by Lori Woods
He immediately starts climbing to his feet, but I cock and swing Broom Hilda like a baseball bat. My blow lifts the creature off the floor and hurls him down the row of books to bounce off the wall. This time the creature regains its feet slowly, as though dazed. It pauses for a moment before it sprints toward me. I am ready! I have Broom Hilda cocked again for more batting practice. I do not have to swing. At the last possible second, the creature leaps high in the air to sail over my head. It lands, running for the stairs.
I start to pursue it but stop. “No, maybe it was trying to keep me from locating the book I’m looking for.”
Suddenly, sensing more than seeing something moving above me, I cock Broom Hilda as I glance up.
It’s a book moving up and down on the bookshelf, flanked by other books that look exactly alike.
I wait for it to whisper to me, but it does nothing but continue to move up and down. “What? The cat got your tongue?” I ask.
The book pops off the shelf. I have to dodge to keep it from hitting me in the head.
Gee, is this room haunted too? I think as I reach over and pick up the book. I look at the title. Spell Master’s Guide to Magic. “Looks like the book I was searching for. Snowball, glad to see you made it.” I find her at the top of the stairs, waiting impatiently. “Did you see that faceless man, Snowball? You know that thing might be down there waiting for us,” I say as I walk toward her, carrying Broom Hilda in one hand and the book in the other.
“Yes, it flew past me. But I can’t imagine it staying with that wicked witch down there,” Snowball says.
“Well, it had to go somewhere,” I remind her as we descend the stairs.
The backs of my legs are burning by the time I reach the main floor of the library. “Those stairs are better than a stair-stepping exercise machine,” I say as we head to the reception desk.
“Found one?” she asks, seeming surprised.
“Did you by chance see a pale . . . I’m not sure what it was. It had the shape of a man but didn’t have any facial features.”
“Hallucinating, are we? Climbing the stairs too much for you, dear?”
I suddenly feel like reaching out and twisting her long, crooked nose!
“Tell her, Snowball!”
“Ugly, ugly,” Snowball says and shudders. “No face! No face!”
“Well, I seriously doubt you two saw anything, but if you did, it was probably just a ghoul. They’ve been popping up all week in town. I guess they’re tired of living in Bellow Moor,” the librarian says. “But like I said, I didn’t see anyone come down the stairs. And I just conjured up these glasses last month—in case you’re thinking I need new glasses.”
I hold back the nasty response that is on the tip of my tongue. “Do you stamp a card in the back of the book with the return date?” I ask instead.
The witch again looks like I’ve just asked the most stupid of questions. “The book will tell you when it is due back. All books have a return spell on them,” she explains as though I am a little child.
“Thank you. You are so kind. Have a splendid day!” I say in the sweetest voice I can summon.
As I am heading for Red Sumac’s classroom to see if she is still there, I turn a corner and suddenly am face to face with Sheriff Dudley.
“Sheriff Dudley!” I exclaim, suddenly very happy to see one of my friends from Nightshade. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the Sheriff of Hemlock,” he answers rather gruffly. “And I’m Sheriff Tudley! Dudley is my twin brother, but I am older by five minutes!” he exclaims triumphantly, as though being older than Sheriff Dudley is his greatest accomplishment.
“My apologies. I didn’t know Sheriff Dudley had a twin brother. I’m from Nightshade. Actually, I was the librarian or . . . am . . . I’m not sure which now.”
“Oh, the white witch from Nightshade; the oldest student in the Academy. You’re the very person I wanted to talk to at the crime scene, but you left before I arrived.”
“Well, I waited until someone told me you wouldn’t be visiting the crime scene until the next morning,” I say firmly.
“Gout. I was having a bout with gout. Hmmm, that sounds sort of funny when you say it like that, but it wasn’t funny.”
“Yes, I hear gout can be very painful. But weren’t you afraid the trail would become cold if you waited that long before visiting the crime scene?” I ask.
Tudley touches his nose. “I have the best nose for crime in the realm. Unfortunately, there was speckled mold in the basement and it cloaks scents. Nice when it grows in a toilet but not at a crime scene.”
“In other words, Sheriff Tudley, you didn’t pick up any scents, not even mine?” I ask.
“Are you asking me to repeat myself? I’m not sure I can do it word for word?” Tudley says, looking perplexed.
I hold up my hand. “No, that’s fine.” I take a deep breath.
“Dumb and dumber!” Snowball says in a whispering hiss that I hope the sheriff can’t understand.
I turn my head to hide the fact that I am struggling to keep from smiling. “Sorry. I had something in my eye,” I say when I turn back to face Deputy Dog’s twin brother. “Uh, do you have any suspects?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Curious.”
“I heard how you went behind Dudley’s back to solve the murder of Rachel in Nightshade, and I’m giving you fair warning that I don’t like amateur detectives nosing around my cases and getting in the way of my police work.”
“So are you telling me you have no suspects?” I say just to annoy him.
“Of course I do. There are always suspects in a crime,” he says.
I don’t respond.
“I guess you don’t think I have suspects?”
I shrug.
“Well . . . I don’t, but I’ll sniff them out. You can be assured. Now if you will excuse me, I have lots of work to do.”
I wait until he is out of sight and then turn to my familiar. “Snowball,” I say, “it looks like we’re going to have to play detective again.”
“No, no! Bad things happen. Bad things!”
“Come on; let’s go see if Red is still in her classroom.”
We meet Red as she’s locking her classroom door.
“So did you find a good book?”
“I sure did, but not without a fight,” I say.
“You mean the book put up a fight?”
“No. I was attacked . . . by a ghoul.”
“What? Ghouls in Hemlock?” Red Sumac asks, her brows joined together after hearing my recounting of the attack. “Never heard of such a thing! Surely the librarian was joking.”
“She didn’t seem like the joking type. She acted as though I was a cockroach crawling into the library,” I say.
“No, no! That’s can’t be. She and your grandmother were best friends. They used to lend each other books.”
“Maybe she was just having a terrible, not good day!” I say with a shrug. “By the way, I just ran into Sheriff Tudley.”
“Him,” Red says. “I’m still trying to figure out which is dumb and which is dumber—him or his twin brother Dudley.”
“Yeah, I don’t see him solving the girl’s murder. He doesn’t have a clue,” I say.
She laughs mirthlessly.
“Changing the subject, do you know anyone who would have wanted to harm Polly?”
“No, but Ima Brewer told me she saw her in a heated argument with that blond warlock in her class the day she was killed. I think his name is Matt.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“Don’t know. Ima didn’t say,” Red answers.
“It was the warlock!” Snowball says.
Red glances down at Snowball.
I sigh. “She doesn’t like warlocks.”
Red smiles. “That’s because she doesn’t know them like I know them.”
Snowball hisses.
“Save it for our pajama party night after the kids are asleep,”
I say with a wink.
“Kids?”
I nod my head slightly at Snowball. “Alfie, of course.”
CHAPTER 6
N o one as young as Polly should have to die. Even though I’d only seen her once, her death affects me a lot. And since it doesn’t seem that Sheriff Tudley is doing much to find the murderer, I’m determined to discover who it is. I don’t care how many warnings Dumb/Dumber gives me to mind my own business. Why doesn’t he mind his? I think. It’s his job is to find out who committed the crime and why.
The first thing I’m going to do is question people about it—see what they know, maybe without even realizing they know something that can help. And so, deciding on this course of action, the most logical place to begin, is with Ima Brewer.
I decide to go to school fifteen minutes early, so I can talk to Ms. Brewer before classes begin. Of course, Alfie complains because he’ll lose sleep by having to get up fifteen minutes earlier than usual.
“Alfie,” I say, “you can sleep. We don’t need to go together.”
“But what if my alarm clock doesn’t go off?” he asks.
“It always has,” I tell him.
“Remember that old saying, ‘There’s a first time for everything.’”
I shake my head. “Then you’ll just have to get up when I do.”
“That’s not fair.”
“The murder wasn’t fair either,” I tell him.
“I know, and I’m sorry.” He frowns. “But what can I do when we get there early? I don’t have any place to go or anything to do.”
“Don’t be so exasperating,” I tell him.
“Now you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad…well, maybe just a tad irritated.”
“But what can I do?”
“Go to the library. See how they do things there as compared to Nightshade. Or why not just read a boo—” Darn it, I did it again. I sure wish someone could cast a spell that would allow him to read. Then I think, wow, maybe I can do something about that. I’ll have to think about it.
“Very mean, Suzy. Very, very mean.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I keep forgetting.”
“Well, I suppose I could try to find the headmistress of dwarf school and tell her about my dyslexia and that I’m worried about my classes since I can’t read.” Suddenly, he brightens. “But it would be good to just spend time with her. She is the most beautiful dwarf I’ve ever seen.”
So it’s settled. We both go to our schools early. I’m in luck because I find Ms. Brewer already in the classroom, setting up the day’s lesson. I notice a rubber chicken in front of each chair at the conference table. Hmm, I wonder what that’s about. And what sort of bad luck I’ll have with it.
“Suzy, good morning,” she says as I enter the classroom. “Bright and early, I see.”
“Yes, I wondered if I might ask you a few questions.”
“Oh, if it’s about what happened with the cassowary, don’t worry. Those things happen.”
“Yes, I hear my grandmother had the same sort of problem with brewing spells.”
“Oh, she did. I remember it well.”
“But that’s not what I wanted to ask about?”
She looks up from arranging things on the table. “What is it, Suzy?”
“It’s about Polly,”
“What a tragedy! What a terrible thing to happen.”
“I didn’t know her, of course. But I am the one who…who discovered her.”
“That must have been terrible for you.”
“It was. On the way to the basement, I heard a couple of screams and other noises. I was expecting someone to be there.”
“The killer?”
“Yes, I was scared, but if anyone was being hurt, I felt I had to try to save the person.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“Nobody except Polly and a ghost.”
She shakes her head. “Oh, yes, our resident poet. I’ve heard about him, but have never gone to meet him.” She pauses. “There was no sign of the killer?”
“None. I don’t know how he could have disappeared so quickly.” I look into her eyes. “You don’t have any idea who might have killed her, do you? I mean is there anyone you can think of who had a motive?”
“None at all. I can’t imagine why anyone would kill such a sweet girl.”
“The only time I saw her was in your class. So I don’t really know anything about her…except that she wore thick glasses, which the murderer completely destroyed. Left the lenses pulverized as though in a rage,” I say.
“That’s very strange that someone would feel so much anger against Polly,” Ms. Brewer answers.
“I thought so too,” I say.
“Maybe it was someone who hated her so much they wanted to obliterate anything that had to do with her.”
“But who and why? Red Sumac told me Polly was one of her favorite students.”
“Mine too,” Ms. Brewer says. “Ordinarily a very sweet girl. But if someone riled her, she did have a temper.”
“Oh, I had no idea.”
“Totally uncharacteristic. An aberration, I’d say.”
“Could she have gotten into a fight with someone who was angry and wanted revenge?”
“I suppose anything’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely. The time or two I saw Polly lose her temper, she was immediately sorry. In fact, she seemed to be so regretful she tried to make up with the person immediately, the one she was mad at.”
“But maybe the other person wasn’t so forgiving. I need to find out who she had disagreements with lately, if anyone.”
“Wish I could be more helpful.”
“May I ask another question? Two questions actually.”
“Of course.” She smiles sympathetically and sits down in one of the chairs by the conference table, motioning for me to sit across from her.
“The other students will be here in a little while, so I’ll try to be quick.” I purse my lips. “You may not want to answer this…okay, this is a remedial class. Why then was Polly enrolled?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you, and you must promise not to tell anyone else.”
“We promise,” Snowball says, her expression solemn. I think to tell her not to say anything, but I know the murder has affected her too.
“She had trouble at home.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“A nasty divorce. You see, her father is a warlock and her mother a witch. They cast some nasty spells on each other, which greatly affected Polly. Especially when her father turned her mother into a black widow spider, but before she morphed, she turned him into a wasp. Then it turned physical. From what I understand, Polly became hysterical, trying to rescue one and then the other. The parents finally realized what their carrying on was doing to their daughter and stopped. The father left, but vowed revenge.”
“Terrible. Do you think…No, I won’t ask.”
“Do I think her father killed her?” She shrugged and shook her head. “Again, anything’s possible. But I doubt it. From what I gather, she loved both her parents, and they loved her. Still…it’s something to think about, isn’t it?”
“And since her father’s a warlock, he could disappear. That would explain why no one was there when I found the body,” I say.
“How could someone kill their own child?” Snowball seems very troubled. “If I had a kitten, I’d just give her a lot of love.”
I scratch behind Snowball’s ears. “I know you would. You’re a good cat.”
Snowball begins to purr very loudly.
“Anyhow, the problems at home greatly affected Polly’s schoolwork. She was a very bright student. But this was just too much for her.”
“Poor girl. I feel very sorry for her.”
By now, other students started trickling in. I leave the table and go to my seat in the back, where Snowball leaps into my lap. All the students seem subdued; I’m sure as a result of Polly’s death. All of them must have he
ard about it.
Immediately, I’m caught up in hearing a conversation between two girls.
“Polly was such a sweet girl,” one of them says, “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to… to…”
“Off her!” the second girl says, her tone harsh.
“I can’t believe how you’re reacting, Carol.”
“That I’m not all teary and depressed.” Carol stops and faces the other girl. “Look at this, Gail. Just take a look.” She points to her left eye. Only then do I notice it’s black.
“My God, Carol, what happened?”
“Our sweet friend, Polly.”
“She did that?”
“She certainly did.”
“But why?” Gail asks.
“Matt’s my boyfriend; you know that, right?”
“I know you’ve gone out a few times.”
“Well, it seems Polly was trying to throw herself at him.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“So I warned her to stay away. We got into this fight after school. And this is what she did.”
“Class,” Ms. Brewer said. “I’m sure you’re all very upset about what happened yesterday. I am too. There is student counseling available if you need it…but lets not dwell on it for now. Please open your books.”
I SPEND the rest of my free time that day talking to the other teachers and to the headmaster. None can shed any light on what happened. There were plenty of suspects, but no proof whatsoever. I’m becoming very discouraged.
Matt has also been following me all day. I finally turn to him in the hallway outside one of the classrooms because I’m tired of this. “Did you want something, Matt?” I take a breath, realizing how harsh that sounds. “Matt, I don’t mean to be unkind,” I tell him. “But—”
“Yes?”
“It bothers me to have you following me all day like a stray dog looking for a home.”
Snowball frowns. “No one ever follows me!”
“I’m sorry,” Matt says. “I don’t mean any harm.”