Evie's Been Eavesdropping

By George Wickham

Evie is an adventurous, book-loving sixth grade girl who shows courage and resourcefulness in her efforts to help her friends, save her school from disaster, and find the identity of her real parents.

She loves Ferngarden School, a small independent middle school set near a river in a small, working-class neighborhood. She finds and furn

• Language: English
• Publisher: Finisterre Press
• Release date: Nov 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780998161914

George Wickham

George Wickham is a Middle School English and History teacher at Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia. In addition to teaching he works with the Model UN and Woodworking programs and coaches the Middle School Girl's soccer team. He loves to hike, canoe, build furniture, and strum the ukulele. Before his career as a teacher, he worked as an attorney and adjunct law professor. He lives in Richmond with his wife, Mary, his off-to-college sons, Clayton and Will, and their crazy dog, Bear.

Book preview

1

Evie flicked her head side to side as she reached the top step, scanned the corridor for teachers, spun left, and stopped at the end of a short hallway. The heavy door of Appel’s closet sat open just a crack. She pivoted like a soldier in enemy territory to put the door at her back and listened for the sound of footsteps. It was quiet. Stepping back, she let the dark closet swallow her.

In the blackness her mind’s eye summoned up a map of her surroundings. On her left were Appel’s mops and brooms and dusters. On her right were his supply shelves, a jumble of paper towels, caustic cleaners, rubber gloves, and plastic bags. The lowest of these shelves was about three feet off the floor. In the space below sat an unassuming cardboard box Appel used like a trash can. Evie reached for it, slid it out, and then folded herself under the shelf, pulling the box back into place behind her. Her heart pinged. At this moment she was Evie the Magnificent, evaporating in a puff of smoke before a dazzled crowd. She had a secret place.

One day last spring Evie had been hanging around the classrooms, helping Appel—English teacher, handyman, and custodian all rolled into one—clean one of the classrooms after school had ended.

Hey, Evie. Run to my closet and get us another roll of towels. I can put you to work cleaning the blackboards.

Evie darted out the door, hollering as she ran, Are they on the shelf?

Yes.

But after racing around the corner and bouncing into Appel’s closet, she couldn’t find the towels anyplace. There were none on shelves, none near the box of trash under the shelves, none behind the box… but a glimmer of light caught Evie’s attention. She crawled under the shelf and saw an opening, a crawlspace, and through it she saw an amazing sight: a secret room, lit only faintly by curved, eyebrow-shaped vents. Evie had found the entry into a cavernous space between the ceiling of the Ferngarden School teachers’ lounge and its steeply pitched roof. There, in the dim light, she saw a geometric wonder of heavy timbers, jack joists, cross braces, lathe strips, and roof decking. She saw a cat walk of boards over the joists, leading to an area that had its own floor under the steep pitch of the roof.

Hey, Evie! Where are you? hollered Appel from the classroom.

No towels anywhere! Evie replied, hurrying out of the crawlspace and replacing the box.

Oh yeah, they’re still in my truck. I’ll get them.

Throughout the summer Evie hung around the school and slipped through the secret portal in Appel’s closet to feel the wonder of having a space of her own. She brought little things and left them there. When the church next door got new cushions for its pews, Evie pinched two of the old ones and used them as floor cushions. She found she could stretch out full length. Looking over the joists at her feet, she could see the tops of the light fixtures in the teachers’ lounge below. They were connected with bare wires running in pairs between the fixtures like divided highways, parallel lines held off the wood joists by porcelain knobs.

Evie began to bring books with her on her visits and loved to read there: A Wrinkle in Time, Tom Sawyer, The Jungle Book, The Thief Lord, The Tempest. She found an electrical outlet, maybe another temporary improvement, so the carpenters would have light as they worked. Like the wiring, it was ancient, round, with a socket for only one two-pronged plug. When the church was throwing out an old reading light from its library, Evie nabbed it and a light bulb from Appel’s closet. Cushions, light, books: Evie had everything she needed. Everything but food and drink. She started collecting plastic water bottles and adding them to her provisions. She’d read books about sailors eating salt beef, so she saved money for beef jerky.

Miss Judy, the school secretary, used to forget her toast in the toaster oven in the school kitchen and it would get dry and crispy and stay that way. Evie would ask for it, and Judy would laugh and say, You and your dry toast. Of course you can have it. So Evie added dry toast to her stores, edible for weeks if you were hungry enough. Then there were salted peanuts and snack bags and dried fruit left behind from a workman’s lunch. She had also read about scurvy among sailors on long voyages. Their skin would turn green and their old wounds would open and start bleeding again—and she had had a million cuts. She wanted her hideaway to be as self-sufficient as a ship at sea, so she brought up dried fruit and checked the labels on the packages. She decided that if she ever went to live up there, she would know exactly how long she could survive.

Evie grew her collection of books, adding Captain Blood, Greek Myths, The Outsiders, and a decades old Boy Scout Handbook, which began to give her hideaway the feeling of a library. People were always dropping off books at the child care center at the church across the street, and some of them wouldn’t be appropriate for little kids, so Miss Judy would call Evie over and tell her that there was a delivery for her. Judy was the heart and soul of Ferngarden: large, gray-haired, always smiling, never angry, and always noticing everything about everyone at school.

Evie loved Judy, and she also loved secrets, so as the first day of school neared she was hoping her supply would grow. It was not the day the kids returned, but the first day of school for the teachers. They came early to prepare for the school year. Evie was excited. In her hideaway she would be able to hear the secrets that the teachers shared only among themselves.

2

The first sounds to penetrate her hideaway were the clinkings of coffee cups as the teachers gathered in the front hall before the meeting. She held her breath and listened. The words were hard to understand, though, just a jumble of laughter and a few howls of reunion. Evie was surprised that teachers could have so much fun.

Then she caught the distinct clatter of heels across the maple floor. Ms. Cainer, the math teacher, no doubt. She always wore them. Evie had even seen her gardening in heels. Behind her back the students called her Cainer the Complainer. Nothing was ever quite good enough for the Complainer.

Then she heard the whirr of Mr. Cool’s wheelchair. John Cool—no one could believe that was his real name, but it was. He taught computer and Latin, and had eyes in the back of his head. He noticed everything. He could smell spitballs. He could feel the rustle of air caused by a hand secretly darting out to deliver a note.

Finally, Evie heard heavy footsteps and a piercing voice,

Hallooo everybody! Can you believe that the summer is over? I can’t wait to get started! Ms. Lyon’s energy and enthusiasm were legendary. It made Evie think of an expression she had heard: Too much of a good thing.

The teachers were all chatting now, and Evie couldn’t distinguish who was talking at any one time, but the gist of the conversation was clear. Some were moaning about how tired they were, how sleepy, how the summer had gone too fast. Ms. Cainer’s sharp twang jumped over the chatter, I’m just not ready for school to start. Evie nearly blurted out that she wasn’t the only one.

Evie could see the tiniest bit of movement in the room through a ceiling vent, which housed a fan for drawing air out of the room. It hadn’t worked for years.

I hope I have a better year than last. This new 6th grade class could not be worse than last year’s, she heard the Complainer sigh. Oh yes they can be, Evie thought happily.

The conversation died down as the teachers began to file out of the room and off to their classrooms. Evie was feeling a little disappointed. There would be no secrets to report. Then she caught the sound of Mr. Cool’s chair whirring back into the room.

Psst. Cainer! Psst. Is this going to be the year?

I don’t know, John. Maybe you could just tell Appel what he needs to do.

I can’t just tell him. I’ve hinted, but he needs to see it for himself. It's like they are on matching wave lengths—perfect for each other—but they can't see it. Even though they were speaking in low voices, with the quiet of the room Evie could hear every word. Were they talking about a romance between Appel and Judy? Now that was an electric secret.

John’s voice lowered slightly as he began talking again, and Evie slipped off her cushion to put her ear closer to the floor—the ceiling of the room below—so she could hear what he was saying. She edged her way out onto the joists on hands and knees, not