“I have to get back to the bookstore,” I told my friends, glancing up at the clock. “My father will notice if I’m gone much longer.”
“We’ll stop by the bookstore if we hear anything about the other suspects,” Calhoun told me. “Otherwise, see you tonight at the Grange.”
I nodded. I was stuffing my notebook into my backpack when I heard a sharp intake of breath from Jasmine. I looked up to see Amanda Appleton standing in the doorway of the reference room.
“Hello, kids.” She cocked her head, a puzzled expression on her face. “Wait a minute—I recognize you girls! You were at the book signing on the Cape!”
Cha Cha and Jasmine and I nodded cautiously.
“Nice to see you again.” Glancing at the open map drawer behind us, she pursed her lips. “What brings you all here?”
Her question caught me off guard. “Research,” I blurted, and instantly could have bitten my tongue off. “For the play we’re all in, I mean,” I added quickly.
“Really? What play is that?”
“The Pirates of Penzance.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Pirates? How interesting.” A smile flitted across her lips. “Well, happy hunting!” She walked briskly back across the lobby toward the bank of computers by the front desk.
“What was that all about?” Calhoun whispered.
“That was Amanda Appleton,” I whispered back. “I shouldn’t have told her anything.”
“Do you think she suspects?” asked Cha Cha.
I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
I was still wondering when I turned onto Main Street a couple of minutes later. Glancing across the street at the Starlite Dance Studio, I read the sign in the window: WINNER OF THIS YEAR’S PUMPKIN FALLS FOUR ON THE FOURTH ROAD RACE! But the pedestal in the middle of the display was empty.
Between the missing trophy and Dr. Appleton, the Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes certainly had their hands full. If there was one thing I knew for sure, we weren’t giving up just yet on either account.
CHAPTER 27
The afternoon passed agonizingly slowly. I was keyed up about Amanda Appleton and eager to talk to Hatcher. He was still with Lobster Bob, though. I channeled my nervous energy into vacuuming the entire store, helping Belinda unpack the latest shipment of books, and taking turns with Aunt True at the Cup and Chaucer counter.
Later, back home after my shift was over, I slam-dunked a quick dinner, then gathered the cleaning supplies that Dr. Calhoun had asked us to bring to the Grange. My mother was backing the minivan out of the barn when Lobster Bob’s truck finally appeared and Hatcher hopped out.
“You’re late,” I told him, wrinkling my nose. “Plus, you smell like fish.”
He grinned and tipped his new baseball cap at me. It was red, with a white lobster on the front. “You were expecting roses?”
“I was expecting maybe you’d take a shower before rehearsal!”
“Hey, all we’re doing tonight is cleaning. I’m just going to get all sweaty and dirty anyway. Chill, Drooly.”
The Grange was already abuzz with activity by the time our mother dropped us off. Elmer Farnsworth, Belinda, and Augustus, who must have finished the draft of his new book, because his laptop was nowhere in sight, were beating the curtains onstage with brooms. Bud Jefferson and Lucas trailed in their wake with a pair of vacuum cleaners, attacking the clouds of dust that had been stirred up. A group of actors was mopping the floor, and Mr. Henry and Lucas’s mother and the rest of the costume and makeup team were tackling the windows with buckets of water and rags.
“Ah, the cavalry is here!” said Dr. Calhoun, swooping down on my brother and me. He handed us each a long-handled duster. “How does cobweb duty sound?”
We started with the chandeliers. As we swiped at the cobwebs, I filled Hatcher in on what had happened at the library, from our dead ends to Amanda Appleton’s surprise appearance.
“So do you think she suspects anything?”
I shrugged. “That’s what Cha Cha asked. I honestly don’t know.”
“Maybe I should get another perspective,” he said a few minutes later, and wandered off to talk to Cha Cha, leaving me on my own to start on the rafters. He’d been talking to Cha Cha a lot lately. I dragged a ladder into place and was halfway up when I heard a voice below.
“Hey!”
I looked down to see Calhoun standing there, smiling at me. I was suddenly acutely aware that I was covered in cobwebs. I smiled back. “Hey yourself.”
“Want to take a break and help me?”
“Sure.” I followed him out the back door to where a large, rectangular something was waiting, strapped to a dolly and covered with a drop cloth. It looked kind of like a refrigerator.
“You’ll see” was all that Calhoun would say when I asked him what it was.
“Set it by the stage,” his father called to us as we rolled it inside. “Gather round, people!”
Work around the Grange halted as everyone came over to stare at the drop cloth–covered object.
“What is it?” asked Jasmine.
“Our time machine to the 1950s!” Dr. Calhoun enthused. He reached for the drop cloth and pulled it away. “Behold, a genuine, bona fide midcentury jukebox!”
“Groovy!” said Belinda. “Does it work?”
He nodded. “Elmer was able to get it going for us.”
Calhoun plugged it in, and the machine lit up like a Christmas tree. Belinda punched a couple of the glowing buttons.
“One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock, rock…” The song began blasting from the built-in speakers.
“Five, six, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, rock,” Belinda sang, her short white curls bobbing in time to the music. Augustus grabbed her around her ample waist, and the two of them started to dance.
“Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, rock,” Bud Jefferson continued, as he and Mrs. Winslow
