Chapter
Two
The thing about the little town of
Pepperlane is that when a fire breaks out, it’s a big event and everyone comes to check it out. The tool
shop owner, Mr. Fifer, had not been found and the community was fearing the
worst. But then they discovered his truck was gone.
Sophie had brought in Gingersnap right
away when the sirens blasted and all the other onlookers arrived. Gingersnap
was very happy to be away from all the noise and the smelly smoke. It was a
black oily smoke that bellowed out of the building. Fire trucks and emergency vehicles
were on sight trying to put it all out but it was proving to be challenging.
Sophie and Gingersnap watched along with
everybody else but from the safety of inside the shop. Gingersnap remembered
what he saw and he was thinking that the fire was not an accident. All those
round boxes that they were loading up, what was in them? Gingersnap did not
like either one of those men. Mr. Fifer was always grumpy and he didn’t like
cats.
Sophie sighed. “Well, I hope everything is
okay but it appears they have the fire undr control now. Time to go back to
work and figure out this order from the new garden shop owner, Mr. Grant. I’ll
talk to James and see if he has come up with a solution the cookie shapes.”
She patted the top of Gingersnap’s head
and left to go to the main kitchen. Gingersnap continued to watch the
firefighters put out the fire. It was more black smoke than flame now. His nose
twitched at the smell of all that oily black smoke.
Suddenly the building caved in. Everybody
ran for cover. Gingersnap ducked even though he didn’t have to. When he peeked
over the window ledge, the building was now flat. Hmm, thought Gingersnap that
was meant to happen. That was they loaded everything up. But why those boxes?
None of this made sense to Gingersnap. He hopped down and ventured to where
James and Sophie were. Most of the time he was not really allowed in the main kitchen
when James was baking. But they were both talking about those cookies and James
had drawn on hard paper to make templates out of them. Sophie said it might
work.
Sophie started to help James mix up the
cookie dough. It was all going to be mixed up in a very large mixer. Gingersnap
didn’t like that contraption so he went back out to the office and hopped up on
Sophie’s desk. He laid on the order forms that she had spread out on her desk.
He had a good view out the window across the street. Everything was put out now
and Men were carrying some things out of the tool shop that had not caved in.
He was sure that they would some evidence that would explain things. But he saw
one fellow scratch his head. He was holding in his hand a charred round box. One of the firefighters came up to him and
they both were looking it over.
They walked off with it anyway. Gingersnap
hopped off the desk and onto his cat hammock. This was enough excitement that
would leave the town gossiping he knew. The vehicles were all gone down. Just
as Gingersnap was going to doze off, a van came rushing up to the old tool
shop. Gingersnap’s ears perked. It looked like the garden man’s van from earlier.
It had stopped where the door they used to be. It was now half crumbled from
the fall in.
It was him. Gingersnap saw him get out and
look things over. He stood there for a long time and rubbed his chin. He was up
to something. Sophie came in at that point and noticed Gingersnap looking
intently out the window. “What is going on out there?”
She made a face when she saw who it was. “What
is Mr. Grant doing there?”
They watched him walk around the charred
remains of the building and then he hopped in his van and took off. “That was
interesting, why was he looking the building over for. He just bought the
garden shop.”
Gingersnap made a muffled mew sound. She
grinned down at him. “You think something is up don’t you and you know what? I
think you are right. We will have to keep an eye on what is going on for the
next couple of days. Might be interesting.
That night when Sophie was closing up
shop, she noticed something across the street at the tool shop. Someone was
over there with a flash light. “How did they get in there?”
The town had put fence around it for now
to keep people out. She looked again and could see they were looking for
something. There was something going on. She slipped out with her binoculars through
the back door and sat on her porch. Sophie peered through them and was shocked.
It was Mr. Grant. “Gingersnap is right about you. You can’t be trusted. Then she
thought about her cookies. That large order and all the fuss it was causing. Would
he even want them? She was not happy at watching Mr. Grant sneak about the tool
shop. And no one had seen Mr. Fifer either.
Finally Mr. Grant came out and he didn’t
look happy. She was hoping that he would not notice her spying on him. But he
was too upset to notice her. He got in his van and drove off.
Sophie went inside and made herself some
tea. What was she to do with this order? She didn’t want James going to all
this work on these cookies. She nodded to herself that she would contact him in
the morning.
She took her tea upstairs and Gingersnap
was already on the bed in his basket waiting for her. “Well, Gingersnap, that
Mr. Grant man was back again with his flashlight snooping around. He is after
something that Mr. Fifer had. Something is up with that man and where is Mr.
Fifer in all this. He has not turned up yet.”
They both went to bed and Sophie made up
her mind in the morning to find out from Mr. Grant what was going on.
Gingersnap snorted and knew it wouldn’t be good.
It was in the middle of the night when
Gingersnap was awakened. It was something going on out there. So he hopped down
and leaped up onto the large window ledge to look. There was a truck parked at
the tool shop. Gingersnap knew it was Mr. Grant. With his keen cat eye he could
see him dressed all in black. It framed his large body and made him look like a
black blob. It looked like he was trying to load something up and whatever it
was, it was heavy as Gingersnap saw him struggling with the large item. Somehow
he managed to load it up on his truck. Then he saw him drag something long out
of the back of the truck and take it inside.
Gingersnap mewed loudly when he saw Mr.
Grant light a match.
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