Chapter 19

THURSDAY, MAY 14

5:02 P.M.

PEDHERSON’S NEIGHBORHOOD, INDIANA

“What’s our plan when we see this guy?” I asked, staring at Tom Pedherson’s house from the sidewalk.

“We ask him if he noticed anything unusual about the music box he won at the work party,” said Avery. “That was a few days after the church was robbed, but there’s still a chance he was involved.”

“Billing people on the phone by day, magical criminal by night,” I said.

“I think you’re joking, but that could easily be the truth,” said Avery. “A lot of people that work for Magix also have regular day jobs. They just keep the magic secret so the Igs can benefit from it.”

“So do we think this guy’s an Ed?” I asked.

“That’s the first thing we have to find out.”

We were on the porch now, and Avery knocked on the front door. A moment later, it swung open to reveal the man we’d seen in the doorbell cam footage. He was very tall and somewhat round in the middle. His hair hadn’t gone gray yet, but it had receded almost halfway across his scalp.

“Tom Pedherson?” Avery checked.

“That’s me,” he said, his voice friendly. “What can I do for you kids?”

“My name is Mason Morrison,” I cut in. “I believe you know my mom?” Avery cast a glance at me like she didn’t know what I was doing. But I kept going. “I wanted to thank you personally for letting me use your music box for my book report.”

“Glad to be of help,” he said. “How did that go for you?”

“It was . . . unbelievable. My teacher is holding on to the music box for a day or two while she finishes grading the report,” I lied. “Do you mind if we come inside for a minute? Ask you a few follow-up questions about it?”

“Of course not,” he said, but I thought he seemed uneasy. Tom led us into his living room, inviting us to take a seat on the couch. But I was too stunned by what I saw to sit down.

Music boxes.

The living room was full of them. They filled a bookcase, lined shelves, and covered the mantel above the fireplace. There must have been almost a hundred of them—some wooden, some metal, some glass. Most of them were open to display the wide variety of figurines inside, but there was no music playing.

“That’s a nice rabbit there,” Tom said, gesturing to the creature in Avery’s arms.

I waited for Fluffball to say something rude, but he actually held his tongue for once. Maybe it was because Tom didn’t say “pet” or “bunny.”

“What breed is it?” asked Tom, seating himself on a padded armchair.

“Annoying,” I said.

“He meant Angora,” corrected Avery, still glancing around the room. “This is quite a collection of music boxes.”

“Eighty-eight of them,” he answered proudly. “Well, eighty-seven, since I let you borrow one.”

“My mom said you won a music box at the work party last month,” I said. I’d assumed that was why she’d reached out to him. But maybe she knew about his collection. He could have lent me any one of these. . . . “Which one did you win?”

“The one I let you borrow, actually,” answered Tom.

“Can you tell us exactly how it came into your possession?” Avery asked, her tone very businesslike.

Tom chuckled, as if amused by such a professional attitude in someone so young. “Like Mason said, it was at a work party for True Cost—Mason’s mom was there, too, sitting right across the table from me.”

“What do you do for True Cost?” Avery asked.

“I just make phone calls,” he said. “Tell people to pay their bills.”

“Go on with the work party,” Avery said, waving for him to continue.

“Everybody took a raffle ticket when they got there,” Tom went on. “At the end of the night, they drew tickets from a bowl. If the numbers matched, you won a prize.”

“And the music box was your prize?” I clarified. That seemed awfully lucky. Maybe he’d touched the boon earlier in the night, and a bit of good fortune had rubbed off on him.

Tom fidgeted for a second before nodding. “I was excited about it. As you can see, I’m a collector.”

“Did you display that particular music box after winning it?” Avery asked.

He nodded, pointing to an empty space in the center of the mantel. “Cleared a prime spot for it.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about that music box?” she pressed.

“It was probably my favorite song of the bunch,” he said. “It would get stuck in my head when I opened it. Helped make the workday go by a little quicker if I had that tune in my mind.”

Avery and I shared a quick glance. If the magic was rubbing off on him—and it sounded like it had been—then Tom Pedherson had to be an Ig.

“If that particular music box was precious enough that you cleared a prime spot on the mantel for it,” Avery continued, “then why were you so willing to lend it to Mrs. Morrison, knowing that her thirteen-year-old son would be taking it to his middle school, where it could easily be broken, smashed, or ruined?”

Tom’s fidgeting was very noticeable now. “Wait a second,” he muttered. “Did something happen to my box?”

“It’s in perfect condition,” I answered. Or at least, it had been the last time I’d seen it, flying off the edge of a cliff to land in a raging muddy river.

“Could you answer the question, please?” Avery pressed. I was surprised by her boldness. I had a hard time standing up to kids my own age, let alone adults I didn’t know. “Why did you lend out the music box?”

“Your mom is a friend of mine,” Tom said. It didn’t take a skilled detective to see how uneasy he was. “She called me because she knew I had a collection of music boxes . . .”

“Exactly. You could have let her borrow any one of these”—Avery motioned around the room—“but you picked the one that played your favorite song, and personally delivered that particular box to the Morrison household, all the way across town, after ten o’clock at night. Why?”

Tom Pedherson took a deep, steadying breath. “I think it’s time for you kids to go.” He stood abruptly, and something seemed to catch his eye out the living room window. Following his gaze, I glimpsed a pair of pedestrians down the road. I felt my body go tense, my heart beginning to pound.

Agents Clarkston and Nguyen were coming down the sidewalk toward Tom’s home!

They were still several houses away, but their gray suits and top hats instantly gave them away. Avery must have seen them, too, because she gasped and took a step away from the window.

“How did they find us?” I hissed, joining her on the other side of the room.

“I don’t know,” answered Avery. “But we can’t let them see us.” She whipped off her top hat and reached inside.

“Excuse me?” Tom said. “I asked you to leave.”

Avery pulled out her hand, and I saw that she was holding the familiar truth shoe.

“What?” I cried. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“We’re already the two most wanted criminals on Magix’s list,” she said to me. “Exposing an Ig isn’t going to make things worse for us. Besides, we have that memory boon notebook in the hat that Fluffball told us about.”

“What on earth are you kids talking about?” Tom asked.

“Would you do us a favor and put on this shoe?” Avery held it out, as though it were enticing.

“What?” cried Tom. “I don’t think so—”

“Look, Mister,” Fluffball suddenly chimed in, his deep voice clearly irritated. “The girl was asking nicely, so put on the shoe!”

Tom Pedherson swore.

“And watch your language in front of the kids,” Fluffball added, shaking a paw at the man who stood rooted in place, staring at the talking bunny with wide, disbelieving eyes. Fluffball pointed at the item in Avery’s outstretched hand. “The shoe?” he grumbled impatiently.

Wordlessly, Tom Pedherson took the dirty sneaker and dropped into the armchair, slipping the shoe onto his stocking foot.

“This shoe is a magical item called a boon,” Avery explained. Was she really doing this? “It makes the person wearing it tell the truth.”

“Okaaaay?” said Tom.

“Were you aware that the music box you won at the work party was a magical boon capable of transporting the person who opened it along with anyone looking at them?” Avery asked.

Tom shook his head. “Nope. I just liked the song it played.”

“Then why were you so willing to give it to my mom?” I asked. “Why did you lend me that particular music box when you had so many others to choose from?”

“Because it should have been hers to begin with!” Tom cried. Then he gasped and covered his mouth, as though surprised that he’d spoken the truth.

“What?” I muttered.

“Explain yourself,” Avery demanded.

“Your mom was supposed to win the music box in the raffle,” he said. “The announcer read the number on her ticket, but she wasn’t paying attention. I reached across the table and switched our tickets so I could claim the prize.”

“Why?” I asked.

He pointed around his living room. “Hello?” he said. “I’m a collector.”

“You already felt guilty about winning the music box,” Avery summed up. “And when Mason’s mom asked to borrow one, the guilt was too much and you were willing to drive all the way across town to give her the box she should have won.”

“That’s not all,” said Tom. “The woman calling the numbers . . . she must have wanted Tamara to win the music box, because the drawing was rigged.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“When I was leaving the party, I passed by the bowl with the remaining tickets—the numbers of all the people who didn’t win anything.” Tom looked right at me. “Your mom’s number was in there—sitting right on top.”

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

“That means the person calling the numbers cheated, too,” said Avery. “They said your mom’s number to make sure she would win the music box, even though they didn’t draw her ticket.”

“I don’t know why they wanted her to win,” said Tom sincerely. “Everybody knows that I’m the one who loves music boxes.”

“So you stepped in and claimed the prize meant for my mom,” I said.

Out the living room window, I saw Agents Clarkston and Nguyen heading up the walk toward the Pedhersons’ front door.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I started, but Avery wasn’t finished.

“I’m going to need the name and address of the person who called the numbers,” she said to Tom.

“It was Cheryl Denton,” he answered. “I can give you her address, but you won’t find her there.”

“Why not?” she followed up.

“She’s in Hawaii with her whole family,” said Tom. “Honestly, I don’t know how she’s affording it. Cheryl’s always complaining about how tight money is . . .”

“I bet someone paid her off,” Avery guessed, “for reading your mom’s raffle ticket even though she drew a different number that was supposed to win the music box.”

There was a knock at the front door.

“We have to get out of here,” I whispered again. “Get out the atlas.”

Avery took off her top hat, but Fluffball shouted, “Wait! The atlas puts off a unique signature. Magix could be tracking it.”

“Of course!” said Avery to me. “It’s the same way Magix tracked you when you used the music box. They must have picked up the magical signature when we used the atlas to leave New York. Then they focused on it when we transported to the church and back, tracking us here.” She held her hat out for the rabbit. “Find that memory boon notebook—quick!”

Fluffball jumped into the top hat, disappearing from view with an audible gasp from Tom.

“Is there another way out of here?” I asked.

“You can go out the back door,” suggested Tom, obviously still under the influence of the truth shoe. “The backyard borders up against a little creek.”

Another knock from the people at the front door. This time Agent Nguyen’s voice called out. “Hello? This is . . . the police. We’re looking for two runaway children, thirteen years of age.”

“Here,” whispered Fluffball, whose head suddenly poked out of Avery’s top hat. She pulled out the bunny, who was holding a small notebook between his front paws.

“What is that?” Tom asked.

“The childhood journal of someone named Angelica Gutierrez,” answered the rabbit.

“Who’s that?” Tom cried.

“I don’t really know,” answered Fluffball. “But she must have done something really good with her life because her journal is now a memory boon.”

“Listen up,” said Avery. “Every time you rip out a page of the journal, any person who hears the paper tear has the last fifteen minutes of their memories erased.”

That was the way Fluffball had described it to us when he briefly listed the boons in the hat.

“Tom should rip it,” I said. “That way we can plug our ears.”

“If we give you this notebook, will you rip out a page?” Avery asked him.

He nodded anxiously. “I’d be more than happy to forget about that bunny. He’s the stuff of nightmares.”

Fluffball hissed at him, baring his buckteeth and bulging his reddish eyes.

“We should probably take the shoe back, too,” I said.

Tom reached down and yanked it off. Avery handed him the notebook, and we both plugged our ears. I hummed a little, just to make sure I couldn’t hear.

I saw him rip out the page, his face wrinkling with confusion the moment it was done. “Who are—” he began.

“Thanks,” Avery cut him off, snatching the book out of his hands and racing for the back door. I grabbed the shoe and followed, rounding the corner just as I heard the Magix agents push open the front door.

We burst into the backyard, sprinting until we were safely hidden in the dense trees that ran along the little creek.

“I think we can cross off Tom Pedherson as a suspect,” I said. “He’s a selfish Ig, but he didn’t frame me for a magical crime.”

“But he did give us some useful information,” added Avery.

“Not really,” I said. “With that Cheryl lady in Hawaii, there’s no way we can question her. Even if we dared to use the atlas, it only covers the eastern US.”

“Think about what else we learned,” she said as we moved quietly along the creek. Avery had set Fluffball on the ground, and he seemed quite happy to be exploring nature, nibbling at the greenery.

“A lot of people cheated at my mom’s work party,” I said.

“Exactly,” said Avery. “Why?”

“To make sure my mom won the music box.”

“And why did they want her to have it?”

“So I would use it,” I said. “To frame me for stealing the boons from the church.”

“But when your mom didn’t win it,” replied Avery, “whoever was framing you had to take a different approach to getting the music box into your hands. They needed you to ask for it. Why?”

I snapped my fingers. “For my book report!”

Avery nodded. “What was the book?”

“It was called The Music in the Box,” I said. “It had a robot music box on the cover.”

“Where did you get the book?”

I thought back to two weeks ago. “The school library.”

“Did you pick it randomly off the shelf?”

“No,” I said, trying to remember details that hadn’t seemed important at the time. “Somebody gave it to me and suggested that I read it.”

“Do you remember who?”

“The usual school librarian was absent that day,” I said. “There was a substitute. Charity Vanderbeek’s mom. She was the one who gave me the book.”

“And what did she say about it?”

The memory was actually pretty clear in my mind. “She said I might like it. She said all I’d need for my book report was a good-looking music box and I’d probably get an A.” I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise at what this all meant.

Avery grinned. “I think it’s time to pay Ms. Vanderbeek a visit.”