“WHAT A STRANGE THING TO SAY,” Poco exclaimed when Georgina reported Walter’s parting words. “He really is the oddest person. It must come from having only a grandmother in his family instead of a mother and father and aunts and uncles like everybody else.”
“And not having any photographs to see what they looked like,” Georgina said. “It’s so queer. I would begin to wonder if I was who people said I was. Maybe that’s why he wants to make contact with his parents. Do you think he really talks to them? Or does he just pretend, to make himself feel better?”
Poco frowned at her friend. “If Walter Kew says he’s talked to his parents, then he has,” she declared. “Really, George, you are the most suspicious person. I know tiny field mice who have more trust in the world than you. Don’t you know that there are times you just have to believe, because it’s the only way.”
“I have never had to believe in anything,” Georgina sniffed. “And I don’t plan to start. What I believe in is sticking to the facts.”
“Well, if Walter is right, we can be sure of one fact,” Poco said. “Juliette is probably walking around in Angela’s yard at this very moment. Come on! Let’s go look.”
The winter afternoon was coming to an end as the two set off at top speed along the sidewalk toward the Harralls’ house. They were not even halfway there when the sun plunged below the horizon. Cars passing in the road began to turn on their headlights. Poco didn’t notice. She trotted along the street on her elf-tiny feet. Georgina trailed behind, showing rather less energy.
“Couldn’t we get up early tomorrow and look for Juliette then?” she called out. “It’ll be too dark to see anything when we get there.” The air had grown so cold that her words came out in white clouds.
“It doesn’t matter,” Poco called back. “We can hear. And smell!”
“Smell!” Georgina snorted. There were times when Poco made a person wonder if she wasn’t, with all her animal connections, turning into some small furry beast herself. A prairie dog, maybe. They had the same cute eyes and snub noses.
“What I mean is, smell the catnip,” Poco shouted over her shoulder without slowing down. “It grows in certain places in the Harralls’ yard. Juliette loves it. She told me once that for cats catnip is strong medicine, with power to cure sickness and wounds. I bet that’s where we’ll find her. If we can’t see her, we’ll sniff her out.”
Georgina did not know how to reply to this ridiculous idea without hurting Poco’s feelings, so she kept quiet. Luckily, they soon arrived at the Harralls’ front walk. But then—oh, dear!—one look made Georgina want to run in the opposite direction.
Never had a place looked so forbidding. While all the other houses on the street glowed with friendly lights, Angela’s house sat dark as a hunk of coal in its yard. The windows were black; the porches lurked in shadow; the chimneys rose against the sky like a devilish pair of horns. The yard was already largely invisible, though night had not yet fully fallen.
“What do we do now?” Georgina whispered.
“We walk around and look. And call.” Poco spoke calmly, but even she felt nervous. “If we stay together, we’ll be all right,” she instructed Georgina, who was now plainly cowering at her side.
“I don’t like this!”
“Come on, George. You’re being silly.”
“It’s too dark.”
“Hold my hand … Juliette! Here, Juliette!”
“I don’t think she’s here.”
“Juliette! Please come out.” Poco strode about the yard, dragging Georgina behind her.
“Poco, look. There are lights over there.”
“That’s just the garage apartment where Miss Bone is staying. Georgina! What is wrong with you. You’re shaking!”
“I’m freezing! I’m going home.”
“Well, all right. Maybe Juliette hasn’t gotten here yet. But let’s go knock on Miss Bone’s door first. She might have seen something. She’s home, I think. I just saw a shadow at the window.”
Suddenly Georgina gasped. “Poco! Look!”
They had made their way around the house by this time and were standing just opposite the three enormous garage doors. The Harralls, having plenty of money, always did things in a larger-than-life sort of way, and their garage was no exception. It was as big as most people’s houses, with an apartment up on the second floor. The entrance was a small door to one side. Because night had come, the door was now lit by an overhead lamp. There, on the raised stone stoop below the door, a row of strange little bodies was arranged.
“What are they?” Poco cried.
Georgina inched closer and peered down. “I don’t know. Mice?”
Poco came forward into the light and looked for herself.
“Three moles and two field mice. All dead,” she reported in a hollow tone. “What are they doing here? And lined up in this terrible way?”
As if in answer, the loud click of a door opening above came to their ears, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps descending an interior staircase.
Poco turned wide eyes on Georgina. “It’s Miss Bone!” she hissed. “Quick! Let’s hide!”
For reasons they could not have explained, the friends fled out of the light and across the driveway toward the Harralls’ house. Some large bushes rose in their path. They slid behind them. Only just in time!
The outside door to the garage apartment opened, and a tall, gray-haired woman stepped into the light. She peered suspiciously into the darkness, then raised a rather beaky nose into the air and sniffed.
Snuff. Her face turned toward the street.
Snuff. Her head came around and seemed to scan the driveway up and down.
Snuff. All of a sudden, as if she had homed in on their scent, Miss Bone looked exactly in the friends’ direction. Behind their bushes, Poco and Georgina stood paralyzed with fear.
Soon, however, Miss Bone’s nose dropped toward the gruesome little assemblage at her feet. Bending down, she examined the bodies. She turned two of them over with a long pointed finger.
After another most peculiar-sounding snuff (“I’ve heard anteaters make a noise like that,” Poco told Georgina later), she gathered the moles and mice together in her hands and turned and went back inside. The door closed behind her. The tread of her feet could be heard returning up the stairs. The inside door opened … and shut with its distinctive click.
A full minute passed before the bushes moved on the far side of the Harralls’ driveway. Then two shadowy forms slunk forth. They slid noiselessly onto the grass, darted around the back of the house, and went up toward the street. There, after a short, breathless conference, they melted into the night, each running in a different direction down the sidewalk—toward home.
Not until the next afternoon, when they met after lunch in the school library, did Poco and Georgina speak about what they had seen at Angela’s house. By then, they’d had the long night to think it over. Poco, especially, looked pale around the gills. She had been invaded by a desperate feeling that she would never see Juliette again.
“Georgina! What shall we do? Something is going on at Angela’s house. I’m sure of it!”
“I think we shouldn’t get upset yet,” Georgina replied. “Last night was weird, all right. But it could be explained.”
“You always say that!” Poco exploded. “But there is something horrible about that woman, Miss Bone. I’ve felt it since she first moved in. Remember when I told you that Angela’s yard had changed?”
“Hmmm.” Georgina kept watch over Poco’s shoulder, in case anyone should come into the library. Their conversation sounded odd in that sensible, bookish place.
“I thought it was just winter,” Poco went on. “You know, all the little animals hiding away and the birds flying south. But now I think something else may be happening.”
“You don’t believe that Miss Bone killed those animals!” Georgina looked at her friend in horror. “She’s just an old teacher—you said it yourself.”
“Well, someone killed them. Maybe someone who’s in her power.”
“In her power! Who?”
“Well … Juliette? It’s been two days since she ran off. My mother is making posters. We’re going to drive around town this afternoon and put them up. Also”—Poco glanced at Georgina—“my mother is going to speak to Miss Bone.”
“You mean, ask her if she’s seen Juliette?”
“Right.”
“Oh, well, that should settle it,” Georgina said. She heaved a sigh of relief. “I was beginning to think that we scared ourselves about nothing, anyway. What did we really see? A bunch of animals that probably died of cold, for that matter. Miss Bone was as surprised to find them as we were.”
“She was not!”
Georgina folded her arms. “Listen, Poco. You’re imagining things. If Miss Bone says she’s seen Juliette, we’ll just go back and find her. In the daylight this time.”
“And if Miss Bone says she hasn’t seen Juliette?”
“Well, I don’t know. What?”
“Then we’ll ask Walter Kew if we can use his board again,” Poco said, her voice falling to a whisper. “Because she might be lying. The board will tell us the truth.”
“I don’t know why you trust that board,” Georgina said irritably. “I think it’s completely unreliable. Remember how it broke down and couldn’t answer my question about—”
Poco grabbed Georgina’s arm to stop her. “Ssh!” She glanced over her shoulder, looking so much like Walter that Georgina felt a jab of alarm. “Your question was about Miss Bone,” Poco hissed. “Remember, George? Can you see how there’s beginning to be a pattern?”
“Good grief! If there’s going to be that kind of pattern, I don’t want to think about it.”
“I’m sorry, but you have to think about it,” Poco said sternly, “because Juliette’s life may be at stake.”
“Juliette’s life!” Georgina didn’t know what to say. Poco was leaping to the blackest sorts of conclusions.
“We will see what we will see,” Poco continued. “I’ll call you at home this afternoon, as soon as I hear what my mother finds out.”
Georgina nodded. She felt totally confused. A sudden wild desire to see Angela surged up inside her. Angela had never seemed especially remarkable before. She had seemed, if anything, rather stubborn and thin-skinned. But now, without her, Georgina could see that the group was somehow losing its balance. They were like a cart rushing headlong downhill on two wheels. “Oh, Angela, if you would just come back!” Georgina cried under her breath as she watched Poco’s determined little prairie-dog shape trot away along the school corridor. “We are all lost without you. Not just Juliette.”