Peeled (11 page)

A tired mother with four children came in. The kids were screaming, running everywhere. More people came in. The store was close to packed. Not the time to try to talk to Crescent.

I didn’t have to wonder long.

The Bee
hit the street with a special edition blaring the news.

The name of the girl was being withheld “to protect the innocent,” but the girl went into vast detail about biking down Farnsworth Road and all that she saw in the upstairs room of the Ludlow house.

“It was big,” she asserted. “Huge, even.”

Specifically, it was a floating head, and after she saw it, a branch fell from a tree in the Ludlow yard and scared her, causing her to fall off her bike. She was taken to the emergency room and kept under observation into the evening. There was a spooky picture of the Ludlow house with a new sign front and center.

There was a picture of Sallie Miner, too, under the heading “Are Our Children Safe?”

What power was causing branches to fly off trees and attack children? That was another question
The Bee
pursued exhaustively, with help from Madame Zobek.

“There is some property so haunted that even the trees are taken over,” she wrote. “I am concerned about the safety of Banesville’s children.”

What about teenagers? Are we safe?

And what about good old Reality?

No one would take Missy Grimes seriously.

Right?

And it’s not like
I saw something and it was big, huge, even
is all that distinctive.

But I couldn’t seem to let it be.

I could go talk to her, I suppose. I could ask her mother. I could mind my own business.

No, reporters can never do that.

I talked to Baker, who said, “Well, you could always babysit.”

That seemed awfully extreme.

In case anyone wondered about my dedication to journalism, it was now official.

Hildy Biddle, Undercover Babysitter.

I sat under a folding table playing castle with Missy
Grimes. She was the princess, I was her lady-in-waiting, and the bad news was that several fire-breathing dragons had surrounded the castle and only one of us (Missy) was brave enough to fight them.

Missy raised a spatula and screamed, “I’ll waste some of you before you bring me down!”

Mrs. Grimes had warned me that Missy’s father let her watch violent movies.

I was trying to find a comfortable way to kneel. “Well, Princess—methinks you scared the dragons away.”

“They’re still out there,” Missy said. “I can smell them.” She sniffed the air. “They smell like bad milk.”

My back was close to spasming. “I’ve heard that dragons leave the bad-milk smell when they’re retreating.”

She shook her head. “That’s wrong. My daddy is going to come to rescue us.”

“That’s good.” I handed her a wand covered with sparkling stars. “I was told, Princess, that this wand will scare off the dragons.”

That was wrong, too.

“Listen, Missy. Do you remember when you and your class were at my orchard?”

“Shhhh. They can hear you.”

I whispered, “When you were at the orchard, you mentioned seeing something big. Huge, even.”

She nodded, waved the wand around.

“Was that a dragon you saw?”

“No.”

“What was it?”

“It was a ghost.” She screamed, “Dragons, get ready to die!”

“Where did you see the ghost?”

“At the bad house.”

“Where is that?”

“The one that killed the little girl.”

Careful. “What were you doing there?”

She looked down. “I was riding my bike and I got lost.”

“Was your mother with you?”

“Yes.”

I decided not to ask how you get lost in your hometown when your mother’s with you. “Missy, what happened after you saw the ghost?”

“I got scared.”

“I bet.”

She crawled out from under the folding table. I followed. She ran up to her room and handed me a well-worn copy of
The Brave Little Chipmunk.

“You read it to me, Hildy, because I’m supposed to hear it when I get afraid.”

“Okay. I’m sorry if anything I said—”

“Read it to me! Read it to me!”

I started reading about Chappy Chipmunk, who overcame an evil badger who had it in for small animals. The book ended with Chappy, surrounded by a grateful chipmunk community, saying her closing line.

“Anything is possible when you have a true heart.”

Missy shouted the last line with feeling. I remembered reading this to her when I babysat last year.

Missy looked in the mirror, tossed her hair, and smiled. “I’m famous.”

“Are you the girl they wrote about in the paper?”

She nodded. “And Daddy is very worried, and he’s coming to save me all the way from Atlanta.”

She jumped on her pink bed, burrowed among the stuffed animals, and grinned.

Baker was out of town for the next few days.

I was sitting in Tanisha’s kitchen, eating spicy orange beef, which her mother made when she needed to feel good about the world. Mrs. Bass was a counselor at the middle school and was making a lot of spicy orange beef these days. It was rich and dense with just enough sweetness. Pookie was curled up in her dog bed.

“So what do I do about Missy?” I asked Tanisha.

We’d already discarded the idea of doing a blog about her under an assumed name.

“I think you should write down everything about Missy that you remember, Hildy.”

“That will take decades,” I mentioned.

“She’s only six.”

I put my head in my hands. Where do I start?

Tanisha took out a yellow pad and started writing. “Her dad lets her watch violent movies. Getting scared and exaggerating is the way to get her parents’ attention.”

“Her parents’ divorce has been hard on her,” I added.

Tanisha wrote that down, too. “That doesn’t mean she should make the front page.”

I shrugged. “She already has, though, and it’s selling newspapers! You’ve seen how
The Bee
is getting bigger with every issue. They’ve got so many ads!”

“Ads,” Tanisha said, “not content.”

I sighed. “They’re successful, Tanisha, and that makes them powerful.”

“You’re saying that Pen Piedmont has more power than the truth because he’s got a lot of ads?”

“No! I’m saying that—”

Tanisha pressed in. “You’re saying that because of his power he gets to exploit kids without being challenged?
Shouldn’t someone challenge him?”

Pookie barked.

I looked at the photo of Martin Luther King Jr. that hung on the wall. Tanisha’s grandfather marched with Dr. King during the civil rights demonstrations in the sixties. Dr. King had signed the photo
To Edmer Bass, Who walked the miles for peace and justice.

It’s hard to wimp out sitting in this kitchen.

Tanisha and I were in town, standing by the offices of
The Bee
, trying to run into Pen Piedmont as though it was a random occurrence. Madame Zobek’s psychic studio was next door. I saw Jackie Jowrey, Elizabeth’s friend who was running for Homecoming Queen, come out the studio
door. She looked at me and smiled nervously. A few more people walked inside.

I looked at Tanisha, who was infused with purpose. “Tell me again why we’re doing this,” I insisted.

“We’re facing down the bully, Hildy. We’re going to tell him we know that he’s lying. We’re going to draw our line in the sand.”

“I’d rather write an article.”

Pinky Sandusky marched up to
The Bee
’s office holding an envelope.

“Hi, Mrs. Sandusky.”

“Hello, yourself. I’m making my afternoon delivery. Piedmont’s not printing my letters to the editor, so I bring one to him every day. I have a right for my voice to be heard!”

I smiled. “If you send me a copy of the letter, I’ll see if we can run it in
The Core.
”

She nodded and pushed through the door.

Then, Sheriff Metcalf walked by. He glanced at Madame Zobek’s studio. “What are you doing here, Hildy?”

“Waiting for someone.”

Tanisha pointed to the parking lot. “Let’s wait there.”

We hurried across the street. It was easy to spot Piedmont’s black SUV because of the license plate.

How mighty was his pen, anyway?

Lev pulled up in his red VW.

“Vant a ride, my dears?” He said it like Dracula. “My carriage is at your service.” He lowered his voice. “I could take you to my decaying castle.”

Nooooooo.…

Lev leaned out the window, flashing a brilliant smile. “Look, Hildy, you know homecoming’s coming up, and I’m a very good dancer.”

Last year we won the dance contest at homecoming.

“And I’d
really
like to go with you.” Lev, like Dracula, oozed charm.

I felt this pent-up desire to say yes just to win the dance contest again.

Thankfully, Tanisha cleared her throat and touched her red sweater. Red stood for “Danger.” That broke the spell.

Only God knew how many times Lev had cheated on me, and God wasn’t telling.

“I’m busy,” I croaked out.

He adjusted his rearview mirror. “Too bad. I bid you farewell.” And off he drove.

I grabbed Tanisha’s arm. “I almost cracked.”

“But you didn’t.” She put on sunglasses. I did, too. We stood there.

Next, Zack drove up. I’m telling you, it’s impossible to hide in Banesville.

He looked at us, amused. “What are you guys doing?”

“Waiting for Piedmont,” we said in unison.

He parked his car and joined us.

Zack stood close to me. I don’t know why, but I moved just a little closer. Our arms touched. Tanisha pointed to her black boots. Black stood for “What’s going on?”

Nothing’s going on
, I mouthed.

“I’ve been doing some research on fake psychics,” Zack told us. “In this one town the bank teller called the sheriff because suddenly people were taking all this cash out of their accounts. Turns out they were giving it to this psychic who had five aliases.”

I turned to Zack. “Really?”

“Con artists know how to spot vulnerabilities very quickly in people,” he added. “That’s how they operate.”

“Speak of the devil,” Tanisha said.

Mighty Pen himself was walking toward the lot.

“Look normal,” I whispered.

“Too late for that,” Tanisha muttered.

Piedmont walked more slowly as he saw us.

“Hi, Mr. Piedmont,” we all said together.

“Cute act you’ve got.” He pressed his key chain, unlocking the SUV.

I took off my sunglasses. “That article on the girl seeing the ghost is really something,” I mentioned.

No eye contact. “We’re proud of the reporting.”

“I babysit for Missy Grimes,” I added.

His neck muscles tensed. “Who?”

“Missy Grimes,” I repeated. “The local girl who said she saw a ghost. I need to tell you, she’s got a wild imagination.”

“We’re not releasing the identity of the girl. But I can assure you she’s been scared and our story is on the level.”

“Mr. Piedmont, I don’t believe your story is accurate.”

“
My
stories are always accurate!” Two women had stopped to listen. Seeing them, Piedmont went folksy. “The world needs stories. That’s how we learn. The news business is about finding those stories and bringing them to the people.”

The two women nodded and walked to their car.

He climbed into the SUV and drove off too fast.

I shouted after him, “The news business is about reporting true stories—not making them up!”

“It’s a big news day, you guys.” Darrell walked into Room 67B, waving a sheet of paper. “The coroner’s report is back on Lupo. You’re not going to believe this. He died of natural causes—a heart attack.”

What?

“How is that possible?” Elizabeth demanded.

“He wasn’t choked, shot, poisoned, knifed, hit, run over, or beat up. The guy was overweight and out of shape. He had a heart attack.” Darrell leaned against the table. “And the other piece of news is that Houston Bule was released on bail.”