D. Michael Beil Read online

  “I'm sure Mrs. Overmeyer will remember her,” Margaret says. “It sounds like they knew each other pretty well. I wonder what RBS is.”

  “Sounds like a TV station. You know, like PBS.”

  “Hey, that's not bad, Soph. You're wrong, unfortunately, but at least you're getting into the spirit of things.”

  “Nancy Drew! Harriet! What are you girls doing in here!” Mr. Eliot barges through the library door, trying (and failing) to scare us with this really fake-angry voice.

  Margaret holds out the yearbook to him. “Hey, Mr. E, take a look at this.”

  He reads the inscription and grunts. “Hm. I'm not surprised that Mrs. Overmeyer knew her. She's been here forever. How long ago was this, almost twenty years? There are still a couple of other teachers who were here then, besides Mrs. Overmeyer. But seriously, how is this helpful?”

  Margaret, a tiny bit indignant at his attitude, slams the book shut. “Well, we don't know, yet.”

  “Okay Miss Marple, but right now you need to move it on out of here. You can talk to Mrs. Overmeyer later.”

  As Margaret and I follow him to his classroom, I ask him if he has any ideas about the reference to RBS in the yearbook.

  “Sure. Randy Bob Shakespeare. RBS. Will's younger brother. A real redneck. Specialized in plays about Elizabethan trailer parks.”

  “Mr. Eliot, why can't you ever just admit there's stuff you don't know?”

  “Oh, he knows what it is,” said Margaret.

  Mr. Eliot smiles.

  “And you're not going to tell us!”

  “C'mon, wouldn't you rather figure it out on your own? Tell you what—if you don't have it by the end of the day, come and see me. I'll give you a little hint: she capitalized school and scandal. You're the detectives—detect!”

  I am starting to feel like a detective, but first I have to go to math class.

  In which Margaret declares herself to be a

  moron, causing me to wonder what that

  would make me

  After math class, I totally bomb a Spanish quiz (since I already speak French fluently, they make me take Spanish—c'est injuste!) and I'm pretty sure I dozed off in religion class (Lord, please forgive me!), so I am really looking forward to lunch. Leigh Ann joins our table for the first time, and over French fries and chicken nuggets, we tell her all about our little adventure. She is properly impressed and really excited that we have included her. (I'm still a bit doubtful about the whole quartet thing.) After dumping our trays, we all head back to the library to continue our research. Mrs. Overmeyer is on the phone when we get there, so Margaret immediately heads for one of the computers and logs on. Margaret is smart, not patient.

  She types in “school for scandal,” and we wait. When the results pop up, her mouth opens so wide her chin almost hits the table. “Oh my God. Turns out I am a complete moron. Sophie, do you have the note?”

  I pull it out of my bag and hand it to her.

  Margaret pounds the heel of her hand against her forehead. “I repeat—a moron.” She shoves the note under our noses, and we all try to see what had suddenly become so clear to her. “Do you see it?”

  “Uh, no,” I say.

  “Look at the note again. He talks about this play, Renidash's Het Cholos orf Lanscad. Look at what I found when I looked under ‘School for Scandal.’ It was written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. RBS. Now, look at the names again: Sheridan. Renidash.”

  “Ahhhh. I see it. The letters are all jumbled up,” I say.

  “An anagram,” says Margaret.

  “And Het Cholos orf Lanscad is School for Scandal!” notes Leigh Ann, jumping right into the thick of things.

  “That Professor Harriman was a clever little man, wasn't he?” I say. “So, what is this School for Scandal, anyway?”

  Margaret scrolls down the screen. “Let's see. It's a play. Oh my God, it's in the Harvard Classics! It's in volume eighteen, Modern English Drama.”

  “Have you read it?” I ask. “What's it about?”

  “Not yet. It says here it is a ‘comedy of manners.’”

  Rebecca has a puzzled look. “A play about manners? Is that like ‘Don't talk with your mouth full’? How do you turn that into a play?”

  “It's about a gossipy woman named—oh, Mr. Eliot would love this name—Lady Sneerwell, and hey, wait a minute, remember the cat?”

  “Teaser,” I say.

  “Teazle,” Margaret corrects. “There's a character named Lady Teazle. Let's see if it's still here in the library.” She leaps out of her seat to go to the card catalog computer and types in the name of the play. “Oh, no. It's in storage.” She lets that sink in for a second before starting her rant. “Wait a minute. The Harvard Classics are in storage? What kind of school is this? What kind of world are we living in? I have to talk to Mrs. Overmeyer.” She marches over to the librarian's desk, arriving as Mrs. Overmeyer hangs up the phone.

  “Yes, de-ah. How might I be of service to ye?” she asks. After something like forty-five years in the States, her Irish accent is as thick as day-old oatmeal.

  “If a book is in storage, where would I find it?” Margaret asks.

  “Oh de-ah. As the late Mr. Overmeyer—God rest his soul—would have said, ‘Are ye feeling lucky?’ The truth is, it depends. What are you looking for? Maybe you can find the full text online. The Internet is wonderful that way.”

  “No, I'm afraid I need the actual book. It's a play, part of the Harvard Classics, called The School for Scandal.”

  Mrs. Overmeyer's face brightens instantly. “My word. No one's asked for that since—”

  “It's by—”

  “Yes, I know. Sheridan. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He was born in me hometown of Dublin. Not too many people reading him these days. Are you interested in him? Or just that play in particular?”

  “Well, both, kind of. But mostly that play. Do you know where it is?”

  “Well, if we still have it—that is, if it didn't get ruined when the basement flooded a few years back—and if it didn't get tossed out by someone else, then it would still be in the storage area in the basement. When do you need it?”

  “Now-ish?”

  “Well, if you really need it in a hurry, my best advice is to head for the public library on Sixty-seventh, between First and Second. They can get it for you.” Mrs. Overmeyer sees the disappointment on our faces and adds, “I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to let you into the storage area by yourselves. Sister Bernadette would hang me by me thumbs.”

  “What if a teacher went with us?” I know just who to ask.

  “If you can find a teacher to go down in that god forsaken place and help you look for a moldy old book, then God love ye. Might I ask why it's so important that you find that book?”

  “Mrs. Overmeyer,” Margaret begins, leaning over the counter, “do you remember a girl named Caroline Chance? She would have been here—”

  “Of course I remember Miss Chance. It must be ten, no, more than that, must be fifteen years or more since she was here.” She has a quizzical look on her face. “Why do you ask?”

  Margaret and I look at each other, unsure of how much to reveal. “We met someone, someone who—who used to know her,” Margaret says. “And she asked us to do a favor for her.”

  “Her mother?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Just a hunch. I see her around every now and again. 'Tis a shame about her and Caroline.”

  “So you know all about the—”

  Mrs. Overmeyer nods. “Sure, I know about them. The family was very closely connected to St. Veronica's—Caroline's grandfather was on the board for many years before he passed on, and her father, Mr. Malcolm Chance, still is. Is this book you're looking for somehow related to this favor ye mentioned?”

  “Kind of,” Margaret says. “We're looking for something, but without really knowing what we're looking for.”

  “And we saw that she had signed your yearbook,” I add, pointing to the shelf where
the book rested. “She said something about how you had helped her with a lit project, and something else about RBS and The School for Scandal.”

  “We just want to see it, to see if she, I don't know, wrote something in the margin or something. We're just, uh, curious. So, it's okay if we go down to the basement to look for it, as long as we have a teacher with us?”

  “It's okay with me, girls,” she says with a condescending smile, “but I wouldn't bet me teeth on finding anything.”

  We are always being underestimated.

  In which Otto Frank provides moral

  guidance, and mold spores are redeemed

  It is a book we are looking for, after all, and Mr. Eliot loves books almost as much as I do. Well, there's that and the fact that we weren't going to leave him alone until he agreed. And so he's now leading the way into the dimly lit, hot, funky-smelling basement, piled from floor to ceiling with rapidly disintegrating cartons of God-knows-what. There are twenty-five or thirty cartons, all of about the same size and vintage, and none of them have labels. We're just going to have to dig in.

  Twenty minutes later, a dust-covered Mr. Eliot shouts, “Eureka! The Harvard Classics,” and holds up a green, slightly moldy leather-bound book as proof of his discovery. “Volume thirty-three, Voyages and Travels.”

  Margaret, Rebecca, and I pounce on the box, elbows flying as we pull the books out one by one while Leigh Ann looks on in wonder, not quite sure what she has gotten herself into.

  “Thirty-one. Thirty-seven. Forty-five. Forty-four. Eleven. Twelve, seventeen, EIGHTEEN!” Margaret announces. “Modern English Drama.” She hugs it to her chest. Unlike the others, this volume is still wearing its plastic, standard library-issue dust cover, brittle and yellowed with age, and held in place by even yellower cellophane tape.

  “The moment of truth, ladies and gentlemen.” Mr. Eliot imitates a drumroll. “Spotlight, please.”

  “Aw, just open it.”

  Slowly, cautiously, as if she is afraid a snake is going to pop out of it, Margaret lifts the cover. Her eyes brighten, and her lips curl into an ever-so-slight smile. “Oh, my.”

  “What? Let me see,” I say, anxious.

  She holds the open book before us. Tucked inside the cover of volume eighteen of the Harvard Classics is another cream-colored envelope, exactly like the one that contained the birthday card! Written in Everett Harriman's distinctive cursive is the name Caroline.

  “Hmmm. The adventure continues. Is this—” Mr. Eliot starts, holding up the envelope.

  “Exactly what we are looking for?” Margaret finishes. “Yes, I believe it is.” She takes the book in her hands and begins to leaf through the pages.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “What if there's a map in there directing her to like a million dollars or something?”

  “Yeah! We could be stinkin' rich. Mwha-ha-ha!” Rebecca laughs maniacally as Leigh Ann wisely backs away.

  “Whatever is in that envelope belongs to your Ms. Harriman or to her daughter, not to you,” Mr. Eliot pointedly reminds her.

  “Who's to know?” Rebecca responds. “There are no live witnesses—unless you count the mold.”

  “What about me?” Mr. Eliot asks. “How are you going to keep me from talking, Mr. Poe? Shackle me in chains and build a brick wall around me?”

  “Oh, lighten up, Mr. E! And who's Mr. Poe?”

  “As in Edgar Allan, you dope,” says Margaret, placing the envelope back inside the book. “He wrote ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ the story he's referring to. And we're not even going to open this envelope until we get to Ms. Harriman's.”

  “My first and only chance for easy money, cruelly dashed by an honest friend—and a teacher who calls me mister.”

  Leigh Ann shakes her head in disbelief. “I'm just amazed that the envelope is still there. All that time, and not one person checked out, or even opened, that book.”

  “I know. And it's a Harvard Classic.” Margaret looks inside the cover at the pocket where the old checkout card rests, undisturbed for so many years. “This book has been in the library for almost fifty years, and it has been checked out exactly once.”

  “Are you sure we can't take a peek at what's inside the envelope now?” Leigh Ann asks. “I mean, aren't you dying of curiosity?”

  “Think of it like Anne Frank's diary; it's a …” I pause, searching for the right words. “It's a relic, a historical document. We owe it to future generations! It should be read. No, it MUST be read!”

  Mr. Eliot will have none of it. “Nice try, Sophie, but remember, it was Otto Frank, Anne's father, who made the decision to publish the diary. Not a bunch of strangers.”

  We start to leave, but stop when Mr. Eliot clears his throat.

  “Ladies, are you forgetting something?”

  We look around the ransacked boxes, expecting to see a book bag or something else that one of us is about to leave behind.

  “The books, ladies. We're going to leave them just the way we found them.” He looks at the carton containing the Harvard Classics and shakes his head. “This really is a shame, having these wonderful books hidden away, rotting. I can't believe they can't find any room for them upstairs.”

  “You have space in your bookcases,” Leigh Ann suggests.

  “Hmmm. Maybe I do. Okay, leave the mess for now. Let's get out of here before we all end up with the bubonic plague or something from breathing in all these mold spores.”

  “The plague was spread by fleas,” says Encyclopedia Margaret.

  “I was trying to make a point. I know what caused the plague.”

  Teachers. They are so sensitive if you even suggest that they don't always know what they're talking about. Which they don't!

  In which I vow not to complain about the

  card and $10 my grandfather sends me for

  my birthday

  “We found it!” I blurt out the second Ms. Harriman opens her bright red door, looking a little frightened by my exuberant greeting. Dad says my rashness comes from Mom's side of the gene pool and that his side is far more refined.

  “Goodness! That was certainly fast work!” Ms. Harriman ushers us in the door and into the foyer, where, surprisingly, an elegantly dressed man stands, smiling.

  “My, my,” he says as the four of us crowd into the foyer. “Here's a sight I haven't seen in this house for more years than I care to admit—a veritable gaggle of gregarious girls in red blazers. Once upon a time, this was a fairly common sight in here, wasn't it, Elizabeth?”

  Margaret stops in her tracks, holding the book tight to her chest. “Sorry. We didn't realize you had company. We can just come back tomorrow.”

  “No, no, please,” says the man, who looks like one of those English country gentlemen from a PBS series—well over six feet tall, with a full head of thick, slicked-back black hair, a bushy mustache that covers most of his mouth, and about half an acre of tweed. He even has a carved walking stick, as if he is just back from a stroll on his Welsh estate. But still, here's the thing: something about him feels “off” and kind of creepy. His accent sounds like someone pretending to be British, and he has an odd odor—not cologne or soap. I can't quite place it.

  He insists that he is on his way out and that we should stay. Ms. Harriman looks like she isn't sure whether to introduce us or not, but I've noticed that with people her age, manners always seem to get the best of them.

  “Girls, this is Mr. Chance. Excuse me, that's Doctor Malcolm Chance. And this is Margaret and Sophie, and Rebecca, and—I'm afraid I haven't met your other friend.” She holds out her hand to Leigh Ann.

  “Oh, I'm sorry—this is our friend Leigh Ann Jaimes,” says Margaret, embarrassed at her breach of etiquette.

  “Elizabeth Harriman. So nice to meet you. Malcolm, these girls are doing a little research project for me.”

  “Ahhhh. Interesting. And apparently successful,” he says with a glance at me (and my big mouth). “Well, I will bid you all farewell and allow you to continue your report.
Good-bye, Elizabeth. I will definitely be in touch. And Winifred, always a pleasure.”

  Jeez, I hadn't even realized it, but that Winifred is standing about six inches behind me, glaring over my shoulder at Malcolm as he bows dramatically and exits.

  Ms. Harriman closes and locks the door and starts to move back toward us. Suddenly, though, she stops in her tracks, turns back, and lets loose an old-fashioned “Bronx cheer,” a spitty, farty sound, along with the traditional dismissive wave of the hand. Seeing the slightly shocked expressions on our faces, she says, “Oh, I'm sorry, girls. That wasn't exactly the proper thing to do, but that man, he always gets my goat.”

  “He is—”

  “My ex-husband. Who still lives uncomfortably close by.”

  “Have you told him about the birthday card?” Margaret asks.

  “Oh, goodness no. And I don't intend to. At least, not now. I'm not sure why he stopped by. He said he was ‘in the neighborhood’ and thought he would ‘check up’ on me. Trust me, Malcolm has never checked up on me or anyone. He's snooping around for something, I'm sure. Well, anyway, enough about him. You found something? Wonderful! Please, come inside and sit, and tell me all about it.”

  On the way into the living room, Leigh Ann grabs my arm and pulls me aside. “You didn't tell me she was crazy.”

  “Do you really think she's crazy?”

  “Are you kidding me? What is she wearing? Is that a wedding dress?”

  “Nah, it's just a long white dress. With buckles. And fringe. And matching cowboy boots. An odd choice, I'll admit, especially for November, but definitely not a wedding dress.” My otherwise modern mom insists that one simply does not wear white after Labor Day.

  We take our seats in the living room, and as Winifred brings us more tea and cookies, Margaret leads Ms. Harriman through our basement adventure. Then she opens the book with a triumphant flourish and holds out the envelope to her. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

  Ms. Harriman takes the envelope in her hands, holding it gingerly, seemingly afraid to touch it. “Father's writing. Oh my goodness. I don't know what to say, girls.” Her hands are shaking and her eyes water as she caresses the envelope, running her finger over the script. It's hard not to feel sorry for her.