After dinner, the children were playing Go Fish when Grandma Belle’s grandson called. “So sorry we missed your visit,” he said, “but I took Grandma Belle to a doctor’s appointment. Her hip is doing very well. She was feeling so much better that we decided to celebrate. We went to the Applewood Café for dinner.”
Henry asked about the two-horned mask they found in the trash. “Don’t know a thing about that, not a thing,” said the grandson. “I never threw away anything like that. And no one else was home. Since we were going out, I gave Nurse Rumple the day off.”
Henry thought about the red car he’d seen in the alley. He’d thought it was Nurse Rumple’s, but he must have been wrong.
“Maybe,” the grandson said, “a neighbor threw their trash in our can. That happens sometimes when people’s cans get too full.” He paused a moment. “We also have a small mystery. Our yard looks a bit different than when we left. Would you know anything about that?”
Henry, very proud of himself for helping Grandma Belle, explained that he’d cleared the weeds and trimmed the bushes. “Well, you might have checked with us first,” said the grandson. He did not sound at all happy.
“D … don’t you like it?” asked Henry.
“Yes, yes we do, very much so. It’s just that Grandma Belle is still unhappy because Nurse Rumple has moved so many things from the house to the garage, and Grandma Belle doesn’t want anything else to change around here. It may seem odd to you, but Grandma likes her clutter. She finds it a comfort having her things around. Every time she asks, Nurse Rumple promises to bring everything back once Grandma Belle can get around the house a bit better. But Grandma is starting to get around just fine, and everything is still locked up in the garage.” He sighed. “I’d move her things myself, but I have a bad back. The point is, people should ask before they do something for someone. Even when it’s a nice thing. Don’t you agree?”
Henry thought about Mrs. McGregor surprising them by cleaning the garage. She meant well, but she had cleaned away any clues the thief might have left. “Yes,” he said, “I agree. And I promise to ask permission next time. Do you think I could talk to Grandma Belle?”
“I’m afraid I wore her out—she fell asleep the second we came home. But I know she’d love to have you visit tomorrow, perhaps late afternoon? The new nurse starts work then, and I’m sure Grandma would love her to meet all of you. I’ll say goodbye to you now. I’m flying home tomorrow. I’m sad to leave Grandma, but my work is in California.”
Officer Morgan called early the next morning. “Could you do me a favor and bring that horned mask to Pleasant Valley Park around noon? I have some friends I’d like to show it to.”
Henry promised he would, then went to tell the others. He found them in the yard, sitting around a table piled high with paints and colored paper and a basket of odds and ends Violet kept for art projects. “Come join us,” she called, “we’re making rainsticks.”
Violet had one last Prairie Girl book, called Thunderstick, left on her bookshelf. “Each book teaches a craft you can do,” she said. “Native Americans make rainsticks out of dead cactus plants. But since cactus doesn’t grow here in Connecticut, we need to improvise.”
“What’s ‘improvise’?” Benny asked.
“It means making do with what you have.” Violet set out four paper towel tubes. “These will be our cacti.” Then she put out a bag of dry beans and a bag of unpopped popcorn. Next she took a box of nails from Henry’s tool box, and a roll of strong tape. She showed them how to tape one end of their tubes closed, then push two-inch nails into the tubes all around. “When you finish,” said Violet, “the inside of your tube should look as if porcupines backed into it.” They worked hard for a while, then looked into their tubes and saw a crisscross of nails.
“Now pour one cup of popcorn kernels or beans into your tubes and tape the tops closed.” When they’d finished, Violet smiled and said, “Listen.” Slowly, she turned her tube upside down. The hard popcorn kernels fell from the top of the tube to the bottom. Plink, plink, they sang as they hit the nails. Plink, plink.
“Rain!” cried Benny. “It sounds like rain!” They all practiced making rain sounds, then finished their rainsticks by painting designs all around and gluing on decorations.
Violet wrapped hers with strands of yarn. Benny glued blades of grass and weeping willow leaves on his. Henry dipped the Sunday comics in a mix of flour and water and wrapped the colorful pages around his tube. Jessie glued on beads from an old broken necklace. The children left the rainsticks out to dry and cleaned up their worktable. After lunch, they put the two-horned mask in Jessie’s bike basket and rode toward town.
“Can we stop?” asked Benny as they passed an ice cream stand. “I brought my allowance.” Of course, they all joined him, each child picking out something different. Henry always ate vanilla. Jessie tried a new flavor every time. Violet liked half chocolate and half strawberry. And Benny liked whatever had the most color. Today it was Bubblegum Burst. As they wandered down the sidewalk licking their cones, they passed Ye Olde Antique Shoppe. “This is the shop Nurse Rumple was coming out of the other day,” said Jessie, “when she was yelling at the man in the orange truck.”
Dozens of wonderful old things were crammed the display window.
“Look,” said Benny, “that’s just like my old yo-yo.”
“And my comic books,” said Henry.
“And my old figure skates,” said Jessie
Violet gasped. “There’s Katrina and the Kachina Doll!”
The children ran inside. The tiny shop was crammed full of books and dishes, toys and clothes—every shelf, table, countertop, and floor space covered. A woman glared at them from behind the counter. “No eating in the store,” she said.
Violet took her book out of the window display, excitedly flipping through the pages. “Here,” she said, pointing to a drawing of Prairie Girl Katrina holding a kachina doll.
“You mustn’t touch the merchandise,” the woman snapped.
“But you bought all of this from our yard sale,” said Violet.
“Yes,” said the woman, “and now it is mine. If you want it, you must buy it.”
Violet stared at the price sticker on her book. “Fifteen dollars? But … I sold it to you for twenty-five cents!”
“That is why I am in business,” the woman took the book, “and you are in school. These books are very old and—except for milk and tuna-salad sandwiches—the older something is, the more valuable it becomes. Now, outside, all of you.”
The children walked out to finish their ice cream, watching as the woman dusted the items in the window display.
“Look,” Benny pointed, “that’s our can.”
The Crispy Crackers can sat in the back of the display with old cans and tins and metal boxes. The children ran back inside. The woman glowered at them. “I thought I told you—”
“That can belongs to us,” Jessie said.
“Which one?”
“That green one, way in back.”
The woman folded her arms across her chest. “That could be anyone’s old can.”
“No,” said Jessie. “We can prove it’s ours.”
“It has black burn marks on the bottom,” said Violet. “When we lived in the boxcar, we’d fill the can with water from the stream and set it on hot stones to heat water for washing and cooking.”
“And,” Henry said, “it’s full of money.”
“What?”
“Open it,” said Jessie. “You’ll see.”
“It … it doesn’t open.” The woman’s face turned bright red. “I tried. It’s stuck shut.”
“I can get it open,” said Henry. And before she could stop him, he climbed into the display window and took out the can. Sure enough, the bottom of the can was burnt black. Using the heel of his shoe and a nail left over from his rain stick, Henry hammered off the lid. Dollar bills and coins spilled out. Benny quickly scurried around, picking them up.
“That can was just sitting out on a stump near that old boxcar,” snapped the woman.
“Yes,” said Jessie, her voice angry, “it was sitting right next to the sign—the really BIG sign—that said ‘Donations for the Homeless Shelter.’”
“There was no sign,” she said, “just a dog and cat running around.”
The children glanced at each other. They remembered Watch chasing the cat around the yard, knocking things over. “I guess Watch could have knocked the sign down,” said Jessie. “Still, you shouldn’t have taken the can without asking.”
“Well, you told me that only items on the tables were for sale, and it didn’t look like something that anyone would miss so I … I … I …” Tiny drops of sweat dotted the woman’s upper lip. She patted her forehead with a handkerchief. “This was a terrible misunderstanding. I … I … I,” she took a deep breath, “I apologize.”
It seemed so hard for her to say that the children guessed she didn’t apologize very often.
“Look!” cried Benny, pointing to an old wooden table piled high with dishes and silverware. He reached across the table and grabbed a silver candleholder from behind a stack of dishes. It was coated with orange and black wax. “That’s Grandma Belle’s candle-holder! The one she used on Halloween.”
Violet grabbed Henry’s arm and pulled him to one side. “What if Grandma Belle’s nurse didn’t come here to buy something,” she whispered. “What if she came here to sell?”
Henry thought this over. He took the candleholder from Benny and set it on the counter in front of the woman. “Where did you get this?” he asked.
The woman blinked, then blinked again. “Why, people bring things to sell all the time. I can hardly be expected to remember where all my treasures come from.”
The children suspected she wasn’t telling the truth. But she turned away and began dusting some shelves.
“What about my mask?” asked Benny. “Did you take it out of our garage?”
The woman whirled around. “I don’t know anything about any mask,” she said. “And I want you children out of here, out of here now.”
As the children walked out of the store with their green can, they had a feeling she knew exactly where Grandma Belle’s candleholder had come from, and it was up to them to find out how it ended up in her store.
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