The Danger Box Read online

  When I didn’t say anything and just kept tapping, he hit me on the shoulder. That was the best thing he could’ve done. Suddenly my feet were up and running toward the top of the stairs, and somehow they took me with them. A string of bad words came from behind me, and then a chair turned over.

  I’m not sure what happened next. My hand reached for the railing but only grabbed air, and then everything hurt: I was sliding and rolling downward, light-dark-light-dark-thump-thump-Ouch. I was at the bottom.

  Footsteps hurried in from the next room and then the librarian, Mrs. Cloozer, was fussing over me. She offered a paper cup of water and asked what happened. I didn’t say, and she didn’t mind. My glasses were bent but not broken, so I left them on. It seemed like my eyes still worked. She called Gumps at the store, then she told me he was on his way.

  “Is anyone upstairs?” I asked Mrs. Cloozer.

  Orange curls bobbed cheerfully when she shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Then she smiled. “OH, I know what frightened you! You poor dear! There’s a trapped sparrow up there, and sometimes it flaps around. I’m so sorry I didn’t warn you — I feel dreadful.”

  I tried to smile back, but don’t know what my face did.

  A sparrow. I knew the building must have back doors and stairwells, and Buckeye probably knew all the secrets. Just from growing up in Three Oaks. He’d probably been that kind of kid, always sneaking around.

  By the time Gumps puffed in the door, I was standing up. I didn’t have to say a word. Mrs. Cloozer explained all about the sparrow and my fall.

  My grandpa put his big hand on my shoulder, and in comparison to Buckeye’s, it felt like night and day. Even his skin had caring in it.

  “We’re headed home, Zoomy” was all he said.

  As we walked, Buckeye’s hissing words burned like my freshly scraped elbow. Weirdo — the word hurt. My grandparents would be furious if they knew what Buckeye had said to me, especially the part about cleaning up an accident with an invisible name.

  But what if he meant what he’d said? And then the threat about Gumps and Gam. As long as you want my parents to stay safe …

  I didn’t dare tell about seeing him.

  What - tap! If - tap! What - tap! If - tap!

  There was nothing to do but hurry along side by side as I chin-tapped clear down Elm Street, past one store after another, and right up to the kitchen door.

  I’m not sure who was happier to get home, Gumps or me.

  EVEN WHEN I was safely seated at the kitchen table, the Deeps were everywhere. I felt as if someone had dropped me into a bathtub filled with cold water, or taken away my glasses and told me to play hide-and-seek with a maniac.

  My grandparents understand a lot, and I could tell from how quiet they were that they knew I was struggling with a mountain of worry crumbs.

  Gam washed off my elbow and worked on my glasses until they were straight again. She asked me if I could still see okay, and I nodded.

  Finally she said, very softly, “Was it really a sparrow?”

  I wanted to tell them the truth so badly that the rest of me told them the truth. I was tapping and my mouth was all wobbly and my eyes were a mess.

  “Nothin’ to do with Buckeye now, was it?” Gumps thundered.

  Luckily, Gam hugged me right then, and no one could see my face. The truth was squished against some soft part of her body. The secret was getting heavier by the second. It felt like a snowball rolled in wet snow. Pretty soon it’d be too heavy to lift.

  Both grandparents were waiting for an answer. Even the breeze coming in the window stopped.

  Then I remembered the article. I sat up and blew my nose. Suddenly the Deeps felt a little less scary. Here was something I could tell.

  “Sort of to do with Buckeye,” I blurted. “I found a Flint newspaper report on the computer. About the truck being stolen. Buckeye’s name is in it. He’s a suspect.”

  Gam sighed, but her voice was more puzzled than surprised. “Oh-dear-oh-dear. So it surprised you —” she began, as if the news wasn’t as important as my fall. That kinda made my scrapes feel better.

  Gumps interrupted. “What else?”

  I told about the antiques dealer who wanted his name kept out of the article, the restaurant with the truck parked outside, and the news about Buckeye being unemployed and homeless. Then I mentioned the part that asked anyone with information to call the police.

  “No need for that,” my grandpa growled. “We don’t know any more than what we reported a couple of days ago, and we still have no idea where he is.”

  But I do, I was thinking. I do.

  Dinner was quiet that night. I guess we were all too distracted by Deeps and worry crumbs to do much talking.

  Halfway through dessert, Gam tapped Gumps on the arm. “Better leave that blanket in the box for now. Don’t sell either one.”

  “I know. They’re at the store, but I’ll stick ’em in a corner.”

  “Can I still look at the old notebook?” I asked.

  “Don’t think there’s any harm in looking as long as we can hand it over to the police if needed,” Gam said slowly.

  “Fine,” Gumps grunted.

  Right then, I don’t think any one of us felt like we could see quite enough. That’s unusual in a household where Life is always a blessing.

  I TOOK THE notebook up to bed with me that night. Maybe a quick look at this old thing would get me thinking about less scary stuff than Buckeye.

  The cover was red leather, and the label on the front had only three words, written vertically like a list.

  I put my nose against the label. Mmm, it had a welcoming, musty smell.

  After Galapagos came Otaheili. Or was it Otaheite? The handwriting was tough. And then the third word, Lima.

  I opened the notebook. Everything on the inside front cover was crossed off but the word Benchuca, which was circled. On the left side was a date: August 4th, 1835.

  I’d seen published books that were this age in cartons of yard-sale stuff, but never a notebook. As far as I could tell, ancient books weren’t too valuable, at least not the ones we had in the store. Most were by authors no one read anymore. Plus, chunks had fallen out or they had mildew and silverfish.

  On the first page, I saw what looked like a list, but it was crossed off with a big, wiggly X. Whoa, this person was writing so quickly that a lot of the letters were flat, as if they’d fallen down. Was that Pacaguas? Then, 19th of January. That was clear, and, at the bottom, a scrawled 1826.

  I turned the page. These were sentences, not a list, but again x-ed out. I could only read Started for and then Hills all soft two lines later. Halfway down the page was the word matter. Two lines later, very soft and which.

  I yawned.

  There’s comfort in faded, everyday words, thoughts written a long time ago by someone who might’ve had rough moments, too. Like me. This notebook keeper had probably survived a bunch of surprises and lived to tell about it.

  I picked up my Daily List Book and wrote ~No More Dragons for Today. I was thinking about my old friend Harold, the one with the purple crayon. He’d invented his dragon, but I had a real one: Buckeye.

  I crossed off my last entry about ten times, paused, and put a big X over the day’s list. Closing my notebook, I put it on the floor next to my bed and placed the old notebook carefully on top of it.

  Like Harold, I dropped my purple pen and slept.

  “PUNK!” PLAYER FOUR muttered. The thought of that drunk driving his new truck was awful, and the reality of the box inside it was horrifying. The player felt as though he’d been offered the chance of a lifetime, only to have it snatched away. Stolen.

  “If it’s the last thing I do,” he added, grinding his teeth.

  Knowing the police were only after a missing truck and not a truck plus some valuable object, he decided to start investigating on his own. He was a small-time antiques dealer, at least some of the time; this much was true. He’d misled a few customers but had
never been caught. However, having decided that he wouldn’t hand over the mysterious treasure he’d been delivering, he didn’t like having this object taken by someone else. Not one bit. After all, he’d been guarding a secret, and some secrets should pay.

  He bump-bumped over the railroad tracks in Three Oaks late on a summer afternoon. He’d seen the name of the town in the Flint Journal report. Looking around, he scratched his head.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he growled.

  He parked his rental car on the main street and turned off the engine. A giant, old-fashioned clock hung on the front of the public library, but no one was around to need the time. Birds were singing. The street was clean, and no stores were boarded up. An American flag flapped lazily in the breeze.

  One kid, a little guy with crazy-thick glasses, crossed the street next to an old codger with a limp and a baseball cap. They went into the library.

  “America fifty years ago,” the player marveled to himself. “I wonder if there’s any crime?”

  I WAS READY this time. I’d find out what Firecracker Girl was doing in Three Oaks before she had a chance to start in with the questions again. I knew from experience that if you give a beetle a poke, even a brave one, it hesitates.

  Gam had called Mrs. Cloozer that morning and had asked her to move the computers downstairs to the main floor.

  “Wouldn’t that be better in terms of supervision?” I heard her ask sweetly. “Oh, you have? Aren’t you something!”

  When Gumps and I stepped through the library doors that afternoon, he boomed, “Well, much better.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Right over there,” he gestured. “All set up.”

  I followed the direction of his arm past Mrs. Cloozer’s desk, called out “Thanks!” and gave a quick wave in case she was nearby, then walked to the other side of the room. Fourteen paces away, I found all the desks and computers that had been upstairs. To my great relief, Firecracker Girl wasn’t there. I didn’t want her to think I couldn’t go to the library on my own; after all, I’d been traveling a full block on Elm Street by myself ever since I’d turned twelve.

  “I’ll be over to the store and back for you at four, how’s that?” Gumps had followed me partway across the room. “Hey, get the rhyme?” he chuckled.

  I waved again. “I’ll come over before that; just want to do some research,” I said quickly.

  “Sure you do,” he trumpeted. Then Gumps paused, and I heard him blow a large puff of air.

  “No worries, not that kind,” I called. Why had I said no worries — those were Buckeye’s words. Suddenly my hand felt trembly, and I wondered in a flash if you were always connected to a blood relative even if you didn’t want to be. Or if you always inherited, even if you didn’t want what you got.

  “Good,” my grandpa said. “Some soil is better left unturned.” That was what he and Gam always said when it was time to get my nose out of something they didn’t think was a good idea.

  “No problem, see you in a bit,” I said, and sat down at the closest computer. Soil was the right word, and I was happy not to turn it.

  AFTER GUMPS LEFT, the library was quiet. I felt safe in this corner, knowing Mrs. Cloozer could see me. There was no way Buckeye would pop out of a back stairwell here — the computers were set up in their own little area, boxed in on three sides by tall, wooden shelving.

  I started by typing galapagos into the Search Box.

  Nope, not a fruit. A place. In the online dictionary, I read that it was “an archipelago of volcanic islands….” I stopped — what the heck was an archipelago? Anyway, I learned that the Galápagos Islands are sometimes spelled the Spanish way, with the slanty accent over the second a, and sometimes not — but they’re always pronounced ga-LA-pa-gos. Nineteen islands in the Pacific Ocean, with the equator running right through them. Famous for unusual wildlife. Part of the South American country of Ecuador, main language Spanish … blah, blah, Charles Darwin stopped there while traveling on a ship called the Beagle. Weird, a boat named after a small dog. Then the dictionary said something about Darwin’s theory. I knew almost nothing about it, only that he believed humans and monkeys were somehow related.

  I smelled coconut candy and then a voice said, “I knew it! Reading science for f-f-fun! I’m calling you Brain Boy!”

  “Was not!” was the first thing out of my mouth. Drat! Nothing wrong with science, but that wasn’t what I was doing, and what was she doing spying on me, anyway?

  I’d promised myself I’d be the first to ask a question.

  “Why’re you here?” I blurted. This didn’t come out quite as I’d planned. It didn’t sound too friendly.

  Lorrol backed away, her hands in the air. “No p-p-problem!”

  “Wait, that isn’t what I meant,” I bumbled on. “I just thought it was unusual that you’re doing stuff on the computers and you’re in the library so much.”

  “Oh, I s-s-see! Girls in your town don’t hang out on the computers, huh?”

  “No, that isn’t what I meant!” I was starting to get a tiny bit mad. “No wonder you’re Firecracker Girl!” The words were out before I knew it.

  Lorrol paused. Then she started in on that same honking laugh. It was such a crazy sound that I couldn’t help smiling. “I love that name!” she said in between honks. “Brain Boy meets Firecracker Girl!”

  “It was just that you were in such a hurry and your flip-flops were so loud on the stairs,” I explained.

  “No, it’s perfect for me,” Lorrol said, her voice grinning. “I’m always exploding in a dangerous way. It’s one of my greatest assets.”

  I believed it. But what the heck was an asset? Couldn’t be what it sounded like. And where had her stutter gone?

  A LOT CAN happen in a few minutes.

  Yesterday’s short visit with Buckeye had made my stomach crash to my toes. I felt like I’d fallen into a pit and might never get out. Today, ten minutes in the same building felt like heaven. Like I’d suddenly realized I could fly.

  Somehow, maybe because I’d gotten mad and called her Firecracker Girl, Lorrol and I were talking. And it was ~easy and ~oddly comfortable. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

  I told her I was from Three Oaks, and that I’d always lived with my grandparents.

  She told me that she was eleven and a half and lived with her mom, Esther, who was a registered nurse at a private school in Detroit. They had a second-floor apartment nearby, and Lorrol went to the school for free. A summer in Three Oaks happened only because her mom found a part-time job as the nurse at a nearby day camp, and Lorrol was in the library because she hated the camp and told her mom she’d write and read instead. She explained to me that she was planning to be one of the best investigative reporters in the country. Then she explained that that meant uncovering big news and never being bored.

  Next she told me her mom was a Russian Jew and her dad was probably from Jamaica, an island in the West Indies. Her mom wasn’t quite sure, and her dad wasn’t around to ask.

  “Our last name is Shein, which is my mom’s name,” she said. “It’s spelled E-I but pronounced like the E jumped to the end.”

  I imagined a leaping E, which seemed just right. Then I told Lorrol about my last name and my beginning on the kitchen steps and my mom, Abelina. I talked about never meeting her, and not knowing what her last name was or if she was really and truly my mom.

  “Hey, that makes two of us!” Lorrol beamed. “We belong to the Unknown Parent Club, or U.P.C. for short.”

  She was sitting right next to me now, at a neighboring computer. I noticed the backs of our hands were just about the same color.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “So where’s your dad?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. I wanted to add, It doesn’t matter, but Lorrol had already moved on.

  “I think NOT growing up with two parents is the best, don’t you?” she asked. “Kids like us are much more capable, that�
��s my conclusion. They don’t expect everything to just happen; they learn how to make their own luck. The U.P.C. is the most mysterious and intriguing kind of family club — that’s what my mom always says.”

  Lorrol sure used a lot of big words. I guess she did like to read. The list to look up was now: ~Archipelago, ~Asset, ~Capable, and ~Intriguing. Wait, intriguing had something to do with hidden stuff. That I knew.

  I liked the idea of making my own luck, and thought about the horseshoes at the store. It was funny she’d mentioned luck.

  “Want to visit our family business?” I asked. “We specialize in mysteries and secrets.”

  I startled myself by saying that; I’d never thought of our store that way. Firecracker Girl was taking us somewhere — and even though I had no list that fit, the us felt fine.

  Sometimes there’s no turning back.

  * * *

  The Gas Gazette: Issue Seven

  A FREE NEWSPAPER ABOUT A MYSTERIOUS SOUL

  ~After university, I was offered a job as a naturalist on an old sailing ship called a brig, doing “collection, observing & noting.” It was my dream job. Plus, I would travel to faraway places.

  ~I was told the trip would take a few years and we would go around the world, so this was a bi-i-ig deal. My packing lists included everything from specimen jars and geological hammers and compasses to extra breeches and slippers and boots.

  ~My girlfriend was sad when she heard I was going, and my sisters fussed over me a lot. Both things were hard. The ship couldn’t leave on time because of high winds, and waiting was agony. I got anxious, and my heart beat so wildly I didn’t know if it would explode.