The Secret of the Mask Read online

  “Who’s that?” said Jessie as they neared their house. A strange car sat in their driveway, and a stranger leaned against the hood. With his white beard, round belly, and bright red suspenders he reminded Benny of Santa Claus. Watch ran to the man, carrying a stick in his mouth.

  “Good dog,” said the man, taking the stick and patting Watch’s head. Then he threw the stick far down the block. “Fetch!” he called, laughing heartily as Watch ran after it.

  “Hello,” said the children.

  The man turned and smiled. “Why, I would know you anywhere,” he said. “You look just like Aldens. I’m Officer Tom Morgan. I talked to you on the phone last night about your garage break-in. Sorry to be so late getting to you. Been busy helping some friends set up tepees for next week’s powwow. Let’s have a look at the scene of the crime.”

  The children led him back to garage. But when they opened the door, everything was tidy once more. “There you are,” called a cheerful Mrs. McGregor as she came out of the house. “Cleaning up was the least I could do.” She turned to Officer Morgan. “Those children worked so hard on this garage. Then someone came and tore it apart. I felt just awful that I didn’t listen when Watch tried to warn me that a thief was out here.”

  Mrs. McGregor was so proud of her work that no one had the heart to tell her the truth. Not only had she cleaned the scene of the crime, she also cleaned away any clues the thief might have left.

  Officer Morgan looked around. “Anything missing besides the mask and the can full of money?”

  “Not that we know,” said Violet.

  Violet took out the internet articles she had printed out. “This looks like the mask they stole. We thought ours was a copy, but now we think it may be a real kachina mask.”

  Officer Morgan looked at the pictures very carefully.

  “We found another mask today,” said Benny. “It has two horns. Henry has it at Grandma Belle’s.”

  “Wait, I’ll show you.” Violet ran into the house and returned with colored pencils and paper. She quickly sketched the horned mask, coloring in the red, white, and blue.

  “This is exactly what it looked like?” asked Officer Morgan.

  “Yes,” Violet said.

  “Exactly!” said Jessie, who held up the drawing, very proud of her artistic sister.

  “You know,” said Officer Morgan, “if you keep practicing, you might make an excellent police artist one day,” he said with a wink. “Perhaps I can arrange for you to watch one work,” he offered.

  “I would like that,” Violet said.

  Watch ran up with a stick in his mouth, staring as Officer Morgan got into his car and drove away. The children stared too. It seemed a little odd that he appeared to be more interested in some old masks than in a can full of stolen money.

  “I bet he thinks the masks are real,” said Benny. “What if they are? What if,” he broke into a wide grin, “they are worth a lot of money!”

  Henry worked hard cleaning out the flowerbeds. Hidden under the weeds he found petunias and zinnias, marigolds and snapdragons, larkspurs, and many flowers he had never seen before. He felt sure that someone had once loved and tended this garden. He turned the sprinkler on the flowers to give them a good drink, then set to work cutting back the bushes. Two hours later, he sat to rest on the front porch and admired his handiwork. Now that he’d trimmed the bushes, the front porch could be seen from the street. Maybe now the paperboy would be able to throw the newspaper all the way onto the porch.

  A cold glass of Violet’s lemonade would sure taste good right now. But Henry had to make do with cold water from the garden hose. As he put the tools back near the garage, he saw the red car parked in the alley. Could the nurse have come home while he was working out in front? Maybe Grandma Belle was home as well.

  Henry ran around and rang the bell. Then he knocked. No answer. He wrote a note asking Grandma Belle to please call the Aldens. “We found another mask today outside of your house,” Henry wrote. “Please don’t throw away any more masks until we talk to you.”

  As he slipped the note under the front door, he heard a noise inside. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?” No answer. He pressed his ear to the door and knocked. Nothing. He waited a long time but didn’t hear anything more. He picked up the box with the two-horned mask and climbed on his bike. Shivers prickled the back of his neck. He whirled around. Did the front curtain move? Was someone there? He watched and waited, but the curtain—if it had indeed moved before—never moved again.

  It’s nothing, he thought, nothing at all. Still, as he rode away, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

  CHAPTER 8

  Found!

  After dinner, the children were playing Go Fish when Grandma Belle’s grandson called. “So sorry we missed your visit,” he said, “but I took Grandma Belle to a doctor’s appointment. Her hip is doing very well. She was feeling so much better that we decided to celebrate. We went to the Applewood Café for dinner.”

  Henry asked about the two-horned mask they found in the trash. “Don’t know a thing about that, not a thing,” said the grandson. “I never threw away anything like that. And no one else was home. Since we were going out, I gave Nurse Rumple the day off.”

  Henry thought about the red car he’d seen in the alley. He’d thought it was Nurse Rumple’s, but he must have been wrong.

  “Maybe,” the grandson said, “a neighbor threw their trash in our can. That happens sometimes when people’s cans get too full.” He paused a moment. “We also have a small mystery. Our yard looks a bit different than when we left. Would you know anything about that?”

  Henry, very proud of himself for helping Grandma Belle, explained that he’d cleared the weeds and trimmed the bushes. “Well, you might have checked with us first,” said the grandson. He did not sound at all happy.

  “D … don’t you like it?” asked Henry.

  “Yes, yes we do, very much so. It’s just that Grandma Belle is still unhappy because Nurse Rumple has moved so many things from the house to the garage, and Grandma Belle doesn’t want anything else to change around here. It may seem odd to you, but Grandma likes her clutter. She finds it a comfort having her things around. Every time she asks, Nurse Rumple promises to bring everything back once Grandma Belle can get around the house a bit better. But Grandma is starting to get around just fine, and everything is still locked up in the garage.” He sighed. “I’d move her things myself, but I have a bad back. The point is, people should ask before they do something for someone. Even when it’s a nice thing. Don’t you agree?”

  Henry thought about Mrs. McGregor surprising them by cleaning the garage. She meant well, but she had cleaned away any clues the thief might have left. “Yes,” he said, “I agree. And I promise to ask permission next time. Do you think I could talk to Grandma Belle?”

  “I’m afraid I wore her out—she fell asleep the second we came home. But I know she’d love to have you visit tomorrow, perhaps late afternoon? The new nurse starts work then, and I’m sure Grandma would love her to meet all of you. I’ll say goodbye to you now. I’m flying home tomorrow. I’m sad to leave Grandma, but my work is in California.”

  Officer Morgan called early the next morning. “Could you do me a favor and bring that horned mask to Pleasant Valley Park around noon? I have some friends I’d like to show it to.”

  Henry promised he would, then went to tell the others. He found them in the yard, sitting around a table piled high with paints and colored paper and a basket of odds and ends Violet kept for art projects. “Come join us,” she called, “we’re making rainsticks.”

  Violet had one last Prairie Girl book, called Thunderstick, left on her bookshelf. “Each book teaches a craft you can do,” she said. “Native Americans make rainsticks out of dead cactus plants. But since cactus doesn’t grow here in Connecticut, we need to improvise.”

  “What’s ‘improvise’?” Benny asked.

  “It means making do with what you
have.” Violet set out four paper towel tubes. “These will be our cacti.” Then she put out a bag of dry beans and a bag of unpopped popcorn. Next she took a box of nails from Henry’s tool box, and a roll of strong tape. She showed them how to tape one end of their tubes closed, then push two-inch nails into the tubes all around. “When you finish,” said Violet, “the inside of your tube should look as if porcupines backed into it.” They worked hard for a while, then looked into their tubes and saw a crisscross of nails.

  “Now pour one cup of popcorn kernels or beans into your tubes and tape the tops closed.” When they’d finished, Violet smiled and said, “Listen.” Slowly, she turned her tube upside down. The hard popcorn kernels fell from the top of the tube to the bottom. Plink, plink, they sang as they hit the nails. Plink, plink.

  “Rain!” cried Benny. “It sounds like rain!” They all practiced making rain sounds, then finished their rainsticks by painting designs all around and gluing on decorations.

  Violet wrapped hers with strands of yarn. Benny glued blades of grass and weeping willow leaves on his. Henry dipped the Sunday comics in a mix of flour and water and wrapped the colorful pages around his tube. Jessie glued on beads from an old broken necklace. The children left the rainsticks out to dry and cleaned up their worktable. After lunch, they put the two-horned mask in Jessie’s bike basket and rode toward town.

  “Can we stop?” asked Benny as they passed an ice cream stand. “I brought my allowance.” Of course, they all joined him, each child picking out something different. Henry always ate vanilla. Jessie tried a new flavor every time. Violet liked half chocolate and half strawberry. And Benny liked whatever had the most color. Today it was Bubblegum Burst. As they wandered down the sidewalk licking their cones, they passed Ye Olde Antique Shoppe. “This is the shop Nurse Rumple was coming out of the other day,” said Jessie, “when she was yelling at the man in the orange truck.”

  Dozens of wonderful old things were crammed the display window.

  “Look,” said Benny, “that’s just like my old yo-yo.”

  “And my comic books,” said Henry.

  “And my old figure skates,” said Jessie

  Violet gasped. “There’s Katrina and the Kachina Doll!”

  The children ran inside. The tiny shop was crammed full of books and dishes, toys and clothes—every shelf, table, countertop, and floor space covered. A woman glared at them from behind the counter. “No eating in the store,” she said.

  Violet took her book out of the window display, excitedly flipping through the pages. “Here,” she said, pointing to a drawing of Prairie Girl Katrina holding a kachina doll.

  “You mustn’t touch the merchandise,” the woman snapped.

  “But you bought all of this from our yard sale,” said Violet.

  “Yes,” said the woman, “and now it is mine. If you want it, you must buy it.”

  Violet stared at the price sticker on her book. “Fifteen dollars? But … I sold it to you for twenty-five cents!”

  “That is why I am in business,” the woman took the book, “and you are in school. These books are very old and—except for milk and tuna-salad sandwiches—the older something is, the more valuable it becomes. Now, outside, all of you.”

  The children walked out to finish their ice cream, watching as the woman dusted the items in the window display.

  “Look,” Benny pointed, “that’s our can.”

  The Crispy Crackers can sat in the back of the display with old cans and tins and metal boxes. The children ran back inside. The woman glowered at them. “I thought I told you—”

  “That can belongs to us,” Jessie said.

  “Which one?”

  “That green one, way in back.”

  The woman folded her arms across her chest. “That could be anyone’s old can.”

  “No,” said Jessie. “We can prove it’s ours.”

  “It has black burn marks on the bottom,” said Violet. “When we lived in the boxcar, we’d fill the can with water from the stream and set it on hot stones to heat water for washing and cooking.”

  “And,” Henry said, “it’s full of money.”

  “What?”

  “Open it,” said Jessie. “You’ll see.”

  “It … it doesn’t open.” The woman’s face turned bright red. “I tried. It’s stuck shut.”

  “I can get it open,” said Henry. And before she could stop him, he climbed into the display window and took out the can. Sure enough, the bottom of the can was burnt black. Using the heel of his shoe and a nail left over from his rain stick, Henry hammered off the lid. Dollar bills and coins spilled out. Benny quickly scurried around, picking them up.

  “That can was just sitting out on a stump near that old boxcar,” snapped the woman.

  “Yes,” said Jessie, her voice angry, “it was sitting right next to the sign—the really BIG sign—that said ‘Donations for the Homeless Shelter.’”

  “There was no sign,” she said, “just a dog and cat running around.”

  The children glanced at each other. They remembered Watch chasing the cat around the yard, knocking things over. “I guess Watch could have knocked the sign down,” said Jessie. “Still, you shouldn’t have taken the can without asking.”

  “Well, you told me that only items on the tables were for sale, and it didn’t look like something that anyone would miss so I … I … I …” Tiny drops of sweat dotted the woman’s upper lip. She patted her forehead with a handkerchief. “This was a terrible misunderstanding. I … I … I,” she took a deep breath, “I apologize.”

  It seemed so hard for her to say that the children guessed she didn’t apologize very often.

  “Look!” cried Benny, pointing to an old wooden table piled high with dishes and silverware. He reached across the table and grabbed a silver candleholder from behind a stack of dishes. It was coated with orange and black wax. “That’s Grandma Belle’s candle-holder! The one she used on Halloween.”

  Violet grabbed Henry’s arm and pulled him to one side. “What if Grandma Belle’s nurse didn’t come here to buy something,” she whispered. “What if she came here to sell?”

  Henry thought this over. He took the candleholder from Benny and set it on the counter in front of the woman. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

  The woman blinked, then blinked again. “Why, people bring things to sell all the time. I can hardly be expected to remember where all my treasures come from.”

  The children suspected she wasn’t telling the truth. But she turned away and began dusting some shelves.

  “What about my mask?” asked Benny. “Did you take it out of our garage?”

  The woman whirled around. “I don’t know anything about any mask,” she said. “And I want you children out of here, out of here now.”

  As the children walked out of the store with their green can, they had a feeling she knew exactly where Grandma Belle’s candleholder had come from, and it was up to them to find out how it ended up in her store.

  CHAPTER 9

  Powwow

  The children pedaled hard up the steep hill that overlooked Pleasant Valley Park. Suddenly, they came to a screeching halt. They barely recognized their favorite park in the large valley below. Gone were the baseball and soccer fields, the playgrounds and basketball courts. In their place, as far as the eye could see, was a city of white tepees. Excited, the children coasted down the hill to the park to join the fun. As they locked their bikes onto the bike stand, Benny carefully removed the mask from Jessie’s bike basket.

  It was hard to know where to look first. Children of all ages played a noisy game of tag, running in and out of tepees and all around the park. Long craft tables covered the toddler playground. At each one, people sewed moccasins or wove bright beads into bracelets and headbands. Small children glued feathers and beads onto leather strips that they tied around their arms and waists.

  A group of people sat on the ground around a very old woman, watching as she carve
d beautiful designs into a black clay pot. And, oh, the delicious smells in the air! Even though their bellies were full of ice cream, the children knew they must sample some powwow foods before they left.

  “This way,” said Henry, walking along a row of open tents with banners reading: Food, Crafts, Storytelling.

  A young woman at the information tent directed people this way and that. Violet studied the bead design on her dress so she could copy it. Sewing the beads would take many hours but, as Grandfather said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” When it was their turn to speak to the woman, the children asked where they could find Officer Tom Morgan.

  “Let’s see,” the woman checked a list of names. “Ah, yes, Tom’s helping build the bonfire on the west end of the park.” She pointed them toward an area set far away from the tents. The children headed over.

  As they neared, they saw people piling logs, branches, and twigs in the shape of a square. The square was already as tall as Benny, and it looked as if it would be much taller before all the branches were used up.

  They found Officer Morgan working with a group of teenagers. “Welcome,” he said. “I’d like to show that mask of yours to one of the tribes here.” He turned to the teenagers. “Keep building,” he told them. “I’ll be back to help in a little while.”

  He led the Aldens toward the largest tepee in the park. “You are about to meet some very important tribe members,” he said. “They have come from all over the United States for this powwow. I told them about the masks you found.”

  Inside the tent, a group of people sat in a circle. Some wore jeans and tee shirts, and others were dressed in clothing decorated with beads and feathers. Officer Morgan introduced the children. He turned to Benny. “Would you show them your mask?”

  Benny took the mask out of its box and walked into the center of the circle. A man leaned forward as Benny lifted up the two-horned mask.