The Red Blazer Girls (19 page)

Mom sticks her head in my room, her hand over the phone. “Are you here for Rafael?”

I shake my head. “Tell him I'm working on an assignment that I
have
to get done.”

“Why can't
you
tell him?” She pushes the phone toward me.

I back away from her like the receiver is radioactive. “Mom. Please.”

She talks to Raf for a minute and then comes back and stands in my doorway. “Everything okay, Sophie?”

I play dumb. “Of course. Why?”

“You seem a little … are you mad at Rafael?”

I will the blood out of my face. “I'm just busy. I have a lot of homework.”

“Nothing you want to talk to me about?”

“I'm fine.” I open my math book and pretend to study.

“Well, when you change your mind, I'm here.”

Ten minutes later, the phone rings again.

“Are you here for Margaret?”

“Yes!”

Mom grumbles something about how I'm not even a teenager yet and “it's already starting.”

Margaret has just gotten off the phone with Raf. “He said he called and you wouldn't talk to him. He sounded a little sad, if that makes you feel better.”

“I told my mom to tell him I was doing homework. You didn't say anything, did you?”

“No, but, Sophie, I bet he
likes
you. I've been thinking about it. The phone calls, the museum, Perkatory, your apartment—he didn't have to stick around for all that.”

“Maybe. Now explain his call to Leigh Ann.”

“I can't.”

“So what should I do?”

“Well, this isn't exactly my area of expertise. Now, if this were, say, the early 1800s, and you were the
haughty daughter of a country gentleman who was cheated out of his inheritance by his younger brother, and Raf was a dashing colonel in the British Army, just returned from service in India,
then
I'd be able to tell you exactly what to do.”

“Oh, don't give me all that Jane Austen stuff. You've seen just as many cheesy teen romances as I have,” I say.

That makes her laugh; she knows it is true. Margaret is not-so-secretly addicted to reruns of
Dawson's Creek
. “Officially, I have no idea what you're talking about. You've obviously confused me with one of your less stunningly sophisticated friends.”

“That must be it.”

“It's all going to work out, Soph.”

“Don't say that! That's what parents
always
say, and
it never
works out.”

We make our plans for an early-morning stop at Perkatory and then hang up. Five seconds later, the phone rings yet again. I take a deep breath and answer.

“Charge your cell phone!” Margaret shrieks. Click!

I had the strangest dream last night. Raf and I were on a date, but it was like something from the fifties. (Apparently, I really have seen
Grease
way too many times.) He was driving me home in this awesome Chevy convertible with his arm casually draped over my shoulder, the wind blowing through his hair. I couldn't take
my eyes off him. One second we're going down this country road in the middle of nowhere, and then all of sudden we're at the awning outside my apartment building. He opens the car door and takes my hand, and for a few seconds, we just stand there. He is just about to kiss me when I look in the backseat of the car and see Leigh Ann. She looks up at me and smiles.
Bam!
I wake up.

In the morning, we walk to school in a downpour of biblical proportions and arrive at Perkatory at seven, utterly soaked. Mr. Eliot is there, in his usual place with his usual coffee,
pain au chocolat
, and copy of the
Times
. He pretends to have a heart attack when he sees me. The guy's a regular riot—just ask him!

“You'll be happy to know that we were right about the clue with the names,” says Margaret. “There was a Dr. Richard
Esther
.”

“The fifth clue mentions something about a dumb ox,” I say, taking a huge bite of chocolate chip muffin.

“
A
dumb ox, or
the
dumb ox?”

“Ahgrowno,” I mumble. Mmmm …
really
good muffin.

Margaret looks at the slip of paper. “It says ‘use your left ear to listen
very
closely to the words of
the
dumb ox.’”

“‘Dumb ox’ is somebody's nickname. Somebody important. A saint, I think. Ignatius Loyola? No, that's not it. Becket? Ask me later. I'm sure I'll remember. It's right on the tip of my tongue.”

“How about Thomas Aquinas?” I ask. “You know, like the school where Raf goes.”

“That's it!” Mr. Eliot practically jumps out of his seat.

“You knew all along, didn't you?” Margaret says, to which Mr. Eliot slyly grins.

“Are you serious?” I say, taking another bite of muffin. “I was right? I don't even know who he is. I was just thinking about—I mean, who is he, anyway?”

Mr. Eliot sounds like an encyclopedia entry. “Thirteenth-century Italy. Philosopher. Saint. Despite the nickname, a huge intellectual. Wrote the
Summa Theologica
, one of the most influential books of all time, basically a summary of the reasoning of the Catholic Church. Some light reading for your to-do list, Margaret.”

“If he was so smart, why was he called the dumb ox?”

“When he was in school, he was bigger than the other kids and must have seemed kind of slow. There's a famous anecdote about it. Somebody said that they could call Thomas a dumb ox, but that one day his bellowing would fill the world.”

A smile spreads over Margaret's brainy face. “I
know where he is. Come on, Mr. Eliot. We might need your help.”

He eyes his coffee, his pastry, his paper. And then he sighs. “Oh, why not.”

The church is even quieter—and darker—than usual. Other than a young (and sort of cute) priest, who at first I mistake for an altar boy, and Mr. Winterbottom, who could
never
be mistaken for a boy of any kind, we are the only people inside. Every sound we make seems amplified by the echoing emptiness. I note Mr. Winterbottom making his rounds, lighting candles and straightening the chairs on the altar for the seven-thirty Mass. He just nods and smiles at us as we pass.

The left side of St. Veronica's has a series of chapels where people can light candles or pray or just hang out near statues of their favorite saints. A statue of St. Thomas Aquinas, Mr. Not-So-Dumb Ox himself, stands in one of those chapels, cordoned off from the rest of the church by iron bars. But the thing is, there's a slight problem. Old Tom is about five feet tall and he's set into a hollowed-out space in the wall a few feet off the ground, so his head is like nine or ten feet up. We'll need a chair to reach him, but this is pew-ville, so we are going to have to improvise. The good news is once inside the chapel, we are out of sight range of our pal the security guard. And amazingly, Mr. Eliot turns out to be invaluable, as well as structurally sound. He kneels down
so Margaret can use him as a stepping stool, and I help keep her steady when I'm not losing it at the sight of Margaret standing on my English teacher's back. Two questions: how
did
Professor Harriman ever place this clue, and how did he expect Caroline to get it?

“St. Pete, next time
you
get to be the stepping stool,” Mr. Eliot grunts. “Okay, Margaret, now that you're up there—do you have a plan?”

“More or less,” she says, struggling to maintain her balance. “Give me a second. I need to turn a little so that I can—”

“Margaret, what
are
you doing?” She has her left ear pressed against St. Thomas Aquinas's mouth and is staring straight ahead at the place where the curved wall of the niche meets the straight marble wall of the chapel.

“I think I see it. When I put my left ear against his mouth like this, like I'm listening closely to his words, my face is pointed straight ahead. I'm looking right at a narrow gap.” She feels along the edge of the marble tile, her forehead creased with concentration.

“Boy, she is an intense little thing, isn't she?” whispers Mr. Eliot.

“You have no idea.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Margaret says, never taking her eyes off the object of her determination. “I need some tweezers. I can see it—or at least I think I can—but I can't
quite
reach it. Maybe if my fingernails were a little longer.”

“Don't look at me,” I say. Between the guitar and a lifelong habit of biting, my fingernails are a disaster.

“I have tweezers,” says Mr. E.

He does?

He reaches into his bag—a ratty-looking green messenger bag—feels around for a few seconds, and finally pulls out a miniature Swiss Army knife. Then, to the anxiety-producing accompaniment of approaching footsteps, he hands Margaret the tiniest pair of tweezers I have ever seen—no more than an inch long. “Will these work?”

Margaret nods confidently, then waits for the footsteps to pass by. I peek out the door of the chapel and see an old woman in a babushka take a seat in a pew near the front of the church. The priest and Mr. Winter bottom are nowhere in sight. “Everything okay out there?” she asks.

“Yeah, you're good.” And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see him: the cute young priest we had seen when we came in, about ten yards away and closing in fast. “Behind the statue—quick!” I hiss. “Against the wall. Hide!”

“Good morning, everyone.” The priest (slightly taller than a hobbit, and nearly as cheerful) greets Mr. Eliot and me but misses seeing Margaret, who squeezes into the niche and crams herself in the best she can behind good old St. Thomas A. “Oh, I thought there were three of you.”

Mr. Eliot points vaguely in the direction of the other side of the church. “Our third is around here somewhere. We're just admiring some of the artwork.”

“Ah, yes, the church does have quite an impressive collection.” He reaches his hand out to Mr. Eliot. “I'm Father Julian. I'm new here at St. Veronica's.”

Mr. Eliot shakes his hand. “George Eliot. I teach over at the school.”

“A pleasure. Can I give you a hand with anything?”

“No, thank you. We're just about done. The girls had asked about Thomas Aquinas a few days ago, and when I ran into them at the coffee shop this morning, I figured I'd bring them by for a quick look.”

“Well, if you change your mind—or if you can't find your friend—let me know.” With an odd smile, he turns and hobbit-walks away.

As soon as I turn around, I know what he was smiling at. Margaret's shoes, which she had taken off when she climbed up onto the ledge, are sitting right in the middle of the floor, between Mr. Eliot and me. And her feet, in her bright red socks, are ridiculously visible right next to St. Thomas's.

“Oh my God. He knew! And he didn't say anything.”

“Knew what?” asks Margaret.

“Exactly where you are,” Mr. E laughs.

“Are we gonna get in trouble?”

“Apparently not. I think Father Julian is, as you would say, ‘way cool.’ But let's not push our luck. Finish up, Margaret, and get down from there before anyone else comes in. I'd really prefer to not get arrested for such an odd violation.”

Margaret goes right back to work with the tweezers, and a few moments later she holds up a folded piece of paper:

“Oh my gosh,” Margaret says. “This one really
is
too easy. Sophie, you get it too, right?” She is jumping up and down with excitement while Mr. E and I stare at the piece of paper, waiting for the answer.

He looks at me. “I'm stumped. This makes sense to you?”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “Does this have anything to do with that painting that we looked at—the very first day we started looking around the church, before we even met Ms. Harriman?”

“It has
everything
to do with it.” She grabs me by the arm and starts pulling. “C'mon, you guys. Other side of the church. We have to hurry; Mass starts in five minutes.”

We run to the far side of the church, stopping in front of the painting that marks the sixth Station of the Cross:
Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
.