The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill (15 page)

Connie stood straight as a board. Then without even looking at Hazel or saying anything, she marched away toward the classroom, leaving Hazel in the hall holding the sunshine-yellow envelope. Hazel hurried to class and took her seat just in time; she didn't even have to give a glance to Samuel.

Samuel, Hazel quickly realized, was nearly as relentless as she was. All morning he looked at her with sad eyes, but she didn't care. Or she told herself she didn't care, and concentrated so hard on making it look like she didn't care that she almost believed it.

Music class was the hardest.

“Announcement!” Mrs. Ferrigno sang once they were all settled. “The school will be putting on a recital to celebrate the fall harvest season, and we shall be performing a percussive
piece.” She shook a piece of paper. “‘Simple Gifts,'” she declared, and began warbling: “ 'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free.”

She dispensed with the usual pageantry of handing out instruments and gave the students what they always got. “We have so much work to do. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!” Hazel was stuck with her crooked triangle sitting right next to Samuel.

The piece called for them to ding their triangles each time the chorus came up. It was all percussive instruments, with no one singing, but if they had been singing, it would have been like this:

'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free
,

'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be
.

And when we find ourselves in the place just right
,

Ding!

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight
.

Mrs. Ferrigno was nervous about this added responsibility for her triangle players.

“Triangle people,” Maryann muttered, and rubbed her arm. She'd been feigning injuries all day: back, arm, leg, even her head, which she hadn't come close to hitting. Hazel bared her teeth at her.

“You understand, you two, right? You understand when you need to play?” Mrs. Ferrigno asked.

Hazel nodded, but all she could think about was that she was sitting right next to a traitor. She shifted away a little.

Mrs. Ferrigno began by teaching the parts to the other players, so Hazel sat back and thought about what it would take to get her to turn tail on a friend like that. She was narrowing it down to the threat of death to her puppy—if she had a puppy, which her parents said could not happen, given where they lived and a dog's propensity for digging—or the kidnapping of her parents. Certainly not the mere intimidation by a couple of girls.

Of course, this gave more credence to the theory that he was protecting his Red mother. He knew she was on the trail of the Communists and he was trying to throw obstacles in her path.

“Hazel,” he whispered.

She untied and retied the skinny laces of her brown-and-white saddle shoes. She wanted penny loafers with a bright copper penny in each one, but her mother said saddle shoes were more practical.

“Hazel,” he whispered.

“Vibraslaps!” Mrs. Ferrigno called out.

“I'm ignoring you,” she whispered back.

He looked down in his lap.

Mrs. Ferrigno started working with the xylophones and the glockenspiels. Maryann and Connie wore looks of intense concentration. “You'll get it, you'll get it. Good!”

“I need to tell you something,” he whispered.

Mrs. Ferrigno glanced over at them and wiggled her eyebrows like little worms slithering above her eyes.

“You've already gotten me in enough trouble.” She moved even farther away from him.

“Now let's add the ratchets and rattles.”

The period was nearly over by the time she got to Hazel and Samuel. “Now, Hazel and Samuel, Maryann and Connie will play their part of the chorus, and then you will chime in.”

Hazel laughed, but Mrs. Ferrigno just drew her worm-eyebrows closer together. “Is something funny?”

“Chime in,” Hazel said. “I thought you were making a joke.”

“This is serious work, Hazel. Can you handle it?”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh.

They practiced a few more times and then Mrs. Ferrigno said, “From the top!”

The first time, Hazel hit the note perfectly, which elicited a small, surprised smile from Mrs. Ferrigno. Then they did it again and Hazel was looking at the vibraslaps with envy. As their part came up, Samuel elbowed her. She'd been ready, but just to get him back, she didn't play her note.

Mrs. Ferrigno sighed and threw her hands up into the air. “Hazel Kaplansky, what am I going to do with you?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Ferrigno. It won't happen again.”

Mrs. Ferrigno turned to the class. “I'm sorry to end on such a low note, but that's our time for the day. Please put your
instruments away.” The class began to shuffle and rise. “Carefully, carefully,” Mrs. Ferrigno sang.

On the way out the door, Samuel tried to catch up to her, but she sidestepped some classmates and tucked into the girls' room, even though they were supposed to return directly to class. She stood with her back against the chipped sink and wondered how long she could keep avoiding Samuel.

After school Hazel hadn't gone more than a few steps toward the bike rack when Samuel jumped into her path. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“A little late for that,” she replied.

“I need to show you something. About Alice.”

The story of the Russian doll burbled on her lips, but she clamped down. “I'm afraid your assistance on that project is no longer needed.
Someone
was being made fun of, and
someone else
stuck up for him, and that someone else, who was me, got in trouble, and that first someone, who is you, didn't do anything, and now that second someone is grounded and needs to go directly home with no stops and no talking and no nothing.”

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “I froze.”

“Yes. You did,” she said, and started walking.

He fell into step beside her. “I have some information that I want to run by you.”

“Just tell me, then.”

“It'll be easier to show you.”

“As I've already explained, I'm grounded.”

“Can't you just tell your parents you're working on a school project?”

“Lie to them? Sure, and if I get caught I'll just be grounded for another indefinite period. I'll be grounded indefinitely to infinity.”

“Could you just ask to go to my house? My grandmother says you're a nice family.”

Hazel thought of the conversation she'd overheard between her parents. Going to Samuel's house was definitely not going to be approved.

“Hazel, please,” he said. His eyes were wide and gray as clouds. He looked like he might cry. She didn't think she could stand to hear that gulping sobbing sound again.

“Oh, all right.” Hazel figured her parents would be outside working since the clouds had blown through and now it was a warm, bright October day, perfect for planting bulbs.

“I want to stop at the library first,” he said.

“Samuel! Do you not understand that I am grounded and I am taking my life into my hands just by agreeing to talk to you?”

“I want to ask Miss Angus something about the case.”

Hazel slapped her forehead. She always liked when people in the movies slapped their foreheads and had been looking for an excuse to do it herself. “What is wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can't go asking Miss Angus about this.”

“Why not?”

“Adults don't think we should talk about death. They think you should put it in a box and bury it in the ground.”

“They talk about it. My grandmother—”

“They don't think it's normal to talk about it, especially not for kids. Trust me on this. If we ask questions, they'll shut us down faster than you can say ‘Who the heck was Alice?'”

“So we're back on the case?” he asked, extending his hand.

Hazel hesitated, but the truth was that Samuel was the second-smartest person in town, and she still needed his help. She reached out and took Samuel's small, warm hand. “We're back on the case.”

Samuel and Hazel walked up Brattle Hill past all the brick houses to an old Victorian at its peak. The house was painted a deep purple, with blue trim, and it loomed over the town like a castle in a storybook. Samuel, though, opened the door like it was nothing. They hung their coats in a closet and started up a narrow set of stairs. Up and up and up and then he pushed open a door and they went into a large circular room. There was a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf overflowing with books, but Hazel noticed none of these things. She crossed the room to a picture window that offered a view like none she had
ever seen. “You can see the whole town from here.” Indeed it looked like a train set laid out in front of them. All the familiar things were there: Main Street with its handful of stores, Wall's Garage and the barber shop across the street, the school, the factory, even Memory's Garden on the north side of town.

“When I was little I used to think I could control it all. I'd point my finger and pretend I was moving cars. It would make me cry if a car turned right when I'd told it to turn left.”

“When you were little?”

“I used to come here with my mom sometimes. This was her room.”

Hazel stared down at her town bustling and moving about like she was watching a movie. She looked back over her shoulder at Samuel and her eyes caught on a huge stack of Batman comic books. She had never seen so many comics all in one place. “Wow! You really like Batman!”

Samuel nodded.

“I'm more of a Superman girl myself.”

“Not me. Superman's an alien. He was born with his special powers. Batman, though, he's just Bruce Wayne, just a regular guy, or so it seems. He uses his brains to fight crime.”

“I never thought of it that way.” She kind of liked the idea. Maybe secret crime fighter could be added to her list of future occupations. She decided she would need to spend some time thinking of possible superhero names.

Samuel sat down on the edge of his bed. “I'm sorry I got you grounded.”

“It's okay,” she said with a shrug. “It got my parents to take their heads out of the plants and actually look at me.”

“At least they're there.”

Hazel reddened. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I forgot about your father, how he's—” Hazel could talk and talk and talk, but it seemed like when it really mattered, her words got garbled.

Samuel, though, just shook his head. “Not him. My mother.”

“Oh, I know all about your mother,” Hazel said, meaning to reassure him.

Samuel's face darkened. “What do you know?”

Hazel opened and shut her mouth. She hadn't intended to tell him she knew his mom was as Red as Mr. Jones. A good detective would never blow a lead like that. She wanted to trust him, but he had left her high and dry in the cafeteria. Given what he said about Batman, though, about using his brains to do good, she thought maybe she could trust him after all. “Well, I figured out that she's a Communist. That's the secret everyone's been talking about when they talk about your secret past. She helped them to infiltrate the plant, and now she's in hiding. And at first I thought you were trying to sabotage my case against The Comrade in order to protect her, but now I think you're on my side because you value truth above everything.”

Samuel didn't say anything for a while. He stared out the window at the town below, and so Hazel stared, too, stealing glances at him. He blinked a few times in rapid succession, but other than that, his face didn't seem to move at all. Out in the
town, the cars crisscrossed the streets with no idea that someone was watching them from way up on the hill.

“Hazel, you have a one-track mind, you know that?”

“Mr. Wall says I'm relentless.”

“My mother is not a Communist.”