Room One Page 4

  Next on his list for today, Ted was going for his Secret Transportation badge. He had to haul all this stuff out to the Anderson place without arousing suspicion.

  The groceries made a heavy load, but Ted managed to fit everything into his big shoulder bag. Except the loaf of bread. He kept that in a plastic bag and hung it from his handlebars so it wouldn’t get smooshed.

  Ted was worried about making another trip along County Road 7. Someone was sure to notice and think it was odd, him going out that way twice in one day. But people were used to seeing the boy ride around town with his newspaper bag, so Ted earned his Secret Transportation badge without a hitch. And he made certain that no one saw him turn in at the old farm.

  But when Ted laid his bike down behind the Andersons’ house, he didn’t hurry over to knock at the kitchen door. He took his time. Because the next merit badge felt a little scary.

  Ted wasn’t sure he wanted to meet April’s mom.

  Alexa. He was dying of curiosity, but Ted had read plenty of stories about people who needed to hide out. What if Alexa really was a criminal? What if she’d been holding up a bank somewhere … and she got hit by a bullet during the getaway … and now she had to lay low with her arm in a sling until things cooled off, before she could go find a doctor? What if April’s mom was like Ma Barker from the 1920s, the boss of a whole gang of crooks? Or what if she was an old lady with a tattoo on her arm who’d just broken out of prison?

  And what if someone had been making April tell lies about everything? Maybe there was a desperate band of international jewel thieves hiding out at the Anderson place after a big heist in Scotts Bluff or Omaha. And maybe April and her family had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they all got taken hostage. What about that? Because stuff like that happened all the time in mystery books.

  Ted had reached the kitchen porch. He pushed all the fears out of his mind and pulled himself back to reality. Because whatever else was going on at this house, he’d made a promise. He had promised a girl that he’d bring her some food. And he was going to keep that promise.

  No matter what, it was time to earn his Meet the Mom badge.

  So Detective Ted Hammond knocked on the back door.

  Chapter 9

  ALEXA

  April was wearing a different shirt now—blue and white, long sleeves, with a NASCAR picture on the front and “Texas Motor Speedway” written across the back. So it was a shirt and it was a clue, too. Ted also noticed that this shirt wasn’t much cleaner than the one with the frowning smiley face had been. He remembered how dirty his own clothes had been when he’d come back after a week at the 4-H camp. It’s hard to stay clean when you’re away from home.

  Ted followed April through the cellar and up the stairs. The kitchen was empty except for a wooden packing crate in one corner with a red backpack sitting on top of it. On the floor beside the crate was a sleeping bag folded in half with the corner of a pink pillowcase poking out the top. Ted realized he was looking at April’s bedroom.

  The place didn’t smell very good. Not horrible, just not fresh. It looked like someone had tried to clean the area a little. But you need a broom and a mop and clean water to spruce up a kitchen.

  And windows that’ll open to let in some air. April pointed to the kitchen counter. “You can put your bag there. Come on into the front room.”

  Ted was surprised to see there was some furniture in the living room. There was a gray and white mattress on the floor over by the staircase, and someone had left a rolled-up sleeping bag on it. In the far corner there was a recliner chair with stuffing coming out where the vinyl was ripped. That looked like another sleeping area, probably the little brother’s.

  In the corner to his right Ted saw a jumble of things that the Andersons hadn’t bothered to take with them. It was the sort of stuff that sits by the road after a garage sale with a sign that says FREE. A lamp with a torn shade. Two shopping bags full of baby clothes. A ripped black-and-red checkerboard. Three or four battered aluminum pots and pans. Some paperback books that had gotten wet. A card table with one bent leg.

  Ted also saw the things April’s family had brought with them: two small plastic suitcases, one pink, one bright blue, and a large dark green duffel bag. It wasn’t much.

  “Mama, this is Ted.”

  Alexa walked over and took Ted’s hand. “Well, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. April tells me you’re a very nice young man. We sure appreciate what you brought to us. Real kind of you. And April said you promised you wouldn’t tell anybody we’re here, is that right?”

  Ted nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Pleased to meet you, too.” Her hand felt cold.

  April’s mom didn’t look like any criminal Ted had ever read about. Or seen on TV. She seemed tiny, hardly an inch taller than he was. She had pale yellow hair, too yellow to be real, and when Ted looked in her face, he mostly saw her eyes, brown and big.

  But Ted could see what April had meant about her mom being scared. Her eyes were sort of shaky, and the smile didn’t seem natural.

  Even so, it was a friendly smile, and her teeth were bright white, almost like they’d been painted. She had on jeans and a baggy, pale green sweater pulled up to her elbows. Her hands were long and thin, and the pink fingernail polish was mostly worn off.

  She wasn’t much like the moms Ted knew around town, and she wasn’t scary at all. It was hard to imagine her breaking the law. Still, every detective knows you can’t go just by the way things look.

  Alexa waved her hand at the room around them. “Sorry I can’t offer you a cold drink and make you feel at home, but we’re kind of roughin’ it.” After an awkward pause, she said, “This is Artie. Artie, say hi to Ted.”

  April’s little brother was lying on his sleeping bag near a patch of light coming through a broken board on one of the front windows. He kept reading his X-Men comic book. He was thin, same as April, except he had blond hair instead of brown, wearing jeans and a red T-shirt, no socks, no shoes.

  In a sharper tone, Alexa said, “Artie, I said say hi to Ted here.” Artie waited another three seconds. Then he looked up, put a fake-looking smile on his face, said, “Hi,” and went right back to his reading. Artie wasn’t about to pretend that he was having a good time.

  Ted said, “Um … I brought some more food and things. Probably not near enough, but … well, I wasn’t sure how long you’re going to be here.”

  Ted hoped saying that would get her talking about her plans.

  But Alexa just smiled and said, “Oh, I’m sure whatever you brought’ll be just fine. And that reminds me—here’s some money.” She dug into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill.

  Ted started to say no, but Alexa grabbed his hand and pushed the money into his palm. She said, “Now, I know this isn’t near enough, but we don’t want to be any more of a burden than we have to be.”

  Ted said, “Thank you, ma’am,” and he decided then and there that Alexa hadn’t robbed any banks recently.

  Alexa smiled again and said, “And I’m keepin’ count so I can pay you back just as soon as I get to an ATM. ’Cause we’ve got money, believe it or not.”

  Everyone had run out of things to say.

  So Ted said, “Well, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got chores. At home.” And right away, he wished he hadn’t said, “At home.” It seemed unkind.

  Alexa nodded. “Oh, I understand. I grew up on a ranch down near El Paso, and chores won’t wait, will they? April’ll walk you out. You two prob’ly have things you want to talk about, anyway.”

  Ted cringed when she said that, but he smiled and said, “Well, so long.”

  Turning away, Ted thought, Why do moms always say that? What in the world would I have to say to some girl? Except that I do have a ton of questions for her.

  As a detective, Ted had plenty to talk about. And ask. Because so far, everybody was acting like he should just stop by with food now and then and pretend like it was the most
natural thing in the world for a mom and two kids to be hanging out in an empty house.

  In the kitchen, Ted began pulling the supplies out of his bag. That’s when he noticed an old cast-iron pump on the drainboard at the sink. His kitchen had one of those too. He nodded at it and said, “Y’know, that could fix your water problems here.”

  April shook her head. “Almost wore out my hands on it. Just makes a hissing sound.”

  A lot can break and wear out around a farm, and Ted had always watched and asked questions when his dad fixed things. He said, “Gasket’s probably dried out.”

  He opened the gallon bottle of spring water, raised the curved pump handle, and then poured a cup or two into the hole where the round rod went into the top of the casing. “That’ll swell up the gasket. In about fifteen minutes, pour in another cup, and then pump it twenty or thirty times, real fast. Just might work. And if it doesn’t, I’ll bring some tools and put on a new gasket. Bucket of water’s all you need to make a bathroom work. That’s what we do if the power goes out. ’Cause if you have plenty of water, it’ll be a lot easier here.” Then he added, “In case you’re planning to stay a while.”

  Ted let that thought hang in the air a few seconds, then picked up his canvas bag and said, “Well, gotta go.”

  April followed him down the stairs and then through the basement and out into the backyard. As he picked up his bike, she said, “It’s nice a’ you not to ask a lot of questions.”

  She started to turn toward the house, then stopped.

  April began talking, and it was like she wanted to get it all out in one breath. “My dad is a soldier, and he got killed in Iraq. That was about a month ago. Then this army friend of his tried to come and move in with us. ’Cause he thinks he loves my mom. We called the police, and he stopped bothering, but Mama was upset, and mostly just sad, and she decided we had to go to Colorado, to her sister’s. That’s why we left Texas. In the middle of the night. And the car started smokin’ real bad back in Kansas, and then it just stopped. We got a ride from a lady in a big RV, but she had to turn north about three miles up the road. So we saw the sign, and we started walkin’ toward town, and it was dark, and then we came here to ask for a phone ’cause my mom’s cell phone’s dead. Ended up comin’ inside. And that’s when my mom got scared and started thinking Lorne might be trackin’ us. That’s the guy’s name, back in Texas. ’Cept he isn’t trackin’ us, ’cause Lorne couldn’t track a cockroach in a bucket. But Mama decided to just stay put for a while anyway.”

  April shrugged. “And that’s it. That’s all there is.” Then she added, “But my mom’s not sick or anything. She’s just scared, is all. And with Daddy gone, it’s extra hard now. On everybody. You saw Artie. He’s mad, and he’s got a mean mouth on him too.”

  Ted didn’t know what to say. It was a lot to deal with. All of a sudden he felt like he was in a movie about some homeless people. But it wasn’t a movie. It was happening right in his own town. And he was in the middle of it.

  He had to say something. “Well, I’m glad I can help out. And I’m glad it was me who saw you, instead of somebody else.”

  April nodded and said, “Me too.” Then she smiled.

  And Ted the detective made a mental note that April had just smiled her first real smile.

  He climbed on his bike, and as he rode out along the overgrown front drive, Ted was still thinking about that smile, and thinking about April’s story, too.

  Which were the wrong things to be thinking about at that moment. Ted should have been thinking about the car that was coming up the hill from town.

  As he reached the old mailbox, the car was right there, and as Ted looked up, so did the driver. And then the driver smiled and waved at him.

  The car was a dark blue Chevy Cavalier, license plate number PL 7865. And the driver was Ted’s teacher, Mrs. Mitchell.

  Chapter 10

  PROSPECTS

  The second Ted looked up and saw Mrs. Mitchell’s face, he knew big trouble was headed his way. As her car sped away, his teacher was probably already calling Deputy Linwood on her cell phone. The police cruiser was going to show up any second, with blazing lights and both sirens wailing. He was going to be arrested for trespassing. And Alexa and her family? They’d be hauled off to the police station. For breaking and entering. And trespassing. The mom would go to jail, the kids would get sent to an orphanage. And April was going to think it was all his fault.

  The truth of the situation was very different.

  Mrs. Mitchell saw Ted, smiled, waved, and an instant later dropped him out of her thoughts. Completely.

  Mrs. Mitchell had other things to think about. She was on her way to Wheaton. She had to try to convince the school superintendent not to close Red Prairie Learning Center. Because how would she and her husband pay for their son’s college if she had to stop teaching? And if she lost her teaching job, what would happen to her pension? And her health care? And if she kept teaching, but had to drive the seventy-five-mile round-trip to a school in Wheaton, how was that going to change her family’s budget?

  Forty-five minutes later Mrs. Mitchell was sitting across a table from Mr. Seward, the superintendent of the district that included her one-room school. He didn’t have good news.

  “You know how it is, Barbara. It doesn’t make sense to pay a teacher and keep a school open for five students. If you had nine kids again, we could make the numbers work—and twelve or fifteen students would be about perfect. I hate to make those Plattsford kids ride over here on a bus next year, but they’ll fit right into classrooms we’re already paying for. And every one of those students will bring the Wheaton schools fourteen thousand dollars of state aid.”

  Mrs. Mitchell flashed a bitter smile and said, “And don’t forget all the money you’re going to save when you don’t have to pay my salary anymore.”

  Mr. Seward held up his hands. “Now, don’t put it like that. This is just what happens when a town gets small, that’s all.”

  Mrs. Mitchell kept pushing. “And what about the town? Do you think new families will ever settle in Plattsford again if they know their kids will have to ride a school bus for over two hours every day? Kindergartners and first graders riding all that way? The town’s barely alive as it is. Close the school and it’ll be like slamming the lid on a coffin.” Mrs. Mitchell calmed herself and then said, “You know, we’ve got three four-year-olds in Plattsford, and at least that many three-year-olds. Just wait another year or two, and things will turn around. I know they will. Because if that school closes, I don’t think it’ll ever start up again.”

  Mr. Seward puffed up his cheeks and let out a slow breath. He shrugged and said, “You know I’m sorry. I’m not doing this on purpose. But let’s not give up yet, all right? I promise we’ll do everything we can to keep the school open. But I can’t hold out a whole lot of hope, either. I’m just being honest.”

  The ride home seemed even longer to Mrs. Mitchell, and her thoughts were as gloomy as the low clouds gathering in the east.

  It was beginning to get dark by the time she turned left off of Route 2 onto County Road 7. And when her headlights caught the reflector nailed to the post of the Andersons’ mailbox, Mrs. Mitchell remembered. She’d seen Ted Hammond coming out of that driveway a few hours ago.

  Teachers look into children’s faces all day long. A teacher can spot a confused child from thirty feet away. A teacher can tell if a kid is angry or upset. A teacher can look at a face and know if a student is lying or telling the truth—sort of like a good detective.

  And Mrs. Mitchell was an expert at reading faces—especially eyes.

  So when she remembered seeing Ted, Mrs. Mitchell made herself a mental note, just like a detective would. She thought, I’ll have to ask Ted what he was doing out here. I don’t want that boy getting into trouble.

  Because even though she had locked eyes with Ted for less than a second, Mrs. Mitchell knew what she had seen.

  Ted Hammond had looked guilty
.

  Chapter 11

  FAIR AND SQUARE

  Room one seemed especially small to Ted on Thursday morning.

  In a school with only nine students, there’s no way for a kid to lay low. Ted couldn’t make himself invisible, but his assignments provided pretty good camouflage. First he slogged away on his historical fiction book report at his social studies desk. Then he dug into his booklet of extra-credit word problems at his math desk. He kept his eyes only on his work, and he kept a serious look on his face.

  Ted had been surprised the evening before. He’d felt sure that Deputy Linwood was going to track him down and give him a little ride in the police cruiser. Mrs. Mitchell had definitely seen him at the Anderson farm. She had looked right at him. She’d even waved. She must have known he shouldn’t be there. Ted had gone to bed Wednesday night feeling certain that by morning he’d be in jail, right next to the cell holding April and her mom and brother.

  But nothing had happened.

  He was even more surprised at the start of the school day when Mrs. Mitchell didn’t say anything to him, didn’t even give him a funny look. It was like nothing had happened. But he kept clear of his teacher as much as possible anyway. He went about his business. When Mrs. Mitchell spoke to him, he spoke back. When she smiled at him, he smiled back. Everything seemed fine.

  By lunchtime Ted was starting to feel like the danger had passed. He was practically home free, because after lunch on Thursday it was time for outdoor cleanup.

  There hadn’t been a custodian at Red Prairie Learning Center for three years. Before then, a janitor from the Wheaton schools had driven a truck over once a week, run a dust mop around the floor, washed the chalkboards, and then driven the thirty-seven miles back to Wheaton. It wasn’t a good system, and the school never seemed well cared for.