Girl Power

by Melody Carlson

  “Well, you’re going to have to learn,” said Morgan.

  “Yeah,” agreed Emily. “It’s not hard. It’s just talking to God.”

  On Saturday night, most of the neighbors of Harbor View Mobile-Home Court trekked down to the beach for a hot dog roast, potluck, and fireworks. And when it was all over with, Amy admitted that it was the best Fourth of July in their neighborhood—ever.

  And even though Emily had lived there less than two months, she had to agree.

  On Sunday, Morgan handed the bus key over to Emily. And by Monday, everyone seemed to have left town.

  Of course, Carlie was still around. But Emily knew that Carlie would have her hands full with her two little brothers. And so Emily would be mostly on her own.

  On Monday, Emily slowly walked over to the bus. No reason to hurry since no one would be there today—or anytime this week. It was foggy and chilly this morning and Emily wished she’d put on long pants instead of her thin, cotton shorts. But she remembered that Carlie’s dad had recently tested out the little heater to make sure that it was safe. She might be lonely, but she didn’t have to be cold. As soon as she was inside and had locked the door (Morgan’s recommendation for any of the girls who were in the bus alone), she turned on the heater and just walked around. Morgan had been right about the bright colors. They did make the place feel warm and cheerful on a gray day. Even so, Emily knew it would be much warmer and cheerier if her friends were here. Even Amy, who could be cantankerous sometimes, would be an improvement over this solitude.

  “Get over it,” she said aloud as she walked to the back of the bus, trying to decide what to do. Then she remembered the box of books that was still underneath the bed. With all their recent activities, she had nearly forgotten it. And now would be a good time to sort and place the books up on the empty bookshelf over the bed. Plus the books would make the place look even better—more lived in. So she removed all the pillows and lifted up the mattress. And there, not only was the box of books, but also the record albums and the record player that they hadn’t even tried out yet.

  “No time like now,” she said as she removed all the items and finally closed the bed and replaced the pillows. First, she took the record player up to the front of the bus. She set it on the passenger seat, near an electrical outlet, and plugged it in. Remembering Mr. Garcia’s warning about not running too much electricity at once, she turned off the heater before turning on the record player. To her pleased surprise, it worked.

  She went back for the apple crate of old vinyl records, placing it on the floor near the dashboard. Then she began to flip through the records, wondering which one to start with. Finally she decided on Elton John. At least she knew who that was. She slipped the big, black vinyl disk out of the cardboard album jacket, carefully placed it on the turntable, and turned it on. There was a switch with three numbers—78, 45, and 33. She had no idea what they were for, but remembered hearing Morgan calling these records 33s, so she switched it to that. Then she lifted up the arm and set it to rest on the turning record, and suddenly there was quiet music coming out. She turned the volume up and went to the couch to sit and listen. Very nice. She decided that she liked Elton John.

  She left the music playing and started to put books on the shelf. Suddenly it occurred to her that this was kind of nice. She had good music, interesting books, and a cool place to hang out. And it was kind of a relief having it quiet in here for a change. Like it gave her time to think. Plus, with no one chattering away or looking over her shoulder, she could really check out the books as she placed them, one by one, on the shelf. She took her time to open the mysteries, read the first few lines, and decide which one she might like to read first. She noticed that Dan Watterson’s name was written in some of the books and, once again, she wondered about this guy. Who he was? And what had been his connection to this bus?

  As she was getting the books arranged, she pulled out the old high school yearbook again. She flipped around to the pages that had pictures of Dan Watterson. She noticed that he was most often pictured with a girl with long, dark hair. Finally Emily found the girl’s name by a photo of the two of them in formal attire. Stephanie Chetwood. She looked up the girl in the senior section, but found she wasn’t there. So she looked in the junior section and, sure enough, there was Stephanie Chetwood. So she had been a year younger than Dan. Emily thought the girl was really pretty—even by today’s standards. She had big, dark eyes and straight, dark hair.

  Emily looked back through the handwritten notes in the yearbook, hoping to find what Stephanie had said about Dan. And there, tucked two pages from the back was a very tiny note, written in very small handwriting that had faded a bit with time. Emily squinted to read it. “‘To Dan, the love of my life, your Steph.’”

  “Wow,” said Emily as she read it again. “The love of his life.” She closed the book and wondered if they might’ve gotten married. Maybe Dan graduated and went to college. And maybe Steph did too, and then maybe they got married and had kids. Hey, it was possible that they could actually live in town. Right here in Boscoe Bay! What Emily needed was a phone book. And since they’d just gotten their phone last week, she knew just where to find one.

  She turned off the record player, locked the bus, and dashed home to check their new phone book. But there was no Dan Watterson listed. In fact, no one by that last name was listed. She closed the book and sighed. There must be some way to find out this guy’s whereabouts. She wished she was brave enough to ask Mr. Greeley, but since he hadn’t come to their bus-warming party, and no one had seen him at the Fourth of July hot dog roast, she got the feeling that he was lying low and not wishing for company.

  Emily wondered about Morgan’s grandma. She knew that Grandma had only lived in Harbor View for the last ten years, after she had retired from teaching high school in another town. It seemed unlikely that she would know. Besides, knowing Morgan, she’d probably already asked. Then Emily remembered Mrs. Hard wick and her son who worked at the newspaper. She seemed to know a lot of people. And she was friendly too. Maybe Emily could ask her. But first she put on her jeans and a sweatshirt. Then she tucked an apple and granola bar into her big front pocket for lunch and took off, heading for Mrs. Hardwick’s for a quick visit.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” she said when the older woman came to the door.

  “Not at all,” said the woman. “You’re Emily, right?”

  She nodded. “I don’t want to take too much of your time, but I’m curious if you’ve lived here very long.”

  “In Harbor View Mobile-Home Court?” asked the woman.

  “Yes.”

  “Goodness, it’s been … let’s see … I think about twenty-five years. Or thereabouts.”

  “Wow, that’s a long time,” said Emily.

  Mrs. Hardwick laughed. “Well, for a young person, I suppose it seems that way. I was about fifty when I moved here from Ridgeport. My husband had just passed and I didn’t like living in a big old house by myself.”

  Emily nodded. “Did you ever know a man named Dan Watterson?”

  Mrs. Hardwick frowned. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. Did he live here?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I think I’ve lived in the court longer than anyone—other than Mr. Greeley.”

  “How long has he been here?” asked Emily, suddenly wishing she’d thought to write out some questions.

  “Well, he started up the place. And it was still pretty new when I moved in here. Only about five or six other mobile homes had been set in place at the time. But I think it had been running for a few years by then.” She looked carefully at Emily. “Are you girls working on some new kind of project now? Writing up the history of the place?”

  “Not exactly,” said Emily. “We’re just curious.”

  Mrs. Hardwick smiled. “Well, that’s nice. It’s refreshing to see some kids taking an interest in something besides their fancy computers and televisions.”

  Emily smiled. �
�Thanks. I better go now.”

  The old woman waved as Emily walked away. She tried not to laugh about the “fancy computer” comment. Emily hadn’t had a computer to use for nearly two months now. And they’d only gotten their hand-me-down TV a week ago. And since they didn’t even have cable, it wasn’t too tempting to turn into a couch potato. Still, Mrs. Hardwick’s computer comment gave Emily an idea. And instead of returning to the bus, Emily headed to town. It was about an eight-minute walk from the trailer park, six if you walked fast. She took her time and ate her apple and granola bar along the way.

  Emily had seen the public library from the street, but up until now she hadn’t been inside. It was a small building with the same musty book smell that all libraries seemed to have. Emily stopped at the front desk and asked the small, white-haired lady about computers.

  “We have four set up right over by the window for public use,” said the woman.

  “Do you have to have a library card?” asked Emily.

  “No, anyone can use them, dear. Just read the rules posted there and be courteous to other patrons.”

  Emily thanked her and said, “As long as I’m here, may I have an application for a library card? I actually do like to read too.”

  The woman smiled as she handed her a yellow piece of paper. “Then you came to the right place.”

  So Emily took the application and went over to the computer section where she logged in and then tried several different searches on the name “Daniel Watterson.” The first search, with only his name, provided so many references that it would take her a lifetime to read them all, so she decided to narrow it down by trying his name along with “Boscoe Bay News.” This resulted in several old sports stories about the Boscoe Bay Cougars and Dan’s athletic contributions during his high school career. There were also many references to college scholarships. So she decided to try those. Unfortunately the ones she attempted to trace seemed to have nothing to do with her Dan Watterson. Finally she gave up.

  Before leaving, Emily filled out the library card application and took it back to the woman at the front desk. She felt a little bit guilty for using the name Adams, but she knew that it was for her family’s own safety. Her dad might trace down their family here if she used her real name.

  “Are you new here?” asked the woman as she glanced down over the application.

  “Yes. We’ve only been here a couple of months.”

  The woman smiled. “Well, a library card can be a good friend when you’re new in town.”

  Emily was about to tell the woman that even though she was new in town, she did have friends—good friends too. But she decided that might sound rude. Instead she thanked her.

  “Did you wish to check out any books today?”

  “No. I have a book that I’m about to start. It’s a mystery.”

  The woman nodded. “Oh, I do love a good mystery. And we have lots of them here.”

  “Then I’ll definitely be back,” said Emily. She looked up at the clock on the wall behind the woman and was surprised to see that it was already 4:45, and today was a day when Mom and Kyle got home at five. She’d have to hurry to make it home before them. As she jogged home, she realized that her first day without friends around had passed fairly quickly. Now if only the rest of the week would go this fast.

  At dinner, Emily asked her mom about Mr. Greeley. “Don’t you think he’s kind of weird?” she said after mentioning how he never came to anything social.

  “I think he’s just sad,” said Mom.

  “I think he’s creepy,” said Kyle. “Did you see how long the hair growing out of his ears is? Hey, maybe he’s a werewolf.”

  “Kyle!” Mom glared at him.

  “Well, he is strange, Mom,” pointed out Emily.

  “All I know is he was good to us. When we came here, I didn’t have enough money for rent,” Mom told them. “He assured me it was okay. He said he understood how people have hard times. And he was very understanding.”

  “He probably thinks you’re hot,” said Kyle.

  “Kyle!” Mom looked really angry now.

  “Sorry.”

  “Well, you kids be nice to him. He’s been good to us. I don’t know where we would be if he hadn’t been willing to rent this place to me. He’s a good-hearted man. Even when I gave him our real name—so he could do a credit check—he promised me that he would keep it secret. And I have no reason not to trust him.”

  Emily wasn’t so sure about that, but she figured if Mom trusted him, maybe she should too. Still, she would keep a safe distance for now!

  chapter nine

  On Tuesday, Emily returned to the bus with a mission: She would do all she could to figure out who Dan Watterson was. And if she came up with nothing, she would put the case to rest. No sense in making herself crazy over some old dude who happened to leave his high school yearbook in somebody’s old bus.

  She turned on the record player again, this time turning the Elton John album to the other side, and then she went to the back of the bus to finish putting the books on the shelf. But when she got to the bottom of the box, she saw a small, black book that she hadn’t noticed before. She pulled it out to discover it was a journal. And it had been written in. There was no name inside of it, but when she compared the handwriting to the books with Dan Watterson’s name written in them, it appeared to be the same. A very neat and angular style that looked more like printing than cursive.

  Feeling slightly intrusive, but curious, Emily began to read. And she was thankful—not for the first time—that the other girls weren’t around. Not that she planned to hide this from them, but she hated the idea of them making fun of this guy. Emily knew what it was like to keep a journal. She’d been doing so for years. But nothing would humiliate her more as a writer than if someone found her personal thoughts and hopes and dreams and made fun of them. That’s why she’d always kept her journals well hidden. It still bothered her deeply that they’d left so quickly that night, she had left a few journals behind. She hoped and prayed her dad never found them.

  As Emily read, she felt she could relate to Dan Watterson. He too loved words and aspired to be a writer. He had a column in the school paper, and despite having the image of a jock, he’d secretly written poetry. A lot of poetry. Who would’ve guessed? She also learned that he did get a sports scholarship to Oregon State, but that he dropped out of college before graduating. And the reason he dropped out was because of a girl. She came to this conclusion since the thing he wrote about most in his journal was Stephanie, his high school sweetheart. It seemed that his devotion was as strong as hers, and that she was the love of his life. But for some reason she had disappeared—left his life without a trace. And as a result, he was lost and heartbroken and devoted many poems to her.

  Finally, Emily closed the journal. The last dozen entries were spread out over several years, written from all over the country, but they still sounded very unhappy. As soon as she set the book aside she felt horribly guilty, like she had sneaked into someone’s private world. And even though she was still curious, and her desire to solve this Dan the man mystery was strong, she knew she must not go back and reread a single sentence. She also knew that it would be wrong for the other girls to read it too. In fact, she was tempted to destroy the journal altogether. But that seemed wrong too.

  Eventually, she decided to find a really good hiding place for it—a place on the bus because it belonged with the bus. The other important thing that Emily learned from the journal was that this had indeed been Dan’s bus. He’d bought it from a friend named Jim shortly after he dropped out of college. And even though his dad was furious with him, he lived in this bus, drove around the country, and seemed to have no idea what he would do with his life.

  Emily walked around the bus, searching for a safe spot to hide the sad journal. After a thorough search she decided to shove it behind a loose board in the little closet near the bedroom. She felt it would be safe there. As far as Dan went, maybe she
would never know anything else. Maybe it was none of her business. But this journal was a private thing and she would respect that.

  On Wednesday and Thursday, Emily tried to put thoughts of Dan Watterson behind her as she immersed herself in reading mysteries and writing some poetry of her own. But the more time she spent in the bus, the more she felt that Dan was there too … and the more she felt that this mystery was not going to leave her alone until she had resolved it. So she opened up her own journal and began to write down the questions that seemed to be nagging the loudest.

  1. Why is Dan’s bus parked at Harbor View?

  2. Where is Dan now?

  3. What is his relationship to Mr. Greeley?

  4. What happened to Stephanie?

  And that was about it. Not too difficult, really. Emily scratched her head as she stared at these four questions. It seemed the only way she’d find the answers would be to approach Mr. Greeley. And yet that scared the socks off her.

  So she paused and asked herself: How else do people research these things? What do people in the mystery books do? She’d already tried the computer without success. This reminded her of the sweet, white-haired librarian, and she wondered, How long had that woman lived in town? She might be more helpful than a computer. Besides, she told herself as she walked toward town, she’d soon be out of mysteries. She might as well restock her supply. Hopefully that same librarian would be there again.

  Sure enough, the white-haired woman was there. And to Emily’s surprise, she even seemed to recognize her.

  “Ready for a mystery?” asked the woman when Emily paused in front of her big shiny desk.

  “Sort of …” Emily smiled. “Actually, I’m trying to solve a mystery.”

  “To solve one?” The woman looked curious.

  “And I thought maybe you could help me.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. That is if you’ve lived in Boscoe Bay for very long. Have you?”

  She laughed. “Well, that depends on how you look at it. It doesn’t seem that long to me, but I was born and raised here, and I’ve lived here all my life.”