More Secrets
They waited until the hymn was over and then tiptoed quietly out of the
big Sunday school room. A moment later the quiet was shattered as the
children rushed off to their individual classrooms. The Dran boys
hurried in through the outside door. They were both out of breath.
“Are we late?” the older boy asked Judy.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh dear!” the younger one lamented. “We missed the singing and that’s
the best part. We wanted Penny and Paul to come with us, but Peter said
their mother would worry—”
“Thank the Lord,” gasped Mrs. Riker.
She looked about ready to faint. The Dran boys stared at her.
“She’s their mother,” Judy explained. “She’s been worried sick. But it’s
all right now. We can all be thankful they’re safe. But where were
they?”
“At our house,” the boys said matter-of-factly.
“They wanted to sign up for the magic show,” Timothy, the older of the
two, explained. “Didn’t they tell you where they were going, Mrs.
Riker?”
“No,” she replied rather uncertainly as if she wanted to say more. She
looked at Judy, who should have introduced them. In the excitement she
had forgotten to do so.
“It’s all right. Peter brought them back and gave us a ride,” Timothy
said.
“He didn’t wait for you. I guess he didn’t know you were here,” Barry,
the little one, added.
Having explained everything, the Dran boys ran off to their classes
which were somewhere in the basement rooms of the church.
“Penny and Paul would have enjoyed this. Maybe I’ll let them come next
Sunday,” Helen Riker remarked as they left to walk home.
“Next Sunday?” Judy questioned.
Was Mrs. Riker planning to stay all winter? What were her plans? Judy
knew she couldn’t ask her new friend to leave when she didn’t have
anywhere to go, or any money, but she hadn’t counted on taking in a
whole family.
“If I’m here,” Mrs. Riker replied. “I haven’t decided anything. But at
least I have something to be thankful for. The children are all right.”
When they reached Judy’s home they found Penny and Paul helping Peter
make pancakes. He had discovered the batter and the griddle ready, and
had appointed himself chef in Judy’s absence.
“Pancakes coming up!” he announced. “Pitch right in, everybody. Know
where we’re going as soon as we finish, Angel?”
“No, where?” Judy asked.
But before Peter could tell her, Mrs. Riker said what she wanted to know
was where the children had been and why they hadn’t told her they were
going out.
The answer to the last question was simple enough. She had been asleep
when they left.
“It was very early,” Paul explained. “We had to wake everybody up. Mr.
Brown didn’t like it, but when we went to Timmy Dran’s house the
magician didn’t mind.”
“The magician!” their mother said in shocked surprise.
“Is that where you were?” asked Judy. “I might have known it! Where does
this magician live?”
“With Barry and Timothy Dran. He’s the nicest man, just like Daddy, only
he isn’t. It’s all right if we go there,” Paul hurried on. “Peter knows
him. They got real well acquainted, and we joined the club and Penny has
a part in the magic show. She and Anne changed places because now she’s
the littlest. Wally said it was all right.”
“I disappear,” Penny announced proudly.
“Not again,” her mother protested.
“It’s all right. I’ll come back.”
Mrs. Riker sighed.
“Well, I hope so. At least you’re safe now. The next time you leave the
house you must tell me, so I won’t worry,” she continued. “You know how
much I’ve had on my mind.”
“I wish I did,” Judy thought.
“We know. But it’s going to be different now, isn’t it, Penny?” Paul
asked.
“Oooh, yes!” she squealed.
“More secrets!” Judy said, holding up her hands in mock despair.
“Haven’t we enough already!”
She still had Mrs. Riker’s problems to solve and they weren’t easy. As
they did the dishes together she encouraged the young woman to talk. The
truth came out unexpectedly when Mrs. Riker commented that their kitchen
used to be almost as nice as Judy’s.
“You’d never think it to look at it now, but when we lived in the
caretaker’s cottage on the Riker estate, it was the coziest, warmest
little place you ever saw. The boys used to come down whenever Mother
made cookies—”
“The boys?” Judy questioned.
“My husband Philip, and his brother Paul. I liked Paul best then,” she
continued in a voice that told Judy she had decided to take her into her
confidence. “We were children, of course, but I used to think it was
Paul I would marry. And then, suddenly, everything changed. After we
left the caretaker’s cottage and went to live in the city, it was Philip
who wrote to me.”
“But what happened to Paul?” Judy asked.
“I never saw him again,” Helen said, “but Philip came to New York and
looked me up. He said he and Paul had quarreled and that he, Philip, had
been disinherited. Their money never mattered to me, anyway. I loved
them both—”
She stopped, but Judy made no comment. She was afraid of breaking the
spell. It was almost as if Helen Riker were reliving her past.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but it’s true!” she declared. “It
used to break my heart when they quarreled. Philip was jealous of Paul
because their uncle favored him and called Philip a little thief. He did
take things to give away. Uncle Paul had so much, Phil thought it didn’t
matter. They were only there on a visit, but it was the happiest summer
in my whole life. Afterwards—but why talk about it? It’s all in the past
and I have the future to think about.”
“Could there be a link?” asked Judy, thinking fast.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean if one of the presents Philip gave you happened to be in the
pocketbook that was stolen—”
Mrs. Riker’s face went white.
“How did you know?” she questioned.
Judy smiled, taking the dish the other had nearly dropped.
“It was just a guess. Your little daughter Penny is like her mother. She
isn’t very good at keeping secrets. A green doll would be a green
goddess, wouldn’t it? Possibly a jade goddess worth quite a bit to a
thief who had the mate—”
“Rama!” Helen gasped. “Paul always said it was bad luck to separate
them!”