Paperquake (16 page)

"Hurry up," pleaded Jasmine. "I have a math test next period and I still need to study." Then she grabbed the book out of Violet's hands. "This is the East Bay phone book!"

Violet dropped the book. It swung by its chain. "I'll have to call information again." She punched the buttons.

"Hurry, hurry!" said Jasmine. A bell rang, and the hallway grew loud with the crush of students passing by on their way outside. Violet had to raise her voice to speak to the San Francisco operator. She told the operator she wanted the phone number of someone named Lauer.

"First name?" asked the operator.

"I don't know."

"Address?" asked the operator.

"I don't know that, either."

The operator's voice sounded disapproving. "There are nine Lauers listed."

"Oh." Violet's head drooped in disappointment. "Could you—I know this is a lot to ask, but could you maybe give me all their phone numbers? And addresses? Please?"

"My dear," sighed the operator, "I don't have that kind of time, and we don't give out addresses, in any case. There are Lauers on Laguna, Maple, King, Twenty-ninth, Chance, Clementena—you'll have to go to a library and check the phone book for yourself."

"Wait a sec!" Violet pressed herself into the phone booth as a wave of rowdy boys, many of them leaping and shrieking, rushed down the hall. "Did you say Chance? Chance Street?"

Rose and Jasmine grabbed her shoulders in excitement.

"Well, I'd like that number," said Violet. "Just the Chance Street phone number, please." She wrote quickly. "And is that in the nine hundred block?...Oh—330? Right, that's what I meant. Thanks a lot!"

She hung up with a triumphant grin and her sisters threw their arms around her. "Hooray!" cried Jasmine. And Rose added, "330 Chance Street! That might just be a coincidence—but we don't believe in coincidences anymore, do we? I think we're on to something!"

The girls grinned at each other, and Violet basked in the warmth of her sisters' approval. She felt safer with them on her side. They were a team. And now she felt like a full player. "We have to go there," she said. "As soon as possible. Saturday."

She skipped along with her sisters, reaching the door of her classroom just as the late bell rang. She waved good-bye to them, then slipped into her seat, flipping another wave over at Beth, who sat in the next row. Beth was frowning.

"Hi," Violet whispered as Mr. Koch called the class to order.

"Why didn't you eat lunch?" demanded Beth. She wasn't even bothering to whisper.

"We had something to do," Violet hissed back. "Jazzy and Rosy and I."

"Oh, right. The famous Triplet Club," said Beth coldly.

What does that mean?
wondered Violet. Beth sounded so angry.

Violet tried to explain. "We had something to do—about the letters. Wait till I tell you about the totally amazing adventure we had at the museum yesterday. You won't believe it!"

"I waited for you after school yesterday."

"Oh—sorry!" Violet's sudden guilt sounded in her voice. She should have told Beth about the change in plans. Or taken her along to the museum. "I'm really sorry, Beth."

"Did you mail the letter back?" Beth demanded.

"No, even better. We took it back in person!"

"
We?
" Beth's voice was harsh. "
We
who?"

"Jazzy, Rosy, and I," said Violet. "Who else?"

"Who else?" repeated Beth. She looked down at her book. "I should have known."

I said I was sorry,
thought Violet. Beth looked so different when she was angry. Her normally sunny face turned hard, the eyes narrow and the mouth tight. Beth had been her best buddy for so long, her companion in everything, it was hard to understand why she should be...

Companion?

Violet's heart thudded. Was it possible—was
Beth
the one she needed to fear?

Mr. Koch began asking questions, about sedimentary rock. Violet sat watching Beth out of the corner of her eye. Beth took notes. She raised her hand and answered a question about sedimentary rock. Correctly, of course.

I'm being crazy,
thought Violet. This was Beth, her very best friend.

But maybe that's what V thought about lour companion, too. Before she died.

Violet pushed the disturbing thought away. She opened her notebook and scribbled on a clean page:
Are you going to stay mad at me?
She cleared her throat and tipped the notebook so Beth could read the message.

Beth glanced over, then lowered her eyes, but not before Violet saw they were full of tears.

Understanding tinged with relief flooded Violet. She scribbled hastily in her notebook again:
Please come home with me after school. I promise I'll tell you
everything!

She tipped the notebook and cleared her throat again, but Beth kept her eyes firmly on the page in her textbook about sedimentary rock. Violet cleared her throat more loudly. Then she coughed, and coughed again. Finally Mr. Koch turned from the blackboard.

"Violet Jackstone, do you need to get a drink of water?"

Violet felt her face flush. "Uh—no. I'm okay."

When the teacher turned back to the board, Beth finally looked over. Her eyes skimmed Violet's message, and she shrugged.

It wasn't a very satisfactory answer, Violet thought. But it would have to do for now.

After school that day Violet kept her promise. She and her sisters brought Beth home and filled her in on the return of the stolen letter. They showed Beth the newly discovered diary entries and the needlepoint pattern, and invited her to come along on Saturday to check out the Lauer person on Chance Street.

Now it was Saturday and they were on their way. Violet sat next to Beth on the BART, chattering as if nothing had ever been wrong. She felt sorry that she'd hurt her friend's feelings by excluding her—she knew all too well how terrible it felt to be left out of things. She felt embarrassed that she'd considered Beth—even for a second—as the possible murderer. But she kept her eyes open, too, because if the person to beware of wasn't Beth, then she—or he—might still be lurking somewhere.

They gave Beth a tour of the Chance Street shop, pointing out all the changes. The triplets' father and mother had been busy during the past week. New track lighting had been installed in the front room. A telephone now hung on the wall by thesalescounter. The cupboard doors had been refitted with strong new hinges and knobs and were closed tightly. Eight large cans of flat white paint waited by the windows with a large bag full of rollers and brushes. "Just leave the paint," their dad had cautioned before they set out today. "We'll have a family painting party once all the old wallpaper is off." He and Lily had decided they would do as much of the interior work as they could themselves, but would employ professionals to paint the exterior of the old building.

Beth and Violet stepped into the backyard, and Violet pointed out the cellar, its door now fitted with a new lock. "That's where I fell because the steps had rotted away. And over there"—she pointed to the back wall of the yard—"is where I imagined a stone bench and a flower garden with a birdbath. And then I read that V had fallen down the stairs, and then in the cellar we found an old stone bench
and
a carved stone birdbath stored against the back wall. Really bizarre." She didn't need to detail how frightened and exhilarated she had felt.

"Spooky," Beth agreed, glancing over her shoulder as if a ghost might be creeping up behind her. "It does seem you've got some connection to this place. The question is
why?
"

"That's what I'm hoping the Lauers can tell me." Violet led the way back into the shop, where Jasmine and Rose were just starting to pull strips of the old wallpaper off the front room walls. "Let's get going," she said, and her sisters jumped up.

The girls crossed the street to number 330. It was a Victorian row house similar to the Jackstones' shop, but this building was very clearly a family home. A skateboard lay at the foot of the steps, and a red tricycle was parked by the door. Rose tapped on the door, then pushed the buzzer. They waited. Violet reached into the back pocket of her jeans and fingered the folded pages of Hal's letters nervously.

"I'll do the talking," Rose murmured.

They had not telephoned ahead. It would be better, they decided, to approach the donor of the letter in person.

Then the door opened and a little girl with long brown braids hanging over her shoulders stood there. She was dressed in red overalls and stared out at them through the screen. "It's for you!" she screeched before the girls could say a word, and careened away. In another second there was a shuffling in the hallway and a boy peered out. "Yes?"

Violet recognized him immediately. Sam, the boy from the top of the mailbox. She felt her cheeks grow warm at the thought of how she must have looked to him then, and how she must look to him now that she had a purple sheen to her hair. He stood before them with his dark hair flopping over his forehead untidily and his eyes bright with interest. Rose and Jasmine broke into identical big smiles.

"Sam!" Jasmine exclaimed. "It's us—Jazzy and Rosy and Vi, remember?"

"How could I forget?" he asked in his gravelly voice. "It's the Maid-of-All-Work and Associates."

"This associate is Beth." Jasmine introduced her, since Violet remained silent. "Do you live here?"

"Huh?" he asked, still looking at Violet. "I mean, yeah." He opened the door. "I mean, hi. Come on in."

"I need you in here, Sam," called a woman's voice from the back of the house.

"It's my mom," he explained. "I'm helping her make pumpkin pies."

"Is your mom Mrs. Lauer?" asked Rose.

"Yup. How did you know that?"

"Could we talk to her?" asked Violet, finally finding her voice. She felt shy with him but had come on business and would not let herself be distracted. "We just want to ask her some questions."

"My mom?" He looked disappointed. Had he been hoping they'd all come to see
him?

"Yes, please," Violet said in a firmer voice.

The girls followed Sam down the hall to the back of the house and into a large kitchen. The warm room smelled good—
cinnamon and nutmeg,
Violet thought. The smells reminded her of autumn, of fires crackling in the hearth, of Halloween and Thanksgiving. The little girl in red overalls was standing on a chair at the counter, using a wooden spoon to stir something in a big silver bowl. A baby in green overalls sat under the kitchen table, banging on a pot with another wooden spoon.

A television was chattering in the corner. It was another special report about the recent earthquakes, with a geologist using a pointer to indicate details on a big map. "These are the fault lines in California," she was saying, tapping the pointer on a frightening web of lines covering the state. "Many of them have only recently been discovered, and yet there are probably a hundred more we don't know about."

Violet looked away quickly and her glance fell on the newspaper spread over a kitchen chair. The headlines seemed to blare out as loudly as the TV geologist's words:

 

BAY AREA HOLDS ITS BREATH
WAITING FOR THE BIG ONE
DEALING WITH QUAKE-RELATED STRESS

 

There was no escape.

A large-boned woman wearing a loose flannel dress looked up from the piecrusts she was rolling out on the wooden cutting board. She had a smudge of flour across one cheek and a friendly smile. "Helpers!" she cried in a gravelly voice like Sam's. "And heaven-sent." Violet smiled at her, relieved to be distracted from the news.

"They're from across the street," said Sam. "Well, they don't really live there, but—"

"It's our new shop," explained Violet. "My parents' florist shop. My sisters and I have been cleaning it up to get ready."

"And we wanted to meet you," added Jasmine.

"We've already met Sam," said Rose politely. "I'm Rosy Jackstone. And this is Jazzy. And Vi. And Beth Madigan."

"We're triplets," said Violet. "Well, Beth isn't."

"Well I'm Ida Lauer, and I'm glad to meet you." Sam's mother tweaked one of the little girl's braids. "And this is our Annabel. That's Anthony under the table, playing the drums." Mrs. Lauer looked at each visitor in turn. "Now let's see. Triplets! Rosy must be short for Rose or Rosemary. And Vi is for Violet, right? But what about Jazzy?"

"It's really Jasmine," said Jasmine.

"Ah. Flower names for the florists' daughters, is that it?"

Jasmine nodded. "I think Mom and Dad got carried away."

"Mom's name is Lilian," said Rose. "But she goes by Lily."

"And your dad?" asked Sam. "Daffodil? Daffy for short?"

"Dad is just plain Greg," said Violet. She gave him a shy smile.

"It would be better if he were Basil or Sage or something."

"Oh, Sam." But his mother was laughing. "Well, I'm pleased to meet the whole bouquet. And Beth, too, of course." She tipped out more flour from the bag and spread it across the cutting board. "But I'm afraid I can't ask you to sit down for a neighborly chat just now. There's a bake sale at our church tomorrow, and I'm nowhere near ready with all the pies I promised to donate."

"They wanted to ask you something," Sam said.

"Well, ask away." Mrs. Lauer reached for her rolling pin and smoothed out a round of dough with deft strokes. "We can work and talk at the same time." She handed Violet a pie pan. "Here, honey. Can you flip this crust into the pan? I'll have another one ready in a sec. Oh, wait, better wash your hands."

Violet didn't mind being drafted into service. She washed her hands at the sink. Then she saw an apron hanging on the doorknob and tied it around her waist. She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. Rose followed suit. Jasmine and Beth knelt on the floor and started clapping along in time to Anthony's banging. His round face was wreathed in smiles.

"Thank you, girls. You can help most by keeping the little ones out from underfoot," said Mrs. Lauer. "Here, Sam, open these last cans of pumpkin, would you?"