Ted had no idea, and it bothered him not to know.
So as he rode home from school on Wednesday, Ted decided to go straight down Main Street, hop off his bike, and walk right into town hall—which had recently moved into a former insurance office.
Because Ted thought if he asked the right person the right questions, maybe he could get some real information about April. And her mom and brother. What could be the harm in that?
Ted pedaled faster, thinking of all the questions he was going to ask.
As much as his head wanted him to hurry to town hall, Ted’s stomach wanted him to stop—for an after-school snack. Just a little one. It would only take a few minutes. After all, the E&A Market was right on the way to town hall.
So Ted listened to his stomach, and he stopped.
In books about how to solve mysteries, nowhere does it say that a detective ought to listen to his stomach. But maybe it should. Because Ted’s stomach was about to lead him to some vital information.
Chapter 18
BIG NEWS
All the eighth graders in room one thought the fourth-grade kids were funny, even cute. And they all got a big kick out of Kevin—who was probably smarter than any three of them combined.
But the four big kids didn’t have much use for the one sixth grader in room one. They barely noticed him. Maybe they needed to feel like they were so far beyond sixth grade. Maybe they thought they were so much older, so much more mature. Whatever the reason, the eighth graders basically ignored Ted, especially when all four of them were together—which was almost always.
However, when Ted happened to catch one eighth grader alone, it wasn’t so bad. Of all the eighth graders, Josh was the one most willing to be friendly toward a lowly sixth grader. And, as Ted was buying a bottle of root beer and a Slim Jim sausage at the E&A Market on Wednesday afternoon, Josh was in line right behind him, buying exactly the same snack.
So they both sat on the bench in front of the store, unscrewed the caps of their twenty-ounce bottles, and on a silent signal, began guzzling to see who could drink the most before stopping.
Josh won. And after a terrific burp that made Mrs. Gorsley on the other side of the street stop and frown at him, he said, “So, di’juh hear about what happened at the Anderson farm the other night?”
Ted almost blew root beer out of his nose. But he tried to act cool. After all, Plattsford was a very small town. It was entirely possible that the news about April and her family had spread to everyone.
Ted nodded. “Yeah, I heard.”
Josh ripped the end off the Slim Jim wrapper, took a big bite, started chewing, and leaned in closer. “Well listen to this—I found out the girl might get sent to juvie. Been in trouble before.”
Ted stared. “R-really?”
Josh nodded, “Yeah, big-time. Fighting at school, shoplifting, stuff like that.” To underline this point, Josh shot a big wad of spit onto the sidewalk. He wiped his chin and said, “Yeah, I heard all about it from my brother.”
“From your brother?” Ted said.
“Yeah, Jimmy. He’s at the high school, same grade as your sister. Who I think is very nice, by the way. The news is all over Wheaton High.”
Ted shook his head. The information was coming too fast. He felt like he was having trouble hearing.
He said, “But what … what actually happened? At the Anderson place?”
Josh took another bite of sausage. He enjoyed seeing how Ted was so impressed. “Yeah, well, it was like these five kids from Wheaton, and they were out, driving around, like after they went to a movie. And they drove in the driveway at the farm, and somebody saw the car. Called the cops. So they all got busted. And one of their dads had left some bottles in the trunk and everything. That’s what the kids told the cops—yeah, right. Classic.”
Ted felt like he was in some science fiction movie where everything shifts to slow motion. What Josh just said—he’s … he’s not talking about April. It’s … it’s some high school girl who’s in trouble … it’s not April!
Josh spat again, got up, stretched, and said, “Hey, I’ll see y’around, okay? And say hi to your sister for me. And you can tell her I think that she is very nice.”
Ted sat on the bench, almost in a daze, sorting and sifting and processing this massive chunk of new data. Because if catching those high school kids was the “official business” that Deputy Linwood wouldn’t tell Mrs. Mitchell about … then something else must have happened to April. And Alexa and Artie.
Because they were definitely gone.
Ted tried to picture the scene that night. First, the noisy high school kids came, and then the police arrived, probably with flashing lights. And there must have been a lot of shouting.
And Ted could imagine Alexa getting scared. Because maybe the high school kids had started to come into the house. Or even the police. Alexa and April and Artie must have been scared out of their minds. And then the police and the kids left. And then the three of them must have packed up and left too. Because they wouldn’t have felt safe at the Anderson place anymore, not safe at all.
Then Ted had a terrible thought: Maybe April thought the police came because of me!
But he knew he was just guessing, about all of it.
Only one thing was for sure: A mom and her two kids had left the Andersons’ farmhouse late last Thursday night. In a hurry.
Ted tossed his empty root beer bottle into a trash can, stuck the Slim Jim into his back pocket, and jumped onto his bike.
April and Artie and Alexa could be anywhere by now, but Ted knew exactly where they had started from. And when. So he had to take this new information and go out there right now and look around for clues.
Again.
Chapter 19
NOT MANY WORDS
Ted felt stupid.
He had left the E&A Market and pedaled out to the farm at top speed, not caring if anybody saw him. He had arrived out of breath, rushed into the house, looked up and down and all around. He had turned over every object in the living room, examined the whole attic, poked through each bedroom, scoured the backyard, and even went through the barn.
Then he’d gone back into the house for another walk-through, and he’d looked everywhere again. And all the while, Ted had tried to think like Alexa. He had tried to imagine what plan might have popped into her frightened mind after the police left on Thursday night.
And at the end of thirty-three minutes, what did the great young detective have to show for all the work he had done? Zilch. Zero. Zip.
Ted had found nothing, discovered nothing, learned nothing.
And after this desperate hunt for new clues, Ted had sat on the arm of the reclining chair for almost five minutes, and he had made himself review everything he knew. And all the facts had led right back to where he sat, looking around the cluttered front room in the Andersons’ farmhouse. He felt like he had reached the end of the road.
Ted stood up and walked slowly into the kitchen, defeated, headed for the basement stairs, headed for his bike out in the yard, headed for home. But when he had his hand on the knob of the cellar door, he stopped and stared at the kitchen counter.
And that’s when Ted felt really stupid.
Because in all his rushing about, he had missed an important clue. Something he should have seen, something so easy to spot—actually, to not spot. Because something was missing.
Two days ago the can opener he’d bought had been in the kitchen, lying right there on the counter. And now it wasn’t. And over by the sink? The empty water jug was also gone.
Ted stepped quickly to the counter, reached up, and pulled open the cabinet doors.
The Sterno cans, the instant coffee, the matches, the stew, the bread, soup, everything. Gone.
Ted stared at the red and white checked paper that lined the bottom shelf, and he began running through the possibilities. Could have been some bums came by and cleaned the place out. Could have been more high school kids sneaking in and steali
ng everything. Could have been …
He stopped thinking. He almost stopped breathing. The faded paper had been covering that bottom shelf for many years. It was stuck down flat. But in one place, over on the right side, it was puckered. In that one place, the paper had been peeled up, and then pushed back down. And sticking out from under the front edge of the shelf liner, Ted saw a small piece of dark brown paper—just a corner.
He got hold of that corner and pulled. It slid right out. A Snickers wrapper had been opened flat, and then carefully creased into a rectangle.
The thin plastic crinkled as Ted unfolded it.
Someone had written on the inside of the wrapper. With a blue ballpoint pen. In neat, round, flowing cursive. Not many words.
The first few made a short sentence.
We’re close.
The last word was the name of a month. And a girl.
April
Chapter 20
SECOND CHANCE
“‘We’re close,’” Ted whispered. Then he wondered, How close?
And standing there in the kitchen, the answer came almost instantly. April had to be staying close enough to walk to the Anderson place, get the supplies, and then walk back. And do that without going through town. Or being seen.
Close by. That meant another empty house. And Ted knew there were two other abandoned farmhouses, both less than a mile away, one east along Route 2 and one to the west. They must have gone to one or the other.
But which one?
Ted made himself think logically. The family had arrived at night, and they had come from the east on Route 2, so they had gone right past one of the empty houses, the one to the east. But there wouldn’t have been any lights on, and the house sat back pretty far from the road. They couldn’t have seen it.
An idea flashed into Ted’s mind, and he rushed from the kitchen, dashed through the front room, ran up the stairs to the second floor, and then right on up into the attic. He hurried to April’s window and bent down to examine the wooden frame of the bottom sash. He was panting so hard that his breath made foggy patches on the glass.
Yes—fingerprints in the dust. And the bent nails that had held the window shut? They’d been turned to the side, out of the way. And the side tracks above the sash? Fresh scrape marks on the darkened wood. And on the floor below the window, a piece of wood, the perfect length to use as a prop.
This window had been opened. Recently.
Then Ted lifted the sash and used the short board to hold it up. And he put his head out and looked to his left. Toward the west.
There it was, the Kosczinski farm, plain as could be, looking deserted and overgrown. And not very far away.
Ted smiled. It wasn’t Alexa who had worked out an emergency exit plan in case the family needed one. It was April. She had spotted another hideaway, right down the road, just by looking out her own little window.
Ted was sure all three of them were in that other farmhouse, right now. He would have bet his whole savings account on it.
And from his perch high above the prairie, watching the afternoon sun throw long shadows across the land, Ted felt like he was being given a second chance. A chance to do things right. To really help.
April wanted him to find her. And her family. That’s why she’d left the note. Hoping that he would find it. And he did find it.
And April had known he would still want to help. And he did want to.
But what kind of help did they need?
Sure, he could sneak some more food to them. But that would be like trying to fix a broken fence post with duct tape. These people needed a major repair job. They needed … they needed … everything.
Their problems seemed so huge, so complicated to Ted. And finding a solution seemed so far beyond his own skills and talents and experience. Because Ted saw that this wasn’t like reading a mystery book, where he could stop in the middle, and take his time, and try to guess the ending. And if he didn’t get it right, it didn’t matter. In a book, the ending was already settled, all figured out, waiting for him in the last chapter. With a book, all he ever had to do was keep reading.
No, this wasn’t like figuring out a mystery novel. It was like figuring out … life. Real life.
And Ted was smart enough to see that there had to be a real-life solution. Something that would help these people. Permanently.
He tried again to put himself in April’s place, but he couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Your dad, suddenly gone? Leaving your town and your school and your friends? She had lost so much. They all had.
Ted felt helpless. But he knew that wasn’t right. The Boy Scout motto is Be Prepared. It’s not Be Depressed.
Still, Ted didn’t feel prepared at all, not for this.
He shut the attic window, made his way over to the stairs, and started down, feeling less certain with each step. By the time he’d walked all the way down into the dark, damp cellar, he felt like a total failure—a lousy detective, an unprepared Boy Scout, a bad friend.
It’s the kind of moment that tests a person’s character.
To Ted’s credit, as he walked up the bulkhead steps into the afternoon sunlight, he let go of something. It wasn’t easy, but he let go of his pride—that feeling that he had to do all this on his own, that he had to be the superdetective, the great helper, the lone hero.
And right out loud, he said, “What I need is help. I need help with this—lots of help.”
Riding back into town, Ted felt so good about his decision. And he also remembered that teamwork is important. Even for the one and only sixth grader. And for a Boy Scout.
And for a detective, too. After all, Sherlock Holmes got help from Professor Watson now and then, right? And the Hardy Boys always worked together.
By the time he got to Main Street, Ted had already chosen his assistant, the perfect person to help him out. It was someone he could trust, someone with experience, someone who knew how important it was to keep a promise.
And it didn’t even matter that this person’s nose was twenty miles long.
Chapter 21
POSSIBILITY
“And you’re sure that’s where they are?”
Ted didn’t like the tone of Mrs. Mitchell’s question. An assistant wasn’t supposed to doubt and challenge every single detail that the team leader presented.
After he had decided to get some help, Ted had ridden his bike straight back to the school. Mrs. Mitchell was still in the classroom, grading the Civil War reports the eighth graders had turned in. Ted had told Mrs. Mitchell his news, he had asked for her help, and now he was sitting in a chair in front of her desk and she was asking all these annoying questions.
Ted said, “I’m not completely sure they’re at the Kosczinski place. But that’s where I’d be if I was them.”
“You mean, ‘If I were them,’” Mrs. Mitchell said.
Having a teacher for an assistant had some serious drawbacks. Grammar corrections was one of them. She had also given Ted a lot of bad news about all the problems April and her family might have with the law, and maybe with the child welfare people, too.
But Ted tried to keep focused on his mission.
“I’m going to find out if they’re there for sure tomorrow morning. But if they are there, then what do you think we can do? That’s what I want to know. Because it’s like they’re stuck. And I don’t see why they don’t just hitch a ride back to Texas, or maybe rent a car. Or walk into town and make a phone call to somebody in Colorado. I don’t get it.”
Mrs. Mitchell said, “From what you’ve told me, I think April’s mom is feeling too scared and upset. She’s the one who needs help the most. Her husband’s gone, she’s worried about a man she doesn’t like, she’s worried about her children, about the future. She’s afraid to go back, and she’s afraid to go forward. Poor thing.”
Ted said, “When she gave me five dollars for groceries, April’s mom said she had money. At the ATM. Do you think that’s true? I mean, why act like
you’re homeless if you have money? I don’t get that, either.”
Mrs. Mitchell nodded. “It’s hard to understand, but I’ve read about people who get hit all of a sudden with big problems. Sometimes they try to run away from them. And when you feel that way, it doesn’t matter if you have money or not.”
They were both quiet a moment.
Then Ted said, “So my question’s still the same: Do you think there’s a way to really help? What do they need?”
Mrs. Mitchell paused. She said, “I think they need what everybody needs. A safe place to raise a family. A school. A place to worship. A place to work. A grocery store. It’s not complicated. But it’s not easy, either. They just need a place to live. A home.”
Ted brightened. “You mean, like right here, in Plattsford?”
Mrs. Mitchell shook her head. “No, I didn’t mean that. Every place is different, but they’re all pretty much the same, too. No, they’ve got to move on and find their own home. And we ought to be able to help with that. If they’re where you think they are.”
Ted didn’t want to let go of his idea. “But their home could be here, couldn’t it? I mean, if they wanted?”
“Well,” Mrs. Mitchell said, “it’s more complicated than that.”
Ted held on. “But you just said it’s not complicated. You said, ‘It’s not easy, but it’s not complicated’—something like that. So that means it’s not impossible … right? This could be where they live—right?”
“Well, I guess so. I mean, it’s not impossible,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “Nothing’s impossible. But …”
“Okay,” Ted said, “I’ll tell you what.”
He felt like it was time to take charge of this project, be the team leader, and let the assistant assist, like she was supposed to. He stood up and said, “Tomorrow I’ll find out if they’re really there, where I think they are, and then we’ll see what’s possible. Or what isn’t. But I’m late for my chores, so I’ve got to go.”