Jackie's Jokes (8 page)

Who knew a scientist and a model could do so well?

"I'll just keep this," Alan Watts said, putting the folder to one side. "Then, after you leave, I'll run some numbers, call you up with the amount, and send some forms for you to sign and return with a check." Alan Watts looked at Pete closely. "You are authorized to write checks for your brother, are you not, Mr. Huit?"

Pete looked at us, a question in his eyes. He knew a lot about us, probably more than anyone in the world, but he didn't know how we managed our money.

"Oh yes," said Annie, who wrote all our checks, "the Tax Man will get paid."

"Very good," Alan Watts said. "Oh, but I do wish Robert were here. Usually, by this time of year we've already started planning the taxes for the next year."

"I'm afraid that's impossible right now," Annie said.

"Well, then, do you have any idea how much money your parents have made so far this year? At least if I had a place to start—"

"They haven't made anything," Rebecca blurted out.

Georgia kicked her, but it was too late.

"
Nothing?
"Alan Watts was shocked.

"Don't you think they deserve a break from working?" Durinda said hurriedly.

"They've always worked so hard," Marcia said, "too hard."

"And we are incredibly wealthy," Petal said.

"So don't you suppose they deserve a break from the rat race?" Zinnia said.

"I suppose, I suppose," Alan Watts said.

But we could tell that he really didn't understand why people wouldn't make money every second of the day if they could. Well, look at the man. He'd given up his golf game and had his secretary come in on a Saturday just to meet with us.

"Where are Robert and Lucy, by the way?" Alan Watts asked as we all stood up to take our leave.

"Didn't they tell you?" Pete said. "Why, they're in France."

***

After stopping at a little metal cart for hot dogs, we got on the train. The train ride home was much less eventful than the train ride out had been. We were no longer worried we'd go to jail for not paying our taxes and we had Jackie back with us.

Jackie did say she thought it would be fun for her to race the train home, but Pete was firm.

"I'm not letting you blur out of my sight again, pet," he said.

It was a lot to handle sometimes, we thought, making our way in an adult world, and we were lucky to have Pete with us.

CHAPTER EIGHT

When we returned home, we invited Pete in for a juice box. We felt we owed him at least that much. After all, he'd taken us to the Big City, helped us with our CPA, bought us our train tickets, and even paid for the hot dogs.

"We've ridden in automobiles and trains since Mommy and Daddy disappeared," Zinnia said as Annie unlocked the door. "Do you think planes will be next? And if so, do you think we'll need to learn to pilot one ourselves?"

But we'd barely shoved the straws in our juice boxes, and none of us had had the chance to take even a sip, when Zinnia shouted, "Jackie! Go check the stone in the drawing room!"

There was always a note left behind the stone in the drawing room whenever parents disappeared, or died, or when one of us found her power or her gift.

Eight of us got very excited then, and Pete tried his best to look excited too, even though he couldn't really know what this was all about. For a man with salt-and-pepper hair, Pete could sometimes be very good at acting like he was one of us little girls, and now he trotted faithfully behind us as we went to the drawing room.

Sure enough, the stone was loose. We thought that if our life were a mystery book or a mystery TV show, that loose stone would be an ominous sign. Come to think of it, the pigeons that occasionally visited us would be too.

Jackie pulled the stone all the way out and removed the note we all knew she'd find behind it. We crowded around her, looking over her shoulder as she read:

Dear Jackie,

Well done! I always knew you were the fastest in the bunch! Seven down now, nine to go––almost halfway there. Just discover your gift, and you will be. See you soon.

As always, the note was unsigned.

It occurred to us then that the note was right: we
were
almost halfway to discovering what really happened to Mommy and Daddy. This idea made us feel both excited and scared. On one level, we realized that knowing was supposed to be better than not knowing. But on another, we worried: what if the truth was something really awful? That would be hard.

Thankfully, there was Pete, in all his excitement, to distract us from our fears.

"What a
house!
"he said. "Talking refrigerators, mysterious notes." Then his own expression turned a little sad. "Sometimes I wish that I lived in such a place."

"At least you have Mrs. Pete," Petal said, placing a soothing hand on his arm.

"Maybe you could ask her to leave you secret notes," Georgia suggested.

"I don't think it counts as a secret if you have to actually ask someone to leave one for you." Rebecca sneered.

Pete was such a good man, though, he could never be kept down for long, and he cheered himself up almost immediately.

"Say!" he said, his blue eyes brightening. "Isn't it always the case that when one of you lot gets her power, your cat gets the same power? What's your cat's name again?" He snapped his fingers at Jackie. "Jetta? No, that's not it. Jeep? No, that's not it either. Please don't tell me. I've almost got it." He snapped his fingers again."
Jaguar!
"

Since we wanted to keep Pete looking so happy, we trooped off to find the cats. Plus, we were curious too.

We found the cats lazing around in Spring, licking their paws and their own bellies. Spring seemed an odd room choice, since it was in fact spring, but then we figured that maybe the cats were just very content to live in that season.

The cats had a favorite toy. It was rather large, stuffed with catnip, and in the shape of a German shepherd.

Jackie picked up Biff, which was the catnip dog's name, and hurled his brown and black body across the length of the room.

Seven cats immediately tore themselves away from their life of leisure—Anthrax, Dandruff, Greatorex, Minx, Precious, Rambunctious, and Zither—to chase after Biff. We also saw a tiny gray and white dot whiz past us. When we heard a crash and saw Jaguar leaning against the far wall, Biff in her mouth, we realized that that gray and white dot had been Jaguar. Poor Jaguar. We could almost see the stars swirling around her head; she was probably dizzy from crashing into that wall. Oh well. At least she'd beat the others.

"So now we know," Jackie said. "Our power doesn't tire Jaguar or me out, but running into objects at high speed will always be a risk for us."

"Wow," Pete said. "I suppose this is a real example of 'Hey, kids, don't try this at home.'"

"Or perhaps you should make that
cats
," Marcia corrected.

"I don't think Jackie will be foolish enough to chance running indoors anymore," Durinda said.

"But what if she does?" Petal worried. "What if she runs indoors and she's running with scissors and she runs into me and—"

"I say we take the cats outside to play." Annie cut Petal off.

Our cats were true indoor cats. They didn't usually like to go outside, probably because we made life inside so comfy for them. But on that day, Jaguar seemed happy for the chance to stretch her four speedy legs.

We stood outside at the end of the driveway, still in our dresses and Armani, as Jaguar exercised her new power. She raced a delivery truck and won. She raced a teenager in a little red sports car who was driving far too fast for our quiet little street and won. She even raced a plane flying overhead, and, we would have said, she won. Then she and Jackie faced off against each other, the twin pair of them turning instantly into a blue dot and a gray and white dot.

"Look at Jackie go!" Durinda cried.

"Except we can't really see her anymore, can we?" Rebecca said sourly.

"Why, I'll bet Jackie's faster than a speeding bullet now!" Zinnia said with a happy sigh.

"Too bad she's not more powerful than a locomotive," Georgia said.

"I wonder if she can leap tall buildings in a single bound?" Marcia wondered.

When they returned to us a few minutes later, Jackie declared that it had been a tie. As for Jaguar, if it
hadn't
been a tie, the cat wasn't saying.

"I always knew," Rebecca said darkly, "when Jackie cut her hair and then her cat's, it would lead to ...
something.
"

***

Back inside, we
still
didn't get to enjoy our juice boxes.

"Mr. Pete," Jackie said, "I was wondering if you'd be willing to look at something for us, give us your expert opinion..."

Seven of us were shocked when Jackie led Pete to Mommy's private study. After years of keeping away from that room, we still found it hard for any one of us to go in, and we'd never invited an adult, although we'd tricked the Wicket into reading a fake file in there.

We all watched as Jackie, with her new confidence, turned on the computer, typed in the password—
88888888
—and located the file marked Persons of Interest.

And suddenly, there was that odd trio of pictures again: the Wicket, Crazy Serena, and Principal Freud, also known as Frank Freud.

"Okay," Pete said, "now I recognize the one in the middle. That's the one who held you lot hostage back in March, the one I had to run out of town for you."

"Yes, that's Crazy Serena," Annie said.

"We think she might be somehow related to Mommy," Durinda said.

"Even if she might be a relative, we are very scared of her," Petal said.

"I can't say as I blame you," Pete said. "Crazy Serena might look great in a turquoise dress, but that is one scary crazy lady." Pete studied the screen some more. "And I recognize the one with the egg for a head. Er, I mean, the bald guy. That's your principal, Principal Freud, right?"

Eight heads nodded. Of course, Pete was studying the screen right then, rather than looking at us, so it probably didn't matter what we did with our heads!

"Yes," Zinnia piped up. "He runs the Whistle Stop. We like going to school there and hope we never have to stop."

"Not
ever?
"Georgia said.

"Not even when you're
ninety?
"Rebecca said. "You still want to be wearing yellow plaid
then?
"

It occurred to us that Zinnia was probably the only one of us who liked wearing that wretched uniform.

"Now who's this third person?" Pete said, interrupting our thoughts. "She looks like a toadstool."

Pete had never met the Wicket. Perhaps she took her vehicles somewhere else to be serviced? Oh, that's right: she always took taxis. So we explained all about her being the first evil person we'd encountered and had to deal with after Mommy and Daddy had disappeared.

"Or died," Rebecca added.

It used to scare us whenever Rebecca said that, but now we'd come to find it peculiarly comforting. At least one thing in the world hadn't changed and was still reliable: Rebecca's sourness.

"She really does look like a toadstool in person," Marcia said.

"Oh yes," Petal said fearfully, "a poison toadstool. I suspect that if someone tried to eat her, they would die."

"We don't
eat
other people around here," Annie said, for once disgusted with Petal.

"Maybe if I were really hungry, and there was no other food in the house—" Rebecca started to say, but Jackie cut her off.

"Here's the thing," Jackie said. "No matter how much I think about it, I can't figure out why Mommy would have a picture of Principal Freud in the same file with those other two."

"I can," Marcia said.

All eyes turned toward her.

"I've been giving it a lot of thought," Marcia said, "and the way I figure it, this is just like when they have us do Which Item Is Not Like the Others? at school."

"I'm afraid I don't follow," Pete said. "It's been a long time since I was at school. Could you explain?"

"It's this thing they have us do," Annie said.

"They give us a list of words," Durinda said.

"Or a series of pictures," Georgia said.

"And nearly all of them are the same," Petal said.

"Like all fruits or all nouns," Rebecca said.

"Except for one, which is a vegetable or an adjective," Zinnia said.

"And then they ask," Marcia said, '"Which item is not like the others?'"

"Interesting theory, but no," Pete said, looking more serious than we'd seen him all day. "I don't think it works that way at all. At least not this time."

"How do you mean?" Jackie asked.

"It's like this," Pete said. "If Crazy Serena is evil—and she is, I know, because I saw it with my own eyes—and this Wicket person is evil—and you tell me she is, and I believe you—then if Principal Freud's picture is here with these two..."

We knew what Pete was going to say even before he said it, but the words were still a shock to hear: