Paperquake (12 page)

"The 1906 earthquake," muttered Violet.

"Push your hood back, dear, I can hardly hear you," said Lily. "Really, it's very unbecoming, sitting around indoors with your face half covered like that."

"My head's cold," said Violet.

"Oh my, I did think last night you looked like you were getting sick. Let me check." In a flash, Lily was up and at Violet's side. She placed one hand on Violet's forehead, then—before Violet could stop her—pulled back the hood to feel the temperature at the back of Violet's neck and revealed the dark curls with their odd sheen.

"Baby! What have you done to your hair?" demanded Lily.

"It's a mistake, Mom—it was supposed to be
golden.
Like Jazzy's and Rosy's. But don't worry, it'll wash out." Violet spoke quickly, her head down. She couldn't bear to look at her sisters, couldn't bear to see the contemptuous amusement on their faces.

She was surprised when no one laughed and no one suggested she was already in costume for the Halloween Ball. She raised her head a little when Jasmine's voice broke the silence. "It's cool—sort of. Sort of, um, eggplant-colored."

"Probably no one will notice," added Rose in an uncharacteristically gentle voice. "Much."

Violet dragged the hood back up to cover her hair, her face flushed with humiliation. She held out her hand for the envelope, and Rose returned it without another word.

Violet said a hasty good-bye to her mother, then went to the kitchen for her coat. She was just going out the door when Jasmine and Rose came after her.

"We can walk together, if you want," Jasmine offered.

Rose shouldered her backpack. "I'm ready, too. Let's all go."

"Now that's what I like to see," said Lily approvingly as the girls left the house together.

"Vi's hair gives me an idea," Rose said. "We can dress as aliens for the dance!"

"All three of us," said Jasmine. "With antennae and purple hair. It'll be cool. Okay, Vi?"

Violet didn't answer. The letter in her hand seemed to be burning a hole into her skin. Its guilty weight was heavier than all the books she carried.

Rose narrowed her eyes. "So, what were you going to tell us about Hal, Baby?"

"Don't call me Baby," Violet said automatically. She walked faster.

"Then stop acting like one." Rose hurried after her. "What's going on?"

"We're all in this together," insisted Jasmine. "We were there when you found the letters, after all. So if you've learned something new, we have a right to know, too!"

Violet stopped and faced her sisters. If they were all in this together, then Jazzy and Rosy would help rather than condemn her. She glanced left and right, checking to see who might overhear. Two women walked in front of them, high heels clicking on the pavement. Behind them a raucous group of high school students was surging forward, all cackling like Halloween witches. Violet waited until they had passed. "Will you swear to keep this a secret?"

"You don't have secrets," scoffed Rose.

"
Sshh!
" snapped Jasmine. "Of course we will. At least I will."

"I will, too," vowed Rose. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

After a moment's hesitation, Violet told them about finding the diary entry in the old suitcase. She pulled it from her backpack, watching their expressions with satisfaction as they read.

"It mentions Hal!" exclaimed Jasmine. "Did V write it? I bet she did—"

"But there's something terrible—it sounds like murder," said Rose. "Do you really think V murdered someone?"

"No, I'm sure she didn't. I don't think this is her diary at all," Violet told them. "It's too creepy and weird. Hal wouldn't love somebody who was creepy and weird. Butthere's something more—" andshetold them about theletter from Hal she had discovered in the museum exhibit.

They listened with identical expressions of fascination. Then Violet held up the large manila envelope.

"That's it?" asked Rose, wide-eyed.

"You stole it?" gasped Jasmine, horrified.

"
Borrowed
it," Violet said firmly. "And I'm returning it this morning."

They couldn't believe she'd done it, of course. They snatched the letter back and forth, reading it and exclaiming over it until Violet rescued it, afraid it would be torn. Jasmine and Rose shrieked and carried on so loudly that two old men with shopping bags who passed them on the sidewalk frowned darkly and muttered about "kids today."

Jasmine and Rose walked on either side of Violet, shaking their heads at her. "What nerve," said Jasmine. "I just can't
believe
you."

"I can't believe you, either," said Rose. "You really are an alien after all."

But when Violet glanced from side to side and saw their faces, she felt a little thrill inside as she realized that her sisters' appalled reactions masked a very real envy.
They
had never stolen something from a museum.
They
had never found mysterious letters from the past addressed with
their
initials. Did she imagine it, or were they looking at her now with awe?

"It's amazing," Rose said finally. "I think you're crazy to have taken it, Vi, but now that you have it, you can't send it back without keeping a copy. It's—I don't know—
evidence,
or something."

"Yeah," concurred Jasmine. "It belongs with the other letters."

Violet stopped, a little smile playing about the corners of her mouth. "And so,
voilà,
" she said, pointing to the Copy Shop in front of them. "Great minds think alike."

She led the way inside, glancing back over her shoulder, noting with satisfaction the twin looks of grudging respect on their identical faces.

But after they made the copy and stowed it inside Violet's science notebook, after they sealed the original letter in the envelope and ran all the way to the mailbox on the corner, Jasmine put her hand on Violet's arm to stop her from dropping the letter inside.

"Wait—the postmark," Jasmine said. "We didn't think of that!"

"Oh, you're right," agreed Rose, panting slightly. "It's a dead giveaway."

Violet paused with her hand on the mailbox door. "What do you mean?" She longed to send the letter back where it belonged and have it off her conscience.

"A Berkeley postmark will show that the stolen letter was mailed from Berkeley," explained Jasmine. "If the San Francisco police are looking for the thief—that's
you,
Vi—then they'll know to look here."

"And the museum can check which schools came to the museum the day the letter was stolen," added Rose. "It will be only a matter of time before they track the thief to your class. And they'll be able to tell just by looking at your face who took the letter."

Violet put her hands to her face. She could feel the heat. She felt the thud of her heart as she pictured the police pouring into her classroom. Mr. Koch would try to hide under the desk the way he had during the earthquake. When the police wresded her out of her seat, the hood of her sweatshirt would fall back, revealing her hair....There would be no living it down. Any of it. Ever.

"But what do I do?" wailed Violet. "Go back to San Francisco to mail it from there?"

Rose nodded. "I think that would be better. Throw them off the track."

"Wait, I have a better idea," said Jasmine. "What if the letter just reappeared?"

"You mean, like magic?" asked Rose.

Violet broke in excitedly. "That
would
be the best way! Oh, Jazzy, how will we do it?"

"We'll go back to the museum and create a diversion and slip the letter back where it belongs. Easy as pie."

Rose looked from Jasmine to Violet and back again. "Jazzy, I can't believe you're going to get involved in this. You'll just make things worse if you get caught."

Jasmine linked her arm in Violet's. "But we are in this together," she said softly. "Aren't you with us, Rosy?"

Violet held her breath.

After a long moment, Rose linked her arm through Violet's free arm. "I think you're
both
aliens," she muttered. "I don't know how I managed to get mixed up with you."

Violet squeezed both her sisters' arms.
Mixed up right from the start,
she thought, and relief flooded through her—relief, and something more. It was the last outcome she would have expected from her foray into the world of crime. But here they were, triplets all together, united in purpose and plan. "So let's go today" was all Violet said. "Right after school."

Violet nibbled her thumbnail nervously. She had never gone anywhere without telling her parents. "But if we call the shop to ask permission," explained Rose as the triplets left their lockers after school, "Mom will ask questions."

"We could tell her I'm working on my science project," Violet suggested uneasily.

"She'll say it's too late now and we'll have to wait till the weekend," objected Jasmine.

"But I can't wait that long to return the letter!"

"Exactly," said Rose. "You've already embarked on a life of crime, so why should stretching the truth bother you now? Besides, Mom and Dad don't need to know exactly where we are every second. It isn't as if we're babies."

"But if we don't go right now," added Jasmine, "we might as well forget it for today."

They compromised by calling their house and leaving a message on the answering machine. Rose spoke in a firm, grown-up voice, explaining that Violet had to do some research for her science class, and that she and Jasmine were helping her, and that they would all be home for dinner. She was careful not to say where they were going. "That way," she told her sisters as she hung up, "they'll probably just think we're at the library."

The bus to the BART station seemed to take forever, stop-pingatnearly everystreetcorner alongthe way. At the station, Rose bought a map of BART and bus routes, then they jumped onto the BART train just as it was leaving. It sped under the bay to San Francisco, where they had to walk to a bus stop, where, Rose's map promised, another bus would take them on to Golden Gate Park.

But the bus didn't come, and didn't come, and Violet kept glancing nervously at her watch. The drive to the museum by school bus had seemed so quick. And the days were getting shorter. It might be dark by the time they rode home again. Their parents would be frantic if they didn't come back in time for dinner. Violet started feeling frantic herself. What if there was another quake while she and her sisters were in San Francisco? What if they couldn't get home and the phone lines were dead so they couldn't even call to tell their parents they were safe? And what if they
weren't
safe?

"Well,
finally,
" said Jasmine, and Violet looked up to see the big bus lumbering toward them down the steep hill. The triplets climbed aboard the crowded bus and showed the driver their transfer ticket. Then they stood near the front, hanging on to the metal poles. Other school kids jumped on and off at the next stops, laughing and shouting, and dropping books and papers in the aisle. Slowly, too slowly for Violet's liking, the crowded bus made its way toward Golden Gate Park. She felt hot and exhausted and was no longer worrying what her parents would say if they knew about the trip to San Francisco. She worried instead what the police would do if they found out who stole the letter.

Finally the girls disembarked. Violet broke out in a sweat. She imagined she could feel the envelope with the stolen letter in it growing warm against her back through the canvas backpack. It grew so hot, it seemed to burn. She sucked in cool air and slipped the pack off her shoulder, holding it tightly by one strap as they neared the Academy.

Violet and her sisters paid admission with their lunch money, which they'd saved. Then they walked down the hall toward the earthquake exhibit. Though their footsteps made no sound on the carpet, it seemed to Violet everyone was looking at them.
Don't be paranoid,
she told herself. But it was true. Heads turned as they walked by.
It's probably my hair!
She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt even though she was already feeling overheated.

But the eyes of other museum patrons continued to turn their way. People smiled at them. Violet hunched her shoulders and trailed behind her sisters, trying to look inconspicuous. One Utile girl pointed and tugged at her mother's arm. "Look, Mommy. It's three twins!" And, belatedly, Violet realized their identical outfits were creating the stir.

For once she wished she had not dressed to match her sisters. They were all three of them far too visible at the very time they needed not to be seen. Violet longed for a cloak of invisibility. She would fold it around, herself, drop the letter back on the table from which she'd taken it, and run out of the museum.

"Okay," she whispered, reaching out to pull her sisters to a stop. She nodded in the direction of the exhibit. "That's it." From where she stood, the exhibit appeared to be the same. There was even a piece of paper on the writing table. "It looks like they've put some other letter there."

"I don't see any cops," Jasmine whispered.

"Maybe they're undercover cops," muttered Rose darkly. "Take off your hood, Baby. It makes you look suspicious."

Violet didn't have to be told twice. She wished she could take off the whole sweatshirt—but that would leave her wearing only her bra. She walked swiftly away from the exhibit and collapsed on a bench across the big room. "I feel dizzy."

Jasmine and Rose bent over her in concern. "It's probably just stress," said Jasmine.

"Take deep breaths," advised Rose. She reached for the backpack. "Here, give me the letter." Her eyes met Jasmine's. "If Vi faints, there will be people all around her. I don't want the letter to fall into their hands."

"If Vi faints...," murmured Jasmine. "Baby? Are you really going to faint?"

"I'm just hot. Aren't you?"

"Nope." Rose pulled out the large envelope. "But, you know, it might be a good idea now if you
do
faint. You know, fall on the floor and gasp for breath."

"Thanks a lot, Rosy. What a great sister."