Edenville Owls

Chapter 15

Thank God it was raining hard after school the next day, so I didn’t have to practice. Instead, I waited in the stairwell until Joanie came down the stairs with her girlfriends. We looked at each other.

As she passed she said, “Bandstand?”

I nodded. She went on with her girlfriends and I walked down to the bandstand with my Owls jacket buttoned up, and the rain falling hard on my bare head. I was in the bandstand for maybe ten minutes when Joanie arrived in a raincoat with a big green scarf over her hair. It was dark. The rain clouds seemed only a few feet above the bandstand. The harbor water was almost black. There was no one else in sight.

“Our kind of day,” Joanie said when she sat down.

“‘Stormy Weather,’” I said.

She smiled.

“What’s wrong?” Joanie said.

I got up and walked to the railing and looked down at the empty harbor.

“I don’t know who else to talk to,” I said.

“I’m glad it’s me,” Joanie said.

The weather was so thick, I couldn’t see across the harbor. The neck was invisible.

“I promised I wouldn’t tell anybody,” I said.

Joanie didn’t say anything. She sat with her knees together and her hands in her lap. She was wearing white rubber rain boots.

“I gotta tell somebody about it,” I said. “I gotta figure out what to do.”

“I’ll help,” Joanie said.

I turned back toward Joanie. I was so close to the edge of the bandstand that I could feel the rain on the back of my jacket.

“But a man’s supposed to keep his word,” I said.

“You’re supposed to do what you said you’d do.”

Joanie looked at me for a long time without saying anything.

“I think,” she said finally, “that a man does what he thinks is the right thing to do, even if it means breaking his word.”

We looked at each other without speaking for a while.

Then I said, “Somebody’s trying to hurt Miss Delaney.”

“What do you mean?” Joanie said. “Who?”

“There’s a guy,” I said. “I’ve seen him...” And I told her what I had seen, and what Miss Delaney had said.

“Is it some sort of love thing?” Joanie asked.

“Miss Delaney?”

“Sure. Teachers have boyfriends and stuff, don’t they?”

“But if he loves her, why is he mean to her?” I said.

“It happens a lot,” she said. “Remember that movie with Bette Davis?”

“No.”

“You know, when George Brent was the husband?”

“I didn’t see it,” I said.

“Anyway, I’ll bet it’s some kind of love business,” Joanie said. “Maybe we should tell Mr. Welch.”

“Miss Delaney says it will get her in trouble.”

“Mr. Welch isn’t so bad,” Joanie said.

“No,” I said. “But doesn’t he have to do what the town tells him to do?”

“I guess.”

“You know what they’re like,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So we’ll have to figure out how to help her ourselves.”

“Are the other Owls in on this?” Joanie said.

“Just Billy,” I said. “But they’ll help us if I tell them.”

“So what are we going to do?” she said.

“We probably gotta start by finding out who this guy is,” I said.

“How?”

“I got his license plate number,” I said.

“And how do you find out whose it is?” Joanie asked. “We’re kids. We can’t just call up and ask whose plate is this.”

“I know,” I said. “They won’t tell us. You know any grown-ups we could trust?”

“No,” Joanie said. “And if I did, I think they won’t tell you even if you’re a grown-up. Unless you’re a cop or something.”

“We’ll have to follow him,” I said.

“How will you even find him to follow?”

“We’ll have to follow Miss Delaney,” I said. “And if he comes to see her again, we’ll follow him.”

“How will you follow him if he’s in his car?” Joanie said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll just have to do the best we can.”

“And then what?” Joanie said.

I felt good. We had a plan. Joanie was going to help.

“Then we’ll figure out the next step,” I said.