The Big Dip Page 2

  I choked, “What Jake told me…I wrote it down…”

  Trenchcoat followed my gaze. He bent to pick up the paper.

  My lungs were still raw from having their oxygen cut off, but my arms were okay. The push-ups and weight lifting I did made them strong. I grasped the edges of the locker and pulled myself out.

  Trenchcoat looked up from the paper he was unfolding.

  I ran.

  I heard Trenchcoat puffing and wheezing as he lumbered after me.

  The fire exit was the closest way out. I sprinted to it. OPEN ONLY IN AN EMERGENCY was painted on the glass in big red letters.

  I’d say this qualified.

  I pushed the door open, setting off an alarm that jangled through the building.

  I ran outside. It was twenty-eight blocks to my house. I kept running and never once looked back.

  One of the reasons I didn’t ace schoolwork was that I hated being confined in a classroom. I thought better when I could move around, and thought best when I could run. I could toss off the distractions like unwanted layers of clothes. When I was running, only what mattered stayed with me.

  I rounded the corner of Nanaimo and Hastings and cut through Sunrise Park. I wasn’t even out of breath. The mountains loomed in the distance, cool and blue.

  I had to go to the police, even if they charged me with deserting the scene of a crime. Whoever shot Jake knew who I was. Like Jake, they’d recognized me from the Vancouver Sun story.

  Whoever shot Jake.

  I thought of the people who’d sat behind Skip and me. I hadn’t noticed any of them really, except for the woman with the big boxy purse. She could have had a gun in that purse. She could have shot Jake.

  On the other hand, the woman had said she was a nurse. She’d tried to help Jake.

  What was this plant Jake had mumbled about?

  I reached the end of the park. I’d cleared my brain, all right. The problem was, all that was left were questions.

  What was this plant?

  The words pounded at me in rhythm with my footsteps.

  I veered out of the park and cut across the middle of Hastings—through blaring horns and squealing tires—to a gas station. At the payphone I fished in my pocket. Trenchcoat had the fifty bucks, but I still had some change. I punched in Skip’s cell number.

  “Yeah?” Skip sounded bored, annoyed. I pictured him in the car with his parents, his iPod buds in his ears. Skip didn’t like having his tunes interrupted.

  His voice warmed on recognizing me. “Yo, Mojo. What’s doin’?”

  “The Margaret rose,” I panted. “Can you google it? I gotta tell the police about it, like the old guy wanted.”

  Skip caught the urgency in my voice. “Why, what happened?”

  I didn’t want to go into the Trenchcoat incident. Skip would be all over me with questions, and I didn’t have time. Not with Trenchcoat after me.

  “Just look up the Margaret rose for me,” I pleaded.

  Skip’s dad had a Blackberry, a fancy one with all the gizmos. He’d promised one to Skip, if Skip kept up his sky-high marks. This kind of cheesed Skip, who didn’t like to wait for anything.

  “Can’t you look it up yourself?” Skip was needling me. I bet he was still annoyed about having his tunes interrupted.

  I leaned my forehead against the phone-booth glass. At home we were still on dial-up. It took a long time for the computer to chug onto the Internet—and I didn’t have a long time.

  I replied, forcing my voice to stay even. At the slightest sign of pressure, Skip would clam up. He didn’t like being pushed. I said, “No. I mean, yeah, I could look it up. But if you google the Margaret rose for me now, you’ll know what it is by the time I get home. By the time I phone you back. Please?”

  “Okay, okay.” Skip sounded surprised. “Keep your shirt on, buddy.”

  I replaced the receiver just as Skip was asking his dad for the Blackberry.

  Miss Lucy called the doctor,

  Miss Lucy called the nurse,

  Miss Lucy called the lady

  With the alligator purse!

  Ellie was doing cartwheels on the front lawn. With every cartwheel, her long red- ribboned braids spun like windmill blades. Even while flipping, my sister wore her neon pink backpack. She and the backpack, filled with dolls, crayons, pretend makeup and other girly stuff, were inseparable.

  “Hey,” I said, flopping down on the bench by the rosebush. I wiped my face with my T-shirt. “How come you’re home? I thought you were gonna be at Sandra’s all day.”

  Ellie just kept chanting. Every time she said “the lady with the alligator purse,” I thought of the woman on the roller coaster—the woman who was either a nurse or a murderer.

  The chanting was getting to me. Mom told me to be patient with my sister, but to have to put up with her today of all days…

  “What happened, you and Sandra have a fight?” I asked.

  Startled by my annoyed tone, Ellie flipped to an upright position and stared at me. “Sandra and I never fight,” she responded solemnly.

  Then she started with the cartwheels again.

  “Mumps,” said the doctor,

  “Measles,” said the nurse…

  “Aw, cut it out,” I said. It bugged me that Ellie had showed up when she wasn’t supposed to. Now I had to worry about her.

  I couldn’t warn Ellie about Trenchcoat because she’d freak.

  “Sandra has pinkeye,” my sister was explaining. “Her mom said it could be contagious, so I better go home. I knew you’d be here, ’cause your math class was over. But you were late, Joe. How come?” She paused in a handstand. “How come, Joe?”

  I stood up. “C’mon inside,” I ordered. And I’ll lock all the doors and windows, I added silently.

  “Inside? Who wants to go inside?”

  “Since I’m stuck with you, we’re going to spend a nice, sunny summer day indoors,” I snapped.

  Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. I was being mean, but I couldn’t help it. And I didn’t care.

  “Hiccups,” said the lady

  With the alligator purse.

  Ellie was still at it, even inside. Any minute now her cartwheels would bring down one of Mom’s china figurines. That Ellie. She knew she wasn’t allowed to do her flips in the house.

  Upstairs in my room, I shut the door and called Skip.

  “Yo, buddy,” he said. “Okay. I googled plant and Margaret rose for you. There’s a Margaret rose, all right. Lemme read you one entry. ‘It has creamy outer petals, rich purple center ones.’ Like, whoop-de-doo. At least, so I thought.

  “But I kept reading. ‘A true Margaret rose is so rare that it’s worth hundreds of thousands.’ ”

  I let loose a long whistle. “This had to be what the old guy—Jake—was jabbering about. But why would the police want one? If I were them, I’d prefer coffee and donuts.”

  “Listen and learn, Mojo. I tried the same search words as before, only under Google News. Smart, huh?”

  I could just see Skip’s self-congratulatory smile. Typical Skip. But then, he was smart. “Yeah?” I said. “And?”

  “And bingo, buddy. A genuine Margaret rose is on display here in Vancouver, at VanDusen Gardens.”

  VanDusen is a posh place with lots of flowers. Nice, I guess. It’s the type of place mothers like.

  “That’s gotta be the rose Jake meant,”

  I said. “But I can’t take it from VanDusen, even if it was Jake’s dying wish. The poor old guy,” I sighed.

  “Whatever.” Skip’s voice had a shrug in it. He wasn’t the most sentimental person. “Hey, so you’re at home now, Mojo?”

  “Yeah, in my room. I didn’t want Ellie to hear. You know what a pest she can be about stuff that’s none of her—”

  “You should be phoning the cops, Mojo. Not chatting with me about flowers. C’mon, buddy, this is serious.”

  I caught the urgency in his voice. “Okay, okay, I’ll call them now.”

  Ski
p hung up. He was right, of course. Like always. Mr. Too-Perfect.

  I bellowed through the closed door at Ellie to be quiet. Not because I could hear her very well with the door shut, but because I was feeling irritated. Why did Skip always have to be the one to think of what to do? Did I have to be slow Joe all the time?

  Wishing I was Skip, with his perfect personality, perfect grades and perfect vacation at Lake Okanagan, I called the police. I told the operator about Jake and his weird message, about running away, about the attack at the school.

  And about how Trenchcoat, who had my id, could be after me at this moment.

  The operator said they’d treat this as an emergency. The police would come right away.

  Please don’t let Trenchcoat show up, I thought. Or, if he does, let the cops get here first.

  I thought of what Skip had said about how valuable the Margaret rose was.

  I whistled again and noticed how the whistle echoed in the silence.

  The silence…

  I stood up so fast that I knocked my chair backward. In this house, silence was the wrong sound.

  I zoomed downstairs.

  The front door was open, the lock smashed. By closing my door upstairs, I’d blocked out Ellie’s chanting—and the sound of someone breaking in.

  The hot still air from outside rushed through the door and pressed in on me, smothering my breath.

  “ELLIE!” I yelled.

  There was no answer. I heard nothing but the buzzing of bees in the rosebush.

  Propped just inside the door was the knapsack that Ellie never went anywhere without.

  Chapter Four

  The hall phone rang. It was buried under a stack of Ellie’s Owl magazines. I unearthed the receiver just as the call clicked into our message machine.

  “Ellie,” I said.

  “Wrong-oh, Mojo,” hissed a voice. “Not Ellie.”

  Trenchcoat, I thought.

  The voice went on, “Though little Ellie happens to be my guest.”

  My spine turned to ice. “No,” I said. “No!”

  There was a rustling sound, and then Ellie’s voice drawled over the line. She sounded like she’d just woken up. “Joe?”

  “Ellie!” I exclaimed. “Where are you?”

  “I’m so tired, Joe,” she sighed.

  In the distance, sirens wailed. The police were coming.

  “Ellie—!”

  The hissy voice came back on. “Want to see her again, Joe? Lemme tell you how to arrange that. Bring the Margaret rose behind the roller coaster tonight at closing time. It’ll be dark then.” The voice chuckled. “Dark as my soul. We’ll do a trade—if you come on your own. If you don’t bring the cops or anyone else with you.”

  “But I—,” I started to protest. I stopped myself. I don’t have the rose. Trenchcoat thought I had the Margaret rose. And that was my only chance to get Ellie back.

  I pulled the front door shut. I didn’t want Trenchcoat to hear the sirens.

  “Okay,” I got out, through a throat as dry as gravel. “Behind the roller coaster, at closing time.”

  “Be there, Joe—or the item I have for trade gets taken off the market… permanently.”

  Click.

  The phone almost slid out of my sweaty hand. Numbly, I put it down. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He had Ellie.

  Ellie, her braids flying with every cartwheel. Ellie, chanting about the lady with the alligator purse. Ellie, my noisy pest of a kid sister.

  Ellie was worth more to me than all the stupid Margaret roses on the planet.

  I’d been mean to her before she was kidnapped. I’d been a brute, not a brother.

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Then I realized that red lights were flashing through the living-room window. A police car had pulled up. The lights spun around me, making me dizzy, like I was stuck on a merry-go-round.

  No cops, he’d said. If I told anyone, Ellie would be… I had to get out of there.

  I had to get to VanDusen, to the Margaret rose.

  Money. I needed money for the admission. My wallet was still on the floor at the school.

  Mom kept an emergency twenty under the smiling-bear cookie jar in the kitchen. Knocking the bear on his side, I grabbed the twenty.

  The police officers were pounding on the front door. I bolted out the back, plowing through the thick blackberry bushes at the end of our yard.

  I climbed over the back fence and ran to the street.

  I ran without thinking where I was going. I was on automatic pilot. I ended up at one of my haunts, the Britannia Community Centre. Usually I went into the fitness room to work out, but now I needed somewhere to sit and think.

  I went into the Britannia Library. Collapsing on a chair, I leaned my head down and clasped my hands over my knees. I breathed deeply, raggedly, not the way my coach had taught me. A woman at one of the computers glanced over curiously.

  Clinging to the woman’s hand was a little girl, hopping from one foot to the other with impatience.

  My eyes swam. I couldn’t look at the kid. I thought of how drowsy Ellie had sounded—like she’d been drugged.

  Ellie…Little Ellie…

  I went over to the drinking fountain and glugged back water. I could get Ellie back, I told myself. I could make this work. Skip had told me I could do anything if I just concentrated.

  I sank back onto the chair and shut my eyes, pressing my fingers over them. Against the backs of my lids, Trenchcoat’s bulky shaped loomed.

  I sat upright, opening my eyes so that the light blocked out the image of Trenchcoat. Something—an impression, an idea—was knocking at the edges of my brain. Something I’d noticed but hadn’t registered. What was it?

  Without realizing it, I’d been scowling at the mom and her kid. The mom looked frightened.

  I gave her a sheepish grin, but that didn’t cut it with her. She was definitely scared. Dragging her kid off to the library counter, she started whispering to one of the clerks.

  Huh? What rule had I broken? Couldn’t a guy come in and rest for a min— I looked down and saw scratches, deep jagged scratches, several of them spouting blood.

  I’d been in such a hurry I hadn’t noticed my skin till now. My hands and arms were covered with angry red souvenirs of the blackberry bushes. I could only imagine what my face looked like. It sure felt sore, now that I was paying attention. No wonder the woman was spooked.

  I jumped up to go wash off in the bathroom. I passed the computers, where the woman had been reading something onscreen.

  It was the Vancouver Sun’s home page. What’s With The PNE? the main headline blared.

  The story described the burst of crimes at the fair. Aside from the roller-coaster shooting, there had been a break-in at the gallery. A lot of valuables were missing. “What’s going on?” a PNE-goer was quoted. “The fair used to be so wholesome!”

  I didn’t stick around to read any more of the PNE’s problems. I had enough of my own. With suspicious glances at me, the library clerk was already punching in a phone number. A three-digit one. I didn’t have to be top-of-the-class to deduce who she was calling. All the while, the woman and the kid stared with wide, frightened eyes.

  I beat it out of there. At the drinking fountain outside, I splashed water over my hands, arms and face. Maybe now I didn’t look quite so much like an extra from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

  I ran up to Broadway. I didn’t have a plan, but I had a mission. I had to get the Margaret rose from VanDusen Gardens. I caught a 99B bus heading west, then grabbed a bus south on Granville.

  I could run forever in hot weather but could not sit. On the bus I started pouring off so much sweat that a woman in a business suit took pity on me and passed over a couple of tissues. I wiped them over my face and neck. They were drenched when I was through.

  I smiled my thanks at her. I hoped she’d assume my scratches were a new trend in tattoos.

  At VanDusen, I hopped out. I handed the cashier the
twenty. She took a long time holding it under some kind of lamp. They’d had a problem with people passing counterfeits, she said.

  I chewed on my lower lip. There was a long line of tourists behind me, and I could feel their eyes running curiously over my scratches.

  Finally the cashier gave me change and let me in. Then—

  “Wait,” she called.

  My heart thudded sickly into my stomach.

  “Your guide to the gardens.” Her eyes twinkled as she handed me a brochure.

  The brochure folded out to a map of VanDusen. A red arrow pointed to the greenhouse displaying the rare Margaret rose. After washing my scratches some more in the bathroom, I joined a long line of elderly people fanning themselves in the heat. As the women fanned, their perfume carried back to me. The scent of perfume, combined with the waves of fragrance coming from the flowerbeds, was almost enough to make me keel over.

  A couple with English accents chatted in line ahead of me. The wife was prattling about some friend of theirs. “She was so pretty at her wedding, remember, Hugo? So dewy-eyed!”

  “Uh-huh,” said Hugo. He lifted his white sunhat to wipe a handkerchief over his forehead.

  The line inched forward like a caterpillar with a full stomach. I thought, Will we ever get there? And, What if armed guards are protecting the plant?

  “Hardly surprising her marriage didn’t work out. She loved someone else,” the woman ahead of me said wisely.

  “Uh-huh,” Hugo commented. He was red with the heat. I hoped he didn’t keel over.

  Feeling my gaze, Hugo turned and grinned. He gestured to his wife. “Gardeners! What a fanatical group. We’ve come all the way from Victoria, just to see a flower.”

  “Oh, Hugo,” said his wife. Playfully she tapped him with a brochure.

  I grinned back at Hugo. He was a nice guy, I figured, bringing his wife here when the heat got to him so much.

  We edged into the greenhouse. Ooos and ahhhs floated around me. The famed Margaret rose, in a curved stone planter, rested on a round table in the center. The rose was roped off, keeping onlookers about three feet away.

  There were no guards in sight.

  I thought if I leaned over the rope, I could reach the plant and grab it.