Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking (21 page)

I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but my dreams were awful—Ollie, Mom, Grumps, and Nini were trapped in a deep hole, and I was trying to get them out using the roll of green twine. However, my arms were so tired, I’d pull one halfway up, then let go. They’d tumble to the bottom, and I’d try the next person…over and over again.

And when I woke up, I realized that the tiny army with ball-peen hammers had returned. This time, I was in pain even staying still. My calves throbbed, my shoulders ached, hip burned, and there was a constant thrumming in my neck. It got worse when I moved. My shoulders screamed just getting out of bed.

At least I’d only suffer for three more days.

I limped downstairs. Mom had left a note—she’d gone to work—to call when I got up. I poured a glass of juice, returned my Charlie card to her trinket box, grabbed our landline receiver, and dialed Ollie’s parents’ number.

Machine. Again. I sat at the table, struggling with what to do next—call the police? tell my mom?—and then I remembered:

I
had
called the police—with the location of the Gardner art!

Mom had taken the newspaper, so I flipped the TV on to see if there was a report about it being returned.

Nada.

I’d need to check the Internet, but my computer was still in lockdown and I was too tired and discouraged to sneak another trip to the library. Instead I called Mom.

“Slattery and O’Toole’s Funeral Home,” she answered.

“Hey, Mom.”

“How are you feeling? Any better today?”

I considered my response. If I told her I wasn’t better, she’d be more concerned and keep a tighter eye on me. On the other hand, if I told her I
was
, I could get roped into that dinner with Richard.

“I’m achy.”

She made a concerned mom-noise, asked if I had a fever, told me to take two painkillers and check in with Nini.

“Since he hasn’t been able to get you out of the house, Richard is coming over tonight,” she added before I hung up. “He really wants to talk to you. Us.”

“Okay,” I answered. I was glad she recommended the painkillers, because I was definitely going to need them.

“And I left you a present on my bed,” she said.

A present? I hung up and went back into her room…and found my laptop.
Disco!

I opened my computer to check on Ollie and the Gardner art story. Immediately, my IM alert went off—someone
had been trying to reach me. I clicked on it, and saw that I’d missed almost a dozen attempts to be reached by Ollie’s username, Oxnfree.

A twinge of hope ran through me, but I pushed that down the turnpike. Since The Redhead had his phone, she had his username too—it was all over his text messages.

I checked
The Boston Globe
and
Herald
news sites, but there was no mention of the returned art. I checked the Gardner site too. The return of millions of dollars of art would make front-page news, right? Maybe the police hadn’t found it.

Or maybe The Redhead got it out
, said a nagging voice in my head.

I went through my filthy laundry from the night before, digging the proof out of my skirt pocket. In the statement column, I added:
Five pieces hidden in Old North Church—all large paintings.
Under reasons, I wrote,
Grumps worked there in 1990. Have seen with own eyes.

I also added a new statement about the finial and ku being hidden in Fenway Park.

Info up-to-date, I leaned back in my chair to plan. I had to get to Fenway. I had to find the finial and ku. I had to know if the police discovered the paintings.

I pulled on my lower lip. There was one other way I could get some information about the paintings…I dialed the number of the Old North Church. It rang. And rang. And rang. According to the website, the office should have been open. Finally, a recorded message came on:

“Thank you for calling Boston’s Old North Church, one of
the most significant landmarks in American history. Unfortunately, the church is closed to visitors. Please check back at a later date for tour information. Thank you.”

Something’s going on, I thought. Although I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that the police found the paintings,
something
had happened to change the daily schedule of the church.

And until I knew exactly what happened, I had to make sure that Grumps, Nini, and Mom stayed safe, and I
really
had to find out what happened to Ollie. I clicked back to my IM window and prepared myself for a log of The Redhead’s taunts.

Instead of taunts about Ollie, I saw a list of “You around?” “Hey…where are you?” and “Everything okay?” I wanted to believe they were from him, I really did. But over the past twenty-four hours I’d learned that The Redhead would do anything to get what she wanted. I shut off the computer. Seeing “Ollie’s” messages gave me an idea.

The phone rang while I was on my way to take a shower. I let our ancient answering machine get it, but lingered at the foot of the stairs to hear the message.

“This is Uniform Connection calling to remind you that a down payment for Margaret Mildred Fleece’s uniform is overdue. If payment is not received by the fourth, I will cancel the order.”

My stomach dropped. Why hadn’t Mom paid for the uniform? Before my brain even finished forming the question, my heart had the answer:
Because she wants you to think that
everything’s normal until she and Putrid Richard can break the news to you.

Feeling sick again, I realized that had to be it. Mom wanted to keep things as normal as possible until everything was set.

I showered on autopilot, struggling to forget what I’d heard, then searched for a shirt that would cover an ugly scrape on my arm that came from throwing myself out the church window. No dice. I could hide the one on my leg under tights—and was grateful that the sunset-colored bruise on my hip wouldn’t see the light of day—but unless I wanted to wear long sleeves in July (a suspicious wardrobe choice, even for me), I was out of luck. I slapped a Band-Aid over the worst of it and decided not to care what my mom thought, since she obviously didn’t care about
me.

Downstairs, Nini was vacuuming and singing along to her iPod (Mom and I had given it to her last Christmas, loaded with oldies) so I stood in front of her and waved my arms to get her attention. The arm-waving absolutely killed my tortured limbs.

“Oh!” She shut off the vacuum. “You startled me, Moxie. Are you feeling better?”

I nodded. “Just a little achy.” She checked my forehead for a fever—I swear, sometimes it’s tough having what amounts to two mothers—and asked if I’d taken anything. Once we established that I had fed and medicated myself, I asked her when she was visiting Grumps.

“After lunch. Do you want to come with me?” When I
told her yes, her eyebrows furrowed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You could still be contagious.” She spoke like I was a germ bomb that would infect all of Alton Rivers.

“I don’t have a fever,” I pointed out. “I’m sure I’m over it.” I crossed my fingers. I
had
to see Grumps, to make sure he was okay. And to tell him I’d found the paintings.

“Let’s see how you feel before I go,” she said. I knew she hated to tell me to stay home, that she was only trying to protect him—and the other patients. But I couldn’t exactly tell her that my “illness” was really from being stressed out, worried, and injured, could I?

I told her I was going to get some air and let her finish vacuuming. My next stop:

Ollie’s house.

Stepping outside made me jumpy. And, it turned out, with good reason:

Both tires on my bike were slashed flat.

Coldness crept over me. I’d annoyed The Redhead, and even ticked her off with my attitude, but this—this was dangerous angry. She was
pissed.

And I was her target.

And you know what? I
loved
knowing that I had gotten to her. I grinned.

In case she was watching, I grabbed my skateboard like it had been my first choice and hit the road like it was any other bright, hot summer day.
Take that, Ginger!

Both his parents’ cars were still missing. Had they gone to meet with the police? On TV when a kid was kidnapped, the police camped at the parents’ house in case someone called with a ransom request. It had been days with no sign of him—or anyone.

After waiting a while, I stashed my skateboard under a shrub and crossed the street. But instead of heading to the front door, I quietly unlatched the gate and walked around
the back for more recon. Unfortunately, most of the windows were too high off the ground for me to peer into; but again, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Turning into a real creeper, Mox
, I thought. Again, I was struck by how similar my sneaky behavior was to Grumps’s, years ago. I
was
doing this because of him, though, so it was technically his fault.

“Hey! Kid!” a deep voice boomed from a window above me. I jumped about seventeen feet and took off toward the street. Cop, kidnapper, stiff legs…it didn’t matter. I was outta there.

I fumbled with the latch on the gate and raced to the sidewalk, intent on making it to my wheels.

A door banged open behind me.

“Moxie!
WAIT
!”

That
voice was familiar.

“Stop, Moxie! It was a joke!”

I hit the brakes, then spun.

Ollie was standing on his front porch, face red, waving his arms. “Hey!” he yelled.

My achy legs had been replaced by buzzing, adrenalinefueled ones. That didn’t matter, though. They gave out.

I sank to my knees.

“You okay? Moxie?” Ollie raced down the stairs to me.

I couldn’t believe it. I was so freaked out, I thought it was some kind of trick.

“Is that you?” I asked, dazed. “Where’s The Redhead?”

“Of course it’s me. And how should I know?” Ollie extended his hand and pulled me up. “Why were you skulking around my house?”

“Where have you been?” I asked, ignoring his question. The longer we stood in the open, the more danger we were in. I grabbed my skateboard and pointed to his house. “Answer me inside.”

When the door was closed—and locked—behind us, I asked him again.

“Where have you been?”

“Uhh…right here.” He blinked behind his glasses in an owly way—totally, honestly puzzled. “What’re you talking about?”

I had an Alice in Wonderland moment; reality went fuzzy around the edges. Had I imagined everything?

“Are you a robot?” I tried.

“I think you need something to drink,” Ollie said. He left me sitting on the couch and, after some clinking and fridgeopening, came back with two glasses of lemonade. I swallowed half of mine in one gulp.

“Tell me what your deal is,” he said. “From the beginning. Wherever that is.”

“The Redhead took you. And your phone,” I began. I tried to tell the story in logical order, but I couldn’t get my brain around it. He listened to my rambling for a minute, then shook his head and cut me off.

“That’s
what happened to it!” he cried.

“What are you talking about?”

“My phone. I went on a Boston Harbor Islands cruise with my parents the other day—which was so awesome, Mox, you wouldn’t believe the cool stuff we learned—anyway, on the way back we stopped so I could do a cache downtown. It was one of GI Goh’s, a really tough one—” He caught my glare and kept going. “Anyway, my GPS and phone were in the same pocket of my shorts, but when we got home, I only had my GPS. I assumed that I left the phone somewhere, but she must have followed us and took it off a bench or something.”