I So Don't Do Mysteries Page 3

  “Oh, you will,” Dad answers.

  The next afternoon I’m leaning against the front of the giant stone saguaro cactus in the school courtyard. Like a lizard, I’m grooving on the bright sun and warm granite and the sweet smell of flowers blooming. Minding my own business. Mulling over life. I can’t help but grin at last night’s events. Junie’s parents and her aunt and uncle got the same Internet special, with the same flight and same hotel, as my dad and The Ruler. Dad and The Ruler were not impressed.

  Then I’m thinking about Josh Morton and hoping we meet up out here. Most students cross through the courtyard between classes. Next my thoughts drift to The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, which I never finished reading for English. Then I’m back to Josh and majorly daydreaming about him. He’s walking in front of me with yellow DC shoes and low-riding Dickies jeans. Wow, but he looks gorgy great. I cannot get enough of his chlorine-bleached hair. He turns, opens his amazing mouth and says—

  “Sherry!”

  I blink in surprise.

  “Sherry!” Brianna yells as she runs toward me.

  End of fantástico daydream. Enter my friend Brianna, cute-ish, dumbish, boy crazy.

  Junie trails behind Brianna, her backpack swinging over her shoulder, her face shiny.

  Brianna tucks an auburn-streaked strand of hair behind her ear. “Big, big news. Just let Junie catch up, and we’ll fill you in.”

  Junie arrives, panting.

  That girl has got to get some serious exercise. Me too. Especially before I parade around on a beach dressed only in a skimpy bikini, with Amber as competition. “What’s up?”

  “You tell her, Brianna. You were there.” Junie wipes sweat off her forehead.

  “It happened like this.” Brianna juts out a hip and grasps it. “Margo told Sara who told me that during third period Josh Morton asked Kristen if you liked video games.”

  My insides turn to mush. Josh Morton’s asking questions about me. Even after the door fiasco. Yowser.

  “Sherry.” Junie shakes my shoulder. “Earth to Sherry.”

  I feel a goofy grin stretching across my face. “I’m here.” My voice sounds dreamy. “So? What did Kristen say?”

  “ ‘I don’t know,’ ” Brianna answers.

  “What? You didn’t find out?”

  “Kristen said, ‘I don’t know.’ ” Junie pushes her glasses up her nose.

  “Oh.” I twirl my hair. “Well, send it through the grapevine that I totally kill at video games.”

  “I already did. But the big question is . . .” Brianna pauses for dramatic effect. “Will you let him win?”

  I consider the idea for about half a sec, then shake my head. “No.”

  “I knew it,” Junie says.

  Suddenly Brianna punches my upper arm. “Josh is coming this way.”

  “Say what?” I clench my teeth.

  Brianna eyebrow-telegraphs Behind you and to the left. “It’s Josh.”

  I finger-comb my hair. To no avail, I’m sure. Help.

  “Twenty feet.” Brianna flaps her hands all hyper, like we’re having the most exciting conversation the cactus statue has ever heard.

  My heart’s trying to jump out of my chest.

  “Ten feet.” Brianna laughs inanely.

  This girl better never consider acting; she’d starve. I feel a twitch over my right eye.

  “Five feet.” Brianna’s voice drops to a whisper.

  I’m going to explode with anticipation. Acting cool is out of reach.

  “Four, three, two, one. We have contact.” Brianna’s jaw hangs open. “Contact missed.” Her head swivels. “Negative one, negative two, negative three—”

  “Stop,” I say, flushing the color of Junie’s face after PE class. Josh Morton totally blew me off. In front of everyone. I’m such a loser.

  I blink back tears as he saunters over to a group of eighth graders. A girl with glittered-out hair sashays to him and drapes an arm around his waist.

  “Maybe you better let him win at video games,” Brianna says. “I’m outta here. Social studies.”

  My shoulders slump until I’m curved like a comma. “Get me to English,” I choke out to Junie. Good thing it’s the last class of the day and we sit next to each other.

  Junie takes my hand. We begin what feels like a ten-mile trek to English.

  My feet drag, heavy like The Ruler’s homemade bread. And it suddenly occurs to me that I can’t do this. How am I supposed to pull off an animated debate about a book I never finished while my spirits are lower than the grade on my last essay? I explain my position to Junie.

  She stops, tilts her head to one side and chews on her tongue, thinking. “I’ve got the solution,” she says. “Female problems.”

  “Yes.” I’d make a victory fist in the air, but I’m too weak with depression.

  She marches along, hauling me with her. “Mr. Franklin will buy it.”

  Our English teacher freaky-deaks at the mention of female problems. Just look like you’re going to say “period” and he’ll shoo you down to the nurse ASAP. And technically I am having female problems.

  Female problems of the heart.

  Carefully placing one foot in front of the other, I plod to the nurse’s office. When I get there, I drop the peach-colored pass in the mesh basket on the counter and hunch over in a plastic chair, mouth-breathing because of the gross rubbing-alcohol smell. I’m the only student around.

  The nurse strides over from her computer and plucks up my pass. “Sherlock Baldwin, what seems to be the problem?”

  “Um, um.” I’m such a bad liar.

  “Cramps?”

  “Um, sure.”

  “Let me go check your file to see if your parents okayed any over-the-counter meds.” And she disappears into the back room.

  I close my eyes. Will Midol cure a broken heart? Doubtful. But that thought opens up a whole new future career path. I’ll be a scientist who invents a pill that turns heartache into a brief bout of gas. You fart, and you’re immediately better, immediately over being dumped. I imagine myself accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in front of hordes of adoring fans. “It all started in the nurse’s office one sunny middle school day after I was cruelly rejected by Josh Morton. Who, I might add, has amounted to nothing in life. He lives in the woods, all dirty and smelly, and only comes out to beg for money. I’ll never forget what he did to me—”

  “Sherry?”

  Josh? I open my eyes. Ack. Eek. Awk.

  “What are you here for?” He stands in the doorway, a file folder under his arm.

  “Um, um, um,” I sputter.

  “You okay?”

  Do I see worry wrinkle his forehead?

  I force the words out. “Nothing”—I swallow—“contagious.”

  Scrounging-around sounds come from the back room. Please, please, please, Nurse, be a disorganized mess like me. If her file cabinet looks anything like my backpack, she won’t find my paperwork until I’m in high school.

  I force out more words. “How’s your nose?”

  “Totally fine,” he says. “The door didn’t even hit me that hard. My nose just bleeds easily.”

  I risk a joke. “So you won’t be suing?”

  He shakes his head, laughing. “Nah.”

  I’ve never heard him laugh before. It’s deeper than I expected, and I am digging it.

  “Let me drop this off with the attendance clerk.” Josh waves the folder. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.” Wow. Stomach jittery, hands sweaty, I hook my hair behind my ears and smooth out my T-shirt.

  Josh returns and slides into a chair across from me. “I hear you’re into video games,” he says.

  Did I mention how his Lake Havasu–blue eyes look electric when he gets excited? I can’t stop staring at them. It’s like I’m being sucked in.

  “There’s this boy-girl tournament Video World’s holding over spring break,” he says. “I thought we maybe could join as a team.”

  I start flo
ating out of my chair with happiness. Then reality slaps me back down hard and fast. “I can’t.” My voice comes out flat. “I’m going out of town. My dad’s getting remarried, and I’m being shipped off.”

  “Bummer.” He sounds truly disappointed.

  “To San Diego.”

  “Hey, I’m from San Diego. We go back a lot to visit family.”

  Oooooh. We’re like soul mates! “How’d you end up in Phoenix?”

  “My dad got transferred.” Josh bends down to tie his shoe. “Worked good for me. I was kinda in with a rough crowd at school there.” He straightens up and stretches out his legs.

  “Oh.” A tingle shimmies up my back. I’m crushing on a bad boy—well, a reformed bad boy. Oooooh.

  “Although I did lose a year. I should be a freshman.”

  A reformed almost-a-freshman bad boy? Oooooh!

  “Need ideas for things to do in San Diego?” Josh asks.

  “Sure.” I relax and lean back. Look at me. So cool, so Cosmo, so casually chatting with a cutie-pie guy, like I do it every day.

  He squints, thinking. “The beaches, SeaWorld, Old Town, which has a haunted house.” He pauses, then slaps the side of his head with his hand. “The Wild Animal Park.”

  The hairs on my neck poke up. Literally. First my mother brings up the Park, then Josh does. Not that I believe in any of Grandma’s hocus-pocus, but, seriously, this must be a sign.

  I ask, “What’s so great about the Wild Animal Park?”

  “Well, it’s, like, this gigantic zoo, but with tons of wide-open spaces. What’s really cool is that a rhino born at the Park is getting ready to give birth.” Josh is talking with his hands, getting all adorably animated. “It’s that whole two-generations-born-in-captivity thing. And the entire city is into it.” He pulls his phone from his pocket. “Give me your number.”

  “I don’t have a cell.” I sigh. “But you can have my home number.” Which I reel off.

  When he’s finished programming it in, he snatches up a pen and a flyer advertising a health fair. He scribbles on the back of the paper, then hands it to me. “My cell.”

  I glance at his number, memorize it, then slide the paper into my backpack.

  Suddenly I hear the squish-squish of the nurse’s shoes. Vaulting out of my chair, I scoop my backpack off the floor and swing it on, all in one smooth move. “Tell the nurse something came up and I had to take off, will you?”

  His baby blues are wide open with surprise.

  And, without even considering the consequences, I wink.

  Then I’m off down the hall, out past the special-ed bus in the circular drive and hoofing it toward home. With only one teeny, but überly important, stop on the way.

  After my errand, I hang out in my room, eat a non-Ruler dinner and kinda do some homework.

  Finally it’s midnight. I slowly slide open the back door, a cold latte clutched to my chest. I’m wrapped in the scratchy crocheted afghan Mom used to cover herself with to watch the news. It smells of the vanilla-bean after-shower spray she loved. My throat tightens.

  As I step off the patio, the motion light flashes on. I blink in the sudden brightness at my pear tree, lit up against an inky background. Cocooned in the afghan, I take baby steps, the dewy grass licking my bare feet.

  All evening, while I was stuck babysitting Sam, thoughts of me, my mom and some scary, bizarro mystery in San Diego chased each other round and round in my head. I’m having severe doubts about my sanity. I’m having severe doubts about this whole situation. If it’s for real, I am so not the person for this big-time challenge. Given my history of failures.

  All I want is to hang out with my mom. Really hang out with her. Like we didn’t do when she was alive.

  There’s a lot about her I don’t know. Like, what was her fave candy when she was a kid? Did she and her mom get along? How much does she miss me?

  And I want my mom to know me better too. How sometimes I forget she’s gone, and I go to tell her something; then, like a slap in the face, it hits me that she’s not around. How bad I feel for all the mean things I ever said. How thinking about The Ruler gives me a stomachache because, although she isn’t my mom, she’ll get to do loads of mom things, like taking pictures of me all dressed up for prom.

  The problem is, for me and my mom to spend time together, she has to stay in the Academy. Which means she has to do the mystery thing. Which means I have to do the mystery thing. Which brings me right back to the beginning. All I want is to hang out with my mom.

  I toss the afghan up onto my sitting branch, then—on tiptoe—carefully place the coffee cup in a hollow in the trunk. Once I’ve climbed up and am mummy-wrapped in the afghan, I free one arm, retrieve the cup and pry off the lid.

  Coffee—my mother’s beverage of choice. Colombian, Jamaican, Food City, medium-bodied, bold, espresso: She loved them all. She downed so much coffee, she was permanently wired. Some days, I never saw her eat real food, only drink cup after cup of coffee.

  On the way home from school today, I stopped at the Donut Hole. I kept the latte hidden at the back of my closet until now. My dad knows I’m not into coffee, and I didn’t want to deal with his questions.

  I just hope it works, and cold java summons her. I stretch out my arm, waving the cup back and forth in front of myself.

  Holding my breath, I wait for some sort of sign.

  Nada. Nothing.

  I balance the cup in the hollow above my head, leaving the lid off, then sit, my spine curled into the trunk. Eyes squeezed shut, I conjure up an image of Mom from our last shopping trip together.

  We were sitting on a mall bench outside Pat and Oscar’s Restaurant, waiting for Dad and Sam. We were having a quick family dinner before Mom headed to work for third watch. Between my knees sat an overflowing Old Navy shopping bag. Mom plopped a Body Shop bag on top of my stuff, then leaned forward, closing her eyes. With circular movements, she massaged her temples.

  “I can’t seem to kick this headache,” she said.

  I chomped on a pretzel sample. “Call in to work sick.”

  “Can’t. There’s a big drug bust going down. I’ve got to be there.”

  A chunk of salt slipped down the wrong pipe, and I coughed loudly.

  Mom grimaced. “Maybe I’m developing migraines.” She lifted her head, eyes still closed. “I’ll eat something before taking more Excedrin.”

  I dug through my Old Navy merchandise, examining my new clothes, only half listening. I was more interested in figuring out what to wear to school the next day than in worrying about my mother.

  And that was the night she got killed.

  A thump rattles the trunk and tips the coffee over and down my neck. Yuck.

  “How did you find me?” Mom asks, her voice pitching up with surprise. “I was in the middle of a practice flying session with my study group, when suddenly I was whooshing through the air, and whomp! I landed here.”

  I hold up the empty cup in the direction of her voice. “The Donut Hole called your name.”

  “Brilliant, Sherry.”

  Brilliant. My mother called me brilliant. I straighten my shoulders.

  “I smell coffee mixed with the melon scent of your shampoo.”

  “Sassy Girl,” I say.

  “That’s it.” Mom switches to Intense Mode. “Did your dad get your ticket to San Diego?”

  “He did.” I pull up the neck of my T-shirt to mop off my skin. “For Sunday afternoon.”

  “Good.”

  “Junie and Amber are coming too.”

  “Remember, you can’t tell them about me. And make sure Junie keeps a lid on Amber. She’s too wild for you two. On the plus side, Amber has her license. She can drive you to the Wild Animal Park. That’ll lessen the burden on Margaret.”

  I roll my eyes. She’s as bossy dead as she was alive.

  “I am really feeling good about this case. Everything’s falling into place.” Mom’s branch shakes, and the leaves flutter all crazy.

&nb
sp; Is my mother so pumped, she’s doing a little dance?

  “We’re going to impress my instructors by preventing the rhino killings. I’ll get to stay in the Academy,” she says. “And you, young lady, will conquer your fear of challenges.”

  Her bubbly enthusiasm is contagious. Maybe she’s right, and this will all work out. Come to think of it, I’ve definitely gotten more independent since her death. Like doing laundry, setting my alarm clock to get up for school, babysitting Sam more.

  “You would not believe how excited the Academy is about us. It’s been over two centuries since they’ve had a mother-daughter duo.”

  So, I’m a celebrity, spiritually speaking.

  “They’re allowing my study group to help us. There are four of us: me; Marie, a former cop from Oklahoma City; Alan, a former FBI agent; Ray, a former federal judge. We all started the Academy together, and we’ve gotten really close. Marie, Alan and Ray were recently promoted to the next level. They’re trying to bring me up to speed. They are so talented and so supportive.” Mom’s words race out at about a million miles a minute. “Sherry—you, me, them, we’ll make a great team.”

  “Team”? Did my mother just say “team”? As in T-E-A-M? “Team” is my new fave word. Mom has never, ever asked me to be on her team before.

  She goes all serious. “And you haven’t told anyone about me?”

  “No.”

  “Good going.”

  “Brilliant.” “Team.” “Good going.” Wow. I’m psyched. I’m stoked. I’m jazzed. I am so going to San Diego to solve a mystery and save my mother’s life—well, afterlife. Brimming over with enthusiasm, I’m waving my arms, punching the air. Then I’m kicking the air. Then I’m falling through the air, arms and legs flailing.

  Thud.

  Man oh man. Hard sandbox. And falling on it is becoming a mother-daughter tradition.

  “Are you okay?” Mom’s voice is a soft breeze by my ear.

  “Yeah.” I stand. “Mom, this is like a do-over for us, isn’t it?”