The Pea Soup Poisonings by Nancy Means Wright

Author:Nancy Means Wright [Wright, Nancy Means]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Children's/Young Adult Mystery
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 2006-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Tigers and Old Black Bears

Spence heard a door slam downstairs and then everything was quiet. Even the woman, Chloe, was gone – otherwise he would have heard the soap operas, the coffee grinder, now and then a curse when she tripped over a cat or a can opener didn’t work.

He tried the attic door for the hundredth time, but of course it was locked. There were bars on the two windows. Outdoors he could see no other signs of habitation, only a chimney poking up through the maple leaves. If there were people living next door, they couldn’t see him. Just in case, though, as he had done every hour since they brought him here, he waved his arms. He wrote HELP with a piece of chalk he’d had in his pocket. Once the woman had come up when he was at the window and he’d had to erase it quickly with his sleeve.

But no one came to rescue him. No one knew he was here. Not even his parents. Not even his friend, Zoe.

At first he was mad at her for getting him into this.

If she hadn’t wanted to join that foolish Northern Spy Club...if he hadn’t said he would help...if they hadn’t gone to Rockbury and kidnapped old Aunt Thelma...if he hadn’t gone home to get the key for the blacksmith shop...if he hadn’t come back with it and stumbled on that pair...

But he had. He sank down on one of the dusty boxes that was piled up by the window. He had done all those things. And to tell the truth, it had been kind of fun. More fun than sitting home, practicing the cello. More fun than cleaning the bathroom and having his mother tell him it wasn’t done right, to do it over again – he’d forgotten to wash the soap dish.

Besides, he liked those old ladies, the Bagley sisters. He didn’t want them to go to jail. He didn’t want anyone hurting Alice’s aunt Thelma. She was a good sport, and a lot more fun than his own Aunt Beatrice, who wrinkled her nose when he played a piece on the cello and said, “So that was Mozart?”

And now he was useless. He’d been caught, and he couldn’t help Aunt Thelma or the Bagley sisters or Zoe.

He got up from the box, feeling restless. Then he realized he had sunk down into it; the top flaps had caved in. Curious, he opened it up. Inside were piles of letters. They looked quite recent, all with this year’s date. Oddly, they were from zoos. The New City Zoo, the Plum Bush Zoo, the Land’s End Zoo. What, he wondered, would the couple want with zoos? He hadn’t heard any animals in this house bark or snarl or growl. A cat maybe, but cats weren’t in zoos.

He opened up one of the letters.

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