Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
CHARLIE
Spotted :
Our visiting author doing her best impression of a rake during a lilac day picnic. And a neighborhood jaunt.
Meanwhile, our favorite troublemaker was on his best behavior all day. As if he was never a rake at all.
My how the tables have turned.
This is not how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning with Alice. Crouched behind my front gate as we get ready to cause the worst kind of trouble—Old Bird trouble.
I know better than this. Every single person in Ponderosa Falls does, even the teenagers. In the entire history of this town, I’m the only Pondie who’s ever been dumb enough to mess with that deadly feathered trio, and I learned my lesson. I’m a changed man.
Until today.
I don’t know what’s gotten into Alice, but she woke up ready to go after Edna and her friends, and there was no talking her out of it. I couldn’t let her come out here and cause trouble alone. If we’re going down—pecked to death by blue hairs—we’re going down together.
The scent of lilacs surrounds us in our hiding place, and I can hear our targets long before they reach us. The hedgerow is quiet except for the swish of their tracksuits, the gentle thump of their orthopedic shoes. Those sounds are so familiar, so pleasant, but it’s the calm before the angry-bird storm.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I whisper to Alice. “There has to be an easier way to figure out who the Victorian is.”
“Sure”—she shrugs—“unless they are the Victorian.”
Excuse me?
That is some serious out-of-towner nonsense. The Old Birds don’t have time to write a scandal sheet; they’re too busy running this town to gossip about it. Even Henrietta “Bingo Brawl” St. James—who barely sleeps—has too many jobs, hobbies, and grandchildren to have that kind of spare time.
But before I can talk her down, the Old Birds pass my house, and my favorite redhead springs into action. Popping out of hiding, she flings open my gate to follow them. Like she’s the new bird in town, and she’s ready to join their speed-walking club.
“Good morning!”
Super Happy Alice strikes again.
I sprint after her in a daze. How can Alice think the Old Birds, my Old Birds, write the neighborhood scandal sheet? How can she think they’d gossip about me like that, and how can I stop her before it’s too late? Before she executes her master plan only to find out it is she who has been executed?
My honorary evil grandmothers would do a lot of things, but tear me apart in writing isn’t one of them. I’m not even sure how they’ll feel about Alice suspecting a thing like that. If I don’t want her to get turned into birdseed, I need to get us out of this, and I need to do it fast.
“Well, well, well,” Edna deadpans as we catch up. “It looks like we’ve picked up some strays. To what do we owe this incredible honor?”
We’re already in danger. I can tell by her voice they’re onto us. Alice and I sprang out of literal shrubbery to follow them. How could they not be onto us?
But Alice doesn’t notice. Edna has asked a question, and she probably has a lie ready and waiting. A very bad, very Alice lie. Which means I have no choice—I have to save her…by betraying her.
“Alice thinks you three are the Victorian.”
I can hardly believe I said that out loud, and neither can Alice. She gasps, and it’s a truly heartbreaking sound. Though not as heartbreaking as the look she gives me, as if I’ve stabbed her in the heart.
Forgive me, Carrots, for I have sinned.
Ahead of us on the sidewalk, the Old Birds chuckle darkly in perfect unison. I can’t see their faces. They’re still power walking their hearts out, and I can’t tell if they’re upset or offended. So I keep yammering to smooth things over.
“But I told her, if you had anything bad to say about someone in town, you’d say it to their face. And you’d enjoy it.”
They chuckle again, more heartily this time. Crisis averted. At least, I think so…
I wait for them to strike, but they keep speed walking in front of us. We pass three more houses before Henrietta finally speaks.
“Do I seem like someone with that kind of spare time?” she asks, glancing back at Alice.
“Spare time?”
“To gather intel, type out a column, proofread it, format it, print it, fold it, and deliver it from house to house? Do I seem that bored to you?”
Don’t answer that.
Alice doesn’t. She blinks. Henrietta’s on a roll, but she sounds more amused than anything, as if she finds this whole conspiracy theory charming somehow.
“I’m on the town council,” she continues, “and I’m the board president of the Lilac Society. I’m a member of three book clubs, two town beautification organizations, four local planning committees, the garden club, and I sell quilting squares in my spare time—when I’m not answering panicked phone calls from my seven adult children and their spouses. Or spoiling my grandkids, or my great-grandkids, or?—”
“All right, overachiever,” Edna says. “We get it. Quit your squawking.”
Alice still looks betrayed, and she won’t even glance at me. Her cheeks are flush, her breath quick, and I haven’t felt this guilty in a long time. Not since that fateful night before rehab when I blew up my entire family.
“But I wasn’t—but you—I mean, you three know everything about everyone. Everything ,” Alice stammers. “And so does the Victorian. So I thought?—”
Dottie interrupts her gently. “Sweetie, we know everything about everyone because people won’t stop running their mouths. At this altitude, the air is basically truth serum. Deprive people of enough oxygen, and they’ll tell you anything.”
The other birds chuckle in agreement, but Alice shakes her head, glancing at Dottie. “You even knew my old typewriter was broken, and I never told you that. Neither did Charlie.”
“Lydia mentioned it while she was out walking Cookie. That girl’s a talker.”
Henrietta nods. “Morning walks are a prime time for gossip. People will spill just about anything when they haven’t had their coffee yet.”
“We hear the same gossip the Victorian does,” Edna agrees. “Sometimes better gossip. We just don’t write it down. Because we don’t care.”
“You don’t care?”
“Not even a little. Unless we think someone’s being an idiot—then we tell them to their face like Charlie said. Harsh honesty is one of the many perks of getting old. That and early bird specials.”
“And senior night at the movie theater,” Dottie chimes in.
“And spoiling our grandbabies rotten before sending them home.” Henrietta sighs happily. “Because their parents were a handful, and karma is a cruel mistress.”
The Old Birds are basically useless after that. They go an entire block barking out a laundry list of senior citizen perks. All while power walking faster than I can jog.
Alice and I can barely keep up. By the time we round the next corner, I’m panting like an out-of-shape Labrador, but the Old Birds are breathing easy, laughing as they squawk up a storm. If they notice the “youngsters” struggling to keep up, they don’t say anything. They don’t acknowledge us at all until we pass a copy of Dispatch From the Hedgerow still waiting between someone’s fence slats.
I have the sudden urge to snag it and throw it away, but I don’t. When did this become a daily publication? That’s what I’d like to know. Before Alice showed up, we were lucky if we got two a month. Now it’s an everyday event, and that anonymous author is watching me way too closely.
Edna glances back just long enough to side-eye that scandal sheet. “Speaking of things the Victorian doesn’t know,” she begins slowly, wickedly. Even though no one was actually talking about that. “I hear you two met at poetry camp.”
The other birds snicker, and Edna keeps going.
“Which one of you blessed idiots came up with that one? Lies work best when they’re believable—maybe you should write that down.”
I shrug and fight to hold on to my dignity. “That lie was a joint effort. Teamwork makes the dream work.”
They snicker again, harder this time, and I don’t mean to smile. I glance at Alice to see if she’s smiling too, but she isn’t. Carrots still looks betrayed, and that expression on her face cuts me to my core. I’d do anything to fix it, to make that girl happy again— anything .
Even the unthinkable.
When we get home, she still isn’t talking to me. Alice heads for the stairs the moment we’re inside, and I have to hurry and snag her arm to stop her.
She pulls away, backing up on the staircase as I move closer, her body hovering a few steps above mine. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t, even though she’s clearly upset. She just glances down at me as I stand at the foot of the stairs, all quiet and hurt.
That girl doesn’t seem like much of a fighter—I’ve known that from the start. She’s got cut-and-run energy, so I pick the fight myself. “You should’ve told me you thought the Old Birds were the Victorian. You kind of blindsided me back there.”
“Me? You ratted me out right in front of them. Who blindsided who?”
I like that she’s fighting back, that she feels comfortable enough not to freeze up with me the way she did with Jason back at the resort. But then she tries to bolt again, and I reach for her hand, pulling her gently closer.
She doesn’t fight me. Alice is still a few steps above me on the staircase, and I gaze up at her. “Maybe I should’ve done it differently—maybe I handled this all wrong—but I’m right about the Old Birds. They aren’t the Victorian.”
“You don’t know that. You’re just guessing.”
Except I do know—I’m not guessing. If they were the Victorian, if the Old Birds were cold and calculated enough to write all those recent scandal sheets while pretending to be my friends, my worst secrets would’ve been printed a long time ago.
I want to keep Alice’s hand in mine. I want to guide her toward that one last tattoo like I did when we were on the picnic blanket yesterday, to feel her fingers on my skin. But I don’t.
Letting go, I gesture to that tattoo myself. The ink I got so I’d never forget who was there for me when I needed them most. The tattoo I never talk about, not with anyone. Except here, except now.
“This one”—I point to that top black band—“is for Edna Finch.”