Since the traffic jam had delayed everyone, there was a lot of standing around before the parade started. Sophie and I were hanging together. Eve was sitting on the curb with Marshmallow in her lap. She was worried about something—I could tell from how her face was scrunched up.
Come to think of it, Eve hadn’t said a word since she asked her mom about the storage facility—RSF-Z. I was wondering what was up with that when something Billy Jensen said got my attention. He was a few feet to my left with Jeremiah, and he was complaining about how his splinters hurt.
Splinters?
The second Billy said it, Jeremiah looked up, saw me, and tried to shush him.
Sophie had heard the two of them, too, and she pounced. “You mean splinters like the ones I’ve got—and Eve and Alex’ve got, too?” she asked.
“Nope,” said Jeremiah. “Billy and I’s splinters are totally different.”
“Oh—so it’s you and Billy,” I said. “And where did you get them?”
Billy and Jeremiah looked at each other. Then Jeremiah answered very carefully. “We were doing a favor for, uh . . . somebody.”
“Who?” Sophie asked.
This time Billy answered. “Uh . . . for somebody who asked us to do a favor for her. A certain person.”
“A girl person, I guess.” Sophie looked at me. “And did she have a name?”
“That’s a silly question,” Jeremiah said. “Almost everybody has a name.”
I was getting exasperated, but—lucky for Jeremiah and Billy—that was when the leader of the Community Band blew his whistle.
At last! The parade was going to start!
Eve jumped off the curb and let Marshmallow off his leash. Sophie hurried position herself where all of us could see her. Then, after a drumroll from the band, the first notes of “Baby Elephant Walk” sounded. Sophie stepped left, stepped right—marching to the beat—and as she did she raised her fist and counted: “One-two-THREE-four-FIVE-six-seven-TOSS! One-two-THREE-four-FIVE-six-seven-TOSS!”
And just like that, we were a precision light-up Frisbee team for real.
Light-up Frisbees light up only when they’re spinning and go dark when they stop. For us, this meant that every eight steps, flying streaks of light whizzed among us, then it got dark, then it lit up again. Adding to the excitement was Marshmallow, zigzagging around us as fast as his short legs would carry him. Most of the time, he scooped lost Frisbees off the ground, but now and then he snagged a Frisbee on the fly, and when he did that, the crowd went wild.
I guess the whole thing looked pretty cool; there were oohs and aahs from the sidewalk everywhere we passed. By the time we reached the judging stand on College Street, the kids who took dance had added spins, while the ones who took martial arts had added kicks and punches.
Even Toby Lee, who is just little, was getting the hang of throwing the Frisbee. His mom, Marjie, looked up as if she was thanking heaven. “At last,” she said, “the kid turns out to be good at something besides making a mess.”
The parade route went south on Main Street, circled the campus, and ended near the north football parking lots—the really big ones at the edge of campus.
By the time we got there, we were almost as sick of “Baby Elephant Walk” as we were of the Twelve Days song.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The band members put their instruments down, and Toby Lee looked up at his mom. “Aw ovah?” he said sadly.
“All over.” His mom nodded. “But wasn’t that fun? And now there are awards! Come on and let’s see if we won.”
The Ice Carnival people had set up a platform at the far end of the parking lot. Mr. Glassie stood on it and one by one thanked almost every person in the entire town for making the first annual Ice Carnival Costume Pet Parade possible.
Boring!
Plus it took forever, and during it a lot of people left, including Mrs. Henry and Sophie’s mom, who took Byron with her. I told them no problemo, my parents could give Sophie and Eve a ride home—even though I hadn’t actually seen either of my parents yet.
Then it was time for the awards, and guess who gave them out: Mrs. Miggins!
A basset hound wearing a firefighter’s hat and a red plastic garbage bag (it was supposed to look like a coat) won the ribbon for best costume. The runner-up was a beagle ballerina that had a crown and some foofy pink fabric like a tutu around its belly.
“The pet costumes in California were better,” Eve whispered.
“I heard that,” Sophie said.
“Give ’em a break, Eve,” I said. “They only had a day!”
We were part of the team division, which was won by six guys who live over in the Fairmount neighborhood. They had parrots on their shoulders and were pushing lawn mowers decorated with Christmas lights. I was a little disappointed until Mr. Glassie announced “the last award of the evening, a people’s choice award, to the Chickadee Court Precision Light-Up Frisbee Team!” Then he explained that the idea for the parade had come from Sophie, Eve, and me, and cheers erupted all around.
We collected our red ribbons from Mrs. Miggins—Toby Lee grinned like crazy—and after that, it was time to go home.
But where were Mom and Dad? Had Luau’s vet appointment taken such a really long time? Suddenly, I felt guilty because in all the excitement, I had forgotten about my sick cat.
“Sophie, can you check your phone?” I said. “My dad didn’t call you, did he?”
Sophie checked and shook her head. No calls. Then she tried to call my dad, but he didn’t pick up. Meanwhile, the stadium parking lot began to empty out.
“I say we wait ten minutes, then call my mom,” I said.
The three of us went over to the speakers’ platform and sat down on the edge. Eve hadn’t heard Jeremiah talking to Billy before the parade, so Sophie and I caught her up. Meanwhile, Marshmallow was dozing in Eve’s lap. He was one tired little Frisbee dog.
“So Billy and Jeremiah must’ve moved the lady dancing over to the unfinished house. That’s how they got the splinters,” Eve said.
“Duh,” said Sophie.
“But why would they do that, do you think?” I asked.
“Yasmeen put them up to it,” Eve said. “She doesn’t like me.”
This was true. But I didn’t see what it had to do with hiding a lady dancing. Unless . . .
“You guys,” I said, “right before Eve got the call telling us to go to the unfinished house, I was at Yasmeen’s, right? And she was acting snotty, and I said we were going to solve the case any minute. Okay, I guess I was acting a little snotty, too. So what if she heard that and decided to do something to keep it from happening?”
Sophie nodded. “Like sending us on a wild-goose chase, you mean. Eve, could it have been Yasmeen on the phone?”
Eve shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve only talked to her that time at the Jensens’ disaster party. If it was her, though, it was a rotten thing to do.”
Eve was right, but Yasmeen had been my friend so long, I had to defend her. “Except for the splinters, no harm was really done.”
“It’s kind of funny if she did it because she thought we were close to solving the case,” Sophie said, “because actually, we’re not.”
Eve looked up. She had that scrunched-face look again. “You’re wrong. We’re very close to solving it.” Then she clipped Marshmallow’s leash to his collar, set him on the ground, stood up, and said, “Come on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eve walked so fast that Sophie and I had to jog and Marshmallow practically had to gallop. What was going on? If we were about to solve the case, I should be happy. But instead I was more like freaked because Eve seemed so upset.
Sophie said, “What is the matter with you, anyway, Eve? Where are we going?”
“Way to show sympathy, Soph,” I said.
Eve ignored all this, but when I said, “You’ve gotta stop for a second. Marshmallow’s exhausted,” she did stop—just long enough for me to bend down, undo his leash,
and pick him up. Then she strode off again.
We had left the stadium behind and now, across the lawn ahead of us, I saw three buildings. The closest one was a big metal warehouse. Maybe it was the moonlit silver clouds in the background, but it made me think of a spaceship in a science fiction movie. Then, as we got nearer, I heard a mechanical hum, sort of like our new refrigerator—the big one Dad got when he started the pie business.
Wait a sec. A refrigerator? This was RSF-Z, the refrigerated facility where Al was making all the deliveries. In the car, Eve’s mom had said it would be a perfect place to store ice sculptures.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Did Eve really think the ice sculptures were there? Had she been thinking all along that it was her dad who had them? But that made no sense.
We were closing in on the storage building when Marshmallow raised his head, sniffed the air, and yipped: I don’t like this. I don’t like this. Something just smells wrong.
Then he wiggled so hard I couldn’t hold him, and jumped to the ground. I figured his plan was to run away, but instead he ran toward the building and started sniffing the weeds around it. To our right was a red door with a sign: DANGER. KEEP OUT.
Eve, being a sensible person, stopped when she got to the red door. “What do we do?”
Sophie, on the other hand, didn’t stop at all. She put her hand on the doorknob, tried to turn it, and . . . succeeded.
What was it doing unlocked, anyway?
“Sophie”—I grabbed her shoulder—“if the statues are in there, there might be bad guys. They might have weapons.”
“Oh, hogwash,” said Sophie. “Who cares enough about ice to guard it with a weapon?”
“Uh . . . maybe the same people who cared enough to steal ice in the first place?”
This slowed her down, but only for a second. “How do we even know ice is what’s in there?”
Eve said, “I think it’s ice. I think all along it was my dad who stole the sculptures. Remember the pickup truck? And the sunflower seeds? It’s been so crazy for him lately, he probably started chewing them again. Not to mention he’s got a zillion graduate students who would help him do whatever he told them to do—like steal every ice sculpture in town. Besides that, he was gone all night—remember? He told Mom and me he was in his lab, but maybe . . .”
I took a breath, let it out, and nodded. “Means and opportunity. But what about motive?”
Eve looked really sad. “I have no idea.”
“Come on, you guys.” Sophie pushed the door open. “Maybe the clue we need’s in here.”
I don’t need to tell you it was pitch-black in the warehouse.
It’s always pitch-black in a warehouse.
Waiting for my eyes to adjust, I thought of every good old-fashioned mystery novel I’d ever read—where the eager detective goes in blind and ends up thumped on the head.
Then, at the start of the next chapter, he (or she) wakes up gagged, confused, and suffering from a bad, bad headache.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Remind me to give Sophie some good old-fashioned mystery novels for her birthday—because the way it turned out, going into the pitch-black warehouse was just as bad an idea as I expected.
Right away it was obvious that the darkness was populated with something, because I banged into obstacles everywhere I turned. Then, as if we needed something more to worry about, Marshmallow howled and started barking. Danger! Danger! Danger!
It didn’t take special skill to know what he meant: Someone was in here in the dark with us!
My heart pounded, my hands shook, my stomach twisted itself in a knot.
In comparison, a mere thump on the head was looking good.
“Ow!” Sophie griped, then “Ow!” and “Ow—my toe!” and then she said some words she must have learned from cable. “We need a lantern,” she added. “My phone doesn’t throw enough light. Wait . . .—I wonder . . .” And then there was a streak of light sailing near the ceiling of the warehouse, and for a shining moment we could see.
And what we saw were ice sculptures, rows of them lined up like zombies, staring blindly ahead in the Frisbee’s light.
The one I had just kicked was the zombified Ice Eve herself, and next to her an Ice Santa Claus, and then the chef with the tray of pizza, and then . . . the Frisbee hit the far wall—thwack—and bounced off, and everything went dark.
The thing is, it wasn’t only ice sculptures I had seen in the moment of light. Unless I was crazy, something had moved, something like a purple shadow. And it made me remember how when I was downtown, I’d thought I was being followed. That was something purple, too. And hadn’t there been something purple in the unfinished house?
Marshmallow barked again, then ran to retrieve Sophie’s Frisbee. I could hear his doggy toenails click-clicketing like crazy across the concrete floor.
Meanwhile, I took my own Frisbee and tossed it gently—going for maximum hang time and maximum light. Now the whole warehouse lit up, and we could see the sculptures more clearly, their faces distorted and scary because each had melted a bit in its day in the sun.
This was just great. Glowing, spooky, half-melted, unseeing, zombie-like ice goblins. I already knew they would populate my nightmares for the rest of my life.
Marshmallow brought back my Frisbee, brought back Eve’s Frisbee, brought back Sophie’s for the second time. For a scared little dog, he was tough. Now we tossed them as soon as they came back, so that they rose above the sculptures one after another, then sometimes—oops—collided in midair and dropped to the floor.
Not to mention, they bounced off the ice sculptures, too . . .
. . . Which was when something strange happened—sparks, like you’d get from striking a match, followed by what looked like tiny bolts of lightning. At first I thought they were just reflections from the spinning light-up Frisbees, but then I saw that they were different, multicolored.
“Never saw ice act like that before,” said Sophie.
“Me nei—” I started to say, but then I saw, streaking from the place where a Frisbee had just fallen, a whole bunch of lightning sparks—poof-poof-poof—a chain reaction that spawned a star of linked lightning, accompanied by poofs and hisses and pops, and that was spreading outward fast.
Sophie said, “Huh.”
Eve said, “I don’t like the looks of this.”
Then the hisses and pops got louder, and the lightning sparks brightened and multiplied.
What did volatile mean again? Suddenly, it came to me: Might blow up—that’s what it meant!
“You guys, we’ve got to get out of here!”
Eve, Sophie, and I started backing toward the door. “Marshmallow?” I called. “Come on!”
By now the whole room was brightening, with all the nightmare ice sculptures on view. Weirdly, it seemed to be the ice itself producing the lightning effect, kind of like . . .
Wait a second.
The video clip of the flame coming out of the faucet? The poof when Uncle Jim disappeared from the video conference—he had been turning on a faucet, right?
Had Uncle Jim made the ice sculptures out of water from Belleburg?
CHAPTER THIRTY
There’s nothing like a healthy shot of adrenaline to power up the brain. As Eve, Sophie, and I backpedaled toward the warehouse door, I started to work the mystery out.
It was never the ice at all that the thief wanted.
It was the water!
Mr. Yoder had made his ice sculptures from the water that came out of his tap—water polluted by fracking. And Professor Henry must have figured out that one of the chemicals polluting the water could be used as the missing ingredient he needed to make grassoline.
It made a crazy kind of sense. Hadn’t Professor Olivo said the catalyzing agent was volatile? Unfortunately, now the pulsing bolts of lightning made the warehouse bright as day and raised the temperature inside, too.
“Marshmallow!” Eve called.
And there he was,
at last—maneuvering like a tiny, fluffy running back among the dripping figures—then, zoom, he was out the door. Meanwhile the sizzle-crackle-poof had become one thunderous rumble, and the steamy air felt quivery and electric.
Something was about to happen, something big and dangerous.
Eve, Sophie, and I had reached the door and were about to cross the threshold to safety when, on the far side of the warehouse, I saw something purple and human-sized. It was familiar not only because it had been following me all day . . . but also because it was my best friend.
What was Yasmeen doing here?
More importantly—how was she going to get out?
With Eve and Sophie safe outside, I reversed direction. By now, the air in the warehouse was warm and sticky, the light had gone from bright to blinding, and the concrete floor was slick with melting ice. Out of breath, I slid and stumbled forward, tripping on the shrunken remains of Mr. Yoder’s sculptures. Suddenly—behind me—someone screamed my name, grabbed me around the waist, and dragged me toward the door.
I fought back. I couldn’t leave Yasmeen!
But whoever had me in his or her grip had almost superhuman strength. A few seconds later, I was outside in the dark, breathing gulps of cold night air.
“Run, Alex! Run away now!” yelled a very familiar voice—and I knew arguing would be useless.
It always is with Mom.
So I did as I was told.
And Mom rushed back inside to get Yasmeen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
When I turned my back on the warehouse, I saw Sophie, Eve, and Marshmallow at the edge of the lawn. The girls were waving, and I ran toward them. By now I could hear sirens, and soon there were blinking red and white lights coming toward us from the road in the distance.
I reached the girls. The three of us turned to look at RSF-Z. Then we waited breathlessly for whatever was going to happen next. It didn’t take long. There was a flash of multicolored light and a whoosh-bang roar that drove a single shock wave, knocking us backward. Marshmallow—huddled in Eve’s arms—howled. A blizzard wind kicked up, frigid with the vaporized remains of ice sculptures. It left a layer of icy white on the ground and on us.
Who Stole New Year's Eve? Page 10
