Chapter Fourteen

Stepping on Toes

We turned to leave but a loud rap on the door stopped us cold. Grace’s hand flew to her mouth as Mr. Steptoe’s swivel chair creaked forward.

“Who’s in there?” a deep voice rumbled.

Grace and I whirled to each other in panic. Trista ducked down, flicked on her Dirt Devil, and hoisted it onto her back. As the vacuum roared to life, Grace tossed me the feather duster we’d left on the desk and whipped out her Windex bottle like a gun from a holster. I grabbed all the emails from the tray, folded them lengthwise, and stuffed them in my back pocket as she raced to the door. She opened it only the tiniest crack and peered out like a suspicious old lady eyeing a door-to-door salesman. “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Zimball!” she said. “We’re doing some cleaning up.” She pushed Mr. Steptoe’s swivel chair aside, pretending it weighed roughly the same as a midsize sedan.

Mr. Zimball stepped inside. He blinked, bewildered. Trista’s vacuum howled. It was loud. Indy 500 loud. That is, if the Indy 500 was raced by portable vacuums.

I picked up a ceramic sea otter and dusted it so intensely that actual feathers started to shake loose from my duster.

Mr. Zimball cupped his hand next to his mouth. “Ms. Sparrow and the Court are looking for you!” he called out.

The vacuum shifted into an even higher whine as Trista, back still to the door, leaned over to clean the underside of the couch cushions.

“Pardon me?” Grace shouted.

“I SAID,” Rod’s dad yelled, “MS. SPARROW AND THE COURT . . .”

At that moment Trista pretended to finally notice we weren’t alone. She spun around, her dust mask covering the lower half of her face. Her vacuum whimpered slowly to silence just as Mr. Zimball finished his sentence: “. . . ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!” He blushed as his voice echoed against the blank walls. “They’re downstairs,” he added quietly.

I made a big show of pulling out my radio earpiece and shaking it. “Did they radio? We didn’t hear it.”

“MUST’VE BEEN TOO LOUD!” Trista shouted as if the vacuum was still roaring. She held up the hose, in case he missed the point.

“Right, well . . . ,” Mr. Zimball said. His eyes traveled to Mr. Steptoe’s desk, taking in the framed photos, the calendar, the dolphin-shaped pencil holder. I could feel the sadness rolling over him. He looked away again and cleared his throat. “This area’s closed.”

The stolen emails in my back pocket rustled against my shirt as we followed Mr. Zimball downstairs. The halls buzzed with other Brown Suiters hustling back to their offices after their morning meeting. They nodded respectfully to Mr. Zimball as we passed, and I felt doubly awful for lying to him—even if it was for his own protection.

We put away our cleaning supplies then followed the sound of the Court’s voices in the living room.

“Are they”—Grace knitted her eyebrows—“singing?” she asked, as if not quite sure if they might be meowing instead.

They were singing. Chanting, really. Their voices became clearer as we walked down the hall.

“Handle in your hand and your fingers on top! Handle in your hand and your fingers on top!” they called out, and I half-feared that we’d round the corner to the dining room and stumble upon some sort of ritual sacrifice.

Instead we discovered the Court around a table loaded with enough silverware to sink a schooner. They gripped their forks awkwardly, as if using never-before-seen tools from an ancient civilization.

Ms. Sparrow laughed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I know it’s silly, but the song totally works. Right? Now loosen those death grips, and keep those forks from clanking.”

Kendra Pritchard sat sulking at the opposite end of the table with her leg propped up on a chair. She winced melodramatically as Danica pressed a bag of frozen peas to her hurt ankle.

“Oh, pages!” Ms. Sparrow waved us in. “You’re just in time.”

Her friendliness caught me off guard. If Barb were in charge of the Royal Court, we’d be listening to a lecture about respect and how Kendra’s leg was going to have to be amputated because we hadn’t arrived in time. Of course, it would have probably been delivered with a lot of weird slang, bowing and curtseying, and proper royal-addressing. No matter how she felt about Lily not being chosen as Sun Queen, I was pretty sure that Barb was still dedicated to Festival tradition.

“We’re learning how to eat,” Sienna added, smiling goofily as she lifted her fork.

“And you all thought you already knew how,” Ms. Sparrow gave a sideways smile.

“Now the real challenge,” Ms. Sparrow said, eyes twinkling. “Meatball subs without licking your fingers or smearing your lipstick! Pages? Can you bring the sandwiches in from the kitchen for your princesses? Don’t forget a big stack of napkins.”

“The vegan one is mine,” Jardine warned with a glare. Her tone made me wonder if certain vegans were actually totally fine with murder.

We served the sandwiches, and on the way back to the kitchen to eat our own lunches with Danica and Denise, Grace ducked into the pantry. “We could use a little reorganizing in here, don’t you think?” she shouted to me and Trista.

“Looks fine to me,” Trista said.

“What a mess!” I called out at the same time, shoving Trista inside and pulling the door shut.

“Ow. Hey!” she called out. “What do you think you’re—? Oh, right, sorry,” she added as I pulled Barb Lund’s email out of my back pocket and held it up.

Grace took it from me and began to read aloud. “‘You are dead . . . wrong if you think you can drive me out.’”

I breathed a sigh of relief, the pantry’s smell of tea and spices calming me. “Thank God. Just a figure of speech.”

“‘You ruined Lily’s life over this—I will ruin yours,” Grace continued in a whisper, stiffening. “What is it they say? Eye for an eye.’”

“Some figure of speech,” Trista rasped. I felt the blood rush from my face. Hesitantly, we leaned over Grace’s shoulder as she read the rest. Filled with mistakes and those same weird abbreviations my mom texts when she thinks she’s being cool, the email looked like it had been typed on a smart phone and sounded more like an angry kid’s:

To: Jim Steptoe <jimsteptoe@wintersunfestival.org>

From: barbararlund@wintersunfestival.org

Subject: YOU ARE DEAD . . . !

. . . wrong if u think u can drive me out. You ruined Lily’s life over this—I will ruin yours. What is it they say? Eye for an eye. You sure have the right name cuz I am tired of u stepping on my toes. Ive shut up and just taken it until today because Lily deserved her shot at being Queen, but now it doesn’t matter does it? You all have taken care of that.

Ive done this for 22 years now and never had any problem and I have kept things on schedule and everyone always thinks my floats are the best and now u come along, and its change this, change that, its not safe like this, it needs to be like that? Well, its going to take alot more to make me quit. I swear on my Ridley ancestors grave that you will not live to see that day.

U say its time for me to go, I say its time for YOU to go! And u will, mark my words.

We looked at each other for several long seconds. Hands shaking, Grace folded the email and gave it back to me.

“‘You will not live to see that day . . . ,’” I repeated hoarsely.

“‘I’ve shut up and just taken it,’” Grace quoted. She bit her lip. “When Lily wasn’t queen, that was the final straw. She snapped and . . .” She made a slitting sound effect as she dragged her finger across her neck.

“Would she be stupid enough to send this first, though?” My voice shook almost as much as Grace’s hands had when she had handed me the email.

“She did make it to middle age without knowing ‘a lot’ is two words,” Trista pointed out.

“My mom says they didn’t teach grammar and spelling in the eighties,” Grace said matter-of-factly. “Not that I’m arguing.”

“Sure looks like she wrote it fast, at any rate,” I said. The email crinkled as I stuffed it back into my pocket. “A death threat. Hours before he shows up dead. If we hand this over to the police, they’ll have to look into it.”

“Just like they had to conduct a really long, detailed murder investigation?” Grace shot back sarcastically.

Just then the door creaked open.

Grace lunged for the shelves and started rearranging soup cans. I turned and nearly cried out. Lily Lund stood in the doorway.

Grace dropped a soup can with a thud. My stomach lurched to the floor with it. How much had she heard? I put my hands behind my back and shoved the email deeper in my pocket.

“Found them!” Lily called back to someone, and a sudden image of Barb lurking behind the corner wielding an ax flashed in my mind until I heard Danica and Denise’s voices in the kitchen.

“My mom specially requested you three to come help in the float barn,” she said. Her eyes looked big behind her dark-framed glasses. Her bangs weren’t curled, for once.

We all watched as the soup can started a slow roll toward her, wobbling across the hardwood like a badly thrown bowling ball.

She frowned at us. “Is something wrong?”

“Nope!” Trista cried out.

“Sounds fun,” I said, trying to smile though my heart was about to rip through my chest. “But, uh, you know”—I shrugged and gestured to the pantry—“We have our page duties.”

“Ms. Sparrow gave the okay. So, come down?” She stopped the can with her foot and handed it to Grace. “I mean, when you’re done here.” She looked around at the perfectly ordered shelves.

“Sure, we’ll be right there,” Grace said, her voice shaky.

As soon as Lily left, I shut the door and leaned up against it, breathing so hard it felt like my lungs were collapsing. Trista held out her asthma inhaler helpfully. I waved it away. “I’m all right,” I wheezed.

“It’s just a coincidence,” Grace said. She muttered it to herself two more times, as if that would somehow make it true.