Spyhole Secrets (7 page)

T
he next day Hallie visited the library again, but not to get a book. At least, that wasn’t the main reason. The main reason was to see if she could get some information about Zachary’s library habits. She did check out three more books on the Middle East, but they were mostly for cover, and to get Mrs. Myers in a friendly state of mind. Which was something that probably needed doing, since Hallie had insisted on telling her how much better everything was at the Bloomfield library. But now, since she was definitely going to need Mrs. Myers’s help, she picked out some books figuring that librarians were probably friendly to people who checked out lots of research-type books.

Sure enough, the librarian in charge was Mrs. Myers again, but she didn’t seem to recognize Hallie when she handed over the three books. “Hello, Mrs. Myers,” Hallie said, flashing her best starch-removing smile. “I was wondering if a little boy named Zachary has been in the library today.” The librarian was
shaking her head. “He has short brown hair and he’s about this high.” Hallie held out her hand to show Zachary’s height. “He comes in here a lot to read books about stuff like shamanism.”

The librarian had begun to nod. “Oh yes, that Zachary,” she said, smiling. She ran Hallie’s books across the scanner. “So you’re looking for Zachary Crestman.” She turned Hallie’s card over and glanced at her name. Then, looking puzzled, she asked, “You’re not his sister?”

“No.” Hallie discarded the smile as she said, “I’m
not
his sister.” She couldn’t hold back an impatient sigh as she added, “Does that matter?”

“Oh,” the librarian said, “I remember you now.” Her eyes narrowed. “The Sinai Peninsula, wasn’t it?” She glanced at Hallie’s card again. “Why do you want to—?”

“I just want to see him, okay?” Hallie was feeling frustrated. “I just wanted to …” She paused, trying frantically to think of a good reason why she should be given information about Zachary, but nothing came to mind. She briefly considered saying “His sister asked me to give him a message.” But then, what if the librarian wanted to know his sister’s name? She was still hesitating when, just at that crucial moment, the phone rang. Making a “wait just a minute” gesture, the librarian turned her back and began to talk on the phone. Hallie picked up her books and walked away.

She was fuming as she ran down the front steps of the library. Angry at the nosy librarian, for one thing, but mostly at herself for blowing it. For not managing to find out anything except… except… what was it she’d called him? Zachary Crestman. So that was his last name. She
had
managed to discover something after all. By the time she got home, she had another plan in mind. A plan that involved the telephone.

There were, it turned out, three Crestmans in the Irvington phone book. One of the listings gave an address that wasn’t on Warwick Avenue, so that left just two. No one answered at the first number she dialed, and the answering machine message gave the names of the people who weren’t home right then. There was no Zachary, so that left just one possibility. Triumphantly, without stopping to figure out what she was going to say—impulsively, Ellen would say— Hallie punched in the number.

“Hello, who is it?” The voice sounded young and breathless. Was it Zachary? No, more like a girl’s voice. A teenager’s voice, maybe? Realizing that she was probably talking to the mysterious Rapunzel made it even harder to think clearly.

“Uhh …” Hallie hesitated, frantically trying to decide what to say.

“Hello,” the voice said again, and then even more softly, almost in a whisper, “Tony? Tony, is that you?” Before Hallie had time to say anything at all, there
was a quick gasp, and the voice that was probably Rapunzel’s whispered, “Oh, I have to go. I have to hang up.” There was a
click
and then the dial tone.

So that was that. Another plan down the drain. For a moment Hallie felt mostly frustration, but only for a moment, until it began to change into a curious thrill. What was it Zachary had said when they were pretending to talk about the princess in the tower? That the witch, or her father maybe, wouldn’t let her see the prince because he was too old and had a ring in his nose. Hallie shivered. Maybe the prince’s name was Tony, and Rapunzel had thought the phone call was from him, her forbidden prince. But then she had to hang up quickly because she heard her father approaching. Hallie put down the phone feeling strangely excited. In a weird sort of way, it was as if she’d become a part of some crazy modern fairy tale.

Back in her room, Hallie got out an old writing tablet. She tore out the scribbled-on pages and started to make a list of what she had found out so far. The List of Facts wasn’t very long.

She thought a minute and then, grinning, she erased the last two words and wrote
almost nine, in November.
And then there was …

So that was about all she knew, except…

Anything else? No, that was all. Except that there was definitely something weirdly wrong with the Crestman family. Something that made three adults stand around yelling at each other with their hands clenched and anger screwing up their faces. Something that made an eight-year-old kid scurry around like a guilty dog, and made a girl hang up the phone without even finding out for sure who was calling.

Hallie stared at the list, thinking about all the other stuff she really needed to know. Then she jumped up, slid the tablet into her school binder, and ran to the kitchen. A moment later, with the key in her pocket, she was heading for the attic stairs.

H
allie wasn’t expecting much. There hadn’t been much going on lately in the spyhole apartment. Not during the hours when she could watch, anyway. But the urge to check it out, to be sure she wasn’t missing something important, was suddenly too strong to resist. If she didn’t visit the spyhole today, she might miss a clue that would let her know what was really happening to Zachary and his family.

But once again it turned out to be wasted effort. Nothing moved in the bleak, watery blue room. Entertaining herself by lifting and lowering her head to make the light swirl in blue waves, Hallie stuck it out until almost four-thirty before she gave up and headed back across the attic.

She had locked the door to the attic stairway behind her and was opening the door to her own apartment when a familiar voice called her name.

“Hallie, dear, how good to see you.”

Hallie whirled around to see a white-haired lady
dressed in a baggy sweatsuit and a wraparound polka-dot apron making her way up the stairs from the second floor. It was Mrs. Tilson, of course.

Hallie flinched, her mind racing. If Mrs. Tilson had seen her coming out of the attic, she was really in trouble. She was, at least, if the old lady decided to tell on her, to blab to Mrs. Crowley or, almost as bad, to tell Hallie’s mother what she had seen. And why wouldn’t she want to tell? Why wouldn’t she want to get someone in trouble who had been so—whatever it was Hallie had been that day when she delivered the Tilsons’ yogurt, ate their cherry pie, and then blew up and stormed out. Wondering what the old lady could possibly be doing up on the third floor, Hallie shoved the attic key in her pants pocket and reluctantly turned back.

“Oh, hi,” she said. “I—I just got back from school.”

“Yes, yes. So I see, my dear,” Mrs. Tilson gasped. She was carrying a large cardboard box, and as she neared the top of the stairs she seemed to be badly out of breath. When she finally reached the third floor she took another deep breath and panted, “Oh my! Too many stairs.” She went on puffing for several seconds before she added, “But what a lovely coincidence. I called just a few minutes ago to ask if you could give me a hand, but there was no answer. And then here you are, as if by magic.”

“Give you a hand?”

“Yes. A helping hand to get this box up into the
attic.” She held out the heavily taped box. “That last flight up into the attic is awfully steep.”

“Oh,” Hallie said. “Oh yeah. I can carry it up for you. I carried a lot of boxes up there for my mom when we first moved in.” As she took the box she grinned and said, “But I guess you know that, according to Mrs. Crowley, I’m not supposed to go up there by myself.” Remembering some of the comments the Tilsons had made about Mrs. Crowley, she thought she knew what the reaction would be, and she was right.

Mrs. Tilson shook her head, making indignant
tsk-tsk
noises. “That Crowley woman,” she said. “So many rules. Harold says …” She smiled, giggled almost. “Harold calls her Mrs. Moses, because every time she shows up we get ten more commandments.”

Still giggling, Mrs. Tilson unlocked the attic door and handed Hallie the box. “Just put it with the other cartons labeled Tilson. And then do come down for some cookies and lemonade.”

Up in the attic Hallie found the right stack of boxes and then headed back down the stairs, trying to think of a good reason why she couldn’t go on down to the Tilsons’ apartment. She didn’t want to go, but it wasn’t really because of what had happened the last time she was there. At least not entirely. It was more that she had other things on her mind, like the list she’d been working on.

“So.” Mrs. Tilson’s rabbity pink nose twitched
daintily. “How about our little visit? Harold is volunteering at the museum this week and I’m so tired of being all by myself.”

“I don’t know,” Hallie said too quickly. “I’d like to, but my mom will be home real soon, and she’ll worry if I’m not here.”

“Well now, I think I might…” Mrs. Tilson was fishing around in her apron pocket. As she pulled out a pencil and a scrap of paper she went on, “I think I might have a solution to that problem right here.”

An embarrassingly obvious solution, and one that Hallie should have thought of, of course. It was pretty much too late now to come up with a more reasonable cop-out, like too much homework, or an important phone call she was expecting. Giving up, Hallie scribbled a note for her mother, left it on the kitchen table, and went on down to the second floor.

Once they were inside the apartment, Mrs. Tilson insisted that Hallie make herself comfortable in the living room while she went into the kitchen to get their “little treat.”

It really was comfortable in the Tilsons’ apartment. A lot cooler than on the third floor, and an awful lot cooler than in the attic. Hallie had been in the Tilsons’ living room several times before, but never all by herself. Left alone, she wandered around the big, bright, high-ceilinged room, checking out the ornate molding around the fireplace, the neat antiques,
and the fancy gold-framed paintings. And then there was the tower room.

While the tower rooms on the third floor and in the attic were nothing more than barren alcoves, this one was an important part of the Tilsons’ living room. The drapes on the curving windows were beautiful, heavy and shiny, and below them a circular window seat was built right into the tower wall. Above the window seat were wide panels of stained glass. Kicking off her shoes, Hallie knelt on the window seat and stared out through green glass leaves and yellow petals.

On her left a leaf-shaped pane looked across the air well directly into the Warwick Mall’s dress shop. Remembering the store from her visit to the mall, Hallie examined it again, noticing how much more interesting it was when everything and everybody, even the air itself, was tinted a deep jungle green. Seen through the green glass, the racks of scarves and dresses had a kind of rain forest feel, and if she squinted, it was easy to see the clerks and customers as rather well-dressed iguanas.

Turning slightly, Hallie discovered that by peering through a patch of yellow, she could look straight down on Warwick Avenue. It was rush hour. The yellow glass gave the air a sunny sheen; the street was full of cars with lemon-tinged windows, and on the sidewalk, all the passersby had glowing golden skin.
Golden men walked by in business suits or blue jeans, and then came a group of beautifully gilded young women in short skirts, long jackets, and brightly colored scarves.

There were gangs of kids too. Teenagers mostly; girls in short dresses and clunky, thick-soled shoes, followed by a straggle of tall, lanky boys with bristly hair and wide, baggy pants.

And then, right there among all those ordinary-looking teenagers, there was a girl whose hair was a shimmering, sliding curtain of brilliant gold. It looked like—it had to be—Rapunzel. Rapunzel and— could one of the boys be Tony? The Tony whose name Rapunzel had whispered before she quickly hung up the phone, and whom she had been forbidden to see because of unimportant things like his age and the ring in his nose? There seemed to be three—no, four boys in the group, and from the second-floor window it was hard to check out all their noses.

Pressing her own nose against the glass, Hallie moved back and forth, trying breathlessly for a better view as she watched Rapunzel and her friends stroll on down the street and disappear into the Warwick Towers mall.

Hallie’s nose was still flattened against the yellow glass pane when the sound of footsteps and the clink of glasses brought her back to the reality of Mrs. Tilson’s approach with cookies and lemonade. Quickly putting down the tray, she joined Hallie at
the window and peered out through the colored glass.

“What is it?” she asked as eagerly as an excited first grader. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Hallie said quickly. And then more slowly, “Nothing special, that is. Just someone I thought I knew.”

Kicking off her shoes and tucking up her feet like a kid, Mrs. Tilson twisted around and looked down Warwick Avenue just as Hallie had been doing. She went on staring for a minute or two before she turned around and said, “I always like looking out windows. Don’t you?”

Hallie thought for a second before she answered. “Yeah, I guess so.” And then without planning to, impulsively maybe, she asked, “How about looking
in
windows? How do you feel about looking into other people’s windows?” The words were hardly out of her mouth before she was second-guessing herself, wondering why she would ask such a dangerous question.

Mrs. Tilson glanced at Hallie quickly before she smiled and raised her shoulders in a guilty shrug. “Why, yes. I guess I really do.” She lifted her shoulders again in a kind of shudder. “I’ve always liked looking in windows and wondering about the people who live there and guessing what might be happening in their lives. It gives one the shivers, doesn’t it?”

Actually, Hallie agreed about the shivers. She’d felt that thrill creep up her backbone before, particularly
lately when she was wondering about Zachary and Rapunzel, but it didn’t seem wise to admit it. Instead she pretended to be shocked. “You mean you like to peek in other people’s windows?”

Mrs. Tilson was busy now, pouring the lemonade out of a tall silver pitcher into two glasses, but she stopped long enough to look thoughtfully at Hallie. “Why, I guess that all depends. Yes, I think it does. What one likes depends on so many things. But what I do think …” She paused again, nodded, and then went on, “I do think looking out—looking out at other people is a very healthy thing to do.” With her small white head tipped to one side and her eyes glazed and unfocused, she went on, “Yes, much better than looking at yourself all the time. Like in mirrors, for instance.”

Hallie didn’t get it. “You mean, like, windows are healthy because of the fresh air?”

Mrs. Tilson was smiling as she handed Hallie a tall, ice-misted glass. “Yes, that’s a part of it. A kind of freshness might be a part…”

The doorbell was ringing. “Oh my, there’s the bell. That must be your dear mother. I’ll just go let her in.”

Hallie jumped up saying, “I’ll go. Let me go.”

As she hurried to the door, she was feeling relieved, glad to get away. The conversation had started to get a little bit weird.