She got a bottle of chocolate syrup out of the fridge, and put a generous squirt in her glass. Then she tilted her head back and squirted a long stream of chocolate directly into her mouth.
“Jenny would kill me if she saw me do that,” said Nick.
Jenny was Nick’s stepmother.
“You want some?” Melody asked Nick.
He nodded and held out his glass.
“Where is this Bee Hive place anyway?” he asked.
The name had rung a bell as soon as Teeny had said it. Melody had seen the advertisement for the grand opening on the yellow flyer her father had written his note on the back of.
“It’s where the old Frosty Boy used to be,” she told Nick. “As soon as we’re done eating, I think we should go over there and snoop around a little.”
Nick hesitated. “I’ve never been to a beauty parlor before,” he said.
“Neither have I,” admitted Melody. “But all we’re going to do is go in, ask a few questions, and get out.”
“What if someone tries to paint my fingernails or something?” Nick asked.
“Don’t worry,” Melody assured him. “I’ll protect you.”
They carried their milk and sandwiches out onto the front porch.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about lately?” asked Nick, sitting down next to Melody on the top step. “Water towers.”
“What about them?” Melody had always been rather fond of the shiny metal mushroom-shaped tower that stood on the edge of town. She especially liked the way it had Welcome to Royal written across the top in loopy blue script.
“Every town around here has one, but how do we know for sure there’s water inside?” asked Nick.
“Why would anyone bother to build a water tower if they weren’t going to put water inside it?” asked Melody.
“Good question,” said Nick. “Another thing I’d like to know is why they need to have all those antennas and blinking lights on top.”
Melody took a bite of her sandwich and licked a drip of mustard off her thumb.
“Why don’t you Google it?” she asked.
“I’ve Googled it, Binged it, and Asked Jeeves. They all say the same thing, but I’m not convinced.”
“What do you mean?” asked Melody.
“What if it’s some kind of a plot? What if these so-called water towers are actually full of alien creatures with see-through brains and huge boogity eyeballs, sending messages back and forth because they’re planning to take over the world?”
“Have you completely lost it, Woo?” Melody laughed. “You sound certifiable.”
“Go ahead and mock me if you want,” Nick told her. “But don’t blame me when you’re lying in your bed some night and a slimy green tentacle dripping with ectoplasmic ooze comes slipping through your window and grabs you by the neck.”
“Can we please stop talking about aliens and get back to the subject of my father’s new girlfriend?” asked Melody.
“Maybe honey is an alien,” said Nick. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Only you would think of that. Besides, I doubt my dad would fall for someone with boogity eyeballs and a see-through brain.”
Nick gulped down half of his chocolate milk, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“What did the person look like who said the thing about Henry and the love bug?” he asked, peeling the crust off one half of his sandwich and popping it in his mouth.
“Teeny doesn’t remember who said it, but whoever it was knows my dad,” Melody said.
Nick wasn’t so sure.
“Henry is a pretty common name,” he said. “How do you know they weren’t talking about some other guy?”
“Did you bring your phone?” Melody asked.
She didn’t have a cell phone. Neither did her father. In fact, they didn’t even have a home computer. Henry Bishop had strong feelings about screen time. Melody wasn’t allowed to watch TV at all on weekdays, and she only got two hours of viewing time on weekends.
“I’m starved,” said Nick, through a mouthful of bologna and cheese. “Can it wait until after we finish eating?”
One look at Melody’s face told him the answer.
Nick set down his sandwich, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his phone. Tapping in the search information, he waited. Nick loved his phone. When he first got it he’d spent hours trying out different names for the built-in electronic “personal assistant” to call him. Finally he settled on “Your Majesty.”
Nick typed in a few searches, then turned to Melody, satisfied.
“You’ll be happy to know that according to this, there’s only one Henry in Royal, Indiana,” he told her, “and it’s your dad. Now all we have to do is track down the love bug who bit him.”
Mo was sitting on the living room rug, scratching an itch behind his left ear. That morning, after a long walk, the tall woman had brought him home. After filling Mo’s bowl with fresh water, she’d given him a rawhide knot and left, closing the door behind her. There were strangers around, all women. They clucked and cackled like a bunch of chickens, but at least they were quieter than the men who’d been showing up every day for weeks with their noisy tools. All that pounding and buzzing had made Mo want to throw back his head and howl.
When he and the tall woman had lived in the cabin beside the river, life had been more peaceful. The only sounds Mo heard were the birds singing and the wind in the trees at night. He had enjoyed chasing grasshoppers and rolling in the patch of sweet clover near his favorite shade tree. He’d spent many happy hours burying soup bones under that tree. By now the dopey old beagle down the road had probably come and dug them all up. The tall woman seemed happier since the move; she hummed all the time, but Mo hadn’t made up his mind yet about the new place. He felt nervous and on edge all the time now. As if something were about to happen. But what?
It didn’t help matters that there was a cat hanging around. Mo heard him yowling in the middle of the night, and even though Mo barked whenever the big orange cat showed himself, the cat had still left his musky scent all over the yard. Mo hated the smell of cat even more than he hated getting a bath. Fortunately, the tall woman had been too busy lately to think about bathing Mo, or clipping his nails — another thing he hated. Mo would be vigilant. Eventually the cat would get cocky, the way cats always did, and Mo would chase him up a tree and show him who was boss.
Mo chewed on the rawhide knot for a while, and when he grew tired of that, he curled up on the couch to take a nap. He had just closed his eyes when he heard someone open the door. The step was unfamiliar, lighter and quicker than the tall woman’s. A minute later, a little girl peeked around the corner. She had long yellow hair, and when she tipped back her head and laughed, Mo’s breath quickened and his heart began to race. It was her! The girl from his dream!
Mo knew what was going to happen next: She would run to him and throw her arms around his neck. But instead, to his surprise, the girl skipped across the room and patted him gingerly on the head. Her fingers were sticky and smelled of root beer, and she was shorter and rounder than she was supposed to be. She laughed again, then turned and skipped away. Mo didn’t bother to follow. She wasn’t his girl. She wasn’t his girl at all.
“See?” said Melody excitedly. “I told you it wasn’t a coincidence. The Henry that Teeny was talking about was definitely my dad.”
A car horn beeped and Nick and Melody looked up to see Roxanne Jenkins sailing by in a red SUV. Julia Jenkins and Teeny Nelson were buckled up next to each other in the backseat, on their way home from ballet class. Melody waved and Roxanne waved back.
“Maybe she’s honey,” Nick suggested.
“I already put her on the list,” Melody told him. “You remember the pound cake, right?”
When Melody was a little girl, Roxanne and her husband had split up. One day she’d showed up on the Bishops’ doorstep with a homemade pound cake and a lot of eye makeup on. Later Melody’s father had explained tha
t Roxanne had come on a fishing expedition.
“What was she trying to catch, Daddy?” Melody had asked.
“Me, I suppose,” he’d said.
“Do you want her to catch you?”
“No,” Melody’s father had told her. “I don’t.”
“I do,” Melody had said, licking her lips. “That pound cake was delicious.”
Now Melody and Nick watched the red SUV turn the corner and disappear behind a row of hedges.
“Who else is on your list?” asked Nick.
“That woman, Nancy, I told you about, who hugged my dad in the grocery store, and Miss Berg.”
“The lady at the library who wears those funny red glasses?” asked Nick incredulously.
“Love is blind,” Melody told him.
“Lucky for Miss Berg,” he said.
“Can you think of anyone else we could add to the list?” asked Melody.
“What about my neighbor Bethany Mitchell?” said Nick. “She’s not married and there’s definitely nothing wrong with the way she looks.”
“She might look okay, but have you ever heard her talk?” Melody asked. “She says suppose-ably and anyways.” Her father would never be interested in someone who spoke that way.
“I still think you should add her to the list,” said Nick.
Melody sighed. “Fine. She’s in the running.”
“Maybe your dad met honey on one of those dating websites. That’s how my dad and Jenny got together.”
Nick’s parents had gotten divorced when he and Melody were in second grade, and his dad had remarried a year later. Nick loved Jenny, and Melody thought she was great, too — and not just because she made good chocolate-chip cookies.
“I tried to talk my dad into doing online dating once,” Melody told Nick. “I even came up with a screen name for him, Word Nerd, but he refused to try it.”
“Why do you think your dad hasn’t told you he’s seeing somebody?” asked Nick, flicking a crumb off his knee.
“I don’t know. But I’m sure he has a reason. He never does anything without thinking it through first.”
Nick stood up.
“Speaking of food,” he said, “I could use another sandwich.”
“Who was speaking of food?” asked Melody.
“Oh,” said Nick, “I guess I was just thinking about it.”
“Well, stop thinking about it,” said Melody, grabbing Nick’s hand and pulling him down the steps. “We have some detective work to do!”
It was about a ten-minute bike ride from the Bishops’ house to the Bee Hive.
As they pedaled past the high school, Melody happened to glance over at Nick and noticed he was chewing on his bottom lip.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Hello? This is your best friend talking. You think I don’t know what it means when you chew on your lip? What’s wrong?”
“It’s just, well, I think I might have come up with a theory about why your dad doesn’t want to tell you who he’s been seeing, but I warn you, you’re not going to like it.”
“I promise not to shoot the messenger,” Melody said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you should tell me your theory, and I won’t blame you if I don’t like it.”
“Okay,” said Nick. “Here goes. Maybe the reason your dad doesn’t want you to know who he’s seeing is because he’s afraid you won’t be happy about it.”
“I’ve been wanting this forever,” said Melody. “Why wouldn’t I be happy about it?”
“What if honey is someone your dad knows you don’t like. I mean, really, really, really don’t like.”
“Like who, for instance?” asked Melody.
“Nobody in particular,” said Nick. “It’s just a theory.”
Melody shook her head. “I don’t buy it. If I don’t like someone, he probably wouldn’t like them either.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. Like I said, it was just a theory.”
They had come to a steep hill, so they got off their bikes and started walking them up.
“Do you want to stay for dinner tonight?” Melody asked.
“Sure,” Nick said.
“You may regret that decision when you taste Gramp-o’s tuna noodle casserole. It’s truly vile.”
“I’m just glad to be here. I almost got grounded this weekend.”
“Why?” asked Melody.
“Why do you think?”
“Oh, because of the math test?” Melody guessed.
“It wasn’t our fault we got so many wrong,” he said as they got back on their bikes. “Miss Hogan deliberately tried to trick us. I wish we could have had Mrs. McKenna again this year.”
“I told my dad the exact same thing.”
“Remember when Mrs. McKenna took us to the museum to see that dinosaur?” asked Nick.
Melody nodded. “Dracorex hogwartsia.”
She still had the picture of Nick and her posing in front of the skeleton with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders. It was pinned to the bulletin board that hung above the desk in her room.
“That was the coolest thing ever,” Nick said.
“No,” Melody corrected, “Mrs. McKenna was the coolest thing ever. My dad told me that she and Miss Hogan are friends.”
“No way!” shouted Nick.
“Miss Hogan is the opposite of Mrs. McKenna,” said Melody. “She doesn’t think anything is funny. On the rare occasions when she actually smiles, she looks like she’s in pain, and Miss Hogan definitely wouldn’t have done something amazing like take the whole class to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum to see a sixty-six-million-year-old dinosaur named after something from Harry Potter.”
“You can say that again,” Nick agreed.
As they glided around the corner side by side on their bikes, the Bee Hive came into view.
“Holy moly!” exclaimed Nick. “Check out the big bee!”
But Melody wasn’t looking at the bee. She was looking at a woman in a navy-blue wraparound dress who was walking up the sidewalk in their direction. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something very familiar about her. She had on a straw sun hat with a wide floppy brim, so Melody wasn’t able to see her whole face, but she could tell by the way the woman was pursing her lips that she was whistling. As she got closer, Melody caught a snippet of the tune.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine …”
“Who is that?” Melody asked Nick.
They both watched as the woman in the straw hat crossed the street and headed up the front walk to the Bee Hive. Just before she opened the door, she paused and took off her hat.
Melody gasped.
“Speak of the devil,” said Nick. “It’s Miss Hogan!”
Melody was beside herself.
“Calm down,” Nick told her. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“Think about it.” Melody started ticking off the evidence on her fingers. “Miss Hogan’s not married, she lives here in Royal, she’s someone my dad knows I really, really, really don’t like, and she was whistling the same song he’s been whistling every day for the past month. How do you explain that?”
“A lot of people know that song,” Nick said, trying to reassure his friend. “And like I told you before, that thing I said about your dad was just a theory. He’s a nice guy — why would he ever want to go out with someone like Miss Hogan?”
“You mean someone who has no sense of humor, who enjoys tricking her students, and has permanent lipstick stains on her front teeth?”
“Basically,” said Nick. “Plus, I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed this, but her earlobes are freakishly large.”
“Is this actually happening?” asked Melody. “What if my dad and Miss Hogan get married? What if she and her freakishly large earlobes come to live with us in our house? I’ll have to move to Siberia!”
“I’m telling you,
Bishop, you’re jumping to conclusions,” said Nick.
He started to wheel his bike across the street.
“Where are you going?” asked Melody.
“I thought you wanted to snoop around.”
“What’s the point? We already know who honey is.”
Nick continued across the street, but instead of going up the front walk in plain view, he went around to the side. Leaning his bike against the yellow wall, he sneaked over to one of the windows and peered in. After a minute he gestured for Melody to come join him.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “But I’m not going inside.”
Melody leaned her bike against the wall next to Nick’s and joined him at the window.
“I see Miss Hogan,” whispered Nick, pressing his nose against the glass. “She’s talking to some tall lady with curly red hair.”
“That must be Bee-Bee,” Melody told him, remembering Teeny’s description of her macaroni hair.
Noticing the window was open a crack, Nick slipped his fingers under the edge and slowly inched it up. He and Melody leaned closer.
“I was thrilled when I heard you were opening up a beauty salon,” they heard Miss Hogan saying. “Your timing couldn’t be better.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Bee-Bee as she led Miss Hogan over to one of the black-and-yellow-striped styling chairs. “So what are we doing today? Manicure? Pedicure?”
“Actually, what I need is some advice,” Miss Hogan said. “About hair. I can’t decide whether I should wear it up or down. Then of course there’s the question of ornamentation. I was leaning toward mother-of-pearl combs, but now I’m worried it might be too much.”
“This is boring,” whispered Nick.
“Shhh,” Melody shushed him.
“The first thing I’ll need to know is what kind of occasion it is,” said Bee-Bee.
“I can’t tell you that,” said Miss Hogan. “It’s a secret.”
“Can you at least tell me if it’s black tie or casual?” asked Bee-Bee.
Melody noticed Miss Hogan seemed flustered.
“I really don’t know the details yet,” she said. “It’s all rather sudden. We haven’t even told our families. I suppose everyone will know about it soon enough anyway, so I might as well just tell you — I’m getting married!”