Keeping Secrets

  “Ooh, ooh! Or three trolls! Wouldn’t that be cool?” cried Ruby.

  Later, when Min was driving Ruby across Camden Falls to Allie’s house, Ruby forgot about Halloween costumes and turned her attention to the reason for the sleepover. It was a reason of which her aunt was unaware.

  Ruby could not forget the closetful of baby items she and Flora had found the month before. The closet and its contents were a mystery, and the mystery was begging to be solved. Ruby wished Flora could have come along to help her, but Flora, Olivia, and Nikki were having a pre-dance sleepover at Olivia’s house.

  So, it’s all up to me, Ruby thought as Min pulled into Allie’s driveway. And then she added, Think like a detective.

  The front door of the house opened and Allie stepped out, waving. Min said, “Have fun. Call me in the morning.”

  “Okay,” said Ruby. “Bye!” She ran inside. “Hi, Aunt Allie! I’m going to put my stuff in my room, okay?”

  “Great. I’ll be downstairs making dinner.”

  Perfect, thought Ruby. She hurried to the second floor and along the hall to the room that Allie had fixed up for Flora and Ruby. She had decorated it just for them when she had bought the house over the summer. Ruby dumped her duffel bag on one of the beds and sat on the other one to think.

  You’re a detective, she thought, and you’re at the scene of a crime. Now, what should be your first move?

  She fingered a china leopard while she thought. The answer came to her quickly. First she should examine the crime scene itself. That would be the closetful of baby things. Then she should look for clues.

  But what kind of clues? Ruby thought some more. She needed to find out why the clothes were there and what they could mean. In order to do that, she needed to know more about her aunt Allie. And in order to do that, she should search … well, she should search the whole house, but she didn’t have time for that. She was only there for one night. So she should start with the most obvious places. And those, she decided, would be Allie’s study and Allie’s bedroom.

  “Ruby?” called her aunt from downstairs.

  Ruby jumped guiltily to her feet and set the leopard back on its shelf. “Coming!”

  “You don’t have to come right this second,” her aunt called back. “But dinner will be ready in ten minutes, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  Ten minutes. That was just enough time in which to survey the contents of the closet again.

  Ruby crept down the hall. She stood before the closet door with her hand on the knob and then thought that perhaps she should have some sort of prop with her in case Aunt Allie suddenly came up the stairs. She tiptoed into the bathroom, pulled the towel off the rack, and carried it back out into the hall. If her aunt appeared, she would tell her she was looking for a larger bath towel and had opened the door to the wrong closet (which was pretty much how she and Flora had discovered the baby clothes in the first place).

  Ruby, breathing heavily and listening for the sound of her aunt’s footfalls, placed her hand on the knob of the door that she knew was not the linen closet. Slowly, she turned it, drawing in her breath at the sound of a soft click. She eased the door open. There before her were the shelves and shelves of baby things, many of them looking as though they might be for a girl, and all of them brand-new. Some of them were still in their plastic wrappers. Ruby took a step closer. She leaned forward to finger a package of yellow diaper covers. Each was decorated with a white duck. She saw a stack of clothes that were not in their wrappers and drew them forward.

  A pink-and-purple-striped shirt with rosebuds around the collar.

  A blue-and-white shirt. No, Ruby realized as she unfolded it. Not a shirt — a dress. A tiny dress.

  Next to the stack of clothes was a pair of pale yellow shoes, each with a strap that fastened with a Velcro flower.

  “Ruby? Dinner!” Aunt Allie’s voice floated up the stairs.

  Ruby jumped a mile and knocked a box to the floor of the closet. The box contained a baby monitor, and it hit the floor with a thud.

  “Ruby?” her aunt called again. “Are you all right?”

  Ruby hastily replaced the box and closed the door. “Yup!” she replied. “Be right there!”

  Ruby’s heart was pounding, but she was proud of herself. She had completed the first of her tasks, examining the scene of the crime. She knew that technically the closet was not the scene of any crime, but she didn’t know what else to call it, and anyway, “scene of the crime” had a very exciting ring to it.

  Ruby ate her entire dinner wondering how she could search Aunt Allie’s study, and just as they were finishing their dessert (Ruby used the term loosely, since she herself did not consider sliced peaches a dessert), the telephone rang.

  “Excuse me,” said Aunt Allie. She answered the phone, listened for a moment, then said to Ruby, “Sorry, this is going to take a little while, but I’ll try to keep it as short as possible. We can make popcorn when I finish, if you like.”

  “Oh!” Ruby brightened. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about the call. Um, take your time.”

  Ruby knew that a good niece would clean up the kitchen while her aunt was busy, but Ruby couldn’t waste this opportunity. While Allie sat at the kitchen table, making notes on a pad of paper, Ruby slipped down the hall and stood at the entrance to the study. She glanced over her shoulder a couple of times, and when she could still hear her aunt talking on the phone, she stole into the room. One step, two, then three, then four and she had reached the desk. Gingerly, she slid out the chair and sat on it. She clasped her hands together, unclasped them, and at last she opened the top desk drawer, the long one above her knees.

  Ruby, trying to listen for sounds from the kitchen and search for clues at the same time, saw several markers, a pile of rubber bands, a container of paper clips, a ruler, a stack of blank mailing labels, and a roll of return address labels.

  “Well. This is dull,” said Ruby aloud.

  She closed the drawer, eyed the three stacked drawers to her left, and opened the top one. Here she found stationery and postcards. “Bor —” she started to say, but then she noticed other things. In one corner were two photos of her and Flora taken over the summer. She found a letter from Allie’s editor. She found some business cards and a reminder to make an appointment to have her teeth cleaned at Dr. Malone’s.

  Ruby was about to close the drawer and tackle the one below when her eye fell on another photo. This one showed Aunt Allie posing with an incredibly handsome man in front of a building that Ruby guessed was somewhere in New York City. Both Allie and the man were grinning widely and her aunt was making the thumbs-up sign. Ruby turned the photo over. On the back a date had been scribbled — July of the summer before Allie had moved back to Camden Falls.

  “Huh,” said Ruby aloud. And then her eyes fell on a slender envelope. The return address was Guatemala. “Whoa,” said Ruby. She reached for the envelope.

  “Ahem.”

  Ruby jerked her hand back and slammed the drawer shut so quickly that she nearly caught her fingers in it. Her aunt was standing in the doorway.

  “I — I was just looking for a pen,” said Ruby, reddening, as she noticed a jar of pens sitting in plain view on top of the desk.

  Her aunt looked away. “Well. Time for popcorn,” she said.

  Ruby stared. Didn’t her aunt know she was lying about the pens? Wasn’t she going to ask Ruby any questions?

  Ruby grabbed a pen from the jar (she might as well follow through with her lie) and joined Allie in the kitchen.

  All evening she waited for the questions to come but none did. It was as if, Ruby thought later as she lay in bed trying to fall asleep, her aunt didn’t want to talk about what had happened. And that didn’t make any sense to Ruby. Why didn’t Allie want to talk about it? Was she hiding something? Ruby couldn’t wait to give Flora a report on her snooping.

  The last thing Ruby thought as she finally drifted off to sleep was that she hadn’t had an opportunity to
peek in her aunt’s bedroom.

  On Halloween morning, true to her word, Ruby arrived at Lacey’s house as soon as she returned from her sleepover at Aunt Allie’s.

  “I’m here!” she announced when Lacey answered the bell. “And I just called Hilary. She’s going to come right over.”

  “My mom’s a little mad,” Lacey whispered to Ruby as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. “About the costumes. She said she never made anything as complicated as the Eiffel Tower, and now it’s going to waste. Except that it isn’t really going to go to waste because I talked Alyssa into wearing it in a few years.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” said Ruby. “I wish I had someone to give the Leaning Tower of Pizza to. I told Min I could donate it somewhere but she said she hasn’t heard of any charities looking for Halloween costumes.”

  “Well, maybe we can wear them next year,” said Lacey brightly. “They’ll still fit.”

  Hilary arrived a few moments later, announced that her parents were cross about the Statue of Liberty costume, and then said, “So. Guess what. I had a great idea. I think we should be three characters from The Hobbit.”

  “That is a great idea,” agreed Ruby, “but we’d need a lot of help with those costumes, and believe me, no one is going to help us now. We’re on our own. If we’re not going to finish the flower costumes, then we need to come up with something simple.”

  Lacey scrunched up her face. “Something simple,” she repeated. “Hmm.”

  “How about ghosts?” said Hilary.

  “Boring,” said Lacey and Ruby.

  “Beauty queens, then. We could just wear our bathing suits.”

  “Boring,” said Lacey.

  “Plus we’d freeze,” added Ruby.

  “Well, if all the simple ideas are so boring, why don’t we just wear the costumes our parents made?” asked Hilary. “They’re definitely not boring.”

  Ruby shrugged. “It’s fun to keep changing our minds. Don’t you think?”

  “But now we’ve run out of time,” said Lacey.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Ruby. “I know what we could be and it’s really, really unusual and I think we could make the costumes in a couple of hours.”

  “What?” cried Hilary.

  “What?” cried Lacey.

  “A still life,” said Ruby.

  “What’s a still life?” asked Hilary and Lacey.

  “It’s a painting of a bunch of fruit.”

  Silence fell over Lacey’s room.

  “I don’t see —” began Hilary.

  “How are we supposed to —” began Lacey.

  “Simple,” interrupted Ruby. “Each of us will be a piece of fruit. Like, Hilary could be a banana and Lacey could be a pear and I could be a grape. Or a bunch of grapes. It would be fun. And they would be really cool costumes. I bet nobody else tonight will be dressed as a banana or a pear or a bunch of grapes.”

  “Well … huh,” said Lacey after a moment. “I like that idea.”

  “Me, too,” agreed Hilary. “Except I don’t want to be the banana. You be the banana, Ruby, and I’ll be the bunch of grapes.”

  Ruby considered this. “Okay.”

  “All right,” said Lacey. “That’s settled, then. Now, how are we going to turn ourselves into these pieces of fruit?”

  Ruby flopped backward on Lacey’s bed. “Actually,” she said after a moment, “I think the banana will be the easiest costume. Mostly, I just have to wear yellow. I could wear my yellow leotard and yellow tights — I think I have yellow tights — and Flora’s yellow coat. And I’ll wear a brown cap on my head. You know how the tops of bananas are always brown. Now, a pear … that’s going to be a little more difficult.” Ruby considered Lacey, squinted her eyes, and said, “How are we going to make you pear shaped?”

  “Stuffing?” suggested Hilary.

  “Hey! I just got a great idea for the grapes!” exclaimed Lacey. “We’ll get a bag of green balloons, blow them up, and stick them all over Hilary.” She turned to Hilary. “If you wear brown clothes, then your arms and legs can be the stems.”

  “Brilliant,” said Ruby.

  Late on Halloween afternoon, as darkness was beginning to fall and the store owners on Main Street were making their final preparations for trick-or-treaters, Ruby, Lacey, and Hilary bounded into Min’s house. “Flora?” shouted Ruby. “Flora!”

  “I’m up in my room!” called Flora.

  Ruby thundered up the stairs to the second floor, Hilary and Lacey at her heels. The girls were wearing their costumes.

  “Ta-da!” sang Ruby as she flung herself into Flora’s room. She came to a fast stop, and Lacey and Hilary ran into her.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Flora. “Hi! Wow … look at you guys.”

  “Do you like our new costumes?” asked Lacey.

  “I love them,” said Flora. “Love them.”

  “Really?” asked Hilary.

  “They’re … they’re unique.”

  Lacey leaned forward and whispered to Hilary, “Is unique a good thing?”

  Hilary frowned. “I guess so.”

  “Gosh. Tell me all about your costumes,” said Flora diplomatically, putting down the book she’d been reading.

  “We’re fruit,” said Lacey.

  “We’re a still life,” said Ruby sternly. “Banana, pear, grapes,” she added, pointing out each in turn.

  “Wow. You guys are fabulous.” Flora glanced at her watch. “Hey, Lacey, Hilary. Do you two have to check in with your parents before you go to Main Street? If you do, you’d better go home now. It’s almost five o’clock.”

  The girls left and Ruby sat down on the edge of Flora’s bed. “What are you going to wear to the dance?” she asked.

  “That,” Flora replied, pointing across the room to the outfit she’d draped over the back of a chair. “Um, Ruby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know what would be really cool to add to your costumes?”

  “What?” Ruby straightened up.

  “A sign. I could help you with it. We could make it right now.”

  “What kind of sign?”

  “One that says STILL LIFE. You know, in case some people aren’t familiar with, um, art forms. Little kids, for instance, might not know about something as sophisticated as a still life painting. What do you think? Should we make a sign?”

  Ruby looked doubtful. “Well … okay. I guess so.”

  “Believe me, it’ll be a nice addition to your costumes,” said Flora, hurrying to get out her paints.

  At six-thirty, the banana, the bunch of grapes, and the pear turned onto Main Street.

  Hilary drew in her breath. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Look at everything.” Her gaze traveled up and down the busy street. “I don’t understand.”

  Ruby frowned. “What don’t you understand?”

  “Well, I live on Main Street. I’ve watched the decorations go up. I know what they look like — the lights, the pumpkins. But tonight the town is … I don’t know …”

  “Magical?” suggested Ruby.

  “I guess so. Wow.”

  “That’s because it’s actually Halloween night, and people are out in their costumes,” said Ruby. “It’s kind of like on Christmas Eve when everyone comes to town to see Santa arrive. Nothing has changed since the afternoon, but suddenly everything feels different.”

  “See?” Lacey said to Hilary. “We told you it would be fun to go trick-or-treating on Main Street.”

  “And I’m only a little sad that Flora and Olivia aren’t here,” said Ruby.

  Lacey and Hilary turned to glare at her.

  “I said I’m only a little sad! Did you not hear me?”

  Hilary took a good look down Main Street before she and Ruby and Lacey stepped inside Dutch Haus. The windows of the stores and businesses were outlined in orange and white lights. Carved pumpkins stood by doorways and everywhere, everywhere were people in costumes. Grown-ups and children and store owners and even dogs. (The dogs, Hilary guesse
d, were wearing the outfits they’d worn the previous afternoon in Nikki’s parade.) During the moments that Hilary and her friends paused outside Dutch Haus, they saw two fairies, a giant parrot, George Washington, a milk shake, and a dog in a cow costume.

  Ruby opened the door to Dutch Haus. A woman wearing a red dress, a curly red wig, and a pair of tap shoes appeared before her and held out a basket of candy bars.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Ruby. “Little Orphan Annie. That’s a good costume, Jeanne.” She turned to Lacey and Hilary and said, “We should have been characters from Annie. I could have been Annie and you guys could have been orphans.”

  “Or,” said Lacey, “one of us could have been Annie and you could have been an orphan.”

  “Why should I —” said Ruby.

  “Girls,” interrupted Jeanne, “turn around. Let me see your costumes. Hey, those are great. Crayons! What an original idea.”

  Ruby whipped out the sign.

  “Oh,” said Jeanne. “Oh, dear. Well, you are very colorful fruit. Did you all get candy bars? Feel free to take more than one.”

  Hilary’s eyes widened. “Really? We can take two?”

  “Yup,” said Ruby proudly. “That’s another one of the great things about trick-or-treating around here.”

  “Cool!” said Hilary. “Let’s get going. Let’s go to all the stores in order. We’ll go as far as the square on this side of the street — do they even give out candy at the grocery store?”

  “Yup,” replied Lacey.

  “Excellent. And then we should cross and go down the other side of Main Street and then cross back and end up at the diner. You guys have to see my mom and dad. At first they didn’t want to wear costumes, but then they got in the spirit, so now they’re dressed as Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein. And guess what,” Hilary chattered as the girls left Dutch Haus.

  “What?” said Ruby.

  “My mom is Frankenstein and my dad is the bride.”

  Lacey and Ruby giggled.

  The Still Life collected lollipops at Verbeyst’s, Junior Mints at College Pizza, and handfuls of penny candy at the art supply store. Ruby was variously identified as a canary, a squash, and a pencil. No one had any idea what Hilary was.