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Crane turned his at ention to Timothy
    instead. “I think you’ve got some explaining to

    instead. “I think you’ve got some explaining to
    do, young man.”
    “Me?” said Timothy.
    “You’re lucky you didn’t damage that
    beautiful painting upstairs. Throwing water
    like that. What could you possibly have been
    thinking?”
    “But I didn’t …”
    “It wasn’t Timothy, Mr. Crane,” said Abigail
    quietly. “It was … someone else.”
    “Who?” said Mr. Crane.
    The re in Abigail’s eyes seemed to spark at
    that. “Not Timothy!” Timothy felt a pang of
    triumph that she was standing up for him.
    The teacher turned red, and his mouth
    dropped open.
    “Abigail,” whispered her grandmother.
    “Apologize right now.”
    She blushed but mumbled, “I’m sorry, Mr.
    Crane.”
    “This is not like you, Abigail,” Zilpha said,
    placing a hand on her granddaughter’s

    placing a hand on her granddaughter’s
    shoulder. She glanced harshly at Timothy, as if
    it was al his fault.

    9.
    Timothy and Abigail didn’t tel Mr. Crane who
    threw the water bal oon; they couldn’t prove it.
    After they had joined the rest of the class,
    Zilpha Kindred had kissed her granddaughter
    goodbye and quietly slipped back downstairs.
    Mr. Crane forced both Abigail and Timothy to
    accompany him, as the rest of the students were
    now free to roam and gather information
    regarding their projects. As they wandered,
    silently, Abigail had refused to glance up from
    the ground, lost once again in her own private
    world—a world where Timothy, apparently,
    was not al owed.
    On the ride back to school, he sat by himself in
    the front of the bus, wel away from both Stuart
    and Abigail. By then, he’d nearly dried o and
    was able to recal what had happened inside

    was able to recal what had happened inside
    the museum. Timothy wondered if he’d
    momentarily gone bonkers, but he knew that
    couldn’t be the case, not entirely. He had nearly
    forgot en the proof of the shadow man, which
    was currently pressed like a cold hand into the
    smal of his back.
    He pul ed the book out from his pants. It was
    slight, the paper jacket was torn halfway down
    the back, and the entire bot om right corner
    was missing. On the cover was a simple
    painted il ustration of a rosy-cheeked, dark-
    haired girl dressed in a calf-length blue skirt,
    socks pul ed almost al the way up to her
    knees, a white sweater, and a red silk scarf
    wrapped around her thin neck. She knelt
    before the opening of a smal dark hole that
    had been carved into the slope of a hil in a
    mossy forest. She looked over her shoulder
    curiously, as if she’d noticed someone creeping
    up behind her. In the background, silhouet es
    of several gothic buildings poked out from a
    hil side, looking like Col ege Ridge up near
    Edgehil Road. Was this book a New Starkham

    Edgehil Road. Was this book a New Starkham
    story? Now Timothy was even more intrigued.
    He looked closer. The title stretched across the
    top of the book. The Clue of the Incomplete
    Corpse: A Zelda Kite Mystery. Someone named
    Ogden Kentwal had writ en the book.
    Weird names. Weird book.
    Timothy had the impression that the sight of
    the old woman had startled the shadow man,
    and in his haste to leave, he’d somehow
    dropped the book. Surely the man had meant
    to return and pick it up once everyone had
    gone. Too late, thought Timothy.
    Unless he comes to take it back.
    Goose bumps tickled Timothy’s scalp. Maybe
    I should have left it there, he thought.
    Quickly, he glanced over his shoulder,
    peering above the heads of his classmates and
    out the rear window of the bus, trying to see
    through the mist and the rain to make out if
    there was a pair of headlights fol owing close
    behind. There was nothing. He immediately
    turned and hunched his shoulders, trying to

    turned and hunched his shoulders, trying to
    become invisible himself.
    As the bus bumped back across the Taft
    Bridge toward New Starkham, Timothy