Free Mad Season by Nancy Means Wright Page B

done a wash lately. What was going on in this world, anyway? It was all out of sync.
    The door cracked open and it was Emily again, wrapped in a blue towel. “If you dropped that telescope in school, how come Garth Unsworth had it? It was in his room. Wilder found it.” She looked fiercely at him. “Something you’re not telling us? Mom won’t like that.”
    He kicked the door shut, hard, and she shrieked. He’d caught her bare toe.
    Ha. She wasn’t getting another word out of him.
    * * * *
    Colm Hanna found a glum teenager and a sullen boy at the breakfast table. He glanced around for Ruth, he wasn’t sure he could cope. As though sensing his worry she came in the room with the coffee cup that seemed an extension of her right hand. At once the atmosphere warmed. She seemed to have gotten over whatever pique she’d had with him last night.
    “He was late getting his chores done,” she said, excusing her offspring’s attitude. “It’s not you.” One shoulder touched his as she leaned over to offer coffee; he felt his bones separate.
    “She’s right,” said Emily. “It’s not you, Mr. Hanna. Though I don’t mind the chores. Not when I don’t have a test. Today I have a test.”
    “What’s the subject?”
    “Geometry. My worst subject in the world. If I get through it I’ll never look at another theorem in my life.” She actually smiled, and he smiled back. She looked like her mother then, the same broad cheekbones, the wide dark eyebrows. They had a way of smiling out of one corner of the mouth like they were about to confide something to you.
    He turned to Vic. “You’re the scientist in the family. I understand you’ve made your own telescope.”
    It was evidently the wrong thing to say. The boy scowled. “It’s nothing,” he said, “just a dumb homemade telescope.” He punched his sister, and she punched back, with a tight smile.
    “That’s not true.” Ruth was standing in the doorway of the pantry, the coffeepot still in her hand. “It’s a very well made telescope. It won a first prize in Field Days last summer.”
    Still Vic glowered, and Colm gave up on the subject. He was glad when Emily and Ruth left for the barn and he was alone with the boy. He made a few more efforts to coax a smile; that failing, said, “I want to thank you, Vic, for the lead you gave. We’ve already had one follow-through.”
    “Oh yeah?” The boy looked up, interested.
    Colm told about the barn money in the Alibi. “Of course we don’t know who it was, but someone’s bound to show up again with it—somewhere. That was good thinking on your part.”
    The boy examined his cracked fingernails. “I got another idea too.” He coughed, like he’d got a piece of toast stuck in his throat. He rammed a finger down after it.
    Colm waited. But the boy was turning redder from whatever he’d swallowed. Colm patted him on the back. “You okay?”
    Vic had hiccups, and Colm picked him up, held him high, then swung him down.
    Vic was so surprised he stopped hiccupping. “Jeezum,” he said. “They never stopped so fast before.” He gave Colm a look of something like admiration.
    “My father’s remedy. Now what’s your idea? Your mom and I can’t find the bad guys without help from you.”
    “All right,” Vic said finally, laying his thin arms on the table, carefully, like they were a part of his telescope. The hands at the end of the wrists were disproportionately large, like soup ladles. “I’ll tell you. It’s just a thought. But it might have something to do with, well, what happened to me yesterday. I mean, the same kind of had stuff.”
    His eyes seemed to shrink back in his head as he told his story, like it was forcing its way out of his mouth. When he finished he made Colm promise to keep it to himself. “Not ever, ever” to mention it to his mother, and Colm promised.
    Though it was true the connection was vague. What could a bunch of kids have to do with a theft of several thousand