The Summer of Moonlight Secrets Page 4

  “Thanks, Chef Boyardee,” I say in a super-sweet voice.

  He lifts a spatula and waves me away.

  Sophie looks positively repulsed when I turn from the kitchen with my little container. “You eat tuna fish for breakfast?”

  “Brain food,” I say, turning left out of the dining room. “Haven’t you ever heard that about fish?”

  She follows me down the hall. “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Students who eat a protein-filled breakfast score higher on tests and are more creative in everything they do.” That’s in my school handbook.

  I look both ways, then duck into the service tower. “You coming?”

  “Where are you going?” she calls from the hallway.

  I gesture with the tuna fish. “I’ve got to feed my cat.”

  13

  The scent woke the girl up, filled her being. Fish! Her stomach growled in recognition. She sat up from the floor, letting the blanket fall from her. She’d discovered this small room last night, a room with shelves and blankets. From them, she’d made something of a nest for herself and had slept well. Perhaps that had something to do with the door. It blocked people out.

  But it didn’t block out that wonderful fragrance! She followed it through a narrow door and up a staircase. She could hear voices—Allie Jo and another.

  She thought to dash back to her nest, but hunger demanded she go forward. She must eat. The stairs ended at a place with lots of rooms. Faint notions came to her, but the growling of her stomach drowned them out.

  Suddenly footsteps and talking neared her! Her heart, usually slow and controlled, pumped up. She tucked herself into an alcove, waiting until they passed.

  Yes, it was Allie Jo, and a girl, fair and light. The air was pleasant around the girl she hadn’t met, but she did not wish to reveal herself. She must be sure it was safe. Waiting in the alcove, she stilled herself, breathing slowly.

  Laughter came from the other room, but the laughter of many, not just two. Her heart leaped. How did she miss these others? Was she losing her senses?

  Then there was much sneezing, and the footsteps neared her. Again they passed by her—only the two of them—and descended the stairs.

  She tarried in the alcove, straining her ears for the other voices she’d heard, yet none sounded. The smell of fish drifted teasingly under her nose. She could deny her stomach no more and swept through the rooms toward the scent.

  Ah, but what curious thing was this—a black creature with fur, devouring the very food she sought. She drew near cautiously, for she had never seen such a being. She sat on the floor and watched it. Perhaps it would leave some for her.

  14

  Chase

  This is what the wood floor sounds like: Irrp! Crack! Reee-raw. I make that last sound by slowly stepping on this one spot and lifting my foot again. Reee-raw, reee-raw. And that’s not the only noise either. Pipes line the ceiling—they’re in the rooms too—and something’s clinking in them. If I weren’t thirteen, I might think it was a ghost.

  I’m walking down the hallway, fingering the cuff of my cast. Feels like there’re ants in there, it’s so itchy. Dad’s gone to cover a waterskiing attraction, but first we went out for lunch.

  Usually, I like to stick my hand out the window and let the wind whip it around, but I didn’t think the cast was made for winds at sixty-five miles per hour. So I daydreamed and stared out the window. All of a sudden, I saw it.

  “Kudzu!” I hollered. I couldn’t believe it—it covered everything: telephone poles, billboards, whole sections of woods. Allie Jo was right.

  “What?” Dad yelled back. We zoomed down the highway. He probably couldn’t focus on the scenery.

  “Nothing!” Kudzu was not worth a car crash.

  After lunch, Dad secured me in the room—Sorry, bud—and left.

  I rake the top of the cast; it’s driving me crazy. I stick my fingers in to scratch, but I can’t squeeze them in far enough. The doc had said, Tap on the cast if you’re itchy. Yeah, right. I’m doing Morse code, but it ain’t working.

  I head out of the room. Dim chandeliers cast just enough light to see the cobwebs hanging from them. I have a crazy urge to jump up and swing from them. I could swing from light to light, Tarzan of the hotel. The sounds from televisions seep under the gaps of several doorways, but other than that, no sign of life.

  My arm’s on fire with this itching. I jog downstairs, through the main hallway, and straight toward the front desk. They gotta have something to help me with this crazy itch. But just before I reach the desk, I hit one of those displays with all the attraction flyers. Wax Museum! Experience the Light of Flight! Learn to Water Ski!

  This last one is the one I pull out. That’s where Dad is today, where I would have been except for my stupid broken arm. Fumbling with my left hand, I stick one edge of the flyer into my right hand and stretch the brochure open. I look at a picture of a guy being pulled on water skis by an overhead rope tow. Forget it—I don’t get to be that guy, not this summer. I take a deep breath. Trying to fold the flyer back up is impossible. I crumple it instead and leave it on top of the display.

  “Um, excuse me?”

  The vending-machine girl! I slip into doofus mode.

  She smiles. “Um … I thought maybe you could use this?” She waves a knitting needle.

  My brain’s gone dead. I’m not making the connection. I tilt my head like a dog that doesn’t understand something.

  “You know,” she says, “for your arm—to scratch your arm. You keep scratching your cast.”

  “Oh, yeah—yeah, that would be great.” It’s great that I can talk again. This girl is so pretty. I take the needle from her and slide it under the cast. “Aw, man.” I shake my head. “You don’t know how good that feels.”

  She laughs and I do too. Then we don’t say anything.

  “Hi, Chase!” Allie Jo walks up behind her. She’s holding knitting needles too; some kind of green thing hangs from one of them. “This is Sophie. Can she sign your cast?”

  Sophie’s mouth drops open and she turns. “Allie Jo!”

  “No! It’s okay!” I say too loudly. “You can sign it.”

  Allie Jo grins at Sophie, handing off her knitting. “I’ll go get a marker.”

  “Not pink!” I yell after her.

  Allie Jo comes back with a blue marker, and when Sophie signs the cast, she lays one hand on it and writes with the other. Her hair tickles my fingers. She’s so close, I can smell her strawberry lip gloss.

  “Sophie,” she says, and gives me a strawberry smile.

  I smile back, feeling something like a current between us.

  “Nice handwriting,” Allie Jo says. She talks in capital letters—loud and important.

  I like how Sophie dotted the i, a circle over big, loopy letters. She had to write her name on the inner side of the cast because Allie Jo Jackson takes up the entire top of it, and Clay and Dad are on the other side. That’s okay, though, because Sophie’s side of the cast is closest to me.

  “How’s your arm feeling?” Sophie asks.

  “Still broken!” Good one, Chase.

  They tehee for a moment, then Sophie goes, “No, I mean … um—”

  “You’ve got her needle stuck in your cast,” Allie Jo says.

  “Oh!” Doofus. I slide the needle out and hand it to Sophie. “Sorry about that.” I feel a hangdog expression creeping over my face like kudzu.

  “No big deal.” She gives me a huge smile. “You can use it again if you need to.”

  Hmm. I foresee an itchy arm in my future.

  15

  Allie Jo

  “And this is the service tunnel. At the turn of the century, most of our guests traveled by train or stagecoach and stayed on for several months. Naturally, they had large wardrobes to pack.”

  We’re standing in the entrance to the tunnels that crisscross under the hotel. Mom’s giving her tour, which, this being a Tuesday, has a small turnout: me, Chase, Sophie, and
Ryan and Nicholas, the two brothers I babysit. Nicholas is seven and Ryan is four, and they live in the family suite on the first floor since their parents work here too.

  I stand beside Mom, facing our audience. As she speaks, I mouth every word she says; I know the whole thing by heart. If they pay attention, they’ll learn a lot of stuff.

  “After the guests disembarked, porters ran out to unload the trunks, and there were many of them, as you— Allie Jo?” She turns to me. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Please continue.” This is fun.

  “There were many of them, as you can imagine, and they were quite heavy. The porters loaded them onto handcarts and pulled them up the lawn to this service tower.”

  I gesture around with my hands like she does. Nicholas snickers.

  Mom gives me that mom look. I make sure to look innocent.

  “Servants were not to be seen back then, so, as you can see, these tunnels have paths leading to every corner of the hotel— Allie Jo, what are you doing?” She whips around, one hand on her hip, a little smile on her lips.

  “She’s saying your words!” Nicholas yells. Ryan bursts out laughing, and I see Sophie’s and Chase’s mouths struggling to keep straight.

  “Well, you know the tour as well as I do,” she says. She looks at our little group. “Ladies and gentlemen”—she gestures with her hand—“your new tour guide.”

  “Thank you, Mom.” I bow as Mom steps aside.

  I swing open a heavy cedar door. “You will notice the brick-lined rooms on either side. The small one on your left was the first one built. It was the icebox. It’s been gutted, but you can still tell by its pantry shape how it might have been used.”

  Sophie raises her hand.

  “Yes? In the back?” I ask.

  Chase guffaws.

  Sophie steals a glance at him, then looks at me. “You mean like a refrigerator?”

  “Yes. Huge blocks of ice were carried in and stored in there with food. The hotel became so popular, a second room was needed.

  “Now, our young men were off fighting in the First World War, and then the Great Depression hit. This was also the time of Prohibition.”

  Mom raises her hand and speaks before I call on her. “What does that mean?”

  “Good question,” I say, then direct my answer to Chase and Sophie.

  “Prohibition is when the government wouldn’t let people drink alcohol. But these were times when people needed relief the most, so Mr. Meriwether built the second room really big”—I look around the way Mom does at this point, as if she can’t risk the wrong person hearing the next part, and I stage-whisper—“and he turned it into a speakeasy.” I straighten up and let that sink in.

  Only they just stare at me. “Don’t you know what a speakeasy is?”

  They shake their heads.

  “It’s a place where people could come and drink and forget their troubles. This is where Mr. Meriwether met Mrs. Meriwether. She was already married, but once she spotted Mr. Meriwether, that was it—love at first sight.”

  Chase’s features pull together and he frowns.

  “They’d meet here in secret until her husband found out and divorced her. You see that porthole, that little window? Well, the doorman inside the speakeasy would slide it open to make sure the person knocking wasn’t a policeman. Mr. Meriwether used it to make sure it wasn’t the husband on the other side.”

  Sophie gasps with pleasure, her face lit up, but Chase looks positively stormy.

  “I wish the husband had beaten the door down and punched the guy out,” he says.

  “That wouldn’t have happened,” I say, wondering a little at his remark. “The old chief of police himself was usually in there, trying to win some of Mr. Meriwether’s money at the poker table.”

  “Oh, my gosh!” Sophie says, which, of course, is the correct response.

  I look at Mom and she smiles back. I’ve done pretty well, I think. I let her take over again, this being as far as she ever leads anyone into the tunnel. We go up the stairs and she shows us the framed black-and-white photos of long-ago movie stars sitting on the veranda or, in Clark Gable’s case, eating The Meriwether’s Famous Blueberry Pancakes in the Emerald Dining Room.

  Mom ends the tour at the front desk and gives everyone, me included, a Meriwether magnet, then says good-bye, what a good tour group we were, and all that stuff.

  Ryan tugs on my shirt. He cups his hand to whisper, waiting until I bend. “What’s wrong wif his arm?” His breath is hot and moist on my ear.

  “Fractured femur,” I say. It’s the only bone word I know.

  “That’s a leg bone,” Chase says. He turns to Ryan. “I broke my arm.”

  “Oh.” Ryan’s mouth puckers. “Did it hurt?”

  “It hurt a lot. You want to sign my cast?”

  Both boys shriek and jump. Instead of dinging for Clay, I get the markers myself and give one to each boy. Ryan knows how to write his name, and it turns out pretty well for a four-year-old. Nicholas takes great care in writing his name.

  I ask Sophie and Chase, “How’d you like the tunnel?” For most people, the tunnel and the speakeasy are their favorite parts of the tour.

  “I don’t think you guys should be talking about people leaving their husbands,” Chase spouts. “You tell it like it’s a real love story.”

  I stare at him in surprise. “I thought you liked the tour.”

  “I didn’t like that part,” he says.

  Sophie’s fingers press against her lips. “I thought it was kind of interesting.”

  “Well, it’s not interesting to me,” he says. “There’s nothing interesting about that, okay?”

  Most people like the tour. “What’s the matter with you?” I say. I am surprised and a little annoyed with his lack of appreciation.

  He glances up at me, and I swear, his face looks all lost for a second, then he pulls it together and says, “Nothing. I didn’t mean that. It was a good tour.”

  I stare at him. “Well!” That’s all I can think of. If I was done knitting my scarf, I’d whirl it around my neck and storm off.

  16

  Chase

  After the tour, Sophie has to split for lunch with her parents, and Nicholas and Ryan’s mom comes to get them. I’m kind of hungry too. I finger the dollar bills from Dad in my pocket and think about that vending machine by the game room.

  Strands of Allie Jo’s hair cling to her forehead. You know how people say, It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity? Well, it’s true. “Let’s go to my house,” she says. “I’m hungry.”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I’m not really hungry.” I’m kind of leery about going to other people’s houses. Once you’re in, if things don’t go well, you’re trapped. Besides, I point out, “I thought you lived here.”

  “I do live here and I know you’re hungry. I heard your stomach growling.”

  Objection! I think to myself. The opposition is using evidence not declared by this court! Still, her kitchen probably has something better than the bag of pretzels I was planning.

  Her house turns out to be a suite above the hotel’s restaurant. I thought it would be like the room Dad and I are in, but it looks like a regular home once you get inside: living room, kitchen, hallway. There are pictures everywhere: Mom, Dad, and Allie Jo at the beach; Mom, Dad, and Allie Jo with Mickey Mouse; Dad holding a baby—must be Allie Jo. We have pictures like that too, in a box in the basement. Dad thinks I don’t know he looks at them, but when I pull the box out, the pictures are in a different order from how I left them.

  “Mo-om!” Allie Jo calls out as we enter.

  A man comes from another room. Her dad, who is also the manager. Hope I don’t get a lecture about obeying the rules.

  “Hey, Allie Jo.” He pulls her in for a quick hug. “You’re Chase, right? Recognized you by the cast.”

  My calling card.

  “You’re just in time for lunch. You eat yet, Chase?”

  I shake my he
ad.

  Allie Jo follows him into the kitchen. I don’t want to, but I follow her. “Will you make us grilled cheese?” she asks, uncapping some juice and pouring it into two cups.

  He waves a spatula. “Boom! You’re grilled cheese.”

  Now I see where she gets her sense of humor. Still, it’s so corny that it’s funny.

  Allie Jo’s leaning on the island, sipping her juice. I gulp mine down. I’m waiting for her to head into another room, like I would, but she stays there, even after her juice is gone.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  Apparently, her mom is running errands. Her dad starts talking about Taste of Hope, the festival coming up in a few weeks.

  “Should be a big to-do,” he says, flipping the grilled cheese. He’s making three of them. “Chef’s already working up the trays.”

  Allie Jo’s face lights up. “Oooh! I can’t wait!” She turns to me. “It’s, like, the biggest thing in the summer, and at night it’s July Fourth.”

  Confused, I ask, “Isn’t it July Fourth during the day too?”

  “Of course, silly—everyone comes out for the festival, and then stays for the fireworks.”

  Her dad puts the grilled cheeses on plates, dumps some chips on them, and sets the plates on the island. “Order up!”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Allie Jo says, picking up a plate.

  I pick up a plate too and follow her to the table. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “No problem,” he says, flipping the spatula like a drumstick. “It’s my only specialty.” Then he sits with us at the table.

  It is grilled just right. “Mmm, good,” I say.

  Allie Jo looks at her dad. “Tell him what you call them.”

  He looks a little embarrassed but puffs out his chest and says, “Golden brown crispy with melted cheese in between—Jackson style.”

  They pretend-argue over who invented the golden brown crispy part, then move on to other things. He asks me questions, like what grade am I going into, do I play basketball, what can I do on a skateboard, and the weird thing is that he’s listening, really listening. He’s not lost in his own world, editing stories in his head. When my dad “listens,” I can practically see the typewriter ribbon ticking across his eyeballs.