What Befalls the Children: Book 4 in the Troop of Shadows Series, стр. 39
Still, ways to circumnavigate rules always presented themselves.
“You reckon it’s that scary lady Mister Fergus talked about?” Cricket said, his mouth full of cornbread and honey.
The cooking ladies had been especially generous at breakfast that morning. And since the village beehives set a record for honey production in early September, everyone seemed to have sticky fingers that morning. In the literal sense. But the notion of figurative sticky fingers gave her an idea.
“Who knows?” she muttered, pondering how she might get access to Mister Fergus’s mysterious jacket. She hadn’t forgotten her mission to uncover his many secrets. And if she couldn’t go adventuring outside the village, she would have to scare up some entertainment within.
“What do you suppose Mister Fergus has in those pockets?” she said, mostly to Harlan. Cricket wasn’t known for his powers of observation. “He’s pulled some weird stuff out of them, more than once.”
Harlan nodded, then signed: Maybe he’s a sorcerer and his pockets are full of bat wing and eye of newt.
Willa snorted. “Right. More like a fairy king with pixie dust in his pockets. He’s really short. I kind of like that about him, though. Makes him feel like he’s one of us.”
Harlan and Cricket nodded. Everyone under the age of thirteen understood the chasm that existed between the realm of grownups and that of children. Grownups dealt with boring reality day after day, while kids could travel at will between stark absolutes and fabricated make-believe. She sensed that Mister Fergus could still manage those types of journeys, and it made her like him even more. But it didn’t get him off the hook.
“Come on. Let’s go see if Pops is home,” she said.
“Willa, you know your Pops is out with Mister Fergus and Otis. They’re on one of those...what do you call ‘em?” Cricket said, his face scrunched up the way it always did when he didn’t know something. Sometimes Willa found that dumb-scrunch amusing, but other times it was just plain annoying.
Today it was the latter.
“A reconnaissance mission. Duh, Cricket,” she hissed, then took off at a run.
She heard the boys’ boots pound against the hard-packed dirt behind her. Seconds later, they stood on the porch of her grandfather’s cabin. She knocked on the door, loudly, so anyone within earshot would hear. Turning to give Harlan a wink, she sighed when she saw the confusion on Cricket’s face.
“This is what you call a pretense,” she said in a low voice. “We’re acting like we don’t know whether Pops is home. He won’t answer his door, and then we’ll go in and search the place. If anyone catches us, we’ll pretend we were just here for Pops. Got it?”
The dark head dipped slowly. “What are we looking for?”
“Won’t know until we find it. Right, Harlan?”
Harlan nodded. His eyes were bright with excitement, and perhaps a bit of trepidation. Harlan wasn’t as fearless as Willa. She grinned, remembering what Mister Fergus had called her: Anne Bonny, the pirate lady.
Well, a pirate lady could also be a clever spy when it served her purpose. She lifted the door latch and stepped inside Pops’ tidy cabin. She took a deep breath, smelling the familiar herbs he stashed inside cupboards and cushions.
Harlan tapped her shoulder and gestured toward the empty hook by the door. Jacket isn’t here, he signed.
“Right,” she said. “I guess he’s wearing it under the coat Pops gave him. I thought he might leave it behind.”
“He been sleeping on the floor?” Cricket said, standing on the braided rag rug Pops had made. Her grandfather prided himself on being able to do ‘women’s work’ as well as any woman.
“Where else would he sleep? Pops isn’t the spooning type.”
Harlan snorted.
It didn’t take long to search his tiny cabin. The woodworking tools Pops used to create furniture, toys for the smaller kids, and miniature works of art were stored in a cabinet next to the front door. Kitchen utensils filled the cupboard beside the water jug and basin. Clean, neatly folded, oft-patched clothing populated an armoire built by Pops himself. The carved forest scene was supposedly from the Bible, but Mama said it resembled a Roman bacchanal...that was a word Willa had first heard two years ago after the infamous Night of Moonshine. Nobody in the holler was allowed to talk about the raucous events which took place after she and Harlan had gone to bed that evening.
“Nothing interesting here,” she said in disgust. “Cricket, quit stomping all over Pops’ rug with your dirty shoes.”
Cricket’s head tilted to the side, like a dog listening to one of those special whistles. “There’s a hollow spot under them boards,” Cricket said. “See?” Stomp, stomp, stomp, thud.
“You’re right. Pull up that rug,” Willa ordered.
“There’s a nail missing here,” Cricket said. “Bet we can pry it up.”
“Do it carefully, Cricket. We can’t leave evidence we’ve been spying.”
Cricket lifted the loose board. Three pairs of eyes opened wide at the hidden items in the space.
“What the heck is this stuff?” The dumb-scrunch was back on Cricket’s face. This time it was understandable.
“I’m not sure about those.” Willa pointed to some silver cartridges imprinted with numbers and letters. “Or that.” A pharmaceutical bottle filled with clear fluid. “But I do know that’s a revolver and those are syringes.”
Did possession of these items mean Mister Fergus was a bad guy? She desperately hoped not. Surely there was a logical explanation for their presence...hidden under the floor...where Pops probably didn’t know about them.
“What does it mean, Willa?” Cricket whispered.
“I don’t know, but I aim to find out,” she replied. Thoughts of pirate ladies and clever spies vanished, replaced by images of that revolver pointed at Pops’ bald head when he