The Astro Outlaw

by David A. Kelly

“Sure,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Just don’t leave the ballpark. I’ll keep an eye on the game for you.”

  Kate and Mike jogged up the steps and down a wide hallway. To the left of the main entrance was a long table. Behind it hung a banner that read COMMANDER NICHOLAS RICE. On the table in front of an empty chair lay a stack of pictures of Commander Rice in a blue flight suit. A security guard stood behind the other end of the table. He was busy talking into a walkie-talkie.

  Kate leafed through the photos. None were signed. “Where’s Commander Rice?” she asked Mike. “I thought he’d be signing autographs by now.”

  “Maybe he’s still missing,” Mike said. He wiggled his fingers in front of Kate’s face and dropped his voice. “Or maybe he’s lost in space.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Real funny,” she said. “We should wait for him.”

  Mike took out his baseball and started tossing it. Then an exhibit on the other side of the doorway caught his eye. It showed the history of Houston’s Union Station. Years ago, Union Station was Houston’s biggest train station. Now it was the main entrance to the Astros’ ballpark. Rows of black-and-white pictures of steam trains, passenger cars, and the old train station hung in the display.

  At the end of the display, Mike spotted a clear plastic box about the size of a garbage can. It was filled with black chunks of coal.

  “Hey, come here,” Mike called out to Kate. “It’s a box full of coal. The steam trains like the one on the outfield wall used to run on it. You can reach in and touch the coal pieces!”

  Mike dipped his hand through a round opening at the top of the box. The shiny black chunks of coal were smooth. But some had jagged edges. “Try it,” he said.

  Kate stuck her hand in. “Feels cold,” she said. “But we came down here to see Commander Rice, not a train display. Let’s ask that security guard if he knows anything.”

  Mike followed Kate over to the guard behind the table. He had just put down his walkie-talkie. The name tag on his shirt read LUIS.

  “Excuse me,” Kate said. “We’re friends of Commander Rice. Do you know when he’s coming?”

  Luis shook his head. “He was upstairs about an hour ago for a party,” he said. He pointed to a nearby stairway. “But Commander Rice didn’t show up for the first pitch like he was supposed to. They had to start the game without him. We’ve been looking but haven’t found him yet.”

  “Thanks,” Kate said. “We’ll check back later.”

  Kate and Mike took the stairway up to the next level. It wasn’t very busy. Mike could see a few fans farther down the hallway.

  Mike nodded to a sign on the door in front of them. It read COMMANDER RICE PARTY. “Maybe someone in there knows what happened to him.” He pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  Kate slipped in, too. She expected the room to be full of businesspeople. But it was empty, except for a few round tables. Half-filled cups and plates of leftovers sat on the tables around the room.

  “I guess the party’s over,” Mike said. “Everyone must have gone to their seats when the game started.”

  “I’m not sure we should be here,” Kate said. She glanced over her shoulder to the door. “What if someone finds us?”

  Mike shrugged. “We’ll just tell them exactly what we’re doing. We’re looking for Commander Rice. No one said to keep out.”

  For the next five minutes, Kate and Mike searched the room. All they found were a few business cards and some Astros stickers.

  “There’s no sign of Commander Rice,” Mike said. Just then, the crowd roared. There must have been a big play. “Let’s go. We’re missing the game!”

  Mike and Kate left the party room. Mike was halfway down the stairs when he heard Kate call him.

  “Mike! Stop!” Kate said.

  Mike turned around. Kate stood at the top of the stairs. Her head was tilted like she was listening for something.

  “Why?” Mike asked. “What—”

  Kate put her finger up to her lips. “Shh …,” she said. She pointed at a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “I hear something.”

  Kate put her ear against the door. Her eyes grew wide. “Something is scratching on the other side!”

  Knock, Knock

  Mike bounded up the steps. When he reached Kate, he leaned over and pressed his ear against the door, too. Silence. But then they both heard it. A few seconds of soft scratching, like sandpaper on a piece of wood.

  Mike straightened up. “It sounds like mice,” he said.

  “No,” Kate said. “Someone’s there. I heard tapping. Like a signal.”

  Kate rapped the door hard three times with her knuckles. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. She motioned for Mike to lean against the door again. But there was no response.

  Mike shook his head. “See, it’s probably just a mouse.” He turned to go. Kate stepped back to study the wall.

  KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

  Mike whirled around. “That’s no mouse!”

  Mike twisted the door handle and pulled. The door moved slightly, but then stuck fast. Kate reached over. She helped Mike give it another tug. The door sprang open. Someone was huddled on the floor behind it.

  It was Commander Rice!

  He wore a blue zip-up flight suit, and his hands and feet were bound with tape. A strip of cloth was tied around his head. It covered his mouth. Mike knelt down and untied it. When it fell away, Commander Rice gasped for air.

  “Thank you!” he said as Kate worked on the tape around his feet and hands. The commander winced.

  “Are you okay?” Kate asked.

  “I think so,” Commander Rice replied. “Someone knocked me out.” He touched the back of his head. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming! Did I miss the first pitch?”

  Kate looked at her phone. “It’s about eight o’clock,” she said. “You missed the start of the game. That’s why we came looking for you. What happened?”

  Commander Rice stood up and rubbed the marks on his wrists. He stretched for a moment while he was thinking. “I’m not sure. I was at the party. It was for local businesspeople, including some from the tour this morning, like Sam and Tex and Manuel.” He ran his fingers through his blond hair. “I left about twenty minutes before the game to get ready.”

  “Someone must have been watching you and waiting for you to leave!” Kate said.

  “I didn’t see anyone suspicious,” Commander Rice said. “They must have been waiting for me in the hall.” He scanned the hallway as he tried to remember what happened.

  Mike studied the hallway, too. He pulled out his baseball and tried to roll it from one hand to the other, but the ball dropped onto the floor. Mike scrambled to pick it up before it rolled down the stairs.

  Commander Rice snapped his fingers. “That’s it. I saw a ten-dollar bill right there.” He pointed to the floor in front of the door, where Mike’s ball had bounced. “I bent down to pick it up, and someone put something over my face. It smelled a little like straw. They dragged me into this room and knocked me out.”

  Commander Rice’s hand went to the back of his head again. “It still hurts. I faded in and out for a while, but I remember hearing deep voices,” he said. “The next thing I knew, I woke up all tied up. I started trying to get the ropes off. Then I heard you knocking.”

  He frowned, trying to remember more. “They said something about meeting at a gas station near the hill, deep in the heart of Texas,” Commander Rice said. He shook his head to clear it.

  “I’ll bet they were talking about their hideout!” Mike said.

  “Houston’s near the bottom of the state,” Kate said. “If they’re meeting in the heart of Texas, it’s probably far away from here. There’s a lot of space in Texas.”

  Commander Rice gasped. His face went pale. “Space!” He looked around the room wildly. “It’s gone!” he said.

  “What’s gone?” Mike asked.

  “My briefcase,” Commander Rice said. He pulled the pockets of his flight suit inside out. They were empty except f
or some blue fuzz.

  “The key is missing, too!” he said. “It was in my pocket.”

  Mike snorted. “At least it was only work stuff,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind it if someone stole my homework!”

  “No, Mike. They didn’t steal work papers,” Commander Rice said. “They stole the moon rock!”

  The Astro Outlaw

  “The moon rock is gone?” Kate gasped.

  “I had it when I left the party, and it’s not here now,” Commander Rice said. “That must be why they mugged me. The moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions are worth a huge amount of money!”

  “Like, how much?” Mike asked.

  “A lot,” Commander Rice said. “Back in 1998, a thief tried to sell a moon rock from Apollo Seventeen for five million dollars!”

  “Wow,” Mike said. “That would buy a lot of baseball tickets! Whoever stole your moon rock must be a real outlaw!”

  “You mean an Astro Outlaw,” Kate said.

  Mike laughed. “The Astro Outlaw. I like it! Let’s search the room. Maybe the Astro Outlaw left some clues!”

  The room was only about ten feet long and ten feet wide. The floor was dark gray concrete, and the walls were made of cinder block. A light hung from the ceiling. On the far wall was a second door. A sign on it read TRACKS. EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  Mike elbowed Kate in the ribs. “Look, maybe the Outlaw left some tracks!” he said.

  Kate groaned at Mike’s bad joke. But Commander Rice smiled for the first time since Kate and Mike had found him. He cracked the door open a few inches. Right away, the sound of the baseball game grew louder. He pulled the door open completely.

  “The thieves didn’t leave these tracks, Mike,” Kate said. In front of them stretched the railroad tracks for the stadium’s train. They could see the train engine’s big red cowcatcher, large light, and black smokestack. To their right were the outfield and third base. A walkway ran next to the train tracks.

  “This must be how the engineer gets to the train,” Mike said. “Cool!”

  “Well, the Outlaw wouldn’t have hidden the moon rock out here,” Commander Rice said. “I bet whoever stole the rock has already taken it out of the stadium. Or he’s hidden it somewhere.”

  Just as Commander Rice was closing the door, Mike called, “Wait!” He pointed to the tracks. Something black lay between the rails about ten feet away. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “My briefcase!” Commander Rice said. He picked it up. The black case had a blue and red NASA sticker on the side. “It’s unlocked!”

  Commander Rice’s hands shook as he popped open the cover. The briefcase was fitted with gray foam inside. In the middle was a hollow space for the moon rock. The commander’s shoulders slumped. “Empty,” he said.

  “Hey, that’s the right size for a baseball,” Mike said. He slipped his baseball into the hole in the case’s gray foam. It fit perfectly. “But I guess that moon rock is more valuable than my baseball.” He took the baseball back.

  Commander Rice snapped his briefcase closed and headed for the hallway. “I have to go report this,” he said. Kate followed him out.

  As Mike turned to go, something on the ground by the door to the tracks caught his eye. “What’s that?” he said. He picked up the top half of a green feather. “It’s broken right in the middle.”

  “Why didn’t we see that before?” Kate asked.

  Commander Rice studied the feather. Then he looked at the door. “I’ll bet it was caught in the door,” he said.

  “That means it must have fallen out when we opened the door,” Kate said. “It might have come from whoever took your briefcase!”

  “Maybe a parrot stole the moon rock,” Mike said with a grin. “They’re green.”

  Commander Rice smiled and held up the feather. “I don’t think a parrot could have carried away the moon rock, Mike. Plus, if you look at its edge you can tell it was dyed green. It used to be gray.”

  Kate stared at the broken feather. “That means the Astro Outlaw has the other half. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle!” Kate loved solving puzzles.

  Commander Rice nodded. He slipped the feather into his pocket. “I don’t know how we’ll find him,” he said, shutting the door to the tracks. He looked around the small room one more time.

  “Why don’t you kids watch the game for a while?” he said. “After I go to security, I’ll be downstairs to sign autographs. Come back during the seventh-inning stretch.”

  Mike nodded. “Don’t forget to tell them about the Astro Outlaw and his gas station deep in the heart of Texas!”

  Hot, Hot, Hot

  By the time Kate and Mike returned to their seats in the fifth inning, the Colorado Rockies were ahead by one run.

  “Hola, Kate! Hola, Mike!” Mr. Hopkins said. He spoke Spanish and was helping Kate learn it as well. Mr. Hopkins put down his program. “Did you find Commander Rice?” he asked.

  “Yes! You won’t believe it. He’d been knocked out cold!” Mike blurted out. “And someone stole the moon rock!”

  Kate’s dad and Mr. Ryan looked shocked.

  “Is he okay?” Mr. Ryan asked.

  “He’s got a bump on his head, but he seems fine,” Kate said. She explained how they had found the astronaut tied up. She also told them about how Mike had found the green feather.

  “Wow. That’s some story!” Mr. Hopkins said, shaking his head.

  “I’ll say,” Mr. Ryan said. He mopped his brow and brushed back his frizzy black hair. “Maybe I should go check on things.” He stood up to leave. “I’ll meet you after the game, near the entrance.”

  Mike looked at the scoreboard above the right-field seats. “I can’t believe the Rockies are winning. Tommy Thompson’s fastball is close to ninety-eight miles per hour! How are the Rockies getting hits off him?”

  “He’s having a bad day,” Kate’s dad said. “The Astros—”

  In the background, the loudspeaker boomed to life. “And now, it’s time for the Houston Hot Sauce Race!” A gate opened in the right outfield corner, and three figures popped out. They were dressed as tall, thin packets of hot sauce. The first one was bright red. The second was yellow. And the last one was orange. Only their arms and legs stuck out of the costumes.

  “Pick which hot sauce will win today’s race!” the announcer went on. “Will it be Mild, Medium, or Hot?”

  Mike’s eyes lit up. “Oh boy! I think Hot will win.” He had his eyes on the bright red hot-sauce packet.

  “I’m picking Mild,” Kate said. “I like yellow. That leaves you with Medium, Dad.”

  When the announcer shouted “Go!” the human hot sauces bumbled down the dirt warning track. Medium led the race most of the way. But as they rounded home, Mild took the lead. Mild was steps away from the line when Hot shot up from behind and bumped him aside. Hot broke through the blue crepe-paper finish line first!

  “Hot has won again!” boomed the loudspeaker. “I guess we like things fiery here in Houston.”

  “Told you so!” Mike said. He waved his index finger in the air like a number one sign. He loved competing against Kate. “I win … again,” he said, although he knew he didn’t win as often as he liked.

  Kate grabbed Mike’s finger. “Yeah, but only because your hot sauce pushed mine out of the way,” she said. “Don’t worry, Mike. They’re just hot-sauce packets, so they’ll all be squeezed in the end!”

  Mike tried to pull his finger away but couldn’t. He didn’t like to admit it, but when she wanted to be, Kate was pretty strong. “I was just, um, stretching my fingers!” he said.

  Kate gave Mike’s finger one last tight squeeze and let go.

  “Well, speaking of hot sauce,” Mike said, “how about we get some? Like on a hot dog or some fries?”

  “Great idea,” Kate said, jumping up. “We can race to see who’s faster!”

  “You don’t want to leave now,” Mr. Hopkins said. “Adam Bixby is batting.”

  Mike and Kate settled back in their seats a
s Bixby strode to the plate. He leaned over, touched home plate with his pinkie, and said a prayer. Then he took two slow practice swings and waited for the pitcher. The tip of the bat made small circles in the air behind his shoulder. It looked like a bee getting ready to sting.

  The pitcher wound up and flung a fastball inside. Bixby’s bat sliced down across the plate.

  STRIKE ONE!

  The catcher threw the ball back, and Bixby returned to his batting stance. The tip of the bat buzzed in circles behind his head. Once more, the pitcher unloaded. He launched a slider toward home plate. But instead of dropping down, the ball hung in the strike zone. Again the bat flashed across the plate. Bixby’s wrists snapped the bat forward. POW!

  He connected. The ball zoomed high over second base. Bixby dropped the bat, put his head down, and raced to first. The Rockies’ center fielder sprinted back to the wall. He passed the dirt warning track and sped up a small grassy hill in front of the outfield wall. But the ball dropped just over the fence.

  Another home run for Bixby! Now the game was tied!

  “What a hit!” Mike exclaimed over the noise of the train whistle and the cheers. “But why is there a hill in center field, Uncle Steve? Is that legal? I’ve never seen a baseball field with hills!”

  Kate’s dad smiled. “It’s called Tal’s Hill,” he said when the noise died down. “A lot of old-fashioned ballparks used to have hills or other uneven areas in the outfield. The Astros thought it would be fun to have one here. So they built the hill. They also added a flagpole near the top of the hill. Outfielders have to watch out for that!”

  The inning ended with a pop fly. The center fielder caught it for an easy out.

  “Ready for that hot dog now, Mike?” Kate asked. “Dad, do you want anything?”

  Mr. Hopkins shook his head. “No thanks,” he said as he handed them some money. “I’m going to buy some of those Kick’n Hot Nachos later. Have fun!”

  Food and drink stands lined the main hall. Texas favorites like nachos, chili, and fajitas sat side by side with hand-carved smoked turkey sandwiches, foot-long hot dogs, snow cones, and cotton candy. Mike and Kate threaded their way from one stand to another, between fans in cowboy boots and hats. It was hard to decide!