“So,” Tina says when we’re all sitting down, “Aiden Tween. Tell me everything.”
We’re at a table for four at Yueh Tung, a Chinese restaurant I know on Elizabeth Street, just behind city hall. Tina is AmberLea’s mom. I haven’t seen her since September. She still has the same tan.
Yueh Tung is pretty big. The place is busy. The waiter brings tea. AmberLea pours. Toby talks. I’m so tired and mixed-up I can barely listen. I haven’t processed anything since we found the music on the outhouse wall. It was all I could do to think of this place when Tina suggested Chinese; Yueh Tung is an O’Toole standard.
I’m waiting to hear The Good, the Bad. I’ve messaged the number Dusan gave me and sent a photo of the lightning-bolt Z. The anthem is nestled underneath my shirt in the Muskoka Dairy calendar. My phone is in one pocket of my curling sweater, along with Grandpa’s silly disguise kit. The Colt automatic is in the other. AmberLea and Toby don’t know I have those things. I don’t know why I have them, and now I feel stupid, as if I’m wearing a CONCEALED WEAPON sign. I wonder if I can share a room with Bunny if I end up in Creekside. I wonder which cousin is packing the PPK. Maybe he’ll join us.
Now I order barbecued pork and bean curd, like always. The others are talking about Aiden Tween. Toby has turned into quite the motormouth. You can tell by the way Tina listens and laughs that she thinks Toby is just the right rich, preppy type for AmberLea. This does not make me feel better, but it’s the least of my worries right now. I sip some tea as AmberLea gets into the conversation. “But you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to tear down all the cottages he bought, including Grandma’s—except for her chimney, which he’s going to build into the screening room in his, whatever, private theme-park palace with a giant waterslide and a launchpad for his hot-air balloon. He wants to buy a pirate ship to sail around the lake in. How gross is that? He’ll wreck everything that’s nice up there.”
Tina shrugs. “Things change, sweetie. No point in getting sentimental over a place you only went to once and that Grandma never used. We didn’t even know it existed until last summer.” She sips some tea. “And Aiden Tween is paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what he wants with it. Be thankful Grandma left you the place. It’s not a little nest egg, it’s a big one. More than she did for me.”
“The very rich are different from you and me,” Toby intones. “The Great Gatsby.”
AmberLea sighs. “Yeah, but still. I mean, Spencer’s grandpa’s cottage has been added to without—” She breaks off. Tina isn’t supposed to know about today’s road trip.
Tina doesn’t seem to notice. She starts asking me about my parents and saying it’s too bad they’re away right now. “And how’s—is it Bunny? How’s he doing where he, uh…” Tina doesn’t want to say Bun’s in jail, I guess.
“Good,” I say. “He’s home for the holidays. Visiting with other people tonight. I’m kind of hoping they’ll call, actually.” On cue comes the Bond theme. I pull out my phone. It’s Deb.
“Spencer!”
“Mom, I’ve got to—stuff has happened.” I look up. Everyone at the table is looking at me, especially Tina.
AmberLea jumps in. “Wow, am I ever hungry. All that shopping, you know?”
Tina turns to AmberLea. “What did you get?”
“Excuse me,” I say to them, then “Just a sec” into the phone. I’ll let AmberLea dig her own way out of the shopping lie. I get up from the table, trying not to bump the Colt around, then hustle through the dining room to the stairs. The wig, or maybe the beard, is poking out of my pocket from when I grabbed my phone. I stuff it back out of sight. “Mom,” I say, “it’s going crazy around here. Bunny’s been—”
“Spence”—Deb has gone into Patient Professor mode—“I told you, I’m on this. Bunny will be fine. This SPCA thing—”
“It’s not a joke,” I break in. “I met one of them.” I blurt out how I met Dusan on the 501 and then I tell her the basics of what happened afterward. Deb mutters patient Uh-huhs for most of it, along with a couple of Oh, for crying out louds. She does perk up at the Aiden Tween part, though. “Aiden Tween? The singer? What’s he got to do with this?” I explain about Gloria Lorraine’s cottage. “He knows about Pianvia too.”
“Well, hon, the Pianvian freedom movement has been getting good press lately. There was a seminar and a rally at the university.”
“Why haven’t I ever heard of it?”
“There are better news sources than Facebook, Spence. Anyway, I’m sure that’s why Bun’s friends have picked up on it.”
“I thought you said SPCA was about animal cruelty to Bunny.”
“I did. Then I remembered this Pianvia thing. You’ve confirmed it.”
“So you still think this is all a goof? What about the music we found?”
“You know what, hon? I remember drawing that picture of flowers for the outhouse, because everyone thought the idea was so funny. Grandpa gave me the piece of paper I used from scraps in the kindling basket. It was probably a travel souvenir he got tired of. If it was really valuable, do you think he’d have had it in there?”
“I guess not.”
“Bingo,” says Deb. “Maybe Bun told them about it to send you on a treasure hunt. You know his sense of humor. Frankly, I still think they’re after his iPod. So how about this: you do whatever it is they want you to do. Play along, if it makes you feel better. Keep me posted. Is Bun answering his phone?”
“No, it got swallowed by an alligator. Or a crocodile.”
“Pardon?”
“It got—never mind. He doesn’t have his phone. They gave me a number to call.” I give it to Deb.
“I’ll try it,” says Deb. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it belongs to that girl we met at Creekside that time.”
“No,” I say, “she’s how I found the alligator.”
“Of course,” Deb says. “Moving right along, how was cottage time with the cousins?”
“It got cut short. We found all this stuff in the wall. Passports, money, disguises, a—”
“Oh, Spencer! That was Grandpa’s espionage game. He used to play that with grown-up guests back in the 60s, when I was little. Why did that cut it short?”
“Well,” I say, “DJ went to England, Adam’s in the Carribean, and Webb went back to Nashville.”
“What?”
Instantly, I know I’ve blown it. I’ve ratted them out. “Don’t tell their moms.”
“Spencer,” Deb asks, “you weren’t all drinking a lot or anything? Were there drugs? Hallucinogens? You can tell me. Dad and I will understand. It’s an age thing—experimenting, pushing boundaries.”
“Are you nuts?” I say. “DJ barely drinks milk.”
“Fine, fine. Where are you now?” I tell her about dinner at Yueh Tung.
“Good,” Deb says. “Stay in touch with them. Call me anytime; keep me up to date. Just relax.”
“You forgot to call Roz,” I say.
“I’m on it,” Deb says. “Promise. Got to run. Love you. ’Bye.”
I walk back to the table. Our food has just arrived.
“Spencer,” Tina says to me, “it’s all decided. Here’s the plan. Tomorrow, you’re coming skiing with us. AmberLea says you’re waiting on a call; you can take it there.”
“I don’t know how to ski,” I say.
“There’s always a first time.”
I’m learning that. I pull out my chair, and my sweater clunks against the leg—the gun. And Deb almost had me convinced. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know I just may be on my own.