Her long, slender fingers lay motionless on the keys of the mahogany grand piano as she thought about her family ... and of a precious possession. "Will it ever be found?" she whispered aloud, her eyes becoming transfixed on the flickering of the brass candelabra. She had been certain that by now the secret would have been unlocked, but time was running out. There is still a chance, if only the two young girls find the way to connect to the past ... her past.

"Hey, Cynthia," I yelled as I rounded the corner of her house, squinting in the morning sun as it glared off the white clapboards. Shoving a huge wad of Bazooka bubble gum to the opposite side of my mouth, I managed to continue, "Hurry up! You're the only one with a catcher's mitt."

"Oh, Gus," Cynthia whined, fussing with her pink chenille robe as she hung halfway out the window, "do I have to play? You know I'm no good at softball." Craftily changing the subject, she added, "I just got that new Beatles record today. C'mon up and listen to it."

That sure sounded tempting ... but no, I stood my ground. "You promised, Cynthia," I demanded, kicking a big clump of dirt off the sidewalk and back into the flowerbed. "Tell ya what, just play for a little while and then I'll listen to your stupid record."

"Oh, all right." She sighed, disappearing behind the ruffled purple curtain.

Cynthia and I were as different as bubble gum and broccoli (except for our ability to get in trouble without much effort). I was a freckle-faced tomboy-skinny and sort of shy, but with enough athletic ability to make most of the clumsy boys my age envious. And on any given day, my copper-red hair looked like I'd spent the entire night twirling around on top of my head.

Cynthia looked like a cherub-pretty and petite, with beautiful blonde curls and a ponytail that was always neatly tied with a shiny satin ribbon. Coordination was not her middle name (board games and jigsaw puzzles were about as physical as she liked to get), but she was always willing, with some coaxing from me, to try just about anything. Even though we'd never be mistaken for twins, we were as close as if we were sisters, and argued like it from time to time.

"Could you walk any slower?" I bellowed when Cynthia finally came ambling across the field chewing on her mitt.

"I'm coming! I'm coming, Augusta Lee," she answered, her voice dripping in sarcasm.

"Oh, there's that name," I mumbled under my breath. "She knows I hate it."

I was christened Augusta Lee after my grandfather, Augustus Leopold. But no one dared call me that except my mother, and then only when she was very, very angry, as in "Augusta Lee! You come in here and pick these dirty clothes up off the floor!" Cynthia, and anyone else who didn't want a kick in the shins, just called me Gus.

By the time Cynthia moseyed onto the field, the neighborhood kids had already chosen sides. On a good day there were ten of us-five on each team-gathered in the vacant lot where we'd play from early morning until well into the long summer nights.

I stood at home plate, bat on shoulder, impatiently awaiting the pitch as Cynthia meticulously brushed clean a spot on the ground before squatting into the catcher's position. Finally, the game began.

Every now and then one of us would hit one "out of the park," which meant losing another softball in old Mr. Martin's yard. "If I'd wanted kids in my yard I would've had some of my own," he'd yell whenever we'd try to retrieve an errant line drive. Even when he was inside, Daisy, his "lovable" Doberman Pinscher would stand guard. I should add that, to his credit, he'd usually return the balls at the end of the summer, but then the whole process would start over again the next year.

It wasn't an issue this time, because I struck out.

"Nice swing, Gus." Cynthia smirked, flipping the ball back to the pitcher. I just glared and snatched my glove up off the ground. Fortunately for Cynthia, that day we didn't have extra players to cover the outfield, so it was my turn to stop the occasional fly ball from bouncing into the street, or worse yet, into Daisy's slobbering mouth.

The score was tied in the fourth inning when the pitcher's mother abruptly ended the game. "Becky," she called out her back door. "You promised to baby-sit your little sister, remember?" This created a problem since Becky had the only decent bat. However, it wasn't too disappointing since, in spite of what I'd said earlier, I really was anxious to hear the new Beatles record. Not only that, Cynthia's house was special.

I lived in a house that only thirty years earlier had been the small barn behind old Mrs. Beanblossom's mansion on the corner. The rooms were barely large enough for furniture, let alone creating mysteries or uncovering secret hiding places. Cynthia, on the other hand, lived in one of those great three-story "exploring houses" that had been in the family for generations. If you came in through the front door (which no one ever did except for Reverend Richert and snooty Mrs. Fromley, the president of the Ladies Society League), you'd be standing in the foyer. Turning to the left, you could look through French doors into the music room that for some ridiculous reason was off limits to Cynthia and me. The room was brimming with bookcases, all kinds of sheet music from the past forty years or so, and any kind of musical instrument you could possibly think of, most of which came from my family's music store.

The focus of the room was an antique mahogany grand piano that was even older than Cynthia's grandmother, Mama Clara. The only child allowed to actually touch this treasured instrument was Cynthia's older sister, Danielle, who had taken piano lessons for almost ten years and who would play for hours. As we ran through the house we could hear the music of Chopin drifting through the closed doors.

The kitchen, just across the hallway from the den, was small and cozy, and equipped with the most modern appliances. Off to one side in the breakfast nook was a brand new aqua and chrome dinette set where I'd sometimes join Cynthia and her brother and sister for breakfast before school. But what I most looked forward to were the days when I'd walk into the house smelling buttery shortcake baking in the oven, and knowing that as soon as it was done, fresh-picked strawberries and real whipped cream would be piled on top.

On our way up to Cynthia's bedroom that day, she turned and whispered, "I've got an idea, Gus. Let's get my record player and take it to the den. We can turn it up full blast and see how long it takes for my sister to start screaming!"

"Yeah!" I grinned, taking the stairs two at a time. Danielle was four years older, and had about as much use for us as the Indiana red clay she wiped off her shoes at the front door.

Hurriedly grabbing the record player, we tiptoed back down the stairs, past the music room on our way to the den, being careful not to tip off Danielle. Cynthia headed left into the den, but I turned right, unable to resist the temptation to stick my head in the kitchen and sniff. To my disappointment there were no heavenly aromas coming from the oven.

"C'mon Gus," she ordered, kneeling on the blue plush carpet in the den as she placed the record onto the turntable. "We don't have all day."

I wasn't sure why we didn't have all day. I didn't have to be home until supper. Oh well, why argue? Cynthia was boss at her house.

The paneled den on the sunny southeast corner of the house, furnished with a large leather sofa and soft upholstered chairs, always felt warm and comfortable. More than once, I'd curled up in one of those chairs and fallen fast asleep. But not today, because the doors flew open right on cue. "What do you two think you're doing?" Danielle shrieked as she stormed into the room.

Well, that didn't take long-about five seconds, give or take a second or two.

"Take that irritating music upstairs, and don't come down until I'm through practicing," she yelled, stomping back down the hallway. "I have a recital in three weeks, you know!"

It had only taken one look at her red, angry face to tell us this was no time to argue. We quickly grabbed the records and the record player and ran back upstairs.

"Wow! Did you see her face?" I gasped as soon as we were in the safety of Cynthia's room with the door securely shut.

"Yeah," giggled Cynthia. "My day just isn't complete until I've made her screaming mad at least once."

"I don't know about you," I said, catching my breath, "but in my opinion we should stay out of her way for awhile."

"You're probably right," Cynthia agreed, as we plopped down on her fluffy purple-flowered spread that matched the colors of the iris bed in the side yard.

"So ... while we're waiting for Danielle to cool down," she continued, "let's figure out what we're going to do this summer. I do not want to be bored out of my skull for the next three months."

The year we both turned twelve had started out with one catastrophe after another. My February birthday party was snowed out by the most ferocious blizzard in almost a hundred years, and the day before her birthday on the first of May, Cynthia got the worst case of chicken pox Dr. Dillard had ever seen. As June approached, however, everything seemed to have settled down. She had a point ... it looked like it was going to be just another uneventful summer.

"Well," I stated, "I say we do something that will keep us out of the house. I refuse to spend another vacation being yelled at by your sister and pestered by your stupid brother."

"So, what do you want to do?" she asked.

"Well ... we could get the gang together and have a softball tournament," I suggested hopefully.

"No! My leg's still sore from that foul ball you hit today, not to mention the fact that I broke a nail," she snapped, waving her index finger in front of my face and stopping it dead center just inches from the end of my nose.

"Wait, I've got it," she exclaimed.

My eyes uncrossed just in time to see her jump exuberantly off the bed. "Let's investigate the attic! I heard my mother complaining to Dad about how much junk was up there and that they simply had to clean it out next week, so I think we should look around up there before they get rid of all the good stuff."