Mandie Collection, The: 8 (3 page)

“So they stole a dishrag, too,” Mandie said.

“Mandie, the turkey was hot,” Sallie said. “Maybe they used the dishrag to hold the hot pan.”

“Uh-huh,” Aunt Lou said, nodding her head in agreement. “Dat’s whut I’se been thinkin’, too.” She stood up. “Now I’se got mo’ work to do. Off wid y’all.” She flapped her big white apron at the young people.

Jonathan and Sallie walked toward the door to the hall. Mandie paused to say, “We’ll get that turkey back for you, Aunt Lou.”

Aunt Lou replied, “Lawsy mercy, my chile, I don’t be wantin’ dat turkey back, so don’t you bother dat pretty head ’bout it. Wouldn’t be no good to eat now nohow.”

“We’ll see,” Mandie said with a big smile as she and her friends went out into the hallway and around a corner, where they settled down on a nearby bench to discuss their plans.

“She’s right, Mandie,” Jonathan said. “It wouldn’t be any good if we found it.”

“That’s all right,” Mandie said. “I’d still like to know what happened to it, and I’m going to find out.”

“I will help you discover the turkey,” Sallie offered, her multicolored bead necklace swinging as she leaned toward Mandie.

“So will I, for whatever it’s worth,” Jonathan said.

“Thanks, both of you,” Mandie told her friends. “Now, as soon as Aunt Lou comes out of there, we’ll search the kitchen.”

“If you say so,” Jonathan agreed, evidently puzzled by her decision.

“We might be able to find a spot of grease that they might have splattered somewhere, or some dirty footprints, or some sign of whoever stole the turkey from the oven,” Mandie explained.

“Or maybe the turkey itself. They might have stashed it away
somewhere,” Jonathan added. “Like you said before, maybe they were almost caught in the act and had to hide it.”

“Yes, that’s a good possibility,” Mandie agreed. There was the sound of a door opening and closing nearby, and Mandie added, “That’s Aunt Lou now. I’ll see for sure.” She quietly walked over to peek around the corner in the corridor and smiled at her friends as she came back to the bench. “That was Aunt Lou and she went up the back staircase, which means she has probably gone to her room. Come on. Let’s hurry.”

Jonathan and Sallie followed as Mandie led the way back into the big kitchen. The three quickly opened cabinet doors and drawers, and looked under tables and behind the stove. Snowball was asleep on the woodbox and meowed loudly as his sleep was disturbed. He stood up, stretched, and followed Mandie around the room, still meowing.

“Oh, Snowball, what’s the matter with you? Somebody’s going to hear you and come to see what’s going on,” Mandie told the white cat. She opened the door to the large pantry, where dozens of shelves held supplies in jars, bags, boxes, and cans.

Jonathan looked into the room over Mandie’s shoulder and asked, “We are not going to look in all those things, are we? That would take forever.”

“No, just squeeze the bags and you can tell whether a turkey is in one or not,” Mandie told him as she began searching. “The boxes that are sealed don’t need to be opened, or the small cans that couldn’t possibly hold something as large as a turkey.”

“If you will look through the top shelves, I will search the lower ones that I can reach, Jonathan,” Sallie said.

“That I will do for you, Sallie,” Jonathan replied with a big grin as he began with the top shelf.

They didn’t take long to examine everything in the pantry, even though Snowball kept trying to help. He seemed to think they were playing a game and tried to claw the bags until Mandie became aware of his actions and shooed him out of the room. When they finished, the three stood in the middle of the kitchen trying to decide what to do next.

“How far do you think the thief might have been able to go into the house without being seen?” Jonathan asked.

“Probably anywhere in the house except the cellar,” Mandie said. “That’s kept locked, and I don’t imagine he would have had time to
unlock the door, go down into the cellar, come back up here, lock the door, and get away.”

“Is the cellar locked right now?” Jonathan asked.

Mandie quickly looked at him and realized she had not checked it. “I suppose it is, but I’d better see,” she said.

When they checked the cellar door, it was firmly locked. The three wandered on down the corridor to the front hallway and sat down on the bottom step of the main staircase. Snowball followed and curled up on the step above Mandie.

“What’s next?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m trying to figure that out,” Mandie said. “I’m sure we can’t go wandering around the house with all the guests we have here now. My mother wouldn’t like it if we snooped in every room.”

“Maybe we should go outside?” Sallie asked.

“Outside? Yes,” Jonathan said.

“Outside,” Mandie repeated. “We could search the yard. There are lots of places out there where a turkey could be hidden.” She quickly stood up. “Let’s go. But first we need to get our coats.”

The three hurriedly retrieved their coats and hats from the hall tree in the front hallway and rushed out into the yard with Snowball close on their heels. They were so wrapped up in solving the mystery of the turkey they didn’t even feel the freezing cold weather at first. Only the frozen spots in the dirt bothered them as they almost slipped down when they stepped on one. And a huge icicle fell from the eaves of the roof and barely missed Mandie.

“If we get behind the shrubbery bushes, between them and the house, I don’t think any more icicles can hit us if they fall,” Mandie told her friends as she pushed the way between two evergreen bushes to get next to the house.

“The bushes are also covered with ice,” Sallie remarked as she followed.

“They sure are, and that ice is cold,” Jonathan agreed as he made his way after her. Snowball came hopping along on the ice and darted between Jonathan’s legs, almost causing him to slide as he tried to dodge the cat. “That cat!” He grabbed at ice-laden branches to keep from falling.

Mandie had turned to look back and saw what happened. “I’m
sorry, Jonathan,” she said. She held on to a limb and bent to wave one hand at the white cat. “Snowball, go away! Go!”

Snowball looked up at his mistress and meowed loudly. Mandie stomped one foot and said, “Snowball, get!” The white cat retreated a short space and then turned and ran off through the bushes.

“Thanks,” Jonathan said, and then with a big grin he added, “That saved him from being stepped on by me.”

“Now what we need to do is examine each bush to be sure the turkey is not hidden in the branches,” Mandie told her friends.

“With all this ice it would be a frozen turkey if it is,” Sallie remarked.

“And I think we’re going to be frozen people by the time we put our hands on all these icy bushes,” Jonathan added.

“Oh, Jonathan, we all have gloves on,” Mandie teased him. She quickly parted the limbs of the bush in front of her to show him how to search. “You just do it real fast like that and your hands will hardly feel the cold.”

Jonathan frowned and replied, “I don’t believe the turkey could be hidden in any of these bushes anyway. It would be too heavy. It would fall through to the ground if you tried to tuck it away on a limb.”

“But some of these bushes are big and have strong limbs,” Sallie said. She began looking through the branches of another bush.

“All right,” Jonathan said, turning to examine the shrubbery behind him. “Let’s do this fast and get it over with, then.”

Mandie secretly smiled at Jonathan when he wasn’t looking and led the way on through the bushes around the house. “I’m skipping every two bushes so y’all can look through those.”

“What will we do with the turkey if we find it?” Sallie asked as she continued to look through bushes.

“Eat it!” Jonathan said loudly with a big grin as he poked his hands through ice-covered limbs. “After all the trouble that turkey has caused, we would have to eat it and get rid of it for good.”

“I’m not sure I would want to eat it. I just want to find out what happened to it,” Mandie said.

The three had begun their search with the bushes at the front door and were almost at the back door when Sallie suddenly yelled with her head in the branches of a bush, “I have found something! Wait!”
There was something dark green hidden at the trunk of the bush, and she was trying to get it out.

Mandie and Jonathan instantly joined her to help.

“It’s a piece of cloth—silk or something,” Mandie decided as the object slowly became dislodged from the limb.

Sallie held the fabric tight, stepped back, and pulled. As it came out, she found she had a long dark green silk scarf in her hands. “Look!” she said, holding it up.

“That doesn’t look like a turkey to me,” Jonathan teased.

“I wonder how that scarf got in that bush and where it came from?” Mandie said as she fingered the silk material.

“It looks expensive,” Sallie remarked.

“Are we going to finish searching these bushes or not?” Jonathan asked as he clapped his glove-covered hands together to warm up.

“Of course we are,” Mandie replied, but she just stood there holding the scarf up to her nose.

“Then let’s get it done,” Jonathan said, “so I can go beg a cup of hot coffee from Aunt Lou.” He flexed his fingers.

“Are you really so cold?” Sallie asked him.

“Hot coffee would taste good,” Jonathan replied.

“All right,” Mandie said. “I can’t smell anything on this scarf. I thought maybe it might have the odor of the turkey on it if it has been near the turkey.” She quickly folded the scarf and stuck it in her coat pocket.

“I don’t think that scarf would have been near the turkey. Besides, there’s no telling how long it has been in that bush,” Jonathan said as they began moving on.

“It had to get there somehow, and I intend finding out how,” Mandie replied, reaching into the limbs of the bush in front of her. She realized her hands were getting cold, but she wasn’t about to admit it to Jonathan.

The three began moving faster and were soon back around to the front porch, where they had started. Nothing else had been found.

“Now what do we do, Mandie?” Sallie asked as they stopped at the walkway.

“We go beg coffee from Aunt Lou, that’s what we do, and I’m going to be the first one there,” Jonathan said, and with a big grin he rushed for the front door.

“Yes, I suppose we should stop for now and get warmed up,” Mandie agreed as she and Sallie quickly followed Jonathan into the front hallway. Snowball pushed past the three as he rushed into the warmth of the house.

Mandie removed her coat and hat and hung them on the hall tree and completely forgot about the scarf in her pocket. Jonathan threw his things on a peg and hurried toward the back hallway. Snowball followed.

“I hope Aunt Lou is in the kitchen,” Jonathan called back to the girls.

“If she isn’t, the coffeepot will be on the stove. It always is,” Mandie told him as she and Sallie caught up with him.

“Will Aunt Lou mind if we intrude in her kitchen?” Sallie asked.

“No, she isn’t like Jonathan’s uppity housekeeper. That woman won’t let you near the place,” Mandie said with a big smile.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jonathan said, turning back to them. “I wonder if I could persuade Aunt Lou to come to New York and work for us. Then I could go in the kitchen and get food anytime I wanted it.” He grinned.

Mandie stopped short and stomped her foot. “Don’t go getting any ideas about Aunt Lou. She would never work for a Yankee in that cold place called New York,” she said with a big smile.

“Maybe she would for more money,” Jonathan continued teasing.

“Uncle John pays her whatever she asks for in wages. Besides, this is her home. She has lived with our family since she was a little girl,” Mandie told him. She quickly walked past Jonathan and pushed open the door to the kitchen. She looked around. The room was empty. Snowball rushed over to the warmth of the stove and began washing his face and paws.

“No one here,” Jonathan said from behind Mandie.

“But I do see the coffeepot on the stove,” Sallie said.

Mandie knew where everything was, and she quickly set down three cups and saucers. Sallie carefully brought the pot of hot coffee from the stove and filled each cup.

“I only want sugar in mine, if you know where it is,” Jonathan said as he stood by the table watching the girls.

“It’s in the top of that cabinet over there near the stove,” Mandie
said, indicating a tall cabinet. “And the cream is in the icebox.” She crossed the room to open the icebox and take out the cream.

After everything was assembled, the three sat down at the servants’ table in the kitchen to discuss the mystery of the turkey and the new mystery of the green silk scarf Sallie had found.

Were the two connected? Did the person who put the scarf in the bush also steal the turkey? Or had there been another mystery concerning the scarf that Mandie had not heard about?

CHAPTER THREE

ANOTHER MYSTERY

The weather warmed up that afternoon, and the icicles began disappearing. The remaining snow and ice became slushy, and the cold wind died down. But the skies remained cloudy. The three young people had finished their coffee, put the dishes in the sink, and gone to sit in the back parlor.

“I wonder where everyone is?” Mandie said, sitting on a chair near the fireplace. Sallie and Jonathan sat nearby. “I haven’t heard a sound since we came back inside.”

“They’re probably all in their rooms resting for tonight,” Jonathan said.

“For tonight?” Mandie asked. “Oh yes, I remember now. They’re all going over to the Andersons’ for supper. That means we’ll have the house all to ourselves, and we can search for the turkey.”

“If you say so,” Jonathan said with a groan.

“My grandfather and my grandmother will be going over the mountain tomorrow to spend the night with the Witcombs,” Sallie remarked.

“But you aren’t going, are you?” Mandie asked.

Sallie smiled and said, “No, I told them I would prefer spending time with you. The Witcombs have no young ones in their house.”

“I’m glad you aren’t going,” Mandie said, returning the smile. “We
don’t get to see each other very often because I’m away in school in Asheville and you live way out at Deep Creek.”