Sydney: 4-in-1 Mysteries for Girls

by Jean Fischer

  Alexis: Hang on. My browser is acting up. I have to try it again. Okay, I’m in. Now what?

  Kate: Click on any panel number and it will take you to a photograph of that panel on the Wall. Then you can zoom in and read the names on the panel. I think that’s what we need to do. We need to read each panel where the fruits were left, and look for clues.

  McKenzie: That will take forever! I think we should research Agent Orange. That’s the obvious answer.

  Alexis: Maybe the obvious answer isn’t the one we need. I think we should check out Kate’s idea. Then, if that doesn’t work, we can check out Agent Orange.

  Sydney clicked on panel 4E. A photo popped up of that panel on the Vietnam Wall. She and Elizabeth began reading the hundreds of names on the panel.

  Sydney: There are 136 rows. Why don’t we divide them up? It’ll go faster that way.

  She assigned each girl a group of rows.

  Bailey: What am I supposed to be looking for?

  Sydney: Any name that might connect with lemons. Think about what they look like, how they taste, that sort of stuff.

  “I don’t like doing this,” Elizabeth told Sydney. “All of these names represent someone who was killed in Vietnam. This is more than just a list of names; it’s real people.”

  “I know,” Sydney agreed as she searched the rows. “I don’t like doing it either.”

  Bailey: I think I might have found something. I see someone with the last name Gold in row 34. Lemons are sort of gold.

  Alexis: That’s great work, Bailey! I wrote that down. Lemons, gold, row 34, panel 4E.

  Kate: Did anyone else find anything? If not, let’s move to the next panel, 48W. Look for anything that connects to blue or blueberries.

  Again Sydney assigned rows, and she and Elizabeth searched their lists of names. Before long, McKenzie’s name popped on the screen.

  McKenzie: I think Bailey might be on to something. A soldier is on my list with the last name Blue!

  Kate: I’m looking on panel 14W, where the limes were. There’s a Green on my list.

  Sydney shrugged her shoulders and looked at Elizabeth. “If there’s a soldier named Tangerine on panel 30W, I’ll make your bed the rest of the time you’re here,” she promised. Sydney figured that it was a safe promise to make, because no one, especially not a soldier, would be named Tangerine.

  Bailey: I’m on 30W. And guess what? I found a guy named Orange.

  Sydney: Oh, come on, Bailey. No one is named Orange. I mean, have you ever met any Oranges?

  Alexis: Bailey is right. And this one is different from Green, Blue, and Yellow … I mean Gold. Orange is his first name.

  Sydney clicked to the photograph of panel 30W. Sure enough, there was a man named Orange.

  McKenzie: And do you see where it is? Row 64. That’s what 64 means in “GO 64.” It was a clue for Rusty and Moose to look at that row. The leader must have thought that they needed some extra help, since this name is a little different from the others.

  Elizabeth took the keyboard from Sydney.

  Elizabeth: So we know the boss, or professor, or whoever he is, was telling Rusty and Moose to look for colors. But why?

  Kate: You’ll never believe this. I was doing a search for colors, and Biscuit put his red ball in my lap.

  Bailey: Pet Biscuit for me!

  Sydney: What’s hard to believe about Biscuit putting his ball in your lap?

  Kate: The ball is red. I pushed it out of my lap as I was typing a search for the colors we talked about. When I saw the red ball bouncing, I accidentally typed in red too. Guess what! These colors are the colors of the Homeland Security Terror Alert System. Green is a low risk of terrorist attacks. Blue is a general risk of attacks. Yellow means a significant risk of attacks. And orange is a high risk. There’s only one more level above that, and it’s red—a severe risk of terrorist attacks!

  Elizabeth looked at Sydney, and Sydney knew what she was thinking.

  Elizabeth: That’s what the short man meant when he told Moose and Rusty that they’d be taking things to the next level.

  Sydney grabbed the keyboard back.

  Sydney: Oh my goodness! They really are terrorists!

  A Plan to Track Trouble

  The next morning, Sydney and Elizabeth were at Union Station in Washington, DC, waiting for Kate Oliver to arrive. She was on the ten o’clock train from Philadelphia. During their group chat the night before, Kate had come up with a brilliant idea that involved a piece of electronic equipment. Since Philadelphia was only a few hours away and trains ran frequently up and down the coast, the girls had decided she would join Sydney and Elizabeth. If all went well, they would put her idea into action before the terrorists stepped up their plan to Level Red.

  The old, cavernous train building was alive with activity. Its white marble floors echoed with the footsteps of tourists, people on business, and government workers as they rushed to and from their trains. Music drifted from stores on the upper level, adding to the chaos.

  Sydney stood by the doors nearest the train tracks to the Philadelphia–Washington, DC, line. Kate’s train would arrive at that platform.

  Sydney and Elizabeth opened the big glass doors that led out to the tracks. A blast of air, heavy with the smell of diesel fuel, swept past the girls’ faces. They waited and watched while some trains sat idle on the tracks and others chugged in and out of the station.

  Sydney soon spotted a single headlight on the Philadelphia track. Slowly an enormous, shiny, bullet-shaped engine chugged into the station pulling six cars behind it. It stopped at the platform where the girls waited. The doors slid open, and passengers spilled out and scurried into the building like ants toward a crumb.

  “Do you see Kate?” Sydney asked.

  “Not yet,” Elizabeth replied.

  The crowd was thinning out. Only a dozen or so people remained. The girls worried that Kate had missed her train, but then they saw her. She waved to them as she exited the third car and stepped onto the concrete platform. She ran toward them, her sandy-colored hair bouncing. With her yellow T-shirt, fuchsia backpack, and bright green shorts, she looked as if she’d stepped off a tropical island.

  “Hi, Syd. Hi, Elizabeth,” Kate said. She briefly hugged each friend.

  “We were afraid you missed the train,” Sydney said as they walked into the crowded station.

  “I was listening to Casting Crowns on my iPod,” Kate answered. “I decided to hang out on the train until most people got off. It was a zoo in there.”

  Sydney led the girls down the escalators to the street level of the station. Then they walked toward the Plaza exit. “We’ll go to West Potomac Park,” Sydney announced. “Then we can talk.”

  Kate and Elizabeth scurried, trying to keep up with Sydney’s long stride.

  “I have the equipment ready,” Kate announced. “I just have to show you how to use it. Do you have the rest of the stuff?”

  “Yes. In my backpack,” Elizabeth answered.

  They were outside Union Station now and walking across the Plaza. They passed the Columbus Memorial Fountain where the statue of Christopher Columbus stared steely-eyed into the distance. To the right of him was a carving of a bearded man, sitting. To the left of him was a carving of an American Indian from long ago, crouching behind his shield and reaching for an arrow.

  The friends caught a bus on Constitution Avenue. Cars, taxis, and delivery vans whizzed by them as they traveled west to 15th Street. They got off on 15th and walked toward the Washington Monument. Then they covered the short distance to the Tidal Basin in the park.

  The girls found a quiet bench under the cherry trees. Nearby, children and grown-ups rode paddleboats through the cool, clear water in the Tidal Basin. In the peaceful setting, no one could have known that Kate, Elizabeth, and Sydney were worried about a terrorist attack on President Meade.

  Kate unzipped her backpack and pulled out a small black cell phone. “Here it is,” she said. “I’ve programmed it so a
ny of us can access the data from our computers. It works like this: We have to make sure that this phone is with Moose all the time. From what you said, he’s the dumber of the two, so it’ll be easier to get him to take it. As long as he has this phone, we can track him wherever he goes.”

  Kate handed Sydney and Elizabeth each a slip of paper with some writing on it. “When you get home, just go to this URL and type in your password. Elizabeth, yours is ‘Indiana.’ Sydney, yours is ‘Jones.’ Once you do that, you’ll see a screen with a map on it. It will show you exactly where Moose is. He’ll appear as a little, green blip on the screen.”

  Sydney laughed when she thought of the big, hulking Moose as nothing more than a small, green blip.

  Elizabeth opened her yellow backpack and took out the box that Sydney’s bracelet had come in. Then she pulled out a brown paper lunch bag, a pair of scissors, and a roll of tape. “I have everything we need,” she said.

  Kate handed Elizabeth the phone, and carefully Elizabeth placed it into the box. She cut the paper bag and made it into a piece of wrapping paper. Then she folded it around the box and sealed it with tape.

  “Now we have to create the note,” Sydney began. “I know what we should say.”

  “You dictate and I’ll write,” Kate offered, taking a black permanent marker out of her backpack.

  “Okay, here goes.” Sydney dictated the words and Kate wrote them on a leftover scrap of the paper bag:

  Moose, it is very important that you keep this package with you at all times. DO NOT OPEN IT or talk to anyone about it, including people you trust—not even the person giving you this! You will be asked for this package at the end of your mission. Keep it safe, keep quiet, or else!

  “That sounds good!” Kate said, smiling.

  “I think so too,” Elizabeth agreed. “From what Sydney overheard at the Lincoln Memorial, Moose seems to want to please the guy in the suit. So he’ll probably take very good care of this package.”

  She folded the note in half, hiding the message inside. Then she wrote Moose on the blank side and taped it to the top of the wrapped box.

  “We should go now,” she said. “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.”

  “Is that in the Bible?” Sydney asked.

  “No, but it’s a good proverb,” Elizabeth replied.

  Within moments, the girls arrived at the Vietnam Wall. When the friends got there, they found the place crowded with visitors.

  The girls hid near the trees at the south yard of the Wall.

  “Kate, I think you should do this alone,” Sydney suggested. “Moose and Rusty have never seen you. So if you run into them, it’ll be no big deal. Plus, if my aunt is around and she sees us, she’ll wonder why we’re here.”

  “I think you’re right,” Kate said. She dropped her backpack on the ground. “Watch my stuff.”

  Elizabeth handed her the small package wrapped in brown paper. Then Kate went toward the Wall.

  Sydney and Elizabeth stayed hidden in trees. Sydney had brought a pair of binoculars she liked to use for bird watching. She was peering through them, watching Kate.

  Kate purposefully looked indifferent as she casually strolled past the panels etched with names. On the west end, the panels began with the number 70. Only five names were etched onto that first panel. It was the shortest one on the west part of the Wall. Each panel beyond it stood a little bit taller until the east and west walls met in the middle at their highest points. Kate walked on past panels 61 … 60 … 59 … 58 … 57. Then something caught her eye. She hurried to a spot five panels down.

  “Hey, she’s stopping!” said Sydney, squinting through the binoculars.

  “She must be there,” Elizabeth added.

  “No. She’s a long way away from it still,” Sydney disagreed.

  Sydney watched as Kate stopped in front of a quart-sized box of huge red strawberries on the ground at the center of panel 52W.

  “She’s at the wrong panel!” Sydney exclaimed. “Didn’t we agree that she’d leave the box by panel 30W?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth confirmed.

  “Well, she’s a long way from there,” Sydney said, focusing her binoculars.

  “What’s she doing now?” Elizabeth wondered. She could see Kate crouching down in front of the Wall.

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell, because she has her back to me. I think she might be leaving the package there,” said Sydney.

  “But it’s the wrong place!” Elizabeth said with exasperation.

  “Oh Elizabeth! What are we going to do? Come on, girl!” Sydney said under her breath. “You’re at the wrong spot!”

  The girls watched as Kate set the package down.

  “I’m going in,” Sydney exclaimed, handing the binoculars to Elizabeth.

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Elizabeth asked nervously.

  “Probably not, but I’ll be careful. If that phone gets into the wrong hands, we’re sunk. Keep an eye on us.” Sydney sprinted across the grass toward the Wall.

  Just as Kate stood up, she felt someone grab her arm. She jumped.

  “What are you doing?” Sydney whispered. “This is the wrong place.”

  “No, it’s not!” Kate whispered back. “Let’s not talk about it here.”

  “But this isn’t 30W!” Sydney reminded her. “It’s down that way.” She pointed to her left.

  “Don’t point!” Kate scolded. “Someone might be watching us. Let’s get out of here.”

  Sydney was about to cut across the grass again.

  “Uh-uh,” Kate said. She took Sydney by the arm. “You’ll show them where we’re hiding!” Kate was right. Obediently, Sydney followed her to the entrance to the memorial. They doubled back toward the trees where Elizabeth was.

  “I knew what I was doing!” Kate said when they were away from the crowd. “As I walked to panel 30W, I saw a box of strawberries by panel 52W. I had to check it out.”

  The girls were approaching Elizabeth now. She was still watching the Wall through Sydney’s binoculars.

  “Hey, Beth, Kate found some strawberries!” Sydney didn’t mean to startle her friend, who swung around, dropping the binoculars on the ground.

  “Don’t do that to me!” Elizabeth said.

  “I’m sorry,” Sydney apologized. “But Kate found some strawberries by panel 52W.”

  Elizabeth picked up the binoculars and handed them to Sydney.

  “That’s not all I found,” Kate said. “A soldier on that panel had the last name Redd. You know what that means, don’t you? They’ve accelerated their plot to Level Red. Anytime now, they could put their plan into action—and we have to find out what it is before someone gets hurt!”

  Kate picked her backpack up off the ground and took out her notepad and marker. She printed the words Hail to the chief at the twilight’s last gleaming. “There’s a note with the strawberries, attached to a small American flag. This is what it says,” Kate told them.

  Elizabeth read the words. “Were the letters all capitalized like you’ve written them here?” she asked.

  “I didn’t really pay attention,” Kate answered. “But no, I don’t think so. I’m almost sure that they weren’t all caps.”

  “Then this note must be from The Professor, or the guy in the suit,” Elizabeth decided. “The note that Moose and Rusty left for him was written all in capital letters, the one that said ‘Meade me in St. Louis.’”

  Kate reached into her backpack and took out a plastic bottle of water. She plopped down on the ground and drank some. “Who do you think The Professor is?” she wondered. “Do you think it’s the suit guy?”

  “I doubt it,” Sydney said, watching the Wall with her binoculars. “At the Lincoln Memorial, Rusty wanted to go and check out the place, whatever that meant, and the suit guy said no, that he’d have to talk it over with him first. I think him might mean The Professor.”

  “So, we think they might be plotting to do something to President Meade,” Kate sighed,
“but we don’t know who the him is or where the place is.”

  “You’ve got it,” Sydney replied, still watching through her binoculars. “But if your plan works, we’ll know soon. Hey, Elizabeth, isn’t that your Uncle Dan’s friend?”

  “Huh?” Elizabeth answered.

  “I think I see that Al guy,” Sydney went on. “The one who asked me if I was related to President Lincoln. He’s over by the center of the Wall.”

  “Let me see.” Elizabeth took the binoculars from Sydney. She focused them until she could see clearly. “Yeah, that’s him,” she said. “He’s just standing there leaning against the Wall.” She moved the binoculars away from her uncle’s friend and scanned the east part of the Wall and then the west. She saw no sign of Uncle Dan or of the other man who had been with them yesterday morning.

  “He’s looking all around now,” Elizabeth reported, “like he thinks someone might be watching him. There he goes. He’s walking along the west part of the wall. Still looking around. Acting sort of nervous.”

  “I see him,” Sydney said. “He’s too far away to see what he’s up to, though, so keep telling us.”

  “Who are we looking at?” Kate wondered as she put the water bottle inside her backpack.

  Sydney explained, “Yesterday morning Elizabeth’s Uncle Dan and two of his friends met us here at the Wall. My Aunt Dee showed them around, and we hung out too, just to be polite. That man was with us. His name is Al.”

  Kate was still confused. “Which man? Where?”

  “He’s walking past 30W now,” Elizabeth informed them.

  “The guy in the white shirt and khaki cargo shorts,” Sydney told Kate. “See, he’s almost to where the strawberries are.”

  “And he’s stopping there,” Elizabeth reported. “He’s looking at the berries…. Now he’s looking around again. I wonder what he’s doing…. He’s kneeling. Is he praying? No…. He’s reading the note that’s on the flagpole. Hey! He’s picking up our package!”

  “Oh no!” Sydney cried. “What’s he going to do with it?”

  “Is he one of the bad guys?” Kate asked in disbelief.