The Secret Tree (7 page)

The next day, I took the first secret I’d found, the one about the goldfish, out of my treasure box. I’d decided to add it to Raymond’s book. When we figured out who it belonged to, we could paste it under that person’s picture.

On my way to Raymond’s model home, I stopped by the Secret Tree and found a new slip of paper:

Interesting. Both Melina and Thea babysat. There were other babysitters in the neighborhood too, like Isabelle’s older brother, Martin, and old Mrs. Humm, who used to sit for me and Thea. She was so old I was afraid she’d die at our house, and then what would we do? “It’s worse than having no sitter at all!” Thea complained, but Mom and Dad still hired Mrs. Humm. They liked a “more mature” sitter.

I could imagine Thea snooping. But who was I to judge? I was fast becoming the neighborhood spy.

Thea and I were alike that way. Nosy. I was curious about how other people lived. What was it like to be older than me, to be a teenager or an adult? It was like peeking into my own future.

And now I was finding these secrets that showed me what was going on in people’s hearts — if only I could figure out whose secrets they were.

I brought the new secret to Raymond’s house and pressed the doorbell. It chimed a formal tune, like church bells:
ding-dong ding-dong …

Raymond peeked at me through the window, then let me in. I immediately scanned the house for signs of Phoebe — white fur, traces of kitty litter, that certain cat smell. But instead of cat, I was beginning to notice a new smell in the house. A Raymond smell: peanut butter, paper, glue, and Dr Pepper, with a touch of mud.

I pulled the notes out of my pocket. “I’ve got one to add to your collection. And I found a new one.”

Raymond read the secrets, then opened his notebook.
I’m in love with Kip Murphy
was taped under a Polaroid picture of Melina. Next to that — a school picture of Kip. (What, I wondered, was Kip’s secret?)

“Who do you think is the snooping babysitter?” Raymond asked.

“I can think of four possibilities,” I said. “One: Mrs. Humm. But she’s an old lady and I think she’s retired from babysitting. Two: Martin Barton, Isabelle’s brother. He lives all the way up at the top of Carroll Drive.”

“Okay.” Raymond was writing these names down in his book. “Who else?”

“Melina and Thea,” I said. “Thea is babysitting for the Carters tonight.”

“We’ll catch her snooping!” Raymond said.

“Yes, snooping.” I opened the refrigerator, snooping myself. Nothing inside but a can of Dr Pepper and a package of bologna. I opened a cupboard. No cat food. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Right here.” Raymond opened a door off the kitchen.

I started up the stairs. “I want to use an upstairs one. More privacy.”

“Um — okay.” He followed me up the stairs.

“There’s no privacy if you come with me.”

“I’ll show you where it is. Then I’ll give you the tour.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He led me through a large master bedroom to a fancy bathroom with a big, round tub. “I’ll wait in my room,” he said.

“Which one’s your room?” I asked.

“The one with the boats.”

I shut the door and ran the water in the sink, pretending
to pee. When enough time had passed, I came out. I looked in the closet. It was so big it could have been another bedroom. Phoebe wasn’t in there. I checked the king-size bed for cat hair, but it was clean. Then I sat on the bed.

The bed was hard. Very hard.

So hard it had sharp corners.

Raymond came in. I looked under the bedcover. It wasn’t a real bed. It was nothing but a wooden platform disguised with a cover and some pillows. “Do you sleep on this thing?”

“It’s just for show. The rug is more comfortable.” He patted the wall-to-wall carpeting.

“Oh.”

“This is a model home. So people can see what the other houses will look like when they finish building them.”

“Like an example,” I said.

Raymond nodded. “I don’t think they’ll ever finish, though. Come on, I’ll show you the rest.”

Raymond’s room was painted blue, with bunk beds and pictures of boats on the walls.

“Why didn’t you take the big room?” I asked.

“That one’s for parents. I took the boy’s room. You can have the other one if you want.” He led me into a third bedroom, with pink walls and a canopy bed — a total cliché of a girl’s room. But I did like the window seat.

“Can I cover up the pink with roller derby posters?” I asked.

“Whatever you want. It’s your room.”

“Okay, I’ll take it.” I sat on the canopy bed, but it was just as hard and wooden as the master bed. The window seat had a good view of the second floor of the Witch House. I’d never seen it from this angle before. One pane in the attic window was broken. A shutter hung off its hinge, and some of the roof tiles were missing. It looked dark and dirty and uncared for.

On a line at the side of the house, some clothes were hung to dry: a pair of women’s jeans, two women’s blouses, plus some Raymond-size T-shirts and a pair of boys’ underpants.

Something white flashed in an attic window, just for a second. My muscles tensed. “Was that a cat?”

“Was what a cat?” Raymond asked.

But the white thing was gone.

“Wendy’s cat is missing,” I told him. “I thought maybe I saw her in the window over … there.”

Raymond came to the window and looked out. “There’s no cat over there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I … go there, sometimes.”

Aha! So he was connected to the Witch Lady somehow. “You go there?”

He caught me noticing the laundry on the line. “She washes my clothes for me. But I live here.”

“No, you don’t,” I said. “No one lives here.”

“
I
do. There’s a washing machine in the basement of this house, but it isn’t hooked up.” He had a pained look on his face, as if he’d just bumped his funny bone.

“Who is she?” I asked. “The lady who lives there?”

Now Raymond looked wary. “Just a lady. Let’s talk about something else.” He turned his back to the window. “We could have a sleepover here. You sleep in your room, and I’ll sleep in mine.”

“But … the beds aren’t real.”

“That’s okay. We can use sleeping bags on the floor. Do you have a sleeping bag?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have an extra one for me?”

“You can use my sister’s. Except I don’t think my mother will let me sleep over here.”

“Tell her you’re sleeping at Paz’s. Then sneak over here.”

“Yeah. Okay. One of these nights.” Like I was going to spend the night on this side of the woods — home of the Witch Lady and possibly the Man-Bat — in a pretend house.

“We have to plan tonight’s spy mission.” We went downstairs because Raymond said he could think better down there. He sat in the Barcalounger and flipped the
footrest out. He leaned back, said, “Ahhh,” then flipped the footrest back in. He flipped it out again, then in again. “Ahhh.”

“Stop that. It’s very irritating.”

“Sorry.” He picked up the harmonica and started playing a song. After a few bars, I recognized “On Top of Old Smoky.”

“That’s pretty good,” I said when he was finished.

“Bring your harmonica over next time and we can play together.”

“I don’t have a harmonica.”

“Too bad,” Raymond said. “Everybody needs a harmonica. It’s like a little pocket friend. Goes wherever you go.”

“I guess.”

He played “You Are My Sunshine.” It sounded very pretty.

“Maybe I’ll ask for a harmonica for my birthday,” I said. “I’m turning eleven in August.”

“It’s only June,” Raymond said. “August is way far away.”

“Today is July first,” I told him. “August is only one month away.”

“A month is still a long time.” He turned around upside down on the Barcalounger, laying his head on the footrest and his feet on the headrest, and started playing “Frère Jacques.”

“Are you having a birthday party?” he asked. “When you turn eleven?”

“Yeah — a roller-skating party. At the roller rink. Do you want to come?”

“I’m not allowed to go to the roller rink,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Someone might see me there.”

“But you were there the other day, when you stole Paz’s ID,” I pointed out.

“Sure — in my camouflage. You said yourself you didn’t see me. But I can’t go there as an official person who roller-skates. I’m hiding out.”

“Hiding out from who?”

“It’s a secret.” He played “Frère Jacques” again. “‘Frère Jacques’ sounds good when two people play it, like a round. I wish you had a harmonica.”

“Even if I did, I don’t know how to play.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“You can tell me your secret,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Instead of answering, he played “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” When he was done, he said, “We better plan the spy mission.”

“Okay.” I gave up trying to get his secret out of him — for the time being. “Thea is going over to the Carters’ house at seven. But it doesn’t get dark until around nine. My bedtime is nine thirty, and I have to be in my room
when my parents come in to say good night. After that I can sneak out.” I hesitated. “Can you meet me outside the Carters’ house at ten?” Ten was awfully late.

Raymond said, “I can meet you at midnight if you want.”

“Ten’s good,” I said. “While we’re out, we can look for Wendy’s cat too.”

“Okay.”

I watched his face carefully for any telltale twitch of guilt at the word
cat
, but he betrayed nothing. Either he was innocent or he was the world’s best liar. Or a combination of both.

That night, Raymond wore his usual camouflage. I dressed in black with a black ski mask to cover my face. It was hard to hide in the Carters’ front yard, with all the blinking red, white, and blue lights, though the plastic, musical Mount Rushmore gave pretty good cover. Raymond and I played it safe and approached the house from the back.

It was after ten, so Tessie and Bo Carter were asleep. A light glowed from a side kitchen window. I took a peek. The kitchen was clean and empty.

Next, the family room, with the flickering gray-blue light of the TV. Thea sat on the couch, watching TV and eating ice cream out of the carton.

“She’s getting her germs in their ice cream!” I whispered. “I bet the Carters would be shocked to know that.”

“Should I take a picture of it?” Raymond lifted his Polaroid camera.

“Not yet.” Eating ice cream out of the carton wasn’t the secret we were looking for. We had to catch Thea in the act of snooping.

We crouched by the window and waited.

Finally, Thea got up. She went into the kitchen. She put the ice cream away. Then she went back to the family room and watched some more TV.

“When are the parents coming home?” Raymond asked.

“I don’t know. Late, I guess.”

As time passed and Thea did nothing but watch TV, Raymond got restless. Watching Thea watch TV was very boring. We couldn’t even see the show from where we stood.

“I have to pee,” Raymond whispered.

“So?”

“I really have to pee.”

“I repeat: So?”

“So I’m going to go pee by that tree over there.”

“No! That’s not fair.”

“Why not?”

“Someone might see you.”

“Someone might see us spying too. Which is worse?”

“I have to pee too.”

“So pee.”

“No — I can’t. Don’t you get it? I’m a girl. I can’t just go pee on a tree.”

“Why not?”

“It’s biology, stupid.”

“So what’s that got to do with me?”

“If I can’t pee, you can’t pee.”

“What? That’s not fair.”

“No — what’s not fair is if you get to pee and I don’t.”

“I don’t care what you say — I’m going to pee.”

Raymond wandered off toward the big tree in the backyard. I heard the sound of him peeing. It annoyed me greatly.

There was movement in the family room. Thea got up. She walked down the hall toward the bedrooms.

The Carters’ house was just one story and a basement, so spying was easy.

“Raymond!” I whisper-shouted. “The mark is on the move!”

“Just a minute!” He was still peeing. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he really had to go.

I slid along the Carters’ brick wall toward the bedrooms, clinging to the shadows. A light went on at the other end of the house.

“Raymond! Hurry!”

Raymond ran up to the lit window. “Which room is that?”

“I think it’s the parents’ room.”

The window was a little too high for me to see into. “I need a boost,” I said. “Lift me up so I can see what she’s doing.”

“You’re bigger than me,” Raymond said. “Why don’t you lift
me
up?”

“She’s my sister. You lift me.”

I tugged on my ski mask in case Thea happened to look my way. I didn’t want her to recognize me. Raymond wove his fingers together to give me a boost. I leaned on his shoulder and stepped on his hands. With a grunt he tried to lift me up.

“Oof! You’re heavy.”

“I’m not so heavy,” I said. “You’re weak.”

I gripped the crumbly brick windowsill and peered into the room. Thea was sitting on a large double bed. But she wasn’t snooping — yet. She was flipping through a magazine.

“What’s she doing?” Raymond asked. I could hear the strain of holding me in his voice.

“Reading a magazine.”

“Can I put you down now?”

“No!”

But his hands buckled, and I fell. My arms flailed, accidentally knocking against the window. For a split second my ski-masked face pressed against the glass. Thea looked up — and saw me.

She screamed.

I tumbled to the ground. “Run!”

Raymond and I scrambled out of the yard. We didn’t stop until we were well into the woods.