We watched as the coach prepared the group of boys for a practice race. “On your marks!” he cried. The boys knelt down on one knee, with their hands on the ground. “Get set!” yelled the coach. The boys tensed up and raised their heads to look at the track ahead. “Go!”
They took off running. Arms pumping, knees raised high, the boys ran around the track. Even though it was just a practice, you could tell they were working hard. You could also tell that each of them really wanted to win the race.
Back at the starting place, the coach stood waiting with his arms raised. As the boys came closer, he yelled encouragement. “Come on, Toby!” he shouted. “Work it, Sam! Get those knees up, Tom!”
Sunny and I leaned forward, watching intently. There’s always something exciting about watching a race, even if it’s not exactly the Olympics.
As the first boy crossed the finish line in a blur of speed, the coach dropped his arms. “All right, Toby,” he said. The second boy crossed the line just moments later. “Second place again, Tom,” said the coach. Then the rest of the herd of runners finished, and all of the boys walked around gasping, trying to cool down. The finish line was right in front of Sunny and me, so we had a perfect view. I could even hear the boys panting.
Then I noticed something interesting. The boy named Tom, who was one of the two boys with long brown hair, walked over to Toby, the winner. Toby was the other boy with brown hair. “Nice race,” said Tom, slapping Toby five. “You did great, man.” He seemed to mean it sincerely. Toby just nodded. He was still breathing hard.
Sunny and I exchanged looks. “Tom seems like a nice guy,” I said.
She nodded. “Maybe,” she answered. “Let’s keep an eye on him, though. Toby, too.”
And that’s exactly what we did. We watched both of those boys for the rest of their track practice. They did short, fast runs and long, slower ones. They stretched and exercised. They practiced their starts. It was interesting to watch, but we didn’t pick up any more clues about either of the boys or what they were like.
Then, after practice, Sunny and I followed the boys into the school — at a discreet distance — and hung around waiting while they hit the locker room to shower and change. We’d decided to tail one or both of the boys afterward, just to see where they went.
“Dawn,” said Sunny, “check this out.” She was looking at a bulletin board near the door to the gym. I joined her, and she pointed to a notice pinned to the middle of the board.
“Halloween party,” I read. “Come one, come all, to the track team Halloween party. Dress in your ghoulish best, have a blast, and help your neighbors.”
“All proceeds to go to the Palo City Relief Fund,” read Sunny. “Isn’t that the group that’s helping earthquake victims?”
I nodded. “And look at this,” I said. “For more information contact Tom Murphy. Do you think —”
She nodded. “I bet that’s the same Tom.”
Just then, a group of boys burst out of the locker room, laughing and talking. Both of the brown-haired guys were with them, and one of them, the one named Tom, was carrying a skateboard under one arm.
I turned to look at Sunny, and the two of us raised our eyebrows. I knew we were remembering the clerk at the Halloween shop telling us that the boy who bought the clown mask left on a skateboard.
Then I saw Sunny’s mouth drop open, and I whirled around to see what she was looking at. Tom, the one with the skateboard, had stopped in the middle of the hall to stuff some things into his backpack and zip it shut. And just before he did, I caught a glimpse of the same thing Sunny had seen: a tuft of bright pink hair. I looked at Sunny, and she looked at me. Then we nodded. Without saying a word, we’d agreed to shadow Tom, wherever he went.
Sunny and I have been friends for so long we can do that kind of thing. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ESP, but whatever it is, it’s pretty cool.
We followed the group of boys out to the parking lot. Then Tom called good-bye to his friends, hopped onto his skateboard, and headed off. We had to scramble to keep up. He sailed off as if he were heading toward the neighborhood where Sunny and I live, and we trotted behind, trying to keep out of sight.
Now, Tom had seemed like a decent guy when we watched him during track practice, and seeing that sign on the bulletin board had given us a clue that he had a good heart, too. But it was almost as if he knew we needed more convincing. And by the time we lost him — just a few streets away from our block — we were positive he couldn’t be the same guy who had robbed Speedy Jack’s. In fact, he turned out to be the nicest, most polite, most civic-minded boy I’ve ever seen. Here’s what we saw him do:
He spotted a dog wandering into the road and stopped to coax it onto the sidewalk.
He helped a little old lady across the street (really!), holding his hand up to stop traffic for her.
He hopped off his skateboard and bent down to tie a child’s shoe. The mother (whose arms were full of groceries) looked like she wanted to hug him.
He gave directions to a motorist, nodding politely at all her questions.
He picked up litter from the sidewalk and threw it into a trash can.
He stopped to admire a baby in its carriage.
It was while he was cooing over the baby that Sunny gave me a disgusted look. “Are we wasting our time, or what?” she asked.
I giggled. “Somehow I find it hard to believe he could swat a fly, much less hold up a store.”
When Tom finished with the baby, he straightened up, stepped back onto his skateboard, and zipped around a corner. We let him go. Sunny sighed. “He’ll make some girl a fine husband one day,” she said, with a straight face.
Then we cracked up.
We were still laughing about it a half hour later, when Jill and Maggie showed up at Sunny’s for our party-planning session. We told them all about “Saint Tom,” as we’d begun to call him.
“Well, we’ll have to scratch him from the suspect list,” said Maggie. “What do we do next?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll have to think about our next move. But we can’t do anything right now anyway, not if we want to make this party work. Let’s meet tomorrow at lunch to talk about the mystery.” I paused to unroll the mural I’d bought. “Meanwhile, what do you all think of this?” I asked, showing them the Pin the Broom on the Witch poster I’d made the night before, with Jeff’s help.
“Oh, it’s great!” squealed Sunny. “I love those warts on her nose.”
“Those were Jeff’s idea,” I said. “He wanted her to look as disgusting as possible.”
“This party is going to be a blast,” said Maggie. “And you know what? I had an idea last night. I think we should dress up, too.”
“What a great idea!” said Jill. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before. Let’s see,” she went on, looking off into space. “What should I be? I don’t think I can quite squeeze into my cat costume from third grade …”
For the rest of the afternoon, while we worked on making decorations, planning games, and choosing recipes for snacks, we also talked about what costumes we’d wear. By the time we finished, Sunny had decided to be Mrs. Claus, Maggie was planning a Pink Panther outfit, and Jill was trying to figure out how to dress up as Marge Simpson. And me? I didn’t have a clue what I would be. Somehow I just couldn’t concentrate on my costume — not until I’d done everything in my power to catch the robber.
“So? What do you think?” Sunny twirled around to give me the full effect.
I laughed and clapped my hands. “I love it,” I said. “Are you wearing that to school today?” I could just imagine the looks she’d get if she walked down the halls wearing a bright red hat trimmed in white fur, plus red pants, black boots, and a red jacket so stuffed with pillows that Sunny looked as if she weighed about three hundred pounds.
“I should,” said Sunny. “That would give everybody something to talk about, wouldn’t it?” She turned to admire herself in the hall mir
ror. “But I’m not going to. I want to save this costume for our party. It’s great, though, isn’t it?” She twirled around again. “My dad had it in a closet. He wore it to some benefit party last year.”
“It’s wonderful,” I said. “The kids will love it. Just think, Mrs. Claus making an appearance at their Halloween party! They can send some early messages to Santa about what they want for Christmas this year.”
Sunny pulled off the hat, the pillow-stuffed jacket, the boots, and the pants. Underneath, she was dressed for school, in black leggings and a long white shirt. “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready to go. We’re not late, are we?”
“No, I was a little early,” I said. Sunny and I walk to school together most days, and our routine is for me to stop and pick her up. She’s hardly ever quite ready, so I’ve made a habit of showing up early. That way, I always have time to help her out with a wardrobe crisis, or join her in checking under the sofa cushions for her math homework.
Sunny grabbed her backpack, called good-bye to her mom, and followed me out the door. “Which way today?” she asked, when we had hit the sidewalk in front of her house.
Another part of our routine is that we try to vary our route to school as often as possible. I think walking the same way every day is boring. I like the challenge of figuring out new ways to get to the same place.
“First we’ll go down Camino Del Rey,” I said. I’d been figuring out this route from the time I woke up that morning. “We’ll turn left on La Costa and then right on Durango. Then we’ll circle back around and end up behind the school.”
“Cool,” said Sunny. “A whole new way. Let’s go.”
As we walked up Camino Del Rey, we began to talk about the robber. “I’m bummed,” said Sunny. “We’ve been doing everything we can think of, but we haven’t found one single new clue. And Halloween’s only two days away. Do you really think there’s any way we can catch this guy?”
I reminded her about some of the cases I’d worked on with my friends in Stoneybrook. “This clown is not the first bad guy I’ve been up against, you know,” I said. “And don’t forget about that case you helped me solve. Remember the surfer ghost?”
Sunny nodded. “How could I forget?”
Not long ago, Sunny and I were taking surfing lessons and planning to enter a big competition. While we were hanging out on the beach, something awful happened: one of the top surfers disappeared. Everybody thought he had been murdered, especially when people started seeing a phantom surfer riding the nighttime waves. But Sunny and I were suspicious, so we did some detective work. It turned out that Thrash (that was the surfer’s name) wasn’t dead after all. Somebody had tried to kill him, because they knew he’d win the competition. And that somebody went right to jail, after I convinced Thrash to finger him.
P.S. Thrash did win the competition, and then he took off for Australia or some other place with big waves. I’ve never seen him again, but I still have this cool ring he gave me to remember him by. Sometimes I wear it around my neck on a chain.
Anyway, when I reminded Sunny about Thrash she seemed to perk up a little. “I guess we do have a chance,” she said. “But what else can we do?”
“Let’s think,” I said. “What other clues do we have? Finding out who bought clown masks was no help.” We walked along silently for a few minutes.
“Tell me again about what you saw that day,” Sunny suggested. “Maybe we’ll think of something.”
“Okay.” I shifted my backpack to the other shoulder. “Well, the robber was dressed in black, for one thing. He was wearing those Fly High sneakers —”
“That’s good!” said Sunny. “Not too many people have those yet. Maybe we should be on the lookout for people wearing them.”
“Right,” I said. “Let’s see, what else?” Just then I heard somebody call my name, and I turned around to see who it was. “Hey, look!” I said to Sunny. “There’s Timmy, that boy I told you about.” I waved. “What a cool way to go to school,” I said admiringly.
We were passing the Fords’ house, and Timmy and his dad were just about to climb onto Mr. Ford’s motorcycle. Timmy wore a black helmet and a new-looking brown leather jacket, which his dad was helping him zip up. He waved back at me and grinned. Mr. Ford climbed onto the bike and started it up. Then he nodded at Timmy, who pulled down the face shield on his helmet and hopped on behind his dad. With a roar, they took off down the street. I waved again, but Timmy’s arms were clutched around his dad’s waist, so he didn’t wave back.
“Timmy looks happy,” Sunny observed. “I thought you said he was kind of a sad kid.”
“He is, sometimes,” I said. “He misses his mom. But I have to say his dad seems to care about him a lot. He can be gruff. Remember, I told you about his yelling at that dog? But Timmy does look awfully happy when he’s around him.”
“I’d look happy, too,” said Sunny, “if I got to ride to school on a motorcycle. The other kids must be so jealous!”
We watched as the motorcycle disappeared into the distance. Then we started to walk and talk again.
“So, we’ll watch out for Fly Highs,” said Sunny. “Anything else we can do?”
“There’s one other thing,” I said, thinking out loud. “That black car he left in? It had a bumper sticker from Frank’s Franks.”
Sunny smiled. “ ‘Eat Frank’s Franks,’ ” she quoted, “ ‘They’re Frankly the Best!’ ”
“That’s the one,” I said. “I’ve never been there, but —”
“But we’re going today!” said Sunny, snapping her fingers. “That’s it! We’ll stake out the joint.”
“Think it’s worth it?” I asked doubtfully.
“It can’t hurt,” said Sunny. “We’ll just hang out for a while and watch to see who comes and goes. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said, shaking on it. “Let’s see if Maggie and Jill can come, too.”
* * *
“Boy, I sure hope nobody’s hungry!”
That was Jill. The four of us were standing in front of the counter at Frank’s Franks, looking up at the orange-and-blue menu board. It listed all kinds of junk food: Claudia would have been in heaven. But for the members of the We ♥ Kids Club, that menu spelled Nothing To Eat.
“Chili dogs, foot-long dogs, Frank’s Special dogs,” read Maggie. “Ugh. Do you know what they put in those things?”
I nodded. “Pig ears and stuff, right?”
Sunny giggled. “And the rest of the menu isn’t much better. I don’t see a thing on there that isn’t processed, cooked in tons of grease, or full of salt.”
“We should have brought some sandwiches,” said Jill wistfully.
Just then, we found ourselves at the head of the line. The blonde woman behind the counter looked us over. “What can I get you girls?” she asked. She looked about thirty-five — older than your usual counter person at a fast-food place. And she looked tired, probably because she had to deal with a restaurant full of teenagers every afternoon.
“I’ll just have a soda, please,” I said. “A Coke.” I don’t usually drink Coke, since it’s so full of sugar, but it was the only thing I could think of to order. And we had to order something if we were going to be hanging out all afternoon.
My friends ordered sodas, too. Then, since nobody was in line behind us for the moment, I decided to ask the woman some questions. “We’re looking for somebody,” I said. “I wonder if you can help us.”
She gave me a curious look. “Maybe,” she said. “Who are you looking for?”
Good question. But not an easy one. “Well, it’s a man,” I said, “or a teenage boy, maybe. And all we know about him is that he wears Fly High sneakers and drives a black Chevy. And his car has one of your bumper stickers on it.”
The woman raised her eyebrows. “Not much of a description,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there.” She pointed to a basketful of bumper stickers that looked just like the one I’d seen on the robber’s car. “Are you talking abou
t these?” she said. “Feel free to take one, if you’d like. They’re on the house.”
“Thanks, but we don’t have a car,” said Sunny. “I guess we’ll just hang out for a while and keep our eyes peeled.”
We found a booth and sat sipping our sodas. Frank’s is a popular place, and lots of people came and went while we sat there. We examined each of them closely. There were plenty of high school kids, and a couple of them were even wearing Fly Highs. But they didn’t look suspicious. A group of construction workers came in, but they were all really big guys; way too tall to be “my” robber. There were also a few other booths like ours, full of middle-school or high-school girls.
We sipped our drinks as long as we could, but finally we had to give up our booth to a group of electric company workers with full trays.
We left the restaurant and stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes, talking about what we had — or hadn’t — seen. “Did you notice how the woman behind the counter kept staring at us?” Sunny asked, after we’d discussed the general lack of suspects in Frank’s.
I nodded. “I think it’s because we stayed so long without buying any food.”
“I have another theory,” Sunny said mysteriously.
“What?” I asked. We all leaned closer.
“I think she’s a cop. Undercover.” She nodded knowingly. “She’s staking out the place, just like we were.”
“Whoa!” we all said, sure that Sunny was right. As we walked away from Frank’s, I took one last look over my shoulder. If she was a police officer, I sure hoped she had better luck than we did. As far as I could tell, we didn’t have a single clue left to check out. Our investigation was at a dead end.
Stacey’s letter was just the boost I needed. It didn’t give me any new ideas about how to solve our mystery, but it cheered me right up. If anybody deserved a happy ending, it was the Barrett kids.
Stacey’s letter explained what had happened, but I had to call her anyway, just to tell her how happy her news had made me. While we talked, she filled me in on the details of her day with the Barretts and DeWitts.