[The History Mystery 01.0] Time and Again

by Deborah Heal

  “Well, she did say to have fun,” Abby said.

  They convened their beauty seminar in Abby’s room, and Merrideth sat facing the dresser mirror. “Okay. What’s first?”

  “The first thing is to trim your hair a little.” Abby combed Merrideth’s hair and then began to snip all around her face. After a while, she stepped back. “There. Look how much better we can see your beautiful brown eyes. And this suits the shape of your face better.”

  “Do you really think they’re pretty? I wish I had blue eyes.”

  “I think brown eyes are gorgeous.”

  “The snow cone guy’s eyes are blue.”

  “I know. They’re a shade that’s sort of a cross between—”Abby stopped herself. “Let’s just forget John and focus on you.”

  “Okay, so how about my nails?”

  “Slow down there, girl. The next thing is to wash your hair. Now that you’re older, you need to shower and wash your hair every day.”

  “I hate to take a bath.”

  “That’s obvious.” Abby stole a cautious look at Merrideth. Her eyes were round.

  “Oh.”

  “But you’ll feel much better if you do.” She paused. “And you’ll be nicer to be around.”

  “Oh.”

  “And here. You need this now, too.” She handed Merrideth her powder-scented deodorant.

  “Oh.”

  “Why don’t you try my vanilla shampoo? Lather up twice and don’t put anything else on your hair.”

  “I always use mom’s conditioner when—”

  “Your type of hair doesn’t need any conditioners. You’ll see. And be sure to rinse well,” Abby added. “When you get done I’ll style your hair.”

  “Okay. I’ll try it,” Merrideth said, walking toward the bathroom.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Abby said off-handedly. “You can borrow my razor…if you want to shave your legs.”

  Merrideth’s eyes went large. “I might.”

  Abby gave her a few tips so she wouldn’t come away with too many wounds. Merrideth, part girl and part woman, skipped off to the bathroom.

  Abby smiled after her, glad that she’d made the effort. Merrideth was progressing nicely. She just needed a little help with a few things.

  When Merrideth was finished showering, they went again to Abby’s room, and she showed her how to style her hair so that it framed her face.

  “I wish I had curly hair like yours,” Merrideth said wistfully.

  “Oh, you goose! Look how shiny and blond your hair is now that it’s really clean. Why would you want mine? See, you’re beautiful.”

  “Abby?”

  “Yes?”

  “Abby, would you mind if I used your makeup?”

  “I think it would be all right. But just a little. We want the real you to show through. Then I’ll do your nails.”

  Afterward, Merrideth demanded her turn. She painted Abby’s toenails a bright pink and styled her hair in strange and exotic ways.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Abby said as Merrideth put the finishing touches on her hair. “I know the book I brought is not your favorite. So how about if we get you a library card? You can check out the kind of books you like best. And it will give us a chance to show off our fabulous hair styles around town.”

  “Like at the snow cone stand?” Merrideth asked with a sly smile. “After all, they are having that ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ sale.”

  “Right. Good idea.”

  Merrideth suggested that they take Michael with them, which was brilliant, Abby thought, not only because she wanted to give the boy a treat, but also because it gave them a perfectly good excuse to return to Tropical Frost. And it was all the better that Merrideth had come up with the plan. She didn’t want John to get the wrong idea.

  But first she had to find Michael. No one answered the door of his house when she knocked, and they didn’t get even a glimpse of him all the way to the end of the road.

  Mrs. Arnold stopped hoeing weeds long enough to say that she hadn’t seen him all day. “If you ever find that rascally boy, tell him I got some cookies for him, too. Tell him not to worry, his have blue icing.”

  “I wanted to ask his mother if he could go get a snow cone with us. I knocked, but…”

  “Oh, she’s in there, but she din’t hear you. Miz Richardson’s stone deaf. That’s why Michael can’t talk proper, you know. Cause he ain’t got nobody much to talk proper to him, ‘cept me.”

  “But he’s smart,” Merrideth said a little defensively.

  “Heavens to Betsy, yes!” Mrs. Arnold chuckled. “That boy’s smart as a whip.”

  They had decided they would have to go on without Michael, but when they got back to the house, he was sitting patiently on their front porch. His eyes lit with excitement when they explained their plan.

  “Let’s ask your mom,” Abby said.

  “How are we going to do that if she can’t hear?” Merrideth asked.

  “How about an old-fashioned letter?”

  They trooped back upstairs and Abby sat down at the computer. Merrideth and Michael watched with interest as she typed a short note introducing herself and asking Mrs. Richardson permission for the trip. Then she added, at Merrideth’s suggestion, a request that Michael be allowed to stay on for dinner.

  When they pulled up to his house, Michael jumped out of the car with the typed sheet and raced to the front door. After a short time, the curtain in the front window swished back and a woman’s curious face appeared there momentarily. Then, face beaming, Michael ran back to the car and returned the letter to Abby. At the bottom of it, Mrs. Richardson had written:

  Mrs. Arnold told me who you are, so it’s all right with me. Thanks for being nice to Michael.

  –Betty Richardson

  Michael was quivering with excitement about getting a snow cone, but he went with them into the library with no complaint. It didn’t take long to get Merrideth’s library card. When the librarian handed it to her, she smiled proudly and showed it to Michael.

  Merrideth picked out several books for herself, and then, seeing the look on Michael’s face, took him to the little kids’ shelves and helped choose some books for him. Abby wasn’t sure if he could read, but judging by his expression, he really wanted to.

  When they got to the Tropical Frost stand, Michael raced ahead of them down the sidewalk. But before they could catch up with him, he came back, his smile replaced with a look of sad resignation. Abby saw a group of small boys in green and yellow baseball uniforms crowded around the window.

  “I think the little creeps have come to town,” Merrideth whispered.

  Surely these weren’t the bullies who’d taken Michael’s cookies? They looked so cute and wholesome. Three of the boys were already busily slurping snow cones. A small red-haired boy was mining his pockets for the money he needed to pay for his.

  When Abby and the others got into line behind them, the tallest boy nudged the redhead and said, “Hurry up, Jake.”

  Behind the counter, John patiently held a grape snow cone in one hand while accepting the nickels, dimes, and pennies the boy gave him with the other.

  John looked up and smiled. “Abby, I like your hair.”

  She put her hand up to her hair and mentally groaned. The hair clips and elastic bands Merrideth had stuck all over her hair were still there. But when Abby saw that she was smiling proudly, she put her hand down.

  She smiled weakly. “Thanks. Merrideth fixed it for me.”

  John grinned at Merrideth. “Maybe you’ll have your own salon in the city one day.”

  She looked thoughtful. “Maybe I will.”

  The boy finally put the last penny in John’s hand, and then he and the other boys turned away, whispering and pointing. At first, Abby thought they were pointing at her hair, and she really didn’t blame them. But then they began to chant: “Tardo, tardo, Michael is a retard.”

  They must have thought they were far enough away to be safe from retribution, bu
t John vaulted over the counter with the ease of a track star and, reaching the boys in three strides, grabbed the ringleader’s shirt in one hand and the red-haired boy’s in the other.

  “You little punks!” he said.

  The boys’ eyes were huge and they didn’t even bother to resist arrest, although their friends wasted no time mounting their bikes and racing away down the sidewalk.

  “You come back over here and apologize right now.” He hauled his two detainees back to the window, where she and Merrideth stood with their mouths gaping open, and Michael looked like he had just seen his favorite super-hero come to life.

  The boys hung their heads and mumbled some- thing. Abby wasn’t sure anyone knew what they said, including the boys themselves. But they seemed remorseful, so John let them go. They didn’t stick around to chat.

  “Since you apologized, you’re welcome to come back,” John called after them. “But tell your buddies if they want to come to Tropical Frost again, they’ll have to come talk to me first.”

  Calmly he opened the side door and reappeared behind the window. “Now. What can I get for you ladies and gentleman today?”

  “We came back,” Abby said unnecessarily, “for the buy-one-get-one sale. That’s the reason we came. And Michael—that’s Michael—and Michael has never been to Tropical Frost before. So, anyway, that’s why we’re here.” She closed her eyes in relief. At last her mouth had stopped.

  “Hi, pleased to meet you.” John extended his hand, and the boy smiled and shook it. “What flavor can I get you, Michael?”

  “What kind do you got?” he asked.

  “Have,” Abby corrected automatically.

  Merrideth began describing all the flavors on the chart to him.

  “I wanted to come see your Miles Station,” John said. “But I couldn’t get off work.”

  “If you like historical houses like I do, you’d love it,” Abby said.

  “I meant I wanted to come see you.”

  “Oh.” She panicked and began babbling again. “That’s the trouble with summer jobs, isn’t it? They don’t pay much and you can’t get time off when you want to.” Why was she talking about the blasted job again?

  “Well, actually it does pay pretty well.”

  He had to have pretty low career expectations to think that. Before she could think of what to say that wouldn’t sound patronizing, Michael announced the flavor he had chosen. John seemed embarrassed because he had to ask him twice to repeat it.

  “He said Waikiki Lime,” Merrideth said.

  “And how about you, Abby? What do you want?” John asked.

  “Hmm.” She pondered the list on the wall. “I’ll take Slurple Purple.”

  John’s eyes were glued to Abby’s face as he handed her the cone.

  Merrideth watched John watch Abby sip her cone. “I would like…” She cleared her throat. “As for my order…” Merrideth began again, “I said…”

  John shook his head and seemed to come out of a trance. Finally, he shifted his eyes from her to Merrideth.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ll have pineapple, plain pineapple, please,” she said patiently.

  “Oh. Right,” he said, clearing his throat. “Sorry, we don’t have Pineapple Passion.”

  “That’s okay,” Merrideth said. “There’s too much around here anyway.”

  They left in a hurry again. But, other than Merrideth’s embarrassing remark, Abby was generally pleased with her behavior. This time she had managed to avoid staining her blouse and had acted as grown up as her makeup and new haircut. Best of all, she had been solicitous of Michael and seemed to enjoy her role as mentor and benefactor.

  When they got home, she even offered to read one of the library books to Michael. Listening from the kitchen, Abby was impressed by the fluency of Merrideth’s reading but even more with her kindness. When the story was finished, Merrideth suggested they go play computer games. He seemed reluctant to end the storytime until Merrideth told him they could read more after dinner, and he could come over and she’d read them to him again anytime he wanted.

  “You can play games after dinner,” Abby said. “But first, let’s open the word processor, Merrideth. You need to practice, because you’ll be typing more and more of your homework, especially in high school. Why don’t you type a letter to your dad? You know, a good old-fashioned letter might be better than a phone call, anyway.”

  Merrideth stared at the blank screen. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Did you ever thank him for the computer?”

  “No. He only got it for me because he felt guilty about the divorce.”

  Abby hoped he felt guilty for a whole lot more than that. “Well, you should still thank him.”

  After a moment, Merrideth began in a style that was somewhere between hunt and peck and touch typing. In an amazingly short time, she finished and shyly invited Abby to read her letter:

  Dear Dad,

  Thanks for the computer. There is a lot of neat stuff on it. I like Bubble Town the best. And there’s a secret on my computer. I’ll show you when you come visit. Dad, I miss you so much. Every night when I see the stars come out, I make a wish. Guess what I wish? I wish for you and Mom to get back together again. I also wish that I will wake up in the morning and find out that I am back in Chicago. Do you think you will get un-busy before school starts so I can come visit you? Maybe you could call me and let me know. I’m here almost every day, except me and Abby might go back to the library later this week. So try to call right away, okay?

  Love, Merrideth

  Abby swallowed a lump in her throat. “That’s very nice, kiddo.”

  “I guess a little practice doesn’t hurt. Now I’ll be warmed up for the usual what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation essay.”

  “Don’t forget the during-my-summer-vacation essay you’re going to need to type for your heartless tutor.”

  Merrideth turned to Michael, who had been patiently watching. “I have a game on here called Space Invaders. You want to play?”

  He grinned and nodded his head.

  Abby made homemade pizza, which impressed Merrideth and Michael, but not so much that they hung around for very long afterward. They did willingly carry their dishes over to the sink, but then raced back upstairs to play Space Invaders. As she was cleaning up the kitchen and straightening the living room, she heard their whoops and groans and the bleep-bleep of the computer. The cats were also having a fun time, thumping up and down the hall and stairs in their usual evening hyper mode.

  The bleeps and explosions stopped, and the house was uncannily quiet. When she got upstairs, she found Merrideth and Michael sitting on the computer boxes in the corner. He was listening intently as she read one of the library books to him.

  When she came to the end of the story, he smiled and didn’t stop, even when Abby told him it was time to go home. And since it was beginning to get dark, she and Merrideth walked him home, even though he assured them he wasn’t afraid to go by himself.

  The sun was low in the sky, but there was still no relief from the heat. The syrup-thick air pressed in on all sides as they walked down the dark road. Crickets chirped from the grassy ditches on either side of them. The pit bull rattled his chain and barked a few times when they passed. Blue-tinged lights flickered in one trailer’s front windows and canned audience laughter came in bursts of artificial hilarity. Heat lightning to the north outlined cornfields against the sky.

  “It’s going to be hot trying to sleep tonight,” Abby said after they left Michael at his house.

  “I’m going to take another shower before I go to bed.”

  Abby’s eyes widened in surprise. Two in one day. She kept the conversation impersonal. “It feels like it might rain. That would cool things down. As for now, it’s so humid I think we could swim the rest of the way home.”

  “Can’t.” Abby heard the smile in Merrideth’s voice. “I didn’t bring my floaties.”

  Chapter 13

  Micha
el showed up right after breakfast the next morning and looked adoringly up at Merrideth. “You want to play in my clubhouse?”

  “Sure, Michael. Lead the way.”

  Since Merrideth had just been urging her to hurry so that they could get back to time-surfing upstairs, Abby knew it was a huge sacrifice on her part.

  Abby assumed he would be taking them to the woods or at least somewhere near his home, but instead, he led them to their own barn.

  Michael tugged at the iron latch until it gave way and pushed the door open for them. Abby hadn’t gotten around to checking out the barn, and she stepped forward, eager to appease her curiosity. Something black and furry came at her, and she yelped and jerked back, stumbling into Merrideth. Finally, her brain processed what she had seen: a black cat had jumped down from the top rail of a stall and then fairly flown away into the gloom. There was no way to judge who had been more frightened—she or the cat.

  Michael laughed. “Wild cats.”

  “Not panthers or cougars,” Merrideth hurried to reassure her. “He means untamed cats.”

  Abby let out her breath and laughed. “I certainly hope so.”

  “There’s some pretty ones, but they won’t let you near them,” Merrideth said.

  Abby paused before entering, hoping there were no other surprises. The barn was dim, and the stalls that had once held livestock were empty. A splintered and worn manger on the right held hay so shrouded in dust that surely no self-respecting cow would ever eat it. The barn’s rough-hewn walls and rafters were festooned with dusty cobwebs. A lonely feeling seemed to float in the air and permeate the very timbers.

  Merrideth came in behind her and promptly tripped over something that went skittering across the barn’s stone floor.

  It was a dirty blue crockery bowl. Michael picked it up and held it out to Abby. “Miss Ruth used to feed the cats in it.”

  She had no inclination to take it but made a mental note to see about getting more cat food. “It’s an antique, I think. Could be valuable.”

  Merrideth looked at it closely. “Abby, it’s Charlotte’s bowl. Remember? I bet she took scraps out in it and forgot it. Just think. It’s been out here all this time.”