The Mandie Collection (65 page)

“I can always get taller,” Joe said with a grin. He carried a chair over to the window and stood on it. “Like this,” he added.

“You can just barely reach the window, Joe,” Mandie argued. “Celia and I would never be able to.”

“Never mind. I'll check the windows myself,” Joe answered.

The windows, which were locked by spring hooks, consisted of only one small pane, and they pulled out and down from the top like a door opening sideways.

Joe pulled the first one open and reached through to the bars outside. “No luck,” he said. Shaking his head, he stepped down and moved the chair below the next window.

“I wish we could find something to knock the bars loose,” Mandie said, looking around in the darkness.

“There's nothing here we can use,” Joe reminded her as he opened the second window. “Remember, we checked the whole place.”

Celia watched Joe trying to loosen the bars. “It'd probably be easier to break the door down than to knock out any of those iron bars,” she commented.

“Let's try it, Celia,” Mandie said. “We can work on the door while Joe works on the windows.” The girls hurried out into the hallway.

“Hey, don't go hurting yourselves now,” Joe cautioned. “That's an awfully strong door.”

“We'll just see what we can do,” Mandie called back to him. She felt her way through the darkness to the door at the end of the hallway. Celia clutched Mandie's shoulder and followed.

When they got to the door, Mandie ran her hands around the doorknob. “Oh, shucks!” she exclaimed. “The lock is on the other side, and the door opens into the hall this way. That means we have to pull on it instead of pushing.”

Celia laid her hands on top of Mandie's on the doorknob. “Maybe it'll work,” she said.

The girls tried to pull together on the door, but four hands wouldn't fit. Celia let go.

Mandie grasped the doorknob tightly. “I'll have to pull by myself,” she said. She pulled as hard as she could, but the door didn't even rattle. The lock held fast. As Mandie shook her aching hands in the air, Celia stepped up for a try. Nothing happened.

“Maybe Joe could pull harder on it,” Mandie said. “Come on, I'm going back there to see where he is.”

The girls felt their way back down the dark hallway until they came to the end room where Joe was examining a window.

“Nothing yet,” Joe said to them, running his hands over the bars outside. “As far as I can tell, all these bars are bolted into the brick and cement.”

“And there's no way to get one loose,” Mandie added. “Celia and I couldn't budge the door, either.”

“What are we going to do?” Celia fretted.

“Now, Celia, don't forget. We're going to trust in God,” Mandie reminded her friend. “Remember our verse?”

“I know,” Celia whispered. “I just wish we could hurry up and get out of this place.”

“Joe, why don't you stop working on those windows for a minute and see if you can do anything with that door?” Mandie suggested.

Joe stepped down, preparing to go on to the next window. “I only have these two left,” he said, motioning to the ones on the end. “I've examined all the windows in the other rooms. I'll see what I can do with the door as soon as I'm finished here.” Stepping up onto the chair, he inspected the bars on the window above him. “Just like the rest—solid,” he said, stepping down and moving to the last window.

The girls watched silently as he climbed up, opened the window, and reached out to touch the iron bars.

He turned and grinned at them. “One corner is loose,” he said excitedly. “If I can manage to get another corner free, we might be able to squeeze out.”

Grabbing the bars with both hands, he shook them with all his strength. The loose corner wiggled a little, but the rest of the bars stayed firmly in place.

Finally Joe gave up. “Looks like we're in here to stay unless I can get the door open,” he said. Closing the window, he stepped down from the chair.

“Maybe Ben will wake up and come looking for us,” Mandie said hopefully.

“I don't imagine Ben will come inside the church when there aren't any lights on up there,” Joe argued. “Let me try the door.”

The three felt their way through the dark hallway to the door again. Joe took hold of the doorknob with both hands and pulled with all his might. Nothing happened. He released it, took a deep breath, braced
his long legs, and yanked hard. Suddenly, he fell backward, knocking the girls behind him onto the floor.

“Land sakes!” Mandie cried, getting up from the hard floor. “What happened?”

“The blasted doorknob came off,” Joe said, holding the knob in his hand. He stood up. “Maybe I can put it back on.”

He felt around on the door for the place where the doorknob belonged. “The spindle that holds the knobs is gone!” he exclaimed. “So the other side of the knob is gone, too.”

“How are we ever going to get out of here?” Celia asked.

“This is the back of the church, and Ben is parked on the road in front, but do you suppose if we yelled loud enough he might hear us?” Mandie asked.

“We could try,” Joe said.

“If we could all get up there and open a window and yell, it might work.” Celia sounded hopeful.

“The room where you found the loose bar has a big table in it, remember?” Mandie reminded Joe. “We could pull it over to the window and then put chairs on top of it. Celia and I ought to be able to stand on the chairs and reach the window.”

“You might be able to if the chairs are steady enough,” Joe said.

The three returned to the room where the table was. They pushed the table under the window with the loose iron bar, and set two chairs on top of it.

“Are y'all sure you won't fall?” Joe asked. “You could get hurt pretty bad, you know, on this concrete floor.”

“At this point we just have to take chances,” Mandie said. “But we'll be careful.” She raised her long skirt and jumped up onto the table. Then swinging her legs around, she scrambled to her feet. Joe held the chair while she stepped up onto the seat. She looked up. Her head almost touched the ceiling in front of the window. “Come on up, Celia.”

Celia copied Mandie's antics to get up on the other chair. Joe stood between the girls to support them and opened the window. “Well, now that we're up here, what do we yell?” Joe asked.

“Let's just call Ben,” Mandie said. Raising her voice, she started yelling. “Ben! Ben! Come to the back of the church!”

Celia and Joe joined in, and the three together hollered loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood.

Joe stopped to catch his breath. “He must be able to hear all the noise we're making,” he said.

“Maybe he left,” Celia suggested.

“No, Grandmother gave him strict orders not to leave us,” Mandie said.

“Well, he's either gone off somewhere or he's deaf,” Joe decided. All three stood quietly for a minute as they tried to look out through the thick shrubbery in front of the window.

Suddenly Mandie touched Joe's arm. “Did you see something move out there?” she whispered.

“I did!” Celia said quietly.

“Where?” Joe whispered back.

“There!” Mandie pointed through the shrubbery off to the left. “Do you suppose it's Ben?”

“I saw something move,” Joe whispered.

Then the bushes quit shaking.

It must be Ben, Mandie thought. Besides, if it were someone bad, he couldn't get in any more than we can get out, she reasoned. She raised her voice again. “Ben! Ben!” she shouted. “We're in here!”

There was a quick movement in the shrubbery outside, then a familiar voice answered, “Papoose! Where Papoose?”

“Uncle Ned!” Mandie exclaimed as tears came to her eyes. “We're down here in the basement, Uncle Ned!”

Joe and Celia breathed sighs of relief along with Mandie as the old Indian moved between the bushes to the window and looked in through the iron bars.

“Papoose, Doctor Son, Papoose See,” Uncle Ned called to them. (He called Celia Papoose See because he couldn't pronounce her name.) “How you get in there?” he demanded.

“Somebody locked the door, and we can't get out,” Mandie explained. “Oh, Uncle Ned, you're the answer to our prayers.”

“Please get us out, Uncle Ned!” Celia cried.

“Do you know where Ben is?” Joe queried.

“How did you know we were here?” Mandie asked.

“One time for each question,” Uncle Ned replied. “First, must get out. Ben sleep. I get Ben.” The old Indian turned to go.

“Wait, Uncle Ned,” Mandie called to him. “The front door is supposed to be unlocked. We came in that way. But somebody else has been in the church. Whoever it is locked the door at the bottom of the stairs.”

“I go see,” Uncle Ned nodded and hurried off.

“Oh, what a relief!” Celia climbed down from the chair and sat on the table.

Mandie and Joe sat down beside her.

“I guess Ben was asleep,” Joe said in exasperation. “A lot of good it did to bring him with us!”

“Let's don't make trouble for him,” Mandie suggested.

“We have to tell your grandmother the truth, Mandie,” Joe said.

“But we don't have to go into detail,” Mandie replied. “If she knows Ben went to sleep outside and we got locked in here alone, she might not let him go with us anywhere anymore, and then we might not be able to solve the mystery.”

“If he goes with us anywhere else, he should stay right along with us and not take a nap outside,” Joe said.

“You're right,” Mandie agreed. “Next time we'll insist on that.”

In a few minutes Uncle Ned reappeared at the basement window with Ben beside him. The girls quickly took their places on the chairs with Joe steadying them.

“Door locked,” Uncle Ned announced. “Must think. Other way out?”

“Lawsy mercy, Missies, how y'all git in dat place all locked up like dat?” Ben called to them.

“We don't know, Ben,” Mandie told him. “Someone locked the door to the basement while we were down here.”

Joe reached out to touch the iron bars on the window. “These bars are loose in this one corner,” he said, pointing. “I tried to get it loose enough for us to crawl out, but I didn't have any tools.”

Uncle Ned examined the bars.

Ben watched as the old Indian shook the bars and thought for a minute. “I think I got a claw hammer in de rig,” Ben said. “I go see.”

“Please be sure you come right back, Ben,” Mandie called after him.

“Yessum, Missy. I be back in a minute,” the Negro replied.

Uncle Ned looked up from his examination of the bars. “Bars stuck good in cement. Hammer break cement. Much damage.”

“I think my grandmother would pay for any damage we do, Uncle Ned—I hope,” Mandie answered.

Ben returned with a large claw hammer. Everyone watched as the strong old Indian banged on the iron bars. The young people shielded their eyes as bits of cement flew through the air.

Uncle Ned shook the bars and hammered again. Then he turned to Ben. “You pull. I pull,” he said.

Ben understood and braced himself to yank on the bars at the same time the old Indian did.

“Away!” Uncle Ned told the young people. “Bar come loose and cement hit papooses.”

The three scrambled down and crouched on the table beneath the window, waiting.

“Pull!” Uncle Ned shouted.

There was a sudden, loud, cracking noise.

“One end loose,” Uncle Ned announced.

The young people stood up to look.

“Must break other end,” the old Indian fussed. He picked up the hammer from the ground. “Away!” he told the young people again.

Again they sat down, waiting and listening as Uncle Ned pounded and the wall vibrated with the hard blows. Cement flew everywhere. Mandie and Celia bent their heads to keep it from getting into their eyes. Joe moved away from the window to watch, and the girls followed.

Uncle Ned dropped the hammer. “Now!” he called to Ben.

Together the two men pulled and grunted. The bars wouldn't give. Uncle Ned picked up the hammer again and gave the bars a few more hard blows. Ben helped him pull again. Suddenly the bars gave way, and the two men fell backward into the shrubbery.

Mandie jumped back up on the chair to look out the now unbarred window. “Oh, thank you, Uncle Ned!” she cried.

The old Indian stood up and came over to the window. “Small to crawl through,” he said, measuring the opening with his old wrinkled hands.

“I think it might be large enough,” Joe said. “I can help the girls from in here if you can help them out up there.”

“I help,” Uncle Ned agreed.

The three young people happily chattered about who would be the first one out; then Mandie stopped suddenly. “I just remembered something!” she exclaimed. “Our coats—they're upstairs!”

“That's right!” Celia said.

“Well, I don't know how we're going to get up there with the basement door still locked,” Joe told them. “And Uncle Ned said the front door was locked, too.”

“We come in,” Uncle Ned offered. “We open door down there.”

“But Uncle Ned,” Mandie said, “the doorknob is gone on both sides, and even the spindle dropped off.”

“Me see.” Uncle Ned turned to Ben. “We go down there. Me go first.”

“Don't get stuck, Uncle Ned,” Mandie called from below.

Taking his sling of arrows and his bow from his shoulder, he pushed them through the window. “Take,” he told Joe.

Joe took them and moved out of the way.

Uncle Ned squatted down and stuck his long legs through the open window. As he slid in, his broad shoulders just barely made it through the opening. Ben, whose frame was even bigger than Uncle Ned's had a harder time, but when he finally landed on the table, both men sighed with relief and looked around.