The Big Dig Read online

“Take your time, see if anything catches your fancy,” Mrs. Jacobson said.

  Lucy pretended to examine each charm while trying to figure out what she should say or ask next. She needn’t have bothered. Kit was way ahead of her.

  “Yup. This has been quite the vacation for Lucy,” Kit said loudly. “First time she’s been back since she was a kid.”

  Mrs. Jacobson smiled and nodded as she Windexed the other end of the glass counter.

  “Being from the big city, country life sure has been an adjustment,” Kit went on.

  Lucy kept her head bent down over the charms. What the heck was she talking about?

  “It’s so quiet and unexciting around here compared to the crime-ridden streets she has to endure on a daily basis back home,” Kit said.

  “I don’t endure any crime-ridden streets,” Lucy whispered to Colin.

  “Like, just before Lucy came here, her neighbour’s house was broken into,” Kit continued. “During the day! Can you believe that, Mrs. Jacobson?”

  Mrs. Jacobson shook her head. “That’s such a shame. What gets into people these days? There’s a lot to be said for country living.”

  “I know,” Kit said. “That’s what I told her. I don’t think I know of one time a house has been broken into around here.”

  “Nor do I,” Mrs. Jacobson agreed.

  “Or even a store, for that matter. Because you’d think that would be more likely. You know, more money, more stuff to steal.”

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Jacobson looked thoughtful. “Maybe the Co-op once…but now that I think about it, it was just some shenanigans after a dance at the fire hall next door. Someone drove their car through the front window, though.”

  “So just the Co-op?” Kit said. “Nowhere else? The drugstore? The gas station? Here?”

  They all held their breath waiting for Mrs. Jacobson to answer. There were at least a dozen clocks hanging on the back wall. The sound of their unsynchronized ticking was deafening.

  “Goodness, no. Not since we opened the doors way back in 1945.”

  There was a collective exhale.

  “Told you country livin’ was way better!” Kit slapped her hand on Lucy’s back.

  “You two sound like the city mouse and country mouse.” Mrs. Jacobson chuckled, squirting some Windex where Kit had left new fingerprints.

  “Are we ready to head out, then?” Colin asked, edging towards the door.

  “What about your charm?” Mrs. Jacobson said to Lucy.

  “I forgot my wallet,” she said, feeling guilty about wasting the woman’s time and letting her think she was going to buy something. “But I think I like the lobster. Could I put it on hold?” She would come back and buy it with her birthday money.

  “I’ll set it aside for you,” Mrs. Jacobson promised. “And I’ll even give you the staff discount, too.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Lucy said.

  “Of course I do. Your mother worked here, after all.”

  Lucy froze. “What?”

  “Our Mariah had such a hard time with her first baby. Colic. I had to go up to Barrie, help her out for a few weeks. Your mother filled in for me here, Saturdays and a couple afternoons after school. We ended up keeping her on even after I got back.”

  “I, uh—” Lucy’s words were stuck in her throat.

  Colin elbowed Kit.

  “Wow. We didn’t know that, did we, Lucy?” Kit looped her arm through Lucy’s and pulled her in the direction of the door. “Thanks again, Mrs. Jacobson.”

  After spilling onto the sidewalk, they quickly walked down the street, not stopping until the shop was out of view and they’d reached the Co-op parking lot.

  “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Colin said in a calm voice. “But just because your mom worked there doesn’t mean she took them.”

  “Yeah,” Kit said. “Even though it was the perfect cover.”

  “Um.” Colin made a face at Kit. “You’re not really helping.” Then to Lucy he said, “Remember what Mrs. Jacobson told us: no robberies.”

  Lucy shook her head. It was too much of a coincidence. “She could have taken them and they just never realized it.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Colin said. “Did you see the size of that store? It’s tiny. There’s no way they wouldn’t notice six necklaces going missing.”

  Lucy shook her head again. “Those necklaces are from that store. My mom worked there. She must have taken them. There’s no other explanation.” She sniffed a couple times. “I don’t want that to ever come out. I don’t want people to think she was a thief. That she stole from the Jacobsons.”

  No one said anything for a minute, but Lucy thought she saw Colin and Kit exchange some kind of look.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Kit said. “I agree with Colin.”

  “You do?” Lucy frowned. She was right. It didn’t sound like something she would say.

  “Yup. Someone would definitely notice if all those necklaces went missing.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Yeah,” Kit said.

  “Yeah,” Colin echoed. “Go with what the old lady said.”

  Lucy gnawed on her fingernail until she drew blood. “But it still doesn’t explain why they are where they are.”

  “Listen,” Kit said. “We might just have to accept that it’s something we may never have the answer to.”

  “I suppose.” Lucy narrowed her eyes. That didn’t sound like something Kit would say either.

  Colin swiped at a trickle of sweat dribbling down his forehead. “Can we go now?”

  They retraced their steps through the village, and after only a few minutes, someone Kit knew offered them a lift in the back of their pickup truck. Lucy’s tailbone would never be the same after bouncing and bumping their way down Cape John Road, but it was totally worth it not to have to walk all that way back in the sun.

  “You should have got him to stop, Kit,” Lucy said, hopping off the bumper of the truck. “We passed your house.”

  “Nah. I want to hang out with you guys.”

  Colin made a face behind Kit’s back.

  “Oh,” Lucy said. “I don’t even know if—”

  “Guys.” Colin sighed loudly. “I’m gonna die if I don’t get a drink. You can come if you want.” He turned, jumped over the ditch, and started across the field alongside the road.

  “Cool!” Kit scrambled down one side of the ditch and up the other. She looked back at Lucy. “Coming?”

  Lucy just wanted to go straight to her room, lie down, maybe even call her dad. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m coming.”

  The twins were in the front yard of Colin’s house building a fort out of the empty moving boxes.

  “Colin!” one of them yelled. “Come play with us!”

  “Can’t.”

  “You never play with us! I hate you!” the other hollered.

  Colin grinned. “Love you, too!”

  As they tumbled through the front door and headed down the hall, they passed Esther kneeling on the floor in the den unwrapping picture frames.

  “Hello?” she called as they walked past.

  Colin stopped, backtracked, pulled Kit with him, and pushed her through the door frame. “Kit. Lucy’s cousin. Kit. My mom.”

  “Oh. Ellen’s daughter,” Esther said, looking up. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” Kit said.

  “We’re thirsty,” Colin announced.

  “There’s stuff in the fridge, help yourself.”

  They marched single file into the kitchen, where Colin poured three glasses of Kool-Aid that they all downed in about a half a second.

  “Well, at least we got some answers,” Kit said, raising her empty glass.

  Lucy smiled, hoping she looked sincere, and clinked her glass again
st Kit’s. Did we, though?

  Chapter 15

  “Hey, guys,” Kit said. She was carrying a rainbow-striped beach bag. She slid it off her shoulder and plunked down on the grass beside Lucy. “Am I late? Have you been here long? Did I miss anything?”

  Lucy lowered her hands. She’d been practicing her duck calls, blowing through a blade of grass pressed between her thumbs. “Nope. Haven’t missed a thing.”

  Colin looked up from his shovelling. “You’re coming here pretty often now, huh?”

  Kit tilted her head. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Noooo, not at all,” Colin said, giving Lucy a giant eye roll that he didn’t bother to hide.

  “Don’t mind him,” Lucy said to Kit. “I think he’s got sunstroke.”

  “We can only hope, right?”

  “Meanie,” Lucy said.

  A serious look came over Kit’s face and she inched herself a little farther back from the hole. She gestured for Lucy to follow. Lucy did.

  “I don’t mean to be mean,” Kit said softly.

  “Oh, I know you’re only joking.”

  “Because…well, about the jewellery store.”

  Lucy frowned. “What about it?”

  “I kind of feel bad.”

  “Why? You weren’t mean.”

  “I could tell you were sort of upset even before we went into the village. I probably should have just minded my own business and not been all bossy about going to Jacobson’s.”

  “That’s okay,” Lucy said, trying to sound casual.

  “Mom says I can be really bossy sometimes.”

  Lucy smiled, imagining what Colin would have said to that if he’d heard.

  “So maybe we should just put the whole necklace thing on the back burner for a while,” Kit said.

  “Really? You seemed pretty gung-ho to solve the mystery.”

  “Oh, I still am. But it’s when you stop looking for something that you find it.” Kit shrugged. “That’s another thing Mom says.”

  “Okay.” Lucy didn’t feel so sure.

  “Look.” Kit pulled her bag closer. “I brought all my mags.” She started taking them out one by one. “Got Teen, 16, Tiger Beat, Seventeen…we could look through them while Colin digs.”

  “Cool,” Lucy said, fanning out the stack. “And perfect timing. Josie got some Campbell’s Soup recipe book in the mail and she’s determined to try out all the recipes. I need to spend as little time at the house as possible.”

  Kit’s eyes got big. “Mom got the same one. Stay away from the Peachy Chicken. Cream of chicken soup and canned peaches do not go together. I don’t care what anyone says.”

  “Thanks,” Lucy said. “I’ll be on the lookout for that one.”

  “I brought my DoodleArt, too.” She dug a cardboard cylinder from her bag. “There’s one in here that’s all butterflies.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I noticed your necklace when you came to my house, and then you had a butterfly T-shirt on yesterday with butterfly barrettes. So, I dunno. I figured you had a thing for butterflies.”

  Lucy touched a finger to the butterfly hanging from her neck.

  Kit pulled a piece of paper out of the tube and held it out. “I haven’t started it yet. You can have it if you want.”

  “Thanks. I do have a thing for butterflies.” Lucy unrolled the paper and stared at the black-and-white print. She felt bad for all the times she’d thought Kit was a bit of a nutjob. She wasn’t so sure she would have picked up on all the butterfly stuff if she’d been in Kit’s place. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, knock your socks off.” Kit turned the tube upside down and shook the markers out onto the grass. “Just so you know, though, the pink one is all dried up.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Colin came to the edge of the hole.

  “Kit brought stuff to do,” Lucy said. She picked a magazine and held it up. “I’ll read to you aloud.”

  “Don’t bother,” he scoffed. “It’s all junk.”

  “Hey!” Kit said. “There are some great articles in these!”

  “Okay, okay.” Lucy put up a hand. “I’ll only read you something if it’s really, really interesting.”

  Colin muttered under his breath and moved to the other side of the hole.

  Lucy flipped her magazine open to an article on the dangers of hitchhiking. When she’d finished and vowed to herself to never hitchhike, she leaned over to see what Kit was reading. Kit was poring over a glossy foldout picture. “I just love Shaun Cassidy,” she sighed.

  Lucy liked the other Hardy Boy, Parker Stevenson, better, even though his eyes were too close together. Roberto’s eyes were close together too.

  They passed the next half hour flicking through the magazines, discussing the latest fashions and movie star gossip. Colin kept on digging, but every once in a while he’d ask who or what they were talking about.

  Then, as Lucy was memorizing a list of pointers on “How to Pick the Right Perm for You,” the now-familiar smell of cigarette smoke wafted through the air.

  There was a rustle of leaves as Josie came around the corner. “You three have been sitting out here in the sun too long,” she said. “You’re getting brown as berries. Go down and get yourselves wet.”

  What? Berries aren’t brown. Lucy shook her head. “It’s okay. We’re fine.” She was trying to figure out if she should get a perm.

  Josie looked down at her.

  “It’s okay. We’re fine,” Lucy repeated, exaggerating her words.

  “I know what you said. But it wasn’t a question.” Josie stubbed out her cigarette. “Get down to the water. Tide’s about halfway.”

  Kit jumped to her feet. “I’m ready.” She snapped the strap of her bathing suit underneath her T-shirt and nudged Lucy with her foot. “Got your suit on?”

  “Yes.” Lucy sighed and got up as well. She couldn’t decide who was bossier, Kit or Josie. “Come for a swim, Colin!” she called out.

  “Can’t,” he answered.

  Lucy turned to Josie, pointed at Colin, and shook her head.

  “Colin!” Josie jammed her hands onto her hips. “Don’t make me come over there and kick your arse.”

  Colin’s head whipped up. “Huh? What?”

  “She’s going to kick your arse if you don’t come for a swim,” Kit explained.

  “Jeez, all right already.” He pulled himself up out of the hole and came over to join them.

  Kit fanned a hand in front of her nose. “You need a swim more than anyone.”

  Colin lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  As they followed Josie down the lane Lucy couldn’t help notice Colin had an odd look on his face. “You don’t smell that bad,” she assured him.

  “No, it’s not that. It’s Josie’s dress.”

  Josie was sporting a sundress patterned with orange, lemon, and lime slices. It was pretty understated by Josie’s standards. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I think it’s the same as our new kitchen curtains.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

  After getting dunked, Lucy stood waist deep in the water. It was so clear she could see right to the bottom. She watched a hermit crab as it scuttled along the side of her foot and across the ripples of the sandbar. She could feel the sand slowly creep over her toes, and the soothing sensation of the waves as they gently tugged her forward then pushed her back. It was like being rocked to sleep.

  Kit swam up behind her. “You wanna look for beach glass?”

  Colin was doing underwater handstands and Josie was stretched out on the air mattress she always left stuffed under the bottom step. She’d run aground in the shallow water and there was a plume of smoke floating above her. “Sure,” Lucy said.

  They w
aded ashore, stooped over, and began to slowly shuffle along the water’s edge.

  “So you collect beach glass too?” Lucy asked.

  “Yup,” Kit said. “For Mom. She pays me.”

  “She pays you?”

  “She has this giant bowl shaped like a seashell. She thought it would look cool filled with beach glass. I get a nickel for white, a dime for green and brown, and a quarter for blue. It’s not glamorous, but it keeps me in candy.” She stopped as she spied a piece of white and tucked it in her fist.

  “I really want to find blue,” Lucy said. Josie had given her a pickle jar. So far she’d managed to cover the bottom. “There’s a jar at home on our kitchen windowsill with only blue. It was my mom’s. I want to try to fill it.”

  “Oh, here, then.” Kit pressed a triangle of blue glass into Lucy’s hand.

  “No, no. I didn’t mean for you—”

  “Relax, cuz. There will always be more glass.”

  Josie placed a dish of something on the table in front of Lucy.

  Lucy eyed the plate warily. Please don’t let it be Peachy Chicken. She picked up her fork and slowly pushed the mystery food around. Some kind of bean, chunks of…beef? “What is it?”

  “Mexican Fiesta Beans,” Josie announced proudly. “Figured it wouldn’t kill us to try something exotic.”

  Are you sure?

  “I think I may have scorched it on the bottom,” she continued. “If you come across any bits of black, just pick them out.”

  Lucy nodded grimly.

  “It doesn’t look much like the picture in the book.” Josie frowned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stirred in all that Cheez Whiz. That was my own personal touch.”

  Yuck. “I’m not that hungry,” Lucy said, glad Josie couldn’t hear her stomach growling.

  Josie raised a forkful to her mouth, then set it back down. She scrunched up her nose and pushed the dish away. “Maybe exotic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. How does cinnamon toast sound?”

  Lucy smiled. “Perfect.”

  It was when she was fastening her butterfly necklace the next morning that Lucy remembered her dream from the night before. She had been wearing one of the emerald necklaces. Someone had been standing behind her. Even though she couldn’t see her face, she was sure it was her mom. She asked Lucy to take it off, but every time she did, another one appeared around her neck. Spooky.