“But we want the deal to go through!” someone from the audience shouts. “We think it'd be great for the community.”
“You know what?” I say, putting back the whiteboard marker. “So do I. But not like this. This is just wrong.”
After that, it was all over. Everyone started talking at once. And when I heard one of the other council members bang the gavel and shout, “This meeting is adjourned!” I looked over and saw that Coralee was fleeing out a side door, being chased by reporters.
All of a sudden Hudson was there, hugging my shoulder with one arm. “I have never been so proud in my life!” And Grams was saying, “I held my breath through the whole thing. You were wonderful!” And Mrs. Willawago clasped my forearm and said, “You're a real angel, a gift from God!” while Mrs. Stone said, “Girl, you've got guts!”
Mrs. Willawago turned and said, “Teri! There you are! I looked all over for you earlier.”
Mrs. Stone laughed. “We couldn't find you, either. What a turnout, huh?”
“Where's Marty?” Mrs. Willawago asked, looking around.
“He left about halfway through. He was so mad! Wait 'til I tell him how Sammy saved the day!”
Then reporters started sticking microphones in my face, asking me stuff like, “How'd you get involved in this?” “Are you friends with the train lady?” “What's your information source?” “When did you make the connection?” “What will you do if you're wrong?” “Are you planning to go into politics?”
The other questions I gave a not-gonna-answer-that shake of the head to, but that last one? Boy, did I pull a face.
A couple of them laughed, and then Hudson intervened, saying, “My young friend here cracked the nut, it's your job to pry out the meat.”
They all looked at him like, Huh?
“Don't badger her,” he said, “go investigate!”
The meeting room was still full of people, but it wasn't packed in solid like it had been. So Hudson and Grams led the way up the center aisle, with me behind them and Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Willawago behind me. And it was funny— nobody said, Nice going! or even, Interesting contribution! as I passed by. They just got quiet when I approached, moved aside, then started talking again after I'd passed.
It was like being in old-guy junior high.
But what did I expect? The Stones and Mrs. Willawago were probably the only people in the whole city who didn't want the project to go through.
So whatever. Let 'em glare.
I did look around for Brandon but didn't see him or his shiny-haired friends anywhere. Was he mad at me? Why would he leave without saying anything to me? Maybe he had given a little speech about how great the rec center would be. I mean, why else would he have been there?
And now what?
Was I uninvited to his pool party?
I tried not to think about that. I just moved through the crowd with my own little posse of seniors, feeling very relieved when we were finally outside. There were plenty of people outside, too, but at least there was air. Cool, damp air.
And then through the mist I heard someone calling, “Sammy!”
My heart recognized the voice before my brain did. “Brandon?”
“Over here!” he called from the sidewalk. “Isn't this that dog you walk?”
Even from the steps of city hall I could tell that it was indeed Captain Patch. But when I ran over, I saw that Brandon was holding him by the scruff of his neck. Patch's collar was gone. No collar, no tags, no nothing.
Patch wagged like crazy and yip-yap-yowled when he saw me. So I gave him a doggie ruffle and asked Brandon, “Where'd you find him?”
“He was crossing the street, over by the mall.” He broke into a lopsided grin. “Quite a show tonight. And here I always thought you were kinda shy.”
I could feel my cheeks turn red. “So you're not mad?”
“Mad? Why? Coach is bummed, but if that council lady's got her own agenda, they're going to have to think of a better way to make it happen.” He started moving up the sidewalk, saying, “Coach is giving me a ride home, so I've got to boogie. See ya!”
“See ya!” I called back.
My over-the-hill entourage had been hovering a few feet away, and when Brandon was gone, Mrs. Willawago asked, “Who was that handsome young man?” like he was Superman or something. “And how did he know to give the Captain to you?”
“He's my best friend's cousin,” I told her. “He saw me walking him the other day.” I squatted next to Patch. “We're really lucky 'cause look—his collar's missing.”
“Maybe he dug out.” Mrs. Stone said. “His collar coulda got caught on the fence….”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Willawago said. “This is becoming a real problem. He could have been hit by a car!”
But I looked Patch over and said, “His muzzle's not dirty… and his paws are clean …,” because when he'd been digging before, boy, he'd been filthy.
“Oh, he must've dug out,” Mrs. Willawago said. “The fence is very secure.”
Then Hudson said, “Why don't I give you a lift home and we'll find out.”
“Say,” Mrs. Willawago said to the group of us, “why don't you all come over for a little celebration of tonight's victory. I've got some fresh baked scones….”
So everyone but me and the Captain went with Hudson to get a ride in his antique Cadillac. Hudson said it was fine for Patch to get a ride, but I handed him my skateboard and borrowed his belt for a leash instead. “I'll beat you there!” I called as I took off jogging with Patch.
I did, too. I even waited on the porch for a minute before deciding to go check out the backyard. Patch and I went through the side gate, but it was really dark. So I sort of felt my way along the corridor between the fence and the parlor car until I got into the open part of the backyard, where there was enough light from the ball fields for me to see where I was going.
And sure enough, there was a huge hole under the back fence, real near where we'd watched Squeaky and the Chick cuff Appliance Andy and the Old Lady. “Captain Patch,” I scolded.
He yippy-yap-yowled and wagged his tail.
I looked in the hole. Under the fence. Over the fence. I couldn't find Patch's collar anywhere.
And I was in the middle of wondering if Mrs. Willawago had some bricks or something that I could put in the hole before filling it when I noticed something odd—the dirt from the hole was in a mound. It wasn't sprayed everywhere like when a dog digs a hole.
It was like a human had dug the hole.
With a shovel.
Then I turned and saw something that gave me a creepy feeling inside. The Stones' shovel wasn't on the far side of the compost heap, where I'd stuck it after I'd used it to stop Appliance Andy.
It was on the near side of the heap.
Right by the fence.
SEVENTEEN
I stood there for a minute, thinking. Then the lights came on in the Train House, so I decided to fill in the hole so Captain Patch wouldn't run off before I could tell Mrs. Willawago about my suspicions. But when I went inside, Mrs. Stone was there and Mrs. Willawago was playing the perfect hostess, bustling around with scones and jams and pots of tea.
So I gave Hudson his belt back, then sat around listening to old people chitchat. Talk about dull. I don't know what it is—you get a bunch of old people together and the pacing of a conversation kills. Maybe it's their hearing, or maybe they're just more polite than junior high kids. I mean, when my friends and I are excited about something, we walk all over each other's sentences, jumping in with this or that, cutting each other off… it's fun. It's alive.
Old people don't converse like that. Even when they're not really listening to each other, they act like they are, waiting for their turn to put in their two cents. And then, since they've waited so politely, they feel justified in turning their two cents into about fifty cents, wandering down memory lane on some barely related story.
Anyway, I could tell Mrs. Stone was a little antsy, eating a scone
and not saying much. And I sure didn't feel like chitchatting with her. Just being in the same room with her was making me very uncomfortable.
So when I finally got Mrs. Willawago alone in the kitchen and blurted out that I thought the Stones had tried to get rid of Patch, she listened very politely, then scoffed and said, “Oh, nonsense. The shovel was moved because Teri used it to fill in the hole Captain Patch dug earlier. You know, when the police were arresting Andy Quinn?”
All of a sudden I felt kinda stupid. “Are you sure?”
“Of course! I was right there.”
“But … but the dirt wasn't sprayed out. It was in piles. And I can't find Patch's collar anywhere.”
“That doesn't mean the Stones dug him a hole and removed his collar!” she whispered. “Besides, they were at the council meeting!”
“But Marty left early! And how do you know they were there? You didn't actually see Teri until it was all over, right?”
She held my cheeks gently and smiled at me. “Oh, lamb. Not everyone is as devious as Coralee Lyon—don't let her cast a shadow on the entire flock! Teri's our ally, remember? And no, she doesn't like Captain Patch digging into her yard, but she's a long ways from purposefully releasing him.”
“But what about Marty?”
She frowned. “Marty? Dig a hole?”
“Yeah! He knew you were at the meeting,” I whispered. “And don't tell me he has a bad back. He mows their yard, he works in their garden, and he chased me with a hoe! If you ask me, he's just using his back as a way to get paid for not working!”
“Shhh!” she warned. Then she frowned again and whispered, “He was injured on the job, and if his back has improved, well, it's not my place to meddle. Besides, he does have cancer now—”
“But don't they just take the cancer spots off and make you stay out of the sun? It doesn't stop you from digging a hole!”
“Skin cancer can spread to other parts of the body, Samantha. It can kill you!”
“Annie?” Mrs. Stone said, coming into the kitchen. “I gotta get going.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Willawago said, fluttering a little. “Why don't I wrap up a scone or two for Marty?”
Mrs. Stone smiled. “That'd be nice.”
Then Grams came into the kitchen and said, “We should be going, too. It's getting quite late.” She turned to me and said, “Samantha? I think we should give you a lift home,” pretending like I didn't live with her.
So I said, “Sure,” and we got out of there in a wave of polite thank-yous. But once I was inside Hudson's car, I let my frump show in a big way. “I am so sick of people not believing me!”
“What now?” Grams asked. “People seemed to believe you just fine at the council meeting…!”
So I told them about the hole and the shovel and how I was pretty sure Marty Stone had dug the hole. And just like Mrs. Willawago, Grams tried to come up with reasons why he hadn't done it.
“See?” I said. “I think the hole was man-made, so you think I'm wrong. If it was someone with a Ph.D. in hole digging telling you the same thing, you'd think it was the gospel, but it's me, so you think it's my imagination.”
“But someone with a Ph.D. in hole digging would know about holes,” Grams said.
“Someone with a Ph.D. in hole digging should be put in the nuthouse! It's a hole. All you do is apply a little common sense to the surrounding dirt and the walls of the hole. I don't need to write a dissertation on holes to know when one's dug by a dog and one's dug by a shovel!”
“Well,” Grams said, patting her hair. “Teri Stone is a little odd, I'll give you that.”
Silly me, I thought I was getting somewhere. But when I asked, “What do you mean?” she said, “Well, for one thing, she should bathe more. And socks and Birken-stocks? Goodness.”
See? That's what talking to Grams is like. You're discussing the science of hole digging and she turns it into a criticism of someone's personal hygiene and fashion choices.
But then Hudson looked at me in his rearview mirror and said, “Her socks were quite dirty. Perhaps she dug the hole.”
Good ol' Hudson.
“Hmmm.” But then I shook my head. “Her feet always look like that.”
“She always wears those sandals?” Hudson asked.
I nodded.
“Well, that hippie look is very unattractive if you ask me,” Grams said. “But to each his own.”
I felt like saying, Who cares about fashion? I want to know who dug the hole. But I kept my mouth shut, and when we finally got home, I took a quick shower and went straight to bed. I was beat!
The next morning I actually watched the news 'cause I was on it. Actually read the paper 'cause Mrs. Ambler brought in a copy and I was in it. And I actually had an outside-the-classroom conversation with Mr. Holgartner on my trek between classes.
“Sammy!” he called from the admin building as I walked by.
Now you have to understand—Mr. Holgartner is not exactly Most Popular Teacher or anything. He's more like Most Unpopular Teacher. He's boring, sarcastic, snide, and gives really confusing multiple-choice tests. And talk about needing to bathe more—pee-yew! He always smells like he's sweating garlic.
So having a teacher like this call your name with such enthusiasm across the campus makes you want to:
Hide
Pretend you didn't hear
RUN
Die of embarrassment
The correct answer?
All of the above
I did go for option (b) for a second, but he called my name again, “Sammy! Samantha!”
“Uh, yes, Mr. Holgartner?”
He came up to me quick and stood a little too close. “Since when have you been interested in politics?”
“Uh … I'm not really.”
“That was my impression,” he laughed, oozing garlic.
“Ha-ha,” I said back.
“No, seriously! I saw the news, read the paper…I was proud to see you taking a stand on the matter.” Then he said, “We discussed eminent domain earlier in the year…?”
Now, it's funny—it was like he was trying to take credit for my involvement. And maybe it would have been nice of me to say, Oh yeah. You totally inspired me to fight city hall, sir. But I wasn't in the mood to lie.
Too bad he hadn't talked to me the week before!
Instead, I looked right at him and said, “Actually, I got interested because of Mrs. Willawago's Train House and because I found out how the mall got built by the city kicking people out of their houses.”
He nodded like he knew all about that.
Well, you know what? That really irritated me. So I kind of squinted at him and said, “Why didn't you tell us about that when you covered eminent domain?”
He shrugged. “We only have so much time to spend on each subject.”
“But … but it would have made it interesting. You know, relevant.”
He just stood there, blinking garlic fumes at me.
His face had totally fallen, and I felt kinda bad. Plus we were standing with this awkward silence between us. So I said, “Next year. Teach 'em about it next year.” I gave him a little smile. “Kids might actually listen.”
After my encounter with Mr. Holgartner, the rest of the day was very normal. Except for my little circle of friends, only teachers seemed to know anything about what had happened at the city council meeting, which made total sense. I mean, what junior high kid in their right mind gets up and watches the news or reads the paper? We're too busy rushing around from oversleeping to care about anything but not being tardy.
And for the rest of the week school was sort of a happy place. The teachers seemed to be in good moods, the kids were all buzzing about summer plans, there was hardly any homework … it was real enjoyable.
'Course, Heather was still lurking around, still making snide remarks, still plotting and conniving and pretending to be popular, but you could tell she was also counting the hours to Friday night, when she just knew she'd be o
rdained Friendliest and Most Stylish Seventh Grader. Maybe even Most Popular.
She couldn't wait.
And neither could we!
Hee-hee!
Things over on Hopper Street were also pretty mellow. Well, except for Captain Patch. He had a new collar and tags but was spending more time inside, which made our walks real athletic adventures. I tried to get him to heel like Marissa had, but he wouldn't listen.
And the whole thing with the Stones? I decided, Forget it! As long as Patch wasn't getting out and running the risk of being hit by a car, what did I care?
But Wednesday I asked Mrs. Willawago, “Hey, have you gotten any more threats since that letter?”
“No, thank God! And Teri hasn't gotten any, either.”
Now, that should have been good, but something about it seemed strange to me. I mean, if the person who'd sent the letters and thrown the rocks was trying to make the rec center project go through, you'd think they'd be madder than ever after what had happened on Monday night, right?
But whatever. According to my number one news source, Hudson Graham, the rec center project was in limbo because there was now proof that Coralee Lyon owned Earl Clooney Management Systems, and instead of talking about batting cages and a sports café, people were talking about recalling ol' Blue Butt from the city council.
I played with the idea of sending her some suggestions for a new personalized plate. She could switch to CNCLCRK. OR LYNLYON. Or maybe just RECALME.
Anyway, Wednesday I also told Mrs. Willawago that I couldn't keep walking her dog forever and that Thursday would have to be my last day for a while. I mean, I like Mrs. Willawago and all, and I like Captain Patch, but c'mon, I'd been doing this every day for a month. My heaven insurance was more than paid up.
Besides, I'd promised Marissa that on Friday I'd go straight to her house after school.
Mrs. Willawago was very nice about it, actually. She said, “You've been an angel of mercy, lamb, and I will always be so grateful for your help.” Then she told me that her physical therapist had been urging her to exercise her foot more and that she'd heard of a special harness you could put on dogs to make them easy to handle.