by Delia Ray
He was standing at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer. He swayed like a small ghost, staring up at me with his eyes shimmering. “You lied,” he called out. His hollow voice echoed through the entrance hall. “You said you didn’t have time to look for the pearls today. You said we were the Fortune Hunters.”
Then, before I could stop him, he ran for the front door and shoved his way out into the storm.
TWENTY-THREE
I ASKED TUCKER to come with me. He knew the school property better than I did. Plus we could cover more territory with two people and we had to find Hugh fast. Lightning was still crackling across the sky, and each time I thought the storm had blown by, there would be another clap of thunder and more sheets of rain. We sprinted through the downpour, searching the obvious places first—the backseats of Hildy’s van and Mine’s station wagon, the cab of the Mayor’s truck, the high grass in the old playground, and behind the lilac bush.
By the time Tucker and I met up again at the back of the school, the skies had settled to a drizzle. I stood on the edge of the cornfield, hoping to see Hugh’s blond head pop up between the dripping rows. “Where could he have gone?” I groaned. I turned back to the labyrinth where Tucker was standing on a leftover mound of shells, scanning the distance.
“We should check the Mayor’s place,” he said as he scrambled down the pile, sending shells clattering. I trotted after him. Straight back from the sisters’ soap garden there was a narrow dirt lane through the corn that I’d never noticed before. We followed it and came out in a grassy clearing next to a stone building with a red tin roof and an open shed on one end. I didn’t see any signs of the Mayor, but Wayne stood under the shed twitching his big ears and calmly munching from a pile of hay.
I was on my way toward the front door when Tucker touched my shoulder and twitched his chin at the shed. I looked over in time to catch a flicker of movement behind some hay bales that were stacked along the back wall. “I’ll wait here,” Tucker murmured, ducking under an overhang near the door. “He’ll probably come out a lot faster if I stay out of the way.”
I nodded and slowly headed into the shed, which was steamy with the smell of damp donkey hide. “How you doing, buddy?” I crooned in my best impression of the Mayor. I stood for a minute, rubbing the gray scruff between Wayne’s ears and letting him nuzzle my pockets while I waited to see if Hugh would come out of hiding on his own.
He didn’t.
“I know you’re in here, Hugh,” I called. “I’m sorry, okay? Are you listening? I’m sorry I lied about what I was doing this afternoon. But it wasn’t because I wanted to leave you out. I only did it because I wanted to go up to the tower to look for the pearls and Hildy told me it was too dangerous to take you along.” I cocked my head, listening, but all I could hear was the rain pattering against the roof.
“Then I did something really dumb, Hugh,” I went on. “Really dumb!” I paused. Maybe the suspense would lure him out … When that didn’t work either, I marched across the shed and stood in front of the bales with my hands on my hips. “I went into Garrett’s room without permission. Can you believe it? I didn’t touch anything. I only looked around, but Tucker caught me. That’s why I had to tell him what we’ve been up to, so he wouldn’t squeal on me.”
A sulky voice broke the silence behind me. “You never would have gotten caught if I’d been with you.”
I swiveled around. Hugh was sitting high on the seat of an old farm tractor parked on the far side of the shed. “How’d you get over there?” I made my way toward him, weaving around a pile of scrap lumber and some stray hay bales. Hugh glowered down at me with his hands clenched around the tractor’s steering wheel. He looked smaller than ever with his wet hair and clothes plastered against his skin.
“Hugh—” I flopped my arms at my sides. “That railing in the tower was rotten. I almost fell through! And you’re allergic to wasps, remember? Don’t you see why I couldn’t let you come?”
He glared over the steering wheel at the soaked pasture outside. “Where’d Tucker go? I saw him with you when you walked up.”
Tucker slid around the corner of the shed with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Hey, Hugh.”
Hugh didn’t answer.
“Come on. Let’s go back,” Tucker said. “Don’t you want to put some dry clothes on?”
Hugh pulled his knees up and hugged them, tucking his chin in between. “No way. You two can go find the pearls by yourselves.” He sneered into his kneecaps. “Then you can go carve your names in the tower. Ren plus Tucker.”
“Cut it out, Hugh,” I said. He was acting ridiculous, but I couldn’t keep from blushing anyway. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tucker dig down in his jeans and pull out a pocketknife. He strolled over to the pile of lumber, picked up a piece of board, then sat down on one of the nearby hay bales and started whittling away.
I scratched at the back of my neck in embarrassment. “Um. What are you doing?”
“Carving,” Tucker said. As Hugh watched in fascination, I edged closer to get a better view. I couldn’t see the letters clearly at first, but then Tucker blew away the sawdust and held up the board, leaning back to admire what he had carved so far: R + T +
Tucker thrust his knife in Hugh’s direction. “Your turn,” he said.
“My turn to what?” muttered Hugh.
“Why don’t you come see?”
The pocketknife was too much for Hugh to resist. He slowly climbed down from the tractor and scuffed over to the hay bale where Tucker was sitting. Tucker handed him the board and Hugh blinked down at it. “You want me to add an H? For Hugh?”
“This is just practice,” Tucker said as he passed Hugh the knife, handle first. “Whether we find the pearls or not, we should definitely go up to the tower and carve our initials this summer, right?”
My heart skipped with a little swell of surprise and relief. “Right,” I agreed when Hugh didn’t answer. “We should. As soon as Garrett fixes that railing.”
Hugh was trying not to smile. He took the knife, holding it stiffly in front of him like a tiny sword. He had just sat down on the hay bale next to Tucker when Wayne suddenly let out one of his wheezy hee-haws. We all jumped, and the next thing we knew, the Mayor was striding into the shed, pushing back the hood of his rain poncho. “What’re you kids doing out here?” he asked as he reached out to pat Wayne’s flank. “Everybody’s wondering where you got off to.”
Hugh spoke up first. “We came to check on Wayne. I read somewhere that donkeys are really scared of thunder.”
The Mayor’s white eyebrows lifted. “Is that so? Well, Wayne looks like he survived, and you all need to be getting on back. Garrett’s over at the gym waiting on you, Tucker. I’m afraid my back’s done for the day and he needs more help with lifting.” The Mayor took a few steps in Hugh’s direction. “What are you up to over there?”
Hugh was already hunched over the board in his lap with his tongue poked out in concentration. “I’m carving,” he mumbled. “Tucker loaned me his pocketknife.”
The Mayor pulled off his poncho and waved his hand at Tucker and me. “You kids run along. I’ll walk Hugh back when he’s done.”
The mud puddles in the lane lit up with a sudden flare of sunshine on our way back to the school. I glanced shyly at Tucker. “That was a good idea you had. The pocketknife.”
“I knew it would work,” Tucker said as he sidestepped a puddle. “Hildy gave me that knife when I turned eight. I thought it was the best present I’d ever gotten. My dad wasn’t too happy about it though.”
Hearing Tucker mention Mr. Baxter jolted me back to reality again. “So what do you think? Are we going to tell Hildy that you know about the pearls?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell her tonight. But I don’t think we should bring up your mural idea. It would only get her hopes up.”
I stopped on the path next to the sisters’ garden. “You think my idea’s crazy, don’t you? You think we’re never going to find th
ose pearls.”
Tucker turned around with a smile playing along his lips. “Let’s just say, I think it’s a long shot.”
I almost stomped my foot. He was as bad as his father. “Will you still help me though? I need to find a ladder. A really tall one.”
“All right, all right.” Tucker started down the path again. “I’ll get you a ladder.”
“Thank you,” I started to say, but the words died on my lips as we rounded the corner of the school. My mother was standing on the front steps, reaching out to jab the buzzer. “Mom!” I called, running ahead. “What’re you doing here?”
She spun around. “Oh, there you are! I left class as soon as I saw the lightning. I didn’t want you riding your bike home in a thunderstorm.” Then Mom noticed Tucker trailing behind me. “Who’s this?” she said, folding her arms. Evidently she didn’t recognize him from the night when she had barged in on dinner in the cafetorium. I could see her eyes darting back and forth, taking in our wet clothes, my bedraggled hair.
“This is Tucker, Mom. He’s Hildy’s grandson. He’s here for the summer helping in the museum.”
Mom didn’t say hello. “So if you’re both working in the museum, what were you doing outside? In a thunderstorm.”
“The storm’s over, Mom.” I swiped my arm up at the sun breaking through the clouds. “See? I can ride my bike home. I’ll be fine.”
Before I could get any further, Hildy appeared. She barely greeted my mother as she wrestled the front door open and stepped out on the stoop. “Good grief. Where have you kids been?” she demanded. “You look like drowned rats.”
Mom started marching down the steps. “Come on, Ren,” she said. “Get your bike. It’s time to go home.”
“But, Mom, we’ve still got a lot of work to do—”
“I mean it. Let’s go.” She reached in her purse for her car keys. “I don’t think Mrs. Baxter needs to be treated to another scene like last time, do you?”
No, I didn’t. Without another word I retrieved my bike, and Mom helped me wedge it into the trunk of the car. I didn’t glance up at the school again until I was slouched in the front seat with Mom’s First on Scene textbook in my lap. Thankfully, Hildy had gone back inside by then, but Tucker was still standing on the steps. He lifted his hand in a sympathetic little wave as we pulled away.
We hadn’t even bumped onto the paved road yet when Mom coughed out a dry laugh. “I really couldn’t figure it out, you know. How determined you’ve been to keep going back to that place. It just didn’t make sense, you spending every spare minute on the weekends helping some old woman make a museum—a button museum no less. But now I get it!” Mom took her hand off the steering wheel and thumped her forehead. “There’s a boy involved. A really cute one.”
Mom gave me a hard look as she turned left and picked up speed along the glistening river. “Seriously, Ren. I’m starting to get worried here. What exactly were you and that boy doing before I showed up?”
“Nothing, Mom,” I said miserably. “Hugh ran away this afternoon so we had to go look for him. And you want to know what I did all morning? I sat in the gym for three hours going through old pictures. And then I skipped lunch so I could go crawl around on my hands and knees and get splinters and … and … oh, never mind. You don’t know anything. Tucker’s not the reason I’ve been going back to the school. I’d never go to all this trouble just to flirt with some boy I hardly know.”
My words were still hanging in the air when Mom suddenly swerved off onto the shoulder of the road. I glanced around, startled. There weren’t any other cars nearby. The only building in sight was an old silo covered with vines. “What’s wrong? Why’d you stop?”
Mom didn’t answer at first. She put the car in park and dropped her head back on the seat. Her face was welling with something strange as she blinked up at the upholstered ceiling. “I just realized,” she breathed. “You know who you sound like, Ren?”
“Who?”
“Me! You sound exactly like me trying to defend myself about Rick. These last couple of months have been awful—the way you’ve been acting so suspicious and jumping to conclusions. But now here I am doing the same thing to you.” Mom sat up straight and turned to me, her eyes pleading. “The thing is, Ren … we need to have faith in each other. We’ve got to stop assuming the worst when we have no idea what’s going on.” She reached forward and turned the car off, right there on the side of the road. “So tell me. Tell me about the school and I’ll try to understand.”
A few minutes later a nice man stopped to see if we had run out of gas or needed help, but my mother waved him away. I was just getting started and then, hopefully, it would be Mom’s turn.
* * *
We stayed there, parked on the shoulder of the lonely road, for such a long time that we had to roll the windows down. Mom gave me the good news first: she had no plans to run away with Rick, or even date him, ever. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered by his attention at first,” she told me. “But all along, I’ve been very clear with Rick that we’re just friends.” She squeezed my hands tight, so tight that it almost hurt. “Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” I said, and squeezed back.
Then came the bad news. “You need to realize,” Mom told me, “that your father and I might not get back together.” Her words weren’t a surprise. Still, hearing them spoken out loud, so clearly—with Dad’s homecoming only two weeks away—felt like a kick in the ribs.
An army of peeper frogs had begun to trill in the ditch outside my window. “Why?” My voice melted into their cries. “You love him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Mom said sadly. “But that’s not enough sometimes.”
“It’s enough for Dad!” I reached my hand out the window and banged it on the outside of the car door. The ditch went silent.
“I’m so sorry, Ren. It’s complicated. There’re other issues that you’re too young to understand right now.”
Emotions twisted around inside me just like those vines swallowing up the silo down the road. Before the car ride, I had Rick to blame for our family coming apart. Now there was no one to blame but Mom.
“Can we go now?” I whispered.
“Sure.” Mom nodded and reached out to squeeze my hand again, but this time I didn’t squeeze back.
TWENTY-FOUR
AT LEAST I STILL HAD THE SCHOOL. Like a magic spell, my worries from home faded the minute I crossed the worn threshold the next afternoon. Hildy shook her head in astonishment when I walked into the gym. “Honey, you’re like my birthday,” she said. “Just when I think I’ve seen it for the very last time, it comes around again.” But Hildy was too preoccupied to ask any questions about my mother’s change of heart. Her visitors from the historical society were due in an hour.
I found myself beaming with approval as I glanced around the gym. The shelves of the display cases were lined with black velvet and Mine was carefully arranging items inside the last one in the row. Hugh had been assigned sweeping duty. And the Mayor, Garrett, and Tucker were dashing back and forth carrying garbage bags, cardboard boxes, clamming rakes, and burlap sacks full of button blanks.
“Wow, Hildy, everything looks great!” I gushed.
She sighed. “Well, it’s about as good as it can get considering the amount of time we had. We stayed up half the night making things presentable. Even the sisters pitched in. They’d be here now, but they had to go peddle that soap of theirs at some craft fair.”
“I would’ve stayed all night too if my mom had let me,” I said longingly. “I’m really sorry I didn’t get to finish sorting the pictures.”
“Oh, don’t worry. They’re still over there waiting for you. Did you see any yesterday that looked like they belonged in a museum?”
“A lot. It was hard to pick, but I made a stack of the ones I thought were the best.”
Hildy pointed to some empty picture frames that were piled on top of the display case where Mine was working. “There you g
o then. Have at it. Once you get the best ones in frames, we can set them out on those old clamming workbenches in the corner.”
“What do you think?” Mine asked when I went over to collect the picture frames. I walked along the row of cases, peering at the array of shells and fancy buttons behind the glass. Hildy’s button-queen picture and crown had a case all to themselves. The crown sat on a pink satin pillow. It was as tall as a chef’s hat and it looked so heavy with decorations—buttons and pearls and rhinestones—I couldn’t imagine how Hildy had managed to keep it balanced on her head.
“Gosh,” I told Mine, “it almost looks like a real museum.”
She laughed and glanced around to make sure Hildy wasn’t listening. “I know, right? I have to admit I’ve had my doubts, but some of this stuff is actually kind of cool. Look.” She held up a mother-of-pearl belt buckle. “Hard to believe a gnarly shell from the Mississippi River could turn into this.” She knelt down and carefully laid the buckle on a shelf next to an iridescent tie clip and a pair of cuff links. I bent closer. There were fishing lures, a coin purse, a ladies’ fan, and even a tiny revolver with its handle covered in chips of pearly shell.
Hugh came galloping over dragging his broom. “Did you see the gun?” he asked. “And what about that?” He pointed to an oversize pocketknife inlaid with mother-of-pearl and barely whispered, “Maybe we can borrow it when we go carve our names in the tower.”
I flared my eyes at him in warning as I scooped up an armful of picture frames. Then I hurried off to my spot under the basketball hoop. But when I got there, the trunk and the card tables were nowhere in sight.
“Sorry,” Tucker said as he came clanking up behind me. “We had to move all your stuff to the other side of the boat so we could make room for this.” He banged one end of a long metal extension ladder down on the floor.
“You found one!” I said.
“Hildy’s orders.” Tucker smiled slyly and braced the top of the ladder against the backboard over our heads. “She wants Garrett and me to take down the hoops and the scoreboard because she says they don’t go with her button theme.” Then he paused. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be needing this anymore or not. After yesterday, I didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”