A low half-moan, half-groan rippled around the classroom. Mrs. Robinson was a neat lady. Not too tough, not too soft as a teacher, and besides, she talked to them as if they were older, as if she could trust herself to them. This guy looked like a real loser. Polly bit her lip. Her mom and dad had been telling her she shouldn’t jump to conclusions about people without giving them a chance. Looks weren’t everything. They’d had a conversation about that just the other night.
“Look at Stephen Hawking, the famous scientist. He’s a severely disabled genius who has to speak through a translator,” Polly’s dad Ted had said, more serious than usual. “Not everyone needs to have television looks and a movie star body.”
For some reason Polly couldn’t take this teaching moment. Maybe she was turning into the Moody Melancholy McDoodle.
She’d stormed to her room and flung herself on the bed. Being a tweenager was no joke. Parents, teachers, in fact all adults, expected so much. And so did the other kids. Some days Polly wished she could just skip junior high completely and turn 16 tomorrow. It would be easier than growing up day by day. She felt like the Bumbling, Beleaguered McDoodle.
It was especially painful because her big brother had gone away. Shawn had been spotted by a scout at hockey camp in August. He’d packed up and left for Regina to play with the Pats of the Western Hockey League. He was living with a family and going to high school over there. It was a great opportunity. Her parents were proud of him.
The McDougalls had bought a new computer with Internet access so they could keep in touch by e-mail. Her dad wanted Polly to do her homework on it, maybe even figure out a graphics program. That was more Kyle’s area of expertise. Polly knew she needed to use the computer more but it made her nervous. She liked the feel of pencils, crayons, and paint brushes. She didn’t feel as close to her work on a computer. She knew how to use one, no problem. It just wasn’t her first choice.
No wonder Polly wanted to travel. It would be better than staying here being an artist in a sports family, being the only kid, facing a complicated computer, feeling totally out of her element. Mr. Stone coughed. She tried to concentrate on what the substitute teacher was saying.
Mr. Stone was talking about the plan for the week. He’d written his name on the board. Each time he moved, his pants rode up, showing grungy sports socks. They looked like they had been washed with something red—they were dusty pink. He had an ugly green sweater with stripes going the wrong way for his body shape—around him like a fat bumble bee. Polly couldn’t help herself, she pulled her sketchbook out of her backpack and flipped to a clean page. She dug a pencil out of her case, sharpened it with her small sharpener and started drawing him. The sharp smell of pencil carbon and wood shavings tingled in her nose.
He was busy telling the class his story. He’d flown in from Saskatoon (Polly gave him bee’s wings) and settled in Belgravia with his younger sister (Polly sketched two bumblebees on the branch of a chokecherry bush) who was at Grant MacEwan College. He was lucky to get a short contract here. He had another after this (she drew the bee flitting from school to school). He’d won prizes.
“Yadida! Yadida!” Kyle whispered as he walked past on his way to the pencil sharpener. “What are you doing?”
Polly covered her drawing with her arm and stared at the front as innocent as could be. Meanwhile Stone handed out a short story for them to read with questions for comprehension. She propped the story up in front of her and started to read. It was by Martha Brooks. Usually Polly liked her stories, but today she had some sketches to make. She chuckled as she thought about her drawings.
“Did you have something to share with the rest of us?” Mr. Stone looked at his class list and called. “Sally?”
Polly stared around the class, trying to avoid his eyes. The kids laughed.
“I think her name is Dolly,” said Harvey Newhouse from his seat near the window. “Or Golly.”
Someone else piped up, “I thought she was Jolly.”
Polly blushed to the roots of her reddish hair. “Polly. Polly McDougall, sir.”
“Save your giggling or doodling, whatever it is, for after school, Pauline.”
“It’s just Polly. My name isn’t short for anything like Pauline. It’s Polly.” She hunched down in her desk. “Sir.”
“Class, you can start your assignment now.”
Mr. Stone unpacked his briefcase. He had a cell phone, a palm pilot and a calculator as well as books and papers. Maybe he was a business man on the side.
The other kids read or pretended to read. Polly tried to regain her composure. Pauline, she couldn’t imagine herself being a Pauline. She read a couple of paragraphs. But her sketchbook lay open, a temptation she could not resist.
She drew a picture of Mrs. Dobson, the little old lady at the mailbox. She doodled a squirrel in the corner. Then she sketched Mandy staring out the window of the Beamish apartment, with her eyes gazing into the distance, probably all the way to Africa and danger, fear, and pain.
Only last week two aid workers had been killed accidentally in some faraway land. Polly had seen it in the newspaper. What would it feel like to have both your folks away all the time? It was bad enough when Mom and Dad went chasing after her brother Shawn, the famous hockey player. Now that he was playing for the Regina Pats, her folks were going to be away a lot.
When the bell rang she hurried to the art room and her favourite easel in the corner. She had to get away from the other kids. She hated when they laughed at her about her name. She blushed thinking about how her dad always sang an old song to her about “Polly Wolly Doodle all the day.” She liked her name. And that Harvey Newhouse, she’d like to throw him in a stinky garbage can. He was the class know-it-all.
If she couldn’t draw, Polly figured she would go absolutely positively bonkers. Art wasn’t just something she was good at it. She needed art to keep her on track—to tell her who she was. Isabel had taught her more than any school art teacher had. But Isabel was going away. She was going to spend three months in Mexico, living in some artist colony. It wasn’t fair. Everyone was leaving except Polly. She would be the Housebound and Homely McDoodle. She sighed.
None of the other kids had arrived in the art room yet. The art teacher was probably in the staff room having coffee. Polly dug her drawing supplies out of her cubby-hole. P. McDougall 7A. She took a fresh piece of drawing paper and tacked it onto the easel. Then she opened her sketchbook and turned to the sketch of the little old lady at the mailbox.
Polly walked to the window and looked out to where the mailbox was. She wanted to check the colour—just how red was it, just how tall compared to Mrs. Dobson in her short purple coat.
That’s when she spotted the commotion.
What was going on? Two people in grey hooded sweatshirts were busy out there. One was trying to stand the mailbox up. Had it been tipped over?
The other worker stuffed mail from the ground in front of the box into a huge mailbag. Two bikes, one with a cart attached, leaned against the green metal container—the colour of an old filing cabinet. Maybe they were the repair crew from the Post Office. But who would tip over a mailbox?
One of them tossed the large canvas bag into the cart.
The buzzer rang for the start of the next period. The two workers stopped what they were doing, stared at the school as if the bell meant something to them, then leapt on their bikes and pedaled away. Both of them wore black tear-away pants, Polly could see now. Where was their truck? Shouldn’t they be in Post Office uniforms? Why hurry away like that if they were there to fix the mailbox?
Or had she just witnessed a mail robbery?
.
3. The Search for Clues Begins
“Mrs. Specchio,” Polly said. “Someone just robbed the mailbox on the corner.”
The art teacher had just rolled into the room in her electric wheelchair. She stopped. “I beg your pardon, Polly. What did you say?”
The other kids clustered at the window.
“The mailbox has been knocked over,” Mandy said.
“What happened?” The teacher rolled down the wide aisle between the easels to the wide, light-filled windows.
“I saw it all,” Polly said. Then she proceeded to tell the class about the commotion by the mailbox. “It couldn’t have been the post office. They’d have a truck and would be wearing uniforms.”
“Say, aren’t you the kid that likes solving crimes?” Harvey Newhouse chuckled. “Maybe you just imagined it, Dolly.”
“My name’s Polly!” She glared at him. He was taller than most of the boys in Grade Seven and his black bushy eyebrows hung over his brown eyes like two peaked rooftops. He drew cartoons and wanted to go into animation. Polly wished she could think of some smart comeback but she couldn’t. She’d just draw him in her sketchbook looking like a tall skinny house. “We should call the police, or the post office.”
“If everyone would kindly find an easel and start work on their still life,” Mrs. Specchio said. “Polly, go to the office and report this to the vice-principal.” She wheeled to the front of the class and pulled back a curtain to reveal the subject for today. It was a bowl of fruit, a bottle of wine, and a wooden board with some cheddar cheese and a knife on it. “Today I want to talk to you about shading.” She touched a button and a long-necked desk lamp shone on the still life, casting shadows.
Polly blinked. A shadow seemed to have fallen on the whole day. She hated people being mean to each other. Taking people’s mail was a mean thing to do. Who would do a thing like that? Poor Mrs. Dobson. And then it struck her. She had just mailed her last contest entry. Kyle had given her two letters to mail. Worst of all Mandy had asked her to mail the letter to her parents in Africa. She headed toward the solid green door with extra speed.
“Hurry back,” Mrs. Specchio said to Polly.
“See you, Molly,” Harvey snickered.
The art room filled with quiet music and the kids began to work. The teacher—small, neat, with hands flourishing over a stack of papers—took attendance.
“Mandy Beamish, … Polly McDougall, Harvey Newhouse, …”
Polly reported the incident to the school secretary and then quickly to the vice-principal. The vice-principal phoned the post office. Then he phoned the Southside Police Station and told the constable on duty. He in turn promised to send an officer to check out the situation.
Polly went back to class. Mandy looked up as she came in. The sadness in her eyes was nearly more than she could bear. It was one thing to miss out on entering a contest or getting a five dollar rebate from a game. It was another thing altogether to lose a long letter you had written to your folks who were far away. It was hard to work on her still life.
“Seen any criminals lately, Trolley?” Harvey taunted as she walked past him on her way to the sink at the back of the class to wash her hands.
“Only you.” Polly wished she could think of a smart remark—be the Verbally Agile McDoodle. She was as bad as the little squirrel near the apartment building—all she could do was scold.
The buzzer rang for lunch break. Polly ran back to her locker, grabbed her lunch, and collected Kyle and Mandy. The three of them left through the side door. “What are we going to do?” Kyle asked. They had just filled him in on the activity at the mail box.
Mandy looked like she was going to cry.
“We need to check the mailbox. See if they left any clues.” Polly led the way.
“Shouldn’t we leave that for the post office guys?” asked Mandy. “Our letters are gone. That’s the end of it.”
Kyle didn’t say anything. He bent down and studied the mailbox. Then he followed the muddy tire tracks of the two bikes down the block. “Mountain bike tires, one bike with a cart,” he muttered.
Polly pulled out her sketchbook and started drawing the scene, the gouges on the mailbox, the bent door. Mandy picked up a lovely purple envelope with a boot mark on it. “What a shame!”
“That’s the one Mrs. Dobson was mailing this morning. Thank goodness they didn’t get it. There’s money in it.” Polly spotted her contest entry in a juniper bush. She pocketed the nearly lost letter and a jagged piece of black shiny cloth with a metal fastener on it. “One of the robbers is missing a button.”
“They’ve stolen my letter to my parents,” Mandy groaned. “It was six pages on airmail paper—and I wrote small.” She wiped her hand across her forehead and eyes.
Polly moved closer to Mandy. “I’m sorry.” She wanted to help this girl in the worst way.
Kyle came running back down the street, carrying a bundle of wedding invitations and a stack of newsletters with an elastic band holding them together. “These must have fallen out. The tire tracks fade after a block. Not enough mud for me to follow.” He handed Mandy back her smudged airmail letter. “You better mail this again in a safer box.” He was grinning.
Mandy grabbed the envelope tight in her slim hand. “Thanks so much, Kyle. I really worked on that letter.”
Polly studied the girl’s face. She was so pretty and so alone. “We’ll catch them.”
“We’ll help anyway.” Kyle ran his hand through his short hair.
“They couldn’t have gone far,” Polly said. “Otherwise they would have used a car.”
“You two are something else.” Mandy’s hands danced in front of her. Maybe dancers were happier when they moved. “My uncle and aunt told me you take this detective stuff pretty seriously. I’m glad I’m honest. I wish you could meet my folks. They try to solve big human problems like hunger and homelessness. They are doing really important work.” Mandy sighed.
Polly heard a trace of loneliness mixed with what her mom would call low self-esteem, the teenager’s curse. Mom figured all teenagers suffered from that disease. That and the I’ve-got-to-fit-in, be accepted by my peers disease. Polly had decided that the sooner she got through her teen years the better her mother would feel.
As the three of them wandered over to the local IGA for junk food to go with their healthy lunches, a postal station wagon pulled up. Kyle handed the driver the invitations and newsletters. The woman who was sitting in the passenger side asked if they knew who had reported the robbery. Polly admitted it was her.
The woman introduced herself as Ms. Jaffer. “I need to talk to you.”
They sat down on a nearby bus shelter bench. Polly had pocketed her own letter, the purple envelope, and the button. The postal service security investigator had gold earrings with the Canada post logo on them, skin the colour of light oak, and a smile worth a million dollars.
Polly described the two bikers in great detail and showed Ms. Jaffer her preliminary sketch.
“You’re good.”
“Thanks.”
“There has been a sudden raft of mail thefts in Edmonton. We need all the information we can get.” Ms. Jaffer’s voice was rich and full and Polly wondered if she sang in a choir. Her speaking voice was very musical. Polly liked her right away and felt that she could trust her.
“Someone else from the school might have seen something. I was staring out the window.”
“Excuse me.” Kyle came over. “What do mail thieves do with the letters?” He munched on his baloney sandwich with mixed pickle. Juice ran down his chin. Polly was tempted to wipe it off. Instead she just listened.
“They find cheques signed by people. Some cash. Bank statements. When they rob mailboxes in apartment buildings they take credit cards and cheques. They trash the rest.”
“But how do they make it pay?” Kyle asked.
“They have quite a remarkable system,” Ms. Jaffer admitted. “They move often and make few friends.”
“Have they been operating in Edmonton long?” asked Kyle.
“On the north side. This is not their usual territory. Could be a different crew.”
“We could help,” Polly said. Working on a mystery might get her out of the scary parts of
starting a new school and missing her brother. You couldn’t stay upset if you were solving a crime. She wanted to help Mrs. Dobson and Ms. Jaffer.
The investigator shook her head. “I’m going in to talk to the vice-principal, see if anyone else spotted anything. If you think of anything Polly, please give us a call.” She handed her card to both Kyle and Polly. “I’ll be helping the police with their inquiries. We will try to get a better picture of their modus operandi.”
Polly glanced over at Kyle. He’d like that word. Must be Latin, some ancient language.
“Their mode of operating, right,” said Kyle.
“What do they do with credit cards?” Polly asked.
“That’s easy. They get false ID made, forge the signature, and spend to the max, right.” Kyle said.
“But that’s someone else’s money,” Mandy said. “That’s awful.”
“Don’t you sing in the opera chorus?” Kyle suddenly asked Ms. Jaffer. “I’m sure I’ve seen you before.”
Ms. Jaffer flashed her big smile again. “Singing is my first love,” she said. “Mahalia Jaffer. That’s the name listed in the programs. Maddy, my friends call me.”
“That’s close to Mandy,” said Polly. “Mandy is short for Mandela because her parents work in Africa.” She was blathering and she knew it. Mandy blushed.
The four of them, the investigator and the three kids talked for a few more minutes about music and dance in the city and how good it was to have an arts-focused school program. Then Maddy headed toward the office and the kids went for snacks.
“She didn’t tell us very much,” Kyle said.
“I watched a program on television about true crime,” said Mandy. “One of the bad guys will go into a local bank where they aren’t known, posing as the person who wrote the cheque, filling out a withdrawal slip, chatting with the teller, asking for their account balance. Then they go on a spending spree using cheques and a false ID or clearing out the account and disappearing with the money.”
The Incredible Polly McDoodle (The Polly McDoodle Mystery Series Book 4) Page 2