Page 4 by Susie Chang

It had been Walter's idea to hang at the sugar shack.   Usually, it was a good choice--quiet, sweet-smelling, not far even if you lived in North Amherst or Sunderland.  The door was always open.  It didn't even have a lock.

Last night, though, someone had secured the door from the inside, apparently with twine.  It was Angela who'd noticed the end hanging loose and suggested Mabel wiggle her Swiss army knife along the door jamb till it severed the twine.

Giggling--had they just done something illegal?-- everybody had piled inside while somebody swatted the air overhead for the bare bulb.  Smash! The bulb shattered, and Mabel had stumbled back against a display table, knocking a decorative maple leaf bottle to the floor.

The mess wasn't too bad, but still, no one wanted to get blamed for it.  They'd done their best to clean up, agreed to keep their mouths shut, and hightailed it.  All except Walter and Mabel.  In the dark, combing the sticky floor for debris, neither had so much as glanced at the boiler in the shadows.

Mabel, the possessor of one Swiss army knife, a handkerchief full of shattered glass and some shreds of twine, did not want to talk to Angela about Walter.  But just at that moment, with an earsplitting peeping, the smoke alarm went off.  Only then did Mabel notice the smoking waffle iron.  She rolled her eyes.  What kind of family has waffles and pancakes for breakfast, anyway?  "Gotta run!"

Page 3 by Rosie McMahan

“Did you hear?” Mabel's friend, Angela asked. Angela never said hello. They didn't need to as Mabel and Angela had known each other since attending pre-school together. But something in the question made Mabel cringe.

“Hear what? What's wrong?”

“Bunch of cop cars up at the shack, lights, sirens…Are you sure you got rid of everything last night?”

“Yea,” Mabel said, rushing to find her jacket, feeling for the inside pouch. Everything was there. “But I wasn't alone.”

“Who else stayed?” Angela murmured.

Should she tell her? Nobody knew, not even Angela. After the gang had taken off, he'd hung back with her, acting like he didn't need to go anywhere, but she knew why he’d lingered. He told her a story as they searched the ground for any overlooked items. His family had tapped the sugar maples around their house when he was a kid, filled buckets, and boiled the sap down till every glass jug was overflowing. Everything was so sticky; they couldn't trust leaving any out. Assembly line style, they lugged in the containers one by one, placing them on the old pine table. In the middle of the night, the crash was so loud, he was sure one of the old ash trees had come through the roof. But it hadn't; the weight of the jars had caused the table to collapse.

She couldn't get over the force of emotion that traveled through her when he'd smiled.   

“Walter,” she halted briefly, “Walter Rogalaski.”

Page 2 by Steven MacLean

Mariel wanted to scream.  She wanted to run, but something was keeping her feet rooted to the ground, her face fixated on the corpse in front of her.  It had nothing to do with her years of detective schooling.  It had nothing to do with her rough upbringing, being raised on the streets of Chicago as a girl.  It had, in fact, to do with her children.  The figure in front of her could have been 18 at best, which would have made him two years older than her eldest daughter.  Immediately, Mariel’s motherly instincts kicked into gear.  She knew she had to do something, but what?

* * *

Mabel Maplethorpe was sitting at home, wondering what was taking her mother so long.  The pancakes were getting cold, and she grumbled at the prospect of waiting another 15 minutes.  She picked up the phone, and dialed her mother’s cell #, but it went straight to voicemail.  Just as she hung up, she got another call.  Thinking it was her mother, she picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

Page 1 by Bruce Watson

Forty gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup. Forty gallons of sap. Forty. . .

As she stepped into the Route 63 Sugar Shack on a brisk March morning, detective Mariel Maplethorpe could not get the number out of her head. She thought of all the gorgeous jars in all the quaint sugar shacks of New England. All those amber jugs, shaped like maple leaves or bears or just jugs, and each represented gallons and gallons of sap coursing through the veins of stately maples this time of year. Gallons and gallons tapped into buckets, then boiled and boiled (and boiled some more) just so the world would not have to suffer pancakes all doughy and bland. Forty gal—

Mariel’s mathematical marveling over maple syrup was stopped in mid-sentence by a sight that brought even a seasoned detective up short. She had come to the sugar shack to buy a gallon of syrup. Leverett being Leverett, i.e., an honorable town where boxes stuffed with dollar bills can sit all day at untended fruit and vegetable stands, the shack was empty. Mariel did not expect to see a soul; in fact she rather hoped she wouldn’t. She was in a hurry to get home with the syrup before her waffle iron warmed. But as she glanced beyond the shelves, piled high with amber jugs, she noticed the boiler in the back room. Forty gallons seemed an incredible amount of sap. But was forty gallons enough to drown the man in the plaid shirt and work pants who floated face down in Grade A Dark Amber syrup?