The Bungled Bike Burglaries (The Gabby St. Claire Diaries Book 3) Page 5

  “I bet you were using your book to help you with the time capsule research. This mystery must be very important to you for you to have been reading your textbook during drama club.”

  I was about to remind him drama club was days ago and confess I was just a space cadet, but he kept on talking as he pulled a packet of hall passes from his shirt pocket.

  “Don’t worry about the quiz. Actual historical research is much more important.” He handed me a signed pass with my name on the top line. “Here, go get your book, and if you want to take the rest of class to hit the library, be my guest.”

  “Okay,” I said, stunned at my unexpected reversal of fortune.

  Mr. C. trailed me to the door saying how pleased he was I was incorporating history into my monologue and what an excellent student I was becoming.

  His ignorance was my bliss, so I retrieved my book. As I headed down the scuffed hall littered with a day’s accumulation of lost pencils and the tiny dandruff from torn notebook paper, I scrounged in my backpack for the letter and diary. I’d show Mrs. Gibson the list I’d made in Watson as well as the letter.

  “I was wondering if you could help me find some books about the stuff on my list that might go with this letter. It’s for my monologue.” I shrugged my backpack off and handed her Watson, open to the page with the list of names and phrases I had copied from the letter and items that were inside the time capsule. She glanced over it, nodding and walking to the shelves. I followed.

  “I can’t help you with American Steel, but these encyclopedia yearbooks and this almanac cover the 1950s. Since they are reference books, you can’t check them out. You’ll need to use them here. Tell me more about your research project.”

  As I explained in depth, Mrs. Gibson got more and more enthusiastic. She pulled two books about the civil rights movement in Virginia for me to check out and promised to do some digging about what else was available from interlibrary loan.

  “This is so exciting. I don’t think we’ve ever had a student take on a project like this.” Mrs. Gibson practically glowed at the thought of helping me. “Check with me later this week. I might have something in or another idea.”

  I stopped outside my science classroom to check the hall clock and fill in the time on my pass. The clock read one fifty.

  Uh-oh!

  I realized my detour had taken up half of science and hoped Ms. Shernick wouldn’t be upset or hadn’t done a really fun lab in my absence. She took my pass without comment, and I slid into my seat.

  A thousand things tumbled through my brain. Maybe it would be possible to track down Hope if she had been involved in something that made history. If she were still alive.

  If not, I would bring her killers to justice while mesmerizing the audience as the courageous Hope Q. I might even get to travel to other schools to perform. Or be on TV. Maybe they would make a movie about her, and since I’d be the leading expert, they’d cast me in the starring role.

  As I was leaving class, still daydreaming about fame and fortune, Ms. Shernick called me back.

  Uh-oh! Again.

  “You were awfully late to class,” she started, arms crossed in front of her in her no-nonsense pose. She looked at me expectantly.

  “I had to get books . . . Mr. C. sent me to get a book . . .” I was stumbling over my words and held up the top book on my stack. Uh-oh times three. I’d accidentally taken the almanac that wasn’t supposed to leave the media center. Ms. Shernick glanced at it.

  “Oh! Weather info. For a science monologue?” Her face brightened just like Mr. C.’s and the librarian’s had. The look of doom left her face. She was all smiles now.

  “Not a problem,” she said and uncrossed her arms. “But I thought almanacs couldn’t be checked out.”

  “I’m taking it back on my way home.”

  “If you need help with this project, any help whatsoever, let me know.” She dropped her voice to a confidential volume and added, “There’s some friendly competition among the teachers to see which subject will have the most monologues make it into the show.” A big grin blossomed across her coffee-colored face. “No one thinks science has a chance. Guess we’ll show them.”

  Things were looking up!

  Until I got to Page Turner’s.

  CHAPTER 13

  I was major-league surprised to see a blue hardtail mountain bike just like Pete’s chained to the same street sign where ours had been locked together yesterday. I had to force myself to breathe.

  It couldn’t be Pete’s bike. It has a back tire.

  I pushed open the door, wishing the cowbell wouldn’t draw attention to me. I wanted to scan the comic book section incognito. I wanted to spot Pete, if he was here, before he spotted me.

  I glanced around, trying to keep a low profile. There was no sign of Pete. I was able to breathe freely again.

  “Because I need more cash flow, if you get my meaning,” said College Guy into the phone. He stared daggers at me as he covered the mouthpiece and barked, “What?”

  “Is Howie here?” I asked.

  “He works tomorrow. Now scram. I got business to attend to.” College Guy pointedly turned away from me to resume his conversation.

  I took a quick stroll down the aisles, telling myself it was to check out possible gift ideas for a not-too-distant two-month anniversary.

  A chorus of “Huzzahs!” rang from behind the curtain separating the gaming room from the main store. On a whim I looked in. Maybe I’d recognize someone from the Geek or Troll tables at school, the hard-core gamers.

  As I peeked past the curtain, I saw a familiar blond sitting at one of the tables, his back to me, his left hip and shoulder right next to the person beside him.

  A person with long braids bedazzled with purple beads, one of which was tangled in Pete’s sweatshirt hood.

  Pete was cuddled up with some girl!

  A girl whose head had been on his shoulder just moments before.

  With a sick heart, I turned away, my stomach tied up in knots. I shuffled like a zombie to my bike, unlocked it, and headed home, the pain of betrayal haunting me every inch of the way.

  Who was she? How long had Pete been seeing her? Was that why Brandon avoided answering my question?

  Were Pete and I history?

  I switched to autopilot to get me home, my whole being too numb from the shock my eyes had delivered. Just when things were looking up at school, just when I’d gotten a handle on the monologue, wham!

  Before I could even shrug my backpack off at the front door, my dad called me. His voice sounded weak and barely penetrated the thick gloom that surrounded my soul. I trotted into the TV room to find Dad vomiting into a small wastebasket. His face was sweaty and pale. I wasn’t shocked or even surprised.

  Usually this happened the morning after a night out with the guys. I knew the drill. He’d want me to clean up after him, get him aspirin, and then be very quiet the rest of the day.

  I grabbed the wastebasket when he finished throwing up, trying not to breathe in any of the icky smell before I could dump it. I needed to sort through my thoughts and feelings, not deal with this.

  “Gabby, you need to call your mom. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m so sick.” He clutched his stomach and started to double over.

  I handed back the trash can and averted my eyes from the stream of ick pouring out of his mouth.

  I wanted to tell him to quit pretending, that I was old enough to know what a hangover was. I wanted him and my whole life to be different, better, easier. That’s when I remembered what I’d forgotten.

  The mayo.

  I hadn’t returned it to the fridge until the next morning.

  “Dad, did you eat anything with mayo on it?” My heart thudded, and my mouth felt as dry as a bone.

  He nodded and sank back against the couch. The grimaces on his pale, sweating face scared me. This time, his getting sick looked different, more serious.

  Is he dying? Because of me?

&nb
sp; “I’ll call 911,” I stammered, bolting from the room.

  “Gabby, no! Come back.”

  I ran back, half-expecting him to die right before my eyes.

  “What about . . . the mayo?”

  “I may have left it out too long last night, and now you’re dying from food poisoning and I have to call 911!” I was shaking—hands, knees, and voice—as the words poured out in a torrent of fear.

  “No 911. Just help me to the bathroom.”

  I set the trash can down and slung his arm over my neck and shoulder, wrapping one arm around his waist. My dad wasn’t really tall, but he outweighed me by a bunch. If he collapsed, I’d never be able to move him by myself. If he fell on me, I might have to crawl to the phone with a broken leg.

  But I would do whatever it took. This was all my fault.

  “I’ll call Mom just as soon as I get you in the bathroom,” I promised, hoping desperately he would hold on long enough for me to do that.

  “Don’t bother her. I’ll be fine. Just get me some water. And throw out that mayo.”

  ***

  It was after eight by the time my dad got all the bad stuff out of his system and slept peacefully upstairs in bed. I’d only left his side long enough to call the Chapmans for advice, since Dad expressly forbade me to disturb Mom at work. She could get in big trouble, even if it was an emergency, Dad had said. Eventually Becca’s mom convinced me my dad wasn’t going to die, but I was still feeling horrible about the whole thing.

  As we listened for any change in his breathing, Watson and I made a list of all the things I had forgotten lately:

  The mayo

  My civics book

  The almanac

  Teen Time advice on relationships

  Then I wrote the one thing I wished I could forget: Pete and ?

  CHAPTER 14

  “So, what’s the news on my bike?” The Diva wrinkled her nose in distaste at having to talk to me.

  My tummy lurched, like it might if I was in an elevator that had just dropped twenty million floors.

  Between my dad being sick and discovering Pete with another girl, I hadn’t given her problem any thought. But I couldn’t let her know that. My mom’s job was at stake.

  “I’ve got some promising leads, but I need to check on a couple of things before I can say anything definite.”

  The Diva blinked and nodded. She must have been expecting me to say I had nothing so she could blast me over it.

  While the rest of the class pondered isosceles triangles, I came up with a brilliant plan to work on the bike burglaries and avoid Pete at the same time. I confided my plan to Becca as we went our separate ways to English. She thought staking out the bike rack during lunch wasn’t a bad idea either.

  Our English teacher, Mrs. Page, let those of us doing research for our monologues spend the class period in the library. Based on the assumption that the penny was included to show the date, I checked the Encyclopedia Virginia for events in Hampton Roads during that time period.

  I was shocked at the amount of information I found. According to what I read, there was a policy adopted in 1956 to block the desegregation of public schools, but Virginia decided to shut down schools rather than desegregate.

  I nibbled the end of my pencil while I mentally chewed that one over. People would rather have no school than integrated schools? I could hardly believe it. I continued taking notes.

  “On January 4, 1956, the Norfolk Ministers Association urged voters to vote against the plans.”

  That seems to ring a bell. I pulled out the letter and found the reference to a Ministers Association. It was there.

  “Daddy said we’d stayed because he and the others in the Norfolk Ministers Association believed it was our Christian duty to fight for what was right,” the letter read.

  Could Hope’s dad have been a minister in Norfolk?

  “Many southern politicians protested the US Supreme Court ruling, insisting it had no jurisdiction over the state matter of education. In May, the NAACP filed a lawsuit to end segregation: Leola Pearl Beckett et al. v. the School Board of the City of Norfolk.”

  Again I paused. Norfolk was the city right next door, but I had no idea what et al v. meant, so I asked Mrs. Gibson.

  “It means there were other plaintiffs, too many to list. But I bet we can find that list.” Our media specialist whizzed through a number of websites, finally pulling up an old, old photograph of a typed document stored at Old Dominion University. It had a list of names including Hope Jones.

  “Maybe the Q after Hope’s name is a middle initial,” suggested Mrs. Gibson.

  “I bet you’re right,” I whispered, although I felt like shouting and high-fiving everyone in sight. I pointed to the part of the letter that read But when Hazel killed Daddy, Momma packed us off to Princess Anne. “Hope isn’t talking about an actual princess, is she?”

  “I doubt it,” answered the librarian. “I think she means the place. Most of Virginia Beach wasn’t a city. It was considered part of Princess Anne County until the sixties.”

  “So maybe Hope’s dad was a minister in Norfolk. He was one of the plain stiffs . . .”

  Mrs. Gibson held up one hand and corrected me. “Plaintiffs are the people bringing a suit against someone. In this case, the Norfolk School Board.”

  “Right, plaintiffs for integrated schools,” I said, careful to pronounce the term correctly. “So I’m guessing they were African Americans?”

  “Sounds plausible to me, Gabby. Jet magazine had a mostly black readership in the fifties.”

  “It was horrible, all those things that happened to minorities back then.” I remembered what I learned about the civil rights movement.

  “Yes, things like crosses burning in your front yard and even lynchings. From your letter, you could infer the family lost their house because they took a stand against segregation.”

  I could well imagine Hope’s family had moved away because of the lawsuit. But where did they go, and how would I track them down? Had the assassins gotten to them before they could leave?

  The bell for lunch rang. I thanked Mrs. Gibson for her help and headed to my stakeout.

  How was I to know that marvelous idea was about to blow up in my face?

  CHAPTER 15

  The bike rack was located beside the door from which gym classes exited for track or to hit the playing fields. Sitting on my hated math book, I hunkered down between two parked buses where I could see the bike rack, but I doubted anyone could see me.

  As I munched on my PB&J, I was kind of disappointed when nothing happened at the bike rack during the entire period.

  As I gathered my lunch trash, I consoled myself that I had at least met one objective: avoiding Pete. I stood and stretched my cramped legs when the back gym door swung open and a kid still in a PE uniform came back outside. I quickly ducked back down. I’d wait until he reentered to move.

  Instead of heading back to the playing field to retrieve a lost item, the kid stopped by the bikes and looked all around. Even from far away I could tell he seemed nervous, like someone trying not to be noticed or get caught. He dropped down, whipped a water bottle off an old beater bike, and dumped something out into his hand. I strained to see what, but because of the distance and the grass needing its first spring haircut, it was impossible.

  Since I was so far away and because the kid was in a PE uniform, the figure could have been any sixth grader with short, dark hair. I squinted and got even more frustrated, because what I thought was a haircut might be a black beanie or ski hat.

  In less than a minute, he dropped the something back into the water bottle and scooted through the doors.

  This was way too weird, way too suspicious. I had to know what he’d been doing.

  I hightailed it over to the bikes. I’d have to move quickly because lunch was nearly over.

  The bike the kid had messed with had a really bad black paint job. Several weathered skull stickers tried to cover up the peeling pla
ces, but some green still showed.

  Skull stickers. Must be a Mocha Loco bike.

  I grabbed the water bottle, pulled off the bottle cap, and upended the bottle. A small aerosol spray can dropped into my hand. It felt like ice, and I dropped it in surprise.

  Why is it cold?

  I peered inside the water bottle, but it was empty. If it hadn’t been packed in ice, how did it get so cold? What was it?

  I checked the label, but someone had done a good job scraping it to an indecipherable mess.

  I was just about to put it away when I felt a heavy hand on my right shoulder. I jumped up, ready to run wen another hand grabbed my left shoulder.

  I looked up and found Principal Black staring down at me.

  I tried to think of something to say, but my mind was as frozen as the aerosol spray in my hand. I couldn’t swallow the humongous lump that had inflated in my throat.

  I knew I was in big trouble even before he said, “Gabby St. Claire, you have some explaining to do.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “I can explain,” I began as I sat in the principal’s office with Principal Black and Officer Glenn staring at me like a bug under a microscope.

  Officer Glenn had her arms crossed and looked unconvinced; Principal Black scowled. I guess he was almost as uncomfortable as I was with a law enforcement officer in the room.

  “Remember the pink bike that was stolen, the one belonging to the Diva—uh . . . I mean, Donabell Bullock? I told her I’d help her find it. I figured staking out the bike rack would be a good place to start. When I saw that kid messing with the bikes, I knew I had to investigate.”

  “You expect us to believe that?” Officer Glenn snorted, and I could tell she was not buying it whatsoever. “Five locks had just been iced.”

  Why would someone ice bike locks?

  I had to mentally wrench my mind away from that question and back to the more immediate problem of keeping myself from getting arrested.

  “I didn’t bring the cold spray to school. It was in a water bottle on that black bike with the skull stickers on it. Shouldn’t you be questioning the kid that owns that bike?”