The Big Dig Page 12

  “I’m very stealthy,” Kit said proudly.

  “Yeah, well, you’re pushy too,” Colin said, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Quit being such a baby,” Kit said, her eyes zooming in on the lineup of plastic bags. “What do we have here?” She picked up one of the tiny bags and held it about an inch from her eye. “Hmmm…see this little blue stamp? It’s from J. B. Jewellers in the village. The same emblem is on their sign.”

  Lucy sat back on her heels. “What do you think that means?”

  “You’re not gonna like it,” Kit said. “But I still think they’re stolen.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Lucy snapped. “As if there could be no other explanation.”

  “I told you you wouldn’t like it,” Kit said.

  “Well, we’re pretty sure Josie didn’t steal them, and we know our moms didn’t, so if there’s no thief, how can they be stolen?” Colin said smugly.

  “That,” Kit said, frowning, “I can’t tell you.”

  The three of them sat in the dirt, staring at the necklaces as if waiting for them to reveal some clue they’d missed.

  “Could they have just been found or something?” Lucy offered.

  Kit shook her head. “Anyone from around here would know where they came from and would have returned them.”

  They went back to staring at the necklaces. They seemed to sit there forever—a do-over of their earlier standoff.

  “Hey,” Colin finally said, turning to Kit. “Where’s your sheet?”

  Kit glumly looked down at her pink T-shirt and matching pink shorts. “I spilled grape Kool-Aid on it. Mom made me put it in the wash. Plus she says I shouldn’t wear it every day. Takes away from the mystique.”

  “Oh.” Colin whacked at a mosquito on his leg.

  Lucy moved onto her knees. “I should put these back.” She began gathering up the packets.

  Kit jumped up. “I thought of something.”

  “What?” Lucy asked suspiciously.

  “Hear me out,” Kit said. “Let’s say they are stolen….”

  Lucy shook her head.

  “But maybe whoever stole them,” she continued, “had a really good reason. Like maybe they had to.”

  Colin snorted. “Had to? Nah.”

  Kit crossed her arms. “You got a better theory, Sherlock?”

  “No, but—”

  “I think I sort of get what you mean,” Lucy said slowly. “Maybe they had been planning to sell them or something. Maybe they needed money.”

  “Yeah,” Kit nodded. “Maybe it was to help someone.”

  “Like Robin Hood,” Lucy whispered to herself. Her eyes shifted to Colin. He was swatting at another mosquito. Didn’t his mom used to live with a foster family? With six other kids? She would have been pretty poor. Could her mom have been trying to help her? Or could they have been in on it together?

  Colin flicked a dead bug off his arm. “That’s kind of a stretch. You guys are coming up with all these crazy ideas and you don’t even know if they’re actually stolen.”

  “You’re right.” Kit bobbed her head. “That’s what we need to find out. We’re going to that jewellery store.”

  Lucy gasped. “What? We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Kit said. “It’s not like we have anything better to do. It’ll be fun. An adventure.”

  “Go the store and do what?” Colin asked sarcastically. “Turn over the goods?”

  “No, no,” Kit said. “We don’t need to take the necklaces. We’ll just be doing a bit of investigating, asking a few questions.”

  Lucy’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What kind of questions?”

  “Don’t worry. Leave it to me,” Kit said, sounding super-efficient. “I’ll have it all planned out.”

  “I dunno.” Colin scratched the back of his head.

  “Oh, come on,” Kit pleaded. “Don’t you want to know one way or another?”

  No one said anything.

  “Oh, come on,” Kit repeated. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Well…” Lucy pulled on her lower lip. “We could find out they are stolen. Then what do we do?”

  Kit looked thoughtful. After a moment, she shrugged her shoulders. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

  Lucy wasn’t sure how she felt about Kit’s so-called plan. She gathered up the plastic bags, slid them into the velvet envelope, and stuffed it back into her pocket.

  “Tomorrow morning.” Kit pointed to her watch. “Oh-nine-hundred hours. We all meet right here.”

  Before anyone could argue, Josie came huffing and puffing down the lane, wisps of smoke trailing behind her. She must have been going somewhere special; she was wearing one of her favourite dresses. Bright red covered with pink and white hearts.

  “The fabric was eighty percent off after Valentine’s Day,” Lucy said, pretending to wipe her nose but really blocking her mouth.

  “Hello again, Colin, and hello to you too, Kathleen,” Josie said, the cigarette bouncing crazily between her lips. Then she turned to Lucy. “Muriel’s taking me to the Co-op. I think you should come pick out some of that fancy milk you want so badly.”

  Lucy didn’t have to think twice. It seemed like a good time to wrap up this get together.

  “Oh-nine-hundred hours,” Kit called after Lucy as she trailed Josie up the lane.

  Lucy sat on the porch swing, pushing herself back and forth with her foot. She was on her second glass of real 2-percent milk from a carton. Yummy. She leaned her head back on the cushion, closed her eyes, and went over all the talk from the hole this morning. Why had she even opened this can of worms? Why hadn’t she just left the necklaces alone?

  It was all too late now anyway.

  The screen door squeaked open. “You need something to do,” Josie said. “Come help me.”

  Oh no. Lucy’s shoulders slumped and her head fell forward. Lucy couldn’t begin to imagine what Josie would want her help with. She got off the swing and followed her inside.

  In the kitchen, Josie pointed to the table. “Sit.”

  Lucy sat.

  Picking at the curling corner of a laminated Peggys Cove placemat, she watched Josie pull out a bunch of stuff from the cupboard and set it on the table. One thing was a rectangular metal contraption, similar in size to a shoebox lid. It was covered in a kind of rubbery cloth and had knobs on both ends. Beside it, a green tin of Export A tobacco and a flat cardboard box the size of a ruler with paper sticking out like Kleenex. Lastly, Josie added a dish of water, a razor blade, and a small sponge.

  “Thought I would teach you how to roll cigarettes,” Josie said.

  “Huh?”

  “Just to make it clear, though. Don’t ever let me catch you smoking. Your father would kick my arse.”

  Lucy just stared back, eyes wide.

  “Okay now, pay attention.”

  Oddly fascinated, Lucy watched as Josie laid the strip of paper in the rubbery thing, fitting it into an indent to make a long skinny trough, then she gently stuffed the trough with tobacco. After wiping the edge of the paper with the wet sponge and making it sticky, she turned the knobs on each end, causing the paper to roll around the tobacco, and voilà! A foot-long cigarette. Next she took the razor blade and cut the cigarette into four smaller ones. There were little slits in the machine to guide her cuts. She piled them to one side. “Your turn,” she said.

  Lucy swallowed and pulled her chair in closer to the table.

  “Go on,” Josie urged. “Give it a try.”

  A few practice rolls later, Lucy was actually getting the hang of it.

  “By the end of the summer, you’ll be an expert,” Josie said. “Keep going.” She picked up one of Lucy’s creations, lit it, and took a deep drag. “Excellent,” she said as she exhaled.

 
Lucy kept rolling. Josie did the stacking.

  “You met Esther the other day,” Josie said. “What did you think?”

  “She seemed nice.”

  Josie nodded. “She’s a lovely girl.”

  They worked in silence for a while, Lucy concentrating on perfecting the width of each cigarette so it was smooth with no bulges.

  “What were they like, Esther and Mom?” Lucy asked after completing about a half dozen.

  Josie didn’t answer. Lucy realized she’d forgotten to look up so Josie could see her mouth. She repeated the question.

  “Ha!” Josie butted her cigarette out on the edge of her lunch plate. “They were quite the pair. Bosom buddies.”

  “But Gran Irene didn’t like Esther much, did she?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Josie said.

  “Esther said they sort of got into trouble sometimes,” Lucy hinted, hoping Josie would offer up some examples, but she just said, “Pfft,” and swept some stray tobacco off the table.

  “So…they didn’t get into trouble?” Lucy took another stab at it.

  Josie made a face. “Oh, sure they did. Piddly stuff. There’s only so much trouble you can get into around here.”

  “Then why did Gran Irene dislike Esther so much?”

  “Your gran could be a little judgmental,” Josie said, standing up some fresh cigarettes in an empty tin. “She wasn’t keen on Esther’s upbringing and lack of discipline and supervision. Thought your mom should have a higher class of friend or some nonsense.” She leaned in closer to Lucy and raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know what made her so high-falutin’. It’s not like we’re Cape John royalty or something. Anyhow, when Esther moved out west with her boyfriend, fresh out of high school and unmarried, your gran felt it just proved her point.” Josie gathered up another handful of cigarettes. “I know it’s not kind to speak ill of the dead, but your gran, my very own sister, had a few rocks in her head if you ask me.”

  “Mom must have been sad when Esther left.” Lucy didn’t know what she’d do if Sarah ever moved away.

  “Yes, well, she had her own problems to deal with at that time.” Then a strange look passed over Josie’s face. “Don’t listen to me, dear. I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”

  Yeah right. Lucy wasn’t buying that doddering old lady routine.

  Josie quickly pushed back her chair. “You made great progress! Look, you filled a whole tin.”

  Lucy glanced in the tin at all her neatly rolled cigarettes, her new talent. Her dad would freak if he saw her now.

  “You’re a free woman,” Josie announced, adding a long peel of apple skin to the can before snapping the lid on and putting everything away.

  Lucy hung back, hovering by the kitchen door. She wanted to ask some more questions about her mom—about what Josie had meant when she said that her mom had had her own problems to deal with. But then she changed her mind. It seemed lately every time she had a conversation about her mom, it left her more anxious and confused.

  Adding to that anxious, confused feeling was the fact she still hadn’t decided if she was going to meet Kit at “oh-nine-hundred hours” yet. She kept flipping between what the heck and what’s the point? Wanting to think about something else for a while, she wandered into the dining room and pulled a random Harlequin off the bookshelf. She studied the cover. A beautiful girl with long, black hair and violet eyes was in a passionate embrace with a shirtless guy who looked like he had too much suntan lotion on. It was called Suddenly Love. Lucy grinned. They always looked so intense on the covers. And they were always in a passionate embrace.

  She took the book up to her room and flopped onto her bed. The room felt heavy with heat. She was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, but she did manage to make it all the way to chapter five before nodding off.

  Chapter 14

  Lucy’s afternoon nap led to a good two hours of tossing and turning at her regular bedtime. When she finally did manage to fall asleep, the nightmare seemed to start the second she closed her eyes and didn’t stop until she opened them the next morning. She couldn’t remember all the details; she just knew it had to do with the necklaces, and that at one point she and her mom were in some unknown jewellery store filled with police. It left her with a breathless, scary feeling down deep in the pit of her stomach that lasted long after she woke up.

  She ran a brush through her hair. Maybe the dream was trying to tell her something. Maybe she should just go along with whatever Kit was cooking up, find out about these necklaces one way or another and be done with it.

  It took her longer than usual to get herself to the hole. She was late. Secretly she hoped Kit had backed out and Colin was just there digging like usual. Yeah right. Who am I kidding? Kit and Colin were both standing there waiting. She wondered if Colin had shown up right at oh-nine-hundred hours like Kit had ordered.

  “Told ya she’d show,” Kit said to Colin, holding out her hand. “You owe me a quarter.”

  “You didn’t think I’d come?” Lucy said.

  Colin shrugged. “I dunno. You didn’t seem too keen on the idea.”

  She didn’t say anything. He was right.

  If Kit sensed her lack of enthusiasm, she was ignoring it. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said in a bossy voice. “I say we head up to the village, hit the jewellery store, and chat up Mrs. Jacobson—she’s worked there for a million years. Eventually we get around to asking if the store’s ever been robbed. If it has, she’ll know. And she’ll have all the details. How’s that sound?”

  Colin opened his mouth like he was about to disagree, but then closed it again. “Actually, it’s not the worst idea in the world.”

  Then something occurred to Lucy. “If we want to know if there was a robbery, couldn’t we just go to the library and look up back issues of the newspaper or something? A robbery would be in the paper, wouldn’t it?”

  Kit gave her an approving look. “Good thinking, Nancy Drew, but the library’s on summer hours, only open part-time. We’d have to wait until next week.”

  Lucy glanced over at Colin and sighed. “Okay. We’ll go with your idea. Like Colin said, it’s not the worst in the world.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Kit said sarcastically.

  The rest of the morning they spent trying to come up with questions they could use on Mrs. Jacobson to steer the conversation towards robbery, which proved to be not that easy.

  “Let’s not sweat it,” Kit said, standing and brushing some dirt off the butt of her shorts. “We can’t sound too rehearsed, she’ll get suspicious. We’ll decide what to say on the walk.”

  Kit took the lead, Lucy followed, then Colin, and they made their way down the lane and out to the main road.

  Once on the pavement, they spread out and walked in silence. A slight breeze rustled the tall grasses growing in the ditches along both sides of the road, and a farm tractor put-putted from somewhere far off in the distance.

  Kit was the first to speak. “I think we should just let the conversation happen naturally, see how far we get.”

  “Okay,” Lucy answered. She had to admit, it wasn’t so bad having someone in charge, telling her what to do. It made everything easier.

  After about a half hour, the traffic picked up a bit. They were getting closer to the village. Moving to the shoulder, Lucy listened to the gravel crunch loudly beneath her feet. She could feel herself tensing up. Her throat felt dry. But that could have been from the heat or the gravel dust.

  The main street came into view and Kit pointed. “There it is, next to the drugstore.” The shop was the bottom floor of a pretty house—dark green with cream and black trim.

  “Do we have, like, an opening line or something?” Colin asked.

  “Don’t worry, I got it covered,” Kit said.

  “What does that mean?”

 
“It means take a chill pill.”

  Colin gave Lucy a look. She shrugged and followed Kit into the store. A tiny bell attached to the door announced their arrival. It took a few seconds for Lucy’s eyes to adjust after the brightness of outside. What if the store matches the one in my dream? That would be really creepy. But it didn’t. The walls were panelled in a dark wood. The floor as well, and it creaked when they walked on it. The whole place smelled like lemon Pledge. In the back corner, an old lady was polishing a glass display case.

  “Just follow my lead,” Kit whispered.

  “Hey,” Colin whispered back, “we’re not your backup singers, you know.”

  The old lady came out from behind the counter and smiled. “Well hello, Kathleen. What a nice surprise. What can I do for you?” Her eyes shifted past Kit. “And your friends.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Jacobson,” Kit said. “This is Colin. He just moved here. His mom’s Esther. She used to live here. Maybe you remember her?”

  “I do!” Mrs. Jacobson exclaimed. “I remember Esther. Sweet girl.”

  Colin shifted on his feet, looking uncomfortable. “Um, thanks.”

  “And this is my cousin, Lucy,” Kit added.

  “You don’t mean Laura’s daughter?”

  Kit nodded.

  “Bless my soul.” Mrs. Jacobson’s hand flew to her chest and her eyes got all shiny. “She was a sweet girl as well.”

  “Thanks,” Lucy smiled.

  Kit went up to the counter and peered down through the glass. “Lucy’s looking for…a charm.”

  Lucy joined her. “I am?” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Yes,” she hissed, then turned to Mrs. Jacobson. “She needs a souvenir of her summer here.”

  Mrs. Jacobson pulled a crumpled Kleenex from the sleeve of her sweater and dabbed her eyes. “Well, let’s see what we have here.” She walked over to the glass display counter, unlocked the door, and lifted out a velvet tray. She set it down and they all gathered around the assortment of charms. Lucy couldn’t help but notice the emblem on the tray lining was identical to the ones on the tiny plastic bags back in the ceramic bunny.