Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(29)

“Daddy told me so. He showed me a mine with the keep-out ribbon and said stay away from there because the roof fell down and killed a whole bunch of people.”

“But that happened at a mine. It didn’t happen at Klaussner’s Grocery Store.”

“Daddy said it would happen to anybody what goes past the keep-out ribbon!”

“That’s nonsense.”

“No, it ain’t!” Jubilee replied indignantly. “Daddy don’t tell me nonsense!”

“I didn’t mean what your daddy said about the mine was nonsense,” Olivia clarified. “I meant it’s nonsense to think the roof of the store would fall down and kill somebody.”

“If Paul ain’t dead, then why didn’t he come back?”

“That’s something I don’t know,” Olivia answered sadly. Then she hugged the girl tighter.





After a considerable amount of time, Jubilee slipped back into sleep. Olivia never did. By morning she was bone tired and bleary-eyed. With more than a half-hour before she had to get Ethan up for school, Olivia snapped on the television and leaned back into the sofa. Her intention was to watch the news for some information on a missing girl or the unidentified holdup man, but her eyelids slowly drifted down and closed.

At ten-ten the doorbell rang and woke Olivia from a dead sleep. She stumbled to the door, still in her nightgown.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Clara asked, but without waiting for an answer she tromped into the living room followed by seven of their neighbors.

With her flannel nightgown fluttering in the breeze as they passed by, Olivia made a feeble attempt at an apology. “I didn’t sleep well,” she mumbled, but before she could say anything more the clock chimed for the quarter hour.

“Ethan!” she shouted and darted toward his bedroom. The bed was partially made, and he was gone.

For a moment Olivia breathed a sigh of relief thinking he’d gone off to school, but then she realized Jubilee was also missing. She turned and walked back to the living room still wearing her nightgown, but now she’d added a look of puzzlement.

“I thought you were gonna get dressed,” Clara said somewhat impatiently.

“I was,” Olivia mumbled, “but I just discovered Ethan and Jubilee are both gone.” The expression on her face was a map of confusion.

“Ethan probably took the girl to school with him,” Jeanne Elizalde suggested.

“Oh, I don’t think he’d—”

Seth Porter interrupted. “See,” he said, jabbing a finger through the air, “I told you this was gonna mean trouble! Now he’s taken the kid to school, and everybody in town—”

Looking at a sheet of notebook paper he’d lifted from the end table, George Walther said, “Simmer down, Seth, Ethan Allen ain’t in school. This note says—”

“What note?” several voices replied in unison.

“This note.” George waved the sheet of paper in the air. “It was right here on the end table, and it says—”

Before he could read the note aloud, Olivia snatched it from his hands. For a few moments she stood there reading to herself and mumbling, “Oh, dear.”

When Clara insisted they’d come to help and couldn’t be of much help unless they knew what was happening, Olivia read the note aloud.

“Dear Grandma. I saw you was real tired so I figured I’d skip school and take care of Jubie so you could catch up on some sleep.”

Olivia didn’t bother to read the P.S. at the bottom saying he was gonna need an absence excuse for school.





Two to Go



They left the apartment together, Ethan Allen peddling his bicycle, Jubilee perched on the cross bar. He took the route he’d taken to school two days earlier, and just as he’d done that day he turned left onto Main Street. Halfway down the block Ethan came to a stop. They climbed off and he leaned his bicycle against the tree in back of Jubilee’s bench—the bench with a large yellow note taped to the back slats.

“Okay,” he said. “You know what to do, right?”

She nodded.

They crossed the street together, then walked five doors down to Klaussner’s Grocery. The front windows and glass door were covered with plywood boards. The only visible opening was the glass transom above the door. Bright yellow strips of crime scene tape still zigzagged across the entrance.

For a few moments Ethan stood there looking up and down the street, trying to appear nonchalant. When it seemed the coast was clear with no one coming or going along the street, he looked down at Jubilee. “Now,” he said and lifted the bottom stretch of yellow tape, motioning for her to duck under. She moved without saying a word because he’d warned against making noise.

Once they were as close as a person could be to the boarded-up door, Ethan hunched down and whispered, “Climb on.”

Jubilee threw her left leg over Ethan’s back and scooted up until she was sitting square on his shoulders. He braced himself against the rim of tile alongside the door and stood. He took a single step to the left then leaned in.

“Can you reach it?”

“I’m too far away.”

He edged half a step closer. “Now can you?”

“Almost.”