Coop Knows the Scoop Read online

  Also by Taryn Souders

  How to (Almost) Ruin Your Summer

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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2020 by Taryn Souders

  Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design and illustration © Danny Schlitz

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Young Readers, an imprint of Sourcebooks Kids

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebookskids.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To any librarian who has ever helped a reader

  find the perfect book!

  Chapter 1

  When the Windy Bottom town council voted to tear down the old playground and build a new one, no one ever imagined what lay buried beneath the rusted slide.

  The morning the human bones turned up and the news started flying around town, I was up to my ball cap in dirty coffee cups. My best friend, Justice, burst through the screened back door of A Latté Books. He slipped through spilled water on the floor and slid to a stop, clutching the counter.

  “Dang it, Coop! You beat us here again.”

  I set a wet mug on the drying rack. “Figured if we finished our chores early, we could check out the grave. I’m dying to see the skeleton.”

  “Whole town’s talking about it.” Justice puffed out a breath of air. “Heard the police are there now.”

  Strangers think Jus and me are twins, because we’re both cursed with messy red hair and a truckload of freckles, not to mention we’re both thirteen. But his real twin is his sister Liberty, even though she looks nothing like him, being a blond and, well…a girl.

  Liberty sauntered in, joining Justice and me in the kitchen. She slouched against the counter and tossed her baseball from hand to hand. Baseball was to Liberty like oxygen was to the rest of us. “That dumb ol’ skeleton is all people have on their brains this morning.”

  “You’re just mad the police won’t let you on the baseball field,” Justice said.

  Liberty spit into the trash can. She was a southern belle. Minus the belle part.

  She also ran faster and slugged harder than anyone else in Windy Bottom. “It’s probably just some soldier left over from the Civil War.”

  Justice tied on an apron and grabbed a tub filled with dirty dishes. “Nuh-uh. Dad said there wasn’t hardly any war fought in this part of Georgia.”

  Liberty rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean there was nothing. Maybe he crawled home to die.”

  “Come on, Lib,” I said, tossing her an apron. “We all got kitchen duty—not just Justice and me.”

  “I’ve never seen a skeleton before,” Justice said. “The one hanging in Grupe’s class don’t count.”

  “Doesn’t count,” Liberty corrected. Ignoring his glare, she stood straight and shoved her baseball into her apron pocket. “And it’s too late. No one can get within a hundred feet of the playground.” She frowned. “Or the baseball fields. The police already cordoned off the whole area.”

  Justice sighed. “Does cordoned start with a k or a c?”

  “C,” Liberty and I answered together.

  Justice muttered and reached for his now dog-eared pocket dictionary. Liberty threw out vocabulary the same way she threw a fastball—smooth and unstoppable. Three years ago Justice started carrying a dictionary in his back pocket after an unfortunate misunderstanding of the word “rendezvous” left him locked in the women’s bathroom of the Piggly Wiggly for two hours.

  I thought Jus was destined to spend his life one step behind in every conversation on account of him having to look up words so often, but Gramps said Jus may well pass us all with his vocabulary one day. According to Gramps, life is a journey, and what we are now is not necessarily what we will be.

  Justice sighed. “Well, at least we could see what the police are doing. Take some pictures maybe?”

  Mama poked her head through the kitchen door and smiled at the twins. “Hi, Jus. Lib. Do y’all mind watching the counter for a while? The coffee delivery came in along with a bunch of book orders. Your folks and I need to run inventory.”

  A couple years ago Liberty and Justice’s folks, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, owned the used bookstore next door. They must’ve tired out their imaginations giving their kids creative names because their store had just been called Used Books.

  But then that all changed. The inside wall between mama’s coffee shop and their bookstore had been demolished and A Latté Books, Windy Bottom’s first and only bookstore café—with new books, not just used ones—was where Lib, Jus, and I spent our summers. Us kids got stuck washing dishes, shelving books, or whatever else needed doing.

  Jus rubbed the back of his neck. “Actually ma’am, we were just about to go to the—”

  I kicked him.

  Mama raised her eyebrows and stepped inside, letting the swinging door thlop back and forth behind her. “Cooper Goodman,” she poked me with her clipboard. “You’re up to something, and if you think that ‘something’ happens
to involve the skeleton at the playground, then you’ve got another thing coming. The store is brimming over with people, and I need your help.”

  Where was Gramps when I needed him? He would’ve let us go—in fact, I reckon he would’ve even given us a ride to the playground. He might be a stickler for the rules, but he had his mischievous side too.

  The bell dinged at the coffee counter. Mama glanced out the small rectangular window that was set in the kitchen door. “It’s Meriwether and Ruth.”

  Checking the time on her watch, she sighed. “I have to go.” She turned to leave but stopped and nodded at the two sisters standing at the counter. “Don’t forget you’ll need to bring them their order. Lord knows we don’t want them trying to carry their coffee again. Not after yesterday’s fiasco.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Gramps will be in later on to help. But right now, sugar, I need you not distracted by talk of a skeleton.” She patted my cheek.

  “Ma,” I whispered. Sugar’s a wimpy name, and I’d told her a million times.

  Lib snorted.

  Mama smiled. “I’m sorry. And Coop,” Mama put her hand on her hip and shook her finger. “Stay here. The police don’t need anyone underfoot.”

  My shoulders sagged. “I promise.”

  Chapter 2

  Liberty and Justice followed me through the swinging kitchen door to the front where whitewashed brick walls, overloaded bookcases, and hardwood floors the color of roasted coffee beans greeted us. One perk of being the only bookstore café in Windy Bottom was everyone came there to talk and drink. Then talk some more. Then a little bit more. Plus, owing to the fact that a dead body just got itself uncovered, the place was full of people needing to caffeinate their shock back down to acceptable levels of chitchat.

  If I couldn’t go near the site, the next best place to gather information was at A Latté Books eavesdropping on Ruth and Meriwether Feather, who were waiting for their coffee at the counter. Their skills in gathering and spreading gossip were unsurpassed in Tipton County. If you ever wanted news to travel fast, you just had to give it to the Feather sisters and make it sound like a secret—they couldn’t keep their mouths shut even if their lips were hog-tied.

  The Feather sisters were teachers and had taught everyone in Windy Bottom for the past hundred years, or close to it. Between the two of them, they knew the history of the whole town. They had retired from teaching a few years back due to “illness.” Said they were sick of the school, and the school was sick of them.

  Jus told me he was pretty sure he suffered from the same disease.

  “Look at those two.” Liberty nudged me and gestured with her head toward Miss Ruth and Miss Meriwether. “They look like a pair of jays with their chittering and chattering.”

  Both wore hats with a sprout of blue feathers on the side, reminding me that today was Thursday. They’d assigned a different color feather for each day of the week.

  I whispered to Justice, “How ’bout you and Lib wipe down tables? Try to listen in on people’s conversations. Bet you they’re talking about that skeleton.”

  I rubbed my hands down the front of my jeans to dry any dishwater from them and walked to where the Feather sisters leaned against the counter. “The usual, ladies?”

  Miss Ruth smiled. “Does a hound dog hunt?”

  I mustered up the most charm possible for any thirteen-year-old boy stuck behind a counter serving coffee when a perfectly good skeleton lay in a shallow grave just a couple miles over. “I like the blue feather, Miss Ruth. Is that a different shade from last Thursday’s?”

  She adjusted the tilt of her hat. “Sure is.” Only she said it like shore is. Miss Ruth had a low singsongy voice that could’ve relaxed the curls on her head if Burma from the Cut ’N’ Curl hadn’t wrapped the rods so tight during her last perm—Liberty’s words, not mine.

  “And you should see the fine-looking orange color we’ve got picked out for Tuesday. Downright cheerful. The last one was becoming disrespectfully shabby.”

  “Oh muzzle it, Ruth.” Miss Meriwether didn’t bother looking up. She didn’t have to in order for me to know she was scowling. She always was. Miss Ruth constantly smiled and had mischievous eyes, but Miss Meriwether had scowl gutters that ran deep, making her face look like that picture of Winston Churchill that hung in the library—which was pretty unnerving considering she wasn’t a man. “The feather wasn’t shabby. It was acceptable.”

  Mama said some people ease their way into a cranky lifestyle, but not Miss Meriwether. She cannonballed right into a swamp of cantankerousness and has been treading the murky water ever since.

  “Besides, Cooper doesn’t want to hear you gab on about colors, you silly old crow.”

  “It’s just Coop, Miss Meriwether, ma’am,” I said. “The er is silent, remember?”

  Miss Meriwether peered over the counter and watched as I poured coffee into the teacups in front of me. She had an intense dislike of mugs. Thought they were uncouth. Said one could slurp mud from a teacup and be more refined than being seen drinking coffee out of a mug.

  Her beady eyes bored holes through my head. “Do you remember I don’t want any of that artificial sweetener junk?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I like the fake stuff,” said Miss Ruth with a grin.

  And I liked Miss Ruth. She was like the grandma I never had.

  “None of that garbage for you, sister. It’s not good for you. And where’s your sweater? You’ll catch a chill.”

  “It’s eighty-eight degrees outside, Meriwether. I declare, you could start an argument in an empty house.” Miss Ruth winked at me. “Don’t be such a sourpuss.”

  Miss Meriwether made a sound like she was sucking her teeth and muttered something about cold air-conditioning and catching the flu.

  I rang them up on the cash register. “I’ll bring y’all’s drinks to you. Still sitting next to Biographies?” I said, placing their coffee-filled teacups on a tray.

  Miss Ruth nodded and patted my hand. “Such a honey bee.”

  Another wimpy name. At least Gramps never called me anything embarrassing.

  I took my time adding napkins, sugar packets, and creamers to the tray in order to give them a head start. Then I navigated my way through a maze of narrow aisles created by the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to get to Biographies, where Miss Meriwether and Miss Ruth sat in overstuffed armchairs waiting for their coffee.

  I set the tray on the side table wedged between their chairs and then played my hand.

  “So… I’ve been in the kitchen all morning. Anything new in town?”

  Miss Meriwether gawked. “Cooper Goodman, do you mean to tell me you haven’t heard?”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but the er is—”

  Miss Ruth pulled on my arm. “They’ve found a body at the old playground—a skeleton.”

  I didn’t pump my fist, but I wanted to. Here it was. The good, the bad, and the gossip.

  “I heard,” she whispered, “from Ms. Millie, who overheard Suds tell Wendell, that one of the construction workers told him that”—she paused dramatically and looked around before continuing—“the skeleton was wearing a dress!”

  Miss Meriwether’s teacup rattled in its saucer.

  “It’s a girl skeleton?” I wondered if Justice and Liberty had heard that tidbit yet.

  Like Justice, I’d never seen a real skeleton, much less one in a dress. The one in Miss Grupe’s class was made of plastic. We called it Dead Fred, and the closest it ever came to having a wardrobe was at Christmas time when Miss Grupe plopped a Santa hat on its bony skull.

  I squatted down eye level with them. “Any idea who it was?”

  Miss Ruth shook her head. “No one’s been murdered here for quite some time.”

  The eyeglasses perched on the tip of Miss Meriwether’s nose fell off. “Mo
ther of Abraham Lincoln! Who said anything about murder, Ruth?” She huffed. “The playground’s probably just an old family burial site.” She shook her head and scowled. “Such nonsense.”

  Miss Ruth patted my hand. “Don’t you be worried about getting yourself murdered too, Coop, dear.” She took a sip of coffee. “I’m sure we’re all safe.”

  I returned to the counter and motioned Liberty and Justice to meet me.

  I told them about the dress.

  Justice nudged Liberty. “See? Told ya. You ever heard of a Civil War soldier wearing a dress? I sure ain’t.”

  She rammed her hand into her apron pocket, pulled out her baseball, and considered the question. Dresses were to Liberty like brussels sprouts were to most of humanity—the God-fearing portion at least.

  “More likely to find a soldier wearing a dress than me.”

  Chapter 3

  The crunch of gravel pulled my attention away from the coffee counter. Through the store’s front windows sunlight glinted off a dark blue sedan. TIPTON COUNTY SHERIFF was emblazoned on the side of the doors. To everyone else, he was Deputy Keith Vidler, but to me he was Tick.

  Justice nudged me. “The sheriff’s office.”

  “You have a prodigious grasp of the obvious,” muttered Liberty.

  Justice reached for his dictionary.

  I rolled my eyes. “She means amazing, and she’s also being sarcastic.”

  We weren’t the only ones who’d noticed his arrival. Chair legs scraped against the old wooden floor, and tabletops jostled as people rushed to the front of the store to spy through the windows. Faces and hands pressed against the once-clean glass panes—panes that yours truly would have to wipe down. Tick unfolded himself out of his squad car, tucked a pair of sunglasses into the front pocket of his starched uniform, and put his hat on. How someone his height ever managed to fit inside any car boggled my mind.

  Tick used to pitch for the Atlanta Braves until he threw out his shoulder. So he traded his glove for a holster and came back to his hometown.

  One might have thought our fire alarm had gone off the way folks poured out the door and crowded around him, pelting him with questions. Tick would’ve gone to meet his Maker right then and there if those questions had been bullets. I stood with my feet just inside the doorway so if Mama asked I could tell her honestly I never left the store.