Kepler’s Dream (13 page)

That would be me.

And there was Dad thinking his mother ought to pay more attention to her little granddaughter Ella, and there was Grandmother showing off her Morris Kepler, and, as Joan put it, “I reckon your daddy just about threw that book right back in Violet's face.”

That was hard to picture, it seemed a little violent for my dad, but Joan explained that she meant the phrase only “in a manner of speaking.” “All I really mean is,” she clarified, “they didn't see eye to eye on it.”

Well, I wasn't going to let Joan quit there. I stared at her for more details until she gave in and said, “Oh, all right. Listen, I
don't want to be the family gossip here, but I think the two of them each had their way of remembering Edward, and that's what they fought about. It was grief really, still, I think, and the divorce didn't help anything, either. Your daddy ended up telling Violet that she cared more about books than she did about people. She couldn't forgive him for that, and from then on she cut herself off. From all of you.” She sighed. “Not that your daddy didn't have a point. You know, Ella, however important books are—and listen to me, I run a bookstore, I make my
livelihood
from books—they can never take the place of flesh and blood. That is,” she corrected herself, “they
shouldn't
.”

“Wait a second.” My brain was trying to process everything Joan had just told me. “So you mean, I was there? My grandmother and I
did
meet once before?”

“Sure. That one time.” Joan shook her head. “Should have been more, of course.”

This story made sense of a few things, like Mom's comment in the hospital when I told her my vacation plan, something about what had gone on the other time. And Miguel giving me that sideways look the day he picked me up, when I said this would be the first time I'd ever met Violet Von Stern.

“I heard them fighting on the phone today,” I told her. “It sounded like she was telling my dad he shouldn't come here to visit.”

“Tchhhhh!”
Joan made a sound like a steam-train whistle. I wasn't sure if it was disbelief, disapproval, or both. We pulled up at the multiplex, and by that point, I was ready to throw myself
into princesses or monsters or teen drama—whatever they had. “You know, hon, all I can say about that is, I bet your daddy is just as stubborn as Violet. Those things run in families.”

She squeezed my hand for a second. “Enough of all that! Let's enjoy the show. Popcorn and soda are on me—your grandmother doesn't have to know a thing about it.”

I had a great time with Joan. The darkness blotted out all the confusion that was going through my head, and I had never had a large root beer that tasted so good. Afterward we cruised around the mall for a while, looking not buying, just yakking about stuff. Joan made me laugh. She reminded me of an Irish setter that belonged to a friend of my mom's—big and red and funny and enthusiastic about everything. By the time we headed back to the House of Mud for dinner with Abercrombie and the GM, I felt ready to face anything—even liver. But out of nowhere there were barbecued spareribs for dinner. My favorite! I guess I had to get lucky at least once.

The grown-ups talked, grown-uppily, while I sat and listened to a replay in my mind of the GM on the phone with my dad. (Her voice had been so cold, like the air in a forgotten basement.) Eventually the table conversation turned to travel, a subject my grandmother always enjoyed. Whenever the talk ran dry between us, during our long nights of slaw together, I had learned to ask her about some of the places she had been. It always perked her right up.

“I'm beginning to plan my next trip,” my grandmother
announced. “And I am happy to take suggestions from the table about where I should go.”

Abercrombie Books said London. For the books, of course. “You could visit Lovelace's in Cecil Court. It's a dreary little place, but he does have some surprising treasures … I should know. He got a few of them from me.” Joan said Egypt to see the pyramids, but the GM waved a hand, saying, “Oh, the
pyramids,
” in a way that made it unclear whether she had already seen them, thought they were overrated, or what.

When it was my turn, I said she should go to Peru.

“Peru!” the GM exclaimed. “What do you know, Ella, about Peru?”

I tried to remember that time my mom and I were sitting together at the desk at home, playing the Vacation Game, looking things up online. It felt like an eon ago.

“Machu Picchu is supposed to be amazing,” I said hesitantly. My grandmother was staring at me, like the judge in some TV contest. “The ruins are incredible. The Incas”—I remembered it, in pieces—“made the whole place like an observatory. To watch the stars. The light fell in a special way on the buildings during the equinox, and they performed their rituals then.”

A hush fell over the table. Of astonishment, I guess. I don't think anyone, except maybe Joan, believed I knew anything much.

“She sounds a little like Edward,” murmured Abercrombie.

My grandmother nodded.

“
My grandfather?” I asked him. I had forgotten that Abercrombie knew him, too.

“Yes, of course. An impressive man,” Abercrombie Books said, though his voice was cool. “I knew Edward before I knew Violet, in fact.”

“It was at Christopher's bookshop,” the GM added, “that Edward and I met.”

Abercrombie and I looked at each other with more curiosity than we had been able to muster before.

“Well, Ella,” my grandmother said, “I have to say I think your presentation was the most successful. Peru will now be on my short list of potential destinations. I can't quite see myself hacking through the jungle, but I'll research the possibilities.”

“Doesn't she win a trophy, Violet? A ribbon, at least?” asked Joan.

A trip to Hawaii? A flat-screen TV?

“She wins a slice of cake,” was the GM's answer. “As do we all.”

The whole dinner was about the best since I had arrived, but what with hearing about my father and grandmother arguing like cats and dogs, and the stimulation of a mall and a movie and Super Ball Joan—and knowing, in the back of my mind, that Mom was about to have pints of tomato juice poured into her veins somewhere in Seattle—it had been a long day. I was glad to take Lou on a spin around the premises, then crash early. It seemed like for the first time since I had arrived in New Mexico, I might actually get a good night's sleep.

Ha!

I might have, if it hadn't been for that little incident I mentioned earlier.

Because this was the night I heard the midnight scraping at my bathroom door, from Rosie all alone outside, sitting on a broken old cooler, waiting to tell me that Miguel had disappeared. This was the night I made up for getting caught eavesdropping by not getting caught tiptoeing at a millimeter a second all through the house in the pitch dark, and wandered out to find Rosie with only starlight to guide me. This was the night I looked up at the Big Dipper, wishing I really were like Edward Mackenzie and could read patterns and knowledge—and maybe even the future—in all those constellations.

And this was the night we heard Miguel's gun go off. The shot, the alarm wail, the dogs barking and the high, scared cry of the birds.

By the time we were crowded in the front hallway of the House of Mud and Miguel was at the front door, he had a strange, haunted expression on his face. He seemed about as spooked as the rest of us. The alarm was blaring like crazy, the police were coming and my grandmother, once she was in her gold robe, was asking Miguel to go with her out to the Library. I tended to agree with Our Guest that it might be better if they waited, but as we all knew, you couldn't say no to Violet Von Stern.

Those were long seconds, waiting in the corridor with Christopher Abercrombie, Rosie and Lou. Although Rosie and I had been hanging out together earlier, in the dim firelight of Miguel's cabin, now we had a hard time even looking at each other. I
don't think she was too happy that her dad had gone back outside. Who could blame her? And though we were all relieved when the GM and Miguel came back safely, the air got about ten degrees colder when we heard that Kepler's
Dream
was gone.

The police who showed up that night, though, were mostly interested in making sure no one had been murdered. They had heard something about gunfire and gotten all up in arms—three cars showed up, their lights spinning dramatically—and seemed sort of disappointed when my grandmother told them those had just been warning shots, fired by Miguel. One uniformed guy hung around to interview Miguel about what he had seen, or thought he had seen, while a couple of others went out to rootle around in the tangled bushes and see if there were any bad guys lurking there.

The last one, a lucky chief named Officer Barker, a guy who seemed to be wearing a hand-me-down uniform that didn't quite fit him, was the one left with my grandmother. The two of them went together, protected by the fearless Hildy, back to the Library so she could tell Officer Barker what she thought was missing.

The chief's walkie-talkie kept making loud, scratchy noises, and every now and then he would speak some mysterious code into it. It was exciting. By staying a few feet behind, I was allowed to come, too. That is, both adults half pretended they couldn't see me and seemed willing to ignore me if I kept quiet as a mouse. (Or, if I think about how loud the mice in our pantry used to be, even quieter.) I was still in my pajamas, but by now
I had grabbed a jacket, and I decided not to worry about impressing Offcer Barker with my wardrobe selection.

The Librerery looked almost exactly like it had the last time I'd been in there. Maybe the piles were in slightly different places, but it was the same mixture of order, clutter and paper.

There were, though, no signs of a break-in, no damaged locks or papers in disarray. Officer Barker pointed that out first thing.

“Nonetheless,” Grandmother said to Officer Barker in a schoolteachery voice, “I can tell someone has been in here.”

“How?” he demanded.

“Well, the door was ajar,” she said sharply. Mrs. Von Stern wasn't used to people questioning her. “When Miguel and I came over to take a look, it pushed right open.”

“I beg your pardon, ma'am.” Barker shook his head. “But someone might have left the door open earlier in the day.”

“Impossible.” The GM ignored Barker's doubtful shrug. “Besides, it became clear immediately that someone had been here when I looked for the single most valuable volume in the entire library.” She paused for effect. “It's gone!”

“Really?” Barker didn't seem that impressed by her announcement. He surveyed the place, taking in the hundreds and thousands of volumes. “You pretty sure about that?”

“Positive!”

“OK.” Officer Barker nodded. You could tell what he was thinking:
This old lady might have accidentally left a book anywhere in this mess and who would know the difference?
But he wasn't going to stand there and argue with her. Not with fierce
Hildy glaring at him, too. “We aren't going to do anything about this tonight, Mrs. Stern—”

“
Von
Stern.”

“Mrs.
Von
Stern. You'll need to go down to the station and file a report in the morning. They'll be able to get all the paperwork started for you, and we'll go from there, and get right on this.”

She raised an eyebrow. I'm sure even in police language that means
Yeah, right
. “The Juvenile Correction Center is very near here, as you know, Officer,” the GM said. “And while we've never had trouble from that quarter before, do you not think it worth some of your time to check in at the facility, to make sure nothing unusual has gone on there tonight?”

Now it was Barker's turn to look skeptical, though he was a little politer about how he did it, jutting out his lower jaw and making a small smacking sound with his lips. “All due respect, Mrs.—uh—
Ma'am,
books aren't usually the top items young offenders go after.”

My grandmother glared at him.

“But irregardless of that …” he went on.

“Regardless,” she corrected him sharply. “‘Irregardless' is nonstandard usage.”

He blinked. “The point is, what might seem initially to you or I like a break-in …”

“You or
me.
”

“What?”

“‘You or me'—‘what might seem to you or
me
like a break-in …'”

He shook his head. Poor Barker. He might have been a policeman, and used to dealing with all kinds of thugs and robbers, but he had never had to handle the director of the Good Grammar Correctional Facility. “Yeah. Like I said,” he muttered. The guy looked ready for some backup. “Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is, these things often turn out to be an inside job. And in the end there's not a whole lot the police can do about it.”

“You're suggesting that someone I know took this volume that is worth …” At this point the GM noticed me—I was watching the Barker–Von Stern matchup from the corner—and she decided against giving a number. “… a
great deal
of money?”

“Yeah.” He nodded.
Yeah
was also incorrect, something Barker probably didn't realize, but luckily for him she let it go. “That's what I'm suggesting. Have you hired anyone new lately? You know—any new housekeepers or anyone else at all?”

My grandmother looked at me warningly. As if I had any intention of saying anything! I just waited for her to tell Officer Barker about Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The problem was, I was pretty sure she had never gotten around to learning their actual names.

But a curious thing happened. The GM narrowed her eyes, looking around the Library as if for the first time, just as Officer Barker had.