Girl Power (15 page)

Before leaving, Emily filled out the library card application and took it back to the woman at the front desk. She felt a little bit guilty for using the name Adams, but she knew that it was for her family’s own safety. Her dad might trace down their family here if she used her real name.

“Are you new here?” asked the woman as she glanced down over the application.

“Yes. We’ve only been here a couple of months.”

The woman smiled. “Well, a library card can be a good friend when you’re new in town.”

Emily was about to tell the woman that even though she was new in town, she did have friends—good friends too. But she decided that might sound rude. Instead she thanked her.

“Did you wish to check out any books today?”

“No. I have a book that I’m about to start. It’s a mystery.”

The woman nodded. “Oh, I do love a good mystery. And we have lots of them here.”

“Then I’ll definitely be back,” said Emily. She looked up at the clock on the wall behind the woman and was surprised to see that it was already 4:45, and today was a day when Mom and Kyle got home at five. She’d have to hurry to make it home before them. As she jogged home, she realized that her first day without friends around had passed fairly quickly. Now if only the rest of the week would go this fast.

At dinner, Emily asked her mom about Mr. Greeley. “Don’t you think he’s kind of weird?” she said after mentioning how he never came to anything social.

“I think he’s just sad,” said Mom.

“I think he’s creepy,” said Kyle. “Did you see how long the hair growing out of his ears is? Hey, maybe he’s a werewolf.”

“Kyle!” Mom glared at him.

“Well, he is strange, Mom,” pointed out Emily.

“All I know is he was good to us. When we came here, I didn’t have enough money for rent,” Mom told them. “He assured me it was okay. He said he understood how people have hard times. And he was very understanding.”

“He probably thinks you’re hot,” said Kyle.

“Kyle!” Mom looked really angry now.

“Sorry.”

“Well, you kids be nice to him. He’s been good to us. I don’t know where we would be if he hadn’t been willing to rent this place to me. He’s a good-hearted man. Even when I gave him our real name—so he could do a credit check—he promised me that he would keep it secret. And I have no reason not to trust him.”

Emily wasn’t so sure about that, but she figured if Mom trusted him, maybe she should too. Still, she would keep a safe distance for now!

On Tuesday, Emily returned to the bus with a mission: She would do all she could to figure out who Dan Watterson was. And if she came up with nothing, she would put the case to rest. No sense in making herself crazy over some old dude who happened to leave his high school yearbook in somebody’s old bus.

She turned on the record player again, this time turning the Elton John album to the other side, and then she went to the back of the bus to finish putting the books on the shelf. But when she got to the bottom of the box, she saw a small, black book that she hadn’t noticed before. She pulled it out to discover it was a journal. And it had been written in. There was no name inside of it, but when she compared the handwriting to the books with Dan Watterson’s name written in them, it appeared to be the same. A very neat and angular style that looked more like printing than cursive.

Feeling slightly intrusive, but curious, Emily began to read. And she was thankful—not for the first time—that the other girls weren’t around. Not that she planned to hide this from them, but she hated the idea of them making fun
of this guy. Emily knew what it was like to keep a journal. She’d been doing so for years. But nothing would humiliate her more as a writer than if someone found her personal thoughts and hopes and dreams and made fun of them. That’s why she’d always kept her journals well hidden. It still bothered her deeply that they’d left so quickly that night, she had left a few journals behind. She hoped and prayed her dad never found them.

As Emily read, she felt she could relate to Dan Watterson. He too loved words and aspired to be a writer. He had a column in the school paper, and despite having the image of a jock, he’d secretly written poetry. A lot of poetry. Who would’ve guessed? She also learned that he did get a sports scholarship to Oregon State, but that he dropped out of college before graduating. And the reason he dropped out was because of a girl. She came to this conclusion since the thing he wrote about most in his journal was Stephanie, his high school sweetheart. It seemed that his devotion was as strong as hers, and that she was the love of his life. But for some reason she had disappeared—left his life without a trace. And as a result, he was lost and heartbroken and devoted many poems to her.

Finally, Emily closed the journal. The last dozen entries were spread out over several years, written from all over the country, but they still sounded very unhappy. As soon as she set the book aside she felt horribly guilty, like she
had sneaked into someone’s private world. And even though she was still curious, and her desire to solve this Dan the man mystery was strong, she knew she must not go back and reread a single sentence. She also knew that it would be wrong for the other girls to read it too. In fact, she was tempted to destroy the journal altogether. But that seemed wrong too.

Eventually, she decided to find a really good hiding place for it—a place on the bus because it belonged with the bus. The other important thing that Emily learned from the journal was that this had indeed been Dan’s bus. He’d bought it from a friend named Jim shortly after he dropped out of college. And even though his dad was furious with him, he lived in this bus, drove around the country, and seemed to have no idea what he would do with his life.

Emily walked around the bus, searching for a safe spot to hide the sad journal. After a thorough search she decided to shove it behind a loose board in the little closet near the bedroom. She felt it would be safe there. As far as Dan went, maybe she would never know anything else. Maybe it was none of her business. But this journal was a private thing and she would respect that.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Emily tried to put thoughts of Dan Watterson behind her as she immersed herself in reading mysteries and writing some poetry of her own. But the more time she spent in the bus, the more
she felt that Dan was there too … and the more she felt that this mystery was not going to leave her alone until she had resolved it. So she opened up her own journal and began to write down the questions that seemed to be nagging the loudest.

1. Why is Dan’s bus parked at Harbor View?

2. Where is Dan now?

3. What is his relationship to Mr. Greeley?

4. What happened to Stephanie?

And that was about it. Not too difficult, really. Emily scratched her head as she stared at these four questions. It seemed the only way she’d find the answers would be to approach Mr. Greeley. And yet that scared the socks off her.

So she paused and asked herself:
How else do people research these things? What do people in the mystery books do?
She’d already tried the computer without success. This reminded her of the sweet, white-haired librarian, and she wondered,
How long had that woman lived in town?
She might be more helpful than a computer. Besides, she told herself as she walked toward town, she’d soon be out of mysteries. She might as well restock her supply. Hopefully that same librarian would be there again.

Sure enough, the white-haired woman was there. And to Emily’s surprise, she even seemed to recognize her.

“Ready for a mystery?” asked the woman when Emily paused in front of her big shiny desk.

“Sort of …” Emily smiled. “Actually, I’m trying to solve a mystery.”

“To solve one?” The woman looked curious.

“And I thought maybe you could help me.”

“Me?”

“Yes. That is if you’ve lived in Boscoe Bay for very long. Have you?”

She laughed. “Well, that depends on how you look at it. It doesn’t seem that long to me, but I was born and raised here, and I’ve lived here all my life.”

Emily smiled. “So maybe you can help me. I’m trying to find out about someone. You see I have something that belongs to him—actually a few things—that I found in a box. And I think they might be valuable to him because they’re memorabilia. You know what I mean?”

She nodded. “Yes. I can understand that. Who is it you’re looking for, dear?”

“Daniel Watterson.”

The woman nodded with a creased brow as if trying to remember.

“Do you know him?” Emily asked hopefully.

“I did know him.”

“You did?” Emily wanted to jump for joy but—remembering this was a library—controlled herself.

“I used to teach English at the high school. Dan was one of my students. A very bright boy. Popular too. And
very good at sports. So much potential …” Her face grew sad.

“Do you know where he is?” asked Emily. “Does he live around here?”

“Dan died in the Middle East.”

“Huh?” Emily frowned at her. “In the Iraq War?”

“No, dear, it was Desert Storm.”

“Desert Storm?”

“Do they teach about that in history yet?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, that war was in 1991 and didn’t last long. I believe Dan was several years out of college when he went over. I remember being surprised that he’d joined up.” She sighed. “And he was one of the unfortunate few who never came back.”

“Oh,” Emily didn’t know what to say, but she could feel tears gathering in her eyes. “Do you mean he was killed?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry to tell you such sad news, dear.”

“It’s okay.” Emily attempted a smile. “I mean it’s not your fault. I just had no idea.”

“Will you be okay, dear?”

Emily nodded, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

“I don’t know what to tell you about the box of memorabilia. The Wattersons left town many years ago, not long after Dan graduated from high school, as I recall. I have no idea where they moved.”

“That’s okay,” said Emily. All she wanted now was to get out of here. She didn’t want people to see her crying. “Thanks, Mrs… .”

The woman extended her hand. “Mrs. Drimmel,” she said.

“Emily Adams.” She blinked back tears.

“You take care now,” said Mrs. Drimmel. “And next time you come in, I’ll show you some good mysteries.”

“Thanks.” Emily hurried out, trying to hold back the tears as she walked quickly through town. She didn’t know why she was taking this so hard, except that it was as if Dan had become a personal friend this week. It was so shocking, so sad, to hear that he was dead. Finally, worried that she might see someone, or someone might see her, Emily began jogging toward home. But instead of going into her house, she went straight to the Rainbow Bus. Then she went inside and locked the door, and she turned on the record player—turned it up loud and just cried.

Finally, after a few minutes, Emily stopped crying. The music was still playing, the same Elton John album that she’d had on just the other day. But this time, as a certain song came on, she listened carefully to the lyrics. The song was about a man, also named Daniel, who was leaving on a plane. He’d had a lot of pain, and now it was time to say good-bye. Emily cried when it came to the line about how Daniel’s eyes had died. And then she kept singing the last
line: “must be the clouds in my eyes.”

The song ended and she turned off the record player. And then she sat down in the driver’s seat of the bus and began to pray. “Dear God,” she said with her eyes wide open, looking out over the dunes to where she knew the Harbor was. “I know I never really knew Dan Watterson personally, but it feels like I did. And his story is so sad. So very, very sad. Is there anything I can do to help? Or should I just let this thing go? Should I wave good-bye to Daniel and try to forget about it? Please, dear God, show me what to do. Amen.”

Then she noticed someone walking along the beach road. At first she felt scared, imagining that she’d just seen Dan’s ghost. But then she realized it was only Mr. Greeley. But as she watched him, slowly walking along with his head hanging low, she felt bad. She realized how wrong it was to be suspicious of him—thinking he’d done something to Dan Watterson when he was completely innocent.

She opened the window on the driver’s side and called out. “Mr. Greeley?”

He turned to see who it was, then gave her a small halfhearted wave.

“How’s it going?” she yelled out the window.

“All right.”

Then, without even questioning herself, she hurried outside and ran over to join him. “You taking a walk?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Can I come too?”

He peered curiously at her. “I reckon.”

“Going to the beach?” she asked as they began walking.

“Yep.”

“Kind of foggy today,” she said, wishing for something better to say.

“Yep.”

“And cold too.”

“Yep.”

“We really like our bus, Mr. Greeley.”

He turned and looked at her, almost smiling now. “That’s good.”

“We fixed it all up inside. You should come see it sometime.”

He nodded without saying anything, and they just walked in silence for a couple of minutes. Emily was starting to get worried, wondering what on earth she was doing. Why had she come down to the beach with this old guy who she only recently suspected of murder?

“We found some things while we were fixing the bus up …” she said as they walked toward the Harbor.

He stopped walking. “What kinds of things?”

She stopped walking too. “Personal things.”

He frowned. “I took everything off that bus.”

“Well, a bunch of things were stored under the bed.”

“Under
the bed?” He looked skeptical.

“Yeah. There’s this kind of secret storage spot there. We found books and record albums and—”

“You said
personal
things?”

“That’s right.” She studied his face. “Did you know Dan Watterson, Mr. Greeley?”

He slowly nodded.

“He sounded like a really nice guy,” said Emily.

“He was.”

“I’m curious as to why he left his bus on your property?” she said in a gentle voice. “Was he a friend of yours?”

He nodded again, this time looking off toward the ocean.

“Well, I feel like he was my friend too,” she said suddenly.

“Huh?” He looked at her.

“I feel like I know him now.” She looked into Mr. Greeley’s faded eyes. “This week the other girls have been gone, and I’ve been reading his books and listening to his music and even reading his journal … and I feel like I really know him.” She sighed. “And then I found out how he died in the war.” She felt tears coming again, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop them. “And I’ve been so sad. I feel like my friend just died.”

He nodded, and she saw tears running down his wrinkled old cheeks too. “Yep,” he said. “Me too.”

“Do you want to talk about it, Mr. Greeley?” she asked.

He peered down at her, and she could almost see him thinking how she was just a kid and wondering why he should talk to her.

“I’ve been through some hard things too,” she told him.

He nodded. “Yep, I s’pect you have.”

And so they continued walking, and Mr. Greeley started to talk. And he talked and talked and talked. And finally, after all her investigating and all her wondering and searching, the whole story of Daniel Watterson unfolded. Finally she understood what had happened.

“Wow,” she told him as they turned around to walk back toward the trailer court. “That must’ve been so hard.”

He nodded. “Yep.”

“Do you think you’d want to read Dan’s journal?”

He seemed to consider this. “I guess I would.”

“I hid it in the bus. I just didn’t think the other girls should read it. Not that I’m trying to be mean. But I’m a writer and I keep a journal, and some things, well, they’re supposed to be private, you know?”

He nodded. “And I’m hoping you will keep some parts of my story private too, Emily. I don’t mind if you tell your friends that Dan was my son. And you can even tell them
about how stupid I was. But some things about Dan … well, some things are best left alone.”

She nodded. “Don’t worry. Your story is safe with me.”

“And your family’s story is safe with me too.”

“So does this make us friends now?” asked Emily as they headed down the dunes trail that led back toward the trailer court.

“I reckon it does.”

Emily paused where the trail forked over to the bus. “How about if I get that journal while we’re here?”

“I’d like that.”