ON TUESDAY KATE ARRIVED at the Pappases’ old studio on time. Exactly on time. If anybody had tried to make her late on that particular day it would have been karate time for sure. Hard karate. Kick and chop, and elbow-lock time. Or whatever it took to convince them she was in a hurry and they better not get in her way.
For one thing, after being so humongously late the day before, she wasn’t about to let it happen again. But that wasn’t the main reason. The most important reason was that Aurora had been acting very strangely all day. At every recess she had been cloudy-eyed and distant, and even in class her mind seemed to be somewhere else. And when Kate asked her what the matter was, she would say only, “I can’t talk about it yet. I’m still thinking. We’ll talk at the studio.” Something was wrong, and Kate was going to find out what it was. As soon as possible!
So Kate was already waiting at the door to the old studio when Aurora came out of her house and started across the backyard. Watching her come, Kate would have known that something was wrong even if she hadn’t noticed anything before. Aurora’s eyes were blank and inward-looking, as if she were seeing something, but not in the way that ordinary people see. Kate quickly spun the dial on the combination lock and turned it to the first number. By the time Aurora had crossed the yard the door was open.
As soon as they were inside and the door was locked behind them, Kate said, “Okay, what’s the—” She gasped then and clapped her hand over her mouth and nose. The smell tended to do that to you, until you got used to it. Still holding her nose, she turned to Aurora and said, “Okay. What’s up, Aurora? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure.” Aurora’s voice was soft and breathy and her mind seemed to be far away. (So far away she didn’t even seem to notice the smell.) “I’m not sure,” she murmured again, “but Susie called last night and told me that Ari said there were some terrorists here yesterday. And they were here to steal Web and Carson’s science-fair project.”
Kate forgot all about holding her nose. “Terrorists?” she gasped. “Web and Carson’s science-fair project?” Then she laughed. “I don’t believe it. I mean, that is really funny.”
Aurora didn’t say anything. Then Kate laughed again and said, “Oh ho! I get it. I bet I get it. Did he also tell Susie that the ‘terrorists’ or whoever, tried to climb up on this roof so they could spy on us yesterday? I’ll bet he did.” She laughed. “Wow! I’ve heard Ari come up with some pretty wild excuses before, but this one is definitely a winner. Terrorists! Holy cow!”
Aurora smiled faintly and shook her head. “I thought of that. No, he didn’t tell Susie that. Or me either. But he did tell me that he had seen the same black van that Susie saw. And the same two men.”
Kate stared at Aurora. For someone who could see through walls, almost, and could see through most liars without even trying, Aurora was certainly a sucker when it came to her own little brat of a brother. Kate did a karate-type grunt. “Don’t you get it?” she said. “Don’t you see it’s just another one of Ari’s stories? Just something he cooked up to make it look like he wasn’t the one who tried to climb up on the roof and spy on what we were doing.”
Aurora nodded. “I thought so too—at first. But then when he was telling me about the van, the one that he and Susie both saw, I …” She stopped and her big eyes seemed to grow larger in her pale, pointed face. “I saw them, Kate. I saw those men too.”
Kate knew then. She’d seen Aurora look like that before and it always meant she was having one of her mysterious feelings. And Kate had always believed in Aurora’s feelings. “Well, who … I mean, what …,” she stammered. And then something else occurred to her. Something very important. “What about Carson and Web then?” she demanded. “What are those guys, or terrorists, or whatever, going to do to Carson, Aurora?”
Aurora shook her head. “I don’t know. I just … don’t … know.” She turned away and absentmindedly, like someone in a dream, began to scoop rotten fish out of the garbage pail and start down the row of plants on one side of the studio. Kate watched her for a minute before she opened the bag of fertilizer and started down the other side.
Kate and Aurora’s science-fair project had been Kate’s idea, but Aurora had liked it right away. Aurora had said that since she wasn’t a very scientific type person, it was all right for Kate to choose what they should do. And right after that a couple of coincidences helped Kate come to a quick decision.
First of all, Mrs. Davis began talking about the science fair on the same day that the social studies assignment was to read about Squanto. Kate wasn’t too crazy about social studies as a rule but she kind of enjoyed reading about how Squanto saved the Pilgrims by teaching them how to use rotten fish as fertilizer.
The other coincidence was that when she got home that very same night she found out that the big freezer in the Nicelys’ garage had self-destructed. The one where her dad kept all the things he caught when he went deep-sea fishing.
Actually, Kate’s mom had told Tiffany to clean out the freezer, but Tiffany, who had lots of baby-sitting money, bribed Kate to take her place. It had been a fairly disgusting job but right in the middle of it Kate had come up with a great idea.
So Kate and Aurora had chosen as their hypothesis Squanto knew what he was doing, and their experiments were to find out if it was true. If rotten fish really did make plants grow as well as modern commercial fertilizers. So far Squanto was ahead, but not by much.
For the next few minutes Kate and Aurora went through their regular routine automatically. They scooped and watered and measured, and even took a few notes, but their minds weren’t on what they were doing. At least Kate’s wasn’t and she was sure that Aurora’s wasn’t either. As soon as the last plant was watered they turned toward each other and, almost in the same breath, said, “Let’s go to Web’s.”
No more than a minute later, as Kate and Aurora were on their way down the driveway, the back door of the Pappases’ house opened a little bit, and a pointy face under a mop of brown curls appeared in the crack. Then very cautiously, the rest of a skinny eight-year-old boy slid out into the open.
Peeking around the corner of the house, Ari watched as his sister and Kate Nicely started up the sidewalk at a run before he began to run too. Out across the backyard toward the old studio.
Ari Pappas was feeling very hopeful. He’d just happened to have been looking out a window when Kate and Aurora dashed out of the old studio, and he’d noticed immediately that they were leaving in a big hurry. In too much of a hurry, maybe, to remember to put the lock back on the latch and spin the combination dial. It was just a guess, but before he’d gotten halfway across the yard he could tell that he’d guessed right.