Out of the Box(13)

I sit back on my bed and stare at the envelope. All my life, I’ve wanted something exciting to happen to me. People in books are always finding secret notes hidden in library books or messages in bottles washed up on the shore, but I only ever find old receipts or bus transfers. The one time I found a bottle at the beach, it turned out to be wine someone was chilling for supper.

Now, at last, I’ve uncovered a mystery. Why would anyone leave that much money in a bandoneón case?

I race to explore every cranny of the case and even parts of the instrument itself. I don’t know what I’m expecting, but I find nothing more. I tuck the bandoneón away in the closet, slip the envelope into the drawer of my night table and wander into the kitchen, trying to look aimless or slightly bored, in case Jeanette shows up out of nowhere. I’ll tell her about the envelope eventually, of course, especially if I can’t find out who the money belongs to. All that money could buy tons of bread and sandwich meat for the soup kitchen, and maybe then I’d feel better about keeping the bandoneón itself. Before I tell anyone anything, though, I want to know more about what I’ve found.

Through the kitchen window, I see Jeanette in the garden, chatting over the back fence to Mr. Ignilioni, the most long-winded guy in the neighborhood.

I breathe a sigh of relief and dash into the living room. For the first time ever, I use Jeanette’s old encyclopedia instead of just teasing her about it. I look up every place name mentioned, and after about half an hour, I’ve found out that Uruguay is a country in South America, and Argentina is just west of it. Argentina is where tango music started, so I guess it’s not surprising that a tango instrument has some connection to Argentina. The airplane tickets are from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Caracas, Venezuela, and the date on the tickets is 22JUN1976. The names on the tickets are Andrés Moreno and Caterina Rizzi.

A knock on the front door startles me so much that I almost fall off the couch.

“Feel like going on a field trip?” Sarah asks when I open up. “I want to check out Vic Middle, the school I’ll be going to in September.”

I laugh. Can I really be so lucky? A bandoneón, a mystery and a friend who likes school enough to check it out in July?

Sarah gives me a sheepish smile. “I know it’s weird, but I want to scope the place out.”

“Let me tell Jeanette we’re going to school in July,” I say with a grin. “Just a sec.”

Sarah grins back, and a few minutes later we’re heading across the park and up the hill to Vic Middle.

“How’s the basement-clearing going?” she asks, kicking a pebble along the sidewalk. “Found any more treasures?”

Her words are like ice down my spine, but I know it’s only a coincidence that she’s asking, so I play it cool. “I’m still figuring out how to play the first treasure I found,” I say. “I’m hoping Jeanette finds plenty of treasure though, preferably expensive stuff that she can sell for the soup kitchen.”

We walk along in silence for a few minutes. The farther we get from home, the bigger the houses become. Now we’re in a neighborhood of streets lined with enormous oak trees and old mansions, and I’m enjoying the shade. I ask Sarah what she thinks of the sock-to-bowtie book, and she says it’s given her a lot of ideas. She looks serious, so I try not to laugh.

For one thing, I’m not sure why she thinks she needs a more interesting wardrobe. Yesterday she showed me photos of herself at various schools. In one shot, she’s on an old wooden dock, striking a diver’s pose in a sleek one-piece swimsuit. In the next, she’s got her hair twisted back and is wearing thick glasses and a long-sleeved dress that makes her look like part of some religious group. In a third, her hair is short and spiky, her clothing black and her face covered in white makeup. In all of them, she’s surrounded by what appear to be friends. I know it’s silly, but for a moment I wonder if I should pay more attention to my own clothes.

I don’t dwell on the thought for more than half a second, though, because we’ve reached the school. From across the street, it looks like it’s all chain-link fence and parking lot, with a patch of yellowing grass at the far end. I squint against the sun.

“Hey, I was wrong about no one being here in the middle of July. I guess you’re not the only keener in Victoria, Sarah.” Across the parking lot, in the shadow of the school, two boys—one our age and one much younger—are sitting on a curb, poking at the dirt. The older boy holds a jar, and the younger one is dropping bits of earth into it with a stick. They’re talking and laughing, and it looks like they’re having fun. I’d love to know what they’re doing.