Clocks and Robbers

A spherical clock has sat atop a tall black iron pedestal in front of the Moon Hollow Public Library for as long as anyone can remember. The clock’s large, ornately designed, four-sided face gazes unassumingly upon busy and bustling Maple Avenue, where shops, restaurants, and office buildings stand side by side like books shoved tightly onto a shelf.

One day in early November, a girl named Rosie Smithers watched from the sidewalk outside Deakin’s Pharmacy as the clock’s big hand leapt ahead five minutes in less than five seconds. Four loud chimes rang out and echoed up the street with stern authority.

Like the clock’s pedestal, Rosie was also tall and thin. Her skin was the color of cocoa. Her hair was long, and twisted into many braids that fell to her shoulders. “Did you see that?” she asked, turning to her friend, Viola Hart. They had been waiting for Rosie’s mother, the town librarian, to get out of work. Mrs. Smithers was going to take the girls to the shopping indent on Oakwood Avenue so Rosie could get a new coat.
The zipper was stuck at the bottom of her old one — a hand-me-down from her older sisters.

“See what?” Viola answered. Her eyes grew wide with excitement. Viola was a smallish girl with a burst of red curls on top of her head and freckles on her pale round cheeks. Recently, she had moved next door to Rosie, and the girls had become fast friends.

“The minute hand on that big clock was stuck at three fifty-five for a while,” Rosie explained. “Then, it jumped forward to four o’clock.”

A couple months before, the girls had formed a mystery club called the Question Marks, with Sylvester Cho and Woodrow Knox—two boys who lived on their block. After school every few days, the club members would share with one another the small mysteries they’d encountered around town. They met at the spot where their four backyards came together — a place they called the Four Corners.

“The minute hand
jumped?”
Viola asked. “Like …
sproing?”
Rosie nodded. From her knapsack, Viola pulled out a black-and-white composition notebook and pen. Flipping the book open, she carefully jotted down a note.

Rosie recited what had recently become Viola’s motto: “Mysteries are everywhere if you look for them.”

Surprised, Viola laughed. “I was just about to say that!”

“I know.” Rosie smiled. “I see that notebook, and I know what’s coming.”

“I’m no mystery, I guess.” Viola shrugged. “But what about the clock?”

“You think?” Rosie squinted as she glanced across the street. “That
would
be a fun mystery. It’s probably just broken though.”

Viola raised an eyebrow.

It had been a couple weeks since the Question Marks had discovered the reasons for the creepy sounds Viola had heard coming from her basement. Since then, Viola, Rosie, Sylvester, and Woodrow had been anxious to find another mystery to solve. They’d paid attention to most every little thing—scraps of paper fluttering across the sidewalk, chalk drawings on the wall behind their school, car alarms screaming in the middle of the night. As they’d recently learned, anything might be a clue to a great big secret. In fact, that was the reason the girls were waiting for Mrs. Smithers across the street from the library.

During lunch that day, Viola had come up with a new challenge she’d named the Strangers Game. The point was to observe people they didn’t know and try to guess who they were. So far, the girls had discreetly watched a young woman wearing faded jeans and a vintage parka carry a huge load of picture books out of the library. She didn’t appear old enough to have kids of her own, and she definitely was not a
teacher at their school. So who would the woman share picture books with? They guessed she must be a babysitter — probably a student at the college who needed some extra cash.

“I’ve got another one,” Viola proclaimed, nodding at the library’s entrance. “I see a woman who has a huge family, works really hard, loves cooking, and records talk shows during the day so she can watch them later at night.”

Those details sounded vaguely familiar to Rosie … and very specific. “How did you figure all that out?” she asked, glancing up and down the street for someone who might fit the description.

Viola giggled as the woman who was standing at the library’s entrance waved at them. “She’s my next-door neighbor.”

“Hey!” said Rosie, noticing her mother heading toward them across the plaza and past the broken clock. “My mom? That’s cheating!”

“Well … just a little.” Viola winked.

From the side window of the Main Street Diner, Sylvester Cho saw his friends Rosie and Viola get into Mrs. Smithers’s Volkswagen. He raced out the front door, but by the time he reached the corner of Maple Avenue, the car had zoomed off in the opposite direction.

“Sylvester!” his dad called from the steps of the restaurant. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Sylvester said. “I just saw my friends.”

“Do you want to go with them?” asked Mr. Cho, looking guilty. “I can handle wiping down the tables by myself for a few hours.”

“It’s okay. I just wanted to say ‘hey,’ but they’re already gone.”

Normally, Sylvester would have leapt at the chance for a break, but today he was enjoying his time at his parents’ restaurant. Since the end of the school day, he’d been playing the Strangers Game—Viola’s latest challenge.

When he’d gotten to the diner, Sylvester had noticed an odd-looking man sitting alone at a booth near the back wall, drinking a cup of coffee. The man wore a black T-shirt and had a scruffy beard. His arms were covered with colorful tattoos. Sylvester immediately deduced that the man was in a biker gang. He kept watch on him in case the man made trouble. But after a few minutes, a beautiful young woman entered the diner, wearing a flowing green dress, a maroon velvet jacket, and a thick gray scarf wrapped casually around her neck. She was pushing a stroller. The man had stood up, kissed the woman, and then lifted a tiny baby from the carriage. “Did you miss your daddy?” the man said, then cooed at the infant.

Instantly, Sylvester realized that he’d been wrong about the man. Tattoos and a beard didn’t
mean he was a bad guy … or even that he rode a motorcycle. In fact, when the family stood to go, Sylvester noticed the man grab a satchel from under the table. A logo on it read:
Hudson Valley Country Day School.
Paintbrushes, pencils, and rolled-up paper poked out from the bag’s canvas flap. The man was obviously an artist—and probably a teacher!

Sylvester couldn’t wait to tell his friends what he’d learned: Sometimes people are not what they appear to be.

Back inside the diner, the phone rang. Mr. Cho answered it. “Hi, honey.” It was Sylvester’s mother, who had taken his baby sister, Gwen, to visit his grandmother, Hal-muh-ni, just outside of New York City. Two years ago, his
ha-ra-buh-ji
had passed away, leaving his
hal-muh-ni
alone in the house where they’d raised their family.

Listening in on his parents’ conversation, Sylvester started to rearrange plates on a nearby table. Behind the long counter, his father turned his back and edged away from him, tensing up. Sylvester paid even closer attention as his father lowered his voice, saying, “She agreed? Today? Uh-huh. Well, that’s great news.” Mr. Cho glanced at Sylvester, who quickly looked back at the table he was pretending to clean. “No,” he continued, in an even lower voice. “I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.”

Now Sylvester was even more curious.

Mr. Cho hung up the phone and turned back to Sylvester. “I assume you heard all that?” he asked. Sylvester nodded. “So, what do you think?” his father asked.

“About?” Sylvester said. Should he have known what his father meant? Had he missed a clue?

“About your grandmother coming to live with us.”

“Hal-muh-ni?” said Sylvester, immediately thinking how cool that would be. Then another thought popped into his head. “But where will she stay?” Their house had three bedrooms, and currently each one was taken.

Mr. Cho was silent for a few seconds. “We were thinking she would stay in your room.”

“My room?” Sylvester said.

“We can fix up the basement for you instead. Your own private spot. Sound good?”

“You want me to move into … the
basement?”

From behind the counter, Sylvester’s father stared back at him with an uncomfortable smile. How long had his parents been planning this? How long had they kept this secret? And how could they do this to him … shove him away in a dark corner of the house, like an unfortunate character in a creepy fantasy story by Roald Dahl or Lemony Snicket or Neil Gaiman? Sure, having his own private spot might be interesting, but after what the Question Marks had been through
in the past couple of months, he knew how disturbing a basement could be. Sylvester reached out and rearranged some silverware on a nearby table. He suddenly realized he’d been right: Sometimes people are not what they appear to be — even people you’ve known all your life.

That morning, Woodrow Knox’s mom had asked him to come home after school and straighten up the house. Woodrow had a habit of leaving his stuff in scattered places — comic books in the living room, video games in the den, schoolwork on the kitchen table, sports equipment on the floor. His mom had said she would have a surprise for him that evening, and as Woodrow worked, he wondered what it might be. He was hoping for a flat-screen television, or maybe a new computer monitor, one that was equipped with a camera so he could chat over the Internet with his dad, who lived in Manhattan.

Woodrow was nearly finished tucking his little messes out of sight when loud chimes sounded from the indent of town. Five o’clock. Mrs. Knox would be home soon from her job with the park service in the hills outside Moon Hollow. His heart pounded with anticipation. Mrs. Knox never made a very big deal out of anything, so he knew the surprise would be huge.

He was playing video games when he heard the car pull into the driveway. Quickly, he hit
pause, then rushed to the front door. Swinging it open, Woodrow noticed not one car parked in front of the garage, but two. Behind his mother’s forest green SUV was a bright red MINI Cooper. A man got out of it and rushed to open his mom’s door. Mrs. Knox hopped out of her own car, then nodded toward Woodrow, who stood on the front porch. The man turned, smiled at him, and waved.

Woodrow blinked, contemplating what this might mean. Viola’s new contest, the Strangers Game, popped into his head.
Notice the details of this man. Figure out who he is.
The man was tall. He wore a tweed jacket, a fuzzy auburn sweater, and dark blue jeans. His sandy blond hair was close-cropped and combed tightly to the side. Obviously, the man was
not
here to deliver a flat-screen television … or anything else for that matter. His car was barely big enough to fit another person inside it; he probably didn’t have any kids. He was dressed well—too well, as if he wanted to impress someone. As they came up the front walkway toward Woodrow, the man lightly touched his mom’s elbow. They were smiling in an unnatural way—showing too much teeth. Woodrow had seen his mom wear the same expression the day she had interviewed for her current job. He realized what those smiles meant: These people were terrified.

Suddenly, Woodrow felt queasy. He could deal
with the surprise not being what he’d hoped. Easy. You can’t mourn a television that never belonged to you. But he wasn’t sure if he was ready to meet his mom’s new boyfriend. And all the signs indicated that this stranger on the front walk was his mom’s big surprise.

“Woodrow,” said his mom, leading the tall man up the stairs, “I want you to meet my friend Bill. We’re all going to have dinner here tonight. Together.”

From the porch stairs, Bill extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Woodrow. Your mom’s a pretty cool lady.” Mrs. Knox laughed, a little too loudly.

“I know that,” said Woodrow, shaking Bill’s hand like his father had taught him. He squeezed hard. “Nice to meet you too.”

Woodrow wasn’t sure if he liked Viola’s new game. Maybe sometimes strangers should remain strangers?

Even so, he wanted to tell Sylvester, Rosie, and Viola about this. Maybe they could help him figure out more. He knew it was only a matter of time before they all met again.

As it turned out, the next morning, Woodrow got his wish.

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