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Thursday, 2 a.m.

Mimi: The Magazine

Fabulous for any figure: today’s best swimsuits! Your dream analysis guide. And “Living in Glass Houses: Learning to Curb your Criticism.” On newsstands now!

Levi and I are swimming at the beach. It’s a beautiful day. It’s so warm out I don’t even mind the freezing water. I actually kind of like it. My skin feels all tight and sort of tingly. It sounds corny but it makes me feel alive. This must be what those breath-freshener commercials are talking about.

I’m wearing a black bikini I saw in a store window. It’s not really revealing or anything but it’s better than that bright red bathing suit Anita packed for me. I’ve lost weight since I came here. My hips are still no doubt huge but my belly’s flatter. I look all right. Levi seems to think so anyway.

He stands up in the water and slicks his hair back with both hands. He’s really tanned but the undersides of his arms are white. He sees me over by the boulder and dives toward me. He’s under so long I’m starting to worry about him. He finally pops up right in front of me. I jump. He laughs.

He puts his arms around me and says, “You have no idea what you do to me.”

He closes his eyes and leans toward me—There’s this huge smash and I wake up screaming.

I fly out of bed. My eyes dart around, looking for the robber, the bomb, the runaway vehicle, whatever. For a second I have no idea where I am—then I feel the pain shooting up my leg. I remember the accident and the doctor and, right before I stop screaming, Mrs. Hiltz.

I turn on the light and try to process what just happened. I feel a breeze. I pull back the drapes. Glass tinkles down. The window is totally smashed. All I can think is
I’m in so much trouble.
There’s a brick on the floor with a piece of paper tied to it. My heart thuds. Someone’s after me—again.

I’m kneeling beside the brick, too terrified to touch it, staring like it’s some little alien spaceship, when Mrs. Hiltz runs in.

Her voice is all pinched and whispery. “Are you all right?” She looks like she had a worse shock than I did. She’s out of breath and clutching her pale pink dressing gown.

I jump up. I can stand in front of the brick and hope she doesn’t see it but I can’t hide the window. I can’t do anything about the look on my face. I’m screwed.

“What was that terrible noise?” she says. “Are you hurt?”

She puts her hands on my shoulder. They’re so cold they make me flinch. She sees the broken window but doesn’t seem to care about it.

“No. I’m okay,” I say.

She looks down at the brick. She looks up at me. She goes, “Somebody threw that through the window?” She opens her mouth
and just stays like that for a couple of seconds. “Who would do such a thing?”

I shake my head. What are the chances she’ll just say,
Oh, well! No big deal,
and go back to bed?

She picks up the brick. “There’s something tied to it,” she says. She takes off the paper, puts the brick on the bed, reads the note to herself.

“Oh dear…” she says. She folds the note back up, holds it tight in her hand. “Oh dear,” she says again, and gives this quivery little smile.

“What?” I say. It’s like it’s somebody else’s voice talking. I’d never ask that. I don’t want to know.

She gives her head the tiniest little shake. “Nothing, Opal. It’s got nothing to do with you, I’m sure.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to upset you,” she says.

“You won’t. Really. What does it say?”

She looks away and then turns back to me. Her mouth has gone really small. You can see her sort of collect herself. “Oh dear. You’re sure you want to know?”

I nod like I’m a little kid who’s promising to be good.

She pauses, clicks her tongue, then says, “I guess I should tell you. You’re the one who got the ‘rude awakening,’ after all…” She takes a big breath. “Well—in a word—it’s a threat.”

I knew she was going to say something like that but it still takes the wind out of me. What have I done to make someone act so crazy?

Mrs. Hiltz holds up her hand and waves her palm at me. “No, no,
dear. Don’t worry. It’s not the first threat I’ve had and probably not the last either.”

She’s
had.

She thinks the threat’s aimed at her!

It’s too good to be true. I should just shut up, thank my lucky stars, but I can’t help myself. I go, “What does it say?”

Mrs. Hiltz looks down at the paper as if it’s got notes for her class presentation or something. “Well…there’s some unpleasant profanity that doesn’t really add much, but basically it says, ‘I don’t like your type. I’m going to kill you if you don’t get your nose out of places it doesn’t belong.’”

The word
kill
sort of vibrates through my whole body, like it’s a hammer and I’m a gong. Whoever knocked me off my bike wasn’t fooling around.

I should say something to Mrs. Hiltz. Tell her the threat was for me, not her. But how? I mean, what do I say?

I’m searching for words when Mrs. Hiltz goes, “I can’t imagine who it would be from, though…I’m not really rabble-rousing these days like I once did. Believe it or not, I used to be quite an activist.”

She’s got this half-smile on her face as if she’s expecting me to have some suggestions.

“Maybe,” I say, “it wasn’t aimed at you. Maybe, um, it was aimed at me.”

Mrs. Hiltz opens her eyes wide at that, then shakes her head and laughs. “You? You, dear? Who would have any reason to be angry at you?”

I could tell her my suspicions. Tell her Krystal’s friend caught
Levi and me kissing. Tell her how Embree caught me about to pee in the woods. Those are two places I wasn’t supposed to be.

No, I can’t.

There’s no way I could say either of those things to Mrs. Hiltz. She’d be so grossed out. Kissing? Peeing? I can’t imagine she’s ever done either. I say, “I don’t know. Maybe people don’t like me doing research on Port Minton. Maybe they think I’m going to talk about something I shouldn’t.”

She looks me straight in the face for so long that I worry about her going off again—then she seems to come to. She smiles as if I just said something cute. “What could you possibly have found out that would upset people so much?”

I say, “I don’t know.” That’s what makes me start to cry. I
don’t
know. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I think I should go home. This was too scary. I just want to go home. I’ll see how soon I can get a flight out.”

Mrs. Hiltz’s eyes get all sympathetic. “Oh dear,” she says. “I feel terrible! I ask you to come here to get some much-needed rest and then this happens!” She puts her arm around me and squeezes. “I don’t blame you for being scared. It must have been a terrible shock. I’d love you to stay with me as long as you’d like but I’d understand too if you feel you have to go. You’ve had such a difficult time. You might like your own mother to be looking after you now…”

I nod but I’m not thinking of Mom. I’m thinking of Anita. I feel like I’m not going to stop shaking until I see her again.

“I guess I should call the police,” Mrs. Hiltz says. She’s saying it more to herself than to me but it freaks me out. I feel myself squeezing my hands into fists. If the police get involved, I’ll have to talk.

Mrs. Hiltz lifts her chin, stares off into the distance for a second, then turns to me. “No,” she says. “I am not going to call the police. Frankly, I’m the more likely target of this threat than you are, my dear. I can think of two thorny issues I was involved in recently. I’ve appealed the development of a strip mine in an ecologically sensitive area and I also began a petition to demand compensation for victims of abuse at the former orphanage. I wouldn’t be surprised if this little package was from one of my opponents. Well, phooey on them! I’m not going to give whoever did this the satisfaction of thinking they scared me. I’m going to act like this never even happened.”

She takes my hand and looks me in the eye. Her skin is smooth, like it’s made of wax or something. She says, “I hate to put you in a position of perjuring yourself, dear, but would you mind not mentioning this little incident to anybody?”

“No. No,” I say. “I won’t tell anybody.”

“Anybody at all? This is a small town. Word spreads like wildfire. Percy doesn’t need to be worrying about something like this, right before an election.”

I nod. I understand.

She says, “Thank you. I’ll come up with some story about how the window got broken. I’ll say a branch snapped off a tree and smashed it or…” She squints as she tries to come up with something better. “Or…I’ll say I was playing catch with Casper and took a wild throw. Yes. That’s what I’ll say.”

She looks at me like
Is that okay?

I give this weak smile. I don’t know how I managed to get off the hook so easy.

She says, “I’m old. I can get away with it. Percy will tease me mercilessly about my bad aim of course but it will be worth it. When the time’s right, I’ll tell him what really happened.”

She turns to go. Her shoes crunch on the broken glass.

“Now watch your feet, dear. I’ll find you a pair of slippers—then why don’t you come and have a cup of cocoa with me? I think we could both use something to calm our nerves right about now.”

She doesn’t know the half of it.

Thursday, 10 a.m.

You, You and Mimi

“Taking a Stand.” Mimi interviews Patricia McDermott, a courageous woman who faced her fears—and changed the world.

I sleep on the couch in the study that night. I wake up late the next morning to the sound of men replacing the glass. It’s stupid but there’s something about it that makes me feel better. I’m not so scared any more. It’s like I hear them banging away and I think,
Stuff can be fixed. What’s the big deal?
I didn’t die. It was just a brick. An empty threat. Now that I’ve had some sleep, I realize it probably wasn’t even aimed at me. I mean, Mrs. Hiltz seemed to have a couple of pretty good reasons to think she was the target. And anyway, who even knew I was staying here? Levi and Kay?
They
wouldn’t be throwing bricks at me.

I decide right then that I’m not going to go home—not today, at least. I’m going to stay here and find out everything I can about Rosie Ingram. (While I’m here, I might even make an effort to get to know Levi a little better too…)

I get up, brush my teeth, put my clothes on. My face isn’t quite so puffy today. I do my best to cover up my black eye with some concealer. I put a bit of eyeliner and mascara on the other eye. I try out a couple of shades of lip gloss and end up going for a sort of rusty-coloured neutral. I braid my hair. I’ll be okay.

Mrs. Hiltz is sitting in the living room, watching TV. She flicks it off when I walk in the room but not before I see Mimi get the audience all up on their feet for her patented “Powerful Woman Pose.” Normally, all the “Fighting Female” stuff seems corny to me. Today, it seems like a sign.

Mrs. Hiltz says, “Oh, you caught me! I shouldn’t waste my time in front of the television, but there’s something about this Mimi woman I find absolutely intriguing!”

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.” I get this urge to just come right out and tell her about Mom.

“Oh, good. Nice to know I’m not the only one who’s fallen for her nonsense,” she says.

So much for that.

Doesn’t matter. Percy seems like a better bet anyway. He was at school with Rosie. He’d know where the ring came from. I’ll see if I can arrange a meeting with him.

Mrs. Hiltz brings her hands together with a little clap. “So, dear, I’ve been thinking. If you
really
still want to leave, I’d like to drive you to the airport. If you can get a flight out, we could leave as early as this afternoon. I’d love to have the chance to get to know you a little better.”

“Thanks,” I say. “But I’ve decided not to go after all. At least not yet.”

“Really?” She sort of chokes on her tea.

I pat her back. She seems so old and frail.

“I’m fine, dear. I’m fine…That’s marvellous news! I guess I’m going to have a chance to get acquainted with you after all. So what changed your mind?”

“You, I guess. You’re right. I mean, I don’t know if the brick was aimed at me. And even if it was, I shouldn’t let people scare me—especially since I’m not finished here. There are still questions I need to get answered.”

She puts a finger on her cheek. “Hmm. Anything I could help you with?”

“Actually, I was sort of hoping I could talk to Percy about it. Do you think he’d mind?”

I get the feeling I stepped over a line. Maybe she likes to be the expert around here. She fusses with her napkin, folds it up, tucks it under her saucer.

“Oh, well, dear, normally I’m sure Percy would love to help but he’s just so busy these days. The election, you know…” She gives me this embarrassed smile. “What are you interested in? Still the Bisters? The feud? The Ingrams? That sort of thing?”

She’s looking at me so intently that it throws me. I hate all this lying. It makes my ears hot. I pour myself some orange juice from the jug she put out on the table, and try to sound nonchalant.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Just sort of what happened to everyone there…”

“Percy couldn’t help you with that anyway, I’m afraid. He was away for a long time after high school. He lost contact with most Port Minton people. I wonder, though, if there’s someone else who’d be a better resource for you…Hmm…let me see who I can come up with.”

“Thanks,” I say. “That would be great. In the meantime, I think I’ll go back and see what else there is on it at the library.”

I pick up the cane and my backpack and get ready to go.

She gets up too. “Can I drive you over?”

“No thanks,” I say. “A little walk won’t kill me.”

She tries to talk me into a “real” breakfast but I just want to get going. She shakes her head in this
young people today
way and holds the door open for me.

“You know,” she says, “there
is
something I could help you with, come to think of it. Why don’t you let me take you down to Port Minton this afternoon at about five? We had some grand plans a number of years ago to open a community museum in the old church. It didn’t come to pass but I have a number of very interesting documents stored there, detailing the families of the area. I bet there’d be lots of information for you there. It’s been ages since I was down to the Port and I would love to get a look at it again myself. Can I talk you into it?”

It might be just what I need.

“Sure,” I say. “That sounds great.”

“Wonderful. I’ll pack us a picnic!”