Marianne, Dani, Nat, Mom—none of them are in the dining room. Bug’s not around, either. I pour a cup of coffee for Earl and push through the double doors into the kitchen. “Looks dead out there. What hap—”
“Close the doors!” A blur of voices snuffs out the rest of my question. Nat, hovering next to the doorway like she’s on guard duty, shoves me out of the way and pulls the double doors tight. She’s shaking so hard, even her sleek pink bob looks nervous. Some kind of unidentifiable meat is burning on the grill, Marianne and Trick are frantically stacking full plates onto a serving tray, Mom and Dani are crawling around on the floor like someone lost a contact lens, and Bug is tucked into a ball under the prep counter, clutching his backpack and wiping his eyes with a dish towel.
“Nice of you to join us,” Mom says. She doesn’t get up from the floor.
“What happened? Did the reviewer show up yet?”
“Came and went,” Nat says. Her eyes sweep the floor like she’s searching for a mouse. “Hardly ate a thing. Lousy tipper, too. And that was after—”
“He didn’t like it?” My stomach knots up. “How could he not—”
“Excuse me?” One of the knitting club ladies calls through the window over the grill. “We put our order in a while ago, but I think our waitress went on break.”
“Be right out!” Nat’s bordering on hysterical. “Hudson, watch the door. Close it right behind me.”
“Is everyone in here crazy, or—”
“Close it! I’m not screwing around!”
“Is Nat all right?” I ask when she’s out of the kitchen. “Doesn’t even look busy out there. What are you guys—”
“May be half-dead in the dining room,” Trick says, “but we’re kinda scramblin’ back here, in case you haven’t noticed. So if you could skip the third degree and maybe flip those Polish sausages, help Marianne run this food, or locate your brother’s hamster—”
“Mr. Napkins?” I don’t wait for an answer. I duck under the counter and reach for Bug. “Come here, sweet pea. Tell me what happened.”
He pulls himself tighter into a ball, shrugging me off. “Mr. hiccup Napkins hiccup is gone!”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I had him right here, and now he’s”—hiccup—“MIA.” He opens his backpack to show me the dark space inside, nothing there but a few shreds of hamster hay and an old T-shirt stuffed into the bottom.
“You brought Mr. Napkins here? In your backpack?”
Bug blinks behind his tortoiseshell glasses, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I didn’t want to leave him home alone again.” Hiccup. “He gets lonely.”
“I know he does, Bug. I’m sorry.” My throat is dry and tight, knees aching against the cold tile floor. If I had just stayed here earlier, helped Mom out, maybe things would’ve gone better with the reviewer. Maybe I could’ve taken Bug home. Maybe I—
“What if he gets outside?” Bug’s crying harder, eyes wild with this new fear. “He’ll freeze! What if someone hamster-naps him? What if he gets hit by a snowplow? What if he—”
“Bug, listen to me. Mr. Napkins is the smartest hamster alive. He’s not outside. He’s somewhere in this diner, and we’ll find him. But you have to calm down.” I put my hands on his shoulders and inch closer. “I know I haven’t given you any reason to trust me tonight. I don’t blame you if you’re mad, but we have to put that aside so we can find Mr. Napkins. Can you do that for me?”
His big brown saucer-eyes blink twice. One more sniffle. Another hiccup, then a nod, and he follows me out from under the prep counter.
“Do you have your notebook?” I ask. “The one you use to write down clues for important cases?”
He digs out the notebook and a pencil from the front part of his bag and flips to an empty page.
“Good. Now think. What do we know about Mr. Napkins? What kind of environment does he like? What are his favorite hiding places at home?”
Bug’s tongue sticks partway out of his mouth as pencil races across paper. “Hates the cold,” I read over his shoulder. “Goes near heat vents. Small spaces. Likes food and the dark.”
“That’s all I can think of.” Bug wipes his eyes with the back of his free hand.
“Okay, let’s recap.” I reread his notes out loud, keeping one eye on the ground in case of a Mr. Napkins flyby. While Mom edges her way around the perimeter, Dani covers the back, searching under the dishwasher with a flashlight.
“Any ideas?” Bug asks.
“Yes.” I steer him over to the grill. “He likes food and he likes heat, right? I know where I’d go. Right under there.”
Bug and I crouch down and peer under the grill and ovens. From the dusty dark beneath the warmest place in the kitchen, a tiny pink nose wriggles innocently.
“We have visual contact,” I say. With any luck, it’s the hamster in question and not some other rodent mascot we’ve yet to discover. “Bug, keep your eye on him while I find something to get his attention.”
“Dani,” Trick says, “run this to table eight and tell Nat and Marianne the incident has been … located.”
“Got it,” she says, taking the plates from his hands.
I slip out of my jacket and scarf, drop them on a stool, and scrounge up a tub of peanut butter, an apple, and some sliced cheese. With an elaborately concocted snack and a whole lotta cooing, Bug coaxes his twitchy little friend into the light.
“Mr. Napkins!” He scoops up the hamster and presses him to his chest in a tiny hug. “Don’t you ever do that again. I was so worried about you!”
Honestly, I’d be more worried about getting all huggy-snuggy-kissy-face with a rodent that spent half the night trolling around under an oven that’s been here since the 1950s, but that’s just my personal—
“Hudson? What the …” Mom’s eyes bulge as she looks me over. In all the excitement of the missing hamster, I forgot about the outfit—my multicolored sequined skating dress just one deep breath away from a wardrobe malfunction, fuzzy pink leg warmers hastily tucked into boots over beige spandex tights. “Where on earth have you—”
“Nat’s gone.” Marianne stands in the doorway, straddling the dining room and kitchen with her hand against the door. “Guess the ham—” She stops herself when she sees Bug, lowering her voice. “The incident really upset her. Between that and the reviewer, she cracked. I don’t think she’s coming back.”
“For someone trying to become a nurse,” I say, “she’s got a pretty weak stomach.”
“Perfect.” Mom throws a pot into the sink, metal clanging like an old church bell. “One less person I’ll have to ax when that review shuts us down.” She looks back to me, head shaking as if she doesn’t really want to know. It’s all just too much, the lying, our earlier argument, the less-than-enthusiastic food critic, the missing hamster, me in my old skating dress like we just fell back in time.
A month ago—even a day ago—I would’ve done anything for a chance to burn the Hurley Girl dress, a chance to leave this place free and clear. But now, Mom talking like the diner could actually close, the last of her fragile hope evaporating, my heart sinks. Good or bad, this place was always her dream. Her identity. My mother is Hurley’s Homestyle Diner.
“Hurley’s isn’t going to tank, Ma. It’s been here forever. One bad review isn’t the—”
“A bad review on top of a bad economy, a bad winter, a bad year … Hudson, that really was our last shot—we needed a stellar mention in the paper. We can’t do it anymore. Unless you’ve got another cupcake miracle up your sleeve that can pack this place every night for the next two months, I can’t even afford to keep the grill lit.”
“But I thought—”
“Just take your brother home, okay? I need to clean up in here and go over the books. I can’t …” She rakes her eyes over my dress again, lingering on the silver rabbit still pinned to my shoulder. “I can’t deal with you right now.” She retreats to her office and gently closes the door, leaving nothing in her wake but the hissing sounds of the grill and the muffled, front-of-the-house scrape of silverware on dishes.