The Bell Bandit (4 page)

Jessie trudged forward, Maxwell gliding alongside. She was almost there. She could just see the top of the crossbeam. The afternoon sun was starting to set, slicing its way down Black Bear Mountain. It was hard to look up at the crest of the hill, because the sun was setting directly behind it, causing the snow to glint fiercely. Jessie shielded her eyes and tried to see the top of the hill. Maxwell was
shooshing
by her side, swinging his poles back and forth with wild flailing motions, cutting new tracks in the untouched snow.

Trudge, trudge, trudge.
Jessie looked up once more just as the sun dipped below the mountain, throwing the hillside into sudden shadow. There was the crest. There was the wooden crossbeam.

But the bell was gone.

Evan stared in amazement. The hole in the wall was gone. He and Pete had worked all day, first ripping out the damaged studs and replacing them with clean, dry wood, then trimming the old boards so that the ragged hole became a neat rectangle, then measuring and cutting and nailing in the new sheets of plywood. There was still the dry wall to hang and the outside shingles to replace, but the hole was gone. Evan had never felt such a sense of accomplishment in his life, not even when he and Jessie had won the Labor Day Poster Contest at the end of the summer.

Now he was sweeping up the sawdust that lay as thick as a carpet under his feet. Pete said no carpenter worth his salt leaves a mess behind at the end of the day. So Evan was sweeping up the sawdust and bent nails and small chips of wood, while Pete hauled the bigger scraps out to the truck. But every once in a while, Evan stopped and held the broom still in his hands so that he could admire the work they had done. He couldn't wait to show his mom when she got back from the hospital.

He was dumping the last pile of sawdust into the large gray plastic barrel when he heard loud clomping on the front porch, followed by the front door opening. Evan walked into the living room just as Jessie tried to step over the threshold wearing her snowshoes.

"Evan! The bell is gone!" She tripped over the doormat and fell face first into the living room, landing hard on her hands and knees. Behind her was an older boy Evan had never seen before. He had funny-looking cross-country shoe-boots on his feet, and he was carrying a pair of ski poles. Evan guessed he was at least twelve, maybe thirteen.

"I can't get these off," said Jessie. She had rolled onto her back in the living room and was holding her feet up in the air. The snowshoes were dripping clumps of snow onto her face and the floor. "Help me, Evan!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake," he said. He crossed over to where she was squirming and grabbed hold of one of the snowshoes. The boy had a funny smile on his face and was rocking back and forth, one foot out in front of the other. "Hey," said Evan, as a way of introducing himself.

"You don't see that every day," said the boy, looking at Jessie, who looked like a ladybug caught on her back.

"Yeah, actually, I do," said Evan. Jessie was always tripping over something or getting caught on something or dragging something along behind her. Evan unclipped one snowshoe and then the other and flipped them off Jessie's feet.

"The bell is gone, Evan! Gone!"

"What do you mean? Grandma's bell?"

"Yes! The New Year's Eve bell!"

"It can't be gone. You must have climbed the wrong hill."

"No, we didn't. The wooden post was there, just like always, but the bell is gone!"

Evan shook his head. "That thing weighs—I don't know—a hundred pounds. There's no way someone could just walk off with it. And besides, who would want to take it?"

"Who
wouldn't
want to take it?" Jessie asked, bouncing from one foot to the other. "It's an antique and it's famous—"

"It's not famous, Jessie," said Evan, shaking his head. "Just 'cause it's in that book doesn't make it famous."

"Well, it's worth two thousand five hundred dollars!"

"Is not!"

"I'll show you!" Jessie ran to the couch where she'd left
The Big Book of Bells
that morning and pulled out a letter that was tucked into the back cover of the book. She handed it to Evan, who read it slowly, not understanding all the words but getting the general idea. About five years ago, Grandma had had the bell appraised to find out how much it was worth, and Jessie was right: the letter said the bell was worth $2,500.

"Wow," said Evan.

Maxwell bobbed his head several times, rocking back and forth on his feet.

"We've got to find it," said Jessie, pulling on Evan's arm. "New Year's Eve is in three days! If we don't ring the bell on New Year's Eve..." Jessie couldn't get the words out, and Evan knew what she was feeling. It was hard to imagine not ringing the bell on New Year's Eve. They had always done that, for as long as he could remember.

Evan looked at the boy and then back at his sister. "Jessie...?" He half pointed at Maxwell, hoping his sister would get the hint, but as usual, she didn't. "Uh, my name's Evan," he said to the boy, sticking out his hand the way grownups did.

"How do you do," said the boy, shaking Evan's hand. "My name's Maxwell. I'm smart!" Then he rocked forward on his left foot and shook his right hand in the air. Evan looked at him closely.

"Maxwell lives in the yellow house. The one with the big rock out front," said Jessie. "He knows Grandma really well."

"Yep," said Maxwell. "I come here all the time." Maxwell was rocking back and forth steadily now, snapping his right hand in the air with each forward motion. "We watch TV! And we do puzzles. And we feed the birds. And I'm smart! That's what Mrs. Joyce says. She says, 'Maxwell, you are smart!'"

There was a moment's silence, and then Evan asked, "What grade are you in?"

"Sixth grade," said Maxwell. "Hardy Middle School. Grade six."

"Mom's home!" shouted Jessie, running for the front door. Evan had heard it, too—the old Subaru making its way up the long driveway. He hurried back into the kitchen. He wanted to get the trash barrel outside before his mom walked in.

He was carrying it down the makeshift back steps he and Pete had rigged up, when Pete came around the house. "Your grandma's home, so I'm heading out for the day," said Pete. "We'll hang the dry wall tomorrow, then we'll start on the upstairs the next day. Sound good?"

"Yeah, sure," said Evan. He wanted to sound casual about it, so Pete wouldn't think this was the first construction job he'd ever done, but he couldn't keep the eagerness out of his voice.

"Okay, then. See you tomorrow." Pete plugged in his headphones and headed for his truck.

Evan walked back into the kitchen and took one more look around. It was still definitely a disaster area, but they'd accomplished a lot: the wall was repaired, and the back door was framed and hung, and you could walk up and down the back steps if you were careful. Plus, it was a whole lot cleaner than it had been an hour ago. When Evan heard voices (mostly Jessie's) in the living room, he hurried in to say hello.

His grandmother stood just inside the doorway, next to the coat rack and umbrella stand. Her winter parka was draped over her shoulders as if it were a cape, and Evan could see that her arm was in a cast, cradled in a sling around her neck. She fumbled one-handed with the coat until Evan's mother took it from her and hung it up on the rack.

Evan watched as Jessie tried to grab hold of Grandma's hand, but Grandma pulled her hand in, hunching forward protectively, and covered the sling with her good arm, as if she were afraid someone might try to steal something away from her. She began to walk toward the middle of the room, taking small steps, which was not at all the way his grandmother usually walked. Then she stopped and looked at the stairs that led to the second floor and then back at the front door.

It was her face that surprised Evan the most. It looked pale, and she had bags under her eyes, which Evan had never noticed before. Most of all, she couldn't seem to settle her gaze on anything. Her eyes kept flitting around the room, like a bird that won't perch on any one thing.

Jessie was hopping around like a bird, too, chattering nonstop about the bell. Maxwell was walking behind them, carrying on his own conversation and making a strange puffing noise that sounded like he was trying to blow feathers out of his mouth. Evan's mother had an arm around his grandma's shoulder, guiding her slowly toward the couch, and when Evan caught sight of his mother's face, he knew right away that something was very wrong.

"Hi, Grandma," said Evan cheerfully, from across the room. But Grandma didn't look at him.

"She's tired," said his mom. "Jessie, would you please stop asking so many questions. Grandma needs a couple of minutes to get used to being home."

"Why?" asked Jessie. "Why do you need to get used to being home, Grandma? That doesn't make any sense."

"Jessie, shut it," said Evan, feeling a little panicked. What he really wanted to do was run up to his mother and get a hug from her, but with Maxwell standing right there, there was no way he was going to do that.

"Come see the kitchen, Grandma," said Jessie. "See how good it looks."

"Jessie," warned her mother, "you need to slow down."

"A cup of tea," said Grandma. "That's what I need. A good strong cup of green tea."

She started to walk toward the kitchen. Evan hurried ahead of her, scooping up two last stray nails that were on the Formica counter. Then he stood beside the patched hole. His mother and grandmother walked into the kitchen, trailed by Jessie and Maxwell, who had finally stopped talking. Everyone looked at Evan and the repair work that he and Pete had done that day. It was his grandmother who spoke first.

"What is this? What has happened here?"

"Mom," said Mrs. Treski. "There was a fire. Do you remember the fire?"

"Where's my stove? How am I going to make my tea without a stove?"

"The stove was ruined, Grandma," said Jessie. "They had to take it out because it was no good anymore."

"What do you mean, Jessie?" asked Grandma. "Who did this? Where was I?" She looked at Mrs. Treski. "Susan, what has been going on here?"

"Mom—"

"You don't see that every day!" said Maxwell, rocking back and forth nervously. His right hand snapped in the air like he was cracking the whip on an imaginary horse.

"No, you certainly don't, Maxwell," said Evan's grandma. "You certainly don't."

"Grandma," said Evan. "It's going to be okay. Me and Pete are fixing the whole thing. We're going to work some more tomorrow. We'll get it just the way it used to be." Evan could feel that bad feeling rising up in him. The feeling he got just before taking a test. The feeling he sometimes got late at night when the house was too quiet and too dark and he wished his dad had never left.

For the first time that afternoon, Evan's grandmother looked right at him. She peered sharply at his face and then looked him over once, from top to bottom. She turned to Evan's mom.

"Who is that boy?" she asked angrily. "Did he do this to my kitchen?"

"Mom," said Mrs. Treski. "It's Evan. Your grandson."

Evan's grandmother shook her head. "I don't know him. Make him go away."

The next morning, Jessie sat with her grandmother at the dining room table and ripped the cellophane wrapper off the box of the new jigsaw puzzle. She couldn't wait to get started. Grandma looked like herself this morning. She had slept twelve hours last night, and at breakfast she'd given Jessie and Evan a giant bear hug. They'd even exchanged their Christmas gifts. Grandma was wearing the scarf that Jessie had knit for her draped over her shoulders, and Jessie had a brand-new calligraphy pen and two jars of metallic ink waiting for her upstairs in her room. Evan's present from Grandma was a magic set, and he had given her a Christmas cactus covered in pink blossoms.

"That looks good enough to eat," said Grandma, staring at the picture of the puzzle that Jessie set up on one end of the table like a billboard. The brightly colored jellybeans reminded Jessie of Christmas lights all in a tangled pile. They even seemed to glisten and glow like lights on a tree. It was the most beautiful puzzle she had ever seen.

And the hardest. It took Jessie and Grandma nearly ten minutes just to spread out all the pieces on the table and turn each one right side up. Then they had to separate out all the straight-edge pieces that would form the outside frame. When they had finished, they stopped and studied the puzzle.

"They all look the same," said Jessie. It was true. Even though the pieces were different shapes, the picture on each one was basically the same. There was no way to pick one out from all the others. Jessie had never done a puzzle like this before. She didn't know where to begin.

"Four corners," said Grandma, tapping the table. "That's how we always start, right?"

So they searched through the puzzle pieces until they found the four corner pieces and matched those up to the picture to figure out which corner went where. Then they began the slow process of building off the corners to create the outside frame of the puzzle.

"Grandma, tell me about the New Year's Eve bell," said Jessie. She'd been waiting all morning to ask her grandmother about the bell, but she was nervous. Mrs. Treski had warned both children: "Try not to say anything that might upset her," and she had told Jessie specifically, "Don't talk about how the bell is missing."

"Well, what do you want to know?" asked Grandma, fitting a puzzle piece onto her side of the frame.

"Where did it come from?"

"My great-grandfather put it there to call the neighbors in case of an emergency."

"Like what?" asked Jessie. "What kind of emergency?" She was hunting for a straight-edge piece with a purple jellybean on it.

"Oh, all kinds of things. If someone was sick or if there was a lost child or a fire or a pack of wolves getting into the sheep."

"Back in 1884?" Over the years, Jessie had traced her fingers over that date on the bell a hundred times. She knew the inscription by heart: