The Drowning Spool (A Needlecraft Mystery) Read Free Page B

around Wilma’s chair, you’d get that thing back.”
    “Wilma?”
    “That’s me!” declared Mrs. Carter, as if just remembering her own name.
    “Brilliant!” exclaimed Betsy. “May I borrow your magnet?”
    “No, you go ahead with the class, let me try to find the threader.” She searched her stitching bag, found the magnet, and though a little stiff and uncertain in getting onto her knees, searched the floor beside Wilma. She swept the magnet—it was attached to a plastic poodle wearing a Santa hat—lightly around the carpet and, with a little happy exclamation, came up with the hair-fine twist of wire. It took her less than a minute. Without rising, she held it up.
    “Thank you, Melly!” said Mrs. Carter—Wilma—taking it and tossing it on the table.
    “You’re welcome, Wilma,” said Melly, beginning to struggle back to her feet.
    “Are you all right?” asked Betsy. “Here, let me help you up.” Melly only needed a little help but gave a half gasp, half groan as she straightened. Betsy walked her back to her chair and stroked her back as she sat down again. “Thank you so much, it was good of you to come to Wilma’s aid.”
    Melly’s “You’re welcome” was accompanied by a smile so sweet that Betsy returned it with renewed gratitude.
    As she went back to her end of the table, Betsy made a mental note to get a good strong magnet to include in her kit.
    “Help me, Betsy,” whined Wilma, holding up her lap stand. “I don’t get it, this stupid thing was fine, but now it isn’t working right again.”
    Betsy patiently showed her how to hold her needle so that it was facing forward, then watched over her for a few minutes, gently correcting her from time to time, until she seemed to understand that she needed to hold the needle with its white mark facing forward and that she should keep her stitches short and even.
    “There it is, ha ha! There it is!” Wilma cried at last in a high, excited voice, having completed half a circuit of the heart. But as soon as Betsy moved on to another woman, Wilma’s needle twisted off center and her movements became random. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, it’s all
screwjee
again!”
    Craft maven Thistle, who had remained in the room to watch the class, raised her eyebrows at Betsy, signaling an offer to assist. When Betsy nodded assent, Thistle came to sit beside Wilma. “Here now, show me what the problem is,” she said.
    Betsy began explaining to the others that some punch needle stitchers clipped the loops formed by the needle, others didn’t. It was a choice: fuzzy or smooth texture. She produced two identical patterns, one clipped, one not, and handed them around. While her pupils studied both samples, Betsy took notice of Thistle’s conversation with Wilma. She was asking Wilma how to do the work, and listening to her repeat the instructions—a clever ploy, because it clarified them in Wilma’s own mind.
    Betsy came over to check on her and saw that Wilma’s floss had run out without her noticing. Thistle raised her chin as a warning to say nothing, and Betsy decided to follow her instruction.
    When the class was over, Thistle accompanied Betsy back down to the lobby. “What do you think?” she asked Betsy.
    “They’re picking it up so fast, I won’t have anything left to teach after the next class,” Betsy replied. “Except we’re not being fair to Wilma.”
    “I’m sorry about her disrupting the class. She’s a nice person, everyone likes her, and she wants to be a part of everything, but she’s now at a stage where she simply isn’t capable of learning anything new. I suspect by next week she’ll have forgotten all about punch needle—I hope so, because I wasn’t paying close attention to your teaching and couldn’t put floss in that needle if my life depended on it. We’ll pay for her materials, and I’ll just put them in our craft supply cabinet.”
    “Someone told me she has Alzheimer’s.”
    Thistle hesitated, then