The Mystery of the Missing Everything

^{Chapter 22} Can Your Hemispheric Placebo Bear Fruit?

While Bethesda Fielding and Tenny Boyer were working their way through their list of suspects, Marisol Pierce was in her bedroom, the windows thrown open to let in the cool autumn breeze, painting trees. She had unrolled a long piece of butcher paper from the roll she’d bought at the art supply store, and taped it up so it covered one whole wall of the room. Slowly but surely, her brush dipping deftly in and out of golds and greens and browns, she filled the paper with a long, lovely line of pines and firs.

Outside her door her little cousins, visiting from Puerto Rico, cavorted noisily in the hall, shooting each other with water pistols. “Got you!” “No you didn’t!” “You’re all wet!” “No I’m not!”

It was rude not to be playing with them, but Marisol tuned out the noise and focused on her trees, carefully adding a cluster of russet leaves to a copse of young oaks. Marisol was, as her grandmother always said, “rather a solitary soul.” In the two years since they’d moved to this area, she still hadn’t become terribly close with many kids at Mary Todd Lincoln; frankly, she had no idea why Chester Hu had invited her to be part of this video project. But he had, and she was secretly delighted. Marisol was happy for any excuse to do some painting. She loved making art, loved the intense focus it required.

The tricky part was the people. Chester and the others had decided that the backdrops for the video should be filled with people: People playing, people climbing ropes, people looking through binoculars and building fires.

“Of course,” Marisol had said, not wanting to disappoint the group. “I can do that.”

But the truth was, when she drew people, they had these stubby little limbs and faces, like sea turtles standing on their hind legs. Marisol sighed and stepped back from her work in progress as her grandmother cracked open her door. “Excuse me, Madame Artiste? I am taking your cousins for ice cream. Are you coming?”

“No, thanks. I really need to finish this.”

“Well, it’s incredible so far, my darling. I love the little sea turtles.”

When her grandmother closed the door, Marisol put down her brush and picked up her phone. There was another girl in the eighth grade whose artwork she had admired, but Marisol barely knew her. The idea of calling a person she barely knew, out of the blue, made Marisol so nervous that the roof of her mouth got all dry, like it was coated with the dust from the bottom of a jar of peanuts.

But this was important. This was Taproot Valley.

Lisa Deckter was out walking her dog when her phone started vibrating her in pocket.

She froze. Henry tugged at the leash.

The phone vibrated again.

It’s her, thought Lisa, feeling the chill of a cool autumn breeze as it snuck under the collar of her jean jacket. It’s Pamela. She knows.

The phone vibrated. Lisa remained still. I should just answer it. Just get this over with. Admit the whole thing.

Henry barked, straining toward an inviting pile of red and orange leaves at the other end of the park. The phone vibrated again, and finally Lisa dipped her hand into her pocket, took a deep breath, and looked at the display.

Oh. Phew.

It was a number she didn’t recognize. She flipped the phone open, allowed Henry to lead her to the leaves. “Oh, hey, it’s Marisol Pierce,” said the voice on the other end. “Um, can I ask you—are you good at drawing people?”

A few weeks earlier, Braxton Lashey had been simultaneously doing the dishes and buying movie tickets over the phone when the cell phone slipped out from under his ear and fell in the garbage disposal.

He fished it out, but now some of the buttons didn’t work anymore, and the autofill function was kind of out of control. So when Braxton texted his buddy Ellis Walters, at about four thirty on Saturday afternoon—right as Marisol Pierce was hanging up with Lisa Deckter—to say

can you help me find a place to rent a bear suit

can your hemispheric placebo bear fruit?

Ellis texted back

that makes no sense

Braxton started to type a reply, then opted to just call. “Yo. Chester’s making this video to save Taproot Valley, and I need to dress in a bear suit and fall down a flight of stairs.”

“Oh,” said Ellis. “That still makes no sense.”

Nevertheless, half an hour later, in a costume shop owned by a friend of Ellis’s mom from church, the two boys were intently debating which kind of bear would be funniest.

“I’m thinking grizzly,” said Braxton.

“No, man, panda,” countered Ellis. “You gotta go panda.”

It was the same all over town. Everyone on the Save Taproot Valley team, everyone Chester had gathered at the picnic benches on Wednesday afternoon, was way too psyched to keep it to themselves.

“Hey, Tucker, you’ve got a digital video camera, right?” said Todd.

“Ezra? It’s Rory. What rhymes with fire ants?”

“Shelly! Can you come to my room for a second?” yelled Suzie. “I have a question about site hosting.”

“Um, Reenie? It’s Natasha. I need someone really smart to help me figure out these dances. You’re, like, a genius, right?”

Only one person, of all the many people invited that day to help out, declined the invitation.

“Victor? Hey! It’s Carmine. Dude, so, Lindsey heard from Lisa, who got a call from Marisol Pierce, about this crazy video project that Chester is organizing. The Save Taproot Valley project? Have you heard about this?”

“Yes. I have,” Victor replied coolly. He was in his room, working on the flood plain he and Bethesda were building for Mr. Darlington’s class, carefully placing doomed LEGO people in their rickety wooden seaside huts.

“Well, so, we’re all gonna meet after school this week to make the movie. Are you in?”

“No. I’m busy.”

“But I didn’t even tell you what day yet.”

Victor Glebe hung up the phone and got back to work on his diorama.