“So I see.” She flipped through the folder of sheet music and piano exercise books I’d brought along to show her. “These are fairly advanced pieces.”
I sat there miserably, feeling like a musical failure.
She regarded me for a moment, then smiled. “I’ll tell you what—how about we spend the rest of this lesson playing some simple duets—fun ones that are way too easy for us, just to loosen up and get acquainted a bit, musically. When I was your age, it was always a big deal to change piano teachers.”
Things went a little better after that, and I was genuinely enjoying myself by the time we finished. I could tell I was going to like Ms. Patel.
ON MY WAY! I texted my friends as I left her apartment. I had my cell phone back, thanks to my mother.
“If you want Truly out at night working on stage crew, she might need it,” she’d insisted to my father at breakfast this morning. He’d grumbled, but finally agreed.
My friends were waiting for me on the front steps of the town library. Inside, we found Mr. Henry in his usual spot upstairs in the children’s room. For once, though, he wasn’t wearing his signature red and white. Or if he was, it was hidden under a pair of painter’s coveralls.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked from where he was perched on a ladder, paintbrush in hand. The walls were empty of bookshelves and books and the Charlotte’s Web statue was covered with drop cloths, as was the floor. The old carpet had been ripped up, and rolls of the new carpet were waiting in the hallway, covered in plastic.
Something else was different too. I frowned, trying to put my finger on it.
“How do you like the new skylight?” Mr. Henry asked. “It was installed over the weekend.”
I glanced up. That was it! Light streamed in, brightening what was formerly a cozy but somewhat dim room.
“It’s going to be brilliant, don’t you agree?” He winked. “Literally as well as figuratively.”
I smiled. “Mr. Henry, if someone wanted to find out about our town’s history—and about some of its early residents—where would they start?”
He climbed down from the ladder and placed his paintbrush on one of its rungs, then wiped his hands with a rag. “Funny you should ask that question. A woman came in just yesterday wanting to know the same thing.”
My friends and I looked at each other in dismay. Dr. Appleton had beaten us to it!
We followed Mr. Henry downstairs to the reference room, where he showed us a shelf of books about the history of Pumpkin Falls and a drawer full of old maps.
“If you really want to go way back, I believe the Lovejoy papers are in the archives over at the college,” he told us. “They would most certainly contain information about the town’s early history.”
My ears perked up at that. “Papers? Like newspapers?”
“The term usually refers to a broad range of items,” Mr. Henry explained. “For an author, it might mean manuscripts and research material and correspondence with an editor or publisher, that sort of thing. In this case, it may mean letters, diaries, account books, deeds, and more. And yes, newspaper clippings as well.”
He looked over at Calhoun. “You’ll have to get special permission to visit the archives. Perhaps your father can get you access, R. J.” He turned to me. “Or you might try asking Professor Rusty. The fact that you’re a Lovejoy should work in your favor.”
This sounded promising. Dr. Appleton wasn’t a Lovejoy, and she didn’t have a father who was the college president or a soon-to-be uncle in the history department. Maybe we could still stay a few steps ahead of her.
“By the way, how’s the case of the missing trophy going?” Mr. Henry looked at us expectantly.
“Um, slowly,” I replied.
Scooter pulled out his cell phone and scrolled to the picture of the woman at the finish line in the red-and-white-striped sundress. “We were wondering if you knew this person.”
Mr. Henry took one look and burst out laughing. “My sister Sarah? Yes, in fact I do know her.”
My friends and I exchanged sheepish glances.
“The thing is,” I continued, “we had to ask. Just because we recognize somebody or know them doesn’t mean we can automatically eliminate them as a suspect.”
Mr. Henry nodded soberly. “Just doing your due diligence,” he said. “I understand.” He placed his right hand over his heart—or where his heart would be under his painter’s coveralls. “What is it your father always says, Truly? Cross my heart and hope to fly, my sister did not take the trophy.”
I made a show of pulling my notepad out of my backpack and crossing her off our list.
“I suppose you heard about the special town meeting that Ella Bellow called while you girls were away,” Mr. Henry told us. “Some folks are fired up to go ahead and have a new trophy made, but most of us voted to wait a bit longer. We’re still hoping that the original will turn up.” He winked at my friends and me. “Keep up the good work! Everyone in Pumpkin Falls is counting on you. Well, everyone except, perhaps, Officer Tanglewood. I for one hope you solve this before he does.”
Mr. Henry went back upstairs. I looked at my friends. “Divide and conquer?”
Each of us took a stack of books from the shelf and started flipping through the pages, looking for information about Nathaniel Daniel, aka Dandy Dan, any mention of pirates, or anything else that might prove useful.
After half an hour, though, we came up empty-handed. Well, except for the fun facts that my ancestor won the town’s very first Halloween pumpkin toss in 1769, the same year he founded the town, and that his wife Prudence was “possessed of a greene thumbe and civick spirit,” as one newspaper of the era put it.
If we’d been hoping to discover a long-lost treasure map, that didn’t happen either. The drawer that
