Finding Fortune (14 page)

“Okay,” I said weakly.

Tucker didn't seem any happier about the situation than I did. “Wait, Hildy,” he called as she started to shuffle off. “Where are you going?”

“Oh, I haven't been sleeping too well lately,” she said vaguely. “I'm ready for a catnap. I'll be back in an hour or so.” After Hildy had gone, Tucker and I didn't say anything for a few minutes. I stood at the table flipping through the shell guide. Most of the shells in the pictures looked exactly alike—brown and oval. How was I supposed to tell the difference?

I glanced over my shoulder. Tucker had dragged one of the buckets closer to the wheelbarrow and was picking through the shells on top. Every once in a while, the clang of a shell on metal rang out through the quiet gym. I took a deep breath and turned around. “Can you show me what I'm supposed to be doing here?”

Tucker lazily bumped his sneaker against the side of the bucket at his feet. “You can go through the rest of these if you want and get rid of all the deertoes and hickorynuts. We've already got too many of those.” He fished two shells out of his pail and held them out for me to see. Thankfully, they looked nothing alike. The hickorynut was golden colored, rounded with dark ridges, and the deertoe actually looked like a small hoof—glossy black with a pointed edge.

I nodded and knelt down. “So,” I piped up, hurrying to start a conversation before the awkward silence had time to settle in again. “How do you like it here so far?”

Tucker gave me a “what do you think?” look. He sauntered over to a knee-high metal can full of shells and hoisted it up. “Worst … summer … ever,” he grunted out as he stiff-legged the heavy can closer to the wheelbarrow. He banged it down on the floor with a big huff of air.

“Oh, it can't be
that
bad.”

Tucker cut his eyes at me underneath his bangs. “Oh, yeah? How'd you like to be stuck for eight weeks where there's no Internet, no air-conditioning, nobody to talk to under the age of fifty—”

I kept picking through my shells. “Garrett and Mine are nowhere near that old. And they both seem really nice to me.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tucker admitted. “But that Mine? She can't cook worth squat.”

I decided to let that one slide. “Well, what about Hugh?” I fished. I'd been itching to bring him up ever since Hildy left. “He's under fifty.”

“Hugh?” Tucker snorted. “That kid's one of the reasons I can't wait to get out of here. Gives me the creeps.”

I could feel myself bristling. “How can he give you the creeps? He's only eight.”

“When I first got here, every time I turned around he was hiding behind some corner watching me with those spooky Martian eyes of his.” Tucker flipped back his bangs and popped his eyes open wide like some psycho from a horror movie. “I finally got tired of it, him always sneaking up on me, so I made sure it wouldn't happen again.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What'd you do?”

Tucker didn't seem to notice how icy my voice had turned. He strolled over to the worktable. “I decided to show him what it feels like,” he said as he plunked a keeper shell into one of the boxes. “He likes hanging out in the old chemistry lab, so one afternoon I hid in the closet and waited for him, and, well”—Tucker's shoulders twitched with a snide laugh—“let's just say I don't think Hugh will be spying on me again anytime soon.”

I glared at Tucker's back. “You must have really scared him, which is pretty rude considering he was only spying because he's bored and doesn't have any friends to play with around here. You should try getting to know him. He's really smart.”

Tucker turned to face me, still looking amused. “Huh. You could have fooled me. He sure messed things up at the labyrinth this morning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Garrett tried to stop him, but it was too late.” One corner of Tucker's mouth lifted in a slow smile. “Hugh had already left his mark.”

I stood up, wiping my hands on my shorts. Trying to get Tucker to give a straight answer was like talking to one of those Magic 8 Balls.
Reply hazy, try again.

“Where's Hugh now?” I demanded. “Is he still out at the labyrinth?”

“Probably not,” Tucker said with a half shrug. “Once Garrett yelled at him, he dropped his weapon and ran.”

Weapon?

“Whatever,” I snapped as I marched past the shell buckets. “I'm going to go check on Hugh. I'm sure you'll do just fine here without me for a while.”

 

SEVENTEEN

MINE STARTLED ME
with a big hug when she answered the door to the library. “Ren! You're back!” she crooned as I blinked into the soft gauze of her top, breathing in her cinnamon-and-burnt-toast smell. She pulled away. “Hildy said you were coming to help in the museum.” She lowered her voice, still gripping my shoulders. “I'm so glad. Hugh could use a buddy right now … other than his mom.” She gave me a little push in the direction of the card catalog. “Go on back. He'll be really happy to see you.”

When I peeked through the tie-dyed curtains that hung around Hugh's bottom bunk, he was sitting in the corner, hugging a pillow to his chest. I pushed the curtains apart and crawled into the open space at the end. It was warm and shadowy in there, like an animal's den. “How's it going?” I asked carefully, once I had crisscrossed my legs in front of me and pulled the curtains closed. Even in the shadows, I could see Hugh had been crying. His face was puffy and his lashes were clumped with tears. And worst of all, he was wearing socks and sneakers instead of his Cubs slippers.

“I don't like it here anymore,” he said. “I wish we could move back to Chicago.”

“It's because of Tucker, isn't it? Has he been picking on you?”

It took me a minute to follow the muffled rush of words that drifted out from behind Hugh's pillow. “—Hildy told Mine we'd have all the breathing room we needed. The first day we got here I counted up the rooms because it sounded really good—all that space for breathing. There's thirty-two, if you don't count closets, but that's not enough space if someone's watching you all the time. How am I supposed to breathe when someone's watching me all the time?”

“Who's watching you all the time? You mean Tucker?”

Hugh poked his head up a little ways and nodded, his eyes glistening.

I waited for a few seconds before I answered. “You know it's kind of funny. Tucker said the same thing about you. He said you're driving him crazy the way you keep hiding behind corners spying on him.”

Hugh shook his head in aggravation. “I only spy on people because I'm curious. But Tucker does it to be mean.” He finally let go of his pillow and gave it a punch.

I stared at Hugh's neck. “What's that?” I gasped. His throat was smeared with red and his T-shirt was covered in crimson splatters. “Are you bleeding?”

Hugh scrubbed his hand miserably back and forth across his neck. “No. It's only spray paint, but I can't get it off.”

“Spray paint? Who sprayed you? Was it Tucker?”

“No, I did it. I sprayed myself … and a lot of other stuff too.”

“Wait, I don't understand. Why would you do that?”

“It was an accident.” Hugh's face began to crumple again and he swiped a fist across his eyes. “This morning Garrett scratched out paths for the labyrinth in the dirt on the baseball field and he said we had to outline the marks in spray paint in case it rained.”

“Okay. Then what?”

“Then Garrett said I could do some of the painting, but the button on my spray can got stuck right when Tucker came out there with his wheelbarrow, and he kept watching me like he always does. I didn't want to look dumb and ask Garrett for help, so I checked the little hole in the button to see if it was clogged and I pushed it one more time and all of a sudden it went off … and it wouldn't stop.”

“So paint went everywhere?” I asked, trying to hide the croak of laughter in my voice.

He nodded glumly. “I sprayed a bunch of Garrett's shells and all over the path, and I kind of…”

“You kind of what?”

“I kind of sprayed Garrett.”

That did it. I couldn't hold it in anymore. “I'm sorry, Hugh.” I cackled helplessly. “But it reminds me of a skunk, the way you're telling the story. Did Garrett run away or did he just stand there and get sprayed more?”

Hugh had started to giggle too. “No, he ran away … just like … just like I was a stinky skunk!” Hugh flopped back on the bed. But after a few seconds, his giggles petered out and he popped up again like a sad jack-in-the-box. “I didn't get to say I was sorry. I just dropped the can and ran inside. Now Garrett's going to hate me. I ruined his labyrinth.”

“Of course he's not going to hate you,” I assured him. “And you didn't ruin anything. It's only paint, and Garrett's got tons of shells. Besides…” I smiled mysteriously. “We've got more important things to worry about.”

Hugh's fierce eyebrows stayed puckered together. “Like what?”

“Like finding Hildy's treasure.”

His face lit up. “What do you mean?”

“I told Hildy everything this morning—all about us opening her safe. She wasn't nearly as mad as I thought she'd be, and now I know what's in the box she's looking for.”

“You do?” Hugh bounced up and down on the mattress. “
What?
What is it?”

“Pearls,”
I said in a thrilled whisper.

“Pearls?” Hugh had grown still again. “Mine has a necklace with a pearl in it … So Hildy just came right out and told you her secret?”

“Not exactly. I had already figured it out before I talked to her. I ran into Garrett last weekend when I was riding my bike through Fortune and I helped him shovel shells for a while. He told me about how some of the clammers used to get rich off the pearls they found when they cleaned out their shells, and all of a sudden I knew.”

“Why didn't Garrett ever tell
me
that?” Hugh asked.

I shrugged. “The subject never came up, I guess. I talked my mom into letting me come back here on weekends so I can help in the museum, but whenever I can, I'm going to sneak out so we can go hunt for the pearls.”

“Why do we have to sneak if Hildy knows everything?”

“Because Hildy doesn't want Tucker to find out what we're doing.”

Hugh bounced a little more. “How come?”

“She's afraid he'll tell his dad, and then Mr. Baxter will think she's crazy and try to put her in a nursing home.” I fixed Hugh with a hard look. “So we've got to keep this a secret, okay?”

“I'm good at keeping secrets.” He made a “zip your lip” sign.

“And we need to come up with a search plan. A systematic one.”

“Want me to go get my index cards?” Hugh asked eagerly.

“Not right now. I have to get back to the gym to help Tucker.” I rolled my eyes. “But I'm hoping Mom will let me come tomorrow too.”

Hugh's face clouded over. “Tomorrow?” he whined. “What am I supposed to do till then?”

“Go apologize to Garrett,” I ordered, and wagged my finger at the blaze of red on his throat. “And see if he's figured out how to get that skunk spray off.”

When we climbed out of Hugh's bunk-bed cave, I found myself surveying all the nooks and crannies in the cozy back half of the library. The pearls could be anywhere. “How many rooms did you say are in this place?” I whispered.

“Thirty-two.”

Not counting closets,
I remembered, feeling more overwhelmed by the minute. But I forced a cheerful note into my voice as I said goodbye to Hugh. “If the pearls are here, we'll find them,” I promised.

*   *   *

Tucker was on the defensive when I got back to the gym. “So what'd Hugh say about me? I bet he said the spray-paint thing was all my fault, right?”

I knelt down next to my bucket of shells again. “No,” I answered. “But he says you make him nervous. He thinks you're looking over his shoulder all the time.”

“
Me?
He's the one who goes around taking notes on people.”

“I have an idea,” I flung out. “Why don't you just try ignoring him and mind your own business?”

I hadn't meant to sound so witchy. But the damage was done. Tucker stopped talking to me after that, and we spent the rest of the day sorting shells in silence.

*   *   *

That evening Rick stopped by on his walk with Chauncey, and now he and Mom were standing in the front yard talking. As I stood in the living room peeking around the drapes, I could see my mother smiling and motioning excitedly. Snatches of her conversation drifted through the window screens. “… Everyone's so friendly … I can't wait till we get to the hard-core stuff like broken bones and heart attacks…”

I had barely asked Mom about her first day of training when I got home from Fortune. I didn't need to. It was obvious how much she loved it from the way she was bustling around the kitchen getting dinner ready, singing along with the oldies station on the radio, and pelting me with questions about Hildy's museum. I could see how hard she was trying to fix things between us, but my heart felt too small and shrunken to tell her more than the bare minimum. She finally gave up after dinner and went outside to water the flower boxes on the porch, and that's when Rick happened to come strolling by.

After I watched him shoo a mosquito away from my mother's face and throw his head back and laugh at something she said, I'd had enough. I charged over to flip the porch lights on even though a slice of bright orange sun was still glowing above the rooftops across the street. Rick and Mom glanced up, startled, when I yanked the front door open.