Absolutely Truly

  “Of course,” I echoed, still feeling stunned.

  “So how does the Saturday after next sound?”

  “Fine, I guess,” I said, wondering whether I should tell Cha Cha about the letter. I pulled it out of my back pocket.

  “Oops, gotta go,” she said, before I could bring it up. “There’s a call on the other line. I’ll pencil you in for eleven thirty. Let me know if that doesn’t work, okay? See you tomorrow!”

  “But—”

  She’d hung up.

  I sighed and replaced the receiver, turned out the light, and headed back upstairs. I hesitated in front of the door leading to the third floor, but a series of random thumps from above signaled that my brothers were practicing their wrestling moves. It probably smelled like the boys’ locker room up there, plus they got cranky when they were interrupted. I’d talk to Hatcher later.

  “Truly!”

  I poked my head into my sisters’ bathroom to see my mother holding up a towel for Pippa. Pippa’s old enough to get ready for bed on her own, but she likes to have Mom help her. It’s part of being the baby of the family, I guess.

  “How was your first day, sweetie?” my mother asked, as Pippa climbed out of the tub. “I didn’t get to talk to you much at dinner.”

  Sometimes it feels like I’m more in stealth mode at home than anywhere else.

  “It was okay,” I replied.

  “Make any new friends?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  My mother smiled. “Good. You can tell me all about it in the morning. I need to get a start on my homework once I’m done here. Oh, and Hatcher said he has a bunch of forms for me to sign, so you probably do too. Go ahead and leave them on the kitchen table for me, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Say good night to Truly.” My mother gave my little sister a nudge, and she trotted obediently over, holding her arms up for a hug. I bent down and embraced her gingerly, since she was still pretty damp. She smelled good, though, and I nuzzled her hair. Pippa might be a drama queen, but I love her anyway.

  “Night, Pip,” I said.

  “Night, Truly.”

  I headed down the hall to my room, pausing by Lauren’s door. It was open just a crack, and a strange noise was coming from the other side. I peeked in to see her flopped on her stomach on her bed, reading. No big surprise there. That was Lauren’s usual after-dinner routine. And before-dinner routine, and every-other-time-of-day routine. She was patting her pet rabbit, Thumper, with one hand while she turned the pages of her book with the other. She didn’t look up. When Lauren was engrossed in a book, World War III could start and she wouldn’t notice.

  Thumper was curled up beside her, wearing a doll-size nightgown and a resigned expression. My sister loves dressing up her pets. She’d put a baseball cap on Miss Marple too, who was lying on the braided rug next to the bed, keeping a wary eye on the source of the strange noise—a clear plastic hamster ball rocketing around the room and periodically crashing into the furniture. Nibbles was enthusiastic about exercise.

  Miss Marple heaved herself to her feet when she spotted me. I motioned to her to stay, but she ignored me. Toenails clicking briskly across the bare wooden floor, she shook off her baseball cap and followed me down the hall to my bedroom. I paused at the door and looked down at her, frowning.

  “No, Miss Marple,” I told her firmly. “No dogs allowed in here.”

  Miss Marple sat.

  “Go see Lauren,” I told her.

  She didn’t budge.

  My sister is the animal lover in the family, not me. It’s not that I don’t like animals—I do. From a distance. Which is maybe one reason why I like bird-watching so much. Wild birds don’t shed and they don’t need to be walked or have doggie breath or cages or litter boxes that need cleaning.

  Miss Marple gave a tiny whine. One that I interpreted to mean, I’m afraid of the hamster ball and I don’t want to be dressed up in people clothes and I need a place where I can go into stealth mode.

  “Oh, fine,” I said, relenting. “You can come in. But just this once.”

  I was still getting used to my new bedroom. It was cavernous, with high ceilings and big tall windows on two sides. During the day, light poured in from the back and side yards, which was nice, but at night it was kind of creepy, the way the tall windows stared at me blackly. Crossing the room to pull down the shades, I glanced outside to see that the sky had cleared and a full moon was casting a silvery light on the snow.

  It was a perfect night for owling.

  When I was little and we came to Pumpkin Falls to visit, Gramps used to make up bedtime stories for Danny and Hatcher and me about a family of owls who lived in the barn out back when he was a kid. I asked so many questions about them that he finally bought me a book—All About Owls. I still have it. It’s on the bookcase by my bed, alongside all the other bird books Gramps has sent me over the years.

  Miss Marple settled onto the rug with a wheezy sigh. I pulled down the shades and turned around, pausing for a moment to survey the room. My gaze came to rest on the tiny pottery owl on my dresser, the owl mug full of pencils and pens on my desk, and the black-and-white woodcut of a snowy owl hanging over my bed. The woodcut is my prized possession. I never get tired of looking at it. My mother found it in Germany back when we were living there, and had it framed for me for my birthday.

  I guess I kind of have an owl collection.

  Owls are my favorite birds. I love their beautiful faces and big round eyes. Plus, talk about stealth mode! Besides the fact that owls have awesome camouflage (their patterned feathers make them really hard to spot), they also have built-in mufflers—velvety-soft filaments on the surface of their feathers and a fringe on the edge that are designed to deaden sound. Owls fly almost completely silently, which is exactly how I’d want to fly if I were a bird.

  I went over and sat down on my bed. I ran a finger over the spine of my tattered copy of Owl Moon, which sat between the two brass owl bookends Gramps and Lola had given me this past Christmas. Owl Moon was my favorite picture book when I was Pippa’s age. I still take it out and read it now and then. I always wanted to be that kid in the pictures, the one whose father took him—or was it her?—out on a snowy night to look for owls. But my father was seldom home, and when he was, he was usually in bed early because like practically everybody else in the military he gets up at the crack of dawn, and anyway, we never lived where there were owls nearby.

  And now that there might be, he’s turned into Silent Man and I’m not a little kid anymore.

  I really wished Gramps and Lola were still here. They were both so easy to talk to, and nobody in my family had much time for me lately. Plus, Gramps could have taken me owling.

  Thinking about Gramps reminded me that I needed to be sure and fill up the bird feeders tomorrow. I glanced across the room to the hook on the back of my bedroom door, where my grandfather’s old barn coat and wool hat were hanging. I’d found them waiting there when we moved in, along with a bird carving that Gramps had left for me in the pocket. It was a black-capped chickadee with the words backyard magic carved on the bottom.

  Slipping the mystery envelope out of my pocket, I went and grabbed my laptop off my desk and carried it back over to the bed. I really needed to talk to someone, and was hoping Mackenzie was online.

  She was, and a minute later, her face popped up onscreen.

  “You got your hair cut!” I said in surprise.

  She smiled the same wide Gifford smile I see daily on my mother and Hatcher. “Like it?” She swiveled around so I could check out the sides and back.

  “It’s really cute,” I told her. Of course, everything looks cute on Mackenzie. It’s easy to look cute when you come in such a small package.

  “It’s a lot easier for swimming.”

  I felt an unwelcome stab of envy. Mackenzie was only on a swim team because of me, and now I might not even be able to swim at all. I changed the subject. “How’s Austin?”

&nbsp
; My cousin quickly brought me up to speed on what was going on with her family and with everybody at school, including Mr. Perfect Cameron McAllister, of course. According to Mackenzie, Cameron was even more amazing than ever, and he definitely liked her back because he’d teased her in social studies.

  “Mom says that’s how you know when a boy likes you,” she told me. “So, is Pumpkin Falls as awful as you thought it would be?”

  “Worse,” I replied. “It’s totally Sleepy Hollow here. You’d hate it.” I told her about the upcoming Winter Festival, complete with its stupid dance for the entire town, and about stupid Cotillion, and the frozen waterfall that was front-page news, and how Daniel Webster practically qualified as a one-room schoolhouse.

  “I think it sounds kind of cool.”

  “That’s because you don’t have to live here.”

  She grinned. “Your room looks nice, at least.”

  “Yeah.”

  My room is what Lola calls the Blue Room. It was Aunt True’s when she was growing up—her high school yearbooks are still piled on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, right next to my stash of sudoku. Mom and Dad always stayed here before when we used to visit, but now they’re in Gramps and Lola’s room at the front of the house, so I asked if I could have this bedroom. Blue is my favorite color, and pretty much everything in the room is blue and white, from the braided rug to the bedspread and curtains.

  “Tour?” asked Mackenzie.

  I held up my laptop and panned slowly around. My grandparents had left all their furniture for us to use, and in addition to a desk and bookcase, I had a white four-poster bed, a rocking chair with a blue-and-white quilt folded over the back, and an old-fashioned dresser topped with a blue lamp and an antique blue-and-white china pitcher and bowl.

  “Sweet!” said my cousin when I was done.

  I shrugged. I still missed my aqua “Mermaid” room back in Austin. Mom says military families take their homes with them wherever they go. “A house is just a place to put your home,” she’d remind us every time we moved. But we Lovejoys have been migratory birds for what feels like forever, always borrowing other people’s nests. Even though Gramps and Lola’s is a nice one to borrow, my family had finally had a nest of its own back in Austin. And it felt really unfair that we’d had to leave it.

  “So did you try out for swim team yet?” Mackenzie asked. “Or is Pumpkin Falls too small to have one?”

  I made a face. “It has one, but I’m not on it yet.” I told her about the fiasco with my report card.

  “Seriously?” My cousin’s voice shot up about an octave. “Your dad won’t let you swim unless your grade improves? That’s harsh.”

  “Tell me about it. And even if he changes his mind, I’ll be super out of shape by the time tryouts roll around.”

  “So when are they?”

  “In a few weeks,” I replied.

  “Can you get your math grade up by then?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.” I glanced down at my bedspread and saw the envelope. I’d almost forgotten why I’d wanted to talk to Mackenzie in the first place. “Hey, this weird thing happened today at the bookstore.” I explained about the letter I’d found, holding it up so she could see.

  “And you haven’t opened it yet?” she shrieked in excitement. “What are you waiting for?”

  “You really think I should?”

  “Duh! Aren’t you dying to know what’s inside?”

  I slid a finger under the envelope’s flap and ripped it open. Inside was a yellowed sheet of paper with a quote on it. I read it aloud:

  Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

  “That’s it?” my cousin said.

  “Yup. Except for some numbers and letters underneath.” I read those aloud too: “PR2828.A2 B7.”

  “Weird.”

  “I know, right?”

  “It isn’t signed or anything?”

  “There’s a capital B, just like on the front of the envelope.” I held the sheet of paper closer to the laptop camera so she could get a good look.

  “It’s got to be a message for somebody,” said Mackenzie, her blue eyes sparkling. “Maybe it’s a secret code—you know, spies or something.”

  I laughed out loud. “Spies? In Pumpkin Falls?”

  “It could happen,” she insisted.

  “No, it couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because nothing ever happens here,” I told her.

  “Well, something just did!” my cousin replied. “You’ve got a mystery on your hands, Truly!”

  CHAPTER 9

  I needed to talk to my mother.

  Hoping that she might be able to help me solve the puzzle, I headed downstairs, passing under the gaze of several centuries of Lovejoys as I did so.

  “Obadiah, Abigail, Jeremiah, Ruth,” I chanted, reading the names on the brass plates embedded across the bottom of each of the frames. I slowed as I reached the last two in the lineup—Matthew Lovejoy and his wife, the original Truly. The stair tread creaked loudly as I took another step down, passing Matthew in his Civil War uniform—Union Army, of course—and coming face-to-face with my namesake’s portrait. I squinted at it. Did I look like her? I guess our hair was sort of the same color, and we both had brown eyes, but if she’d had freckles like me, the painter hadn’t added them.

  My mother’s voice drifted out from the kitchen, mingling with the clatter of dishes and silverware. “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah, someone’s in the kitchen, I know-oh-oh-oh. . . .”

  Uh-oh, I thought, suddenly struck by a pang of guilt. Hatcher and I were supposed to have taken care of the supper dishes again tonight, but I’d gotten sidetracked by the envelope.

  “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah”—my mother held the high note for a long moment, then swooped down to the final stanza—“strumming on an old banjo.” Her voice was soft and sad, so different from the way Dad used to sing it. He’d always belt it out, tossing us a wink as he slipped his arm around Mom’s waist and waltzed her around the room.

  Singing and waltzing weren’t so much on Dad’s agenda these days. At all, in fact.

  As I reached the bottom of the stairs, the doorbell rang.

  “Could somebody get that?” Mom called. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

  “Sure, Mom,” I called back.

  I crossed to the front door and opened it, letting in a blast of icy air that nearly knocked me off my feet. A tall woman, nearly as tall as me, stood on our doorstep, dressed in a long black wool coat. Her head was wound so thoroughly in a black scarf that only her eyes were visible. They gleamed behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses, darting around the hall.

  Crow, I thought. Most definitely a crow.

  “Um, can I help you?” I said, as the woman brushed past me and stepped inside. I closed the door behind her.

  She craned over my shoulder, peering into the living room as if she were looking for someone.

  “May I help you,” corrected my mother, emerging from the kitchen. She smiled at our visitor and held out her hand. “I’m Dinah Lovejoy, and this is my daughter Truly.”

  “Yes, I know.” The woman shook Mom’s hand, then extricated herself from her scarves, revealing a gaunt face sharply divided by a knife blade of a nose and topped with a pouf of teased hair that looked like it had been dipped in a pot of ink. She carefully patted it into place, her mouth pruning up in a thin smile. “Figured I’d drop this by on my way home,” she said, holding out a stack of mail. “I’m Ella Bellow.”

  “Ahhh,” my mother replied, as if that explained everything. “Well, thank you so much, Mrs. Bellow.”

  The woman looked around again. “I thought I might say hello to J. T., too, if he’s in. I heard about what happened to him. We all did, of course. Such a pity. I’ve known him since he was just a nipper.”

  I’d never heard my dad called a “nipper” before. I filed this away to share with Hatcher an
d Mackenzie.

  “He’s working late at the bookstore tonight,” my mother told her. “Inventory, you know.”

  “Yes, I heard he and his sister were taking over the business. Things haven’t been going so well at the shop, from what I understand.” She paused. “Not that times aren’t tough everywhere—Bud Jefferson over at the coin and stamp shop is struggling too.”

  My mother’s face flushed angrily.

  “Think your family can make a go of it?” Mrs. Bellow continued. “I mean, what with J. T.’s condition and all?”

  “My husband can do anything he puts his mind to,” my mother replied stiffly.

  Our visitor’s mouth pruned up again. “Well, I suppose time will tell. Good evening to you, Mrs. Lovejoy.” She nodded to both of us, then left.

  My mother closed the door firmly behind her. “Well, of all the nerve!”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Only the biggest busybody in Pumpkin Falls! Your grandmother warned me about her. She’s the postmistress.”

  “Is the coast clear?” someone whispered.

  My mother and I jumped. Turning around, I saw my father peering out from behind the kitchen door.

  “I came in through the barn,” he said. “Recognized her car in the driveway. I’m not up to one of Ella’s interrogations. Not tonight.” He shook his head wearily.

  “Truly, I think it’s time for you to go on upstairs and get ready for bed,” my mother told me.

  “What?! It’s not even nine o’clock yet!”

  “It’s been a long day for everyone,” she added, with a slight but significant nod in my father’s direction.

  “But—”

  “No buts, honey.” She gave me a gentle push toward the stairs. “Go on now.”

  I hesitated. I could tell my mother was worried about Dad, and I was torn between a wish to be obedient and a burning desire to enlist her help with the mystery envelope.

  Obedience won out.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said meekly. “See you in the morning.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.” She stretched up to kiss my cheek, then followed my father into the kitchen.