Shadows on the Train (5 page)

“Hey, cool stamp!” Pantelli marched in with his mag–nifying glass. One day Talbot and I were going to have to unweld it from his hand.

Pantelli pored over the envelope, admiring the stamp—a huge gold-bordered one, featuring an elk in a meadow and the words
Celebrating Canada's wildlife
in gold lettering below. “And not franked, either. Betcha this is worth something.”

“Eighty thousand dollars?” I said doubtfully. “It's only seven years old.”

Mrs. Chewbley ambled in, vainly trying to push all her loose strands of hair into place. So much for my idea of some quality time alone.

“An eighty-thousand-dollar stamp?” She peered through the magnifying glass and laughed. “It's a nice one, but I doubt you'd get even eighty
cents
for it at a philatelist's. A stamp collector's,” she clarified, in response to Pantelli's and my vocabulary-challenged expressions. “As you say, Dinah, it's too recent.”

Mrs. Chewbley noticed my crestfallen expression. She smiled kindly. “You could ask about it, though. After all, what do I know? I'm just a dithery old piano teacher.”

The kettle gave a shrill whistle. I set four mugs out beside the wallet, envelope and keys. Then I rummaged for Mother's loose-leaf Darjeeling tea. I couldn't see the tea strainer anywhere, so I grabbed the colander and began dumping spoonfuls of tea leaves into it. Pouring boiling water over them, I passed the colander back and forth over mugs. Lots of water splashed on the counter, but hey. We creative types are into improvising.

I was glad Mother and Madge weren't there. They always acted so…uneasy when I did things in the kitchen.

Oh, I know, I know. Technically the colander should have been washed. I'd plucked it from the sink, where bits of cooked pasta were clinging to it. Still, I didn't think Mrs. Chewbley had to look so dismayed. She had to be used to me and my little ways by now.

“It's
reasonably
clean,” I defended myself.

The piano teacher let out a piercing scream.

“Look, Mrs. Chewbley, I think one can carry this hygiene thing a bit—”

Pantelli elbowed me. I turned.

Bowl Cut loomed grimly through the open window. He stretched over the counter, reaching for the envelope…

Pantelli and I each grabbed a side of the window and shoved down hard.

Bowl Cut withdrew his hand, but not fast enough. The window landed on his thumb. “YEOWWW!”

“I know that man,” Mrs. Chewbley exclaimed. She was so excited that her hair was popping out of its pins again. “I've seen him skulking behind bushes and trees, up and down Wisteria Drive. A prowler! We must call the police immediately.” She grabbed the nearest phone, which happened to be Madge's neon red and yellow cell—my sister was more into the fashion of communications than the actual function—and began jabbing at buttons. “Oh dear, I never could get the hang of these newfangled contraptions…”

I grabbed the phone from her. There was no time to waste, because Bowl Cut was slowly wrenching his thumb back out from under the window.

Then Talbot appeared outside.

“EEEE-YAWWW!” He hurled himself shoulder-first into Bowl Cut. Both Talbot and Pantelli were huge Jackie Chan fans.

Lurching, Bowl Cut smashed against the side of our house. His trapped thumb was yanked free from between the window and sill, rattling the pane so hard it cracked.

Cradling his bloodied thumb, Bowl Cut staggered away.

Chapter Six

Laughs, Coughs and a Screech of Brakes

“Talbot?!” Mother said disbelievingly. She gaped at the broken windowpane. “
Talbot
did this? Talbot the good?”

“Talbot the good?” I repeated. Mother was making my dark-eyed, and at this moment very apologetic, buddy sound like some ancient Saxon king.

“Yeah,” Pantelli said gleefully. “A first! Who woulda thought? And, man, that is some pane crack.” He leaned over to examine it with his magnifying glass. “Not unlike the shape of the St. Lawrence River. Hey!” He pointed to an oblong space where a chunk of glass had fallen out. “That could be Lake Ontario.”

“I'm really sorry, Mrs. Galloway,” Talbot said, unhappy under his dark forelock, which, in the circumstances, appeared even more soulful than usual. “I'll pay for it myself. I'll go home right now, get my bank card and bike to the bank.”

“There was
an intruder
,” I interrupted. “It's not your fault, Talbot. If it's anyone's, it's mine.”

Mother let out a huge sigh that ruffled the beet leaves sticking out of the grocery bag she'd just brought home. “
Your
fault, Dinah? Now that's territory I'm more familiar with.”

“There
was
an intruder,” Mrs. Chewbley chimed in through a mouthful of cheese. Espying a package of old cheddar in the grocery bag, she'd removed it and sliced herself a large piece. And without asking! Mrs. Chewbley was definitely a woman after my own heart. Or stomach, anyhow.

“Most likely this man is casing houses for break-ins,” the piano teacher continued. She wagged a fairly substantial cheese slice at us. “Best always to double-check that you've locked doors and windows.” She polished off the cheese.

“
I
think,” I began—and then I stopped. It might be better if Mother and Madge didn't know I'd rifled through Dad's effects.

I'd bundled Dad's clothes back to the attic before Mother and Madge returned. The envelope I'd stuffed in my duffel bag. I saw no alternative but to take it with me on the train and pore over it some more. Who knew, maybe Dad had written a message on it in invisible ink.

Madge, always more suspicious than Mother, regarded me through narrowed lupine-blue eyes. “You think what, Dinah?”

I flashed my best phony bared-teeth smile (patent pending) at her in return. “Probably we should call the police and give them a full description of this mysterious bowl-cut intruder.”

“Good idea,” Mother said, smiling at me. “I'm glad that for once you haven't decided to pursue this mystery yourself.”

I stretched my insincere smile wider. As long as Mrs. Chewbley didn't mention that we'd been discussing elk stamps and philatelists…

But the piano teacher gave no sign of doing that. She plugged in the kettle for fresh tea and reached into the grocery bag for a packet of fudge Oreos. Her mind was on food. The best people's were, I decided and felt very fond of Mrs. Chewbley, even if she didn't appreciate my loud piano-playing.

Softball in the park again, the last practice before we boarded the train for Toronto. The other girls on the bench were all cooing about how exciting it was.

Except for Liesl. Though it was her turn to bat, she was slathering on bright red lip-gloss. “Just one more layer,” she called to Talbot, who was shaking his head at her.

The funny thing was, much as I'd longed to appear on
Tomorrow's Cool Talent
, I didn't want to go. Not till I'd found the eighty grand Ardle claimed we had. Not till Bowl Cut was caught.

The police had promised to look out for him. “Unless he visits the hairdresser any time soon, he should stand out like the sore thumb you gave him,” Mother had assured me.

I twirled my cap on my forefinger. (Laundered, it was now egg-free.) If only I didn't have to leave Vancouver. Not yet. Not
yet
.

And “Black Socks,” the song I'd been belting out when I was five and Ardle had knocked on the door, came back to me:

Someday I think I will wash them,

But something keeps telling me

Don't do it yet,

Not yet, not yet…

A cloud of smoke encircled me, followed by a laugh-cough.

“Ardle!” I exclaimed, jumping. “That's weird. I was just thinking about you.”

Ardle grinned. His lips were pursed as if he were trying to hide his few lopsided teeth. “Checked out your house, but no one there. So I thought I'd stroll down to the park, catch some rays and wait fer a while. And here ya are…Whoa, that's a gigantic sore yer friend's got.”

He peered over his cigarette and down the bench to Liesl, who'd finally finished layering on the lip-gloss. Her mouth was a round, red sheen, like the planet Mars.

“Liesl the Weasel's no friend of mine,” I replied sourly. “You won't believe what she did to me the other day.”

And I blabbed the whole incident to him. What can I say? Sometimes my lips have sneakers tied to them.

“I'll take care of this fer ya,” Ardle promised, adding ominously, “Nobody behaves like that to a kid of Mike Galloway's.” He marched, in his bobbing-up-and-down way, past the bench and alongside the baseball field.

“Um, wait,” I began uneasily.

Talbot pitched. Liesl walloped the ball. Ardle leaped, smacked his knees and laugh-coughed hysterically.

Talbot and Liesl turned and stared.

“Ooo, sorry,” Ardle apologized, wiping his eyes.

More pitches, more wallops, more leaps and laugh-coughs.

“Now
look
, buddy,” said Talbot. He started toward Ardle.

Ardle held up his hands. “Sorry—it's a condition I have.”

Talbot hesitated. On his sensitive features, doubt struggled with his natural good manners toward an adult. “Maybe you could laugh and cough somewhere else,” he suggested.

“Sure, buddy! With McBean, you kin McCount on it.”

Right. When Talbot made his next pitch, Ardle was still there. This time Liesl, her eyes panicky above her Mars-like mouth, freaked and missed completely.

If only—if
only
—Talbot hadn't glanced at me just then.

Though I was chomping down on the inside of one cheek to keep from laughing, I couldn't help letting a smile flit across my face…

Ardle cheered
my
hits, which was a bit of a stretch. He sure was loyal to the memory of my dad.

When I'd finished and was slinking away from Talbot's accusing this-guy's-a-
friend
-of-yours? expression, Ardle announced he had to go for fresh “smokes.”

“How many packs a day do you go through?” I demanded disapprovingly.

“Measuring by tens or dozens?” He bobbed off, laugh-coughing, past the wading pool and surrounding hedge at the far corner of the park.

An ancient, dented gray Buick careened around the park, past the softball diamond, toward that far corner.

From behind the hedge, a figure sprang up. I couldn't see his dinner-plate face, but I didn't need to. I'd recognize that bowl cut anywhere.

Ardle started to cross the street.

The gray Buick screeched toward Ardle. Bowl Cut leaped and reached for Ardle.

“WATCH OUT!” I yelled, flailing my arms.

Too late. The Buick slammed into Ardle, sending him Frisbee-like through the air to smash on the sidewalk.

The Buick tore down the street. It swung left on busy Broadway. Amid the angry honkings of other motorists, it disappeared.

I was already running to Ardle. I could see Bowl Cut bending over Ardle's inert body, reaching inside his jacket pockets. Searching for the eighty-thousand-dollar king, I thought.

The singing exercises I had to do each week for my voice instructor paid off. Though out of breath, I was able to yell at Bowl Cut.

“AAAGGGHHH!”

Okay, not overly articulate, but Bowl Cut did whip round. “AAAGGGHHH!” I re-hollered. I splashed through the wading pool, causing waves that capsized a cute toddler's plastic ship. He burst into loud, uncute wails. His mom was on her cell, 9-1-1-ing it. “Terrible accident…Garden Park,” she jabbered.

I sprinted the last few yards over to Ardle. He was sheet-pale. His breath came out in ragged gasps. Kneeling beside him, I grasped his nicotine-stained fingers. “Hold on for the ambulance,” I begged. Had someone been there to tell Dad that after his car accident? My eyes swam with tears, which plopped onto my glasses' frames.

I glared blurrily at Bowl Cut. “You did this,” I accused. “Is eighty grand that important? IS IT?”

Bowl Cut's round face soared up and out of sight like a wayward ping-pong ball. He ran up to Broadway.

An ambulance, a fire truck and two police cars screamed up to us in a splash of red lights.

“Hey, Di.” Talbot knelt beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. “Hey,” he said.

He held out a folded white handkerchief. I blew my nose into it with my usual deafening honks. I was suddenly glad for Talbot's well-brought-up conscientiousness, which included carrying clean hankies around and somehow not minding what a doofus I was.

Ardle, who hadn't been at all well brought up, winked at me weakly from the stretcher he was being shifted onto. I bet he had his good points too—more challenging to find, that's all. If I ever
had
the chance to find them now.

“I'll be okay,” he croaked. “Yer a good kid. Mike Galloway's kid. Crumbly Hall, huh?” And then, incredibly, he managed a laugh-cough.

As the ambulance attendants hoisted him, Ardle's lean features stiffened. “Careful,” he wheezed, clenching my hand. “Be careful of …” And with his other hand he gestured in the direction Bowl Cut had fled. “Mighty dangerous.”

He shut his eyes. The attendants lifted the stretcher.

“But who
is
Bowl Cut?” I demanded. In a minute Ardle would be in the ambulance. Already a policewoman's hands were on my shoulders, prying me away. “And who's this king?”

“A king, yeah. A king who lost his head,” Ardle muttered on a cigarette-smoky breath.

“Huh?”

Ardle wagged his head feverishly. “Naw. Shouldn't have said that much to ya. Too dangerous…”

The attendants heaved Ardle away.

“Poor fellow,” the policewoman tsked. “Imagine babbling out such nonsense! Dazed by the accident, I shouldn't wonder.”

The doors closed behind Ardle, and the ambulance shrieked off.