The Bell Bandit Read Online Free Page A

called the fire department.
    "You don't see that every day!" said Maxwell, after describing what the fire had looked like.
    Jessie looked at him. There was something funny about this kid.
    They had crossed the first hill and the second, and now they were at the bottom of Lovell's Hill, the highest of the little hills on this part of Grandma's property. In five minutes Jessie would reach the top and be able to see the wooden crossbeam and the bell. The crossbeam was made out of two heavy oak beams that were joined in the shape of an upside-down L. When Jessie was younger, she would ask Evan to lift her up so that she could hang on the end of the top beam and swing her legs back and forth, pretending that she was a second bell, ringing. Now that she was older, the crossbeam was only a little taller than she was, so she didn't need anyone to lift her up.
    Jessie trudged forward, Maxwell gliding alongside. She was almost there. She could just see the top of the crossbeam. The afternoon sun was starting to set, slicing its way down Black Bear Mountain. It was hard to look up at the crest of the hill, because the sun was setting directly behind it, causing the snow to glint fiercely. Jessie shielded her eyes and tried to see the top of the hill. Maxwell was
shooshing
by her side, swinging his poles back and forth with wild flailing motions, cutting new tracks in the untouched snow.
    Trudge, trudge, trudge.
Jessie looked up once more just as the sun dipped below the mountain, throwing the hillside into sudden shadow. There was the crest. There was the wooden crossbeam.
    But the bell was gone.

Chapter 4
That Bad Feeling
    Evan stared in amazement. The hole in the wall was gone. He and Pete had worked all day, first ripping out the damaged studs and replacing them with clean, dry wood, then trimming the old boards so that the ragged hole became a neat rectangle, then measuring and cutting and nailing in the new sheets of plywood. There was still the dry wall to hang and the outside shingles to replace, but the hole was gone. Evan had never felt such a sense of accomplishment in his life, not even when he and Jessie had won the Labor Day Poster Contest at the end of the summer.
    Now he was sweeping up the sawdust that lay as thick as a carpet under his feet. Pete said no carpenter worth his salt leaves a mess behind at the end of the day. So Evan was sweeping up the sawdust and bent nails and small chips of wood, while Pete hauled the bigger scraps out to the truck. But every once in a while, Evan stopped and held the broom still in his hands so that he could admire the work they had done. He couldn't wait to show his mom when she got back from the hospital.
    He was dumping the last pile of sawdust into the large gray plastic barrel when he heard loud clomping on the front porch, followed by the front door opening. Evan walked into the living room just as Jessie tried to step over the threshold wearing her snowshoes.
    "Evan! The bell is gone!" She tripped over the doormat and fell face first into the living room, landing hard on her hands and knees. Behind her was an older boy Evan had never seen before. He had funny-looking cross-country shoe-boots on his feet, and he was carrying a pair of ski poles. Evan guessed he was at least twelve, maybe thirteen.
    "I can't get these off," said Jessie. She had rolled onto her back in the living room and was holding her feet up in the air. The snowshoes were dripping clumps of snow onto her face and the floor. "Help me, Evan!"
    "Oh, for Pete's sake," he said. He crossed over to where she was squirming and grabbed hold of one of the snowshoes. The boy had a funny smile on his face and was rocking back and forth, one foot out in front of the other. "Hey," said Evan, as a way of introducing himself.
    "You don't see that every day," said the boy, looking at Jessie, who looked like a ladybug caught on her back.
    "Yeah, actually, I do," said Evan. Jessie was always tripping over something or getting