Penelope Crumb (7 page)

T
here don’t seem to be any dead people, or even mostly dead people, on the metro on our way home, thank lucky stars, so I keep my finger to myself.

The whole way Littie is talking up our adventure like we just sailed around the world on a raft made of peacock feathers. “We did it,” she says with a smile on her face. “A real adventure. On our very own. And we didn’t get lost or murdered or robbed or killed or kidnapped like my mom is always saying will happen.”

“You’re going with me tomorrow, right?” I say, as we climb the stairs of our apartment building. “To put up posters.”

“Count me in,” says Littie. “Are we going back to Montville? Because those cupcakes were good. I’m just saying.”

“No, just Simmons. That’s where Grandpa Felix used to live. Somebody should know him from the posters.” In front of Littie’s door I look her square in the eyeballs and say, “You can’t tell a soul about our adventure, Littie. Cross your heart and hope to die a painful death.”

“M-U-M is the word,” she says, crossing her heart and her lips and then spitting on the floor to seal it.

But I don’t know what M-U-M means or has to do with telling secrets. So I say, “Your M-U-M can’t find out where we’ve been. Detectives have to be secret keepers.”

We shake on it, but truth be told, it’s really me that I’m worried about. Secret keeping is not my best subject.

As I take a step inside our apartment, every part of me tingles with secret knowing and I’m afraid that even my fingernails could give me away. But before I can even close the door behind me, Terrible is there with arms folded across his chest. Don’t aliens have other things to do? I set down my toolbox by the door and try not to look at him.

“Where were you all day?” he asks.

It’s best not to open my mouth in case my secret decides it wants to fly out, so I walk past him into the kitchen and pretend he’s talking to somebody else. “Where’s Mom?” I ask. If she’s home, the chances of me being alien-murdered are pretty low, I figure.

“She’s still at school.” He follows me into the kitchen and corners me by the oven. He steps closer and the smell of him makes me cough. “Where were you?” he asks again.

“Littie’s?” It comes out like a question.

“Try again,” says the alien, “because Littie’s momma came over here looking for you.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh,” Terrible repeated, leaning his face close.

I switch to breathing through my mouth. “Wha-wha-what did you tell her?”

His eyes lock on to me like they are trying to shoot out laser beams that will slice my brains in half (Number 10). “Wha-wha-what did I tell her? I told her that I didn’t know where you were.”

“But I said we were working on a school project!”

“You did?” he says. “I must have forgot.”

“Terrible! Littie is going to be in big trouble with her momma now!”

“Calm down. First I told her that I didn’t know where you were. But then I might have said something about a school project or something. When she started to get all worked up.” He finally looks away from me like he decided that he couldn’t kill me with laser beams. Which makes me wonder if my real brother is somewhere in there after all.

“You did?” I say.

His eyes are on me again. “That doesn’t mean
I’m not going to tell Mom. Unless you say what you’re up to.”

I swallow. “A project for school is what I said we were doing, and that is what we did.” I inch along the counter and keep going. “But we went outside for a while…outside…outside…outside because Littie wants to learn how to ride a skateboard. Right, and then she needed more marshmallows for her helmet, so we walked over to Muellers Drug Store. And you wouldn’t think that would take all day, but those marshmallows take a long time to glue on. You know, because they are the mini kind. And it really did take a long time. And there might have been other things that we did, but those are the big parts.”

Terrible leans in real close and stares at me, at my nose. “What are you looking at?” I ask, leaning backward against the counter.

“I’m just watching to see if your nose is growing with all the lies coming out of your mouth.”

I cover my nose with my hand. The door to our
apartment opens and closes then, and Mom’s voice calls out, “I’m home!”

“In here,” says Terrible, giving me the Stink Eye.

“You won’t really tell, will you?” I say.

Mom pops her head into the kitchen and smiles at us. “Had a great study session today. Let me just drop my books in the laundry and I’ll make us dinner. How do ham-and-egg sandwiches sound?”

Terrible says “fine” and then puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Fine” comes out of my mouth before I know it and for a second I feel like a puppet. Pinocchio.

“I want to hear all about your day,” says Mom as she heads down the hall.

“Did you hear that?” Terrible says, after she’s gone. “She wants to hear all about your day.” He smiles and gives my shoulder another squeeze. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Mom what you’ve been up to today.” I wait for the part that’s going to
sting. But I don’t have to wait long. “All you have to do is give me your allowance.”

“No.” Aliens find sneaky ways to get your money (Number 9).

“Have it your way,” he says. “Mother?”

“I’ll be there in a second,” she calls back.

Terrible grins at me, and I glare at him. Today it’s my allowance, tomorrow he’ll be stuffing my face into his sneakers. Mom’s footsteps in the hallway get louder, closer. “Last chance,” he says.

And only because I haven’t found Grandpa Felix yet, I say fine.

L
ater, after Mom goes to bed, I make copies of Grandpa Felix’s picture on our printer and get to work on the posters. This is how they turn out:

Even though I gave Terrible all of my allowance and don’t have any money left for a reward, I decide that a reward can be lots of things and doesn’t have to mean only money. For example, I could draw a picture, make a ham-and-egg sandwich, or even show them a real live alien.

Mom has already left for somewhere by the time I get up. Before I can think of a way to leave the apartment without getting caught by Terrible, Littie Maple comes knocking. She’s got a look on her face that says, I’m Not Supposed to Be Here.

She holds up the stopwatch she’s got in her hand. “I’ve got exactly four minutes and twenty-eight seconds to tell you what I have to tell you before my momma gets out of the shower. So don’t say anything.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Don’t even say okay. There’s no time for okay.”

I nod and wonder if there’s even time for that.

Littie takes a deep breath and says, “I got in a large amount of trouble yesterday because I was
gone so long and didn’t check in like I’m supposed to, and now I’m not allowed to leave Momma’s sights. So…”

“But today we’re supposed to…”

Littie puts her hand over my mouth and says, “Sorry, but I can’t go with you to put up posters today.” She cocks her head like she heard something. “I better go. But don’t worry, I didn’t tell Momma where we went or anything or that I was even with you the whole time, so I don’t think she’ll say anything to your mom. I’m just saying.” Then she’s gone before I can say anything else.

All of a sudden, I’m Sherlock Holmes without a Watson. A detective without an assistant is like a foot without toes. What I need is another Watson. So I call up Patsy Cline Roberta Watson and pull at my shoestrings until she answers.

“Mom wants to know if we’re picking you up or you’re meeting us there,” she says without even saying hello.

I have no idea what she is talking about and
wonder if she thinks she’s talking to someone else. So I say, “This is Penelope Crumb calling.”

“I know who it is I’m talking to,” she says, jabbing her words at me like they are made of spears.

“Oh,” I say, “in that case, meet you where?”

“The All-Star Kids auditions. You didn’t forget, did you?”

I pull the phone away from my ear because the spears are sharper now. Truth be told, I kind of did forget on account of the fact that my brains have been busy with other important things. For example, finding my grandpa Felix and trying not to get alien-murdered. Both things take up a lot of brain space and must have squeezed out the tiny little pea-size thing about going with Patsy Cline to the All-Star Kids auditions today.

But this is not what I tell Patsy Cline because that is not the sort of thing you say to your best friend. So I say, “Of course I didn’t forget. But here’s the thing…”

“Oh, whew!” says Patsy. “For a second there
I thought you were going to say you forgot all about my audition and aren’t coming. I mean, that would be worse than dropping a glazed doughnut in a sandbox. Especially after the nose incident at school.”

And that’s when I decide not to say anything about putting up posters to find my long-lost grandpa. Instead I make up a teeny, tiny white lie about how my mom is sick with a mysterious flu bug and needs me to stay here and bring her beef bouillon cubes in hot water. Which is the only thing that will keep her from going dead.

“What kind of flu bug?” she asks. “Can you catch it?” Patsy Cline has a thing about germs ever since the time we learned that some germs have tails.

“I think it’s one of those alien bugs,” I whisper.

Patsy Cline seems very worried after I tell her this and says, “Don’t think a thing about All-Star Kids. You have to stay home with your mom, Penelope. So she can get better lickety-split.”

I tell her that I know she will. And after I hang up, a strange thing happens. My nose does some twitching. I put my hand over my nose to make sure it didn’t grow any just now. Then I say out loud, “It’s not like Patsy Cline needs me there at the auditions with her or anything. She’s sung without me plenty of times. Besides, she’s got her mom. Which means she’s not all by herself like me.”

I pack up my toolbox, roll up my posters, and tell Terrible that I’m going to the library. I tell him this while he’s in the bathroom, while the water’s running. And I say it in a whisper from the kitchen.

It’s not my fault if he doesn’t hear me.

After three blocks, I slow down a little and stop looking behind me for Terrible. I pat my shirt pocket to make sure I still have Littie’s metro card. Which I forgot to give back to her yesterday, thank lucky stars. Going on the metro is a little scary without Littie, but detectives have to be brave, especially when they are without their assistants.

Outside of the Simmons metro station I get out
my scissors and tape from my toolbox and fix a couple of posters to telephone poles. Then I head toward the neighborhood where I think Francesca and Mr. Jiggs live. Along the way, I put up more posters: on street signs, parking meters, and lampposts. But when I tape a poster to the side of a big mailbox in front of the Simmons post office, I find trouble.

“Just what do you think you’re doing, girlie?” says a man with long sideburns that point like arrows to his mouth.

“Looking for someone,” I say, pressing the tape on the corner of the poster.

“Look, you can’t put that there,” he says. “You’re going to have to take that off right now.”

“How come?”

“This here mailbox is government property,” he says, “and you ain’t allowed to put stuff on it.”

“Says who?” I say. “There’s no sign that says no posters allowed.”

“Says me,” he says. “I work here, so I should know something about it.”

“You work here?” I say. “You’re a mailman?”

“Not today, I’m not. It’s Sunday.” He nods at my poster. “You gonna take that off of there or what?”

I pull at the tape on the top of the poster. “Hey, if you’re a mailman, I bet you know the names of all kinds of people in town.”

“Some,” he says.

“Did you ever deliver mail to a Felix Crumb?”

“Nope.”

“Now, you answered way too fast. Why don’t you think about it for a minute?” I hold the poster right in front of his face. “Felix Crumb, and here’s what he looks like. Only his nose might be a little bigger now.”

The man pushes the poster away. “I
said
nope.”

Well then. I roll up the poster and shove it under my armpit. After he drops some letters into the mailbox, I follow him down the street. I keep close so I don’t lose him if he decides to make a sharp turn down an alley or dive into a manhole. But all of a sudden when my eyeballs wander over to a giant sock monkey in the window of a toy store, the
man stops to tie his shoelaces. And I run right into the back of him, dropping my poster.

“Are you still
here
?” he says.

“Yep.” I pick up my poster. “Do you want to see his picture again?”

“Girlie, don’t you have something better to do than trail me?”

“Nope,” I say.

He sighs. “What’s the name you’re looking for again?”

“Felix Crumb.” I say it slow so that it has a chance to really sink into his brains.

“And what makes you think he lives around here?” he asks.

“Because my mom said he used to.”

“When?”

I shrug. “The other day.”

He gives me a big eyeball roll. “I mean, when did he live here?”

“Oh, right. A long time ago.”