The Mastermind Plot (3 page)

T
HE SHARP TWANG OF HARP STRINGS, THE
bubbly roll of piano keys, and the hollow breath of flutes filled the music room inside Miss Lydia Doucette's Academy for Young Ladies on Monday afternoon. I sat in a cushioned chair as far into the corner of the room as possible, and partly behind the floor-length drapes. My first day at the academy had proved as wretched as I'd anticipated. Right when Grandmother's carriage had rolled up beside the four-story, Gothic-style schoolhouse on Graylock Road, which was only three blocks from 224 Knight Street, my stomach had flipped like one of the Bay of Fundy's porpoises. And I'd been correct to be nervous.

Though Miss Lydia Doucette had greeted Nellie and me in the foyer with warmth, my introduction to the academy girls had been awkward, to say the least. The girls looked to range from age six to sixteen, and
nearly all of them had stared at me with awestruck expressions when Miss Doucette ushered me into a classroom with rows of wooden desks, as if I was some sort of circus freak. Nellie had left almost immediately to go to the depot and return home as planned, and I'd been tempted to beg her to take me with her.

One girl acted differently, though. She sat at the center desk in the second row, her posture perfect, her glossy black curls loose around her shoulders. Her bright, gray eyes had immediately caught mine and held me in their clutches. Her stare had not been the mesmerized one plastered to the rest of the faces in the room, but one of loathing and suspicion. It seemed I'd already made my second enemy in Boston, and I couldn't form a single theory as to how I'd done it.

Music was, thankfully, the last lesson of the day. After French, geometry, European literature, and composition, my head felt stuffed with all sorts of knowledge I feared I wouldn't remember the next day. The cold, silver-plated flute slipped around in my sweaty palms as I fiddled with it in my lap. My fingers tapped ignorantly at the keys along the top of the instrument. Everyone was expected to learn a musical instrument, and right then we were supposed to be warming up for lessons. I was too mortified to even lift the flute to my lips for a test blow.

A girl, perhaps a year or two younger than me, slid into the chair next to mine. She held a flute as well and brought it up to her mouth as if she was going to play. But then she jerked her chair closer to mine and surprised me with a whisper.

“You're the one from the papers, aren't you?” If she'd meant to be covert, she would need to try harder next time. Everyone in the row in front of us turned around to listen in.

It was the first anyone, other than Miss Doucette, had spoken to me all day. I'd assumed everyone was uncomfortable with the subject of little Maddie Cook — she could no longer attend such an illustrious academy now that Mr. Cook was in prison and his fortune had been dashed to the wind.

“I suppose I am,” I answered, hesitant. Maddie had been found because of me, yes. But she was also no longer at the academy because of me.

I'd discovered her brother and father had been attempting to carry out a wretched crime that involved stealing from a longtime guest of the Rosemount. Would these girls be upset with me for it? Was that why the black-haired girl had been sneering at me all day? Her name, I'd learned, was Adele, and just then she sat behind one of the two harps in the music room.

“So you really did find Maddie Cook locked up in a cellar hole on an uninhabited island?” the girl asked, breathless. The other girls leaned toward me in their chairs, waiting for my reply.

What sort of rubbish had those newspapers printed?

“Locked up in a cellar hole?” I repeated. “Of course not. She was perfectly fine. Some old hermit lady had been taking care of her.”

The girls' shoulders slumped with unanimous disappointment. Apparently, the truth wasn't as exciting as what they'd been led to believe.

Adele's lithe fingers strummed the harp's strings with elegant strokes. She was pinning me once again with one of her scathing glares. I'd shrunk back from them all day, but now I was starting to get angry — and inquisitive. Why exactly was this girl so upset with me? The others seemed to just be curious and apprehensive.

Miss Doucette entered the room. Her long yellow bell-shaped skirt sported a large bustle in the back, making her look like a queen bee. The black lace around her collar and wrists and down the front of her dress helped the look along. She clapped her bony hands.

“All right, girls. Turn to page fourteen in your music books, the Chopin nocturne.”

All of the girls flipped through a thick book of sheet music set upon their stands. I took a glance around my stand and feet, but I had no such book. Of course I didn't. Instead, I had to raise my hand and draw attention to myself. Miss Doucette craned her neck to see me.

“Yes, Suzanna?”

“I don't have sheet music,” I answered sheepishly.

Miss Doucette shuffled around a few music stands but didn't find an extra.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “Well, you must have sheet music, and if you share with another flutist, you'll be quite in her way. I suppose you simply must go up to the attic where the extra music books are stored. Do I have a volunteer to show Suzanna the way?”

I jumped from my seat. “I can find it on my own.”

How perfect! If I tarried long enough, I could miss ten minutes or more of the music lesson. I'd prefer the whole hour, but I'd take what I could get.

Miss Doucette pulled out a big metal ring that held a dozen or more skeleton keys. They slid along the ring until she held one of them up.

“It's the second door on the right on the fourth floor. You'll find the music books in a trunk just inside the attic. Hurry now,” she said. I set down my flute and happily crossed the room to take the key.

Three sets of stairs later, all climbed at a leisurely pace, I found myself at the door that led up into the attic. I inserted the key and twisted the lock. There was a narrow set of steps ahead of me. Daylight spilled through the attic windows and lit up the dust motes hanging in the air.

Once at the top, I saw five or six trunks piled right next to the steps, as Miss Doucette had directed. The search for a music book would definitely take me more than the ten minutes I'd been hoping for. Giddy with such luck, I ran my hand over the top of one of the trunks and gathered a mitten of dust on my palm.

Dust floated up into my nostrils. Just as I stifled a sneeze, I heard the sharp bang of the attic door. I went to the top of the steps, saw the door had been shut, and then heard the distinct click of the lock. The key — I'd left it hanging in the lock.

I shot down the steps and tried the handle, but it didn't budge.

“Open the door!” I shouted.

A purring laugh came from the other side.

“I said open the door. This isn't funny!”

The laugh halted. “You rescued Maddie, didn't you? Let's see how well you do at rescuing yourself.”

Adele.
It had to be her. Somehow she'd followed me.

“Best of luck,” she said with false sweetness. Her shoes tapped quickly back down the hallway.

I jiggled the door handle a few more times, but it was useless. That monster! I pounded the door, thinking to shout loud enough to get someone's attention. I stopped to listen and could barely hear the tinkling of the piano and the trill of the flutes already playing. They'd never hear me above their music, and at such a distance.

I turned around and went back up the steps. It didn't matter. After fifteen minutes Miss Doucette would either send someone to find me or come herself. I could just picture Adele sitting behind her harp, smirking with satisfaction when I was finally freed from the attic and marched back down to the music room in humiliation. I couldn't allow it to happen, and definitely not on my very first day. I had to show that Adele girl who she was dealing with.

I went to the tall window and looked out over the horizon of trees, brick buildings, chimney stacks, and in the distance, open water. I was willing to bet Uncle Bruce would never find himself locked in an attic somewhere. I fiddled with the iron latch on the window. Now if I could somehow get out of the attic without needing to scream for help … if I could miraculously
walk back into the music room with my sheet music in hand as if nothing had ever occurred. Now, that would send Adele's smug look straight into the gutter.

Outside the window a few pigeons roosted along the trim of the attic turret. One pigeon fluttered onto a tall, curved handle sticking up over the edge of the parapet. There were two of these curved iron handles. I caught my breath and pressed my face closer to the window. Was it a fire escape ladder?

I unlocked the window latch, threw up the sash, and stuck my head as far out as possible. I could see a few of the metal rungs below, but that was all. I'd need a better view. The only way to get it would be to crawl out onto the two-foot-wide parapet with the roosting pigeons.

“Zanna, don't be stupid,” I whispered to myself. But time was ticking away and soon Miss Doucette would be looking for me. I couldn't let Adele humiliate me.

I rushed back to the trunks and flung them all open. I saw the music books at last, and grabbed one before going back to the window. My throat cinched tight when I glanced down and saw the tops of the maple trees below. Taking a deep breath, I nudged my knee up onto the windowsill and pulled myself out onto the sloped steeple edge.

As I lowered my feet and braced them against the slight upward curve of the copper gutter, I pressed my
spine and shoulders back against the steeple's slope. I then slid, slowly, to the left, toward the iron handles of the ladder. The pigeons there cooed and took flight. Biting down on the music book so I could have two free hands, I grasped the handles of the ladder, which were rusty with disuse and age.

Sweating despite the brisk wind, I peeked over the edge. The rungs went all the way down to the second floor, where the escape ladder became a much safer version, with stairs and platforms. If I could just get to the second story, I'd be set. I could sneak inside through the back door that we'd used for our constitutional stroll after luncheon.

The wind ruffled my uniform skirt as I slid my legs out over the ladder and slowly twisted around to descend. If anyone saw me right then, I'd be just as humiliated as I would be if found locked in the attic.

I felt for the next rung down, my teeth biting hard into the music book. The paper tasted moldy, but it didn't matter as much as needing both of my hands to guide me down. Rung after rung passed under my feet, and my heartbeat began to slow. One story of windows came and went, and I sped up my descent. I'd been gone from the music room at least ten minutes, if not more.

As my boot came down onto the next rung, an unnamable sensation swept over me. I knew — just
knew — that someone was watching me. I turned my head and looked down. That was my first mistake. My vision spun out of control, the trees and surrounding buildings tipping and blurring together. My vision had barely settled when my eyes landed on the same man who had been watching me at the depot the day before. He stood behind the wrought-iron fence that bordered the academy's back courtyard and stared up at me with a quizzical frown.

I jumped with surprise and rattled the ladder — that was my second mistake. My lower boot slipped off the rung and I dropped, my hands sliding painfully down the rusty iron handles. I yelped and the music book fell from my teeth.

I thought I heard the stranger shout, “No!” but it was lost in the panicked rush of blood through my ears.

My upper boot slipped off the rung and now I was left dangling ten feet over the platform below. I kicked around to find another rung, but connected with nothing but air. The cold iron was fast numbing my hands. My weight was too much for my arms to support. I screamed as my fingers slipped from the bars. Wind rushed up my skirt and a second later, my feet hit the metal platform of the second story.

I collapsed onto my side, the breath knocked from my lungs.
That
had certainly not been part of my revenge
plan. As quickly as my aching limbs could take me, I got to my feet. The stranger had jumped the fence and was running across the back courtyard, his long black overcoat flapping out behind him. He paused as soon as he saw me stand, uninjured in any noticeable way.

I met his eyes, the question of who he was and why he was following me on the tip of my tongue. But I hesitated. When he looked at me with that expression of concern, it was so very familiar. Fear and anger and frustration all wrapped up into one penetrating stare.

He covered his eyes with a tug of his black hat's brim and started back for the fence, pulling his overcoat together to button it.

“No, wait!” I shouted.

He increased his speed, his build rather athletic for an older gentleman. But how could he be a gentleman if he was following an eleven-year-old girl around Boston? He swung himself over the fence with ease and disappeared just as I heard the back door to the academy fly open.

“Who is out here?” Miss Doucette's shrill voice called. She couldn't see me from where the fire escape was located on the side of the building. But my music book lay open on the grass, and Miss Doucette rushed over to pick it up. She spied me on the platform above her and screamed with alarm.

“Suzanna!” She clutched at her chest. “What are you doing up there?”

A stream of green-and-navy-blue-plaid-uniformed girls followed until every last one of them, including Adele, was staring up at me in amused shock.

“I, um … I just …” My plans to thwart Adele crumbled around me, leaving me feeling bare and miserable and pathetic. What was I to do, accuse Adele of locking me in the attic? Miss Doucette would have scoffed at that, and besides, I wasn't going to rat.

“I locked myself in the attic by accident,” I finally answered. Adele's leering grin reversed into a look of surprise.