Secret North: Book 4 of The Wishes Series (21 page)

“No, Ry.” She shook her head. “That’s a puggle.”

I felt truly sorry for her. It wasn’t Bridget’s fault that her mother liked to fill her head with nonsense. Moments like this highlighted exactly how dangerous the wrong information could be. If Charli kept the baloney going, the poor kid was in for a miserable school career.

“Puggle isn’t a word, Bridge.”

Letting her down gently had no effect. She stomped a boot on the ground, making the contents of the mystery pink bag rattle in her hand. “It is,” she insisted. “Ask someone.”

I looked from left to right, wondering who she was expecting me to stop. As busy as the park was, I couldn’t see a single person who looked knowledgeable in Australian wildlife. “What am I supposed to ask, Bridget?” I asked. “Excuse me ma’am, do you know what a puggle is?”

She raised her free hand, bouncing on the spot. “I know! I know!” she squealed. “It’s a baby ’chidna.”

I made a mental note to hold off on the sarcasm for a year or two. I decided to dazzle her with science instead. I took my phone from my pocket and Googled it – then had to eat my words because a baby echidna is indeed called a puggle.

“How can you possibly know the things you do?”

She grinned, reminding me too much of her mom. “I’m a smart girl, Ry.”

“Too smart, I think.”

We continued our slow amble down The Mall, heading nowhere in particular. Bridget didn’t speak. I thought we’d left the puggle conversation a hundred yards back, but her mind was still working on it.

“I can say puggle, just not pock-a-pick,” she told me.

It was like being stuck in a game of charades. I could think of only one other prickled animal, and prayed for sanity’s sake that it was right. “Do you mean porcupine?”

“Yes, a baby one. Can you say it?”

I racked my brain, trying to work out if I’d ever known the name for a baby porcupine. Coming up blank, I admitted defeat and Googled that too. Bridget stopped walking while she waited for my answer.

“Porcupette,” I read in utter disbelief. “A baby porcupine is called a porcupette.”

“I know.” She sounded a little sad. “But I can’t say it yet.”

Bente was right. Bridget Décarie was an enigma – smarter than her own vocabulary.

I put my hand on her head. “You will, baby,” I assured her. “One day you’ll be able to say it perfectly.”

“What word can’t you say?” she asked curiously.

I saw no harm in confiding in her. It wasn’t as if I’d confess my stupidity to anyone else. “I’m having trouble telling Bente something really special.”

“Like what?”

“Like, I love her.”

Bridget giggled. Even she realised how ridiculous it was. “Those are easy words.”

“You’re not supposed to make fun of me.” I sounded far more wounded than I was. “I just told you my deepest darkest secret.”

Her sapphire eyes widened as she looked up at me. “Really? A secret.”

“A big secret,” I confirmed.

She grabbed my hand, pulled me toward a nearby bench and ordered me to sit. “I’ll help you,” she promised. She remained standing, holding the pink bag out as if she was positioning it for the big reveal. “When I have words I can’t say, Mummy puts them in here.” I nodded, still unsure of where she was headed. Now that Charli had rated a mention, it was bound to be off the wall and crazy. “If you keep the words close to you, you won’t forget them,” she explained.

“You have words in that bag?”

Bridget instructed me to hold out my hands, and fumbled to undo the drawstring. I wanted to intervene and do it for her, but held off because I knew she wouldn’t welcome the help.

“Ready?” she asked finally.

“Born ready.”

The little girl upended the bag into my hands. Ten scrabble letters tumbled out.

One by one, I placed them on the seat beside me, spelling out her word of the day. “Por-cu-pette.” I pointed at each letter as I pronounced it.

She slowly repeated it, almost correctly.

“There you go,” I praised. “You’ve got it.”

Her face lit up. “I did get it,” she said proudly. “Now I can help you.”

I looked down at the letters beside me. “These aren’t the right letters for my words, Bridge.”

“I know where we can get some,” she replied, “but it’s very dangerous.”

If I were smarter, I would’ve declined the offer and talked her into heading to the playground instead. But curiosity stamped out common sense. “Where?”

“In Papy’s room.” Her expression was deadly serious. “I’ve seen them in there.”

“His study?”

She nodded.

No wonder she considered it dangerous. My father’s home study was off limits to everyone under the age of twenty-one. Adam and I needed a college degree before we were allowed to set foot through the door.

“Have you ever been in there, Bridget?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Papy doesn’t know.”

I couldn’t help smiling as I imagined her sneaking in. I wondered if she did it for the thrill or if there was a reason for it.

I swept the letters into my hand and she sat down beside me. “What do you do in there?”

“Look for things,” she replied. “I have some girls in there too.”

Her confession made me laugh. Not only had she infiltrated my father’s sacred space, she’d sullied it with broken dolls – and he had no idea.

“Did you hide some words in there too?” I asked, dropping the letters back in her bag.

“No, they were already there. I found them when I was looking. I’ll get them for you.”

We were quiet for a minute. I wanted to give her some thinking time, in case she had second thoughts and backed out of her break and enter plot. She didn’t. Bridget used the time to come up with a game plan.

“You talk to Mamie and I’ll sneak and get them.”

Despite the fact I was coming dangerously close to aiding and abetting a four-year-old criminal mastermind, I played along. “What if we get caught?”

Bridget stared at me for a long moment while she thought it through. “You run, Ry,” she said. “Really fast.”

***

We spent the ten-minute walk to my parents’ house going over her shady plan. My one and only job was to create a diversion.

“Talk to Mamie for a while,” she instructed.

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ve got it.”

Mom answered the door, more than a little surprised to see us. “Hello, darlings. What are you doing here?”

I wasn’t sure if the absence of Mrs Brown would work in our favour or not. It didn’t seem to mess with Bridget’s plans. The ease with which she launched into her tale was almost troubling.

“Can we have a juice box please, Mamie?” she asked sweetly. “We’ve been to the park and it’s very hot.”

That was a lie: at best the afternoon was mild; but my mother didn’t question it. “Oh, sweetheart.” She led her inside. “Playing at the park is thirsty work, I’m sure.”

I trailed behind them as they headed to the kitchen chatting nonsense. Bridget hung by the kitchen door while Mom grabbed a juice box from the fridge.

“Thank you, Mamie.” Her little voice was far too enthusiastic to be believable, but Mom didn’t seem to notice she was hamming it up.

“You’re welcome, my darling girl,” she replied, pinching her cheeks.

Bridget glanced at me. I guessed that was my cue.

Distracting my mother wasn’t going to be easy. When Adam’s little princess was around, everyone else failed to exist in my mother’s eyes. As it stood, she hadn’t said a word to me since we’d arrived.

I pulled it off by asking her opinion of my shirt.

She brushed my shoulder. “It’s fine, Ryan. I like the colour.”

Bridget didn’t waste a second. Once Mom’s back was turned, she expertly slipped out the door. As soon as she was gone, I abandoned the charade and let my mother in on the scheme.

“You cannot condone that sort of behaviour, Ryan.” She was aghast. “Your father will be most upset to know she’s been in there.”

“She’s just after some scrabble pieces, Ma,” I muttered. “Not the family jewels.”

“It’s the principle!” she scolded. “You’re giving her permission to be sneaky and underhanded. Not even Charli would approve of that.”

She was right. Of course she was right. I knew I had to stop Bridget, but it didn’t feel good, especially since the whole reason for her
dangerous
mission was to help me out.

At Mom’s insistence, I headed upstairs to intervene. The second floor was deathly quiet, which proved that Bridget was practically fearless. A big empty house should have been a scary place for a little kid, but my niece was no ordinary kid. I crept down the hallway, stopping at the doorway of my father’s study.

Everything about the room was huge. The carved antique furniture was oversized, the ceiling was high, and the massive bookshelf running the length of the far wall was so tall that a rolling library ladder had been fitted. The only small thing in there was Bridget, who was fossicking in the bottom drawer of a cabinet. I’d all but forgotten the bounty of board games kept in there; they hadn’t seen the light of day since we were kids.

I whispered her name, trying to gain her attention without scaring her.

“I’m here,” she replied.

“I know. I can see you.”

She lifted the lid off the scrabble game, grabbed a handful of pieces and hurriedly loaded them into her bag. “I’ve got them, Ry,” she announced victoriously.

It was probably her good fortune that I was her uncle rather than her father. Adam would’ve been appropriately appalled by her antics. I, on the other hand, felt a strange sense of pride – especially when she put the game back together and closed the drawer in a bid to clean up her crime scene.

As much as it pained me, I couldn’t let her get away with it.

“I can’t let you do this, Bridge,” I said, stopping her at the doorway.

She waved her bag at me. “I have your words for you.”

“I know, sweetheart, but you kind of stole them.” My attempt at righting the wrong was half-assed at best. “It’s not good to steal.”

Her face fell, etched with the pure disappointment of finding out that her hard work had been for nothing. “But I got words for you.”

I put my hand under her chin and tilted her head. “Those letters belong to your dad,” I explained. “He might be sad if you steal them.”

She shook the bag, making the letters inside rattle. “These are Daddy’s?”

They sure as hell weren’t mine. I’d favoured games that were actually fun, like Battleships or strip poker. Adam was the dork who’d enjoyed scrabble and chess.

“I’ll tell you what,” I held my phone to her, “you call your dad and ask if you can have them. If he says yes, we’re home and hosed.” She frowned, and I knew I’d lost her. “It means we’re okay to keep them.”

“Okay.”

I hit Adam’s name on the screen and handed over the phone. She paced the hall with the phone to her ear and a hand on her hip as if she was on an important business call.

“It’s on speaker,” I told her. “You don’t need to hold it to your ear.”

When Adam answered, she put her finger to her lips and shushed me. “Hi Daddy,” she said sweetly. “It’s Bridget Décarie.”

“Hello, Bridget Décarie.” Adam didn’t miss a beat. “What can I do for you?”

His daughter’s explanation was straight to the point. She’d swiped his scrabble pieces and wanted his permission to keep them.

“They’re for my uncle,” she explained. “The big one, not the baby one.”

Adam’s reply got caught in a laugh. “You may have them,” he told her, “but don’t lose them, okay?”

“I won’t,” she promised, making me smile by giving me a thumbs-up from the end of the hall.

“I’ve got to go, Bridge,” he replied. “I’m at work. I love you so much.”

The call ended and she took off running toward me. I held my hand out and she met it with a slapping high five. “We’re home and closed, Ry.”

***

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. We hung out with Mom for a while – long enough for her to attempt to bake cupcakes while we sorted through the scrabble pieces on the coffee table.

“There,” I announced, lining up the last of the letters.

Bridget leaned closer. “What does it say?”

I pointed to them as I spoke. “I love you, Bente.”

“Ohh,” she sang. “She will love you too, for sure.”

I wished my life was as simple as the one Bridget lived. For all I knew, I might’ve exhausted all channels of forgiveness where Bente was concerned. Twenty-six-year-old women were not as easily swayed as their four-year-old counterparts.

***

I delivered my niece home at five-thirty, carrying a bag of new words and a container of burnt cupcakes. I then headed home to learn my fate, killing some time along the way by stopping to buy coffee and a newspaper that I’d already read.

My efforts at stalling were in vain. I still managed to beat Bente home by fifteen minutes, which sucked because it gave me more thinking time.