signed by Bill Gates. It's a little hard to decipher his handwriting, but it really says Bill Gates. This hat is my most prized possession."
"My Sam was partial to that hat a his, too." A grin suddenly lit Nana's face. "Shoot. I remember now. I buried him in it."
Oh, God. "Where did you say Tilly was digging?"
"She's not. She's so upset about the mess everyone's makin', she's just rockin' back and forth, mutterin' Swahili under her breath."
I eyed her skeptically. "You know Swahili?"
"Learnin' Channel special." She gave the bottom of my tank top a tug. "Emily, them two hotties what we saw in the lecture room yesterday are diggin' holes hell-bent for election. The blonde is drawin' some kind a chart, and the brunette is takin' measurements. Like they done stuff like this before." She bobbed her head toward a humpbacked rock in the foreground. "There they are. Eleven o'clock."
I've often wondered what the state of accurate direction-giving would be if the first clocks had been digital instead of analog. I followed her gaze. The two women were less conspicuous today than they'd been yesterday, dressed in cropped T-shirts and mid-thigh shorts, elbows pumping as they hollowed out a section of black earth. They appeared calm, focused, and methodical. Scientific, almost.
"They certainly are tidy," I observed. "Look how they're storing all the soil in that one isolated spot. Everyone else is so haphazard." I studied their movements with an eagle eye. "They sure act like pros. They even look like they've gotten their hands on some special kind of digging implements. What do you think those things are?"
"Teaspoons," said Nana. "They'd be better off with cereal spoons, but there was a run on 'em at breakfast this mornin'." She pulled an enormous spoon from the pocket of her jacket and regarded it proudly. "I got the last one."
I shook my head. "So tomorrow's breakfast crowd shovels down their Cocoa Puffs with what? Forks?"
"But, Emily, don't you think it's suspicious that them two are here lookin' for" -- she sidled a look at Jonathan -- "you know what? They got a map and everythin'."
I sighed. "I'd be all over them if they were the only ones digging. But look at this place! Everyone's digging. Everyone has a map!"
"That's the thing, dear." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Bernice didn't sell them two girls a map. She didn't have to. They already had one."
My eyelids flapped up into my head like jet-powered window shades. "Excuse me?"
Jonathan made a choking sound beside me. "That's her." Spinning around so that his back was facing the digging activity, he angled his head toward me and said in a stage whisper, "The blonde with Beth's tattoo. She's here!" He stabbed a finger toward the humpbacked rock.
I looked from the blonde, to Jonathan, to the blonde again. That's the blonde he was talking about? She really got around. Staring daggers at Professor Smoker yesterday afternoon and cussing out Bailey last night. And...she had a map. The synapses in my brain started firing off like the cannon section in the 1812 Overture. Okay, now I was suspicious. I was really suspicious.
"I'm so nervous, my knees are shaking," Jonathan confessed as he straightened his hat. "Did she catch me looking at her? Is she staring at me?"
He was wearing earflaps. Everyone was staring at him.
"IS THERE SOMEBODY HERE NAMED EMILY ANDREW?" a male voice belted out.
I looked out across the grounds to find a middle-aged guy in a lime green muscle shirt and flowered shorts waving a baseball cap in the air. I waved back. "I'm Emily!" But who in the world was he?
He trotted the short distance toward me, the flab beneath his muscle shirt bouncing up and down like the contents of a half-filled water balloon. He gave me a flinty look as he slapped a cell phone into my hand. "It's for you. And I don't give a damn if it is an emergency. I have to pay the roaming charges, so you better make it short."
"An emergency?" I stared at the phone in dread. Oh, God. Had something happened to Mom or Dad? My brother Steve or his wife? The boys? Heart hammering in my chest, I raised the phone to my ear. "H-hello?"
"Ciao, bella."
"Etienne? Oh, my God. Are you all right? What's happened? Where are you? What's wrong?"
"You're angry with me," he said rather tightly in his beautiful French/German/Italian accent. "That should explain exactly what's wrong."
I opened my mouth to reply, my thought