Trashed!, page 16
Fit as she was, she didn’t get far.
Coming in to work, Jennifer Y happened to be crossing the parking lot, and Grandpa yelled: “Catch that woman!” and Jennifer Y did, grabbed Mrs. Merdle around the waist and held her.
Officer Bernstein arrived soon after that. Arthur expected him to handcuff Mrs. Merdle and haul her to jail. Arthur wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Mrs. Merdle was a thief, but she was also Edie’s grandmother and someone he’d known all his life.
The way it turned out, though, Officer Bernstein didn’t handcuff her or haul her to jail. Instead he borrowed the office from Dad, talked to her for about an hour, made a deal for her to meet him at the BPD bright and early the next day.
Mrs. Merdle left without saying anything to anyone. Then Officer Bernstein called Arthur in to tell him what was what.
“I still don’t have a report on the missing necklace,” he explained. “And now I understand there’s additional jewelry as well. We’re going to need reports on each and every item. The paperwork will take time.”
“What if she leaves town?” Arthur asked.
“Of course, I calculated the odds,” Officer Bernstein said. “Ninety-seven to one against, based on local statistics for perps of her age and gender.”
“Perps?” Arthur repeated.
“Perpetrators,” Officer Bernstein said, “bad guys. And besides, she already confessed. Once she knew she’d been caught, she spilled the whole story. She also stole the Red File because her name was in it. And she stole that teacup back in the day—grabbed it when your grandma’s back was turned. But I bet you knew that already.”
Arthur nodded. “I did, but I don’t know why.”
“She just loved Jerry Strange and wanted to own something that belonged to him,” Officer Bernstein said.
“She believed what my grandpa had said? That Jerry Strange used to play tea party with it? But that story never made any sense,” Arthur said.
Officer Bernstein nodded. “Exactly. It took her a long time, but when she figured it out, she returned the teacup to a shelf in the store.”
Arthur shook his head. “That’s crazy.”
Officer Bernstein nodded sadly. “Yes, it is, Arthur. Would you say you have ever done anything crazy?”
Arthur thought of saying he’d organized a funeral for Ramona’s pet mouse, that now the mouse’s ghost lived in his room, that they were friends. Most people would call that crazy, wouldn’t they? So he didn’t say it. Instead he said, “Nothing that’s illegal, I don’t think. Nothing that’s wrong.”
“Good for you, Arthur,” said Officer Bernstein. “I advise you to keep it that way.”
Arthur and Officer Bernstein talked for a few more minutes. Before he left, Officer Bernstein clapped Arthur on the back and even came close to smiling. “Good job, my friend,” he said. “You’ve solved the perfect crime.”
* * *
That night Grandma and Grandpa came to dinner. So did Veda. They got pizza, the good kind from Locale, and ate at the kitchen table. Feeling bad about how he’d accused Juan of being a thief, Grandpa apologized to Veda and even paid for the pizza.
Veda didn’t say “That’s okay” or “Don’t worry about it” or “We all make mistakes.” But she nodded so Grandpa could see she had heard.
“Amy Merdle was always a terrible liar,” Grandma said after Dad had served them all.
“ ‘Terrible’ as in she lied a lot?” Mom asked. “Or ‘terrible’ as in she was bad at it?”
“Both,” Grandma said. “I remember one time she told us she was dating this guitarist, which was nonsense, and we all knew it. She was just envious of me ’cause I was with such a cute guy.”
Ramona knitted her caterpillar brows. “What cute guy?” she asked.
“Me,” Grandpa B said.
Ramona blinked, looked at Grandpa. “Really?” she said.
Grandma and Grandpa were sitting side by side at the kitchen table. Grandma looked affectionately at Grandpa B. “Yes, Ramona,” she said. “Really.”
Arthur hoped his grandparents were getting along better. When they were getting along, his grandpa was less crotchety.
“There are still a couple of things I don’t understand,” Mom said between bites. “And by the way, the pizza is delicious.”
“Thanks. I made it myself,” Grandpa said.
“Sometimes you’re funny, Grandpa,” Ramona said.
Mom looked from her daughter to her father. “Sometimes,” she said.
Arthur swallowed a big bite of the artichoke pizza, which was his favorite. “What do you want to know, Mom?” he asked.
“Well, I get it that Mrs. Merdle knew something only the thief would know,” she said, “about the other jewelry being stolen, and I get that she was a suspect because she was in my book group—but I don’t get how you narrowed that list down to her.”
Leaving Watson out, Arthur explained. “So the saleswoman at Jumper Jewelers? When she saw Mrs. Merdle’s earrings, she thought the prairie dogs were meerkats. And that made her think Lion King. I guess some, uh… people think Timon is the star of The Lion King.”
Veda’s plate was empty. She sat back in her chair. “And how did you know the necklace was at Jumper Jewelers at all?”
“I remembered the story Randolph told me about the ring he bought at the yard sale,” Arthur said. “When Universal was closed, he went to Jumper to consign it.”
Dad swallowed a bite, shook his head. “I still can’t believe it. Mrs. Merdle was here a lot since she was moving and getting rid of stuff, downsizing. It sure never occurred to me that anything she brought us might be stolen.”
Veda said, “Because she’s a white lady?”
Arthur was shocked. Dad and Mom protested. Grandma frowned and shook her head.
Grandpa was the one who spoke up: “Oh, give the girl a break. You know, Veda, I’ve always liked you.”
Veda looked at Grandpa, and Arthur could see that she felt nervous but wasn’t going to back down. “I do know that,” she said, and her voice shook a little. But when she looked at Arthur’s dad and spoke again, her voice was steady. “No offense, Mr. Popper, but you didn’t wonder if something was funny when Mrs. Merdle asked for her name to be kept in the Red File?”
Dad took a breath before answering. “Some people are funny about selling their stuff. They don’t want the world to know. I just figured she was one of those people. I don’t think it was because she was white? But maybe I should think about that.” He shrugged, and the mood around the table relaxed a little.
Veda continued, “I get that she was clever to steal jewelry people didn’t ever wear, but it still seems like she took a big risk. She should’ve expected someone would recognize their own jewelry in the case.”
“Not necessarily,” Grandma said. “Amy knew most of the women in my book group are too snobby to shop at Universal Trash, or they used to be. Since they didn’t shop in the store, they’d never see their jewelry. Then Ramona here came up with that brilliant ad campaign, and now everyone shops at the store because everyone wants to save the planet.”
Ramona wagged her thumbs at herself. “I am brilliant. So true,” she said. Everyone laughed.
Arthur held out his plate. “Can I have another piece, please? Olive this time.”
Arthur’s dad served him.
“What about you, Veda?” Grandpa asked. “More pizza?” He was being extra nice.
“Yes, please,” Veda said.
Grandpa served her, gave back her plate. Veda took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. “One more thing,” she said. “Mrs. Merdle had enough money, didn’t she? What did she do with what she got for stealing?”
By this time Arthur felt stuffed. “I should have mentioned that already,” he said, “because it’s kind of funny. According to Officer Bernstein, she gave it all to the prairie dogs.”
Ramona’s brows rose and fell. “Like, cash or gift cards or what?”
Everyone laughed again—but Ramona looked confused.
“For habitat, I think,” Mom said. “In other words, to buy land that won’t be used for houses or farming, land that’s safe for prairie dogs.”
Dad grinned and shook his head. “It’s a sign of the times, isn’t it? Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Mrs. Merdle stole from the middle class and gave to the prairie dogs.”
“Don’t make light of prairie dogs, dear,” Mom said. “You remember what happened when we had those stuffed prairie dogs at the store, that taxidermy piece. All those protesters?”
Grandma said, “Whatever happened to those anyway, Dan? Did you sell them online or what?”
“Selling seemed like a bad idea,” Dad said, “so I put them away.”
“Where away?” Mom asked.
“Top of our closet, behind my old ski boots,” Dad said.
Mom looked startled. “Are you serious? I had no idea.”
Dad stood up to clear plates. “I’m all ears if you have a better suggestion.”
“Um, actually… I guess I don’t,” Mom said.
Arthur looked at Ramona. “I do.”
After a pause Ramona grinned. “I can make the coffin.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
That night at bedtime, Arthur told Watson what Veda had said about Dad thinking Mrs. Merdle wasn’t a thief because she was white.
“What do you think about that, Arthur?” Watson asked.
“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “I mean, maybe that’s part of it. And also she was someone my family knew and someone who had money.”
Watson tugged her whiskers. “Maybe…” she said slowly, “your family wouldn’t have known her and she wouldn’t have had money if she weren’t also white?”
“Do you think that’s true?” Arthur asked.
“I don’t know,” Watson said. “I’m a mouse, remember.”
Arthur lay back in the blood-to-brain position. “It seems like it might be true, though. It seems like I should do more thinking.”
“There’s something else you should do,” Watson said. “Enjoy that glowing sense of accomplishment. You’ve earned it.”
“Thanks, Watson,” Arthur said. “I plan to.”
But, same as with everything else about detecting, enjoying it wasn’t so easy.
* * *
Monday was warm, and the air was hazy. Sitting outdoors at the usual lunch table, Arthur thought he might smell a trace of smoke. He opened his lunch box, got out his sandwich, and prepared to make an announcement. “Guys,” he said to Zeke, Danh, and Ethan. “I solved a mystery over the weekend, identified a jewel thief for reals!”
Then he waited, hoping for heaps of praise.
Zeke, Danh, and Ethan were chewing.
At last Zeke said, “Oh yeah. Who?”
Arthur was going to answer but remembered that Edie was a first grader at their school. One of the guys might recognize the name, and word might get around, and Edie might be embarrassed.
Arthur knew all about embarrassing grandparents.
“No one you know,” he said. “But the thief stole a lot of stuff—a watch and a necklace and earrings. Big bucks.”
“Any blood?” Zeke asked.
“How about weapons?” Ethan asked.
“Hundreds of bucks?” Danh asked. “Or thousands?”
Arthur’s hopes for praise faded. “No blood, no weapon,” he said. “I don’t know how many bucks.”
Zeke finished his sandwich, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Danh took a small bite of his apple and chewed thoroughly. Ethan crammed a cupcake into his mouth and said something that might’ve been, “Cool.”
Then Zeke said, “Whatever happened to that teddy-bear teapot or whatever it was? The one for your dolly tea parties?”
“It was a teacup,” Arthur said.
“Worth big bucks, right? Like the jewelry?” Zeke said.
“Never mind,” Arthur said. “I just wanted to tell you I did something good for once, but—”
“High-five, Arthur,” said Ethan, and held up his hand. It was sticky with cupcake frosting, but Arthur high-fived anyway.
* * *
On Wednesday during library time, Arthur returned the King Arthur book, and Mrs. Danneberg asked how he liked it.
“I never read it, Mrs. Danneberg,” he admitted. “I was pretty busy last week. For a fact, I solved a mystery.”
“The mystery of why Arthur won’t read anything new?” she asked.
“A real mystery,” Arthur said. “Stolen jewels. Not that anybody cares.”
Mrs. Danneberg did not seem to care either. “That’s nice. But I do wish you’d read your library books. You should learn more about King Arthur.”
Arthur said, “I did watch a movie about him,” but as soon as he said it, he worried. There was blood and that inappropriate part, even though he hadn’t seen it.
“Movie,” Mrs. Danneberg repeated, her eyes ready to roll.
“I watched it with my grandfather.” Arthur hoped that sounded family friendly. “It’s called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
“Ha!” Mrs. Danneberg said. “I love that movie. Only, some parts I don’t understand. The elderberries? Why are they an insult?”
* * *
Some good things did happen that week.
Like that same day—Wednesday—Arthur finally worked up the courage to tell Grandpa he had been unfair to Juan. Compared to confronting a jewel thief, it wasn’t that hard.
They were in the office, just the two of them. Grandpa scowled. “I already told Veda I like her. Are you calling me a bigot?”
Arthur avoided the question. Instead, he said, “It’s wrong to, uh… assume that a person ‘doesn’t want to work’ or whatever because they look this way or that way, and for sure not because their skin happens to be a certain color or their accent’s different from yours. Those kinds of ideas are poison, Grandpa. They make the world a worse place.”
Grandpa mumbled something Arthur didn’t catch, and he never stopped scowling.
Later, though, Arthur found out from Veda that Grandpa had phoned Juan himself to offer him the job again. Juan had said he would think about it.
On Friday, after Officer Bernstein had visited all the book group members to take reports on stolen jewelry, Susana Malarky sent an email saying he was so nice and so smart that they should invite him to join book group too.
“It would be good for us to have a guy’s point of view,” she wrote. “And maybe we’d cheer him up a little.”
* * *
That same day after school, Arthur worked a shift at the store. He helped a new dad find a stroller, a grad student find place mats “so even though I can’t cook, my friends will be impressed when they come over,” and a mom-aged woman find a pair of jeans because she’d lost weight when she’d started working out.
The woman was super grateful. “My friends will never believe a kid helped me shop for jeans,” she said. “You have a real knack for customer service.”
Arthur thought, So what? But he said, “I appreciate the compliment,” and handed her back her purchase. “Thank you for shopping at Universal Trash.”
It was five minutes to closing when the woman left. Randolph and Jennifer Y had already gone home, and Dad was in the office, so Arthur did the walk-through and hung up the CLOSED signs.
For a fact, the store is a cool place, he thought, looking around—the space, the colors, the shapes.
The awesome array of stuff.
He read Grandpa’s words, posted by the door:
Herein the collected work of humankind
Some of it useful
Much of it useless
All of it for sale
Arthur’s grandparents had built something that now belonged to his dad and mom, that supported their family. And maybe Ramona was right. Maybe they really were saving the earth.
If the store became Arthur’s someday, would that be so bad? Not to mention, you got way more praise for customer service than you ever did for detecting—and detecting was so much harder.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Arthur and Ramona set the time for the prairie dog funeral as two p.m. on Saturday. By 1:55, eight mourners had gathered in the parking lot—Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Officer Bernstein, Veda, Arthur, and Ramona.
Randolph had been invited but had said no when he’d found out Officer Bernstein would be there.
Jennifer Y was covering the store.
Everyone had dressed nicely. Dad was wearing his Christmas tie with the squirrels on it. Mom was wearing Grandma’s pearl necklace, which Officer Bernstein had returned that morning. Officer Bernstein himself was wearing his dress uniform.
“What do we do now?” Veda asked. “I’ve never been to a funeral before.”
“I’ve been to too many funerals,” Grandma said, “but never one quite like this.”
Arthur said, “Just follow directions.”
Ramona nodded. “We’ve got this.”
Dad had removed the two stuffed prairie dogs from storage, had dusted their fur and polished all four eyes. That morning when it had still been cool, he and Arthur had come outside and dug a good-size grave beside Mouse 4’s.
“Ready?” Arthur asked Ramona. No one had argued when she’d volunteered to go first, carrying the coffin. For decoration she had made a collage of landscape pictures from magazines. For wild animals, that seemed more appropriate than paint and glitter.
“Ready,” she said.
Arthur pressed play. A guitar strummed; thin voices sang in harmony. Instead of “Let It Go,” Grandma had recommended a HoneyJams song called “Truckin’ on Up.” Processing at flower-girl pace across the parking lot, his grandparents rocked out—but only a little. It was a solemn occasion.
“Dearly beloved,” Arthur began when at last they stood by the grave. “We are gathered here today to say goodbye to two prairie dogs. We don’t know a lot about how they lived or how they died. We don’t even know if they had names. But prairie dogs, like all living things, deserve to be treated with respect. That is why we remember them today.”
