True Colors (18 page)

I looked at him.

“Me too,” I said.

“I know a piper we could take lessons from,” Mr. Gilpin said. “We’d make quite a sight, wouldn’t we, dressed in kilts and leading the parades!”

Oh, wouldn’t that make Nadine jealous, me playing bagpipes in a parade!

It was hard to believe I’d been scared of Mr. Gilpin at first. Now he seemed avuncular.

“How’d you lose your leg?” I blurted out, and stood there, my face burning. Had I really just asked him that, I wondered.

“A childhood accident,” he said. “I had a tough time accepting it at first. Felt sorry for myself. There’re a lot of veterans came home from the war without legs or arms that felt that way, too. But not having a leg doesn’t mean you can’t have a good life.”

I felt ashamed for feeling sorry for myself. At least I had both arms and legs! And Hannah and I had a good life, even if I didn’t have all the things that Nadine had.

“Many hands make light work,” Hannah said sometimes, and it was true. The haying that would have taken Raleigh and me days to do was done by chore time.

chapter 24

Raleigh stayed after all the other men had left and helped me with the milking. We carried the pails into the house, where we found Hannah listening to some opera singer.

Raleigh put his hands over his ears.

“You don’t like that music?” Hannah asked. Raleigh shook his head.

I put on a Glenn Miller record, and Raleigh’s face broke into a grin. He started tapping his foot, then he stood and waltzed around the room. Watching him dance, you would have thought he was just like anyone else.

“You’re a fine dancer,” Hannah told him. “I think you should teach Blue how to dance.”

Me? I shook my head, but Hannah nodded at me and motioned me out on the floor.

Raleigh grabbed my hands and started moving his feet, but I stood still, not knowing what to do.

“Just stand on his feet,” Hannah said, “until you get the hang of it.”

I was nervous at first, and felt about as graceful as a cow, but by the end of the record, I almost knew what I was doing. Raleigh wanted another tune, so I put on a Jimmy Dorsey record, and we glided across the floor, me riding on Raleigh’s feet. It wasn’t exactly the same as I’d imagined after watching Nadine dancing with Mr. Tilton, but it was something very much like it.

Hannah smiled and tapped her foot, too.

The rest of that week, after Raleigh and I finished chores in the evening, I’d put on a record, and we’d dance until I didn’t have to stand on his feet anymore.

“A few more weeks of that, and you’ll have the hang of it,” Hannah said. “I might even be able to dance
with
you.”

I smiled, happy at the thought of Hannah feeling well enough to dance, but the smile froze on my face at Hannah’s next words.

“When were you going to tell me about Daisy?” she asked.

Uh-oh. I hadn’t even thought up a story to tell Hannah to explain about Daisy. Since Raleigh and I’d still been doing all the milking, I didn’t think she would even notice Daisy was missing. I should have known better. Not much got by Hannah.

“I know you’re just trying to help me,” Hannah said. “But you should have told me. You shouldn’t have had to
worry about that all on your own. It’s the Wright brothers, no doubt, though if they were smarter, they would have known better than to take a
dry
cow.”

Hannah thought the
Wright brothers
had taken Daisy! Well, I did, too, but she didn’t suspect that
I’d
taken Daisy
first
. I wanted to keep it that way.

“I’ll talk to Wallace about it,” Hannah said.

“No!” I almost shouted, and Hannah stared at me in surprise. It wouldn’t do to make her suspicious, so I reined in my racing heart. “I mean, no, I don’t want you having to worry about it, either. I’ll tell him when I go into town next.”

I had no intention of telling Mr. Gilpin anything about Daisy, but with Hannah feeling so much better and able to do things for herself, this would be the perfect time to work on solving the mystery of the missing animals. Maybe Nadine would like to do some investigative reporting with me. Maybe she’d like to go spy on the Wright brothers with me to see if they had Daisy. And any other animals they weren’t supposed to have.

Nadine’s face lit up when I asked her. Nadine might talk about her friends back home, but when Nadine was here in the summer,
I
was the only friend
she
had around, too.

“I saw Mr. Wright in town this morning,” Nadine said. “He was in the grocery, and Mr. Clark was telling him that they were all out of whatever it was that Mr. Wright wanted, so Mr. Wright stomped out, saying he and his boys shouldn’t have to waste an evening going to Hardwick for the feed.
Or maybe he said seeds. Anyway, I don’t think they’ll be home.”

If I’d been thinking straight, I would have seen the holes in this story (like why would Mr. Wright be in the
grocery
asking for feed or seeds) and wondered if Nadine had heard right, but I let my eagerness get the better of me. Nadine and I agreed to meet up at seven o’clock.

I had too many butterflies in my stomach to eat supper. Spying on the Wright brothers had seemed like such a good idea when I first thought of it, but now that we were actually going to do it, I wondered if maybe it was a bad idea. If they found us out, what would they do to us? We hadn’t told anyone where we were going. Nadine and I could disappear and no one would ever know.

It felt like an even worse idea when Nadine showed up in a bright yellow rain slicker and white boots.

Why don’t you just attach a big spotlight on your head and a sign around your neck that says
YOO-HOO, DENNIS AND WESLEY, WE’RE SPYING ON YOU!
I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to ruin the good feeling between us. It seemed like old times, like when we’d played crossing the Iron Curtain, except this time we weren’t playing; this was spying for real.

Any other evening, it would have been a beautiful ride, the sunlight painting the tops of the hills a warm gold and casting long shadows across the fields, but I was too nervous to appreciate it. I wished I could come up with a good
excuse to turn around and go home, but I didn’t want Nadine thinking I was a chicken.

Nadine clung to my arm.

“I hope I don’t get any bats in my hair,” she said. I didn’t say anything, but I thought that bats should be the
least
of her worries.

When the Wright farm came into view, I slid off Dolly and tied her to a bush, then ducked down into a ditch, dragging Nadine behind me.

“Oh, you just got my new boots all dirty,” Nadine said.

“Shh,” I said. “Besides, they’re
rubber
boots.”

“Why are we hiding?” Nadine wanted to know. “They’re not home.”

“I want to make sure before we go walking in there,” I said.

Nadine rolled her eyes.

I lifted my head enough so I could scan the yard, the barn, the house, for any sign of movement, but the only thing moving was Nadine, who was acting like she had ants in her pants.

“Quit wiggling,” I told her.

“I’ve got to go,” Nadine whispered back.

“You can’t go,” I told her. “We just got here.”

“No,” said Nadine, wiggling more. “I mean I have to
go
.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, go, then.”

“Out
here
?” Nadine said, incredulous.

“Yes, out here,” I said.

“I can’t go out
here
,” Nadine said, shuddering. “There’re snakes and spiders and things.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I told her. “Well, there’s the Wrights’ outhouse over there. I guess you could use that.” I thought it best not to tell her that I thought there’d be even more snakes and spiders
inside
the outhouse than outside.

From the look on Nadine’s face, I could tell she was thinking the same thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She ran across the yard and opened the door. I decided it was best not to tell her about the hornets’ nest hanging under the eaves, right over the door.

Nadine’s face scrunched up, and it seemed I could almost smell the outhouse from where I was. Nadine hesitated, then held her breath and popped inside, the outhouse door slapping shut behind her.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dennis come around the corner of the barn. A second later, Wesley followed him.

My heart plummeted to the ground, bounced, and came back up, threatening to bring supper with it. The Wright brothers weren’t in Hardwick; they were walking toward the outhouse!

“I tell you, I heard something,” Dennis said. “Sounded like the outhouse door.”

“Maybe it’s another skunk,” Wesley said. “Let’s put this one in Old Lady Paisley’s car.”

They were only a few feet away from the outhouse. What was I going to do? I couldn’t let them find Nadine in there.

I remembered how Raleigh had rescued that heron from the Wright brothers and how my attempt to rescue
him
had backfired.

I hoped my aim would be better this time. I’d be getting revenge for Dolly, too.

Straight as an arrow, the rock left my hand and ripped into the hornets’ nest with a satisfying thunk. Both brothers only had time to glance upward at the sound, and the next second, they were hollering and slapping as angry hornets poured from the damaged nest. Dennis and Wesley took off running toward the house, a black cloud of hornets following them.

Nadine tore out of the outhouse, screaming for all she was worth, but her raincoat and rubber boots protected her from getting stung.

I was having a hard time holding Dolly, what with the hornets and Nadine screaming, but as soon as I’d helped Nadine scramble aboard, Dolly took off toward home faster than I’d ever seen her go. We made it to Nadine’s house in record time.

We dashed up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind us. We flopped on the floor, panting as if we’d run five miles. That had been way more dangerous
than playing crossing the Iron Curtain. I felt like we’d just escaped across enemy lines! We looked at each other and laughed.

Nadine picked up her pillow and threw it at me.

“I can’t believe you hit that bees’ nest,” Nadine said. “Those boys were screaming like little girls.” That from a girl who
did
scream like a girl.

I tossed the pillow back at her.

“They were hornets,” I said, “and I wouldn’t have had to hit it if you hadn’t just
had
to go in that outhouse.”

Nadine giggled, but then her face got serious.

“I never should have told them about Raleigh being afraid of water,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I knew how hard it was for Nadine to apologize, and I smiled at her. I wished we hadn’t wasted so much time this summer being mad at each other.

Nadine propped herself up on her elbows.

“With everything going on, it must be hard to concentrate on your column,” she said.

I sat bolt upright. My column!

“I forgot all about it,” I said.

“I thought maybe you had,” Nadine said, “so I wrote it for you.”

“Really?” I said. “You did that for me?”

“Sure,” Nadine said. “I’d be happy to keep doing it, too, you know, till Hannah’s better.”

I felt guilty, Nadine having to do my work for me, and I
didn’t know what Mr. Gilpin would say about her writing my column, but it sure would take a weight off my shoulders.

“I’ll ask Mr. Gilpin tomorrow to see if that’s all right with him,” I said.

“I’ll go with you,” Nadine said.

I felt like hugging her. She was a true-blue friend. Which made me feel even worse about keeping secrets from her.

I spotted my blue print quilt on the floor. With everything going on lately, I’d forgotten to take it back home. I bent over to get it, but Nadine was quicker, and snatched it up before I could. She held it at arm’s length, wrinkling her nose.

“I can’t believe you haven’t thrown this ratty old thing away,” she said. “Maybe I just ought to burn it.”

“No! Give it back,” I said, grabbing for it, but Nadine tucked it behind her.

“Not till you tell me why you’re saving it,” she said.