Andi Unstoppable (12 page)

I blinked sleep from my eyes and read. “When Dominika's last son died, the mother of five boys only lived another two years, still in deep mourning. In that two-year period, there was a rumor she buried coins and other trinkets in the ground near her sons' graves. Her husband was so worried about her doing this he planned to take her back to his hometown in New York for psychiatric treatment, but she died before the couple left Ohio, and two months after that, rumor began to circulate through the town. To this day, her ghost roams Shalley Park near what remains of the old Shalley homestead and the gravesites of her sons.”

The coin! I hopped out of bed and removed Amelie's camera from my small backpack. Officer Handly had taken the coin, but I still had the pictures. I turned on the camera and studied the eagle side of the gold coin. It was the clearer of the two. I wished I could make out the features of the face on the other side of the coin.

Mr. Rochester bumped his orange head against my arm and meowed. Absently, I scratched him behind the ear.

If Dominika hid coins and other items from the Civil War in the ground near her sons' graves, they would be worth a lot of money now. At least, they might be. Mr. Finnigan would know, and if I knew Mr. Finnigan, he would know exactly what my eagle coin was worth too.

Mr. Rochester placed a white paw on my knee.

I looked into his green eyes. “Do you think I'm right, Mr. Rochester?”

He meowed loudly. I took that as a yes.

After I headed downstairs, I found my aunt and sister already in the kitchen. Amelie hovered over a mug of coffee with her eyes half-opened, but surprisingly Bethany was wide awake and smiling. That couldn't be good . . . for me.

My sister broke off the corner of her piece of toast and held it between her fingers. “I heard you and super nerd next door got dropped off by the cops yesterday.”

I went to the cupboard for the Lucky Charms. “Shut up, Bethany.”

“Don't get me wrong, I think it's cute. You guys can have matching orange jumpsuits in prison.”

Amelie took a swig from her coffee mug and grimaced. “I think this is yesterday's coffee. In any case, no one in this house is going to prison, ever, if I can help it.” She turned to me. “Andi, I heard from Bergita last night. She was able to talk some sense into Colin's parents that you guys being brought home by Officer Handly wasn't completely your fault. Colin isn't to blame either. She promised his parents that she would drive Colin to school this week, so that you two have some time apart.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“I know it's crazy. Bergita knows it's crazy too. You will see Colin at school and have plenty of time to spend with him there and at home here when his parents are at the hospital, which is all the time. This will blow over. Just try to stay out of trouble for a little while.”

“But — ”

There was a honk outside.

Bethany hopped off her barstool. “When has Andi ever stayed out of trouble?”

The honk came again.

“That's my ride.”

Amelie put down her coffee mug. “Ride? What ride? I thought I was dropping you and Andi off at school this morning.”

“You can drop Andi off, but I have a ride with Romero.”

My aunt blinked. “With Romero?”

Bethany swung her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Yes, I told you about it last night. You were just too worried about Andi being thrown in the slammer to pay any attention.”

“I sort of remember that conversation,” my aunt said. “But I didn't know that rides from Romero were going to start today.”

The honk came again. It was three irritable beeps.

“I have to go.” My sister walked out of the kitchen.

“Not so fast,” Amelie said. “I'm not going to let you ride to school with Romero without meeting the boy first.” She followed my sister out of the room, and I was close on her heels.

Bethany went through the front door. “Please don't embarrass me.”

“Get used to it,” Amelie said. “As your aunt, it's my job to embarrass you.”

Bethany groaned.

Romero climbed out of his truck.

Amelie walked straight up to him holding out her hand. “Romero.” She shook his hand. “I've heard so much about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I'm Amelie, Bethany's aunt.”

“He knows who you are,” Bethany grumbled.

Romero dropped his hand. “Hi.”

“I hear you will be taking my niece to school.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“That's very kind of you. How long have you been driving?” She cocked her head as if it were a casual question.

“I got my license last month.”

Amelie winced. “You know to be careful, right? You use your blinker when you are turning a corner? You always wear a seatbelt?”

He swallowed and nodded.

“I know the school is only a few miles away, but cars can be dangerous machines. I don't want anything happening to Bethany.”

His face twitched. “I wouldn't let Beth ever get hurt. I'm careful.”

Amelie twirled one of her long curls around her finger as she thought.

I peered into the bed of the pickup. The only thing that was there was a duffel bag, a scratchy-looking blanket, and muddy footprints. There was a piece of a shimmery white cloth sticking out of the bag's zipper. I reached for it.

“Andi, what are you doing?” my sister asked.

Romero hurried over to the bed of the truck and threw the blanket over the duffel bag.

I jumped back. “Where's Ava?” I asked. “Don't you take her to school too?”

Romero's dark eyes left Bethany's face for just a moment and focused on me. “She had things to do. She won't be at school today.”

“Why? Is she sick?”

Bethany glared at me. “Andi, stop being so nosy all the time.”

“But, Ava is in my group, and I'm worried about her,” I said, realizing for the first time this was true. Ava's sudden absences from school were a problem. Why didn't anyone else see that?

“Amelie,” Bethany whined. “We're going to be late for school.”

Amelie stepped back from the truck and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Okay, okay. You guys can go.”

Bethany smiled, and Romero opened the passenger door for her.

After they left, Amelie said, “He opened the door for her. I'm taking that as a good sign that he is a gentleman.”

I wasn't as sure. The shimmery fabric I saw peeking out of his duffel bag worried me. It looked familiar. I hoped I was wrong for my sister's sake.

She squeezed my shoulders. “We should get going or we'll both be late for class. And if I'm late, my students leave.” She laughed.

Since Amelie usually took Bethany, Colin, and me to school, or Colin and I rode our bikes, it felt strange to walk into school by myself that morning. After stopping at my locker, I headed for my first class. Again, alone. Colin usually walked me to my first class, English, before going to Math. I didn't see Colin until lunchtime and was relieved when he smiled at me as I sat across from him at our usual table.

“I'm sorry I got you in trouble.”

“Don't worry about it.” He opened a bag of chips. “At least my parents are paying attention to me. That's a nice change.”

I punctured the top of my juice box with its straw. “Amelie told me that we have to stay out of trouble or
you'll be grounded.” I sighed. “I guess that's the end of our investigation into Dominika Shalley's ghost.”

“Why?” Colin yelped.

“Because you could get grounded.”

“I don't care about that. It's more important that we get to the bottom of who is robbing those graves in Shalley Park.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

I grinned. “Good. Because I discovered something this morning in Mr. Finnigan's book.”

Colin leaned across the table. “Tell me.”

I pulled out the book Mr. Finnigan had given us at the museum yesterday. A bookmark marked the right page. I opened it and slipped it across the table to Colin. “Read this page.”

Colin ran his finger along the print as he read. He tapped the page with his index finger. “That coin you found and more like it are what the grave robber is after.”

“Exactly, and I seriously doubt there is a real ghost. Whoever is stealing from the graves of Dominika Shalley's sons is trying to scare everyone away from the cemetery, so that he won't get caught.”

“Who could it be?”

“I thought about that. On the night of the campout, who was excited about telling the ghost story that night?”

“The triplets?”

I nodded. “And Dr. Gregory Sparrow. He's the one who talked Jim the Triplet into telling the story.”

Colin snapped his fingers. “You're right. It has to be Gregory. He's the one who keeps saying there is a ghost. He's the one who keeps warning us to stay away from the graveyard.”

“Exactly.”

“How are we going to prove it?” Colin asked.

I chewed my lip. “We need to talk to Paige. I bet Dr. Sparrow put her up to pretending she saw a ghost.”

Colin licked Dorito dust from his ingers. “I don't know. She was pretty scared.”

“We still need to ask her.”

Colin nodded. “It's a lead. We can go right after school.”

“What about your parents?”

He shrugged. “They won't be home until late.”

I played with my juice box straw. “Okay. I'll email Amelie from computer lab in fifth period and tell her we want to come to campus after school to see her. She'll love it, and it'll give us a chance to find Paige.”

“That's good cover. Great idea.” Colin unwrapped his turkey sandwich and dug in his bag for Bergita's oatmeal cookies. He handed one to me.

“How will we find Paige on campus?”

“Leave that to me.” I took a bite out of the cookie. After I swallowed I said, “There's another thing. Ava didn't come to school today.”

“Is she sick?”

I shook my head. “Romero picked up my sister to drive her to school and said Ava was taking a day off.”

“I wonder what's going on.”

“Me too.” I broke off another piece of cookie. “If
she keeps missing school, I don't know how we are going to finish the assignment. And we still haven't seen the Kirtland's warbler.”

“It might be gone by now,” Colin said. “Migrating birds don't stop over in one place for long.”

“Let's hope you're wrong.” I popped the rest of the cookie into my mouth.

CASE FILE NO. 15

During school that day, I couldn't wait to
get to science. I wanted to hear the report on the number of birds the other groups had seen over the weekend, and I wanted to make plans with Colin about finding the Kirtland's warbler and the grave robber.

When I walked into the classroom, I was surprised to see Ava at her desk in the front row, but even more surprised to see Gregory Sparrow in the front of the room laughing with Mr. McCone.

I swung by Colin's seat on the way to my desk. “What's he doing here?” I hissed.

Colin shrugged.

The bell rang and I dashed to my seat. There was no more time to talk. Ava didn't even look at me as I passed her.

As soon as everyone was settled at their desks, Mr. McCone started grinning from ear to ear. “Class, I'm delighted, simply delighted, to have a guest speaker here with us today. Dr. Sparrow is an ornithology professor at the university. Apparently, some of you saw him at Shalley Park this weekend searching for the elusive Kirtland's warbler. Yesterday, I gave Dr. Sparrow a call to tell him about our birding project and asked if he would be willing to visit the class while we were working on this. I never expected him to come the next day.” He beamed at the other man. “Thank you so much for being here.”

Gregory shared a pleased smile. “It's my pleasure. I'm happy to be in a room full of young bird enthusiasts. It's nice to see Andi, Colin, and Ava again. We had a nice weekend together looking for the warbler, didn't we, kids?”

I shifted in my seat.

Mr. McCone smiled. “It's so exciting that a Kirtland's was spotted in the area.” He glanced back at Gregory. “Did anyone spy it?”

“I did,” the professor said. “Unfortunately, I was alone at the time, but I was able to take these great photographs.” He tapped the SMART Board.

The bird was on a low branch of a bush and its beak was open in song. I wished so badly that I had been there to see it and to listen to it sing, but I knew Claudette, who spent the last fifteen years trying to redeem herself from her misidentification, wanted to see it more. That's why I had been so confused the night before. Claudette was willing to give up her
chance to see the Kirtland's just because someone was stealing coins from the Shalley cemetery. She hadn't seemed like someone who scared easily. It didn't make sense.

Gregory clicked to the next photograph. “Some distinctive features of the Kirtland's warbler are its large size and blue-gray back.”

“How did you find it when no one else did?” a girl asked.

Gregory turned to her. “I knew that the bird would most likely be close to the riverbank down low, and I got lucky. You see, when it comes to birding, luck is a huge factor, and I have always been extremely lucky in the number of birds I see. You can go out on a hike searching for a bird and never see one, or you can go out on a hike seeking one particular bird and see an entire flock of species. Patience and dedication to birding day after day is the key. When you do see the bird you're looking for, it is the best feeling in the world. It's the thrill of the discovery that keeps birders going. I had seen the Kirtland's on several occasions before, but I must say this sighting was the most special to me since it was right here in Carroll County. It was like the bird came to this county specifically for me.”