Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking (18 page)

Instead, I made some notes about the church and tried to figure out where Grumps would have hid stuff, feeling completely helpless without a computer. I never realized how much I relied on it for information.

And I needed to find Ollie.

After another near-sleepless night, waiting for Mom to leave for work the next morning was excruciating. I dialed Ollie’s landline again, and again hung up on the machine. Mom finally took off at ten, my laptop peeping out from the top of her work bag, full of stern warnings not to leave the house.

I only felt a little guilty about that.

Next, I headed down to Nini’s apartment. She knew I was grounded, but also thought I was sick.

“I’m not going to visit Grumps today,” she said. She felt my forehead. “You look terrible. I think I should be here.”

“You have to go,” I said, desperate for her to leave. It never occurred to me that she’d skip a visit to ARC. “I’ll be fine.”

She stared me down. “You don’t have anything up your sleeve, do you?” This was her way of addressing my grounding.

“No, ma’am,” I answered, trying Ollie’s tactic for sweettalking adults. I smiled. “The only plan I have is for a nap.”

She kept her gray eyes on mine. I tried to look tired, yet innocent. Finally, she relented.

“Just a quick visit. I’ll be back in time for lunch.”

“Grumps will be psyched,” I said. And so was I.

Nini came upstairs twice before she left, both times to check on me. I stayed in my pajamas, on the couch, some stupid reality TV show on, trying to be patient. Then I watched at the upstairs window until her car went around the corner. I hurriedly changed out of my pajamas.

I had just about an hour.

Leaving my bike, I grabbed my skateboard and zoomed to Ollie’s. His house, a few streets over from mine, was quiet. No cars in the driveway—what did that mean? Were they at the police station? Had The Redhead scared his family into leaving town? I settled behind a tree across the street and watched for a few minutes, staking it out.

Nothing moved. There was no one moving past the windows, no one came to the door, nada. Just as I was about to cross and open their gate, a white delivery truck rumbled past. The driver parked in front of the Truongs’ house.

My heart pounded. In the movies, delivery trucks usually contain bombs. Or body parts.

The driver got out, a white envelope tucked under his arm. He opened the gate and climbed the front porch. He rang the bell. Once, twice.

I held my breath.

No answer.

The driver waited for a minute, punched a few buttons on
his handheld computer, and then returned to his truck, taking the package with him.

I exhaled. If it were a bomb or body part, it wouldn’t require a signature, right?

My nerves were shot. Clearly, there was no one at the house, and I had to get home before Nini. Giving another long look at the house, I hopped on my skateboard, heart heavy.

Where was Ollie?

I’d made it home and back into pj’s before Nini returned, and that was the end of my free time for the day. She came upstairs with me until my mom came home, and then Mom stuck to me like gum on a T seat for the rest of the night. I managed to sneak in another couple of calls to Ollie’s landline, but again: no answer.

No word from Ollie, no computer, no way to look for the art…I was slowly going insane.

I spent another restless night, fighting nightmares.

Thankfully, Mom left for work early, and Nini had a doctor’s appointment. This time, instead of going to Ollie’s first, I beelined for the local library—and its public-access computers.

I had a plan.

Once settled at the machine, I did a quick search on Old North Church. I printed out a list of recent renovations, and even found a blueprint of the building. These I stashed away for later. Next, I tried to launch the IM program I use, to contact Ollie.

An “access denied” message popped up. Confused, I tried it again.

Same message.

I was in the main reading room, not the children’s room—where there’s never access to sites or software that can be potentially dangerous.

I tried it one more time.

Same message.

A college-aged girl, sitting at the terminal next to me, must have heard my muttered curses.

“Look,” she said, pointing above my monitor.

There, in bold letters, a sign stated:
ACCESS TO PARTICULAR SOCIAL MEDIA SITES AND SOFTWARE IS BLOCKED DURING PEAK LIBRARY HOURS. PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE OF FELLOW PATRONS AND LIMIT COMPUTER USAGE TO NECESSARY COMMUNICATION
.

I fought the urge to bang my head against the monitor. If my communication wasn’t necessary, what was?

Frustrated, I signed in to my e-mail program. Ollie and I never used e-mail—we had too many other, faster, ways of being in touch—but I shot him one anyway, wording it carefully because his e-mail pushed to his phone. The Redhead would be able to see it.

Call me ASAP
, I wrote.

I didn’t know what else to say.

I signed off and headed home, detouring past Ollie’s house—which was just as silent as the day before. I was
pushing the limits of safety, and I knew it, but I hoped that something had changed.

On my way home, I had a realization: To find Ollie, I had to get The Redhead’s attention. To get The Redhead’s attention, I had to find more art.

Grounded or not, time to check out Old North Church.

Time was slipping through my fingers, and I desperately needed to know what was going on with Ollie. I was barely eating or sleeping. I looked terrible, and Nini was convinced I had the flu. Finally, though, I caught a break: a two-funeral day. (So morbid, isn’t it?) Mom would be out till late, and this was my only shot.

Nini kept her eye on me all day, insisting I rest on her couch, but once the Sox game started, I was able to make my escape.

Finally!

Upstairs, I did my best to get decked out as Stealth-Moxie Ninja: black T-shirt, denim skirt, black tights (okay, there were a bunch of holes in the pair that showed my Day-Glo legs, but whatever), sneaks. I tossed a flashlight, map of downtown Boston, the guidebook Putrid Richard had given me, a screwdriver, pair of scissors, the crippled cell phone, which Mom had returned since she’d be out late, a crumpled wad of singles I dredged up from my as-yet un-emptied school bag, and two granola bars in a bike sack, and crept to the front door.

And then I turned around. Mom had confiscated my T pass.

For a few seconds, I debated: Do I search her room for it, or use what little cash I had to pay the round-trip fare? If Mom came home and noticed it was gone, I’d be double-dead.

But I also needed a way to get into town. I had to find the art and use it to find out what happened to Ollie.

I blew out a big huff of air. I’d do a quick check in her room, see if I spotted it, and if not—use the cash.

I pushed the door open. Mom’s room was immaculate, as always: bed perfectly made, a couple of books on the nightstand, and her trinket box in the middle of her dresser. Even though she wasn’t home, I tiptoed in. As carefully as I’d handled the Degas sketch, I grasped the trinket box and lifted its lid. Right on top of her few pieces of jewelry: my Charlie card. I snagged it and stuck it in my pocket, replaced the box, and bolted out of there like security cameras were watching my every move.

Time check: I could still make it back before Mom came home from work. Just in case, I shut off everything in my room and tried to stuff and rumple the bed. Maybe if she looked in on me, she’d think I was asleep.

Not likely, but it gave me a little peace of mind, okay?

I opened the front door, Nini’s cheers—the Sox were making a comeback, evidently—following me. She was so into the game, a herd of kids could sneak out and she’d never notice.

Once I was on my bike, coasting through the purple dusk toward Forest Hills, I thought about Ollie again. I even cruised by his house—everything was dark and his parents’
cars were gone. I hoped that he was okay; he had to be. Anything else…well, I wasn’t going to go there. Just the edges of that thought kept my new anger at Sully Cupcakes on a low boil. How
dare
they do this to me? How dare they mess with everything I cared about?

On the train, to get my mind off Sully Cupcakes, I read and reread the entry on the Old North Church in the guidebook. Since Ollie wasn’t there to help me strategize, it was the best I could do.

By the time I got off the Orange Line at Haymarket, I was more under control. It was hard, but I tried to pay attention to what was around me more than how I felt. The Redhead had followed me before, and just because she had this information didn’t mean she was going to stop. Nothing looked suspicious…but in the crowd of a summer night downtown, it was hard to keep track of faces.

Old North Church is at the end of Salem Street in the North End, right near where we’d celebrated mine and Ollie’s graduation dinner…had that only been a little more than a week ago? Walking past all the restaurants, the smell of sauce and garlic wafting onto the street and the warm buttery aromas from Mike’s Pastry Shop made my mouth water. Maybe my appetite was coming back?

Anyway, the church is at the end of the street. It’s made famous by Paul Revere—it’s where he hung the lights during that whole “one if by land, two if by sea, British are coming” Revolutionary War thing.