Thumb and the Bad Guys (6 page)

“We can't,” I said, just as Susan was reaching for the doorknob.

“Why not?”

“Because Dad thinks I'm at home studying and then going to bed. If she
tells him we helped, he'll know I sneaked out.”

“Good point,” said Susan. “Let's go to Mayor Semanov's and tell our
parents that we saw Ms. Weatherly walking to school and we're going to help her
decorate.”

She turned and started walking just as quickly toward the village.

“Why are we going to help her?” I asked, catching up with her.

“Because I feel really guilty about spying on her. It wasn't nice. And
we're going to make up for it by being nice.” She stopped and looked at me. “You are
going to be nice, too, Thumb.”

“Yes,” I said meekly to Susan's back. She hadn't waited for an answer.

Susan reached Mayor Semanov's house first. She made a fist and held it
close to the door, ready to knock. We could hear Mayor Semanov talking, and what he
was saying made Susan freeze, her fist still raised. She lifted that fist to her mouth
and raised one finger, motioning me to be quiet.

“What?” I whispered, stopping beside her.

“Listen.”

I didn't have to put my ear close to the door. Mayor Semanov was
talking loudly, and I could tell, right away, that the crowd in the mayor's living
room wasn't talking about fish quotas at all.

“For fifteen years you've kept that shed secret, Kirk. How can you be
so sure that somebody has been sneaking around?”

“Somebody tried to wipe away their footprints.”

“Well, we certainly don't want your secret getting out.”

“Why not?” asked Kirk McKenna. “I'm tired of hiding out in the woods.
Is what I do really so bad?”

“Yes,” sounded a chorus of voices around the room.

“It's evil,” somebody said angrily.

“Horrible,” said Dad. “Although maybe it's not so bad if you're
Scottish.”

Susan and I turned and looked at each other, puzzled.

And then, well, I couldn't help it. I guess I'd just eaten too fast so
that I could get outside for the stakeout.

I burped.

It wasn't a soft, gentle burp, either. It was loud. Susan's eyes got
big and we both realized that the voices in Mayor Semanov's living room were
suddenly silent.

Susan and I raced around the corner of Mayor Semanov's house just as
his front door flew open. I took the corner too widely and crashed into the house
next door. My elbow hit glass and I heard a window crack and then shatter. I didn't
stop. Susan and I ran across the sand and slipped into the fire truck, breathing
hard.

“I don't think anybody saw us,” I said.

“We'd better stay here, just to be safe.”

“What if our parents look for us in our rooms?”

“We need an alibi,” said Susan.

“Ms. Weatherly?”

“Yeah,” said Susan. “Did I hear a window break?”

“It was an accident. I broke Annie's kitchen window.”

“Oh, no.”

Susan and I looked around to see if anyone was searching for us. We
couldn't see anybody so we sneaked into the school and closed the door.

“Hello,” Susan yelled loudly enough so that Ms. Weatherly would know
we were there.

“Hello?” yelled Ms. Weatherly. We could hear her walk across the
hardwood floors of our classroom and then saw her peek down the dark hall toward us.
We waved.

“Thumb,” said Ms. Weatherly, surprised, “and Susan, right?”

“We noticed that the lights in your room were on,” said Susan, “and
thought we'd see who was here.”

“It's just me,” said Ms. Weatherly.

“Can we tell you what we found out about the beach where Mayor Semanov
found that cannonball?” I asked.

“Now? It can wait until the morning, you know.”

“It's pretty interesting.”

She hesitated for a moment and then sighed.

“Come on down,” she said without much enthusiasm.

Susan and I walked down the dark hall. Ms. Weatherly stood beside her
door.

She wasn't wearing so much make-up, and I could see she was much, much
older than we had thought.

I gasped.

“You thought I was younger, didn't you, Thumb?”

I couldn't think of anything to say. I was good at lying when I could
plan, like with my thumb, but not when I was surprised.

Luckily, Ms. Weatherly didn't wait for me to answer.

“The last school where I worked had a policy that people over a
certain age had to retire,” said Ms. Weatherly. “I retired. Not happily, though. I
hate golf. I can't stand gardening. I don't want to learn bridge or any other stupid
card game. New Auckland was desperate for a teacher, and I was desperate to teach.
So, here I am.”

“You're here because you're desperate?” asked Susan.

“Yes. But it seems like a nice place.”

“Sure,” muttered Susan. “No bad people here.”

“What?” asked Ms. Weatherly.

“Nothing. You can look as old as you want here,” I said. “Nobody
cares.”

Susan kicked me, hard.

“I mean that people don't much care what clothes anybody wears. That's
one good thing about the place.” I grinned and added, “And if you really hate golf,
then you don't have to worry about anybody begging you to play.”

Ms. Weatherly laughed.

“Good point,” she agreed. “So, what can you tell me about the
cannonball?”

“We have a theory,” said Susan.

And we told her.

9
LOTS OF BAD GUYS

WHEN WE HAD FINISHED
decorating the classroom, Ms. Weatherly and Susan and I all walked to my
house.

Dad must have heard our voices because he threw open the door before
we'd even arrived and shouted, “Where have you been?”

“Thumb and Susan were with me,” said Ms. Weatherly. “They were helping
me set up my classroom. Is there a problem?”

Dad looked up at her, startled, and then he looked up and down the
sidewalk and motioned for us to get inside.

Dad closed the door behind us and then did something I had never seen
done in any house in New Auckland.

He locked the door.

I had forgotten that our door even had a lock and had no idea how I
would get it open if I came home and discovered that the door was locked. I had
never seen a key.

“There's something odd going on in the village,” said Dad quietly.

“Odd?” asked Ms. Weatherly as we all sat down. I was glad that she was
there and talking because my mouth was suddenly dry. I tried to look serious and
folded my arms in front of me.

Dad suddenly looked more closely at Ms. Weatherly, surprised because
she wasn't wearing make-up.

He stammered for a few seconds, trying to remember what he wanted to
say.

“She's old,” I said to Dad.

“Thumb!”

Ms. Weatherly laughed.

“He's right,” she said. “I wore all that make-up so I wouldn't look so
old but if I kept wearing it then the weight alone will make the loose skin on my
face slide down my neck.”

“It rains too much here anyway,” I said.

Dad and Susan and Ms. Weatherly looked at me, confused.

“Unless your make-up is waterproof,” I added.

“Enough,” said Dad. “Besides, I have to tell you what happened
tonight. We think somebody is vandalizing the village. Somebody broke the window in
Annie's kitchen.”

I tried to look confused.

Dad thought for a moment and then said, “I have to tell you, Ms.
Weatherly, that one of the great thrills of living here is that people look out for
each other. But now that's changed. It has changed over the past few days.”

“The past few days,” said Susan slowly. “There have been other
incidents?”

Dad didn't seem to hear her. He was staring at Ms. Weatherly.

“Have you been up to the pond yet?” Dad asked her suspiciously.

Susan looked at me, wide-eyed. We both knew that Dad was wondering if
Ms. Weatherly was the one doing all the spying.

“The pond?” she asked.

“It's where we get our drinking water.”

“How do you get there?”

“There's a path,” said Dad slowly, “out behind the school.”

“Is that the same path that leads to Black Bear Hump?” asked Ms.
Weatherly.

“How did you know about Black Bear Hump?” asked Dad, even more
suspicious.

“Thumb and Susan told me about it tonight. They have a theory about
that cannonball in front of the mayor's house.”

“Cannonball?”

“Yes. It's an eighteenth-century cannonball.”

“And Susan and Thumb were both with you tonight?”

“Yes,” said Ms. Weatherly. “They have a theory about that cannonball.
It's a good theory.”

Dad sighed and sat down heavily in his favorite chair. He was
convinced that Ms. Weatherly was too old to be walking under waterfalls.

I felt this sudden chill as I realized that Dad knew about that path
under the waterfall, and he knew about Kirk McKenna's shed, too.

Susan grabbed my hand and squeezed. She was thinking the very same
thing.

10
ANOTHER STAKEOUT

MS. WEATHERLY ASKED
SUSAN
and me to tell our theory to the entire class on Wednesday morning.

Neither of us had much energy and I couldn't even look at Susan. We
had been looking for bad guys and now, somehow, we had either become the bad guys or
we were the good guys in a village full of bad guys. I couldn't imagine my dad or
any other adults, except maybe Kirk McKenna, being bad, but they were all hiding
some horrible secret about that shed.

“So,” said Susan, facing the class, “we went to the beach and kept
wondering how a cannonball could have come to rest right there. I happened to look
up and, Thumb, you tell the rest.”

I told how we could see the cedar tree that leaned over the edge of
the clearing at Black Bear Hump and how Susan had the idea that maybe Black Bear
Hump had been used as a gun placement to protect a ship that might have stayed in
the bay while the crew did some repairs.

“And if Susan and Thumb's theory proves to be correct,” added Ms.
Weatherly, “then Captain Cook or Dixon or Vancouver and his men used Black Bear Hump
as a gun placement and sailors slept up there at night. We might be able to prove
this theory. There may be artifacts. We'll set up a search and take a look.”

Susan and I both nodded and sat down. I don't know if Susan looked at
me. I was trying very hard not to look at her.

The morning seemed to last forever but the bell finally rang for
recess. Susan was already outside when I reached the door. She was down on the
beach, skipping stones across the water.

Susan was the best stone skipper in the village. She might have been
the best stone skipper in the world. She'd had enough practice. She had a large bay
and an entire beach filled with flat skipping stones.

I slowly walked over and watched her pick up a few more stones and
sidearm them across the surface of the water.

“Susan,” I said, almost in a whisper.

She didn't answer. She picked up another stone and skipped it,
too.

“Susan,” I said again. “They think we're the bad guys. I mean, not
really us because they don't know we're the ones sneaking around and breaking
windows. But they think there is a bad guy.”

“You're right,” said Susan quietly. “Isn't it cool?”

“Cool?”

“Yeah. You were right. Bad guys add excitement to life. My dad was
more excited than I've ever seen him this morning. You wanted excitement and now
there is excitement. We're the excitement. Your plan worked. Just not quite the way
you expected.”

“But, they're going to figure out that we're the ones doing everything
pretty soon.”

“How?”

“We have to tell them.”

“Are you nuts, Thumb?”

“If we don't, then everybody will be under suspicion. Besides, we
haven't done anything wrong. We can explain.”

Susan just stared at me, waiting for me to figure out something she
obviously knew but I was too stupid to even consider.

“What?”

“You're going to tell them that we followed Kirk McKenna because we
thought he was a bad guy?”

“No. We can tell them we saw a footprint and discovered the trail
under the waterfall and found the shed. They'll believe us.”

“You're forgetting one thing, Thumb.”

“What?”

“We don't know what's inside that shed and we don't know why the
adults are keeping it a secret from us. I'm not willing to tell anyone until we find
out.”

“I will not believe that my dad and your dad are bad guys, Susan.”

Susan shrugged and tossed another stone. We both watched it skip and
both silently counted to ourselves. Eight.

“How often do you think Kirk McKenna goes up to that shed?” I asked
quietly.

“I don't know.”

“Are you ready for one more stakeout?”

“Tonight?”

“No. Let's assume Kirk McKenna goes up there every Friday night.”

“Friday night?”

“You bet.”

11
DIGGING FOR TREASURE

ON WEDNESDAY MS.
WEATHERLY
led the entire class up to Black Bear Hump.

She was puffing pretty hard by the time we reached the pond. I tried
not to look at the waterfall and the stream that led out of the pond, but I did
glance. It seemed almost impossible for me to have missed seeing how you could get
to the other side.

I looked over at Susan. She frowned and shook her head.

There wasn't enough room at Black Bear Hump for all of us to stand in
the small clearing, much less dig. Some of us, including Susan and me, sat on rocks
and watched and listened to Ms. Weatherly talk about Captain Cook and Captain
Vancouver and why they might have stayed in our bay when they searched along our
coast for water routes inland.