The Books of Fell (33 page)

Before I left, Annette Plummer showed me Celeste’s room, exactly as it had always been, still waiting for her … across the hall from a smaller room where Star lived.

I asked her if she wanted me to put the suitcase in Fen’s room, and she answered that she’d like that.

That was when I slipped the journal into my pocket. I must have always known I would not leave it for Fen to read, for I had never mentioned it.

Lark took me back down in the elevator.

“Did you talk a lot about Mr. Nels?” he asked me.

“Enough to make me suspicious,” I said.

He laughed as though I’d said something funny. He said “That Mr. Tobias? He’s full of suspicions. At one time he even suspected Miss Annette. And he’s always snooping around in the Captain’s life. He could be right about the Captain.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The Captain’s a man who likes what money can buy. A man who drives an Avanti around likes what money can buy. Her money bought it, of course. And the boat. Imagine wanting a boat when you work on one? But it’s quite a boat, and she bought it.”

“What were Nels and she like together?”

“When he was small she called him Little King Tut, and he was, too. The master spoiled him rotten. Remember, it wasn’t her brother. Not a blood relative at all…. She was always jealous of Mr. Nels. He came along so unexpectedly, and he was a real Plummer — and a male in the bargain. The master focused all his attention on the boy, see, because the Mrs. passed away. But Mr. Nels adored Miss Annette. He tried his best to please her, always. Poor Mr. Nels.”

“And how did he feel about Celeste?”

“She’s an itch with a b in front of it, Mr. Fell.”

I laughed and so did he.

Then I said, “What do you really think happened to him, Lark?”

“Someone murdered him, Mr. Fell…. That school friend of his, maybe … or someone closer.” He looked around him in the small elevator, as though the culprit could be riding down with us. “Someone very close, maybe.”

When we hit the first floor, he hung on to me. Someone should have been taking
him
up and down in the elevator, not the other way around.

He said, “That day Jack Kennedy was shot is like a bad dream. It wasn’t real and yet it was. And I don’t think we’ll ever know the whole truth about that or this.”

• • •

The next day before I checked in at Le Rêve, I tore a few pages out of the journal: the ones that described how Lenny and Nels named their trees Celeste, winning admission to Sevens … and at the very end, the pages about Lenny Last going to Cottersville to perform The Sevens Revenge on Deem.

Both Lenny Last and Deem were dead. The score was even.

I made some phone calls next and found out the address of George Tobias. Then I wrapped the journal up and mailed it to him.

It was his case, after all; he should be the one to solve it.

As for any immediate punishment due the Captain, I was betting on Celeste.

I was betting that with Celeste back aboard the
Seastar, The Ancient Mariner
would read like the story of Little Bo Peep.

That September I returned to Gardner and to Sevens House. Not everyone on The Hill had resigned himself to the fact we were now a coed institution. There were pickets out with signs reading
BETTER DEAD THAN COED,
and
WOE, MEN! WOMEN!

There was only one new member of Sevens, a junior named Parson Stalker.

He told the Sevens he was assigned to that he had named his tree Dazzler, after his horse.

He moved in right across the hall from me.

I’d walked over to introduce myself and tell him whatever he might want to know about life on campus as a Sevens.

He was sitting in a leather chair with his back to the door. He was smoking. The view in front of him was of The Tower, where the Sevens had sung him into the club … and where we ate evenings, separate from and better than the others at Gardner School.

“Hello there!” I called out to him. “If you have permission to smoke, do it down in the smoker, first floor.”

There was no response. He didn’t move a muscle.

He was reading a book by James Tiptree, Jr.

“I’m John Fell from across the hall!” I said.

He actually blew a few smoke rings, reminding me of Annette Plummer that Sunday morning I’d gone to see her.

The book he was holding up was called
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.
His did, too; maybe he couldn’t see me through it. I went closer until I was right in front of him and then finally he looked up at me and said, “Who’re you?”

“Fell!” I said. “No smoking!” I was teed off.

Then I saw the cord coming down behind his ear and inside his shirt collar.

He put his fingers to his lips making a shhh gesture. He pointed to his cigarette.

I shook my head. “No way. Put it out!”

He laughed and gave me a beseeching look as though he was saying “Please?”

“Stalker, butt it!”

“Parson,” he said. “Parr. Who’re you?” I told him again.

He was a turn-head, kind of good-looking; male or female, you’d want to be sure you were seeing right. He belonged in movies, on the slick pages of magazines, and up on billboards. He had dark eyes and black hair and he was tanned. White, perfect teeth. A mole just to the left of a dimple. Forget Tom Cruise!

He put out his cigarette, shrugging. “Okay,” he said. Then he pointed to the hearing aid and said, “I’m deaf. This alerts you more than it helps me hear. I read lips.”

“You speak good.”

“I do everything good.” He laughed.

“Yeah, you even brag good.”

He laughed again and nodded. “I brag good.”

“Welcome to Sevens.” I grinned at him.

He said, “You’re all lucky to have me,” and he grinned back.

• • •

He said what?

I was late for Science. I was up to explain Lamarckism that morning, so my mind was on acquired characteristics … but he said
what?

I told myself probably Stalker was just a wiseacre, but you know the feeling you have when something says what you see is what you’re getting?

There was that feeling.

There was that feeling, there was my forthcoming discussion of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, and there was a September rain that added whole new dimensions to the meaning of the word wet.

I was running through it when I saw her.

And she is somebody I am always seeing, even though it is never her. She is at bus stops as I go by in a car, in crowds I see from buses, at the backs of restaurants until I get closer, and again and again flying with me in dreams.

But that September day in the pouring rain I swore that I saw Delia on that campus.

By the time classes were finished, the rain was too.

The late-afternoon sun brought my sanity back, I believed, and the beginnings of autumn colored the campus.

In my mailbox was a letter from George Tobias and one from Keats.

Keats’s first.

Tobias’s letter answered her question. He had already called me in August, to thank me for sending the journal.

I was in a good mood, glad to be back.

I went up to my room in Sevens House to drop off my raincoat and give Mom a buzz.

At the end of our conversation I told her that the detective working on the Nels Plummer case had known Dad.

“What’s his name?” she said.

“Tom Bernagozzi,” I said.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” she said.

“I’m not,” I said.

“Tommy!” she said. “I didn’t know he was still around.”

I said, “Well, he is, and he’s asking for you. I’m supposed to find out if he can call you.”

“If he can
call
me?” She laughed. “He can do more than
call
me. Him with
his
eyes?”

“Yeah, but what about Mr. Lopez?” I said.

“What about him?” she said. “He’s just a neighbor.”

• • •

I changed into shorts and Keds. I felt like running. At least that kind of running had a purpose.

I was ready to go when I smelled cigarette smoke again. I heard the sound of female laughter.

Parson Stalker was breaking two rules at once this time: smoking above first floor, and entertaining a female in his room on a weekday.

I thought right: Woe Men, Women!

I went across to speak to them, to get her out of there … fast.

She was sitting on the windowsill facing Stalker, wearing something red, smoking a cigarette.

When she saw me, she stood up.

She looked at me, the same way she had always looked at me … her eyes all over my face, the pitch-black hair spilling down her back.

I felt my knees almost give and my insides flip.

I said, “Delia?”

“No, her sister,” she said. “April.” She was coming toward me with her hand out. “April Tremble,” she said. “And you must be Fell.”

This edition published by
Prologue Books
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
4700 East Galbraith Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45236
www.prologuebooks.com

Copyright © 1991 by M. E. Kerr
All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

eISBN 10: 1-4405-3920-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3920-6

M. E. Kerr
is the winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her lifetime achievement in writing books for young adults. In announcing the award the ALA Young Adult Library Services Associated cited M. E. Kerr for being “one of the pioneers in realistic fiction for teenagers. Her courage to be different and to address touchy current issues without compromising, but with a touch of leavening humor, has earned her a place in young adult literature and in the hearts of teenagers.”

M. E. Kerr was born in Auburn, New York, attended the University of Missouri, and now lives in East Hampton, New York.