The Black Heart Crypt

Most sixth graders would probably consider a class field trip to the town library kind of dull, but Zack couldn’t have been more excited.

He wanted to ask the town librarian, Mrs. Jeanette Emerson, a few questions about this Ickleby clan—the family who seemed to have some kind of feud going against the Jennings family.

Zack, Malik, and Azalea climbed aboard the big yellow bus waiting for them in the parking lot of Pettimore Middle School.

“Hello, again!” said the smiling lady behind the big steering wheel. “How are my three musketeers?”

“Just fine, Ms. Tiedeman,” said Zack.

The bus driver, Ms. A. J. Tiedeman, picked up Zack, Azalea, and Malik at their bus stops every morning and brought them home every afternoon. She always drove the school bus safely but she also knew how to make all sorts of tire-screeching evasive moves in case she had to—like she was a stunt double in an action movie. Fortunately, she was also one of the first owner-drivers to install three-point seat belts on her bus. One rumor had it that before moving to North Chester, Ms. Tiedeman had raced tweaked-out trucks around mud tracks in Mississippi. Another said she was the original driver of Bigfoot’s Panic Attack, the top truck from the Monster Jam that played big-city arenas all across the country.

Whatever her background, A. J. Tiedeman—who always wore leather driving gloves, wraparound shades, and a jumpsuit with flames on the shoulders and a sequined “A. J.” splashed across the back—was the coolest school bus driver Zack had ever met.

She cranked shut the door after the substitute history teacher, Mrs. Chang, climbed aboard.

“Buckle up, everybody,” she said to her huge horizontal rearview mirror as she goosed the gas pedal a few times, making the bus rumble and roar. Zack often wondered if A. J. Tiedeman had replaced the original school bus motor with the engine from Bigfoot’s Panic Attack.

“Good morning, everybody,” said the librarian, Mrs. Emerson, when Zack’s history class entered the quaint old building. “My assistant, Ms. Sharon Rawlins, will give you a tour of our historic facility. But remember: A library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It’s a place where history and ideas come to life!”

While the rest of the class followed Ms. Rawlins over to a big stained glass window, Zack slipped away from the pack to talk to Mrs. Emerson, who had wiry white hair and wore purple reading glasses—not to mention funky sweaters with junk like pumpkins or autumn leaves knit all over them—and was always saying stuff like that thing about libraries. It was why Zack and Judy both thought she was pretty cool.

“Mrs. Emerson?”

“Yes, Zack?”

“I need your help.”

“Well, dear, that’s why I’m here.”

“I need to learn about the Ickleby family.”

“The ones up in the Haddam Hill Cemetery?”

“Yeah. Those guys.”

“Right this way. I’ve already pulled everything we have on the subject.”

Wow. Mrs. Emerson was some kind of super librarian. She knew the answers to Zack’s questions before he even asked them!

“Mrs. Chang?” she called out to Zack’s teacher. “Zachary and I will be in my office working on a history project.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Chang. “But he’ll miss the tour.”

“That’s okay,” said Zack. “I’m a regular here.”

Mrs. Emerson led Zack around a cluster of reading tables.

“Quite the crime family, these Icklebys,” said Mrs. Emerson. “One was a bank robber and another was a miner who stole other miners’ gold. There was even a gangster whom Al Capone himself nicknamed Crazy Izzy Ickleby.”

“Wow.”

“On the other hand, the very first Ickleby to come to America, Squire Barnabas Ickleby, was revered as a pillar of his community. He even helped the early colonists erect a lovely church in the Berkshire Mountains.”

“So Barnabas was a good guy?”

“Apparently so. But his son, Lucius? Robbed his neighbors and killed their cows. You can read all about his trial for capital crimes in the Boston newspapers from the 1760s.”

“Mrs. Emerson?”

“Yes, Zack?”

“Boston and the Berkshires are both in Massachusetts, right?”

“Indeed they are.”

“So the Icklebys aren’t from North Chester or even Connecticut?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, why isn’t the family crypt back in the Berkshires at that church the good guy helped build? Didn’t they have a graveyard?”

“Aha. You Jenningses all think alike.”

“Huh?”

Mrs. Emerson pushed open the door to her office.

Judy was seated at the desk.

“Your stepmother just asked me the very same question!”