A Summer of Sundays (9 page)

Kate DiCamillo. “Have you read
The Tale of Despereaux
?”

“How about
A Long Way from Chicago
by Richard Peck?”

“That’s one of my favorites. Remember the part—”

I stopped when the notebook page was filled with names. “Okay, we have to stop there. If everyone on this page says no, then we’ll think of more.” I glanced down at the list. “What if they don’t get the letters in time … or what if they don’t get back to us?”

Jude took the pen and scribbled Rick Riordan down. “I don’t know. It’s a long shot either way, but we should try.”

I glanced down at the manuscript. If only I could find out who wrote it.

That would be big news in town.

News big enough to announce at the party. Big enough for the
Alma Gazette
.

Big enough for my name to be printed in bold black ink and my picture to be on the front page.

“All right,” Jude said, interrupting my thoughts. “Let’s start writing the letters. We should send them soon.”

“Right.” I pulled out a clean sheet of paper. “Dear J. K. Rowling …”

JUDE
and I walked along the sidewalks toward town the next morning. He said that on our way to the post office we had to stop and try a crepe at the Crepe Café.

“They’re the best.”

“And your mom lets you eat them?”

He shrugged. “Ms. Bodnar uses organic milk and eggs, so Mom doesn’t mind.”

“Hmm.” A big, flat French pancake didn’t sound that appealing, but we needed to send off the letters, and I was itching to walk around downtown for the first time.

But not so itchy that I was going to let May drive Jude and me the few blocks to Main Street.

“She can’t be all that bad,” Jude said, huffing beside me.

Just then the van came jerking down the street, heaving forward and back like a wild stallion. It passed us, then stalled. May’s muffled wail erupted behind the windows and I picked up my pace. “I guess that just depends on your definition of ‘bad.’ ”

Jude wiped the beads of sweat that had collected above his lip and we turned right onto Main Street.

I gulped down the little town. I’d been at the library for the past week, so I hadn’t had a chance to walk along the streets or glance into any of the shops. The sidewalks were swept clean, handprints and initials stuck forever in some of the cement squares. Flowers hung in pots from light posts, bursting in shades of purple, blue, red, and pink, and swayed gently back and forth. The air was warm but not heavy like it was in the city. It smelled like flowers, grass, and something baking in the oven. The giant dog I had spotted from my seat in the van when we first arrived dashed down the sidewalk, an old man half running, half sprinting after him. It looked like if he dug his heels in the sidewalk and held on, the dog would pull him along and he’d be waterskiing. I could hear him breathing from across the road. “Mr. Castor!” he yelled. “Heel! Heel!”

“That’s Papa Gil.” Jude said. “He’s married to Muzzy. Their dog is the worst dog I’ve ever seen.”

“I think I remember him and his wife coming to the library the other day. They brought over a pie. I didn’t get to meet them because Mom and Dad sent me to take down the zip line that CJ had rigged up from the upstairs bathroom before he sent Henry down. Muzzy and Papa Gil? Are those their real names?”

“No, but that’s what everyone calls them. They own the thrift store over there. My mom said they never were able to have kids, so all the kids in town are sort of like their grandchildren.” He leaned in closer. “And they always have candy.”

I smiled toward the thrift store window, where clothes hung a little crooked on the cardboard mannequins. When my grandpa was alive, he would always come over to visit on Sunday afternoon. “It’s my favorite day of the week,” he’d say to me, scooping me up in his arms. “ ’Cause you’re my Sunday.” I remember how he smelled like peanut butter and had a deep, rough voice. It would be nice to have a grandpa and grandma nearby, at least for the summer.

“Here it is,” Jude said.

We walked into the small café I had spied when we first drove through town. That’s where all the good smells were coming from. It looked like a picture of France I had seen in a calendar once.

So did the woman behind the counter.

She wore flowers in her reddish hair and flashed Jude and me a smile as she slid a crepe into a to-go box and handed it to a bulky man whose roly-poly stomach showed just how much he enjoyed her cooking. “Have a good day, Mr. Ryans,” she said, her voice slightly accented.

Mr. Ryans licked his lips and smiled before bustling back onto the sidewalk.

The woman behind the counter was a little older than my parents. There were streaks of gray mixed in with her wiry red curls, which she had pulled off her freckled face in a loose, low ponytail. She wore a red T-shirt with the phrase
I LOVE FOOD
written across the chest in bright white letters, and she wore five or six silver bangles that jingled around her wrist like bells.

Jude walked up to the counter. “Hi, Ms. Bodnar. This is Sunday. Her family is fixing up the old library.”

Ms. Bodnar grinned. “Oh, yes, I think I met your sisters already. May and Emma, right?”

I nodded and inwardly groaned. Now it would be a miracle if she ever remembered my name.

“Nice to meet you, Sunday.” She poured some batter onto a black pan, then lifted the handle and swirled the batter until it thinly covered the bottom. “I’m so glad you and your family have come. My late husband worked at the library for a few years. He would’ve been very sad to see what’s become of it.”

“Really? He worked there?” I stole a look at Jude, but he was watching Ms. Bodnar flip the lightly browned crepe. Was the story I’d found her husband’s?

“Yes. When we moved here from Paris, he did not pack any of his clothes. Not even socks or underwear. ‘I can replace those,’ he told me, ‘but not my books.’ ”

I liked her already. “Did your husband ever try to
write, Ms. Bodnar? You know, a story or a novel or something like that?”

She laughed, slid the crepe onto a plate, and swiped a knife covered in chocolate across it. “No, he didn’t like to write. Just read, read, read.” She dropped thinly sliced strawberries across the chocolate, then rolled it up like a burrito, adding a dollop of whipped cream on top. “I am the one who likes to write.”

“Really?” I knocked Jude with my elbow, though he didn’t seem to notice.

She smiled and waved the comment away. “Oh, it’s nothing, really, I just write little stories here and there, and I’m not sure if they are even good.”

Ms. Bodnar handed the plate and two forks to Jude. “Here’s a crepe for you two to split. A gift to welcome you to town.”

I grinned, my mouth watering at the sight of the drippy whipped cream. “Thank you.”

Jude and I sat down at one of the tables and dug in. After taking just one bite, it wasn’t hard to understand how the man in front of us got his tubby belly. It was like eating a piece of the clouds.

We were almost finished when Jude stopped eating and took a quick breath in.

“What?” I asked.

“Shh!” He hunkered down and glanced quickly at an
old man with a cane who walked past the café. When he was out of sight, Jude sat up, dug his fork into the last bite of crepe, and popped it into his mouth.

“What was that about?” I asked. “It wasn’t Wally.”

“It’s hard to imagine, but that old man is even more awful than Wally.” Jude leaned in closer but craned his neck to watch the man continue down the street. “That there is the meanest man in the entire world.”

“Him?”

Jude nodded and stood up, swiping up the last bit of whipped cream with his finger.

I followed. “How’s he so mean?”

“Just a second,” Jude whispered, and set the plate on the counter. “Thanks, Ms. Bodnar.”

“Yes, thank you. That was delicious.”

She waved. “Anytime.”

Jude and I started down the sidewalk. The old man was one block in front of us, and I could hear his feet and the cane creating a
shuffle-shuffle-tap
rhythm on the cement.

Jude whispered, even though there was no way on earth the old man could hear us, if he could even hear at all. “His name is Ben Folger. He’s the lunatic that lives across the field from you. He’s lived here almost all his life. You see his cane?”

I nodded.

“Well, Terrance Von, a senior at the high school, says
he’s seen him pull a knife out of it and stab a stray cat before. There’s also a curse around his house. Anything that goes over the bushes into his yard”—he paused and glanced around, lowering his voice—“never comes out again. Balls, shoes … kids. I hear he even eats raw meat.”

“You don’t really believe that stuff.” I laughed.

Jude stopped, grabbed my arm. “Sure I do. And you should, too. That is if you want to make it back to your own town at the end of the summer. He hates kids and every kind of animal. His basement is like a dungeon, damp and dark with rats and spiders. Terrance says that’s where he keeps and tortures the people who’ve trespassed.”

“How does Terrance Von know if he can’t go onto his property because of the curse?”

Jude continued walking. “How should I know? But he doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would lie.”

I stared down the sidewalk, watching the old man disappear around the corner.

“So, is he like a hermit?” I asked.

“Sort of, I guess. He does come out every now and then, but mostly I think he just hides away in his house plotting evil and burying the bones of the cats he’s eaten in his garden.”

That sounded kind of hermitish to me. “Or maybe he sits inside and writes? I’ve heard that sometimes writers
hide themselves away in their houses while they tap away on their computers. Do you think he could have written the story that I found?”

Jude grabbed my arm and stopped. “Does the story have murder or torture in it?”

I shook my head. “Not so far.”

He released my arm and started walking again. “Then no. He couldn’t’ve written it. Besides, I doubt he has ever set foot in the library.”

“Well, maybe that’s what I need to do to make my mark: befriend the local hermit and bring him out of hiding.” I would be like Mary Lennox in
The Secret Garden
. The idea made my heart thump with excitement and my skin crawl with fear.

Jude stopped again, pulling my arm harder this time. “No way, Sunday Fowler,” he whispered, as if saying it too loud was dangerous. “You need to stay as far away from Ben Folger and his house as you can. And you should tell your brothers and sisters to stay away, too.”

“If I told my brothers to keep clear, they would be knocking on his door before I even finished my sentence.”

DESPITE
Jude’s warning, I couldn’t get old Ben Folger out of my head the rest of that day or the next.

If Ben Folger really was a hermit, then bringing him out of his shell after years of hiding away would be a big deal. Everyone would want to know how I did it.

Or maybe he really did torture intruders in his basement. If I was able to prove that, I would be responsible for putting him behind bars and saving the entire town!

T
WELVE-YEAR-OLD HERO SAVES US ALL!

It didn’t seem like I could lose … well, unless he captured and tortured me.

I pushed that thought out of my mind and pictured my mom wrapping me in a big hug, and my dad proudly ruffling my hair as reporters interviewed me. “We’re so proud of you, Sunday,” my parents would say. “Our daughter, the hero.”

A knock at my door startled me. After tucking the pages of the manuscript underneath my pillow, I
opened
The Mystery at Lilac Inn
and pretended to read. “Come in.”

The door creaked open and there was Bo, standing in the dark stairway.

I set the book down. I hadn’t seen him much since this morning, and the sight of his messed-up hair, small bare feet, and dump-truck pajamas made me smile. “Bo? What are you doing still up?”

He rubbed his eyes and wrapped his blanket around his head. “CJ is snoring so loud I can’t stand it, and Mom told me that unless I’m bleeding I can’t come into her room ’cause Henry’ll wake up.”