Penny Dreadful (23 page)

T
URNING THE
K
NOB

U
nfortunately, the daylight was fading and it was dinnertime, so Penny obligingly ate her father’s roast chicken and tomato salad and considered what lay in store for her tomorrow. Her mind swirled with thoughts of treasure calling to her from a quiet underground place. She barely noticed her parents’ conversation, and she went to bed right after dinner to make morning come sooner.

But the next day she woke to a funny, joyful whooping noise. It was the sound of a happy Dirk. She climbed from her bed and padded into the next room. “What
is
it?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning.

Dirk was dancing around the living room with the phone in his hand. “Whoop!” he whooped. “I just got a call! From The City! I’m going to be published! See, I told you! It was
nothing
, nothing at all to get a book deal. Oh,
I wish your mom would get home from work, already. Things
do
have a way of working out! I knew they would. I can’t
wait
to see her face when she hears! An author! I’m about to be an author!”

“What? Huh! That’s amazing, Dad,” said Penny. She was happy for her father, of course she was. But Penny was also a little confused by this sudden news. She was absolutely certain her father had not written a word in days. He seemed to be doing everything
but
writing a book.

Besides that, today was the day
she’d
fix things, she just knew it! Otherwise, why had she found the book and the note from Aunt Betty? If it wasn’t her job to find it, why was the treasure out there calling for her? Yet, here, now, was Dirk—with a solution of his own. How could that be?

“That’s—great,” Penny said. “I didn’t think you’d finished the novel yet.”

“Oh, well—the
novel,
” scoffed Dirk. “
That
thing was never going to be any good anyway. Turns out I’m as bad at novel writing as I am at being president of a company! Somehow I just couldn’t get myself to work on it. Making up stories and writing them down is
hard
. You have to think out every little detail.”

Penny looked up at her dad, bewildered. “But then how—”

“I shifted gears entirely,” said Dirk. “I’m doing a cookbook instead. A
cookbook
!”

“You
are
?” Penny asked. Her father
had
been proving himself skilled in the kitchen, but still—how could he have written a cookbook so quickly? He hadn’t set foot inside his office for days.

“Well,” confessed Dirk, “actually, your aunt Betty mostly wrote the recipes. But
I
deciphered her crazy old-fashioned handwriting,
I’m
rewriting it, and
I
thought to tell someone about it, so I should get some credit for that, right? It was just sitting there, and it still would be if it weren’t for me. Also, I do love all the recipes and love making them. That counts for something, I think.”

“You sent
that
to a publisher?” Penny asked, thinking that the stained pages in the kitchen hardly looked like something you’d want to send anyone.

“No, not exactly,” explained Dirk. “I pitched the
idea
of it to a guy I know. A hotshot editor, a friend of my old buddy Joe. The hotshot liked it! He just about ate up the idea of
Up-Betty’s Small-Town Kitchen
. He called it folksy and sweet, and he said that people would love the idea of a big-city businessman type guy giving up his job to move to the country and cook. He said it would be a good angle for publicity. So we’ve been chatting for the last day or
two, and this morning he called to say that everyone was on board! Isn’t that great?”

“Oh,” said Penny through a disappointed smile. “Yeah. Of course it is. Congratulations. Now I guess Mother can stop worrying about the money and the house. I guess—”

Dirk held up his hand. “Well, now … wait a minute. Hold your horses. Let’s slooow down here. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. I mean, this is a great thing, but there’s still a lot to do. The guy
definitely
wants the book, probably, but I’ll need to rewrite a lot of it and update the recipes and write an introduction. Betty was very fond of lard and heavy cream, so I’ll need to try out all the new recipes, and then the book will need to be laid out, and there’s cover art to consider. Plus, the contract alone could take a few months.”

“Really?” Penny tried not to grin. It sounded like there was still an awful lot of work to be done. “Months?” she asked.

Dirk continued. “Yes, and I suppose I also need to get your mother’s permission first. After all,
she’s
the one who technically inherited the recipes, along with the house. Hmm … Do you think she’ll want credit for that? Maybe we should do this as a husband-and-wife team. That’d be an angle too. Ooh! That might be even better.…”

“But,” said Penny, “we don’t
have
months, Daddy. If we want to stay in the house, we need money now!
Someone
needs to do something now.”

“Hey,” said her dad, pouting. “Give a guy a break. I’m doing the best I can. These things don’t happen overnight, you know.”

“No, I know, I know,” said Penny with a nod. “It’s great news, it is. I just—we
still
need a plan, don’t we?” As Penny spoke these words, she felt her sense of purpose return and swell. Just like in a book, the parts of the story kept arranging and rearranging. Her story was leading her to the caves. She knew it.

At that moment they heard Dijon puttering into the drive. Dirk’s face lit up again. “Ooh! Your mom! I can’t wait to tell her about the book!”

Penny headed for her room to dress quickly, and her dad dashed to the door. “Delia, Delia!” he called out. “I’ve hit the jackpot! Struck gold!
Gold!
Huzzah!”

Standing by her window, watching through the pink curtains as Delia climbed the steps, Penny heard these words and knew they were yet another sign. Today was her day.

“Gold,” she repeated thoughtfully, walking over to her desk. She reached into the drawer and took out the note Aunt Betty had left her.

A door will only open for one who turns the knob
.

   She folded the note in half and slipped it into her pocket. There was no time to lose. She was ready.

Five minutes later she was passing her mom on the stairs with hardly a quick hello. Then she was pounding on Luella’s door.

“Luella! Luella!” called Penny as she pounded.

“What’s all the fuss?” asked Luella, opening the door. Her hair was particularly poufy today, standing all around her head in a giant circle. She touched the pouf gingerly. “Do
not
say a word,” she cautioned. “My mom is trying to get out some tangles, and it hurts.”

“Come
on
!” said Penny urgently. “Let’s go!”

“Where?” asked Luella crankily. “Why? What’s the hurry? Didn’t you just hear me say I’m busy?”

“You
can’t
be,” said Penny. “I need you to show me the way. To the caves!”

“Can’t,” said Luella. “Stupid hair! We’ll go another day.”

Penny frowned. Fate was being unwieldy. “Well, can you maybe just tell me where they are, then, the caves?”

“
You’re
going to go
alone?
” asked Luella.

“It’s important,” said Penny. “Urgent, even.”

“Hmm,” said Luella, weighing her options. “Hang on.
I just need to grab my spelunking tools.” She returned a second later with a ball cap on her head and a flashlight in her hand. She was wearing a large spool of clear string like a bracelet. “Let’s go,” she said. “But my mom will yell at me when she realizes I’m gone, so you’ll owe me. Should we get Duncan?”

Penny nodded. “Jasper too. We need a real search party!”

Luella raised an eyebrow. “You’re on a mission today, aren’t you?”

Penny nodded again but said no more. A mission was exactly what this was.

Duncan was allowed to come on the hunt, but only on the condition that he took along a first aid kit, a cell phone, a backup flashlight, and a bottle of water. Luella rolled her eyes at his full backpack, but it wasn’t long before she had to admit that the cell phone came in handy. Halfway to town Duncan thought to call Jasper and tell her to meet them on Main Street so that they didn’t have to walk all the way down her long dirt road.

Jasper joined them at the General Store, where her grandfather generously supplied them all with bubble gum. Then they set out in pairs down Main Street, chewing happily and blowing bubbles. Double file down the
sidewalk, Luella and Jasper walked in front, and Penny and Duncan followed behind.

“Hey,” Luella called out as she tromped along in the lead. “This is awesome. With four of us hunting, we can split up and cover more ground than I’ve ever explored before. Maybe today we’ll really find it.”

Under her breath Penny added, “We will. We
have
to.”

The four kids plodded on a little farther, until suddenly Duncan stopped walking and said, “
Man
, I can’t believe we didn’t bring Alice along. She has the best eyesight of anyone I’ve ever met. She’s a great thing-finder, and her summer camp finally ended yesterday.”

“Oh, I forgot!” said Luella. “That
is
too bad. I hope she doesn’t feel left out.”

Jasper nodded without turning her head. Her long braid jumped up and down.

“Who’s Alice?” asked Penny, walking quickly to keep up.

“Another kid who lives at the Whippoorwillows,” answered Duncan. “She hasn’t been around much since you’ve been here because she goes to a special camp for a week every summer. She lives in the orange house next to yours.”

“Oh,” said Penny as her jaw tightened strangely. It seemed forever ago that she’d embarrassed herself trying
to make friends, though it had really been less than two weeks. It was funny how different Penny felt now. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I think I know who you mean. She has … um, very shiny hair.”

“That’s her,” said Duncan.

“I met her,” said Penny softly, thinking how unfair it was that the memory of a mean girl was interfering with her day. Under her breath she added, “I almost forgot about
that
girl.”

Luella’s ears were sharp. She spun around and looked at Penny. “What do you mean by ‘
that
girl’?”

The others stopped too.

“Um,” said Penny, looking down at her feet, “nothing, really. I just—I don’t even really know her. Never mind.”

But Luella wouldn’t let it drop. “Look, Penny, you’re our friend and all. But you can’t be mean to Alice. Nobody can. Not even me. It’s a rule around here.”

Luella sure knew a lot of rules, thought Penny, irritated. “
Me
mean to
her
?” she said. “
She
was mean to
me
! I
tried
to make friends. Practically begged her. She just acted like I wasn’t even there, turned her shiny head, and walked the other way.”

The others were silent for a minute, staring at Penny. So Penny added, “She just seemed mean.”

“Probably,” offered Jasper in a soft voice, “probably Alice didn’t
hear
you.”

Penny shook her head emphatically. “That’s not possible,” she said. “I
yelled
after her. Really.
You
remember.” She looked at Luella. “You heard me all the way inside the house.”

“Is
that
what you were doing that day? Sheesh. I wish I’d known. Penny, there’s no such thing as too loud,” said Luella matter-of-factly. “Not with Alice.”

“What do you mean?” asked Penny gruffly, kicking at a clump of weeds.

“Because there’s no such thing as loud at all when you’re
deaf,
” said Luella.

“What?” Penny gulped. “Huh?”

“Alice is deaf, Penny,” said Duncan. “Since birth. She can’t hear a word you say. You have to stare straight at her when you talk so she can read your lips.”

Playing back the memory of her encounter with the girl, Penny wanted to sink into the ground. She vaguely remembered the girl looking for something at her feet, then picking up a fallen flower. If she hadn’t
heard
Penny, maybe she’d just turned around at that moment by chance. Was that possible?

“Oh, gosh,” said Penny.

“Yeah,
gosh,
” said Luella.

Penny didn’t know what to say. She groaned. “I’m an idiot,” she said.

“Sometimes,” said Luella. “But Alice will understand. She’s used to
idiots
. She’s also used to …” Then Luella said something else, something with her hands, something Penny didn’t understand at all.

“What’s that?” Penny asked.

“Sign language, of course,” said Luella.

“What’s it
mean?
” asked Penny.

Luella laughed. “Ha! If you want to know, I guess you’ll have to ask Alice!”

Then she turned around and began walking again, like it was no big deal. Jasper and Duncan did the same. Penny gratefully followed her friends, thinking that whatever name Luella had just called her, she probably deserved.

Anyway, she didn’t have time to worry about it. She had a treasure to find!