I So Don't Do Mysteries (4 page)

Carefully placing one
foot in front of the other, I plod to
the nurse's office. When I get there, I drop the peach-colored pass in the mesh basket on the
counter and hunch over in a plastic chair, mouth-breathing because of the gross rubbing-alcohol smell.
I'm the only student around.

The nurse strides over from her computer and plucks up my pass. “Sherlock
Baldwin, what seems to be the problem?”

“Um, um.” I'm such a bad liar.

“Cramps?”

“Um, sure.”

“Let me go check your file to see if your parents okayed any over-the-counter
meds.” And she disappears into the back room.

I close my eyes. Will Midol cure a broken heart? Doubtful. But that thought opens up a
whole new future career path. I'll be a scientist who invents a pill that turns heartache into a
brief bout of gas. You fart, and you're immediately better, immediately over being dumped. I
imagine myself accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in front of hordes of adoring fans. “It all
started in the nurse's office one sunny middle school day after I was cruelly rejected by Josh
Morton. Who, I might add, has amounted to nothing in life. He lives in the woods, all dirty and smelly,
and only comes out to beg for money. I'll never forget what he did to
me—”

“Sherry?”

Josh? I open my eyes. Ack. Eek. Awk.

“What are you here for?” He stands in the doorway, a file folder under
his arm.

“Um, um, um,” I sputter.

“You okay?”

Do I see worry wrinkle his forehead?

I force the words out. “Nothing”—I
swallow—“contagious.”

Scrounging-around sounds come from the back room. Please, please, please, Nurse, be
a disorganized mess like me. If her file cabinet looks anything like my backpack, she won't find
my paperwork until I'm in high school.

I force out more words. “How's your nose?”

“Totally fine,” he says. “The door didn't even hit me
that hard. My nose just bleeds easily.”

I risk a joke. “So you won't be suing?”

He shakes his head, laughing. “Nah.”

I've never heard him laugh before. It's deeper than I expected, and I am
digging it.

“Let me drop this off with the attendance clerk.” Josh waves the folder.
“I'll be right back.”

“Okay.” Wow. Stomach jittery, hands sweaty, I hook my hair behind
my ears and smooth out my T-shirt.

Josh returns and slides into a chair across from me. “I hear you're into
video games,” he says.

Did I mention how his Lake Havasu–blue eyes look electric when he gets excited? I
can't stop staring at them. It's like I'm being sucked in.

“There's this boy-girl tournament Video World's holding over
spring break,” he says. “I thought we maybe could join as a team.”

I start floating out of my chair with happiness. Then reality slaps me back down hard
and fast. “I can't.” My voice comes out flat. “I'm going out of
town. My dad's getting remarried, and I'm being shipped off.”

“Bummer.” He sounds truly disappointed.

“To San Diego.”

“Hey, I'm from San Diego. We go back a lot to visit
family.”

Oooooh
. We're like soul mates! “How'd you end up in
Phoenix?”

“My dad got transferred.” Josh bends down to tie his shoe.
“Worked good for me. I was kinda in with a rough crowd at school there.” He
straightens up and stretches out his legs.

“Oh.” A tingle shimmies up my back. I'm crushing on a bad
boy—well, a reformed bad boy.
Oooooh
.

“Although I did lose a year. I should be a freshman.”

A reformed almost-a-freshman bad boy?
Oooooh!

“Need ideas for things to do in San Diego?” Josh asks.

“Sure.” I relax and lean back. Look at me. So cool, so
Cosmo,
so casually chatting with a cutie-pie guy, like I do it every day.

He squints, thinking. “The beaches, SeaWorld, Old Town, which has a haunted
house.” He pauses, then slaps the side of his head with his hand. “The Wild Animal
Park.”

The hairs on my neck poke up. Literally. First my mother brings up the Park, then Josh
does. Not that I believe in any of Grandma's hocus-pocus, but, seriously, this must be a
sign.

I ask, “What's so great about the Wild Animal Park?”

“Well, it's, like, this gigantic zoo, but with tons of wide-open spaces.
What's really cool is that a rhino born at the Park is getting ready to give birth.” Josh is
talking with his hands, getting all adorably animated. “It's that whole
two-generations-born-in-captivity thing. And the entire city is into it.” He pulls his phone from
his pocket. “Give me your number.”

“I don't have a cell.” I sigh. “But you can have my
home number.” Which I reel off.

When he's finished programming it in, he snatches up a pen and a flyer
advertising a health fair. He scribbles on the back of the paper, then hands it to me. “My
cell.”

I glance at his number, memorize it, then slide the paper into my backpack.

Suddenly I hear the
squish-squish
of the nurse's shoes. Vaulting out of
my chair, I scoop my backpack off the floor and swing it on, all in one smooth move. “Tell the
nurse something came up and I had to take off, will you?”

His baby blues are wide open with surprise.

And, without even considering the consequences, I wink.

Then I'm off down the hall, out past the special-ed bus in the circular drive and
hoofing it toward home. With only one teeny, but überly important, stop on the way.

After my errand,
I hang out in my room, eat a non-Ruler
dinner and kinda do some homework.

Finally it's midnight. I slowly slide open the back door, a cold latte clutched to
my chest. I'm wrapped in the scratchy crocheted afghan Mom used to cover herself with to
watch the news. It smells of the vanilla-bean after-shower spray she loved. My throat tightens.

As I step off the patio, the motion light flashes on. I blink in the sudden brightness at
my pear tree, lit up against an inky background. Cocooned in the afghan, I take baby steps, the dewy
grass licking my bare feet.

All evening, while I was stuck babysitting Sam, thoughts of me, my mom and some
scary, bizarro mystery in San Diego chased each other round and round in my head. I'm
having severe doubts about my sanity. I'm having severe doubts about this whole situation. If
it's for real, I am so not the person for this big-time challenge. Given my history of
failures.

All I want is to hang out with my mom. Really hang out with her. Like we didn't
do when she was alive.

There's a lot about her I don't know. Like, what was her fave candy
when she was a kid? Did she and her mom get along? How much does she miss me?

And I want my mom to know me better too. How sometimes I forget she's
gone, and I go to tell her something; then, like a slap in the face, it hits me that she's not
around. How bad I feel for all the mean things I ever said. How thinking about The Ruler gives me a
stomachache because, although she isn't my mom, she'll get to do loads of mom
things, like taking pictures of me all dressed up for prom.

The problem is, for me and my mom to spend time together, she has to stay in the
Academy. Which means she has to do the mystery thing. Which means I have to do the mystery thing.
Which brings me right back to the beginning. All I want is to hang out with my mom.

I toss the afghan up onto my sitting branch, then—on tiptoe—carefully
place the coffee cup in a hollow in the trunk. Once I've climbed up and am mummy-wrapped
in the afghan, I free one arm, retrieve the cup and pry off the lid.

Coffee—my mother's beverage of choice. Colombian, Jamaican, Food
City, medium-bodied, bold, espresso: She loved them all. She downed so much coffee, she was
permanently wired. Some days, I never saw her eat real food, only drink cup after cup of coffee.

On the way home from school today, I stopped at the Donut Hole. I kept the latte
hidden at the back of my closet until now. My dad knows I'm not into coffee, and I
didn't want to deal with his questions.

I just hope it works, and cold java summons her. I stretch out my arm, waving the cup
back and forth in front of myself.

Holding my breath, I wait for some sort of sign.

Nada. Nothing.

I balance the cup in the hollow above my head, leaving the lid off, then sit, my spine
curled into the trunk. Eyes squeezed shut, I conjure up an image of Mom from our last shopping trip
together.

We were sitting on a mall bench outside Pat and Oscar's Restaurant, waiting for
Dad and Sam. We were having a quick family dinner before Mom headed to work for third watch.
Between my knees sat an overflowing Old Navy shopping bag. Mom plopped a Body Shop bag on top
of my stuff, then leaned forward, closing her eyes. With circular movements, she massaged her
temples.

“I can't seem to kick this headache,” she said.

I chomped on a pretzel sample. “Call in to work sick.”

“Can't. There's a big drug bust going down. I've got to
be there.”

A chunk of salt slipped down the wrong pipe, and I coughed loudly.

Mom grimaced. “Maybe I'm developing migraines.” She lifted
her head, eyes still closed. “I'll eat something before taking more
Excedrin.”

I dug through my Old Navy merchandise, examining my new clothes, only half listening.
I was more interested in figuring out what to wear to school the next day than in worrying about my
mother.

And that was the night she got killed.

A thump rattles
the trunk and tips the coffee over and down
my neck. Yuck.

“How did you find me?” Mom asks, her voice pitching up with surprise.
“I was in the middle of a practice flying session with my study group, when suddenly I was
whooshing through the air, and
whomp!
I landed here.”

I hold up the empty cup in the direction of her voice. “The Donut Hole called
your name.”

“Brilliant, Sherry.”

Brilliant. My mother called me brilliant. I straighten my shoulders.

“I smell coffee mixed with the melon scent of your shampoo.”

“Sassy Girl,” I say.

“That's it.” Mom switches to Intense Mode. “Did your
dad get your ticket to San Diego?”

“He did.” I pull up the neck of my T-shirt to mop off my skin.
“For Sunday afternoon.”

“Good.”

“Junie and Amber are coming too.”

“Remember, you can't tell them about me. And make sure Junie keeps a
lid on Amber. She's too wild for you two. On the plus side, Amber has her license. She can
drive you to the Wild Animal Park. That'll lessen the burden on Margaret.”

I roll my eyes. She's as bossy dead as she was alive.

“I am really feeling good about this case. Everything's falling into
place.” Mom's branch shakes, and the leaves flutter all crazy.

Is my mother so pumped, she's doing a little dance?

“We're going to impress my instructors by preventing the rhino killings.
I'll get to stay in the Academy,” she says. “And you, young lady, will conquer
your fear of challenges.”

Her bubbly enthusiasm is contagious. Maybe she's right, and this will all work
out. Come to think of it, I've definitely gotten more independent since her death. Like doing
laundry, setting my alarm clock to get up for school, babysitting Sam more.

“You would not believe how excited the Academy is about us. It's been
over two centuries since they've had a mother-daughter duo.”

So, I'm a celebrity, spiritually speaking.

“They're allowing my study group to help us. There are four of us: me;
Marie, a former cop from Oklahoma City; Alan, a former FBI agent; Ray, a former federal judge. We
all started the Academy together, and we've gotten really close. Marie, Alan and Ray were
recently promoted to the next level. They're trying to bring me up to speed. They are so
talented and so supportive.” Mom's words race out at about a million miles a minute.
“Sherry—you, me, them, we'll make a great team.”

“Team”? Did my mother just say “team”? As in
T-E-A-M? “Team” is my new fave word. Mom has never, ever asked me to be on her
team before.

She goes all serious. “And you haven't told anyone about
me?”

“No.”

“Good going.”

“Brilliant.” “Team.” “Good going.”
Wow. I'm psyched. I'm stoked. I'm jazzed. I am so going to San Diego to
solve a mystery and save my mother's life—well, afterlife. Brimming over with
enthusiasm, I'm waving my arms, punching the air. Then I'm kicking the air. Then
I'm falling through the air, arms and legs flailing.

Thud.

Man oh man. Hard sandbox. And falling on it is becoming a mother-daughter
tradition.

“Are you okay?” Mom's voice is a soft breeze by my ear.

“Yeah.” I stand. “Mom, this is like a do-over for us,
isn't it?”

Very gently, my hair lifts off my forehead. “That's exactly what it is,
Sherry. And not many deceased mothers and living daughters get this opportunity.”

I blink back tears. “I'm glad we have it.”

“Me too, pumpkin.”

The back door opens. Dad steps out onto the porch.

“I'm meeting with the snitch tomorrow night to see if he has any new
info,” Mom says. “Let's touch base again before you leave.”

“Okay.”

“They're having the wedding in the backyard?” She's
above me now, and whispering.

“How'd you know?” I ask her.

“Sherry? Is that you out here?” Dad calls. “You all
right?”

“I'm fine!” I shout. “Just give me a sec.”

“I noticed gazebo arches leaning against the side wall.” Mom's
voice is faint. “Tomorrow's the big day, then? In the afternoon?”

Dad starts walking toward me, and the motion beam floods the yard.

I answer, “Yeah.”

“I'll try . . .”

I strain to hear.

“. . . to attend.”

“No, no, no,” I say, “bad idea. Bad idea.”

But she's already gone.