Mandie Collection, The: 8 (45 page)

“Lolly can go with you young ladies,” Senator Morton put in. “I’ll tell her.”

“Oh no, sir. I mean, we aren’t going off anywhere,” Mandie quickly said. “We’ll stay within sight of the house.”

“Well, if you don’t go farther than that, it will be all right. But if you decide to go farther away, you’d better ask Lolly to accompany you,” Mrs. Taft told Mandie. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember to ask her if we do,” Mandie agreed.

Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton left, and the girls rushed upstairs to get Snowball. Mandie hooked his leash to his collar and carried him down the stairs.

“Aren’t you going to feed him before we go out?” Celia asked.

“I suppose,” Mandie said, turning down the hall toward the kitchen.

When she pushed open the door, she was surprised to see Juan sitting by a table drinking coffee. Lolly and another maid were moving about the room, stacking dirty dishes for washing, and putting food away.

“Cat need food,” Lolly said when she saw the girls with Snowball.

Mandie’s mind went to work quickly. Juan had not gone with Senator Morton and her grandmother, so Pedro must have driven the carriage for them. She had to find out why. “No, not right now, Lolly. Would you please just save something for him for later?” Mandie replied, holding on to Snowball, who was trying to get down.

“Sí, miss,” Lolly said, putting scraps in a saucer.

“And, Lolly, Senator Morton said we were to ask you to go with us if we went for a long walk. Do you mind going?” Mandie asked, glancing at Juan, who was pretending he had not heard a word she said.

“Now, miss?” Lolly asked, looking up at her.

“If you can go now, that would be fine,” Mandie told her. “We’d like to walk all the way across town, so we might be gone for quite a while.”

“Un momento, ready in a minute, miss,” Lolly said, removing her long white apron and hanging it on a hook by the back door.

Mandie caught Celia’s eye and smiled at her. She knew her friend was wondering what she was up to now. Then looking back at Lolly she said, “Lolly, we will meet you back here in about two minutes. We have to go back to our room for something.”

“Sí, miss,” Lolly agreed.

Mandie and Celia rushed out of the room. They hurried up the steps to their room, and once inside, Mandie closed the door and talked in a low whisper. “Have you figured it all out yet? Juan did not go with the senator, which means he will be around here doing who knows what. I put on the show for his benefit down there. He will think we have left with Lolly and should be gone for a long time. However, when we get far enough away from the house, we are going to park Lolly somewhere and tell her to wait for us. Meanwhile, we will come back to the house and see what Juan is up to.”

“But Juan may not be up to anything, Mandie,” Celia argued. “And how are we going to get Lolly to just sit and wait for us somewhere?”

“I just feel Juan is up to something or he would have gone with the senator,” Mandie said. “And you know Lolly. She likes to loaf. Now come on. Let’s go.”

Mandie opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and hurried for the stairs, watching as she went for any sign of Juan. Celia followed, and they went back to the kitchen to get Lolly. The maid was ready to go. There was no sign of Juan.

Mandie’s plan fell into place easily. After they had walked all the way across the park, Lolly blew out her breath and said, “You walk fast.”

Mandie smiled at her, aware that they had been walking very fast, and said, “Lolly, why don’t you rest on that bench over there by that shop? Celia and I will just walk around a little more, then we’ll come back for you.”

Lolly looked at her in surprise. “No want me to walk with you?” she asked.

“Oh yes, we do, but we want you to rest a little,” Mandie declared. “Just sit on that bench over there, and we will be right back.”

“Sí, I will,” Lolly said with a big smile as she walked over to the bench and sat down.

“Wait for us, now,” Mandie told her as she and Celia walked on down the street.

“Mandie, what are you up to now?” Celia asked as soon as they were out of Lolly’s sight.

“Now we rush back to the house and see what Juan is doing,”
Mandie told her. “Like I said, he thinks we will be gone a long time. And without Lolly, we can slip back into the house and he won’t know it.”

“We are going to leave Lolly here?” Celia asked.

“Just for a little while. We can come back and get her,” Mandie explained.

“I hope we don’t get in some kind of trouble,” Celia said.

They hurried back to the house and stayed behind bushes as they made their way to the outside staircase.

“I have to take Snowball back to our room and shut him up so he won’t give us away,” Mandie explained in a whisper as they quickly went up the steps.

Once in their room, Mandie said, “I’m going to put him in the bathroom for a little while so we can look around.” She started for the door when she happened to glance at Snowball’s sandbox in the corner. Someone had brought him a saucer filled with food and placed it there. “He has food. That will keep him quiet.” She picked up the saucer and took it into the bathroom. Placing the food nearby, she set Snowball down and he immediately began devouring it. She quickly closed the door.

“Now what?” Celia asked, sitting on the bed.

“We go snoop around and find out where Juan is,” Mandie said in a whisper.

Suddenly both girls heard footsteps in the hallway and looked at each other. Whoever it was had paused outside their door.

“Quick!” Mandie whispered, grabbing Celia’s hand and diving under the bed. Celia followed.

Mandie held her breath and tried to see the door from under the bed. Her voluminous skirt was twisted around her legs and she couldn’t move them, but she managed to slide on her stomach far enough to be out of sight from anyone entering the room. Celia was beside her, gripping her hand. Mandie knew she was frightened.

The girls stayed hidden under there for what seemed like several minutes, and Mandie was beginning to wonder if anyone was coming into the room after all. Then she saw the bottom of the door as it opened silently and a pair of men’s shoes entered the room. The door closed slowly, and the shoes walked around the bed.

They’re going to the wardrobe
, she thought as she twisted around,
trying to see. Then she heard the doors to the wardrobe open. Someone was going to rearrange their clothes again. This time she would wait until they were ready to leave the room, then she would crawl out from under the bed in a hurry and catch them.

She could hear the hangers being moved about and waited for the intruder to close the wardrobe doors and leave. Suddenly she realized there was another noise—a strange noise in that direction, a
clickety-click
noise that sounded like—no, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. But the noise kept on, and she became confident that whoever it was had a wireless like the one the stationmaster had at the train depot and was busy sending some kind of message. She felt Celia grip her hand tighter and realized Celia had figured it out, too.

But she had moved clothes in and out of the wardrobe several times every day since they had arrived here, and she had not seen a wireless or anything that even resembled a wireless in the wardrobe. So where did this person get the wireless? And why were they using her room to send messages on it? And most importantly, who was doing this, and who was receiving them at the other end? She became a little frightened just thinking about all this. Therefore, when the intruder finished and silently left the room, she didn’t move until he was gone.

Finally scrambling out from under the bed, Mandie rushed over to the wardrobe, opened the doors, and looked inside. Celia was right behind her. Their clothes were rearranged again just like before.

“Mandie, that was a wireless,” Celia said in a shaky voice, watching while Mandie pushed the clothes back and forth, searching for the contraption.

“That’s what I decided, too, but what would it be doing in our wardrobe?” Mandie said, bending to look inside on the wardrobe floor.

“I kept expecting you to come out from under the bed and confront whoever it was,” Celia said.

Mandie straightened up for a moment, looked at her friend, and said, “I was afraid, and it was impossible for us to say our verse, Celia. Whoever it was would have heard us.”

“I know, Mandie, but we can say it now, because he might come back and catch us or something,” Celia told her, reaching for Mandie’s hand.

“You’re right,” Mandie agreed. Together they recited the Bible
verse that helped them in times of trouble. “ ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee,’ ” they said.

“Now everything will be all right,” Mandie declared and went back to searching the wardrobe.

“Yes, it will,” Celia agreed.

Finally Mandie gave up. “There just isn’t anything in here that could possibly be a wireless. Everything belongs to us,” she declared. “But I am positive that I heard a wireless.”

“I am, too, Mandie,” Celia agreed. “Maybe it wasn’t in the wardrobe but was close by somewhere, in a drawer or something.”

“Maybe,” Mandie said.

The girls began searching all the furniture in the room and didn’t find a thing.

“But why would they rearrange our clothes?” Mandie asked, staring at the tall wardrobe. Then she suddenly said, “Maybe it’s on top of the wardrobe.”

Both girls reached for the top, but it was too tall for them to touch.

“Let’s pull that big chair over here,” Mandie said, rushing across the room to tug at a huge chair. “I’ll stand up on the back of it. I ought to be able to reach the top of the wardrobe that way.”

Celia came to help, and the two finally managed to push the chair in front of the wardrobe. Mandie stood up in it, then stepped onto the arms and thought about stepping up onto the back of the chair, wondering what she could hold on to in order to keep her balance.

Stepping down, Mandie said, “Let’s open the doors on the wardrobe, and that way I can hold on to the shelf in the top of the inside if I start to fall.”

“Good idea,” Celia agreed.

They had to move the heavy chair in order to open the wardrobe doors and then had to push it back. Mandie quickly took off her shoes, then stepped up into the chair and onto the arm. She could barely reach the shelf as she slowly moved up onto the back of the chair. She carefully looked on top of the wardrobe. There was nothing there. Nothing at all.

“Not up here,” she told Celia as she slowly stepped down into the chair. She slid on down into the seat and reached for her shoes, which she quickly put back on.

“Mandie, have you forgotten about Lolly? We need to get back to her,” Celia reminded her.

“Oh, you’re right,” Mandie agreed as they pushed the chair back into its proper place.

“Let me just straighten out the hangers with our clothes, and then I’ll be ready to go,” Celia said, walking back toward the wardrobe.

“No, no, Celia,” Mandie quickly told her. “Leave them the way that person left them. Then if they come back while we’re gone, they won’t know we’ve been in here.”

“You’re right,” Celia agreed.

Leaving Snowball in the bathroom, Mandie and Celia crept back down the outside steps and worked their way through the yard behind some bushes until they were clear of the house. Then they hurried back to where they had left Lolly.

When they came within sight of the place, Mandie said, “She’s not there!” She rushed on toward the empty bench, looking around as she went.

Mandie and Celia stood there for a minute gazing around the area. Then Lolly came rushing around the corner toward them.

“Sí, I am here,” she called to them.

“Where have you been, Lolly?” Mandie asked as the girl caught up with them.

“You no come back. I walk,” Lolly told her. “I think maybe you no come back at all.”

“But, Lolly, I told you we would be back,” Mandie said. “I’m sorry we took so long, but we did get back. Now let’s go back to the house.”

As the three started down the street, Lolly looked at Mandie and then at Celia and said, “White cat. You no have.”

“Oh no, we don’t have him with us right now,” Mandie said, not wanting to tell her they had been back to the house.

However, Lolly had her own explanation. “I wait and I wait,” she said. “Then Juan, he come. I tell him you go back toward house and do not come back here—”

“Juan was here?” Mandie interrupted. “You saw Juan?”

“Sí. Juan come from house, go that way for business,” she said, pointing off to the left as they walked. “I tell him I wait for you.”

“Lolly, if Juan cannot hear or speak, how can you talk to him or he talk to you?” Mandie asked.

Lolly looked confused for a minute, then she said, “We talk with hands and make motions. Juan understand. I understand.” She smiled at Mandie.

Mandie didn’t believe her and figured Lolly knew Juan could hear and talk all the time. She wondered how Juan managed to keep Lolly from betraying him.

“Mandie, we’d better hurry, remember,” Celia said.

“Yes, we have to hurry, Lolly. My grandmother may be back anytime now,” Mandie told the girl.

When they got to the house, they didn’t see anyone. Lolly headed for the kitchen, and Mandie and Celia went upstairs to their room. They both rushed over to look at the wardrobe. They couldn’t see anything different.

“I’d better get Snowball out of the bathroom,” Mandie said.

She brought him back to the room, and he immediately jumped on the bed, curled up, and went to sleep.

“So Lolly guessed that we came back to the house and told Juan that we did,” Mandie said with a big sigh.

“Do you think it’s Juan who has been coming into our room and going in the wardrobe?” Celia asked.

“I just don’t know,” Mandie replied. “He would have had to move awfully fast to get done with that wireless we heard and find Lolly way up there where we left her.”

“This whole thing is a mixed-up mess,” Celia remarked.

“Yes, it is,” Mandie agreed. “Even Pedro’s involved now. He seems to be driving the senator instead of Juan. And then that strange woman appearing on the beach. Is she in cahoots with Juan, or spying on him? I don’t know how we are going to figure all this out, but I think we can if we just keep at it.”