“My muscles real strong now!” Benny said as he and the other Aldens climbed to the third floor of the Bugbee House the next day. Nan was following right behind, rushing as usual to get the Aldens working and out of her way.
After three days, the Aldens were used to climbing a lot of stairs.
“You go up and down these stairs even more than we do,” Jessie said to Nan.
Nan paused on the second-floor landing. “What do you mean? I work all over the house, not just up here.”
Jessie looked at Nan for a few seconds. “It’s … well, it’s just that we run into you and Brian up here more than anybody else.”
Nan disagreed. “I can’t speak for Brian. But I’m sure you’re quite mistaken about me. I’m hardly up here at all.”
The Aldens didn’t say anything else to Nan. Even after a few days, the children had a hard time figuring her out. She was a bit forgetful, always darting in and out of rooms and saying she left something behind. For someone who carried a notebook with her everywhere, she wasn’t very organized.
“Now, where did Mabel say the bucket was?” Nan tried several doors before she finally found the right closet on the second floor. “Here it is. Just fill this bucket with water from the third-floor bathroom and use it to paste the wallpaper,” she told the Aldens. “Some of the volunteers started papering the hallway up there, but they only finished a little of the job. Think you can do it?”
“We helped Uncle Joe wallpaper Soo Lee’s bedroom,” Jessie answered. “He taught us how to match up the paper and paste it up and everything.”
“Fine,” Nan said. “You’ll find rolls of wallpaper, brushes, sponges, and a stepladder up there. The job will keep you busy most of today. Now I have work to do, and I don’t want any interruptions. So long.”
The Aldens got their water bucket and brought it to the third floor. They could hear Nan banging one door after the other on the second floor, directly below them.
The children looked at one another.
“It never seems like she’s actually working,” Jessie said. “She’s always going off someplace with that notebook of hers.”
Henry agreed. “I’ve yet to see her pick up a broom or a tool, that’s for sure.”
“Here’s another strange thing,” Violet said when she came out of the bathroom with the bucket of water. “This hallway is already wallpapered. See? Somebody did most of the job already. I wonder why Nan told us it would take us all day to finish. I don’t even think she checked.”
Jessie walked to the far end of the hall. “Well, there’s still one roll that needs to be put up at this end. I guess we should get started.”
After the children lined up their equipment, Henry found a stepladder and climbed up. He measured the ceiling to the floor. “Cut ninety-two inches,” he told Violet and Jessie. “Remember what Uncle Joe said?”
The girls answered together. “‘Measure twice, cut once.’”
Soo Lee and Benny looked confused.
As Violet measured the wallpaper a second time, she explained what Uncle Joe meant. “If you measure something twice before cutting it, then you probably won’t make a mistake and have to cut more than once. It could be wallpaper or a piece of wood or—”
“A piece of cake!” Benny said.
The children helped one another measure, cut, and paste a wallpaper strip.
“Ready, Henry?” Jessie called out.
“Ready!” Henry answered.
The other children carefully carried the wet wallpaper strip over to Henry. He lined it up, matching the leaf pattern exactly right. Then he smoothed the paper in place. There wasn’t a bubble or a wrinkle on it. “Good job, everybody.”
The children stepped back from the nice smooth wall to admire their work. That’s when they heard someone walking around overhead.
“There are those footsteps again.” Jessie scooted in the direction of the steps. But she couldn’t see anyone. “It can’t be Nan. She’s downstairs.”
“Maybe it’s another mouse,” Benny joked when Jessie came back puzzled.
“A mouse that plays music?” Soo Lee asked.
A faint, tinkling sound seemed to be coming from somewhere not too far away. The Aldens checked in all the third-floor rooms, but didn’t get any closer to the music.
“It’s The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’!” Violet said. “Listen.”
“Maybe the sound is somehow coming from the second floor where Nan is,” Henry whispered. “I’ll go check.”
He tiptoed down one flight of stairs but didn’t hear a thing. One room was locked. Raising his hand, Henry knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?” Nan yelled out, but she didn’t open the door.
“It’s Henry. Can I come in?”
“No, I’m painting in here,” Nan snapped. “All the woodwork is wet with paint. Go finish your wallpapering.”
Henry started to say something but stopped himself. “Okay.”
When he got back to the other children, he explained what had happened. “You know what? I didn’t smell a bit of paint coming from that room. I wonder why Nan locked herself in there.”
Violet looked at Henry with her big blue eyes. “Did you hear my music box?”
Henry shook his head. “I’m not sure where that sound came from. I didn’t hear it from where Nan was, anyway. But she may have heard my footsteps and closed the music box.”
“What are we going to do now?” Violet asked.
“I guess we’ll clean up, then go downstairs to see if there are other jobs for us,” Jessie answered.
“Can I climb up on there?” Benny asked when he saw Henry about to fold the stepladder. “I want to be tall.”
Henry smiled. “Sure. We need to be careful around ladders. So lean against the wall with your right hand. I’ll hold you and the ladder steady.”
“Now I’m taller than you!” Benny said when he stood on top of the stepladder. He looked up at the ceiling and noticed something. “Know what? There’s a little knob on the ceiling that sticks out.”
Henry held his arms out for Benny. “Here, jump down. I want to get a closer look. Jessie, hold the stepladder steady for me, okay?”
Jessie held the ladder firmly as Henry stood on top.
“Good eyes, Benny,” Henry said when he saw something on the ceiling, too. “From down there you can’t really see that knob. I wonder if it’s part of a folding staircase like Aunt Jane had at her ranch house. I can’t quite reach it.”
Jessie squinted up. “Oh, I see what you’re talking about. The knob blends into the carvings on the ceiling.”
The knob was just a couple of inches out of Henry’s reach. “Know what?” he said. “I’m going to stand on the floor instead. If I put Soo Lee on my shoulders, she can pull the panel open a couples of inches. Then I can pull it down the rest of the way.”
Soo Lee always loved sitting on Henry’s shoulders. She was even more excited now to help her cousins open the secret door. She looked down at the other children after Henry put her on his shoulders. “Now I’m tall, too!”
“Okay, Soo Lee, just tug that knob a teeny bit,” Jessie said, looking up.
A moment later, the children were startled when a figure appeared in the hallway.
“May I ask what you children are doing?” Louella Gardiner demanded in a sharp voice. “Why is that child sitting on your shoulders?”
Henry reached up for Soo Lee and helped her down.
Soo Lee came to the rescue. “We were listening to see if there was a mouse on the roof.”
“A mouse? On the roof?” Louella said. “This is exactly why I told Mabel Hart that children should not be volunteers. Now I’d like you all to go work outside with my husband. There’s still a lot of yard work to be done. You’ll do less damage out there than inside.”
“But we finished wallpapering,” Henry began, “like Nan told us to.”
Now Louella looked even more annoyed. “That one! A more scatterbrained leader I’ve never seen than Nan Lodge—always with her nose in a book or scribbling down jobs to do instead of doing them. Why, I told her the wallpapering job was nearly complete yesterday. And it certainly wasn’t a job for children. Now go find Mr. Gardiner outside.”
After the children went downstairs, something kept bothering Jessie. “Did any of you see or hear Louella come up the stairs? Didn’t it seem as if she just appeared out of nowhere on the third floor?”
“I know,” Henry agreed. “I just hope she doesn’t look up and notice that secret panel in the ceiling.”
“Unless she already knows about it,” Jessie added. |