Threaded for Trouble (30 page)

Where was Clay? Ever since I’d texted him to call me,
my phone had been stubbornly silent. Just to be sure, I pulled it from my pocket. The battery was fine. I had no messages.

I turned to Haylee. “What would you like to do next?” The square dance music had ended and the tractors were silent, but there had to be something equally entertaining, beginning with finding something to eat. I was starving.

“Yoo-hoo! Willow! Haylee!” Waving white plastic shopping bags in the dimly lit night, three peculiar creatures charged down Brussels Sprouts Boulevard toward us. We were about to be accosted by a short clown with two bright red spots on her cheeks, a tall giraffe with a serious crick in its neck, and a purple furry creature resembling an overgrown teddy bear.

Beyond the amusement area, someone spoke into a PA system. The Harvest Festival’s opening ceremonies were beginning.

Haylee and I could probably have listened to the speeches from where we stood, but the clown, the giraffe, and the teddy bear herded us into the Threadville booth.

Haylee didn’t seem surprised at her mothers’ appearance. “Where did you three pick up those costumes?” she asked them. “From someone’s trash?”

The crook-neck giraffe answered in Opal’s voice, “We found a very nice man who makes and rents costumes. He’s interested in opening a shop in Threadville.”

I couldn’t help pointing out, “That giraffe costume is not exactly rentable anymore.” In addition to having a broken neck, its dark brown patches were threadbare.

Edna, the short clown, waved my complaint away. “He knows that. He said we could keep it. And besides, we think he might be a good customer for our shops.”

The purple furry creature bopped in a typical mascot dance and answered in Naomi’s sweet way, “And for the courses we teach.”

I laughed. “He could use a few pointers.”

Edna raised a finger in the air. “Exactly.”

“Why,” Haylee asked her mothers, “are you wearing
costumes?” She took a step back as if she dreaded their answer. I prepared to run away, too.

Edna raised a hand in a signal for silence, then darted out into the aisle. We heard her run the length of the tent on the hard-packed earth, then back again.

Brushing red yarn hair out of her eyes, Edna beckoned us closer. “We found Russ’s truck,” she whispered.

“Y
OU FOUND RUSS’S TRUCK?” HAYLEE repeated.

As if she expected a crowd of eavesdroppers to materialize, Edna shushed her.

“Where?” I asked Edna.

“In a parking lot near the rides and games. We figure he’s working as a carnie.”

Opal, the threadbare giraffe, added, “If we spread out and search that area, between the five of us, we should find him.”

“Russ might recognize me,” I began.

Despite those bright red circles on her cheeks, little Edna managed to look earnest. “We have a plan.”

I might have known.

Opal took off the giraffe head, fished in one of the bags, brought out two black Stetsons, and handed them to Haylee and me. “You can hide your hair under these.”

Great. But we’d still be two women, considerably taller than average.

Naomi took off her purple furry mitts and dug in the
other bag. “Look what else we bought.” Cowboy shirts. When had The Three Weird Mothers begun channeling the late Darlene Coddlefield? Or had they been watching the square dancers? However, these shirts were not pastel like the ones Darlene had made for her sons, or bright like the square dancers had worn.

Haylee spluttered, “Black? You three always tell us not to wear so much black.”

“You’ll blend into the night.” In her polka-dot, ruffled clown suit, Edna obviously had no intention of blending into anything less rowdy than a three-ring circus.

Opal the giraffe tore into the plastic around the shirts. “We bought them big so you two could pass as men.”

We knew better than to argue. While her mothers fussed about my bandaged hand, Haylee and I buttoned the black cowboy shirts over our T-shirts.

“Thank goodness Willow’s fingers work,” Naomi said through purple fur.

I was glad of that, also. Haylee and I tucked our hair underneath our hats.

Opal complained, “They still look like women.”

Edna cast a speculative glance around our booth.

Knowing the mothers’ penchant for involving me in preposterous schemes, I quickly said, “There’s no law against women wearing black shirts and hats, blending into the night, and wandering around the fairgrounds.”

They paid me no attention.

“I should have brought batting,” Naomi apologized. Her purple fake fur costume couldn’t fit into the booth.

Edna’s and Opal’s costumes could. The clown and giraffe swooped down on a couple of bolts of Naomi’s quilt fabrics—pastels printed to resemble cloth that had been painstakingly hand-dyed.

Outside, the PA system squawked out opening night speeches.

Inside, despite our complaints, Haylee and I developed batik beer bellies. And batik beer
backs
.

“There,” Opal, the improbable giraffe, said after Haylee and I were thoroughly bound in fabric. “You two don’t look like women anymore.”

That figured. Underneath our cowboy shirts, each of us had been padded in an entire bolt of cotton batik.

“How gratifying,” Haylee said drily. “We don’t look like men, either. We look like beach balls wearing cowboy hats.”

“All the better for blending,” Edna said, unfolding a map of the festival. “Here’s where Russ’s truck is parked, in the lot off Wheatfield Way, nearest where they’re going to shoot off the fireworks. We can loiter there. Not together, or we’ll be obvious—Haylee, that fake cough isn’t fooling anyone. We can tell you’re laughing at us. But this is a really good plan! We can pretend to watch the fireworks while we’re really observing Russ’s truck.”

Applause came over the PA system. Was the first speech over?

Edna urged us all to hurry.

“Wait!” Naomi rumbled through purple polyester fur. “They can’t carry those feminine handbags.”

Haylee’s and my simple, square bags could have been carried by cowboys if one of them liked plastic-laminated geometric prints and the other one leaned toward embroidered abstracts. We shoved our wallets and phones into pockets, then locked our bags in a display case.

Edna hustled us all out to Brussels Sprouts Boulevard and pointed down Cabbage Court toward the brightly lit Ferris wheel. Wheatfield Way and the parking lot where Russ’s truck was supposed to be were beyond the amusement area.

“Walk like men, you two,” Opal instructed. She put the giraffe head back on. If she said more, we didn’t hear it.

In our sneakers, attempting to walk like men, Haylee and I easily outpaced the other three, who couldn’t have been accustomed to wearing cowboy boots covered by clown shoes, giraffe hooves, or purple fake fur paws.

“How do men walk?” I asked Haylee.

“Think of Isaac.” She kind of rolled from one foot to the
other. I was too polite to tell her she didn’t walk a thing like Isaac did. He never looked dead drunk. I bent my knees slightly, let my shoulders droop forward, and dangled my hands. Very Isaac-like, I thought.

Haylee giggled. “Good gorilla.”

I stuck my hands into my pockets and tried swaggering, but it came out more like swaying.

“Your padding’s showing,” Haylee warned. Unfortunately, the bolt of cloth the women had wrapped around my waist was pale yellow, not a nice blendy black. I tucked the loose end into my jeans.

Haylee pointed ahead. “Walk like that man.”

I knew that walk. I knew that man. “No,” I breathed. I’d been wanting to talk to Clay for the past two days. Now he was striding toward us.

And I was a hideous pear shape.

M
AYBE CLAY WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE HAY-LEE and me in our cowboy outfits.

“Just keep going,” Haylee muttered out the side of her mouth in a nicely masculine way.

So we did. Right past Clay without looking at him. I held my bandaged hand out of his sight.

I heard him come to a halt right behind us. “Willow and Haylee, what are you two up to now?”

A miracle. For once, he hadn’t greeted me with his usual question—
are you all right?
The best policy might be to follow Haylee’s suggestion. I strode on as if he couldn’t have been talking to us.

Haylee, however, stopped and informed him, “If you walk between us, maybe we can pass as men.”

But Clay was laughing too hard to walk. He looked behind him. A clown, a giraffe with a floppy neck, and a giant purple fake fur teddy bear picked their way toward us between worn-down furrows. Clay stopped laughing. “Those are your mothers, aren’t they, Haylee? Don’t tell me you five are trying to solve murders and attempted murders.”

“How’s Tiffany?” I should have asked sooner.

“They say they’re about to let her wake up and she’s going to be fine. State troopers are with her. Investigating is
their
job.”

I asked him, “Did you hear about Felicity Ranquels, the sewing machine rep who was also hurt at the Coddlefields’?”

“They expect her to recover, too. And maybe one day, the gaps in her memory will fill in, and she’ll be able to say what really happened. I heard you pulled her out—”

Before he could scold me for my part in her rescue, I fired another question at him. “Have they arrested anyone for attacking those two?”

“Not last I heard.” He frowned. “You two—”

I interrupted, “Do you know where Russ Coddlefield is?”

Clay’s eyes filled with concern. “No. Last time I saw him, he was still at the fire. I left early, but Isaac told me he zoomed off in his truck after the fire was out, and the police are out looking for him. Poor kid. He must be frightened.”

“Come with us,” Haylee demanded. “My mothers think he’s in danger from his father. They want to rescue him, but they’re afraid he’ll recognize them and run away, so we’re all in disguise and about to go where we can watch his truck.”

Clay offered us each an arm.

I whisked both hands behind my back as best I could, considering my strange balloon shape. “We can’t walk arm-in-arm with you. We’re trying to pass as men.”

“And not exactly succeeding.” Clay was very close to guffawing again. “I’m surprised Haylee’s mothers didn’t make you wear fake beards.”

“Shhh.” Haylee giggled. “They might hear you.”

Knowing them, they were already on the lookout for improvements to our costumes. Failing beards or bandanas, they would rub dirt on our faces where five o’clock shadows might be. We sped our pace.

Clay pointed out that he didn’t have a disguise, and that Russ might see him and run the other direction.

I didn’t warn him that at that very moment, a short and
energetic clown, a tall giraffe with potential swallowing problems, and a huge purple teddy bear were probably discussing which rent-a-mascot costume would suit him best. Instead, I said, “If Russ runs away from you, maybe Naomi, Opal, and Edna will catch him.” I’d been around Haylee’s three mothers so much I was beginning to think like them, which, considering their fondness for costumes, didn’t bode well for my future wardrobe choices.

Behind us something slapped on the ground. “Yoo-hoo! You two cowboys and Clay!” Edna’s voice. We turned around. The clown ran toward us, her oversized shoe coverings hindering her every step. “Wait,” she called, and promptly foundered in a furrow.

She didn’t fall. She leaned forward, yanked the shoe coverings upward until the elastic around their tops was above her knees, picked up her clown hat and its attached yarn hair, clapped it on her head, and hurried toward us with her big clown shoes, toes pointing outward, flapping near her brightly polka-dotted thighs.

“Glad I caught you,” she gasped when she reached us. “We had an idea.”

And I had a sinking feeling.

But the idea that she and her best friends had come up with wasn’t too terrible, after all.

“We don’t have time to camouflage Clay.” Edna smiled an apology up into his face.

“That’s okay,” Clay said, ever the gentleman.

“So it will be your job, Clay, to look like yourself and flush Russ out. We saw his truck in the parking lot, so he may be hanging out at the carnival. Soybean Street cuts through the center, so you case Soybean Street. Haylee and Willow, you two stroll down the next street, Corn Alley, and watch for Russ to pop out between tents while fleeing Clay. Naomi, Opal, and I will go down Rutabaga Row to grab Russ if he goes that way.”

My hand throbbed. I continued hiding it and its cartoon character bandages from Clay. “What if we don’t find Russ?” I asked.

Edna had a plan for that, too. “We’ll go back to our original idea. We’ll all meet on Parsnip Place. It runs along the ends of Rutabaga Row, Soybean Street, and Corn Alley. Then we’ll wander to the parking lot near Russ’s truck and wait for him to appear.”

Great. We could spend most of the night in uncomfortable outfits and still not find Russ.

“Hurry,” Edna urged, wiping red yarn hair out of her eyes. “We don’t want to miss him. Someone needs to set that kid on a safer path.”

Opal and Naomi, mincing along in their strange footwear and even stranger costumes, were catching up. Haylee, Clay, and I hurried off in the direction Edna had sent us.

“You don’t have to participate in their schemes,” Haylee told Clay.

“I’d like to help the boy,” Clay answered. A red firework umbrella unfurled overhead, lighting the planes of his worried face.

Regretting my earlier refusal to take his arm, I had an almost overwhelming desire to whip my bandaged hand out of hiding and go into damsel in distress mode. Instead, I said calmly, “He’s more likely to trust you than the rest of us.”

Clay’s jaw tensed with determination. “He could be afraid I would turn him in to the authorities. Or to his father.”

Maybe,
I thought,
we should all be afraid of
Russ
…

With a quick nod good-bye, Clay turned down Soybean Street and disappeared among the lights, noise and crowds. Haylee and I started along Corn Alley.

About three booths down, a rifleman in a red cowboy hat shot at plywood ducks bobbing on plywood waves. The teenaged girl running the game looked flustered. No wonder. The rifleman was a good shot, and the girl would soon be out of prizes. Tall, with a muscular build, the rifleman didn’t look like a collector of stuffed toys. He looked like…like…oh, no!