Secret of the Mask (2 page)

Violet lagged behind. Warning shivers tickled her spine. Some of those big old houses on Locust looked creepy.

Jessie stopped at the corner and looked back. “Violet,” she called, waving, “hurry up.”

“C-c-coming,” said Violet, running after them, wondering just what sort of things they would find.

Five minutes later, the children stood in front of 332 Locust. Faded blue paint chipped and peeled off the old house. Thick weeds choked the flowerbeds and grew up through cracks in the walk. Hot summers and freezing winters had turned the white picket fence a dirty gray. A few broken pickets poked jagged edges in all directions. Violet backed away. “Let’s go home,” she said.

“Wait,” said Jessie. “I know this house. We trick-or-treated here. Remember? The housekeeper was that funny lady dressed as a mummy. She brought us into the living room—”

“To a nice old lady in a wheelchair,” said Violet. “I
do
remember. She was dressed like Betsy Ross and was sewing an American flag.”

“I don’t remember,” Benny said.

“Sure you do,” said Jessie. “There was a big silver candleholder on the table next to her with five black-and-orange candles. Candle wax was dripping onto the table, and you picked up a glob and shaped it into a ball.”

Benny’s eyes grew wide. “And she let me ride up and down the staircase in her special elevator.”

“This house was so cluttered with all of her things,” Henry said, “that I wondered how her wheelchair got through. No wonder they need such a big moving truck.”

Jessie remembered the stacks of books, piles of pictures, and shelves of figurines that were scattered through the big blue house.

The children looked around. A red car, as bright and shiny as a candy apple, was parked in front of 332 Locust, but no Best Movers truck. “Where is it?” asked Violet.

“Maybe the driver stopped for gas,” said Jessie.

“Or dinner,” said Benny, who was usually hungry. “Let’s go see what they’re throwing away.”

The children ran around the block and looked down the alley. “Oh, no!” cried Benny.

Empty trash cans stood neatly next to garages. At the far end of the alley, a Greenfield garbage truck rattled away. Two workers walked behind the truck, picking up trash cans, bags, and boxes, emptying everything into the truck. One man pulled a lever. A loud whirring and grinding noise filled the air as the truck crushed everything inside.

“We’re too late,” said Violet.

Benny watched the garbage truck turn down the next alley. He felt sad as he thought about all of the treasures they could have found.

“That’s too bad,” said Jessie. “It was a great idea.”

Henry put an arm around his brother. “Cheer up,” he said. “Let’s go home and open the tackle box, see how much we made today.”

Usually, Benny liked counting money. But now he lagged behind the others, kicking pebbles as he walked. At the end of the alley, as he turned to kick one last stone, he saw a woman with long red hair wedge a large white box into a trash can behind the blue house. She leaned out into the alley, staring at the distant garbage truck, then hurried back inside the house.

Benny raced over and lifted the lid.

“What did you find?” asked Henry.

Benny pulled out the box and opened it. Popcorn spilled out. “Popcorn?” he said. “Why throw away popcorn?”

“Sometimes,” said Violet, “people pack fragile things in popcorn.”

“Fragile?” asked Benny.

“Fragile means things that can break easily. Like the glass snow globes Grandfather sent from New York. Those were packed in popcorn to keep them from breaking. Popcorn’s cheaper than bubble wrap.”

“And it tastes better,” said Benny.

“You should never eat packing corn,” warned Violet. “It can be months and months old and dirty.”

The others bent over and looked into the box as Jessie slowly uncovered their new treasure. “It looks like some kind of mask or something,” she said.

The children all stared at the wooden mask that lay neatly in the box. The colors were faded, and a crown of dusty feathers sprouted from the top and sides. The face was half faded yellow and half gray, and the bottom of the mask was painted in different colors, almost like a rainbow. On both sides of the face, rain clouds had been painted.

“Wow!” said Benny. “Look at how thick these feathers are!” He ran his fingers from the bottom to the top of each bunch of feathers.

Violet looked carefully at the mask before speaking. “I read about something like this in one of my
Prairie Girls
books,” she said. “It looks like the face of one of the dolls that Katrina found in the book
Katrina and the Kachina Doll.
”

“That’s right,” said Jessie. “My teacher talked about kachinas at school. Kachinas are Native American spirits. The tribes made dolls of the spirits to give to women and children as presents. But I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

“I wonder what it was used for,” Henry said.

“Do you think it’s real?” asked Benny, very excited.

Henry began to close the box. “I’m sure this is just a copy of a Native American mask. Maybe the person who lives here bought it as a souvenir and didn’t want it anymore.”

“I’m going to sell it tomorrow,” Benny decided. “I bet someone pays five dollars for it.”

Violet looked at the mask carefully before Henry closed the lid all the way. “This must be a copy. But why would someone pack it so nicely just to throw it in the trash?”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“Let’s stop at the library on the way home. They might have some books on kachinas,” said Henry.

As they wheeled the wagon out of the alley, an orange pickup truck pulled in. The children moved aside as it passed. The man driving was skinny with a scruffy black beard. He glanced at the children as he drove by, and seemed puzzled when he saw their wagon with the box inside. As he drove off down the alley, the children saw parts of an old swing set and a couple of broken bikes in the back of his truck.

Benny laughed. “He’s probably a junker trying to catch up to the garbage truck. But I’ll bet Mr. Robbins already picked up all the good stuff.”

The head librarian typed “kachina” into her computer. “Ah, here we go,” said Ms. Connelly, printing out a list of titles. “These will get you started.”

The library lights flashed on and off. “Oh, no,” Jessie said, “the library’s closing.”

“We still have fifteen minutes,” said Violet, running toward the computer room. “I’ll see what information I can find online.”

As Violet headed toward the computer room, Henry, Jessie, and Benny quickly found the books from the list the librarian had given them.

“My book says that kachinas are spirits from the Hopi Native American tribe that live in Arizona,” said Jessie. “It says there are many different kinds of kachinas.”

“My book says that a few Native American tribes have kachina spirits, but the Hopi tribe has the most,” Henry noted. “The Hopi dress up as kachinas by wearing masks like the one we found. The masks are very special to them. When the Hopi tribe wears these masks in their ceremonies, they believe they become the kachina spirits,” Henry explained.

“What kind of spirits are they?” Benny asked. “Are they like ghosts?”

“No Benny,” said Henry. “The Hopi spirits help give the tribe the things they need to survive. Each spirit is responsible for something important to the Hopi tribe.”

“Like food?” asked Benny.

“Yes, Benny,” Henry answered with a laugh. Benny loved to eat. “But there are also kachinas that control the weather and the earth.”

“There are also clown kachinas that are there just for fun,” chimed in Jessie.

“And scary kachinas that are used to frighten children into being good,” said Henry, tickling Benny.

In the computer room, Violet paced up and down. Every computer was taken.
Someone please leave,
she thought,
please, please, please.
Finally, a man with a long braid down his back stood and pushed back his chair. He reached out to turn off his computer. Violet froze. He wore a beautiful bracelet decorated with dark and light silver. It was just like a Hopi bracelet she had seen in her book. She glanced at his computer screen. It was filled with photographs of old masks.
Could they be kachina masks?
The screen went blue as he logged off.

The library lights flashed again. Violet didn’t have time to go online so she hurried to find the others. Jessie was flipping through a book of kachina masks while Henry read a book to Benny.

Jessie quickly looked up from her book. “Look!”

“What is it, Jessie?” asked Violet.

“This mask looks a lot like ours. It’s very dark on one side, light on the other, and there’s the same colorful chin. It says here this mask represents a Hopi cloud kachina maiden.” Jessie continued. “The cloud kachinas bring rain to the tribe, and make their crops grow.”

“I think someone copied our mask from one of these books, the way I copy drawings and paintings from Grandfather’s old art books,” said Violet.

“Isn’t that cheating?” asked Benny as Henry grabbed their pile of books to check out.

“Artists copy other people’s art all the time. It’s a good way to learn.”

“I bet it’s still worth something,” Benny said. “I bet I can sell it tomorrow for more than five dollars!”

The dinner table buzzed with excited voices as the children told Grandfather about the yard sale and the old blue house and the mask Benny found.

“Wait, I’ll show you!” Benny dashed to his room and brought back the mask. “Look,” he said.

“Grandfather,” said Violet. “We don’t have much left to sell tomorrow. Could you donate a few old things for our yard sale?”

“Hmmm,” Grandfather tried to think. “I’m not sure I …”

“You most certainly do,” said Mrs. McGregor, the housekeeper, whisking in from the kitchen.

Grandfather looked puzzled. “I do?”

Mrs. McGregor set down a fresh-baked orange cake and bowl of strawberries. “All that clutter in the garage. It’s been years since those shelves had a good cleaning!” She sliced cake for the children and piled strawberries on top. “I’d do it myself, except it’s not for me to decide what needs keeping and what needs throwing away.” She cut a nice big slice for Grandfather and slid it in front of him. “I always say that many hands make light work. The five of you could clean that garage in no time, and the children might find things for their sale.”

Grandfather looked around the table at the children’s hopeful faces. “Well,” he said, smiling as he lifted a forkful of cake, “we’d better finish eating as fast as we can. It seems we have a great deal of work to do.”

What riches awaited them in the big old garage! Grandfather climbed a ladder, passing down rusty golf clubs, typewriters, paintings, dishes, garden tools, skis for snow and water, tools, and model airplane kits. They cleared shelf after shelf, filling their yard-sale tables with things they could sell, throwing the rest into garbage bags.

When they finally finished, Henry lugged the heavy bags to the alley. The orange pickup truck he’d seen on Locust rolled by. Henry noticed the truck still had the same swing set and bicycles in the back as the day before. The pickup slowed to a stop. Henry thought the driver’s black beard looked as scruffy as Watch’s coat did before a bath.

The driver stared at Henry. “Hey,” he said, “aren’t you one of the kids I saw in the alley over at—”

“Henry!” Grandfather called from the garage.

The driver’s head jerked up as if he were surprised someone else was around.

“I’m in the alley,” Henry called back.

Grandfather rounded the corner carrying an armful of fishing poles as the orange truck sped off.

The second day of the sale was even busier than the first. From early morning, people crowded the yard, buying everything in sight. At first, Benny set the mask on his table between Grandfather’s postcard collection and a shoebox full of plastic dinosaurs. But, every time someone came to look at the mask, Benny’s stomach felt all fluttery.
Don’t buy it, don’t buy it, don’t buy it,
he’d think.

The truth was, he couldn’t bear to sell it— not for five dollars, or fifty dollars, or a hundred million “bajillion” dollars. He wanted to keep it for his very own—forever. Benny put the mask in its white box and hid it under an old blanket on a shelf in the garage.

Mr. Robbins came by, stopping at Henry’s cashier table. “Just checking to see how you’re doing,” he said. “Looks like the Alden children run a mighty fine sale.”

“It’s a lot of work,” said Henry, “but it’s also a lot of fun.”

The orange pickup pulled to a stop in front of the house, and the driver climbed out.

“That’s the man I saw over on Locust,” said Benny, “the day we found the mask.”

“I saw him last night,” Henry said, “while we were cleaning out the garage.”

The man walked into the yard, quickly moving from table to table as if looking for something in particular. Henry pointed out the man to Mr. Robbins. “He’s been driving through the alleys,” said Henry. “Do you know him?”