The Root Cellar Mystery

By DeHerrera Holly Yoder

Old Order Mennonite cousins, Poppy and Sadie, suspect "a re-e-a-a-al criminal!" is staying at Aendi Hannah's bed and breakfast. Then a missing dog, a mysterious code, creepy creaks, and a floating light in the dark of night

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackside Publishing
• Release date: Aug 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781683550273

DeHerrera Holly Yoder

Holly DeHerrera grew up travelling the world as an Air Force brat. Her midwestern, Amish and Mennonite salt-of-the-earth heritage colors her point of view. Holly married a Colorado man and they enjoy adventures with their five home-schooled kids. Holly won the 2018 Writer of the Year award from Good Catch Publishing. She teaches creative writing for a Homeschool Academic Program in a public school district in Colorado Springs. In Holly's free time, you'll find her watching cooking shows, or writing at a local coffee shop with a white mocha and a smile.

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The Root Cellar Mystery

Holly Yoder DeHerrera

The Middlebury Mystery Series: Book 1

Blackside Publishing Colorado springs, CO

Copyright © 2019 by Holly Yoder DeHerrera

Connect with Holly:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorHollyYoderDeherrera/

Blog/Website: https://hollyyoderdeherrera.wordpress.com

Closed Facebook Book Club: Middlebury Mystery Series Book Club

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in printed reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, email to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, [e-mail]

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

URL: www.blacksidepublishing.com

Ordering Information:
Ingram, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Cover and book design by: Scoti Domeij

Cover Photo: Mike DeHerrera

Printed in the United States of America

The Root Cellar Mystery/Holly DeHerrera

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019919666

ISBN: 978-1-68355-026-6; ISBN: 1-68355-026-9 The Root Cellar Mystery (Paperback)

First Edition

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To my babies who inspire me with up-in-your-face, childlike affection and to my husband who pushes me to chase dreams and pick yellow flowers along the side of the road, I love you and I like you.

GLOSSARY

Aendi: Aunt

Daad: Daad

Dawdy haus (dah-dee) haus (house): A small home for elderly parents built onto or near the main house. When Dawdi retires and sells the farm and main house to an adult child, he and his wife move into the dawdy haus.

Des gut.: That’s good.

Grossdaadi (or Dawdi): Grandfather

Grossmammi (or Mammi): Grandmother

Maam: Mom

Old Order Mennonite: Refers to Mennonite groups who dress plainly, live off their land, and rely on harvesting food from their gardens to eat during winter. Their Christian faith centers on their church and community and rejects modern technology and ‘worldly’ distractions.

Onkel: Uncle

Prayer kapp: The see-through, starched white head covering Old Order Mennonite women wear

Sewing Bee or Quilting Bee: A friends-and-family get-together, most often during fall and winter months, in which the girls and women hand stitch quilts as wedding or baby gifts for family members or for charitable causes.

Table of Mysterious Contents

1. Sadie’s News

2. Sadie’s Suspicions

3. The Mysterious Guest

4. Poppy’s Small Fib

5. Piggy Disappears

6. A Surprising Discovery

7. Crazy Questions

8. The Clue

9. The Cryptic Journal

10. The Old-Timey Cookbook

11. Ms. Lindy and S’Mores

12. The Odd Coincidence

13. The Mysterious Numbers

14. Ms. Lindy’s Strange Code

15. A Puzzling Clue

16. The Floating Light

17. Spyin’ and Lyin’

18. Trail of Clues Gone Cold

19. Digging for Clues

20. The Mystery Remains Hidden

21. A Baffling New Clue

22. Hidden in Plain Sight

Acknowledgments

About Holly

Middlebury Mystery Book Club Questions

3-D Reading Activities

Other Books by Holly

Chapter 1

Sadie’s News

I squint through the huge front picture window at my Maam and Onkel Bob drinking friendship tea and shooting the breeze on the pine porch swing. Heaven knows they’ve been gabbing for near an hour and I still don’t know if I can spend the night at Cousin Sadie’s. If I ask, Maam will say I’m not patient and have lost the privilege. If I wouldn’t get in trouble, I’d tell her I wouldn’t have to be so patient if she’d only decide faster.

Maam’s prayer kapp, the see-through white head covering we girls always wear, sits nicely pinned on her head. The strings rest all calm and composed on her shoulders, until she stands and turns her head like she senses I’m snooping.

I duck knowing she won’t be happy that I’m eavesdropping. I can’t help easing up my head again to see if she’s coming in, but she flat-out looks at me and nods her head so smallish I almost wonder if I imagined it. But her smile tells me she’s saying yes and the little flick of her head up and to the right means, Poppy, pull your stuff together quick or you’ll miss your ride.

In my room I snatch my belongings: a brush, undies, apron and fresh socks, and a clean cape dress, my favorite one with the little purple flower pattern. I shove all these in my bag and I’m out the door.

After a quick peck on Maam’s cheek I climb into Onkel’s buggy and he flicks the harness and off goes Bess, his best horse. I straighten my ever-present, starchy white kapp. The strings tickle my sweaty neck. I poke in the loose bobby pins to keep my kapp from slipping off. Sinking into my seat, I let out a sigh, enjoying the steady rocking of the buggy on the gravel road.

Onkel Bob’s a quiet sort so I force my tongue to lie flat and lazy in my mouth, though I can almost feel it twitching to let out some of these thoughts. First off, how late Sadie and I can stay up tonight, what sorts of treats might he allow us to eat, and how come Bess seems in no rush at all to trot faster on the two miles of road?

But I keep still and watch the lines of corn stalks waving good-naturedly in the humid July air. There must not be any place else more beautiful than Middlebury, Indiana. Not anywhere.

A cherry-red sports car zooms around the slow, creaky buggy. I grip my seat, not liking the way folks whiz by without caring a bit that they scare the daylights out of the plain people inside, or the horse for that matter.

The up-and-down movement of Bess’s head and the clippity-clop sound of her hooves calm my nerves. Onkel Bob doesn’t appear one bit bothered. His soft whistling wanders aimlessly in the still air.

A bumbling fly lands on my face and I smack my cheek to shoo it off. We pass the local Mennonite school with its simple, boxy shape and the lonely playground equipment—pretty much like everything else out here: plain and simple. And I like it that way.

Onkel’s sprawling dairy farm comes into sight along with Sadie’s dancing figure. She waves like crazy. How did she even know I was coming? My Onkel’s black and white Holstein heifers chew on grass and lift their heads to watch us roll into the drive. I force myself not to leap from the buggy before Onkel Bob comes to a full stop.

Poppy! Sadie climbs onto the wheel and grabs my hand, pulling me downward. I just knew they’d bring you!

Slow down, Sadie. You’re gonna make me skin my knee again and the last scab just healed. Maam said I better start taking better care not to waltz around with torn skirts and skinned knees.

Aw, Poppy, let’s go. She’s not interested

in how I’m supposed to act more lady-like. Probably because she’s six whole months younger than I’m. I can’t expect her to act like a twelve-year-old yet.

We run past the long white barn, past flapping clothes on the line that stretches across the backyard. Sadie and I run deep into the tall stalks of corn to our favorite club meeting spot right smack dab in the middle. The corn’s so tall we can no longer see above the leafy stalks. We love our green palace.

Sadie lies back on the dirt with an ear of corn in her hand, peeling the green husks back and sucking on the juicy kernels. The golden-yellow tassel of wispy corn silk sags in the humidity like the frizzy, blond hairs framing my cousin’s fair, round face.

I just needed to see you, Poppy, she says, her eyebrows puckering in the middle of her forehead. There’s news.

What sort?

She props up on one elbow, leans my

way, opens her hazel eyes wide, and says, The secret kind, in a less-than-secret volume.

And?

And . . . She raises her pale yellow eyebrows.

Spit it out, Sadie.

Sadie sits upright, her back straight. Her blue cape dress gapes like a balloon in the middle. She tucks her dirty, bare feet beneath her. We’re having a special guest this week at our bed and breakfast.

So that’s why Maam agreed for me to stay. Aendi Hannah must have told my mother she needed my help. I don’t mind helping, especially because that