Mandie Collection, The: 8 (4 page)

“And I live way up in New York,” Jonathan said with a loud laugh. “I’m glad you decided to stay here, too, Sallie.”

“Yes, I know about New York,” Sallie said. “My grandfather told me about his visit to your house when Mandie was there.”

“When you stop to think about it, we are all scattered out,” Mandie said. “Joe lives in Swain County; Celia in Richmond; Jonathan in New York; and you in Deep Creek, Sallie. And I live here in Franklin and at school in Asheville. Why don’t we plan on having a reunion or something, and all of us get together next summer somewhere or other?”

“I vote for Deep Creek. I would like to become acquainted with Uncle Ned’s Cherokee family and friends out there,” Jonathan quickly told her.

“I would like to visit New York,” Sallie said.

“I suppose I would agree to go wherever everyone else wants to, since I’ve been to all those places,” Mandie told her friends.

“I have an idea,” Jonathan said. “Why don’t I come down here to Franklin when you come home from school for the summer, and we could go visit Uncle Ned. Then we could take Sallie and go to New York to my house?”

“Oh, but you’re forgetting Celia,” Mandie reminded him, then added, “and Joe.”

“All right, then,” Jonathan said. “I’ll come here after you get home from school this summer. You bring Celia with you. We’ll go out to visit Uncle Ned and get Sallie, then we can stop to see Joe and ask him to come along if he wants to. We can all go to my house in New York. Wouldn’t that work? Oh, and we could stop in Richmond on the way to New York.”

“Whew!” Mandie said, blowing out her breath. “It might take all summer to do that, but we could try. What do you think, Sallie?”

“I believe it would be possible to do all that,” Sallie replied.

“Then let’s do it!” Jonathan exclaimed.

“We’ll have to clear all this with our parents and with Joe and Celia,” Mandie reminded him. “But I think they’ll all go along with our plans.”

“I agree,” Sallie said. She smiled at Mandie and then at Jonathan.
“This will be an unusual summer for me. I am thankful for friends like you two who brighten up things for my Cherokee people.”

“Oh, but, Sallie, please remember I am one-fourth Cherokee, and I claim kinship with the Cherokee people through my father’s mother,” Mandie reminded her. “I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the white people had not forced the Cherokee people out of North Carolina, because then my white great-grandfather would not have hidden the Cherokee people in his house and my grandfather would not have met my grandmother.”

“Oh, Mandie, you are getting too complicated now,” Jonathan protested. “None of us would be the person we are now if our parents and grandparents and so forth had not married.” Then looking at Sallie, he said, “I would really like to get to know your people and learn their customs and ways.”

“Perhaps my grandfather could take you to a council meeting or a powwow,” Sallie told him. “He would have to get special permission, since you are white, but he might be able to do that.”

“I have been to one,” Mandie told Jonathan. “I think I told you about Joe and me discovering that gold, and the Cherokee people had to have a special council meeting to decide what to do with it. But then some of those people are my real kinpeople, you know.”

At that moment Mandie looked up and saw Aunt Lou standing in the doorway.

“I’se jes’ checkin’ to see who bin drinkin’ up my coffee,” the old woman said.

“We are all three guilty, Aunt Lou,” Jonathan told her with a big grin.

“I knows deys three ’cause dat’s how many dirty cups in de sink,” Aunt Lou said. “I’se jes’ checkin’ ’cause dem three people dey don’t know I’se got ’nother big choc’late cake sittin’ in de oven.” She started back down the hallway.

“We know now. Thank you, Aunt Lou,” Mandie quickly called after her.

“She said she would bake another chocolate cake for supper,” Jonathan reminded Mandie. “Do you think she came down here and said that so we’d go back to the kitchen and ask for some?” Mandie thought for a moment and then said, “It’s too close to suppertime.
But she knows all the adults will be gone, and it’ll be just us eating all that chocolate cake.”

“So you plan on eating chocolate cake while the grown-ups are all gone and not searching the house,” Jonathan remarked.

“Oh no, I mean, yes, we will search the house. It’s just that eating chocolate cake won’t take long,” Mandie said with a big smile.

Later, soon after the adults had left, Aunt Lou announced supper, and the three made their way straight to the chocolate cake in the middle of the table in the dining room.

Mandie reached for a piece just as Jonathan did, but Aunt Lou was on guard. She swatted at their hands and scolded, “Now y’all gwine eat yo’ supper first befo’ you gits one bite of dat cake, you hears me?”

“But, Aunt Lou, it would be a nice change if we could just eat dessert first and then eat our supper, don’t you think?” Mandie asked with a sly smile as she straightened up in her chair.

“No, dat wouldn’t be nice. Things ain’t dun dat way in dis heah house, so y’all jes’ git busy and eat yo’ supper if you wants any of dat cake,” the old woman told them with her hands on her ample hips.

At that moment Liza, the young maid, came into the room with a tray full of hot biscuits and corn bread and set them on the table. Mandie quickly looked up at Aunt Lou and said, “Liza can help pass the food, Aunt Lou. You don’t have to stay and watch us.”

“I knows,” Aunt Lou said, folding her arms across her chest as she stood by the sideboard. “And de minute I walks out dat door, dat chocolate cake gwine disappear fast, and Liza won’t be sayin’ a word to stop you. No, I jes’ stays right heah. So go on now and eat yo’ supper.”

Liza looked from Aunt Lou to Mandie. Mandie knew Liza didn’t understand exactly what was going on. But she knew one thing: Aunt Lou was the boss, and whatever she said was the law, so it was either eat supper or do without any chocolate cake.

“I’m starving. Would someone please pass the potatoes?” Jonathan said loudly from where he sat on her right.

Mandie quickly picked up the bowl of potatoes in front of her and gave it to Jonathan. “I’m sorry,” she said. Then looking at Aunt Lou, she added, “Aunt Lou, I was mostly teasing you about the chocolate cake. I’m sorry. I do really and truly appreciate all the work you did to bake the cake for us.”

“I knows, I knows,” Aunt Lou said with a big grin. “I always knows when my chile be serious, and I’m gwine on back to de kitchen ’cause I got things to do back dere. I leave Liza heah wid you, and Liza better do her job right or she gwine heah from me.” Turning to Liza, who was standing near her, she said, “Liza, no cake till dey eat their supper, do you heah?”

“Yessum, Aunt Lou, I heahs you,” Liza replied. Aunt Lou went out the door, and Liza reached over and picked up the cake. “I’ll jes’ put it on de sideboard so it won’t be no temptation fo’ yo’ soul, Missy ’Manda.” She carried it to the sideboard and set it down by the coffeepot. “Soon as y’all eats, I bring it back, yo’ heah, jes’ like Aunt Lou said.”

“All right, Liza,” Mandie agreed as she began putting food on her plate. “We’ll eat right fast, and then we’ll devour that whole chocolate cake, and then we’ll search this house and find that lost turkey.” She smiled at Liza.

“And den you’ll eat dat turkey,” Liza added with a big grin.

“Not me,” Mandie said, shaking her blond head. “Jonathan will eat that turkey.” She looked at Jonathan and then added as she turned to Sallie, “And Sallie can help him eat it.”

“No, Mandie,” Sallie disagreed as she began eating the food on her plate. “I do not think I want to eat any of that turkey if we find it. Jonathan can have it all.” She smiled at Jonathan.

Jonathan grinned and said, “Sure, I’ll eat the whole turkey. It’s nice of you girls to give it all to me.” He paused and then added, “But I think you agreed on that because you know we’ll never find that turkey.”

“We won’t if we don’t ever get finished eating so we can start searching the house,” Mandie reminded him. She hastily put a forkful of beans in her mouth.

“Time does fly when one has exciting plans waiting,” Sallie remarked. She, too, began quickly consuming the food on her plate.

“Don’t forget, we still have that chocolate cake to eat,” Jonathan reminded the girls with a big grin. He glanced over at Liza by the sideboard and flashed her a smile.

“Maybe,” Liza said teasingly.

When the three had finished the meal, they all decided one slice of cake was enough—for now. They were in a hurry to search the house before the adults returned. They could always eat more cake later, Mandie told Jonathan and Sallie.

For the next hour the three darted in and out of rooms in the huge three-story house, looking under beds, in large drawers, wardrobes, behind furniture, and even in the chimneys of the fireplaces in the rooms that were not being used by guests.

As they finished searching the third floor, Mandie said, “I suppose all that’s left is the attic.” She looked at her two friends as they stood on the landing of the third floor.

“And that secret tunnel. Don’t forget about it,” Jonathan reminded her.

“Oh, that tunnel stays locked, and Uncle John has the key, so we’ll have to leave that for later, whenever I am able to get the key,” Mandie replied. Snowball rubbed around her ankles. The white cat had followed them through the entire search.

“Mandie, do you believe the thief could have gone all the way up to the attic with the turkey?” Sallie asked. “That would have taken time, and the thief would have had to be careful that no one saw him.”

“I suppose he could have gone that far from the kitchen,” Mandie replied. “Although Liza was working upstairs in the bedrooms when it happened. But then, of course, he could have slipped right by the door of the room she was working in without her seeing him.”

“He?” Jonathan asked with a grin. “So you two have decided the thief was a he. I see no reason for that deduction. The thief could very well have been a woman or a girl. No one saw the thief, so no one knows for sure whether the thief was male or female.”

“You’re right, Jonathan,” Mandie agreed. “The thief could have been a woman. But I don’t understand why anyone would just walk right into our kitchen and steal a turkey out of the oven, knowing there must be people in the house who might see him or her.”

“I have been thinking the reason for the theft must have been hunger,” Sallie remarked. “Someone must have been mighty hungry.”

“If it was someone really hungry, they should have just asked for food,” Mandie said. “I would have given them all the food they wanted if they really needed it.”

“Perhaps they had a family at home, maybe little children, and nothing to eat,” Sallie said.

“I agree with Mandie that they should have at least asked for it,” Jonathan said. “It’s not an honest thing to do, going around stealing someone’s turkey right out of the oven. And I would say that if the thief
was someone who really needed food, then that turkey went straight out the door and to their house. We won’t find it in this house.”

“Let’s go back for more of that chocolate cake,” Mandie suggested as she started down the stairs.

“Good idea,” Jonathan agreed, following.

“Maybe a small piece of cake,” Sallie said, bringing up the rear, with Snowball quickly bouncing down the steps beside her.

When Mandie pushed open the door to the kitchen, she was surprised to see Jason Bond, her uncle’s caretaker, sitting at the servants’ table, drinking coffee.

“Come in, come in,” Mr. Bond greeted them. “I just perked a new pot of coffee on the stove over there.”

“Where is everyone? Aunt Lou? Liza?” Mandie asked as she went to the cupboard to get cups and saucers.

“I don’t know where they are, but I do know where the chocolate cake is,” Jason Bond told her, smiling and pointing across the room. “It’s in the pie safe over there. I looked at it and then decided it was too late at night to eat such stuff. ’Course, you might not think it’s too late.”

“It’s never too late to eat chocolate cake,” Mandie replied with a big smile. She set the dishes on the table and went to the pie safe. There it was on the middle shelf, and it didn’t look like anyone else had eaten any since she and her friends had earlier that night. She took it out and went to set it on the table.

“I will bring the pot and fill the cups,” Sallie offered as she walked over to the big iron cookstove and picked up the coffeepot.

“Then I will find the sugar. I think I know where it stays,” Jonathan said as he went to the tall cabinet and opened the door. He took out the sugar bowl. “I was right. Here it is.” He went to join the others at the table.

“The cake is so sweet I do not want any sugar in my coffee,” Sallie told him as he passed the sugar bowl to her. She held the bowl out to Mandie. “Do you want sugar in your coffee?”

Mandie took the bowl and set it down. “No, I agree with you,” she said as she picked up the cake knife and began putting slices on the cake plates she had brought from the cupboard.

When they had all settled down with their cake and coffee at the
table with Mr. Bond, Mandie asked him, “Do you know about the turkey that was stolen out of the oven today, Mr. Jason?”

“I came in here right after it disappeared, and Aunt Lou was fit to be tied,” Mr. Bond said, sipping his coffee.

“Did you see anyone around the house at the time?” Jonathan asked.

“Not a soul,” Mr. Bond said. “I was out in the barn repairing a shelf that had started to sag. I didn’t see anyone, but then I didn’t have a clear view of the back door of the house, either, from there.”

“Were you alone? I mean, where was Uncle John and everyone else?” Mandie asked.

“I have no idea, Missy. I didn’t see anybody around at all,” Mr. Bond replied. “But then with all that ice we had on the ground this morning, I don’t suppose anybody would be outside if they didn’t have to be.”

“We’ve been searching the house, Mr. Jason, and we haven’t found anything that would give us a clue,” Mandie said between bites of cake.

“But, Mandie, we did find that scarf outside in the bush,” Sallie reminded her.