The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill (22 page)

“You don't even know the half of it,” she replied. But soon she would have the proof and she'd be able to tell him everything she had figured out, and boy, wouldn't he be surprised.

Connie's punishment for talking with Hazel was swift and severe: banishment. At least that's how it appeared to Hazel when she arrived the next day to find Connie sitting at her desk, her pretty lips pushed out and her eyes red-rimmed. Maryann had her arm around Patricia O'Malley. They were giggling and glaring at Connie, and Hazel almost felt bad for Connie. Then Connie demanded, “What are you looking at?” and Hazel knew that she'd been right about Connie after all.

Hazel sat down in her seat baffled that this huge blowup had started with a boy. With
Timmy
, of all the boys. Sure, he looked a bit like Ricky Nelson from
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
, with his poof of light brown hair, wide eyes, and smirk of a smile. But he smelled like baloney and wasn't very smart, either.

When Ellen Abbott came out of the cubby area, Maryann called, “Come over here, but don't get too close to Connie. She might be contagious.”

Ellen looked from Connie to Maryann, and back to Connie.

“What has she got?” Ellen asked. “It's not polio, is it? It's okay if it's chicken pox, because I already had that, but I don't want polio.”

Maryann rolled her eyes, but getting Ellen Abbott over to her was key to her plan, Hazel could see that. Choosing Ellen over Connie was just about the meanest thing Maryann could do. The absolute worst would be if Maryann chose Hazel as her new best friend. “Communism,” Maryann whispered. “It's got her whole family.”

Hazel blinked. “That's not how it works,” she said. “You don't catch Communism. It's a choice.”

Next to her, Samuel winced.

Maryann snickered. “You would know all about it, wouldn't you?”

“Well, I do know about most things, but yes, actually, Samuel and I have been investi—”

“Your whole family is a bunch of Red sympathizers. Maybe your family and Connie's family ought to have a commune together. Isn't that what Commies do? You could all go live in her stupid fallout shelter.”

“Oh!” Patricia exclaimed. “I bet that's why they have the fallout shelter in the first place!”

“What are you talking about?” Hazel demanded.

“You're so smart, you figure it out,” Maryann said.

But Patricia was too proud of herself. “Since Mr. Short is a Red spy, he
knows
the Commies plan to bomb us, so he had the fallout shelter built. I bet he has a special telephone, and
they'll call him on it, and he'll take the whole family down underground. At least that was the plan before Senator McCarthy caught him.” She tossed her red hair over her shoulder and grinned at Maryann.

“I guess your mom is smart being nice to the family,” Maryann mused while spinning her long, flat blond hair around her index finger. “Maybe she thinks it will keep her safe. Me, I'll put my faith in Uncle Sam.”

“Why are you talking about my mother?” Hazel asked.

Maryann and Patricia laughed and Ellen gave her a look of sympathy. “What?” Hazel demanded of Ellen.
Rumor. Whisper. Lie
. The words echoed in her brain.

“At the meeting last night—” Ellen began, but again Patricia was too excited. Her bright green eyes flashed.

“At the meeting last night your mother told the other mothers to lay off the Commies.”

But that was impossible, Hazel thought. Why would her mother have said something like that?

“She said that we all should be ashamed of ourselves turning against one another like this.” Maryann licked her thin lips. “She said it wasn't the Communists tearing the town apart. It's us.”

Hazel dropped her head into her hands. Now the whole town probably thought her mother was a Communist sympathizer, and soon they would find out that The Comrade, the head of the whole spy ring, was working for her. No one would ever believe it was a coincidence.

Mrs. Sinclair bustled into the room. “To your seats
children, to your seats!” As soon as they were all seated, she had them stand again for the Pledge of Allegiance. Hazel spoke with deep fervor. No one could doubt her loyalty to her country. Still, when they sat back down, Hazel made the mistake of looking over her shoulder to see Maryann smirking at her.

At recess Connie sat alone on the wall. The bright sun shone on her curls, and she looked like one of those paintings of a chubby angel. Folks liked to think about those pink-cheeked angels watching over their loved ones when they were dead, and Hazel often found cards with their pictures in the flowers left on the graves.

The difference, though, was that Connie did not look peaceful or helpful. She looked as sad as an under-watered plant. “Connie the Commie,” that's what they were calling her.

“It doesn't work that way,” Hazel complained to Samuel. “Connie isn't a Communist just because her dad is. At least, I don't think so.”

Samuel picked up a rough piece of granite and tossed it in his hand. “I think your mom was doing the right thing.”

Hazel narrowed her eyes. “Sure. Making everyone think our family supports the Communists, that was a great decision. Just swell.”

“She's trying to keep this town together. Isn't that what you want?”

Hazel shook her head. Of course that was what she wanted, but there were good ways to go about it, and not so good ways. Her mom's way was putting a big target right on the family. She couldn't think about it anymore, so she turned her attention back to Connie. “I suppose Connie will want to be friends with us now.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn't have any other friends.”

“Maybe,” Samuel said. He bent over and picked up a smooth, white pebble and placed it next to the rough one in his hand.

“Of course we'll tell her to get lost,” Hazel said. “But it won't be because of her dad. It will be because of her.”

Samuel spoke without looking up. “That would make us no better than her.”

Hazel was glad that Samuel wasn't looking, so he couldn't see the emotions on her face: surprised, angry, then, finally, agreement. She was a better person than Connie and that meant she had to act better. This was a bitter pill to swallow.

After school Hazel hopped on her bike and pedaled hard to catch up with Connie, who was walking home alone. Connie waddled with her head down, kicking a stone and sending it skittering along in front of her.

Hazel was feeling pretty good about her choice. She'd thought about it all afternoon. She
was
a good person, and most
certainly a better person than Maryann Wood, who had dumped Connie at the drop of a hat. It was especially generous of Hazel to be nice to Connie after she had been so wicked. Hazel liked this feeling of generosity. She was sure that Connie would be so surprised and grateful she might even faint to the ground. After which she would hop up and tell Hazel that she was the kindest person ever to have lived, and surely she didn't deserve Hazel's friendship, but she was happy for it.

Hazel coasted on her bike up alongside Connie and jumped off in her patented, graceful move. Connie did not say anything. In fact, Connie did not even look up. Hazel thought that maybe Connie was just embarrassed. So the two walked side by side in silence for a while. Maple seeds fell from the trees and spun down like little kamikaze helicopters. The girls' feet crunched over fallen leaves.

Finally Hazel could stand it no longer. “I'm sorry about what happened in school today,” she said.

Connie looked up, but didn't say anything.

“I wasn't ignoring you with everyone else. We just never talk, you know. But I noticed how everyone was being mean to you, and I thought that was pretty low.”

A maple seed fell right down on Hazel's shoulder and she brushed it off. They were going uphill now. For a waddler, Connie could move pretty quickly, and Hazel had to huff along after her with her bicycle.

“What I'm trying to say is that I know how it feels not to have any friends, and I don't think it's your fault your dad is a
spy, so if you want to be friends with me and Samuel, we decided that would be okay.”

Connie stopped walking. She turned and faced Hazel, her cheeks red and tear stained. “I know you were trying to help today, but don't you know, Hazel, when someone like you tries to help, it only makes things worse?”

“I was only pointing out that just because your father is a spy doesn't mean you're a Red, too.”

“Don't ever talk about my father,” she said, her voice tight. “In fact, don't ever talk to me again.”

With a sharp turn, she went waddling off on her way home, leaving Hazel standing dumbfounded on the sidewalk. A maple seed fell, twirling faster and faster in front of her eyes before spinning to a stop on the ground. Even though she should have known what to expect from Connie, she couldn't help but be disappointed.

Hazel opened the door to the mailbox hoping for a letter from Becky. There was nothing. She closed it. Then she opened it again, just in case she had missed something. Sometimes the letters got pushed way into the back. She squinted, but still saw nothing. Every once in a while spiders built their webs back there, and once a paper wasp had constructed a small nest. Still, Hazel steeled her jaw and reached her hand in to feel around.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

It wasn't like Becky to not write. She prided herself on her conscientiousness. Maybe some terrible fate had befallen her. Maybe she had been kidnapped or had gone for a walk in the desert and been ripped apart by coyotes. Before Becky had left, Hazel had provided her with carefully researched information on all the poisonous snakes of the region, including
illustrations. Maybe Becky hadn't had a chance to read it and a Western diamond rattlesnake had sunk its fangs into her ankle.

Hazel couldn't help but think it would serve her right.

She had written Becky several letters detailing the investigation, but so far had only received one reply that had barely mentioned the mystery: a cheery
Good luck!
Instead the letter had been full of tales of the kids she had met in Tucson, the parties she was going to, and she even hinted at liking a boy, Ronnie O'Ryan. Becky and Hazel were not party people. They were not the type to get crushes on boys. Why, it was called a crush. Who would want a boy to smush her down so small there wasn't even a bit of her real self left? She wondered what could have possibly gotten into Becky to make her change so much. It was like she'd been taken over by some sort of alien being.

She clomped inside the house and dropped her knapsack with a dull thud on the floor. Her mother happened to be coming out of the office into the hallway and said, “My, aren't you in a sour mood. What's troubling you?”

Hazel couldn't believe her mother was standing there smiling like nothing in the world was amiss. “What did you say at that meeting?” she demanded.

The smile faltered on her mother's lips. “That's a grown-up matter, Hazel. You don't need to worry about that.”

“Did you say we needed to lay off the Communists? Is that what you said?”

Her mother sighed and rearranged her scarf on her head.
“Not exactly, Hazel. I said that we were making things worse by getting all riled up. That if we really were concerned mothers, we wouldn't dwell on what was going on at the factory, because that's scary for you kids, but instead we should try to come together as a town.”

Hazel looked at her mother agog. “Do you realize what you've done? Now everyone thinks we're in on it!”

“Hazel, I'm sorry if it came back to you like that, but—”

“Why did you choose this moment to be a concerned mother?” Hazel yelled, her voice echoing up the stairs.

“Hazel—”

“You should have just stayed out of it like you always do!”