Dangerous Deception

  I didn’t answer. It seemed wiser not to continue to talk to him. For the first time, I wondered if helping Sophie might be dangerous.

  We rode in silence until the bus got to my stop. When I got off, No Help got off, too. Fear moved into my mind and took up residence.

  I walked quickly toward home. No Help followed. The bus stop is five blocks from my house. No Help didn’t say anything, and he didn’t try to walk beside me, but he followed me. When I got within a block of my house, I started to run. No Help ran after me. I knew he could catch up to me if he wanted to, but he stayed about fifteen feet back.

  When I got to my house he waited on the sidewalk, watching while I opened my front door and went inside. I was glad I had remembered to take my key that day so that I didn’t have to get the spare one from under the fake rock where we hide it.

  I locked the door behind me, then ran to the window and peered out. No Help had turned and was walking back toward the bus stop. Waggy greeted me as usual, and I knelt beside him and buried my face in his fur, trying to make my heart quit racing. Instead of walking Waggy around the block as I normally do when I get home, I kept him in our backyard. I didn’t want to take any chance of seeing No Help again.

  I had intended to download and print my pictures of his apartment, write the address on the back, and mail them to the police as an anonymous tip, but I realized that if the cops showed up at No Help’s door to question him, he would guess who had alerted them. The tip would be anonymous and No Help didn’t know my name, but he knew where I lived. I didn’t want to give him any excuse to return.

  I couldn’t prove that anything in his apartment was stolen. Maybe he ran some kind of business where he bought inexpensive or damaged electronics and resold them for a profit. If that was the case, though, he wouldn’t care if I saw the items. He would have no reason to threaten me.

  Why had he followed me home? The only possible answer was that he wanted to scare me, to warn me not to tell anyone what I had seen.

  I called Lauren and told her that Sophie’s family was gone, but I didn’t tell her about No Help. Since I wasn’t going to do anything with those pictures, it would be best if nobody else knew about them, or about my being followed.

  “I wish I’d never read that contest entry,” I said. “I’ve wasted tons of time, and I have nothing to show for my efforts.”

  “That isn’t true,” Lauren said. “You helped Sophie’s family when they desperately needed food. You rescued Midnight. He would have died in that Dumpster if it hadn’t been for you. Even though the situation isn’t ending the way you had hoped it would, you still accomplished a lot.”

  Her words made me feel better.

  “I think you’ll hear from Sophie again,” Lauren said.

  “Seriously?”

  “You don’t know how to contact her, but she knows how to reach you.”

  “No, she doesn’t. If she had found the note with my phone number, she would have called. She doesn’t know my address or even my last name. It would be as hard for her to contact me as it is for me to find her.”

  “Maybe not. She could send another letter to Dunbar’s. Once she gets settled wherever she’s gone, I bet she’ll figure out a way to get in touch with you to let you know she’s okay. When she does, you can tell her you have Midnight and make arrangements to get him back to her.”

  I hoped Lauren was right. I felt better thinking that I might eventually hear from Sophie again.

  When Mom got home, she began reading contest entries. “This will be the last batch until next year,” she said. “Yesterday was the deadline, and I thought I was through, but Colleen found a pile of entries that had fallen down behind her desk.”

  I went to my room and started my homework.

  A few minutes later, Mom came in. She had that “You are in big trouble, young lady” look in her eye as she handed me an envelope.

  I knew before I read it what it was.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I read Sophie’s letter slowly, trying to decide what to say. It would be pointless to lie. Mom has an uncanny way of knowing if I am stretching the truth.

  The letter said:

  Dear Dunbar’s, Thank you for the bags of food. They helped us a lot. When I wrote my entry for your contest, I didn’t expect to win, but I didn’t know who else to ask for help. Trudy goes right to sleep now that she isn’t hungry. I’m happy to have cat food, too. Thank you for your kindness. Sophie

  I handed the letter back to Mom.

  “Well?” she said.

  I was tired of hiding my actions. I’d been skulking around like a secret spy, trying to disguise my efforts to help Sophie, and now she was gone, anyway. No matter how much trouble I got in, and I knew Mom would not be pleased, I decided to tell the truth.

  I told Mom everything—how I’d shown Sophie’s entry to my classmates, how we’d all collected food, how Chance had driven Jelly Bean and me to Sophie’s house to deliver it.

  “You knew you were risking my job,” Mom said.

  “I wasn’t! That’s why I didn’t tell you. If you didn’t know what we were doing, it wouldn’t be your fault and Dunbar’s couldn’t fire you.”

  Mom sighed and closed her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, “but I couldn’t let those kids be hungry.”

  She looked at me again. “I’m glad you have a tender heart, Emmy,” she said. “I want you to be the kind of person who cares about those who are less fortunate, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to help others. This was the wrong way.”

  “Sophie’s family was hungry,” I said. “Because of the food we took them, Trudy doesn’t cry herself to sleep anymore. How can that be wrong?”

  I could tell Mom wasn’t really angry over what I’d done; she was upset that I hadn’t been honest about it.

  “Sophie is a nice girl,” I said. “She’s two years younger than I am, and she loves animals.”

  “You met her? Her thank-you note doesn’t mention that.”

  “I met her twice, but not until after she wrote this letter. The first time was when we took the second load of groceries, the day Chance had his accident.”

  “The second load? You went there more than once?”

  I nodded, staring at my shoes.

  “Which means you rode with Chance more than one time.”

  “Yes. The accident happened after we went the second time.”

  “Where does this Sophie live?”

  “On East Sycamore Street. It’s near the gravel pit.”

  “That’s clear on the other side of town,” she said. “How long did you intend to keep doing this?”

  “Not much longer. Abby and Shoeless went to the food bank to find out what Sophie’s mother needs to do in order to get food there. I told Sophie what to do and, as soon as her mother gets well, Sophie is going to tell her.”

  Mom’s expression softened a little. “The mother is sick?”

  “She had pneumonia. The last time I saw Sophie was at the hospital when I went with Mrs. Reed to visit Jelly Bean. I wanted to introduce Sophie to Mrs. Reed, but Sophie wouldn’t let me, and she asked me not to tell anyone about her mom. She said there are things I don’t know about her family, and I’d only make it worse if I try to get help for them.”

  “What about Sophie’s father?”

  “All she said was her dad’s gone, and they might have to go back to Mexico to live with her grandparents.”

  “This is not a problem that can be solved by a group of sixth-grade kids,” Mom said. “I’ll call the state social services agency tomorrow and ask them to get aid for Sophie’s family.”

  “It’s too late. They moved out yesterday, and I don’t know where they went.”

  “How do you know they’ve moved?”

  “Their next-door neighbor told me. He saw them leave, c
arrying suitcases, and he said Sophie had told him they were moving.”

  “If they moved yesterday,” Mom said slowly, “it means you talked to the neighbor last night or today.”

  I nodded.

  “So, when did you get this information?”

  “Today,” I said.

  “How did you get to Sophie’s apartment?”

  “I took the bus.”

  “The bus.”

  I nodded again.

  “By yourself? That area by the gravel pit is no place for you to be waiting alone for a bus.”

  “The first time I took the bus there, Lauren went with me.”

  “The first time.” Mom repeated my words as if she needed a translator.

  “Right. Lauren and I collected bags of food from her neighbors and delivered them on the bus.”

  “You took food there again? After Chance’s accident?”

  “Sophie and Trudy were still hungry. Chance being hospitalized didn’t change that.”

  “If you had let me know about Sophie’s family,” Mom said,“I might have been able to find help for them.”

  “I did tell you, when I first read Sophie’s contest entry. You said Help Your Neighbor was almost out of money and there wasn’t anything you could do.”

  “You’re right.” Mom spoke slowly. “You read the entry to me the day I had the flu. Your dad was out of town, and I already felt as if I couldn’t handle all my problems, but I was wrong to ignore Sophie’s situation. There are many social service agencies and churches with programs to assist families like Sophie’s. If I had sought help from one of them, perhaps Sophie would not have had to move.”

  “You said you would lose your job if you did that.”

  “I could have talked to my supervisor and explained the situation. Mrs. Murphy is not a hard-hearted person. There might have been a way to bend the rules, maybe by finding some other nonprofit group that would help.”

  That possibility made me feel sick. Instead of hiding my actions, I should have admitted what I was doing and asked for advice. Maybe Mom could have found a way to help Sophie’s family that would have allowed them to stay where they were. Instead Sophie had left her home, her school, her cat—and maybe even her country.

  “If Sophie hadn’t written to thank Dunbar’s, I would never have found out about this,” Mom said.

  “Dunbar’s didn’t find out, either,” I said. “It didn’t affect your job at all.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. I feel sorry for Sophie and her family, but the fact remains that you deliberately did something you had been told not to do.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t like going behind your back, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It was dangerous!” Mom said. “You rode with an inexperienced driver. You went alone into an area that’s known for its high crime rate. You’re lucky you didn’t get mugged!”

  “When you put it that way, I feel stupid. I only wanted to help Sophie’s family.”

  “Well, it’s over now,” Mom said, “and you’re safe.” She opened her arms to give me a hug.

  I hugged her, and then stepped back. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” I said.

  Mom rolled her eyes as if wondering why she was burdened with me for a daughter.

  “Midnight is Sophie’s cat,” I said.

  “What? Why did you bring him home?”

  “Sophie kept him inside her apartment, but when Lauren and I took the third load of food over there nobody was home and Midnight was meowing in the hallway outside her apartment. We think he escaped when the ambulance came for Sophie’s mom. When her mom had to stay at the hospital, Sophie and Trudy went to stay with someone else and they couldn’t get home to take care of Midnight, and then the next time I went . . .”

  “The next time? When was this?”

  “The day Lauren had to go to the dentist. I went by myself and that’s when I heard Midnight crying because their mean neighbor had thrown him in the Dumpster.”

  “So you did rescue him from a Dumpster. I’m glad you told me at least part of what you had done.”

  “A lady named Mrs. Spangler helped me get him out. She let me use her step stool and a laundry basket.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  “She lives downstairs in Sophie’s building. I knocked on her door and asked if I could borrow a ladder.”

  “You were alone, in a neighborhood where you didn’t know anyone, and you knocked on the door of a complete stranger?”

  When she said it like that, it didn’t sound like the smartest move I’d ever made.

  “Mrs. Spangler uses a walker and moves slowly, and she’s really nice. She gave me a can of tuna for bait so Midnight would get in the basket.”

  “Instead of a kindly old woman, that door could have been opened by a serial killer.”

  I ignored that remark because, really, what could I say? She was right. The door could have been opened by a nutcase with a gun who hated kids, or by a whole gang of hoodlums. Instead of defending my actions, I told her what had happened.

  “After I got Midnight out, I smuggled him home on the bus.”

  Mom seemed stunned. “I wonder if a nurse accidentally switched my baby with someone else’s baby when you were born,” she said.

  “Mom!”

  “I can’t believe all of this has been going on and I didn’t know anything about it.”

  Suddenly she started to laugh. “You have to admit this is a pretty wild story.”

  “It sure is.”

  It was a wild story, and Mom didn’t even know all of it. She had already expressed so many worries about what might have happened to me that I knew she’d totally freak out if I told her that No Help had followed me home, so I didn’t tell her. That information would only prove how wrong I had been to go there alone, and make her paranoid about letting me go anywhere by myself ever again. If Mom knew about No Help, she would guard me like the Secret Service.

  If I never returned to East Sycamore Street, and didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen in No Help’s apartment, he would forget about me and the whole thing would fade away. The best course of action was inaction.

  “Have you written to Sophie, to tell her that you have Midnight?” Mom asked.

  “Where would I send it? I don’t have her new address.”

  “Mail it to the old address,” Mom said. “If you write Please forward on the envelope, the Post Office will send it to her new address, if they have one.”

  “That’s a great idea!” I said. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “We aren’t done discussing this,” Mom said. “I will need to talk to your father.”

  I nodded. The explanation of how I had helped Sophie seemed worse when it was told all at one time than it had when one little part happened, and then another part, and then one more. Each time I’d gone to Sophie’s house, I had thought it would be my last trip there. Because I always believed the whole project would soon be over, the individual events never seemed like a huge deal. One day to ride with Chance or one day to take the bus or one visit to Sophie’s school didn’t seem too wrong, but each action became a link that, when put together, made a long chain of deceit and bad decisions.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lauren called the next afternoon. “Jelly Bean’s brother went home from the hospital,” she said. “I saw it on his CaringBridge page. It says he’s expected to make a full recovery.”

  “That’s great news.”

  My grandparents came to visit during my spring break, so Mom and Dad both took a few days of vacation and we did touristy things in the Puget Sound area. We watched boats go through the Ballard Locks, we browsed through Pike Place Market, and we spent an afternoon admiring the cars in the LeMay Museum.

  After one of our outings, we ate dinner at Burg
er Barn and Grandma noticed that I ordered a salad instead of the burger, fries, and strawberry milk shake that I used to get.

  “I feel better when I eat healthy food,” I explained.

  “You look good, too,” Grandma said.

  I knew I’d lost a few pounds because my jeans were loose, but I hadn’t thought it was noticeable to other people.

  Sitting in Burger Barn, I realized the restaurant might yield a possible clue that I had not pursued.

  “Sophie’s mom worked at Burger Barn before she got sick,” I told Mom. “Maybe some of the employees know her.”

  Mom asked to speak to the manager and when he came over, she explained that we were trying to find a woman who used to work at Burger Barn. “We don’t know her first name but her last name is Sodaberg.”

  He shook his head. “That doesn’t ring any bells,” he said. “How long ago did she work here?”

  “Until about three weeks ago,” I said. “Then she got sick.”

  “Are you sure she worked at this Burger Barn? There are two others in Cedar Hill.”

  “We’ll try them,” Mom said. “Thanks for your help.”

  I wanted to drive to the other two Burger Barns right then, but Mom said she would call them when we got home. “This can be handled by phone,” she said. I think she didn’t want to do too much explaining to Grandpa and Grandma about how I had become involved with Sophie’s family.

  After we got home, Mom called the other two Burger Barns and spoke to both of the managers, but she didn’t find anyone who knew Sophie’s mother. One of the managers said she was new on the job and didn’t know any former employees. Mom told the managers that she was trying to return the family cat to Mrs. Sodaberg’s daughters, hoping that would jog someone’s memory, but Burger Barn was another dead end.

  “Maybe Sophie’s mother’s name isn’t Sodaberg,” Mom said. “Parents and kids don’t always have the same last name.”

  After Grandma and Grandpa went home, Lauren came for a sleepover and then school started again. On our first day back, Mrs. Reed had each of us tell the best thing that we had done during vacation.