Who Stole New Year's Eve? Page 8

  “Sounds like that must’ve been the thief, all right,” I said. “It doesn’t do us very much good, though. It’s not like anyone got the license number.”

  “I guess not,” Eve said.

  She looked disappointed, so I quickly reassured her. “You did good! Better than me. I hardly found out anything—anything that has to do with Ice Eve, anyway.” I thought of telling them what I’d learned about fracking from Tim Roberts, but it didn’t seem relevant. I did mention I’d run into Coach Hathaway and he’d told me Coach Banner might be an investor in grassoline—and that grassoline might make a lot of money.

  “Did you know that?” Sophie asked Eve.

  Eve shrugged. “Dad doesn’t talk that much about his work. I mean, I know the idea behind grassoline, but that’s about all.”

  Then I said I’d seen some sunflower husks downtown and some more on the sole of Yasmeen’s boot.

  Sophie said, “Millions of people chew sunflower seeds, Alex.”

  “My dad used to chew sunflower seeds,” Eve said. “But my mom thought it was gross with all the spitting, so he quit.”

  “Your dad could’ve left spit-out sunflower seeds in the neighborhood somewhere,” I said. “But do you think he was downtown last night?”

  Eve looked at me funny. “My dad worked at his lab all night. And he doesn’t chew sunflower seeds anymore. And anyway, he can’t be a suspect, can he? I mean, Ice Eve was a present to me from him and my mom.”

  She seemed upset, and I didn’t want her to be. “No, no—no way. He’s not a suspect. Because besides all that, he’s your dad.”

  Eve bit her lip. “I should tell you something else then, in case it matters. We have an old pickup truck, the kind with round bumpers. Dad keeps it in the garage.”

  I shrugged. “Lots of people have old trucks.”

  “Still.” Sophie tapped the side of her head. “We’ll keep it in mind. Meanwhile, Alex, where did Yasmeen say she picked up the sunflower seeds on her boot?”

  “She didn’t say. We, uh . . . had a fight, sort of.”

  “Oh?” Sophie and Eve said at the same time.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  After that, the girls started talking about the Chickadee Court neighborhood’s entry in the pet parade. What were we going to wear? What were we going to do? How were we going to dress up our pets?

  This was not a guy kind of conversation, and I was doing my best to stay out of it when I realized I hadn’t even told Luau about the parade. I had been too distracted.

  “What we need,” Sophie said, “is a pet that can do tricks. But nobody has one of those.”

  “Yeah,” Eve said. “Marshmallow’s only trick is catching a Frisbee.”

  Sophie’s eyes got big. “But that’s perfect! We’ve all got light-up Frisbees, right? We can get the kids on Chickadee Court together and be a precision Frisbee team!”

  Eve said she didn’t have a light-up Frisbee.

  Oh, shoot. Now what was I supposed to do? You’re not allowed to tell about a birthday present in advance, are you?

  But Eve looked sad, and it was kind of an emergency, so I told her what I’d gotten her from Mrs. Miggins’s store . . . and she gave me a kiss on the cheek!

  Oh. My. Gosh.

  I don’t even want to think about the color my face turned.

  Sophie’s expression said Gross! but she got over it fast and plain old rolled her eyes.

  I was wondering if I was supposed to say something, like “Thank you,” when luckily Eve’s phone rang.

  “ ‘Unknown number,’ ” she read, and was about to hit Ignore when Sophie said: “Answer it! We put your phone number on the Ice Eve flyer, remember?”

  “Oh, no—oh, right!” Eve fumbled for the ringing phone and almost dropped it, but finally recovered. “Hello?”

  While Sophie and I watched, Eve’s face turned from surprise to excitement to confusion and back again. Meanwhile, Sophie was going crazy. “What is it? Did somebody find her?”

  Finally Eve took a breath, let it out, and said, “Okay, but I don’t know where that—” She looked up at us, then frowned. “Hello? Hello?” She shook the phone, then looked at the screen again. “They hung up.”

  Sophie continued to go crazy. “Was it about the statue?”

  Eve set her phone down, looked at me, then looked at Sophie, then grinned. “You guys,” she said, “this is so exciting! I love detecting. Only, where’s the house that’s under construction on Groundhog Boulevard? Because whoever it was that just called says that’s where we can find the missing lady!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The three of us practically tripped over each other running up the stairs from the basement. At the same time, Eve was telling us about the phone call. The person had a breathy voice. Maybe whoever it was, was trying to disguise it?

  “I don’t know for sure if it was a man or a woman, or a little kid, even,” Eve went on. “Where is this house?”

  By then we were in the front hall, grabbing our coats and boots. “It’s only around the corner.” I stuffed my hands into my gloves. “But I better call my mom.”

  Eve shook her head. “That was the other thing the person said. No grown-ups.”

  “What?” It was my turn to shake my head. “I don’t like that. It sounds weird.”

  “What—are you chicken?” Sophie asked.

  Of course I’m chicken, I thought. Aren’t all sensible people chicken? Then I thought of something else. “Wait a sec. They said ‘missing lady’? Not ‘ice sculpture’ or anything like that?”

  Eve thought for a second. “Hunh-unh,” she said finally. “But what else could they be talking about?”

  Sophie pushed the front door open. “Bye, Mom! We’re going outside for a while. You’re a grown-up, so don’t try to follow us!”

  “Take Byron with you!” Mrs. Sikora answered. And in the same instant Sophie’s seven-year-old brother came flying down the stairs as if he’d been tossed.

  “She’s so not fair!” he whined. “All I asked was can I play underwater darts in the bathtub . . . Where are we going?”

  None of us especially wanted Byron, but arguing would take too long. “Get your coat,” Sophie said. “We’ll explain on the way.”

  To get to the unfinished house, you cross Chickadee Court, walk to the Jensens’, and turn right on Groundhog. The sidewalk in front had been shoveled, but the yard was only a dirt patch covered with sloppy ice and mud. Leading across it was a path of cruddy old plywood boards. We followed the path, slipping and sliding, to the front entrance, which was about four feet off the ground. There weren’t any steps—there wasn’t even any door—so we had to jump and climb up the bare wood to get inside. Byron was too short, so Eve and I knelt down, grabbed him under the arms, and lifted.

  “Everybody good?” Sophie said when we were all inside. “All right then, troops, fan out! Eve—you take the kitchen and family room.” She pointed randomly behind her. “Alex, you go upstairs.” She pointed randomly up. “Byron”—she pointed randomly at Byron—“your job is to stay right here and watch in case any bad guys come.”

  “Bad guys?” Byron’s voice squeaked.

  I shook my head. “Sophie, what are you talking about? What bad guys? And what upstairs? Do you see any stairs?”

  Sophie looked around. “Whoever heard of a house without stairs?”

  Eve said, “A lot of houses in California—” then stopped when she realized that Sophie, Byron, and I were all looking at her. “Never mind.”

  The house had no roof, only blue plastic sheeting, which made it feel dark and haunted inside, not to mention that it was cold and damp. The whole effect was spooky, and I for one did not want to wander around in the shadows by myself. “Let’s just stick together,” I said. “We can cover everything in like five minutes.”

  “Maybe not even that,” Eve said, “because look.” She pointed. Through a doorway ahead of us, we could see a mess of dark spots on the bare wood floo
r. Footprints? We went to investigate, and Sophie used the flashlight on her phone to get a better look.

  “They look like kid footprints to me,” she said. “Byron, put your foot down next to that spot.”

  Byron squealed. “I didn’t steal any ice lady!”

  Eve reassured him. “We know you didn’t, bud. You were home with us all afternoon. But we’re curious if maybe the prints might belong to a kid—or kids.”

  Byron placed his foot, and sure enough, the prints were about the same size.

  “If it’s someone in the neighborhood, that makes it probably either Jeremiah, Billy Jensen, or Russell’s little brother, Graham,” I said, and then I thought of something. “Eve, did the person on the phone use the word grown-ups? Not adults? Not parents?”

  Eve thought a second. “Definitely grown-ups.”

  “That’s a kid kind of a word,” I said, “so what I’m thinking now is this whole thing is a kid operation.”

  “Do kids in Pennsylvania drive trucks in the middle of the night?” Eve asked.

  “Ha!” Sophie said. “She’s got you there, bud. Now, does anybody else want to actually find Ice Eve? Or are we just going to stand here and chit-chat all day?”

  You’d think it would be easy to follow footprints through an unfinished house, but I’m here to tell you that it’s not. Pretty soon they started overlapping themselves, and after that I’m afraid we might’ve started following our own prints in circles.

  “Wait a sec,” said Eve. “Isn’t this is the laundry room? We’ve been here already.”

  “It’s not the laundry room, it’s part of the kitchen,” said Sophie.

  Eve pointed. “I think that’s where the dryer goes.”

  Sophie shook her head. “Dishwasher.”

  Byron piped up. “Do I hear toilet?”

  By then, we were all getting grumpy. It was cold and dark. The parade was supposed to start at six. What were we doing here at all?

  “Look, can we all agree we’re going in circles?” Eve asked. “I’m not even sure there is a missing lady—let alone Ice Eve.”

  Sophie put her hands on her hips. “Are you whining?”

  Eve opened her mouth, but I spoke first. “Expressing your opinion is not whining.”

  Sophie started to say something, but from behind us came a sound like wood slapping wood, crack. Was it somebody climbing into the house the same way we had?

  Who?

  And after that there were three more sounds, all of them louder than the first—crack, crack, crack!— that startled us all so much we did the dumbest possible thing—we scattered! And now, guess what, each of us was alone in the shadows in a spooky, dark unfinished house. My first thought was to yell, but I didn’t want whoever had just joined us to know where I was and come after me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a purple shadow moving through what might be the living room.

  Very slowly, I turned toward it, hoping to see better without attracting attention—but I couldn’t. Should I follow it, or run away?

  In the end, I didn’t have to decide because someone screamed—Sophie!

  Sophie is the bravest person I have ever met. So if something was scary enough to make her scream . . . the smart move would be to run fast in the opposite direction!

  But what kind of friend does that?

  “I’m coming, Sophie!” I hurried blindly toward her voice, bouncing like a billiard ball off half-built walls, and finally tripping over Byron, who was coming from the opposite direction.

  Clatter, thud, grunt—ouch! Now the two of us spun around and kept going. Two steps later, we hit something hard—which promptly fell to the floor—bang!—and after that there was no sound but thumping hearts and panting.

  “Wh-wh-what happened?” Byron squeaked. “Did we find Ice Eve?”

  The answer came in a beam of light from Sophie’s phone flashlight. Aimed at the floor, it shone first on a pair of painted pink lips, painted blue eyes, and finally a whole bunch of painted blond curls.

  I not only recognized that face, I knew where I could find ten more exactly like it.

  “She’s a ’leven lady dancing!” Byron cried.

  “And she scared the be-whatzit out of me when I ran into her, too,” said Sophie.

  Like the other human Twelve Days decorations—drummers drumming, pipers piping, lords a-leaping, maids a-milking—the ladies dancing are sort of like giant paper dolls, except they’re made out of heavy, thick plywood. That’s why, when Byron and I slammed into this lady in the dark, she made so much noise hitting the floor.

  “So she’s the missing lady?” Eve had come up behind me. “It was never Ice Eve at all?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  Eve said what we were all thinking. “Why would anyone move her out of the Blancos’ front yard?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “We’d better get her home and get to the parade,” Sophie said. “Looks like somebody’s played a joke on us.”

  The fastest way to the Blancos’ was to cut through the Jensens’ yard. Byron went ahead to make sure the way was clear. Eve took one dancing foot and Sophie the other. I took the smiling head. She wasn’t that heavy, but the way the plywood was curved, it was impossible to get a good grip with our winter gloves on. After about two steps, we stopped to set her down, take our gloves off, and start over.

  “Somebody else was back here, and it wasn’t that long ago,” Byron reported as he picked his way carefully through the mud and slush. “I keep stepping in footprints.”

  “Must’ve been whoever stole her in the first place,” Sophie said.

  “Ouch,” I complained. “Is anybody else getting splinters?”

  “Me,” said Sophie.

  “Me too,” said Eve.

  Mr. Blanco was standing in his front yard when we got there, facing toward the other ten ladies and away from us. He was nodding at each lady in turn, and after a second I realized what he was doing—counting. I couldn’t help smiling. How many times had he gotten up to ten, thought he must’ve miscounted, and started over?

  “Missing something?” Sophie called.

  Mr. Blanco spun around, and at the same moment the lights came on and the music started. “On the first day of Christmas . . .”

  “We don’t know, so don’t even ask us.” Sophie handed her corner to Mr. Blanco. “She was in the unfinished house around the corner, and here she is. Do you mind setting her up again? We’re exhausted.”

  Mr. Blanco said, “What was she doing in the vacant house? Who took her there? How did you guys know—”

  Sophie looked at me. “Was he not listening, or what?”

  There was a lot to tell, so I talked fast about the flyer and the phone call and the kid-sized footprints in the unfinished house. Then I added, “But that’s all we know. Do you need help setting her back up?”

  “I can do it.” Mr. Blanco took the lady dancing from me and Eve, then balanced her on an edge on the ground. “I’m just glad she’s back. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  Sophie tugged my arm. “Come on! We can’t exactly be late to our own parade!”

  “Oh, and Alex?” Eve reminded me as we took off for our houses. “Don’t forget to bring my birthday present, too—you know, my new Frisbee?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Eve’s Frisbee, Eve’s Frisbee, Eve’s Frisbee—I repeated it every time my boots hit the ground on the jog home.

  Through the front door, off with the boots, hi to Dad and grab the Frisbee . . . but first, since the parade was a costume pet parade, I needed a costume for my pet. And when I looked at the clock in our front hall, I realized I had approximately forty-five seconds to find one, then another forty-five to attach it.

  I took the stairs two at once, wishing for the first time in my life that more girls lived in my house. Girls often own dolls, and doll clothes kind of fit if you put them on a cat.

  Since the closest thing I have to sisters is Mom, I passe
d my bedroom door and kept going till I got to my parents’. Then, thinking silent apologies to Mom, I opened a couple of her dresser drawers, hoping for inspiration.

  Aha!

  Five seconds later, I was running back down the stairs thinking that maybe, instead of growing up to be a firefighter or a comedy writer, I would grow up to be a costume designer for animals that star in commercials. That’s gotta pay well, right? I mean, I think I just might have a knack for this.

  In the den, I found that Luau hadn’t moved from his spot on the afghan on the sofa.

  “. . . five go-old RINGS!” the Christmas carol sang. “Fo-ur calling birds, three . . .” The sofa is by the window, so you can hear the song from there. During the holidays, it’s the official sound track of life on Chickadee Court.

  When I came into the den, Luau opened his eyes, stretched his paws, and looked up. In my hand was a silk scarf with pictures of lions on it. Luau yawned and probably would have made some kind of snarky comment, but I didn’t give him time.

  “Hold still, and don’t ask questions,” I said.

  Luau blinked a slow blink. Don’t catnap victims get a last request? Then he hiccupped, which was kind of strange, and squinted, which meant, Excuse me.

  “It’s only temporary,” I said. “I should’ve told you sooner, but it’s been a crazy day.” Fiddling with the scarf and a big pin made of red fake jewels, I explained about the parade. “You’re going as king of the jungle. Maybe you’ll win a prize. You’d like that, right?”

  Luau didn’t answer, just hiccupped again. Meanwhile, I kept trying to adjust the pin until—“Ow!”—I pinned myself. Luau didn’t say anything to that, either. He must really be annoyed, I thought.

  “Okay, sorry, but you gotta stand up or I can’t get this straight. I should be able to make a crown out of something, right? But for now, see, this is your cape.” I grasped Luau under his front legs and tried to pull him up, but he wouldn’t pull.

  That’s when I looked into his face. His eyes were open, but they looked weird, as if they weren’t aimed right. There were dribbles of cat spit on his chin. And his nose, which is usually pink, looked more like gray.