The Incredible Polly McDoodle (The Polly McDoodle Mystery Series Book 4) Read online

  The Incredible Polly McDoodle

  No. 4 in the Polly McDoodle Series

  by Mary Woodbury

  Talkingstick Press

  This edition of The Incredible Polly McDoodle is published by:

  Talkingstick Press

  #404, 10319 – 111 Street

  Edmonton, AB T5K 0A2

  Copyright (c) Mary Woodbury 2002, 2011. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior permission from the publisher.

  Originally published in 2002 by Coteau Books, Regina.

  Editing by Joanne Gerber

  Cover painting by Ward Schell.

  Interior map illustration by Robert Woodbury.

  Cover design by Duncan Campbell.

  ISBN: 978-0-9868347-6-9

  Dedication

  For my granddaughters, Paige and Haley, who love mysteries.

  Thanks to Brenda Berard and her daughter of CIBC

  for checking the mail fraud data.

  Thanks to my husband Clair

  for all the help along the way.

  Contents

  The Incredible Polly McDoodle

  1. Dreams and Schemes

  2. Mail Goes Missing

  3. The Search for Clues Begins

  4. A Bike Shed Takes Shape

  5. Problems at Home and School

  6. Farewell to Isabel

  7. A Lost Lunch

  8. Banking and Bussing

  9. What’s the Story About?

  10. Walking the Dogs

  11. The Saskatchewan Connection

  12. Hotel, Hockey, and Homemade Ice Cream

  13. An Empty Envelope and a Big Mouth

  14. Gain a Pound and Lose a Friend

  15. A Crook with a Conscience

  16. The Clues Begin to Add Up

  17. Caught On Camera

  18. The Missing Videotape

  19. Masks and Mayhem

  20. Greed, Gambling, and Games

  1. Dreams and Schemes

  “You’re a cynic, Kyle Clay.”

  “You’re an unmitigated dreamer, Polly McDoodle.” Kyle looked up from the computer. His blue eyes sparkled behind ugly steel-rimmed glasses. His brownish-blond hair was trimmed short so it wouldn’t stick out like it did when he was a kid. “Thinking that entering contests will actually win you a trip somewhere.”

  “Move your butt off that chair.” Polly gave Kyle’s skinny shoulder a shove, rolling the chair right into the desk so Kyle’s flat stomach crashed into the keyboard shelf. “We’ve got work to do. My dad told us to clean up the construction site.”

  “You’re just trying to change the subject,” Kyle said. “We were talking about the futility of entering contests. That’s why you called me a cynic.”

  “Listen, if I want to enter drawing contests, that’s my business. Now come on. Shut the machine off. Dad says if we don’t help with the new bike shed we won’t get to use it.” Polly was still miffed at her dad for asking her to stop sketching and get to work. She sighed. “Okay! Please come help me.”

  Kyle clicked the mouse and shoved the chair under the desk. He nodded but he didn’t say anything. In some ways he was still Kyle Clay, the Clam. That’s what the kids had called him in Kindergarten. Back then he wouldn’t talk at all.

  Polly switched topics again. “If I don’t enter contests I’ve no chance of going anywhere exciting ever.” Polly raced ahead of Kyle down the stairs and out the door of the cooperative apartment building on 109th Street in Edmonton where they both lived. Her solid stocky body was full of energy. She wasn’t the shortest girl in her class any more. But she’d never be the tallest. The fall breeze tossed Polly’s unruly red wavy hair every which way. “I’ll never be the International McDoodle.”

  “You’ve as much chance of winning a contest as a chicken has of being a ballerina,” Kyle laughed.

  “Don’t criticize me, goofus.” Polly felt awkward enough without being reminded of her less than limber limbs. She longed to be slim and athletic like their new neighbour Mandy and like her own mom Jan McDougall. But she wasn’t.

  “I wasn’t talking about your body. You aren’t a chicken and you don’t want to be a ballerina. When did you get so sensitive?” Kyle shook his head and headed toward the Co-op apartment’s new bike shed. He had designed it to be a combination bike shed, workshop, and roof-top patio. It was being constructed where the old willow tree that held their tree fort had been before the giant storm in August.

  “Some days I can’t do anything right.” Polly threw a crushed Styrofoam cup into the dumpster. “I guess I’m tired of the chaos around the new building. I like things settled.”

  “I’m with you on that.” Kyle picked up chunks of 2 by 4, discarded plastic, and construction material that were strewn around the building site. “Those two kids hired to clean up don’t do a very good job.” A rust-coloured squirrel scolded from the spindly birch nearby.

  Polly wandered away looking for the shovel to use as a dustpan and didn’t answer. She was still thinking about the contests she’d just entered—one for a free trip for four to Disneyland, one for a trip to Italy for a family, one for anywhere in Canada, and one for a trip to Florida. She patted the pocket of her jeans where the envelopes nestled, waiting for stamps. “Say what you will, Clam. If you don’t enter you can’t win.”

  “Statistically your chances are terrible.”

  Polly threw a shovelful of sawdust and bent nails into the trash. “You’ll change your tune if I win. You’ll be eating your heart out, wishing I’d invite you along.”

  “I’m just saying your chances are infinitesimally small.”

  “It takes skill to draw a poster. I did a good job.” It helped that their neighbour gave Polly private art lessons in exchange for help walking her dog or watering her plants.

  “Right. I admit you’re an incredible artist. But what about the colouring contest? Do you know how many kids will enter that contest? Do you?”

  “So, artists colour better than the average kid.”

  “If you want to travel so badly, I suggest you save up for it.” Kyle carried a stack of wood ends to the trash barrel. Polly could see that someone had written measurements on the top block with a thick black pencil. The numbers were written with curlyques and loops. Very fancy, more like calligraphy than carpenter’s scrawl.

  The squirrel ran down the trunk of the birch and raced behind the garbage bins, chattering all the way. Polly should draw him. But first she had to tease her old buddy Kyle the Clam.

  “What about you, Mr. Nerdyknees.” Polly laughed at her own joke. Kyle was wearing long shorts that covered his knees but she could still see how knobby they were. She couldn’t help herself. “You entered the song contest for that new cereal, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t expect to win. You plan the whole trip. I’ve watched you grab tourist brochures from the travel agency at the mall for all the places you expect to explore. It’s a wonder you don’t pack a suitcase while you’re at it.”

  Polly thought of the stack of colourful booklets about Italy, Florida, and Disneyland that were stuffed in her overcrowded desk drawer. The Overexcited, Overoptimistic McDoodle reached down, grabbed a handful of sawdust and tossed it on Kyle. “As my dad says—nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “As my dad says—nobody receives something for nothing. It all costs.”

  “Cynic!”

  “Dreamer!” Kyle closed the garage door and dropped the lid down on the tra
sh container. “I’m going to the mall. I want to buy the new Baldersgate game at the computer store.”

  “I need stamps from the post office in the drugstore.”

  George, Isabel’s wire-haired terrier, barked from his balcony. The two kids left the parking lot in the direction of Kingsway Garden Mall. Polly thought about the sketches she was making of George. Isabel Ashton was Polly’s art teacher and confidante. Polly wanted to make a really good picture of Isabel’s dog and give it to her for her birthday next week. But she was having trouble with his head. Wire-hairs have a big muzzle for their size. George was a middle-sized dog with a long face, bushy eyebrows, and a beard. She still wasn’t satisfied with her sketches.

  As she and Kyle walked down the lane behind their apartment building, Polly wondered if she would ever get to travel like Isabel. Isabel had gone on trips to nearly every corner of the world. She was leaving next week, after her birthday party, to go to Mexico. Polly was going to miss her.

  It would take only one really prize-winning contest entry for Polly to win a trip. Was she being overly optimistic? Her mom often said she was the optimist in the McDougall family. She patted her jean pocket to check that she had the envelopes with the contest entries tucked in there.

  “You aren’t planning trips again, are you?” Kyle said as she caught up to him at the corner by the lights.

  She blushed. “Of course not, I was thinking about Isabel’s birthday.”

  Kyle cast his eyes heavenward as if looking for help to believe her.

  Up ahead of them a construction crew was working on repairs to the mall roof. “That storm sure caused a lot of havoc.”

  “Havoc?” Polly chuckled. “Kyle, your vocabulary is something else.”

  “Polly, your drawing is something else,” Kyle parroted.

  “I’m worried about doing a good job of drawing George.” Even if she had been nicknamed McDoodle years ago, she still worried about her ability.

  “Mom and Dad were talking about paying you to do a picture of Brutus for us.”

  “You’re kidding.” Brutus was the Clays’ adopted Springer Spaniel. The dog had been abandoned by young punks last Christmas.

  Kyle shook his head. Traffic whizzed by. The light standard with the red light glaring swung in the breeze.

  “Maybe I could earn enough to buy a ticket to Mexico,” Polly sighed. “I could become a pet portrait specialist.”

  “In your dreams, Polly,” Kyle chuckled. “It would take a couple of hundred drawings of dogs.”

  “You are such a wet blanket, Kyle.”

  “If it isn’t McDoodle and Clay, detectives, nattering at each other.” Isabel pulled up beside them in her car, close to the corner. “Off to the mall? Want a lift?”

  “No thanks Isabel,” Polly said. “We can walk from here.”

  Kyle nodded hello to Isabel. The retired teacher had a square no-nonsense body, white hair, a tanned but wrinkled face, and paint-spattered hands.

  “How do you like your new school?” Isabel peered through the open car window at them, her granny glasses slipping down her nose. “No mysteries to solve now that you have started Grade Seven?”

  “Our investigating days are done, I guess,” Polly sighed as the light changed. “We’re serious seventh grade kids now. Actually…” the light changed and Isabel’s car leapt forward, cutting Polly’s sentence off. She’d been going to tell Isabel about entering contests and winning trips to faraway places.

  The Ardent Adventurous McDoodle would just have to wait to share her great dreams of incredible journeys funded by her prize-winning drawings.

  2. Mail Goes Missing

  Monday morning Isabel offered Kyle, Polly, and Mandy Beamish a ride to Kirby, their fine arts junior and senior high school. Kyle majored in math, science, and music, and Polly in art, theatre, and language. Mandy was staying with her uncle and aunt, the Beamishes in apartment 101, for the school year. Mandy was in dance, drama, some art, and French. Her parents were in Africa with an international aid organization.

  “Thanks for the ride, Miss Ashton.” Mandy’s voice was soft and lyrical. Her hair was dark brown with tight curls. She had a small gold ring in her left eyebrow and three gold circles in each ear. She slipped carefully out of the car so as not to step on her multi-coloured broom skirt. A tall, slender girl, she always wore long skirts to school. Mandy closed the door of the old Volvo with a slight thud.

  “See you later, Isabel.” Polly waved as Isabel drove away headed toward the University of Alberta art gallery where she was helping a friend mount a student show.

  Polly glanced at Mandy. She hadn’t had a chance to get to know Beamishes’ niece in the busy first weeks at Kirby. It had been a real adjustment for Polly, moving from their small three-storied elementary school. Built in 1905, Central had a haunted library in the attic. The Sixth Grade class had been small and the teacher had treated them as if they were really mature and included them in volunteer activities.

  Now Kyle and Polly were the young ones at Kirby, a fairly-modern two-storey school with interminable corridors, few windows, big courtyards, and what felt like thousands of nearly full-grown kids. There were too many changes.

  Polly sauntered toward the street corner.

  “Where are you off to?” Kyle asked as he hooked his backpack over his shoulder.

  “To the mailbox.” She waved her last contest entry in the air. “I hadn’t finished this one when I mailed the others yesterday.”

  “Take my contest entry too, will you?” Kyle handed her two envelopes. He blushed. After all he had teased Polly about hers. “The prize is a music video. The other letter will get me a five dollar rebate from my Baldersgate game.”

  “Can you drop these in the box as well?” Mandy asked. “It’s a letter to my mom and dad, and one of Isabel’s that she asked me to mail.”

  Polly collected all the mail and jogged toward the mailbox on the corner. The red box had been freshly washed. The ugly green box where the mail carrier picked up the bag of mail to deliver, sat nearby. Why did the post office use such dull paint?

  Polly shook herself. She had to get going. She only had five minutes to get to her class.

  An old woman in a purple wool coat with a jaunty purple tam on her white hair, stood in front of the mailbox rifling through her purse. “I know it’s in here somewhere.” She shrugged her stooped birdlike shoulders and moved aside. “It’s a card to my greatgranddaughter in Vancouver. I put a check in it for $25. I hope that’s enough to buy a little present. Do you think it is?”

  Polly slid her short stack of mail through the slot. “She could buy a nice CD or a pair of cool earrings with that much.”

  “Oh, good.” A large bright purple envelope fell out of the outside pocket of the old woman’s black leather handbag onto the sidewalk. “I was just telling someone in the post office all about my grandchildren. I’m so proud of them. I always send them money because I never know what to buy them. They keep growing, don’t they?”

  Polly bent and picked it up. “Nice colour envelope.” She noted the return address: “Mrs. P. Dobson, 1425 - 76th Ave.”

  “Thanks, dear.” The woman took the envelope in her gnarled arthritic hand and lifted it to the mail slot. “Purple’s my favourite colour.” The air around her smelled of lavender. It made Polly think of light purple flowers.

  “What about the stamp?” Polly asked.

  “Oh, dear, it must have fallen off. What will I do now? Her birthday is in four days and I don’t know…” her voice trailed off.

  “Maybe I can help.” Polly took a stamp from the small folder she had in her wallet. “Here, Mrs. Dobson.”

  The smile that lit the old woman’s face made Polly’s day. For just a moment she felt like the Thoughtful and Caring McDoodle, helper to the worried or weary of the world—at least of Edmonton, her prairie city. She placed the no-lick stamp carefully on the right-hand top corner. Then she slid the envelope into the box. “There, it’s on its way.”
/>   Suddenly the old woman reached out and took Polly’s hand in hers. “Thanks so much. It’s good to know there are nice young people around these parts. I do worry what with the television news and the paper. If you believe them there are a lot of bad kids.”

  Polly heard the buzzer ring in the school. She turned to leave.

  “Thanks, dear. I won’t forget this.”

  “You can call me Polly. I’m Polly McDougall.”

  “Thanks, Polly.”

  “Have a nice day, Mrs. Dobson,” Polly called over her shoulder as she hurried to the side entrance of the school. She nearly ran into a tubby fellow clutching an old-fashioned heavy black satchel bulging with papers and books. With a brush cut, an ugly pair of green polyester pants, and an ill-fitting golf jacket, he didn’t look like any schoolteacher she knew. Still, he was too young to be a parent and too old to be a student.

  “What kept you?” Kyle asked as she slid into the seat beside him in their homeroom. It was language arts class. The principal was making announcements over the speaker. “Auditions for this year’s musical, a full production of Oliver, will take place tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. Those in the theatre arts program are assigned to take part. Other students are encouraged to audition as well. Singers and dancers are needed. Speak to your homeroom teacher if there is a conflict with your class schedule.”

  Everyone around them was chatting. Mrs. Robinson had not arrived. Mandy huddled with a couple of dance types in the far corner, talking in a low voice but mostly listening to what they said. A slim girl with makeup, jewellery, and classy clothes smiled at Polly from a seat across the aisle. She had a butterfly tattoo on her neck.

  There was a hush as the door opened. All eyes turned to the front. But instead of lanky Mrs. Robinson, the man that Polly had nearly knocked over on her way into school waddled in and dropped his briefcase on the desk. It thudded as it landed. “I’m Mr. Stone. Mrs. Robinson’s mother had a heart attack so she left for Winnipeg.”