SummerHill Secrets, Volume 1 (16 page)

I wasn’t much good for either Lissa or Chelsea on the bus ride home. I played with my camera case, snapping and unsnapping it, reliving my encounter with Elton the previous day.

Mom had a ton of chores lined up for me when I got home. “If you hurry, you’ll be done before supper.”

“But it’s Friday,” I whined as she waved her list in my face.

“It’s also a very messy Friday,” she said with a frown.

Mom was right. My room was messy. I just didn’t feel like doing anything about it. Not today.

I curled up on the bed with my wonderful cats—two goldenhaired ones and a sleek black one. “Tell me, what do you think of Jonathan?” I asked Abednego, my favorite. He seemed more interested in licking his dark coat clean than hearing me moon over some boy.

I couldn’t get Jon out of my mind. He had, after all, stuck up for me—to Cody Gower of all people.

At times like this, I wished Faithie, my twin sister, were still alive. She wouldn’t have minded listening to my triumphs. Or to my tragedies. I thought of Jon’s words.
“Leave Merry out of this.”
I thought of poor Elton. Playing with fire? Suspended?

I slipped away from my cats’ cozy nest on my bed and went to my dresser. Picking up a gold-framed photograph, I stared into the past. Before the world of guys and junior high. Before the days of blow dryers and hair products. To the first real tragedy of my life.

Sitting cross-legged on the rug beside my bed, I cradled the picture in my hands. We were seven then. Our last birthday together…

I stared at the image, remembering the dazzling white pony. Faithie sat behind me in the peppermint-striped saddle, wearing a pink lace dress like mine. She had slipped her arms around my waist, holding on for dear life until the photographer finally succeeded in getting her to smile.

Posing for pictures at that age gets awfully tiresome. But now, as I held the enchanting photo in my hands, I was glad we’d done it. Glad, too, for all the special times we’d had together. And for the many firsts we’d shared. We’d been inseparable friends, Faithie and I. Until the cancer came and took her away.

Mom wandered into my room, and by the look on her face, I knew she wasn’t exactly thrilled. “Merry, your room still looks—”

I glanced up. “Oh…I’m sorry.”

She spied the picture in my hands. “Honey…are you all right?” She came and knelt beside me on the floor.

I nodded, tears falling fast.

She swept the hair off my brow, pulling me gently against her. “Oh, Merry, why didn’t you say you needed some space?”

“Please, Mom. I’m okay, really.” It felt strange hearing her go on like this.

“You know, Mer, this room has looked a hundred percent worse many, many times before this,” she said. “It can certainly look like this for one more day.”

“I’ll clean it up.”

“No, no. It’s not necessary. Not today. You just go outside and have a nice long bike ride or do whatever you’d like for a while.”

I sat up and looked at her. Smile lines sat on each corner of her mouth; worry lines furrowed her brow. There was a teeny touch of gray every so often in her hair. But love shone out of her deep-set brown eyes. “Thanks for understanding, Mom.”

“Any old time.” She laughed as she pulled herself up off the floor.

When she was gone, I returned the photograph to my dresser. Stepping back, I glimpsed myself in the mirror. How much I had changed!

Merry, the little girl, had disappeared. In her place stood a young woman. I stared long and hard. How had my twin’s death changed me? How had it changed the entire course of my life?

I leaned closer, shifting my gaze to the picture and focusing on Faithie’s arms wrapped around me. It seemed I’d always been the strong one. Especially with Faithie. And now even with some of my closest friends.

At that moment, I thought of Elton. It startled me that I should think of him in terms of friendship. I felt truly sorry for him. Pure and simple.

Reaching for my backpack, I stuffed my trusty Polaroid camera, sketch pad, and several charcoal pencils inside. Mom was absolutely right. I needed some space, and a long bike ride to Hunsecker’s Mill Bridge was just the thing. Quickly, I changed into my grungiest pair of jeans.

I flew down SummerHill Lane on my bike, past the willow grove where Faithie and I had played. Once, we hid buried treasures there. Mom wasn’t too wild to discover part of that treasure included the wedding band she had innocently removed while washing dishes. After a whole day of digging, I retrieved it in time to avoid major disciplinary action.

Farther down the lane, Zooks’ farm was hopping with Amish folk. Looked like a quilting bee. I scanned the women milling around on the front porch, probably having a lemonade break—the real stuff, freshly squeezed, of course. I looked for Rachel but didn’t see her.

In the field beyond the Zook farmhouse, Levi and Aaron were tilling the soil, preparing for corn planting. With a little help from their mules.

Soon, the cemetery came into view. We’d buried Faithie there nearly nine years ago. A warm breeze rippled through my hair as I stood up, pedaling hard. Standing on tiptoes, I could see the top of her gravestone peeking over a small rise in the graveyard. A feeling of uncontrollable joy filled me as I flew down the lane. Faithie’s soul, her true self, wasn’t stuck away in that old grave. She was alive. And someday in heaven I would see her again.

The joyful feeling turned to one of quiet resolve and I sat down on the seat of my bike, letting my legs rest as I coasted toward Hunsecker Road.

At the intersection, I looked both ways before heading down the road to the covered bridge. As I made the last turn before the bridge, I heard the loose boards clatter under the weight of a car as it drove across the one-laner. The sound lingered in my mind until the car honked and I saw Miss Spindler, our neighbor, waving. I waved back, wondering what Old Hawk Eyes was doing out here. Probably spying—her favorite hobby.

She turned the corner in her snazzy red car, grinding the gears as usual. I waited till she was gone before parking my bike on the narrow shoulder near the bridge. Then I ran through the high grass along the bank of the Conestoga River.

Finding just the right vantage point, I sat under two large oaks that leaned together overhead, as though locking arms in friendship. I took two shots of the bridge with my Polaroid, then sat down and began to sketch while the pictures developed.

Insects buzzed around me. Martins swept down to the river’s edge, searching for an insect supper as the cool, sweet smell of April filled my senses. Taking all the time in the world, I referred back to the Polaroid pictures, now very clear. Sometimes photographs called attention to things missed in real life.

I put the finishing touches on my sketch, confident that Mrs. Hawkins would be truly pleased with the finished project.

The sound of a horse and buggy caught my attention. When I looked up, I saw an Amish couple in an open courting buggy make the sharp turn before heading into the covered bridge. Rachel had said covered bridges were made for kissing. Maybe a kiss was on the way….

I had the strongest urge to sneak up on the couple, and I probably would have if I hadn’t noticed a blond-haired boy sitting high in the twin oaks above me. Squinting up into the afternoon sun, I shielded my eyes. “Elton, is that you?”

He began nodding.

“What are you doing up there?”

He held his sketch pad high, his eyes shining.

“That’s good.” I felt awkward. I wanted to ask why he’d taken my idea and sketched this bridge, but the more I thought of it, the more I decided it was a compliment, not a threat. “Are you okay up there?”

He nodded repeatedly.

“How far along is your sketch?”

Without warning, Elton scrambled down from the tree. He leaned over to show off his drawing.

“Wow! It’s genius!” I raved, still sitting on the grassy bank. How could a sensitive kid like Elton draw a picture like this, start a fire, and get suspended all in one week?

Elton stood there with a blank-eyed look on his face. Was he waiting for me to show my drawing of the bridge? More awkward seconds passed.

“Oh no, you don’t,” I said, laughing, realizing I was right about what Elton wanted. “My sketch needs major help compared to yours.”

I stood up, noticing a bike parked beside mine near the bridge. Probably his. Brushing off my jeans, I loaded my backpack. “Here, pick one,” I said, holding up the Polaroid pictures. “They’re great for reference.”

He studied them carefully before choosing.

“I take pictures here all the time. Everywhere, really,” I said more to myself than to him. And with camera in hand, I headed up the riverbank. “I have to leave now.”

Elton stared almost sadly as I waved good-bye. I wondered how on earth he’d arrived here without my noticing.

By the time I reached my bike, the Amish buggy was emerging very slowly from the bridge. I grinned at the couple as they rode out. Time for more than one kiss, I thought, as the horse picked up speed and pranced down the road.

Saturday morning, bright and early…well, really more like around nine-thirty, I got up and tore into my messy room. The cleaning lady was coming in a couple days, but Mom always liked the house picked up for the occasion. I never could figure out why we had to scour the house for the cleaning lady’s arrival. Seemed like a waste of money. And energy.

After brunch I headed to Rachel’s. She wanted to make a patchwork pillow for my hope chest and said I should choose the colors. When I arrived, she was helping her mother bake bread for tomorrow’s noon meal. It was the Zooks’ turn to have church at their house, and since the Amish always shared a meal after the service, it was essential that food preparations were completed before sundown Saturday.

“What are you serving tomorrow?” I peered over Rachel’s shoulder.

“The usual,” she said, showing me cold cuts, red beets, pickles, and cheese already cooling in the refrigerator run on twelve-volt batteries.

Rachel’s face grew serious. “Something else happened yesterday.”

She motioned me to the corner of the kitchen, out of her mother’s hearing range. “Our chickens all died,” she said quietly. “Someone poisoned them.”

“That’s horrible!”

I must’ve spoken too loudly because Rachel’s mother looked startled as she set two loaves of bread out to cool on the sideboard. “Ach, Rachel! Hold your tongue.”

That was the end of that. Rachel clammed right up, obeying her mother. Even after she took me to her bedroom to choose squares of various colors for my pillow, she refused to discuss it.

I did not like this Ben Fisher person. Anyone who could kill off innocent chickens—it was the most hideous thing I’d ever heard. What would he do next?

On the way home I was so deep in thought, fussing and fuming about Ben, I nearly walked right over Elton Keel sitting in the thickest part of the willow grove.

Willow branches draped around us, forming a canopy so dense that the sun only filtered through it, casting whispers of light here and there. It was a very secret place.

“Elton, what are you doing here?”

He pulled his legs up next to his chest and rested his chin on his knees, squinting up at me. That’s when I saw his plaid backpack and the sketch pad lying on the grass beside him.

“Oh, you’re sketching again.”

He started nodding.

“May I see?”

Elton reached for his sketch pad. He pointed to the Zooks’ barn in the distance and then to his pad. The drawing was an exact replica of the huge white barn, complete with silo. I stared in awe at the pen sketch. Flawless artistry.

“Oo-oh, Elton. This is so-o good.”

He clicked his pen without stopping. The clicking seemed to provide a sense of security.

Suddenly, I had a great idea. “Want to borrow my Polaroid for a while? You can sketch from the photos at home. Sometimes it helps catch details you might’ve missed.”

Elton didn’t move his head, but his eyes said yes.

“Are you coming to the youth service?” I closed the sketch pad and handed it back to him.

He stopped clicking his pen and began to nod.

“I’ll bring the camera tonight, okay?”

His nodding continued.

I was dying to ask him about the fire at school: Why he’d started it. What had really happened. But almost before I finished thinking that thought, Elton turned abruptly and reached for his backpack.

“Are you leaving?” I asked.

His attention seemed focused on whatever he was searching for in his backpack. Then slowly, and with a high-pitched grunt, he pulled out a folded paper. Its edges were charred black and flaking off. Elton handed the paper to me.

I took the fragile paper from his hand. “Is this for me?”

He nodded only once.

His reaction startled me. In the short time I’d known Elton, he’d never, ever nodded only once.

Carefully, I unfolded the charred paper. My breath caught in my throat as I recognized the sketch. It was the drawing of me—the one I’d returned to Elton.

I squinted at the fair-faced boy. With a totally blank look, Elton stared back. It occurred to me that if I observed him long enough, carefully enough, I might find my answers in his eyes.

A sudden breeze made the willows whisper above us and the drawing tremble in my hand. Between alternating intervals of shade and sun, flickers of light played on Elton’s face. “You want to tell me something, don’t you?”

Again he nodded one time.

“Do you want to tell me why you started the fire at school?”

He nodded. This time more quickly.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’ll do. I ask the questions and you give the answers. One nod means yes, and nothing means no. Okay?”

He nodded. This was incredible!

“Did you start the fire by burning my picture—this picture?” I held up the charred drawing, tapping it lightly.

He nodded.

“Were you mad at Cody Gower?”

Not a single eyelash fluttered.

“Were you mad at the others who teased you?”

Nothing.

“Were you—” I paused. What other reason could there be?