Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking (22 page)

“So she never kidnapped you?”

Ollie shook his head. “I never even
saw
her, Moxie. Of course she didn’t kidnap me.”

My brain finally caught up with what he was saying. This whole time—
this whole time
—Ollie had been
fine.
I had worried and done stupid things and gave away the location of the art and nearly gotten arrested…and he was
fine.

“I’m going to
kill
you!” I yelled. I smacked him, hard, on the shoulder. He winced. I did it again. “For
days
I’ve been worried and freaking out and thinking that I had ruined our summer and our lives and going into Boston and getting grounded and you’ve been
fine?
!” My voice was screechy, but I didn’t care. “You
jerk
!”

Ollie backed up, palms in the air. “I tried to get
you.
But when I called your cell, all I got was static. Your mom said you were grounded when I called the landline, so I IM’ed you, but you didn’t answer. Didn’t you see my messages?”

“I thought The Redhead left them,” I mumbled. I remembered her face when I asked her where Ollie was—she hadn’t realized that we weren’t in touch.
But she certainly played it well
, I thought ruefully.

“But what about your phone? And your parents’ cars? I’ve been calling your landline and coming by here and I never see or get anyone.”

“My dad’s car has been in for service,” he explained. “They’re sharing my mom’s, so everyone has been leaving super-early. I’ve been sleeping late,” he said sheepishly. “As for the phone, LeeLee plays with the receiver sometimes. She probably shut off the ringer.”

The explanation was so simple, I wanted to kill him, I was so relieved.

“I found the paintings and called the police, but I don’t know if they have them,” I told him miserably. “And I gave her the last location.” I was such an idiot.

“What?”

Now that I had regained full brain function, I explained what happened.

“Dude!” he breathed. “That’s why you’re so banged up and a mental mess. What are we going to do now?”

“Figure out how to get into Fenway, I guess. And try not to get killed between now and the Fourth of July.” A poor plan, for sure. But now that I knew Ollie was okay, I became totally tired. I wanted to nap and forget I’d ever met The Redhead.

“Don’t forget that we have the etching and sketches. Don’t worry—I hid them in a safe place.” He snapped his fingers. “I nearly forgot—I’ve got some info for you too. I’ve been corresponding with GI Goh for the past couple of days—”

“You didn’t tell him anything, did you?” Panic tightened my chest.

Ollie gave me a look that would turn a plant black. “Of
course
not. I was discreet. But he gave me some great suggestions for temperate hiding places, and I riffed off his and came up with my own. Since you decided that you’re turning the art in, we can call the police and tell them where they are.”

I shook my head. The cops were a last resort. I couldn’t get the art out of the church by myself and didn’t want The Redhead to get her hands on it—which could have happened, though, considering we’d heard nothing of its return—and I didn’t want to hand over any more bargaining chips until I was ready. And if I didn’t know where the small pieces were, I couldn’t tell The Redhead—if it came to that.

“Hang on to them,” I said. Making these decisions was
getting easier…did that mean I was becoming more and more like Sully Cupcakes and The Redhead?

I left Ollie with strict instructions not to open the door to strangers, get kidnapped, or lose our stolen artwork. We also decided that old-fashioned landline phone calls were the best way to communicate for the time being—once he found the receiver and turned the ringer back on. His e-mail account pushed to his cell, and my cell was only allowing outgoing calls anyway. Couldn’t wait to tell Mom that I’d need yet
another
new phone (would that be number three or four this year? I’d lost track).

On the bright side, if we collected the Gardner reward, spending cash on a cell phone wouldn’t be that big a deal.

By the time I got home—okay, snuck in the front door, put my skateboard away, and then came down to Nini’s apartment—she was getting ready to leave for Alton Rivers.

“Can I go?” I asked. “I’m feeling better.”

She felt my forehead. “Hmm. Seems a little warm to me,” she said. Why she would say that? I mean, I totally wasn’t sick, I’d just…

Been out in the sun and skateboarding.

Which Nini couldn’t know or I’d get in even bigger trouble for sneaking out while grounded. Awesome.

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. “We just can’t take the risk of you bringing something in to the residents. We’ll go tomorrow if you’re better.”

I nodded, miserable. Of course I wanted to see Grumps, but with three days left, I
had
to know where he’d stashed those last two items in Fenway Park.

Oh, yeah, and how to get into the ballpark and find them before The Redhead.

I slumped out of her house and went upstairs. I turned on my Mass Ave Music playlist, flopped on the bed, pulled out the proof, and stared at it.

I had to think like The Redhead. She was probably trying to figure out how to get into Fenway too.

But I had an advantage—I knew what was left. She had no idea what Ollie and I found in the state house, and although she might have
suspected
that the paintings were in the church, unless she was there when they were removed, she really couldn’t know for certain.

So maybe I wasn’t as bad off as I thought.

I went to my computer. As long as The Redhead didn’t know what was left, there was no way for her to determine where the pieces would be hidden. But I could.

A few seconds of Google-fu brought me to a link that summarized all of the changes made to Fenway Park through its history. The most recent team owners had done a lot of work on the ballpark—all since Grumps had hid the finial and ku there. New seating sections—including putting seats on top of the Green Monster, over right field, and other areas of the park—were a major part of it.

If Grumps had hidden the pieces where a lot of construction had happened, there was no hope: Either the pieces had
been found and chucked because no one knew what they were, or they were destroyed in the building process.

But there was one area of Fenway that had stayed basically untouched for almost forty years—the Green Monster. It seemed that, since 1975, the actual Monster had been left alone, even though lots of work had gone on
around
it. From watching zillions of games with Nini, I knew that the scoreboard was updated by hand, from inside the wall…which meant there had to be some kind of room back there. And Grumps
had
been standing in front of the Monster when the photo was taken.

But until I spoke with Grumps—if he would even tell me anything—I had no way of knowing what part of the park he worked on, for sure. I sure hoped it was the Green Monster.

Hope was all I had left.

Holding the sharpest kitchen knife we had, I wondered what would be worse: Cutting the tip of a finger off and spending the night in the emergency room, or getting through this dinner with Putrid Richard?

“How’re those cukes coming along, Moxie?” Sir Putrid himself was at my elbow, causing me to jump and almost cut off a finger for real.

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I diced the pieces a lot louder than necessary. He and Mom had brought home groceries—plus a “few choice selections” from his garden—and thought it would be fun if all three of us chopped and sautéed and cooked
together.
Gag.

“Glad that you’re feeling better,” Mom said. She finished seasoning the chicken and handed the tray to Richard to take to the grill. Water bubbled on the stove, and Mom added linguine to it.

I had salad duty.

As soon as Richard’s footsteps faded, Mom turned to me, holding an uncooked strand of linguine in front of her like a sword.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Moxie, but I’m warning you to lose the attitude. You have been completely sullen and pouty ever since we got home, and it’s both embarrassing and annoying. Shape up. I mean it.” To make her point, she glared at me after she stopped talking. I dropped my eyes to the counter, resisting the urge to roll them.

“Sorry, Mom, I’ll do better” is what I said. What I wanted to say?
Duh, Mom, I’m “sullen and pouty” because Richard wants to move us to New Hampshire soon! Compared to that, going to Boston Classics with Jolie Pearson seems like a treat!

But I kept my mouth shut and sliced in silence. Then I slid all of the veggies into our biggest bowl, tossed in some lettuce, and carried it to the table…but the whole time I was thinking about what Mom said. Did she expect me to get all excited in anticipation of the news that would wreck my life?

Negatory.

Richard returned with a tray of grilled chicken and a big oily spot on his shirt. He caught me staring at it.

“I accidentally tipped the meat tray before I put it on the ledge next to the grill,” he explained. “I saw something weird on the ground.”

“Something weird?” I tried to sound normal, but could hear the fear in my voice. What had The Redhead done now?

“Yeah! A red squirrel was running up the trunk of that big tree out back. You
never
see them in the city…” He went on, but a rush of relief blocked out everything he said (okay, I stopped listening too). To throw my mom a bone, I tried to act excited.

Mom sliced and tossed the chicken with the linguine and sauce, and we sat down to eat. Putrid Richard, wiping his mustache, asked what I’d been doing this summer “thus far.”

“Oh, you know…solving major art heists, breaking into historical sites after dark, and avoiding mobsters. The usual.”

Yeah, I said it.

Mom glared and kicked me under the table. I sighed.

“Hanging out with Ollie and using my T pass a little too much,” I tried again. “He and his family just took a cruise of the Boston Harbor Islands that sounded pretty cool.” I threw in that last part hoping Richard would go on a tangent of how amazing the islands are. He almost bit too.

“Oh, cool!” he said. “The National Park Service does a lot of work with the group that maintains the islands. We should check them out after…” He stuffed a forkful of linguine in his mouth and glanced sideways at my mom. My appetite vanished.

This is it, Moxie. Be cool.
I tried to prepare mentally for what I was going to hear—“marriage,” “moving,” and “soon” were the top three contenders.

“Um, Moxie,” he began again. “Your mom and I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Stomach tight, mouth dry, I couldn’t speak. I just nodded.

Mom grabbed his hand and jumped in. “Richard and I have been discussing something for some time now that involves you. And we didn’t want to make a decision without consulting you.”

In the past two weeks I’d been scared at least fifty zillion
times. But those moments were nothing compared to the terror I felt when she grabbed his hand. I wanted to scream,
Just get it over with! Say it!

But I kept my mouth shut. I sat on my hands so they wouldn’t shake.

“You know how much I love New Hampshire,” Richard began. There was a speck of sauce on his mustache. It moved up and down as he spoke. My belly churned and I couldn’t take my eyes off that speck. He paused. I guess he was waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t. I jerked out a nod instead.

Here we go…

“I’d like to take you and your mom there in two weeks.”

Two weeks?! We were leaving in two weeks? That shocker snapped my attention from his mustache. I turned to Mom.

“What? That’s so soon!” I cried.

“We’ve been trying to tell you, honey, but we haven’t connected,” Mom replied. “We thought you’d be excited.”

“Excited? How could you think I’d be excited?! What about Grumps and Nini and…and Ollie…and—” I hiccupped. Crap. I always hiccup before I cry. “And school?” I couldn’t help it, I started crying. It was too much—everything that had gone on with the Gardner art and The Redhead and Ollie and now we were leaving
in two weeks?
Richard and Mom exchanged wide-eyed alarmed glances.