The Gypsy Game Read online

  Back in the old days before Mrs. Chung took over, the rear window had been almost too dirty to see through, but things were a lot cleaner now, which might present a problem. So April snooped around for a few minutes before she headed back to the Casa Rosada feeling very relieved. As soon as she got to the Rosses’ apartment, she started telling Melanie all about everything—the good news and the not so good. The good news about how she had posted the “found dog” notice and how the Professor couldn’t even get near his rear window anytime soon, because the back room was so crowded with new merchandise. And the not-so-good news about running into Toby and how he still seemed to be in a pretty weird mood.

  But on that particular morning telling Melanie anything the least bit private wasn’t easy. Mrs. Ross was home, and both Marshall and Melanie had chores to do. So April had to follow Melanie around while she vacuumed, while Marshall followed them both around dragging a bunch of toys he was supposed to be picking up and whining that he wanted to go see Bear.

  “Come on, Melanie,” he kept whimpering, “I got to go see my Bear. Right now.”

  “Shhh,” Melanie kept saying, “Mom will hear you.” But he kept right on. Once or twice April was pretty sure his mom did hear him, but she didn’t seem to pay any attention. April guessed that she figured Bear was just one more of Marshall’s imaginary animals.

  April was still screeching away about Toby, trying to be heard over the roar of the vacuum, when Melanie suddenly turned off the switch.

  “Like he was what?”

  “Like he was”—April toned her screech down to a whisper in midsentence—“nervous. Scared almost.”

  “Yeah, scared. That’s what I thought yesterday. Scared.” Melanie nodded slowly, her forehead puckered into a worried frown. Then she turned on the switch and went back across the room. And April went on following her, feeling very frustrated. She hated having to compete with a vacuum and a whining kid when she had important things to talk about.

  By the time the Ross kids finished all their chores and received permission to go outside for one hour, Marshall was practically standing on his head with impatience. When April and Melanie got out onto the landing, he was already tearing down the stairs, with his shoes untied and his jacket only halfway on. And no Security. Melanie pointed that out right away. “Look, April. No Security. And this time, don’t mention it.”

  April promised she wouldn’t.

  They didn’t stop by for Elizabeth because the Chungs were still away visiting relatives, so it was only a few minutes later that they reached the gate to the Gypsy Camp and were almost trampled and kissed to death by a wildly joyful Bear.

  “A bouncing Bear,” Melanie said, a few minutes later. She and April were sitting on the edge of the shed floor watching as Bear bounced around the yard with Marshall right behind him.

  “Yeah. And a bouncing Marshall, too,” April said. “Marshall seems—different. You know, when he’s around Bear.”

  “Different?” Melanie asked. “How different?”

  April couldn’t put her finger on it at first. “Well, kind of … Well, like he was younger. Not so—dignified.”

  Melanie understood right away. “Yeah. Right!” she said. “More like your normal pain-in-the-neck four-year-old.”

  They’d talked before, lots of times, about how dignified and grown-up Marshall was, almost like he didn’t know how to be a little kid. Except where Security was concerned, of course. But now suddenly, it was as if he didn’t need to be so grown-up, or need Security so much either. And it seemed to be Bear that made the difference, which was pretty amazing.

  Bear was amazing in other ways, too. April had never had a dog before, and neither had the Rosses, so they were all surprised to find out how smart he was. For instance, he knew that his bag of kibble was hidden in the base of the statue of Diana, and he knew how to make it very clear that he wanted them to get some out. He knew how to let them know he wanted to play tug-of-war with one of his blankets, and he also knew how to walk on his hind legs even without anyone holding up his front paws. And, as Melanie pointed out, he was careful to poop neatly only in one corner of the yard. It was the kind of thing that an organized person like Melanie would be sure to notice.

  No one else showed up at the Gypsy Camp that day, but April and Melanie weren’t too surprised. Toby was probably too busy cleaning house, and who knew what Ken was doing.

  “He’s probably home getting ready for a party too,” Melanie said. “The Kamatas have lots of parties.” They waited around a little longer, but no one came, so they fed Bear one more time and went on home.

  New Year’s Eve was pretty quiet at the Halls’ that night. After dinner April was in her room reading when she began to hear the sound of firecrackers and horns, and right afterward the phone rang and it was Melanie.

  “Hi.” Melanie sounded worried. “I hear loud noises. Outside I mean.”

  “Big news,” April said sarcastically. “Loud noises? On New Year’s Eve? I can’t believe it.”

  “I know.” Melanie paused and then went on, “I know it’s New Year’s Eve. But I didn’t hear any dogs barking, though. You know, some dogs bark like crazy when they hear loud noises. Particularly when they hear the kind of loud noises like on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Oh yeah. I get it.” April said, and she really did. What she got was that Melanie was trying to tell her something without actually saying it. Like maybe she was in the same room with her parents or something. “Okay,” April said, “I’ll go out on the balcony and check.” They went on talking for a few minutes, wishing each other Happy New Year, to make it sound like a normal conversation, before they hung up and April hurried out to the balcony.

  Since the balcony of Caroline’s apartment was on the A–Z side of the Casa Rosada, it was a good place to listen for noises that might be coming from the storage yard. But there weren’t any. The Gypsy Camp seemed to be very quiet. It was such a beautiful night, strangely warm for New Year’s Eve, that April stayed out on the balcony for longer than she’d meant to. When she finally came in and called Melanie, Mrs. Ross answered the phone.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Ross,” April said. “I just called to tell Melanie … That is, I just called to wish her a Happy New Year.”

  Mrs. Ross laughed. “Melanie just went to bed. Besides, I was under the impression that you girls covered the New Year’s wishes thing pretty thoroughly just a few minutes ago.”

  “Well, yes, we did, k-k-kind of,” April stammered. “It’s just that I remembered something I forgot to tell Melanie. I forgot to say that it was a very quiet New Year’s Eve. Very quiet. Would you please tell Melanie that?”

  Mrs. Ross sounded puzzled, but she said she would.

  Eleven

  ON NEW YEAR’S DAY morning April and Caroline had just finished watching the Rose Parade and were having lunch when the phone rang. It was Melanie.

  “Hi,” she said. “I guess Marshall and I are going to the Gypsy Camp. Want to come?”

  “Right this minute?”

  “Yes. Or as soon as you can, at least. It’s Marshall. He’s been bugging me to go see …” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s the Bear thing again. He wants to see Bear.”

  “Well, we’re having lunch.”

  “I know.” Melanie sounded exasperated. “We just finished. But Marshall keeps fussing at me. And Mom said we could go. She and Dad are going to watch the game.”

  So April gulped down the rest of her lunch and ran down to the second floor. Marshall was waiting outside the Rosses’ door. Without Security again. On the way down the stairs April whispered to Melanie that it was beginning to look as if bears had just about pushed octopuses clear off Marshall’s personal-best list. And Melanie said she thought so, too.

  It was that morning, as soon as they reached the Gypsy Camp and Bear was jumping all over them as usual, that the subject of a bath came up. Actually, it was Melanie who suggested it. Melanie, as April had noticed before, had a couple of serious hang-ups.
Like being fair, for instance. And right next to being fair, Melanie was hung up on being clean. And when you got anywhere near Bear, it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t. Clean, that is. Actually, it didn’t bother April all that much. As far as she was concerned, Bear just had a smell that you might call normally doggy, but Melanie didn’t agree. According to Melanie, Bear’s smell was worse than normal, and they ought to do something about it. It didn’t take her long to have a plan all worked out.

  “That hose by the back of the store would reach if we bring it in under the fence, and I could go home for some shampoo, and we could give him a good scrubbing,” she said. “It would be good for him.”

  “No, it’s too cold,” Marshall said. “And bears hate to take baths.”

  Melanie giggled. “How do you know? How do you know that bears hate to take baths, just because you do?”

  “I know.” Marshall frowned fiercely. “They hate it. Bear told me.”

  April laughed, but she couldn’t help being a little bit on Marshall’s side. Even though it was a warm morning for New Year’s Day, it didn’t seem warm enough to make an outdoor bath with cold water very much fun. So it was two against one, and Melanie was about to give up on the idea when Ken Kamata suddenly burst through the gate. His face was flushed, and he seemed to be breathing hard as if he’d run a long way.

  “Hey, Kamata. What’s up?” April said.

  Ken looked around. “Is Tobe here?” he asked.

  April made a gesture that meant it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t.

  “Yeah, I guess not.” Ken took a deep breath and then shrugged. “Okay,” he said, “so what’s up with you? What are you guys doing?”

  So they told him. All about the bath argument and who had been on which side and why.

  “Yeah, I guess it is pretty cold for an outdoor bath,” he said.

  “You could help us,” Melanie said. “If you helped, we’d get done faster.”

  For a second or two it looked as if Ken might be going to say yes. “Well,” he said, “I guess I could …” But then he shook his head. “No. I’ve got to get right home. I’m trying to find … That is, I’m kind of—I’m expecting a phone call.” He thought for a minute before he added, “Hey. You could bathe him at our house.”

  April and Melanie were amazed. “At your house?” April asked. “But I thought you said your mom was allergic.”

  “She is. But she’s working at my dad’s office right now.” He grinned and added, “All day. They always work all day on New Year’s getting the books all up-to-date. My dad says it’s a Kamata tradition.” He stood back and studied Bear thoughtfully before he nodded. “Yeah, I think he’d fit. See, there’s this extra-big stationary tub in my mom’s laundry room.”

  The next question was how they were going to get clear to the Kamatas’ house without being seen by anyone they knew. At least by anyone who knew them well enough to ask embarrassing questions like whose dog was that and where did they get it. But then Ken pointed out that they could stay in the alleys as far as Norwich Avenue and then cut across the vacant lot to Elm. “And you’re almost there,” he finished.

  After that there was only the problem of a leash, which Melanie solved by offering to go home for a long skinny piece of jump rope.

  While Melanie was gone, Ken decided to run home by himself. He said it was just so he could get the laundry room ready, but April had a feeling he didn’t want to risk being seen by anyone he knew. He was just plain panic-stricken that one of his macho-type sixth-grade buddies would see him walking with two girls, a little kid, and a weird-looking dog. All she said was, “Okay. See you there in a few minutes.” She thought about adding, “You chicken!” but at the last moment she decided against it.

  So Ken took off down the alley, and April kept an eye on Marshall and Bear and congratulated herself on getting better at making last-minute decisions not to say stupid things. It wasn’t long before Melanie showed up with the rope and a big bottle of Marshall’s baby shampoo.

  The laundry room at the Kamatas’ was pretty impressive. Like the rest of the house, it was extra-large and equipped with all the latest stuff. The stationary tub was definitely king-sized, and Ken really had gotten things ready. There was a big bunch of beach towels stacked on the dryer, and Ken was already running the water when the rest of them came in the back door. So the bath was ready for Bear, but it soon became obvious Bear wasn’t ready for a bath. Not if he could help it, anyway.

  Judging by the smell, you might have thought that Bear had never had a bath before, but apparently he had. At least, when he heard the water running, he seemed to know exactly what was about to happen. And Marshall had been right when he said that Bear would hate it. As soon as Ken shut off the faucet and turned toward Bear, he began to whine and back away. And when Ken said, “Okay, boy, it’s all ready. Jump in,” Bear flopped down on his back with all four feet in the air.

  So getting Bear into the tub turned out to be a really high-risk project. Not that he ever growled or threatened to bite. He just went limp and refused to cooperate. It took all four of them pulling and pushing to stand him up and shove him toward the tub. Then, when Ken put Bear’s front paws on the edge of the tub, his hind legs collapsed and he sat down. And when Ken pulled up on Bear’s rear end, his front paws came down off the tub. It went on like that for quite a while, with April and Melanie having fits of hysterics and Ken laughing too, now and then, in between saying, “Sheesh!” under his breath and some other pretty gross-sounding things in Japanese that he refused to translate.

  Finally, with April and Melanie lifting on each side and with Ken at the rear, they got Bear into the tub, and suddenly the battle seemed to be over. Once he was in the water, he just stood there looking quietly miserable while Ken held his head and the girls soaped him up. With all that long black fur, it took half a bottle of baby shampoo and lots of scrubbing before he was completely covered with white suds.

  “Hey, look!” Melanie said. “Now he’s a polar bear.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” April said. “A polar bear with black roots.”

  Ken didn’t say anything. In fact, he’d been strangely quiet ever since the bath had started. Quiet and preoccupied, as if he was waiting and listening for something to happen. But then, when they’d almost finished rinsing off the suds, Ken suddenly yelled, “There it is! There’s the phone,” released his hold on Bear’s head, and disappeared through the kitchen door. And of course the minute his head was free, Bear jumped out of the tub and …

  “Look out!” April yelled, and started to run for cover, but it was too late. Bear shook himself.

  Ken was in the kitchen a long time. While he was gone, April and Melanie got most of the flood cleaned up. By using up at least half a dozen beach towels, they’d gotten Marshall and Bear and the laundry room at least partly dry, and they’d started in on drying each other when Ken finally came back. April’s blond hair was straggling in wet strings around her face, water and suds were still dripping off Melanie’s chin, and they were both having fits of hysterical laughter. But when they saw Ken’s face, they quit laughing.

  For a moment no one said anything. Then April swallowed hard and asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Ken’s shoulders lifted in a strange, jerky shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t …” His voice faded out to a whisper and then came back again. “It’s Toby. Toby is—gone.”

  Twelve

  “GONE?” APRIL FINALLY managed to ask. “What do you mean, ‘gone’? Gone where?”

  Ken shook his head. “I don’t know. His dad doesn’t know. That was Tobe’s dad on the phone. What he said was Toby went to bed last night, and this morning—” Ken gulped, blinked, and then went on, “And this morning, he wasn’t there.”

  Silence. Marshall came over and grabbed his sister’s arm the way he always did when he was frightened, and even Bear seemed to realize that something was terribly wrong. He’d been jumping around like crazy, celebrating the end of his bath, b
ut suddenly he stopped prancing and lay down with his chin on his front paws.

  At last Melanie said, “But he can’t be gone. April saw him just yesterday morning. Didn’t you, April?”

  April nodded. “Yesterday morning. At Peterson’s.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe it has something to do with the party. He said his dad was going to have a big party. He was buying a mop and some other stuff to get ready for it.”

  “A party?” Ken’s forehead wrinkled. “Toby’s dad didn’t say anything about a party. He did say some people were there to see them yesterday afternoon, but it didn’t sound like any party.”

  “Hmmm,” April said. “Maybe his dad was lying. Maybe there really was a party last night, and his dad got so smashed he doesn’t know what happened. And maybe something happened at the party that …” Her voice trailed away into silence, but her mind was still going, bringing up all the stories her mom and stepfather used to tell about Hollywood parties they’d been to or heard about. Stories about people who got smashed or OD’d on drugs and …

  “About the visitors they had yesterday?” Melanie asked Ken. “Who were they? Do you think they might have had something to do with it?”

  “I don’t think so.” Ken shook his head. “Andre, that’s Toby’s father, said that he’d already called them this morning, and they said they haven’t seen Toby either.”

  “But who were they?” April’s mind was still working overtime, bringing up scenes from the hundreds of scary movies she used to see before she came to live with Caroline. Movies that came on TV late at night when her mom was out singing with a band. She could remember lots of scenes in which scary visitors played a part. Visitors who didn’t knock and who came in with guns or knives and …