Thumb and the Bad Guys (5 page)

I was standing in a cave behind the falls, looking out through a wall
of water. It was beautiful.

“Are you all right?” I heard Susan yell, trying to be heard above the
rush of water.

I thrust my arm out through the waterfall, waved, and then pulled my
arm back inside. I slowly walked to the other side of the cave behind the falls,
pushed my head through the water and looked for a place to step onto the far bank. I
could see a narrow path behind a large boulder that kept it hidden from the other
side of the stream.

I pulled my head back inside, took a breath and then just walked out
from under the falls and onto the path. It was easy.

I climbed up onto the boulder and waved to Susan twenty feet away. I
grinned, water dripping from me.

She didn't even hesitate. She walked through the waterfall and then,
just a few seconds later, stepped onto the narrow path behind me.

“Wow,” said Susan, shaking her hair. “That was amazing.”

“There's a path here, too,” I said. “Kirk McKenna has a secret. Our
stakeout wasn't quite so ridiculous, was it?”

“No,” said Susan. “Let's go.”

We followed the twisting path. It ended in a small clearing. You
couldn't see the clearing from the pond. It was hidden by a small ridge and by rocks
and trees.

A shed stood in the middle of the tiny meadow.

Susan and I looked at each other, shocked. The wood for the shed must
have been shipped to the village on a barge and then hauled up the path and carried
under the waterfall. Kirk McKenna couldn't have built that shed without half the
village helping him.

Kirk McKenna had a secret, but he wasn't the only one.

“How come none of the adults have ever told us it was possible to walk
under the falls and that there was a shed up here?” I asked.

“Maybe,” said Susan slowly, “maybe New Auckland is like one of the
villages where all of the adults keep some terrible truth from the innocent
children.”

I laughed. I don't think my laugh sounded like a laugh from a person
who was amused. It sounded like a laugh from a person who was at least slightly
scared.

“Wasn't that the plot of some movie we saw recently?” I asked. “The
one where all the villagers were aliens and the houses were holograms.”

“But this shed is real. This shed is standing on the side of a
mountain in the middle of the woods just above our village and it's a little bit too
weird for me.”

We walked around the shed to see if we could peek inside. There were
no windows and the only door was padlocked. The walls were made from wide, rough
pine boards that had turned gray with age.

The shed was taller in the front so that any rain water that hit the
roof would fall away from the door. The roof was made from cedar shingles.

“Wait,” I said, suddenly looking around.

“What?”

“Kirk McKenna must have a partner or a lot of partners. They might be
out there in the woods watching us.”

We both crouched low, our eyes darting around the meadow, looking for
flashes of light off a binocular lens or a rifle barrel pointed in our direction.

I stopped and tapped Susan on the shoulder.

“Don't do that,” she hissed. “You scared me.”

“Maybe,” I said quietly, “Kirk's partners are hiding inside the shed.”

“They're not inside,” said Susan.

“How do you know?”

“The door is padlocked on the outside.”

“Then maybe,” I said softly, “somebody is locked inside, trapped.
Remember those screams we heard?”

I backed up about ten paces and took a couple of deep breaths.

“What are you doing?” asked Susan.

“Being a hero,” I said seriously as I ran at the door, shoulder
first.

I bounced off the door and fell onto the ground.

“Maybe you're being an idiot,” said Susan, shaking her head.

I stood up, rubbing my shoulder, and we each pressed an ear against
the wooden door. If somebody was locked inside they might not be able to talk but
they'd at least be able to rattle their chains or kick the wall.

“Anybody there?” I asked loudly.

“I don't think so,” said Susan after about ten seconds.

“We have to be sure,” I said firmly. “There may be a lock on the door
but the hinges have screws. If we brush away our footprints we can come back with a
screwdriver and open that door easily.”

“Secrets,” Susan muttered to herself as she stepped away from the shed
and looked for a pine bough to use as a broom so that she could wipe away our
footprints. “I wonder if keeping secrets makes a person so full of lies that they
just have to spit.”

7
BLACK BEAR HUMP

WE BORROWED ANNIE
PRITCHARD'S
dinghy after school on Tuesday. It had a 25 horsepower
outboard motor.

Annie Pritchard used it when she searched the shore for scenes to
paint. Annie was one of the most famous painters in the world, but she lived in the
same-sized house as everyone else in New Auckland. She was starting to get old and
sometimes I would pilot her dinghy for her when she went puttering along the
shoreline of the bay.

When Susan and I were close to shore near the narrows, I pulled up the
motor so the propellers wouldn't bang against any rocks. The gentle waves pushed us
toward the beach. Susan hopped out in ankle-deep water, grabbed the forward line and
pulled us ashore. She tied the line around a rock. I hopped out and tied off the
stern line.

“What do you think of our new teacher?” asked Susan as we started to
look around.

We both wore shorts and old plastic sandals.

“Have you ever seen anything as funny as when that curl fell off?” I
asked, laughing.

“Yeah,” said Susan. “The sight of her gluing it back in place.”

“I think we need to check on her. Let's face it. People who aren't
born here don't usually move here when they're adults. If they do, they don't
stay.”

“Your dad did.”

“Yeah, after Mom died, Dad ran away from any thing and any place that
reminded him of her. But you're right. Dad came here because he was running from
something and maybe Ms. Weatherly is running, too. But maybe she's running away from
big thugs or tall men with wide shoulders who carry badges. Look at her. She wears a
wig and thick make-up. She's probably trying to disguise herself.”

“That's just crazy, Thumb. If she was going to wear a disguise don't
you think she'd use a wig made from real hair instead of that bathing-cap
thing?”

“Ah. But maybe that's part of her brilliance. You know what we should
do?” I asked as we both walked along the beach with our heads down, looking for
another cannonball or maybe a musket or a sword or a half-buried treasure chest.

“No. But I am willing to bet that whatever you say we should do is
something that we most definitely should not do.”

“We should try to peek inside her purse and see if maybe she has ID in
some other name or a small gun or a stack of counterfeit hundred-dollar bills.”

“Look up,” said Susan.

“What?” I asked, ducking in case whatever I was supposed to see when I
looked up was something coming down fast.

“Just look up.”

I looked up, checking the sky. Nothing seemed to be falling, so I
looked at the cliff above us and was surprised to see the trunk of a lone cedar tree
jutting out from the top of the cliff.

“Hey,” I said. “We're right under Black Bear Hump.”

“Yeah. And?”

I could tell by her voice that I was missing something. My eyes darted
along the cliff face, searching for any other reason why my neck should continue to
be bent back at an angle that didn't feel natural.

“Am I supposed to be seeing anything else?”

“Nope.”

I stopped looking up and looked at Susan. I could tell from her
expression that I was still missing something so I looked up again.

“There's nothing more to see,” said Susan. “Try putting together what
we know.”

I looked at her again and sighed. “I know that I already have a
teacher and my dad is a teacher, too. And I know that I would prefer it if my
friends did not behave like they were teachers by trying to make me figure out the
answers to questions when they already know the answers.”

“I'll give you clues,” said Susan. “Here are four facts that just
might be related.”

Susan held up two fingers and said, “Big Charlie found that cannonball
on this beach, very close to where we're standing right now.”

Susan held up another finger. “That cannonball was never fired from any
cannon, and it didn't wash up on shore but it still got here somehow.”

Susan held up four fingers. “Our village is located in a small bay with
a narrow entrance to the ocean and our bay makes a great harbor. If it didn't, we
wouldn't have a village.”

Susan held up all fingers and the thumb on her left hand. “Black Bear
Hump would be a good place for somebody to put a cannon if they wanted to protect
the bay. And here's a bonus fact. If sailors were to lug a cannon and some
cannonballs up to Black Bear Hump and one of those cannonballs fell over the side of
the cliff, then it would probably land where we are standing right now.”

Since we were already counting things, I did a little counting of my
own. I did it very quickly and in my head.

There was one huge reason I liked to make sure Susan was my partner
when we did projects at school.

She was much, much smarter than I was.

Even though my sore neck still hadn't quite recovered, I leaned back
and took a long look at the cliff above our heads.

“So you are suggesting that it is possible that Captain James Cook or
one of those other explorers used Black Bear Hump as a natural fort to protect the
harbor.”

“That is exactly what I am suggesting.”

“Good.”

I turned around and started walking back to Annie's dinghy.

“That's it? Good?”

“Actually,” I said, starting to untie the stern line, “great. We will
definitely get an A on this assignment.”

“This assignment?”

“Ms. Weatherly gave us an assignment and you did much more than simply
search the beach. You came up with a theory. Who cares if it's right or wrong? It is
a very, very good theory. We will both get an A.”

“So you don't really care if Captain Cook had a gun placement above
our village?”

“Not really. Besides, I need a nap if we're going to stake out the
village again.”

“Again?”

“Sure. Look what we discovered in just one night. Besides, it's kind
of fun to spy on our village, isn't it?”

8
A THEORY

I DIDN'T HAVE TO
SNEAK OUT
for our second night of staking out the village.

Mayor Semanov called an emergency meeting to be held right after
dinner at his house. He said he wanted to write a letter about the fishing quotas.
Dad had to go, even though he didn't fish, because he was good at writing letters.

Dad told me to go to bed after I did my homework. Instead, I arranged
the pillows again so they looked like me and covered them with blankets and just
walked out the front door, meeting Susan at the fire truck.

“Our bad guy might not do anything tonight,” I said to Susan. “There's
a meeting at the mayor's house.”

“Look,” said Susan softly.

I turned and looked where she was pointing. Ms. Weatherly was walking
toward the school, rolling a suitcase behind her.

We ducked down but kept watching as she opened the door to the school
and walked down the short hallway to her classroom.

Susan and I slipped out of the fire truck and moved around the school
building so that we could peek through a window and see what she was doing.

Ms. Weatherly had turned on the lights in our classroom and was
pulling folded posters and books from her suitcase. The blinds were half closed and
we couldn't see her very well.

We leaned against a huge rock, far away from the light of the
window.

“Let's leave,” whispered Susan.

“Why? We're supposed to be spying on people.”

“Would you like it if somebody was sitting outside your house watching
you wash dishes or read a book?”

“Why would anybody want to watch me read a book?”

“Exactly. And why should we want to watch our teacher put up posters
in our classroom?”

“We're trying to learn about her. It's what spies do.”

“Then let's go inside and help her. We can ask her questions. We'll
learn more than we will by crouching out here in the dark.”

Susan leaped up and started walking. I followed her.