born. She wouldnât let me leave without giving me a cookie and some raspberry seltzer water to take with me. She wanted to give me a half dozen cookies, but Butterfly Tattoo stepped in and said no.
I hopped back on Angusâs Go-Ped and sped through downtown to Corbett Street Grocery. I carried my cookie and seltzer water in a small white paper bag, folded over at the top. Although it seemed like Paisley wasnât much of a businesswoman, giving away the profits to undercover do-it-yourself girl detectives, I knew she hadnât set the fire at the grocery. This gave me a bad case of swirled-around feelings. Paisley was cool, andso it was good she wasnât an arsonist. But if it wasnât Paisley who set the fire, who was it? And what would Angus say when I told him? I was relieved to find out heâd been telling the truth about Paisleyâs renting a small space at the grocery instead of taking it over completely. This didnât seem like a big deal, but it proved he wasnât a hedger, a person who was always trying to find a way not to tell the truth, without having to tell an outright lie.
I was about twenty minutes late and Angus still wasnât there. I leaned the Go-Ped against someoneâs garden wall and sat on the curb across from the grocery. I waited. I ate the snickerdoodle and drank the raspberry seltzer. There was a huge pink rose shrub on the parking strip filled with bumblebees, and they cruised me until I couldnât stand it. It was the cookie or my kiwi-scented hair conditioner. I wiped my hands on my legs, and just as I was about to walk across the street to the grocery, Robotective Huntington cruised by in a dark blue Dadmobile. He slowed the car, turned to look hard at me through his mirrored shades, then drove on.
I crossed behind the street, and as I got closer to the charred front door, I noticed that the door was ajar. I pushed it open with one finger. âAngus?â I called out into the gloom. Everything looked just as it had beforeâthe piles of burned junk, the flap of soggy ceiling.
The whole place still smelled burned. It hurt your noseto smell it. I wondered if it would always smell that way in the heat, even after Angusâs parents, Nat and Nat, had the grocery rebuilt, or however you fixed a half-burned building. Debris crunched underfoot as I walked toward the back of the store, past the tall shelf with the row of shiny antique toasters. I stopped and stared up at them. One looked like a little drawer set on end, with the handle on top. Another one was sleek and square and looked like one of the messenger droids from
Star Wars
. I counted ten of themâwho knew toast had such a history?
Then I heard footsteps overhead. I hadnât forgotten there was an apartment upstairs, but Iâd let it drift to the back of my mind. It was easier to think about how, whether the fire was ruled an arson or an accident, Angusâs family would be able to rebuild, and how all that was lost was a lot of snack food, meats and cheeses in the deli case, and newspapers piled in the wire stand beside the door. The footsteps upstairs made me think of the lady Angus said everyone called Grams, and how she had burned to death up there. They made me realize that if this was an arson and not an accident, the arsonist was also a murderer.
âAngus?â I called out, louder than necessary. It was Angus upstairs walking around, right? Not the murderer/arsonist, or even creepy Robotective Huntington, with the flat voice and strange off-kilter eyes. For a split second, I remembered the ghost. What did Angus call her? Louise. But she lived in the freezer, didnât she?
âUh, NO, Minerva,â I said aloud to the empty store. I believed in ghosts, but only as a joke. The same way I still said I believed in the tooth fairy, just for laughs. Or this was my official position.
At the rear of the store, across from the walk-in freezer I glimpsed the bottom
I hopped back on Angusâs Go-Ped and sped through downtown to Corbett Street Grocery. I carried my cookie and seltzer water in a small white paper bag, folded over at the top. Although it seemed like Paisley wasnât much of a businesswoman, giving away the profits to undercover do-it-yourself girl detectives, I knew she hadnât set the fire at the grocery. This gave me a bad case of swirled-around feelings. Paisley was cool, andso it was good she wasnât an arsonist. But if it wasnât Paisley who set the fire, who was it? And what would Angus say when I told him? I was relieved to find out heâd been telling the truth about Paisleyâs renting a small space at the grocery instead of taking it over completely. This didnât seem like a big deal, but it proved he wasnât a hedger, a person who was always trying to find a way not to tell the truth, without having to tell an outright lie.
I was about twenty minutes late and Angus still wasnât there. I leaned the Go-Ped against someoneâs garden wall and sat on the curb across from the grocery. I waited. I ate the snickerdoodle and drank the raspberry seltzer. There was a huge pink rose shrub on the parking strip filled with bumblebees, and they cruised me until I couldnât stand it. It was the cookie or my kiwi-scented hair conditioner. I wiped my hands on my legs, and just as I was about to walk across the street to the grocery, Robotective Huntington cruised by in a dark blue Dadmobile. He slowed the car, turned to look hard at me through his mirrored shades, then drove on.
I crossed behind the street, and as I got closer to the charred front door, I noticed that the door was ajar. I pushed it open with one finger. âAngus?â I called out into the gloom. Everything looked just as it had beforeâthe piles of burned junk, the flap of soggy ceiling.
The whole place still smelled burned. It hurt your noseto smell it. I wondered if it would always smell that way in the heat, even after Angusâs parents, Nat and Nat, had the grocery rebuilt, or however you fixed a half-burned building. Debris crunched underfoot as I walked toward the back of the store, past the tall shelf with the row of shiny antique toasters. I stopped and stared up at them. One looked like a little drawer set on end, with the handle on top. Another one was sleek and square and looked like one of the messenger droids from
Star Wars
. I counted ten of themâwho knew toast had such a history?
Then I heard footsteps overhead. I hadnât forgotten there was an apartment upstairs, but Iâd let it drift to the back of my mind. It was easier to think about how, whether the fire was ruled an arson or an accident, Angusâs family would be able to rebuild, and how all that was lost was a lot of snack food, meats and cheeses in the deli case, and newspapers piled in the wire stand beside the door. The footsteps upstairs made me think of the lady Angus said everyone called Grams, and how she had burned to death up there. They made me realize that if this was an arson and not an accident, the arsonist was also a murderer.
âAngus?â I called out, louder than necessary. It was Angus upstairs walking around, right? Not the murderer/arsonist, or even creepy Robotective Huntington, with the flat voice and strange off-kilter eyes. For a split second, I remembered the ghost. What did Angus call her? Louise. But she lived in the freezer, didnât she?
âUh, NO, Minerva,â I said aloud to the empty store. I believed in ghosts, but only as a joke. The same way I still said I believed in the tooth fairy, just for laughs. Or this was my official position.
At the rear of the store, across from the walk-in freezer I glimpsed the bottom
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