Stacey and the Stolen Hearts

  “Which friend?” asked Mathew in a tiny voice.

  “Mary Anne,” Kristy answered, and she saw that blush wipe out Mathew’s freckles again.

  “Will, um, all the girls be home?” asked James.

  “I think so,” said Kristy. “Want me to call first and find out?”

  “NO! I mean, no, that’s okay.”

  Aha, thought Kristy. So it’s one of the Pike girls. But which one? She was dying to know, but she held her tongue.

  Kristy called Mary Anne to make sure it was okay for her and the boys to come over, then left a brief note for Mrs. Hobart. (This is standard BSC procedure. We wouldn’t want a parent coming home to an empty house and worrying.) Then she and the Hobart boys headed over to the Pikes’.

  Vanessa answered the door. She’s nine and on the dreamy side. She wants to be a poet when she grows up, and she often talks in rhyme. “Welcome, friends, to our house so dear. We like it when you visit here!” she declaimed as she ushered everybody in.

  Kristy gave James a quick glance. Was Vanessa the object of his affections? No, apparently not. His freckles were still showing; no blushing yet.

  “Wait! Before anyone else asks you, let me,” said Vanessa, blocking Kristy’s way. “Don’t you think three dollars is a fair price?”

  “For what?” asked Kristy.

  “For a poem. A really good poem that you could copy onto a valentine.”

  “Are you trying to sell poems to your brothers and sisters?” asked Kristy.

  “Well, yes,” admitted Vanessa. “But they keep complaining about my prices.”

  “If you want to be a poet you can’t expect to be rich,” Kristy told her. “Why don’t you just give the poems away? Which is more important, fame or fortune?”

  Vanessa had to stop and think about that one.

  Meanwhile, Kristy and the boys headed into the kitchen, where the rest of the Pike kids were hanging out with Mal and Mary Anne.

  “I don’t care if there are other kinds of cards!” Claire — the youngest Pike, at five — was shouting as they came in. “I only wanted the Snoopy kind, and now they’re gone, and everything’s rooned!” She howled out that last word, on the verge of sobbing. Claire has a talent for tantrums.

  “Maybe we can still find the Snoopy ones at some other store,” Mal was saying. She glanced up at Kristy and rolled her eyes.

  Nicky, who’s eight, was sitting next to Claire. “Oh, be quiet,” he said. “Having the right cards doesn’t mean everything’s okay anyway, you know.” He picked up the top card from a stack in front of him. “I found the coolest racing-car cards, but now I don’t even want to send them.”

  “Why not?” Kristy asked.

  Nicky wouldn’t answer.

  “Because the triplets have been teasing him,” Mary Anne explained. (The triplets are Mal’s ten-year-old brothers: Adam, Byron, and Jordan.) “They told him it was uncool for a boy to send valentines to other boys, and that the girls would hate the cars. So now Nicky feels stuck.”

  “And I wasted two weeks’ allowance too!” said Nicky.

  “I’d like to get one of those cards,” said Mathew shyly.

  “So would I,” Mary Anne said, giving Mathew a big smile. Kristy told me later that he turned so red she thought he’d explode.

  “That boy has the biggest crush on you,” she told Mary Anne, when the two of them had a brief moment alone later on.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” said Mary Anne. “But you know who does have a crush? Margo. She likes James. Actually, I shouldn’t call it a crush. I think she just wants to be friends with him. But he won’t even look at her, so she figures he can’t stand her.”

  If Kristy had been paying attention, she might have realized that Margo had nothing to worry about. But her mind was on something else. “You know,” she told Mary Anne, “I was going to tell the kids about our festival today. But I think I’ll wait. After all I’ve seen this afternoon, I think we have some more planning to do. It’s not going to be so easy to make Valentine’s Day a happy holiday for everyone.”

  “Pete, it’s Stacey.” I was still breathing hard. I had run all over the school, hoping to find the valentine-gram bag. No luck. After that, I had run all the way home and made a grab for the phone.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “You sound funny.”

  I tried to catch my breath. Then, forcing a casual tone, I asked the big question. “So, you have the bag, right?”

  “Bag?” Pete asked. “Oh, you mean the bag with the valentine-grams?”

  “Yes,” I said with relief. “So you took it home?”

  “What gave you that idea?” asked Pete. “I haven’t seen it since I said good-bye to you at school this afternoon.”

  Gulp.

  “In that case, I have some very bad news.”

  Pete was not happy to hear what I had to tell him. “Missing? How could it be missing? Did you look under the table? What about the money, and the notebook?”

  “I looked everywhere,” I told him. “And the money and notebook are safe, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “Oh, man,” he moaned. “Do you realize what this means?”

  “It means we’re in big, big trouble,” I answered. “And that everybody in school is going to want to kill us.”

  “And that we’ll have to refund their money,” Pete added, just to make things worse. “How could it have just disappeared?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it did.”

  “Maybe one of the other class officers picked it up,” Pete suggested.

  “That’s it!” I said. “That must be it. I’ll call everybody.” I hung up without saying good-bye and dove for the phone book.

  Ten minutes later, I was back on the phone with Pete. “That wasn’t it,” I reported. “None of them has seen the bag.”

  “This is a disaster,” said Pete. “Come on, let’s think. Who was hanging around the table today?”

  “Alan!” I said. “Alan Gray. I bet he has something to do with this.”

  “Hold on,” said Pete. “Everybody’s always on Alan’s case. I admit he’s a goof, but I don’t think he’d do something like this. Let’s make a list of all the people who were there before we start blaming Alan.”

  Pete was right. “Okay,” I said, thinking hard. “I’ll write down the names. Who else?”

  “Clarence King,” said Pete.

  “Right!” I said, remembering. “And Jacqui.”

  “And Cokie,” he reminded me. “And Brian and Rose and —”

  “Ben, but Ben couldn’t have done anything wrong,” I added, more to myself. “And Austin,” I continued. “And Robert.”

  Our list was growing. If we wrote down the name of every person who’d been near the valentine-gram table, we’d have to list practically the entire student body of SMS. It wasn’t going to be easy to narrow down the list of suspects. I said so to Pete.

  “I know.” He sighed. “We’re dead.”

  “Let’s make a deal,” I suggested. “Let’s try to keep this quiet for now. I mean, who knows? Maybe we’ll find the bag at school tomorrow, and our worries will be over. Meanwhile, nobody but us has to know.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Pete. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  It wasn’t easy to keep the news to myself that night. I was dying to call my BSC friends and ask their advice. But a deal’s a deal. I didn’t go near the phone.

  As if it mattered.

  “How could you?” Cokie stood in my way, her hands on her hips.

  “How could I what?” I asked. I was still a little groggy. Once again, I hadn’t slept very well, and Cokie was pouncing on me even before homeroom.

  “I thought you said the valentine-grams were supposed to be secret!”

  Uh-oh. “Well,” I began, not knowing where to start.

  “Well, what do you have to say about this?” Cokie asked, shoving a piece of paper in front of my nose. I tried to focus.

  NUMBER OF VALENTINES SENT FROM COKIE
TO BRENT = 12

  NUMBER OF VALENTINES SENT FROM BRENT TO COKIE = 0

  SOME ADVICE FOR COKIE: GIVE IT UP! MAYBE BRENT DOESN’T LIKE BEING CALLED “SUGARBEAR”

  “Sugarbear?” I asked, trying not to smile.

  “It’s not funny,” said Cokie. Her face was pink, and I suddenly realized that she was about to cry. She pointed down the hall. “See all those slips of paper on the floor and taped to the lockers? They all say the same thing. This is literally all over the school.” She stamped her foot. “Do something about it,” she demanded.

  I headed for Claudia’s locker. At a time like this, a person needs her best friend.

  “How could you?” asked Claudia when she saw me.

  Oh, no. “Not you too,” I said.

  “If my valentines to Josh end up plastered all over the school, I’m going to die!” she exclaimed.

  “They won’t,” I assured her quickly. “We’ll figure out who stole the valentine-grams, and who spread the news about Cokie. Then —”

  “Stole?” cried Claud. “STOLE? You mean to tell me you let someone steal them?”

  “Well, I —” I began. But Claud had already jumped ahead.

  “Anyway, there’s nothing to figure out,” she said. “Isn’t it obvious? This is Cary Retlin’s work.”

  She was right, of course. Why hadn’t I seen it? I grabbed her by the sleeve. “Come with me,” I said. “We’re going to find Mr. Retlin and have a talk with him.”

  We only had a few minutes before homeroom. Fortunately, we had no trouble finding Cary.

  Unfortunately, he had an excuse.

  When I confronted him with the “evidence” — the slip of paper Cokie had given me — he put up both hands.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said, shrugging. “I’d love to take credit for such a brilliant prank, but I didn’t steal those valentine-grams. I wasn’t even here after school yesterday. I left during last period because I had a dentist appointment. I can get a sworn affidavit from my hygienist if you want one. Or I can show you the new toothbrush she gave me.”

  Rats.

  During homeroom, as I tried to hide my face behind my math notebook, Mr. Kingbridge, the assistant principal, made an announcement over the PA. “Will whoever stole the valentine-grams please return them to one of the eighth-grade class officers?” he said.

  “I don’t know if I’d take them back,” Pete muttered. “I think it’s just as well that they were taken.”

  Huh? What was Pete saying? Before I could ask him, the bell rang and he ran off to his first class.

  Was I going to have to add Pete’s name to my list of suspects?

  That list grew and grew as I made my way through the day’s classes. By lunchtime, my friends and I agreed that almost anyone in the school could be considered a suspect.

  “It could be someone who sent a valentine-gram and then wished they hadn’t,” said Kristy, leaning back in her seat and making a face at her lunch.

  “Or someone who didn’t think he’d been sent one and was mad about it,” added Mary Anne.

  “Or someone who wanted to make Cokie look bad,” put in Abby.

  “That could be just about anyone,” I said. It was true. Cokie’s been nasty to so many people in school that nobody was feeling exactly sorry for her about what had happened.

  I looked around at the crowd in the lunchroom, just to check out who was there and what they were up to. I didn’t see Cary Retlin anywhere. Clarence King went swaggering by, and shot a straw wrapper at Alan Gray, who was sitting with Emily Bernstein. I saw Pete talk to Emily, then head back to his own table, which was near the one where Robert (looking as glum as usual) was sitting. At the next table sat Jacqui, who was sneaking peeks at Robert. Brian and Rose Marie must still have been having a tiff, because they were sitting at different tables.

  I sighed. Any one of those people could be a suspect, as far as I knew.

  Later that day, after the last bell, I was standing by my locker, trying to think about what to do next. The valentine-gram bag had not been turned in, and I was no closer to figuring out who could have taken it.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I whirled around to see Jacqui standing there.

  She didn’t look happy.

  And she didn’t say a word.

  Instead, she just handed me a slip of paper.

  GIVE IT UP, JACQUI! ROBERT DOESN’T LIKE YOU.

  (AND NO, HE DOESN’T WANT TO “WALK ON THE BEACH AT SUNSET, HOLDING HANDS.”)

  I didn’t know what to say. Obviously, the prankster had found one — or a few — of Jacqui’s valentines to Robert. “I’m sorry, Jacqui —” I began. (I really was too.)

  “I knew you were behind this!” she cried. “You just want to humiliate me, because you still like Robert!”

  I was shocked. “No, I —” Then I looked around and saw that everyone in the hall was staring at us. And the looks they were shooting my way gave me a nasty feeling. Did people believe that I had something to do with the prank? The kids in the hall looked nervous, and suddenly I knew what they were thinking. It was one thing when Cokie was the target of a prank. But who would be next?

  “Jacqui, I didn’t —” I began again, but she stormed off dramatically. I felt awful. Then I heard a voice behind me.

  “Don’t pay any attention to her.”

  I turned around. It was Robert.

  I felt my heart jump.

  I can’t explain why. Was it because Robert had startled me? Or was it something about hearing his voice at that moment?

  For whatever reason, my heart jumped and I was speechless. I just stared at Robert, taking in his familiar features: his strong-looking shoulders; his thick, wavy light brown hair; his dark eyes.

  Robert didn’t seem to notice. He waved a hand. “Don’t pay any attention to Jacqui,” he repeated. “The fact is, I’m just not interested in her, and she was going to find out sooner or later, one way or another.”

  “But she’s blaming me,” I said. “And I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I know,” said Robert. “Of course you didn’t. You’d never hurt somebody on purpose.”

  That made me feel good. I only wished Robert could have said it over the PA, so everyone in school could have heard it.

  “And it’s not really your fault that somebody stole the valentine-grams,” he continued. “There’s no way you could have watched that bag every single second.”

  “If I’d had any idea that somebody wanted to steal them, I’d have kept that bag locked up,” I said. My back was against my locker, and I slid down so I was sitting on the floor. “What a mess,” I said, feeling tired. “Poor Cokie.”

  Robert sat down next to me and flashed me that killer smile of his. I’d almost forgotten about the dimples in his cheeks. “Poor Cokie?” he repeated. “I don’t feel sorry for her at all. She’s pulled nastier pranks on too many people in this school. Now it’s her turn. She deserves even worse, if you ask me.”

  I thought about that. Maybe Robert was right. Still, being humiliated in front of the whole school had to hurt. I couldn’t blame Cokie for being mad. For that matter, I couldn’t blame Jacqui either. I just didn’t want them to be mad at me. They should be focusing on the person who had stolen the valentine-grams, whoever that was.

  “Hey, can I walk you home?”

  Robert sounded hesitant, almost shy. He wasn’t looking straight at me.

  I realized the halls were empty. Everyone else had left school. Pretty soon Mr. Halprin and Mr. Milhaus, the custodians, would be starting to clean the halls and classrooms.

  I looked over at Robert. “Sure,” I said. Finally, we’d have some time to talk.

  He stood and reached down a hand to help me up. I grabbed it and hauled myself to a standing position. Then I dusted off the back of my pants, checked to make sure my locker was locked, and smiled at Robert. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Robert used to walk me home all the time when we were going out. I felt funny walking down the
school’s front steps with him. It was the same, only different. I wondered if he felt it too. I was just about to say something when Robert jumped up onto the metal railing and, holding his hands in the air, went sliding down to the bottom of the stairs. I smiled and shook my head. He probably did feel funny, but instead of talking about it, he had to act like a third-grader.

  Boys.

  He waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, and we started walking together. I knew I had to grab this chance to talk, but somehow I couldn’t think of a way to start the conversation. I looked around, hoping for inspiration, and noticed a bird sitting in a tree. I pointed it out. “Look,” I said. “Spring must be just around the corner if the robins are back already.”

  “That’s not a robin,” said Robert. “It’s a sparrow. A few of them stay here all winter.” He smiled at me fondly. “You’re still a real New Yorker,” he added.

  I blushed. I guess it’s true. I can’t tell one bird from another, unless one of them is a pigeon. But if you asked me the difference between the A train and the D train (two of the lines in the New York City subway system), I could explain their routes, stop by stop. “I guess you can take the girl out of the city …” I began.

  “But you can’t take the city out of the girl,” Robert finished. “That was always a little tough for me. I knew how much you love New York, but I never could learn to appreciate the place. It just seems noisy and crowded to me.”

  I thought of Ethan. He loves New York as much as I do. He says the city feeds his creative spirit. Our shared passion for Manhattan is part of our bond. “I wanted you to like the city,” I told Robert. “But I understand why you don’t.”

  Finally, we were talking. “Robert,” I began cautiously, “I want to ask you something.”

  He looked sideways at me. He’d picked up a handful of gravel and now he was tossing it, pebble by pebble, as he walked. “Shoot,” he said.

  I knew it would be a mistake to tell him Andi had spoken to me. He’d be embarrassed if he knew we had been discussing him. So I just spoke for myself. “I’ve been … kind of worried about you lately.”

  “You have?” He tossed a pebble at a street sign, trying to act casual. “How come?”