Роберт Паркер - Edenville Owls

“Our kind of day,” Joanie said when she sat down.

“‘Stormy Weather,’” I said.

She smiled.

“What’s wrong?” Joanie said.

I got up and walked to the railing and looked down at the empty harbor.

“I don’t know who else to talk to,” I said.

“I’m glad it’s me,” Joanie said.

The weather was so thick, I couldn’t see across the harbor. The neck was invisible.

“I promised I wouldn’t tell anybody,” I said.

Joanie didn’t say anything. She sat with her knees together and her hands in her lap. She was wearing white rubber rain boots.

“I gotta tell somebody about it,” I said. “I gotta figure out what to do.”

“I’ll help,” Joanie said.

I turned back toward Joanie. I was so close to the edge of the bandstand that I could feel the rain on the back of my jacket.

“But a man’s supposed to keep his word,” I said.

“You’re supposed to do what you said you’d do.”

Joanie looked at me for a long time without saying anything.

“I think,” she said finally, “that a man does what he thinks is the right thing to do, even if it means breaking his word.”

We looked at each other without speaking for a while.

Then I said, “Somebody’s trying to hurt Miss Delaney.”

“What do you mean?” Joanie said. “Who?”

“There’s a guy,” I said. “I’ve seen him...” And I told her what I had seen, and what Miss Delaney had said.

“Is it some sort of love thing?” Joanie asked.

“Miss Delaney?”

“Sure. Teachers have boyfriends and stuff, don’t they?”

“But if he loves her, why is he mean to her?” I said.

“It happens a lot,” she said. “Remember that movie with Bette Davis?”

“No.”

“You know, when George Brent was the husband?”

“I didn’t see it,” I said.

“Anyway, I’ll bet it’s some kind of love business,” Joanie said. “Maybe we should tell Mr. Welch.”

“Miss Delaney says it will get her in trouble.”

“Mr. Welch isn’t so bad,” Joanie said.

“No,” I said. “But doesn’t he have to do what the town tells him to do?”

“I guess.”

“You know what they’re like,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So we’ll have to figure out how to help her ourselves.”

“Are the other Owls in on this?” Joanie said.

“Just Billy,” I said. “But they’ll help us if I tell them.”

“So what are we going to do?” she said.

“We probably gotta start by finding out who this guy is,” I said.

“How?”

“I got his license plate number,” I said.

“And how do you find out whose it is?” Joanie asked. “We’re kids. We can’t just call up and ask whose plate is this.”

“I know,” I said. “They won’t tell us. You know any grown-ups we could trust?”

“No,” Joanie said. “And if I did, I think they won’t tell you even if you’re a grown-up. Unless you’re a cop or something.”

“We’ll have to follow him,” I said.

“How will you even find him to follow?”

“We’ll have to follow Miss Delaney,” I said. “And if he comes to see her again, we’ll follow him.”

“How will you follow him if he’s in his car?” Joanie said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll just have to do the best we can.”

“And then what?” Joanie said.

I felt good. We had a plan. Joanie was going to help.

“Then we’ll figure out the next step,” I said.

“What about basketball?” Russell said.

All five of us were squeezed into a booth at the Village Shop, drinking Orange Crush.

“The weather’s so crappy,” I said, “we won’t be able to practice much anyway. We know our plays. We can do our wind sprints on our own. And we can play the games on Saturday morning.”

“What about Miss Delaney telling us not to get involved?” Billy said.

“We gotta,” I said. “She’s in trouble and she’s got nobody to help her.”

“Geez,” Nick said. “You sound like Boston Blackie.”

“The other day in class,” I said. “You saw how she was all beat up.”

“Maybe she really did fall down the stairs,” Manny said.

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “She needs help. You guys can help or not. But I’m going to do something.”

“Anybody else know about this?” Russell asked.

“Joanie,” I said.

“Joanie Gibson?” Nick said.

“Yeah.”

“That means Nick is ready to go,” Russell said.

Billy and Manny laughed. Nick didn’t say anything. Neither did I.

“So, who’s in?” Russell said.

“Me,” Manny answered.

Billy nodded.

“I’m in,” he said.

“You in, Nick?” Russell said.

“Sure,” Nick said.

“Hell,” Russell said. “It’s unanimous. Owls Detective Agency on the job... We’ll win the tourney and save Miss Delaney.”

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon planning our strategy. It was fun. Like war games when we were little kids. Or cops and robbers. And the fact that it was real and not a game made it more fun. When we got through and left the Village Shop, Nick and I dropped back from the other three.

“You trying to cut me out with Joanie?” Nick said.

“She says she’s not your girlfriend,” I said.

“I say she is,” Nick said.

“Well,” I said, “she’s not my girlfriend.”

“So what is she?”

“My friend,” I answered.

“She’s a girl,” Nick said.

“I like her,” I said. “She’s smart and she’s funny and she’s nice.”

“Yeah, and she’s my girl,” Nick said. “I want you to stay away from her.”

“I don’t want to be her boyfriend,” I told him.

I wasn’t so sure of that, in fact. I’d never been anyone’s boyfriend, and I wasn’t sure what it would mean to be one.

“Well, just keep it that way,” Nick said.

“But I’ll still be her friend,” I said.

Nick nodded.

“Like I said,” he answered.

We knew Miss Delaney lived on the second floor of a two-family on Water Street. The plan was to hang out near her house and watch and see what we could see. The man showed up there after a few nights, but he went straight in her door and we had no way to know what was going on. When he left, he got right in his car and drove away. We had no way to follow him.

“This is no good,” Nick said the next night. “We’re not doing Miss Delaney any good standing out here. We can’t see or hear anything. And if the guy shows up, he drives off when he’s through and we can’t follow him.”

“Maybe she screams,” Russell said, “and we hear her, we can all run in.”

“And what,” Billy said, “fight the guy? He’s a man, for cripe’s sake.”

“There’s five of us,” I said.

“And what?” Nick said. “You think you’re Robin the Boy Wonder? You’ve seen the guy. You think we can fight him?”

I shrugged. It was cold. We stood around in the dark on Water Street until we had to go home. Nobody showed up.

Nobody showed up the next night, or the next, and each night was cold.

On the fifth night when nothing happened Manny said, “This is a waste of time.”

Manny said so little that when he did say something, it always sounded kind of important.

“We’re not helping anybody,” Manny said.

“And we got a game tomorrow,” Russell pointed out. “We should be getting to bed early instead of standing around in the dark, like a bunch of dorks.”

“The Edenville Dorks,” Russell said.

Everybody laughed.

“The hell with this,” Nick said. “I’m going home.”