The Magician's Bird (5 page)

“You have to go,” Laurie guessed.

“Yeah! She's all ticked off just because I'm a little late.” Misti shoved the phone back in her pocket.

Bud got up. “Well, that settles it. We definitely don't tell anybody. And we come back tomorrow and explore that passageway. Deal?”

“Deal.” Laurie said. “Tomorrow.”

Laurie, Bud, and Misti peeked out of the shed, carefully scanning the yard for any signs of Calliope, tour groups,
teachers, nosy squirrels, hidden cameras—anything at all that might pay too much attention to them. When the coast seemed to be clear, they hurried one by one across the lawn, trying to act as normal as possible. With varying degrees of success.

Candy Winkle watched Misti Pinkerton twirling and fist punching her way across the school driveway, and tapped her fingertip on her lips thoughtfully.

“So, did you see the thing in the paper? About Maria Tutweiler?” Laurie said as she blopped salad dressing onto her salad.

“I saw it,” Laurie's mom said, frowning at Laurie's
bowl. “You know, you don't have to drown the poor lettuce. It's already dead.”

Laurie made a face and handed the dressing to her brother, Jack. “And?”

“And what?” Laurie's mom scooped out some noodle casserole. “And I didn't give it much thought.”

“Aren't you worried, though? He says she was a criminal! With secrets!” Laurie didn't know what kind of secrets Walker LeFranco was talking about, but whatever they were, she knew they couldn't be good. He could even know about the secret room, and she sure didn't want that in the paper.

Laurie's dad smiled at her and handed her the basket of rolls. “Laurie, think of Walker LeFranco as a little dog. He may spend a lot of time yapping at your ankles, but if you ignore him, he'll go away.”

Laurie took the rolls doubtfully. She knew about little dogs. Sometimes they could bite like nobody's business.

“So, Jack,” Laurie's father said. “How's the odd-job business going? Any new clients?”

Jack nodded and took the basket of rolls from Laurie. “Mrs. Tysinger's having me mow her lawn once a week. And I'm fixing the gutters on the old Hopkins place.”

“That's great!” Laurie's dad grinned at Jack and took
a mouthful of casserole.

Laurie didn't want to talk about Jack's handyman jobs or some stupid gross gutters. She wasn't done with the LeFranco conversation yet. “So you think he's just yapping? LeFranco?”

Laurie's dad nodded at her. “He's just a lot of talk. Don't you think if he had anything on Maria Tutweiler, he would've used it by now? He's probably planning an exposé on how she forgot to water her plants.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, or maybe she didn't recycle. Or she wore white after Labor Day.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “Like they even had recycling back then.”

“Don't worry, Laurie,” Jack said, patting her hand. “Your precious Maria Tutweiler will survive whatever LeFranco comes up with, even if it is something as terrible as staying up too late.”

Laurie bit off a hunk of roll and made a face at Jack. She wished she felt as confident as they did.

“What do you mean, grounded?” Bud said when he saw Laurie the next morning. “You mean grounded grounded? For how long?”

“Beats me. I got an email from her
mom
,” Laurie said, plunking down into the grass outside the school. She didn't know what they were going to do. They'd propped the pieces of floorboard together as well as they could the day before, but that gaping hole was going to be obvious to anyone who came into the shed. Someone would find it, and soon. If they hadn't already. And without Misti and her hot glue gun, they were doomed.

“But . . . ,” Bud sputtered. “The hot glue gun!”

“I know.” Laurie pulled up a tuft of grass and threw it on the ground.

“And . . . the exploring!” Bud groaned. “Can we explore without her? We can't, can we?” He looked at Laurie hopefully. “Can we?”

“We can't.” Laurie picked at the hole in the ground left by the tuft. “It wouldn't be fair.”

“What did her mom say, exactly?” Bud said. “Maybe you misinterpreted it.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “How am I supposed to remember exactly? She was grounded, not coming, blah blah. She needed to learn a lesson.”

“Well, maybe she's coming to school for the lesson? Maybe that's what she meant?”

Laurie scowled. “That's not what she said, okay? It was crystal clear. Excuse me for not memorizing the email.”

Bud rubbed his nose, making it wrinkle up like he had a snout. “I'd just feel better if I'd seen it, that's all. They have printers, Laurie. You could've used one.”

Laurie stood up. Sometimes snouty Bud was more than she could take. “Fine, Bud. You can read it. We'll go to the library, and you can read it. We need to figure out what we're going to tell Miss Abernathy about our scavenger hunt plans anyway.”

She stalked off toward the school building, kicking up little bits of turf as she went.

“See? Are you happy now? It's just your basic email from your friend's weird mom. Okay?” Laurie stood next to the computer monitor in the school library, trying to keep it together. Like it wasn't bad enough that Bud totally doubted her email reading skills. No, he had to press the issue so she was forced to go into the school library, where 1. She had to be all nice and huggy kissy with Miss Lucille, the old lady librarian. 2. She had to
dodge Candy Winkle and her tour of crazy people. And 3. She had to come face-to-face with Ponch and Jon, the bloodthirsty classroom gerbils she'd had to take care of last year, who were now summering in the school library. (It was probably technically face-to-face-to-face, but Laurie wasn't in any mood to get technical.)

It wasn't a great start to the day.

“Yeah, you're right. It looks like she's grounded.” Bud said, after poring over the email for way more time than was necessary. It was what, three lines? Not much to pore over there.

“Yeah. No kidding.”

“So what did you say?”

“What do you mean what did I say?” Laurie tried to keep her voice down, but she could tell she was sounding shrill. It was like she was doing a Misti impression. Miss Lucille had already turned her hearing aid down twice.

“In response. What did you write back?” Bud had taken on his I'm-talking-to-a-crazy-person tone.

Laurie gritted her teeth. “I didn't say anything back. Although, when you think about it, if she wants Misti to honor her commitments, she really should make her come meet us. You know, since she committed to that.”

“Yeah, you should say that,” Bud said.

“Really?” Laurie huffed.

“Sure.” Bud shrugged.

“Okay, fine, I will.” Laurie threw herself into the chair at the computer and started typing.

Bud watched as Laurie hit send. Then he gave a low whistle. “Oh, man.”

Laurie looked up. “What?”

“I can't believe you really sent it, that's all. I mean, you know.”

Laurie shifted uncomfortably. “You know what?”

“Just that it's borderline disrespectful, that's all. You know. Mouthy. Fresh. Come on, Laurie, it's Misti's
mom
.”

Laurie gaped at him, her mouth hanging open like she was a fish. “What? But you . . . it was your idea!”

Bud snickered. “Yeah, but I didn't think you'd
DO
it!”

Laurie grimaced and launched herself out of the chair and down the hallway.

It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out where Laurie had gone. She wasn't outside and she wasn't inside, so Bud dodged Candy Winkle's latest tour group and headed for the shed.

Bud opened the door to the secret room slowly. Laurie
was slumped in the wing chair with the lion bookend in her lap. She was glaring at him.

“What a surprise, Bud Wallace exploring on his own. You're not supposed to do that, Bud,” Laurie growled without moving.

“Yeah, what about you? Looks like you're in here too,” Bud said.

Laurie didn't dignify that with an answer.

“Misti's mom probably won't think anything about that email, okay? I mean, she's Misti's mom, and Misti's not exactly the poster child for normal,” Bud said, sitting on the other wing chair. He'd been right yesterday. It was much more comfortable than the stupid couch.

“You think?” Laurie still didn't move.

“She'll probably delete it by mistake instead of opening it.” Bud gave a half grin.

Laurie put the lion bookend on the coffee table. “I hope so. I don't want to get Misti grounded for the next year and a half.”

“Heck, she might even think it was polite. I mean, you did say ‘dear' and ‘thank you.' And you called her ‘Mrs.'” Bud avoided Laurie's eyes. Even he couldn't make that last one sound plausible. He should've quit while he was ahead.

“Yeah, well, anyway, I wasn't exploring. I was just avoiding the tour group. Candy Winkle was on my tail the whole way out,” Laurie grumbled.

“Me too. We might as well use this place while we have it though, right? Not to explore, but we can plan the scavenger hunt here, and then once Misti gets sprung we can do the real exploring.”

“Okay. But hear this—I'm not willing to pin clues to bulletin boards.” Laurie was putting her foot down there. She didn't care what Miss Abernathy said. She'd drop out before she did her lame clue ideas.

Bud nodded. “Me either.” He'd been thinking about it, and he thought their only hope was throwing themselves on the mercy of Mrs. Hutchins or Principal Winkle. He was hoping they had a little more of Maria Tutweiler's ol' Tuckernuck Clucker spirit. And Mrs. Hutchins was supposed to be co-supervisor, right? So she could make official decisions.

“Believe me, Laurie, this scavenger hunt is cool and all, but if it starts going bad, I mean really bad, it's not worth it. I'm not willing to get a reputation as the Lame Clue Kid over it.”

Laurie's mouth twitched. “Lame Clue Twins. Because if you go down, I go down too.”

“Right.” Bud snorted. “So no Lame Clue Twins.”

Laurie gave Bud a half smile. “So that's what we'll do. We'll reject her ideas, but have some alternatives ready. Compromises, so they can't say we're being bad sports.”

“And if things go south, we'll cut our losses and head for the hills.” Bud held out his fist for Laurie to bump, and after a second's hesitation, she did. Nothing seals the deal like a good fist bump.