The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

Verna pinched harder, feeling that she was about to explode.

“Well, then,” the woman said, sounding mollified, “perhaps the room will do after all. My Sue Ellen is, as you say, a treasure, but she is a bit wild, and it would be a comfort to me to know that she is being watched carefully. One young man in particular is making quite a nuisance of himself. I have forbidden him to—”

The sneeze came just as the door closed behind them.

“Whew!” Lizzy breathed out. They listened as the clack-clack of heels receded down the hall. “That was a narrow escape.”

“What wretched old women,” Verna said in disgust. “Remind me never to behave that way when I get old.”

After a moment, they came out from behind the curtain. Verna went to the door and opened it a crack. They could hear the women’s voices drifting up from downstairs. “Sounds as if they’re in the parlor,” she whispered.

“In the parlor?” Lizzy’s eyes widened. “Then we can’t go down the stairs without being seen! We’re stuck here.”

“Maybe not,” Verna countered. “How good are you at climbing?” She stepped out into the hall and raised the window sash. It went up smoothly. “The girls use this as their secret exit, when they don’t want Mrs. Brewster to know that they’ve been out past curfew. You see that trellis? That’s how they do it.”

Lizzy looked out the window, onto the porch roof. “I’ve always been good at climbing trees, and this isn’t much different.” She hiked up her skirt. “And it seems like the easy way out, compared to trying to sneak past those two old dragons. Let’s go!”

A few minutes later, Verna and Lizzy were safely on the ground and out on the street, strolling nonchalantly down the block, arm in arm, and trying not to giggle.





SEVENTEEN





Myra May Organizes the Dahlias


Myra May’s shift at the switchboard behind the diner began at four in the afternoon five days a week and ended at midnight. Darling was a small town. Only about half of the residences had telephones and most of these were on party lines. Given people’s habit of listening in, a single phone conversation could keep as many as half a dozen people busy at once. Which meant that the switchboard operator’s job was normally pretty light, except when there was an emergency—like the day the convicts escaped and everybody was calling everybody else, trying to find out what was going on. Most afternoons and evenings, there were only five or six calls in an hour. Myra May got a lot of reading and knitting and letter-writing done during her shift.

This week, for instance, she was reading a book she’d gotten at the library. The library was small and Miss Rogers couldn’t buy many books, but this one had been donated. Myra May had picked it up, read the first page, and checked it out immediately—in spite of Miss Rogers, who had told her that it was written for children. It was called The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene, and featured a courageous, quick-witted sixteen-year-old girl named Nancy Drew. Myra May would’ve loved to have taken part in a few of Nancy’s adventures: finding a will hidden in an old clock, having a run-in with thieves, being overpowered by criminals and locked in an abandoned house. And all because Nancy was trying to help a poor, struggling family denied their share of a wealthy relative’s estate.

This afternoon, though, Myra May was having a hard time concentrating on the adventures of Nancy Drew, exciting as they were. She kept worrying about her friend Alice Ann and wondering whether the sheriff had arrested her yet. It didn’t seem so, for Mr. Johnson at the bank had telephoned Hiram Riley the accountant, and their conversation suggested that they still didn’t have all the evidence they needed to make an embezzlement charge stick. Mr. Johnson seemed certain, though, that Alice Ann had stolen the money—if only he and the bank examiner could figure out what she had done with it.

“Damned clever woman,” he had growled angrily. “Covered her tracks so well that we can’t follow. And she won’t tell us a blasted thing. Just cries and cries and claims to be innocent.”

“What’s the situation at the bank?” Mr. Riley had asked nervously.

“Same as it was.” Mr. Johnson sounded weary. “Precarious, I don’t mind telling you, but keep that to yourself. If we don’t locate that money ...” His voice became dramatic. “We’ll all be in for it, Hiram. The whole town. Bad times comin’, like a big black winter cloud rollin’ down from the north.”