The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

shape to do anything. I don’t even see how you can drive me home.”
    “I’ll be fine. I can drive. Give me a few minutes.”
    “All right. But then you’ve got to come back and rest. And make sure you don’t have a concussion.”
    ***
    Somehow I drove Sylvia safely home, although I was nauseated and glad to get back to the farm where I could lie down.
    Uncle Jeff came home first and gave me aspirin and ice cubes wrapped in a towel to bring down the swelling. I told him I had hit my head in the hayloft, without saying exactly how. I implied that it had happened while I was practicing basketball. Apparently I didn’t have a concussion, although I did have one lollapalooza of a headache.
    By the time Aunt Dorothy arrived home, I was feeling better, and we decided that I didn’t need to go to the doctor. I tried to do some homework, but I couldn’t concentrate and went to bed early.
    ***
    In school on Friday, my head was still tender, and I wasn’t speaking in a loud voice. I was looking for an opportunity to tell Ed that I hadn’t found the necklace. He never showed up at lunchtime, so I went looking for him during the activities period. I went into the room containing the duplicating equipment, because that also served as the headquarters for the school paper.
    Ed wasn’t there, but Ruth Allen was. She was wearing a straight skirt down to her calves and long socks that disappeared somewhere up into the skirt.
    I said hello to her and then said, “How far up do those socks go?”
    “Too far for you to look,” she said with the hint of a smile.
    Those were almost the first human words she had spoken to me. I asked her if she knew where Ed was. She said he was sick today. That explained his nonappearance at lunch.
    Ruth seemed friendlier than she had before, so I decided to chat with her for a while and admire her figure. After we had talked for a couple of minutes, I said, “You know that I’ve been interested in finding exactly how Ralph died and whether anybody was with him. I admit that I talked to Ed about you, and he verified that you were in the class you had after the assembly, so that you couldn’t have been in the auditorium.”
    Ruth looked at me strangely. She said, “I was in that class, but Ed wasn’t.”
    “Are you absolutely sure about that?”
    “Yes, I’m sure. Somebody brought a message about Ralph to the classroom, and the teacher announced what had happened to him. I completely fell apart. I remember looking for Ed, because I knew that he was Ralph’s cousin, and because I thought we could comfort each other. But he wasn’t there.”
    “Have you ever told anybody that?”
    “No. I never thought it was relevant. I thought Ralph’s death was an accident. I had seen Ralph do a handstand on the auditorium balcony. It scared the life out of me, and I made him promise never to do it again. But obviously he didn’t keep that promise.”
    We looked at each other for a minute. Then Ruth said, “Do you think…do you think…that Ed might have had something to do with Ralph’s death?”
    “I’m not sure. But I have reason to be suspicious. Don’t say anything to anybody. I’m going to see Ed tomorrow—that is if he’s well by then. I’ve got some questions to ask him.”
    The room contained at least a dozen typewriters. Typing classes were taught here.
    “Do you and Ed use these typewriters?” I asked Ruth.
    “Sure. All the time. The teacher trusts us. We can use any equipment here.”
    My thought was that if Ed had typed the mysterious limerick that had appeared in my locker, he might have done it on one of these typewriters. It had become clear to me that he had learned a lot about me before we met. He certainly could have known about my limerick writing from Aunt Dorothy, even before I wrote a limerick for him. I wasn’t going to go to the trouble of getting a sample from each of these typewriters now. But it was an option for later.

    CHAPTER 25
    Saturday morning, I drove to the Drucquers’ house to pick up Ed. The sun was shining, but the air was cool. When I had called him last night, he said he had an upset stomach, which is why he stayed home from school. But he was feeling better. I didn’t question him about whether his stomach ache was real or a ploy to skip school. I pulled into the driveway of the ramshackle house, and before I could open the door to get out, Kate came running out of the house, dressed in blue jeans and a heavy sweater.
    I rolled down