Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (5 page)

“What’s the matter?” Blakely seemed surprised at my reaction. “She is your friend, isn’t she?”

“Certainly,” I said, more calmly. “You want to know if she’s, um, available?”

This would be quite a couple: diminutive Lily and tall, muscular Blakely. My father always called odd pairs such as this Mutt and Jeff, whoever they were.

“Well, I know she was dating that old windbag Alexander for a while there, but I heard that was
kaput
, so I thought, well, I just wanted to know if I’d be wasting my time if . . . ” He trailed off, waving his hand.

“I’m not exactly on Lily’s list of favorite people right now. I think your best bet would be to call and ask her yourself. Better yet, you’re heading in the direction of her house. Why not just drop by for a visit?” Oh, to be a fly on that wall!

He appeared to consider the suggestion. “Hmm. I don’t know. Dropping by so hale fellow well met and all . . . it’s not quite my style.”

He was describing the professor. His leering grin was back, and the sympathy I had felt for him dissolved.

“No, I guess it isn’t,” I agreed crisply.

“But you never know, do you? I might just do it.”

We walked for another half block and were standing at an intersection waiting for the light to change when pink-cheeked, white-haired Mrs. Daye seemed to step out from behind a tree.

“Hi, folks,” she said pleasantly in a deep alto voice.

She had on a long white hooded parka and dark, stretch ski pants. Even though the lapel bore the logo of an expensive couturier, with her comfortably rounded figure, wide shoe-button eyes and pale hair, she looked exactly like a snowman.

“Mrs. Dickensen, isn’t it?” she asked me.

“That’s right. Mrs. Daye, this is Blakely Kn—“ I turned to introduce him, but stopped mid-word when I caught sight of the man’s expression.

Blakely’s brown eyes had widened significantly, but only for a split second. Immediately, he rearranged his features and reached out a hand for her to shake.

“Knight, Blakely,” he said in a smooth tone, “fellow toiler with Amelia in the academic salt mines. I’m sorry, what is your name, again?”

“Daye, Felicity. Nice to meet you.”

The woman’s plump face was pleasant as she gazed up at Blakely. She shook his hand and fell into step on my other side.

“May I join you? I’m trying to get in a little exercise; gotta stay well.”

“Indeed,” said Blakely dryly.

We walked some more.

“So where is it you live, Mrs. Daye?” Blakely asked.

“Toledo, Ohio. For twenty-eight happily married years,” she answered with special emphasis.

“How lucky you are,” Blakely said, making the Dayes’ accomplishment sound unbearably dreary.

Honestly, Blakely,
I thought,
is no one safe from your acid tongue?

It seemed especially boorish to aim his cynicism at such a nice woman, even if she probably didn’t realize she was being mocked.

We reached Chez Prentice in another minute, and Mrs. Daye and I turned to go up the sidewalk. “You go on ahead, dear,” she said to me. “I want to have a word with Mr. Knight about something.”

She turned back toward him, but he hadn’t paused and his long legs had already carried him almost out of sight.

A week later, when all the excitement happened, I had slipped into class just ahead of the last bell, opened the roll book and begun hurriedly marking homeroom attendance when Serendipity Shea appeared at my elbow.

“Miss P—Mrs. Dickensen,” she corrected herself with a glance at the blackboard, “here’s that book report I was supposed to turn in before Christmas.”

I gave her a sharp look. “Serendipity, I already told you—”

She interrupted me quickly. “Remember you said you wouldn’t, like, take off points if I turned it in right after, but I left it at my grandma’s house and she brought it with her when she came to visit yesterday and since we’re not having class today, I thought . . . ” She shrugged as she trailed off.

That got my attention. “Not having class?”

She made a questioning
moue
. “You know, the assembly thing we have every month. Starts right after the first bell.” Her tone was one of disgust at my appalling ignorance. “It’s some scientist guy this time.”

I pulled a tissue from the box on my desk and offered it to her. “Here. For the gum.”

She hadn’t been obviously chewing and had probably parked the wad in the back of her cheek, but I had an unerring instinct for such things. If Serendipity had been required to pay for the removal the disgusting stuff from the bottoms of chairs and desks, she might have better understood my mild obsession.

She rolled her eyes, but complied.

The rest of the class ignored our exchange, except for Hardy Patchke. “It’s the Monster guy,” he informed me.

I was completing the roll taking. “Who’s what, Hardy?” I asked distractedly.

“The guy in assembly today. He’s the one who looks for the monster.” His pale green eyes sparkled eagerly under butterscotch-colored lashes that exactly matched the color of his curly hair and tawny skin. “You know, Champ.”

“You mean Dr. Alexander?”

“That’s him.”

I cringed inwardly, but let it pass. I had given up requiring my students to say the clumsy but more correct, “That is he.”
Sic transit
grammar.

The class bell rang, and as the room emptied, I debated the issue of my attendance at the assembly. I hadn’t been tapped as a monitor this time and therefore was not required to go. Should I?

I was of two minds on the subject. These elaborate time-wasters were the brainchildren of our fearless leader, Principal Berghauser, who, when but a lad in the wilds of Minnesota (where their winters made our Northern New York cool snaps feel like Florida, he liked to remind us) he found his young intellect stimulated by itinerant musicians and lecturers in the finest nineteenth-century Chautauqua tradition.

I had to applaud his good intentions. I, too, had enjoyed such assemblies during our long, balmy Adirondack winters. In particular, there had been a handsome male dancer from the New York City Ballet Company who inspired me to nurse dreams of a career
en pointe
until I realized that my hips, while not massive, tended to interrupt the smooth line favored by ballet masters.

And, incidentally, I had no talent.

I had decided instead to become a teacher. Fortunately, body proportion is seldom an issue in my profession, as is clearly evident from a glance at the yearbook’s faculty pages.

The main problem with these assemblies was that Mr. Berghauser hadn’t taken into account the sophistication of the modern teenager. After having experienced deafening wrap-around sound and dazzling special effects at the Cineplex and garish violence and sensuality in video games, not to mention the appalling images of death and destruction in the news, these quaint little talks—delivered explosion free, by ordinary, fully-dressed human beings—must have seemed tedious at best and at worst, an excuse to misbehave. Consequently, at any given assembly, at least fifty percent of the faculty was pressed into service to sit among the restless natives and maintain order.

Mr. Berghauser preferred teachers to attend, suggesting the value of making use of the assembly subject in our subsequent classes.

A further argument in favor of going was that I had never heard my professor friend speak publicly on his favorite subject. I decided to be there for Alec.

The hallway was now almost empty. I joined a handful of stragglers as we hastily made our way down the staircase and across the hallway to the auditorium.

“You’re not going to that sideshow, are you?” Blakely Knight caught up with me with his easy stride.

I paused at the door and straightened my shoulders. “I most certainly am.”

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’re big buddies with that old fraud, aren’t you?” He made it sound sordid.

“Yes, we are,” I said, including Gil in the conversation. “But Alec’s no fraud. He’s a fellow scientist. You should respect his research, not scoff at it.”

Was it intellectual contempt or jealousy motivating this man? I wondered. After all, both he and Alec were interested in Lily.

“Yeah, right. And once he catches the big scary dinosaur, can Sasquatch be far behind? What the hey, might be good for a laugh. Come on.”

He laid a hand on my shoulder. I ducked away, darting into the auditorium, and collided with the principal.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Berghauser.”

“Mrs. Dickensen, really!” He shook himself slightly and then said in a low murmur, “We need you to help in the front row. And please stop by my office this afternoon during your free period. Bring your grade book.” He turned and strode down the aisle to the stage.

“Oh, dear.” That could only mean that some parent had a bone to pick with me.

The auditorium was packed and groaning at the seams—a new one was at the top of the school board’s wish list—and the only seats available were half a dozen in the front row, an area made vulnerable by its visibility from the stage and Mr. Berghauser’s stern eye. The incorrigibles were required to sit here, and from the body language of the roughly ten students who stumbled their way sullenly to their assigned seats, the only things needed to crown the misery of their incarceration in the front row were leg irons.

“What’s it this time?” snickered one slumping student to another, “Some old fa—” he broke off as the expression on his companion’s face warned him of my approach.

Turning, both boys fixed me with a blank stare. It was the Rousseau brothers, J.T. and Dustin, famed for their unique acts of reckless derring-do.

“This seat taken?” I asked brightly.

J.T. shrugged, but gestured for me to sit. I sat carefully and occupied myself watching two boys on stage setting up a large portable movie screen.

Without fanfare, Alec ambled onstage and took a seat between the president and vice president of the student council. Lily’s contention that he belonged on a box of frozen fish sticks seemed less apt today, perhaps because he wasn’t wearing his favorite slicker and rubber boots. Also, he had lost some bulk around the middle, and the dapper suit he’d worn at our wedding now seemed a little too large. His spade-shaped, salt-and-pepper beard, though neatly trimmed, seemed a bit more on the salty side today.

I frowned. Was our irrepressible Alec beginning to get old?

His eyes darted around the auditorium until they met mine, and my heart lightened immediately. Alec’s beaming smile, at least, was still vigorous as ever.

I winked broadly at him.

He responded by laying his hand over the top button of his no-longer-tight suit vest and wiggling his fingers in a surreptitious wave.

I heard a snort. “Look at him,” J.T. said, jabbing his brother with an elbow, “wavin’ at somebody!”

There were ill-concealed guffaws, and the telltale fragrance on someone’s breath reminded me that we would have to redouble our efforts to patrol for smoking in the restrooms. But all that would have to wait. I sat back, crossed my arms and lifted my gaze to the podium above, where Berghauser was gently waving his hands in a palms-down gesture, as though deflecting tumultuous applause.

“All right, people, all right. Let’s settle down now.”

The microphone rumbled and squealed, and he gestured to the wings, where adjustments were made. A series of shhh’s echoed across the room, and relative quiet at last descended.

“Well, now, today I have good news and bad news,” Berghauser began archly.

There was a collective groan in reaction to the spectacle of an adult in authority attempting to be funny.

The principal continued, undeterred, “The bad news is, Dr. Hawley Felder’s fascinating slide show entitled The Life of a Tooth; Oral Health and You has been postponed until next time.”

The incorrigibles exchanged several unrepeatable asides and snorted derisively.

“But the good news is,” Berghauser’s moustache, which up until now had drooped sadly over his upper lip, leapt to life, “that we have with us Dr. Alexander Alexander!”

“What kinda name is that?” whispered J.T., whose own appellation happened to be John Travolta Rousseau.

“ . . . . has earned three doctoral degrees: oceanography, philosophy, and history. Now he has turned his attention to the relatively young branch of science known as cryptozoology. Having distinguished himself in so many fields, cryptozoology remains Dr. Alexander’s favorite. So now—”

I winced at the dangling participle. Cryptozoology didn’t distinguish itself, Alec did. This particular error in grammar was becoming alarmingly common.

“Let’s all give him our best red and black welcome!” Beckoning like a latter-day Ed Sullivan, Berghauser invited applause, joined it, and then took his seat.

Alec stepped forward and adjusted the height of the microphone. In his pleasant lilting tenor voice, he declared himself thankful for the introduction and requested that the lights be lowered. Directing our attention to the movie screen, he pressed a clicker at the end of a thick electrical cord.

There was a collective gasp. I, too, started uncontrollably in my seat at the hideous picture on the screen.

“
Megachasma pelagios
,” announced Alec dramatically, “better known as ‘Megamouth because of its four-foot-wide mouth.”

There were scattered nervous giggles. J.T. leaned forward in his seat.

We were staring at an amateur black-and-white photo of a large, gaping dead fish. I was reminded of the whale in Disney’s
Pinocchio.

“Before ’76,” Alec continued, gently rolling his r’s in the Scottish manner, “we didn’t even know this creature existed. He’s a kind of shark, found off the coast of Hawaii, just about a year too late to appear in the movie
Jaws.
”