The Great Circus Train Robbery (15 page)

“You really think so?” he said, turning back, a smile bubbling on his lips.

“Yes. And I do like that fuchsia color. Think you could paint my cheeks with it?”

“Really? Well, hang on.” He disappeared a moment, then came out with a dripping brushful and painted a bright fuchsia heart on each of her cheeks.

“Would you mind writing LT on my forehead? It stands for Lieutenant. I just earned the rank.”

“Congratulations,” said Chuckie.

“Thanks. Oh, and Chuckie?”

“Hmm?”

“Take this earring to Mrs. Hackberry, would you? Remind her to return that baggage car to its owner?” Though who the rightful owner was, she’d have to wait and see.

“Yup,” he said. “But I’m not giving back any money—no way. I already spent it!”

She smiled, and rode back to the parking lot in a kind of daze. She was to meet Spence and Ms. Delores there, who would drive them home.

So much had happened in the past five days! She could hardly make sense of it all. She felt like one of her red juggling balls, being thrown up and up in the air—and sometimes falling, bang, on the ground.

“You doing a clown act now?” Spence said when he saw her painted cheeks. He offered her a paper cone of pink cotton candy and she cried out with pleasure.

“The paint will wash off.” She stuck out a tongue to taste the sweet spun sugar. It was delectable.

“It’s oil paint, already dried. It’ll have to
wear
off.”

“I don’t want it to wear off,” she said. “At least not for a week or two. Maybe you should try a little on your earlobes?”

“No, thanks. A fuchsia bike’s bad enough—though I’m getting used to it. So what happened with Chuckie?”

She described the scene. “But Mrs. Hackberry won’t keep the baggage car. She was just trying to get it back for her husband. She was probably the one who shipped it to you through eBay, so she knew where you lived. Though it wasn’t right to steal it from you like that.”

“You said Sweet Gum was the thief.”

“He was the go-between, yeah. And he took my ripe apple, too, and Mrs. Hackberry’s earring. That’s what made me think she was the one responsible—I mean, when Sweet Gum snatched off her red earring. The monkey’s like a bull when he sees red. You know—he goes after it.”

“What about Boomer, though?” Spence licked the last of the cotton candy off his chin. “We know he took my advertising car. And he grabbed my passenger car from the dwarf. What’ll happen to him?”

“A big fine and some time in jail, I suppose, for hitting Hackberry and stealing the car.  Then he’ll leave town, I bet. Rent a house somewhere else. I feel sorry for him.  All alone like that.”

“He has his cat. Oh, and I forgot to tell you. You know that package he ordered on the internet? Well, the UPS man stopped at our house yesterday to ask Mom where Boomer lived.”

“And?”

“And the package was a condominium. That’s what it said on the box.”

“What? A condominium’s a building.”

“For the cat. Mom saw the picture on the outside. With a hole for the cat to sleep in—and carpeting on the outside so it can scratch.”

“Cool,” Zoe said. “He loved his cat then.” She wondered if she’d ever be able to figure people out. Why they did what they did and said what they said. Though that made her realize. Boomer
was
in jail—for how long she didn’t know. But until he got out she should go over and feed Boomer’s big Maine Coon cat.

“Hello there!” It was Ms. Delores, hurrying along, out of breath, followed by Tulip and Hackberry, each carrying a rail car. “Chuckie got it back from Hackberry’s wife,” Tulip announced, holding out the red baggage car.

“But they’re yours, Hackberry,” said Spence when the clown tried to hand over the passenger car.  The whole train, I mean. I want you to have it, I do!  I’ve decided.  I’ll make it up to Grandpa.” His lip and chin were trembling when he spoke but his voice was firm.

“Then we’ll own it together,” Hackberry cried. “I never ran that train anyway, not since I was a kid—I’ve got lots of others to fool around with. I mainly wanted the passenger car back because of the papers I hid in it. You keep the train, Spence, and I’ll come visit it now and then. Monday, in fact. I want to stay on a few days to see Juniper. Divide up what Mother left—if anything. See if we can, well, work things out.”

Spence tried to protest, but the clown was shoving both cars into Ms. Delores’s rear compartment. The monkey tried to leap in, too—he’d already bonded with the red cars—but Hackberry grabbed him and he hopped onto the clown’s back.

“But tomorrow I want you
here”
Hackberry told Spence. “For the first show. Be here by two. And you’ve got to push harder to get me back in the ring,” he complained. “I almost didn’t go.”

“My costume ripped in the sleeve,” Tulip told Zoe. “Can you or your mom sew it up? I’ll need it by two-fifteen at the latest. And fix my loose zipper?”

“Oh, and here’s my train book,” said Hackberry, thrusting the manuscript at Spence. “You can read it tonight and we’ll talk about it tomorrow before the show.”

“Tomorrow?”  said Spence, looking down at the  thick manuscript.

“Tomorrow?” said Zoe, holding the ripped costume in her arms.

“Tomorrow, yes! See you then!” And the clowns dashed off, blowing kisses.

Zoe and Spence marched down to the club hut after Ms. Delores dropped them off. It was already nine o’clock and Zoe knew that Spence was anxious to run his complete train for the first time in five  crazy days. But she had to give Kelby the final proof.

In each of the four hut windows, red candles sent weird shadows across the faces of the assembled spies. They were all there, right down to the lab Gwendolyn, squatting on her black haunches, gazing up expectantly at Zoe as if to say: “Now prove it!”

And Zoe did. First Spence held up the red passenger car and the advertising car, one in each hand, and smiled to hear the murmurings.

Kelby snickered. “We know you got those back—and Dad wants to know exactly
how, Zoe, dear.
But for now, it’s the baggage car we want to see. The one Boomer hid in his cellar along with that dining car he took from your friend Hackberry’s trunk. Oh yes, you didn’t know that, did you?” He rocked back in his Chief’s rocking chair.

Zoe
didn’t
know. “In the cellar?” she said. “You found it yourself?”

“We would of,” he said, “if the police hadn’t got there first. And found it hid inside the furnace. Tricky, huh? But we’re going back tonight to find the baggage car. Right, guys? When the cops aren’t there?” The club members nodded and grinned and Kelby leaned so far back he would have pitched on his head if Butch and Jake hadn’t grabbed the chair.

Zoe smiled. “Well, Spence and I can save you the bother. Because we have the baggage car right here, and it wasn’t in Boomer’s cellar.” She whipped out the hand she’d held behind her back. “Ta da!” And there was the red baggage car, shinier than ever since Mrs. Hackberry had taken the polish to it.

The spy club boys were quiet.  Gwendolyn cocked an ear but her tail was wagging. Kelby said, “It’s a red baggage car, okay. But is it
the
baggage car?” He addressed his spies. “Does it look like the same one to you? No-oo-o?”

“Noo-oo-o,” the boys echoed, shaking their heads and muttering to one another.

“So prove it,” Kelby said. “Yeah, prove it,” Butch said.

Zoe turned the car over to show them the
SR
Spence had etched in the bottom. Then Spence revealed the
SR
in the base of the advertising and passenger cars. “But they’re not just mine anymore,” he said. “The train belongs to me
and
Hackberry both.”

“But Spence is the caretaker,” Zoe said, nodding at her friend.

“And you can come watch them run any time,” Spence said with a generous sweep of his arm from Kelby to Gwendolyn. “As long as
I’m
there to supervise.”

“And now that I’m a
lieutenant,
“ Zoe said, “you’re all invited after tomorrow’s show to an apple pie and sweet potato fries party to watch Kelby pin on my new badge. And hear the story of how a monkey stole the baggage car with the help of a dwarf and Hackberry the clown’s wife.”

The spies were quiet again; they were watching Chief Kelby. Zoe saw annoyance, then embarrassment, then surrender flicker across his face. Finally he coughed twice, forced a smile, and said, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter at all that she’d proven him wrong, “Tomorrow night. Nine o’clock. Here in the club hut. She’ll get her badge.”

Everyone cheered then (except Kelby and Butch) and slapped palms, and Gwendolyn barked, and Zoe dropped the baggage car but Spence did a quick underhand catch.

“I want Spence here, too,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without him. I really couldn’t,” she said, blinking her eyes at Spence, and he flushed.

The boys cheered again and someone yelled, “Make Spence a member!”

Spence shook his head. “I’m a special agent—that’s enough. C’mon, Zoe, I want to run my train. And then I’ve got to read Hackberry’s book!”

“See you,” said Zoe to the club. She followed Spence back to his gazebo where he hooked on the three red cars and started up the train with a hum-mm-m that out-hummed his own deepening voice.

She picked up the red balls she’d left on the gazebo bench and tossed them high. In moments there were four red balls (four!) spinning in the air. And there were eleven green, yellow, blue, white, and red circus cars, all whirring and spinning and thrumming about the track.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything quite so beautiful.

DEDICATION

For Llyn, for the grown Spence and Zoe, and for the teens in my life: Connor, Forrest, and Austen.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Heartfelt thanks to my train expert, Llyn Rice, who read and critiqued the manuscript and let me interrupt his busy day with a hundred questions; to Leonard Perry, who allowed us to photograph his beautiful circus train at the Vermont Flower Show, and to the Vermont Garden Railway Society who designed and built the fabulous village in which Leonard. Llyn, and others ran their model trains.

My gratitude to Mrs. Dolores Riedinger, former librarian, on whom the librarian in this novel is loosely and lovingly based. The words I’ve put in her mouth, and the situations, are purely fictional.

Warm thanks, too, to my children’s book writing group, who have kept me in tune with kids’ talk; to the Reillys who shepherded this book through the maze of publishing; and to the Vermont Circus Smirkus, whose talented young performers I watch with awe and pleasure each summer. The clowns in this novel are all fictitious characters, of course. The description of old-time steam trains and their wrecks is adapted from The Age of Steam by Lucius Beebe & Charles Clegg
(Promontory Press).

And finally, thanks and love to my extended, three-generational family of readers and writers who are ever a source of encouragement, and—yes, forgive me—writing material.

Copyright © 2008 by Nancy Means Wright

Originally published by Hilliard & Harris [978-1591332459]

Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

     http://www.BelgraveHouse.com

     Electronic sales: [email protected]

This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.