The Candy Smash (11 page)

And then something even worse happened. Walking up the back path from the opposite end of the cemetery with her old, half-blind dog came Megan Moriarty. She was the last person Evan wanted to see—or be seen with—and he quickly looked around to check for anyone who might be watching them. But the cemetery was empty.

Megan was nearly at the monument before she noticed Evan. She had her head down because of the wind, and her dog trailed behind her as if he was having trouble keeping up. When she caught sight of him, Megan stood up tall and waved enthusiastically, a big smile lighting up her face.

Evan barely nodded, then looked the other way. He couldn't pretend he hadn't seen her, but he sure as heck wasn't going to give her the idea that he cared she was there.

"What are you doing up there?" Megan asked as she walked up to the base of the monument.

"Nothing," said Evan, and shrugged to show that she wasn't going to get any more out of him.

"I'll come up." Megan turned to her dog and said, "Sit. Stay." Then she put one foot on the lowest cannon.

"There isn't room. And it's slippery. You'd probably get hurt."

Megan stopped, took her foot down, then stared up at him. Evan was careful to look off in the distance, as if he'd forgotten that she was even there. The wind had picked up again, and it was really cold on top of the monument. Evan half wished he could climb down. For a split second he imagined the two of them heading back to his house for hot chocolate, but he pushed
that
thought out of his head. Instead, he let the beastliness rise up in him again, and he said, "Dogs aren't allowed in the cemetery. It's a new rule."

"Nobody ever told me that," said Megan. "We always walk him here."

"Well, you've just been lucky, that's all. If the police see you walking your dog, they'll fine you twenty-five dollars." He didn't really know what the fine was, and he'd never seen the police stop anyone for walking a dog in the cemetery. But there
was
a sign by the caretaker's house.

Megan seemed unsure about what to do. She picked up the dog's leash, but then just stood there, looking around her. Maybe she was checking for the police. She wasn't smiling anymore.

"I guess ... do you want to go sledding later? You and Jessie? My mom will take us over to the high school."

Evan shook his head and continued to look off in the distance. "Nah. I've got things to do. Maybe Jessie will go with you."

"Okay. Well ... I guess ... I'll see you on Monday?" Then she laughed. "Valentine's Day!"

Evan scowled. "What a stupid holiday. I wish they'd never invented it."

"What's so bad about Valentine's Day?" asked Megan, giving her dog a scratch behind the ears. "You get candy."

"Yeah, like those crummy candy hearts. No one even wants those things. And those stupid messages!"

Megan stood up straight. "What's wrong with the messages? Everyone likes them."

Evan was about to say "I didn't," but there was no way he was going to tell her that he was the only one who didn't get a personal message.

Besides, he didn't want anyone to see him talking to Megan Moriarty as if they
liked
each other.

"Whatever. Hey, I gotta go." He slid down the cannon, and when he landed he grabbed his snowshoes and kept going, bounding down the hill without even looking back. The sooner Megan figured out that he didn't want to talk to her, the better. Anything else was just too complicated.

tip
(n) information passed to a reporter

 

"Maxwell, I've got a problem," Jessie said. She was lying on her bed, with the phone pressed close to her ear.

There was no response from the other end of the line. Jessie knew Maxwell was there, because she could hear him breathing.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" Jessie asked.

"You didn't ask me a question," said Maxwell in his usual flat voice.

"So? When someone says 'I've got a problem,' you're supposed to say something like 'Really?' or 'What is it?' or 'Tell me about it.' "Jessie sometimes found it exasperating that she had to explain these simple things to Maxwell. But that's just the way Maxwell was. She waited a minute to see what he would say, but then she just gave up. "Oh, for Pete's sake! Here's my problem."

She told Maxwell about the survey and the mysterious candy hearts and how no one knew who had drawn the heart on the door in the bathroom.

"I was going to write an article called 'The Candy Heart Mystery,' but I haven't solved that one yet. And I haven't figured out the secret on the bathroom wall, either!" Jessie had been reading an Encyclopedia Brown mystery before calling Maxwell. She loved the way each chapter contained clues to solve a mystery, and the way the answer to each mystery was revealed in the "Answers" section at the back of the book. If she knew the answers to the two mysteries in 4-O,
then
she'd have a blockbuster frontpage story. "I don't know," she continued. "Maybe I should just use the survey as my front-page story. Everyone seems pretty interested in that. Which story do
you
think I should put on the front page?"

"I don't know."

"I know you don't
know.
I'm asking for your opinion."

"I don't have an opinion."

Jessie tugged on a thread that was hanging off her jeans. "If I only
knew
who was sending the candy hearts. Or who wrote the heart on the bathroom door."

"Maybe it's the same person," said Maxwell.

"That would be the story of the century!" Jessie's head practically exploded thinking about what a success her newspaper would be if she revealed the answer to both mysteries. Kids would be fighting over
The 4-O Forum.
Maybe she'd even get an award, like the Pulitzer Prize.

"I bet I could figure out who wrote the heart on the bathroom door," said Maxwell. Maxwell had a gift for seeing details and patterns that other people missed, but Jessie was sure that even Maxwell couldn't match the handwriting with anyone else's in the class.

"No, I tried," she said. "I've been looking at everyone's writing, and no one makes their
M
s and
E
s and
T
s like that."

"Then match the heart," said Maxwell.

"What do you mean?"

"Figure out who draws a heart that looks like the one in the bathroom and you'll catch the thief."

"We're not looking for a thief!" said Jessie. "It's just someone who wrote something dumb on a bathroom wall. Probably a fifth-grader!"

"Follow the heart," Maxwell said in a voice that sounded deep and spooky. "Follow the heart."

Jessie sat quietly for a minute thinking to herself. This was an idea that hadn't occurred to her, and she thought it was the best tip she'd received all week. Then she said, "Maxwell, you are a genius."

"Yep," said Maxwell. Jessie could hear the quiet music of his favorite computer game starting up on his end of the line. "I'm Maxwell. And I'm smart."

After she got off the phone with Maxwell, Jessie wandered down to the basement and started digging through some stuff that was piled in one corner. She had to push her way past a box of kindling, a folding card table, and a big cardboard cutout of Darth Vader, but she finally got to what she was looking for: the signs from last summer during the Lemonade War. One of them she stared at long and hard. It had a picture of a cat sipping a tall glass of lemonade—and sprinkled in the corner were a few cutout paper hearts. She hadn't made
those
hearts.

 

 

Then she walked over to the craft table and rummaged through the messy pile of scrap paper. When she found a certain sheet of pink construction paper, she held it up and stared at the leftover hole.

"Aha," said Jessie in a whisper.

 

consonance
(n) the repetition of the same sounds (particularly consonants) within words that are nearby

 

It was when the shadows grew long and the last streak of winter sunlight sank behind the trees that Grandma was at her worst. There was something about the dying light that brought on her confusion, as if the shadows and dark corners of the house held her memories, and she couldn't quite see them anymore. They were there, but just out of reach.

Evan walked into the kitchen a little after five o'clock and found Grandma in front of the open pantry. She was pulling cans and boxes off the shelves, stacking them up on the floor all around her. Usually she napped until six, waking up just in time for dinner, but sometimes she had trouble settling down. Evan noticed that her shirt was untucked and her feet were bare. Not a good sign.

"Hey, Grandma," said Evan. He had learned not to come too close to Grandma when she was confused without first giving her a little warning. Sometimes, it made her feel scared when Evan walked up to her too quickly.

"This is bad," said Grandma. "We don't have any of the things we need."

Evan wondered whether he should go upstairs and get his mother, then remembered that she had gone to the hardware store. She would be back soon. He had to keep his grandmother calm until his mother came back. "What do we need?" he asked.

"Well, everything. It's going to be a very long winter. And we don't have ... anything." She swept her hand in front of the pantry, which was overflowing with food. "There are no beans. No tomatoes. Squash. Corn. Peppers. Applesauce. Nothing! We're going to starve this winter! You can't live on love, you know!"

Evan slowly inched his way across the room. His grandmother had grown up on a farm where they had raised most of the food they ate. And even though her farm wasn't really a "working" farm anymore, she still kept an enormous vegetable garden there through the summer and canned every fall. Evan always loved to look at the rows and rows of sealed glass jars cooling on the shelves in the canning shed when Grandma put up peaches and plums from the trees on her farm.

But what would become of the garden this summer now that Grandma lived with them? Evan imagined the tangled overgrowth, the choking weeds, the fence fallen down.

"We've got some tomatoes," said Evan. "See?" He opened another cupboard and pulled down a store-bought can of tomatoes.

Grandma walked quickly across the room and snatched up the can. She could move surprisingly fast for an eighty-year-old woman. "What is this? What
is
this?" She put the can on the floor and immediately started rummaging through the newly opened cupboard.
Uh-oh,
thought Evan.
That was a mistake.
He had to think of something to calm her down, something to distract her from the food in the cupboards, or else the entire floor would be covered in food and it would take hours to put everything away.

"Grandma, did you know today is Valentine's Day?" It was actually the day before Valentine's Day, but Evan was betting his grandmother wouldn't know that.

"It isn't day at all," said Grandma, waving absently at the window.

"Well, Valentine's Night, then. Okay?"

"Hmmph," said Grandma, not slowing down a bit. She had gotten into the baking stuff and was hauling out bags of flour and cornmeal. "We can use this," she said, setting aside the five-pound bag of sugar.

"I have a valentine for you. Do you want to see it?" Evan was starting to feel a little desperate. When Grandma got like this, there was no telling what direction she might go in. He looked at the clock: five fifteen. When would his mother get back from her errand?

"Come on," he said, gently taking her hand and pulling her away from the cupboard. "I'll show you your valentine." Luckily, she came along without a fight. His grandmother might be old, but she was still strong, and Evan was glad he didn't have to tussle with her.

Halfway up the stairs, she asked, "Where are we going?"

Evan said, "I have a valentine for you. Today is Valentine's Day."

His grandmother smiled. "I love Valentine's Day." Then a few steps later she asked, "Where are we going?"

In his room, Evan gently seated his grandmother on the edge of his bed. He was glad Jessie's door was closed and had the Locked sign up. She had been working all day on her newspaper, and Evan hoped she'd stay in there until their mother got home. Jessie didn't like seeing Grandma confused. It made her anxious, and then she'd start to shout, which made the situation worse. Evan would have to handle this alone.