The general store at the Kuskawa Pioneer Village Park was part-museum, part real store. They sold ice cream and soft drinks, but they didn’t have any modern slushie machines or glass-fronted coolers. It was as different from a present-day convenience store as it could be, and way more interesting.
For one thing, the front counter was covered in big glass jars full of candy, and none of it was really expensive. There were some things that you could get, three for a dime, say, or two for five cents. You could tell the general store man that you had a loonie to spend, and he’d get a small paper bag and a pair of tongs, and you’d point to a jar and ask for “two of those, and three of these” and he’d keep count until you got to a dollar, but he’d usually throw in a couple of extra, just to be nice. There were little caramel squares and round jelly things covered in sugar. There were gum balls and licorice strings and striped peppermints (they were called “humbugs”) and coloured sticks like candy canes, only better. There was something brown called horehound candy (Josée got some, but Ziggy wasn’t sure about the name) and molasses toffee and pieces of fudge wrapped in wax paper. Both of them spent only a dollar, but the little paper bags were satisfyingly full.
“Mamère told me about this,” Josée said. “Back when she was a girl, they had stores where you could get loads of candy for a penny. It’s way more fun this way than just buying something from a rack.”
“Your mom isn’t old enough to be a pioneer, is she?” Ziggy said.
“No, of course not. But they had stores like this in Quebec when she was growing up,” she said.
The store was crammed with everything you could imagine. Farm tools and rubber boots, buckets and pots and pans and cans of food and bolts of cotton material to make dresses from. Most of it was museum-display stuff, but it was set up to look like a general store would have looked long ago. It smelled sort of like a cross between a church and a bakery, Josée said. Probably because Mrs. Creasor’s sticky buns were on sale, and there were scented candles for sale in a carton by the door.
They worked their way right round the store, munching from their paper candy bags and looking at everything, before making their way back to the counter again.
“So, should we get some ice cream for Alain?” Josée asked.
“Better to get him a bag of candy like ours,” Ziggy said. “We don’t know if he went down into the ravine or not, and a cone could melt before we find him. We can save our coupons for later.” Together, they had enough change for another dollar-bag of candy and got him a bit of everything.
“You know,” the man behind the counter said (who’d introduced himself as Franklin), “back in pioneer times, they had dentists, but they weren’t as nice as dentists are today. If you got a cavity from eating all that candy, they’d just yank out the tooth with a pair of pliers.”
“Ouch,” Ziggy said. “Didn’t they have toothbrushes?”
“Well, toothbrushes weren’t mass produced in North America until 1885, so probably most people didn’t.” Somebody else came up to the counter wanting to buy something, so they thanked Franklin and went back out into the sunshine.
“I read in the Little House on the Prairie books that pioneer kids got candy, like, once a year at Christmas, if they were lucky,” Josée said.
“I don’t think I could have stood it,” said Ziggy. “Let’s go find Alan.”
They met him halfway down the ravine path. He was on his way up. The path was overgrown, and obviously not used much.
“Hey!” Ziggy shouted as soon as they saw him. “We brought you something.”
“You know what?” Alan said. “Somebody’s been camping down here. There’s a firepit and everything.”
“Really? Where? I bet Mrs. Tench doesn’t know,” Ziggy said. “Should we tell her?”
“Maybe.”
“The person isn’t still there, are they?” Josée said.
“No, I think they’re long gone. Come and see.” Alan led them down the path to the creek at the bottom, then along a little way. The creek was shallow, but fast running, trickling with a merry noise over smooth rocks, glinting in the sunshine. There were pools that looked like small bathtubs—places you could probably lie down in and let the water rush over you. There were lots of fallen trees to climb over, the canopy of trees overhead made dappled shadows on the piney forest floor, and it felt very secret and private.
“Wow, this is great down here,” Ziggy said. “You could build a fort.”
“Somebody has, sort of,” Alan said.
It was a lean-to shelter made of pine boughs, cleverly woven together. Ziggy immediately crawled inside. It was cozy, he said. There were pine boughs on the ground, too, like a kind of bed. There was no sign of anybody’s belongings, though. And no garbage, either. Whoever had camped there had left nothing like that behind.
“This shelter wasn’t made all that long ago,” Ziggy said, coming out again. “The ends of the boughs are still leaking glue.” He tried to wipe the sticky pine resin off his hands by wiping them on his overalls, which didn’t work very well. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Greta-the-costume-lady is going to kill me.”
“It’s been a while since they had a fire going,” Alan said, pointing to a small circle of stones set up near the shelter. “I checked the coals—they’re wet and cold.” Ziggy and Josée came to look.
“That’s weird,” Josée said. “That doesn’t look like a wood fire to me.”
“You’re right,” Ziggy said. The three of them had often built campfires at Ziggy’s grandfather’s getaway cabin on Mud Lake. They knew that if you burn wood, there’s usually a half-burned stick or two in the embers, after you’ve poured water on it to put it out. There were no sticks, here. Just a lot of ash and some small lumps.
“It looks like somebody used charcoal. Maybe barbecue stuff,” Alan said.
“Or I know!” Ziggy said. “They used some coal from the blacksmith shop. His coal is in lumps like this, isn’t it?”
“So whoever was camping here wasn’t a homeless person or a tourist,” Alan said. “It would have to be someone who knows there’s coal kept in a building at the top of the ravine.”
“Maybe teenagers,” Josée said.
“Nah, no smashed bottles,” said Alan.
“Your sister would murder you if she heard that one,” Ziggy said. “Not all teenagers are bottle-smashers.”
“Maybe it was Ellen. Maybe she likes to come down here with her friends,” Josée said.
“So should we tell Mrs. Tench? Or Constable Mills?” Ziggy asked. “It counts as a weird thing, doesn’t it? Or at least, something out of the ordinary.”
“Let’s wait. We’ll add it to the case notes and maybe ask Ivor if he’s missing any coal,” Alan said.
“Good idea,” Ziggy said. “We could do that right now.”
Josée and Ziggy headed back to the path, but Alan ducked back inside the lean-to for a moment, wondering what it would be like to be down here by yourself at night, with only a coal fire to keep you company. He sat down on the pine bough bed. Could he last a whole night here? Probably he could, he decided. If he had his trusty flashlight with him as well. And some food. He scrambled back up and started to brush off the palms of his hands as he emerged into the light. Something was sticking to them—not pine glue, but something finer. A bit gritty. He looked down at his hand. It was some kind of white-ish grey dust. It didn’t look like ash from the fire. He sniffed it. It didn’t smell of anything. He thought about tasting it (that’s what TV cops did sometimes to see if the mystery powder was some kind of drug) but decided against it. It was probably just dirt. He glanced back inside the shelter and saw that, in getting up, he’d put one hand on the ground beside the pine boughs, and there was more of the white dust scattered in a circular area just in front of where he’d been sitting. It looked like somebody had dropped a salt shaker there, except that it wasn’t salt. Some lumps were mixed in with the dust, and he picked one up and pocketed it to look at later.
“Alan! You coming?”
When they got back up to the top of the ravine, they could see Mrs. Creasor just coming out of the inn, carrying a big laundry basket.
“We’ll do that, Mrs. C,” Ziggy said. “We know you’ve got more amazing baking to do.”
“If you think that flattery will get you somewhere, you’re quite right,” she said, twinkling at him. “I’d appreciate you three taking this washing down. The sun’s dried it in record time, and the aprons’ll have to be ironed. Maybe you’d like to help me with that, Josée.”
“Bien sûr, madame,” Josée said, but darted a disappointed look at the boys. Alan thought that maybe the women’s quarters stuff was beginning to make his friend feel left out.
“We’ll visit Ivor together later,” he assured her.
“I do have one little question, though,” Mrs. Creasor said, handing Ziggy the laundry basket. “Now, I don’t want to be pointing fingers, and I know you’re all good kids, but one of my pies has gone missing. I made six, you see, and gave you one to take home last night, but there were only four on my table in the kitchen this morning.”
“That’s weird,” Alan said. And they all looked significantly at each other. Was it the camper in the ravine who took the pie?
“Well, I thought it was odd. Maybe it was the inn poltergeist,” Mrs. Creasor said. “Anyway, I’m not accusing you, you understand. But if you happen to see an empty pie plate in your wanderings, I’d appreciate you bringing it back to me. They’re period, you know. Original tin ones, the kind Mrs. Tench calls ‘artifacts’. I’d be in trouble if we lost one. You might want to sort of snoop around the staff areas.” She headed back to the back door of the inn.
“Did she just say what I think she said?” Ziggy asked.
“That we should snoop around? Yessss.” Alan did a tiny version of the pumping-arm hooray thing. “Another nod from the top. Like Constable Mills making us deputies. Now Mrs. C has done it, too.”
“Well, Madame C’s not the top,” Josée said. “But this would give us an excuse to look anywhere, yes? We can say ‘we’re looking for the missing pie plate’, wherever we go.”
They made quick work of taking down the laundry. When they carried it in, Mrs. Creasor was already setting up a couple of wooden ironing boards in the kitchen, next to the woodstove, and answering tourists’ questions.
“Well, they didn’t have electricity back then, did they, dear? So they used these—sad-irons, they’re called. Look like prehistoric battleships, don’t they? Mind, dear, they’re heavy. Yes, It’s shaped like your mom’s iron at home, isn’t it? Just without the dials. Yes, exactly! You heat them on the woodstove, and iron the clothes and linens with them. It’s an art, mind you, and it’s easy to burn things. Can’t be too hot, and you have to keep a sprinkler of water nearby, to wet the material. Oh—here they are! These are my helpers, you see. Young people in pioneer times had hundreds of chores to do.” Alan, Ziggy and Josée tried to look strong and capable.
Mrs. Creasor grabbed up an apron from the pile of dry laundry and spread it on the ironing board with a flourish, like a magician about to do a trick. She had attracted a little crowd, about six or seven adults and children gathered in a semi-circle to watch. Mrs. Creasor was in full, expansive grandmother mode.
“Ziggy and Alan, dear, can you pass round the ginger cookies? And all of you please help yourselves to lemonade. It’s on the table there.” The irons had only been on the woodstove top for a few minutes, but Mrs. Creasor picked one up by its handle, licked her finger, then touched the bottom of the iron with it. It hissed like a snake. “It’s ready,” she said.
Then she began to iron swiftly, sprinkling water from a slender jar that looked like a salt-shaker. Steam rose up, and in a moment she was done.
“Now, you may be thinking that this isn’t very important or interesting,” she said to her listeners. “But think of ironing every item of clothing in your closets this way. And washing them by hand, too, like we did with these things this morning.”
“Okayyy—too much like school now,” Ziggy whispered to Alan. “Let’s go.” Alan nodded, and they started making their way towards the door, Ziggy stopping to grab one more cookie from the plate on the table. They signalled to Josée that they were leaving. She nodded and mouthed “bye”. Mrs. Creasor had given her an iron, and she looked like she was enjoying herself.
They stepped out onto the front porch of the inn.
“Did you ever iron anything?” Alan said. “At home, my mom does all that.”
“At Vati’s, the iron lives in a closet full of spiders,” Said Ziggy. “I’ve never seen him use it.”
“What about your mom—when she’s home. Does she iron?”
“I guess so. I’ve never really noticed.” They walked up the road towards the woodworking shop, both with the same, idea. They wanted to do some pioneer guy stuff. They’d spent enough time in the women’s quarters. They both kept a lookout for Sheldon. If he saw them, they’d end up with another pioneer guy job involving shovels or paint, so they agreed to hide if they saw him coming.
They walked in silence for a bit. Then Alan said, “When your parents come home from one of their really long trips, like this last one, what’s it like?”
“Well, you worry about what things are going to be like until you’re in it, then you just get through it,” Ziggy said. “It’s sort of weird the first day, then it’s just normal. It’s your dad, you’re thinking about, eh?”
“If he came back—if somehow he got out of prison in Haiti and came home, well, I don’t even know him. What would it be like to meet a man you’d never seen before who wanted you to call him ‘Dad’?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t be too much like meeting a stranger. Your mom is always saying you look like him.”
“I might look like him the way he was, yeah. But what would he look like now? After nine years in some scary jail?”
“Don’t go there,” Ziggy said. “I’d ask your mom about it first and find out what’s happening.”
Alan nodded then suddenly stiffened.
“Sheldon alert,” he hissed. “I hear the MiniCat. Hide!” They jumped behind some bushes beside the path and crouched down. Sheldon was riding the shiny orange tractor in full daylight, with tourists around. They knew this was a no-no—no modern conveniences allowed on the site when the park was open. That’s why people had to hide their walkie talkies in the breadbin.
“Mrs. Tench will have a cow,” Ziggy said. He didn’t have to whisper, because the little tractor made quite a lot of noise.
“Look, the front’s full of coal. He’s making a delivery to the blacksmith shop.”
“Where’s he getting it from?”
“He came from up there,” Alan said, pointing. “Let’s go see, while he’s down here.” As soon as Sheldon and his tractor were safely past, they scurried up the path in the direction from which he had come.
There were still plenty of places they hadn’t visited yet, and the path they were following wasn’t on the site map. They arrived a minute later at a domed metal garage beside a gate.
“This must be the service entrance,” Alan said. “I guess they don’t want people making deliveries in trucks and stuff at the front gate, eh?”
The hut was deserted, and there was nobody around. They peered into the one room through the glass in the door and saw a chair, a phone and some office-looking papers—not much else. The back of the building was wide open. All sorts of building materials were stacked against the back wall. There were oil drums and concrete blocks, coils of wire and pipe, and at the front, a huge pile of coal.
“So this is where it’s stored,” Alan said. “No way the camper in the ravine could steal some from here, though, not if it’s locked up.”
“They probably just got it from the blacksmith shop,” Ziggy said. “I mean, I know they probably lock that up at night, too, but it’d be way easier to break into there than into a metal garage.”
“Hey, you kids. What are you doing snooping around up here?” It was Sheldon, on foot, hurrying towards them. No chance to hide this time. And running away would be asking for it. So they waited until he got close enough to talk to.
“We were just exploring,” Alan said.
“And looking for a mysterious missing pie plate,” Ziggy added.
“Well, you ain’t gonna find a pie plate up here, that’s for sure. That Creasor woman thinking I stole one of her pies again? I wouldn’t dare, after the last time.”
“It’s happened before?” Alan said.
“Sure. About a week ago. Can’t say as I’m surprised. If you bake homemade cookies and pies and whatnot, then leave them around unattended, of course some of it is going to go walking. People are only human.”
“But you had nothing to do with it,” Alan said.
“ ’Course not. Now scram, or I’ll give you a job to do.” They scrammed.