The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

do with politics.” That sounded intelligent. “My mother is what Good Housekeeping Magazine calls a homemaker. She has the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”
    “How is your father doing?” Sylvia asked.
    “My father?”
    “You said he was sick.”
    I remembered the story I had made up to explain why I was here. “Well, he’s…getting better.”
    “Does that mean you’ll be going back to Atherton?”
    “Uh, no, I don’t think so. I can’t be changing schools every five minutes. And I like it here.” That was less of a lie than it would have been a few days ago.
    “Sylvia says you play basketball,” Natalie said. “That’s good. We need all the help we can get. And you write. Do you write anything besides news stories?”
    “I write limericks. A buddy and I wrote limericks about members of our class at Atherton. We published a book and sold it in the cafeteria for a nickel a copy, proceeds to the class treasury.”
    “Were they dirty?” Natalie asked.
    “Of course not.” My tone of voice suggested otherwise. However, it wasn’t writing limericks that had gotten me into trouble.
    The girls smiled. Sylvia said, “Write a limerick about Nat.”
    “Right now?”
    “Well, how long does it take you?”
    “Okay, I’ll give it a try. But remember that views expressed in limericks don’t necessarily represent those of the management.”
    I had written a limerick on the spur of the moment for Dr. Graves, so why not Natalie? I hemmed and hawed for a minute and then said:
    “ There is a young lady named Nat,
    Who’s neither too thin nor too fat.
    She’s cute as a kitten
    And keeps the boys smitten,
    But a kitten turns into a cat.”
    “Not bad,” Sylvia said. “And your fingers never left your hands.”
    Natalie said. “To keep you two from ganging up on me, write one about Sylvia.”
    For some reason, I didn’t want to. “There are no rhymes for Sylvia. It’s like orange.”
    “You can’t get out of it that easily,” Natalie said. “Make it Syl.”
    This one took me a little longer. Just when the troops looked as if they might get restless, I came out with:
    “ There is a young lady named Syl,
    Who races and never stands still.
    You can look anywhere,
    But you’ll find she’s not there.
    She’s already over the hill.”
    Sylvia glanced at her watch and said, “I’ve gotta run.”
    Natalie and I laughed.
    “Me too,” Natalie said, standing up.
    “See ya later, alligator,” Sylvia said.
    “After a while, crocodile,” Natalie added.
    “Not too soon, baboon,” I chimed in.
    “After a laugh, giraffe,” we all finished.

    CHAPTER 8
    There was a large garage in the back of the school where buses were maintained. I figured the janitors might hang out when they weren’t janitoring elsewhere. In addition, I had found out that Mr. White, the janitor who had discovered Ralph’s body, doubled as a bus driver. He was probably a mechanic, also.
    I headed toward the garage during my brief lunch period while wolfing down a sandwich from a brown bag I had brought from home. I was surprised at how large the garage was. It had the capacity to hold several buses at once. There was even a hydraulic lift. The air smelled of grease and oil and all the odors mechanics loved.
    Two men were sitting, side by side, on a workbench, their legs dangling in the air, eating their own sandwiches and drinking from cups of thermoses that had been retrieved from metal lunchboxes. They wore gray coveralls, which hid some of the dirt that went with their jobs.
    They glanced up as I approached and stopped talking. I addressed the older one, because his white hair made him look like a White, saying, “Mr. White?”
    He nodded and the younger one said, “That’s his name; don’t wear it out.”
    “My name is Gary Blanchard. I’m a cousin of Ralph…Harrison.” I figured knowing that would make him more likely to talk to me, since he shouldn’t have anything to hide. “I just started here at Carter.”
    Mr. White nodded and took a swig of whatever was in his thermos. He was going to make me do the talking. The younger man slid off the workbench and walked away.
    “I understand that you’re the one who found Ralph in the auditorium.”
    Mr. White nodded again. I remained silent, hoping he would say something. He looked at me with his blue eyes, set in a face the color and consistency of white bread dough, and said, “I went in to clean up after the assembly. Didn’t see nuthin’ out of place