A bulky figure leaned over me. It was one big shadow, like an oversized inkblot.
The shadow hissed, “Okay, Mojo. Talk. Where’d Jake hide the Margaret rose? What did he tell you?”
I opened my mouth to say, I don’t know. But blood from my nose flowed in, clogging the words.
“You’re not cooperating, Mojo.” A gloved fist rammed me into the back of the locker. This was one strong dude. He clamped me by the throat.
Maybe I could distract him before he cut off all my oxygen.
“Here,” I choked. I wrenched my wallet out of my pocket. “Take my money. Enjoy.”
I threw the wallet. He let go of my throat to catch it. As he stepped back, I saw he was wearing a trenchcoat, with a ski mask pulled over his face.
This was Trenchcoat’s lucky day. The wallet held the fifty bucks Mom and Dad gave me to order out for food.
Trenchcoat didn’t act like it was his lucky day though. Not even glancing at it, he stuffed the money in his pocket with a curse. Maybe he’d expected more.
Maybe, to show his dissatisfaction, he’d now squeeze the remaining shreds of air from my throat.
No, he won’t, I thought. Not till he gets the Margaret rose.
The thought calmed me—somewhat. I stopped gasping for air. I practiced small steady breaths—runner’s breaths.
I edged forward and got my head and shoulders out the locker door.
Trenchcoat tossed my wallet to the floor. My bus pass fluttered out with my mom’s instructions for taking care of the house. Don’t forget to check the mailbox each day. Always lock the door. Make sure Ellie eats proper meals. Tell her no veggies, no dessert.
I fixed my eyes on the paper. I knew what it said—but Trenchcoat didn’t.
I choked, “What Jake told me…I wrote it down…”
Trenchcoat followed my gaze. He bent to pick up the paper.
My lungs were still raw from having their oxygen cut off, but my arms were okay. The push-ups and weight lifting I did made them strong. I grasped the edges of the locker and pulled myself out.
Trenchcoat looked up from the paper he was unfolding.
I ran.
I heard Trenchcoat puffing and wheezing as he lumbered after me.
The fire exit was the closest way out. I sprinted to it. OPEN ONLY IN AN EMERGENCY was painted on the glass in big red letters.
I’d say this qualified.
I pushed the door open, setting off an alarm that jangled through the building.
I ran outside. It was twenty-eight blocks to my house. I kept running and never once looked back.
One of the reasons I didn’t ace schoolwork was that I hated being confined in a classroom. I thought better when I could move around, and thought best when I could run. I could toss off the distractions like unwanted layers of clothes. When I was running, only what mattered stayed with me.
I rounded the corner of Nanaimo and Hastings and cut through Sunrise Park. I wasn’t even out of breath. The mountains loomed in the distance, cool and blue.
I had to go to the police, even if they charged me with deserting the scene of a crime. Whoever shot Jake knew who I was. Like Jake, they’d recognized me from the Vancouver Sun story.
Whoever shot Jake.
I thought of the people who’d sat behind Skip and me. I hadn’t noticed any of them really, except for the woman with the big boxy purse. She could have had a gun in that purse. She could have shot Jake.
On the other hand, the woman had said she was a nurse. She’d tried to help Jake.
What was this plant Jake had mumbled about?
I reached the end of the park. I’d cleared my brain, all right. The problem was, all that was left were questions.
What was this plant?
The words pounded at me in rhythm with my footsteps.
I veered out of the park and cut across the middle of Hastings—through blaring horns and squealing tires—to a gas station. At the payphone I fished in my pocket. Trenchcoat had the fifty bucks, but I still had some change. I punched in Skip’s cell number.
“Yeah?” Skip sounded bored, annoyed. I pictured him in the car with his parents, his iPod buds in his ears. Skip didn’t like having his tunes interrupted.
His voice warmed on recognizing me. “Yo, Mojo. What’s doin’?”
“The Margaret rose,” I panted. “Can you google it? I gotta tell the police about it, like the old guy wanted.”
Skip caught the urgency in my voice. “Why, what happened?”
I didn’t want to go into the Trenchcoat incident. Skip would be all over me with questions, and I didn’t have time. Not with Trenchcoat after me.
“Just look up the Margaret rose for me,” I pleaded.
Skip’s dad had a Blackberry, a fancy one with all the gizmos. He’d promised one to Skip, if Skip kept up his sky-high marks. This kind of cheesed Skip, who didn’t like to wait for anything.
“Can’t you look it up yourself?” Skip was needling me. I bet he was still annoyed about having his tunes interrupted.
I leaned my forehead against the phone-booth glass. At home we were still on dial-up. It took a long time for the computer to chug onto the Internet—and I didn’t have a long time.
I replied, forcing my voice to stay even. At the slightest sign of pressure, Skip would clam up. He didn’t like being pushed. I said, “No. I mean, yeah, I could look it up. But if you google the Margaret rose for me now, you’ll know what it is by the time I get home. By the time I phone you back. Please?”
“Okay, okay.” Skip sounded surprised. “Keep your shirt on, buddy.”
I replaced the receiver just as Skip was asking his dad for the Blackberry.
Miss Lucy called the doctor,
Miss Lucy called the nurse,
Miss Lucy called the lady
With the alligator purse!
Ellie was doing cartwheels on the front lawn. With every cartwheel, her long red- ribboned braids spun like windmill blades. Even while flipping, my sister wore her neon pink backpack. She and the backpack, filled with dolls, crayons, pretend makeup and other girly stuff, were inseparable.
“Hey,” I said, flopping down on the bench by the rosebush. I wiped my face with my T-shirt. “How come you’re home? I thought you were gonna be at Sandra’s all day.”
Ellie just kept chanting. Every time she said “the lady with the alligator purse,” I thought of the woman on the roller coaster—the woman who was either a nurse or a murderer.
The chanting was getting to me. Mom told me to be patient with my sister, but to have to put up with her today of all days…
“What happened, you and Sandra have a fight?” I asked.
Startled by my annoyed tone, Ellie flipped to an upright position and stared at me. “Sandra and I never fight,” she responded solemnly.
Then she started with the cartwheels again.
“Mumps,” said the doctor,
“Measles,” said the nurse…
“Aw, cut it out,” I said. It bugged me that Ellie had showed up when she wasn’t supposed to. Now I had to worry about her.
I couldn’t warn Ellie about Trenchcoat because she’d freak.
“Sandra has pinkeye,” my sister was explaining. “Her mom said it could be contagious, so I better go home. I knew you’d be here, ’cause your math class was over. But you were late, Joe. How come?” She paused in a handstand. “How come, Joe?”
I stood up. “C’mon inside,” I ordered. And I’ll lock all the doors and windows, I added silently.
“Inside? Who wants to go inside?”
“Since I’m stuck with you, we’re going to spend a nice, sunny summer day indoors,” I snapped.
Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. I was being mean, but I couldn’t help it. And I didn’t care.
“Hiccups,” said the lady
With the alligator purse.
Ellie was still at it, even inside. Any minute now her cartwheels would bring down one of Mom’s china figurines. That Ellie. She knew she wasn’t allowed to do her flips in the house.
Upstairs in my room, I shut the door and called Skip.
“Yo, buddy,” he said. “Okay. I googled plant and Margaret rose for you. There’s a Margaret rose, all right. Lemme read you one entry. ‘It has creamy outer petals, rich purple center ones.’ Like, whoop-de-doo. At least, so I thought.
“But I kept reading. ‘A true Margaret rose is so rare that it’s worth hundreds of thousands.’ ”
I let loose a long whistle. “This had to be what the old guy—Jake—was jabbering about. But why would the police want one? If I were them, I’d prefer coffee and donuts.”
“Listen and learn, Mojo. I tried the same search words as before, only under Google News. Smart, huh?”
I could just see Skip’s self-congratulatory smile. Typical Skip. But then, he was smart. “Yeah?” I said. “And?”
“And bingo, buddy. A genuine Margaret rose is on display here in Vancouver, at VanDusen Gardens.”
VanDusen is a posh place with lots of flowers. Nice, I guess. It’s the type of place mothers like.
“That’s gotta be the rose Jake meant,”
I said. “But I can’t take it from VanDusen, even if it was Jake’s dying wish. The poor old guy,” I sighed.
“Whatever.” Skip’s voice had a shrug in it. He wasn’t the most sentimental person. “Hey, so you’re at home now, Mojo?”
“Yeah, in my room. I didn’t want Ellie to hear. You know what a pest she can be about stuff that’s none of her—”
“You should be phoning the cops, Mojo. Not chatting with me about flowers. C’mon, buddy, this is serious.”
I caught the urgency in his voice. “Okay, okay, I’ll call them now.”
Skip hung up. He was right, of course. Like always. Mr. Too-Perfect.
I bellowed through the closed door at Ellie to be quiet. Not because I could hear her very well with the door shut, but because I was feeling irritated. Why did Skip always have to be the one to think of what to do? Did I have to be slow Joe all the time?
Wishing I was Skip, with his perfect personality, perfect grades and perfect vacation at Lake Okanagan, I called the police. I told the operator about Jake and his weird message, about running away, about the attack at the school.
And about how Trenchcoat, who had my id, could be after me at this moment.
The operator said they’d treat this as an emergency. The police would come right away.
Please don’t let Trenchcoat show up, I thought. Or, if he does, let the cops get here first.
I thought of what Skip had said about how valuable the Margaret rose was.
I whistled again and noticed how the whistle echoed in the silence.
The silence…
I stood up so fast that I knocked my chair backward. In this house, silence was the wrong sound.
I zoomed downstairs.
The front door was open, the lock smashed. By closing my door upstairs, I’d blocked out Ellie’s chanting—and the sound of someone breaking in.
The hot still air from outside rushed through the door and pressed in on me, smothering my breath.
“ELLIE!” I yelled.
There was no answer. I heard nothing but the buzzing of bees in the rosebush.
Propped just inside the door was the knapsack that Ellie never went anywhere without.