Too Many Maybes

By Carol Norton

Maybe Mrs. Mitchell had been kidnapped, maybe killed, or maybe she had just run away from her husband. Maybe someone had dug up Mr. Haymer’s prize-winning tulips, just before Beautification Week out of jealousy, or maybe there was a body buried there. Maybe the man in the green car was a police stakeout, or maybe he was a bad guy casing the Mitchell house or worse, maybe he was watching them. Maybe if Deanie hadn’t stretched the truth a little, and maybe if Izzy hadn’t fallen for it like usual, they wouldn’t’ have landed in the middle of a dangerous mystery, but they did. And there were too many maybes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: odianneh5680att.net
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301092253

Carol Norton

When Carol Norton was seven years old, she wrote a story about her doll, Precious. She hid the paper inside a book and read it to her mother, pretending it was a published story. Her mother was completely fooled, of course, and said the story was the best one she had ever heard—and wasn’t it amazing that the book had a doll named Precious, just like Carol did! Thus encouraged, Carol decided to become a writer.She was published briefly in high school and college publications, then put writing aside for the next twenty-five years to teach English in the public schools of four states, and then to teach gifted English with an emphasis on writing in Alabama, where she lives now. During this time she gravitated toward young teens as her subject matter because of their humor, their heart, and their habit of constantly getting into and out of impossible situations.After retiring from the classroom, she completed three novels before she settled down to writing mysteries for teens with The Locksmith Series. Today, she spends her writing time in the mythical town of Springville, creating dangerous crimes for her two main characters, Izzy and Deanie, to solve.

Book preview

Too Many Maybes

By

Carol Norton

Published by OnStage Publishing

Copyright 2012

Smashwords edition

Smashwords edition, License Notes

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CHAPTER 1

Maybe my older sister, Angela, was the result of an angry witch’s curse placed on me at birth. It would be tough to convince me differently. She has lied to me, cheated me, and she even tried to steal my boyfriend. I might also mention that in this really cool criminal case my BFF Deanie Ponder and I just solved, Angela almost got me killed.

So, you’ll understand why it’s hard for me to give Angela any credit for helping solve that crime. But Deanie says if Angela hadn’t spazzed out about my reading her diary three years ago, I never would have learned how to pick locks, and if I hadn’t learned to pick locks we couldn’t have solved the crime.

Whatever.

Really, I was just doing what any normal sixth-grade girl with a seventh-grade sister would do. When she snatched the door of her closet open, there I was, caught in the midst of turning a page on her juiciest diary entry yet.

IZZY!!!

I jumped up from the cushy pile of dirty laundry and thrust the diary behind my back.

Mom! Angela yelled. She snatched at my arm. Mom! Izzy’s done it again.

I ducked away from her manicured talons and raced for the bedroom door. She tackled me--Angela was pretty fast back then--Give it back, you little twerp, she shouted.

Heck no. I wanted to find out what came after the part that said, He swept me into his arms, looked deep into my violet eyes, and... Wow. That was good stuff. Who knew my older sister led such an exciting, private life?

She’s gouged the cover and scraped the lock! Angela shouted. She pinched me, hard. What did you use--my nail file?

Actually, no, I said. A flat head screw driver.

Mom! Angela screamed. She threw herself on the bed and boo-hooed, clutching her mangled diary to her heart, all the while sneaking peeks to see if Mom was coming. My subsequent spanking taught me an important lesson: learn to pick locks without getting caught.

I have spent the last three years learning to do just that.

Did I mention my dad is a locksmith? He has a really cool shop in our basement where he cuts keys and can build, repair, or open every kind of lock ever made.

With Angela on the warpath, I started hiding from her in his shop and became fascinated with opening locks. It didn’t take long before Dad pulled a stool up to his workbench and started giving me lessons.

I didn’t realize he knew I was using the shop as a hiding place from Angela until one day he said, You know, Izzy, the sign of a professional locksmith is that she can open a lock without any damage. Then he winked.

So anyway, now I’m fifteen and I’m toiling through my freshman year at good ol’ Patriot High where Angela is a sophomore. At school I can keep an eye on her love life, which is good because she gave up diaries when she actually got a love life. I wouldn’t fool with diary locks any more anyway. They’re beneath me. I can do handcuffs, knob locks, deadbolts, cam locks, furniture locks, certain simple types of safes and more. I can even take a lock apart and change the cylinder if I have lots of time.

Last January, after I had mastered a particularly difficult mechanism, Dad said, Isabel Anne Higgins, you are a better locksmith than I am. I know that he was just trying to make me feel good, but it really meant a lot to me.

It means even more now because a few days after that, Dad had a stroke. He just fell over in his workshop and lay on the floor for I-don’t-know-how-long because no one else was home. Luckily, Deanie stopped by and heard him moaning. She called 911 and saved his life. I’ll love her forever for that.

Despite his therapy, Dad is still paralyzed on one side. Most of the time, he sits in his wheelchair and stares out the window. Mom, Angela, and I do our best to keep his spirits up, but Deanie can make him laugh. Whenever she comes over, she goes right to him first thing and tells him all the news. His face lights up. He nods and gives her his crooked grin and pats her arm with his good hand. Then she giggles and goes on just as if he was talking right back to her.

Tuesday a week ago, I watched them go through this ritual. It made me feel good to see him laugh, but he might have taken a different attitude and sent her straight home if he had guessed what Deanie was about to get me into.

CHAPTER 2

Deanie and I were pretty glum that Tuesday as we trudged home from school together. Our plan was to study biology, but the minute we entered the door, Deanie cried, Mr. Higgins! and dramatically threw herself at Dad’s feet. She clasped her hands before her and begged pitifully, Save me! Please save me...from studying for the biology test.

He laughed soundlessly. She teased more smiles from him while I fixed Cokes for the three of us. Then, he motioned for us to go upstairs and get started. I pulled her up the stairs after me while she dragged her feet, shouting in tragic tones, No...No! Anything but the life cycle of the fluke worm!

At the top of the stairs her cell rang and saved her from the fluke worm. I entered my room and settled deep into my purple beanbag chair to listen in, but Deanie stayed out in the hall and pulled the door closed. Weird. We didn’t have any secrets from each other. A few minutes later, she came in and flopped down on my bed, casually poking through the bottles of nail polish I had recently liberated from Angela’s room.

Well? I asked.

She held up an orangey red. "Wasn’t there some guy who called you ‘Red’?

I pretended like I didn’t notice the quick change of subject. Uh-huh. Officer Graham, back when he was just Bobby, the kid who mowed our lawn. No one calls me ‘Red’ anymore, so don’t you start.

Never! she said. Anyway, I think it’s your best feature.

It’s my only feature, I groaned. Quit stalling. Now, who was on the phone?

She hopped up to close the door again. Do you remember two years ago when you unlocked my back door so I could get my flute?

How could I ever forget it? That’s how Deanie and I became best friends. Her big sister, Melanie, had locked their house with Deanie’s flute inside on the night of Deanie’s concert solo and left Deanie to deal it. News flash: Big sisters are really all the same. Deanie beat it over to our house for Dad, but he wasn’t home, so I grabbed some picks and a wrench and raced two blocks to help a fellow sufferer of big-sister oppression.

Sure. I remember. It was my very first job, I said. I handed Deanie Angela’s new bottle of Midnight Blue polish. What does that have to do with who was on the phone?

I waited.

She spread a swath of blue across her thumbnail and studied it critically. Well, I was just wondering if you could do the same thing for Corky Mitchell, the kid who lives next door to me. The one I used to babysit...That was him on the phone. She glanced at me from the corner of her eye, then pretended to concentrate on the nail polish. Something about this wasn’t quite right.

Why? I asked. Is he locked out? Does he need his flute for a big solo…Wait a minute. Isn’t his mom your flute teacher?

She wrinkled her nose. Okay. He is her son, and he doesn’t play the flute. He plays baseball. But the point is, Mrs. Mitchell didn’t come home last night. She wasn’t there this morning either, and we don’t know why. Corky asked his dad, but his dad just blew him off.

Maybe they’d had a fight.

"Yeah, they fight a lot, but that doesn’t explain why she would suddenly disappear right before Corky’s birthday. Not to mention, Spring Concert is only three weeks off. I need Mrs. Mitchell,

Reviews for Too Many Maybes

[Greg Bell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a charming story. Teens will love this easily accessible mystery told with tongue in cheek. It’s a wry taken on a couple of enterprising teenagers who look below the surface of strange events. Loved it!