Zoë’s smile turned thin and very sneaky. “Not that Rowena can complain. She’s getting a wonderful price for her dump.”
Snap! Breaking more twigs, Zoë swiveled on her spike heels and trotted away. I followed. More trees closed around us, but I told myself it was just a small woods. Nothing could happen to me.
“This is the deal you needed to sign before the nineteenth, isn’t it, Zoë?” I demanded. “And if Rowena’s house is such a dump, why did you want it so much? All those pranks,” I added in disbelief.
At a clearing, Zoë halted and faced me. “Yes, those pranks. Intended to annoy Rowena into moving, but performed less than satisfactorily by Rock Junior. He couldn’t even leave my witch signs at Rowena’s without being seen.”
“Those were horrible signs,” I said.
Zoë shrugged. “An artist, like your oh-so-snobby sister, I’m not…Oh, you mean the messages.” A tinny giggle. “Means to an end, m’dear, means to an end.
“Anyhow,” and Zoë’s smile twisted into a grimace that suddenly made her look quite ugly, “because of Rock Junior’s bungling, you came into the picture. Most inconvenient.”
She leaned against a tree, and I saw past her that we weren’t in a clearing so much as on a cliff’s edge. A huge pink blanket lay on a grass patch overlooking a particularly steep side of Grouse Mountain. To one side of the blanket, a picnic basket. To another, a cooler.
“I’d hoped you’d just sit and watch the hang gliding, like a normal kid would. Then I could head off in peace to sign the house deal,” Zoë said. Her doll-like smile returned, though the lipstick had splintered a bit after the grimace. “But since you’re too curious to sit still, I have to resort to plan B.”
Plan B? I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yes, plan B,” she twinkled. “That is, to tell you everything.”
“Huh?” I said, not very originally. “After all this secrecy, you—”
“Of course! You really mustn’t view everything in black and white, Dinah,” Zoë tsked. “I’m not a bad person—just a practical one. And I’d like you and me to be friends… What kind of soda would you prefer?” She stepped around the blanket to the cooler.
“Do you have any Alka-Seltzer?”
Zoë tinkled out her laugh again. “You’re so amusing, Dinah. A wisecrack for every occasion! Well, go on, have a seat, and I shall tell all.” She waved toward the blanket.
Like Zoë said, I was curious. I did want to hear her out. I walked onto the blanket.
That was my big mistake. Memo to self: Never trust a villain who’s being cooperative. The blanket gave way beneath me, and I went into free fall.
Chapter Fourteen
A Real Cliffhanger
Capilano Canyon spiraled up to meet me, but—thump! I landed sooner than I expected.
I sprawled sideways on moss, dead leaves and pine needles. For a moment I was too shocked to move.
I was on a ledge about ten feet wide and maybe jutting out seven. I shifted to a sitting position. Nothing broken on the side I’d fallen on, though—ow, my shoulder—it was doubtful I’d be competing in shot put any time soon.
I tilted a sore neck upward. In the shimmering sunlight, the cliff’s edge, shaped in a ragged U, wavered above me. The blanket had been draped over the U. If I weren’t aching so much, I would have smacked the palm of my hand against my forehead in chagrin. Of course! The blanket had been held in place by the picnic basket and the cooler.
A pink figure teetered into view on spike heels. “I’m afraid I’m too petite to reach down and rescue you after your accident,” Zoë said pleasantly.
“Accident!” I yelped. “You booby-trapped me, Zoë Klapper!”
Zoë sighed as if I were being a difficult pupil. “You’re famous for being troublesome, Dinah. Everyone knows how you stopped a play in mid-scene last year to accuse people of being thieves. If you try to blame me for your clumsiness, well,” she shrugged, “everyone will just smile and say, ‘That’s Dinah Galloway for you.’ ”
“Dinah Mary Galloway to you,” I shouted angrily. I was too sore to come up with anything wittier.
And now she was swiveling on her spike heels. “Wait— you said you’d explain,” I protested, getting up. Being booby-trapped was one thing. But being booby-trapped without knowing why: that I couldn’t bear.
“Too busy, Dinah. Got a deal to sign!”
If only the pieces in my brain would unscramble! They were too jumbled to form any sort of pattern.
Though Zoë didn’t know how jumbled they were. Maybe I could bluff her into thinking I knew more than I did.
I grabbed at the most puzzling piece of all.
“Blueprints!” I blurted.
Whoa, that got her. Zoë stalked back, swaying to one side as a heel sank in the soil. Her eyes blazed. “How did you know…” she choked.
I was very glad, all of a sudden, that she was too petite to reach me. “Yeah, the blueprints,” I babbled, trying to sound knowledgeable, and thinking, Blueprints? Okay, that’s got her riled, but just what is it about the blueprints?
“The blueprints on Councillor Cordes’s computer,” I said. “The ones of Rowena’s house, the ones that go on and on—”
Wait. I’d said something wrong. Zoë’s eyeballs weren’t bulging anymore. They’d narrowed, and she was smirking.
I’d said, The ones of Rowena’s house, the ones that go on and on…
Well, they did go on and on. Blue lines and curves and numbers stretching everywhere. So that couldn’t be a mistake.
What had I got wrong?
Maybe when I’d said…The ones of Rowena’s house.
“Not that they’re really of her house,” I ad-libbed desperately.
The effect on Zoë was immediate. Her eyes bulged like gumballs. Always satisfying to a junior sleuth.
But if the blueprints weren’t of Rowena’s house, what were they of?
I squinted up at Zoë, my fingers digging so deep into the cliff wall that baseball-sized clumps of soil were forming in my palms. I thought of the first time I’d seen her, huddled with Councillor Cordes in the salmon hatchery.
Unlike me, the councillor and Zoë hadn’t been at all interested in the salmon valiantly struggling upstream. They’d been conferring about some papers that the councillor needed. No time to waste, he’d said.
No time to waste because of the meeting on the nineteenth?
I pictured those endless blueprints again, and then—
And then I got it.
“You and the councillor are planning to develop Rowena’s property,” I gulped. “It’s a huge property, the biggest on Marisa Drive. You could cram dozens of condos on it, couldn’t you? As long as you buy the house and get all your permit papers approved by the nineteenth.
“No wonder Councillor Cordes is thinking of buying yachts. Once you start selling the condos, it’ll be like winning the lottery.”
Zoë stretched her lipsticked mouth into a sneer. “To the top of the class, Dinah. That’s why Rock fired his previous assistant and hired me, his sister. I’m family, and I’m in on the profits if we can pull this off. I was willing to work round the clock to get this done.
“Once we read soac’s research, proving a spotted owl family lived off Marisa Drive, we knew there was no point in fighting Jack French, the environmental superhero. We realized that what we could do, though, was pre-empt the spotted owl bylaw. Shove a development plan through before the nineteenth. Then no one could stop us from building right down the canyon slope, as far as Rowena’s property goes.”
Zoë’s sneer widened. I couldn’t blame her. There I was, trapped on a ledge, unable to stop the deal, helpless to save our local spotted owl family. I was fisting the soil clumps so tightly that they came away in my hands. I fell backward.
“But it’s only a couple of days till the nineteenth,” I objected from my undignified sitting position. “Nobody gets plans approved that fast. Permits take ages.”
I knew, becau
se we’d had to wait weeks to get our deck plans approved. Jack, who’d hoped to start the deck in early fall, had ended up building it under a tarp in rain-drenched December, while Madge served him tea from a thermos, and I offered helpful advice from under my Deathstalkers rain slicker.
Zoë waved a pink-fingernailed hand. “We put the proposal through weeks ago and got all our permits. True, I didn’t yet own Rowena’s property,” another tinny giggle, “but we’d bribed the permit manager. Herbert pulled strings for us: forged signatures, stamped approvals, whatever had to be done.”
Dimly an image came back to me of a moustached young man at the Cordeses’ garden party. He’d been pretending to pull springs. No wonder the councillor had been unamused. Not very discreet, that Herbert.
Zoë smirked. “Good-bye, detective girl. I’ll call someone to come and get you—by and by.”
“By what time? When I’m a skeleton?”
“Always the wisecracks,” Zoë chuckled.
And this time she did leave.
I brushed the soil off my hands and reviewed my options.
The review didn’t take long. I had no options.
I felt tears forming: the fallback position of a junior sleuth. I stared blurrily at a clump of huckleberries growing from the dark soil of the cliff’s wall. At least I’d have food handy as the hours dragged on.
The red berries swam against the dark wall—and turned into my dad’s black-and-red-checked flannel shirt. I brushed a wrist against my eyes. Yup, there he was, with his crisp black hair, wide grin and bright black eyes that snapped with good humor. He was leaning comfortably against the wall as if there weren’t any sort of crisis.
I don’t tell anyone about this, but once in a while Dad does appear to me. I’m not saying he’s a guardian angel or anything. He couldn’t be. Anyone who got drunk and died smashing his car into a tree wouldn’t qualify. At least, not from what I’ve heard of angels.
I blubbered at him, “Now you’re going to tell me to sing.” Singing’s saved me from jams before. “But all I want to do is bawl,” I informed Dad. How I wished he were there in human form so I could snuggle up against his flannel shirt and rest. I got so tired sometimes.
What song have you been working on, Dinah?
“ ‘Sweet Sue,’ ” I told him grudgingly. “But no one will hear if I belt it out. They’re too busy cheering themselves hoarse for the hang gliders.”
Sing it for me, then.
“Who are you to be asking for favors?” I demanded. “You left me! You died.”
But I did sing for him. Most of the singing I ever did was for him anyway.
Every star above,
Knows the one I love,
It’s you, Sweet Sue.
“Dinah! Dinah Galloway!” Twigs crunched not too far away.
A rescuer. Great!
“Dinah!”
I froze. Not so great. The voice belonged to— Bald Guy.
“That’s the last time I listen to you,” I told Dad and pressed myself against the cliff wall. My heart was doing a bongo routine. Maybe Zoë had sent Bald Guy over here to give me a final, definitive shove down Grouse.
“Dinah, I gotta talk to you,” Bald Guy called. “C’mon, it’s your last chance!”
Beside me, Dad shimmered in the sunlight, not quite as clear as he’d been a moment ago. I wanted to put out my hand to him, but if I did that, he’d vanish completely, I was sure.
Bald Guy’s voice faded. “Dinah? Dinah…”
Dad watched me in the encouraging way he always had. Expecting the best of me.
I said slowly, “If Zoë sent Bald Guy over here, wouldn’t he know exactly where I was?”
Sure he would. Think, Dinah. What do you know about him?
The sun flashed on the red squares of Dad’s shirt. Or were the red squares huckleberries?
“I know he hangs around Rowena’s place and acts odd,” I replied.
Yeah?
“Maybe he isn’t plotting with Councillor Cordes and his sister,” I mumbled. “When someone hangs around a house, the dull, ordinary explanation is that he belongs there. Those endless bags of groceries Rowena’s been lugging home; maybe she’s not packing the food back herself. Maybe she’s not in my appetite league after all.”
I let out a whistle. “Could it be that my obnoxious Bald Guy is Rowena’s oh-so-sensitive son Sean, the would-be writer?”
Okay, kid, you’re batting a thousand. But what else do you know about Bald Guy?
“You’re awfully demanding for a ghost,” I informed Dad. “Or for a figment of my imagination, or whatever you are.”
Dad wavered in the sunshine. He was smiling at me. Showing attitude, huh? You get that from me. But never mind about that for now. You gotta think. What else do you know about Bald Guy?
“Well…” I frowned, trying to recall my most recent impressions of Bald Guy. This was a challenge, since our last two encounters had consisted of me smashing food in his face. First a cupcake, then a plateload of hot dog and potato salad.
“Holy Toledo,” I exclaimed. “Of course! It’s amazing how a facial mask of food can make a person much more recognizable.”
I started to yell, then remembered my yells would just blend in with those of the crowd down the hill. So I belted out more of “Sweet Sue.” Bald Guy had heard me singing “Sweet Sue” before. He’d been listening on the other side of Rowena’s hedge.
Was I dumb! It should have been obvious why Bald Guy kept hounding me.
I let some of the lyrics rip, then paused. No Bald Guy. Maybe I was too late.
I heaved a huge breath and plunged into the song again. It was either that or panic.
no one else, it seems,
will ever share my dre-e-e-e-e-e-eams—
I stopped to breathe. Above me, an amused voice commented: “Wish I had a stopwatch. That’s some long note you’re able to hold!” Bald Guy grinned down at me.
“Why don’t you get me out of this pickle, Mr. Sean Pickles,” I retorted, while grinning idiotically back at him in relief. “Are you going to rescue me or not?”
“Of course I’m going to rescue you,” Rowena’s son said reasonably. He lay on his stomach and stretched an arm down. “I mean, are you kidding? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days. After I heard you singing, that is, and stopped trying to avoid you.” He edged closer over the cliff, stretching his arm down as far as he could. “Now I’m really trying to get hold of you.”
“This is no time for puns,” I panted, stretching as high as I could.
“Sorry. Bad jokes are force of habit for me.” He stretched too.
“I know,” I said, wincing. I was reaching up till my arm felt ready to break off. “I almost recognized you when you were sporting that cupcake nose down on Marisa Drive. You’re used to having food thrown at you. All in a day’s work, huh?”
“Great. Insult your rescuer.” Our fingertips finally touched, interlocked. “With your voice, you oughtta be on tv. And I can arrange that. See, I’m—”
“You’re the host of Tomorrow’s Cool Talent,’ I said as he hoisted me off the ledge, up, up, past a cliff wall that was just huckleberries and dark soil again.
Chapter Fifteen
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s—Dinah?!
But why ‘Darwood King’?”
I demanded.
We were hurrying down the slope to the tent. I’d already filled Darwood/Sean in about Zoë and Councillor Cordes’s plans, between gasps and belches. Memo to self: Never run after eating tons of cupcakes.
Sean grimaced at my question. “ ‘Darwood King’ was my agent’s idea. He said no smooth, slick tv host would have ‘Pickles’ for a last name. Plus, the stage name is a way of concealing my identity. See, as host of Tomorrow’s Cool Talent, I’m in fear for my life. Or at least for my sanity. Teenagers, especially girls, follow me around, begging for auditions. They scream at me, rip at my T-shirts and—” he shuddered. “Trust me, it’s horrible. The irony is, I always
wanted to be a writer, not a teen idol. Yech!
“To escape for the summer, I shaved my head, came west and hid out at Mom’s. I’ve realized that writing comedy, not novels about the meaning of life, is my strength. So I decided to hide out and write next year’s scripts. I wanted to be a total hermit.
“Till I heard you sing, that is. Then I knew I had to approach you about being on the show, while avoiding other people who might recognize me. Especially,” Sean shuddered, “any dreaded teenaged girls.
“About the only place I can go without being bothered is the canyon. When I saw you, I ran away at first and then realized it’d be the perfect chance to approach you about appearing on the show. Oh, and by the way, you once asked me about rock. I see you as more of a swing singer, Dinah.”
“Huh? N-no, I’d been asking about Rock—oh, never mind,” I puffed.
“I also had to convince our producers, who are kinda cheap, that it was worth paying for you and your buddies to leave North Van and come to Toronto. To come soon, cuz we start taping the next season in a couple of weeks. We tape ahead of time, see. That’s why I was holding the cell phone close to the hedge the other day. So they could hear you, via conference call.”
And I thought he’d been talking about getting Rowena out of North Van! I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t been so worried about the spotted owl family.
“Here I thought you’d been leaving those witch signs.” I shook my head. “Doofusville.”
“Naw, I can see how you’d think that. I’d be about to reach for one, to rip it up, and then you’d see me and I’d scoot!”
Sean and I skidded the last few steps down to where Madge was sitting. “Do you know where that German lady is?” I blurted at her. “Or, failing that, a pay phone? We have to reach Rowena, pronto donto!”
Madge viewed me with distaste. I knew she hated these dramatic entrances of mine. “I have no idea,” she said coldly and resumed sketching a hang glider.
Summer of the Spotted Owl Page 11