Twenty-one

When I popped out onto Polk Street, I found Sam and Beecher lying in the yard.

Sam had bundled Beech into his winter coat, gloves, and boots, his hood tied tight, his scarf wound around his neck all the way up to his nose so the only part you could see of him were his two eyes blinking out from behind all that bundling.

Sam was zipped tight, too, and the two of them were sprawled on their backs in the snow, beside Joe and Samir’s shoveled piles, flapping their arms and legs.

Making snow angels.

Which was really weird since snow totally freaks Beecher out (he’s terrified he’ll slip and fall) and since an angel was maybe the last thing on the planet I thought Sam Zawicki would ever want to make.

But there she was, sliding her arms and legs and laughing about it with Beech, her giggles puffing out in little white clouds above her.

Beecher’s voice floated across the snow. “Tell Mrs. Hottins,” he said.

“Your teacher?” said Sam.

“Tell her we do angels.”

I made my way up the front walk.

“So . . . hey,” I said.

Sam stopped flapping and sat up. She pushed the sleeve of her parka up to check her watch.

“Crud,” she muttered.

She carefully stood and leaped across the snow, to keep from messing up her snow angel with footprints, I guess. She leaned down and helped Beech up too. Lifted him out so his angel wouldn’t get messed up either.

She set him down on the walk and grabbed her satchel off the porch step.

Then she stopped. She studied Beecher’s snow angel.

“Does he need a cape?” she asked him.

Beech shook his head. “Not superhero.”

“You sure? He looks like a superhero.”

Beech shook his head again. “Not superhero.”

Sam let out a breath. “Okay.”

She hoisted the satchel onto her shoulder and bolted off down the walk. About knocked me into Joe and Samir’s shoveled piles.

“Glad to see you too,” I said as I swirled my arms to regain my balance.

Beech and I watched as she disappeared down Polk Street.

I shook my head. Who knew what was up with her lately? I mean, first she goes all grizzly bear defending the bulletin board, and after that it was like she couldn’t stand being on the same planet as me.

 

I crouched over my desk in the Batcave—a stealth comic book genius hunkered down in his secret hideaway. I gripped my pencil. Steadied my hand. Took aim at my sheet of Bristol board. And drew . . .

. . . nothing.

I sank back in my desk chair.

I let out a sigh.

I couldn’t draw. My brain wouldn’t let me.

I pulled my health notebook from my backpack, turned to an empty page, and scribbled out a list.

I stared out the window. It had to be someone in Art Club. But who? Not Spencer. He had the enthusiasm, for sure. But the skills? No.

Plus, if Spencer had done it, all the photocopies would have little knitted picture frames.

So who? I sifted through the members of Art Club in my head.

Gretchen Klamm? Too timid.

Martin Higby? Too disorganized.

So who?

Who could get into the school when nobody else was there? Who could plaster the halls with copies? Who could make all those copies in the first place?

I stopped.

One person could do all that without anyone noticing, not even Mr. Petrucelli. I studied my list again.

 

 

I gripped my pencil and scribbled the name across the middle of the page.