He looked over one shoulder.
I clicked.
He looked over the other shoulder.
I clicked again.
He started coming across the bridge.
I collapsed my periscope fast and put it away.
And then I saw him with my own naked eyes, stumbling down the riverbank. His hair was messy and his clothes were kind of shabby. He was actually the opposite of the trench coat guy. He looked really… unkempt.
Slovenly.
Bedraggled!
Did he know about the money?
Nah, he probably just had to do an emergency pee. No way a shabby guy like him knew someone as slick as the trench coat guy.
I watched him, thinking that maybe when he was done with his emergency, I'd ask him how to get back to Old Town. Maybe I could even get him to call my mom.
I stayed hidden, though. I didn't want to embarrass him! But he didn't stop at a tree or anything. And I started thinking, Hey, guy— don't get so close to the river! People drink out of that, you know! But he kept on going straight down to the water. Then he turned and came under the bridge.
He was looking for the rock!
He was about to become $100,000 richer.
But why ?
He went from boulder to boulder until he saw it: X marks the spot.
He looked around.
I ducked behind the pillar!
He picked up the rock.
I zoomed in on him with my camera!
He opened the bottom of the boulder.
I clicked!
He looked around.
I clicked again!
Boy, was he nervous.
Boy, was I nervous, too!
Then he unzipped his jacket and wrestled something out of the back of his pants.
He'd been hiding a stack of papers back there!
He put the papers on the ground and started cramming bundles of money down his pants. Pretty soon the boulder was empty and the guy had the hundred thousand dollars stashed.
In his underwear!
He folded the papers and crammed them into the rock. He closed the secret door. He was looking around like crazy, shaking like mad!
When he was done, he put the boulder back and raced out of there so fast that he fell twice on his hundred-thousand-dollar butt before making it up the riverbank.
Wow.
What had the shabby guy put into the boulder?
What in the world was worth one hundred thousand dollars to the trench coat man?
The minute I heard the car drive off, I raced down to the boulder.
I opened it.
I pulled out the papers.
I unfolded them and saw… diagrams and num-bers. Pages and pages of calculations!
Equations!
Formulas!
And at the top of every page, stamped in red, was “CLASSIFIED.”
It didn't take a rocket scientist—or even a superhero—to figure out that something was fishy. Stinky, smelly, fishy! And what's amazing is that I'd had the chance to take the money, but I hadn't. That would have felt like stealing.
But taking these calculations—whatever they were—didn't feel like stealing. It felt like I was saving them. “CLASSIFIED”meant they were important. Top-secret! No way the shabby guy should be selling them!
I crammed the papers into my backpack. I returned the boulder to where I'd found it.
I couldn't go back to the road now. What if the trench coat guy or the shabby guy came back? What if they saw me? Walking along the road was too dangerous!
Instead, I headed upstream, into the darkening forest.
Chapter 8
Lost and Found
Walking away from the road and into the forest wasn't as dumb as it sounds. I was walking up stream, and I knew that Cedar Creek ran down through town. Eventually I'd have to come to the Cedar Creek Bridge, and from there I'd know how to get home.
I was hurrying, too! I didn't want anyone to see me near the little bridge where I'd found the fake boulder.
At first I was only worried about the trench coat guy catching me. But after I'd walked a long way, I started worrying more about spending the night in the forest. It was getting dark fast!
So I ran the best I could. Through sand and mud and rocks, I kept moving upstream, hoping the Cedar Creek Bridge would pop into view.
It didn't. And I was just starting to really panic when I saw something through the pine trees.
I wasn't dying of thirst or falling down dead in the desert or anything, but… was that a mirage?
No!
It really was a log cabin!
A green log cabin!
I ran toward it like crazy, and when I got close enough, I started shouting, “Mr. Green! Mr. Green!”
He came out through the front door, looking around, and when he saw me, he said, “Nolan?”
“Mr. Green!”I cried.
“Are you all right?”
“I was lost! I was riding my bike but it got a flat, so I started walking, but then this…”And then I remembered—Mr. Green wasn't the Bouncer anymore. He'd quit! I couldn't tell him about the trench coat guy or the shabby guy—he'd tell me to lie low!
So I took a deep breath and said, “I got lost, that's all.”
He looked at his watch. “Your parents must be worried.”
I nodded.
I followed him inside, where he let me call my mom. And when she heard it was me, the first thing she said was, “Oh, honey! Oh, honey, you're okay!”Then she called over to my dad, “Steven! It's him! He's fine!”Then, like a light switch, she clicked on the anger. “Nolan, why did you leave without saying where you were going? What were you thinking? Do you know how wor-ried we've been? Just because things are not going exactly the way you want them to doesn't mean you can thumb your nose at us and start throwing around attitude!”
And that was just her warm-up! She was getting really worked up when Mr. Green took the phone away from me and told her he'd be happy to drive me home.
After he hung up, he smiled at me and said, “Don't sweat it too much, Nolan. That's just how parents get when they've been worried.”
I followed him to his van without a word. I was back to feeling sick inside. I wanted to tell Mr. Green and my parents about the trench coat guy and the shabby guy, but I couldn't. It would get me in more trouble than I already was. And boy, was I in major trouble with Mom and Dad.
But still, I had to do something!
And I had to do it without the trench coat guy or the shabby guy finding out who I was.
There was only one answer—Shredderman.
So after Mr. Green dropped me off and Mom and Dad were done scolding me, I ate cold chicken and beans and went straight to bed.
Only I didn't go straight to sleep!
I lay in bed, waiting.
And thinking.
And when the house was finally quiet and I was sure my parents were asleep, I got up, booted up, and went to work. First I scanned in all the pages of calculations and diagrams that I'd pulled out of the fake boulder.
Always smart to make a backup!
Then I got to work putting together a Photoshop page. I moved a picture of the trench coat guy next to a picture of the shabby guy, and added a shot of the “CLASSIFIED”pages. Then between the images I wrote:
I think you should investigate! (And check your snail mail. I'm sending you the classified documents.)
Yours in Truth and Justice, Shredderman
Then I sneaked down the hall and booted up my mom's computer.
I went to her e-mail.
I checked her address book.
I found him!
Sergeant William Klubb—my dad's friend at the police station. And his e-mail was easy:
[email protected].
Oh, yeah!
I tiptoed back to my bedroom, attached the Photoshop file to an e-mail, and sent it to Sarge with “URGENT”in the message box. Then I tagged it with a red exclamation mark and sent it into cyberspace
.
Step one, complete!
Step two, mail the documents.
I looked up the address of the Cedar Valley Police Department on the Internet, then printed out a mailing label addressed to Sergeant William Klubb.
I typed up a return label: Sergeant William Klubb, same address! Whether it went forward or backward, it would get to him.
Then I shut down my computer and started stuffing the envelope.
Documents in!
Labels on!
Sealed with tape (saliva has DNA)!
Then I slapped a bunch of stamps on the enve-lope and wrestled my feet into my shoes. And I was starting to climb out my window to go mail it, but at the last minute I turned around and scrawled a note that said:
Don't be mad! I'll be right back!
Nolan
(2:10 a.m.)
Then I climbed out my window.
I landed whoosh, like a cat. I zoomed up the street. Around the corner.
There it was—the neighborhood mailbox.
I slid the envelope down the hatch.
I whispered “Good luck!”and zoomed back home.
By 2:16 a.m., I was back inside. Am I speedy, or what? I fell into bed happy. Happy to be Shredderman.
Chapter 9
Busted
In the morning, Mom was real nice when she woke me up. “Nolan…”She was stroking my hair. “Nolan, honey, it's time to get up.”
For a minute I forgot that I was mad at her. And that she'd been mad at me. The way she was stroking my hair felt so nice.
Then my dad came in, saying, “Hey, champ. I think I figured out what road you left your bike on.”He had a map, and squashed my leg when he squeezed onto my bed to show me.
“Ow!”I said, and rolled toward the wall. Boy, did I sound grumpy!
Mom stood up and said, “Come on, Nolan. You can do better than that. Help your father find your bike while I make us all some breakfast.”
So I sat up and looked at the map. “Where?”
“Well, here's where Mr. Green lives,”Dad said, pointing. “And if you follow the river this way, the first road you come across is this one— Blackstone Way.”
I studied the map, trying to figure out where I'd gone and where I'd gone wrong. But then Dad said, “If you'd stuck to the road, you'd have been home free, Nolan.”He pointed. “A quarter mile, max, and you'd have been on Leeward, then vroom, straight out to Old Town.”He shook his head. “I still don't understand why you left the road. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? How could we have ever found you? What were you thinking ?”
I shrugged and looked away. It did seem really, really stupid, but that's because I couldn't tell him the truth.
“Well,”Dad sighed. Then he stood up and said, “I'll go out there and see if I can find your bike.”
“Can I go with you?”
He looked at his watch. “You won't have time before school.”
“So? I'll just—”
“No. You will go to school like you're supposed to.”He said it real sternly, then took a deep breath and said, “If I can't find it on my own, I'll take you back out there after school.”
“But—”
“No ifs, ands, or buts, Nolan. Just tell me which side of the road, and how far from the bridge you think it is.”
I could tell I wasn't going to get him to change his mind, so I started calculating out loud. “If you're walking toward the bridge, it's on the right side of the road. And I walked for… forty-five minutes?”
“How fast?”
“As fast as I could.”I thought for a minute. The fastest I'd run a mile at school was nine minutes. Call it ten. If I was going even half that speed, I'd be going one mile in twenty minutes.
That made three miles in sixty minutes.
Three miles an hour?
Sheez. Some kind of superhero.
Finally I said, “It's probably about two miles from the bridge.”
“Good enough,”Dad said, folding the map. “I'll do my best.”He slapped my leg. “Now hustle up!”
“Uh…,”I said when he'd reached the door, “thanks, Dad.”
He turned to face me. “Thank me by not pulling a stunt like that again.”
“It wasn't a stunt, Dad!”
“Well, whatever you call it, don't do anything like it again.”
I looked down. “I'm sorry.”
“We'll talk more when I get home tonight, okay? I know you're mad about Shredderman, and I do understand that. For now, try to see more than just your side of it, okay? We'll figure some way to work this out.”
I nodded, but I didn't believe him. “Working it out”meant lying low. Boy! If they knew what was going on, I'd be in some boiling hot water!
I did lie low at school, though. Even lower than usual. I didn't even play four-square or go to the computer lab at recess. I just went down to the swings and sat on the edge of the sand, looking at birds peck around the lower field.
Then out of nowhere, my dad showed up in the cafeteria at lunch. He sat right across the table from me. It was strange to have him suddenly appear in the cafeteria, but I could tell something big was on his mind.
“You couldn't find my bike?”I asked him.
“Oh, I found your bike, all right,”he said. “It took me nearly two hours, but I found it. And I got the flat fixed, too. It's back in the garage, good as new.”
“Wow, Dad. Thanks!”I really was happy. From the way he was acting, I thought for sure he was going to say my bike was ruined. But it was fine. Fixed! Ready to ride!
So why was he frowning?
“Dad?”I asked him. “What's wrong?”
He was looking around. “Why are you here all by yourself?”
“Huh? Oh.”I shrugged. “This is where I eat.”
“Every day?”
I nodded.
“Always by yourself?”
I shrugged and nodded some more.
“Why aren't you eating with… with some friends?”
“Dad, shhhh. It's okay. I'm used to it.”
“But—”He was shaking his head. “Nolan, I had no idea…”
He was making me feel worse than I already did about having no friends. So I switched the subject. “Thanks for coming here to tell me about my bike, Dad.”
He focused on me and said, “I didn't actually come here because of that. I came here because… because Sergeant Klubb called me.”
Uh-oh.
I tried to act cool. “Oh, yeah?”
“Apparently he got an e-mail from Shredderman. Sarge wanted to know if I'd made any progress figuring out who he is.”
Brother. It'd only been half a day. Couldn't any-one give a superhero a break?
“Nolan?”
“What, Dad?”
“You're not denying it? I thought for sure it was some other guy pretending to be you.”
I shrugged.
“It was you?”
His lips got tight.
His eyes got twitchy.
Finally he whispered, “What do you think you're doing ?”
My lips got tight right back.
I made my eyes into little slits.
I leaned forward and whispered, “Fighting for truth and justice, like I'm supposed to!”
We stared each other down for a solid minute. Then he stood and said, “You're coming home.”
“But—”
“You're coming home!”
He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of there. I had my backpack, but he wouldn't even let me get my homework books! He marched me across school, stuck his head in the office door, and called out to Mrs. Holler, “I'm taking Nolan home!”
“Uh…,”she said, then leaned out the office door, calling, “Wait a minute, Mr. Byrd! Is this for illness, or what?”
“It's for attitude!”he shouted back at her. Then he hustled me across the street.
Chapter 10
Diabolical Deeds
“All right,”Dad said when he'd muscl
ed me through our front door. “Show me what you e-mailed to Sarge.”
I thought about saying no. If he didn't want to help fight for truth and justice, then why should he get to know what I was doing? But I'd never seen my dad this upset before, and I was feeling bad and a little scared. Not of him, but of him not liking me anymore. Maybe I didn't have any friends at school, but at home I had two really good ones.
Or at least I used to.
So I led him down to my room.
There were messages in my Shredderman in-box—one was from
[email protected]. I was dying to know what Sarge had mailed me, but I clicked on the SENT folder and opened the e-mail I'd sent Sarge instead. “Here,”I said, and let my dad sit down.
He looked at the pictures and read the words slowly. Out loud. “Why would this guy… Pay this guy… A hundred thousand dollars… For a dozen pages of these? I think you should investigate. And check your snail mail. I'm sending you the classified documents.”He turned to me and asked, “Nolan, who are these people you took pictures of? When did you… Where did you… How did you…?”He couldn't seem to finish his sentences. But then he practically spit out, “What classified documents?”
“The ones I snail-mailed to Sarge.”
“The ones you…”
He took me by the shoulders.
He looked me square in the eye.
“Nolan, start from the beginning, and tell me everything.”
He wasn't looking angry.
Or even upset.
He looked worried.
“It's okay, Dad. They didn't see me! I was getting a drink from the river because I was so, so, so thirsty. I'd been lost for hours! I'd been walking, and my backpack was heavy, and I knew Mom would be mad at me, and—”
“Nolan! The men. Where did you see these men?”
“At a bridge on the road where I hid my bike. The guy with the trench coat stopped first. I was going to ask him to call you, but he took that boulder out of his car and…”
“Boulder? What boulder?”
I took my digital camera out of my backpack, connected it to my computer, and started a slide show for my dad, showing him all the pictures I'd taken of the trench coat guy and the shabby guy, explaining what had happened as I went along.