The Lost Treasure of Tuckernuck (11 page)

Bud just nodded. “She said I had a voice like an angel.”

Laurie managed to keep a straight face for a whole minute before she lost it again. Bud lasted two.

Laurie waited until Mrs. Madison was busy making dinner to sneak downstairs and fire up the old Casio keyboard taking up space in the rec room. Bud had torn off the bottom part of the music paper and copied the notes onto it for her while they waited for the late bus. After a quick check to make sure Jack wasn't lurking around anywhere with a smart remark at the ready, she propped the (now grubby-looking) piece of paper in front of the keyboard and softly tried to pick out the notes. But it was no use. It wasn't coming back to her like she'd hoped it would. She'd only gotten through three of them when Mr. Madison stuck his head into the room. And she wasn't even sure those three were right.

Laurie cursed silently to herself. She hadn't realized her dad was home yet. He was even worse than her mom.

“What's up, Laurie?” he said hopefully.

She quickly snatched her fingers away from the keyboard. “Nothing much.” She tried not to look at the paper propped up on the table. Mr. Madison didn't seem to have noticed it.

“Should I call Mrs. Rosenbaum? I know she'd love to have you back.” He gave a tentative smile. Mr. Madison brought out the keyboard an average of once a year in the hopes of luring Laurie back into piano lessons. So far it hadn't worked. It would've had a better chance if he'd stopped playing the Mrs. Rosenbaum card.

Mrs. Rosenbaum was Laurie's piano teacher from first grade. She lived down the street with six cats, more afghan throws and doilies than any one person should ever have, and a ruler, which she liked to use to whack people on the knuckles when they got their fingering wrong. Laurie flexed her fingers at the memory. She'd gotten her fingering wrong a lot.

“That's okay. I was just messing around. No big deal.”

Mr. Madison came farther into the room and put his hands in his pockets. “Anything in particular?”

“Just …” Laurie leaned back, carefully crumpling the piece of paper in her fist behind her back. “I just was trying to remember how the fight song went. Just the main part.”

“Aha! Tuckernuck Cluckers.” Mr. Madison grinned. “I could tell you were getting more settled at that school. Let's see if I remember.”

He bent over the keyboard and, with a flourish, played the Tuckernuck Cluckers fight song from beginning to end. Complete with singing and heartfelt clucking.

Laurie clucked along, but her heart wasn't in it. She didn't know what song was on that piece of paper, but it definitely wasn't what her dad was playing.

Bud threw his books on the table in the entryway and snuck into the formal living room, cringing at the noise his feet made on the plastic rug protectors. His mother's old piano was there, but Bud hadn't heard anyone play it in ages. He hoped it was still in tune. He was just sitting down at the piano bench when his dad came through the front door.

Bud jumped guiltily to his feet. He wished he'd thought to bring one of his schoolbooks along as a decoy, just in case.

Mr. Wallace stopped and looked at Bud for a long minute before putting his briefcase on the floor next to the table. “Playing the piano?”

“No, just dusting. Tidying up.” Bud cringed inwardly at how dumb that sounded. “I'm sorry.”

Mr. Wallace nodded. “That's your mother's piano.” He rubbed the edge of it lightly. “No one plays it anymore.”

“I was just taking a break. I wasn't playing it,” Bud said, pushing the bench back in. “Gotta hit the books, right?”

Mr. Wallace nodded slowly and patted Bud on the back as he hurried upstairs.

Bud made a new entry on his list of goals when he got upstairs. Figuring out that song had a new place at number one.

EMAIL

FROM: PRINCIPAL MARTIN WINKLE, Tuckernuck Hall

TO: SAVE TUCKERNUCK ALUMNI ORGANIZATION

SUBJECT: SAVE TUCKERNUCK RALLY

I wanted to let you all know how much I appreciate the Save Tuckernuck Hall rally scheduled later this week. I'm afraid the school board president is going to take some convincing before he agrees to keep Tuckernuck open, and I'm hoping this rally will do the trick.

Keep clucking!

Marty

Bud raced from the bus to the music room in the morning. He figured he'd take five minutes, figure out the song, and look pretty impressive when he had all the answers at lunch.

Too bad the music room was locked when he got there. And too bad Laurie had had the same idea. She was sitting in front of the door doing her math homework when Bud showed up.

“No dice,” she said, hardly looking up. “It's locked. And I don't even know if Miss Downey has a first period.”

Bud groaned. “We've got to figure it out!”

“Well, it's not the fight song, I can tell you that much.”

Bud couldn't believe it. How the heck did she know? “What? Are you sure?”

Laurie nodded. “My dad played it last night. It's not the same at all. Not enough notes.”

Bud sat down next to her. “Shoot. Well, we can figure it out anyway. I think I can figure out how it goes. We'll do it as soon as they unlock the door.”

“Hi, guys. Miss Downey doesn't have a homeroom. What are you doing?”

Bud and Laurie looked up to see Calliope Judkin coming toward them. She was smiling, but her eyes were narrow and suspicious.

“Or we'll do it at lunch,” Bud muttered, standing up. “Just leaving is what I was doing, Calliope. See you.” He stalked off down the hallway. He didn't know what Calliope's issue was, following him around like that. There was only one explanation, as far as he could see. She must like him. He shook his head. Poor kid. Hard to blame her.

Laurie ignored Calliope's stare and continued working on her math homework. Or at least she pretended to, by writing down random numbers. It was impossible to concentrate with Calliope's eyes boring into her skull like that. She just hoped Mr. Mercado didn't collect the homework today.

“You two sure are spending a lot of time together these days,” Calliope said. “You and Bud Wallace. Nice of you to be friends with the class outcast.” She was trying to act casual and conversational, but Laurie knew better.

“We're working on a project, Calliope. We're not friends. It's a thing,” Laurie said into her textbook. Unfortunately, that explanation didn't work as well on Calliope as it did on Misti.

“A thing? What kind of thing? For what class?”

“We're both Gerbil Monitors, okay?” Laurie said, slamming her book shut and standing up. “It's gerbil business. You wouldn't understand.” She shoved her book into her backpack and headed off down the hallway, hoping Calliope wouldn't think too hard about what she'd just said. Because gerbil business totally didn't make sense. It wasn't like Ponch and Jon were starting a band and needed managers or something. Laurie wished she was better with the snappy comebacks.

Thankfully, Calliope didn't say anything. She just took out a small notebook and made a careful notation inside.

Possible Gerbil Monitor Projects
by Calliope Judkin

CONCLUSION:

They're lying. No possible gerbil-related project.

Note from Calliope Judkin to Secret School Contact

I know you said you didn't want a paper trail leading back to you, but I think I've uncovered something suspicious. Laurie Madison and Bud Wallace may be on to something. Possibly treasure related. I've seen them snooping around the school. I'm going to try to work my way into their confidence. I'll let you know more soon.

Calliope

Laurie and Bud chewed slowly, staring at the music in front of them. Laurie didn't even know why she was bothering to look, though—she could see the stupid notes when she closed her eyes. Even if she never found another clue, Laurie wanted to at least know what that music was before she died.

Bud squinshed up his eyes. “Maybe it's an anagram? Dec … Ged … no, that's sure not working.”

Laurie sighed. “Code. Gotta be. Right?”

“Code? Okay. Code using what? What kind of code?”

“Beats me. Geez, why can't she give us an easy one, like ‘look in the green box on the top shelf of the closet' or something.” Laurie threw down her sandwich in disgust and picked up her backpack.

Bud shrugged. “We'll figure it out. Eventually.”

Laurie snorted. Eventually was no good. She'd seen the morning's paper. If they didn't solve the clue soon, they'd never solve it. They'd be picking the treasure out of the school rubble.

Laurie nodded to Miss Lucille as she headed into the library. Bud was hopeless, so it was up to her to crack this thing. She headed over to the music section and pulled out a random book of sheet music.
Great American Songs of the Early Twentieth Century.
Perfect. She'd figure out what song that was if she had to look at every song ever written.

Laurie slid into a seat at the table near the door and looked around. Just her luck—Calliope Judkin was two tables over, watching her with narrowed eyes. Laurie gave her a grim smile. If Calliope thought she'd get any clues from Laurie, she was sorely mistaken.

Someone had left an ancient brown book lying on the chair, so she propped it open and hid the songbook inside. Then she pulled the crumpled piece of music out of her pocket and started looking for a match.

She'd definitely ruled out “You're a Grand Old Flag,” “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” and “Elephant Rag” (which she had to admit she was curious about) when she felt the back of her neck prickle. Someone else was watching her. Laurie looked up casually and did a quick scan of the library. Mr. Sanchez was grinning at her from the stacks.

Great. Laurie gave him a half wave and tried to go back to her book, but he gave her a big thumbs-up and smiled again. What the heck? Laurie looked down in confusion and lost her grip on the sheet music book. It slid down, revealing the title of the ancient brown book. Laurie groaned. Keats.

Bud didn't think he could stand the sight of one more revolutionary soldier. He'd been working on his panorama for hours, and what he really wanted to do was go get the plastic dinosaurs that his mom had given him when he was little and launch a full-scale dinosaur attack, with lots of screaming and carnage. Those puny troops wouldn't last a minute against his T-Rex. But the dinosaurs were in a box in the attic somewhere, with the rest of the stuff his dad had packed away after his mom died. After they'd had their big talk where they decided to only focus on the important things. And no matter how you cut it, T-Rex battles didn't qualify as important.

Bud flicked one of the tiny soldiers into the Plasticine river and trudged up the basement stairs.

But when he got to the top of the stairs, he stopped short. If he didn't know better, he'd think someone was playing the piano. He could hear the notes hanging in the air. But he knew that couldn't be right.

He peeked around the corner into the formal living room. His dad was standing there, staring at the piano.

Bud cleared his throat. “Dad?”

Mr. Wallace jumped a little, but he didn't turn around.

“Were you playing the piano?”

Mr. Wallace turned around and smiled at Bud. “Of course not. Don't be silly.”

“I just thought I heard …”

“A car just went by with the radio on. That must've been it. I'm sorry it upset you, Bud. It's gone now.”

Bud nodded. But it hadn't sounded like a car radio.

The phone had rung six times. Laurie was about to hang up when Kimmy finally answered. “Kimmy?”

“Laurie! Hey, sorry I haven't called you back. I meant to, I really did, but you know … school's been crazy.”

“Yeah, mine too! I really miss you!”

“Me too. Your parents are still letting you transfer, right?”

“I don't know yet.” Laurie sat down on the bed.

“What? Why? Laurie, they've got to!” Kimmy wailed. “You'd love it at Hamilton, it's so cool, did I tell you about the cafeteria? Oh, my gosh, you aren't going to believe it. They have all these different stations, okay? And you can—”

“I'm working on it, Kimmy!” Laurie interrupted. She didn't really feel like hearing about how awesome things at Hamilton were. “Hey, you know that treasure story?”

“What? Treasure? That old story? Laurie, you've got to get out of there. Look, I've gotta go, I've got this pizza study thing with Kendra. I'd invite you, but it's for Hamilton people. But I'll call soon, okay?”