The mystery of Whitefield

By: Rosalind D’avolio Henderson and Remi Lewis

  I am sitting in my room, my mousy brown hair falling in my face. I swear whatever I do nothing ever keeps it back. I wish I could cut it all off, but my governess Ms. Clauenfeld insists it is unladylike. My little dog Ticket sits curled up in a corner, stewing in his own grumpiness, as usual. 

When I rescued him, he was just on the street. That was back when I was allowed to go outside. I go down to hug him, the one thing he tolerates. when I rubbed his neck, something on his collar snagged on my thumb. Red blood pools out of a small cut. I look to see what had cut me, but the doorbell rings, and I rush to my window to see who it is. 

Looking at people out my window is one of the only interesting things to do. I like to make up a little life for everyone I see, and imagine how they are feeling. I look down at the doorway.It's the paper girl. She comes every tuesday. I haven’t been able to find out much about her, except that her name is Paige and she lives in the lower parts of town. 

She smiles and hands Ms Clauenfeld the paper, and in return, my governess hands her a bar of soap. Her family is poor. We know her mom is dead, and her father is off doing shady business to sustain the family, so we try to chip in with bars of soap every now and then. I never read the paper, but Ms. Clauenfeld does, so we still get it. 

When I go back to my room, I go over to investigate Ticket’s collar. I see a heart shaped locket that I never noticed before. I struggle with the clasp. When I finally open it, a folded scrap of paper flies out. It's a newspaper with a date from 30 years ago.

(paper in image above)

I examined the paper, the names, everything, wondering why this was important. Was I supposed to help with something? It didn’t seem like it, because the case had already been solved, and besides I wasn’t allowed outside. I decided to forget about it, but it was still strange. That’s when I noticed a scrap of paper fall out of the newspaper. I picked it up, and it said ‘find the truth’. 

Paige is here again. I see her walk up the cobblestone, and knock twice. I greet her at the door and give her some biscuits, something I don’t do often because Ms. Clauenfeld usually answers the door. I snatch the paper from her, perhaps a bit rudely, but she doesn’t seem to notice. I took it over to where Ms. Clauenfeld was sitting, a black pipe in her mouth.

Later, I walk down the brown wooden stairs and find the newspaper as always on the small table next to Ms Cauenfelds yellow flowered armchair. There are headlines about missing dogs and unfair food prices that I skim through.

I look at the crossword puzzle. I always like doing them. I scan through the clues, and I know the answer to most of the questions, but there is one that puzzles me, where the words don’t quite make sense #23, across- Many eat/enjoy tasty Madeleine’s Eclairs and Tilly’s 8-pies.

I write the words down vertically, because sometimes that helps me. I notice a pattern immediately, the first letter of every word spells out MEET ME AT 8. I know that there is a cross on 23rd street, something I remember from when I was younger. But who could have sent this?

TO BE CONTINUED…