Chapter Eleven

Stan arrived at Amber’s store after it should have been closed, but the door opened. He pulled the balloon off the handle and went inside, flicking the lock behind him before he walked to the counter covered with piles of beads, pink feathers, and a jumble of cut pink wire.

“Amber? Where are you?” he called out toward the open door to her studio.

“I’ll be right there. I need more glue.”

He smiled. She’d told him about the windfall of two big orders, which happened indirectly because of the balloon he’d stuck to the door.

Best investment he’d ever made.

He held up the shrunken balloon as she appeared in the doorway. “It’s a little deflated, but I think it served its purpose.”

“Not really,” Amber said as she plunked a box of glue sticks on the counter and inserted a new one into her glue gun. “Our purpose was to attract the Gnome Gnapper, and that didn’t happen. I’ve got to find that trophy. After this big order for the next banquet, I’m more indebted to the garden club than ever. I’ve got to find it. What can we do?”

His inner balloon deflated, just like the one that had been outside. “I don’t know. Since the balloon thing didn’t work out, the note said not to be a party pooper. That has to be the clue. I guess that means we have to go to the banquet together.”

Amber sighed. “We go to the banquet together every year. That can’t be it. Besides, the banquet is a month away. Which is a good thing. I’ve got the flamingos down to ten minutes each, so it will take me forty hours to make all their flamingos, and that’s if I don’t eat or sleep or go to the bathroom.”

He didn’t want to comment on that last part. “That’s not unreasonable. A normal workweek is forty hours. If you take time off for, uh, breaks and stuff, you’ll have them done in a week and one day. Easy.”

“Not including all the other things I do in a week to keep my business running smoothly. Or assist any customers who come in the door and need help, or just want to chat.”

“Good point.” He ran his fingers through his hair. That happened to him all the time. Most of the time he enjoyed chatting with his customers to maintain good client relationships. However, the more he chatted, the less work got done. His mind raced to recall the note. “One thing I do remember is that in the note, balloons was plural. Maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong. We need more than one.”

In answer to his unasked question, Amber pulled the note out of the drawer. “Here’s what it says. Bring out the balloons. Should I be decorating my whole place with balloons?”

“I don’t think so. It also said not to be a party pooper. Where is there going to be a party, with balloons?”

“Nowhere that I know. But . . .” Her eyes lit up and she smiled up at him.

Something in Stan’s gut went AWOL. Like when he’d gone up on the Ferris wheel with Amber, except this time nothing was moving. He couldn’t speak.

“I can make my own party to celebrate the flamingos. I can show them off, but not sell any of them. It can be a promotion for the garden club’s banquet. Then more people will buy tickets just to get one, since they’ll be a special item where that’s the only place you can get them except from that florist. But no one in the garden club would ever order flowers from a florist. They’d grow their own.”

Stan snickered. “I don’t think the garden club needs your help getting people to buy tickets for the big banquet.”

She bowed her head, and the brightness disappeared from her face. “Probably not, but I need to get their loyalty.” She gulped. “I need them to shop in my store. The flamingos help, but it’s a one-time deal.”

“Are you worried that everyone is going to go to that new store that opened up across town a few months ago, now that the owner also joined the garden club?”

Amber’s eyes opened wide, and she gasped. “How did you know about that?”

“I heard one of my customers talking about it. He said everything they sell is cheap junk, so you don’t need to worry.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he could tell that she was even more worried.

“Don’t you get it? It’s like the five-and-dime across the street from here. Full of cheap junk. Cheap junk is very popular. I can’t survive if I sell cheap junk. I have to earn enough to live.”

His mind whirred. “But how is that place going to survive then?”

“Because they buy cheap junk and sell it as cheap junk and everyone knows it’s cheap junk and accept it as such. I buy good quality supplies and make most of what I sell. I have to figure my labor into the cost. I sell my stuff for what it’s worth, covering materials and the time for my labor.” She stopped and stared at the ground. “Except for the flamingoes. I would have sold them for less. I never count my time at the store because I’m already there with nothing else to do. But I never counted on so many, which changes the rules.”

Stan grinned. “I guess God figured you needed that price then.”

Her cheeks turned the cutest shade of pink, and she nibbled her lower lip without raising her head. “I guess so.”

“If you’re worried about it, how about if we go there one day, just to check out what they’ve got, so you know your competition.”

That made her look up. “We can’t do that.”

“Sure we can. We can put on disguises, so they don’t know we’re scoping them out.”

“Disguises? I hope you don’t mean dark clothes and hats and sunglasses.”

He did, but he couldn’t admit that now. “We can do something so they don’t recognize us. Just in case they’ve already been here, scoping you out.”

Her eyes widened again, and he could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Never mind that. For now, I’ve got to get Gnorman and the trophy back. I can get Helen at the bakery to make up some nice sugar cookies for me, I’ll borrow the garden club’s coffee urn, and I think that will be good. That will make it almost like a party, so I won’t be a party pooper. I’ll do it on Saturday so everyone can come, and say that in order to gain admission, everyone needs to bring . . .” Her voice trailed off and she extended one hand toward him.

“Some of their favorite seeds? Rose petals?” At each of his suggestions, she shook her head. Then a light bulb went on in Stan’s head. Not the power-smart energy efficient type, but the old-fashioned incandescent kind that generated heat. He smiled ear to ear as he finished off her sentence—“. . . a balloon.”

Amber held back a groan as the last garden club member finally left. The last, that was, except for Stan.

Every cookie had been eaten, most of the coffee had been consumed, and hundreds of people had oohed and aahed over her flamingos. Most of them had either bought a ceramic butterfly, or bought a kit to make one themselves. Many had gone home with rain checks.

She didn’t know how word had spread, but more people had come than just the garden club. And every one of them had brought a balloon.

“I’ve never seen so many balloons in my life,” Stan muttered from somewhere behind her.

At first they’d dutifully hung every balloon that arrived, but it hadn’t taken long before every display, window, doorframe, and every wall, was covered. They’d piled them behind her counter, hung them from the metal cross bars on the ceiling, making sure not to cover the sprinklers or get too close to the light fixture to stay within safety regulations. When they ran out of empty space on the ceiling, they filled her studio.

It was amazing how much space a balloon occupied. She didn’t know how many were there, but if every member of the garden club brought a balloon, that meant seventy-nine balloons. Since she’d seen many people who were not members, that amount had possibly doubled.

Stan planted his fists on his hips and eyed all the balloons in sight, then looked back to her studio. “There’s enough balloons here to fill a delivery truck. Now what?”

She honestly had no idea. She didn’t know what she’d expected, maybe that when she got enough balloons, the Gnome Gnapper would appear with Gnorman and the trophy. Of course that hadn’t happened.

Now she was stuck with a truckload of balloons.

“We have to pop them,” she said. “I have a business to run, and I need room to walk. I also need to get stock out of the studio.”

“Wait. Before we start, I need to go to my shop. Sit down and have a coffee and take a break, I’ll be right back.”

Too tired to ask what he needed so badly, Amber flopped down on one of the rental chairs.

If Stan didn’t hurry, she’d fall asleep before he got back.

Yet, she was too nervous to sleep. Being surrounded by so many balloons made her nearly claustrophobic. When the tape started to lose its stickiness, she would be buried, covered by a sea of balloons.

Stan got back in record time. He flicked a balloon with one finger. “I know the Gnome Gnapper was here. We had a party, we got the balloons. We met his or her conditions. Now we start looking for the next note.”

Her head swam. She couldn’t see any place a note would be left. “We’ll never find a note. It would be covered by balloons.”

Stan poked at another one. The tape gave way and the balloon drifted to the ground, landing beside other balloons already piling up on the floor. “No. They won’t be covered. If you were going to sneak a note in here, think about it. It’s going to be . . .”

Amber slapped one palm to her forehead. “. . . inside one of the balloons.”

Together their gazes swept the sea of color.

She picked up the closest one and shook it. “That means we can’t just pop them, we have to check every one first.” She walked to the counter, pushed away enough balloons to open the drawer, pulled a couple of push-pins, and handed one to Stan. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. Let’s get popping.”

“Before we start, here’s what I brought back from my shop.” He held out his hand, displaying two sets of earplugs in his palm.

At first the thought of finding a note excited Amber, but as they popped more and more empty balloons, discouragement began to set in. Wearing earplugs made it pointless to attempt conversation, which made it even worse.

About halfway through the deluge, Stan tapped her on the shoulder. She pulled one earplug out and turned to him. He held up a small, note-sized piece of white paper that had been printed from a computer instead of words cut out of the newspaper.

The party was fun, and so it is said,

It’s time to sit in the backyard with the gingerbread,

And to rock the night away.

That is all I’ve got to say.

Amber stared at the note until the words blurred. “This one is so different from all the others. I’m not sure if it’s real.”

“It has to be real. Who else could have known what we were expecting? This fits right in with the last note. Did anyone else know about the other note?”

“Just Libby.”

They stared at each other, sharing the absurdity of that. They’d already ruled Libby out.

Amber reread the note. “This makes even less sense than the last note. Rock the night away? No one in the garden club is a rock ’n’ roller. A lot of them are retired, some are middle-aged, and most are home owners. After all, you pretty much have to own a house or townhouse to have a garden.”

Stan nodded. “Most people in the garden club are the relaxed mode kind of people. People who would sit in the backyard on an old-fashioned wooden swing and watch the flowers grow, not go to a rock concert.”

Amber turned to him. “Maybe that’s the reference. A rocking swing in the backyard. That’s where people go to relax in the evening here in Bloomfield. That makes sense. But gingerbread?” She squeezed her eyes shut. While many of the garden club members were decent cooks, she could only think of Helen making gingerbread. But Helen didn’t have a swing. “Who in the garden club has a swing in the backyard?”

Stan turned to her. “Libby does. Mostly everyone with a big backyard does.”

She closed her eyes, trying to make a mental list of people who were at The Spring Fling who might have a backyard swing. But there were just too many.

“Maybe we should get a membership list and drive around.” Although she was seriously trying to trim her budget, and the first thing she trimmed was spending money on gas by walking anyplace within half an hour of home.

“I have a better idea. We can cruise the Internet and use the satellite photos on Google Maps. You’ve got a membership list. We can take a look at everyone’s house that way. A satellite view should show us most of the people who have a swing.”

“Unless the swing is under a porch.”

“But it’s a start. We can begin with the As now, see how far we get, and finish up tomorrow after church.”

“I suppose. We also have to finish popping the rest of the balloons tomorrow. I just can’t do any more right now.” They’d only done about half, and even with the earplugs, she had a buzzing in her head that wouldn’t go away.

Stan tilted his head and whacked one ear with his palm, then shook his head. “I can’t either. I have an idea, though. It seems wasteful to pop them all. Why don’t I put as many as I can fit into the back of my truck, and I’ll take a load to the children’s wing of the hospital, and another load to the senior center? I’m sure they’d enjoy them.”

“That’s a great idea.”

Stan made a few phone calls and reached a couple of people who would gladly take the balloons. After they finished loading up his truck and securing the balloons with a tarp, Stan drove away with the first load. Amber returned to her desk, turned on her computer, and pulled up the garden club’s membership list. While looking at everyone’s houses from the satellite view, she convinced herself that she wasn’t violating anyone’s privacy, even though she did feel invasive doing it this way. Driving down the street in front of everyone’s homes would be just as bad, plus she’d be wasting gas.

Judging from the plant growth in each photo they pulled up, everything was a few months out of date, yet recent enough to see what she needed. She made a check mark beside everyone who had a swing in the backyard, then went on to the next on the list.

She’d gotten to the Es when Stan returned and peeked over her shoulder while she called up Sylvia Eddison’s house.

Stan’s breath caught and her fingers froze over the keyboard.

“Look at the house,” she muttered.

“Gingerbread siding. You can’t see it here, but I know Sylvia has a swing on her back porch.”

She turned and their eyes met.

“We found Gnorman,” they said in unison.