The Danger Box Page 11

  ~The police hadn’t questioned Buckeye yet, but would as soon as the hospital allowed it. He was being treated for burns on his neck and arms, cuts and scrapes, smoke inhalation, and alcohol poisoning.

  ~Gumps told the police about his son’s unhappy visit several weeks earlier, about the box he left in the garage, saying it was “for the store,” and about how we finally unpacked it and found only an old blanket and a scribbled-up notebook.

  ~He also explained that I was a notebook keeper, and they’d allowed me to look at it for a couple of days before turning it over to the police, not thinking it was a big deal. Then an unfriendly visitor walked into the store yesterday morning and was clearly angry that my grandpa wouldn’t sell him the box and blanket. Late that night, I’d hidden the notebook in the toolshed for safekeeping but someone had taken it during the fire.

  ~My grandpa did his best to describe the man in the store.

  ~The police wanted to ask me some questions but said it could wait until tomorrow.

  Then the screen door banged shut as the officers left. It was quiet in the kitchen while my grandparents cleaned up. I lay on the sofa and thought. Or tried to — my head felt like it was jammed with thoughts that were all bumping into each other.

  Gam called in from the next room, “Your friend Lorrol and her mom are good people.”

  “Yup,” I said, and suddenly my stomach churned with sadness. The Gas Gazette seemed far away, and Darwin even farther.

  Would Lorrol be angry when she heard I’d had a special, old notebook, something that mentioned the Beagle, and had kept it a secret when we were researching Darwin yesterday? Would she understand why I couldn’t tell?

  Would my grandparents? If I told now that I thought the notebook really was valuable, I might make things worse for Buckeye. What if it was worth even more than the stolen truck?

  This was not a comfortable secret, but I couldn’t let it out. Not now. I realized I might never find out what I’d been holding last night, or who wrote it. Not without hurting someone else.

  I remembered how Lorrol had described Darwin’s tree of life as an odd jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly that felt comforting. I thought: Maybe everyone’s life is a big, hoped-for plan with missing pieces, pieces that you only glimpse now and then. Kind of like the way my eyes work; you only get to see what’s right around you. And you never stop hoping or praying that you’ll run across what fits.

  Like Gumps hoping he could keep the store open. Like me hoping I could make a great discovery that would add the piece he needed. Like Gam hoping that Buckeye really had tried to stop that fire.

  The notebook had been a piece of my life, it belonged in our family puzzle, and someone had stolen it.

  It was in my hands, I found myself thinking, ~in ~my ~hands.

  * * *

  The Gas Gazette: Issue Thirteen

  A FREE NEWSPAPER ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS SOUL

  ~I have seen some terrible things in my life, and been unable to stop them.

  ~In South America I saw “heart-sickening” treatment of slaves. One child, perhaps six or seven, handed me a not-perfectly-clean glass of water and was beaten with a horsewhip. I have heard the screams of household slaves who were tortured without mercy after making the smallest mistake. How can anyone do this to another human being? Slavery is an “odious, deadly” evil.

  ~I’ve had to witness the pain of those I loved dearly, and been unable to help. The illness of one’s child is perhaps the worst.

  ~Two of our babies died when young, a boy and a girl, and one daughter at age ten. When she died, I didn’t think I could live. My heart was broken, and hurt beyond what words can say.

  ~I have spent most of my life battling stomach problems that made me feel wretched and weak; cures have helped but do not last. Without the care of my loving wife I don’t think I could have lived as long.

  ~Survival is sometimes a mixed blessing.

  Have you ever felt this way?

  NEXT ISSUE TO COME.

  FREE!

  * * *

  I SLEPT LATE the next morning, and was halfway through a bowl of cold cereal when there was a knock at the kitchen door. My grandma went to answer it, and I quickly twisted my pajamas around so the fly wasn’t right in front. I tried to straighten my glasses, which Gam had mended with masking tape. One stem had snapped when I’d fizzed out on the toolshed floor.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello, son,” Officer Nab said. “We’ve met before. Mind if we talk?”

  I shook my head.

  “We know about the box with the blanket and notebook, the one transported by your — ah, father. Your grandparents said you spent some time looking at that notebook. Can you describe it for me?”

  I nodded. “It was hard to read because the handwriting wasn’t neat and most of it was crossed out. But I took notes.”

  “I see,” the officer said, pulling out a pad. He paused, pencil over the blank page.

  “I’ll get them,” I offered. As I headed upstairs, I heard my grandma telling the officer about my eyesight. She also said I was a good boy.

  Why was it that keeping a secret felt wrong? Maybe secrets were natural — after all, I was a Secret from a Secret from a Secret, and my grandparents had always told me that was a good thing. A blessing … maybe this secret was a blessing, too. A crossed-out one. Crossed out but not gone.

  I sat down cheerfully and opened the notebook I’d been writing in the night before. “These are some of the words I figured out,” I began. “They include: ~sand, ~sea, ~rats, ~dogs, ~sugar, ~catch….” I carefully left out Galapagos, Islands, iguanas, and tortoises. I turned the page. “Oh, and ~boat, ~fish, ~supper, ~wind, ~water, ~eggs, ~walks …”

  I pretended I didn’t notice Officer Nab sighing in a bored way.

  “I was very excited because I found the date 1835 inside the front, and not many old, scribbled-on notebooks survive that long, you know?” I said, as if he should know. “But no name,” I added mournfully. “No tellin’ whose it was, especially now.”

  I heard another puff of air, this one louder, and the swish of fabric as he uncrossed his legs in his uniform. “Well, thank you, son,” he began. “Don’t think there’s any need …”

  I was looking at my notes again. “Oh, how about ~soup, ~cliffs, ~horse, ~biscuits, ~river …?”

  The officer cleared his throat. “Very helpful. We’ll be back in touch if we need more detail. We know where to come.”

  I nodded, and tried to look slightly disappointed. Gam ruffled my hair.

  He stood, hesitated for a moment, and said, “You were in your grandpa’s store when a man came in and wanted to buy that box and the blanket.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Were you — ah, able to see this man?”

  I shook my head. “But I heard what he said. He wasn’t too nice-sounding once he found out the box wasn’t for sale.”

  “Yes, that’s what your grandpa told me, too,” the officer said. “And that you hid the notebook in your toolshed because you thought that was an extra-safe place. Well, this is a start,” he said, closing the notebook.

  “Bye now,” I said. “Thanks for visiting,” I added, trying to sound as if I spent all day waiting for visitors.

  After she showed the policeman out, Gam said, “So … where’s the pebble in the pie, young man?”

  I grinned. This was what my grandma always said when she knew I was hiding something.

  “Not exactly a pebble,” I said. “Maybe more of a huge berry.”

  “I see.” She smiled, and swatted me with her dish towel. “Cough it up.”

  “I left off a few words back there, like Galapagos and Islands, because I didn’t want the police to know how valuable the notebook might be. Because as long as they’re suspecting Buckeye, that’s not fair. To him. I mean, he probably didn’t know what he’d taken….”

  “I see,” my grandma said again. “Go on.”

  I sighed. “I’m pretty disappointed,” I sa
id. This was one hundred percent now, no sugar added. “I think the notebook was kept by someone who might have known Charles Darwin, because his ship the Beagle was mentioned. For a while I even thought it was Darwin himself! I know that sounds nuts, but the person who kept this notebook went to some of the same places in the same year, and there are details that fit, like his lists and his bad spelling. Lorrol and I were just starting to research Darwin’s life yesterday….”

  “Oh, yes,” my grandma said slowly. “You told us how excited you were. Does Lorrol know about the notebook?”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t told her about it?”

  I shook my head. “This may not sound too good, but I was thinking of something sneaky that would help our family. Gumps told me yesterday that the store was in trouble, and we might have to close. I thought maybe, if the notebook was valuable, we could sell it and get money that would help us save the store, even though the notebook might not exactly have been ours. Buckeye did give it to you guys, right?”

  Gam’s voice wasn’t mad when she said, “The old, ‘Don’t ask, can’t tell’?”

  “Yup, I guess so. But I knew we planned to give the notebook to the police this morning, and I wanted to know as much as I could, just in case — well, in case it helped us survive. That’s why I stayed up late and took notes. So we’d have a record of what we had. And that’s why I hid it in the toolshed, just to confuse anyone bad who might be looking.”

  “I’d call it a berry,” Gam said. “And we’ll tell the police when we cut into that pie, if we do. How’s that?”

  “Deal,” I said. “So Lorrol and I can keep researching?”

  “Don’t see why not. But if she’s really a friend … hmm, people don’t like to be kept in the dark too long, you know?”

  “I know. I’ll tell her, and explain about how I hoped the notebook might fit into saving our family. It was kind of a dream.”

  “Speaking of saving, your grandpa went downtown ages ago. Said he had to speak to the insurance people. At least there’s the blessing of fire insurance to balance out all the losses. Where could he be?”

  The word be was just coming out of her mouth when we heard my grandpa clumping up the kitchen steps, sounding as though each foot weighed a million pounds. My grandma hurried to open the door.

  “Oh, Ash!” she said. “What is it, dear?”

  I knew this was serious; my grandma only said dear to my grandpa when something very bad had happened.

  GUMPS CIRCLED THE kitchen table twice before he said anything. Every once in a while he moaned.

  Gam and I stayed quiet. Sometimes that’s the right thing to do.

  Finally he pulled out his chair, sat down, and blurted, “No insurance. I dropped it a coupla years ago, after paying all my dang-blast life. Just trying to save us a little money. Thought I might be able to get some of it back, but that’s not the game. It’s gone, every last nickel.”

  My ears were a little shocked, but my heart wasn’t. Gam only said, “Ohhhh,” like a balloon that was losing air.

  My grandpa seemed to have gotten about a dozen more wrinkles in his hands, just overnight. My grandma reached over and put her hands on his. Then I put my hands on the pile, in between theirs: Four wrinkly pinks with blue veins, and two light browns.

  “We will be okay,” Gam said. “Even if we have to eat squirrel.”

  “Or Hand Sandwich,” I added, trying to be funny.

  Gumps snorted, and I don’t know if it was a laugh or a sob or both. “Tastes like chicken,” he said.

  Things were getting stranger by the minute.

  “We’ll try it fried,” Gam said, in her best hodilly-hum tone. Her voice was shaky but determined not to be.

  Were they serious?

  It’s a strange thing, how people are sometimes supposed to hide things and sometimes not. Especially around the people they love.

  I thought squirrel sounded disgusting, but I kept that a secret.

  * * *

  The Gas Gazette: Issue Fourteen

  A FREE NEWSPAPER ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS SOUL

  ~When I returned from the trip, I was thrilled to see my family, plumbing, and English food.

  ~As a university student years before, my friends and I had started a “Glutton Club” and tried to shock ourselves by dining on “strange flesh,” like owls and other creatures not usually eaten. We thought that was adventuresome, but little did I know …

  ~While traveling, I ate many insects, some by mistake, and lots of creatures I’d never dreamed of putting in my mouth. In addition to odd fish, shell-fish, and reptiles, we lived on ostrich, armadillo, deer, agouti (a large rodent), even puma.

  ~We purchased some difficult-to-identify meats while stopping for supplies: Don’t ask, not sure.

  ~It was a good rule on our voyage not to think while eating.

  ~Lots of insects ate us.

  ~Sometimes I believe that being bitten by an insect I called “Benchuca,” a nasty South American parasite, made me ill for the rest of my life.

  ~But then how do you explain how dreadfully sick I got before leaving England, long before any strange bug bites? My stomach has always worried.

  ~Discovery makes me feel better.

  ~What would life be without wonder?

  Who am I?

  NEXT ISSUE TO COME.

  FREE!

  * * *

  AFTER THE NO Insurance news, in those hours after the fire, it seemed like my grandparents couldn’t see real well, either.

  The kitchen got too quiet, even before dinner. Gumps went out to pick some green beans, and stepped on a bunch of zucchini blossoms while he was picking. I offered to help him, but he only shrugged.

  Next we heard a shriek from the kitchen. Gam had been slicing tomatoes to go with a leftover hamburger casserole, and moved on to her finger. She had to squeeze it in a dish towel for a good half hour before the bleeding stopped.

  Every few hours they called the hospital to check up on Buckeye, whose condition, the doctors said, was stable.

  The fire had wounded us all, that’s for sure. But knowing there was no insurance was like squeezing lemon in a raw cut. It hurt in a different way. My grandma had no good sayings to share, not this time.

  After dinner, my grandpa offered to pick up some milk. He backed our truck out of the driveway and ran bang-smack into a huge tree trunk and knocked off the fender. He’d driven by it a thousand times.

  When he returned with a half gallon, he handed it to me and I dropped it on the kitchen floor. It didn’t open, but slid under the table, and I bumped my head picking it up.

  “Enough accidents. Time for bed,” Gam said, even though it was barely dark. We all climbed the stairs, and the house settled into a long, quiet night.

  Lying in bed, I felt especially bad for Gumps. I knew he loved the store, and he’d loved it all his life. Me, too, but his life was much longer than mine.

  The No Insurance was a dangerous secret, a secret that he hadn’t told even my grandma, not wanting to worry her. He’d kept it for years.

  What a huge hurt.

  And then there was Buckeye. Buckeye was kin, that was for sure, and he was in trouble with the law. The police suspected him of setting the fire, but even I didn’t think that he’d do something like that. He might have been nasty and mean, but why would he destroy our family business? It didn’t make sense.

  The only other possibility was the Stranger. Someone had to find him.

  What if he was still in Three Oaks, trying to look innocent?

  I sat straight up in bed. No one would think a mostly blind kid and a noisy girl could find a criminal, especially in a small town.

  The leaves outside whispered, loook, yessss, loook. It seemed obvious now. Of course the man was still here. And if the man was still here, so was the notebook.

  THE NEXT DAY was blue times two and windless. The lack of breeze felt strange after so many weeks. In summer when the wind blows, the corn rustles in waves, acre
after acre as far as the ear can hear. Our town becomes an island in a sea of swishing stalks and leaves. That morning we heard only birds and bugs: mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, crickets, bees. It seemed like the world was saying, Look, I can be gentle again. And kind.

  There was no store for my grandpa to go to, so after breakfast he stomped out to our garden and started hoeing the sod at one end. “Makin’ it bigger” was all he said.

  “Need help?” I asked.

  “Naw, your grandma said you might want to go to the library. Go on, get a break from all this — this —”

  “I don’t need a break,” I said, not wanting to hurt my grandpa more. “But I have some research I want to do.”

  “Right,” Gumps said, and kept working. I noticed he slammed that hoe down into the dirt like there was no tomorrow.

  Inside, Gam was baking blueberry pies. By seven that morning, she’d already pulled two out of the oven. “Button jar” was all she said. Then, looking at me, “Go to it. I’ll walk you over.”

  I nodded, knowing she wouldn’t have said that if she knew what kind of research I had in mind.

  I DIDN’T EXPECT all the soothing words we heard on the way to the library. We’d never had a family disaster, not that I could remember, and kept so much to ourselves that we weren’t used to much back-and-forth. But our town is famous for being kind when lightning strikes, and when it hit us, kindness was everywhere.

  By the time I got to the library doors, I knew that someone was bringing over a coconut cake later on; that someone else was going to use his tractor to help my grandpa start cleaning up the wreckage; that the grocery store owner was handing over an envelope filled with coupons.