Girl Power (7 page)

By the end of the day, Harbor View looked totally transformed. After dinner, the neighbors began coming out of their homes and commenting on the improvements. But the girls didn’t see any sign of Mr. Greeley. And Morgan was starting to feel nervous.
What if he didn’t approve of something? What if he’s mad that we repainted the sign?

“It makes me want to spruce up my own yard,” admitted old Mrs. Hardwick as she stood by the entrance and surveyed their work. “If it wasn’t for my arthritis, that is.
Maybe I should hire you girls to help me out.”

“I’d love to help,” said Carlie. “I plan on being a real landscaper some day.”

“Looks like you’re off to a good start,” said Mrs. Hardwick. “You girls worked wonders with this place. And to think you did this all on your own. It’s really amazing.”

“Oh, we had a little help,” admitted Morgan.

“That gives me an idea,” said Mrs. Hardwick. “My son works at the
Boscoe Bay News
. I think I’ll give him a call. He might like to come out here to get this as a human-interest story.”

“Really?” said Amy, smoothing her hair as if she thought she might be photographed. “Do you think he’d come?”

“Don’t know why not.”

The girls were just sweeping mulch from the street and watering the plants when Gary Hardwick pulled up and handed them his card. “I’m with the
Boscoe Bay News
,” he said, “and I hear you girls are regular little miracle workers.”

Morgan laughed. “God’s the only miracle worker I know.”

“We’re just
hard
workers,” said Amy. “And I have the blisters to prove it.”

So Gary took some photos and asked some questions and told the girls to watch out for Tuesday’s paper. The
local paper was so small it only came out on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Finally the girls called it a day. Morgan took a long, hot shower and tumbled into bed, so tired she didn’t know how she’d ever wake up in time to walk with her friends to school. Still, she didn’t want to make Amy mad at her.

“Has anyone seen Mr. Greeley around?” asked Morgan as the four girls walked to school together on Monday.

“I think he’s hiding out,” said Amy. “My parents said he’s probably worried that we’re going to send him a bill.”

Morgan laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“I wonder if he likes it,” said Emily.

“How could he not like it?” asked Carlie. “It looks fantastic. Everyone is saying so.”

“Yeah, but he’s such a grump,” pointed out Morgan. “Maybe he likes for things to be ugly.”

“Kind of like Oscar the Grouch?” said Amy.

“Exactly.” Morgan laughed. “Greeley the Grouch.” Of course, as soon as she said it, she felt a little guilty.

“What would we do if he didn’t like it?” asked Carlie nervously. “Do you think he could make us undo what we’ve done?”

“Maybe,” admitted Amy. “I mean, if he’s really the owner. My parents said that they’re pretty sure he is. So, I guess he can do whatever he likes with Harbor View.”

“Well, I wish he’d come out and show his face and thank us,” said Morgan.

But two days passed and none of the girls saw Mr. Greeley. Even when the article and the photo of the girls standing at the entrance of the park came out in Tuesday’s paper, Mr. Greeley was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you think he took a trip?” asked Morgan as the four girls sat at her table looking at the newspaper.

“Maybe he died,” said Emily in a spooky voice.

“Died?” Carlie frowned at her.

“Yeah,” continued Emily, getting even more dramatic. “He could be over there right now, lying on his floor, dead!”

“Stop it,” said Amy. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Just kidding,” said Emily, tossing a sly grin at Morgan.

“Oh, he’s probably just lying low,” said Morgan. “He has to be embarrassed that it took us four girls to get this place back into shape.”

“Yeah, I bet he’s ashamed that he didn’t do something like this way sooner,” said Carlie. “Do you think he’ll even help us to keep it up?”

“That’s a good question,” said Amy. “I don’t want to spend my whole summer on a yard crew.”

“We could take turns,” suggested Carlie. “I don’t mind doing it.”

“Yeah,” said Amy sarcastically. “We could take turns and then we could send Mr. Greeley the big fat bill!”

A couple more days passed without a word from Mr. Greeley, and Morgan was actually beginning to think that
Emily could be right. What if Mr. Greeley really was dead? Wouldn’t she feel terrible for calling him
Greeley the Grouch?

On Thursday night, before going to sleep, she decided she should be praying for Mr. Greeley. In fact, she was surprised this hadn’t occurred to her sooner.
The poor old guy probably doesn’t have anyone who cares enough to pray for him
. And tomorrow she would tell Emily about her plan and see if she wanted to pray for him too. More than ever, she hoped the old man wasn’t dead!

Morgan wasn’t sure what made her get up so early on Friday morning. Maybe it was because this was the last day of school and she was excited to see summer vacation officially begin. Or maybe she just sensed that something was up. But as she stood at the kitchen sink, looking out the window that overlooked the entrance to the mobile-home court, she suddenly felt sick.

“Mom!”
she screamed.
“Grandma!”

“What is it?” said Mom as she ran into the kitchen half dressed.

“What on earth?” cried Grandma. “Are you hurt?”

Morgan stood in front of the window, pointing.
“Look!”

Mom leaned over. “Oh, my!”

“Oh, dear,” said Grandma sadly.

Plants were pulled out by their roots. Trash was thrown all over the place. Even the recently painted sign had been
vandalized, with red paint splattered like blood across it.

“Who would do this?” said Morgan, tears of anger streaming down her cheeks.

Grandma put her arm around her shoulders. “I don’t know, dear. But whoever did this must be very disturbed.”

“And mean,” said Mom. “I’m so sorry, Morgan. After all your hard work … “

“I’m going out to see how bad it is,” said Morgan.

“I’m calling the police,” said Mom.

“I’m going to pray,” said Grandma.

It looked even worse when Morgan got outside. Plants that they’d worked so hard to dig up and transplant looked like slain soldiers on the battlefield now, scattered all over the ground, wounded and dying.

“What happened?” cried Carlie, coming over to join her.

“Someone is crazy,” said Morgan, sadly picking up a small pine tree.

“Why?” said Carlie, sobbing loudly as she picked up a smashed marigold plant. “Why would someone do this? Why would they hurt these poor innocent plants?”

“And us.”

Soon Amy and Emily were out. All four walked around, surveying the damage and grieving as they attempted to salvage what they could before it was time to go to school. A patrol car arrived just before eight, and
Morgan’s mom spoke to the police officers, giving out as much information as they had. And that was practically nothing.

“You girls are going to be late for school,” Mom called out. “You better get going.”

“Do we have to?” asked Morgan. “Who will clean this up?”

“It’s your last day,” said Mom. “You’re supposed to go and have fun.”

“Yeah, right,” said Morgan in a grumpy voice.

“Let’s go,” said Amy. “We might not be tardy if we hurry.”

“Who cares?” said Morgan. “It’s the last day anyway.”

“I have a perfect attendance record,” admitted Amy. “And as upsetting as this stupid vandalism is, I don’t intend to blow it now.”

“I usually love the last day of school,” said Morgan as the four girls walked as fast as they could toward school. “Now, I don’t even care.”

“It’s a waste of time,” said Amy.

“Why?” asked Carlie.

“Because you know we won’t do any schoolwork. We’ll just play silly games and stuff. I think they should just cancel the last day of school altogether.”

“How would you do that?” asked Emily. “No matter what you called it—or even if you did it a day
early—there’d still have to be a
last
day.”

“But it could just be a regular day,” insisted Amy.

They argued back and forth about this as they hurried to school. And Amy’s perfect record remained as they got into the classroom just before the bell rang.

It turned out to be an okay day, but only because of all the fun and games, which would have been more fun under other circumstances. Still, Morgan was glad when it was over. And as she gathered up all her junk and loaded it into her backpack, she began to think about what they were about to go home to, and suddenly she felt like crying.

“Are you sad to be leaving sixth grade, Morgan?” asked Miss Thurman with concerned eyes.

“Hmm?” Morgan stared up at her. “Yeah, I mean, I guess so.”

“Well, you’re going to do just fine in seventh grade,” her teacher assured her. “Just make sure you do your homework and don’t get behind.”

Morgan forced a smile. “Yeah. I’ll try to remember that.”

Soon all the good-byes and good lucks had been said, and the four girls were trudging back toward home again.

“I’m so bummed,” said Morgan when they were about halfway there.

“Me too,” said Carlie. “I feel like someone has died.”

“Who do you think did it?” asked Amy. “Who could be that mean? That heartless?”

“Mr. Greeley is pretty mean,” said Emily.

“You don’t think he’d do something like that, do you?” said Carlie. “I mean, especially if he owns the place. It doesn’t make sense.”

“But what if …” Emily seemed to be noodling on something. “What if he had a reason for keeping the place looking run-down?”

“A reason?” said Carlie. “What could that be?”

“Maybe tax evasion,” suggested Amy. “My parents are always complaining about taxes. But they say that tax cheaters do time.”

“Or maybe Mr. Greeley wants the trailer court to get so run down that everyone leaves,” said Emily.

“Why?”

“Maybe he wants to redevelop it like Boscoe Bay Resort,” said Emily. “My mom works there, and she told me there was some big land scandal about that place.”

“That’s right,” remembered Morgan. “They had this big land-use war. It was in the news all the time. But finally the developers won.”

“Yeah,” said Amy. “My parents were against it too. They were worried that the resort’s restaurant would take business away from their restaurant.”

“Did it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Do you guys really think Mr. Greeley could’ve done something like this?” asked Morgan. “It just seems so weird.”

“Well, he is pretty weird,” said Emily.

“And he sure has been staying out of sight.”

“Yeah,” agreed Emily. “He wasn’t even around this morning. You’d think he’d at least have come out to talk to the police.”

“Yeah,” said Amy. “That’s pretty suspicious.”

Now they were almost home, and Morgan’s stomach began to feel slightly sick as she prepared herself to witness the damage all over again. But as the entrance to Harbor View came into sight, she noticed that several people from the neighborhood seemed to be milling around. And as they got closer, it became apparent that these people had shovels and wheelbarrows and they seemed to be working.

“Look!” shouted Carlie, starting to jog toward the trailer court. “They’re fixing it back up for us!”

Sure enough, members of the girls’ own families, along with other neighbors, were out doing various chores. And the work that the girls had done during the past weekend appeared to be in the process of being restored.

“How did this happen?” Morgan asked her grandma. She was sitting in a lawn chair, and she had a tub filled with ice and cold drinks that she was sharing with the workers.

“Word of the vandalism traveled fast,” she began. “People started coming out and asking if they could help. And the next thing we knew, we had a regular work crew going here.”

“It really wasn’t that much work,” said Carlie’s aunt as she patted down the dirt around a juniper plant. “You girls did the hard stuff in the first place. We’re just putting things back where they belong now.”

“Were very many plants dead?” asked Carlie with wide, concerned eyes.

“Time will tell,
mija
,” said her aunt. “But it’s worth trying, eh?”

“Definitely!” said Carlie. “Let me dump my stuff from school, and I’ll be back out to help too.”

“I still have paint for the sign,” said Morgan. “I’ll bet after a couple of coats, that red gunk will be history.”

Everyone worked hard, and just as the group was talking about quitting, a bright red and yellow pizza van pulled into the trailer court. Morgan looked up from painting a third coat on the vandalized sign.

“I have a bunch of pizzas to deliver,” a young man hollered at her. “Where do you want me to put them?”

She looked over at him. “I don’t know.” She glanced over at Grandma. “Did you order pizza?”

Grandma shook her head. “Not me, honey.”

“Did
anyone
order pizza?” yelled Morgan, hoping that someone would step up and take responsibility. But everyone just shrugged and looked around.

“The man who called already paid for it,” said the young man. “He said to give the pizzas to the workers
here.” He smiled at Morgan. “Would that be you guys?”

Morgan grinned. “Yeah, I guess so.”

So the guy went back to his pizza van and emerged with a stack of giant pizza boxes. “Come and get it!” he yelled.

Morgan took a couple of the pizzas from him and whispered, “Did the man tell you his name?”

“He told me not to tell.”

She made a disappointed face.

“But he sounded like an old dude,” he said in a quiet voice.

“Oh.” She nodded. “Thanks.”

Before long the pizza van was gone, and everyone was gathered in Grandma’s yard. “You run into the house and fetch some paper plates and napkins,” she told Morgan. And soon they were all pigging out on pizza, laughing and joking. And for the first time since Morgan had lived here, she was actually getting to know a bunch of her neighbors.

“I called my son again today,” said Mrs. Hardwick. “He was by this morning taking pictures of the vandalism. It might even make it into tomorrow’s paper. Shame on whoever did it.”

“I heard voices last night,” said a retired man named Mr. Ramsay. Morgan had just met him today, and he seemed pretty nice. He lived in the mobile home just across from Grandma’s. “Sounded like kids to me,” he continued.
“I told the police.” He shook his head. “Wish I’d gone out to check on it. But I didn’t think it was anything serious at the time.”

“Maybe we need a neighborhood watch,” said a young mom named Leanne. “I remember last summer when some houses got broken into. It was kind of scary.” And soon all the adults were discussing the best ways to start up something like that.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Amy said to Morgan as the four girls gathered together off to the side.

“About last night’s vandals?” asked Morgan.

“Do you think it was Derrick and his buddies?” said Emily.

Amy and Morgan both nodded.

“I’d like to murder them!” said Carlie in a seething tone.

“Carlie!” said Morgan.

“Okay, not murder them. But I’d like them to suffer.”

“We don’t know for sure that it was them,” said Morgan.

“You don’t still think it was Mr. Greeley, do you?” asked Amy.

“Well, no …” Morgan considered telling them about what the pizza guy had said about an old man ordering the pizzas. But she wasn’t sure that meant it was Mr. Greeley.

“I think it was Derrick,” said Amy. “The question is, did he have help?”

“Mr. Ramsay said ‘voices,’” pointed out Emily.

“And I’m sure Derrick was furious at us for making him give Emily his bike wheel,” said Morgan.

“And for being humiliated like that,” added Carlie.

“It makes sense,” said Amy. “But what are we going to do?”

Morgan glanced back over to where Mr. Ramsay seemed to be heading the beginning of a real neighborhood-watch group. “Maybe we won’t have to do anything,” she said, nodding at the adults. “Maybe they’ll take care of it.”