Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers

by Chris Grabenstein

  Riley Mack didn’t feel like Riley Mack anymore.

  In fact, he hadn’t felt like such a big-time disappointment since he turned nine and stuffed an ice-cream cake into his underpants.

  Since Friday was payday for a lot of people in Fairview, the bank lobby was extremely crowded. Long lines snaked across the marble floor as Riley rolled through the revolving brass door. He went to the back of the line for teller window three, figuring he had to wait his turn to see his mom, which would also give him time to perfect his pitch.

  But, being a mom, Riley’s mother sixth-sensed his presence the instant he entered the building and motioned for Riley to come up to her window right away.

  Riley ducked his head, mumbled, “Excuse me” about a hundred times, and, basically, cut to the front of the line. He heard a bunch of grumbling from the grown-ups he passed, the people he was making wait even longer than they already knew they’d have to wait.

  “Riley?” his mom asked when he made it to her window. “Is everything okay, hon?”

  “Yeah. I just needed to talk to you.”

  “Is it urgent?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Can it wait?”

  Riley heard a soft whirr come from somewhere up near the ceiling. He glanced to his right and saw a spy camera aimed straight at his mother’s teller window. The lens rotated as it zoomed in for a tighter shot.

  Great. Now he was getting his mom in trouble. What a day. He was disappointing everybody, especially himself.

  “Riley? I don’t have a whole lot of time. I really need to take care of my customers. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Yeah. I just, you know, thought I’d drop by.”

  “On Friday? During rush hour?”

  “Yeah.”

  His mom did not look pleased.

  Neither did the man who suddenly appeared behind her in the teller cage. It was her boss, the bank manager, Mr. Weitzel, the guy named Chuck who, for some bizarro reason, wanted everybody, even Riley, to call him Chip. Mr. Weitzel was glaring at Riley.

  “Riley?” his mother said again. “We’re kind of busy right now.”

  “Riiight. Never mind. I needed some money for pizza but I just remembered that Mongo owes me five bucks so I’ll get it from him. See you at home.” He waved at the scowling man looming behind his mom. “So long, Mr. Weitzel—I mean, Chip.”

  He pivoted, bolted across the lobby, and spun through the revolving door like he was riding a playground merry-go-round. He came flying out the other side and slid across a pile of dog mess somebody forgot to pooper-scoop off the sidewalk.

  Yep, just when Riley didn’t think he could feel any lamer, he did. He was a total lame-o. The lame-inator.

  He swiped his sneaker clean on the curb, unlocked his bike from a streetlamp, and was about to ride home so he could stick his head inside a brown paper bag and hide his lameosity, when his cell phone started buzzing.

  It was Jake.

  “Riley, we have an emergency.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Noodle is gone.”

  “The goldendoodle?”

  “Yeah. Somebody stole her. Mongo’s little sister says it was a Martian.”

  12

  MONGO HUGGED HIS MOM AND patted her on the back.

  She was about a foot shorter than him.

  “C’mon, Mom. Don’t cry.”

  Mongo’s mom kept crying, burrowing her face in her enormous son’s equally enormous armpit, which muffled her sobs and must’ve smelled pretty bad, too.

  Riley was hanging out with Mongo’s sister, six-year-old Emma, who was rocking in a wicker chair up on the porch while her mother and big brother hugged it out on the steps. Briana and Jake were down on the lawn, looking up at Riley. Riley gave them the “hang on a second” hand signal.

  “So, Emma,” he said, “what’s this about a Martian?”

  “A space alien hopped over the fence and grabbed Noodle and put her in his rocket ship and blasted off.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Uh-huh. It sounded like this!” Emma puckered up her lips and blew. Riley got a faceful of spittle. Emma’s sound effects were the same as the motorboat noises one might accidentally make in the bathtub after eating too many baked beans.

  “This space creature,” Riley asked next. “What’d it look like?”

  “He had Ping-Pong ball eyes the size of hard-boiled eggs!” said Emma.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “His skin was green.”

  “Huh.”

  “His head was this tall!”

  She held her hand higher than Abe Lincoln’s top hat.

  “And, and, and—he had two stumps where someone cut off his antlers.”

  “Oh-kay. Big eyes. Big head. Antlers.”

  “But the antlers were chopped off!”

  “Right. Thanks, Emma.”

  Riley turned to his friends on the lawn. Rolled his eyes. Mongo’s little sister seemed just a wee bit wacked.

  “Come inside, Emma!” said Mongo’s mom. “I need to call the police. You need to tell them what happened.”

  “You mean the Martian?”

  “No—how you forgot to close the gate in the backyard and Noodle ran away.”

  “But that’s not what happened! The spaceman took Noodle to his spaceship.”

  She started in with the lip-fart noises again.

  Mrs. Montgomery scooted Emma into the house. Mongo and Riley came down the steps to join Briana and Jake in the yard.

  “We need to check out the backyard,” said Riley. “See what’s what.”

  Mongo led the way around the house.

  “What’d your mom say?” Riley asked him.

  “Emma was in the back having a tea party with the puppy and a couple of my teddy bears. She left the gate open. Noodle made a break for it.”

  “When’d this happen?”

  “Right before we got here,” said Jake. “Maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

  They reached the backyard. Saw the plastic teakettle and cups. The open gate in the fence.

  “Okay,” said Riley. “We need to make a poster. Flyers. I want Noodle’s face on every telephone pole and parking meter in town.”

  “We should offer a reward,” said Jake.

  Briana gasped. “Wait, you guys! What if some sicko stole the puppy precisely because they knew there’d be a reward!”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” said Riley. “Emma’s alien could’ve been a dognapper in a Halloween Martian mask.”

  “I’ll kill him!” said Mongo, his whole body seizing up with rage, the way it used to back in fifth grade when kids made fun of his backpack bears.

  “I imagine you will,” said Riley. “But, first, let’s get your dog back.”

  “Then can I kill the creep?”

  Riley patted his friend’s ribs. He couldn’t reach his shoulder. “We’ll talk.”

  “Should I close the gate?” asked Jake.

  “Let’s leave it open,” said Riley. “There’s always a chance Noodle will sniff her way home.”

  They returned to the front of the house. Mrs. Montgomery was on the porch, screaming at the telephone clenched in her fist.

  “Too busy? Well, you tell Chief Brown that maybe next time he is raising money for the Fairview Police Benevolence Fund we’ll be too busy to contribute!” She yanked the phone away from her ear as if it had stung her. “They hung up on me!”

  “Mrs. Montgomery?” said Riley. “Jake here is going to put together some flyers. We need to know: Is there a reward?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much, Mom?” asked Mongo.

  “I don’t know. What do you think, Riley?”

  “Well, I don’t think we need to name a number. A big one might motivate the wrong sort of people, if you catch my drift.”

  “Riley’s right!” said Briana—very dramatically, of course. “Dognappers! Pooch pinchers! Beagle burglars!”
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  Now Riley gave Briana the “cut” sign and smiled up at Mrs. Montgomery. “We’ll just say ‘reward’ and list your phone number.”

  “Check,” said Jake, who was taking notes.

  “And Jake? No names. Just Mrs. M’s phone number.”

  “Gotcha!”

  “Mrs. Montgomery,” said Riley, “can you give us any distinguishing characteristics for Noodle? Something that might make her easier to spot?”

  “Well, she has golden, curly hair. Big soft eyes.”

  “And a wet teddy bear nose,” added Mongo.

  “Anything more specific?” asked Riley.

  “Does she have any tattoos?” said Jake, who watched way too many CSI shows on TV.

  “No, but she was wearing her pink collar,” said Mrs. Montgomery. “The one in the photograph I showed you kids.”

  “The one with all the bling?” asked Briana.

  “The what?”

  “Sparkly things,” said Riley.

  “You know,” said Briana. “Bling-bling. That’s the sound a sparkle makes in a toothpaste commercial.”

  “I see,” said Mongo’s mom. “Yes, she was wearing her jeweled collar.”

  “Make that fake jeweled collar,” Riley said to Jake. “Real jewels might also draw the interest of the wrong individuals.”

  “Got it,” said Jake.

  “Okay, people,” said Riley. “We need to move quickly if we want to stay ahead of the dog. Alert your parental units. Could be a long night. I recommend we cover a three-mile radius moving out from this point. We don’t get any hits, we call up more troops, cover a wider area. Tomorrow morning, we go door to door if we have to. Mrs. Montgomery?”

  “Yes, Riley?”

  “Before you take off in your car and search for Noodle…”

  “How did you know…”

  “It’s your next logical move, ma’am. But, before you do, I suggest you call the folks at the Fairview Humane Society’s animal shelter. It’s possible somebody found Noodle and took her to the shelter. I’m guessing she doesn’t have her tags yet?”

  “That’s right. I only picked her up last week. I haven’t had time….”

  “Understandable,” said Riley calmly, because he didn’t want Mrs. Montgomery to feel as bad as he had when Jamal Wilson pointed out how he was letting everybody down.

  “We called her Noodle,” said Mongo, “because it rhymes. With doodle.”

  Riley nodded. It was pretty clear that even though Noodle had only been with the Montgomery family for a little over a week, she had already stolen their hearts.

  Mrs. Montgomery called the animal shelter, and then she and Emma took off in the car.

  Riley and his crew went to Jake’s house, put together the poster, and printed it up.

  Then they spread out. Canvassed the town.

  When Riley’s mom got off work, she helped, too. So did Jake’s and Briana’s parents.

  By eleven p.m., every utility pole, parking meter, and shop window in Fairview was covered.

  At midnight, Riley finally went to bed, totally frustrated.

  Noodle was still missing. Not one person had seen the puppy or her flashy pink collar.

  That all changed first thing Saturday morning.

  13

  AT 9:01 A.M. ON SATURDAY, Jamal Wilson sent Riley Mack an urgent text message with a photo attached.

  Riley called Jamal back at 9:02 a.m.

  “Where are you?”

  “The flea market in Sherman Green,” Jamal whispered back. “Near the gazebo.”

  “Which booth?”

  “The sign says Grandma’s Antiques. You see that Lava Lamp in the picture I sent you, Riley Mack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s got my iPods, too, man! Only she messed with the engraving on the back. Says, ‘This is mini Jam son’ because she scratched out a bunch of the letters in ‘This is mine, Jamal Wilson’ and changed the e in mine to an i!”

  “Hang tight, Jamal. Don’t say anything to anybody. This is a whole lot bigger than you think.”

  “Oh, is that so? Because I think it’s colossal, enormous, elephantine!”

  “Jamal?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Chill. I’m on my way.”

  Riley’s mom had to work Saturdays at the bank. That meant he was on his own.

  He grabbed his bike—a fire-engine-red Frantic with twenty-inch wheels, aluminum rims, mud flap fenders, and BMX pads—and headed over to Sherman Green, a small park about a half mile from his house on Maple Lane. Every weekend, the town hosted a farmer’s market and flea fair. Vendors set up canopied booths and sold everything from goat cheese and apple cider to embroidered blouses and grandfather clocks. The tents on stilts, some with flapping banners and fluttering flags, surrounded a small gazebo in the center of the park, making Sherman Green look like a pop-up Renaissance festival.

  Riley chained his bike to a rack and headed into the open-air flea fair. He passed a guy selling sand candles, a lady hawking perfume, and what seemed like a million jewelry tents. As he neared the gazebo, he saw a weedy patch cluttered with crap. Mirrors, baskets, chairs, garden statuary, floor lamps with beaded shades. Behind the price-tagged trash, he saw a sign in frilly froufrou letters:

  Grandma’s Antiques

  One Man’s Trash

  Is Another Man’s Treasure

  Make that, “One kid’s stolen iPod is another kid’s bargain,” thought Riley.

  Grandma, or whoever was moving the merchandise, had three white tents linked together to cover at least ten cafeteria-sized tables piled high with junk: old tin signs, musty magazines, chipped crockery, an avocado-green coffeemaker, discarded Christmas decorations—a whole landfill’s worth of yesterday’s garbage.

  As Riley moved closer, he saw a nasty old lady with a red-and-white checkered kerchief covering her head. Her nose was the size and shape of a yam. Her baggy cheeks resembled sagging bags of mud. Her eyes were tight black olive pits and her mouth was furrowed in a frown so deep it made her chin look like the one on a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  She had to be Grandma.

  “Pssst! Riley Mack! Over here, man!”

  It was Jamal. Hiding behind a rack of handbags in the booth directly across from Grandma’s Antiques.

  “What took you so long?”

  “Had to bike it. My mom’s working today.”

  “My mom dragged me here. She digs the local produce. I ditched her back at the goat yogurt and rutabagas.”

  “Where’d you snap the shot you sent?” asked Riley.

  “In the back of Grandma’s tent, man. Over there on the right.”

  Riley nodded. Over at Grandma’s, he saw a man hold up an antique glass bowl to examine it. The old woman slugged him in the arm. This, of course, startled the man, who almost fumbled the bowl but caught it before it crashed.

  “You break it, you buy it!” snarled the old woman, right before she spit out some brown, stringy saliva.

  “How much?” the man asked when he’d regained his balance.

  “If you have to ask”—another chocolaty spit—“you can’t afford it.”

  Gross. She was chewing tobacco.

  “I’ll give you ten bucks for it.”

  “Ten bucks?” She snatched the bowl out of the man’s hands. “Beat it, you piker. I sell serious merchandise to serious collectors. You want something for ten bucks, go buy yourself a loaf of banana bread.”

  “Come on,” said Riley. “We need to take a closer look at that table filled with stolen loot.”

  “It’s all there, man!” said Jamal. “Everything on the list. The iPods, Rodman John’s robot, Sarah Clare’s kickboard scooter.”

  “I’m interested in the jewelry.”

  “That’s back there, too. Swatch watches, that ten-karat gold cupcake necklace.”

  “I’m mostly interested in the diamonds.”

  “Huh?”

  “In the picture you sent, I saw what looked like a dog collar.”


  “Nah. I don’t think Gavin Brown stole a fifth grader’s dog collar.”

  “This one is covered with pink bling.”

  Riley and Jamal entered the tents.

  “Don’t touch anything, you rug rats,” snapped the grumpy old woman. “Where the blazes are your parents?”

  “Busy,” said Riley, pulling a fifty-dollar bill out of his pocket, flipping it up between his first two fingers. “I’m looking to buy my dog something special for his birthday. Got any dog collars? Maybe something, oh, I don’t know—sparkly?”

  “You’re in luck, Red,” said the granny, with another syrupy spit. “Something like that just came in. Check it out. On the back table, there.”

  “Thanks. Come on, Jimmy.”

  Riley led the way. Jamal followed.

  “Why you callin’ me Jimmy?” he whispered. “My name’s Jamal….”

  “Shhh. The less she knows about who we really are, the better.”

  “Where’d you get that fifty-dollar bill, man?”

  “My grandparents. Two Christmases ago.”

  “And you haven’t spent it yet?”

  “Nope. It’s my ‘flash cash.’ Comes in handy.”

  “So how come she called you Red?”

  Riley jabbed a quick thumb up at his hair.

  “That ain’t red, man. That’s orange. Maybe auburn or tawny chestnut. You know what those words mean?”

  “Yeah. Red.”

  They reached the table.

  “See? It’s all there. What are you gonna do, Riley Mack?”

  Riley didn’t answer right away. He picked up the pink “diamond” doggy collar and tugged a copy of the Lost Dog flyer out of his jeans.

  “Now what’re you doing?”

  “Making sure.”

  “Of what?”

  “That Gavin Brown has branched out.” Yep. The collar on the table was the collar in the photo. “Seems he’s not just stealing merchandise from fifth graders these days. He’s snatching dogs from kids in kindergarten, too.”

  “Hey!” shouted the old lady. “Don’t play with that. You break it, you bought it.”

  Riley smiled. He was ready to go back and have a few choice words with the yam-nosed old hag. Ask her who her supplier was. See if the name Gavin Brown rang a bell.