Open If You Dare Read online

  “Better put out some candles,” Dad says. “Just in case.”

  “We gonna lose ’lectricity?” Zora asks.

  “Might,” says Dad. He looks up at the ceiling as if he can see through to the sky.

  “Why do you ask?” Mom says. “About the Allman Brothers?”

  Other than what I’ve read online, I still don’t know much about the Allman Brothers. When Rose played us one of their weird songs, it only left me wanting to know more. So I decide to take a risk. I pull the concert ticket out of my back pocket and place it on the table. My mom stares at it like it’s a ticket to Mars. “Rex, look at this,” she says to my dad. “Where’d you get this, Birdie?”

  “That’s not material,” I say. That’s what lawyers say in a courtroom when they don’t want to answer the question. Smart, right?

  “Not material?” asks Mom.

  “Correct. Not material.”

  She shakes her head. “All right, Perry Mason.”

  “Who’s she?” I ask.

  “He!” my parents answer in unison.

  “Okay, okay. Rose found it.” Rose would call this a Greater-Good lie. The real and whole truth would expose everything, and I don’t think that would serve the greater good at this time. At least not my greater good. I continue. “My question is—what’s interesting or … revealing about this ticket?”

  My mom examines it closely. “It’s old.”

  Dad leans in. “It’s strange it wasn’t used.”

  What?! I pick up the ticket. What did I miss? “How do you know she didn’t use it?”

  “Because the whole ticket’s there.” My dad says it slowly like he’s speaking to a five-year-old or an alien from another planet.

  I don’t understand. My parents grin at each other. “Explain, please!”

  “See that perforation down the middle?” Dad says. “Those little dots are where you can pull it apart.”

  I look down at the ticket. “Yeah…?”

  “When we went to concerts, back in the Stone Age, the man at the door would rip the ticket in half,” Dad says. “Right along that perforated line.”

  “He’d keep half and give you the other half,” Mom adds. “And your half was called … wait for it…”

  “… a ticket stub,” they say together, like it’s the secret to the universe. They are so dorky sometimes.

  “My sister had ticket stubs taped all over her mirror in her bedroom,” Mom says. “Lisa went to lots of concerts.”

  “I bet she did,” Dad says.

  They keep joking about Mom’s older sister but I’m not listening anymore. I’m looking at the ticket and realizing that Ruthie Delgado never used it. She never went to the concert.

  But why?

  * * *

  Our local library is less than ten minutes from my house. I’ve been coming here my whole life. Standing at the checkout counter, I wait for Mrs. Thompson, the librarian, and can’t help but read the new poster up on the wall behind the counter.

  COME MEET BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  AND ATLANTA NATIVE

  EMILY MCALLISTER

  SIGNING HER NEW MYSTERY NOVEL

  I DON’T KNOW WHY SHE SWALLOWED THE FLY

  AUGUST 12 AT NOON

  In the photo on the poster is Emily McAllister. She’s a white woman with short reddish-blond hair and round black-rimmed glasses, older than my parents (maybe Aunt Lisa’s age), and the kind of person my mom would call quirky.

  “I just put that up,” Mrs. Thompson says as she steps out of the back room, closing the door behind her. “Should be quite the event. You and your dad should come.”

  “That’d be fun. I’ve never been to a real live book signing with a real live author before.”

  “It is fun,” she says and scans a book into the computer. “How’s your summer going, Birdie?”

  Hmm. I wonder what she would think if I actually told her. “Fine. Dad and Zora are picking out books.”

  It thunders outside and she peeks out at the stormy afternoon. “Good day for it.”

  “I was wondering.” I lean onto the counter. “Do you keep any old yearbooks here from any of the local schools? From maybe the 1970s?” I look up at her hopefully.

  “That’s a strange question,” Mrs. Thompson answers. “There are many treasures in this library, but none of the yearbook variety. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  She cocks her head questioningly, so I change the subject. “Or do you have anything new I should know about?”

  Mrs. Thompson reveals the secret smile she reserves for people like me. Book people. “I’m so glad you asked,” she says. “Come with me.”

  She leads me to familiar shelves, that special section I’ve wandered for years now. As I follow her down a row of books, my finger lightly brushes across the plastic covered spines, offering a silent hello.

  “Try this,” Mrs. Thompson says, pulling a book from the end of the shelf. “A debut. Quite the mystery.”

  I take the book from her hand and study the colorful cover. It’s by an author I’ve never heard of before. By now I know that doesn’t matter. She’s taught me that a new author can be a wonderful surprise.

  “Let me know what you think,” Mrs. Thompson says, then nods toward the counter. “I’ve got customers.”

  As she hurries away, I carry the book to my secret nook at the back of the kid’s section. A mystery. Like I need more of that! I plan to read until Dad and Zora come find me, but today I’m somehow distracted. Through the window, I see someone’s umbrella blow inside out like something out of Mary Poppins. In the shopping center across the street, a man splashes to his car with a newspaper over his head.

  I look down at my hand and see the ring on my finger. Girl Detective’s ring. I put it on today hoping that somehow it might bring me closer to solving the mystery. At this point, I can use all the help I can get. Keep following the clues! she wrote.

  And I just keep asking myself: To where?

  9

  “HOW WOULD we find out if somebody lived in the neighborhood in 1973?” I’m looking up at Mrs. Franklin, who’s sitting on her lifeguard perch. Ally’s beside me, holding on to the edge of the pool.

  “There are some folks still here from back then,” Mrs. Franklin answers. It’s sunny again and the pool is full. Mrs. Franklin is an expert at answering your questions while keeping her eyes on the swimmers. “You could ask them.”

  “Like who?” Ally asks.

  “Let me see.” She thinks. “The Gateses. The Dentons. Oh, Mrs. Hale. She was definitely here.”

  The Gateses are an older couple who walk the big circle of the neighborhood every night. Mr. Gates waves at us with his walking stick whenever he passes. I don’t know the Dentons. They must live up on Queen’s Way. I know Mrs. Hale, of course, but it’s unlikely she’ll tell me anything about Ruthie Delgado.

  “Or, I know,” Mrs. Franklin says. “We could look at the clubhouse register.” Next to the pool, there’s a clubhouse for Ping-Pong and stuff. “All the old registers are in there. We could look and see if there are any … what’s the name?”

  “Delgado,” I say.

  “We’ll see if there are any Delgados listed in 1973. If it goes back that far.”

  I’m excited. This is the first real crack we’ve had in the case. “Can we look now?”

  “When I have a break,” she says. “I’ll find you.”

  I say thanks, then turn to Ally. Ever since we got to the pool this morning, I’ve been telling her about the concert ticket and how my dad said it was never used. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” Ally says, but not in her usual bright way.

  “You worried about tomorrow?” I ask, a little guiltily. The play-offs start tomorrow and we still haven’t solved her pitching mystery. Maybe I should be focusing on that instead of the unsolved case of Ruthie Delgado.

  “Kind of. Coach still wants me to start but I don’t know.”

  “Well, you�
�ve got to get back to normal sometime. And when you do, he wants you to be the one on the mound.”

  “I guess.”

  “What are you talking about?” We look up. Rose is standing above us at the side of the pool.

  “You!” we say together.

  “Ha,” Rose says. She’s wearing her new two-piece and I’m hoping a ton of sunscreen on that ghostly white belly. She jumps in, sinks to the bottom, then shoots up between us. “What’s up, buttercups?”

  I give her the ticket update but try to be brief. Ally’s probably had her fill of Ruthie Delgado and the unused ticket. Something behind me catches Rose’s eye and I turn to see Romeo diving off the springboard. When he comes up, he waves at us.

  Rose lifts herself out of the pool and says, “Come on.” Before I can object, she’s walking toward the deep end. I groan inside but follow because, well, I have to. Ally comes, too.

  Romeo rests his elbows against the pool’s edge and looks up at us. As Rose starts flirting with him, I want to run away. She’d hate me for letting her go on like this when I know he likes me, not her. But I say a cowardly nothing.

  There’s a loud creak from the springboard, followed by “CANNONBALL!” Joey Wachowski hits the water like an elephant, and the deep end explodes. Water flies everywhere.

  “So juvenile.” Rose wipes water from her eyes, casting daggers at Joey.

  He ignores her. “Hey, Blondie. How are the butterflies?”

  “What butterflies?” Ally asks.

  “The ones in your stomach cuz you’re going to lose tomorrow.”

  “You better shut that cakehole or—” Ally’s about to jump in the pool after him when Romeo intervenes.

  “Truce!” he says loudly, holding up a hand. “Just for today. Just for Sharks and Minnows.”

  Romeo looks at Ally, then eyeballs Joey. Nobody gives. “Come on,” Romeo says. “You’re ruining my summer!” That last remark was for Joey, not Ally, so Joey caves.

  “All right,” he says. “Just for today.”

  Ally nods. “Just for today.”

  Romeo gets Mrs. Franklin to shut down the deep end for diving so we can play Sharks and Minnows. Lots of kids join in, so there are probably twenty of us. I realize right away that I should have worked it out to be on Romeo’s team, because every time he’s a shark he comes after me, and Rose wants him to come after her.

  After a couple of rounds of that, I claim a fake stomachache and lift out of the water. Romeo looks at me and I look back. Why doesn’t he get it? Rose likes him, not me. Can’t he tell?! I want to yell at him—STOP! Before he ruins my summer!

  Grabbing my towel off a pool chair, I start drying my face and hair. Over the past five months, I’ve done a pretty good job of ignoring Romeo. We weren’t in the same class at school, so we’d only see each other at recess or ball games and then always with friends. I’ve never said anything to him (or anyone) about the Valentine’s note. I thought if I avoided him long enough, he’d get the message and start liking Rose. But he hasn’t.

  “Birdie.” It’s Mrs. Franklin. Looking back at the lifeguard stand, I see a teenage boy sitting there while she’s on break. “Come on,” she says, and I follow her to the clubhouse.

  As I walk inside, everything goes dim. My eyes have to adjust to the inside light after the bright outside sun.

  “Mrs. Franklin,” I call out.

  “In here!” The door to the storage closet behind the bar is open, so I head that way. Inside, Mrs. Franklin is standing on a ladder reaching for a box on a high shelf. “Help me with this.”

  I hurry over and grab the bottom of the box as it’s coming down. It’s heavy and we struggle to get it to the ground.

  “Well,” Mrs. Franklin says and claps her hands against each other. “If it’s anywhere, it’ll be here.”

  “You think?”

  She shrugs, then bends down and removes the dusty lid. The box is filled with red leather-bound notebooks. Lots of them. On each spine is a date embossed in gold. Mrs. Franklin grabs one and holds the spine out to me. “Read.”

  “Huh?” I don’t understand.

  “Don’t have my glasses,” she says. “Read.”

  “Oh,” I say and call out the date on the spine. “1984.”

  She digs deeper and pulls out another notebook. Holds it up. “1975.”

  “Close,” she says and reaches in again. “What about this one?” She hands it to me.

  “This is it: 1973.”

  “Okay,” Mrs. Franklin says. “We’re in business. Open it up. The club members should be listed in alphabetical order.”

  Sitting on the floor, I rest the book on my legs and open to page one. The title page reads: Gainsborough Club Member Registry, 1973. I flip through until I get to the Ds and run my finger down the page. Danner, Davis, Dearborn, Delgado.

  “Found it!” I exclaim, and look up at her.

  “Great! Mystery solved. Read out the address. Then we’ll see where it lands on the neighborhood map.”

  I run my finger horizontally across the page to the Delgados’ address and stop. I don’t need to look at the neighborhood map. I know this address. I know exactly where to find the house of Ruth Delgado.

  10

  LESS THAN an hour after finding the Delgados’ address, we’re standing on the front porch of 1917 Gainsborough Drive, ringing the bell.

  How did I know where the house was without looking at the neighborhood map? Because there’s a Japanese garden in the front of that house. Because I live at 1915 Gainsborough Drive, and if we lived here in 1973, Ruthie Delgado would have been my next-door neighbor.

  The Delgados obviously don’t live here anymore. The Gillans have lived here my whole life. They’re retired and have three grown daughters who all live far away but visit sometimes.

  I ring but no one answers the doorbell.

  “They’re not home,” Rose says.

  “Their car is here,” I say and ring again.

  Ally steps off the porch and looks at the fish in the koi pond. “Check out this one.” She points at him. “Looks like someone gave him a black eye.”

  As we lean down to look, the front door opens.

  “Hello, girls.” Mrs. Gillan sounds surprised to see us but invites us in anyway.

  As we sit down on the sofa, she turns down the soap opera that’s playing on TV. Mrs. Gillan is older but not like Mrs. Hale. She wears exercise clothes a lot and I see her working in the Japanese garden almost every day. She brings us glasses of sweet tea and sits down in the chair across from us.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, girls?” she asks. “Do you want to feed the koi?”

  “No, that’s not it, Mrs. Gillan,” I say. “But thanks. I’m sure Zora would love to feed them later.”

  “Well, send little Zora over,” she says and smiles. She likes Zora.

  “It’s just…” I hesitate, not knowing exactly what to say.

  Rose jumps in. “We were wondering: Do you remember the Delgados?”

  Mrs. Gillan looks puzzled.

  “You know,” Rose continues, “the people you bought this house from?”

  “The Delgados,” Mrs. Gillan says, rolling the name around her brain. “We didn’t buy the house from the Delgados. We bought the house from … I can never remember their name … Ray!”

  “Yes?” Mr. Gillan’s voice comes from his workshop. He’s always making stuff.

  “Come in here! Birdie and her little friends are here!”

  While we wait for Mr. Gillan, I watch a man and woman start kissing on TV. By the time Mr. Gillan walks in, they’re rolling onto a bed.

  “Hi, girls,” he says, wiping his hands with a rag. “Cut off that soap opera, Martha.”

  Mrs. Gillan turns to the TV and practically gasps. “Where’s the clicker?” she asks like there’s an emergency.

  “I’ve got it,” Mr. Gillan says, and the TV goes black.

  “Oh, that was inappropriate,” she says. “I’m sorry, girls.”
r />   “No biggie,” Ally says and picks up an Oreo from a tray on the coffee table.

  Everyone goes silent for an awkward moment.

  “The house,” Rose reminds her.

  “Yes, the house. Who’d we buy the house from, Ray? It wasn’t from the…” Mrs. Gillan looks to Rose.

  “The Delgados.”

  “No, not the Delgados,” Mr. Gillan says. “We bought this house from the Yukimotos. They only lived here for about six or seven years. I think he was transferred back to Japan.”

  Ally and I look at Rose. She pretends not to notice.

  “Do you know anything about the Delgados?” I ask Mr. Gillan.

  “That name sounds familiar. Did they live here before the Yukimotos?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. Why do you ask?”

  “Uh…”

  “Kind of a neighborhood scavenger hunt thing,” Rose says.

  “That sounds like fun,” says Mrs. Gillan.

  “It is.” Ally smiles, showing her Oreo-blackened teeth.

  “The Yukimotos were really nice people,” Mrs. Gillan says. “They did such wonderful things to the house. Completely remodeled it. They’re the ones who made the beautiful garden.”

  Well, that’s at least one mystery solved. Now we know why there’s a Japanese garden in the middle of our southern neighborhood.

  “Okay, well, thanks.” Rose starts to stand but I pull her back down again.

  “Wait!” I say a little too loudly so everybody stares at me. You know her address. Keep following the clues! This is her address. Was her address. There’s got to be something we’re supposed to find here. Unless the Yukimotos destroyed any trace of Ruthie when they remodeled the house. “Did you ever hear anything about their daughter, Ruthie Delgado?” I ask. “She went missing back in 1973. We think she died.” I can hear Rose quietly groan.

  “That’s terrible,” Mrs. Gillan says. “No, I never heard that. What a sad thing to happen.”

  “Nothing left here of hers?” Their faces go blank. “You know, like a clue. Maybe a letter. Could be a cry for help. Or even a symbol of a cry for help. You know. Something like that.”