The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(28)

Finally, Stevie found herself reading selections from a book called Better Than Homemade! The Story of Baking in America, which was published in 1992 and patchily uploaded in the form of a bunch of bad scans. This was the longest piece of information she could find on Francis:

Louis’s daughter, Francis, was well known for her literally hell-raising ways. In despair, her parents sent her away to join the first class of their friend Albert Ellingham’s new academy in the hills of Vermont. Unfortunately, her stay there was concurrent with the infamous Ellingham kidnapping, and she returned home. The Crane family, it seemed, attracted disaster.

“What do you mean, ‘literally’ hell-raising ways?” Stevie said aloud. “She literally raised hell? What, is she summoning demons?”

There were other annoying things, like the fact that the author said “hills of Vermont” and not “mountains.” So it made the claim that Francis and her family attracted disaster seem a little dubious. But still, this was an intriguing paragraph. It was also the only one that mentioned Francis.

Stevie found the author’s name, Ann Abbott, and read down the list of her other works (Jell-O! The Wobble that America Loves, Salad Days: How Salad Became Popular). Another few minutes of poking around produced an email address. Stevie wrote her an email and asked her if she had any information about what became of Francis. She had just sent it when there was a knock at her door, and Janelle poked her head in.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

Stevie glanced up at the corner of her screen and realized that she had been scouring the internet for Francis Crane for over three hours. It was almost six thirty.

“Work,” she said, shutting her computer. “Lots to catch up on.”

Janelle stepped into the room. The light smell of lemons trailed in with her.

“You’re wearing your lemons,” Stevie said. “For luck?”

“I’m just happy you’re back,” Janelle said, sitting on the edge of Stevie’s bed. “When I’m happy, for luck. I just love lemons. Here. I made you something.”

She handed Stevie a small plastic object, about the size of a deck of cards, with two wheels.

“It’s a self-balancing robot,” she said. “You can attach your phone to it. I was playing around with some spare parts, and working on inertial measurement units, and I just wanted to make you something, so . . .”

She shrugged happily as Stevie accepted her friendship robot.

“How’s your project going?” Stevie asked.

“I’m glad you asked. Do you want to see specs?”

Janelle bounced off the bed and returned a minute later with her laptop open. She showed Stevie several videos of machines rolling around and swinging things. She had the same intensity that Stevie had when she was talking about murders, except this was pipes and motors and things that spun and moved. All of this was interspersed with a detailed analysis of Janelle’s favorite K-drama, Love Lessons with Tofu. Janelle’s mind was a busy but perfectly organized place, running like one of her impossible machines. TV show plots ran alongside mathematical formulas, which blended seamlessly into smoky-eye tutorials, which catapulted her into romance before dropping her gently back into a bed of physics. And also, she answered every single one of her texts within a minute.

She did not, however, know about crime, and she would probably not be interested in what Stevie had just discovered (or not discovered, really) about someone who was related to someone else who made flour.

Janelle’s phone buzzed, and she glanced down at it.

“Everyone’s going over to the yurt,” she said. “Vi is on their way over.”

“You and Vi seem so happy.”

Janelle did a tiny squee. It was an actual squee, a real one. A pip of joy.

“I’m trying to learn a little Korean,” Janelle said, “but languages aren’t really my thing. Vi’s fluent in Korean and Japanese, and they thought I’d like to learn Korean the most. Do you want to go over? Let’s get Nate and go over.”

Before Ellingham, yurts had not been a part of Stevie’s life. She had never even heard of them. When she first saw the massive, circular tent structure, it reminded her of a circus, both inside and out. Outside, all big top. Inside, it was a mass of colorful rugs, beanbags, futons, and cushions. It was the place where people gathered to hang out, play games, read, do work. It was a strange structure—it had no windows, and the inside was a skeleton of sunburst beams that supported the ceiling and a lattice that held up the walls. There was a woodburning stove in the middle that kept it all toasty, and lights and colorful decorations hung from the ceiling.

Janelle and Vi sat propped up back-to-back on the floor. Nate was sitting with them, though his attention was on a game on his tablet. The school was abuzz with the story of the squirrels. It seemed common knowledge that it was David’s doing, and he had not yet returned from his trip to the Great House. Back in Pittsburgh, if someone had infiltrated the library with fifty squirrels, that person would have been hailed as a hero. But Ellingham was full of library lovers, and there was the feeling in the air that this was, perhaps, a bridge too far. You could be naked, you could scream and hang out on the roof, but you do not mess with the place with the books.

“Nothing else got him kicked out,” Nate mumbled as the topic floated up in their group.