday night’s test launch. It figured we’d eat together the one night I needed to be glued to the walkie-talkie for Grace’s Ralston update. I was handing dirty dishes to Jake, who seemed to believe cleanup duty was actually a regular hip-hop gig showcasing his ability to rap along with one out of every eighty words blasting through his headphones. If he didn’t occasionally strike painfully awkward hip-hop poses, we all would have assumed he was listening to a highly inappropriate phonics-based reading program.

  “What’s up, Dad?” I heard my father intervene in the foyer. “My God! Please come in. So sorry. Sometimes, you know . . .”

  “That’s quite all right, Wade” came Agford’s reedy falsetto.

  I froze.

  “Old age does bring its challenges,” Agford added with a little cluck.

  I pulled off Jake’s headphones before his next rap eruption, but it was Grandpa who shouted instead. “Enemy incoming! Double torpedoes!” he boomed.

  As my dad led Agford into the kitchen, I reminded myself to find Grandpa later and hug him.

  “Charlotte! Nice to see you,” my mom said uncertainly as Agford handed her a decorative glass jar filled with—of course—blood-red beets.

  “I thought I’d pop over and bring your gift early this year, since Soph left her assignment book in my office today.” Agford waved a notebook I’d never seen in my life and scrunched up her face. She was having more and more trouble imitating a smile. “Besides, Sophie and I didn’t quite finish our discussion earlier, so I thought . . . you two don’t mind if I spend one quick moment with her alone, do you?”

  “If that’s all right with you, S—” My dad couldn’t finish before Agford had slung her arm around me and steered me halfway to the stairs. What could I do? Take her out with Wave Hands Like Clouds?

  Grandpa Young shook his head at my dad. “I’m telling you, Wade, it’s domestic defense you should be working on. Increase the burn velocity on that missile interceptor. That’s your trouble.” Grandpa slapped him on the back.

  “Sure thing, Dad,” my father said, exchanging a look with my mom.

  If only they understood what Grandpa really meant.

  Agford’s headache-inducing “perfume” cloud roiled in her wake as she walked around my room and surveyed its decor. She ran her fingers along the books on my shelf, pulling out Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and glancing at the cover before sliding it back in the wrong place. She held up my Hello Kitty piggy bank and squinted at it, tapped the lid of my I Ching fortune-telling sticks, and poked at my brass Buddha figurine. I made a mental note to order incense from Feng Shui Planet to counteract her Lysol stink. It was going to take weeks to restore proper balance.

  Agford’s eyes crawled over my wind chimes, my bamboo ink-and-wash painting, and my twin bed’s red comforter, finally coming to rest on my poster of Kai Li. She nodded slowly at it, as if interpreting highly conceptual modern art.

  Agford broke her long silence. “I’m going to need my wig back,” she said, still staring at the poster.

  I kept my expression as neutral as possible and said nothing. Be subtle to the point of soundlessness.

  “Now’s not the time for games, Sophie,” Agford snapped. She walked over to the bed and sat down next to me.

  I met her eyes. I did not blink.

  “I have it on good information that you have some things of mine.” Agford’s voice fell to a hoarse whisper. “Those items are very important to me. I need them back.”

  “I think Marissa and her friends picked up your things after the—the—”

  “The malfunction?”

  “The malfunction.”

  “Or the vandalism?” she asked, studying me. The bed creaked as she stood up and paced the room again. Her dark eyes flitted from surface to surface.

  I pulled myself into a casual, cross-legged pose and watched as Agford tried to hide the desperation of her search. A burst of giddiness overcame me. I had to focus on the seam of my bedspread to contain myself. It was like the time Grace and I were struck with a giggling fit right as my cousin Beth took her wedding vows.

  But Agford stopped midstride. Her face lit up. I followed her gaze to the antenna of my walkie-talkie peering out from under my Feng Shui Planet catalog.

  She picked it up slowly. I braced myself for her anger. It didn’t come. Instead she fiddled with the dial and looked lost in thought.

  “You know, Sophie? You remind me of myself sometimes,” she said gently. She smiled then—not her usual bared-teeth smile but a faint, fond smile that unnerved me. It almost looked real.

  “Myself as a child, I mean. Even younger than you are now.” Agford sat down on my bed again and tilted her head. Warmth flickered in her usually cold eyes. Even with our suspicions about Agford, I’d sometimes catch myself thinking of her decorating her fake Halloween graveyard all alone and—for just a second—I’d wonder if she could really be behind anything bad. Was it possible the FBI couldn’t prove their case any faster because she really wasn’t their woman?

  “Me and my younger brother, we had walkie-talkies, too,” she continued. “They had a Morse code function, and we used to stay up late sending each other messages when our mom thought we were asleep. It made life seem more exciting somehow.”

  That Agford had ever been a kid—that she could have been someone’s little girl—seemed impossible. I tried to picture her watching cartoons, playing tic-tac-toe with her brother, snuggling stuffed animals. I guess she couldn’t have always been slathered in makeup and weighed down by the entire Southwest’s reserve of turquoise jewelry. I felt the littlest bit sad that I couldn’t imagine her any other way.

  “But you have to grow up, Sophie.” She leveled her eyes at me. “Games can cross lines. Games can hurt people. They do hurt people.” Her voice fell to a rusty whisper. She held up the walkie-talkie. “Is that what this is for? Games?”

  I felt myself snap to attention. It was like Grandpa said about gathering intelligence in the war. You have to forget what someone is saying and focus on why and how. Agford couldn’t get to me anymore—not with childhood memories, not with smiles, not with anything. Grace would have already contacted Ralston by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the feds seized Agford tonight, so they could catch her off guard.

  I fastened my eyes on hers. “Game?” I said. “No, it’s definitely not a game.”

  Agford pressed her lips together. She stood up. “I see.” She tucked the walkie-talkie into her blazer pocket. “I think your parents will be interested in this. Maybe Grace’s parents, too.” She studied my reaction. “In fact, I’m headed over to the Yangs’ now. I promised them we’d discuss the pros and cons of public school versus homeschooling.”

  I stared back blankly, but inside I screamed. What if Grace hadn’t stashed the evidence yet?

  “That’s so sweet of you.” I smiled, hoping it looked more natural than it felt.

  “Oh, really,” Agford said as she turned to leave. “It’s my pleasure.”

  I watched from my window as Agford strode down our front steps. My pulse quickened with the clopping of her heels. There was nothing I could do to stop
her. I closed my eyes and pictured her heel catching on the stair, her outstretched arms windmilling, her teeth smacking against concrete. I opened them again. Onward she marched, arms swinging like a determined soldier’s. She was almost to Grace’s driveway. I pressed one hand to the glass and prayed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A Shocking Discovery

  Later that night I waited in the dark under my covers, fully dressed in black shoes, pants, and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I’d had to ransack my closet, but I’d managed to embrace a little spy style for once.

  After Agford had left to share her walkie-talkie discovery with my parents and, no doubt, suggest that I spend the remainder of my life alone in a damp cell inhabited by flesh-eating spiders, I’d slid open my window. When my parents’ last murmurs finally faded and I heard nothing but the breeze from my open window brushing against my wind chimes, I crept out of bed, lashed my trusty rope to the bedpost—tying a double knot for safety—and strung it down the house.

  “Thank God you came,” Grace said as she let me in the sliding-glass door that led from her side yard to her room. “It was awful. So awful.” Her hair was pinned back, and white spots dotted her face.

  “What happened to you?”

  “You mean this?” Grace pointed to her face. “Just zit cream,” she explained. “That woman makes me break out.” She shooed Lucky off the bed and swept away a pile of magazines to make room for me. Patches of blank wall yawned like missing teeth among Grace’s usual floor-to-ceiling collage of posters, representing the spaces where her FBI wanted notices once hung. The cardboard cutout of Nux Vomica’s lead singer still sneered, but he looked a little lost. I breathed in, checking for Agford’s eau de Lysol scent.

  “She got everything, didn’t she?” I opened the door to Grace’s closet command center. There were no maps, no clippings, no whiteboard. Nothing but shoes and belts and clothes falling off hangers.