Chirp

by Kate Messner

  “Mia?” Clover poked her head into the kitchen. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but didn’t you want to go see your gram out at the farm?”

  Mia looked at the microwave clock. It was already four thirty. “Oh my gosh, yes. Thanks.” She gave her mom a quick, fierce hug and whispered “I love you” in her ear. Mom left for the store, and Mia, Anna, and Clover went upstairs to get everything they needed.

  Then they put on their helmets, packed up their spying moose, and biked out to the industrial park. It was time to put their double-agent moose to work.

  CHAPTER 22

  And the Winner Is …

  Mr. Jacobson’s car wasn’t in the parking lot when they got there, so they went to see if Gram needed help with the crickets. As soon as they walked in, Syd made a beeline for Mia. Then she spotted Anna, stopped, and burst out barking.

  Anna stepped back, but Clover said, “Don’t worry. She used to hate me, too.” Syd had already stopped barking, so Clover bent to love her up. “Remember that, oh, fierce one?” she said as Syd flopped over for a belly rub.

  “Hello, ladies!” Gram said, coming out of the office. “Are you here to help out?”

  “Sure!” Mia said.

  “Perfect. Daniel got called in for his other job and didn’t get to finish changing the waters if you want to do that.”

  “Wait, what?” Mia looked at Gram. “Daniel got another job?”

  Gram nodded. “He didn’t want to say anything, but he told me last week that he was going to do some work at the college on the side. In case I need to cut back his hours.” Gram sighed. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I can’t blame him for having a backup plan.”

  “That makes sense.” Mia was relieved to know Daniel’s secret phone calls were really just about not hurting Gram’s feelings. “And we can definitely help you.”

  “Great. I have a meeting soon and was in a bit of a pinch.” Gram shook her head. “I tried to call Bob Jacobson because he said he could always help out, but he’s off on a business trip.”

  Mia felt half-disappointed and half-relieved that she wouldn’t have to go through with the moose-swapping plan today. “How long will he be gone?”

  “Not long,” Gram said. “His secretary said he had to run up to Quebec for something, but he’ll be back by one or two tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Quebec?” Mia’s heart sped up before she even understood why. But then the audio from the moose’s memory card played back in her head.

  That virus apparently gets into everything. She says a farm in Quebec just had it wipe out their whole population …

  “Yes,” Gram said, and gave Mia a funny look. “Got something against Quebec?”

  “No.” Mia forced herself to smile. She turned to Clover and Anna, who were giving her weird looks, too. They must not have made the connection. And Mia couldn’t say anything about it. Not in front of the moose.

  Her head was spinning as they washed the water dishes and gave the crickets food. Quebec was a big province, so maybe it was nothing. But what if Mr. Jacobson was visiting that cricket farm with the awful virus? What if he brought it back somehow and infected Gram’s farm?

  “You okay?” Clover asked as she blew at some crickets to make them move out of their food dish. “You got all quiet.”

  “I’m fine,” Mia said. But then she shook her head and pointed at the moose, sticking out of her backpack in the corner. She hadn’t wanted to leave it in the lobby where Gram might say something.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Clover said. “Can you show me where it is?”

  “I have to go, too,” Anna said, and followed them. “Mia, what’s going on?” she whispered as soon as they closed the door.

  “Mr. Jacobson is in Quebec.” Mia reminded them about the infected cricket farm.

  Clover gasped. “When did she say he’s coming back?”

  “One or two tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Okay …” Clover leaned against the sink and stared up at the ceiling, thinking. “We can still do the competition. Then we’ll come straight here to make sure everything is all right, and we’ll swap out the moose then.” She looked at Mia. “Should we tell your gram about this?”

  Mia shook her head. Gram had so much to worry about already. And also, Gram loved Mr. Jacobson. Everybody did. He had that friendly Phil thing going. Gram might believe him if he made up some stupid excuse about the listening device and said it was to record parents’ voices for little kids or something.

  No. They needed to nail him. They needed proof.

  “Let’s see what happens tomorrow,” Mia said. “As long as the farm is okay for now, I think it’ll be best to wait until we have real evidence.”

  “We’ll have that as soon as we get the moose swapped out,” Anna said.

  Clover nodded, and they went back to the warehouse to finish their cricket work. Then Mia collected the moose, and they rode home. Mom made chili, and they ate upstairs while they watched movies and sang more Broadway songs to Neptune.

  “Don’t stay up too late, girls,” Mom said when she checked in at ten.

  She didn’t have to worry. After a long day of bike riding and swimming and sleuthing, none of them kept their eyes open another ten minutes.

  Vermont Launch Junior was happening in the ballroom of a fancy downtown hotel. Mia’s parents dropped them off, and the plan was for Clover’s mom to bring them to the cricket farm to help Gram after the competition. That’s what Mia told her parents, even though she’d really be on a mission to plant the spy moose in Mr. Jacobson’s office. Anna had to stop in at her cousin’s birthday party after the competition, but she’d come out to join them as soon as she could get away.

  “Do you have the laptop?” Clover asked as she carried the poster board inside.

  “Yep—also the banner and cricket samples,” Mia said.

  “I’ve got the robot.” Anna was lugging a huge box because the robot had to be packed in foam so its parts didn’t get jostled and messed up on the car ride. Robots were more fragile than molting crickets, apparently.

  Before the presentation, there was an hour-long exhibition where the public could look at projects and talk with entrepreneurs. At ten, the first of the ten teams would give their talk while the judges sat in a row, Deal with the Sharks–style, taking notes and asking questions. Mia, Clover, and Anna were scheduled second to last. Then there would be a fifteen-minute break before awards. After that, they’d race out the door to the cricket farm.

  “I hope this really ends by noon,” Mia said as she poured barbecue crickets into sample cups. “We have to get back before—”

  “Shh!” Anna pointed to the duffel bag under their table. Mia was really looking forward to ditching that moose.

  “It’ll be okay,” Clover said as the doors opened and people streamed into the ballroom. “Now let’s do this thing.”

  For an hour, they gave out cricket samples, took Chirp Challenge photos, and answered questions about eating crickets as food.

  “Yes, they really are a healthy protein.”

  “No, these crickets didn’t come from a field somewhere.”

  “Sure, the legs get stuck in your teeth sometimes, but you get used to that.”

  At ten o’clock, the presentations started. The first team had set up a homework-helpers hotline for their school. Aidan was up next with Cookies for a Cause, and the judges seemed to love him. Some were surprised when he mentioned he had a chocolate chirp cookie made with cricket flour on his list of fund-raiser options, but Aidan just smiled and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll hear more about that soon.”

  Dylan and Julia were up next. Dylan left his skateboard at his seat and held the jewelry display board while Julia talked about how eco-friendly their earrings were. She lifted one of her braids so the judges could see hers better. When they were done, Eli and Nick came running out in team uniforms, kicking soccer balls, and then stopped mid-kick and looked around. “Aw, rats!” Eli said. “I was hoping the
re’d be a game here today.” Mia had to admit it was a funny way to get attention for KicksFinder. As obnoxious as Eli could be, she envied his confidence. He and his dimples just walked around, sure that everyone would love them wherever they went. And most people did.

  They loved Clover, too. She joined Eli and Nick onstage to talk about her work with the coding, and the judges seemed impressed.

  Two hockey players came out after them—also in uniform—to pitch their Hockey-Fresh equipment bags, which had built-in air fresheners. One of the judges sniffed the bag and said it smelled like a mix of sweat and lilacs, which made Mia think that team wouldn’t be getting a whole lot of points.

  The next entrepreneur was a high school junior who was marketing Cool Patch, for when you rip your jeans, with a new kind of adhesive she’d invented. She’d done all the chemistry for it and had a patent pending and everything.

  Then came a girl who made her own lemonade, with honey from bees she raised herself, and another girl who created an app called FishDetector for finding the best fishing spots. Mia only listened to half her pitch because she was getting nervous.

  And then it was their turn.

  “And now we have the Green Mountain Cricket Farm team,” the announcer said.

  Mia took a deep breath and forced herself to follow Clover and Anna onto the stage. She had to start the pitch.

  “Good morning!” she said, and then hesitated. One judge gave her an encouraging smile. Mia stared back at her. The judges sat facing away from the audience, so Mia hadn’t seen her face until now. It was Anne Marie Spangler from Five Dogs Apparel. From the event at the college where Mia had talked with her afterward and told her— Why had she told a stranger that? And what was Anne Marie doing here?

  Actually, Mia knew what she was doing. She was judging the contest with the other businesspeople, and they were all waiting for Mia to talk. It was good she’d practiced so much, because now the words tumbled out without her thinking. “What if I told you that eating insects could provide a healthier lifestyle for your family and save the planet at the same time?” Clover held the poster board while Mia shared all the crickets’ promises about protein and sustainability. “We’re not launching a new cricket farm,” she said, “but we’ve put together a marketing, automation, and expansion plan for the one my grandmother runs right here in Vermont. My colleagues, Clover and Anna, will tell you more about that.”

  There. Mia stepped back while Clover talked about the challenges of getting people to eat insects and ideas for viral marketing. She shared the mayor’s social media post. “We believe that by targeting key influencers like this, we can grow. But we need to be more efficient, and Anna has a plan for that.”

  Anna brought her robot to the front of the stage, explained how long it takes to harvest crickets by hand, and ran a perfect demonstration of her robot harvester. Then Mia wrapped up by talking about their open house the next day and invited everyone—judges and audience alike—to join Gram at the farm to see for themselves. “And finally, now that you’ve heard our pitch …” Mia held up a tub of roasted crickets and gave it a shake, just like Gram had when she greeted them that day at the farm. “Who would like to try a crispy barbecue cricket or two?”

  Every judge’s hand went up, and most of the audience raised their hands, too. Mia hadn’t planned on that, so Clover ran to the display table for more samples.

  “Thanks so much for the chance to share our project,” Mia said. She hadn’t looked at Anne Marie the whole time, but she did now, and Anne Marie gave her a little nod.

  Then Mia went back to her seat and collapsed. Clover and Anna grabbed her hands, one on each side, and squeezed, as Quan and Bella went up to give the last presentation of the day.

  “We did it!” Clover whispered. “Don’t you think it went great? I think we have a chance at placing.”

  Mia thought so, too. But she didn’t really understand how this whole thing worked. Gymnastics had been easier to figure out. You lost a certain number of points for falling off the beam or missing a catch on the uneven bars, and by the time you landed, you had a pretty good idea what your score would be. Who knew what these judges were looking for? Mia felt like it had gone well, but she was afraid to hope and then feel dumb about it, so she put a finger to her lips and pointed at the stage, where Quan was talking about the popularity of food trucks.

  When they finished, the judges thanked everyone and promised to come back in fifteen minutes to announce winners. Mia, Clover, and Anna went to their table to clean up. The robot had to be packed up in foam again, so Anna worked on that while Mia and Clover tossed out empty sample cups. There weren’t any crickets left, which Mia thought was a good sign.

  “I hope they decide fast.” She looked up at the clock on the wall. It was ten after twelve. “Maybe we should go. What if this takes a while?”

  “We can’t leave. You were amazing, Mia. We rocked this.” Clover turned to Mia, grabbed her hand, and reached out to take Anna’s, too.

  Mia looked down at their sparkly green fingernails with the purple lightning. It was only nail polish, but Mia swore it had worked some kind of magic, giving her the strength to finish her talk while she was up onstage. Or maybe that was just because her friends were there beside her.

  “Look!” Anna pointed. “They’re already back.”

  Everyone went to their seats while the judges filed in. Mia looked at the clock. By the time the judges got settled, it was quarter after twelve. What if Mr. Jacobson had come back from Quebec early?

  Clover’s phone buzzed, and she looked down. “My mom’s here, so we can head out as soon as this is done.”

  One of the judges stepped up to the podium. “First, I’d like to congratulate all of you,” he said. “Our job wasn’t easy, but we do have winners to announce. First, two honorable mentions: Cookies for a Cause and Lucy’s Honey-Lime Lemonade!”

  “Go, Aidan!” Mia clapped as he and the bee girl went up to get certificates.

  “Our third place honor goes to …”

  Mia’s heart could have burst out of her chest. Could they really have placed?

  “… the Bao Bus!”

  “Woo-hoo!” Clover shouted as Quan and Bella collected their trophy.

  Clover’s eyes were all big and excited. She leaned over to Mia and whispered, “I have a very good feeling about this.”

  “In second place …,” the judge announced, “KicksFinder!”

  Figures, Mia thought. But she clapped as Eli and Nick went up to get their trophy. Clover joined them but hurried back to Mia and Anna. “This is it.”

  Mia sucked in her breath and looked up at the ceiling as the applause died down. She’d been afraid to hope, but now, that hope was a big bubble in her chest that felt as if it might lift her right off the ground and up to the fancy hotel chandelier.

  “And now, the first-place winner of this year’s Vermont Launch Junior is …” He paused and looked out over the audience before he looked back down at his paper. “Cool Patch!”

  Mia’s hope deflated. She forced herself to clap for the chemistry girl. The newspaper reporters—the ones who wouldn’t be doing stories on Gram’s cricket farm now—gathered around her, and everybody in the audience got up to leave.

  “Sorry,” Clover said. “I really thought we had a chance.” She gave Mia and Anna half-hearted fist bumps.

  “Me too,” said Anna.

  “You two were amazing,” Mia said. “Thank you so much for everything.” She smiled, but it felt like somebody had stepped all over her heart with muddy boots.

  Then she looked at the clock and felt even worse. It was already twelve thirty. “Clover, we need to go!”

  They hugged Anna, who was leaving with her parents for the birthday party, and then Clover turned to Mia. “Go get the moose, okay? I’ll grab our poster and stuff.”

  Mia was on her way to pick up her duffel bag full of moose when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Mia?” It was Anne Marie Spang
ler, with a clipboard full of notes in her hand. Another lady was standing next to her. “Could we speak with you for a minute?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Like a Kung Fu Mantis

  “Do you know what an angel investor is?”

  Mia nodded. Then she said, “Kind of,” because really, she only remembered Daniel saying that Gram needed to find some to keep her business going.

  “Angel investors provide funding for start-ups in exchange for partial ownership.” Anne Marie gestured to the other woman. “Miranda and I are part of a group of local investors with a focus on supporting women entrepreneurs. We were incredibly impressed with your project, and we’d like to talk about the possibility of investing in your grandmother’s farm.”

  “Really?” Mia said. “We didn’t even get an honorable mention.”

  “That’s true,” Anne Marie said, “because the competition was set up with a specific rubric and point structure. But when it comes to real-world investing, we look at more than that.”

  “So you want to give my grandmother money? And own part of her farm?”

  “Maybe. If she’s open to that idea.” Anne Marie held out a business card. “Would you ask her to contact me if she’d like to talk?”

  Mia looked at the card but didn’t take it right away. Had they really done such a good job that they’d convinced her to invest in Gram’s farm? Or was this about something else? It shouldn’t matter, Mia thought. She should give Gram the card and be glad it was happening at all. But she had to know. “Are you doing this because … because of what I told you after your presentation?”

  Anne Marie looked at her friend and said, “Can you give us just a minute?” Miranda nodded and went to talk with the other judges.

  “Mia,” Anne Marie said. “I’m glad you talked to me about what happened. And I hope you’ve found someone else to talk with, too. Someone you know well and trust.”