Durinda's Dangers (10 page)

But no. After hearing no more peeps out of us, she entered our home, shutting the door behind her.

Nine bodies raced around to the back of the house and peeked in the window of Mommy's private study.

So we were there to witness it when the Wicket entered the room. She didn't need to turn on the light; we'd left it on for her. We were there to witness it when she headed straight for Mommy's file cabinet. We were there to witness it when she looked through the top drawer until she found what she was looking for, all the way at the back, hidden behind the drawer itself: a folder that was marked
Nothing.

We'll tell you, we were very surprised when, having opened the file, instead of removing the sheet of paper there, the Wicket whipped out a tiny thing and held it to her eye.

It took us a while to figure out what it was.

It was the kind of miniature camera a spy might use.

She was probably thinking that if she just took the sheet of paper, someone would notice it was missing and then try to track down the truth. But this way, she could take the information without leaving behind any evidence that she'd been there.

Who knew the Wicket could be so smart?

"Say," Will whispered, "you never said: what did you put in that folder?"

"It says...," Annie started.

When she continued, her voice sounded as though she were looking at the letter herself, reading the words over the shoulder of the Wicket even as the Wicket was seeing them for the first time.

To Whom It May Concern:

Not safe here! Have taken the secret of eternal life with me, and have escaped to China Don't look for me in Beijing!

Signed,

Lucy Huit

Annie was proud of how quickly she'd learned to forge Mommy's handwriting.

We looked back in the window just in time to see the expression of horror come over the Wicket's face as she actually read the sheet of paper she'd been so busily photographing.

We guessed that the Wicket hadn't planned on going all the way to the Far East to discover the secret of eternal life.

The Wicket did take the time to replace the
Nothing
folder back in its proper hiding place, behind the drawer. But then the house practically shook in its foundation as she pounded out of the room, leaving the lights on.

"Huh," Annie said. "Some people don't care about running other people's electricity all night when they don't have to pay the bills."

"Where is she going so fast?" Petal wanted to know.

"Oh," Annie said, smiling in the dark, "I'm pretty sure she's going to China."

Then a new thought occurred to her.

"Gee," she said, "I hope she doesn't call Social Services before she jets off the Beijing, to tell them our mother isn't living here anymore."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

But we didn't think she'd taken the time to do that.

How could she have?

Within the hour, we saw a cab pull up in front of her little house. Then we watched as the Wicket, holding a suitcase tied together with string, hopped into the back seat.

When the cab had pulled safely around the corner, we snuck over into the Wicket's yard and saw that she'd nailed boards crookedly all over the front door, sealing it shut.

"Oh, she's off to Beijing all right," Annie said as we strolled back into our own yard.

"Yea!" Petal said once we were back in our own home. "The Wicket is gone!"

"Yea!" Zinnia said. "Let's celebrate!"

"We should go to the beach!" Durinda suggested.

"The beach?" Will looked at us, surprised. "In the middle of winter?"

So we took Will on a tour of all of our seasonal rooms, ending the tour in Summer.

Summer had a sandy floor with shovels and pails and beach umbrellas and sunlamps. It was the perfect place to go for a celebration since, it still being February, we were all sick of winter.

"This is fantastic!" Will said, his face turned up to catch the light of one of the sunlamps. "I'm pretty sure I'm getting a tan!"

While Will sunned his handsome face, the rest of us kicked off our shoes, removed our socks, and played a rousing game of beach volleyball.

"This is fun!" Petal shouted.

"Hit it to me!" Zinnia shouted.

"Do you think you could not kick sand in my face?" Rebecca said to Georgia. "Or step on my toes?"

"Ouch!" Durinda shouted.

Ouch?

"Are you okay?" Jackie asked as Durinda hopped around on one foot, holding the other in her hands.

"What's wrong with Durinda?" Marcia wanted to know.

"I swear I didn't step on her feet," Georgia said.

"No, of course you didn't!" Durinda said. She was obviously angry, and we all took a step away from her, worried that in her anger she might freeze us where we stood. We were too busy having fun to be frozen just then.

"I stepped on something with my toe!" Durinda said. "And it hurts!"

Usually, Durinda, who tended to be the mommy among us since Mommy disappeared, took care of the rest of us. But now it was our turn to take care of her.

"Let me see," Annie said as we approached Durinda with care. We were using care because we still worried Durinda might freeze us.

Then Annie sat Durinda down in the nearest beach chair and looked at the bottom of her foot.

In Durinda's big toe, there was a tiny prick, not much bigger than what a pin might make.

"Huh," Annie said, "I wonder what caused that."

"It's so odd," Jackie said. "Daddy was always so careful to make sure Mommy didn't leave anything that could be dangerous in the seasonal rooms."

"It's true," Rebecca said, a rare sad look on her face. "Daddy was always so good at looking out for us."

But we didn't have time to be any sadder than that just then, because Dandruff had heard her mistress's howl and entered the room to investigate.

Zinnia, being crazy little Zinnia, bent to whisper something in Dandruff's ear and pointed with her little finger to where Durinda had been standing when she'd been injured.

Then Dandruff hurriedly padded over to the spot and began churning up sand with her paws.

Her ears pricked up after just a short few seconds of churning. Then she bent her head and opened her mouth, as though she were about to eat something, then closed her mouth again.

Dandruff padded back to Durinda and brushed her furry head against Durinda's hand until she opened her palm. Then Dandruff dropped something green and glittery in that open palm.

It was a dangly earring, the gemstone of which was the color of an emerald.

We looked at it in fascination.

Green, as we all knew, was Durinda's favorite color. It had always seemed a strange favorite color for a person to have, but that was Durinda all over.

We looked at the earring more closely.

It was one of those old-fashioned ones that clipped on with a tiny screw, which was a good thing since none of us had our ears pierced.

"How odd," Durinda said. "Who would wear just one earring? It's not like I'm a pirate or something."

Zinnia bent down next to Dandruff again, only this time we could hear what she whispered.

"Do you think you might find another one of these?" Zinnia asked.

Of course, we knew the cat couldn't understand her, but it was still wonderful when Dandruff went back to the same spot, churning up beach sand like crazy until she was able to return proudly with the second earring, dropping it in Durinda's outstretched hand.

Durinda slowly screwed the earrings on.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"Like a princess," Petal said.

"Like someone who was lucky enough to find her gift." Zinnia sighed.

"Say!" Jackie said, excitement in her eyes. "We should go to the drawing room to see if there's a new note behind that loose stone in the wall!"

"Note?" Will wondered.

We'd told him about the first note, the one about what we'd need to do to discover what happened to our parents, but we'd never explained about the notes that had been coming ever since.

But there was no time to explain now as we raced through the house and into the drawing room, Will in hot pursuit.

It was Annie who removed the loose stone from the wall.

"There is definitely a new note in there," she announced. But then she stepped away from the stone and gestured for Durinda to step forward. "I'm pretty sure," Annie said, "this one's for you."

We all looked over Durinda's shoulder as she read her note:

Dear Durinda,

Again, nice work. The Eights are doing just great: four down, twelve to go.

As always, the note was unsigned.

We still wanted to know who was putting them there.

"There are those great math skills again," Marcia observed.

"I
love
this house!" Will shouted.

CHAPTER TWELVE

"You know," Annie began after Will had departed.

When Will's mother had arrived to pick him up, we told Mrs. Simms that our parents were too busy watching TV to come to the door, but they were really happy she had let Will come for a visit. They hoped he would come back often.

"You know," Annie said again as we all sat around the drawing room, "just because the Wicket is out of the way, off on her wild-goose chase to China, it doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet."

"How do you mean?" Jackie asked.

"It's simply this," Annie said. "The Wicket might not be our only enemy. Think about it."

We thought about it.

We'd been so relieved to have the Wicket finally gone, we hadn't thought beyond that.

But we did now.

Our parents were still missing, or dead, and there could still be other enemies at large.

There could be a lot of enemies.

There was so much we still had to accomplish, so much we still didn't know.

"Not only that," Annie said after she'd given us a lot of time to think, "but just because the Wicket is off in China now, it doesn't mean she'll necessarily remain there forever."

"How do you mean?" Jackie asked again.

"Think about it," Annie said again.

So we did.

First we pictured the Wicket arriving in China and locating Beijing—wherever that was. She'd turn the entire city inside out, looking for Mommy and her secret to eternal life. Then, not finding Mommy or the secret, she'd realize she'd been tricked and she'd return home...

Angry.

The idea of an angry Wicket was too awful to think about, so we stopped.

And it was easy to stop because just then Durinda said, "Let's not think about that now. Let's break out the frozen pizza and cans of pink frosting and think about all the good things that have happened instead."

So that's what we did.

***

"Yes, let's think about the good things," Durinda said after she'd used her power to freeze Rebecca before she could snag the last slice of pizza and then had waited for her to unfreeze again. "We've done so much these last two months."

"Why, just this month alone look what we've done!" Annie said.

"We discovered our mother was—
is
—a genius," Durinda said.