The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (4 page)

“Natalie would like to learn how to play
nim,” Sylvia said. “Do you mind teaching her, too?”

“Sure…why not?”

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Sylvia said, in
a tone that told me I wasn’t hiding my reaction to Natalie very
well.

“I hear that Joe challenged Barney to a game
yesterday,” Natalie said. “That was sweet of him, but he shouldn’t
have.”

“Joe is Natalie’s boyfriend,” Sylvia said, in
answer to my puzzled expression.

Of course he was. He was the quarterback. She
was wearing his ring on a chain around her neck. Whatever hopes I
had conjured up were already dashed. But that wasn’t an explanation
of what Natalie meant. I noticed that she was wearing braces, just
as I did. We had something in common.

“If I had been there, I would have stopped
him,” Natalie said. “But I had to go for that college
interview.”

I still didn’t understand, but no more
information was forthcoming. I had better do what I had come for. I
put on my professorial hat and said, “Would you like the
mathematical explanation of nim?”

“We just want to learn how to win,” Natalie
said.

So be it. I wouldn’t get to expound on binary
numbers. Regrouping, I said, “Okay, a quick review of the rules of
nim. The layout is rows of seven, five, three and one. The pieces
can be milk cartons, checkers, coins, matches, toothpicks,
eyeballs, whatever. On your turn, you can remove one or more pieces
from a single row. If you are forced to remove the last piece, you
lose.”

“So far we’re hep,” Sylvia said with a smile.
“Although I haven’t seen Barney play with eyeballs.”

“That’s only done in smoke-filled back
rooms,” I said. “There are four rules for winning at nim.” A small
blackboard was attached to one wall. Picking up a piece of chalk, I
wrote, “1. Always let your opponent start.”

“Why should it matter who starts?” Natalie
asked.

I hadn’t expected questioning of such a
simple rule. “Because if you start, you will lose. Like Joe did
yesterday.”

“Nat, let him talk,” Sylvia said, with a
laugh. “If his rules don’t work, we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Have you ever seen Barney start a game?” I
asked.

They shook their heads.

“Bingo.” I wrote, “2. IF your opponent starts
by removing one piece from a row, THEN remove one piece from any
other row.”

I looked at them both. No objections were
forthcoming. They were both writing. Good students, taking notes.
Maybe I should be a teacher. Ha. I chalked rule three on the board:
“3. IF #2 occurs AND your opponent continues by taking one piece
from either of the remaining two rows, THEN remove one piece from
the last untouched row.”

The rules were getting more complicated. The
last rule was multi-part and contained a list of all the positions
that a player could leave and win. I put it on the board and they
dutifully copied all the combinations. Did they understand? The
proof, of course, was in the execution. We needed to play some
practice games. I was sure Sylvia would catch on quickly. I wasn’t
so sure about Natalie. And I gathered that she was the important
one.

I pulled whatever coins I had out of my
pocket. When I explained what I was doing, Sylvia and Natalie took
coins from small purses. Together we came up with sixteen coins.
“Keep track of what you put into the pot,” I said. That money
represented a number of lunches. I arranged the coins on the shelf
in front of the makeup mirror. “Who wants to play?” I asked.

“Nat, you play,” Sylvia said, confirming my
suspicions.

“Gary, I am going to let you start,” Natalie
said, giving me her most brilliant smile.

I doubted that any boy could withstand that
approach. At least she had Rule One down pat. And I enjoyed sitting
beside her where I could look at her, smell her clean scent, with
our arms touching at times. However, she played slowly, reading
from her notes and asking questions.

After watching her for a while, Sylvia said,
“When you play Barney, you can’t use notes, and Gary isn’t going to
be there to prompt you.”

“I’ll get it,” Natalie said, irritated. “I
just need a little practice.”

“We’d better come back here tomorrow
morning,” Sylvia said, looking at her watch. “Gary, are you okay
with that?”

“I really appreciate you helping me,” Natalie
cooed.

I was okay with it. I said, trying to sound
casual, “Why do you want to beat Barney so badly?”

Sylvia and Natalie looked at each other.
Natalie said, “You have a right to know. Everyone else in the
school knows. Barney humiliated me.”

“She challenged him to a game last May and
lost,” Sylvia said.

That wasn’t the smartest play of the century.
“May I ask why you did that?”

“Because he was always taunting me…”

“Barney is hot for her bod,” Sylvia said,
“and she won’t give him the time of day. He doesn’t like being
ignored. So he got on her back until she agreed to play him. And he
got even with her.”

“He made me run around the school naked,”
Natalie said.

So that’s where that came from.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Natalie said. “He didn’t
specify a time, so I did it at night. And he didn’t say I couldn’t
wear shoes. Only a few people were there, and most of them were
girls. And I can run fast.”

“I would have been your bodyguard,” I said,
before I could stop myself.

Both girls smiled and Sylvia said, “I’ll bet
you would.”

This kind of happening was beyond my teenage
experience. Maybe I had been missing out on life. Or maybe there
weren’t any girls like Natalie at Atherton. There certainly weren’t
any in the looks department. She didn’t seem to have suffered any
psychological damage from her humiliation, but there was definitely
bad blood between her and Barney. And I could get in good with her
by helping her beat him. She was on Sylvia’s list, but I had my own
reasons.

“Everything that transpires within this room
has to be kept secret,” Sylvia said, looking at us.

We nodded in agreement. A few more secrets
wouldn’t matter. I was already waist-deep in secrets, including the
one with Dr. Graves, caught in a web of intrigue I hadn’t imagined
a week ago.

“And you two don’t know each other, at least
not yet.”

More nods. It was important that Barney
didn’t catch on to what we were hatching, but in addition, I didn’t
think Joe would like Natalie being holed up with me.

I asked, “Did Joe beat up Barney or
something?”

Natalie said, “I wasn’t going with Joe when I
played Barney. I-I wasn’t going with anyone. I didn’t have a white
knight to protect me. But I got myself into this mess. And with
your help, I’ll get even, myself.”

Sylvia put out her hand and said, “Everybody
swear to keep these meetings secret.”

I placed my hand on top of hers. Natalie
placed her hand on top of mine. It was exciting to have a secret
with the most powerful girl and the most beautiful girl in the
school. Until I remembered that I was the school stool pigeon. Dr.
Graves had seen to that. Well, I wouldn’t tell him everything about
Sylvia. And I hoped he wouldn’t find out that I was withholding
information.

“We’ll leave separately,” Sylvia said. “Gary,
you go first. Make sure nobody is looking when you exit the
auditorium.”

CHAPTER 5

I went through the lunch line, paid my money
to Dolores, the cashier, noted that her sweater of the day was
black, and wondered for the second time in as many days what it
would feel like to touch said sweater. I quickly tried to banish
this thought from my head, before it became obvious to everybody
what I was thinking, and wondered where I should sit today.

As I hesitated, a boy who had gone through
the line behind me caught up to me and said, “Aren’t you Gary?”
When I admitted as much, he said, “I’m your cousin.”

I almost blurted out that my cousin was dead.
Then I realized who he was. He certainly didn’t look like a cousin.
He was shorter than I was and stockier. Not in an athletic way but
in a pudgy way. He did have a somewhat pronounced nose, as I did.
His hair was light brown, like mine, although a little longer. He
had an English accent.

“I’m Edward Drucquer—Ed,” he said. “Sit with
me and I’ll explain.”

As an athletic upperclassman, I could hold my
tray with one hand, so I released my right hand to offer to shake
hands with him. However, he continued to grip his tray with two
hands, apparently not having enough confidence in his strength. I
followed him to an empty section of a table, and we sat down,
side-by-side. His clothes looked somewhat shabby. His flannel shirt
was frayed at the cuffs. His corduroy pants had signs of wear at
the pockets.

While he was opening his milk carton and
inserting a straw, he said, “Your Aunt Dorothy told my father that
you were transferring here. Since I pretty much know everybody in
the senior class, you stuck out like a fox in a chicken coop.”

Because of his accent, I had to strain to
understand him, especially over the hubbub caused by students
talking and shouting and the jukebox belting out the nonsensical
lyrics to “Sh-Boom.”

“Are you a senior?” I asked, before I
remembered that he had been a sophomore last year.

“No, I’m a junior. But I’m the editor of the
Carter High Bulldog. So I talk to a lot of people.”

That was the name of the school newspaper, as
I had found out from Sylvia. Since we were Carter High and our
nickname was the Bulldogs, it made sense to call the newspaper the
Carter High Bulldog. To some people, anyway. He must be pretty good
if he was editor of the school paper as a junior. I jacked him up a
notch on my first-impression scale.

While I digested this information, Ed ate a
couple of bites of his sloppy joe burger and then said, with a
smile, “I hear you got expelled from Atherton.”

I cringed and quickly looked around to see if
anybody else was within earshot. Couldn’t anything be kept
secret?

He saw my reaction and said, “Sorry. I guess
I put my foot in my mouth. And I don’t want to get started on the
wrong foot with you.” He chuckled.

To get off this subject, I said, “How are we
related?”

“Well, my last name is Drucquer. Does that
ring a bell?”

I thought about the name for the first time.
Then I remembered. “My grandmother’s maiden name was Drucquer.”

“Right. Our two sides of the family were
separated for over seventy years. Your ancestor, Thomas Drucquer,
came across the pond from London to the U.S. in 1881.”

“The pond?”

“Sorry. The Atlantic Ocean.”

“My grandmother was born in this
country.”

“In 1883, to be precise. My family only made
it here two years ago, as you can tell from my accent. My father
took an interest in genealogy and found out about your ancestor who
had come over. Everybody on our side of the family had forgotten
about him. Probably because he was drummed out of the family when
he left.

“Well, there was some contact. Dad found
letters from him that had been written to his cousin in England—my
great grandfather. Thomas said he was living on a farm in Carter.
When my parents decided to come over, they came to Carter because
it sounded like a good place to live.”

“Based on seventy-year-old letters?”

“You’re right; my parents are a little naïve.
Anyway, about a year ago we found out that the descendants of
Thomas were still living on the farm. I knew Ralph for a year
before I realized that he was my cousin.”

“I wasn’t at Ralph’s funeral,” I said. “I was
sick.”

“I know. But I got to meet the rest of your
family.”

“Ralph was my first cousin. But you…”

“My father said that Ralph and I are fourth
cousins. That is, we are three more generations removed from our
common ancestor than you and Ralph. I assume that means you and I
are also fourth cousins.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Apparently, Ed
had known Ralph quite well. “I’ve been trying to find more out
about how…Ralph died. All I know is what my dad has told me, which
isn’t much. I did see the obituaries in the Buffalo Express and the
Carter Press, but they weren’t exactly fountains of information,
either.”

Ed looked solemn. “Poor Ralph. That was a
tragedy. Because there were no witnesses, nobody knows exactly what
happened. But I have a theory.”

“I’m ready to listen to anything.”

“On the fatal afternoon, there was an
assembly. The whole student body gathered in the auditorium for a
talk by somebody forgettable, and when it ended, we were supposed
to return to class. Ralph cut his class. He obviously went back
into the auditorium or, perhaps, he never left.”

“So he couldn’t have been drinking or
something like that.”

“Of course not. It was right in the middle of
the school day. Okay, so Ralph was on the football team, and
football players have been known to hoist a pint, but nothing like
that happens during school hours. No, I believe Ralph was
despondent because he and Ruthie—she was his girlfriend—were
breaking up.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me. We’re friends.”

“Are you saying that Ralph jumped off the
balcony?”

“Nothing that deliberate. I shouldn’t tell
you this, but you’re his cousin, and you have a right to know. But
promise you won’t breathe a word to anyone else.”

“All right. If you promise you won’t tell
anybody that I was kicked out of Atherton. Or that I’m Ralph’s
cousin.”

Ed raised his eyebrows. “If that’s the way
you want it. Ralph liked to show off. I was with him in the
auditorium one time on a lark, and he stood on his hands on the
barrier in front of the balcony seats.”

“He stood on his hands?” My stomach felt
queasy just thinking about it.

“He was very strong. And he was coordinated.
He put his weight on his hands and then he slowly raised his legs
and arched his back. Although I almost vomited when I saw him do
it, he was in such complete control of his body that it wasn’t all
that dangerous.”