The Carvings

The answers

       The next morning, I went and knocked on Joan's door. No answer.

"Joan, ready to go to Dan's practice?" I asked through the door. No answer.

"Joan?" I pushed open her door a little bit. She wasn't in there. I figured she was downstairs so I headed down and only saw Dan eating a piece of toast with jelly on it.

"Hey. Glad to see you finally get up. I was starting to worry." Dan said.

"Hey where's Joan?" I asked.

"I don't know. She left a little bit ago. She didn't say anything, just grabbed her purse and left." Dan said pointing to the door. I looked at the door.

"Maybe she went out with John." I suggested.

"Before the big talk with Mrs. Douglas?" Dan asked annoyed.

"Yeah, I'll text her later and have her meet us there once we're on our way." I said grabbing a pop tart and shoving it in my mouth. We went outside, and grabbed our bikes.

Once we made it to practice, I went over to my regular spot on the bleachers and pulled out my phone. I dialed Joan's number.

"Hello?" Joan asked.

"Hey. Where are you?" I asked.

"I'm at the gym where Dan practices. I'm looking right at you." She answered.

"What where?" I asked looking around. I spotted her by Thomas. They were talking then he looked over at me and smiled.

Great, Joan came early to talk about me to Thomas. I thought. Then Joan came over and sat by me. I waited for her to tell me what that was all about but she acted like nothing ever happened.

"Well?" I asked looking at her.

"Well what?" She asked smiling.

"What was that about?" I asked getting irritated.

"What was what about?" She asked, never looking at me. I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Oh you mean me talking to Thomas? Oh yeah that was nothing."

"Sure, okay." I said, focusing back on Dan and the game.

"So, do you know where Mrs. Douglas lives or are we supposed to guess?" Joan asked.

"We can always look her up in the phone book." I suggested.

"I don't think this town believes in phone books." Joan said chuckling.

"Come on Joan be nice. We live here now." I said.

"Okay, well we could always ask the guy at the game store again." Joan said.

"No, he wasn't very helpful last time so defiantly not him." I said.

"I thought you'd say that. Okay well we could always ask someone here. Like Thomas." Joan said pointing to Thomas. Had she planned this?

"I'm sure Thomas knows where Mrs. Douglas lives." I said with a sarcastic tone.

"Oh he does. While I was talking to him, our house came up in the conversation. I mentioned that we needed to speak with Mrs. Douglas and he told me that she was a sweet old lady. He mows her lawn in the summer and rakes her leaves in the fall for free." Joan said.

"Wow, that's great." I said rolling my eyes.

"Yeah, and he said he'd be glad to show us the way. Right after practice he'll take us over." Joan said smiling.

"Wow. Now I know why you got here early." I said. "But we don't need his help. We don't know him and it's just easier to ask the game store guy."

"We also don't know the game store guy. At least Thomas is close to our age. Look we need answers. I don't care if we don't know him, he's showing us the way to Mrs. Douglas and that's finale." Joan said.