This had not cheered Nate up.
Stevie sat on the least cobwebby window seat and watched the ground below, waiting for her guest. She finally saw him approach, dressed in flowing orange harem pants and a Box
Box T-shirt. Carson came up the steps two at a time.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Sounds important.”
“I know who left the message on our wall,” Stevie said. “And the box on your path.”
“Oh! Oh, great!” He nodded, but his eyes darted a bit and he tucked his hands into his slouchy harem pant pockets.
“You did,” Stevie said.
This much she had already revealed to Nate and Janelle, who looked at Carson with unimpressed faces.
“Me? I . . .”
“I wouldn’t recommend whatever you’re planning on saying,” Janelle said, joining Stevie on the window bench.
“I would.” Nate was sprawled on the floor, picking at the splinters. “I like it when Stevie goes feral.”
To his credit, Carson said no more. He sat down on the floor and crossed his legs in a full yogic knot.
“Now will you tell us the how?” Janelle said. “That’s more what I want to know.”
“Sure.” Stevie stretched out a bit and her neck made a loud crack. “We knew from the start that the message was put on our wall in advance. We know that because it was dry and because there was paint under my bed. Also, we went all over the cabin to see how someone might get in. The screen windows have metal grates over them, the door was locked from the inside, and the floor is made of concrete. Impossible, right? But there was one way—there’s a hole in the screen on the window, only an inch or two big. And tonight, when I saw Dylan stick that entire hot dog roll in his mouth, I realized how someone could
use a hole that size to gain access to our cabin.”
“Not what I expected to hear you say,” Nate said, “but okay.”
“You can get something large through a small opening if it’s soft,” Stevie went on. “The hot dog roll was soft, so Dylan could shove it in his mouth. So what might go through a little hole in a screen? Maybe something like this.”
Stevie held up the reusable bag Carson had given her. She made an okay gesture with her right hand, and with the left, pulled the bag through the circle made by her fingers.
“Fabric,” she said. “And who has a lot of fabric in custom, photorealistic patterns?”
“Oh no,” Janelle said, shaking her head. “Oh . . . you have got to be kidding me.”
“There’s an entire wall of it at the Bounce House,” Stevie said. “All you’d need to do is make a wood pattern. It was probably up there on the wall. You painted the message on the wall—kind of high up, so it was more in line with the window, and more in shadow. You let the paint drip, but not too much, because you had to make sure the message fit under the piece of fabric you were going to use to cover it. You wiped away any extra so it wouldn’t show. When it was dry, you covered it up with the piece of fabric, attaching it with some tape.”
She held up the piece of tape she’d found under the bed. She had gone back and retrieved it before this meeting.
“All you needed to do then was attach some thread or fishing line or something and string it out the window. Sometime in the night, you gave the string a tug and the fabric slid
out through the screen. I think it must have brushed against my face as it came down. I thought what I felt was some kind of insect. And that was it. A message mysteriously appears on our wall. Then, of course, you prepared the box of dolls and claimed to find it on your run.”