by Lois Ruby
Sally, all business, said, “Okay, guys, let’s think this through. What’s the working theory?”
“None, yet,” I admitted. “Ahn, what do you think?”
Ahn was eating Asian foods she’d brought from home, things that looked like stringy spinach and crunchy Styrofoam strips. “Unknown at this time.”
“Wait and see if the creep turns up again,” Jeep suggested. I loved the glow of his newly shaved brown head, oiled and glistening in the harsh cafeteria lights. Jeep is a young Michael Jordan, only it will probably be two years before he is eye level with MJ’s belt buckle.
The noise in the cafeteria was becoming a thundering roar. “Five minutes till we go down to the Dungeon,” Mike shouted over the chaos. The basement of Thoreau Middle School is as indestructible as a Roman fortress. We have science down there just in case a chemical experiment explodes or one of the reptiles gets loose, which is something we engineer pretty regularly. We are eighth graders. We are supposed to do stuff like that.
The cafeteria was starting to clear out, and it sounded like a train rumbling through a subway station. I yelled, “Did I mention I got the man’s flashlight?” Mike raised an eyebrow in interest.
“With his address on it. Anyone want to go to Kansas City?”
“How?” Mike asked.
“We could hitchhike,” Jeep said, tossing his fork and knife into a tub of soapy water. Splat. The Cafeteria Werewolf wiped her cheeks with her paws and scowled at Jeep. We were dying to catch her some night howling at the full moon.
“Hitchhike and risk certain death,” Sally reminded him.
“You afraid of a little old psychopathic truck driver, Sal?” Mike asked.
“No, my parents, if they found out.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get a ride,” I assured them all.
Mike smashed the last of his peaches with his milk carton. “We’re infants; we’re driver’s licensely challenged, remember?”
“You always see the glass half empty. I’m conceiving a plan, Mike.”
He groaned. “A Dana plan. We’re all doomed.”
• • •
That weekend we had the grand opening of Firebird House, named that because it had risen from the ashes of one fire plus both sackings of Lawrence. Now it was starting its fourth lifetime. Our own Firebird, a turquoise-and-yellow parakeet, watched with great boredom as we hung a rustic wooden placard on the wall next to his cage:
HOME OF ARCHITECT
JAMES BAYLOR WEAVER (1844–1906)
AND OF ELIZABETH CHARLES,
BORN IN SLAVERY AROUND 1832
AND LAID TO REST IN THIS HOUSE IN 1856
We peeked from behind the new pink window sheers as the first customers pulled up in a car that seemed familiar. When Mom led them upstairs, I studied the register where Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Berk had scrawled their names and their Overland Park address, and the license plate number of their car.
It was the same old Ford that the man from Ernie’s Bait Shop had driven.
Now I was more than curious; I had to find out what they were looking for, especially if it had something to do with James Weaver.
The old-fashioned Victorian doors at Firebird House have the kind of keyholes big enough to see through, but that wouldn’t have been enough to satisfy me.
I had a skeleton key; all I had to do was wait for the Berks to get hungry.
Chapter Four
March 1857
WILL IN THE SHADOWS
Will seemed to want to make himself scarce for James’s reunion with his mother and sister, so he hung back in the shadow of the keeping room.
James was itching to throw his arms around Ma; three long months she’d been gone. Three months’ worth of barely passable meals, and every shirt gray as dishwater, begging for her scrub board, and every pair of britches sorely wanting Ma’s swift needle.
But with Will hulking around there in the shadows, James didn’t dare whoop at Ma. Instead, he picked up his little sister, Rebecca, and whirled her around the room. “Thee’s grown a yard!” he said happily. “Thee weighs pretty nearly a ton.”
Ma beamed at James. “What is that caterpillar that’s crawled up under thy nose, James?”
James slapped his hand to the coppery fuzz above his lip and jerked his head toward the corner. “Say hello to Will, Ma.”
“Will Bowers, why on earth is thee hiding in the corner like a mouse?” James watched Ma’s eyes pass over Will. She sized up the situation with barely a glance. She turned her attention to housekeeping, running her finger through a winter’s worth of dust on the hutch. “Thee’s lacked a woman’s touch,” Ma said, holding up the coffee kettle with the hole James had burned clear through it.
“Yes, ma’am,” James said shyly.
Rebecca darted and spun, inspecting every inch of the room. “Grandma Baylor’s house in Boston is so much prettier,” she said mournfully, “but here’s where my toys are.” She opened the wicker basket where her rag babies and rubber balls and spinning tops were heaped.
Ma said, “Run upstairs and see about stripping sheets off thy bed. I suspect James hasn’t done the laundry in a month of Mondays.” She gave Will a good, hard look and flinched just a bit as she came to the empty leg sack. Eyeing the rumpled pallet on the floor, she said, “Will Bowers, thee must get on home. The snow’s nearly melted, and thy mother must be frantic with worry for thee.”
“Yes, Mrs. Weaver.”
“Thee mustn’t fret. She’s a strong woman,” Ma said gently. She gathered Will’s bag and handed him his crutch. “Go home, Will Bowers. God bless.”
Once the door was shut behind him, Ma raced toward James. “Oh, son,” she cried. “Thee’s just about the finest sight I’ve seen in weeks.” She pulled James to her, sniffing his fiery hair that wanted a good washing. “It’s thy birthday, James. I’d have fought Bengal tigers to make it home in time. Where’s thy father?”
“Be home by nightfall, Ma.”
“Oh, I have missed thee both so much, my teeth have fairly ached for thee. And Miss Elizabeth, James? Where is she this day?”
“Gone,” James said.
“Back to Kentucky again?” Ma asked softly. He was sure she sensed what he was about to tell her. How would Ma ever forgive them?
Palms sweating, he said, “Typhoid fever took her from us, Ma. Miz Lizbet’s dead.”
Chapter Five
WALKING ON EGG YOLKS
I jogged over to Ahn’s house on Vermont. It’s a ramshackle bungalow that she shares with a flock of brothers and cousins who’ve come from Vietnam, without parents, all at different times. Ahn is the main cook for the family since she’s the only one who doesn’t have a job, as if round-the-clock short-order cook isn’t a job.
About six people were studying all over the floor in the front room when I burst into the house. “Where’s Ahn?”
One brother—I can never remember which is which, because they all seem to be the same age—called to Ahn in Vietnamese, and she came out of the kitchen with a spatula in her hand.
“Ahn, remember I told you about Ernie, the bait shop man, who invaded my yard?”
The scholarly types all glared at me, so I lowered my voice. “Well, he’s sent two other spies, the Berks, in the same car, and they made sure to check in the first day we were open, before there were any other guests. I just know they’re looking for something major.”
“Maybe you’re too suspicious,” Ahn whispered, wiping the spatula on her apron. She slid out the door and closed it without a sound. “Nho has his Ph.D. comprehensive exams next week. He’s a little tense,” she explained. “We are all walking on egg yolks.”
“Shells. Anyway, here’s a chance for you to get away. It’s Friday. Come spend the night at my house and we’ll keep an eye on the Berks.”
Ahn looked worried. “I must give Nho a good breakfast tomorrow. He needs fuel for his study engine.”
“Come over and I’ll fix a cheese omelette as big as a pizza. You can take it
back to him in the morning.
Food is always scarce at Ahn’s, so she was won over. “With tomatoes? Green peppers? Onions? Nho will be in heaven.”
• • •
That night we sipped hot, spiced cider from University of Kansas Jayhawk mugs and waited in the parlor for the Berks to come back from dinner. As soon as the bell tinkled over the front door, I jumped up. “Welcome back to Firebird House,” I sang as Mr. and Mrs. Berk started for the stairs. “Why not come into the parlor? My dad’s got a fire going. These old houses stay cold as a tomb until July.”
“I’m going to bed,” Mr. Berk grumbled, and he ran up the stairs as if he might not make it to the bathroom in time. Mrs. Berk came into the parlor, rattling trinkets on the tables in her wake. She pushed up the raglan sleeves of her huge magenta sweater and settled into a brocade love seat that was all out of proportion for her. She was like a hippo on a bar stool.
Her eyes roved over every inch of the room. “Old houses like this bury their secrets,” she said. Her mean eyes settled on mine, and a shiver worked its way up my back like cold puppy paws. I remembered something Grammy Shannon used to say: “It was like a ghost walked over my grave.”
What was Mattie Berk up to?
Chapter Six
March 1857
NO MORE TALK OF A DEAD BODY
“Miss Elizabeth dead? Oh, mercy.” Ma stood in front of the fire, drying the hem of her skirt, and for a few heavy seconds the only sound in the room was the whoosh-whoosh of the gray worsted fabric at her heels. James knew Ma was praying, in the silent way Quakers do.
When she turned to him, her face was twisted with grief. “Thy father?”
“A blizzard kept him away. Then he came home one day and found Miz Lizbet here.”
“He never wrote to tell me this. Curious.”
“Pa’s forgiven thee for hiding the runaways and for lying to him.”
“Well, I believe he knew I had the Negroes here, anyway, but he never let on. Did he give Miss Elizabeth a proper Christian burial?”
Before James could answer, Rebecca came down the stairs, dragging linen like a dingy bridal train. “Ma, that little room we built so no one could hear James’s screechy violin playing? It’s gone.”
Ma turned her eyes on James. “Thee’s built a wall?”
And then he poured the whole story like milk from a pitcher. “Marshal Fain was onto us, Ma, just laying a trap. He posted his men outside, round the clock. Snow was up to our windows, and they kept clearing it off so they could see in. They were set on catching us in the act of hiding those runaways.”
“Thee must have been scared to death,” Rebecca said. “I’d have been.”
“Thee’s six. Pa and Solomon and I are men,” James replied gruffly.
“Solomon was here, too?” asked Ma.
“Yes, ma’am. He had the typhoid fever first, and Miz Lizbet nursed him through. This was before Marshal Fain’s men took up outside our door. Miz Lizbet slept beside him right there in front of the fire.” James nodded toward Will’s pallet. “Washed him night and day, like you did Rebecca when she was burning up with fever. By the time his fever broke, she was sick herself. About then’s when Marshal Fain’s men planted themselves out there. So we moved Miz Lizbet upstairs to the screechy violin room, and Solomon tended her night and day like she’d done him.”
“They were sweet on each other,” Ma said, then caught herself. “Still, it wasn’t proper, a lady and a gentleman.”
“They meant to marry as soon as Miz Lizbet got well, but she didn’t.”
Rebecca’s eyes were dark and wide as sunflower centers. “Did Miz Lizbet die, James?”
Ma reached out and took Rebecca under her wing. “Brave soul, she’s gone to her reward. James, the burial?”
“I’m coming to that.” How was he to tell Ma that forever they’d be living in a house with a dead body?
Ma said, “Well, now, thee couldn’t take her outside, what with the marshal’s men watching thy every move. And the ground was too frozen to dig a proper grave.” Ma’s voice got hard as gravel. “What did thy father do with poor Miss Elizabeth, James?”
“He said what needed to be said at her funeral service, commending her to the Lord and all.”
“And then?” Ma asked impatiently.
James bristled. “Well, what choice did we have, Ma? If the marshal had gotten Miz Lizbet alive, he’d have hauled her back to her owner in Kentucky.”
“One person does not own another, James.”
“It’s the law, at least the way they read it. But if he’d gotten her dead, there’s no telling what those Border Ruffians would have done to her body.” James felt tears pounding the backs of his eyes. He mustn’t cry like a baby on his thirteenth birthday. He was sure Will hadn’t cried over that leg of his.
Then Rebecca saved him having to say the words that would hurt the most. “Why, thee must have left her upstairs and walled her off!”
Ma clapped her hand to her mouth. “James, she lies upstairs?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.
Rebecca stamped her foot, and the floorboards buckled. “James, how could thee? Oh, poor Miz Lizbet, all dead and alone like that.”
Ma’s lips moved in prayer, as if she were reading. After the longest time, she said, “Thee did the honorable thing, James Baylor Weaver, thee and thy father and Solomon.”
Rebecca wrinkled her nose. “Why, how she must have smelled!”
James nodded, remembering those horrid first weeks.
“Remember last summer when Jilly died having her pups, and we didn’t find the poor things for a week? Remember, Ma? Thee gave me a handkerchief soaked in rosewater to put to my nose, but I can still smell Jilly.” She sniffed the air. “I believe I smell Miz Lizbet, too.”
Ma cast Rebecca a stern scowl and said, “There will be no more talk of a dead body in this house.”
“Yes, Ma,” Rebecca said with a groan.
“James? No more talk. Does thee hear me?”
“Clear as a whippoorwill, Ma.”
Ma took a deep breath. “Now, has thee anything left in the pantry that I might turn into a decent meal? Thee must be hungry, James. Thee’s thin as a carrot.”
“There hasn’t been one good meal since thee left,” James admitted.
“Fire the oven, son,” Ma ordered. “What’s a birthday without a cake?” She pulled down the canister of flour and picked out tiny black bugs that had mercifully died with the winter freeze.
Chapter Seven
TOO MUCH HISTORY
Silvery-cold air hissed through the uneven joints of the windows behind us. Firebird fluttered his yellow wings to rustle up a little warmth. I could swear he said, “Brrrr!”
Mattie Berk pulled her sweater over her hands and muttered, “You call this spring?”
“The house is nearly one hundred fifty years old,” I reminded her. We all three drifted over to the fireplace and toasted our hands.
Ahn, who knows the history of Firebird House as well as I do, began the saga.
“It was built the first time in 1855, then again in 1856, after a fire. In 1863 the kitchen was destroyed in William Quantrill’s raid, but the upper floor was safe.”
“Yeah, yeah, including the room with the skeleton.”
“Not just a skeleton, Mrs. Berk,” Ahn said indignantly. “It was Miz Lizbet Charles. She died of typhoid fever in that room. Her sweetheart, Solomon, took care of her until he closed her eyes for the last time.”
“Sad tale.” Mrs. Berk ran her hand around a section of wainscoting. “Is this the original wood?”
“All of it,” I boasted. “My mom and I stripped it and refinished every inch of it.”
I watched the woman closely. She was inspecting the wall as if she might find a trapdoor or a bogus bookcase that swung open into a secret room. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
She tapped the floor with her foot, which was about the size of a Ping-Pong paddle. “Floor seems solid. Ever h
ave to pull up the floorboards?” She wore hefty shoulder pads and had no waist. All that bulk stood on two thick piano legs. She sank back into the love seat and sent it rocking on its back legs. “Talk to me about the Weaver family.”
Obviously she already knew a lot about the Weavers, but I volunteered, “They were Quakers, agents on the Underground Railroad.”
“Mrs. Weaver was, not Mr.,” Ahn explained. “He didn’t approve of hiding slaves, but he was an abolitionist, too—”
Mrs. Berk interrupted her. “Talk to me about James.”
Ahn picked up a photo of Wolcott Castle, taken at its rededication the previous summer. “James Weaver designed this beautiful house where forty people could live and never run out of hot water.”
Mrs. Berk glanced at the picture. I could tell it wasn’t the first time she’d seen it. “He was some famous architect, I’ve heard.”
“Oh, yes,” Ahn agreed, “but he was only twelve when we knew him.”
“What are you talking about? The guy lived in the last century.”
“Of course,” Ahn said gently. “But we knew him well.”
“Whatever.” Mrs. Berk wasn’t big on romance. But she sure was nosy. “I heard something about a diary you found upstairs. Anything good in it?”
“Of course!” Ahn said, insulted. “It was all about Mrs. Weaver and Miz Lizbet and the people running away, the slaves. Very good.”
“Yeah, yeah, but anything about Weaver’s buildings?”
“No,” I answered. “Mrs. Weaver’s diary was written way before James started designing buildings.” I thought of his redheaded self at my age, spending long evenings without TV or video games, sketching houses and barns and churches by candlelight. Imagine what he could have done with a Macintosh!
Mrs. Berk lit up a cigarette, striking the match on the rough wood sign with Smokey Bear saying, THANKS FOR NOT SMOKING, FOLKS! She tossed the lit match into the fireplace. Ahn rushed forward with her cider mug as an ashtray.