The peach pit, p.12
The Peach Pit, page 12
“For what?”
“A fancy tea party,” Herb explained.
“Where?” Lucy asked. “Here?”
Herb looked up at her. “Yeah, you know my teacher, Mr. Andrus? He does a Mother-Son Tea at school every year, and I can’t go. So I’m making my own tea party. You’ll be invited, and my stuffies, and Aunt Lucinda, and Diane and Caroline, and even mean Joye.”
Lucy shook her head and laughed. “Hold on. First of all, who are Diane and Caroline and mean Joye? Are those girls in your class?”
“They’re Great Aunt Lucinda’s friends. And mine, too. I work for them at Birch Pond.”
Lucy laughed again. “You work for them?”
Herb then launched into a story about how he’d picked up a job at the Birch Pond retirement community and told Lucy he’d been going there several times each week to help out. “You’re all busy with your guest rooms here, so I figured I’d keep myself busy, too. They pay well.”
“You get paid?” Lucy balked.
“I get paid in tips, and lunch, and on long days, I earn the right to swim in their pool.” Herb thrust out his chin. “I’m very good at my job.”
“Does Dad know about this?” Lucy asked.
Herb shrugged. “Sure. He even signed the permission slip for me to swim in the therapy pool. Aunt Lucinda must have talked to him about the job, because then he asked me about it, and he told me it was okay.”
“Oh, Herb,” Lucy said, laughing still. “You are the best.” As she flopped back on the striped rug that covered most of Herb’s bedroom floor, she thought about how nice it was to see her dad parenting again. After their mom died, Lucy had taken up a lot of the responsibility for her brothers. But now, Dad was back in the driver’s seat…sometimes, anyway. “Now, what’s this about a tea party?” She lowered her voice and looked at him steadily. “A Mother-Son Tea?”
“But I don’t have a mom,” Herb said. “Aunt Lucinda and her friends told me there must be some sort of work-around, so that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I decided to host my own tea party, and you can come even if you don’t have a mom anymore. It’s for anyone.”
Lucy squeezed her lips into a thin line. “You can’t be the only boy in class without a mom,” Lucy said grimly. “Mr. Andrus has to understand that.”
Herb shrugged and bowed his head over his glue stick and purple construction paper. “I dunno. But can we not talk about it? I’m working around it, so it’s fine.”
Lucy wanted to respect her brother’s wishes, so she dropped it—for now. But she was going to get to the bottom of this. A mother-son tea party was a very outdated concept. What about the kids with two dads? Or the kids who lived with grandparents, or aunts, or a single dad, or a family friend? So far, she’d liked almost everything Herb had told her about his third-grade teacher, but not this. This made her angry.
As soon as Lucy had tucked Herb in and nestled her stuffed duck next to his pig for company, she returned to her room. To block out her frustration about Mr. Andrus’s Mother-Son Tea, Lucy climbed up to the attic. She’d dragged a lamp up there, and had woven an extension cord through the closet to plug it in, since the attic was pretty dark and creepy at night.
Over the past few weeks, Lucy had made it most of the way through the boxes. She’d studied the photographs at length, and poked around in most of the piles of stuff. But there was one deep back corner left for her to explore, and tonight was the night.
As soon as she was safely settled into her secret attic space, with the lamp on for safety, Lucy dragged a teetering pile of thick-cardboard boxes out of the spot where she’d first found the dollhouse and into her investigation station. A long, silent bug with about 230 extra legs scuttled out from behind the pile, and Lucy choked back a scream. She peered into the shadows, checking to be sure there wasn’t a nest full of many-legged beasts waiting to attack. And that’s when she saw it: a small wooden box, nearly hidden between two roof boards. She grabbed it and brought it toward the light. Inside the box was a folded-up piece of paper. She eagerly spread out the crinkled and yellowed paper.
It was covered in a bunch of rough sketches that almost made it look like it might be some kind of map. The pencil writing was very faded, and the collection of boxes and lines on the paper didn’t make a lot of sense. At first, Lucy couldn’t make out much of what was written down. But on closer inspection, she was finally able to read a few numbers on the page, along with the words scrawled at the top of the paper: The Hunt for Hidden Riches.
“Hidden riches?” Lucy muttered aloud. She grinned and flopped back against some boxes, then she began to laugh. “How much more stuff is this house hiding?”
The word Hunt definitely suggested this was some kind of map. But a map to what, and a map of where, were the big questions. It just looked like squares inside of squares with some numbers and a bunch of dotted lines twisting around in a messy squiggle.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, but Lucy knew she just had to sneak downstairs to get a better look at this mysterious piece of paper. The lighting in her room wasn’t great ever since the electrician shut off power to half of her room to do upgrades to their electrical panel. And the attic lamp was dim at best. Lucy needed the big reading lamp in the living room, and maybe a pair of Dad’s reading glasses for this job.
One of the dogs, Rudy, pitter-pattered behind her as she crept down the servant stairs from her fourth-floor bedroom. Though it was creepy in the dark, twisty, hidden staircases so late at night, it was safer than trying to sneak down the center staircase without someone hearing. Rudy trotted quietly along behind, for once not barking to alert the whole pack to his whereabouts. Lucy leaned down and rubbed the soft fur between his ears, silently thanking him for not ruining her nighttime sneakery.
Lucy and Rudy popped out of the servant staircase directly into the kitchen. Her dad kept pairs of reading glasses scattered all over the house—on the dining room table to read the paper in the morning, in the living room for when he was reading science journals at night, and in the kitchen to read labels and recipes. It took less than a minute of hunting around for her to find a pair. She slid them on and headed into the living room to flick on the brightest lamp in the house, the one next to the smooshy chair. Rudy hopped up beside her and curled in against her leg. Lucy was glad to have the company, since wandering around the giant mansion all alone at night really was kind of terrifying. She was excited to think about the future, when the B&B would be filled with guests and stories and the laughter of family, friends, and strangers.
As Lucy studied the paper through her dad’s powerful reading glasses, the faded lines began to come more into focus. It was still hard to make much out, but with the help of Dad’s glasses and in the direct lamplight, Lucy could see things a little more clearly. She squinted, letting her eyes go soft as she considered the shape of the map’s lines and boxes. She stared at it for ages, but it didn’t make any sense at all. “ ‘The Hunt for Hidden Riches,’ ” she repeated, reading it off the top of the paper. She stared even harder, desperately trying to make out what all the numbers and shapes might mean.
“Oh!” Lucy gasped suddenly. Rudy jumped up, startled. Lucy wrapped her arms around his skinny little body and nuzzled her face into his fur. “Rudy, do you know what I think this is? It’s a map of the Peach Pit!”
17
UNDERGROUND TURF
It didn’t take too much searching before Herb found the warped old door that led down into the Peach Pit’s hidden cellar. The door was, as Great Aunt Lucinda had promised, tucked among a thick tangle of vines on one side of the house. Herb had brought his pack of dogs along with him to search for it among the weeds and vines, but quickly learned that there were dozens of patches of burrs buried in the overgrown garden, and they stuck to the dogs’ fur like Velcro. After he and Lucy spent hours pulling the burrs out of their fur, Herb accepted the fact that he couldn’t keep bringing his whole pack along with him to visit the cellar.
So Herb had chosen Dasher (the best behaved of the dogs) to join him on his next trek into the thick brambles. Dasher trotted along, sticking close beside Herb on a leash. He was the only one of the pack of four that didn’t fight the leash like it was some sort of evil villain. His good behavior had earned him the right to join Herb on his field trips to investigate the hidden basement.
The first time Herb opened the cellar door, he’d just peeked inside. Dust covered the stairs leading down into the creepy space, and there were dead moths and bugs everywhere. It smelled damp, and the air that slithered up and out of the space below felt stale and cold.
The second time he snuck around the side of the house to explore the hidden space, he brought a flashlight. He and Dasher opened the door and crept down a few steps to see what they could see. The answer was: not much. More dead bugs and far too much dark silence.
But today, on his third visit to the secret cellar door, Herb had promised himself he would muster up the nerve to creep down the creaky old stairs and enter the cave-like space. He pulled Dasher up into his arms, holding him against his chest like a tiny coat of arms, and stepped carefully onto the top step down. He’d found a headlamp in some of Great Aunt Lucinda’s old camping stuff (things she’d loaned to Herb’s family after Mom died, which they had never gotten a chance to use), so he had his hands free to carry Dasher close against him as he made his way down, down, down.
At the bottom of the steps, he paused and swiveled his head to get a good look around. The ceilings were low—the space was probably only about as tall as Lucy—and found it was much more magnificent inside the musty old cellar than he ever could have imagined.
The walls were solid and cobwebbed and window-less, and the floors uneven. But the hidden space under the mansion was huge. There were dirty wooden shelves lined up all along the outside edges of the room, most of which were empty. It was like a giant treasure chest, just waiting for Herb to fill it with his trinkets and collections!
Lately, Herb had been much less scared about all the spooky stuff that used to make him nervous about the Peach Pit. Really, things had been so much better ever since Joye had pointed out that all the funny noises he kept hearing were just the house telling its story. So now, feeling confident and only a teensy bit creeped out, Herb plopped Dasher down onto the floor and let go of his leash. The skittish pup didn’t go far, but he sniffed back into some corners to check things out—and to take a quick pee. “Dash!” Herb scolded.
But then he realized a little bit of dog pee wasn’t really going to change the way the musty old cellar smelled. It wasn’t as if the space was clean or anything. Dasher was just doing what he had to do, and also marking his turf in the process. Herb giggled, thinking about what would happen if he marked his turf and he peed in a corner of the basement, too. That’s something Freddy would do, but not Herb.
Herb wandered through the dark and dusty space, using the thin beam of yellow from his headlamp to light the way. There were mysterious glass jars lined up on one set of shelves, and some old yard furniture was shoved into a back corner. A few dirty tarps were crumpled up on another shelf, along with a bunch of tools and a giant box of rusty-looking nails.
Way at the back of the cellar, along the outer wall, Herb found a small, creaky door built into the concrete foundation of the house. Herb had noticed this door inside the bottommost level of the miniature dollhouse version of the Peach Pit. The dollhouse was proving, time and again, to be a perfect, tiny model of the house itself—almost no details were missing. It was pretty spectacular, actually. Herb was surprised Freddy wasn’t more impressed with the dollhouse, especially since he loved building things like that himself. But he was so caught up in working on his art project and his room in the B&B that Herb figured he just didn’t have time to be impressed by something of Herb’s.
Dasher nosed into the door’s opening, so Herb felt like he ought to follow. Herb let Dash lead the way. What was behind the door? Was it a closet? A door to a hidden world, like Narnia? Herb held the dog’s leash tight, even though he knew Dasher wouldn’t go far. It made him feel like he was connected to something real, even as he eased open this mysterious door to something.
With a loud grunt that echoed through the entire cellar, Herb pushed the door all the way open and peeked inside. Darkness stretched out in front of him—for what could have been ten feet or ten miles. The space behind the door seemed endless. Herb’s light only reached a little way into the space, then faded into more darkness. “It kind of looks like a tunnel,” Herb whispered. Could this be part of the system of hidden tunnels that snaked under Duluth’s city streets? Had Herb just discovered a huge secret about the Peach Pit that no one else knew?
Dasher whined, tucking himself between Herb’s legs.
Herb stretched his neck out, trying to make the headlamp’s light reach farther for a better view. But even after taking a few steps past the strange door, his light couldn’t find the end of the room or tunnel or whatever this space was.
“Do you want to keep going?” Herb asked Dasher. Dasher did not respond, which Herb took as a no. The whole cellar was filled with possibilities and interesting stuff and plenty of room to explore. There was no reason Herb had to go any farther past this strange door and risk getting sucked into a make-believe world or some horrible nether portal. The cellar itself was enough for him.
So he closed the door behind himself and continued to poke around in his secret world under the Peach Pit.
After a while, the headlamp started to flicker. Herb knew he couldn’t spend much more time in the basement today, unless he wanted to be stranded in total darkness down here (which he most certainly did not). But before he headed back up the stairs and out into the yard, he took a mental picture of the cellar, so he could make a map to study later. Freddy always said sketching shook his ideas loose, and Herb wanted to spend some time thinking about all the fun ways he could use this newfound secret space! If he wasn’t allowed to decorate a room of his own in the B&B, he would adopt this room as his own personal fortress.
Just as he was about to step onto the bottom step to climb back out of the ground, Herb heard a familiar squeak from the dark space under the stairs. He’d know the sound of mice anywhere! He grinned, squatted down, and aimed his fading beam of light into the crack between the bottom and second step. Sure enough, there were several pairs of eyes looking back at him. But as soon as the light caught them, the little critters scattered into the darkness beyond. Dasher barked but didn’t chase after them.
“Those are our new tiny friends, Dash,” Herb explained to the dog. Dasher looked up at him, appearing to both understand and trust what Herb was telling him. “And you know what’s great about having those little mouse friends down here?” Herb rubbed his hands together when he realized this. “Even if he found the door to the cellar, Freddy’s never going to risk coming down here—he’s terrified of mice. So this space? It’s all ours.”
18
BUILDING BLUNDERS
Halloween had come and gone, and with November now in full swing, the deadline to finish the Peach Pit B&B and his art show project were both too close for Freddy’s comfort. David Peach’s wannabe buyers and money people and those real estate nosy nellies kept poking around the mansion, reminding the family of their looming deadline to finish all the work they had left to do.
On top of that, Mrs. Fig kept checking in with Freddy to see how things were going with his build for the art show. Her constant asking did nothing but remind him over and over again that he wasn’t nearly as far along as he wanted or needed to be. If he were being totally honest, Freddy would have to admit that nothing about the piece was clicking yet. The project just didn’t feel right and he hadn’t really started building anything at all. He had all the sketches and designs and ideas for his giant dream treehouse drawn up on paper, but now that it was very much time for him to start building it, he hadn’t yet found a way to make it feel special or uniquely Freddy.
And the guest room he was responsible for designing and putting together in the B&B? Well, he still had some serious work to do. Like, all the work.
The rest of the house was coming along—slowly. All the new windows were in (thanks to David Peach), the trim had been touched up (with no thanks to the dogs for their extra help), and the roof deemed “acceptable for now.” The holes in the mansion’s siding had been patched—roughly—and now all attention had shifted to the guts of the house. While Theo—their new employee, the guy helping get some of the details set up for the business side of the B&B—worked on putting together a website (something Freddy had begged to do, but reluctantly agreed to pass off to Theo when he realized how many other things were on his to-do list), everyone else tried to finish up all the projects that were half done inside the house.
There were bathrooms torn apart, two of the guest rooms were still in total disrepair, and the living room furniture had all been moved—again—to one side of the room so a chimney guy could deal with some sort of issue that made it so they couldn’t light fires in the ancient living room fireplace. (The chimney guy had said something about the fireplace having the flu, which Freddy planned to investigate further.)
Around the first weekend in November, things at the Peach Pit were definitely going not so well…and then the buzzing started. It wasn’t until Freddy had started spending more time in his guest room that he noticed there was always an unusual humming sound coming from somewhere in the walls. At first, he chalked it up to the ghosts in the walls…or just noisy pipes. But then one day, when he was sitting with his eyes closed in the middle of The Freddy Suite, hoping some sort of design inspiration might strike for his guest room plan, Freddy realized the noise coming from inside the wall of his guest room was different from anything he’d heard before.
