Andi Under Pressure Read online

  Through the window, I watched Polk and Curie strolling across the lawn. Polk held the paintbrush in one hand and the paint bucket in the other.

  Ava was across the table. “What’s so fascinating out the window, Andi?”

  I picked up my pizza. “Nothing.”

  She twirled her straw in her cup. “It must be nice to have time to daydream. Some of us don’t have that kind of time.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Ava curled her lip. “Some of us don’t have the free time to stare out the window because we have to work hard for what we have, like our places here at the camp. We didn’t have it handed to us because our aunts work for the university.”

  I dropped my pizza back onto my plate. So that was what she was upset about. She thought I was given the spot in Discovery Camp because Amelie was Michael Pike faculty. I should have known. I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her I earned the spot with the highest test scores in science. That wouldn’t make her hate me any less.

  Her black eyes narrowed. “Camp is only supposed to accept the best and brightest in science. We applied months ago. You toss in your application at the last second and are accepted like that.” She pointed the straw at me. “That sounds like favoritism to me.”

  Colin set his burger back on his plate. “How would you know when she applied?”

  “I just know,” Ava said.

  Colin’s face turned red. “Andi just moved here and didn’t know about the program before the deadline. She just moved here because — Omph!”

  I jabbed Colin in the side with my elbow. The last thing I wanted was for him to tell Ava about my parents’ death.

  Ava forked a cherry tomato on her plate. The seeds flew out, hitting Jake in the face. He blinked and then closed his eyes again. “They made an exception for her,” Ava said. “They shouldn’t have. She could apply for next summer.”

  Dylan, who had been wandering around the cafeteria during most of lunch, tugged on the back of Ava’s long ponytail. “Give it a rest, Ava. There is no need to be jealous of Andi. We have enough room for two smart girls in our group.”

  She yanked her ponytail from his grasp. “Why would I be jealous of her?”

  Good question.

  CASE FILE NO. 5

  At the end of the camp day, the campers poured out of Colburn. There was a small parking lot behind the science building. Most of the kids had parents waiting there, ready to drive them home.

  I watched as Ava climbed into a pickup truck with a boy who was a few years older than my sister. He must have been her older brother. The brother didn’t look all that excited about his role as chauffeur. I bet Bethany would have the same sullen expression on her face when she started driving and had to take me anywhere. Something to look forward to.

  Colin spun the combination on his bike lock.

  “Don’t do that yet,” I said.

  He blinked at me. “Why not?”

  I leaned against my bike. “Amelie is at a meeting in Columbus today and gave me some books to return to the library. I just remembered them. Let’s go drop them off first.”

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  I pulled the three literary criticisms out of my backpack. My aunt was an English professor.

  “We have to be quick about it.” Colin stood. “Bergita knows we should be home by four fifteen on the dot. She’s not above sending out a search party if we are even two minutes late.”

  “Text her then.”

  Colin removed his cell phone from the pocket of his shorts.

  Immediately after he sent the text, his phone beeped. “Bergita says be home by four forty-five.” He dropped the phone back into his shorts pocket. “My parents will be home for dinner tonight, and she wants me to beat them there.” There was a wistful sound in Colin’s voice. His parents were doctors and rarely home. I didn’t say it to Colin, but I hoped for his sake they showed up.

  Colin followed me across the green. We walked around the corner of College Church. It was the church Bergita attended. I had been there a couple of times with Colin since moving to Killdeer. The door to the church creaked, and Polk stepped outside. This time he carried a stepladder. There was no sign of Curie the beagle.

  I dropped to a squat around the side of the building, clutching the library books to my chest.

  “What are you doing?” Colin whispered.

  “Shh.” I put a finger to my lips.

  Colin sighed and squatted next to me.

  Polk whistled, and Curie’s head popped out of the bushes on the far side of the church steps. She trotted toward her master.

  “I wish I could teach Jackson to come when I whistle for him,” Colin muttered. “Actually, I wish I could train Jackson to do anything. He won’t even play dead.”

  “Shh,” I hissed.

  Colin was quiet for half a second and then asked, “Are you going to go talk to him?”

  I stood. “Yes.”

  Colin wiped his glasses on the hem of his T-shirt before setting them back on his nose. “Why are you so interested in him? He’s just the janitor.”

  I ignored Colin’s question and was about to step out around the side of the building when someone came around the church from the other way.

  “Is that Dr. Comfrey?” Colin whispered.

  I shushed him again. She wasn’t wearing her lab coat, but it was the chemistry professor all right. “I thought I’d find you here,” she said to Polk.

  Polk reached a hand out to her, but she stepped back. His hand, still wearing the black leather glove, fell to his side.

  She frowned. “You should stay away from my lab.”

  His face fell. “Why?”

  “Items have turned up missing, and there have been other incidents too. It’s safer if you stay away.”

  Colin whispered. “The markers? The crickets?”

  “Shush!” I said.

  “You think I took those things. You think I caused the incidents.” He stated these as facts, not as questions.

  She shook her head. “No, of course I don’t, but others will.”

  “Like who?”

  “I don’t have to tell you. You already know.” She took a breath. “It’s not just small office supplies disappearing anymore. Some expensive equipment has gone missing. I had no choice but to tell security about the theft.”

  “What has gone missing?”

  “The mineral scale for one. That’s the most expensive item.”

  “Maybe you misplaced it.”

  She scowled. “You sound just like security. I didn’t misplace a forty-pound mineral scale.”

  He ran his hand down the side of his face. “I should think not.”

  “That’s not the only thing missing. Some precious metals are gone too. Copper and palladium. Only certain people would know their value.”

  “And you think I am one of them?”

  She raised her chin. “Aren’t you?”

  He said nothing but dropped his gaze to the top of his shoes.

  “There’s another thing that has been bothering me,” the chemistry professor said. “It might not be related, but . . .”

  “What is it?” Polk asked.

  “My chemical closet was reorganized from top to bottom over the weekend. Every single powder and liquid was moved. It took me the entire day Sunday to put it back into order. What a disaster it would have been if I discovered the closet in that condition on the first day of camp.”

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. What if I grabbed the wrong powder during an experiment? I know it’s unlikely, but I am so used to finding everything right where I put it, I could have made that mistake. If I had, an experiment could have gone terribly wrong.”

  “Do you have any idea who did it?”

  She shifted her feet. “I suspected Dylan. He’s one of my top students and a counselor this week. When he was a freshman, he and some friends took all of the elements out of
the closet, hid them in another part of the lab, and filled the closet with fallen leaves. They thought they were being funny. But it was a mess and almost got them all kicked out of the chemistry program. I would have never known it was them if security hadn’t caught them red-handed while on their rounds.” She took a breath. “I asked Dylan at length about it yesterday.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. If he did it or knows who did, he’s not sharing.” She paused. “I never reported it to security, and besides, most likely it’s not related to the thefts.”

  “Maybe it was.”

  She shook her head. “No. Everything that has gone missing was there Sunday when I put the closet back together.”

  The wrinkles on Polk’s face seemed to grow even deeper.

  “Security is making extra rounds of that side of campus and especially near Colburn Hall. They will notice if anyone is in the building during off hours. You could lose your job, and if they think I helped you, I could lose mine too.”

  His hunched forward. “I understand. I would never want to put your job at risk. I would never want what happened to me to happen to you.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate that, and I am sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  A breeze blew across the green and over our backs. It blew my hair into my face. I brushed it away to see Curie sniffing the wind.

  Sniff, sniff, went the dog’s black nose, and then she turned to where Colin and I hid.

  I pushed Colin back. “We have to go. Now,” I said in a harsh whisper.

  Curie was standing now.

  “You see something, Girl?” Polk asked.

  Dr. Comfrey rolled her eyes. “It’s probably a squirrel.”

  Curie took a few steps toward us, but Polk bent down and held her back by her collar. The beagle howled like she was on the hunt and Colin and I were raccoons.

  “Run,” I said to Colin. We ran all the way back to our bikes. Every three strides I glanced behind me expecting to see Curie on our tails, but she never appeared.

  CASE FILE NO. 6

  Colin pedaled back to our neighborhood at top speed. I kept him in my sight, but I rode at a slower pace. I was too preoccupied with what we had just overheard between Dr. Comfrey and Polk.

  Colin waved at me as he turned into his driveway. Bergita stood on the front porch with her hands on her hips. Jackson the pug lay at her feet. “You just made it. Your parents will be here in ten minutes. Get your keister inside and wash up. Do me a favor and put on a clean shirt too.” She waved at me before she spun around and went back inside the house.

  I parked my own bike inside of my garage. Amelie’s car wasn’t there. Her meeting in Columbus must have taken longer than she expected. It was hard to guess when my aunt would be home from work each night. I wondered if her schedule was so unpredictable because it was summer or if this was what it would be like when the school year began too. Not that it mattered. Bethany and I knew how to fend for ourselves. I could make so many different kinds of sandwiches with peanut butter that I deserved my own cooking show on the topic.

  Our parents had missed dinner with us countless times because they were absorbed in their research. Because they had been so dedicated to their work, my parents found five plants in Central America that weren’t known to science until they videoed, photographed, and collected samples of them.

  Sometimes I’d wondered if Mom and Dad had loved Bethany and me as much as they loved their plants. I knew Bethany wondered the same thing. But neither of us would ever share this fear with the other because if we did, it might mean it was true.

  I opened the front door. Bethany lay across the couch. Her long tan legs hung limply over the couch’s arm. Mr. Rochester, Amelie’s gentlemanly orange tabby, lay on the back of it. Mr. Rochester was a prim and proper cat, and most of the time I thought he should be wearing a bowtie. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he agreed with me on that point.

  “How did it go at Camp Geek?” my sister asked.

  I dropped my backpack by the front door. It landed with a thud. The library books I had promised Amelie I’d drop off at the library were still inside of it. “It’s not called Camp Geek. How did it go at Camp Lazy?” Since moving to Killdeer, my sister hadn’t shown interest in anything except a short painting class she took with Bergita at the beginning of the summer. The rest of summer break, she had lain around the house growing mold.

  Bethany’s eyes narrowed as she propped herself up on her elbows, and her straight blond hair fell down her back. I ran my tongue along the front of my braces. It wasn’t fair that Bethany got the straight teeth and the straight hair.

  My sister swung her legs over the arm of the couch and sat up. “It should be called Camp Geek,” she said, ignoring my comeback. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? Only geeks need apply, right?”

  Mr. Rochester jumped off the back of the couch and walked over to me. I picked him up and fell into an armchair facing the couch. “Do you wish you were in Discovery Camp too?”

  She snorted. “No. Why would I want to be stuck in a classroom all day before school starts? Besides, I’m going into high school, so I’m too old for Camp Geek.”

  I folded my leg under me. “Stop calling it that.”

  Mr. Rochester found a comfortable position on my lap.

  “Amelie’s not home yet?” I asked even though I knew the answer.

  She shook her head. “She’s not any different than Mom and Dad were. I know the drill.”

  I frowned and scratched Mr. Rochester behind the ears.

  She slid her cell phone out of her pocket. “Where’s your sidekick?” she asked, meaning Colin.

  “His parents will be home tonight for dinner.”

  A sadness flashed across my sister’s face. “I hope they show up.”

  Just then, Amelie walked into the door. “Andi, you beat me home. I planned to be back by three, but the traffic was terrible.” She laughed and pushed her long blond curls out of her eyes. Her flowered maxi dress ballooned around her long legs when she dropped her tote bag on the floor next to my backpack. My aunt pointed at the mantel. “Is that clock right? Is it really almost five? I guess we should start thinking about dinner. What do you guys want?”

  Neither Bethany nor I answered, but Amelie didn’t seem to notice. She perched on the arm of a chair. “While I was coming home, campus security called my cell phone. I guess they had been looking for me on campus today.”

  I stood up straight. “What did security want?”

  Worry creased her forehead. “Apparently, things have gone missing in another building. Security told me to keep an eye out for anything suspicious and make sure the doors were locked when I left my building. They know I am usually the last person out. Of course, they will check the locks too when they make their rounds.”

  “He must have meant the chemistry lab. When my group got to the lab this morning, Dr. Comfrey couldn’t find her dry erase markers, and — ”

  Bethany fell back onto the couch and howled with laughter. “Markers! They’re beefing up security over markers? We did move to the sticks.”

  I folded my arms. “I was going to say I heard her mention that an expensive scale was taken from the lab too. She said it weighs forty pounds.”

  Amelie frowned. “Why would anyone steal a scale from the lab?”

  “Drugs,” Bethany said matter-of-factly. “They steal them for meth labs.”

  Amelie’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that?”

  “I watch the news.”

  Amelie stood up. “I’m sure it’s nothing like that. There aren’t any meth labs in Killdeer. This is a quiet town.”

  Bethany rolled her eyes. “Right.”

  “Whatever was stolen for whatever reason, we just have to keep an eye out for strange activity. That means you too, Andi, since you’re there for camp.”

  Bethany grinned. “It would be a bummer if someone swiped a copy of the periodic table.”

  I rolled my eyes at Bethany.
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  “How does frozen pizza sound for dinner?” my aunt asked.

  Bethany frowned. “We had that last night.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Amelie fluffed her skirt and reminded me of a toddler at a tea party. “How about I call and have fresh pizza delivered?”

  Bethany groaned. “I never thought I would say it, but I am over pizza.” She stood. “I’m going to my room.” She climbed to the stairs.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Amelie asked.

  “I’ll make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for myself later. Don’t worry. Andi and I are used to it.” She went up the stairs. Mr. Rochester jumped off my lap and followed her.

  Amelie arched her brow at me. “I like pizza,” was all I said.

  CASE FILE NO. 7

  Amelie ordered the pizza after all. She and I ate sitting at the kitchen counter. Bethany eventually showed up and ate a slice even though she was “over pizza.”

  After dinner, I volunteered to clean up the kitchen, which took all of two minutes since we drank our pop directly from the can and ate our pizza straight out of the box. Mrs. Cragmeyer, the fussy elderly lady who Bethany and I lived with right after our parents died, would have had a heart attack if she saw us. She thought casual meals were ones without cloth napkins.

  Besides my bedroom, the kitchen was my favorite place in the house. Behind the dining table, where we never ate, there were three large picture windows that looked out onto the trees in the side yard which separated our property from the Carters’. If I stood in just the right spot, I could see through the trees and into the Carters’ living room.

  While throwing the pop cans into the recycling bin, I glanced out the window and saw Colin sitting on the couch. Jackson was on his lap, licking his face, including his glasses, and Bergita patted her grandson’s shoulder.

  I frowned. His parents didn’t show. How many times had the same expression crossed my face when my parents didn’t come home when they promised?

  I dropped the last can into the bin and found my aunt, curled up on the couch with a book of poetry in the living room.