Amos Gets Married (5 page)

“Too bad you can’t keep all this stuff,” Dunc said.

Amos stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ll probably want to give it all back, considering she’s out of her head and everything.”

“I will?”

“Sure. It’s only right. She must have
spent a lot of money on this stuff. Look at this tag. It says
Stephenson’s.
That’s the most expensive store in town.”

Amos sighed. “I
would
have to have you around to remind me of these things. Why couldn’t I have someone without a conscience for my best friend?”

Dunc shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess. Want me to help you take it back to her?”

“No. I think I’ll wait awhile and figure out something better to tell her than ‘I can’t keep this stuff because you’re nuts.’ ”

Dunc rubbed his chin. “You’ve got a point there.” He snapped his fingers. “I know. We’ll take the stuff back to Stephenson’s ourselves. You can give the money to Melissa and tell her they didn’t fit.”

Amos put the blades back in the box. “You don’t think maybe I should keep them? You know, on the outside chance that she really loves me?”

Dunc shook his head.

“I was afraid of that.”

Stephenson’s was next to the Pioneer Mall on the way toward town. Amos lived on the outskirts of town in a development. It took the boys twenty minutes to bike to the mall. It would have taken less time, but Amos was still having trouble figuring out how to carry the big white box.

Dunc locked his bike. “Want me to hold the box while you lock your bike?”

“Now he offers.” Amos handed him the box. “I’ll be happy to get rid of this thing. I didn’t know doing the right thing was so much work.”

“You’ll be glad you did it when this is all
over.” Dunc held the door to Stephenson’s open for him.

The inside of Stephenson’s looked more like an expensive hotel than a sporting goods store. The carpet was plush, and chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

A saleslady dressed like she was attending the opera headed for them. She looked Amos over for a few seconds. “May I help you, young man?”

Amos dropped the box on the counter. “Yeah. You can give me a refund for all the stuff in this box.”

The woman opened the box like she expected a snake to jump out. “Do you have a receipt for this merchandise?”

Amos shook his head. “No. But everything has the name of the store right on it, so I know it came from here.”

“Please wait here while I get the manager.” The woman turned abruptly and walked to the back of the store. The boys could see her talking to a tall, thin man in a black suit.

“I hope this doesn’t take too long.” Dunc sat down on a long couch. “I need to put the
finishing touches on my pretend marriage budget. It’s due tomorrow.”

Amos joined him on the couch. “Mrs. Wormwood said she had a bonus for the couple that did the best job. I wonder what it is?”

“I don’t care, as long as I get Bertha Abercromby out of my life forever.”

The man and woman walked back to the sales counter together. The man twisted his handlebar moustache. “Would you gentlemen be so kind as to tell me where you obtained this merchandise?”

Dunc stood up. “It was a gift. Is there a problem?”

“That depends. You see, this merchandise did in fact come from this store. But these things just happen to be the exact same items that were stolen from us yesterday.”

“Stolen?” Amos jumped off the couch.

“I’m afraid so.” The man moved around the counter. “Perhaps you could help us find the thief. Who gave these things to you?”

“There has to be some other explanation. Melissa’s not a thief.” Amos folded his arms and sat on Dunc’s bed.

Dunc looked up from the book he was reading. “What other explanation could there be? The saleslady said she remembered a girl with long blond hair in the store yesterday. She said the girl was sweet but left without buying anything.”

“So? There must be hundreds of sweet girls in this town with long blond hair. It could have been any one of them.”

Dunc leaned back in his chair. “It’s a good thing that salesman believed your story about finding that Rollerblade stuff
wrapped in a box by your front door. Otherwise, Melissa would be in jail by now.”

Amos stuck his lip out. “She didn’t do it!”

A thoughtful look came over Dunc. “Amos, did you happen to notice Melissa’s fingertips when you were at her house earlier?”

Amos cocked his head. “Her fingertips?”

“Yeah. They weren’t black or anything, were they?”

“Now that you mention it, I did notice some black smudges on them. I thought maybe she’d been working in the garden or something.” Amos sat up. “Wait a minute. You don’t think Melissa is the school thief, too, do you?”

“I wonder …” Dunc thumbed through his book on psychiatric abnormalities. He flipped through the pages and stopped at the section on head injuries. “Hmmm. That’s interesting.”

“Are you going to let me in on it?”

“It says here that people who suffer head injuries often do things completely opposite from what they normally would do.”

“Like ripping off expensive stores and taking things out of people’s lockers?”

Dunc nodded.

Amos sank down on the bed. “What are we going to do? We can’t let her go to jail.”

“The book says there are only two ways to help her. The safest is to let it wear off gradually.”

“What’s the second way?”

Dunc turned the page. “Another bump on the head.”

“Forget that. Nobody’s hitting Melissa while I’m around.”

“Then there’s only one thing left to do.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to return all the stuff she took and follow her everywhere she goes to make sure she doesn’t take anything else.”

“What do you mean,
I’ve
got to do it? I thought we were in on this thing together.”

“I’ll help when I can. But Melissa’s your girlfriend. You can be around her without making her suspicious.”

Amos grinned. “That has such a nice ring to it.”

“What?”

“The part where you said she’s my girlfriend.”

“Don’t get too used to it. Soon she’s bound to come back to her normal self.”

“But in the meantime …”

Dunc put the psychiatric book on his desk. “In the meantime, we have to figure out where Melissa is hiding the rest of the things she took from school and how you’re going to give it all back without getting in trouble yourself.”

Amos put his hands behind his head and lay back on Dunc’s bed. “I’m not worried. You’ll come up with something.”

“And I said I wasn’t worried.” Amos moved a piece of shrubbery out of his nose. “In case you didn’t know it, they also put you in jail for breaking and entering.”

The boys were hiding in the flower garden behind Melissa’s house, waiting for her mother to take her to dance class.

Dunc peeked over the hedge. “I wouldn’t look at it as breaking and entering, exactly. It’s more like we’re a couple of uninvited guests. You know, like when your uncle Alfred comes over.”

“Except everybody in my family knows when Uncle Alfred is in our house, because he takes his shoes off and picks his toes
through his moldy socks. In fact I’m pretty sure even the neighbors can tell when Uncle Alfred comes to visit. It’s rank.”

“We won’t be in there long, Amos. We’ll just do a quick check and then we’re out. She may not have the stuff hidden in there anyway.” Dunc looked at his watch. “I thought you said Melissa was supposed to leave for dance lessons?”

The front door slammed. Melissa and her mother came rushing out and got into the station wagon.

Dunc watched from the safety of the hedge until the station wagon was well out of sight. “All clear. Let’s go.”

Amos tried the back door. It was locked.

“Over here.” Dunc motioned for him to move to the kitchen window. “They left it open a crack. I think I can boost you up.”

Amos studied the window. “I don’t know—it looks pretty small.”

“It’s the only way in. If we go around front, somebody might spot us.”

“You always have it covered, don’t you? Okay, give me a boost.”

Dunc pushed while Amos jumped and
grabbed the windowsill. He managed to get his head and shoulders through the tiny window, but the rest of him was stuck.

“Pull me out. I hear someone coming.”

Dunc grabbed one leg and pulled. Nothing. He couldn’t budge Amos. “I can’t pull you out. I’m going to try pushing.”

“Do something quick. Someone’s coming down the stairs.”

Mr. Hansen, Melissa’s father, had the flu and had stayed home from work to recuperate. He went into the kitchen to get a glass of juice. He was about to open the refrigerator when he noticed Amos’s head sticking through the window.

Amos tried a halfhearted smile. “Hi, Mr. Hansen. Is Melissa home?”

“You’re
one of Melissa’s friends?”

Amos nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m the one she’s married to.”

Mr. Hansen’s eyebrows came together like a black thundercloud. “What?”

“It’s only pretend. Our social studies teacher gave us the assignment.”

“Thank goodness. For a minute there you had me worried, son.” Mr. Hansen
moved closer to Amos. “Is there some reason why you’re hanging through my kitchen window?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Your back door was locked.”

“I see.” Mr. Hansen took the juice out of the refrigerator, scratched his head, and started back upstairs. “Must be something to do with the generation gap.”

Dunc put his back against Amos’s feet, braced himself against a brick flower bed, and pushed for all he was worth. Amos shot through the window and landed upside-down against the kitchen wall with his head in the cat litter box.

Dunc stood on his toes and looked through the window. “Are you all right in there?”

“
I’m
all right. But when I get the door open,
you
may not be.”

Amos picked some of the cat litter out of his hair and fumbled at the lock. He was still mad when he pulled the door open. “I hope you’re satisfied. Now Mr. Hansen thinks he has a complete geek for a son-in-law.”

“I’m sorry, Amos. You told me to do something.” Dunc sniffed the air. “What is that smell?” He sniffed closer to Amos. “It’s obviously been a while since the Hansens cleaned their litter box.”

Amos brushed at his hair and started out the door.

“Where are you going?” Dunc asked.

“What do you mean, where am I going? I’m going home. We can’t search Melissa’s room now. Her dad is here.”

“So?”

Amos turned around. “We can’t do it while he’s in the house. He might call the cops or something.”

“He won’t do that. He’s sick. I’ll bet you anything he went upstairs to bed. We just have to be extra quiet, that’s all.”

Amos threw up his hands. “Why not? I think he already regrets letting Melissa marry me.”

Dunc led the way up the stairs. They could hear Mr. Hansen snoring at the end of the hall. Dunc pointed to the door on the left and quietly turned the knob.

Melissa’s room was decorated in pastel colors, with lace and ruffles on the curtains
and bedspread. There were posters on every wall.