Andi Unexpected Page 8

  I threw my sneakers onto the lawn and shimmied leg-first out the open window, taking care to grab the screen as I fell. I landed on my rear in a patch of pink sweet alyssum. Jumping up and off the flowers, I grimaced when I realized that I’d accidentally ground many of them into the red mulch. I wiped the mulch and dirt off my backside, closed the window, and replaced the screen. That would have to do.

  I sidestepped around the building and away from the secretary’s open window. When I was several yards from Whit Hall, I broke into a run back to the cafeteria. Inside the dining hall, I stopped to catch my breath. After calming myself down with several big gulps of air, I walked up to our table where Amelie waited alone.

  “What took you so long?” she asked. “Are you feeling okay? I sent Bethany to look for you, but she said you weren’t in the bathroom.”

  “I …” I bit my lip. I didn’t want to lie to my aunt, but I didn’t want to tell her about chasing Dr. Girard across campus and being trapped in the History Department either. “I went to a different bathroom,” I said.

  Amelie looked relieved. “As long as you’re okay.”

  “I’m sorry for holding everyone up.”

  She smiled. “It’s all right. But I hope you didn’t want dessert because everyone else is waiting out by the van.”

  I didn’t tell Amelie that I wanted to go to the bathroom first because now I really did need to use it.

  When we got home, Bethany went straight to our room and packed up her paints, charcoals, and brushes for the weekend art class she promised to take with Bergita.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and watched her.

  “I don’t need an audience,” she muttered.

  I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn’t Mom and Dad’s favorite, but I closed it again. How could I tell her that without revealing that I’d overheard her and Bergita talking yesterday?

  Amelie poked her head in the room. “I’m so happy you’re taking this class, Bethany.”

  “It’s just one class. If I don’t like it, I’m not going back.”

  “Fair enough,” my aunt said.

  Bethany and I both stared at her in surprise. We were used to being told that we had to participate in things and see them through to the end. We weren’t allowed to quit if we didn’t like something. Our parents had never given us a choice.

  “So what are you up to this afternoon, Andi?” Amelie asked.

  I shrugged. My thoughts were still jumbled from my near-escape from the History Department.

  She smiled. “That’s okay. You don’t have to be up to anything. Sundays were made for being lazy.”

  After Bethany left for her class, I wandered around the house until I ended up in my aunt’s study—the one that had once been a dining room. She’d lined the walls with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Bookshelves were even installed above the two large picture windows.

  In the middle of the room stood a huge dark wood desk and an old-fashioned wooden desk chair. Amelie’s laptop hummed in the middle of the desk. In the far corner, next to one of the windows, she’d placed a purple armchair and matching ottoman. A floor lamp with a black-fringed shade hovered over the back of the chair. Throughout the cozy room, I spotted little knick-knacks and trinkets from my aunt’s travels and adventures.

  I curled up in the purple chair feeling an odd mix of guilt and apprehension. I knew I felt guilty because I hadn’t been completely honest with my aunt, and I was apprehensive about Dr. Girard’s phone conversation. What did it mean? Did he want to include Andora in his book? Who had he been talking to?

  I left the study and found Amelie in the middle of the living room. Wearing a tank top and cotton yoga pants, she was twisted into a small ball. Her hands, pressed flat on her yoga mat, held her body in the air. Her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose. She opened one eye and spotted me watching her.

  Slowly she lowered herself to the floor. “Do you want to try?”

  I sat on the green plaid couch. “I could never do that.”

  Amelie bent her body in half and held on to her feet. “Sure you could. It just takes practice.” She straightened.

  “Do you know a person named Miranda?”

  Amelie raised an eyebrow. “Miranda? No, I don’t think so. This isn’t another unknown relative, is it? Because one is plenty.”

  “No, I just heard her name mentioned and wondered who she was.”

  Amelie lifted her right leg behind her head. “Who’d you hear it from?”

  “Dr. Girard.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “When was that?”

  I played with the hem of my T-shirt. “After church when I said I was going to the bathroom, I didn’t really go. I followed Dr. Girard.”

  Amelie dropped her body to the floor and sat up on her knees. “Spill it.”

  When I looked at Amelie’s face, I knew this moment was important. I hesitated, torn between lying and coming clean. I opted for the truth.

  Amelie went very still. “I know you’re a curious kid, but …”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I smoothed my T-shirt’s invisible creases.

  “Why’d you follow him?”

  “I don’t know exactly. He ran out of the cafeteria so quickly, I thought maybe he’d overheard Bergita talking about Andora and that’s what made him leave.”

  Amelie’s eyebrows shot up again, and her brow wrinkled as if she were trying to come to some type of decision, like how many weeks she should ground me for lying. “Why would Dr. Girard care about Andora?”

  I shrugged. It was the same question I’d asked myself a dozen times while sitting in my aunt’s office. I didn’t know why; but at the same time, I knew I was right.

  Amelie’s freckled brow smoothed. “Thank you for telling me the truth, but consider this a warning: I will not accept lying from either of you girls. And please, don’t go running after strange men you don’t know. Do you know how dangerous and stupid that is?”

  I nodded solemnly.

  She returned to her stretches. “What was the name of that woman Dr. Girard mentioned?”

  “Miranda,” I said, feeling relieved that she wasn’t angry with me.

  Amelie lowered her leg and rolled her eyes. “I know who Miranda is now.”

  “You do?”

  “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve never met the woman.” She put her left leg behind her head.

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s Dr. Girard’s literary agent. He’s written a couple of books about Ohio history, and she helped him get them published. I have both of them in my study.” She flipped onto her stomach. “You can look at them, if you want. Actually, both of Dr. Girard’s books are well written, and he has some interesting theories on local history.” She rested her elbows on the floor.

  I returned to the study and walked along the bookcases, tapping my fingers against the dusty spines. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much organization to the bookshelves. Russian authors rested next to Brazilian ones. Mathematicians stood close to philosophers. In my parents’ home office, each book subject was divided and alphabetized within an inch of its life. Any time I’d taken a book from my parents’ collection up to my room, they’d known about it. I bet Amelie wouldn’t notice if I took a whole shelf of books from her library.

  However, Amelie knew exactly where she’d left Dr. Girard’s books. They were on the bottom shelf of the third bookcase to the right of the door—right where she’d said they’d be.

  I knelt in front of the shelf and plucked out the books to get a better look at their covers. The first book had a photograph of a brick farmhouse on it, and the title read, THE MIDDLE CLASS PIONEER OF 1800. Dr. Girard’s name was printed in big white letters at the bottom of the cover.

  On the second cover, Dr. Girard’s name appeared in even bigger red letters above a picture of a woman wearing a red bandana on her head and leaning against a pile of black rubber tires. The book was called Women in the Rubber Plants. I read the dust jacket, which explained th
at it was a book about women working in the tire factories in Akron while the men fought during World War Two.

  I was disappointed. I’d hoped to find a book like Lost Children of Ohio or Family Scandals of the Great Depression. Something that would tie Dr. Girard to my search for Andora. As much as I wanted Dr. Girard to have something to do with the Andora mystery, maybe I’d misjudged him. He could have been talking to Miranda about any local family. It didn’t have to be mine.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Andi, can you answer that?” Amelie called out.

  I sighed and stood up, putting Dr. Girard’s books back on the shelf where I’d found them. Amelie couldn’t answer the door because she’d wrapped herself into a pretzel and would snap off a toe if she tried. And she tells me yoga is relaxing.

  I opened the front door and gaped.

  “Just the person I want to see,” Dr. Girard said in a fake-friendly voice.

  CASE FILE NO. 14

  “Andi, who is it?” Amelie called. I heard a thump from the living room, and a few seconds later, Amelie stood beside me. “Anthony? What are you doing here?” She looked from Dr. Girard to me.

  “And hello to you too, Amelie.” He eyed her outfit. “I see you’re making the most of your summer break.”

  “I’m trying to. Can I help you with something?”

  Dr. Girard smiled without showing any teeth. “In truth, I’m not here to talk with you.” Dr. Girard adjusted the collar of his polo shirt. “I’d like to speak with your niece, Andi.”

  Amelie blinked. “Andi? Why?” Her brow wrinkled. “It’s not because—”

  “I met Dr. Girard at the Bottling Museum last week. Remember? I know I told you that, Aunt Amelie,” I said in a rush because I knew she was about to ask Dr. Girard if he knew I’d followed him into his office during lunch.

  “That’s right,” Dr. Girard said. “And I was impressed by her keen interest in local history.” He smiled at me. “I thought she might be able to help me with my latest book project.”

  “Which is?” Amelie asked.

  “A book on children of the Great Depression.”

  I had been right. Dr. Girard had to be here because of Andora. But how did he know that Andora lived during the Great Depression? Mr. Finnigan. He must have told Dr. Girard about Andora.

  “Can I come inside to discuss this matter further?”

  Amelie winced. “Why don’t you two talk outside on the front porch?” She gave Dr. Girard a small smile. “Andi and her sister are cleaning out the attic, so the house is a mess right now.”

  Dr. Girard pulled at his collar, his hair was starting to curl up from the humidity. “Very well.”

  “Go ahead and take a seat, Anthony. I’ll get you two some iced tea,” Amelie said.

  I stepped onto the front porch, and Dr. Girard sat down in the rocking chair at the end of the porch. I perched on the porch swing, kicked off the porch floorboards hard, and the swing flew back with a protesting creak. I swung my legs up on the bench and let it rock me back and forth like the waves that carried the red and blue sailboats along my father’s wallpaper.

  Dr. Girard cleared his throat. He pulled a tiny memo pad out of his jacket pocket. I wrinkled my nose when I noticed he was wearing black socks and sandals.

  “So, Andi, this should be quick. I have just a few questions for you to answer. I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

  Sure you don’t, I thought unkindly. I tried to squelch the irritable thoughts. My mother would have said that I make too many snap judgments and I should give Dr. Girard the benefit of the doubt, whatever that meant. He already had my doubt.

  “I must admit that I was surprised to see you and your friend Kevin in the museum on such a beautiful summer day. I imagine most of your peers were out swimming or playing baseball.”

  “Colin,” I corrected.

  “Of course. Colin. I apologize,” he said smoothly. He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. “What brought you to the Killdeer Historical Society?”

  “Colin wanted me to see it.” If we were going to talk about Andora, Dr. Girard would have to mention her first.

  “Ah! Should I be talking to Colin, then?”

  I shrugged. “If you want to. He lives right next door.” I pointed toward the Carters’ house.

  He tapped his chin with a forefinger. “I remember Mr. Finnigan mentioned that you children wanted to search for a relative in the historical society archives. Is that right?”

  The hair on my arms stood up on end. My porch swing lost its momentum and slowed to a gentle sway. I let a leg fall over the side and gave the floorboards another push with my toes.

  “Can you tell me about this relative?”

  “I don’t really know anything about her.”

  My mind was screaming, I was right! He is interested in Andora! But I did my best to keep a calm expression on my face.

  Dr. Girard clicked his pen. “Wasn’t she the real reason Colin took you to the museum?”

  “How would you know that?”

  He smiled coolly. “Mr. Finnigan is a good friend of mine.”

  I looked at my leg dangling from the swing.

  Dr. Girard wrote something in his tiny memo pad again. “You know, Andi, I could really use your help.”

  “You could?” I asked.

  “I don’t know how much your aunt has told you about me …”

  “Just that you’re a history professor at Mike Pike.”

  He winced. “I see you’ve learned the local nickname for the university. Anyway, for you to have an appreciation for research at such a young age, you must be a perceptive, intelligent girl. Your aunt may not have told you, but I’m a bit of an expert in Ohio history, and I’ve written books on the topic.”

  “She did.” I didn’t add that I’d been leafing through those very books the moment he rang our doorbell.

  “Excellent. I’d like to tell you about my project on Depression-era children, and then you can tell me yours.”

  I sat up straighter in my seat. My feet hit the wooden boards of the porch with a thud. I swallowed hard. I didn’t tell him that I already knew he was writing a book about children from the Great Depression because I’d overheard him talking to his agent about it. “Why do you think I’d know anything about that?”

  “Mr. Finnigan has assisted me in my research for years. He mentioned that you visited the museum to search the archives for a lost relative born in 1929, and the relative’s name was Andora.”

  My heart raced. What could he tell me about Andora? Did he know what happened to her? I had to know. “What do you know about Andora?”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Why don’t you tell me how you learned about her first?”

  I wondered if I should tell him what I knew. If I didn’t, there was no chance he’d tell me what he knew about Andora. I was pretty sure Dr. Girard wouldn’t offer information without getting something in return. I tried to look him in the eye, but he was wearing his dark sunglasses again.

  And then I made my decision. It was the only option I had if I wanted to learn more.

  CASE FILE NO. 15

  It took only a few minutes for me to tell Dr. Girard what little information I was willing to share. I told him about the trunk, the baby clothes, the wooden blocks, and the birth announcement. I said nothing about the photograph of Andora or the encounter with Miss Addy.

  Amelie appeared on the front porch with a tray of iced tea and Girl Scout Cookies. She simply raised her eyebrows when she heard me talking to Dr. Girard about Andora.

  The history professor accepted a perspiring glass of iced tea from my aunt and removed his sunglasses. He took a gulp from his drink and said, “I’d like to see the items in the trunk and the cubby where you found the trunk.”

  “Umm …” I stalled and chewed the inside of my cheek. “The attic is a mess right now. I mean, it’s worse than downstairs. It’ll take me some time to move stuff around so you can reach the cubby.”

  “I
don’t mind a mess.” He glanced down at his small memo pad and flipped through the pages. He’d taken notes so detailed that it seemed he’d written every word I’d said.

  Part of me wanted to keep Andora to myself. I found her first. I shared her name. And what had Dr. Girard given me in return? “So what do you know about Andora?” I asked.

  Dr. Girard waved his hand. “Not much. That’s why I’m here. Patrick Finnigan told me about her because he knew I was working on this piece about children during the Great Depression, and he thought she’d be an interesting addition to my book.”

  I felt myself deflate. “But you said you do know something about her.”

  He nodded and smirked. “And I will tell you what little I know just as soon as I have a look at that trunk.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow afternoon. That should give you plenty of time to tidy up the attic.” He rose to his feet and brushed imaginary crumbs off his pants.

  With my foot, I pushed off the porch floorboards hard, sending the old swing careening backward.

  Amelie stood. “Andi didn’t agree to show you the attic yet, Anthony.”

  I still wanted to know what Dr. Girard knew about Andora, and showing him the attic might be my only means of getting that information. “It’s all right, Amelie,” I said, bringing the swing to a halt with my foot. I stood and said, “Two o’clock tomorrow should be fine, Dr. Girard.”

  Amelie turned to me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said with more conviction than I felt.

  Amelie nodded and turned back to Dr. Girard. “What exactly do you plan to do with the information Andi has shared with you, Anthony?”

  Dr. Girard’s thick brows waggled above his dark sunglasses. “Like I told your niece when I arrived, I am currently working on a new project about children during the Great Depression. It will include letters and short biographies of children from all over the state of Ohio. If we can find enough information about Andora to include her, she would be one of two dozen children mentioned in the book. I’ve wanted to write this book for a long time. If I wait too much longer, many of the elderly adults who were children in the 1930s will be gone. I’ll return tomorrow afternoon, Andi.” He stood and grabbed a cookie from the tray before he left.