Absolutely Truly

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Guerrilla marketing,” he’d confided to me when I’d caught him at it. “We authors have to do what we can.”

  Danny and Hatcher’s wrestling buddies swarmed in last, decked out in their team sweatshirts. Scooter Sanchez grinned at me as he sauntered past. I skewered him with a look that could have stopped an elephant.

  “I didn’t say anything!” he protested.

  He didn’t have to. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  Belinda Winchester was the final one through the door. I caught the faint strains of “My Girl” from her ever-present earbuds as she craned to see over my shoulder.

  “Where’s Miss Marple?” she demanded.

  I pointed to the office, where Aunt True had corralled her for the day. Belinda marched over and clipped a leash to the dog’s collar. “Too much excitement in here for this old girl,” she announced, heading right out again. “I’m taking her for a walk.”

  Carson Dawson and his crew trotted around behind Aunt True as she gave them a tour of the bookshop. She unlocked the rare book cabinet and showed off the first edition of Charlotte’s Web, which it turned out was Mr. Henry’s favorite book.

  “Mine, too!” exclaimed my aunt. “It’s the perfect novel, isn’t it?”

  “Sublime,” he replied as she passed it to him.

  “I’m rather fond of it myself,” the TV host admitted.

  Mr. Henry held the book reverently. “I’d give anything for an autographed copy!” he said, and Carson Dawson got some footage of him talking with Aunt True about E. B. White, and the author’s farm in Maine, where he’d raised actual pigs and observed actual spiders, and how he’d called the book his “hymn to the barn.”

  “Fun fact,” said Mr. Henry. “Did you know that E. B. White did the narration for the audiobook? And that it took him seventeen takes to get through the passage about Charlotte’s death without crying?”

  “I can never get through it without crying, either,” said Aunt True, and Mr. Henry nodded sympathetically.

  I couldn’t help noticing that Scooter had managed to wedge himself in front of the camera. I also couldn’t help noticing Calhoun when he showed up a few minutes later, after the Charlotte’s Web lovefest was over. This was mostly because my aunt made such a big deal out of it.

  “Truly!” she called from across the store, with one of those big “your secret is safe with me” smiles. “Your friend is here!”

  My face flamed. Scooter gave me an odd look. Calhoun didn’t even glance my way, just went over and joined the wrestlers, who had formed a human chain and were ferrying boxes to the basement.

  “Keep the books in the exact same order you find them, please,” Aunt True instructed them, then crossed the store to organize the group in charge of rearranging the bookshelves.

  Lucas and Franklin and Amy Nguyen were put to work dusting, and Cha Cha and Jasmine and I were assigned two jobs: keeping the little kids out of everyone’s hair, and washing the glass globes on all the light fixtures.

  “You can set up headquarters in my apartment,” said Aunt True. “Don’t let Memphis out, okay? There are board games in the trunk in the living room, and you’ll find rubber gloves and dish soap and whatever other cleaning products you need under the kitchen sink.”

  “I have a practice session at the Starlite at eleven thirty,” I told her.

  “That’s fine. Just see if someone can cover for you with the little ones while you’re gone.”

  “I can do that no problem, Ms. Lovejoy,” Jasmine told her.

  While Jasmine rounded up the younger kids, Cha Cha and I went to join Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Freeman, who had brought a ladder up from the basement. The two men started dismantling the light fixtures, handing the white glass globes down to Cha Cha and me.

  “Wow,” said Cha Cha, as we carried the first two up to Aunt True’s apartment. She looked around in amazement. “Your aunt’s been everywhere.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Can I show Annie Aunt True’s scrapbooks?” begged Lauren, who had plunked herself down on the floor by the coffee table.

  “I guess so,” I told her. “Be careful with them, though.”

  In the kitchen, Jasmine was setting up a game of Candy Land for Pippa and Baxter. While Cha Cha returned downstairs for more glass globes, I rummaged under the sink for the rubber gloves and dish soap, and a few minutes later was up to my elbows in scummy water.

  “This is disgusting,” I said, holding up a sponge that had quickly turned black with grime. “You think dissecting a frog was bad, Jazz, you’d faint if you saw all the dead bugs floating around in here.”

  I rinsed the globe and handed it to her. She dried it carefully and set it on the countertop.

  “One down, eleven more to go,” she said.

  It took us a while to clean them all. When we were done. Cha Cha and I began carrying the now-sparkling results back downstairs. I paused in the bookshop doorway and looked around. The last time I’d seen so many people working together on a project was when all my Texas uncles showed up to build a deck for our new house in Austin. The one we sold. The one I’d still move back to in a heartbeat.

  “Gotta go,” said Cha Cha, grabbing her jacket off the bench by the door. “I’m due over at the Starlite.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I replied. “Calhoun’s first practice session, right?”

  She nodded. “Wish me luck.”

  “Truly! Could you bring your sisters down here for a minute?” called my aunt, who was standing by the sales counter with Carson Dawson. “Channel 5 wants a family shot to go with the interview.”

  I nodded and trotted back upstairs.

  “Hey, Truly, have you seen your aunt’s prom picture?” said Annie, holding up one of the scrapbooks. “Check out her B-O-U-F-F-A-N-T!”

  She and Lauren dissolved into giggles.

  “Very funny,” I said, glancing at it. Then I looked a little closer. What caught my eye wasn’t so much the picture of my aunt in her prom dress and huge hair—almost as huge as the hair on the guy she was with, whose picture I was pretty sure I’d seen somewhere before—but rather the program on the opposite page. It was for a West Hartfield High School drama production of Much Ado About Nothing, starring none other than Calhoun’s parents.

  As I hustled my sisters back downstairs to the waiting camera crew, my brain shifted into sudoku mode, puzzling over this new piece of information.

  “Smile, everyone!” said Carson Dawson, baring his own toothsome grin as he bounded out in front of the camera.

  “Hellooooooooo, Boston!” he announced, launching into his show’s trademark opening cry. Work in the bookshop ceased as our friends and neighbors crowded around to watch. “Greetings from beautiful Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire! I’m here today at Lovejoy Books, where an entire town is banding together to give a wounded warrior a helping hand.”

  Hatcher pinched me, and I pinched him back. Could this possibly be more embarrassing?

  Mr. Dawson quickly zeroed in on Pippa. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked, crouching down and holding out the microphone.

  “Pippa Lovejoy,” my little sister replied, twisting one of her strawberry blond ringlets around a forefinger.

  “And is this your family?”

  She nodded, her sparkly pink glasses flashing in the bright spotlights.

  “You have a big family!” the TV host exclaimed.

  Pippa nodded again. “Theven.”

  “What?”

  “There are theven of uth,” Pippa repeated, holding up seven fingers.

  “Ohhhhhh,” chuckled Carson Dawson. “Theven of you!” He winked at the camera. “Isn’t she just the cutest, folks?”

  “Get me out of here,” muttered Danny under his breath.

  Carson Dawson straightened up and turned to face the rest of us.

  “Whoa, tall timber!” he said when he spotted me. Chuckling, he made a show of craning his neck to look up into my face. Which was in the process of turning bright red.
“What’s your name, young lady?”

  “Drooly Gigantic,” said Scooter in a stage whisper from somewhere in the crowd.

  My face went from red to five-alarm fire. I gritted my teeth and promised myself that I would flatten Scooter Sanchez the minute I had the chance.

  “My name is Truly,” I managed to tell the TV host.

  “You grow truly tall timber up here in the Granite State, don’t you?” Carson Dawson quipped, looking over at my aunt. Sizing her up, he added, “but then, I can see that your niece here is a chip off the old block.”

  I winced.

  “Uh-oh,” muttered Hatcher. “Incoming!”

  Aunt True gave Carson Dawson a withering look. Stepping forward, she put her arm around my shoulder. “Ayuh,” she replied in a broad, fake New Hampshire accent, “but then we Granite Staters always have preferred tall timber to splinters.” She looked down from her considerable height at the TV host and sniffed.

  His smile faltered. He turned to the cameraman and whispered, “Remind me to edit this bit later.”

  Smiling his big fake smile again, Mr. Dawson blathered on about our family, and the bookstore, and Dad’s injury, and what we were doing this weekend to surprise him. “It’s a veritable ‘Bookshop Blitz,’ folks! I’m told we won’t recognize the place when they’re done with it tomorrow.”

  The lights were hot, so was my face, and my cheeks hurt from smiling. Would this ever be over?

  “Good one, Aunt True,” whispered Danny, as the camera finally stopped rolling and the news crew began packing up. “Way to put that twerp in his place.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Aunt True replied, the picture of innocence.

  Carson Dawson promised to return the following afternoon for some “after” footage of the remodeled bookshop. On his way out, he and his news crew posed for the photographer from the Pumpkin Falls Patriot-Bugle, who’d been prowling around snapping pictures for the past hour.

  “Never apologize for being ‘tall timber,’ ” Aunt True told me, slipping her arm around my waist. “You and I were born to stand out in a crowd, Truly, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  I gave her a rueful smile. That was the difference between an owl and a parrot. I didn’t want to stand out in a crowd—I much preferred stealth mode. But I thanked her anyway.

  “This is great!” the photographer said happily to my aunt as the Channel 5 crew left. “Definitely A-section material. I’m going to push for front-page placement in this week’s issue.”

  The minute she said that, something clicked. I knew where the next clue was!

  But first, I had an appointment at the Starlite Dance Studio.

  CHAPTER 22

  At least my practice session was Scooter-free.

  We’d been told to come solo to our first private appointment at the Starlite, so that Cha Cha’s parents could assess our abilities. Which were pretty much zero in my case.

  It was a little weird dancing with Cha Cha’s father. He wasn’t that much taller than Cha Cha, so I towered over him, for one thing. He was really nice, though, and didn’t make me feel at all awkward about it. Plus, even when I made mistakes he didn’t act like I had two left feet.

  “Slow, slow, quick quick,” he said, moving me around the dance floor as easily as Pippa and Baxter had moved their game pieces around the Candy Land board. “That’s it, you’re getting the hang of it!”

  I surveyed the spacious studio over his shoulder. It had hardwood floors and cushioned benches lining the mirrored walls. Potted trees twined with twinkle lights stood in all four corners of the room, and chandeliers blazed overhead. Maybe ballroom dancing wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Oops, sorry,” I said as I stepped on Mr. Abramowitz’s foot again.

  “Not to worry,” he replied quickly, smiling up at me. “That’s why I get hazardous-duty pay.” The smile vanished as he realized what he’d just said. Hazardous-duty pay is extra money soldiers receive for really dangerous jobs. Like flying a helicopter in a war zone. Flustered, Mr. Abramowitz stopped dancing. “I am so sorry, Truly. That was a thoughtless remark, considering all that your father has been through.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay, really.”

  “I hope your family knows how proud we all are of his service,” Cha Cha’s father continued. “And I think it’s very brave of him, moving all the way across the country to take over the store from your grandparents. It can’t be easy, having to suddenly shift gears like that.”

  “Um, yeah, I guess,” I said.

  I was quiet as we started to dance again. I’d never really thought about it that way. Was Mr. Abramowitz right? Had my dad done a brave thing, moving to Pumpkin Falls?

  Cha Cha’s father hummed along to the music, and I felt myself starting to relax. There was a flow to dancing that was not unlike swimming. Maybe I really was getting the hang of it.

  Or maybe not.

  “Oops,” I said again, and Mr. Abramowitz winced.

  “I think that’s enough for today.” He gave my arm a consoling pat. “Perhaps you and your partner could schedule a practice slot together before our next session at school? We’ll be reviewing fox-trot this week, then moving on to the waltz.”

  Fat chance, I thought. I wasn’t planning on spending any more time with Scooter than I absolutely truly had to. But, remembering my Pumpkin Falls manners, I thanked Mr. Abramowitz politely, then went to get my jacket.

  Hearing music from the other, slightly smaller dance studio off the lobby, I peered through the window. Cha Cha and Calhoun were practicing the fox-trot. This must be where Pippa and Lauren took their lessons, I thought, noting the ballet barres in front of the mirrors.

  Calhoun looked up just then and spotted me. He stopped dancing and scowled.

  Cha Cha scurried over and popped her head out. “Hang on a sec, okay? We’re almost done.”

  “Sure,” I replied, and wandered over to the bulletin board to read the notices: upcoming classes (learn to tango!), local events (bean supper at the church!), and items for sale, including a tractor, a rooster, and a snowplow. Life sure was exciting in Pumpkin Falls.

  A few minutes later, the music stopped and my classmates emerged. Calhoun brushed past me without a word.

  “Pumpkin Falls manners!” I called after him, and Cha Cha grinned at me. “Not going so well, I take it?”

  “He’s not entirely hopeless,” she replied.

  As we crossed the street a few minutes later, I spotted the man in the green jacket who I’d seen before hanging around outside Lovejoy’s Books. He reminded me of a stork, with his long, skinny legs and the way he was craning to peer through the window again. He wasn’t wearing his hood this time, and I watched as he ran a hand through his bushy dark hair. I nudged Cha Cha. “Do you know that guy?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Why?”

  I shrugged. “No reason.” It was probably nothing—just somebody looking at a book. That’s why we put them in the window, after all.

  “Where’s Calhoun going?” said Cha Cha, gazing down the block.

  I turned to see our classmate heading into the offices of the Pumpkin Falls Patriot-Bugle. Suddenly, every nerve in my body went on full alert.

  “Get Jasmine and Lucas and meet me there!” I told Cha Cha as I took off down the street. “I think Calhoun’s trying to double-cross us.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “What is this, kiddie day?” said the Patriot-Bugle’s receptionist, looking up from her magazine and snapping her gum.

  “Um, we’d like to look at old issues of the paper,” I said.

  “Funny, young Clark Kent just said the same thing.” She pointed a scarlet-tipped nail toward the door at the end of the hall. “Archives are downstairs to the left. Know how to use a microfiche machine?”

  Cha Cha and Lucas and I hesitated.

  “I do,” said Jasmine.

  “Good. Be sure and turn it off when you leave.” She went back to her magazine.

&n
bsp; “Since when do you know how to use a microfiche machine?” asked Cha Cha as the four of us headed down the hall.

  “Since my parents are lawyers, duh,” Jasmine replied. “They’re always looking stuff up. Why are we here, anyway?”

  “The next clue,” I told her. “I overheard the photographer talk about putting our story in the paper. She said it was ‘A-section material,’ so it hit me that B-4 might be a section of the newspaper too.”

  Cha Cha snapped her fingers. “Truly Lovejoy, private eye, strikes again!”

  “Yeah, only not soon enough. Calhoun’s trying to beat us to it.”

  “Why?” asked Jasmine.

  “I’m not sure.”

  The lights were on downstairs, and Calhoun was deeply engrossed in the microfiche screen across the room.

  “What are you doing?” boomed Cha Cha.

  He jumped, then glanced back over his shoulder at us. “None of your business.”

  “It is our business,” I replied as we went over to join him. “It looks to me like a rat trying to steal the cheese.”

  His face flushed. “I would have told you if I found anything.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Jasmine. “For a price.”

  I looked over his shoulder. “So what is B-4, anyway?”

  “Classified ads.”

  Of course! The classifieds were the perfect place to leave a message for someone. “How far have you gotten?”

  “I’ve checked through January, February, and March of the year the stamp was issued. Nothing so far.”

  The four of us crowded around him as he continued to scroll through the back issues. There was lots of news that year, some of it involving people we knew: My dad’s wrestling team won the state tournament. The covered bridge was scheduled to be repainted. Ella Bellow and her husband visited the Grand Canyon and gave a slideshow afterward at the library. The destination for the senior class trip was announced: Montreal! Reverend Quinn of First Parish Church lectured at Lovejoy College on the Paul Revere bell; Aunt True was interviewed about the gap year she was planning to take in Patagonia; Belinda Winchester went home to Maine to visit her sister. Also, Calhoun’s father was accepted to Dartmouth, and Bud Jefferson was headed to UNH.