Grace wiped her hands on her mechanic’s jumpsuit and sighed. “There’s got to be something of Bain’s in here, though, don’t you think? A letter? A checkbook? She can’t have burned everything.”
But each box turned out to be more worthless than the last. We found old Consumer Reports magazines, some paperbacks, a Crock-Pot, tacky figurines of gnomes and fairies, and empty picture frames. I rubbed my nose and sneezed.
Grace checked one of her watches. “Two fifteen,” she said. “I thought Trista was going to text when she started her session with Agford.” She sighed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What’s what mean?”
I shot Grace a look. “She’s on it, okay? We can’t give up yet.”
“Who said anything about giving up?” Grace grinned back. “Young and Yang do not give up.”
“That’s right,” I said as I flipped the lid off another archive box.
Five, ten, then fifteen minutes passed. Still nothing. Soon we’d have to make our escape. Empty-handed. Grace grunted as she tried to shove a box back onto one of the high shelves.
“Hang on,” I said, boosting myself up the side of the shelves to see what was blocking the way.
A heavy, leather-bound book covered in a blanket of cobwebs and dust had wedged itself in the grate of the shelves. I tugged it loose. It smacked to the concrete floor. The beveled edges of a large orange T poked out through the dust.
Grace flipped her baseball cap around backward and picked up the book. She gingerly opened it to the first page and gasped.
“Is it what I think it is?” I asked.
“Tilmore High School. Tilmore, Texas,” Grace read. “A yearbook.”
“Ow!” My knees cracked as I jumped back to the floor.
“You all right?”
“Never been better.” I leaned over Grace’s shoulder. “Can you believe this? Flip to faculty/admin photos.” It almost seemed too easy.
“Deborah Bain.” Grace could hardly utter the words as she pointed to the photo. “Deborah Bain!” Grace thrust the book at me. “We did it!” She gave a little yelp of joy.
But the woman in the picture looked nothing like Charlotte Agford. She was a dried-up witch of a woman, as bony and angled as the inside of Agford’s house. Her Roman nose jutted out over lips so thin and tight, I wondered if I just imagined they were there. Dark bangs hung down one side of her forehead at an awkward angle, framing her jaw, while the rest of her stringy hair lay limp on her shoulders. A multicolored sweater from the eighties sagged over her flat chest. It was a far cry from her pastel suits or even her weekend jeans, but it did remind me of the autumn-themed cat-puke sweater she’d worn the week before.
Still, one feature proved beyond any doubt that it was Agford. Staring back at us from below Bain’s crooked bangs were two eyes so lifeless, they could belong to no one else. Those were the dead eyes that floated above Agford’s Cheshire cat grin. Those were the eyes that had crawled over every last possession in my room—that had watched me from across Agford’s desk at each therapy session. I’d never been happier to see those dark, soulless pools and feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
We stared at them as if in a trance.
“It’s really her, isn’t it?” I whispered.
Grace bit her lip and nodded. “I think we’ve done it,” she said.
Suddenly I felt light. I stood up straighter. “Ralston can stay on her stupid vacation forever,” I said. My voice reverberated against the basement walls. “Young and Yang are on the case.”
“That’s right.” Grace beamed, then pretended to glance at her watches. “And I believe Agent Yang has a pressing appointment with the Luna Vista police.”
She led the charge up the basement stairs, slippers shuffling. She stopped short at the top.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Grace jiggled the doorknob. “Oh, nothing,” she said. “The door’s sticking a little.” She tried again. The knob refused to budge more than an inch in either direction.
We stared at it.
“Let me try,” I said at last.
Grace stepped aside. I turned the knob. It wriggled from side to side, its rattle sounding suspiciously like a chuckle.
“Don’t panic,” Grace said, her voice flying up an octave. “Everything’s fine.”
Chapter Twenty
The Face in the Window
“Tools,” I said, rushing back down the stairs, slippers smacking. “She has tools!” I knocked over a ceramic pot. It cracked in half.
“Careful!”
“Maybe you want to help instead of direct?” I shot back.
“Maybe you want to not break everything?” Grace threw up her hands.
We used what we could find to try to jimmy the door. Nothing was out of the question. Hooks from Christmas ornaments. Rusty scissors. There was one horrifying moment when, imitating the countless TV robbers I’d seen break into houses with credit cards, I almost lost my school ID through the crack in the door. We turned our attention to the half windows that peeked above ground. Grace boosted me up. They were sealed shut, every last one.
“We should call Trista,” I said. “It’s a risk if she’s still in Agford’s office, but she might be able to do something.”
Grace hesitated, then handed me her phone.
I dialed Trista’s number. Nothing happened. I squinted at the phone, shook it. I pressed the power button, then pressed it again. I held it up higher. No service. Not even one tiny bar.
Even if Trista had tried to text, she wouldn’t have been able to reach us. The cell phone flashed the time: 3:30. Last period had long since ended. Agford would be on her way, if she hadn’t slipped home already. I shuddered at the thought. “Trista must have tried to call,” I said. “She would have warned us by now.”
Grace grabbed back her cell and walked the perimeter of the basement, holding the phone high in hopes that one little green bar would appear. Again, nothing.
I looked around again. Double wooden storm doors at the end of a small ramp in the corner led outward and upward into Agford’s backyard.
“I think they’re our best shot,” I said, hoping I was right. We took running starts and threw our meager weight against them. They creaked, giving way a few tantalizing centimeters before falling back. They must have been padlocked from the outside.
Grace began to pace. The rhythmic thwack-thwack of her slippers against the concrete drowned out my thoughts. We needed an escape plan. Yet I could only sit there, hypnotized by the shuffle of Grace’s rose-embroidered slippers.
Slippers.
Our shoes were at the side door. If we didn’t figure out how to escape before Agford came home, there they’d be, their tongues flapped open, the only time in the recorded history of the world that tongues of shoes would actually tattle on someone.
I groaned as I sat on the basement steps.
“What?”
“Our shoes.” I pointed at Grace’s slippers. “So much for not leaving a trail.”
“She’s not going to come through the side door,” Grace said. She tugged at one of her braids and looked at her feet. She sighed. “But we’re toast, anyway, even if Agford doesn’t catch us. As soon as my parents come home and find out I’m gone . . .” She plopped down on the steps next to me. She took off her baseball cap and wiped her brow. “I can’t believe I agreed to this,” she said.
I was sure I’d misheard her. “What’s that?”
“This dumb plan. I can’t believed I agreed to it,” she repeated.
“Agreed to it?”
“Yeah.” Grace flung her baseball hat on the floor as she stood up. “This was your plan. Remember? I said we should wait for Ralston to come back. Instead you’re all, ‘My friend Trista, she can do anything!’” In Grace’s version of my voice, I sounded like a five-year-old who’d sucked in a balloonful of helium. “Ever since you started hanging out with her, you think you’re a superhero or something. ‘My
friend Trista, she can make a remote for Agford’s garage. My friend Trista . . .’” Grace let out a sarcastic huff.
“That’s right,” I said. “Trista can do anything. I bet she doesn’t scream when she sees a fly either. Maybe she can even figure out how to walk into a basement without locking herself in it.” I heard the quaver in my voice as it echoed against the concrete walls. I looked at Grace. “Some agent.”
Grace’s mouth tightened into a hard line. She narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, some agent,” she said. “You know who you should have brought? A four-hundred-pound giant who can’t whisper.”
“Classy, Grace. Great way to talk about someone you’ve never met.”
“And where’d I get the description from, then, huh?”
I folded my arms. “Maybe we should have brought Jocelyn and Natalie. We could have experimented with eyeliner.” Grace was fuming, but I didn’t care. “Not everyone can look like they just stepped off a fashion runway, you know,” I added.
“That’s for sure,” Grace said, looking me up and down. I was wearing my standard jeans-and-hoodie uniform, except for the slippers, of course.
“I don’t think . . . ,” I began. I struggled to keep my voice steady as I spoke my next words. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more superficial in my whole life.”
Grace’s face went slack. She staggered backward. “Superficial,” she repeated in a near whisper. Her nostrils flared, and her voice flew into a high whine. “I’m superficial because I don’t quote Chinese philosophers and string up wind chimes for my chi? I’m superficial because I read Teen Vogue and don’t wear the same jeans three days in a row? You know what’s superficial?” Grace’s cheeks flushed nearly as red as our slippers. “Thinking people are superficial if they’re not just like you.”
A box tumbled from one of Agford’s shelves and slammed to the floor. I felt as if it had crashed on top of me instead. I wondered if it was too late to take back what I’d said.
“You know I don’t think that, Grace,” I said quietly.
“How would I know?” she fired back. “I don’t have thoughts. I’m just a superficial airhead!”
“Oh, you have thoughts, all right,” I said. “You have bright ideas.” If she wasn’t going to back down, neither was I. “Like wearing black and creeping around at midnight. Like spying on Agford. I can’t believe I protected you when we got caught! We wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for you. Come to think of it . . .” I didn’t want to say any more, but the words pushed past the lump in my throat before I could squelch them. “I was never in any trouble until I met you.”
Grace stood very still for a long time. Then she turned her back.
“I never wanted to hang out with you in the first place. You reminded me of a little mouse,” she said. “I just felt sorry for you.” She shrugged. “And I was bored.”
It felt like the concrete floor had opened up beneath me like a trapdoor. I thought about the way Grace had acted the first night we met, at dinner with the Yangs right after we moved in. Her chin in her hand. Never making eye contact. The way she stared at her flaking nail polish. No matter what she’d claimed since, the truth was obvious. She hadn’t even wanted to talk to me, let alone hang out. I was just some mousy girl she could push around. I wondered if that was what I was to Trista, too. And Rod? Did he see me that way?
“If we ever get out of here alive,” I said, my voice choking to a whisper, “get used to boredom.”
“Good,” Grace said after a long silence. The cold edge in her voice hurt even more than the word itself. “I’ll never have to look at you and your boring Old Navy T-shirts again,” she said, her lower lip trembling. “I’ll never have to listen to you wonder whether the northwest corner of your room needs a babbling fountain to clear out your bad feng shui. And I will never, ever have to listen to stupid quotes from some ancient Chinese philosopher. You’re obsessed!”
“Just because you know nothing about your background doesn’t make me obsessed.” I clutched my arms tightly around my chest.
Grace jutted her chin forward. “I know more than you ever will. It’s who I am. You never get that! Are you any less Irish because you don’t know anything about the life of Saint Patrick? How would you feel if I was always spouting off stories about Irish faeries and dressing like a leprechaun while I danced jigs? I can’t believe I’ve put up with it for this long. And your Mandarin accent sucks, by the way.”
“At least I can read characters, and that’s without five years of Chinese school.”
“Good for you, Sophie. I bet Rod Zimball really digs white chicks who want to be Chinese. You think Rod’s texting you because he likes you? He’s just bored like me.”
Grace couldn’t have meant that. Not the girl who once braved her worst fear to walk all the way down to the beach with me just so I could run into Rod.
“People usually hate in others what they themselves are,” I said quietly.
“Let me guess. Sun Tzu, circa 3000 BC?”
“Sophie Young, circa 2000 AD.” I glared at her.
Grace looked at her watch. God, it was stupid to wear six watches. Really stupid. I can’t believe I ever thought Grace made it seem cool.
“Getting bored again?” I spat. “Being locked in a fugitive’s basement not exciting enough?”
“Counting the minutes until Agford comes home and finds us. Because then I won’t have to—” Grace gasped, her eyes widening in horror. I turned around.
A face loomed in the window above us.
Chapter Twenty-one
Rock Bottom
The face peered in, its features twisted into a menacing squint. Not until I recognized the curves of its round cheeks did I catch my breath again. Relief poured over me.
But Grace had never met Trista before. She backed away slowly.
With Trista’s frown filling the window frame like a horror-movie close-up, it was no wonder Grace assumed we were done for. She drew in a sharp breath as Trista leaned back and revealed her full army camouflage. At least it appeared she was wearing full camouflage until I realized she’d just thrown on some green sweatpants and a turtleneck under a bulky green cargo jacket. Her many pockets bulged—with tools, I imagined.
Grace was reassured when she saw my expression. “Let me guess,” she said. “Trista Bottoms?”
“Yep.” I waved to Trista and gestured to our ridiculous Chinese slippers. “Shoes!” I said, pointing to the side door.
Trista rolled her eyes and displayed one of my Pumas. Of course she’d already snagged them. I wouldn’t have been that surprised if she’d commandeered a helicopter for our escape while she was at it.
She reached into one of her cavernous cargo pockets and pulled out several pieces of metal in various sizes. Centuries passed as she fumbled with the parts. What was she doing? I was about to point her to the wooden storm doors, but she had already slipped out of view. She must have headed for them.
Grace and I waited in silence.
“I can’t believe this,” Grace whispered. “We’re waiting for a seventh grader with hands like oven mitts to pick a lock.”
“If a certain someone hadn’t shut the basement door behind her, maybe—”
“The wind blew it! It could have just as easily been you.”
Something thudded upstairs. Agford. All she’d have to do was peer out her window and she’d see a twelve-year-old in camouflage breaking into her basement.
But the thudding hadn’t been from upstairs. It was Trista, tugging at one of the double doors. Within seconds they groaned open, sending in a shaft of dusty light that appeared like a direct portal to heaven.
Grace reluctantly accepted Trista’s offered hand. I hoisted myself out behind her.
“Run! I’ll catch up,” Trista said.
Grace had already sprinted away barefoot, her slippers in hand. I followed. Trista caught up to us halfway up the hill, her pockets jangling with tools. No sign of Agford yet.
“I ended up lettin
g the air out of her tires after all,” Trista said, panting. “When you didn’t text back, I knew something had happened.”
She explained that she had ranted, raved, and sobbed during her therapy session, but Agford had ended it right on the hour. Fortunately Agford had shuttled off to advise an after-school S.M.I.L.E. meeting, probably to plan for their new “Look on the Bright Side” antidepression poster campaign while Agford probed them for an update on Operation Wig Retrieval. Marissa must have kept the dentist appointment mum. When Trista texted and didn’t get the confirmation signal we agreed on, she’d walked to her house nearby, improvised her army-camouflage getup, gathered her protractor, magnets, batteries, wire, and other tools in case they came in handy, then headed for the nearest bus stop. Fifteen minutes later she’d arrived at Agford’s. “I don’t do bikes,” she explained. I could just picture Trista in the bus’s front priority seating in her camouflage getup. She would have crossed her arms across her chest and frowned, daring the other passengers to so much as look at her the wrong way.
“Thank God you came. How’d you ever get that lock open?”
“Electromagnetic resistance. Like in our science lab this week? It’s perfect for combo locks. Wrap a battery-powered solenoid around a ferromagnetic core to create an electromagnet, then . . .” I understood only the gist of Trista’s explanation. Something about how when she twisted the dial of the combination lock, the magnet helped her feel resistance at the right numbers. Then she arranged the numbers into different sequences until one worked. “Piece of cake,” she said.
As we reached Grace’s patio, Grace was already slipping into her room.
“That’s it?” I said. “You’re just going to walk away?”
Grace ignored me and shut the patio door firmly behind her.
“You’re welcome!” Trista’s shout reverberated against the glass door. “Really, anytime!”
The patio door slid open again. Grace reemerged holding the yearbook in front of her like a tray. The wig and papers sat atop it.
“You’re still going to the cops, right?” I asked.
The Wig in the Window Page 15