“How’s Purl One?” she asked.
Herman leaned down, unsnapped the fabric around Purl One, and gently put her on the ground. The cat arched her back in a long stretch while Herman clipped a narrow leash to her harness.
Franz and Billie Holiday bounded over to greet Purl One. Franz licked her head, causing her hair to stick straight up as if she’d been electrocuted. Unbothered by her new hairstyle, Purl One crouched low to the ground and immediately pounced on a leaf that tumbled by.
“Did our mom give us cookies for the PM?” Hyacinth asked Herman.
He nodded and took off his backpack. “She gave us a dozen lemon drizzle cookies, and I brought some stuff from home.” He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a bag of cookies, a quart of milk, an apple, and two cheese sticks.
“Nice,” Hyacinth said. “Let’s leave them in the shed.”
Hyacinth took out of her backpack the scarf she had knit with thick black yarn. The evenings were chilly, and she was certain the PM could use a warm scarf.
“Want to bring the stuff into the shed with us?” Hyacinth asked Oliver. Hyacinth wasn’t a huge fan of the shed. Over the summer, she had gone swimming at her friend’s house, and they stored their inflatable toys in a shed very much like the one in this garden. Her friend had neglected to tell her that the shed was a favorite spot for wolf spiders, and when Hyacinth had gone in to retrieve a unicorn inner tube, an enormous wolf spider had jumped right on top of her head. Even though Mr. Beiderman, Papa, and Uncle Arthur had inspected the garden shed top to bottom multiple times and declared it wolf spider-free, Hyacinth still shuddered whenever she entered it.
When Oliver didn’t look up from his book, Hyacinth sighed.
“Come on, Hyacinth,” Herman said. “I’ll protect you from the spiders.”
Herman weaved through the garden plots and the lavender maze the Vanderbeekers had created in honor of Mr. Beiderman’s daughter, who had passed away at age sixteen after being struck by a car. When he got to the shed, he opened the door, and Hyacinth peeked in. Everything looked the same as usual: the rakes and shovels were leaning against the corner, the buckets were nestled in a wobbly tower, and bags of soil were stacked neatly along the far wall.
Hyacinth worried about the person who was sleeping here. The shed was dark, and there were cracks in the wood-plank walls that let in the cold wind. The weather would only get worse as winter approached. What would the PM do then?
Herman entered the shed and placed the food parcels inside. Hyacinth took a deep breath and made her way to the spot where the PM had left a neat stack of clothes. She leaned over the soil stack to put the folded scarf on top of the PM’s belongings. She wasn’t trying to be nosy, she really wasn’t, but the shirt on top, a gray one with white squares and green writing, seemed so familiar she had to look closer. She peered at the small writing, and for a second her heart stuttered.
“What?” Herman asked.
Hyacinth pointed to the shirt, and Herman stilled beside her. Hyacinth leaned down and picked it up. The T-shirt fluttered open, revealing a chart with white symbols and large green print along the top that read “I Wear This Shirt Periodically.”
There were only two people in the entire neighborhood who had science-themed shirts like that. One was Jessie, and she definitely did not sleep in the shed at night.
Three
Jessie was trying to keep track of the number of leaves she had counted, which was more difficult than it sounds. She was concentrating so hard that she didn’t notice how her siblings and Herman had gathered around her, blocking out the beam of sunshine that was helping her locate the smaller leaves.
“Can you guys move? I’m trying to record these findings . . .”
But there was a strange feeling in the air, something that made the little hairs on her arms prickle with unease. She looked up and noticed that Hyacinth was holding a gray T-shirt.
“What’s wrong?” Jessie asked. The shirt was Orlando’s, the one she had given him a couple of birthdays ago. She looked at Hyacinth. “How did you get that?”
“She found it in the shed,” Isa said quietly.
Jessie’s brow furrowed. “That’s weird. Why would it be there?”
There was a long pause.
Jessie shook her head. “Wait. You think Orlando is the PM?”
Silence.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jessie said. “He probably just changed his shirt one day after working in the garden, then forgot it. Someone must have put it there for safekeeping.”
Hyacinth and Herman glanced at each other, and Jessie glared back at them. “What?”
Hyacinth stared at the ground. “It was folded on top of the PM’s clothes.”
Jessie shook her head. She knew everything about Orlando; there was no way. “It couldn’t possibly be him,” she told them. “I mean, we would know if he lived in a shed, right? Anyway, we were just at his place!”
“That was a few months ago, before school ended,” Oliver noted. “I remember, because it was right after my birthday.”
Jessie remembered that too. It was the one time she had been to his apartment, and it hadn’t even been an official invitation. Orlando had forgotten to bring Oliver’s gift to his birthday party back in May, and he wanted to run into his apartment and pick it up. They’d been there only briefly—Orlando hadn’t even invited them inside—and Jessie had caught a few glimpses of worn furniture and a stack of unwashed dishes by the sink.
Jessie glanced at her watch. It was almost noon; surely Orlando would be home from cross-country practice by now. She stood up and brushed her dirty hands against her pants. “Let’s go over to his place and get this all cleared up.”
Her siblings looked uneasily at her, but they followed her out of the garden. Herman, not wanting to keep Purl One out in the cold for long, headed uptown to the cat café and asked Hyacinth and Oliver to give him an update as soon as possible.
The walk down to 122nd Street was silent: an unusual state for the Vanderbeekers. The quiet gave Jessie time to think about the last few weeks. Had Orlando seemed different? She’d seen him doing laundry at Miss Josie’s place the other day, but that wasn’t unusual. His building didn’t have a laundry room, so he often washed his clothes at the brownstone. He ate a ton of food whenever he was at their place—which was pretty much every day—but that wasn’t unusual either. Mama always said teenage boys needed a lot of food. With each step toward his apartment, Jessie was more convinced that this whole idea was ridiculous.
But uneasy thoughts kept tumbling through her brain as she and her siblings turned east on Orlando’s street and marched up to his building. A dumpster was parked in front; Franz barked at it and Billie Holiday eyed it warily. Jessie went to the entrance, located Orlando’s apartment number on a silver panel to the right of the door, and pressed the buzzer for 2B.
She turned to her siblings when there was no answer. “He’s probably in the shower.” She buzzed again, but no one responded.
Orlando lived on the second floor, his windows facing the street. Jessie looked up, then toward her siblings, who were fanned out behind her.
“Hyacinth, if you get on my shoulders, you might be able to look into his window.”
Hyacinth took a giant step backward, pulling Franz with her, and shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“I’ll do it!” Laney volunteered. She tried to pass Billie Holiday’s leash to Isa, but her sister didn’t take it.
“Laney, no,” Isa said, turning to her twin sister. “Jess, this isn’t a good idea.”
“I just want to take a super-quick look inside,” Jessie said. “Maybe he has music on and couldn’t hear the doorbell ring.”
Oliver glanced at the building. “You can scale it,” he told her.
Jessie swiveled to look at her brother. “What?” Oliver pointed to the concrete planter next to them. “Jump up on that,” he said, pointing above them. “Put your hands on the windowsill, and use those two bricks jutting out for
your feet. Then lift yourself up and you should be high enough to look through the window. I can do it if you want.”
“No,” Isa interjected again.
“I can do it,” Jessie said.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Hyacinth said, covering her face with her hands.
“Me either,” Isa said.
But Jessie didn’t listen to her sisters’ protests. She stepped up onto the planter, careful not to crush the bushes inside. She eased her way to the side of the building, standing on the tips of her sneakers to reach the windowsill.
“Now put your feet on those bricks,” Oliver instructed.
Jessie moved one foot over, then the other. She slowly straightened her legs so she could see through the window.
“Almost there!” Oliver said.
“Be careful!” Hyacinth squeaked.
Jessie could almost see inside when an unfamiliar, authoritative voice rang out.
“Sure you want to do that?”
Jessie swung her head around and glimpsed a woman wearing a blue uniform and a shiny gold New York Police Department badge on her shirt. Then she lost her grip on the windowsill and fell backward into a cluster of bushes.
* * *
“Jessie!” screeched Isa, Hyacinth, and Laney. Franz howled and Billie Holiday whimpered. They rushed to the bushes.
Oliver hung back. She hadn’t fallen that far and was probably fine.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” the police officer asked Oliver. She peered at him over her sunglasses. The badge on her shirt said “Officer Ramos.”
“Uh, our friend lives there?” Oliver said, pointing at the second-floor apartment.
“And you’re trying to break in . . . why?” Officer Ramos asked him.
“We’re not breaking in,” Oliver explained. “We’re trying to look through the window.”
“Officer Ramos!”
Oliver glanced down the street. Another officer, this one holding two coffee cups and a brown bag under his arm, was speed walking toward them and saying “Ouch!” It looked as if hot coffee was splashing on his hands in his haste.
Officer Ramos sighed and muttered under her breath.
“You disappeared again,” the other officer accused her. He was wearing a badge that said “Officer Pontas.”
“I did not disappear,” Officer Ramos told him. “I saw a disturbance, and I responded.”
“Without your partner,” Officer Pontas added.
“Look at these kids!” Officer Ramos said, gesturing to the Vanderbeekers. “They do not pose a severe security risk. I was assessing the situation.” She pointed at Jessie, who was slowly climbing out of the bush she had fallen into. “Suspect A was attempting to enter that apartment.”
“She was trying to see if her best friend was home,” Oliver clarified. “He’s gone missing.”
Both officers went on high alert.
“How long has this person been missing?” they asked at the same time, whipping identical notebooks from their back pockets.
Oliver looked at the sky, thinking. “Like, two hours?”
The officers put their notebooks away.
“What is the missing person’s name?” Officer Pontas asked, looking around as if searching for a more exciting and dangerous situation to address.
“Orlando Stewart,” Oliver said.
Officer Ramos wrote the name down.
Oliver’s sisters joined him. Jessie looked fine except for some leaves and twigs in her hair.
“I don’t think Jessie needs to go to the hospital,” Hyacinth reported to Oliver, “but her wrist looks swollen. Maybe we should get Dr. Rosengarten to check just in case.”
“That’s how my wrist always looks,” Jessie told her.
“Who are you?” Laney asked the officers. “I’m Laney. I’m six years old, and this is Jessie, Isa, Hyacinth, Oliver, Franz, and Billie Holiday. Can you help us find our friend?”
“It sounds like your friend is fine if he’s only been missing for a couple of hours,” Officer Ramos said.
“I guess,” Laney said, disappointed at their response.
The sound of static and a garbled voice came through Officer Pontas’s walkie-talkie. He pulled it out of his pocket.
“Ooh, Oliver has a walkie-talkie too,” Laney said, pointing.
“We’ve got to get going,” Officer Pontas said to his partner, passing her a cup of coffee.
“Don’t go sneaking into your friends’ houses,” Officer Ramos said to the kids, taking a big gulp of the coffee. “ It’s a crime punishable with eighteen years in prison.” She took her cuffs out and swung them menacingly by her thumb and index finger.
Oliver’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?”
“No,” Officer Ramos said. “But don’t do it again. It’s creepy to look through people’s windows.”
The officers went down the street, and Isa glared at Jessie and Oliver.
“I told you not to do that,” Isa said. “You could have been arrested.”
“Should we wait for Orlando?” Oliver said. He sat down on the ledge of the large concrete planter and glanced down the street, looking for the familiar profile.
“I guess,” Jessie said, sitting down next to him.
The Vanderbeekers sat there, watching people pass by. Laney took particular interest in a pair of chattering squirrels chasing each other from tree to tree. A cop car carrying Officer Ramos and Officer Pontas went past, and Laney waved at them. A teenager wearing sunglasses that covered nearly her whole face strolled by, bopping her head to the music on her headphones.
A few minutes later, the building door opened and two men wearing worn jeans and matching gray shirts that said “Mendoza Trash Removal” struggled to move a battered couch through the door. One of them was bald and wore glasses; the other had a faded gray baseball cap shoved on his head. Oliver got up to hold the door open for them. They nodded their thanks, then carried the couch out to the street and tossed it into the dumpster.
“Whoa,” Laney said. “You’re strong.”
The guys nodded again. On the way back into the building, one of them propped open the door with a stopper. A few seconds later, they came down with a mattress. This time, Laney wasn’t going to let them go by without finding out more. She jumped up and walked with them back to the building.
“What are you doing?” Laney asked.
“Emptying out an apartment,” the guy with the cap said.
Laney’s eyebrows creased in confusion. “Why?”
“Looks like the tenants got evicted. They left without taking their stuff,” the guy with glasses added.
Oliver’s breath caught in his throat. Surely they couldn’t be talking about Orlando’s place?
“Um, that apartment you’re clearing? It’s not 2B, is it?” Oliver asked.
The guys looked at each other.
“Yeah, I think it is,” the guy in the cap said.
The Vanderbeekers raced toward the open building door.
“Hey!” one of the guys called out.
But they were already inside and running up the stairs, Jessie leading the way and Franz howling right behind her. When Jessie got to the second floor, she stopped abruptly at the door to Orlando’s apartment. Her siblings rammed into her, and Jessie threw her arms out, bracing herself against the door frame to keep from falling. They stared inside the apartment.
It was only until a man’s voice saying “What are you doing here?” that they turned around to find a person wearing a dark-green work shirt with the word “Superintendent” stitched above the left pocket.
“This is private property,” the super said, his face red and sweaty and mad.
“Our friend lives here,” Oliver explained, “and those guys are throwing away his stuff!”
“The Stewarts don’t live here anymore, if that’s who you’re looking for,” the man said.
“Wait, what?” Jessie said. “What happened?”
“I evicted them,” the m
an said. “They hadn’t paid their rent in three months. When they finally left, I had to pay for a dumpster because they left all their stuff. They’re not getting their security deposit back, that’s for sure.”
“So you just . . . kicked them out of their home?” Hyacinth asked.
“If you don’t pay, you don’t stay,” the man said with a shrug. “Now you kids need to leave the building. This is called trespassing.”
Oliver looked into the apartment. There was a stack of Orlando’s science books. Two football jerseys lay on the ground. In the corner was a small bear wearing a T-shirt with the Franklin Institute logo on it that Laney had bought for him over the summer when the Vanderbeekers visited the science museum in Philadelphia.
“Please,” Jessie said, her eyes wide and panicked. “At least let us grab some of their things. He’s our friend.”
The super looked unconvinced and annoyed, then Isa spoke up in a low, quiet voice.
“You’re just going to throw it away,” Isa said reasonably. “Give us five minutes, then you’ll never see us again.”
The super glanced at his watch. “Five minutes. That’s it.”
The Vanderbeekers ran inside. Jessie passed out a handful of shopping bags that she found under the kitchen sink. Laney ran for the bear and put it in her bag while Isa and Jessie went for the books. Oliver grabbed the football jerseys, and Hyacinth went through his dresser and grabbed clothes until her bag was overflowing.
“Time’s up,” the super said. The two guys doing the trash removal were behind him, looking sympathetic but also ready to finish their job.
Isa thanked the super (which Oliver thought was completely unnecessary), and the Vanderbeekers took their bags downstairs and out the door. They stood in front of the building wondering what to do next.
“We need to find him,” Jessie said, and her siblings agreed. They dragged the bags to Marcus Garvey Park a few blocks away, where the team often ran along the park’s walking paths. Orlando was nowhere to be seen. Jessie pulled out her phone and called him, but the phone just rang and rang. She was about to dial his number again when Isa gently took the phone away and put it in her own pocket.
The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found Page 2