Chapter 1

The Lemonade War Series The Bell Bandit Jacqueline Davies

Chapter 1 Stuck in the Back "How much longer?" Jessie asked from the back seat, tapping the window glass three times. Jessie always tapped the window three times when they passed under a bridge. "Another hour," said Mrs. Treski. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "At least." They had already been driving for three hours, climbing steadily higher and higher into the mountains, and Jessie could feel herself sinking into a sulk. Everything about this trip to Grandma's house was different. First of all, Evan was sitting in the front seat. Jessie could tell he was listening to his iPod. From behind, she could see his head bobbing slightly to the beat of the music as he stared out the window.

Evan had never been allowed to sit up front before. But this time when he'd asked—for the ten thousandth time—Mrs. Treski had given him a long, thoughtful look and said yes. He was ten and tall for his age, so Mrs. Treski said he was old enough to move up front. Jessie was nine—and stuck in the back. "Hey," Jessie said, trying to get Evan to turn around and notice her. But he didn't. He couldn't hear her. It was like he wasn't even in the car with her. Jessie stared out the window at the farmland as it whizzed by them. Usually, she loved this drive. She loved to count things along the way— cows, hawks, Mini Coopers, out-of-state license plates. She kept tally marks in her notebook, and at the end of the trip, she would count them all up to see who had won. It was almost always the cows. She also tracked their progress by looking for important landmarks along the way—like the

pest control building that had a forty-foot fiberglass cockroach creeping over the roof, or the two-story carved wooden totem pole that was really a cell phone tower, or the billboard for a diner that had a big metal teapot with real steam coming out of it. Evan used to be on the lookout for these landmarks, too, and it was a race to see who could spot each one first. But this year, he didn't seem to care. Even when the giant water storage tank painted like a ladybug came into view and Jessie pointed it out to him, he just shrugged, as if he couldn't be bothered. He was no fun, and suddenly the trip felt long.

They passed under another bridge, and Jessie tapped the window three times. "Why did Grandma set her house on fire?" she asked. Mrs. Treski's eyes shifted from the road to the rearview mirror, locking on Jessie's reflection for a second before returning to the highway. "She didn't mean to. It was an accident." "I know," said Jessie. "But why did it happen this time?" Mrs. Treski tipped her head to one side. "Accidents happen. Sometimes there's no reason. She left something on the stove, and it caught on fire. It could happen to anyone." But it hadn't happened to her grandmother before. Jessie thought about all the times Grandma had cooked noodles for her or made hot chocolate for her or heated up soup for her. Not once had she set the house on fire. It was because of the fire that they were driving up to Grandma's two days after Christmas instead of the day before, the way

they always did. And it was because of the fire that they weren't even sure if they would be staying at Grandma's for New Year's Eve did every year. And that was the really big thing that was different this time. For as long as Jessie could remember, New Year's Eve meant staying at Grandma's house and the long, slow climb to the top of Lovell's Hill, where the trees parted and the sky opened and there stood the old iron bell hanging on its heavy wooden crossbeam. Just before midnight they would gather, walking through the snow-covered woods, coming from all sides of the hill—neighbors and friends, family and sometimes even strangers—to sing the old songs and talk about the year gone by. And then, just before midnight, the youngest one in the crowd and the oldest one, too, would step forward and both take hold of the rope that hung from the clapper of the dark and heavy