“Too bad,” said Alan. “I’d really like to find a way to visit that place. It would be cool to see what happens to the bad guys I’ll be tracking down some day.”
“You’ll be visiting them full-time if you don’t watch where you’re going with that violin,” said Mrs. Nearing, coming up behind them.
Three
A lan and Ziggy and Josée put the luggage down by the door. The virtuoso had deposited Candace on a bench in the entranceway and was swallowed up by a group of adults, who were all shaking his hand. Alan carried the violin case over and handed it directly to Mr. Pratt, who took it with a nod.
“Go on in,” Mrs. Nearing said, and they slipped past the crowd and into a big hallway.
Candace stayed on the bench in a dreamy haze, although Alan privately thought that she was mostly faking the foot thing.
The hallway opened onto a huge living room, crammed with people. There was a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and a wall of windows, leading out to a stone patio big enough for a hockey game.
An enormous gas barbecue stood in one corner, by a railing overlooking the lake. To Alan, it looked like a backyard cookout in a movie: too glossy to be real. Everything seemed to be three times its normal size, from the barbecue itself, which was bigger than the whole kitchen counter at home, to the tall stacks of steaks, shrimp, burgers, sausages and vegetable kebabs waiting to be cooked on the grill. No matter how boring the evening might turn out to be, at least the food would be good. Alan’s mouth started watering.
“I’m starving,” he said.
“Me, too,” Ziggy said. They started weaving through the crowd, making for the barbecue.
“What if we meet up with Dylan Weems?” Josée said.
“You won’t—he’s down at the boathouse,” came a girl’s voice from beside them. They turned, and there was Monica Weems, the girl with the red hair from the beach. “My mother said there would be kids my age coming. Hi, Josée.”
”Ça va, Monique?” she said. They both slipped into French, and Alan and Ziggy were lost for a sentence or two.
“Sorry, guys,” Josée said after a moment. “Monica’s in French immersion at her school in Toronto, so we do this sometimes.”
“Makes me feel like a moron,” Ziggy complained.
“It’s not my fault you hate Madame Simard,” she shot back. At their own school, Josée was the French teacher’s pet, according to Ziggy.
“You guys hungry?” Monica said. Good move, Alan thought. Josée and Ziggy were no fun when they got on to that subject.
There was a bar with a friendly bartender, who offered them four kinds of pop, and there was a whole banquet table crowded with salads, breads and desserts. A man in a chef’s hat was in charge of the grill, waving a spatula in the air and occasionally splashing stuff from a bottle onto the cooking meat, which made fragrant flames shoot up into the evening air.
Soon, they all had plates of food. “Let’s go out on the lawn—there’s a place we can eat where there won’t be so many people,” Monica said.
But before they managed to make their way to the end of the patio, someone clinked a glass with a fork to get everybody’s attention, and the crowd went quiet.
Mr. Pratt made his entrance.
“He’s changed his clothes already,” Josée whispered. “Quel show-off.”
“How come you notice these things?” Alan whispered back.
“I’m just observant, that’s all—the way you should be, if you’re planning to open your own detective agency.”
“I’m observant. I just find it hard to look at him. He’s creepy.”
“I’ve met him before,” Monica whispered. “You’re right. Who’s that girl with him?”
“My sister,” Alan said. An adult in front of them turned around and shushed them.
The man who had tinked the glass made a long speech. Alan knew the man must be Monica’s father, Mr. Weems, because she kept making little huffy, embarrassed noises, the longer he went on. Finally he finished, and everybody clapped and started talking again.
“I hate it when he does that,” Monica said. “Come on.” They followed her out onto the lawn to a secluded picnic table by the side of the house.
“This is a staff area, but I like it because it’s quiet,” she said.
Monica told them about her school in the city—the one her mother had attended.
“I don’t know many people up here,” she said. “That’s why I take summer ballet. I’m supposed to make friends.” She said it sadly, as if she hadn’t found any.
“You can come with us when we do stuff, if you want,” Josée said. Alan and Ziggy exchanged dark looks. Monica seemed okay, but four in the canoe would be crowded, and Josée acted more, well, like a girl when there was another girl around. It wasn’t as if Alan and Ziggy were interested in ballet. Alan’s violin lessons were bad enough.
“If I’m allowed,” Monica said, “that would be great.” Alan figured she probably wasn’t allowed to hang around with local kids, anyway. Except for ballet dancers.
“Who were you at the beach with, then?” he asked. Monica looked surprised.
“Oh, I was sort of babysitting—our gardener’s little girl. It was her day off, so my mother volunteered me to go along and look after Taylor. I think mother just wanted me out of the house.”
“Aren’t you a bit young for babysitting?” Ziggy said.
“I’m twelve,” Monica said. “Mother says I act like I’m twenty, though.” There was no answer to that, and anyway, she did seem a lot older than they were. Maybe it was because she was dressed up like Candace was.
“You said you’d met the violinist before,” Alan said. “Have you heard him play?”
“No—I’m not really into classical music,” Monica said. “My father plays opera CDs full blast Saturday mornings and it drives me crazy.”
“Ouch,” Ziggy said.
“Do you like that kind of music?” Monica asked Alan.
“He plays,” Ziggy said.
“I’m lousy at it, though,” Alan said at once. “But I like it if the person playing knows what he’s doing. Or she. My sister’s pretty good.”
“She’s amazing,” Josée said. “She’ll probably be famous like Mr. Pratt, one day.”
“Is that why she was following him around like a puppy dog up there?” Monica said. Yep, Alan thought. Monica Weems acts a lot older than she looks. A lot snobbier, too.
A woman in a glittery dress called to them from the balcony and beckoned to Monica.
“Shoot,” she said. “Mother wants me. You can go get more food if you want. I’ll probably be awhile. Maybe later you can come down to the boathouse with me. See ya.” She left her paper plate on the table and made her way back up to the patio.
“She’s weird,” Ziggy said.
“She’s lonely, that’s all,” Josée said.
They