Free Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary by Wendelin Van Draanen Page B

looking pretty droopy, and no one would argue that she could use a bath in something besides mud. She snorts at me and then nudges me with her snout again, only this time she's polite enough to only offend my thigh.
    With all the snorting and squawking we were doing, the firemen couldn't help but notice us. Two of them shine flashlights across the ruins at us, and even at that distance they're blinding. One of them calls, “We don't need any looky-loos here, girls. You'd better move along.”
    Then Dallas shows up. And if Holly thought he smelled before, he must've been completely ripe now. He was covered in soot, his shirt was torn and streaked with black, and his hair was dusted with ashes.
    The firemen drop their lights and call to Dallas, “How's your grandmother holding up?”
    Dallas seems dazed for a minute, looking at the rubble.
    “She's not my—” Then he stops himself and says, “The doctors are with her.”
    One fireman asks, “She's not your grandmother?”
    Dallas just keeps staring at the rubble.
    The fireman takes a few steps closer and cocks his head a bit. “Then why'd you risk life and limb trying to put this fire out?”
    Dallas closes his eyes and lets out a deep sigh. “Lucinda's been better to me than my own family. And this cabin meant the world to her.” He looks the fireman straight in the eye and says, “So now what?”
    “We've got the coals turned and the site's cool; it shouldn't be too much longer.”
    Dallas just nods. And when the fireman goes back to his group, I can't help it. I call, “That's
it?
” I take a few steps forward. “That's all you're going to do?”
    Penny follows right beside me like a dog at heel, and then Marissa, Dot, and Holly come forward, too. I call over to the firefighters, “Aren't you going to investigate? I mean, the house didn't spontaneously combust. It got help. It got a lot of help!”
    One of the firemen gives a little shrug and says, “Now, you don't know that.”
    “You think it started all by itself ?”
    “No, I…” He shakes his head, then lets out a sigh. “We see this sort of thing pretty regularly on holidays. This is the third one tonight alone. Kids sneakin' off to have a smoke, fireworks lit in an unsuitable environment, Satanic groups with some ritual gone wrong. It's not uncommon. My guess is, given the remoteness of the site,and the nature of the original structure, that's what happened here tonight.”
    “What do you mean, the nature of the original structure? That it was made out of wood?”
    He picks up a spade that's leaning against the pumper truck and starts turning ashes over. “It was a shack. An old, abandoned shack.”
    “Maybe it didn't
look
like much, but this was the home of Mary Rose Huntley. A
pioneer
. It wasn't just a shack! It was a historical monument.”
    He stops flipping dirt and says, “A
monument?
”
    “Well, it was important. To Lucinda, anyway.”
    “I understand. And I'm sure they'll send someone out in the morning to investigate further if that's what she wants.”
    Now while we've been arguing with the fire brigade, Dallas has been circling the ruins, holding the back of his neck, and kicking the ground from time to time. Like he's mad at the ashes.
    When he gets back around to us, Holly asks him, “Can't you make them do something
now?
”
    He keeps right on holding his neck, and his nostrils are flaring in and out as he breathes. “Oh, I want to, but what good would it do?”
    Holly says, “What do you mean? You don't think some
kids
did this, do you?”
    He looks at her like she's just interrupted a very complicated thought. “Investigating won't bring the cabin back. And frankly I don't think that this feud with the Murdocks will ever be over. Proving it was them would be like spitting into the wind.”
    Holly says, “The Murdocks? You think it was the Murdocks?”
    “Lucinda does, and after hearing their comment about her burning for visiting them, I think she's probably right.”