by Janice Hanna
“That would save a lot of time, I guess,” Andrew said. “And it wouldn’t attract people’s attention like standing there flashing money would.”
“Yep, that’s the idea behind most of these gadgets, actually,” Kate said. “They just make life a little easier. And they’re nifty.”
“Nifty?” Sydney and Andrew spoke the word at the same time.
“Cool,” Kate explained.
She pulled out a funny-looking pair of shoes. “These are different. One of my dad’s students from last semester came up with these shoes with springs in the soles. They help people with joint pain in their knees and ankles. The springs relieve some of the tension as the person walks. Cool, huh?” She put on the shoes and began to walk with a spring in her step…literally. “They also make you run faster,” she added.
“Ooh, I’d like to have a pair of those,” Sydney said. “I run track, you know. Those shoes would make me lightning fast!”
“No doubt!” Kate pulled off the shoes and handed them to her friend. “Try them on. They’re too big for me anyway.”
Sydney slipped them on her feet. “Ooh, they’re perfect! Just like in Cinderella.”
“If the shoe fits…,” Andrew said with a grin.
“Keep them,” Kate said with the wave of a hand. “My dad won’t care. We have plenty more. And they will make you super-duper fast!”
“Wow!” Sydney stared at her feet. “Thank you so much. I can’t wait to run in them!” She looked around at all the gadgets then back at Kate. “I’m amazed by you! I never met anyone who knew so much about…” Sydney looked around. “About stuff.”
Kate laughed. “Thanks, but it would really help me out a lot right now if I knew more about baseball, not electronics!”
Sydney stood and began to bounce up and down on her springy shoes. With a huge smile, she slung her arm over Kate’s shoulder. “Aw, just leave the baseball stuff to me. I’ll leave the technical stuff to you. We’re gonna make a great team, short stuff!” Sydney said with a chuckle. “Just you wait and see!”
“Well, let’s get going, then!” Kate said, feeling her excitement grow. “Let’s solve this case!”
The Rumor Box
Kate grew more excited by the minute! The “Who Framed the Phillies Shortstop?” mystery had finally begun! Oh, she could hardly wait to get going!
“So where should we start?” Andrew asked, looking confused. “What do you two supersleuths think? Do you even think it’s possible to track down the person who’s framing my dad?”
Kate nodded. “Of course! And we’ll start by going online and trying to find the source of the rumors. See who started all this stuff about your dad. Maybe getting that information will lead us to another clue, and then another, and then another! Before long, we’ll have the case solved!”
“I wish I was as sure as you are.” Andrew sighed.
“Well, keep praying,” Kate encouraged him. “God already knows who did this, after all. If we pray for wisdom, He will give it to us. That’s what the Bible says. So pray for wisdom! That’s what we need to figure this out.”
“Are you ready to start?” Sydney asked.
“You kids are welcome to use the Internet,” Kate’s mother said, entering the room. “Just don’t stay on too long and only use the webcam if I’m close by. You can never be too careful, you know.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Kate went to the computer. “Andrew, where did you find that one article that upset you so much?” she asked. “I hate to ask you to look at it again, but it’s important for us to find that Web site.”
He gave her a blog address and she typed it in. When the Web page came up, she scrolled down until she saw the article about his father.
“Look right there,” Andrew said. His brow wrinkled and Kate could tell he was upset.
They all leaned toward the monitor and Sydney read aloud: “Phillies fans got a wake-up call today when Tony Smith announced his unhappiness with playing for the team. According to Smith, ‘I could have done better than these losers. And I plan to…next season when I move to a different town.’ “
Sydney gasped. “That’s horrible. And it really makes it sound like he said that.”
“If I didn’t know that it was a lie, I’d totally believe it,” Kate said. “It sounds so real.”
“But he didn’t say it,” Andrew insisted. “And it’s not even true. My dad loves playing for the Phillies. Honest! And he loves living in Philadelphia. You should hear him talk about the historic district. And the Franklin Institute. And the Liberty Bell. He thinks this is the best place we’ve ever lived, and I agree!”
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this, Andrew,” Sydney promised. “So don’t worry about what others are saying.” She paused a moment then added, “Maybe that’s a lesson God is trying to teach us. Maybe we’re supposed to learn how to ignore it when others are talking about us, saying things we don’t like. When the rumors get going, we just need to trust God…and not worry.”
Kate scrolled down a bit more. “Look, here’s another article,” she said. “They took a picture of your dad looking mad and wrote a bunch of stuff about how he doesn’t get along with his teammates. They make him sound like he’s a real…” She paused then whispered, “Jerk.”
“That’s not true either.” Andrew stood up and began to pace. “My dad is a great guy. And he’s so nice to everyone. I don’t know why anyone would say that.”
“Oh, I know. I know.” Kate nodded, hoping to reassure him.
“Man, but he looks really mad,” Sydney observed. “I wonder why.”
“I don’t know.” Andrew leaned down near the monitor and looked closely. “Hey, wait a minute! Look at that picture. Something about it doesn’t seem right.” He pointed. “The bottom part of the face doesn’t even look like my dad’s. Not at all. The chin is different.” Andrew leaned in even closer. “This is too weird.”
“Hang on a sec.” Kate downloaded the photo and enlarged it until it filled the screen. “Ooh! Very sneaky. Check this out! This photo has been altered. It’s only visible when the picture is enlarged like this, but you can see that the bottom half of the face is from one photo and the top from another.” She stared at it in disbelief. How very strange that someone would take the time to do something like this. But why?
“Well, those are definitely my dad’s eyes,” Andrew said. “And his nose. So the top half is his face, but not the rest.” Andrew made a fist and for a second Kate saw the anger in his eyes. “Why would someone do this to my dad? They would go so far as to forge a photograph? And misquote him? It’s not right.”
Sydney began to pace the room. “There’s something more going on here than we know about. This isn’t just about someone who doesn’t like your dad. There’s some reason why they want to see him gone from the team. Some bigger reason.”
Andrew’s eyes grew wide. “W–what are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure. Jealousy, maybe? Who knows? But someone with computer skills has gone out of his—or her—way to do this. We’re dealing with someone very good at altering photographs.”
“One of the other players, do you think?” Andrew suggested.
Kate shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do that? Besides, we’d better not assume it’s one of the players. My dad says that’s how the rumor mill gets started.”
“Rumor mill?” Sydney and Andrew said at the same time.
“Gossiping,” she explained. “Didn’t you guys ever watch that VeggieTales episode when you were kids?”
“‘Larry Boy and the Rumor Weed?’“ Andrew’s eyes widened. “Sure did! I have it memorized!” He burst into the theme song from the show and before long the girls were laughing.
“Well, it’s kind of like that,” Kate explained. “There’s power in our words. Good and bad. So when we speak bad things over people—especially things that aren’t true—it can really hurt. That’s why it’s so important not to gossip.”
S
ydney nodded. “And besides, there are enough rumors flying around already, so we have to be extra careful. We don’t want to start any more. If we’re not careful, we could end up blaming the wrong person. Imagine how bad that would be!”
“True, true.” Andrew nodded.
“I have an idea!” Kate reached for a tissue from the box on the coffee table. “We need to start a rumor box.”
“A rumor box?” Sydney gave her a curious look. “What’s that?”
“Well, every time we hear a rumor, we’ll stick it in the box and wait. If it’s true, we’ll pull it out of the box. And if it’s not, we’ll leave it in the box to remind us that it was just a rumor. That way we’ve protected someone who was innocent. So either way we win! And so does the person being talked about.”
“Great idea,” Sydney said. “Let’s start by putting those rumors about Tony’s teammates in there.”
Kate ran into the garage and came back with a shoe box. “What about this? Do you think it will do?”
“Perfect!” Sydney said.
They wrapped the box in some old Mickey Mouse birthday paper and cut a hole in the top. Then Kate wrote on a piece of paper: “Rumor—Andrew’s father doesn’t like playing for the Phillies.”
She folded up the paper and put it in the box. “There. We know that one’s really a rumor, so it’s in the box for good.”
“Ooh! I have another one!” Sydney said. She grabbed a piece of paper and wrote, “Kate Oliver is the smartest girl in the world!” Then she grinned and said, “I made up that rumor myself. Hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings, Kate.”
“Hurt my feelings?” Kate laughed. “Not at all. And you can put it in the box, but I promise you, it’s not true! There are a million zillion people smarter than me!”
“I haven’t met any of them yet,” Andrew said with a smile. His expression changed right away. “So now what do we do?” he asked, looking confused. “Just finding that blog site doesn’t really tell us anything. How will we ever know who created it, or why they said all that stuff about my dad?”
“Hmm.” Kate paused to think. “We have to figure out who owns these blogs and who’s making these posts. And then we have to pay special attention at the games to look for anything—or anyone—suspicious.”
“That’s right,” Andrew agreed. “There’s really only one way to know for sure what’s going on at a Phillies game. “We need to go to one. So are you girls on for Tuesday night?”
“Am I ever!” Sydney let out a whoop. “This is gonna be the greatest game in the history of mankind. We can do a little crime solving and game watching all at the same time. Talk about a winning combination.”
Kate wasn’t sure it sounded like so much fun. “I still can’t figure out why everyone loves baseball so much.” She groaned. “Just a bunch of guys running around a court to score points.”
“Court?” Sydney snickered. “You mean field?”
“And they’re not points, Kate,” Andrew said. “They’re runs.”
“Court, field. Points, runs.” She shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
Sydney laughed as she looked at Andrew. “Man, oh man! Do we ever have our work cut out for us! Not only do we have to solve a mystery; we have to teach our friend here a little something about baseball.”
“Hey now, don’t you worry about me,” Kate said, giving them a stern look. “If I can figure out how to use a computerized wristwatch, surely I can figure out a little something about a game like baseball. How hard can it be, after all?”
Sydney smiled. “Well, c’mon, then! What are we waiting for! Let’s give this girl a crash course in baseball, Andrew.”
Sydney began to search online for a baseball site. She finally found one titled EVERYTHING You EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT BASEBALL BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK. “Perfect!” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Now, let’s get cracking! We’ve got a lot to learn, and only two days to learn it.”
Kate groaned. In spite of Sydney and Andrew’s excitement, she didn’t really want to learn a lot about baseball. What was the point?
On the other hand, she did have a mystery to solve. Maybe…just maybe…she could learn a few things about baseball by Tuesday night. Then she and Sydney could crack this case wide open!
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
On Tuesday evening, Kate arrived at Citizens Bank Park—the stadium where the Phillies played—with Sydney, Andrew, and Andrew’s mom. The whole place seemed alive with excitement. Everywhere she looked, people rushed around with smiles on their faces.
Once inside, she looked up at the stadium, amazed at its enormous size! She’d never been inside such a huge place, especially one filled with so many people!
“Wow, this place is so large!” she said. “And it’s so high tech!” Her eyes shifted this way and that, trying to take in everything at once, but it was too much.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been here,” Mrs. Smith said with a smile. “It’s like a second home to us, now that my husband plays for the Phillies.”
“I’m just not a big sports fan,” Kate admitted. “But maybe it’ll grow on me.” She couldn’t help but think that spending time in this stadium could make a fan out of just about anybody!
“Oh, I guarantee you’ll fall in love with the Fightin’ Phils in no time!” Mrs. Smith said, nodding. “We all have.”
Kate thought about that a moment. Obviously the whole Smith family loved the Phillies. How could anyone say they didn’t? Yes, all of this was surely just a big misunderstanding. And she would get to the bottom of it!
Sydney moved faster than everyone else, as always. Kate trudged along behind her, almost getting lost in the mob. She’d never seen so many people together in one place before. And most of them wore Phillies colors: red, white, and blue. She looked down at her orange shirt and pondered the fact that she looked different from everyone else in the crowd. Usually that didn’t bother her. Kate never kept up with fashions, anyway. But tonight it suddenly seemed important to blend in.
Hmm. I’ll have to do better next time.
Her glasses slipped down her nose and she pushed them back up with a sigh.
They worked their way through the hustle and bustle of the crowd, and then Mrs. Smith led them to their seats about ten rows behind the dugout. “What do you think of these, girls?”
“Oh, they’re amazing, Mrs. Smith!” Sydney said. “I can’t thank you enough. I can practically hear the players talking from here. And we’re so close to the field! Oh, it makes me want to put on my new springy shoes and run out there!”
“Thanks again for inviting us.” Kate looked around the stadium in awe. “This place is so cool. Look at all of those scoreboards. And the video screens! This is an electronic wonderland!” Better than Disneyworld, she decided.
Sydney just laughed. “You are so funny, Kate. This is a sports arena, not an electronics store! Enjoy the game!”
“Okay, I’ll try.” Kate shrugged and settled into her seat. She looked at the little area Mrs. Smith had called the dugout. Interesting. Small. Just big enough to fit the players inside. Kate wondered if they liked being in there. She started to ask Andrew but decided not to. He might make fun of her. Still, it might help solve the case to know what went on in the dugout. Maybe she could ask him about all of that later.
Mrs. Smith went to the concession stand to buy some sodas. Kate had never paid much attention to baseball before. Oh, sure…she’d seen a little when flipping channels on the television. And she had tried—really tried—to pay attention to the things that Sydney and Andrew had taught her the other night on the baseball Web site. But sitting here—listening to the roar of the crowd—was totally different. She could almost feel the energy in the air. And the voices of the crowd…wow! She’d never heard so many people talking together at the same time. It was hard to focus, for sure.
She looked around at all of the people. Several ate hot dogs or popcorn. Yummy smells filled the air and made her tummy rumble.
Mom had fixed an early dinner, but she could hardly stand to smell such great smells and not want more. In the distance, she saw a boy with nachos in his hand. Yum! She practically drooled just thinking about them. Ooh! Look at that little girl over there. She was nibbling on cotton candy. Where could Kate find some of that?
Just then, several children walked out onto the field. Even from Kate’s seat close to the field, they looked pretty small. But why were they on the field? Surely they weren’t baseball players. If so, then she really didn’t know anything about this sport!
“Ooh, this should be good.” Andrew jabbed her with an elbow. “The children’s choir from a local school is singing the national anthem. I wonder if they’re any good.”
“Ah.” So that explained it! Kate stood with the rest of the crowd and tried to imagine what it must feel like to be out there—looking at so many people. Were the children nervous? Would the players be nervous when the game began? Mr. Smith probably would be, since so many people were upset with him. Andrew said it had affected his game. That wasn’t a good sign.
The voices of the children rose in beautiful harmony as they sang, “Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light…”
As they continued, Kate pulled out her micro-sized digital camera. She zoomed in on them, looking at each child through the lens. In the middle of the first row, a little girl—shorter than all the others—sang with all of her heart. She had a face full of freckles. Kate liked her right away.
After the children sang, the audience members sat down. The ground below filled with men in uniforms. Several of them spread out and stood on little mats. They wore gloves on their right hands. Well, all but a couple, who wore them on their left hands. One guy stood in the middle of the grass with a ball in his hand and threw it at another guy with a bat. That guy hit it with a loud smack and the crowd roared. The ball flew through the air…way, way, way off in the distance.
The whole thing was captured on a giant screen that was raised above the outfield of the stadium. For a minute, Kate thought about the men working in the video room…wherever that was. What a cool job that would be!
