Lois Lowry - The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

Carl

Caroline read it twice. Then she read it a third time, slowly, and copied it onto a page of notebook paper. After she was certain she had copied it word for word, with no mistakes, she took the letter back downstairs and deposited it on the table next to the vase of dried flowers.

Trudging back upstairs, she thought again about her dream. It had been, after all, the Coelophysis, ratty-looking though he was, who had come to her rescue, who had said, "I'll help you."

She knocked on her brother's bedroom door and called, "J.P.? Would you come out?"

"Why should I?" he called back.

"Because," said Caroline in despair, "I need your help."

"I have to think, I have to think, I have to think," muttered J.P. nervously, after Caroline had described her suspicions to him and shown him the first note and the copy of the second. "Shut up and let me think."

"How can I shut up when I'm not even saying anything?" asked Caroline. She went to the kitchen and poured two glasses of orange juice. "Here," she said, handing one to her brother. He was sitting on the living room couch, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands.

"I'm thinking. I'm thinking," J.P. repeated, taking the glass of juice absent-mindedly. The telephone rang. "Shut the phone up, would you? I'm thinking."

"KID CALLS PAL," announced Stacy over the telephone.

"Hi, Stace," said Caroline. She took the phone into the bathroom so that she wouldn't disrupt J.P.'s thinking process.

"Anything going on? You dashed away after school, and I've been calling and calling, but you weren't home until now."

"Stacy," said Caroline in an ominous voice, "things are getting much more complicated. There was another letter to Frederick Fiske from the secret agent. The murder's got to be before May first because there's a deadline. I've asked J.P. to help. I had to."

"SIBS FOIL CRIME," said Stacy. "Sibs means siblings," she explained. "Siblings means brothers and sisters."

"I know that," Caroline said patiently. "And right now my sib is figuring out our next move."

"Caroline, this is going to be a big story. I mean a truly big story."

"I know that, Stacy. But I won't be around to read it, not if I've been poisoned."

"No way. You're going to foil it; you and J.P. You foil, I write. This is my big break, Caroline. Promise me you won't give it to another journalist."

"Stacy, I don't even know another journalist."

"And I'll never divulge my sources, Caroline. If they put me in jail, I won't divulge my sources. That's part of journalistic ethics."

"Stacy," said Caroline, becoming less patient, "you seem to be more interested in your truly big story than you are in your best friend. Don't you realize that I'm the victim here?"

"That's it! " exclaimed Stacy. "That's my lead! I'm going to write it New Journalism style, and maybe I can sell it to New York magazine. Here's the lead, Caroline; listen to this: 'I met Caroline MacKenzie Tate for the first time when she was eight years old. She beat me in the election for third-grade class secretary, and I called her several names. Smartass. Teacher's pet. I didn't know then what I know now, on this gray, anguished April morning: that Caroline MacKenzie Tate was, when all was said and done, a victim.' "

"Stacy Baurichter," said Caroline angrily, "don't you dare use my middle name, not ever. And this is not a gray, anguished April morning. This is a 65-degree sunny April afternoon, and it is almost over, and my mother will be home from work in a few minutes, and I am hanging up this phone if you—"

Stacy interrupted her. "Do you think they'll let me say 'smartass'? Censorship is becoming such a problem for us journalists."

Caroline slammed down the telephone receiver be fore Stacy could do one of her usual headline goodbyes.

Back in the living room, J.P. looked up and stopped muttering. "I've got it," he announced. "I'm going to hot-wire his telephone so that next time he makes a phone call, ZAP!"

"J.P.!" said Caroline. "Would you pay attention, please? I showed you what that letter said. He doesn't even have a telephone. He's going to get one after he gets paid for killing us. Too late then! "

J.P. frowned. "His toilet seat, then. A few craftily placed wires, and ZAP! Hot-cross buns!"

"Shhh," said Caroline suddenly. They heard the jingling of keys. "Mom's home."

The door opened and Joanna Tate appeared, pulling off her earrings with one hand. "Hi!" she said, cheerfully. "Boy, am I bushed. What are you guys up to? It's the first time in ages that I haven't heard you fighting as I came up the stairs."

Caroline laughed nervously. "Maybe we're finally developing some interests in common," she said.

10

"Peel the tinfoil back after half an hour so the chicken will get brown, okay?" said Caroline's mother. "And don't forget to lock the door after I leave."

"We always lock the door, Mom," Caroline pointed out.

"How do I look?" Joanna Tate twirled around. "I haven't worn this dress in ages. Does it still fit all right?"

"You look fine," said Caroline glumly. "Doesn't she, J.P.?"

J.P. looked up from his new issue of Scientific American and grunted.

"Mom, if you want to stay home, you can have my TV dinner. I'm not very hungry," Caroline said.

"Why would I want to stay home? Did I tell you he's taking me to an Italian restaurant? Spaghetti and Chianti. Yum." She went to the mirror near the front door and combed her hair again.

"I don't like that guy," muttered Caroline.

"Fred Fiske? You don't even know him."

"Neither do you," Caroline said meaningfully.

"I don't know him well. But I've been walking to the corner with him lots of mornings. He goes down to get a newspaper at the drugstore by my bus stop."

"You don't even know what he does for a living."

"Well, I know that he's a history professor at Columbia. But he's on a year's leave of absence, because he's got some project."

"Right," said Caroline. "And you don't know what that project is. "

"True, he's kind of mysterious about that. But when someone says he's working on a project, you don't become overly inquisitive. I don't do that to you, James, do I? When you're working on a project in your room, I don't stand at the door, saying 'Tell me all about your project, James. I want to know all about your project.' I don't, do I, James?"

J.P. turned a page of his magazine and looked up. "No," he acknowledged. "You stand at my door and yell, 'If you're taking the toaster apart again I'm buying you a tourist-class ticket to Des Moines!'"

"Tell you what, Caroline," suggested her mother. "If it turns out that Fred Fiske is taking toasters apart up there in his apartment, I'll never have dinner with him again. Fair enough?"

"You never take me seriously," Caroline muttered.

Her mother came over and kissed the top of her head. She smelled of cologne. "Of course I do. But not when you're being silly. And the thirty-fourth thing I love about you, Caroline, is that you're so silly so often."

Since it was apparent that her mother was not going to change her mind and stay home, Caroline decided to change the subject. "Mom," she said, "I had a fight with Stacy. I hung up on her when we were talking on the phone yesterday. We didn't speak to each other all day, except for once in gym class, and then all she said was, 'KID SNUBS BEST PAL.' Can I invite her to come for dinner on Sunday?"

"Sure," said her mother, glancing at her watch. "I have a leg of lamb in the freezer. It'd be fun to have company. We haven't had company for ages."

"Hey," said Caroline suddenly. "Can I invite somebody else, too? I told my friend Mr. Keretsky that I'd invite him for dinner sometime."