The Bell Bandit

  "Evan?" said Jessie. "Is she okay?"

  "Sure," said Evan. "Look at her. She's fine." He paused for a second. "She's just different than she was."

  "Really different."

  Evan shrugged. "Not all that different. Still Grandma." He took a few steps toward the house, then turned around. Jessie wasn't following. "C'mon. Let's go inside."

  "No," said Jessie. "I need to go see Maxwell."

  The picture came into Evan's mind of Maxwell running like a wild animal, screaming as he went. It seemed to Evan as if there were an endless number of people to worry about. "You have to come inside first. Mom has to see you, to make sure you're okay."

  Jessie nodded. Evan waved his arm toward the house. "C'mon. I'll walk you over to Maxwell's later."

  Chapter 15

  What’s Wrong with Maxwell?

  Evan kept his promise to her. But it took a while. First there was the commotion of Mrs. Treski hugging them both about a hundred times. Then Pete phoned the police to call off the search party. Then Evan told everyone how they'd found Grandma because Jessie had figured it out, because Jessie was so smart. She liked that part.

  Then there was dinner, which was just canned soup and cold sandwiches because no one had the energy to cook a real meal but everyone was starving. And then Mrs. Treski said she wanted to get Grandma to bed early, never mind that it was New Year's Eve. Which is when Jessie said she wanted to go see Maxwell, and Evan said he'd walk her over. The snow had stopped falling and a bright moon had broken through the clouds, so Mrs. Treski said yes. But be back soon.

  When Maxwell's house came into view, Evan stopped on the path. "I'll wait back at the house, okay? Just call when you want to come home." Evan had never been inside Maxwell's house, so maybe he felt funny about going in.

  Or maybe Evan just didn't want to talk to Maxwell's mom about what had happened that afternoon. Jessie could understand that.

  She had hoped to avoid Mrs. Cooper altogether—somehow slip inside unnoticed. Maybe she wasn't even home? But instead, Maxwell's mom answered the door and asked Jessie to sit in the living room while she finished loading the dishwasher. Jessie sat down on the couch and looked at the photographs on top of the piano. There were dozens of them, and they were all of Maxwell.

  Mrs. Cooper walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel. She sat on the couch next to Jessie. Usually, Jessie felt comfortable around grownups—sometimes more comfortable than with kids. But not this time.

  Mrs. Cooper stared at her, with a look as hard as granite. "So. What happened this afternoon?"

  Jessie took a minute to think. Should she tell the whole story? Or would Maxwell get in trouble? Had they broken any rules? What if she just left out the part about spying?

  In the end, she figured the whole story was going to come out anyway. She might as well give it up now.

  So she told Mrs. Cooper everything, from the very beginning. About the missing bell. And what Maxwell overheard on the bus. And the stakeout and how wrong it had gone. She described the frog and then the rock through the window and how Maxwell ran away screaming. Mrs. Cooper listened without saying a word.

  When she was done talking, Jessie waited for Mrs. Cooper's response, but all she said was "I wish those boys had never moved to the neighborhood."

  "Me, too," said Jessie, thinking about the missing bell. She was sure the boys had it hidden somewhere. "But why is Maxwell afraid of them? He's bigger than they are."

  "They tease him. Play mean jokes on him. About a month ago, they tricked Maxwell into climbing inside a cardboard moving box. They said it was a game. But instead of a game, they taped him up inside the box and left him like that—for hours. Maxwell doesn't like tight spaces."

  "That's horrible," said Jessie. She couldn't imagine being trapped like that. It made her legs and arms feel twitchy just to think about it.

  Mrs. Cooper looked across the room, then shook her head slowly. "They're just mean boys."

  They sure were. But why? Were they born that way? Were some people born one way and some people another?

  "You can go see Maxwell now, if you want," said Mrs. Cooper, standing up and snapping the dishtowel over her shoulder. "He's in his room playing a video game."

  Jessie jumped off the couch and headed for the stairs that led down to the basement, which was where Maxwell's bedroom was. She was on the third step when she stopped and turned around. "Mrs. Cooper?" said Jessie. "What's wrong with Maxwell?"

  Mrs. Cooper paused in the doorway to the kitchen and looked at her. "He's just different, that's all. He sees things differently than we do. He feels the world in a different way, too. Things bother him that wouldn't you or me, like loud noises or changes in his routine or new people. To us, they're no big deal, but to Maxwell, they're a very big deal. And even though Maxwell's incredibly smart, there are some things he has trouble understanding. Like feelings. He has a really tough time understanding feelings."

  "Oh," said Jessie.

  Like me, she thought.

  She found Maxwell leaning against the giant gorilla pillow that sat at the head of his bed. The arms of the gorilla wrapped around Maxwell, as if the big furry ape were trying to reach the game controller Maxwell held in his hands.

  Maxwell didn't even look up when Jessie walked in.

  "Hey," she said.

  Maxwell nodded his head, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  Jessie stared at the TV! The game was one of those questing games, where dwarves and dragons and giants and other magical characters fight each other and collect treasure. Pretty soon she was sitting on the edge of the bed, as caught up in the game as Maxwell was.

  "Can I try?" asked Jessie.

  "No, I'm right in the middle of a quest. Later."

  "When, later?"

  "When I die."

  "When are you going to die?"

  Maxwell shrugged. "Probably not for a while. I'm really good at this game."

  Jessie watched the treasure points pile up on the counter in the upper-right corner of the screen. Maxwell's character, a twinkly-eyed dwarf with a mohawk, seemed invincible. He killed a dragon, two evil elf twins, and a giant with a weapon that could shoot lightning bolts.

  "I wish we'd had one of those when Jeff and Mike tried to hurt that frog," said Jessie.

  Maxwell nodded his head. "I would have killed them both."

  "You're not supposed to want to kill people in real life," she said, but she knew what he meant. She really didn't like those boys. And even though Evan and Jessie and Maxwell had managed to save the frog, she knew that the Sinclair boys would do something just as awful again someday. Who would be around then to stand up to them?

  Besides that, Jessie was sure they had the bell—hidden in the barn or stashed under the porch or maybe buried out in the woods. "Do you think they've got it?" she asked Maxwell. "The bell, I mean?"

  "Nope," said Maxwell, punching furiously on the controller buttons. It was amazing how fast he was. Jessie watched as his dwarf decapitated a black-robed warlock.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I know where it is."

  Jessie continued looking at the screen, not understanding what Maxwell had just said. Was he talking about something in the game? Maybe he didn't get what she was talking about.

  "You know where what is?"

  "The bell," said Maxwell. "Dang!" He pointed at the screen. "I lost a life, but I can buy it back." Ten thousand points fell off the counter, and Maxwell's dead dwarf jumped to his feet and started fighting again.

  "You know where the bell is?" Jessie's voice was weirdly quiet. She felt like she'd walked into a mental hospital, and you were not supposed to yell in hospitals.

  "Yep."

  "Where is it?" Her voice grew a little louder.

  "In my closet."

  "In your closet?" Jessie jumped off the bed and pushed open the sliding door to the closet. On the floor was a laundry basket, an old box filled with LEGO pieces, and Grandma's bell.

&n
bsp; "Why did you steal Grandma's bell?" Now Jessie was yelling.

  "I didn't steal it. I protected it. Mrs. Joyce was in the hospital for a whole week. I didn't want Jeff and Mike to take it like they said they would. So I took it down and hid it in my closet."

  "But ... but ... why didn't you tell me that?"

  "Because you didn't ask."

  "But ... you knew I was looking for it! When someone's looking for something and you know where it is, you tell them!"

  Maxwell kept playing his game. "You said it was a puzzle. You said you like to solve puzzles by yourself. I thought you wanted to figure it out on your own."

  "But you can't just take something from someone without telling them. That's stealing."

  "Is not. I told Mrs. Joyce. I told her when I visited her in the hospital. I guess she forgot."

  Well, duh! thought Jessie.

  She stared at the bell. It looked just like it always had. Except it was sitting on the floor of Maxwell's closet! She really did feel like the whole world had gone crazy and left her behind—the only sane person on the planet. She couldn't think of what to say. "You're really ... you're..."

  "Smart," said Maxwell. "I'm Maxwell, and I'm smart."

  Jessie looked at Maxwell, who was still furiously playing the video game, killing gnomes and druids left and right. It was just like his mother had said: Maxwell was different.

  She grabbed hold of the top of the bell and tried to pull on it, to see how heavy it really was. The bell tilted, but there was no way she could lift it.

  "Well, if you're so smart," said Jessie, "then tell me how we're going to get this bell out of your basement and hanging up on the hill by tonight."

  Chapter 16

  Ring Out, Wild Bells

  Pete would have been proud. That's what Evan thought as he neared the top of Lovell's Hill. There was the bell, hanging on the crossbeam, the way it had for as long as Evan could remember. Something about seeing it there gave him such a sense of gratitude and happiness that he reached out his arm and put it around Jessie's shoulder, giving her a quick squeeze as they climbed the last few steps to the top.

  "It's still here," said Jessie. As if anyone could have gotten it down again! Evan, Maxwell, and Jessie had spent two hours hauling the bell back up the hill on a toboggan with only the moon lighting their way. Then they'd hoisted it onto the hooks and lashed it to the crossbeam with a rope that Jessie tied in a million knots. When they were done hanging the bell, Evan had noticed a few spots on the post that were splintered. Tomorrow, he would come up here with a sanding block and work on the wood until it was smooth, just the way Pete had taught him.

  Evan nodded. "Still here." It was good to know that the bell would remain, right where it belonged.

  The snow that had fallen earlier carpeted the hillside, and the moon shone brightly in the clear, cold air. The effect was like a stadium lit up for a night game. Evan could see all kinds of details: the letters inscribed on the bell, the grain in the wood of the crossbeam, and the faces of the people gathered. Some of them he recognized, like Mrs. Upton and the Bradleys, who had been friends of Grandma's for years. But lots of the people were new to Evan. Grandma would have known them all, but Grandma was home resting with Mom. Evan was sorry about that. It didn't feel like New Year's Eve without Grandma.

  Of course, Maxwell was there with his mom and dad, all three on cross-country skis. When he spotted Evan and Jessie, Maxwell whooshed over to them. He held up his wrist with its digital watch.

  "Twelve minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Exactly," he said. "I set my watch to the official NIST clock. It's accurate to within six-tenths of a second." Then he whooshed back over to his parents, who were talking to a young couple Evan didn't recognize. The man was holding a small child in his arms and had his back to Evan. The woman was someone Evan had never seen before.

  "I guess we know who the youngest is this year," said Evan to Jessie, pointing at the couple.

  Jessie looked over at them and said, "I didn't know Pete had a kid!"

  "That's not—" but then Evan looked closer and saw that it was Pete. "I didn't know, either!" Evan walked over, feeling a little shy. "Hey," he said to Pete. "Man of the family, huh?"

  Pete broke into a smile and put out his fist for Evan to bump. "You know it. This is my posse. Kayley, say hi to Big Man Evan." But the little girl in Pete's arms just buried her face against her dad's shoulder, too shy and sleepy to greet a stranger. "And this is my wife, Melissa."

  Evan said hello and shook hands politely, the way he'd been taught. Melissa told him how relieved she was to hear that Grandma was okay. "You and your sister are heroes," she said.

  Evan looked at Pete, and Pete raised his eyebrows in response. He'd already given Evan a talking-to in private about not sticking to the plan they'd agreed on. Traipsing off in the woods and dragging your little sister with you! But Evan could tell by the way Pete smiled now that he was just as glad as Melissa that Grandma had been found, safe and sound.

  "All's well that ends well," said Melissa, tucking the leg of Kayley's snow pants into her boot. "Too bad she couldn't be here, though. It won't be the same without her."

  They stood in the moonlight, talking about the events of the day and the trip home planned for tomorrow. Evan and Jessie and Mrs. Treski were driving back in the morning, and Grandma would be coming with them. Maybe for good. Pete would keep working on the house. He thought he'd have it all wrapped up by the end of January.

  There was a pause in the conversation, and then Melissa asked, "So who's the oldest?" They all looked around, and a murmur began to sweep through the crowd. Who's the oldest this year? One man said, "I'm fifty-three," and a woman called out, "Fifty-eight, here." "Where's Mrs. Lewis?" asked someone, and a voice in the crowd said, "She's staying home. Said to say hello to everyone."

  "Not so many of the older folks this year," said Pete. "On account of the snow, I guess."

  Evan shook his head. If Grandma were here, she'd have them all beat by a couple of decades.

  "Four minutes!" yelled Maxwell. "Precisely!"

  Everyone on the hill began to crowd in closer, forming a warm circle around the New Year's Eve bell. "Another year!" shouted someone, and Mrs. Cooper said, "And not a day wiser!" which made people laugh. Evan watched as Pete moved into the very center of the circle, holding Kayley close to him and whispering in her ear. The woman who had announced her age as fifty-eight also moved into the center of the circle and said something to Pete that made him throw back his head and laugh.

  "C'mon, Jess," said Evan. His sister was hanging on the outside of the circle, staring at the path that led back to the house. "What are you waiting for?"

  "Three minutes!" shouted Maxwell.

  Suddenly Jessie broke away from the circle and started running toward the woods. "It's Grandma. She's here. She made it!"

  Everyone in the circle turned to look. It really was Grandma! Evan couldn't believe it. And his mother was right behind her.

  Jessie had already grabbed hold of Grandma's good arm and was pulling her toward the circle. A cheer rose up from the crowd as everyone on the hill burst into muffled mittened applause. The sound bounced off Black Bear Mountain and ricocheted back to the top of Lovell's Hill.

  "Two minutes, thirty seconds!" shouted Maxwell.

  "I'm guessing I'm the oldest?" said Grandma, breathing hard as she broke through the circle.

  "Yes, ma'am," said Pete. "And Kayley here's the youngest."

  "Well, then we're good to go!" said Grandma. "Except—" She looked around her, searching the crowd. "Except this year, I want—" She spotted Maxwell and waved him over. "Maxwell. And Jessie, you, too. And ... and..."

  "Grandma, we can't all ring the bell," said Jessie. "It's not the tradition!"

  "I don't care!" said Grandma. "This year I want something different. I want..." She continued to look at each face in the crowd. Evan shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Grandma's eyes finally came to rest on his face. "You!" she said. "Come
here. I want you here, too."

  Evan walked forward, miserably. It was awful to be forgotten by Grandma at all, but even worse to have it happen in front of so many people. It made him feel like he had done something bad, something he was being punished for.

  Grandma grabbed his shoulder with her good hand and pulled him in close to her. She bent her face down so that her forehead touched his. In the bright moonlight, he could see the spidery wrinkles around her mouth, the fine lines that trickled from her eyes. Her face looked frightened. He was frightened, too. What would she do? What would she say?

  "I do know you," she whispered. "I do. I just can't ... I can't quite put it all together. But I know you."

  Evan nodded his head. "It's okay, Grandma. It's okay."

  "Ten, nine, eight..." shouted Maxwell, his face lit up green by the glow of his digital watch.

  They had to crowd together: Pete, holding Kayley, Evan, Jessie, Maxwell, and Grandma, each one grabbing a few inches of the rope that hung from the bell's heavy clapper.

  Everyone on the hill joined in the countdown. "...five, four, three, two, one!"

  Evan swung his hand back and forth wildly. The five of them pulled in different directions, and the first few peals of the bell were weak and halting. But then they found a rhythm, and they swung the rope back and forth in perfect unison, until the noise of the bell filled the snow-covered valley below and the echoes of each peal bounced off of Black Bear Mountain and came racing back to them.

  Evan listened to the bell and thought that it sounded different this year. Maybe because he was ringing it? Maybe because it had been taken down and then hung again? It sounded lower, a little bit sadder. Then he listened again and thought, no, it sounded the same as always.

  Different and the same.

  In Pete's arms, Kayley pumped her legs wildly and then threw her head back and crowed at the night sky.

  "You don't see that every day!" shouted Maxwell, and Grandma laughed just like she used to, loud and rumbly.