Absolutely Truly

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  We finally found what we were looking for, on Wednesday the third in the first week of June.

  “There it is!” said Lucas, pointing to a boxed item. For B was at the top, and below it was another quote:

  When you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

  Calhoun nodded. “Shakespeare,” he said, sounding pleased.

  I looked at him. Something was up.

  Beneath the quote was another capital B, of course, just like before, but no numbers this time, only words. Exactly two of them: HIGH NOON.

  The five of us stared at the screen. Seconds ticked by.

  “I’ve got nothing,” I said. “You guys?”

  My friends shook their heads. So did Calhoun.

  “You’d tell us if you did, right?” I asked him, and he nodded.

  “ ‘When you depart from me’—it kind of sounds like the writer is talking about somebody taking a trip,” mused Cha Cha.

  “There were a lot of people going places that year,” said Jasmine. “Ella Bellow. Belinda Winchester. The entire senior class.”

  “I suppose Belinda could be one of our Bs,” I said doubtfully. It was still hard to imagine anyone writing a love letter to the former lunch lady, though.

  My friends and I pondered this idea, then we all burst out laughing.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said. My stomach rumbled. “We’d better get back. My aunt is counting on us, plus Lou’s is catering lunch.”

  Jasmine went directly upstairs to Aunt True’s apartment, where she’d left Lauren and Annie temporarily in charge. The rest of us filed back into the bookshop.

  During the hour that we’d been gone, the space had been transformed. The carpet had vanished; all the books had been boxed up and taken to the basement; and dropcloths had been spread over the floor to protect the newly exposed hardwood, which would be washed and waxed tomorrow once the volunteer paint crew was finished. They were already hard at work, spreading the yellow paint that Aunt True and Pippa had picked out on the walls.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “No kidding,” echoed Cha Cha.

  “Check out the office,” said Hatcher, who was behind the sales counter handing out sandwiches and sodas.

  I poked my head in to see Aunt True’s entire wish list—armchairs, lamps, rugs, tables, and a bunch of other furniture—piled in the middle of the room. Belinda Winchester had brought Miss Marple back, and the dog was curled up on one of the donated chairs.

  “People just keep dropping stuff off,” my brother told me, shaking his head.

  “Wow,” I said again. Maybe there really was something to small-town living. “Where is Aunt True, anyway?”

  My brother jerked his chin toward the back of the store. “In the children’s section.”

  As I rounded the sales counter to go find her, something caught my eye. I froze in my tracks.

  “Aunt True!” I shrieked.

  She came running. So did everyone else within earshot, including Miss Marple, who started barking furiously.

  I pointed to the rare books cabinet. It was unlocked, and the glass door was standing wide open. The autographed first edition of Charlotte’s Web was gone!

  CHAPTER 24

  By the time Carson Dawson and his camera crew returned on Sunday afternoon, the bookstore shone. Its freshly painted walls glowed a sunny yellow, the washed and waxed hardwood floors gleamed, the windows and light fixtures sparkled, and the books were all neatly arranged on the newly repositioned shelves.

  On the walls above them, just like Hatcher had suggested, Aunt True had hung colorful book posters, maps, and even some of Lola’s artwork. Aunt True’s vision of comfortable reading nooks scattered around the store was a reality now too. The donated rugs and armchairs and tables and lamps had been set up in several corners, and there was even a makeshift window seat in the children’s room created from a blanket chest flanked by a pair of bookcases. Lauren had installed herself there among a pile of plump throw pillows, deep into a copy of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

  There was only one thing missing: Charlotte’s Web. The book had disappeared, and our excitement about what Carson Dawson was calling “the Bookshop Blitz” had evaporated along with it.

  “This looks like a whole new store!” gushed the TV host. Pausing to face the camera, he added, “Folks, you couldn’t ask for a cozier bookshop in all of New England!”

  “Books bring people together, and people bring communities together,” said Aunt True with a stoic smile.

  “Great quote,” said Carson Dawson. “I like that.” He quickly replaced his big grin with a concerned expression, though, when Aunt True went on to tell him about the missing copy of Charlotte’s Web.

  “Looks like there’s trouble,” he intoned to the camera, “right here in River City—I mean Pumpkin Falls. Anyone having information about this crime should contact the local authorities.”

  The police—actually, Pumpkin Falls only had one policeman—interviewed Aunt True and dusted the cabinet for fingerprints, but with so many people coming and going all day, there were too many of them and they were too jumbled and smeared to be of any help.

  “What about video footage from the security cameras?” asked Carson Dawson.

  Aunt True snorted. “I don’t think there is such a thing in Pumpkin Falls. We certainly don’t have one.”

  The TV host’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, then perhaps the dog saw something?” He winked at the camera, which promptly panned over to Miss Marple. But if she knew who took Charlotte’s Web, she wasn’t telling.

  “Not much of a watchdog, I take it,” chuckled the TV host.

  “It’s not Miss Marple’s fault,” said Lauren, rushing over to put her arms around the dog’s neck.

  “I never said it was,” said Carson Dawson hastily. He turned to face the camera again. “That’s it for this weekend’s update, folks! From frozen waterfalls to a literary makeover, Pumpkin Falls is a happening place. And don’t forget to check out next month’s Winter Festival! It’s the celebration’s one hundredth anniversary, and I hear there’s lots of fun in store. Until next time, this is Carson Dawson signing off for Hello, Boston! ”

  “Good-bye and good riddance,” said Aunt True after he and his camera crew left. “What a phony.”

  She was even madder at him later that evening, though, when we turned on the TV at dinner and discovered that while Mr. Dawson had technically kept his promise—he hadn’t leaked any footage of our remodeling project—somehow word had gotten out to the local news affiliate about the missing copy of Charlotte’s Web.

  The result was that Dad knew all about it by the time he got home.

  “I never should have left you in charge!” he hollered at Aunt True, thirty seconds after he came through the front door.

  I understood why he was upset, of course—he was counting on the money from the sale of the book to help pay off the bank loan. Everybody was. But blaming it on Aunt True wasn’t fair.

  And if any of us had thought that a new high-tech bionic arm would magically transform Silent Man into the father we knew and missed, we were wrong. Way wrong.

  “Can we see it?” begged Danny as we all crowded around, dying of curiosity.

  “Later,” Dad said shortly. “Right now I need to talk to your grandparents. They’re in for an unpleasant surprise.”

  And before he even took off his jacket, he steered Aunt True to the living room, where he set up a videoconference under the watchful eyes of Nathaniel Daniel and his wife Prudence.

  Dad was the one who ended up being surprised, though.

  “We don’t have an autographed first edition of Charlotte’s Web,” Lola said after he’d finished talking.

  “Of course you do, Mom,” Aunt True told her. “I saw it with my own eyes. Truly did too, right?”

  I nodded.

  My grandmother shrugged. “Well, I certainly don’t remember it.”

  “Me neither,” said Gramps.
“And trust me, we’d remember something like that.”

  As for the rare books cabinet, it turned out that there was a key stashed on a hook behind it. A key everybody in town knew about it. It was there just in case any customers wanted to take a closer look at something in the cabinet and nobody was around to show it to them. Like the “mystery swap,” the rest of Lovejoy’s Books operated on the honor system too.

  My father shook his head in disgust. “Great,” he said. “That means anybody could have taken it.”

  He got up and stalked out of the room. Mom hurried after him. The rest of us crowded around the computer, eager to talk to our grandparents. They gave us a quick tour of their house—more of a concrete hut, really—in Namibia, told us a bit about the classes they were teaching and the library they were helping to build at the local school, then asked for all the news from Pumpkin Falls.

  “Ella Bellow ith a bithybody,” Pippa informed them, which made everybody laugh.

  “You’re a smart cookie, to figure that out so fast,” said Gramps.

  “Truly told me,” Pippa replied, and my family laughed again.

  “Has the January thaw finally arrived?” asked Lola.

  “Nope,” said Danny. “Everything’s still frozen solid.”

  “A TV news crew came up from Boston over the weekend to film the falls,” Hatcher told them. “They filmed us at the bookstore too.”

  “Really?” Lola looked surprised to hear this. “Why?”

  Keeping her voice low and checking over her shoulder to make sure our parents were out of earshot, Aunt True filled Gramps and Lola in on the bookshop makeover.

  “Well done!” said Lola, when she finished. “Our instincts were right to hand over the reins. We knew you and your brother would do wonders with the business.”

  Gramps looked out at me from the computer screen and smiled. “So, have you added anything to your life list, Truly?”

  “Not much,” I told him. “It’s been too cold and snowy. There’ve been lots of cardinals and jays and chickadees around the feeders, of course, and I spotted a woodpecker the other day.”

  “Downy or pileated?” asked Gramps.

  “Downy.”

  “My favorite!”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, but they’re nothing special.”

  “Every bird is special, Truly,” Gramps said. “Backyard magic, remember?” He smiled at me again. “Be patient and keep your eyes peeled, and Pumpkin Falls might surprise you.”

  It already had. But I couldn’t tell him that, of course.

  CHAPTER 25

  The third clue was much harder than the first two.

  It took us nearly two weeks to figure out. And, surprisingly, a lot can happen in Pumpkin Falls in two weeks.

  Like Math Boot Camp.

  After I got an 83 percent on the next algebra test (or “17 percent more to 100 percent,” as Lieutenant Colonel Jericho T. Lovejoy was quick to point out), Ms. Ivey sat up and took notice.

  “Do you think your father would be interested in tutoring other students?” she asked me.

  I shrugged. “Um, maybe?”

  “He could charge a fee, of course. I think I’ll stop by the bookshop this afternoon and ask him.”

  She walked me there after school and explained her idea to Aunt True.

  “Of course he’ll do it,” said my aunt, who was dressed all in black and wearing a Sherlock Holmes–style hat she called a “deerstalker.” She was setting up chairs for the Mystery Mavens book club meeting,

  Lovejoy’s Books had four different book clubs gathering regularly now, thanks to the ad that Aunt True placed in the Pumpkin Falls Patriot-Bugle, and the blurb in our new bookshop newsletter. In addition to the Mystery Mavens, there were the Heart Throbs, who read romance novels (Aunt True wears flowery skirts and dresses for that one and serves high tea), the Highbrows, who like what Aunt True calls “literary fiction,” and the Reel Readers, who read books that have been turned into movies and spend most of their meetings arguing about which version is better.

  “We offer a wide range of services for our community here at Lovejoy’s Books, including Math Boot Camp,” Aunt True told Ms. Ivey, roping off the corner where the Mystery Mavens would meet with yellow “crime scene” tape.

  I stared at her, openmouthed. Since when?

  “Wonderful!” said Ms. Ivey. “I’ll definitely be sending some students your way.”

  Afterward, when Aunt True told my father what she’d signed him up for, he protested, of course.

  “It’s extra money,” she reminded him. “You’re the one who keeps talking about the need for additional income streams.”

  My father continued to grumble for a while, but he eventually agreed to do it. And that’s how come I’m now sharing my tutor with Lucas (which really means Lucas and his mother, since, naturally, Mrs. Winthrop feels it’s important to sit in on the sessions), Scooter Sanchez, and Annie Freeman, who may be the Grafton County Junior Spelling Champion but whose multiplication and division skills are sorely lacking.

  Dad, of course, runs it like a military operation. The one time Mrs. Winthrop couldn’t come, Scooter took advantage of her absence and started teasing Lucas. Dad caught him at it and told him to drop and give him twenty.

  “Twenty what?” asked Scooter, mystified.

  “Twenty what, sir,” my father corrected him sternly. “And that would be push-ups, young man.”

  Scooter hasn’t picked on Lucas since. At least not at Math Boot Camp.

  The other thing that happened is that I went to the movies with Calhoun.

  Well, not exactly. Cha Cha and Jasmine and Lucas were there too.

  The way it happened was that I saw a flyer on the bulletin board at the General Store. I swear, every store in Pumpkin Falls has a bulletin board. Anyway, this particular flyer was squeezed in between a three-by-five card advertising free kittens (courtesy of Belinda Winchester, naturally) and another ad for a snow-shoveling service. The flyer caught my eye because it was bright yellow. CLASSIC WESTERN FILM SERIES was printed in large letters across the top, along with a picture of a cowboy on a horse. The first movie listed in the lineup? High Noon.

  We had to investigate. The film was showing at Lovejoy College, and Calhoun made us bribe him again (dessert at Lou’s afterward) in exchange for getting us tickets.

  They’d scheduled it on a Friday at noon—I guess whoever organized the film festival thought this was funny—and on Wednesday at dinner I asked my mother if I could go.

  “Friday’s a no-school day because of parent-teacher conferences,” I reminded her.

  “It’s also the day of Hatcher’s first wrestling tournament,” she replied. “We’re all going, remember?” Her eyes slid over to Dad, who was focused on eating his pork chop. The fingers of his new bionic hand were gripping the fork while he sawed away with the knife in his left hand. So far, the new prosthesis seemed to be working well.

  “Please, Mom?” I begged.

  “Well, I suppose I could ask True if she’d be willing to stay with you. We won’t be back until late.”

  “Mo-om! I don’t need a babysitter!”

  My father glanced up from his pork chop. “Truly,” he warned. Talking back is one of Lieutenant Jericho T. Lovejoy’s pet peeves.

  “True isn’t a babysitter; she’s your aunt,” my mother told me.

  “Wait, you’re going to miss my tournament?” said Hatcher.

  “Sorry,” I told him, not sorry at all. Wrestling tournaments are about as exciting as watching paint dry. You sit in the bleachers in a gym somewhere with a zillion other families, watching a zillion other wrestlers from a zillion other schools. It takes forever. The only time it’s even remotely interesting is during the few minutes when somebody you know is out on the floor for their match. Maybe people feel the same way about swim meets, but I’m not stuck in the bleachers for those, I’m in the water.

  “There’ll be other tournaments,” my mother told Hatcher. She turned to me and smiled.
“I’m glad you’re making friends, Little O. I really like the Abramowitzes’ daughter.”

  “You mean the kazoo?” said Hatcher with a sly smile. That’s what he calls Cha Cha behind her back. He thinks her deep voice is hilarious.

  “Shut up, Hatcher,” I said.

  “Don’t say ‘shut up,’ ” my mother chided as my father looked up at me again and frowned. It was another of his pet peeves, of course.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied meekly, kicking my brother under the table instead.

  On Friday, when I stopped by Lucas’s house to pick him up, Mrs. Winthrop met me at the door. She was grinning from ear to ear, as excited as if Lucas and I were going on a date or something. Which we absolutely truly weren’t. I was worried for a minute there that she was going to take a picture of the two of us.

  “You’ll drop him off at Lou’s afterward, right?” she asked about fifty times, fluttering around nervously as she made sure Lucas had money, hat, mittens, an extra scarf, and anything else she could think of. Poor Lucas looked like he wished the floor would open up and swallow him.

  I reassured her that I’d return him in one piece, and finally managed to pry him away. It was snowing again outside, and Lucas was quiet as we scuffed our way down Hill Street to the rendezvous point at Calhoun’s house.

  “Sorry about that,” he said finally.

  “Hey, you have to put up with my father,” I told him.

  He glanced over at me. “Your father’s really nice.”

  I snorted. “Used to be. He’s pretty cranky these days.”

  “Yeah, but I was kind of glad the day he got cranky with Scooter.” Lucas smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  A few minutes later we arrived at the ornate iron gate in front of the college president’s house.

  “Fancy schmancy,” I said.

  A freshly shoveled brick path led to the front door, which was flanked by twin urns containing small fir trees. They stood at attention like a pair of evergreen sentries. I resisted the urge to salute, and lifted the heavy brass knocker instead.