The Magician's Bird (6 page)

“Okay, so we're agreed. We cross our fingers that Mrs. Hutchins
is in charge today, throw ourselves on her mercy, and ask for an extension.” Bud put down the pencil. He and Laurie had tried to come up with “appropriate” compromise places for clues for what seemed like hours, but they couldn't agree on anything. And the things they could agree on were pretty much guaranteed to be nixed, unless the school safe or banister knobs were suddenly acceptable hiding places.

Laurie nodded. “And then you call Misti and see what's up at her house.” There was no way she was making that phone call herself.

“Okay.” Bud got up and went to shove his notes in his backpack, but as he unzipped it, Laurie made a hissing noise.

“What the—” Bud started.

“Shh!” Laurie hissed. “Listen!”

Bud pricked up his ears and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There were voices coming from behind the door in the corner. The door they hadn't investigated.

“Are they coming in here? Should we hide?” Bud said under his breath. Not that there were a lot of hiding places in the room. All anyone would have to do is open the door and they'd be caught. But he didn't think they had time to make it to the main door.

“Shh!” Laurie whispered again, not moving. They could still hear the voices, but they didn't seem to be getting any closer.

Laurie got to her feet and silently crept over to the passageway door. Then, with a significant look at Bud to keep his mouth shut, she opened it a crack.

The voices were louder now, but they didn't sound like voices in the passageway. They sounded farther away.

Laurie pulled the door open and stepped inside. It was dark, but up ahead she could see small, dim squares of light on the floor. She crept up to the first one and gasped.

“Bud!” she whispered. “Look!”

“What?” Bud did not want to get caught. He hurried forward and hoped Laurie knew what she was doing.

“What is it?” Bud asked, hurrying up to Laurie. He really hoped she wasn't flipping out. But it really looked like she was, because she was just standing staring at the wall.

Laurie pointed at the wall.

Afraid of what he was going to see, Bud looked at the wall where Laurie was pointing. And gasped.

It was the library. It was hazy, like they were looking through a screen or something, but it was definitely the school library, just on the other side of the wall. Miss Lucille was in there talking to Mrs. Hutchins, and they were leaning over something on the table. A paper or something. They both looked upset.

“Oh, man,” Bud breathed. “Secret passageway?”

“It keeps going, too, farther that way,” Laurie said, pointing down the passage. “We can see and hear everything they're doing.”

“OH, MAN,” Bud said, a little more loudly than he intended.

Mrs. Hutchins looked up and scanned the library,
then went back to the paper on the table.

“Oh, man,” Bud said again, in a much softer voice. “This is so awesome.” He pointed toward the corner of the library. “Look, you can see Ponch and Jon!”

Ponch and Jon were standing in their deluxe gerbil habitat, clenching their tiny fists and shaking with rage. It was like their gerbil superpowers had alerted them to Bud and Laurie's presence, but they were powerless to do anything but shriek and hop in fury.

“Where are we?”

“I think we must be on the other side of that weird abstract map on the wall in the library. It must be a secret screen or something,” Laurie said. She couldn't believe it. She'd looked at the stupid map a thousand times and had never once suspected it was a secret viewing screen. “No wonder she kept all this secret,” Laurie said. “I wonder where else this tunnel goes?”

“Misti's going to be ticked off if we go on without her,” Bud said. Not that he really cared how ticked off Misti would be, but he thought it should be said.

“Shoot. You're right,” Laurie said, deflating. They were totally exploring now. And Misti already had enough reasons to be mad at her, what with that email she'd sent her mom and all.

Bud turned to Laurie and put his hands on his hips. “We are
NOT
telling anyone about this.
ANY
of this,” Bud said, sweeping his arm around at the tunnel and secret room. They just couldn't spill the beans now.

“No chance.” Laurie folded her arms. It was one thing for her and Bud to secretly peek into the library. But the idea of someone like Betty Abernathy or Coach Burton or Principal Winkle peeking in was too horrible to imagine. No, there was no debate here. This was going to stay secret.

Bud checked his watch nervously. They'd lost track of time, and they were already five minutes late for their scavenger hunt meeting with Miss Abernathy or Mrs. Hutchins. So much for making a good impression.

They hurried over to Miss Abernathy's office, bracing themselves for a tongue-lashing, but it was empty. Miss Abernathy was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, man, she must be really mad,” Laurie breathed. “Maybe she's with Mrs. Hutchins?” They started toward Mrs. Hutchins's room at a half jog. The plan was to be obstinate about the hiding places, but not to tick the co-advisors off completely. Well, not yet, anyway.

They hustled down the hallway and darted into Mrs. Hutchins's room. It was empty.

Laurie and Bud stood staring at the empty classroom. Bud shrugged. “She must still be talking to Miss Lucille. That's weird,” Bud said, hurrying in the direction of the library.

“Maybe they gave up on us?” Laurie said. She didn't think they'd give up after five minutes, but who knows, maybe they were teaching them a lesson about the importance of being punctual. It could happen.

Miss Lucille was by herself in the library, feeding Ponch and Jon an apple.

“We could ask?” Laurie said doubtfully, watching Miss Lucille through the glass in the door. She was holding the whole apple, letting Ponch and Jon take bites of it, not just dropping pieces of apple in the cage like people usually did.

“Naw, leave it,” Bud said. Ponch and Jon seemed to be enjoying the personal attention. “Office?”

“Sure.” Laurie shrugged. She was starting to feel really freaked out. It wasn't normal to go that long without running into someone, even if it was summer.

Bud reached for the office door just as Mrs. Hutchins hurried out. She jumped back when she saw them and
laughed nervously. “Bud! Laurie! What are you doing here?”

Bud and Laurie exchanged a worried glance. “Scavenger hunt organizational meeting. Remember?”

“Oh, right, that.” Mrs. Hutchins laughed again. It was a high-pitched, strained-sounding laugh. It didn't sound normal, especially since nothing was funny. “I'm sorry, kids, we'll have to reschedule. Things have gotten a little hectic here today. Why don't we plan on tomorrow? Or . . . you know what? I'm sure whatever ideas you've come up with are fine. Why don't you just go with those? Okay, thanks, great, bye.” She hustled past them down the hall without a backward glance.

“What was that?” Laurie's eyes were wide.

“Well, something's definitely up,” Bud said, staring after Mrs. Hutchins.

“All of our ideas are fine?” Laurie shook her head. “So if we went ahead with the plan to carve a clue into the ceiling of the library, they'd be okay with it?”

“Technically,” Bud said. “But I really don't think we should do that one.”

“Yeah, okay. But
TECHNICALLY
,” Laurie said.

“Technically, yeah.”

Laurie smiled. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all.

Post-it note from Olivia Hutchins left on Betty Abernathy's computer

Post-it note on Olivia Hutchins's door from Betty Abernathy

Bud and Laurie had just walked down the school steps when a hand grabbed each of them from behind.

“You guys!” a voice gasped.

Misti pulled them backward and then bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. “Seriously, I ran the whole way here. It's so crazy. You know I was grounded?”

Laurie cringed. “Yeah. About that. I'm really sorry about that email I sent your mom. That was totally out of line.”

Misti waved her off. “No, that was genius. My mom is big on being consistent with her rules, so that meeting-my-commitments thing was perfect. I'd never have gotten out otherwise.”

Laurie was taken aback. “Oh. Well, great.”

“What's the big rush, though? Why are you all out of breath?” Bud said, bending over to look Misti in the face. She was turning a strange hot pink, kind of like her head was about to explode.

“You haven't seen it, then?” Misti gasped, straightening up. She pulled a folded newspaper out of her back pocket and smacked Bud in the chest with it. “LeFranco.
He wasn't bluffing.”

Bud unfolded the newspaper and looked at the headline. Then he passed it to Laurie in shock.

“Oh, man.”

Laurie looked at the headline. Whatever she'd been afraid of, this was worse.

“Is it as bad as it sounds?” Bud was slumped on the steps with his head in his hands.

“Worse,” Laurie said, staring blankly at the newspaper.

“Well, it's not true,” Bud said.

“Of course it's not true,” Laurie said. “But it's still in the paper.”

“They really have evidence?” Bud said, still not looking up.

“There's a photo of Maria Tutweiler entering Alphonse Marchetti's house on the night he was murdered. It's on the front page. And there's another one of her with a cop, getting questioned, it looks like.”

Bud groaned. “So she's really a bootlegging murderous thieving thiever?”

Laurie folded the paper. “Well, that's what LeFranco says, but he's going to have a hard time convincing me that Maria Tutweiler committed a brutal and bloody murder. It's not her style.”

Bud snorted. “Well, great. We'll just tell them that it's not her style, and I'm sure they'll drop the whole thing.” Bud lay back on the steps. It was a bad move—the steps were really uncomfortable, but once he'd done it, he felt like he had to commit to it.

“Fine, excuse me.” Laurie tried to fold the newspaper again, but it was too thick.

“Seriously, what are we going to do? If they think she was a murderer, nobody will want to come to Tuckernuck. They'll shut down the school for sure.” Bud tried not to squirm his shoulders. He hadn't gone through all that trouble to find the treasure and save the school just to have it shut down over a newspaper story.

“I don't know, Bud. Maybe not. Maybe people will think he's crazy.” Laurie stood up. “Anyway, we'll defend her somehow. That's all there is to it. She's innocent, we'll defend her, case closed. LeFranco's just a dog chewing off our ankles.” She frowned. That wasn't right. But she couldn't remember exactly what her dad had said, and chewing off their ankles sure felt like what LeFranco was doing.

Memo left by Betty Abernathy in the school mailboxes of Bud Wallace and Laurie Madison