The Secret Tree (3 page)

I crossed Western Street and walked past the Murphys’ house, where Kip and Casey live, past the home of Ms. Wendy Graecher, who lives with her cat, Phoebe, to Mortimer Mansion. That’s what Dad calls our house, even though it isn’t anything like a mansion. It’s just a regular house like all the others on Woodlawn Road.

Dad was sitting at the picnic table on the back patio, a glass of iced tea sweating on the wood, watching the lightning bugs wink in the yard.

“What’s the news, Araminta?” He eyed my red-stained clothes. “I hope that’s not blood.”

I knew Dad was joking, because if anyone knows what blood looks like, it’s him. As a doctor, he sees gallons of it every day. I could never be a doctor, because if the red stuff on my shirt had been blood, I’d have been puking by now.

“It’s Hawaiian Punch,” I told him.

I heard shouting through the screen door. Mom and Thea, my big sister, were fighting again. No wonder Dad had decided to sit outside.

“What now?” I asked.

“Curfew,” Dad said. “Thea wants to stay out until midnight tonight.”

Thea was fifteen. She had a part-time summer job teaching arts and crafts at a day camp. Her usual curfew was ten o’clock.

I sat down and sipped Dad’s iced tea. He put his arm around me.

“I hope I won’t turn out like Thea when I get older,” I said.

“I doubt you will,” Dad said. “You’re a different creature, Minty.”

Speaking of creatures … “We saw a weird flash in the woods,” I told him. “I chased after it, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Lennie thinks it was the Man-Bat.”

Dad looked at me. “You shouldn’t have chased it, Minty. You don’t know who that might have been.”

“Whoever it was, he ran away. And he wasn’t very tall. I think it was a kid.”

“Strange.” Dad scratched the stubble on his face. He needed a shave.

“Then Paz got a stomachache,” I said. “I told them to call you if they need to.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine.” That’s what he always said. “I’ve got to go to the hospital later tonight. They can bring her in if the pain doesn’t go away.” Dad worked long, odd hours, and lots of nights.

I heard Thea stomp down the stairs. We both turned our heads as the front door slammed. Mom appeared at the back door, her face red from shouting.

“Where’s she going?” Dad asked.

“To tell Melina all about her terrible mother,” Mom said. Melina is Paz’s older sister and Thea’s best friend. Usually, Thea complains to her about
me
. “Minty Mortimer, time for your bath.”

I stood up. Dad gave me a pat. I followed Mom upstairs. The bathwater was already running.

In my room, I took off my grubby T-shirt and shorts. I checked my shorts pocket before tossing them into the hamper and found the piece of paper from the tree in the woods. The running bathwater sounded almost like the murmur. I felt a slight breeze run through the room, or maybe it was just inside of me. I got goose bumps.

I unfolded the paper and read what had been written there.

I soaked in the tub as the bathwater cooled, wondering who could have written that note. Maybe the mysterious flashing creature left it there. After all, he’d been lurking in that part of the woods when I’d caught him spying on us.

I said it out loud: “No one loves me except my goldfish.” Back in my bedroom, my own goldfish, Zuzu, restlessly circled the bowl on my dresser. Every kid in the neighborhood had a goldfish. Mr. Jack, who lived next door to Troy, owned a pet store, and he gave everyone a goldfish on his or her birthday.

Anyone could have written that note. But who could be so terribly lonely?

The Calderons were such a big family, I didn’t see how any one of them could feel unloved. Thea had Melina, and I had Paz. Even Hugo and Robbie had each other, and Lennie had me and Paz.

I couldn’t imagine either of the Mean Boys writing a note like that. Could a grown-up have written it? Wendy Graecher lived alone next door, and she was always going
on bad dates with men she met online. She had a goldfish, but she also had her cat, Phoebe, and I knew Phoebe loved her.

Maybe the note was a secret code, or a message. The hole in the tree could be a spy drop-off point, which meant the mystery creature really was a spy, and he left coded secret messages in the tree for his contact to pick up in the middle of the night. Who could he be working for? The government? A spy agency? Aliens?

But why spy on
us
? All we did was roller-skate and play kickball. I couldn’t see how some foreign government would be interested in that. Or aliens.

And then I remembered Mr. and Mrs. Calderon. They worked in Washington, DC, at the Philippine embassy.

Someone might want some secrets about the Philippines. Or maybe they were planning to kidnap the Calderon children! And demand the secrets in exchange for their release!

I couldn’t soak another minute. I got out of the tub and put on my summer pajamas. Back in my room, I stashed the secret note in my special treasure box, along with a lock of my hair from my first haircut, a ticket stub from my first Orioles game, a program from the first Catonsville Nine bout I ever went to, Lemon E. Kickit’s autograph, my collection of Paz’s school pictures from first through fifth grades, and a turquoise ring Paz gave me that had broken. The note wasn’t a treasure, exactly,
but it seemed important, something I should keep safe and hidden. I might need it someday.

I got into bed and tried to read. But my mind wouldn’t settle down — thoughts about secrets and spies kept swirling through my brain. Someone knocked on the door. “Come in.”

It was Dad. “I wanted to say good night before I leave for work.” He sat on my bed. He smelled good. He’d just shaved.

“Dad, do you think that person in the woods was spying on us?” I asked.

“Spies? Around here? I don’t know about that. Maybe it was Crazy Ike.” Dad made a spooky face. I shrank deeper under the covers with a happy shiver. He loved to tell the story of Crazy Ike. He used to hear about Crazy Ike when he was growing up, not far from where we lived now.

“Who’s Crazy Ike?” I asked, as if I didn’t know the story by heart.

“Who’s Crazy Ike?” Dad repeated. “Funny you should ask. Ike was a boy who lived a long time ago on a farm on the other side of the woods — just over there.” Dad jerked his thumb toward the woods across the street. “He lived in the very same house they call the Witch House today.”

“Is that a fact?” I asked.

“That’s a bona fide historical fact,” Dad said. “It was a farmhouse back in those days. They had chickens and
grew corn in the fields around the house. Ike was always kind of crazy. He tried to ride the plow horse standing up, which never worked well. And he smoked a corncob pipe from the age of five, they say.”

“That’s awfully young to start smoking,” I said, playing along.

“Any age is too young to start smoking,” Dad said. “Take it from your doctor. Anyway, Ike made up lots of stories about himself. Some might call them lies.”

“Like what?”

“Like once he said a bear ran into the kitchen and ate all the mincemeat pie — when his own face was covered in molasses and pie crumbs. And once he told his father he couldn’t do chores because a monster was hiding in the chicken coop.”

“Was there really a monster in the chicken coop?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Dad laughed. “That’s not all. When a cinder from his pipe set fire to a haystack, he blamed a fire-breathing dragon. And when his teacher punished him for talking back in school, he said he didn’t do it — a ghost had possessed his body and forced him to sass her. His mother and father never knew when to believe him.”

“Uh-oh.” I knew what was coming.

“One day, Ike claimed he’d been bitten by a bat. His parents thought he was telling one of his stories. But Ike
got crazier and crazier. He flew into a rage over nothing. He threw pitchforks at people from the hayloft. He started foaming at the mouth. Finally, his father got the doctor. And the doctor said —”

“— Ike had rabies.”

“That’s right. There was no cure for rabies in those days. There’s no cure now, but you’ll be all right if you get vaccinated in time.”

“Did they have the vaccine back then?” I asked.

“They had it, but it wasn’t always easy to get,” Dad said. “Not for poor farm boys, anyway.”

“So what happened to Ike?”

“He went crazy and died at the tender age of twelve. They say he’s buried on that land to this day, with nothing but a rock to mark his grave.”

“Poor Ike.”

“Yes indeed. Poor Crazy Ike. Some say he rose from his grave and grew into a Man-Bat: part man, part bat. A monster who lives in a cave in the woods —”

“Paul, don’t scare her like that.” Mom was standing in the doorway, listening.

“Lennie talks about the Man-Bat all the time,” I said. “I’m used to it.”

“I don’t want you having nightmares about Man-Bats or Crazy Ike,” Mom said.

“Or international spies,” I added.

“Or anything at all,” she finished.

Dad kissed me. “Good night, Minty. See you tomorrow.”

Mom kissed me too. “Good night, honey. Don’t stay up too late reading.”

“I won’t,” I lied. It was summer. I considered it my duty to stay up as late as my sleepy eyes would let me.

When I finally fell asleep, I didn’t dream of the Man-Bat, or Crazy Ike, or international spies.

I dreamed about a goldfish swimming in a bowl all alone.

The next day, my life was one sentence different than it had been the day before. I kept looking at people I was used to seeing every day, and I wondered whether they felt that nobody loved them except their goldfish. Or if they were international spies.

It was rainy, so Thea and Melina took us all — me, Paz, Lennie, Hugo, and Robbie — to the Oella Roller Rink. Paz looked a little pale, but her stomach was all better.

“Did you ever figure out why it hurt so bad?” I asked.

Paz just shook her head.

We changed out of our sneakers and into our roller skates. We always brought our own skates instead of renting. We came to the rink so often that we had discount memberships, complete with photo ID. We stashed our membership cards in our sneakers and left them under a bench.

Thea and Melina helped Robbie and Hugo put on their skates. “The Carters asked me to babysit again,” Thea told Melina. “It’s good money. Plus the kids are
cute. Not like that nightmare Troy Rogers.” She shuddered. “I’ll never sit for him again. Not after what happened last time.”

Last time Troy had trained his cat, Slayer, to hide on a shelf in the pantry and leap out whenever the door opened. Every time Thea went to get something to eat — Troy was constantly asking for more nacho chips — Slayer would jump on her head. She had claw marks all over her shoulders when she got home.

“I need some money,” Melina said. “I don’t mind babysitting if I get paid, but I’d rather be a lifeguard. My whole life is babysitting. For free.” She nodded at her younger brothers and sisters, lined up like ducks on the bench.

“Hey,” Paz protested. “I watch them a lot too.”

“I know the real reason you want to be a lifeguard,” Lennie said to Melina. “Kip Murphy.”

Kip Murphy was sixteen and lifeguarded at the Rollingwood Pool. Girls were always circling around his chair, distracting him from his lifesaving work.

Melina turned red. “That’s not true. I’m very concerned with water safety, fitness, and saving lives.”

“Pfff,” Lennie scoffed.

“Robbie, stop kicking,” Thea said.

“Anyway, I was talking about having to watch
you
,” Melina said.

“You don’t have to watch me anymore,” Paz said. “I’m in middle school now.”

“Not until September,” Melina said. “And anyway, big deal.”

“You’re still a baby until you’ve
survived
middle school,” Thea said. “At least a year of it.”

“Yeah, wait till you see,” Melina warned. “Bullies roam the halls bonking kids with their backpacks —”

“— and snapping girls’ bra straps,” Thea added. “If you’re wearing one.” She glanced at me.

“I’m comfortable with who I am.” Somehow my arms ended up crossed over my chest. I didn’t need a bra yet. I wasn’t in any hurry to get one, either. Paz already had three training bras in DayGlo colors.

“Everything changes in middle school,” Thea said. “Girls you thought were your friends suddenly turn mean on you —”

“Feuds break out everywhere,” Melina said.

“— and then you have to find new friends.”

“What about you guys?” Paz said. “You’re still friends.”

“We’re the exception,” Melina said. “Best friends forever.” She reached across Hugo to fist-bump Thea.

“Get your fist out of my face,” Hugo grumbled.

“Even if you keep your best friend,” Thea said, “everything else changes.”

“Your world gets rocked like an earthquake,” Thea said.

Mr. Gorelick started playing “Shake Your Booty” on his Mighty Wurlitzer organ. I grabbed Paz by the hand and led her onto the rink. “Come on, Pax A. Punch — they’re playing our song.”

My next-door neighbor, Mr. Gorelick, was the house organist for the Oella Roller Rink. He played old disco tunes some afternoons and during the roller derby bouts. I grew up hearing all those old ’70s songs blasting out of his house while he practiced. (His other hobby was polishing his 1929 Model A Ford Roadster, which he called Old Donna.)

“Hey there, girls!” Mr. Gorelick waved at us as we skated past the organ booth. “Keep those elbows sharp!”

After a warm-up run around the rink, Paz and I practiced another trick we were planning for the Fourth of July Parade: the Tunnel. So far we’d only done it right once. Paz skated in front of me and reached back between her legs to grab my hands. I crouched down and she pulled me through her legs until I stood up in front of her. Then I reached back and pulled her through my legs.

“Try not to polish the floor with your butt this time,” Paz instructed.

“I’m not
trying
to polish the floor with my butt,” I said.

She glided in front of me and reached between her legs for my hands. I grabbed them. I could always do that part. It was the next part that tripped me up.

I plopped to the floor. It was now a little more polished than it had been one second earlier.

“You guys are awesome,” Lennie sneered as she speed-skated past us. “Minty Fresh and Pax A. Punch, go go go!”

“Get her,” Paz muttered. We chased after Lennie, the meanest skaters on our imaginary roller derby team. I raced ahead and tagged Lennie on the back.

“Minty Fresh scores!” I raised my arms and turned around to get Paz’s approval. But she wasn’t there.

She had drifted over to the sidelines to talk to three girls: Isabelle Barton, Katie Park, and Lydia Kendall. They were going into seventh grade. They all wore the same silver barrettes, three of them lined up on one side of their hair, one barrette for each girl. Three girls, three barrettes each. Like a code for a secret club.

I rolled over to them. “Minty Fresh scored!”

For one second, Paz didn’t look at me. She didn’t say anything. It was like a strange, slow-motion delay. One second.

I shuddered.

Something was different. I felt it.

When the longest second in the history of time was finally over, Paz turned her head, blinked, and smiled at me. Same old Paz. Only not. Pax A. Punch was gone.

“We only came because it’s raining, and there’s nothing else to do,” Isabelle was saying.

“This place is so cheesy,” Lydia added. “I can’t believe that old guy is still playing that stupid organ. Can’t they get a DJ?”

“It smells like dirty socks in here.” Katie sniffed.

These girls were too cool for goldfish. They had probably gotten rid of them a long time ago.

“Well, we’re here. We might as well skate.” Isabelle glided out onto the floor and demonstrated a beautiful figure-skating spin. It was not the kind of spin a roller derby girl would do. It was the kind of spin a roller derby girl would make fun of.

“Ooh,” Katie and Lydia said.

“Ah,” Paz sighed.

I held my tongue.

The Pax A. Punch I knew wouldn’t ooh and ah over a girly spiral spin.

“It’s not hard,” Isabelle said. “I can show you.”

Paz, Katie, and Lydia gathered around for a demonstration. I tried to squeeze in, but somehow there wasn’t enough room in the circle for me.

“I’m getting a snowball,” I said, frustrated. “Want one, Paz?”

Paz didn’t answer. Isabelle was helping her bend backward for a spiral.

I skated over to the snack bar by myself and got a spearmint snowball. Spearmint is my favorite snowball flavor, not just because it matches my name. Then I sat in the bleachers to slurp it. Thea’s bag was open, so I reached down to zip it up.

“Hey!” Thea dashed to the side of the rink. She’s very aware of where her stuff is and who’s touching it at all times. “Quit touching my stuff, Minty!”

“I’m not touching it,” I said. “I was zipping it closed.”

“Just don’t touch it.” She turned to Melina and said, “I hate when she does that. Does Paz have this obsession with touching your things?”

Melina nodded and laughed as they skated away together, commiserating over how horrible it is to have little sisters. That was a big part of their friendship — complaining about me and Paz.

Isabelle organized a game of Crack the Whip. She and her friends were tall girls, and Paz was almost as tall. I felt shrimpy next to them.

I finished my snowball fast — too fast, because I got brain freeze — and hurried back to the rink. Mr. Gorelick was playing “Get Down Tonight,” and the disco ball was flashing colored lights.

I raced to catch up with the whip and grabbed Paz at the very end. We snaked around the oval, led by Isabelle. Suddenly the whip cracked, and I went flying into the
bumper. Polishing the floor with my butt as usual. Everybody laughed, including me. I got up, brushed myself off, and scrambled to catch up to the whip as it whirled past me again.

David and Troy whizzed by, buzzing too close to Isabelle. “Hey!” Isabelle snapped. “You almost bumped me!”

The Mean Boys laughed and made rude noises. They stuck out their butts and made fun of the way we skated.

The whip waved across the rink, girls clinging to one another’s slippery hands. I skated fast, trying to catch the tail, but before I could reach it, the Mean Boys zoomed by. Troy ducked under Isabelle’s arm. She stumbled, wobbled, and let go of Lydia’s hand behind her. Lydia bumped into Katie, who crashed into Lennie, who fell on top of Paz. In a chain reaction, the whip collapsed to the floor.

“Skate much?” David cackled.

Isabelle rubbed her knee. “I hate those Mean Boys,” Paz muttered.

“Life would be so much nicer without them,” Lennie added.

“Don’t worry,” Isabelle said. “Sixth grade will eat them alive.”

Melina waved to us from the bleachers. “Time to go home,” Lennie said.

I helped Paz to her feet, and we all skated back to the bench. “Bye, Paz,” Isabelle said. “See you at the pool.”

“Next sunny day,” Paz promised.

We sat on the bench. Paz seemed to be avoiding my eyes. We sat quietly as we untied our skates.

Paz pulled her sneakers out from under the bench and reached inside one of them, then the other. Then the first again. Then the second again.

“Where’s my ID?” she asked. She felt around inside her shoes one more time. Then she crouched down and looked under the bench. I looked too. I found my own ID inside my right sneaker, just where I’d left it.

“It’s gone,” Paz said. “Someone stole my ID!”

“Who’d want to do that?” I asked.

“Probably some maniac,” Lennie said. “Like the Man-Bat.”

Paz scowled. “I’m sure that’s the most likely explanation.”

“What’s the difference between the Man-Bat and Batman?” Hugo asked.

“Who cares?” Paz said. “Help me find my ID!”

“Batman is a superhero. He helps people,” Lennie said. “The Man-Bat is a monster. Like Bigfoot or Mothman or, I don’t know, the Witch Lady. He hurts people.”

Paz looked all over the rink. She checked the lost and found. But she couldn’t find her ID. She reported it missing, and the manager gave her a temporary one.

“So what? You lost your ID,” Lennie said as we walked home. “You’ll get another one.”

“That’s not the point,” Paz said. “The point is somebody took it. And the question is: Why?”

“You always make a big deal out of everything,” Lennie told her. “Stop being such a drama queen.”

“If someone stole something from you, you’d be screaming bloody murder,” Paz pointed out.

Paz and Lennie bickered the rest of the way home. I hung back, thinking about the missing ID and wondering if this was connected to the other strange events of the last few days.

I didn’t know it then, but it was.