Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff

Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff — page 7 — that and even they do it only when I'm in trouble Anybody else if they don't want a bloody nose calls me Abbey In case you don't get it I hate the name Abigail Bee is the same Her name is Beatrice Call her Bee or get ready to take your medicine Like I said our last names are the same but the way in which we are related could only happen in the South in what used to be called the Confederate States of America before the Late Unpleasantness The Late Unpleasantness is how some of the really old white people in South Carolina still refer to the Civil War Either that or they call it the War of Northern Aggression It's obvious to me that they have totally forgotten who started the shooting Bee's family would most definitely not call it the War of Northern Aggression If they had a name for it that was different from the Civil War they might more likely call it the War That Got Us Out of Chains That's because way back then Bee's family members were slaves on my family's plantation The reason our last names are the same is that slaves didn't have last names and when they were freed they often took the last names of their ex owners You'd think a history like ours might have kept Bee and me from being friends but fortunately a lot of things have changed in the past hundred and fifty years For example Reward the plantation my family owned for three hundred years ever since my distant ancestors fled from France now belonged to Bee's family How all of that came about is related to a mystery Bee and I solved when we first became friends Anyway all that badness between our ancestors has actually made Bee and me close We were so close we called ourselves

Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff — page 8 — histers It was a word we made up and it was a combination of history and sisters It meant that we were related by things that happened many many years ago that we had nothing to do with but which had a lot to do with us and who we were All that past history bonded us together Almost like blood kin Adding to that the fact that we were also best friends we figure that makes us histers Everything I'm about to tell you followed on the heels of the first mystery that Bee and I solved in May of the year we first met First off in June Daddy finally opened his eyes and woke up from the coma he'd been in for over nine months The doctors had told me that waking up from a coma is a lot different than waking from sleep but I had always dreamed that Daddy would just open his eyes and jump out of bed like he used to when I would wake him up on Saturday or Sunday to go fishing That wasn't at all how it happened It actually took about a week for him to get to where he could talk and sit up in bed and then it took another week for him to get out of bed When he finally did get up he had to hobble around all slow and bent over like a very old man It made me happy but it also made me afraid because I wanted my father back and because the person who had opened his eyes seemed almost like a stranger and not at all like the person in my memories But it was Daddy and after those first two slow weeks he got to be more like himself almost every single day He stayed in the hospital most of July in order to do physical therapy and make himself stronger When he finally came home to Reward Plantation on Leadenwah Island he and I moved into the old tenant house right next door to Bee in the big house

Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff — page 9 — If Daddy hated the fact that we had lost the plantation or that the tenant house wasn't as nice as the big house which is what everybody called the old plantation house he never complained I think he agreed with me that if we had to sell Reward Bee's family were the perfect new owners That July when Daddy was recovering was also when all the people who had tried to frame Daddy for the theft of Miss Lydia Jenkins's jewelry stood trial Fortunately they were all found guilty of grand larceny and also of the attempted murder of Bee Daddy and yours truly The bad guys were all going to be in prison for a good while which meant Bee Daddy Grandma Em and I could all sleep better at night As soon as Daddy came home from the hospital he and I began taking long walks together every single morning as he worked to build up his strength I had planted the house garden early in the spring just like Daddy had always done so we had lots of fresh vegetables to eat mostly tomatoes because South Carolina's high summer is too hot for most other things On our walks I would blab my head off like I always had with him but Daddy didn't say as much as he had before his coma Sometimes he would stop and stare off in space and say nothing at all At those times whenever I asked him what he was thinking about he would shake his head smile and say Nothing Bee's grandmother Grandma Em asked us to dinner down at the big house almost every night and she cooked just about the best food in the whole world I made sure Daddy ate big meals every day because he needed to put muscles back on his body I also made sure he got plenty of sleep even sneaking his

Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff — page 10 — cell phone out of his room at night and putting it back before he woke up the next morning so no one would disturb him One day toward the end of August during the last sleepy days of summer vacation everything suddenly picked up speed First off there was a big robbery that got everybody's attention when some people stole an armored car full of money The newspaper had big articles about it because the armored car had supposedly been carrying a lot more money than average about eight million dollars The robbers knocked out the guards somehow and the truck and all its money just flat out disappeared Then there was a second robbery just a couple days later when somebody broke into a gas company and stole one of their trucks This all went down near our island which is a place where nothing much unusual ever happens And then there was a third robbery one that got Bee and me way more involved in all the crazy happenings than two twelve year old girls ever should be The very first sign that all these robberies might affect me came in a way I didn't even recognize when it happened It was like a line of dark clouds that pop up on the horizon and at first just look like they might bring some rain but a few hours later when the wind is snapping trees and the water is rising it's obvious that those clouds meant something a whole lot worse than a rainstorm It happened the Saturday morning Daddy came down to breakfast all shaved and showered and wearing a business suit It was the first time he'd put on his old lawyer clothes and of course the suit looked about two sizes too big because he still hadn't gained back his weight He didn't even

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