Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost (5 page)

“Robotective back there gives me the creeps,” he said. “Have a seat.”

“What's the deal?” I said. “I thought you said it was arson. The deputy chief says it was an accident.”

“Did you notice his voice? He sounds like Hal from
2001: A Space Odyssey
. You ever see
2001: A Space Odyssey
? Awesome flick.”

“I like the eye.”

“Robotective's Eye of Doom?”

I laughed, even though we were entering the realm of making fun of somebody with a disability. Not cool.

“Of course Robotective wants to rule it an accident. That way, the cops don't have to do any work. Just sign a few forms, and it's back to sitting at their desks eating doughnuts and surfing the Net. I wish it was that easy for my family.”

“What do you mean? There's probably insurance or something that'll pay for the damage.”

“Insurance?” He snorted.

“Property insurance or something,” I said. I stuck my hands in my pockets and felt the heft of my phone. Why was he in such a moody freak mood? Across the street two little girls hobbled past, each one wearing an inline skate on one foot and a flip-flop on the other.

“My parents spend every single day arguing with the insurance people,” said Angus. “They won't pay out if it's an old gas line that should have been replaced a long time ago. That's our fault, they say.” He took a huge angry bite of his sandwich and chewed it in a way that
reminded me of Ned the dog tearing into one of his rawhide bones. “At least if it gets ruled arson, my family gets some money to rebuild. That store is all my parents have. Plus, my mom just had hip-replacement surgery. It's sucky all around.”

“Maybe it
was
an accident,” I said.

“This half is for you,” he said. He balanced the plastic triangle holding the other half of the egg-salad sandwich on my knee, then reached into his trench-coat pocket and pulled out a cream soda.

“Aren't you hot in that trench coat?” I asked.

“It wasn't an accident,” he went on.

“Well, who would have a reason to burn it down? You said your grandma lived above the store—”

“Grams wasn't
my
grandmother.” He said it in a way that said I was an idiot for thinking such a thing.

“But you said—”

“Grams is what we all called her. Nat and Nat call her Grams. She was really Wade's grandma. He lived up there, too. Nat and Nat are my parents. Just so you know. Natalie and Nathan. Such an adorable couple.”

“Why are you being so emo all of a sudden? I'm just trying to help. Jeez.”

He turned and looked at me with his almost black eyes. His face was close. I could smell his Old Spice and the mayonnaise from the egg salad, which it suddenly occurred to me we should not be eating in such killer heat. I put my half back in the container.

“Sorry. I'm just a little stressed. I grew up in this store,” he said, all sad-dog-looking.

“I get that,” I said. “It's just that I'm not sure how I can help you. I mean, Robotective in there is about to rule it an accident. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe you just don't want to face that your parents, you know,
should
have replaced the gas pipes, or whatever. Maybe there's no mystery here.” As soon as I said that, I understood that I didn't want it to be true. I wanted a mystery. I needed a mystery. I had become a mystery-o-holic.

“Oh, there's a mystery,” he said. “There's always a mystery.”

If I hadn't known better, I would have thought Angus Paine was going to lean over and give me a smooch, right there, sitting on the curb smack in the middle of the day, with the sun baking the parts in our hair and the occasional car tootling past and Deputy Detective Chief Inspector Whatever inside Angus's family's store making notes on his clipboard and … and …

Oooo-oooo-oooo-ahhnn!
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.
Oooo-oooo-oooo-ahhnn!
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.

My phone! I jumped, knocking my half of egg-salad sandwich into the gutter and kicking Angus in the leg at the same time.

Angus laughed. “Nice ring tone.” He reached down and untied my shoelace. Flirt monster.

“I got it from my friend Reggie, who got it from
someone who works at some famous zoo. It's not just any gorilla, it's a gorilla in the wild, and she's a she, not a he.” I flipped open the phone. Why was I nattering away like this? I was no stranger to dealing with flirt monsters! Well, all right, actually I was. The only true flirt monster I'd ever come into contact with was Kevin, who was now my boyfriend, whom I would probably marry in seventeen years.

It was Mark Clark. “Where ARE you?” The annoyance in his voice practically leaped out and bit me on the nose. The instant I heard his voice, I remembered that I was supposed to be home. I told him I was on my way. I spared him a lame excuse. Mark Clark was the kind of person who would let you mess up once in a while without wondering whether it would be better off for everyone if you were sent to a teen boot camp.

“Mom's waiting,” said Mark Clark. “You know how she gets when she thinks she's going to be late. She's already starting to rearrange the furniture.”

“Tell her I'll be there in a minute,” I said.

“Would that make me a liar?” said Mark Clark. “Because that's all I need, Minerva.” He sighed so loudly it hurt my ear. Life hadn't been easy for Mark Clark lately. Normally Mark Clark was in charge, which meant he got to make up the rules. Then Mrs. Dagnitz showed up out of nowhere, and her rules won out over Mark Clark's rules, but Mark Clark was still somehow in charge.

“I'm on my way,” I said. I leaped to my feet and started powering my way back down Corbett Street toward the bus stop. Angus caught up with me easily, his black trench coat flapping out behind him. He strode beside me, as if I'd invited him along.

“So it shouldn't take you longer than ten?” Mark Clark asked. “Where are you, Chelsea's?”

“What?” I said loudly. “You're breaking up. See you in a few minutes.” I snapped the phone shut.

“I'm late for a doctor's appointment,” I said to Angus, who bopped along beside me, his lopsided grin permanently plastered on his freckled face. It seemed as if he'd forgotten all about the arson.

“Really?” he said. “You look very healthy to me.”

We hurried past the grocery store. Robotective Huntington stood in the burned-out doorway writing something on his clipboard. His eye stared at us over the top of a pair of reading glasses. His gaze shifted to me, where it stuck too long. I'm sure it wasn't my imagination. He was wondering about me, somehow.

I felt my head start to sweat. How could I have lost track of the time? What was Robotective Huntington staring at? And what about the grocery? Was it arson or not?

“What's wrong with you?” Angus persisted.

“I was supposed to be home right now. And my mom goes totally insane if somebody makes her late. She thinks people do it to her on purpose, just to see her go
crazy. It's times like these I am so glad she doesn't live with us anymore.”

“No, I mean what's wrong that you're going to the doctor?”

“It's the brain doctor.”

“Just a checkup then?” he asked.

“You're awfully nosy,” I said. We'd reached the bus stop. Of course, there was no bus in sight. I sighed and checked the time on my cell phone.

“You're not taking the bus, are you?”

“How'd you think I got here? Unlike you, I didn't just materialize from a mist.”

“Materialize from a mist?” Angus's voice flew up like every other boy I knew. I guess that meant he wasn't a four-hundred-year-old vampire after all.

“Aren't you hot in that trench coat?” I asked again. Angus was starting to get on my nerves. I pulled out my phone and checked the time again. I was so dead. I was so not going to be home in a few minutes.

“Why don't you take my scooter?” Angus said. His brown-black eyes snapped with something I couldn't read. For no reason on earth, he patted me on the head.

Angus's Go-Ped had an orange-and-black deck and an electric motor in the back. It looked like a regular scooter, but you didn't need to push it to make it go. It went eighteen miles an hour and got me home in about ten minutes, the wind whipping my mass of bed-head
hair around behind me. The breeze felt so good. Never had I looked like such a geek, riding the streets of Portland in my turquoise Chuck Taylor high-tops and jean skirt. Lucky for me, Portland is the alternative-transportation capital of the nation—aside from all the bicycles and mopeds, there's a guy in our neighborhood who has a pair of miniature horses that pull him around in a cart. No one bats an eye.

Even though I was now a one-of-a-kind freak with uncommon self-esteem, I was not immune to total stupidity. I was so desperate to get home, I had borrowed Angus's Go-Ped without stopping to think how I would explain it. I could say I borrowed it from Chelsea, but there was not a drop of pink or purple anywhere on it, so no one would believe me. Plus, I'd already lied enough for one day. My brother Morgan was a Buddhist and said lying ruined your karma. I hoped karma ran along the same principles as tooth decay—it took a lot more than one Tropical Starburst to ruin your teeth. My plan was to zoom up the driveway and straight into the garage, in the hopes no one would see me. I'd figure out how to get the scooter back to Angus later.

But when I finally reached our house, Mark Clark and Mrs. Dagnitz were standing in the middle of the
driveway, waiting beside Mrs. Dagnitz's white SUV. Even though it was brain-cooking hot outside. Even though they were both wearing slacks. If they were surprised to see me speed up on an electric scooter, they didn't let on. Mark Clark had the straight-lipped, big-eyed look he gets when something has disturbed his world. Mrs. Dagnitz, on the other hand, was smiling the biggest tooth-whitened smile you can imagine. I had not seen such an enormous life-affirming smile since the first day of kindergarten, when our teacher, Mrs. Yerby, who also rescued cats with terminal diseases, welcomed us to our new school.

I smiled back. I thought it would be good to pretend that Mrs. Dagnitz's fake smile was a real smile. “Hey there!” I hopped off the scooter as if I'd owned it for years. Maybe Mrs. Dagnitz would think Charlie, our dad and her ex-husband, had given it to me to make me feel better because my own mother had deserted me for a guy who thought dressing up meant wearing black yoga pants.

Right.

“Why look, if it isn't Minerva Clark. How nice of you to interrupt your busy schedule and join us,” cried Mrs. Dagnitz. She was also wearing a peach-colored cotton sweater tied around her shoulders. Pastels were Mrs. Dagnitz's black.

“Sorry,” I mumbled to Mark Clark. “I lost track of the time.”

“Better get in the car,” he said under his breath.

I couldn't get in until I did something with the scooter. Mark Clark said we could throw it in the back of the Pathfinder. He didn't ask where I got it. Mrs. Dagnitz didn't ask where I got it. This was not good. The mad-at-Minerva vibes were so powerful, I thought they might ignite the gas tank. I thought someone's hair might catch on fire. I moved to open the back door, and Mrs. Dagnitz, who was already sitting in the driver's seat, rolled down the window. “Oh, no no no. Sit in the front with me!”

I slowly walked around the back of the car, hoping I would get points in heaven, or somewhere, for remembering not to walk in front of the car.

“So!” Mrs. Dagnitz cried as we roared off down the street. “Did you have fun at Chelsea's house?”

I took a deep cleansing breath like Mrs. Dagnitz urges me to do every other minute and waited. I looked straight ahead through the windshield. I messed with the air-conditioning knobs and switches; it was as hot as an equatorial nation. I waited some more.

Mrs. Dagnitz had been away in New Mexico too long. She thought I was still eleven years old. She didn't realize I'd gotten clever. I'd caught on to her old trick. She didn't give a rip about Chelsea, or what I'd done over at Chelsea's. She was hoping I would think I'd gotten away with it, and having gotten away with it, would make up more stuff just because I thought it was safe.

“Did you talk about boys and paint each other's
toenails and sing into the end of your hairbrush in front of the mirror?”

“The end of my hairbrush?” Somewhere between yesterday and today my mother had gone mental. I spun around and looked at Mark Clark, sitting behind me in the backseat. He gave a shrug and looked out the window. We sped over the Broadway bridge. The metal grating went
thonka-thonka-thonka
as our car rolled over it.

“Don't look at him!” said Mrs. Dagnitz.

“Mom, take it easy,” said Mark Clark.

“I never sing into the end of my hairbrush,” I said. “I prefer the saltshaker, that wooden one you and Dad got—”

Mrs. Dagnitz reached over and slapped my thigh—hard.

Mrs. Dagnitz may be slightly insane, but she is not a child abuser. The only time she's ever laid a hand on me was when I was three and she smacked me on the arm with an empty box of Froot Loops because I tipped my cereal bowl over at the breakfast table.

“Stop it!” she said.

“Ow!” I said, even though it didn't hurt. I was surprised more than anything.

“Hey, hey, hey,” said Mark Clark.

“Your little friend Chelsea called the house!” said Mrs. Dagnitz. “Now, why on earth would she have called our house if you were over at her house?”

“She called on the land line?” I was incredulous. Why didn't she call me on my cell?

“Do not change the subject, Minerva. Where were you? With that boyfriend? With that Kevin person?”

“Uh, nooooo … I was not with Kevin.” I said it in a way that made it sound as if I were lying.