The Tiara on the Terrace (13 page)

W
hen Barb Lund greeted us in front of the Root Beer float, she didn't cross her arms and glare. She didn't snap her gum. It was far worse than we ever could have imagined.

She smiled.

I almost screamed and ran.

“Page Young, Page Yang, Page Bottoms.” Lund bowed her head in greeting as she addressed each of us individually. I swear she curtsied. She wiped her hands on her flower-stained overalls, carefully avoiding the Winnie the Pooh patch on the front, then turned to Lily, who was standing next to her with her eyes fixed firmly to the floor. “Talk about the bomb dot com! Now they can help out the
real
Festival royalty, right?” She patted Lily on the shoulder and smiled. “Okay, first things first.” She gestured to our
headset radios as Lily reached out a Tupperware container. “Let's get those buggers in here. Don't want them to get damaged in the petal dust.”

We reluctantly dropped them in. As Lily stared at us and sealed the lid with a
thwomp
, the air rushed out of my lungs, too.

“What's with the long faces? We're here to have fun,” Barb smiled, exposing a row of teeth that were as tiny as they were terrifying. “Great-Great Grandpa R's got some gigantamundo holes in his britches.” She jerked her head to the towering half-decorated figure of Willard Ridley on the Root Beer float. “As if he hasn't had to suffer enough indignities this Festival!” Her mouth curled into a sharp frown as she looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the mansion. “Anywho, better cover those up with some strawflower before it gets too breezy in those unmentionables.” She shoved a cardboard flat at me.

I looked around the float barn, dazed. If it weren't for the small detail that a potential killer had asked us report to her, it actually might have felt fun to be back. Shouts echoed in the rafters as volunteers scrambled to their decorating stations, trying to fill in the last of the dry petal-and-seed color-base before the fresh flowers would be put on. Another of Barb's crazy eighties songs was blasting. It encouraged
everyone to “shake their bodies and do the conga.”

I didn't know what the conga was, but I was pretty sure Barb Lund couldn't murder us to those crazy beats, right there in front of everyone.

Could she?

“Watch your step,” Grace muttered as we headed down the main aisle of the float barn. “We might be accident prone, if you catch my drift.”

The skin on the back of my neck prickled. I turned and glimpsed Lily lingering not far behind us.

“I can't believe how friendly Lund's being,” I whispered. “So creepy. She knows we know, doesn't she? She's acting nice to fake us out.”

“Could be. But don't forget. We're royalty to her,” Trista reminded. “This is a woman with a collection of dried flowers from every Sun Queen's bouquet from the last twenty years. She's going to show her respect and curtsey to royalty no matter how mad she is. And judging from that crack about ‘real royalty,' she definitely still is.”

“She should show her respect by dialing down that slang a notch,” Grace mumbled.

“I guess she couldn't already know we're onto her, anyway. I mean, she requested us
before
Lily could have overheard something,” I pointed out.

“But our last-minute sign-ups for royal pages might have tipped her off. Pretty suspicious,” Grace said.

“Chill, people,” Trista said. “It really might be a coincidence she asked for us.”

“I guess we'll see,” Grace said ominously.

I looked up, praying sudden death wasn't in our future, when I caught sight of Rod three levels above the warehouse floor, gluing onion seed onto one of the ten black sheep enjoying the fake Ferris wheel on the Sheep Family Thrills float. My heart skipped. He spotted us, waved, and started climbing down.

Grace smiled knowingly and bumped her shoulder against mine. “We'll give you two some privacy. Right, Trista?”

“Sure.” Trista shrugged and strode toward the storage bins at the back of the warehouse.

Rod swung down from the scaffolding, his sneakers squeaking as he landed off balance. It still sort of seemed like a superhero move to me.

“How's it going?” he asked, his eyebrows tilting toward each other hopefully. I couldn't help but notice that they made the cutest indentation in his forehead. It matched his dimple.

“Great,” I said, feeling the email in my pocket and
wondering if I should tell him.

“Cool.” He flashed a sideways smile. “Haven't had to wear your skirt yet?”

I slapped my hands on my jeans and grinned. “Sticking with these.”

He laughed. “Nice! So . . .” His eyes darted around the float barn, then he leaned in. For a panicked second I thought he was going to kiss me. It didn't matter how crazy a thought that was; the entire surface of my skin felt like it was bursting into flames. I must've turned redder than the cherry on top of the float's sundae.

“Um. Are you okay?”

I mopped my completely dry forehead with my sleeve. “It's really hot out, isn't it?” Unless someone developed a cure for massive full-body blushing by our wedding in 2027, Rod and I were definitely going to have to skip the kiss in front of everyone.

“No kidding. They're, like, breaking child labor laws having us volunteer today.” Then he added, quietly. “Hey, so. You haven't seen anything strange, have you? My dad thinks it's dumb for me to worry that he's in charge now, but . . .”

“I know,” I said, glancing toward Grace. She and Trista were handing up boxes of chopped red strawflower petals
to an assembly line of volunteers filling in Willard Ridley's pants. “Listen . . .” I hesitated, knowing I'd never be able to take my words back. “We're scared too,” I finally said. “And I think we've found something really important.”

“Seriously?” The crease in Rod's forehead deepened.

I nodded. “We have to talk.”

Just then Barb Lund's voice blared from behind us. “Hear ye, hear ye! Royal pages!” She made a fake heralding trumpet sound into her megaphone. From across the room, Trista shot me an I-told-you-so look. “May I request the favor of your presence?” Lund squawked.

I shuddered, desperately wishing for a taste of the gruff, command-barking Ms. Lund who I knew and—well, didn't love, exactly—but who I was at least a hundred times less terrified of. She strode toward Grace. “We need a quick supply run,” she said.

Rod's face fell. “Wait, Sophie.” His voice was low and urgent. “Don't go yet.”

Ms. Lund's gaze locked on me. She held up her megaphone and whooped its siren twice. “Page Young?”

I looked Rod helplessly. “Meet you by the port-a-potties in ten?”

I cringed. Leave it to me to suggest meeting at toilets
when a gorgeous rose garden was a few steps away.

“Uh, okay?” Rod squinted. “I'll bring the air freshener?”

Barb and Lily sent us with a list to the old refrigerated cargo container the Festival used for extra flower storage. It was far down the path, past the herb garden and the tennis courts. The sun beat down. I fanned my T-shirt to get a little air, wishing there was more of a breeze from the ocean that stretched beyond the jagged bluffs down the hill in the distance. “Is it me, or is she now talking to us all British, too? I mean, ‘Request the favor of our presence?'” I said. “I guess she really is just into this royalty stuff.”

“She thinks we're dumb enough to relax if she's all polite,” Grace said darkly, her Converse slapping on the path as she strode ahead.

“Well, whatever it is, we're not relaxing, are we?” Trista said. She sneezed a sneeze that sounded like a lion roaring. “Man! This better be the last run before we go back to the Mansion. If she doesn't kill us, this pollen will. I didn't think I'd need to take my allergy meds this morning.”

Grace glanced nervously over her shoulder. “Watch your backs. They didn't have to send us all the way down here. The tents still look fully stocked,” she said, her voice
swallowed by the noisy hum of a generator set up to run the air-conditioned white tents on the lawn outside the float barn where a lot of the flowers were kept.

My legs felt shaky as we headed farther down the path. The mansion was barely in view anymore when we reached the refrigerated compartment. Trista heaved open its door and hooked it in place. As we stepped inside, Grace lifted up her arms and spun around to drink up the chilled air.

“Ahhh . . . coolth.”

“And serious flower power,” Trista said, rubbing her watering eyes. Flowers burst from every shelf and corner. The sickly sweet smell made me dizzy. It reminded me of the time I rode twenty-six floors up in an elevator next to a lady who smelled like she'd spent the last two weeks snorkeling in a vat of my grandma's perfume.

“Sure you don't want to wait outside?” I asked Trista, remembering she once fainted at school after a bad allergy attack.

“Nah,” Trista said. She puffed on her inhaler, then pounded her fist against her shoulder and raised it. “Royal solidarity. ‘We are family,' right?”

Grace bumped her own fist against Trista's. “That's what I'm talking about.”

She looked down at Barb's list then at the blooms packed
on the shelves around us. “This is going to take forever.”

“Check it out. You can see your breath.” I blew out a puffy white cloud. Grace wrinkled her nose and fanned it away. “Ew. Did Barb force-feed you one of her tuna and pickle sandwiches?”

I laughed.

“You two done playing around?” Trista shoved a bunch of pampas grass into a bucket. “Because I think we have more serious things to discuss.”

Grace's smile fell. “True. And not much time.” She plunked down her bucket of snapdragons and pulled out her black notebook from her shorts pocket. “All right. So Barb couldn't take Mr. Steptoe all up in her business, and finally lost it when Lily wasn't queen.”

“So maybe Mr. Lee wasn't a target? He really is just sick from exhaustion?” I said, hopefully.

“Uh, Lee was on the Royal Court judging committee too,” Trista pointed out.

Grace tapped her finger on her notebook page. “Yup. More likely that Lund is taking the other committee members out, one by one. Maybe with Lily's help.”

“Who else were judges?” Trista asked. “Steptoe, Lee, Sparrow . . .” She counted them out on her fingers.

“At least two past queens . . . ,” Grace began. She didn't
want to say the obvious out loud.

“Rod's dad,” I added, my voice small.

“And Rod's dad.” Grace cringed apologetically.

“All targets,” Trista said. “And two of them are down.”

“Maybe Mr. Zimball will listen to us now?” I said. “We have to take that chance.”

“On the other hand, there's a possibility it's just . . .
Achooo
!”—Trista let out another massive sneeze. She pulled out her inhaler and took a puff. “Anyway, what I meant was maybe Lund was just firing off a really angry email.”

“That's one angry email,” I scoffed. “‘You won't live,' ‘you are dead,' ‘I'll ruin your life'?”

“We know she has a temper. There's no doubt she wrote that email fast.” Trista rearranged some irises in her bucket.

“Or Lily did, using her mom's account. Tough to tell with all those mistakes,” I pointed out.

“Either way, ‘ruining' is not ‘killing,'” Trista said. “Don't forget. We have other suspects. Katz, for one.”

The compartment door slammed shut with a metallic clang.

“Dunh, duhn,
duhn
!” Grace laughed. “It's a sign!”

“He is pretty sketchy,” I admitted. “What do you think he had in that box he was carrying out?”

“Guess we know what our next mission is,” Grace said
as she went to open the door back up. “And you saw him at the Beach Ball talking to Lee, right? He looked like he was going to punch something he was so mad.” Grace looked at the door and frowned. “Um. Am I crazy? Where's the handle?”

Trista's face clouded over. “Uh-oh.”

I walked over and pushed against the door. It didn't budge. “This can't just close and lock. Can it?”

“Yes,” Trista said. “It can.” Her voice sounded quieter than I'd ever heard it.

“There's got to be a latch here somewhere. Maybe a button?” I ran my hands across the cold metal.

Grace felt around on the wall as if stumbling for a light switch in the dark. “Nothing here,” she said.

The handprints I'd left when I pushed the door looked ghostly as they faded. I shuddered, picturing Festival officials finding us, days later, icicles hanging from our noses.

“Hey, I hooked that door into place. No way the wind could've blown it shut,” Trista said. Her breath quickened. So did mine. I'd never seen her nervous before.