The Secrets of Tree Taylor Read online

  “Tree, I’d never want to upset you. You know that. I’m really—” He stopped, frowned. Then he burst out laughing. “Where on earth did you find that getup? You look like a melting candy cane.”

  I looked down at the hideous outfit sticking to my skin. Then I slugged Jack again, harder, and stormed out of the IGA.

  As I pedaled home in the rain, I shook with anger, and with something worse than anger—fear. I’d believed every word about the robbery because it would have been exactly like Jack to try to save somebody and get hurt doing it. That was the truth in his story. It could have happened. In an instant, he could have killed … or been killed.

  That was a truth I never wanted to face.

  20

  Cold Wars and Roses

  I had never been this mad at Jack. And it wasn’t just the way his prank had scared me to death. He’d changed the way I looked at things. Before, I’d never been afraid of the future, but now I understood a secret about “tomorrow,” and I blamed Jack. I knew how quickly and completely everything could change.

  Jack’s fake story had even made me confused about journalism. What if I heard a story about somebody, and then I wrote about it, thinking it was the truth. Only it wasn’t. People would believe what I wrote. They would believe me.

  At home, Dad took the lead in how we handled each other. There was no mention of our office blowup or the Kinneys. We didn’t talk about much of anything. We were polite. I told him about Jack’s fake robbery, and he almost reacted like normal Dad. But underneath the normal, I felt a chill. I wondered if that was how the Russians and Americans felt their cold war.

  I hated feeling so far away from Dad. But at least I wasn’t grounded. On the other hand, if I’d gotten to pick between a cold war and being grounded, I’d have chosen grounded.

  I knew I needed to visit Mrs. Kinney again. Only this time, I’d be prepared with more than a plate of macaroons. I wanted more background information, so I could ask her specific questions. I wished I could have talked with Sheriff Robinson, but maybe he had clued in the new sheriff before going fishing. Or maybe the new sheriff had gone to the hospital to talk to Mr. Kinney. Rumor had it that he was in St. Joseph Hospital, forty-five miles from Hamilton. It would be great to hear what Old Man Kinney had to say about the shooting. I phoned the sheriff’s office.

  Mrs. Berger answered on the first ring and reported that Officer Duper was in the office. But when he heard it was me on the phone, just a kid, he told Mrs. Berger to explain that he was much too busy to talk to a “minor.”

  The rain continued into Wednesday. I actually wished I knew a reverse rain dance to make it stop so I could get out of the house and go back to work. I couldn’t mow our lawn or the office lawn, both my chores. But I did take advantage of the time off. I wrote.

  I settled into my writing nook in the living room and opened to the writer’s quote for the day:

  If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad.

  —Lord Byron

  I thought Lord Byron really did go mad. But I might have gotten him mixed up with some other poet.

  At any rate, I was beginning to understand what he meant. My mind was a messy attic, with snippets of my interviews and different rumors jumbling in my head. The sounds of birds chirping and a gun blast mixed with human voices, all talking at the same time.

  I put pen to paper and tried to describe the DeShon house. Soon as I’d written that, I could see Mrs. DeShon. Her words came out of my head and formed on the lines of my notebook paper. And I felt a little less crazy.

  After a while, I changed gears and read the front page of the Kansas City Star. I tried to find the who, what, where, when, why, and how in each news story. I waded through a long article about leaders in Cambodia and Laos accusing the United States of sending spies into their countries, just because they were Vietnam’s neighbors.

  After that, I dug out Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and decided to reread it. Since I already knew who committed the murder, I read to learn about mysteries and getting to the truth. I paid attention to the way the detective got answers out of people.

  It was after noon when I finished writing my interview questions. Then, armed with an umbrella and a Bic, I ventured down to the Kinneys’ again. There were more puddles than road.

  This time, Mrs. Kinney opened the door before I knocked. I think she smiled, but it came and went too fast to swear to it.

  She took my dripping umbrella and glanced around for someplace to put it. “I’ll set it in the kitchen.”

  I kicked off my muddy shoes and crossed to her rocking chair, where I spotted two finished baskets and one just started. “Wow! You definitely have to show these off at the steam engine show.” The weaving looked tight enough to hold water.

  “I don’t know about that,” she said as she came in from the kitchen. She picked up the yellow basket. “But I think I got it right with this here one. My grandma used to make Easter baskets like she learnt from her ma. She was a Dodge, like me before I married. I read a book on where names come from. Dodge started from a fella in Gloucestershire in 1206. That’s in England. Right close to Wales. I used to dream about going there.”

  I took the basket from her. “This is so cool.” The bottom was a scooped-out coconut, but the top had straw woven together.

  We took our usual seats. Rain pounded the roof. “I’m starting to hate rain,” I said.

  “Don’t move to Cherrapunji. Or Waialeale.”

  “Huh?”

  “Rains five hundred inches a year in Cherrapunji, India. Waialeale’s in Hawaii.” She pronounced it “Hawai-ya.” “Rains three hundred thirty-five days a year there.” She said this while rocking and looking at her feet instead of at me. I got the feeling Mrs. Kinney wasn’t used to talking to kids. And maybe not to grown-ups, either. In a way, she reminded me of Penny.

  “Have you been to India and Hawaii?” I asked.

  “Me? I’ve barely been to Hamilton.” She rocked a few times, still studying her shoes. “But I dream about going to Hawai-ya.”

  “It sounds beautiful.” I put my hand into my pocket, where I’d stuck my notes with the questions I wanted to ask her. Only I couldn’t figure out how to get from Hawaii to the shooting.

  “You ought to go there,” she said. “To Hawai-ya. You being a writer and all. They got some good newspapers. The Hawaii Tribune Herald started a new weekly for the Kona District just last year. That’s on the Big Island, where Captain James Cook was killed in 1779.”

  “I’m not a writer yet,” I said, probably blushing but liking the way she called me one.

  We sat in silence, the only noise the squeak, creak of her rocker.

  “You sure know a lot of facts,” I said, trying to get us talking again. “I have trouble remembering dates and numbers. Dad remembers everything, except where he left his hat. He has a memory system. How do you remember all those facts and numbers, Mrs. Kinney?” Dad would love her weird facts. I wondered if she’d given him any.

  She frowned and let her rocker ease to a stop. “I reckon remembering them facts is better than remembering things best forgot.” She glanced over at the coffee table.

  The flimsy table was marred by a dozen drink rings. My mom would have killed Eileen and me for not using coasters. In the center sat a clear globe of a bowl. Rose petals floated on top of the clear water. They looked totally out of place in the gray room, like Dorothy’s ruby slippers in a drab and barren Kansas.

  “Are the roses from your bushes?” I asked.

  “I got no more roses,” she said. And that’s when I remembered what Mrs. DeShon said about Mr. Kinney yanking out the roses in a fit of temper. “Somebody brought these here for Alfred. But I like them where they are.”

  We stared at the petals.

  “Do you miss him, Mrs. Kinney?” It was the first real question I’d asked about her husband. And it wasn’t even on my list. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

  “I don’t mind the aski
n’.” She seemed to be considering her answer, though. Finally, she said, “His absence is duly noted. That’s a true thing, that is.”

  21

  Pedal to the Metal

  Since the non-incident at the IGA, Jack had phoned me a dozen times. I had Eileen and Mom tell him I was still too mad at him for scaring me. But the truth was, as Mrs. Kinney put it, Jack’s absence was duly noted.

  Somehow, Jack managed to sneak two “anonymous” notes into my bike basket:

  Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.—C. S. Lewis

  The second came from Walter Winchell, the voice of news radio:

  A friend is one who walks in when others walk out.

  I had to admit the quotes weren’t bad.

  Just after supper the phone rang, and I forgot and answered it myself. “Hello?” We were supposed to say, “Taylor residence,” in case it was a patient for Dad. But I forgot that too, like I did most of the time.

  “Good. Tree, don’t hang up,” Jack said. “I know you’re mad at me. But how would you like me to give you a driving lesson?”

  I didn’t answer. But I didn’t hang up. I’d been after Jack—and Eileen and Mom and Dad—to teach me to drive. We wouldn’t get to take driver’s ed until sophomore year, but I didn’t want to wait till then to get the feel of the wheel. Sarah had been driving trucks and tractors all over her farm since she was ten.

  “Just think, Tree,” Jack continued. “It will give you a chance to yell at me face to face.”

  “That’s true,” I conceded. “And you’re going to let me drive Fred?”

  “Fred is willing. I can be there in ten minutes.”

  “Five,” I said, just to be contrary.

  “Deal.”

  I changed into jeans and a clean red T-shirt and ran a brush through my hair. Five minutes later, Jack pulled up. Mom and Dad were playing croquet in the side yard.

  I dashed out of the house and waved to them. The rain had stopped for good, and our dry ground had soaked up most of it. Sunshine burst through wisps of clouds as the sun made a grand appearance before setting. “Going for a drive with Jack!” I shouted to my parents.

  They waved back at me.

  I slid in and stared straight ahead.

  “Before you officially have a cow,” Jack began, “I’ve got to say that I’m not the one you should be mad at.” He pulled onto the road. “This was Donna’s fault, Tree, and you know it. Still, I’m sorry you flipped out.” He reached across the gearshift and tapped my shoulder about where I’d slugged his shoulder. “I’d have done the same for you.”

  He rolled along at a snail’s pace, neither of us saying anything. I’d already come to the same conclusion. If Donna hadn’t bugged him for gossip, or if she hadn’t called the whole town, none of it would have happened.

  “So,” I said, “are we going to talk all night or drive? Punch it! Pedal to the metal!”

  Jack grinned. So did I.

  I wished Dad and I could get over things the way Jack and I always did.

  “First, there’s something I want you to see.” Jack turned onto Main Street. When he got to the bank, he slowed down.

  “What?” I didn’t see anything.

  He tilted his head toward the bank, motioning me to look up.

  Then I saw it. On the roof sat a sign, like a stop sign, only white. I couldn’t read it from where I sat. “What’s it say?”

  “Haven’t you seen our new police officer’s specially made parking sign? It says, ‘For police department vehicles only, by order of Officer Duper.’ ”

  “No way!”

  “The guy hadn’t been here twenty-four hours when he brought out that sign. He moves it from the sheriff’s office, where nobody ever parks anyway, to the café, where spots can fill on a Sunday after church. Wherever Duper goes, it goes.”

  “So you moved it to the top of the bank?” I was trying hard not to laugh.

  “Did I say that? I just thought it looked cool up there, and I wanted to show my best buddy how Hamilton welcomed the new fuzz.”

  I filled Jack in on my visits to the Kinney place and how I hadn’t gotten much for my article but that Mrs. Kinney made cool baskets and knew weird facts about places she dreamed of going. I told him what Randy Ridings said about letting me write something for the Hamiltonian. Jack filled me in on how the IGA had returned to normal—boring. And how Donna had taken him seriously and was making a Jesse James getup for the steam engine show, and how he didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d been kidding, especially after the IGA disaster.

  Jack drove to the reservoir outside city limits. It was the perfect place for a driving lesson, although the sun had already gone down, making it harder to see. The reservoir looked like a mini-lake, with winding trails around it. Hardly anybody ever drove out there.

  “Do you remember when our dads used to bring us out here to the spillway?” I asked. A concrete slope directed water down so the reservoir wouldn’t overflow. We used it as a water slide.

  “That was the best place to cool off before they built the pool,” Jack said. “I haven’t thought about the spillway for years. Wonder why we stopped coming.”

  “Don’t you remember? Water moccasins. One slid right over my leg.” We’d seen black snakes and king snakes at the reservoir. But water moccasins are poisonous.

  “Man, I can’t believe I forgot that! Eileen screamed louder than you did. I thought I’d never get over seeing that snake wiggle over your leg.” He shivered.

  “Tell me about it.” I could almost feel that slimy snake on my leg again. For a second, I flashed back to Jack and the imaginary robber, and how things could change in an instant, and what if that water moccasin had opened its mouth and sunk its fangs into my leg.

  Jack stopped the car and turned off the engine. “Your turn.” He walked around the front of the car.

  I scooted over and let Jack take the suicide seat. “One question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why do they call where you’re sitting the ‘suicide seat’?”

  “Yeah, well, it’s also called ‘riding shotgun.’ So shut your face and drive.”

  We moved the seat up. I had no trouble starting the engine. But I was concentrating so hard on the little diagram on the gearshift that I forgot about the clutch. The car shrieked when I tried to put it in gear. “Sorry,” I told Jack. Or Fred.

  Finally, I got the car into first without killing it. We jerked forward. Then rolled ahead. But just when I was getting used to first, Jack told me to shift to second. And the whole mess started all over again.

  Half an hour later, we’d both had enough. We swapped seats, and Jack started the engine.

  “Thanks, Jack. I hope I didn’t hurt Fred.” I patted the dashboard. “Do you think I’ll ever get my driver’s license?”

  “In your lifetime?”

  “Funny,” I said, not smiling. I rolled down the window. Music came in with the breeze. “Do you hear that?” I strained to make out the song. “That’s Jan and Dean, or we’re not Jack and Tree.”

  “Cool!” Jack cried. “And it’s not even Saturday.” He looked over at me, and his grin widened. “You feel like dancing, Tree?”

  “Always.”

  He spun Fred around and drove up the hill to the other side of the reservoir.

  Just over the hill I spotted a circle of lights, like an alien spaceship. The music grew louder the closer we got to the lights. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Tree Taylor, I think it’s about time I let you in on a secret.”

  22

  Rock-’n’-Roll!

  A dozen cars were parked in a circle, front ends pointing in, forming a big round grass dance floor in the center. Each car had the windows open and the radio tuned to WHB, Kansas City’s rock station. “Surf City” blared out of every speaker while couples danced in a ring of headlights.

  Jack pulled Fre
d into the circle and turned off the engine, but not all the way, so he could play his radio too. The dial was already on 710, so our Jan and Dean joined everybody else’s.

  “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” I exclaimed. I knew the dancers, kids from Jack’s class, and Eileen’s. The guys wore jeans and T-shirts. But the girls were dressed cool—full skirts, some housing even fuller petticoats underneath, sleeveless tops with big buttons and wide belts.

  Several of the kids waved at us—well, at Jack.

  “Ready?” he asked, one hand on the door latch. The song ended, and the DJ cut in with something about Dick’s Used Cars in Liberty, Missouri.

  “Wait. I can’t dance in front of all these people.”

  Liz Cavenaugh had on a red skirt with a hidden pleat in front and back, exactly like the one Eileen told Mom I’d look good in. Her red sneakers matched the skirt. I glanced down at my old jeans and my plain T-shirt. And why had I worn my yellow rubber flip-flops?

  Liz and her boyfriend, Kent, jogged up to Jack’s window. They were holding hands and didn’t let go, even when Kent leaned in. His gaze rested on me. “You robbin’ the cradle these days, Jack?”

  I wanted to disappear under the floorboard.

  But Jack came to the rescue. “Tree could dance the socks off all of you. I was lucky to get her to agree to have me as a dance partner.”

  Kent frowned at me. “Right, man.”

  I had no business being here. I stared out the windshield, hoping to see at least one person from my class. “Wait a minute. Jack, is that Butch? And Laura?”

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard about Butch and Laura, but seeing them together creeped me out. Butch Hamlet was the only guy my sister had ever dated seriously. Eileen was the prettiest girl in her class, and everybody loved her. But she never went out with anybody more than once or twice.

  Except for Butch. She’d had a crush on him since grade school. Last year they started going together. He made it official—gave her his class ring and told her they were going steady.