Chapter 18: Barb

"You don't need to go that far, Miss Delight," Nathan responded, hesitating to take the coins from Miss Delight's outstretched hand. "I could probably find those toys lying around Home Sweet Home."

"But I insist!" Miss Delight pulled Nathan's hand close to her as she placed the coins into his palm. "Consider this my personal way of showing gratitude to you."

"Okay." Nathan looked the small pile of coins in his palm with surprise. "Thank you very much, Miss Delight!"

After Elli, Rez, and Nathan left the school, they went up to a two-story shop that said, 'Toys' in bright yellow letters above the awning.

"Should we go in there?" Rez asked Nathan. "Mommy has never let us into this place before."

"Didn't she say this is where the factory workers buy toys for their kids at home?" Elli said, trying to remember. "And we've got plenty of toys at Home Sweet Home, so why would Miss Delight give us money to buy toys here?"

Nathan looked at the coins in his hand, and started scratching the surface of them with his fingernails. Beneath thin sheets of copper, the coins were gray and metallic with red lights embedded into the center of each coin.

"What are those?" Elli remarked, looking at the things Nathan held. "They can't be coins."

"They are not," Nathan said. "Do either of you know what a tracking device is?"

"Um, isn't it the thing spies use to monitor someone remotely?" Nathan guessed.

"Exactly," Nathan confirmed. "And Miss Delight gave us tracking devices disguised as coins, hoping we would just carry them around so she could monitor us from a distance."

"Does that mean she's also suspicious of us, just like Mommy?" Elli shuttered at the thought of incurring the wrath of Miss Delight and her sisters, remembering the story about the kid with the broken arm.

"It would appear so," Nathan said.

Just then, a large shadow covered Elli and the boys. Fearing it was Kissy Missy, they looked up and saw a familiar orange dog.

"DogDay!" Nathan exclaimed, hiding the tracking devices behind his back.

"You look surprised to see me, angels," DogDay noticed.

"Well, we haven't seen you in a while," Elli said. "Not since Kissy joined us anyway."

"That is true," DogDay realized. "Mommy has put me fully in charge of the toddlers, which hasn't given me much time to hang out with you three and the other kids."

"But I thought the toddlers spent most of their time in the playhouse," Rez said. "How is that time-consuming?"

"I have to monitor the toddlers to make sure they don't hurt themselves in the playhouse, or get into places they shouldn't," DogDay explained, though he trailed off at the end of his sentence.

"Like what?" asked Elli.

As DogDay's eyes shifted nervously, he noticed where Nathan's hand was hidden. "What have you got behind your back?"

"Oh, nothing," Nathan lied as he went to the nearest trashcan and threw the tracking devices in with his back turned so DogDay couldn't see them. "Just some candy wrappers."

"Candy wrappers?" DogDay tilted his head in confusion. "Where did you get the candy from?"

"Miss Delight gave them to me," Nathan continued. "For being prompt about returning some stuff I checked out from the library."

"That sounds nice, angel," DogDay smiled. "I know she often complains about kids who don't return stuff."

"Does she threaten them with Barb?" Rez wondered, thinking about the Miss Delight who caught him, Elli, and Nathan near the door with the red light.

"Barb?" DogDay scratched his head. "Who's Barb?"

"It's not a person," Elli corrected. "She was referring to a thing she was carrying."

"What kind of thing?" DogDay asked Elli.

"I don't know how to describe it," Elli muttered. "Let me draw it for you."

Elli then walked over to a part of the sidewalk that had piles of different-colored chalk nearby. She picked up a yellow chalk and drew the item Miss Delight referred to as Barb. After Elli finished drawing Barb, DogDay carefully examined the image.

"So Barb is a ruler with a ball of yarn on the end and a bunch of sharp pencils sticking out," DogDay surmised.

"Yes, that's exactly what Barb is," Elli confirmed.

"To me, it looks like a morning star," DogDay said grimly.

"A what?" Rez had never heard of such a thing.

"It's a medieval weapon that's shaped like a star, only it's made from metal and wood instead of rulers and pencils," explained DogDay. "Was used to destroy plate armor in battle, and could cause serious injuries on the body."

Rez pictured the sharp pencils on Barb poking his skin, which freaked him out. Elli and Nathan felt the same way, now that they knew what a morning star was.

"I'm sorry for scaring you, angels," DogDay apologized. "But please tell me: which Miss Delight sister had Barb?"

"We don't know," Nathan said, not wanting to reveal to DogDay about discovering the door with the red light. "They all look alike to us."

"She was monitoring us during Recess the day after Kayla left," Elli said.

"That sounds like Miss Delight the Hall Monitor," DogDay guessed. "She's the only one who watches the kids during Recess. I must speak to Mommy about her."

After DogDay walked toward Home Sweet Home, Elli, Rez, and Nathan circled around the statue before entering the house. Kissy had her hands full with corralling the kids to dinner, which allowed Elli and the boys to sneak into the Secret Closet.

"Nice save, Nathan," Rez said once they were inside the closet. "I just hope Miss Delight the Librarian doesn't reveal the truth to him about the tracking devices."

"He doesn't seem like he's working with either Miss Delight or Mommy," Elli said.

"You don't know that," Nathan argued. "He might be acting all innocent to throw us off-guard, just like what Kissy is doing."

To be continued…