Girl Power

by Melody Carlson

  Mystery Bus

  chapter one

  “I’m not sure which is worse,” said Amy holding her nose. “That old musty smell before we started cleaning up in here or Carlie’s Lysol. Pee-euw!”

  “You want it clean, don’t you?” said Carlie, waving her spray bottle of disinfectant in Amy’s face.

  “Clean, but not stinky.”

  “Look, this is the way my mom does it in our house,” said Carlie, pushing a long, dark curl away from her face. “Are you saying our house is stinky?”

  “I’m saying that—”

  “Stop arguing!” yelled Morgan as she laced an orange and red striped curtain over a metal rod. “And instead of complaining about everything, Amy, why don’t you just open a window and let some fresh air in here?”

  “Wow,” said Carlie, pausing from her scrubbing long enough to stare at the curtain in Morgan’s hands. “That’s really bright.”

  “So, are you the one complaining now?” asked Morgan as she held the curtain up to the window to see how it looked.

  “I think it’s pretty,” said Emily. The fabric reminded her of a sunset. That’s what she’d told Morgan when they picked it out of the big box of remnant fabrics. Morgan’s grandma said they could use whatever they liked for the bus. “I thought I might make a crazy quilt someday,” she’d told them. “But you girls could make that funny old bus into a crazy quilt too.”

  The girls’ families had all been over to see the old bus on the first day that Mr. Greeley had presented it to them as a thank-you gift for cleaning up the trailer park. Mr. Greeley was the owner of the Harbor View Mobile-Home Court. At that time, the bus had been pretty messy with cobwebs and mouse droppings and dust and grime. The girls had been working hard since then, and the results were beginning to show.

  “I wasn’t complaining about the fabric,” Carlie said defensively. “I just thought it was kinda bright is all. That a crime now or something?”

  It was their third day of cleaning up the Rainbow Bus, and for some reason tempers seemed to be running a little warm this morning. Emily figured it could be due to the weather.

  “Can you believe how hot it’s getting already?” she said, hoping to change the subject. “My mom said it’s supposed to get up to like ninety-six degrees this afternoon.”

  “I’ve lived in Boscoe Bay my whole life,” said Amy. She pushed her straight, black bangs away from her forehead and flopped onto the narrow couch, “and I don’t remember it ever getting this hot in June before.”

  “Another good reason to open some windows in here,” snapped Morgan as she slid one down with a loud bang.

  “Maybe we should all go jump in the Harbor,” said Emily as she headed to the back of the bus where she’d been cutting fabric for Morgan. “To cool ourselves off that is.” She sat down on the bed and picked up the scissors and started cutting out what would become another curtain. Morgan was teaching her how to sew and had even promised to show her how to use the sewing machine this week—after she mastered cutting, which wasn’t as easy as Emily had expected.

  “That’s a great idea,” Morgan called from the front of the bus where her sewing machine was set up on the small table. “We should go down to the beach today—get in this good weather while it’s here.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Amy. “Don’t forget this is Oregon … it could be raining by next week.”

  “We could take a picnic lunch down with us,” suggested Morgan.

  “Yeah, but let’s get the rest of the junk cleared out of here first,” said Carlie. “That will make finishing up the cleaning a whole lot easier.”

  “I thought we already cleared it all out,” said Amy.

  Emily glanced down the bus to see that Amy still hadn’t budged from her comfy position on the couch. In fact that seemed to be her favorite spot. Emily shook her head and returned to measuring another eighteen-inch square—this one to be used for a pillow top. She didn’t want to say anything, but she was starting to suspect that Amy Ngo was a little bit spoiled, not to mention slightly lazy. But Emily still felt like the new kid around here. Better to watch her mouth than to step on any toes.

  “Yeah,” said Carlie. “I thought so too, but then I looked under that bed and—”

  “Under the bed?” Emily leaned over from her perch on the bed and peered under the bed at what appeared to be a solid wooden platform. “How can there be anything under here?” She knocked on the wood as if to prove her point.

  “My dad showed it to me last night,” explained Carlie, “while he was helping us to connect the electricity.” The girls had gotten permission from Mr. Greeley to run a long outdoor extension cord from Carlie’s house, which was only about thirty feet away. They couldn’t use too much juice at a time, but it would provide enough to keep the little refrigerator running along with a light or Morgan’s sewing machine.

  “Here, I’ll show you,” Carlie said as she came to the back of the bus. “Hop off for a minute.”

  Emily slid off the bed and waited as Carlie bent over and hefted up the foot end of the bed. Once lifted, a spring mechanism attached beneath the plywood board caused the bed to fold into the wall. “See,” said Carlie.

  “Wow!” said Emily, peering down into what looked like a giant storage box. It was full of old-looking stuff. “Who knew?”

  “Apparently my dad did. He said his parents used to have a motor home with the same kind of thing.”

  “It’s so great that your dad’s been helping us,” said Emily, trying not to feel jealous of the fact that Carlie had such a cool dad. Emily’s own father was an alcoholic who hit her mom—a lot. Emily, her brother, and their mom finally ran away with only the clothes on their backs to escape him. With a new last name, they hoped he wouldn’t find them and take them back. So far so good.

  “Yeah,” said Carlie. He’s going to take a look at the water system this weekend. He thinks we might even be able to use the sink and toilet.”

  “I want to see,” said Amy, pushing past Emily to look under the bed.

  “Me too,” said Morgan.

  Now all four girls crowded into the small bedroom area looking down into the random mix of boxes and things that were packed beneath it. So far the only things they’d removed from the bus had been rotten old curtains and nasty old bedding—things that had smelled musty or been chewed on by rodents. And right now that junk was bagged into garbage sacks, piled outside of the bus, and ready for the dumpster. But so far they hadn’t seen anything like this. This stuff looked interesting.

  “That looks like somebody’s personal things,” said Morgan.

  Emily bent down and pulled out an old wooden apple crate filled with dusty vinyl record albums. “Jefferson Airplane?” she read the strange name on the cover and then flipped to another. “Bread? Who are these people anyway?”

  “Weird,” said Amy. “Do you suppose all this junk belongs to Mr. Greeley?”

  “Hey, this isn’t junk,” said Morgan with real interest. She picked an album out of the crate and studied the back of it. “My mom had some of these vinyl records too. She almost gave them away, but I begged them from her. I’ve actually started collecting LPs for myself, and I happen to think they are totally cool.”

  “Want ‘em?” asked Emily, holding the crate out to Morgan.

  “Not so fast,” said Amy. “What do you mean by ‘collecting’ them, Morgan? Are they valuable or something?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Only to people who like them and collect them.”

  “Well, my sister An watches The Antiques Road Show all the time,” said Amy. “And she keeps telling us that all kinds of junky looking things could be valuable.”

  “The most I’ve seen any of my albums going for, like on eBay, is only about ten to twenty bucks.”

  “Even so, maybe they should stay with the bus,” said Amy. “I mean, since the bus belongs to all of us.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” said Morgan, slipping the album back into the crate. “But I don
’t know how we’ll listen to them in here.”

  “What about this thing?” said Carlie, bending over to pick up what looked like some old-fashioned kind of music box. She held up the box and blew dust from the black plastic top causing Amy to sneeze.

  “Bless you!” said Emily, stifling a giggle.

  “It’s a turntable!” exclaimed Morgan as she looked inside. “I wonder if it still works.”

  “I wonder what else is in here?” Emily stooped to pull out a cardboard box of books, both paperback and some older looking ones in hardback. She thumbed through the titles, noticing that there was a mix of mysteries, classics, and even some poetry collections—all which she happened to love. “Hey, these look pretty good.” She glanced over to the built-in bookshelf over the back window. “Should I put them up there?”

  “Take them outside and clean the dust off first,” commanded Amy.

  “Want me to use Lysol?” Emily teased as she carried the box toward the door. She didn’t want to leave their unexpected treasure hunt, but it was getting stuffy and crowded in there. “Maybe we should take it all outside,” she called over her shoulder, “to clean it off and get a better look.”

  So it was decided that they would empty out all the strange contents from the secret storage space beneath the bed. They hauled it outside to carefully examine each item, deciding upon its fate in the fresh air and sunshine. A lot of the things, like musty old clothes and mildewed tennis shoes, went straight into the trash, but other things, like the records and books, really did appear to be worth salvaging.

  “It looks like these things belonged to a guy,” said Amy as she gingerly dropped a dirty-looking baseball glove into the rapidly growing trash pile.

  “Hey, don’t throw that away,” said Morgan, grabbing up the mitt as well as several other sports items that she suspected Amy had just tossed there. “These things might be collectable too. At least they look old.”

  “I can’t imagine old sports junk will be worth anything,” said Amy with an upturned nose. “Besides, we can’t keep all this smelly stuff in the bus. We won’t have enough room.”

  “Yeah, we will,” said Morgan. “Under the bed, remember?”

  “Yes, but why waste the space?” argued Amy. “We can use that to store other things.”

  “What other things?” asked Morgan.

  “Hey, look at this,” said Emily as she pulled what appeared to be a high school yearbook from the book box. “Boscoe Bay Cougars, 1979.”

  “Wow, that’s a long time ago,” said Morgan, peering over Emily’s shoulder to see the cover of the faded red book. “Do you think it belonged to Mr. Greeley?”

  “No way,” said Amy, snatching the book from Emily. “Whoever owned this yearbook couldn’t be much older than forty-five by now. And Mr. Greeley looks like he’s about seventy. Maybe even older.”

  “The mental math whiz-kid strikes again,” says Morgan, grabbing the yearbook from Amy and handing it back to Emily. “But I think she’s right.”

  “Let’s look at it,” said Emily. She sat down on the sandy ground and flipped the cover open to expose a plain white page with several notes on it in various kinds of handwriting.

  “Looks like this annual’s been signed,” said Amy.

  “Maybe we can discover a clue as to whose this was.” Emily sat down on the sandy soil and began to study the pages. The others joined her and soon they were reading the inscriptions out loud.

  “‘To Dan the man,’” read Morgan, “‘Will miss you on the football field. Tight ends rule! Rick Byers.’”

  “What’s that supposed mean?” said Amy. “Tight ends rule?”

  “It’s a football position,” explained Morgan.

  “‘Oh, Danny Boy …’” read Emily. “‘I wish I’d gotten to know you better … Hang in there. Love, April.’” Emily laughed. “April with three hearts beneath her name!”

  “She had it bad for Dan the man,” laughed Amy.

  “‘Dan, Glad you seniors are leaving so the rest of us can have a chance at stardom too. Ten-four, good buddy, Dave Cross.’” Morgan laughed.

  “‘You should smile more—,’” read Carlie, “‘it increases your face value. Love and kisses, Kathy.’” They all laughed.

  “Sounds like Dan the man was one hot guy,” said Emily.

  “Speaking of hot,” said Morgan. “I’m cooking out here!”

  “Me too,” said Amy. “I thought we were going to take a picnic to the beach and go swimming.”

  “That’s right!” said Carlie. “Let’s hurry and get this stuff cleaned up and back on the bus.”

  “I know,” said Morgan. “You guys finish putting this stuff back in the bus, and I’ll go see what Grandma and I can throw together for a picnic lunch—that is unless anyone else has a better plan.”

  “That sounds awesome,” said Emily as she returned the yearbook to the box of books.

  “Then we can run home and get our swimsuits and stuff and meet back here,” said Amy.

  “I’ll swing by your house, Morgan,” offered Emily. “To help carry the picnic stuff.”

  They quickly put things back in the bus and took off to their own houses to change. But Emily couldn’t quit thinking about this Dan guy as she pulled on the blue swimsuit that Morgan had given her when she found out Emily had only one outfit. Who was he anyway? And why was his yearbook in Mr. Greeley’s bus? Not that these questions really bugged her. No, not at all. Because Emily loved a mystery. And it looked like the girls had not only inherited a bus but a mystery as well!

  chapter two

  The Harbor water was shockingly cold at first, but the girls splashed in and out of the waves until they were thoroughly cooled off. Then they spread out their towels and blankets over the warm sand and opened the cooler that Emily and Morgan had carried down to the Rainbow Bus. At the bus, Carlie had insisted that she and Amy do their part by transporting it the rest of the way to the beach.

  Emily didn’t even feel guilty when Amy complained about how heavy the cooler was. She thought it was about time that the girl did her share. During their massive cleanup of the trailer park, Emily had just assumed that Amy was working as hard as the rest of them, but the more she thought about it, the more she remembered seeing Amy sitting in the shade or sipping on a soda or complaining about a broken fingernail.

  “This is the life,” said Morgan, lying back on her towel, a can of Sierra Mist balancing on her chest. The can matched perfectly with Morgan’s lime green, one-piece suit.

  “Yeah, I’m ready for some downtime,” said Carlie as she straightened out her beach towel. “I mean, isn’t this supposed to be summer vacation? And we’ve been working harder than ever the last couple of weeks.”

  “But our work has a good payoff,” said Morgan. “Don’cha think?”

  “I do,” said Emily, stretching her pale arms out into the sun’s warmth. Hopefully she’d start getting a tan before too long. She glanced at her three friends lounging around her on their towels and blankets. It wasn’t going to be easy hanging with these girls all summer. Morgan’s naturally brown skin glowed like copper in the sunlight. Carlie’s deep olive complexion, as well as the way she was filling out her tankini, looked amazing, and even Amy with her relatively fair Asian skin looked a lot tanner than Emily.

  Emily flopped back onto her towel and hoped that it hadn’t been a mistake to come here without sunscreen.

  “Better watch out, Emily,” warned Amy as she reached in her beach bag. Then almost as if Amy had been reading her thoughts, she pulled out a tube of sunscreen and tossed it to her. “You need to protect your skin from the sun. My sister An made me put some on before I came down here. And it’s waterproof too.”

  “Thanks,” said Emily.

  “Yeah, you could be a lobster in no time,” said Amy as she adjusted the strap of her bathing suit top. Amy was the only one to wear a two-piece, but her figure was so much like that of an eight-year-old, it didn’t seem too risqué.

  “But I do
want to get some tan,” said Emily as she cautiously smeared some of the white glop onto her ghostly white legs.

  “You could use a little bit of tan, girlfriend,” teased Morgan. “You are one pale white chick.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Emily tried to spread the gooey sunscreen even thinner now.

  “I’ll take some of that too,” said Morgan when she was done. “If Amy doesn’t mind.”

  “You use sunscreen?” Amy tipped back her oversized sunglasses and stared at Morgan.

  Morgan nodded her head. “Yes, Amy dear.” She spoke as if addressing a four-year-old. “People of color can burn in the sun too.”

  So, before long, all four girls had on sunscreen. And for some unexplainable reason this made Emily feel better. She lay back down, but instantly wished she’d brought along a book to read. Why hadn’t she grabbed one of those paperback mysteries from the bus?

  “Wanna make a sandcastle?” asked Morgan after the girls had lazed around for about half an hour or so.

  “No way,” said Amy. “Leave me alone—I’m almost asleep.”

  “Me too,” said Carlie.

  “I’m game,” said Emily, relieved to get up since she was already bored, plus the sun was intense. “Although, as you already know, I’m not very creative.”

  “Maybe not when it comes to art,” admitted Morgan as she went over to where some driftwood and things were strewn up against the sandbank. “But I’ve seen some of your poetry, remember? That was creative.”

  “Don’t you want to build the castle closer to the water?” asked Emily.

  “Sure. But we need some props and things to take down there.”