Suzanne Collier’s Second Book of Mysteries and Mayhem

By Paula Diggs

Leaving the safety of her home with Nana in Kansas, Suzanne travels on trains to reunite with her family. She has many adventures on the way. Her long-suffering father keeps her from danger when he can. She saves cattle from rustlers and a friend from kidnapping. Once settled in a new home, she rescues an elderly woman and helps a bully become a friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532068225

Paula Diggs

Paula Diggs, M.A. M.S. is an educator, writer, and artist who has lived and studies in the Mid West, England and France. She has earned awards for her art work and published in the Art Therapy Journal. She resides in Southern California with her husband and two dogs, an American Eskomo and Aussie Doodle.

Book preview

PART 1

Melee on the Pigs and People

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CHAPTER 1

Throw Nana from the Train, a Kiss

The train pulls out of the station in Fort Hays, Kansas. My nana stands on the platform, waving and crying. I’ve been staying with her while my parents found somewhere for us to live in a new place, a town called Duluth, Minnesota. Just solved an important mystery of bad people at a dig for dinosaur bones because I am a detective. My little rubber doll, Betsy Wetsy, helps me solve mysteries. She pees whenever she’s worried about something. If it’s really bad, she pees a lot.

Can’t sit here! I shout and fall over backward on the seat into my Daddy Don sitting next to me. I’ll throw up. I know I can’t ride backward. It just comes up if I do.

You’ll be just fine, Daddy Don tells me. He told me all about the trip since he came out here to take me on the train, first to Kansas City and then to change trains for a sleeper to Minneapolis, where Mother and Baby Kathleen, my little sister, will meet us. I have to go to a new school without my friends. I loved my second-grade teacher. Now I won’t know anyone. I hate this.

Stare hard at the woman and her bags sitting across from me—a big woman in a big rumpled no-color dress. She has two seats facing the right way, the way the train is going, not backward, one for her and one for her bags. The train goes faster, rocking back and forth. Soon we’ll be going by Victoria with its church steeple. My folks call this train the Pigs and People, a couple of passenger cars and mostly livestock like cows and pigs.

Rickety old passenger cars and disgusting toilets that tell you not to flush in the station. It goes out on the track. Terrible smell.

Raaaaaaaahghaaa. There goes my lunch, and it lands on the woman’s shoes. Out the window a few trees and little houses—then fields forever. I smile at the woman. She makes a screeching sound like the train’s brakes.

Wheels go clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. I hold on to Betsy Wetsy tight. Sometimes I feed her water from a little bottle. She wants to be a detective just like me. My throw-up’s all over the floor. Daddy Don calls for a porter, but there’s only an old guy who smells like beer. He comes with a pail from the caboose, the next car behind us. Our seats smell awful, cattle car in front, vomit on the floor. The woman gets up and leaves, sits backward across from us with some soldiers. I move over to her seat next to the window.

Why are the passenger cars behind the livestock? Daddy Don asks the guy mopping the floor. Usually at the head of the train. The smell.

We had a problem over at the siding one evening late a couple of weeks ago. The train was stopped at the siding. Guys came and unhooked the cattle cars and rustled the cattle. I’ve got two railroad cops back in the caboose with me now.

I push up the window and look out. Up ahead, lovely soft cow noses stick through slats, sniffing air. They don’t know this train is taking them to slaughterhouses in Kansas City. Poor things. Wish I could set them free.

CHAPTER 2

Food for Thought

Seat on this train keeps rocking back and forth, scratching, rumbling. Fumble, trying to push the window down. Push, pull, won’t budge. I don’t know how Daddy Don can sleep. Need to ask him, How much longer? How much? Questions. I’m a nosy girl—that’s what they say. Can I pet the cows? Being nosy is how I solve mysteries. All he does is snore and make a soft little talking noise. That’s embarrassing. What will the people on this car think?

Betsy Wetsy is so restless. She needs to walk around to get some exercise. Daddy Don might not like it if he wakes up and we’re not here.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Throw Betsy Wetsy up in the air, and she falls a little down the aisle. I have to get her, don’t I?

Let’s take a walk, I tell her. That makes her happy. She pees. It’s hard to walk on a jiggling train. Fall back and forth onto seats. People look at me with cross faces. I make a sad-mouth face at them. That woman who had my seat is watching me. She just sits there serious and rumpled, watching, watching. What does she want to know? Maybe we are going to the toilet. It’s at the end of the car.

Not going in there. It stinks to high heaven. Need air. Open the door at the end of the car. Just a little. Cattle car next. Listen to all that sad, upset mooing. Those cows are hungry and thirsty. I look in the door. The cowhand sits in a corner. Dirty clothes and messy beard. Mean little black eyes. Big metal chopping thing on the floor next to him. Betsy Wetsy starts to pee. He waves a go-away hand at us.

Kind of step out the door onto the coupling between the cars. Hey, you, get out of here, he yells at us. That’s not a friendly way to talk to a child. After all, I’m only eight; H e should be kind to me. Have to stick my tongue out a little.

A soldier who was sitting close to the door comes over. What’s your problem, fella? he asks.

Step a little farther out on the coupling. Touch the door to the cattle car. Soldier asks me, Hey, kid, what are you doing?

I like fresh air. Smile. That man yelled at me. It hurt my feelings. Look at all those poor cows. They need water and hay.

The cowhand waves a cattle prod at us. Better go back to your seat, the soldier tells me.

With all that incessant mooing, I can’t hear anything. What? I really don’t want to go back and sit and sit.

Soldier shakes his head. I’d stay away from here if I was you. Heard about some problems on this train.

Smile and step all the way out onto the coupling. Hold tight to the cattle car. Maybe I can join a circus.

Hey, kid, don’t do that! You might fall off!

Air! I yell at him. My hair is flying in my face. Hard to see. I can’t breathe in that car. Make a choking sound. It’s really hot.

The cowhand looks out at us, wipes sweat off his face with a torn bandana.

Get lost! he shouts. Or else! Sticks his foot out on the coupling and makes it go jiggly, drags his hand across his neck, looks at me. What can he mean? Mother hates a dirty neck. It’s very sad. All those cows are thirsty and need water. He’s not doing anything to keep them comfortable on this hard trip. I would help him if he was nice.

Knock it off, the soldier tells him, takes my hand, and pulls me back in the car.

The cowhand looks at me with a mean, smirky face. It’s starting to get dark out. Maybe it’s time to eat the picnic Nana packed for us. Wish I had a little hay for those sad cows.

Run up to Daddy Don and shake his arm. "I’m starving. Can we eat