Leppard, Lois Gladys - [Mandie 04] (5 page)

Miss Prudence strolled by with Mr. Chadwick and surveyed the various students.

Tommy waited until they had passed, then said, “You know our school is coming over for the dinner party next weekend. Mandie, would you consider being my partner?”

“Aren’t we drawing names again?” Mandie asked.

“No, I don’t think so. That was just for this first visit. After this we’re supposed to know everyone,” said Tommy.

“How can they suppose such a thing?” Robert asked. “I certainly don’t know everyone.” He smiled at Celia. “But then I don’t want to know everyone. Celia, will you do me the honor of being my partner?”

“Well, I—yes, if that’s the way we’re doing it,” Celia answered.

“You didn’t answer my question, Mandie,” Tommy protested.

“Thank you, Tommy, I’d enjoy being your partner,” Mandie responded.

Mr. Chadwick stood in the center of the porch. “All right, gentlemen, it’s time for us to go home,” he announced. “I hope you remembered to ask a partner for the dinner party next week.”

Excited conversation broke out among the students as the boys prepared to depart. After saying good-bye to Robert and Tommy, Mandie and Celia walked down the long hallway.

Suddenly, April rushed up behind them. “Tommy Patton is mine for the party,” she told Mandie.

Mandie stopped and stared up at the tall girl. “Just what do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Just what I said. Tommy Patton is my partner for the party.”

“What did you do, April? Ask him? I’m afraid he has already asked me.”

“I don’t care who he asked. He’s going to be my partner,” April fumed.

“He does have a mind of his own, you know,” Mandie said. She flashed an amused look to Celia, who stood by listening. “And he asked
me
, so he is going to be
my
partner.”

“Let me tell you one thing,” April growled at her. “You’d better forget that he asked you, or I’ll just conveniently remember that I caught you coming up the backstairs last night after ten o’clock.”

“Oh, mind your own business,” Mandie said angrily.

April hurried on down the hallway. “I’m warning you,” she called back over her shoulder. Then she ran upstairs.

Mandie and Celia just stood there, puzzled by the girl’s behavior.

“Well!” Mandie said. “What do you suppose that was all about?”

Celia shrugged her shoulders, and the two girls returned to their room for a rest period before the evening meal. As soon as they opened the door, Mandie noticed that her nightgown was missing. She knew that she had laid it across the foot of the bed. Celia’s was there but Mandie’s was not.

“It looks like someone took my nightgown,” Mandie said, glancing about the room. “If they don’t quit taking things, I’m going to run out of clothes pretty soon. My shawl this
morning and now my nightgown.”

“I’ll bet it was that April Snow,” Celia accused.

“But she was downstairs on the porch with us,” Mandie replied.

“Yes, but she came flying up the steps ahead of us after she threatened you in the hall.”

“I suppose it’s possible, but why would she do that?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to report it to Miss Prudence?”

“No. I can’t prove anything. I think I’ll just do some detective work on my own. Maybe I can find out for sure who’s doing this,” Mandie said, as she took another nightgown from the bureau drawer.

Mandie certainly didn’t want to get the wrong person in trouble. She wasn’t certain that April was taking these things. She would just have to watch April carefully from now on. Although Mandie wasn’t a tattletale, she also wasn’t going to be threatened, nor was she going to put up with her clothes disappearing.

At supper, April didn’t say anything to Mandie, and when they were dismissed from the table, she hurried out to the veranda. Mandie and Celia went to their room to write letters.

Long after the ten o’clock bell had rung and the lights were out, Mandie and Celia lay awake. They talked quietly about the disappearance of Mandie’s clothes. Suddenly they heard the clanging metal and squeaking boards again. They looked at each other, and their bodies stiffened in fright.

“There’s that noise!” Celia whispered.

“It sounds like it’s in the attic,” Mandie whispered back.

“It does seem close.”

Mandie sat up on the side of the bed. “Let’s go see what it is,” she said in a low voice.

“No!” Celia objected.

“We don’t have to let
it
see
us
. We’ll just find out what or who is making that noise,” Mandie told her. “Come on!” She started for the door.

“Aren’t you going to take a light?” Celia asked.

“Here, we can take this one,” Mandie said, lighting the lamp by the bed. She picked it up, and Celia joined her near the door.

All of a sudden, the noise stopped. The girls stood still.

“It went away,” Celia whispered.

Mandie set the lamp back down and blew out the light. “We should still look out in the hall,” she said, opening the door. Celia was right behind her.

As they stepped into the hallway, someone laughed softly and asked, “And where are you young ladies going?”

Mandie instantly recognized April’s voice.

“None of your business, April Snow. And what are you doing out in the hall after ten o’clock?” Mandie asked.

“I’d say that’s none of
your
business.” April sauntered down the hall toward her room and disappeared around the corner.

The two girls looked at each other.

“April must have been making that noise,” Celia said in disgust.

“Maybe and maybe not,” Mandie replied, “but we’d better wait for another night to investigate the attic. April may be on her way to tell Miss Prudence that she caught us out of our room. Let’s go back to bed.”

The girls were really puzzled now. Was April making the noises in the attic? Had April taken Mandie’s shawl and then her nightgown? April was always making threats but there still wasn’t any proof of wrong-doing. They would have to investigate the attic at their first opportunity and see what was really there.

The next morning, when Mandie started to get dressed, she reached for her blue dress which she had hung on the chifferobe door.

“My dress!” She gasped. “It’s gone, hanger and all.”

Celia turned to look. “Oh, Mandie, you’ve got to tell Miss Prudence now. Do you want someone to take all your clothes?”

“I don’t understand how anyone could come in here while we’re asleep and not wake us,” Mandie replied. “I’ll talk to Uncle Ned about it. He’s coming to see me tonight.”

“May I go down there with you to meet him?”

“I’ll have to ask first,” Mandie replied. “You can stay at the window, and I’ll signal if he says it’s all right.” She pulled out a bright red dress from the chifferobe and took a strand of multicolored beads from a little box on the bureau.

“Those beads are beautiful. Where did you get them?” Celia asked.

“Sallie Sweetwater gave them to me before I left. She’s my Indian friend. She’s also Uncle Ned’s granddaughter.” Mandie fingered the necklace tenderly. “These beads are very old,” she explained. “Sallie’s great-grandmother made them. They’re one of my most treasured possessions.” Mandie
reached for her robe. “Well, if I don’t get to that bathroom on time, I won’t get a bath,” she said.

Later, on their way down to breakfast, the girls met April coming up the steps. They all looked at each other, but no one spoke.

As soon as April was out of hearing range, Celia turned to her friend. “There she goes!” Celia accused. “She should be going the same direction we are for breakfast. I think she is the culprit. And I also think you ought to talk to Miss Prudence, or maybe to Miss Hope.”

“I suppose I will, as soon as I get a chance.”

At the table, Miss Prudence had already returned thanks and was about to ask the girls to be seated when April rushed in and took her place.

Miss Prudence frowned. “April, I will see you in my office as soon as we finish breakfast,” she said sternly.

April nodded without saying a word.

After breakfast, as the two girls walked down the hallway, Celia said, “So April is in trouble with Miss Prudence for being late to the table.”

“I’d hate to be in her shoes,” Mandie replied. She couldn’t wait to tell the whole story to Uncle Ned. He would help her know what to do.

That night when the old Indian came, he and Mandie sat on the bench under the magnolia tree. Mandie kept an eye on Celia at the bedroom window.

“Uncle Ned, I have a problem,” Mandie began. “You see, there’s a girl here, named April Snow. She and I shared a bed in the other bedroom. She got furious with me because I moved into the room with Celia. You know that Celia and I are good friends. But April said I was moving because her mother was a Yankee.” Mandie threw her hands up in the air. “I didn’t even know about her mother. Yet April has been nasty to me ever since.”

“What she do, Papoose?” the old man asked.

“She watches me all the time. When I was going to my room after your last visit, April met me on the steps. She asked me where I’d been. I didn’t tell her, of course. Then yesterday the boys from Mr. Chadwick’s School came for tea and April decided she liked the boy I was with. Tommy asked me to go to the dinner party Saturday night, but April says she wants him for her partner. She keeps saying things like, ‘I’m warning you’ and ‘You’ll be sorry.’ ”

“All talk? Not do anything to Papoose?”

“I don’t know,” Mandie said. She told him about the missing clothes. “I’m not sure whether or not she was the one who took them.”

“Papoose tell Miss Head Lady?” he asked.

Mandie smiled at his name for Miss Prudence. “I wanted to ask you if I should mention this to Miss Prudence. The Bible tells us to do good for evil, and if someone smites you on one cheek, turn the other. Uncle Ned, do you think that means I shouldn’t do anything to cause April trouble?”

“Papoose not make trouble for girl. Good for girl if Papoose go when sun rises and tell Miss Head Lady,” said the Indian. “Must not lose fine clothes. Mother of Papoose not like that.”

“I guess my mother would be upset to know I had lost those things.”

The old man stood up. “Must go now,” he said.

Mandie jumped up and looked at the window above. “Uncle Ned, I promised Celia I’d signal to her if she could come down and meet you. Can she, Uncle Ned, please?”

“Make sign quick. Must hurry,” he said, looking up.

Mandie waved to Celia and the girl quickly disappeared. In a few minutes she was running toward them across the yard.

“Celia, this is Uncle Ned,” Mandie said. “And, Uncle Ned, this is my friend Celia Hamilton.”

Celia curtsied briefly. Uncle Ned smiled and put his hand on her auburn curls.

“No, no, Papoose Celia. Not bow down to me. I only old Indian, not Big God. He only one to bow down to.”

Both girls smiled.

“They teach us these things here at school,” Celia explained. “A lady never shakes hands. She either nods her head or curtsies, and I thought I should curtsy, from all that Mandie has told me about you. I think you are a great man.”

“I only old Indian watching over Papoose,” Uncle Ned replied. “Must go now. Come next moon.” He turned to Mandie. “Papoose not forget. Go see Miss Head Lady when sun rises.”

“I will, if you say so,” Mandie promised. She pulled him down for a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Go,” he told them.

The girls ran across the backyard and stopped to wave as they entered the screened-in back porch. The old man disappeared into the trees.

Mandie grasped the doorknob and pushed, but the door wouldn’t open.

“Celia! The door’s locked!” she whispered in the darkness.

“Somebody locked us out?” Celia asked.

“They must have. It couldn’t have locked by itself. There’s a bolt on the door, remember?”

“April was probably watching us!” Celia accused.

“We’ll have to find some other way to get inside the house. There’s no way to move the bolt from out here.”

“Mandie, please do something about April,” Celia complained.

“I intend to, first thing in the morning. But right now, let’s look around. Maybe we can find a window open or something. We’ve got to get back in before someone misses us. I’ll bet whoever locked us out is waiting to see what we’ll do. Let’s go.”

Celia followed her friend. They walked all the way around the house without finding any way to get in. Finally, they sat down on the back steps.

“It looks like we’ll be caught this time. There’s no way in,” Celia sighed.

“There’s a solution to every problem if you think about it long enough,” Mandie told her. She propped her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands.
Uncle Ned has already gone
, she thought.
Of course there probably isn’t anything he could do to help us anyway
. Mandie didn’t have a friend at the school besides Celia.
Oh, yes, I do
, she thought.
Aunt Phoebe! Maybe she is still up. Aunt Phoebe must have a key to the house
, Mandie reasoned.
She’s the first one up. She comes to wake us every morning
.

Mandie jumped up. “Celia, what about Aunt Phoebe? She must have some way to get inside the house every morning. Let’s see if she’ll help us.”

“Won’t she tell on us?” Celia asked.

“No. Aunt Phoebe is my friend. Come on.”

As the girls walked toward the little cottage, they noticed a faint light behind the drawn curtains. Evidently someone was still awake.

When they stepped onto the small front porch in the darkness, they were suddenly startled to find Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Cal sitting in the rockers on the porch.

“My chillun cain’t git in de house?” the old woman asked.

Mandie’s eyes widened. “How did you know, Aunt Phoebe?” she asked.

“We sits heah. See lots o’ things,” Aunt Phoebe replied. She rose from the chair and stood in front of her husband. “Cal, gimme de key.”

The old man pulled a door key from his pocket and handed it to her. “Jes’ be sho’ you don’t wake dem two wimmen,” he warned his wife. “If you does, we git no sleep tonight.”