Riley Mack Stirs Up More Trouble

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Jamal?” said Riley. “Can we maybe check out the new trick later? We’ve got work to do.”

  “Sure thing, Riley Mack. Yo, Jake. What’s that in your ear, man?”

  Jake rolled his eyes as, once again, Jamal reached into Jake’s raised hood and came out with a quarter.

  “Wow,” said Mongo. “It’s like Jake’s head is a Coke machine.”

  Riley just sighed. “Jake, roll out the floor plans.”

  “On it.”

  He cleared away a table covered with memory boards, hard drives, capacitors, wire cutters, and soldering irons so he could spread out several sheets of paper that looked like blueprints.

  “I printed out a blowup of the architectural schematics from the Brookhaven Country Club’s most recent renovations. The interior designers had the plans posted on their website.”

  “The drawings are five years old,” explained Riley, “but there have been no major changes to the layout in that time.”

  Riley tapped a large rectangle labeled THE CRANBROOK BALLROOM. “Okay, this is where the Smith–Oliverio wedding will be taking place on Saturday.”

  “The whoozeewhatsit?” said Briana.

  “The wedding that Tony Peroni is singing at,” said Jake.

  Riley draped his arm over Jake’s shoulder. “A wedding where our man Jake Lowenstein just happens to be on the technical crew.”

  “I’m just helping out Mr. Holtz.”

  “Which means we have an inside man.”

  “For what?” said Mongo.

  “Briana’s audition.”

  “Huh?” said Briana. “You expect me to audition for Tony Peroni in the middle of somebody else’s wedding reception?”

  Riley grinned. “No. At the start.”

  “Two p.m.,” said Jake. “Sharp.”

  “You guys, no way is the wedding singer going to let me sing the first song at the reception.”

  “Oh, yes he will,” said Riley. “Because you’ll be saving his butt.”

  “Really? And how exactly am I going to do that?”

  “With your karaoke machine. You still have it, right?”

  “You bet,” said Briana, excitedly. “Remember when I won it?”

  Riley shot her a wink. “How could I forget? Jake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Swing by Briana’s house before Saturday. Pick up her karaoke box.”

  “How about tomorrow night?” suggested Briana. “You could stay for dinner. We’re having tofu burgers. Again.”

  “Cool,” said Jake. “It’s a date.”

  When he realized what he’d just said, he gulped.

  “I mean I’ll be there.”

  “Excellent,” said Riley. “While Jake sets up your karaoke machine inside the Cranbrook Ballroom, we need to get you into the club and up to the stage. How much cash do we have in the till?”

  Mongo pulled open a file cabinet and checked out a mayonnaise jar stuffed with coins and wadded dollar bills.

  “Five dollars and fifteen cents,” he reported.

  Riley reached into his jeans and pulled out a crinkled fifty-dollar bill. “Add in this.”

  “Whoa, Riley Mack,” said Jamal. “That’s your flash cash.”

  Riley had kept the fifty-dollar bill his grandparents sent him for Christmas two years ago. It was the money he pulled out whenever he needed to convince people that he had money.

  “You can’t put that in the jar, man,” said Jamal.

  “This is an emergency,” said Riley, slipping his bill into the jar. “Briana needs to take a taxi to Brookhaven on Saturday so she looks like she belongs at the country club.”

  “That’s never easy,” said Jamal. “Trust me. Those snooty-patootie preppy types aren’t big on drop-in visitors.”

  “Well, this is a wedding,” said Riley. “The country club will be crawling with nonmembers. To blend in, you’ll need to put on your old-age makeup again.”

  “Oh-kay,” said Briana.

  “You’re Granny Smith. Which one is Smith again, Jake?”

  Jake clacked a couple keys on his computer. “He’s the groom.”

  “Right. You’re the groom’s grandmother. Nobody’s going to stop a little old lady tottering down the hall with a corsage pinned to her chest. You’ll need a different old-lady dress. Something blue, since you’re with the groom.”

  Briana’s eyes brightened. “I’ll swing by the thrift shop. And I can make a corsage with flowers from my mom’s garden and a glue gun.”

  “Excellent. I’ll go in with you, Briana. In case anything goes wrong.”

  “You better wear a snappy jacket and tie,” said Jamal.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got one.” Riley tugged at his collar, remembering how tight his tie had felt the last time he wore one. “I’ll also need a box because I’m going in as a Smith kid—a niece or a nephew or a cousin. I’m lugging a huge wedding gift for my frail grandmother. The box needs to be big enough to hide my face in case Chick Chambliss is on duty.”

  “Who’s this Chambliss character?” asked Jamal.

  “Head of country club security. Used to be in my dad’s outfit. Knows me. Knows my face.”

  “So we should find some shimmering silver paper and wrap up an empty cardboard crate from, like, a microwave oven!” said Briana.

  Riley nodded. “I like it. We need to gain access to the club by one forty-five. Then, you duck into the ladies’ powder room here.” Riley tapped another box on the floor plan. “Where you change out of your granny getup.”

  “I could wear my real costume under my granny sack!” said Briana.

  “Perfect,” said Riley.

  “But, um, what exactly am I going to sing?”

  Riley turned to Jake. “Jake?”

  “Well, according to their official wedding website, Casey Smith and Michele Oliverio list ‘Colour My World’ by Chicago as ‘our song.’”

  “Then that’s what they’ll want for their first dance,” said Briana.

  “Really?” said Jamal. “Are they old-school or what?”

  “It’s a classic. I already have the karaoke version in my machine.”

  “Good,” said Riley. “See if you can dig up a sing-along disc of ‘Make Me Merry, Mary—Marry Me!’”

  “But that’s Tony Peroni’s big hit.”

  “I know. He’ll need your help to sing it Saturday.”

  “Um, how come?”

  “Because his piano player won’t be showing up till three.”

  “Wait. You said the reception starts at two.”

  “Yeah. But we want to give the wedding guests the high-class entertainment first: the song stylings of Miss Briana Bloomfield. Besides, somebody’s gonna call Tony Peroni’s piano player with bum information about the start time.”

  “What? Who would do that?”

  “Tony Peroni, himself,” said Riley, with a wink. “Better known as Briana Bloomfield.”

  12

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, RILEY, JAKE, and Briana were back in Jake’s basement.

  Riley’s mom would be working at the bank all day. Jake’s parents were both at their offices (again). Briana’s mother and father encouraged her to “blossom wherever she was planted” so, basically, she didn’t have all that much parental supervision most weekends.

  “I’ve rigged up this phone to emulate the number Tony Peroni uses in his GigMasters listing on the web,” explained Jake as he handed Briana a cell phone, which had a black wire dangling from it. “That acoustic coupler will feed your voice into this pitch modulator, so I can make your voice go deeper, to match Peroni’s.”

  “You just have to concentrate on matching his style and pacing,” said Riley.

  Briana put the voice changer’s headphone over one ear and held the phone up to the other. “You mean like this, baby. Perfect. Beautiful. Sincerely. I mean that.”

  “Awesome,” said Riley. “Jake, place the call.”

  “What’s the piano player’s name again?” asked Briana.

 
; “Greg Wu.”

  “Got it.” Briana held up her hand to let the guys know the call had rung through. “Greggy, baby? Yeah. Tony. Beautiful. Slight change of plans this afternoon. Right. The wedding gig at Brookhaven Country Club. Seems the groom wanted to catch a little extra TV this morning . . .”

  Riley gave Briana a puzzled look.

  She made a face that said, Well, I had to make up something!

  Riley nodded. Briana was right.

  “What can I say, baby—Mr. Smith loves him some Saturday morning cartoons. Beautiful. Just show up at the country club at three. No, that’s okay. They’ve hired a crew to set up all our gear. Beautiful. Catch you later, Gregarino. Ciao.”

  Briana pushed the off button on the phone.

  “Score!” she reported. “Greg’s wife wanted to take him carpet shopping, so three works better.”

  Riley checked his watch. “Okay, Granny—time for you to get into costume and makeup.”

  “And for you to put on your jacket and tie.”

  Riley tugged at his collar again. “Don’t remind me.”

  At 1:30, a taxi picked up Riley, Briana, and their very large wedding gift.

  At 1:44, they were waltzing down the corridors of the Brookhaven Country Club. Nobody stopped or questioned them.

  Passing a wall hung with oil paintings featuring fuddy-duddy old men in suits, they saw another elderly woman. Dressed in blue. With a corsage full of blue flowers.

  “Riley?” Briana whispered. “That could be the real Granny Smith!”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re in.” He gestured with his empty (but beautifully wrapped) box toward the powder room door. “Now go turn into Briana Bloomfield. Quick. I’ll guard the door.”

  “Riley?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re the best!”

  She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. The way a granny would.

  By 2:05, sweat was dribbling down Tony Peroni’s face. By 2:10 it was drizzling. By 2:12 it had dissolved most of the dye in his jet-black hair and was sending inky streaks trickling behind his ears.

  Peeking through a crack in the Cranbrook Ballroom doors, Riley watched Peroni dab and blot his moist face with a big white handkerchief.

  Now the bride and groom were standing in the middle of the dance floor. So were a bunch of parental-looking people in tuxedos. Several of them were gesturing at their watches. One angry man was jabbing his finger at Tony Peroni’s ruffle-shirted chest.

  All Tony Peroni could do was mop up more sweat and point at the empty keyboard on the stage, close to where Jake, wearing headphones, fidgeted with the knobs on a soundboard connected to Briana’s portable karaoke machine.

  Riley went to the powder room and rapped three sharp knuckle taps on the door.

  Briana glided out in the beautiful white gown her mother had made for her and had cleaned after Jamal found it in the cafeteria Dumpster under a mountain of beanie-weenie lunch slop. She was carrying a cordless microphone that was linked to her karaoke machine.

  “Do I look fabtastic?”

  “Totally. Come on. Tony Peroni’s dying in there.”

  Riley escorted Briana to the ballroom. When he swung open the doors, Jake hit a button on the karaoke machine.

  The familiar boppity-bop-bop-bop, boppity-bop-bop-bop piano intro to “Colour My World” gave Briana time to waft angelically through the crowd and up onto the stage.

  The bride and groom beamed when they recognized the opening notes of “their” song.

  The parents of the bride and groom relaxed.

  Tony Peroni started breathing again.

  Briana launched into her number.

  “As time goes o-o-on . . .”

  Casey and Michele started dancing. A photographer snapped pictures.

  The wedding reception was saved.

  After Tony and Briana had done a couple of duets (including “Make Me Merry, Mary—Marry Me!”) and Gregory Wu, the piano player, had finally shown up with a bunch of carpet samples stuffed in his sheet music case, the wedding singer gave Briana a big hug.

  “Kid, you sing like a bird. The good kind, you know what I mean? Not a crow or nothin’. You’re like a songbird when you sing.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Peroni. You’re pretty awesome, too. It was great jamming with you.”

  “Can you stick around, kid? Sing a few more numbers with me and the Wu-ster?”

  “Sure! That’d be fabtastic.”

  “What grade are you in, Briana?”

  “I just finished seventh.”

  “So how come you didn’t try out for my All-School All-Star Talent Show?”

  “It’s a long story . . .”

  Tony held up his pinky-ringed hand. “Doesn’t matter. You free next Saturday night?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good—because you, Ms. Briana Bloomfield, are my wild-card pick!”

  “Whahoobi!”

  A couple of hours later, Riley, Mongo, Briana, Jake, and Jamal were traipsing through the thick forest behind Mongo’s house, heading to Schuyler’s Pond, because it was time to celebrate.

  “Dag,” said Jamal. “Sara Paxton’s eyes are gonna pop out of her head when she finds out you’re back in the competition!”

  “And that Mr. Peroni thinks you’re the best singer he’s heard all year,” added Jake.

  “I can’t ever thank you guys enough!” said Briana. “All of you. Really. Sincerely. I mean it, baby.”

  The air was thick with humidity and bugs. The towering pine trees and weedy underbrush smelled even greener in the sweltering late-afternoon heat.

  “You’re going to love this place, Jamal,” said Briana. “There’s this one rock, it’s real slippery.”

  “We call it Slippery Rock,” said Mongo.

  “Like the college,” added Jake.

  “Yeah,” said Briana, walking up the path backward so she could tell her tale with more hand gestures. “And, get this: there’s this rope that’s tied off to a humongous tree branch so you can swing out over the deepest part and . . .”

  “Watch it!” shouted Jake.

  Too late.

  Briana backed into a chain-link fence.

  The aluminum barrier shimmied as Briana bounced off it.

  “This wasn’t here last year,” said Mongo. “It wasn’t even here last week.”

  The fencing looked shiny and new. The postholes were freshly filled with concrete. A PRIVATE PROPERTY sign hung on a locked gate. Three strands of prickly barbed wire were stretched taut across the top.

  Mongo sniffed the air. “This stinks.”

  “You can say that again,” said Briana.

  “No, I mean it really stinks,” said Mongo.

  Mongo was right: the whole forest smelled like something dead had just farted.

  13

  “IT SMELLS LIKE WHEN MY cat brings home a dead mouse,” said Briana.

  “Or the Dumpster behind Red Lobster during Lobsterfest,” said Jake.

  The rest of the gang stared at him for a second.

  “Hang on,” said Jamal. “This lock here is serious, folks. I should’ve brought my lock-picking tools.”

  Riley gripped the chain links. Gave one section of fence a good shake. “It’s solid. Won’t come down easy.”

  “My father has wire cutters back in the garage,” said Mongo.

  “We can’t cut a hole in the fence, Mongo,” gasped Briana. “That’s vandalism. We could go to jail! And, if we did, it would go on our permanent records and none of us would ever be able to go to college except maybe that one they advertise on TV that teaches you how to drive big-rig trucks.”

  “Who would put up a fence in the middle of the forest?” wondered Jake.

  “Probably whoever owns the property,” said Briana.

  “Do you think Schuyler put it up?” said Mongo. “Do you think he wants his pond back?”

  “Um, Mongo?” said Jamal.

  “Yeah?”

  “I did a little research. Schuyler’s Po
nd has been on the maps since 1826.”

  Mongo threw up both his arms. “And now, all of a sudden, he wants to fence it in?”

  While his friends jabbered, Riley peered through the fence.

  On the other side, the dirt path curved slightly and continued along the bank of the brook that fed Schuyler’s Pond one hundred yards farther downstream

  “Uh-oh, hold your noses,” said Briana. “Wind shift.”

  “P.U.,” said Mongo.

  “Dag,” said Jamal. “That is foul and malodorous.”

  “Yeah,” said Mongo. “And it stinks, too.”

  “Like the Dumpster behind Bubba Gump Shrimp,” said Jake. “That one’s bad, too.”

  A sunbeam hit the rippling creek.

  “Jake’s right,” said Riley.

  “What?” said Jamal. “Somebody put a Bubba Gump Shrimp back here?”

  “No. But what we’re smelling is fish. Check it out.”

  The whole crew grabbed hold of the fence and looked where Riley was looking.

  “K’nasty!” said Briana. “That is so totally disgusting.”

  They could see a dead, bloated fish drifting down the glistening creek on the other side of the fence.

  “This is bad,” mumbled Jake.

  Because there were at least six more fish, all belly up, floating right behind the first one.

  “We need to investigate,” said Riley. “I’ll climb over, take a closer look.”

  “Um, Riley?” said Briana.

  “Yeah?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s barbed wire at the top of this fence.”

  “So it’s a good thing we’re here at the gate. See how this panel is about a foot shorter than the adjoining side panel?”

  The others looked up to check out what Riley had already observed.

  “The difference in heights makes it much easier to maneuver your legs up and over without getting scratched.”

  “Riley Mack,” said Jamal, full of admiration, “you are one uncommonly clever individual.”

  “Thanks. You guys wait here. If there’s a fence to keep us out, it means somebody doesn’t want us getting in.”

  Briana stomped her feet. “Wait. One. Minute. Why do you need to climb over there? To give the dead fish mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

  “Well, technically, that would be a waste of time,” said Jamal. “First, they’re dead. Second, a fish breathes through a complex process involving water, its mouth, and its gills, whereby it extracts oxygen molecules from H2O . . .”