"Does it have to be during the dinner party?" Caroline almost wailed. "We're having mashed potatoes and chocolate cake and—"
"I won't do it till the end of dessert," J.P. said. "If you're sure it's chocolate cake."
Caroline trudged back to the kitchen. "Cake should be done, Mom," she announced with phony cheerfulness. "Tell me how to start making frosting. And you stay right here and watch me, okay? I don't want to mess it up."
Glancing behind her, she could see J.P. on all fours, crawling from his room to Frederick Fiske's chair with some wires in his hand.
Gregor Keretsky was the first to arrive. Caroline met him downstairs at the front door and nodded when he asked in a low, concerned voice, "Is this necktie all right?"
"Brown and beige, with some yellow squiggles," she told him. "It will go with the candles."
He was carrying a bouquet of daisies. "For me?" asked Caroline in delight.
"No," he said, smiling. "For your mama. Because she is so kind to invite me for dinner. For you I have something else, something special." He patted the pocket of his jacket.
Mrs. Tate arranged the flowers on the table with pleasure, after she had been introduced to Mr. Keretsky. "Look," she said. "Don't they look beautiful with the yellow candles?"
Gregor Keretsky just smiled. When Joanna Tate had turned away, he winked at Caroline and shrugged. It was their secret: that the flowers, the candles, even his necktie, were all simply gray to him.
It's nice to have a secret with someone, she thought. Then she cringed, thinking of the secret she had with J.P. At the foot of Frederick Fiske's chair, curled unobtrusively around the metal leg, was a knotted ball of wires; from there they went under the rug and reappeared again on the floor leading into her brother's bedroom.
And now she had another awful secret, this one with her mother, who had made her promise not to tell. When they'd been frosting the cake together, her mother had whispered, "Guess what, Caroline. I have an absolute, full-fledged, major crush on Frederick Fiske."
Caroline had continued to swirl chocolate frosting around the sides of the cake. Her heart sank. She managed a small half-smile.
"You know the fifty-third thing I love about you, Caroline?" asked her mother happily. "You're so inscrutable."
Caroline didn't even know what inscrutable meant. But she was fairly certain it didn't mean someone who was planning to turn her mother's heart throb into a grilled cheese sandwich.
Mrs. Tate was pouring Gregor Keretsky a glass of wine when the front doorbell buzzed again, and Caroline ran downstairs to let Stacy in.
"COMES BY BUS, LEAVES BY CAB," Stacy announced. "I promised my mom that I'd get a taxi home, because it'll be dark." They bounded up the stairs together. "What's for dinner? And is your brother going to be here?"
J.P. came out of his bedroom when Stacy arrived. To her surprise, Caroline saw that he was wearing his sports jacket and his only necktie. "All of a sudden there's a dress code for electronic events?" she murmured in his ear as she passed him on the way to the kitchen. But J.P. paid no attention. He also paid no attention to Mr. Keretsky, beyond a polite how-do-you-do. He paid a lot of attention to Stacy Baurichter, who began to giggle and fool with her hair.
Finally there was a knock on the door, and Frederick Fiske was there. In unison, after the introductions, Caroline and J.P. said politely, "Thank you for the cannolis, Mr. Fiske." Caroline added meaningfully, "We both ate them Friday night." They watched his face.
He'll squirm uncomfortably, thought Caroline. He'll wonder why we're not dead. There was enough arsenic on the cannolis to kill a Triceratops.
But Frederick Fiske didn't squirm at all. He grinned and said, "I'm glad you liked them."
He had brought a bottle of wine as a gift. Caroline thought briefly that she should change her list of evidence to read "Very Severe Alcoholism," but the list had been stuffed into one of the galoshes, on top of the cannolis. And, of course, her very own mother and Gregor Keretsky were sipping wine as well.
She would bring out the list when the police arrived. Frederick Fiske would be stunned by then, dazed and stupefied; probably she and J.P. should tie him up. Then the police would come. She would present the list and the evidence itself: the cannolis dusted with poison, which could go to the lab for analysis; the arsenic that had been cleverly hidden in Fiske's Baby Powder can; the sinister pink rubber glove, probably filled on the inside with Frederick Fiske's fingerprints; the damning notes from the secret agent; and of course the corpus delicti, which probably still had poison on its tiny whiskers.
Suddenly she noticed that J.P. was inching closer to her on the couch. The adults were all talking about what a lovely spring day it had been. Stacy was listening politely and nodding, and inch by inch J.P. was moving over toward Caroline until he was close enough to whisper in her ear.
"He's not going to be grounded," J.P. said in a very low and very perturbed voice.
Caroline looked at him, puzzled. "Of course he's not going to be grounded," she whispered back. "He's going to be electrocuted. You and me, J.P., we're going to be grounded—probably for months—if this scheme doesn't work right."
J.P. shook his head impatiently. "He's not going to be grounded electrically, because he has rubber soles on his shoes," he muttered. "I don't think the zap will work unless he takes his shoes off." He sidled back to his place on the couch and smiled politely at everyone.
Caroline frowned. Maybe, she thought, it would be just as well if the zap didn't work. Then this pleasant dinner party wouldn't be disrupted by police, and they could all have second helpings of chocolate cake, and—
No, she thought. Fiske will find a way to sprinkle poison on my cake and J.P.'s. Maybe he'll even do Stacy's. The agent said to eliminate the kids. Even though he's sitting there posing as Mr. Nice Guy, and even though my mother has a full-fledged crush on him, and even though he seems to like her a whole lot and maybe even regrets by now that he has to eliminate the kids—still, he's under orders. If we don't zap him tonight, he'll still be at large, and his deadline is May first, and he probably has poison in his pocket, ready to use.
"It's such a warm night," Caroline said aloud. "I guess I'll take off my shoes. Maybe we'd all be more comfortable with our shoes off. What do you think, J.P.?" She kicked off her sandals and wiggled her bare toes. Her mother gave her a very dirty look.
"Good idea," said J.P. loudly. He pried off his dress shoes, one after the other. "Stacy? Everybody?"
Stacy giggled. "Sure, J.P.," she said. "You have great ideas." Stacy untied her shoes and took them off.
The adults were all looking at them curiously. Finally Joanna Tate said, in a flustered voice, "Well, the forty-third thing I love about Caroline is that she's sometimes completely unpredictable. Just when I'm feeling very proud of her good manners, she surprises me by doing something very strange. J.P., too." She glared at Caroline and J.P.
Caroline ignored the glare. This is for your own good, Mom, she thought. You will thank me for this.
"Mr. Keretsky?" said Caroline. "Wouldn't you like to take your shoes off, too?" She looked very meaningfully at Gregor Keretsky. He looked a little confused. He stared at Caroline; then he stared at his shoes, as if there might be some explanation there. He hitched up his trouser legs a little and peered at his shoes with a quizzical frown.
Stacy began to laugh. Then Joanna Tate started to laugh. Frederick Fiske chuckled.
"Forgive me, Mr. Keretsky," Caroline's mother said. "I shouldn't laugh. But do you know that you're wearing one blue sock and one green one?"
Gregor Keretsky grinned sheepishly. "Ah, Caroline," he said with a sigh, "my darkest secret is exposed."
From the kitchen, the timer on the stove buzzed.
"Dinner's ready," Joanna Tate said, standing up. "Caroline, will you come and help me in the kitchen? J.P., will you show everyone to their seats? And both of you—you too, Stacy—will you kindly put your shoes back on?"
Caroline leaned over to put on h
er sandals and whispered to J.P., who was forcing his feet back into his own shoes, "This is going to be a horrible evening. Horrible horrible horrible."
Stacy had retied her shoes. She stood up. "KIDS RE-SHOD," she announced, "MEAL BEGINS."
13
Outside, the spring evening had turned from pink and gold to a dark, threatening night. Thunder rumbled across the city.
Joanna Tate refilled the adults' wine glasses and got up to close the windows. "It's raining," she said. "So much for the beautiful spring weather."
"April showers," said Frederick Fiske.
"Nope," announced Joanna Tate. "April downpour."
"When I was in London last week," said Gregor Keretsky, "it rained both days." He looked up suddenly and smiled. "That reminds me! I brought Caroline a small gift from my conference. You will forgive me if I make this little presentation during dinner?"
Everyone nodded and watched curiously as he removed a little packet from the inside pocket of his suit coat. He grinned proudly. "For most of you, this will seem a strange gift, I think. But for Caroline, I hope it will be a treasure." Meticulously he unwrapped the bit of folded paper and then held up a tiny, gray, mottled object. He handed it to Caroline, who took it carefully and held it in the palm of her open hand.
"What is it—a rock?" asked Stacy, peering across the table.
Caroline grinned and shook her head. She knew it wasn't a rock.
"It's a chip of a mastodon bone," Gregor Keretsky explained. "Radiocarbon dates it about one and a half million years ago."
"Early Pleistocene," breathed Caroline, in awe. She turned it over and over in her hand.
"A glacial period," Gregor Keretsky explained. "New York was probably covered with ice when this mastodon lived."
"Even the Empire State Building?" asked Stacy, reaching for some more string beans.
Everyone laughed, even Stacy, after she had thought for a moment. "Someday we'll all be extinct," said Frederick Fiske. "Someday I suppose scientists will be digging up our bones."
His voice, and what he had said, brought Caroline back to reality from the Early Pleistocene Age. You first, she thought; you're going to be extinct before I am, Frederick Fiske. J.P. and I are going to see to that as soon as we finish the dessert.
"Well," said Joanna Tate, "this leg of lamb is extinct. I guess it's time for chocolate cake."
"Mom," said Caroline, "you stay right in your seat. J.P. and I can clear the table and serve the cake." Carefully she put the mastodon bone into the pocket of her skirt. "Thank you, Mr. Keretsky. It's the best gift anyone ever gave me."
She and her brother conferred in the kitchen as they scraped the bits of food from the plates into the garbage disposal. Lightning streaked across the sky outside and was followed by heavy, shuddering thunder.
"Good night for a murder," Caroline remarked, shivering. She nibbled at a string bean that Stacy had left on her plate. "Keep your eye on Fiske in case he tries to sprinkle poison on our dessert."
J.P. was sulking. "I can't zap him, Caroline, unless he takes off his shoes. I spent all afternoon rigging up that zapper, and then he wore rubber-soled shoes, the jerk."
Caroline sliced the chocolate cake carefully and put it on plates. She could hear her mother and the company talking and laughing in the other room.
"I have an idea," she said slowly, watching the rain splatter against the kitchen window. "I think I can get his shoes off."
"How?" J.P.'s eyes brightened.
"Never mind. It's too complicated to describe. You just be ready. When we're almost finished with dessert, you watch me. I'll get Fiske's shoes off—for a minute, at least; the timing will have to be perfect—and you press your switch when I say 'Now.'"
"It's not a switch; it's a button. I've got it all rigged on the floor. I press the button with my foot, and it activates the wire to his chair leg, which activates the wire attached to the flat bottom of Mom's old iron, which I slipped in through the ripped part of the chair seat so that it's right under his butt, and the whole thing's attached to my old Lionel train transformer in my room, and—"
"Skip the details. I don't understand electricity, anyway. Here—take some of these plates in."
Caroline and J.P. served the cake and poured coffee for the adults. As Caroline leaned over Stacy to put her plate down, Stacy whispered, "He doesn't seem like a crazed killer. I think he's kind of nice."
"Wait till you see all the evidence laid out. Later," Caroline whispered back.
Caroline watched all the plates. Gregor Keretsky ate his cake slowly, savoring each bite. "This is wonderful," he said. "Caroline, your mama said you helped her make this cake. Maybe you should become a chef instead of a paleontologist?"
His eyes were twinkling. Caroline knew he was only joking.
Stacy nibbled at her cake, fastidiously wiping crumbs from her mouth with her napkin. "I'm really interested in the Computer Club at school, J.P.," she was saying. "What exactly do you do?"
Caroline groaned to herself. She knew Stacy didn't give a hoot about the Computer Club. What Stacy was interested in, all of a sudden, was Caroline's brother. She was going to have to have a serious talk with Stacy. Once a woman got involved with the opposite sex, her whole future career could go down the drain.
Frederick Fiske was also devouring his cake enthusiastically, and his plate was almost empty. He was scraping up the last bits of frosting with his fork. It was time. She glanced meaningfully at J.P.
Caroline took a deep breath. If her plan didn't work, she didn't have any alternative plan in mind, and the whole thing would be a horrible failure. Horrible horrible horrible.
She took a big bite of cake. Then she said, "This cake makes me very thirsty." With her left hand she picked up her glass of milk and took a swallow. Still holding the glass of milk, she took her mastodon bone out of her pocket.
"This is such a wonderful gift, Mr. Keretsky," she said.
She glanced up to be sure that J.P. was watching. She dropped the small chip of bone on the floor. "Whoops!" she said. "I dropped it!" Everyone, including J.P., looked a little startled.
"Excuse me, everyone," Caroline said. "I know it's rude to crawl under the table, but I don't want to lose my mastodon bone."
Still holding her glass of milk, she knelt on the floor and then disappeared under the tablecloth.
"Don't move your feet, anyone!" she called in a commanding voice. "I don't want anyone to step on the mastodon bone!"
Quickly she returned the chip of bone to her pocket. No matter what else happened, she wasn't going to sacrifice the mastodon bone. Caroline glanced around at the pairs of feet under the table. There were Mr. Keretsky's, with their unmatched socks. There were her mother's, in dark brown high-heeled shoes. There were Stacy's, curled around the rung of her chair. There were J.P.'s best shoes, and beside them, with wires running from it, was a small button that looked like a discarded doorbell. J.P.'s left foot moved and arranged itself over the button in pushing position.
And there were Frederick Fiske's feet in their rubber-soled loafers. For an eerie instant she wondered whether, with his shoes off, he would reveal huge scaly feet with long curved nails, like those of a Tyrannosaurus.
But she didn't hesitate. She poured her glass of milk over both of Frederick Fiske's feet, carefully including his socks. He jumped.
"Sorry!" called Caroline from under the table. "Don't get up, Mr. Fiske. By mistake I spilled my milk. Here, let me help you get your shoes off so I can dry them with my napkin!" She grabbed one of his feet so that he couldn't stand up, and in an instant she had both of his loafers off.
"NOW, J.P.!" she yelled. And her brother's foot came down hard on the button.
There was a loud buzzing noise, a flash of sparks, and everything went dark.
Caroline groped her way through the maze of human legs and the folds of the tablecloth. She re-emerged into a room that was totally dark except for the two small sputtering candles on the table. She looked at the dim fig
ures seated around the table, expecting to see Frederick Fiske slumped in his chair, zapped and stunned.
But Frederick Fiske was laughing. He was bending over to mop at his wet socks with his napkin.
"What on earth happened?" asked Joanna Tate. "Where are the lights?"
"It must be the storm," explained Gregor Keretsky. He stood up and looked through the window, out into the rainy street. "The street lights are on. And the lights in other buildings. Could it be maybe just a fuse?"
Caroline peered through the darkness at J.P. He was sitting silently, with his head in his hands. "I blew it," she could hear him mutter.
"Well," said Frederick Fiske, standing up, "I can squish down the stairs to the basement, I guess, and see if I can find the fuse box." He went to the door of the apartment, stumbling into a chair in the darkness, and opened it. They could hear him speak to someone in the pitch-black hall. In a moment he was back.
"Jason Carruthers is going down," he said. "All the lights are off in the whole building. He's going to find a flashlight and check out the wiring in the basement. He said we should just sit tight."
Sure we'll sit tight, thought Caroline. Here we are in a dark room with a murderer, a thunderstorm outside, two candles that are just about to go out, and no other candles in the house.
I want my Stegosaurus, she thought suddenly. I want my stuffed Stegosaurus.
Then she reached into her pocket, remembering her mastodon bone. She held it tightly in her hand and found that it was just as comforting as the stuffed animal on her closet shelf.
One of the candles, no more than a stub now, flickered and went out. "LIGHT FAILS," headlined Stacy a little nervously. Outside another roar of thunder rumbled across the sky; heavy sheets of rain washed against the windows in the gusty wind.
The last candle flared briefly, hissed, and went out. Now the room was completely dark.
"I think," said Joanna Tate cheerfully, "that we should have a conversation. It's a little spooky, sitting here without saying anything."
"Not spooky," said Gregor Keretsky. "It's cozy, being with other people. Most nights I am alone in my little apartment. For me it is more pleasant to be with friends, even in the dark, than to be alone with bright lights on. Don't you think so, Caroline?" Through the darkness he reached over and took Caroline's hand. Now she had the mastodon bone in one hand and Gregor Keretsky's firm hand in her other. She felt better, less terrified.