by K. C. Dyer
“Oh, it’s all nonsense, anyway,” said Mrs. Follett, but she paused with her hand on the chair.
Darrell gave a short, forced laugh. “I know what you mean,” she agreed, “but what was the last thing you saw in my palm? You said ‘great love and great ...’”
Mrs. Follett swallowed. “Well dear — to tell you the truth, I’m not very sure of my own ability in this area. You know,” she added with an embarrassed blink, “I only read the palmistry book through the once.”
“Oh, I won’t take it seriously, Mrs. Follett. I’m just interested — for fun,” persisted Darrell.
Mrs. Follett glanced over at Kate and then back at Darrell. “Well if you must know, Darrell, I believe the interpretation would be great love and great — loss.”
Kate gave a relieved smile and lifted the tent flap again. “I think Darrell may have gone through that part already,” she said, her smile fading as she pointed at Darrell’s prosthesis.
“Goes to show you may have been more right than you know,” Darrell added lightly.
“Oh, you girls are so understanding,” said Mrs. Follett, firmly pinning a “Closed” sign on the outside of the tent. “I promise to give you each a free apple bob to make up for the faulty crystal ball!” She scurried off into the late fall sunlight.
Kate grabbed Darrell’s arm. “I thought for a minute she really saw something in your palm,” she whispered. Darrell shrugged and shook her head. She was about to respond when Paris came striding up dressed in full minstrel regalia, sky blue from the tip of his curled leather shoes to the short, gold-trimmed cape on his back.
“Wow! Your clothes are brighter than your hair,” Kate said, laughing.
Paris slung a mandolin over his back and shrugged. His hair, a natural blonde for once, shone in the morning sun. “Thought you’d be interested to hear who is trying out the stocks, Kate.” He grinned. “I know how disappointed you were to hear there were no dunk tanks in the Middle Ages.”
“Lily!” Kate shrieked and rabbited off, calling over her shoulder, “C’mon, Darrell, we’ve only got five minutes for snore revenge!”
Darrell smiled, but lagged a little behind, thinking about the startled look she had seen on Mrs. Follett’s face.
The sun was high as Darrell gathered up the last of the sponges to hand over to her replacement. In the end, Darrell’s responsibility turned out to be overseeing the stocks, where students who had fared poorly on a Renaissance quiz were required to spend five minutes at the mercy of those students who had scored better as they wielded wet sponges from a distance of thirty paces. The flags on the fairground poles snapped in the wind blowing in from the water.
She peeked at her watch and her stomach clenched. Nearly time to meet Kate and Brodie. She piled the sponges in a bucket.
Paris leaned on the rail and pretended to duck. “I’m on duty, not a victim!”
Darrell forced a laugh and handed him the sponges. “See you later, Paris. Have fun, okay?”
“Okay. Where are you going first? Food?”
“Oh — yeah. I’ve heard the taffy pull is pretty fun.”
Paris curled his lip. “I guess, if you like sticky stuff all over your fingers. I had some kind of meat pie for lunch at the booth over there with the gold and purple flags. It was pretty good.”
The last thing Darrell wanted was food. “Okay. That sounds good,” she lied. She grabbed her pack from behind the counter. “Where’s your mandolin?”
Paris prepared to unlock a student from the stocks. “I gave it to Conrad. He said he’d put it up in my room. Didn’t want it to get wet or stepped on.”
Darrell couldn’t believe it. “Are you crazy?” she began, but Kate staggered up carrying half a barrel. Darrell took one look at her red face and grabbed the other side of the barrel.
“Whew! Thanks. I told Mrs. Follett I’d bring her another one. They’re bobbing up a storm over at her booth.”
Mrs. Follett waved and walked over, still resplendent, though a trifle damp, in her purple bathrobe. “Wonderful. This will allow me to have two groups bobbing at once.” She looked around. “I asked Conrad to help me with the barrel before he left, but he seems to have wandered off.”
“He’s probably putting away my mandolin,” said Paris.
“Stealing it, more likely,” muttered Darrell.
Paris laughed. “You need to lighten up on him, Darrell. If you always think the worst of people, that’s what you get back from them.”
Darrell shrugged and turned to Mrs. Follett. “Did you say ‘before he left’? Left where? He should be here helping out.” But Mrs. Follett had started back. The girls steadied their load and followed the bustling school secretary. “See you later,” Darrell called to Paris.
“Thank you so much, girls,” Mrs. Follett twittered, and waved them over. “This is such a help. I could never carry this barrel by myself.” She pointed to a spot on the brown grass.
“Where’s Conrad gone?” Darrell asked. They set the barrel down with a thud.
“Oh, he’s probably gone off to pack, dear,” said Mrs. Follett, directing a hose at the apple barrel. “He’s been transferred to another school.”
Kate grinned. “You’re kidding? That’s great!”
“How did this happen?” asked Darrell slowly.
“Who cares?” said Kate. “Good riddance. You should be happy to see the last of him.”
Darrell made sure she was out of the line of fire from Mrs. Follett’s hose. “I don’t get it.” She paused and looked up at the school secretary. “Are you saying Conrad Kennedy is no longer a registered student in this school?”
“That’s right, dear. I got a call this morning from the Youth Corrections Bureau. Apparently they have located his mother in Ontario, and Conrad has been given special permission to return to live with her.”
“That’s amazing,” Kate said, grinning. “No more Conrad.”
Mrs. Follett looked disapprovingly at Kate.
“Kate, dear, I expect more of you. Conrad had a few problems, it’s true, but that’s all in the past. I agree, his father was not a good influence, but he will be under his mother’s care now, and I’m sure things will be all right.”
She pursed her lips and looked at Darrell. “I hope he will do better with his mother. He’s never really managed to settle in here. You haven’t seemed to be the best of friends.”
“Friends!” Darrell shook her head bitterly. “We don’t even qualify as distant acquaintances.”
“Well, now he has a chance for a brand new start.”
Darrell picked up her bag. “Thanks for letting me know, Mrs. Follett,” she muttered, and turned to leave. Struck by an idea, she turned back to the school secretary, now dropping apples into the frigid water in the barrel. “What does Professor Tooth think of this?” she asked quietly.
“Oh, I’m sure she must have approved it,” said Mrs. Follett.
“You don’t know for sure?” asked Darrell, puzzled.
“Well, I wouldn’t have heard from the ministry without Professor Tooth’s approval, but I haven’t spoken to her about it personally yet, no,” said Mrs. Follett. “I’ve been so busy getting ready for this fair. But the paperwork must be on my desk somewhere.”
As the girls walked away, Darrell could hear Mrs. Follett happily directing students to don plastic bibs before they bobbed. Darrell checked her watch. Twelve o’clock. It was time to meet Brodie. She whistled for Delaney and followed Kate behind the school.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Darrell gazed along the beach from her perch in the old arbutus tree. “I don’t see anybody down there.”
“Yeah. I guess the coast is clear.” Brodie grinned.
“Ha ha. You’re a funny guy,” Kate said nervously. “I just want to get this over with and you’re making jokes.”
Darrell climbed down the tree. “I really want to spend some time talking to Leonardo again. I mean, I want to give him his book back, but...”
“But you wa
nt to find out what he knows about time,” interrupted Kate.
“And time machines,” added Darrell, smiling a little.
“Don’t worry, Darrell. This is going to be a piece of cake,” said Brodie, walking down the path to the beach. “If we’ve planned this right, you can get the notebook back to Leonardo and we’ll be back practically before we’ve left.”
Darrell watched Kate wiping her hands nervously on her costume. “You guys don’t have to come,” she said. “I can handle this by myself.”
Kate shook her head. “No. You went alone before and you got lost.” She took a deep breath. “I can do this. We’re your friends, Darrell. We’ll go together.”
They rounded the last turn and walked out onto the beach.
They hadn’t said much on the trip along the deserted beach, and Darrell was lost in her thoughts. What if too much time had passed? Her studies had shown her that after years away, Leonardo had returned to his beloved Firenze. But what if Leonardo was no longer in Florence, or worse, if they arrived after his death?
The fence now surrounding the lighthouse seemed designed more to keep debris in than people out, and they easily pushed through a gap in one side. The concrete foundation of the new light standard had been poured and the wooden framing for the rest of the structure was in place.
“I’m going to go up first,” said Kate, her voice unsteady. “Less time to change my mind.” She ducked under the chain and climbed the stairs two at a time, easily stepping over the broken riser as she made her way up to the lantern room. “The door’s closed,” she said in a puzzled voice.
“C’mon, Darrell, let’s get this over with,” said Brodie. He had followed Kate up and stood on the stair below her. “Remember the broken step.”
Darrell stopped on the landing and eyed the broken step, speculation swirling her thoughts.
“There’s a broken step on the stairs in Verrocchio’s stable,” she said. “And there was a broken rung on that ladder.”
As Brodie reached a hand to help Darrell up the stairs, Delaney squeezed ahead and stood at the top beside Kate. He growled low in his throat.
“Did you close this when you were here?” Kate put her hand on the heavy knob, but the door swung out of her grasp. Light flooded into the twisting stairwell from the lantern room above.
“Now, this is interesting,” said Conrad, looking down at them from the doorway. He held a wide-barrelled gun loosely in one hand and the end of a rope in the other. “Are you snooping around here again, Gimpy?” He laughed derisively. “I can’t believe it. It would almost be worth staying at this stupid school to watch you getting into trouble for breaking into this lighthouse again.”
Darrell eyed the gun warily. “What’re you doing with the gun, Conrad? And what do you mean staying at the school? Mrs. Follett told me you were getting transferred.”
Conrad laughed, a short, sharp sound without humour. “Follett’s such a sucker. She believes anything she hears over the phone.”
“So, you’re not going to another school?”
“Are you kidding? I am never going back to school. I needed somewhere to stay for a while. This place was as good as any. Food’s good, anyway. But now I’m outta here. One of my dad’s friends is meeting me here this afternoon, and I won’t have to put up with this stupid school or you jokers any longer.”
Darrell eyed the steps. She could be down the stairs and out on the beach calling for help in a couple of seconds.
Brodie beat her to it. He started for the stairs. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t even think about it.” Conrad gestured with the gun.
Brodie rolled his eyes. “You idiot! Quit acting like you’re such a tough guy. That’s not a pistol, it’s a flare gun. Shoot it off in here and we all get burned, including you.”
“I know it shoots flares, Sun, that’s what I use it for. But if I shoot the dog, I’m not too worried about getting burned.”
Brodie stopped on the step above the broken riser.
“Now get up here — all of you,” Conrad snarled. “I’m going to lock the door to this room and catch my boat. By the time someone figures out where you are, I’ll be long gone.” He threw a piece of old rope at Kate. “Tie up that dog. I hate dogs.”
Kate ignored the rope lying across her feet. Conrad reached down and grabbed Kate by the collar of her shirt. His eyes bored into Darrell’s. “If you don’t get up here right now, I’m going to shoot your dog on the count of three.”
Darrell looked up and saw Kate close her eyes and clutch Delaney’s collar. Darrell grabbed Brodie’s hand, clenched her teeth, and stepped over the broken stair. The sound of a gunshot was swallowed by the roar of the wind that whirled them away.
“This is really bad, Darrell. What are we going to do?”
Darrell looked down at Conrad’s face, pale and unconscious on the straw. She swirled the peppermint around in her mouth and tried to think, but her head was still spinning from the journey. “We’ve only got a few minutes before he wakes up,” she whispered.
“Stupid idiot. Now he’s going to find out everything. And he threatened to hurt Delaney, too.” Kate looked as though she would like to kick the prone figure on the stable floor.
“Tie him up.”
Darrell and Kate looked at Brodie, pulling himself onto his hands and knees. “Well, first give me one of those mints and then tie him up,” Brodie corrected. He rubbed his eyes with one hand. Kate gave him a mint, and he got to his feet with a grimace.
Brodie pulled a piece of rough rope tangled around one of Kate’s feet. Some of the colour returned to his face and he grinned a little.
“We’ll use the rope Connie supplied, shall we?”
Conrad stirred. He rolled over on the straw and began to retch.
“Grab his hands, Kate.”
“I don’t know how to tie someone up.” Kate looked frantic. She pulled one of Conrad’s hands behind his back, but he yanked his hand back, rolled over, and was sick in the straw.
“Ugh!” Darrell grabbed Conrad by the back of his coat and helped Kate slide him away from the mess. “Brodie’s right, Kate. This is the only thing we can do for now.” After a few moments of struggle, Conrad lay on his side in the straw, his hands tied behind his back.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked blearily. “Oh man — my head is killing me.” He retched again.
“Better give him a mint, Kate,” Brodie said.
“Ewww. No way. Besides, he wanted to hurt Delaney. I say we let him get over the nausea on his own.”
Darrell took a mint from Kate’s hand. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she said, and popped it in Conrad’s mouth, “considering how you’ve managed to wreck everything.”
Keeping well away from Conrad’s mess on the straw, she turned to Brodie and Kate. “Okay. I know this changes everything, but I just have to see if I can find Leonardo. I can at least try to get his book back to him.”
Kate looked anxious. “Are you going to try to talk to him about,” she glanced at Conrad, “about the you-know-what?”
Darrell shrugged. “I don’t know if I can even find Leonardo, and now you can’t come with me in case he gets loose.” She glared at Conrad. “It’s probably safer for you to wait out here in the stable. You can watch this idiot to make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble, and I’ll get back as fast as I can.”
“What’s going to happen when we go back to Eagle Glen?” Kate sounded worried. “Conrad will tell, for sure.”
Conrad’s eyes darted from Darrell to Kate to Brodie and his mouth was clamped shut.
“And who is going to believe him?” Brodie’s voice came out of the shadows. “He’s already decided he’s leaving the school. There’s no one for him to tell.”
In a sudden motion, Conrad kicked his legs and pushed himself along the floor toward the stable door. Brodie jumped beside him in a second and put a hand on his shoulder. Conrad strained his neck and his teeth clicked dangerously cl
ose to Brodie’s fingers.
Kate shrieked. “Watch out, Brodie, he’s trying to bite you.” She ran over and sat on Conrad’s legs.
“Get off!” He tried to swing his head forward to knock against her, but she used his momentum, flipped him onto his side, and wrapped her arms securely around his ankles. “This reminds me of something,” she said, and flashed a brief smile. Darrell, remembering the events of the previous summer, smiled back, but her smile was strained.
“See what I mean?” She clutched the notebook. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Brodie stuck his face into Conrad’s. “Settle down for a minute and I’ll tell you what’s going on.” He turned to Darrell. “Go find Leonardo. We’ll be fine here.”
Conrad bucked his legs, but Kate managed to hold on. “And be quick, okay?” she pleaded.
Darrell nodded and hobbled across the uneven dirt floor. “Quick as I can without my walking stick,” she called and swung open the stable door. Delaney slipped out the door to lead the way.
The cold hit her with the force of a blow, and she struggled for a moment to close the stable door in the face of the stiff breeze. Darrell walked carefully along the icy garden path, mentally kicking herself for not thinking that there might be a change in the weather. Delaney’s paws left black prints where his feet melted the frost. The air smelled of snow. A church bell rang in the distance, and suddenly it was like the cold air itself was vibrating as bells rang out all over the city, marking the noon hour.
Darrell tucked her hands into her long sleeves and hurried up the lane. Now that she knew the way, it didn’t take long to find Leonardo’s studio. The familiar marble lion still guarded the front, but she followed Delaney around back to the kitchen door.
She stepped into the kitchen and was surprised to find it empty and cold. Even the large wood-fired oven lay unlit and loaded with ashes. A single oil lamp glowed, and Darrell picked it up by the handle.
Delaney padded through the arched doorway and down the darkened hall.