Hard Hat by Bonnie Bryant

there had been a body, they’d have had a medical examiner’s truck instead of the big van they’d brought. She was even surer there wasn’t a body when the van group returned and took a couple of dollies and handcarts back in with them.
    “What are those for?” Regina asked.
    “They use them to carry heavy things,” Stevie explained. “You see moving men with those.”
    “Oh, right,” said Regina.
    “Stevie,” said her mother. “Isn’t this exciting? There’s always something going on in New York!”
    Stevie nodded in agreement, but she wasn’t so sure. She was afraid this “excitement” was going to have some repercussions, and she was already thinking about what it was going to be like to be grounded for a year.
    For a long time nothing happened. Nobody moved from the street, and nobody came out of the house. The neighbors waited with anticipation.
    Then things started happening very quickly. The van crew began emerging from the house, their dollies and handcarts loaded down with filing cabinets. Each cabinet had wide yellow tape around it, stating POLICE EVIDENCE : DO NOT TAMPER .
    “That’s not evidence,” Stevie grumbled. “Those are just filing cabinets!”
    “The same ones we were sitting on a couple of hours ago,” said Regina.
    Stevie was pretty sure Regina was right about that, though she couldn’t tell the difference between one filing cabinet and another. On the other hand, she was quite certain there hadn’t been any other filing cabinets in the house.
    Then, just in time to reassure Stevie that they were, in fact, the same filing cabinets, an officer came out carrying a backpack, a container of chocolate milk, some cheese crackers, and a large bag of raisins.

“T OAST ,” R EGINA SAID .
    The very word Stevie was going to use.
    “Hi, guys. How’s it going?” It was Peter. He was there with the rest of his family. They were all in their bathrobes, too.
    “Did you see that?” Regina asked, pointing to her backpack and its contents, now safely in the hands of the law.
    “How could you forget it?” Peter asked.
    “I wasn’t thinking of evidence,” said Regina. “I was just thinking about getting out of there!”
    “Maybe I should have thought of it,” said Stevie.
    “No, it’s my bag,” Regina said.
    “Well, the police don’t know that,” said Peter. “How could they find out?”
    “DNA evidence on the raisins,” Stevie said.
    “I suppose, or maybe fingerprints,” said Peter.
    “How about my name tag?” said Regina. “It’ll save them a lot of lab work if they just read it.”
    “You are so busted!” said Peter.
    “Will you visit me in jail?” Regina asked.
    “Visit you? We’ll be in adjoining cells!”
    “Oh, hi, Peter,” said Mrs. Evans. “Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”
    “It sure is, Mrs. Evans. But I guess we’ll probably never really know everything that’s going on here, will we?”
    Stevie wished he weren’t trying to be so helpful. It wasn’t helping, she was sure.
    “I would think we would,” said Mrs. Evans, correcting him. “I mean, this is our neighborhood. We’ll find out.”
    That was just what Stevie and Regina were dreading.
    Pretty soon the police began packing up their cars. They put up some yellow tape, declaring the house to be a crime scene and forbidding anyone from goinginside. Stevie and Regina knew they would have no trouble following that rule!
    “Looks like the excitement is over,” said Mrs. Lake. “Let’s finish up that good night’s sleep.”
    Stevie followed her mother and Mrs. Evans back to the house, the two girls lagging behind the women by a few feet just in case there was anything they needed to discuss. There wasn’t, really. Both girls knew that in spite of Mrs. Lake’s enthusiasm about a good night’s sleep, it was going to be very hard for them to go back to bed. They both knew they hadn’t heard the end of the exciting activities of the night.
    “Maybe we’d better try to sleep,” said