by Beth Vrabel
to Dad without feeling like I was being babysat by someone younger than me who still wore ruffles. And, technically, Dad and I were both starting our day talking with each other, since ten in the morning in Bear Creek was midnight in Tokyo. Dad didn’t mind my calling him at midnight because he was a night owl.
But this particular morning’s conversation with Dad hadn’t gone as well as I wanted. He kept whispering ridiculous things, such as “give Bear Creek a chance” and “take it easy on your mother; she’s been through a lot,” and even “I’m sure Min’s not that bad. Even if she has to spend time with you, that doesn’t mean you should be mean to her.”
Every day he spent away from us, Dad became less of the hard-nosed, facts-only journalist I knew and more of a stranger. Sometimes I even had a hard time remembering his crinkly-eyed smile when I’d walk into the newsroom after school. I tried not to think about that while I worked on swinging higher than I had yesterday. When I got really, really high, the swing set would hop and I’d get a little bounce off the seat.
I bet Nellie Bly wouldn’t blink when that happened either.
The only problem with soaring into the sky on a swing is sometimes you need to get back to the ground fast without breaking your legs.
That was the predicament I found myself in when the screaming started. When I first heard the screeching, I thought it was one of the black birds swooping through the bright blue patch of sky over me. But then the shriek ended in a definitely human word I’m not allowed to say out loud.
As the swing fell back toward land, I dragged my feet, the heels of my sneakers sending up a cloud of dry dirt around me. It took a couple more back-and-forths before the swing slowed enough that I could jump and not crumple into a broken-bones pile. I still fell forward onto my knees. One of them even bled a little bit when I squeezed the skin together. It took some time to limp over to where the screeching had started.
Bear Creek was such a boring ole stick-in-the-mud town that Police Chief Rodgers beat me to the scene.
If Chief Rodgers were a mannequin at the mall (not that Bear Creek had a mall), he’d topple over. His legs, even in his uniform’s dark brown pants, were stick skinny, but his belly was as wide as our washing machine. Sort of shaped the same way, too. His head was normal sized but a bushy brown mustache stretched out to the sides.
I could see the ends of that mustache twitching up and down, up and down as he talked with the source of all the screeching. Peeking around Chief Rodgers, I pulled my notebook out. Even cub reporters like me know to always have a notebook and two pens in their back pocket. I scribbled down notes. At the top I wrote, WHO? Under it: Middle-aged man. Fluffy white hair. Angry face.
“I’m telling you, Chief,” the man said. “I was attacked!”
“Attacked?” Twitch, twitch went the chief’s mustache. “By who, exactly?”
Whom, I corrected, but only in my head. (Mom says, though it’s great to understand grammar—an important tool in every writer’s toolbox—it’s better to keep edits to yourself, especially when talking with grown-ups.)
“I don’t know!” the man bellowed. His hat, a baseball cap, was scrunched up in his fist. He swung it up and then hit his thigh with it. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be calling you, would I?”
Twitch, twitch went Chief Rodgers’s mustache. “All right, Hank. Settle down.” Hank, I wrote in my notebook. “Take me through it one more time.”
Hank’s watery brown eyes shifted around the park. I glanced around, too. A couple walking their dog seemed to slow as they passed by, clearly listening in. I couldn’t blame them; nothing new happened in Bear Creek.
Hank drew in a big breath, making his shoulders peak. “I told you. I was walking to my truck. I just had a cup of coffee from Wells Diner and needed to use the facilities.” The hand not holding his hat jerked toward the brick building for men’s and women’s bathrooms behind him. “Then I’m walking back, you see. And bam! Someone attacked me!”
“What exactly did they do, Hank?” I asked.
Both Hank and Chief Rodgers paused. Their mouths popped open a little as they turned toward me. Chief Rodgers’s jaw clenched. Hank closed his mouth. They looked at each other. Figures. So many people ignore the power of the press.
As if I hadn’t spoken, Chief Rodgers said, “Hank, what exactly happened?”
Hank swallowed. “Someone swiped my hat right off my head!”
“The hat in your hand?” I asked.
Again, the men looked at me. Chief Rodgers cleared his throat. “Why don’t you go play and let me handle this, kid?” I didn’t move. The First Amendment offers freedom to the press. Chief Rodgers turned back to Hank. “The hat in your hand?” he asked.
“Yeah. They swiped it right off my head. I fell forward, smack on my knees.” I lifted my own sort-of bloody knee in empathy, but Hank ignored me. “I spilled my coffee!” Hank yanked out his T-shirt, which had a dark splotch all down the front. “Yelled something right in my ear, too!”
“What did they yell?” Chief Rodgers and I asked at the same time. I smiled at him and gave a little nod so he’d know he was doing a good job with the questioning. He rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know, man!” Hank said. “I was too busy falling over!”
Chief Rodgers crossed his arms. “Did you see anyone in the bathroom when you were there?”
Hank shook his head.
“What about anyone at the park as you walked in?”
“Just this girl on the swings.”
Chief Rodgers glanced at me. One of his eyebrows popped up like a tent. “Did you see anyone, kid?”
I shook my head. “I was looking mostly at the sky. That’s how high I was making the swing go.”
Chief Rodgers didn’t look impressed. He must not have seen me. “Well, there aren’t any footprints in the dirt. No witnesses. Is it possible you tripped?” Chief Rodgers asked.
“Tripped?” Hank gasped. “’Course I didn’t trip. C’mon, now. I’m telling you—I was attacked.”
A gasp behind me made Chief Rodgers whip around so fast he had to grip his neck afterward. In front of me, Hank nodded vigorously. I didn’t bother to turn. I just sighed. I knew that gasp.
Mrs. Kim-Franklin. And that meant Min had found me. Great.
And just when Bear Creek was starting to get interesting.
“ATTACKED?” MRS. KIM-FRANKLIN ECHOED. She grabbed Min’s shoulder, pulling her close, as if Min had been about to dart ahead right into the alleged attacker.
And maybe she would’ve because Min is a baby. Technically, she’s a fourth grader. I remember those days. Back when life was easy and I wasn’t the only one who could do math in my head.
I don’t think all fourth graders are babies. I certainly wasn’t a baby last year when I was a fourth grader. But Min is one. Maybe it’s the way that she’s always smiling, her cute little dimples showing, one on each cheek. Maybe it’s the way she always looks like someone’s about to hand her an ice cream cone. Maybe—and this is the worst thing of all—maybe it’s the way she dots the i in her name with a heart. A heart!
Min and I are nothing alike. Nothing. Even so, she keeps calling me her best friend. I knew her mom was making her be nice to me, but even when Mrs. Kim-Franklin wasn’t around—even when it was just the two of us—Min would find a way to say that I was her best friend. And since I didn’t know anyone else in Bear Creek (and, okay, since I didn’t really have any friends my age in the city where I used to live) I guess she technically was my best friend, too, just by nature of her being my only friend. It was a pickle.
“If people are being attacked at the park, the public needs to know,” said Mrs. Kim-Franklin.
“Now, now,” Chief Rodgers said. “Hank here claims something knocked him—”
“I was attacked!” Hank interrupted.
“Hold up,” Chief Rodgers continued. “Don’t jump to
conclusions here. Who would want to attack you?”
“Well, until y
ou get to the bottom of it,” Mrs. Kim-
Franklin said, “my girls will be staying home.”
I realized with horror that she meant me, too. I was one of her girls. How had I become one of her girls? Was I going to dot my i with a heart soon? What would become of me?
When we first moved here, Mrs. Kim-Franklin had said that everyone took care of each other in Bear Creek, and I guess that meant I was now one of her girls. Gah!
Mrs. Kim-Franklin was as much like my mom as I was like Min, which is to say not at all.
Mrs. Kim-Franklin was wearing a crisp white sundress with a bright red belt across her small waist. Her blond hair was swept back into a ponytail at the crown of her head. Her lips were the same red as the belt, as were her sandals. When we arrived in Bear Creek, Mom had hugged her and said, “Sandra, you haven’t changed a bit! You still look like the sorority queen.”
Mrs. Kim-Franklin’s eyes had drifted down Mom, taking in her messy hair and old band T-shirt. She said, “You haven’t changed, either, Wendy!”
Though Min always dressed in fancy clothes like her mom, she physically looked more like her dad, who was Korean. Min has his hair and complexion. (Fact: Franklin was actually Mrs. Kim-Franklin’s maiden name; she said “Franklin-Kim” just didn’t have the right ring to it.) Today, Min was wearing a white T-shirt with fluffy ruffles and red-and-white checked shorts. Her socks had the same little ruffle as her shirt. The Kim-Franklins were big on ruffles.
Mrs. Kim-Franklin opened her mouth and I just knew
she was about to ruin my life with whatever no-more-park-for-my-girls nonsense she was about to say.
“So,” I said to Chief Rodgers in my best reporter voice
(serious and factual). I tapped the notebook with my pen as I consulted my notes. “We don’t have any witnesses. We don’t have a motive. We don’t have a description. What we have seems to be a misunderstanding. Page three material, really.”
None of the adults said anything. I felt their eyes burning into the top of my head, so I stared at the notebook. A plop of water out of nowhere fell onto the page, rolled down, and blurred my ink marks.
“It’s beginning to drizzle,” Mrs. Kim-Franklin said, “so it’s not as though it’s a good park day, anyway. Nellie, we’ll give you a ride home.”
“Or…” Min said, “we could play as fast as we can until it actually rains!” She grabbed my arm and ducked us out of the trio of adults and toward the slides.
Sometimes Min’s all right, I guess.
“Hold on!” Mrs. Kim-Franklin called out.
“It’s hardly even sprinkling,” Min whined. She sprinted ahead to be first on the slide ladder. I was fast on her heels. As we ran past, a cluster of jet-black birds took to the sky.
That’s when Hank’s page-three story became top-of-the-fold material.
“Chief Rodgers!” someone yelled from the parking lot. A young couple trotted toward the chief, Mrs. Kim-Franklin, and Hank. “Hey, Chief!”
I shushed Min, who was busy singing about being top of the slide. (“I’m the slide, slide, slide. Top of the slide. And you’re. At. The. Bottom.” Oh, Min. If I wanted to, I totally could’ve beat you to the slide. I chose not to, Min. I chose not to.)
Min silently slid to the bottom. “Something’s going down,” I whispered as she popped up.
“Yeah, it was me. Just now,” Min whispered back.
I rolled my eyes and motioned to the cluster of adults.
I pressed a finger against my lips. Slowly, we crept up on
the group. I tried to stay squarely behind Chief Rodgers’s
barrel chest.
But Min? She took superlong steps like a cartoon spy, her finger pressed to her lips the whole time.
The woman straightened when she saw us coming up behind the chief. Her arms crossed and eyes narrowed with suspicion.
I resented the glare. Quietly moving toward my sources as they discussed something in a public space was a totally legitimate journalistic practice. “I think some kids are messing with us,” the woman said. She nudged the man beside her, and soon he, too, stood with crossed arms, glaring at Min and me.
Chief Rodgers sighed. “What now?”
“Our wipers aren’t working,” the man said.
“Now why would that be kids’ doing?” The chief mumbled something under his breath about everybody making assumptions.
“They’re not working because the rubber strip was ripped out of them.” The woman tilted her head in my direction again, her eyes boring into my pockets.
I rolled my eyes, held the notebook under my chin, and emptied my pockets. Nothing but rocks were inside. I like shiny rocks.
The man gestured to his car. The wiper blades were standing up like broken arms. I squinted at them as I righted my notebook. “What would a kid want with wiper rubber?”
“I don’t know, kid,” the woman said. “You tell me.”
“Are you accusing my girls of stealing?” Mrs. Kim-
Franklin leaned toward the couple. Her finger jutted out. “I’ll have you know that I watch my girls. They would never—”
“It’s my attacker!” Hank cut in. “I told you! Ha! I told you I was attacked. Ha!”
“Look,” Chief Rodgers said with a sigh that began down at his stick legs, rattled around his barrel belly, and poofed out from his mouth. “Just because Hank here thinks something might’ve happened to knock him upside the head and your wipers are deficient does not mean anything illegal took place. We haven’t had rain in two, three weeks. How do you know something happened to your wipers today at the park?”
“Good question,” I whispered to Chief Rodgers, who totally didn’t appreciate the compliment. He just puffed out a smaller sigh.
“Because my sunglasses are missing, too,” the man said. “I had them on the dash of the car. When it started to rain, I remembered that I had left the window open and we ran back to the car. They’re gone.”
Chief Rodgers scribbled something in his notebook while the woman elbowed the man’s side. “How many times have I told you to make sure your windows are closed! Those were expensive glasses!”
“I told you!” Hank shouted and jabbed his finger up at the sky. “Someone knocked me down. Stole his glasses! Stole his wiper blade stuff! They are probably trying to fashion a
disguise or something.”
Chief Rodgers’s mustache twitched something fierce.
“All circumstantial,” I said. Chief nodded.
But just then my park-going independent life was once again compromised. “Chief Rodgers!” yelped someone else from the parking lot. We all turned toward the new source, an older woman holding a pink umbrella beside her equally pink car. “Someone stole my car keys! I left them on that bench while I used the restroom, and now they’re gone!”
“Did you check your purse?” Chief Rodgers asked.
“Of course I checked my purse. I’m telling you, they were right there!” She pointed to the bench, empty except for a
couple crows hopping around its base.
“Like I said,” said Hank, throwing his arm toward the woman in pink. “Knocked me down. Disguised themselves. Then tried to get away, like, with a stolen car.”
“The car’s still there.” Chief Rodgers pointed to the pink car.
“Well, yeah. Once they saw the car, they changed their mind.”
Chief Rodgers sighed again as the couple, the woman in pink, Hank, and Mrs. Kim-Franklin all began speaking at once. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his notebook again. I stood on my tiptoes to see what he scribbled across the page. Vandalism, possible theft, at the park.
“C’mon, girls,” Mrs. Kim-Franklin said and put a hand on each of our shoulders. “This isn’t a place for children.”
“It’s a park!” I cried.
But Mrs. Kim-Franklin just shepherded us to her gold minivan. I knew better than to argue with a get-in-the-car mom face.
When we got back to her house, Min asked, “W
ant to come in and play with my dolls?”
Dad says it’s important to provide visual clues to readers. So, here’s what you’d see from Mrs. Kim-Franklin’s gold minivan as she parked in front of her house: a bright white two-story house with black shutters and a shiny red door; three bushes clipped into little mounds on each side of the front step; a perfectly symmetrical tree in the middle of dazzling green grass; a white picket fence around the house and yard.
Then, if you looked to the right, you’d see our house.
Picture a farmhouse that is mostly straight and square, with a rectangular section that pops out of the side. Once upon a time, probably back when it was built a hundred years ago, it must’ve been as bright white as Min’s house. But I was pretty sure it hadn’t been painted since the day it was made, so now it is kind of grayish. The front door is also gray. There is a gigantic rosebush by the front door with sunshine yellow
blossoms. On our first morning in Bear Creek it had snagged Mrs. Kim-Franklin’s sweater as she walked into the house with a basket full of muffins. She said it should be trimmed back into an orderly hedge.
I loved the rosebush just the way it was.
“Nellie?” Min prodded again.
“No, I don’t play with dolls,” I said.
“What about the box under your bed?” she asked.
I whipped around. “What did you just say?”
“The box of dolls under your bed?” Min replied and, for some reason, twirled around in a circle.
“How do you know about that?”
Min shrugged. “Your mom said I could play with your dolls when I was bored last time I was over. Remember? You stayed in the bathroom the whole visit, ignoring your very best friend in the whole world.”
“Those are not dolls,” I snapped, momentarily regretting my decision to lock the door and read in the bathroom when Min had stopped by. “Those are story devices. I use them to act out stories when I’m stuck. So I can offer better physical descriptions. That’s it. It isn’t play.”
“Why do you have so many hairbrushes and ribbons then? And little outfits?” Min crossed her arms, looking a lot like her mom.