Amelia saw everything through the slats of her bedroom blind. A rust-speckled blue van crept up the street and rattled to a stop in front of their house. She crossed her fingers. Please, please, please, make everything go right.
The front door of the van sprang open, and a guy with glasses and a mop of curly brown hair leaped out. He peered at a paper in his hand, glanced up at the house and then stared at his watch.
He must be Duke, Amelia decided. But where was Gabriella?
The guy got back in the van, but he left the door open, and hip-hop music drifted up through Amelia’s open window. Then, in the distance, a roaring sound grew louder and louder, drowning out the hip-hop. A silver motorcycle raced down the street. It swerved behind the van, and two people wearing black leather coats and pants and matching purple helmets scrambled off. One of them was very tall, the other much shorter. Was the tall guy Duke and the guy in the van someone else? Amelia chewed her bottom lip. Tall could be a problem. The short person tugged off her helmet, and red hair cascaded to her waist. Gabriella for sure!
They were talking to the driver of the van now, who had gotten back out. Then the guy from the motorcycle gestured with his arm, and they disappeared around the side of the house.
Amelia grabbed the key from her dresser and sped down the hall. The door to the downstairs apartment was at the back of the house, down three concrete stairs. The tall guy from the motorcycle was rattling the doorknob. He’d taken off his helmet, and he had a buzz cut. Up close, he was even bigger. Gabriella peered through the narrow window, and the van driver stared at his watch again and said, “I’ve got other things to do today, you know.”
“Hi,” Amelia said. “I’m Amelia. I live upstairs.”
Gabriella gave her a dazzling smile. “I am Gabriella, and this is Duke, and this is Duke’s brother, Simon.” She shook Amelia’s hand. “Enchantée.”
Duke was the tall guy!
“Gabriella’s French,” Duke explained, rattling the doorknob again.
“Parisienne.” Gabriella flashed another of her megawatt smiles.
Amelia loved the sound of that. Parisienne. And she loved the way Gabriella said her r’s and the way brother sounded like bruder. She would have beamed back, but she had broken off the tip of her front tooth running into a pole in the school playground, and she looked like a pirate.
“I thought there was supposed to be a key under some pot,” Simon said. “Does anyone know where it is? Or is that too much to ask?”
Amelia produced the key.
The door opened directly into the kitchen, which was crowded with four people. Amelia’s mom, Diane, had furnished the apartment with bits and pieces she had picked up from secondhand stores. She had also opened all the curtains so the apartment would look as bright as possible for a basement suite.
Before Amelia could shout a warning, Duke headed to the living room.
Crack! His head slammed into the top of the doorway.
“Ouch!” Amelia said.
Gabriella winced. “Merde!”
“The doorways are…um…a little low,” Amelia said.
Duke rubbed his forehead and gazed up. “The ceilings are a little low too. Not much clearance there. Maybe half an inch.”
But he didn’t sound mad. “I’ll try that again,” he said as he crab-walked into the living room. “It looks good in here,” he called back. “It’ll be fine.”
Amelia felt like she’d been holding her breath all day. Duke and Gabriella had taken the apartment sight unseen, which was risky. Six different sets of people had viewed it and turned it down in the last week. One person said it would be great for a family of hobbits.
The tour of the apartment took only a few minutes. A kitchen, a living room, a narrow hallway with two bedrooms and a bathroom. Amelia stood behind Duke and Gabriella while they inspected the smallest bedroom, which was empty.
“We ran out of furniture,” Amelia started to explain, but she could tell Duke wasn’t listening. He was counting the number of electrical sockets. She was sure she heard him mumble to Gabriella, “Perfect for Winston,” and then she decided she’d made a mistake. Her mom had said they had no kids. And who would name a kid Winston anyway?
Simon appeared in the doorway with a box. “Could use some help!” he growled.
They trekked back and forth to the van. Cardboard boxes, baskets and bags overflowing with clothes piled up on the kitchen floor.
Amelia kept sneaking peeks at Gabriella. Her bright-red hair was amazing. Her skin was almost white, and she wore lots of black mascara and eyeliner and smelled like vanilla. She had a tiny green lizard tattooed on her shoulder.
Gabriella chattered while they unpacked dishes from a carton. “We will come up tonight to meet your parents.”
“My mom,” Amelia said.
“Parents split up?”
Amelia nodded.
Gabriella’s brown eyes filled with sympathy. “Men!” She leaned toward Amelia and whispered, “Duke is an angel, but he drives me crazy.”
“There’s no more room in the cupboards,” Amelia said, changing the subject. “And there’s still lots more stuff.”
“It doesn’t matter. We can leave some of it in boxes.”
Duke and Simon hauled in a freezer chest, sealed shut with duct tape. “We’ll unpack this one later,” Duke said.
“I’m off now,” Simon said. “I’ll take these empty boxes and get the rest later. What time are you coming tonight?”
Duke fired a definite warning look at Simon. Amelia intercepted it. She stopped wondering what was in the freezer chest and pretended to be busy stuffing crumpled newspaper into a garbage bag. She perked up her ears.
“Midnight,” Duke said in a low voice.
At least, that’s what Amelia thought he might have said. Duke was mumbling again and it sounded more like, “Mmmnnnat.”
So. Duke was going somewhere at midnight, maybe. What made it really interesting was that he didn’t want Amelia to know.
She tied the garbage bag shut.
Somehow she had to find out what was going on.