If You Find This by Matthew Baker

Author:Matthew Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure / General, Juvenile Fiction / Boys & Men, Juvenile Fiction / Family / Multigenerational, Juvenile Fiction / Mysteries & Detective Stories, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Bullying, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Death & Dying, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Friendship
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2015-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

I ran to the ghosthouse to tell Grandpa Rose, but as I rounded the bend in the road, Zeke and his wolfdogs came slipping from the woods.

“Hey,” Zeke(forte) said.

When your locker partner has betrayed you by stealing your only living grandfather’s only worldly possession, what’s right and what’s wrong isn’t a matter of fact. It’s a matter of belief. And, at that moment, I believed the logical thing was to tackle the thief.

So I ran at Zeke.

“Whoa whoa whoa…!” Zeke(forte) shouted.

I tackled Zeke into the road. We rolled across the painted lines, our bodies leapfrogging.

“Where’s the music box?” I(fortissimo) shouted.

“What are you talking about?” Zeke(fortissimo) shouted. He tried to shove me off. His wolfdogs(forte) snarled, crouching to pounce. “It’s at the ghosthouse!”

“Jordan saw you trying to sell it!” I(forte) shouted.

A truck whipped around the bend, dead leaves scattering in its wake. As the truck(fermata) blared its horn, we scrambled out of the road into the woods, then watched the truck blow past the spot where we had been.

Zeke’s wolfdogs were still(piano) growling. My elbows were tingling where my skin had been peeled raw by the gravel.

“I had to know whether the heirlooms were actually worth anything or whether we were wasting our time,” Zeke(forte) said. “My grandfather was friends with the woman who owns the antique shop, before he died, and she helps me with things sometimes. So I took the music box there to find out what it was worth. But afterward I returned it. It’s in the ghosthouse again.”

“Show me,” I(mezzo-forte) said.

We hiked up the hill, through sunny ferns, shadowed boulders, the rotting white trunks of fallen birch trees. Grandpa Rose was smoking on the porch of the ghosthouse, feeding raspberries to birds. Grandpa Dykhouse was reading the endnote of some book. My elbows were bleeding.

“Boys,” Grandpa Rose(forte) nodded.

“Hungry?” Grandpa Dykhouse(forte) said.

We shook our heads, then hopped through the living room window.

I unlocked Grandpa Rose’s suitcase. The music box was inside, tucked between pairs of socks with gold toes.

“See?” Zeke(fermata) said. “I didn’t steal it. I only steal from kids who hate me. They steal my happiness, so I steal stuff from them.”

By now my fingers knew every hooked gouge and jagged scrape on the bottom of the music box. There wasn’t even a single new scuff or nick. I popped the lid. The same parts were there, on the inside, as always. Nothing was missing that hadn’t been missing all along. Someone had even cleaned the dust from the hinges.

“Did you learn anything about the heirlooms?” I(forte) said.

“When the owner saw the music box, she said she would have to take out a loan if she was going to buy it. It was priceless, she said. A handful of these music boxes still exist, but none that works,” Zeke(forte) said. “But then she wound it. And when she saw it was broken, everything changed. Broken, it’s worth the same as the others. A couple hundred dollars, tops.”

I stuffed the music box back into the suitcase.

“What about the other heirlooms?” I(forte) said.

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