Midnight Mystery: 4 (Winnie the Horse Gentler) (13 page)

“Dad, when are you coming home?”

“What’s that?” Dad asked.

In the background a woman’s voice yelled, “Jack! Come on! We’ll miss dinner!”

The receiver crackled. Dad called, away from the phone, “Be right there!”

Jack? Miss dinner?
We’ll
miss dinner?
I let go of the phone and backed away.

Lizzy caught the receiver and pulled it to her ear. “We love you too, Dad!” she shouted.

How could he?
My heart raced and my head throbbed. I’d never missed Mom more than I did in that instant.

The rest of the meal was quiet, unless I just didn’t hear the others. I wanted to escape to the barn, to bury my face in Nickers’ fuzzy neck.

Finally the Colonel rose from the table. “We will take our leave. Ramon must finish his studies. And I have work to do before my men arrive—iron my uniform, spit-polish my boots!”

“You’ve spit-polished your boots every night of your life, Colonel,” Bart observed.

The Colonel ignored his grandson and turned to Mrs. Coolidge. “A sheer delight, madame!”

Lizzy and I cleared the table, then sat down at it to do homework. I tried to read assigned poems, but they might as well have been math problems. I kept hearing
that woman’s
voice:
Jack, we’ll miss dinner.

Lizzy yawned and packed up her books. “Let’s tell the Coolidges good night and get some sleep. Where’d they go anyway?”

I shrugged.

Lightning flashed through the window. Thunder rumbled. The lights flickered.

Lizzy locked arms with me. “Let’s find them!”

The house felt empty except for a few cats that scampered out of our way as we conducted a floor-by-floor search for the Coolidges.

“They can’t just disappear!” Lizzy cried.

We started down from the third floor. Lightning lit up the sky outside the landing window. In the flash, I made out a human shape—on the roof.

“Lizzy!” I screamed. “Somebody’s out there!”

The shape moved toward us, closer and closer to the window. Lizzy and I clutched each other. The window opened.

Catman stuck his head inside. He was standing on the roof, but he looked dry, in spite of the downpour. He motioned for us to come outside.

Lizzy and I exchanged glances, then climbed out. We followed Catman to a corner under one of the gables, where Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge sat on a plaid blanket.

Lightning flashed again, and they burst into applause. “Winnie! Lizzy!” called Mrs. Coolidge. She patted the blanket. We obeyed and sat down, joining their storm picnic. It seemed safe enough, with no metal in sight and the gable protecting us from the rain.

“Good one!” shouted Mr. Coolidge when the thunder rumbled long and loud.

They clapped for streaks of lightning. Catman snapped his fingers in his beatnik way of clapping.

“It’s amazing!” Lizzy exclaimed, applauding. Then she burst out with a psalm I remembered our mom reading to us:
“God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear, even if earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!”

I leaned against the wall and watched lightning split the sky in jagged pieces. Thunder drummed all around us. Rain fell in sheets that sparkled in flashes of light that couldn’t touch us.

I wondered if it could be raining in Chicago. Could Dad be watching rain and lightning? I wanted there to be some connection between his world and ours as I watched the nighttime show and listened to the Coolidges’ cheers.

But it felt like Dad wasn’t just in a different city. He was on some other planet, where even the rain and the lightning had different meanings. And the air we breathed couldn’t possibly be the same.

Thursday morning I was a half second away from getting another tardy from Ms. Brumby. On Wednesday Mrs. Coolidge had used a torture rod she called a curling iron to flip my hair into a rolled-newspaper look. This morning, while I’d eaten Frosted Flakes, she braided my hair in dozens of tiny braids, which I unbraided at the barn before I came to school. But it was too late. The braids left me looking like a Dutch Friesian—a stocky, European breed of horse with a wild, bushy mane.

“Stick your finger in an electric socket?” Summer asked as I slid into English class under the bell. “You could be your own circus act! Electric girl!”

Summer’s faithful followers chuckled. Hawk always sat by Summer in class, but I don’t think she joined in. I was just glad we didn’t have school on Friday. Maybe Mrs. Coolidge wouldn’t feel obligated to fix my hair.

In Pat’s class Barker asked for volunteers for the Ashland circus. “We need butchers—I mean, concession people—to sell cotton candy and peanuts.”

“Come on, class!” Pat urged. “You could be circus folk like Barker!”

“Carny rats, more like it,” Summer muttered. “No offense.”

Summer Spidell is amazing. In the same breath she’d managed to insult Barker
and
make fun of Pat’s “no offense” line.

I turned and gave Summer a disappointed look. “Bad news, Summer. That circus job you asked me about, it’s a no-go.”

Summer banged her desk. “I am
not
a fat lady!”

I acted puzzled. “Fat lady? You’ll have to ask the Colonel about that job. I was talking about the
mean
lady. They said you were overqualified, but the job’s filled. Maybe next year.”

“Very funny!” Summer snapped. “Who’d want to be in that dirty, stinking circus anyway?”

Hawk raised her hand, and all heads turned to her. “It would be my honor to be a greeter in the circus
and
a butcher, if that is all right.”

“You got it!” Barker answered.

“Hawk!” Summer scolded.

I gave Hawk the thumbs-up. There was hope for that girl yet.

That night Hawk and I rode bareback to the fairgrounds, which had transformed into the Ashland circus. It was nice having Hawk around. Took my mind off the fact that Dad wasn’t.

“But does the Colonel want me to be a greeter?” Hawk asked for the hundredth time. “Towaco doesn’t know tricks like Nickers.” It might have been the first time I’d seen Hawk nervous. She was even forgetting her perfect speech and slipping into contractions.

“You don’t need tricks,” I assured her. “The crowd just has to look at you!” Hawk had worn a buckskin dress, dignified Native American garb that worked perfectly with her Appaloosa. I wondered if her parents would make it to the circus. They’re both lawyers, and I’d never seen either one of them at school stuff.

We led our horses to the Big Top and found Colonel Coolidge giving a pep talk to his volunteer butchers. Lizzy waved. About 20 kids, including Sal, Grant, M, and two Barker boys, were gathered around the Colonel.

“Lizzy!” Colonel Coolidge bellowed. “You and Mr. M are ticket takers!” He yawned. It looked out of place. He gave Grant and Sal coloring books. “Never forget there are 293 ways to make change for a dollar! Be vigilant!” Finally, he handed out peanut bags to a dozen kids. “Use the utmost caution! Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite! And I want you people to polish your boots until they shine!”

I glanced at their feet. Every foot except the Colonel’s was covered with a tennis shoe. And for the first time ever, Colonel Coolidge’s boots looked muddy. He yawned again. He must have had a bad night. But I’d have bet money his boots would shine by the time his army buddies showed up Friday.

Catman must have noticed too. “Clean your boots for you, Colonel?”

The Colonel stared in horror at his boots. “I polish my own boots, sir!” He did an about-face, shouted “Charge!” and then blew his ringmaster whistle.

Towaco followed Nickers in the parade. People cheered at Hawk on her Appaloosa. Nickers pranced, still wary of the noise and commotion. I waved to the crowd and spotted Pat Haven and Mr. Treadwater, my math teacher, and a bunch of people from church. The only one missing was Dad.

I stayed in the ring as long as I could to keep an eye on Ramon and Gabrielle. I didn’t want anything to happen to either of them.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The Colonel’s voice over the mike drowned out everything else. “Welcome to Colonel Coolidge’s Traveling Circus! I’d like to dedicate this evening’s performance to the lovely Granny Barker!”

Catman met me as I led Nickers out of the ring. “Told you he had a thing for Ma Barker.”

Hawk and I stabled our horses and rushed back to the Big Top in time to catch Barker’s act. Catman and Matthew Barker had saved us seats, with Pat and Mrs. Barker farther down the row.

One by one, the Barker dogs trotted out and performed their tricks.

“Didn’t Barker say at lunch that he was changing his act?” I whispered to Catman.

Catman pointed to the ring, where Bull, Matthew’s bulldog, strolled out.

I elbowed Matthew. “You didn’t tell us Bull was in the act!”

“Save the best for last!” he said, grinning in spite of himself.

“Another stray?” asked the Colonel. “Ladies and gentlemen, what should this master dog trainer teach
this
dog?”

I hoped it wouldn’t be anything hard. Every time I’d seen Matthew’s bulldog, it was sleeping. Barker admitted Bull was the laziest dog he’d ever seen.

While people in the crowd called out tricks, Bull turned in a circle and plopped down, his wrinkled head on his paws, his fat, stocky body still.

“Back flip!” shouted Jimmy Green Dinglehopper, who was sitting two rows in front of us.

Back flip? Bull barely had a back!

I nudged Hawk. “See? He’s trying to ruin Barker’s act! No way Bull can do a flip!” Maybe I’d been right all along about Dinglehopper.

“Back flip?” Barker repeated, his voice cracking.

“Well, Master Trainer?” The Colonel tapped his foot. “We’re waiting. Train this dog to do a back flip!”

The audience applauded. I wanted to clobber Dinglehopper with Matthew’s cotton candy. He had to know that fat, lazy dog couldn’t do a back flip!

Barker held his palms up in an I-give gesture. “Back flip, Bulldog!” he yelled.