The Tiara on the Terrace

by Kristen Kittscher

  “Quick,” Grace whispered to Trista. “Print out everything in Steptoe’s mailbox from at least the last couple days.”

  “Hang on.” I shoved paper in the tray. “Okay, go for it.”

  As the printer hummed into action, Lauren Sparrow’s calm voice floated through our headsets. “Just need some ice, pages. Maybe an ankle-wrap. Kendra took a little spill, that’s all. Those high heels are tricky!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Leave it to Kendra to report her own ‘emergency.’”

  “A walking emergency,” Trista said. “Let’s think about that a minute.”

  I reached for my radio mike.

  “Hold up!” Grace interrupted. “Let Danica and Denise answer first. It’ll buy us some time.”

  “Oh, man,” I said, catching sight of the next page the printer spit into the tray. My heart started to race.

  Grace grabbed it. Her face turned two shades lighter. “Oh, man, is right.”

  “What?” Trista leaned over our shoulders.

  The subject line stared back at us in bold all caps:

  YOU ARE DEAD . . . !

  The hairs on my arms lifted.

  “Barbara Lund, four oh seven p.m.,” Trista read aloud. She fumbled for her inhaler and drew in a long breath.

  Grace looked back at us, eyes wide. “I think we know where to find our murderer.”

  I gulped. “Let’s hope she doesn’t find us first.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stepping on Toes

  We turned to leave but a loud rap on the door stopped us cold. Grace’s hand flew to her mouth as Mr. Steptoe’s swivel chair creaked forward.

  “Who’s in there?” a deep voice rumbled.

  Grace and I whirled to each other in panic. Trista ducked down, flicked on her Dirt Devil, and hoisted it onto her back. As the vacuum roared to life, Grace tossed me the feather duster we’d left on the desk and whipped out her Windex bottle like a gun from a holster. I grabbed all the emails from the tray, folded them lengthwise, and stuffed them in my back pocket as she raced to the door. She opened it only the tiniest crack and peered out like a suspicious old lady eyeing a door-to-door salesman. “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Zimball!” she said. “We’re doing some cleaning up.” She pushed Mr. Steptoe’s swivel chair aside, pretending it weighed roughly the same as a midsize sedan.

  Mr. Zimball stepped inside. He blinked, bewildered. Trista’s vacuum howled. It was loud. Indy 500 loud. That is, if the Indy 500 was raced by portable vacuums.

  I picked up a ceramic sea otter and dusted it so intensely that actual feathers started to shake loose from my duster.

  Mr. Zimball cupped his hand next to his mouth. “Ms. Sparrow and the Court are looking for you!” he called out.

  The vacuum shifted into an even higher whine as Trista, back still to the door, leaned over to clean the underside of the couch cushions.

  “Pardon me?” Grace shouted.

  “I SAID,” Rod’s dad yelled, “MS. SPARROW AND THE COURT . . .”

  At that moment Trista pretended to finally notice we weren’t alone. She spun around, her dust mask covering the lower half of her face. Her vacuum whimpered slowly to silence just as Mr. Zimball finished his sentence: “. . . ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!” He blushed as his voice echoed against the blank walls. “They’re downstairs,” he added quietly.

  I made a big show of pulling out my radio earpiece and shaking it. “Did they radio? We didn’t hear it.”

  “MUST’VE BEEN TOO LOUD!” Trista shouted as if the vacuum was still roaring. She held up the hose, in case he missed the point.

  “Right, well . . . ,” Mr. Zimball said. His eyes traveled to Mr. Steptoe’s desk, taking in the framed photos, the calendar, the dolphin-shaped pencil holder. I could feel the sadness rolling over him. He looked away again and cleared his throat. “This area’s closed.”

  The stolen emails in my back pocket rustled against my shirt as we followed Mr. Zimball downstairs. The halls buzzed with other Brown Suiters hustling back to their offices after their morning meeting. They nodded respectfully to Mr. Zimball as we passed, and I felt doubly awful for lying to him—even if it was for his own protection.

  We put away our cleaning supplies then followed the sound of the Court’s voices in the living room.

  “Are they”—Grace knitted her eyebrows—“singing?” she asked, as if not quite sure if they might be meowing instead.

  They were singing. Chanting, really. Their voices became clearer as we walked down the hall.

  “Handle in your hand and your fingers on top! Handle in your hand and your fingers on top!” they called out, and I half-feared that we’d round the corner to the dining room and stumble upon some sort of ritual sacrifice.

  Instead we discovered the Court around a table loaded with enough silverware to sink a schooner. They gripped their forks awkwardly, as if using never-before-seen tools from an ancient civilization.

  Ms. Sparrow laughed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I know it’s silly, but the song totally works. Right? Now loosen those death grips, and keep those forks from clanking.”

  Kendra Pritchard sat sulking at the opposite end of the table with her leg propped up on a chair. She winced melodramatically as Danica pressed a bag of frozen peas to her hurt ankle.

  “Oh, pages!” Ms. Sparrow waved us in. “You’re just in time.”

  Her friendliness caught me off guard. If Barb were in charge of the Royal Court, we’d be listening to a lecture about respect and how Kendra’s leg was going to have to be amputated because we hadn’t arrived in time. Of course, it would have probably been delivered with a lot of weird slang, bowing and curtseying, and proper royal-addressing. No matter how she felt about Lily not being chosen as Sun Queen, I was pretty sure that Barb was still dedicated to Festival tradition.

  “We’re learning how to eat,” Sienna added, smiling goofily as she lifted her fork.

  “And you all thought you already knew how,” Ms. Sparrow gave a sideways smile.

  “Now the real challenge,” Ms. Sparrow said, eyes twinkling. “Meatball subs without licking your fingers or smearing your lipstick! Pages? Can you bring the sandwiches in from the kitchen for your princesses? Don’t forget a big stack of napkins.”

  “The vegan one is mine,” Jardine warned with a glare. Her tone made me wonder if certain vegans were actually totally fine with murder.

  We served the sandwiches, and on the way back to the kitchen to eat our own lunches with Danica and Denise, Grace ducked into the pantry. “We could use a little reorganizing in here, don’t you think?” she shouted to me and Trista.

  “Looks fine to me,” Trista said.

  “What a mess!” I called out at the same time, shoving Trista inside and pulling the door shut.

  “Ow. Hey!” she called out. “What do you think you’re—? Oh, right, sorry,” she added as I pulled Barb Lund’s email out of my back pocket and held it up.

  Grace took it from me and began to read aloud. “‘You are dead . . . wrong if you think you can drive me out.’”

  I breathed a sigh of relief, the pantry’s smell of tea and spices calming me. “Thank God. Just a figure of speech.”

  “‘You ruined Lily’s life over this—I will ruin yours,” Grace continued in a whisper, stiffening. “What is it they say? Eye for an eye.’”

  “Some figure of speech,” Trista rasped. I felt the blood rush from my face. Hesitantly, we leaned over Grace’s shoulder as she read the rest. Filled with mistakes and those same weird abbreviations my mom texts when she thinks she’s being cool, the email looked like it had been typed on a smart phone and sounded more like an angry kid’s:

  To: Jim Steptoe

  From: barbararlund@wintersunfestival.org

  Subject: YOU ARE DEAD . . . !

  . . . wrong if u think u can drive me out. You ruined Lily’s life over this—I will ruin yours. What is it they say? Eye for an eye. You sure have the right name cuz I am tired of u steppi
ng on my toes. Ive shut up and just taken it until today because Lily deserved her shot at being Queen, but now it doesn’t matter does it? You all have taken care of that.

  Ive done this for 22 years now and never had any problem and I have kept things on schedule and everyone always thinks my floats are the best and now u come along, and its change this, change that, its not safe like this, it needs to be like that? Well, its going to take alot more to make me quit. I swear on my Ridley ancestors grave that you will not live to see that day.

  U say its time for me to go, I say its time for YOU to go! And u will, mark my words.

  We looked at each other for several long seconds. Hands shaking, Grace folded the email and gave it back to me.

  “‘You will not live to see that day . . . ,’” I repeated hoarsely.

  “‘I’ve shut up and just taken it,’” Grace quoted. She bit her lip. “When Lily wasn’t queen, that was the final straw. She snapped and . . .” She made a slitting sound effect as she dragged her finger across her neck.

  “Would she be stupid enough to send this first, though?” My voice shook almost as much as Grace’s hands had when she had handed me the email.

  “She did make it to middle age without knowing ‘a lot’ is two words,” Trista pointed out.

  “My mom says they didn’t teach grammar and spelling in the eighties,” Grace said matter-of-factly. “Not that I’m arguing.”

  “Sure looks like she wrote it fast, at any rate,” I said. The email crinkled as I stuffed it back into my pocket. “A death threat. Hours before he shows up dead. If we hand this over to the police, they’ll have to look into it.”

  “Just like they had to conduct a really long, detailed murder investigation?” Grace shot back sarcastically.

  Just then the door creaked open.

  Grace lunged for the shelves and started rearranging soup cans. I turned and nearly cried out. Lily Lund stood in the doorway.

  Grace dropped a soup can with a thud. My stomach lurched to the floor with it. How much had she heard? I put my hands behind my back and shoved the email deeper in my pocket.

  “Found them!” Lily called back to someone, and a sudden image of Barb lurking behind the corner wielding an ax flashed in my mind until I heard Danica and Denise’s voices in the kitchen.

  “My mom specially requested you three to come help in the float barn,” she said. Her eyes looked big behind her dark-framed glasses. Her bangs weren’t curled, for once.

  We all watched as the soup can started a slow roll toward her, wobbling across the hardwood like a badly thrown bowling ball.

  She frowned at us. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nope!” Trista cried out.

  “Sounds fun,” I said, trying to smile though my heart was about to rip through my chest. “But, uh, you know”—I shrugged and gestured to the pantry—“We have our page duties.”

  “Ms. Sparrow gave the okay. So, come down?” She stopped the can with her foot and handed it to Grace. “I mean, when you’re done here.” She looked around at the perfectly ordered shelves.

  “Sure, we’ll be right there,” Grace said, her voice shaky.

  As soon as Lily left, I shut the door and leaned up against it, breathing so hard it felt like my lungs were collapsing. Trista held out her asthma inhaler helpfully. I waved it away. “I’m all right,” I wheezed.

  “It’s just a coincidence,” Grace said. She muttered it to herself two more times, as if that would somehow make it true.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Staying Chill

  When Barb Lund greeted us in front of the Root Beer float, she didn’t cross her arms and glare. She didn’t snap her gum. It was far worse than we ever could have imagined.

  She smiled.

  I almost screamed and ran.

  “Page Young, Page Yang, Page Bottoms.” Lund bowed her head in greeting as she addressed each of us individually. I swear she curtsied. She wiped her hands on her flower-stained overalls, carefully avoiding the Winnie the Pooh patch on the front, then turned to Lily, who was standing next to her with her eyes fixed firmly to the floor. “Talk about the bomb dot com! Now they can help out the real Festival royalty, right?” She patted Lily on the shoulder and smiled. “Okay, first things first.” She gestured to our headset radios as Lily reached out a Tupperware container. “Let’s get those buggers in here. Don’t want them to get damaged in the petal dust.”

  We reluctantly dropped them in. As Lily stared at us and sealed the lid with a thwomp, the air rushed out of my lungs, too.

  “What’s with the long faces? We’re here to have fun,” Barb smiled, exposing a row of teeth that were as tiny as they were terrifying. “Great-Great Grandpa R’s got some gigantamundo holes in his britches.” She jerked her head to the towering half-decorated figure of Willard Ridley on the Root Beer float. “As if he hasn’t had to suffer enough indignities this Festival!” Her mouth curled into a sharp frown as she looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the mansion. “Anywho, better cover those up with some strawflower before it gets too breezy in those unmentionables.” She shoved a cardboard flat at me.

  I looked around the float barn, dazed. If it weren’t for the small detail that a potential killer had asked us report to her, it actually might have felt fun to be back. Shouts echoed in the rafters as volunteers scrambled to their decorating stations, trying to fill in the last of the dry petal-and-seed color-base before the fresh flowers would be put on. Another of Barb’s crazy eighties songs was blasting. It encouraged everyone to “shake their bodies and do the conga.”

  I didn’t know what the conga was, but I was pretty sure Barb Lund couldn’t murder us to those crazy beats, right there in front of everyone.

  Could she?

  “Watch your step,” Grace muttered as we headed down the main aisle of the float barn. “We might be accident prone, if you catch my drift.”

  The skin on the back of my neck prickled. I turned and glimpsed Lily lingering not far behind us.

  “I can’t believe how friendly Lund’s being,” I whispered. “So creepy. She knows we know, doesn’t she? She’s acting nice to fake us out.”

  “Could be. But don’t forget. We’re royalty to her,” Trista reminded. “This is a woman with a collection of dried flowers from every Sun Queen’s bouquet from the last twenty years. She’s going to show her respect and curtsey to royalty no matter how mad she is. And judging from that crack about ‘real royalty,’ she definitely still is.”

  “She should show her respect by dialing down that slang a notch,” Grace mumbled.

  “I guess she couldn’t already know we’re onto her, anyway. I mean, she requested us before Lily could have overheard something,” I pointed out.

  “But our last-minute sign-ups for royal pages might have tipped her off. Pretty suspicious,” Grace said.

  “Chill, people,” Trista said. “It really might be a coincidence she asked for us.”

  “I guess we’ll see,” Grace said ominously.

  I looked up, praying sudden death wasn’t in our future, when I caught sight of Rod three levels above the warehouse floor, gluing onion seed onto one of the ten black sheep enjoying the fake Ferris wheel on the Sheep Family Thrills float. My heart skipped. He spotted us, waved, and started climbing down.

  Grace smiled knowingly and bumped her shoulder against mine. “We’ll give you two some privacy. Right, Trista?”

  “Sure.” Trista shrugged and strode toward the storage bins at the back of the warehouse.

  Rod swung down from the scaffolding, his sneakers squeaking as he landed off balance. It still sort of seemed like a superhero move to me.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, his eyebrows tilting toward each other hopefully. I couldn’t help but notice that they made the cutest indentation in his forehead. It matched his dimple.

  “Great,” I said, feeling the email in my pocket and wondering if I should tell him.

  “Cool.” He flashed a sideways smile. “Haven
’t had to wear your skirt yet?”

  I slapped my hands on my jeans and grinned. “Sticking with these.”

  He laughed. “Nice! So . . .” His eyes darted around the float barn, then he leaned in. For a panicked second I thought he was going to kiss me. It didn’t matter how crazy a thought that was; the entire surface of my skin felt like it was bursting into flames. I must’ve turned redder than the cherry on top of the float’s sundae.

  “Um. Are you okay?”

  I mopped my completely dry forehead with my sleeve. “It’s really hot out, isn’t it?” Unless someone developed a cure for massive full-body blushing by our wedding in 2027, Rod and I were definitely going to have to skip the kiss in front of everyone.

  “No kidding. They’re, like, breaking child labor laws having us volunteer today.” Then he added, quietly. “Hey, so. You haven’t seen anything strange, have you? My dad thinks it’s dumb for me to worry that he’s in charge now, but . . .”

  “I know,” I said, glancing toward Grace. She and Trista were handing up boxes of chopped red strawflower petals to an assembly line of volunteers filling in Willard Ridley’s pants. “Listen . . .” I hesitated, knowing I’d never be able to take my words back. “We’re scared too,” I finally said. “And I think we’ve found something really important.”

  “Seriously?” The crease in Rod’s forehead deepened.

  I nodded. “We have to talk.”

  Just then Barb Lund’s voice blared from behind us. “Hear ye, hear ye! Royal pages!” She made a fake heralding trumpet sound into her megaphone. From across the room, Trista shot me an I-told-you-so look. “May I request the favor of your presence?” Lund squawked.

  I shuddered, desperately wishing for a taste of the gruff, command-barking Ms. Lund who I knew and—well, didn’t love, exactly—but who I was at least a hundred times less terrified of. She strode toward Grace. “We need a quick supply run,” she said.

  Rod’s face fell. “Wait, Sophie.” His voice was low and urgent. “Don’t go yet.”

  Ms. Lund’s gaze locked on me. She held up her megaphone and whooped its siren twice. “Page Young?”