Christmas Chiller Read online

  Mrs. Hsu nodded.

  I said good-bye to Mrs. Hsu and followed the police out of the house. I caught Sergeant Tang’s sleeve. “Have you dusted for prints?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said, giving me an amused look.

  Sergeant Johnson added, “And I know we can count on you, Kristy, to give us a call if you see or hear anything suspicious.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  I watched the police drive away and then headed home, thinking hard. But by the time I arrived, I had reached only one conclusion: A thief was on the loose in our neighborhood. And although the police thought it was a random incident, I had a bad feeling that we had not seen the last of the “naughty” burglars.

  The choir director’s casting choice for the Three Kings was inspired. Even I had to admit that.

  She chose Adam, Byron, and Jordan, my ten-year-old identical triplet brothers.

  Naturally, they loved the idea. They instantly began planning to find a real, live camel for the pageant, “as a surprise.”

  I would have worried about this, but I figured even my brothers weren’t going to be able to find a camel around Stoneybrook. All I had to do was keep them from coming up with the idea of dressing up a horse or even a big dog for the role. I did this by convincing them to concentrate on their costumes.

  Fortunately, this wasn’t too difficult. Everything in our house gets recycled, down to the last sock, so we have boxes and trunks full of old robes and shirts and all kinds of clothes that are either waiting for someone to grow into them or have been saved for costume potential. As we sorted through the boxes, the triplets talked less and less about camels and more and more about who was going to have the best costume and crown. Costume jewelry became a very coveted crown-decorating commodity, and all kinds of negotiations involving “diamonds” and “pearls” and “emeralds” could be heard.

  I don’t think that the Three Kings traveled all that way to the manger wearing jeweled crowns, but who am I to argue?

  By the time our pre-dress rehearsal arrived (which meant everyone could wear as much of their costumes as they had put together), the triplets looked pretty magnificent. So did the rest of the pageant participants. Five-year-old Claire was going to be in the pageant for the first time, as one of the shepherds (we also had a huge choir of angels), and she was as excited as could be. Margo, who is seven, was enjoying showing Claire the ropes of being a shepherd, since this would be her second year in the role. Meanwhile, Nicky was going to be an angel and Vanessa, who’s nine, had volunteered to help usher, and I had helped write the play.

  It is not a story to which you need to add a lot of original lines. Still, as the playwright, I found the rehearsals nerve-racking.

  The shepherds needed a shepherd of their own. There were over a dozen of them, and the older shepherds kept fencing with their staffs.

  Then Claire dropped the stuffed lamb she’d insisted on carrying, and one of the bigger girls stepped on it. “Uh-oh,” she said, laughing, “lamb chops!”

  Claire burst into tears. We had to stop the procession in order to calm her down.

  I’d seen Jessi sneak into the back of the church to watch. Her sister, Becca, was the innkeeper, a role Jessi, with great difficulty (Becca is very shy), had convinced her to take. I knew Jessi was smiling. I myself couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Was this how all playwrights felt? Maybe I would switch to something easier, such as movies.

  At the very beginning of the pageant, the Star of Bethlehem was supposed to rise slowly (it was being pulled up by a hidden rope, operated by some of the “backstage crew”) as the lights in the church dimmed. It rose fine.

  Then it fell.

  “Look!” said Byron. “A shooting star!”

  All the kids thought that was terribly funny. I did not.

  But when Becca, as the innkeeper, offered Mary and Joseph the stable for the night by referring to “rustic accommodations,” even I couldn’t help but grin. (Where had she heard that phrase?)

  At last we made it through the rehearsal. Then everyone had to take off their costumes (though no one would agree to remove their makeup) and put them carefully away. We had to repair the “shooting star,” which had lost a lot of glitter and one of its silvery cardboard tips had bent when it plummeted to the stage. And we had to make sure that all the kids had rides home and knew when they needed to be back for the next rehearsal.

  I was exhausted by the time I was through. I waited until Dad arrived with one of our Pike-Mobiles (that’s what we call our two station wagons) and herded my brothers and sisters into it. Then I closed the door behind them.

  “Aren’t you coming?” my father asked.

  “I’m going to walk with Jessi,” I said. I’d had enough of large crowds for the day.

  My father nodded. I think he understood. At least he didn’t ask any questions.

  I waved good-bye and strolled to the corner to admire Christmas decorations. I walked slowly, waiting for Jessi and Becca to catch up with me. Gradually, I began to relax. I even began to grin as I thought about all the mishaps. So what if the rehearsal had been complete chaos? A bad rehearsal meant a good play, didn’t it? From past experience, it certainly seemed that way. And, of course, no matter what went wrong, the audience was going to love it. We had what’s known in the movie business (according to the magazines I had read) as “built-in box office.”

  I crunched along on the sanded, snowy sidewalk and actually began to hum “We Three Kings” as I reached the corner of the church. Then I unconsciously drew in my breath and held it, which is what all the kids in my family do when they pass a graveyard, so the ghosts can’t get them. That’s when I saw her.

  A woman in a long winter coat was standing next to the wall of the cemetery, one hand resting on top of it. She was wearing only one mitten. A dazed look was on her face.

  I wondered if she had come to pay a visit to the grave of someone she knew. How sad, I thought.

  As I drew closer, she focused her gaze on me with unnerving intensity. I slowed and let my breath out.

  Then she turned away. She looked up at the sky. She looked down at her feet. She peered around in a confused way.

  Was she lost?

  I walked closer to her, but she didn’t seem to notice. She rubbed her temples with one bare hand and one blue-mittened hand and then shivered in her heavy coat. That’s when I realized that she was pregnant. Very pregnant.

  “Hello,” I said. “Um, could I help you?”

  The woman spun around and stared at me. She bit her lower lip. Then she said, with a little gasp, “I don’t know. Where am I?”

  “Mal?” I said.

  Mallory turned quickly and looked very relieved to see that we had caught up with her. “Jessi, Becca,” she said, sounding shaky.

  It takes a lot to rattle Mallory, so when I saw that she was upset, I felt worried. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I am,” said Mallory. She stepped closer and added in a low voice, “But I don’t think she is.”

  She meant the woman to whom she had been talking. For a moment I was surprised at Mallory, whispering to me when the woman was standing right there. It seemed rude.

  Then I realized that the woman didn’t even notice. She was staring around, looking very bewildered. She had a round, childlike face made rounder, I guessed, by the fact that she was going to have a baby soon. Her dark brown hair was pulled back in a casual ponytail on the nape of her neck. Spiky bangs stuck out from beneath her hat and she had olive skin, though it looked pale. Beneath the collar of her buttoned-up coat I could see a green turtleneck that matched her eyes.

  She was wearing flat winter boots and flannel-lined jeans that were rolled up at the cuffs, around the ankles of the boots. She wasn’t very tall, which, along with the bewildered way she kept looking around, added to her childlike appearance.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I found myself whispering back.

  “I don’t kno
w,” said Mallory. “She keeps asking where she is.”

  As if on cue, the dark-haired woman turned back to us. She looked at me and said, “Do you know where I am?”

  “On Elm Street,” I said. “Um, in Stoneybrook.”

  “Where is Stoneybrook?” she asked.

  “Connecticut.”

  She thought for a moment and shook her head. “No. No, that doesn’t sound right … at least, I don’t think it does.”

  Mallory said, “I’m Mallory, and this is Jessi and her sister, Becca. We’re on our way home from our church Christmas pageant rehearsal. Are you lost? Where are you trying to go?”

  Normally, of course, neither Mal nor I would talk to strangers, and we especially wouldn’t give out all this information. But this lady was clearly in trouble, and I could tell that by mentioning church and the Christmas pageant, Mallory was trying to reassure her that we were okay.

  But the woman didn’t seem reassured. “Christmas?” she cried. “Oh, no! What day is it?”

  “Thursday,” answered Mallory. “But Christmas isn’t until next week.”

  Mal and I exchanged glances. Then I said, “Is something wrong?”

  The woman looked at us and I realized that she was frightened. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know how I got here. I can’t remember anything.”

  This was so unexpected that I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then Mallory asked, “Do you have any identification? A wallet, maybe, with your driver’s license? That might help.”

  But the woman was already shaking her head. “No, no, no. No wallet. No purse. Not even any money.”

  The streetlights came on just then, and I noticed that the woman’s knees were wet and that one side of her coat was smeared with dirt and melting snow. Had she fallen?

  She didn’t seem cold. I didn’t think she had been outside for very long.

  “Did you fall down?” I asked.

  She looked uncertain. “I … I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. I … oh, I don’t remember anything before I stopped. I was walking and then I stopped and then you came up to me.” She shifted her gaze back to Mallory.

  “Why don’t we go back to the church,” said Mallory. “It’s not far. It’s warm, and we can find you something hot to drink. And there’ll be people who will know what to do.”

  “Okay,” said the woman. She followed us, obediently as a child, as we returned to the church.

  The adults there immediately took charge. Our mystery lady was given a comfortable chair and a mug of warm milk with honey. The church secretary helped her look through her pockets, and as I hung up her coat I checked out the label. But no name was sewn into the coat. I shook my head. Of course not. Adults don’t usually have their names sewn into their clothes the way little kids do.

  The woman still couldn’t remember her name, or anything about where she had come from, or how she had ended up on Elm Street next to the graveyard. After awhile, when we realized that we couldn’t be of any more use, Mallory, Becca, and I left again.

  “Let’s walk along the sidewalk where we met her,” suggested Mal. “Maybe we’ll find something she dropped, like keys or, or anything.”

  “Poor woman,” I said softly. “How awful to forget who you are. Do you think it’s amnesia?”

  Mallory shrugged. “I guess it could be. I mean, it’s always happening in books and on television, but I’ve never heard of it happening in real life.”

  We eyeballed the sidewalk very carefully as we walked. For a little way, we were able to tell which footprints were the mystery woman’s. But when we turned the corner, the footprints became part of a mush of snow, sand, and salt.

  We’d lost the trail.

  “This is very strange,” declared Mallory.

  “I know,” I said. “Strange and terrible. Mallory, we have to find out who she is! How awful to have to spend Christmas with strangers and not even know who you are.”

  “Stacey!” cried Ethan. He sounded glad to see me.

  “Hi, Ethan,” I said. “You remember Claudia?” (The two of them had met briefly during our BSC road trip to Seattle.)

  “Of course,” Ethan answered.

  Ethan was in what I think of as a New York artist’s uniform: basic black. He was wearing black jeans, black Docs, and a loosely knit baggy black sweater over a white T-shirt. Except for one thing: He had bleached his hair white.

  My eyes widened. This was new.

  “When did you do that?” I said, reaching up to not quite touch a pale white strand of hair.

  “This?” He shrugged. Then he grinned. “Come on in and I’ll give you the tour.”

  “I like it,” I said, surprising myself. If you had asked me before how I felt about the idea of Ethan bleaching his hair, I would have said, “Ehhh….”

  Then I wondered what my father would say. A boy with bleached hair might have a little trouble winning Dad over.

  “I’ll hang up your coats,” said Ethan, stopping in front of the hall closet.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “We can do it.” I shrugged out of my coat and reached for the doorknob, but Ethan practically snatched the coat from my hand. He grabbed Claudia’s in the same swift motion and turned to stand between us and the closet.

  “Let me do it,” he said. “I mean, you’re my guests. It’s the polite thing to do.”

  “Well, okay,” I said. I was a little mystified by Ethan’s behavior, but I figured he must be nervous. After all, we hadn’t seen each other in awhile. I’d been nervous, too. In fact, I’d dragged Claud out of bed practically at dawn to help me choose just the right outfit for the day. I wanted to look good, but not as if I’d tried too hard to look good, if you know what I mean.

  Ethan lives in a huge old apartment on the Upper West Side. “My father grew up in this apartment,” he explained. “My mother is an artist, too. She used to keep a studio here, but now she has space in an artists’ collective studio downtown.”

  “Cool,” said Claudia.

  Works of art by Ethan’s mother and her friends filled practically every inch of wall in the apartment. “Where’s your work?” I asked. “Why isn’t it on display?”

  Blushing slightly, Ethan said, “Mom and Dad want to put it up, but I don’t think it’s ready yet.” He thrust open yet another door and closed it almost instantly. “That was my room,” he announced. “It’s a mess. You can see it later.”

  “I don’t mind if it’s messy,” said Claudia.

  “Trust me, you would,” said Ethan, quickly steering us back down the hall. He offered to make us coffee or tea, but I could tell that Claudia was eager to hit the streets.

  “Thanks, but we can go to a coffee bar later,” I said. “Where are you taking us today?”

  “Gallery hopping, of course,” said Ethan. “There’s a gallery in SoHo with some Alice Neel works …”

  “I was telling Stacey about that,” exclaimed Claudia, and in no time flat she and Ethan were deep into art talk.

  I caught a few familiar words, but most of their conversation meant nothing to me. I wondered if Claudia’s parents had ever seen — or really listened to — her talk about art. She was like a different person.

  “Let’s get started, you two,” I said. “Come on.”

  I headed for our coats, but Ethan beat me to it. “I’ll grab them,” he said. “Meet me at the front door.”

  Strange. But however curious I found it, I couldn’t argue. We met Ethan at the front door of the apartment and put on our coats there. While he and Claudia talked art, though, I kept wondering what was in his closet that he didn’t want us to see.

  And what was he hiding in his room? Hmm. Who would have thought it? Ethan was not only an artist, he was a man of mystery.

  * * *

  Our tour of the art galleries in SoHo, with a detour into the New Museum on Broadway just below Houston Street, was a success. Even though I am not an artist, I enjoyed being in the company of artists. And I learned a lot from the way Cl
audia and Ethan talked about different painters and sculptors and the works we viewed.

  Watching people touring the galleries was fun, too. Some of them had clearly gone to great pains to look like the ultimate in cool. The owner of one of the galleries raised his eyebrows when he saw three teenagers come in, but after he’d eavesdropped on our conversation for a minute or two (or rather, on Claud and Ethan’s), he slid away again, apparently satisfied that we weren’t about to commit some heinous art crime.

  If you think, from my description of the day, that I was left out, think again. Claudia and Ethan went to a lot of trouble to include me.

  And that was fine. What was not so enjoyable was that Ethan kept staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.

  At first I thought I was imagining things. However, the third time I turned my head and caught his eye, I knew that I wasn’t.

  “Ethan, why are you staring at me?”

  He blushed faintly. “I’m not,” he said, turning away. To Claudia he said, “Check out this installation. The guy is a specialist in found materials.”

  As they walked away, I whipped out a small mirror and checked to make sure that I didn’t have something gross caught between my teeth. But I was gross-adornment free, and looked pretty normal.

  I rejoined Claudia and Ethan as they rhapsodized over the way a particular artist “seized control of space with color.”

  “She’s not limited to the language of texture,” Ethan said.

  “Definitely not,” agreed Claudia. “She’s subdued texture to the juxtaposition of elemental colors.”

  Right, I thought. What did that mean? I stared down at the elaborate structure surrounded by lines of colored sand that was spread out in one corner of the gallery.

  When I looked up, Ethan was staring at me again. He looked quickly and guiltily away.

  What was with him? Was this some kind of weird crush behavior? It didn’t seem like Ethan.

  I didn’t like it, but I decided to ignore it, at least for now.

  We returned to my father’s apartment on East 65th Street just as the afternoon was beginning to darken into evening.