Alexis

by Erica Rodgers

  The more Alexis thought about it, the more she realized the commissioner was right. But not just about the bridge. Sometimes the smallest things could cause the biggest problems. Like this summer, for instance. Her friend Jerry had wanted to help Miss Maria save her nature park in Sacramento. Her business had dropped, and she’d brought in mechanical dinosaurs. But what Jerry had thought was harmless fun ended up as a huge news story and a mystery for the Camp Club Girls to solve. But feelings had gotten hurt, and Miss Maria even got injured because of erry’s little idea.

  “Elizabeth,” said Alexis. “Isn’t there something in the Bible about small things causing big problems?”

  “Well, there are a few things,” said Elizabeth. “A verse or two talk about little foxes spoiling the vineyards, which means small things that we tend to ignore can bring destruction. And in the book of James, we’re told that our tongue, even though it’s so small, can do big-time damage.”

  Alexis and Elizabeth walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Alexis suddenly turned to Elizabeth.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “I thought you said something,” said Alexis. She looked around. Not too many people were outside now since it was the hottest time of the day. They were near the alley where they had lost the old woman earlier. Alexis strained her ears and heard it again—a hurried whisper.

  She edged toward the alley but didn’t look around the corner. The words were muffled, but she heard them loud and clear.

  “We have to steal the whole carriage.”

  A second voice began to argue.

  “How are we gonna get it out of the hotel?”

  The hotel? Alexis thought. Were these people seriously talking about stealing the golden carriage from the London Bridge Resort?

  Elizabeth let out a quiet gasp, and the girls looked at each other.

  “Don’t worry,” said the first voice again. “It’ll be easy. And smile—this job is worth millions.”

  The Golden Coach

  Suddenly Alexis heard rustling, as if the people who had been speaking were moving toward them.

  Elizabeth grabbed her arm and motioned for them to leave.

  Alexis hated to go without at least getting a look at the whisperers. But the rustling seemed to draw closer.

  The girls fled. They didn’t know what else to do. What would happen if the people in the alley knew Alexis and Elizabeth had heard their plan?

  They had run close to two miles when they finally saw the London Bridge Resort. Alexis was grateful to see its towers.

  This must have been how retreating armies felt once they had left the danger of the battlefield and found the safety of their castle walls again, she thought.

  Alexis and Elizabeth stood in the lobby, panting and trying to catch their breath. Their eyes were drawn toward the carriage. It was absolutely huge. Could anyone really think they would be able to steal this thing?

  Alexis walked over to a sign standing near the ropes protecting the golden masterpiece. It gave a brief history of the original carriage and the replica.

  The Golden State Coach was built in London in 1762. King George III commissioned it and meant to ride in it on the day of his coronation. The greatness of the coach, however, kept it from being finished until three years later. Nonetheless, King George III and his family used it as the Coach of State. Recent monarchs have used the coach once a year in their customary parade to open Parliament. The last time the coach was used was by Elizabeth II in 2002.

  This priceless replica is the only full-size model of the original coach. It was built for the use of the London Bridge Resort and Hotel.

  Alexis looked around the hotel lobby. It was filled with people. Tourists were on their way to dinner. Bellhops ran for the elevators with teetering piles of suitcases. Jane, with her purple hair, was busily checking people in and getting fresh towels or extra pillows.

  Alexis knew she wouldn’t be able to get near the carriage unnoticed. If she tried, she probably wouldn’t make it over the ropes before someone yanked her out. How did anyone expect to remove the carriage from the room entirely? It just didn’t seem possible.

  Alexis felt a bony elbow digging into her side. She looked up at Elizabeth, who pointed across the carriage to a row of red velvet chairs. Dr. Edwards sat in one, not seeming to even be aware of the hustle and bustle all around him. His head was bowed over a notebook in his lap. His arched hands supported his forehead.

  Curious, the girls watched him. Within a few minutes he shook off his daze, stood up hastily, and dashed out of the lobby more quickly than the girls thought he was even capable of moving.

  A piece of paper fluttered out of his notebook and onto the floor.

  The girls ran over and picked it up.

  “Dr. Edwards!” called Alexis. “You dropped something!”

  But the man was already in an elevator, and he didn’t hear her. Alexis glanced at the paper in her hand, and her eyes opened wide. The paper was thick and unlined with frayed holes along one side, like it had been torn from a sketchbook. On it was a perfect pencil sketch of the Golden State Coach.

  “Man,” said Elizabeth. “He’s a pretty good artist. Look, he even drew the swirly detail on the dolphin’s tail! What’s that writing say?” She pointed to the bottom corner where a sentence was scrawled. Alexis pulled the paper closer to her face. She had assumed the writing was just the artist’s name or something, but it wasn’t. It was a question, written in perfect cursive.

  Where could it be hiding?

  “Where could it be hiding? That doesn’t make any sense,” Alexis said.

  “The carriage isn’t hiding at all. It’s in plain sight,” Elizabeth added. “So what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Alexis said. “I think maybe we’ll have to think about it. For right now I’ll put this in my notebook. Do you have your computer here?”

  “My dad has his MacBook. I can use that,” Elizabeth said.

  “Good. I don’t have a notebook computer, and Grandma’s practically in the Dark Ages—she only has a big old desktop back home,” Alexis said. “Why don’t you go online tonight and set Kate or Sydney busy seeing if they can find anything about the coach being in hiding.”

  “Will do,” Elizabeth said.

  “I think we also need more background information than we have,” Alexis said. “The sign was helpful, but we need more.”

  “I can ask the girls to dig up everything they can on the coach,” Elizabeth said.

  Alexis grinned at her. “You forget that we have an expert right here. I’ll ask Grandma about it tonight while you’re filling the girls in. There isn’t much about English history that she doesn’t know. And I know she brushed up on the carriage and everything pertaining to the London Bridge before she came here.”

  “Perfect,” said Elizabeth. “It’s about time for me to get back for dinner anyway. See you tomorrow?”

  “Definitely. We’ll have a lot to look into. Maybe we’ll have time to see the swim meet between investigations.” Alexis smiled. Why was she so interested in swimming all of a sudden? It must have been the pep rally.

  Elizabeth hugged her and left the hotel.

  Alexis stood in the crowded lobby waiting for an elevator to take her to the top floor, where her grandmother and she were sharing a suite. Their suite was amazing. It had two bedrooms with king-size beds, a dining room, a living room with a big-screen TV, and its own kitchen. They didn’t really use the kitchen, except to store some drinks in the fridge. Most meals they got for free from the hotel—another one of Grandma Windsor’s perks.

  Alexis entered the room and saw piles of food on the small table in the living room. Grandma Windsor was on the couch, already in her pajamas and fluffy slippers.

  “I thought we’d do room service tonight!” she called through a mouth full of pizza. Alexis laughed, imagining what her mom would say if she spoke with her mouth full, like Grandma Windsor had.

&nbs
p; “Perfect!” said Alexis. She changed into boxer shorts and a tank top and plopped down next to her grandma in front of the TV. They watched a bit of the news, and Alexis saw that Elizabeth’s dad had caught the largest fish in the first day of the bass tournament. She was surprised to see no news of the bridge. She guessed the mayor was keeping everything quiet until they found out what was going on.

  After the pizza was gone, Alexis popped open a Mountain Dew and got comfy.

  “So, that coach thing downstairs is pretty cool,” she said, acting just a little bit interested. For some reason she didn’t want to come right out and say, “Someone’s trying to steal the coach!” She didn’t have any evidence besides a whispered conversation in an alley. And what if the people had only been joking?

  “Yes,” said Grandma Windsor, “the coach is an amazing replica. The real one was part of a very historical reign in England.”

  “You mean King George the Third?” asked Alexis, remembering the name from the sign in the lobby.

  “Yes, Alexis! I’m proud of you!” Grandma Windsor muted the TV, excited to talk about her favorite subject. “King George the Third was famous for two things, mostly.”

  “What were they?” asked Alexis.

  “Losing the American Revolutionary War and going crazy.”

  “He went crazy?” Alexis had never enjoyed history class, but for some reason she loved it when her grandmother told her stories like this. The characters seemed so much more real than the ones in her schoolbooks.

  “Well, yes,” said her grandma. “That’s what they say. It may have been the pressure, of course. Being a king isn’t easy. Scholars today, however, believe that he was probably genetically predisposed to mental illness and that he had a blood disease.”

  “What?” asked Alexis.

  “It means that his mind might have always been a little fragile. He might have always been mentally unbalanced. If he had been in charge of the country while it was peaceful and wealthy, maybe he wouldn’t have snapped. But he didn’t live during peace, and he did finally snap.” Grandma Windsor clicked the TV off.

  “How did people know he was crazy?” asked Alexis. She felt sad for this king who had collapsed under the weight of his crown.

  “Well, he didn’t really lose his mind until his later years. They say it happened after his youngest daughter died. Her name was Princess Amelia, and she was his favorite. In fact, the king was so protective of his daughters that he didn’t want them to marry. There were rumors that the young Amelia had fallen in love with someone below her rank. A princess would never be allowed to marry a horse trainer.”

  “That’s awful!” said Alexis. She imagined a beautiful young princess locked in a tower, while her crazy father kept the key on a chain around his neck. The wonderful and extremely handsome boy who wanted to marry the princess stood beneath the tower, day and night, waiting.

  Alexis was becoming what her mother called a “romantic type” of person.

  Alexis forgot about the mystery surrounding the carriage as Grandma Windsor told story after story about crazy King George III. Alexis learned that Princess Amelia had sent secret letters to the one she loved. Then she had become ill and died without ever getting married.

  Alexis asked what happened to the letters, but her grandmother didn’t know.

  When Alexis and her grandmother stopped talking, she called Elizabeth and passed along what she’d learned.

  “The girls all said to tell you hi,” Elizabeth said. “McKenzie thought it was a rip-off that you had to ride a wagon instead of a real horse to joust today. Sydney wanted more information on the swimming team since she’s so into sports. Kate wishes she would have sent you a prototype her dad has of a new iPad clone so we could keep them posted every minute. Kate is going to look up information. She said any time we have news to text her and she’ll circulate it to the rest of the girls.

  “Bailey is really proud of you for winning the contest in the school today. She wants to know if either of us are going to try to be the pageant queen. And dear little Biscuit the Wonder Dog even woofed. I think he was saying if he’d been with us today, he would have caught the old hag for us!”

  Alexis laughed. The messages sounded so much like the Camp Club Girls! Count on the Camp Club Girls to be there with them in spirit, in thought, and in prayers!

  “Can you text Kate and ask her to check into letters Grandma mentioned that were written by Princess Amelia?” Alexis asked.

  “Sure,” Elizabeth replied. “I think I’ll also ask her to check into curses surrounding the London Bridge.”

  With that, the girls said good night.

  When Alexis finally climbed into bed, her mind was swimming with pictures of royalty: beautiful gowns, golden coaches, and lost letters of love. Eventually she fell asleep to the sound of water slapping the bridge outside her window.

  And she dreamed.

  She was walking along the London Bridge again, only this time she was not afraid. Halfway across she stopped to look over the rail. The reflection of the full moon sparkled brightly in the night, rippling with the small waves. Suddenly she heard a voice. A sweet voice, singing a familiar tune.

  “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down….”

  It was a girl not much older than Alexis—maybe fifteen or sixteen. Her dress looked old-fashioned but gorgeous. Silver silk sparkling in the starlight. Pearls were strung throughout her long waves of dark hair. They matched the necklace around her delicate throat. The girl’s liquid eyes didn’t see Alexis, but she stopped to look over the rail too, farther down the bridge.

  The young girl took something from the inside of her gown—a folded piece of paper. She hugged it to her chest. Then she kissed it and let it drift down into the lake. She turned away and kept walking toward the other side of the bridge. She kept singing.

  “London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.”

  The bridge rumbled. The girl disappeared as a thick fog rolled up from the water to engulf everything. Her sweet voice vanished as well and was replaced by an older voice.

  “My fair lady!” It shrieked, and then it laughed. The long, dry cackle was all too familiar. It was the voice of the old crone Elizabeth and Alexis had seen earlier in the day. Alexis could see the outline of a bent form through the fog. The figure lifted a walking stick high into the air and brought it down hard onto the stonework of the bridge.

  The bridge rumbled again, and this time it rocked. The rail in front of Alexis broke away and fell toward the water…and she followed it.

  Alexis wanted to scream, but her voice was caught in her throat. Stone and cement surrounded her as she plummeted into the water. It was icy, and the stabbing cold stole her breath. She fought to swim, every moment expecting a piece of the London Bridge to crush her and push her to the bottom.

  A few feet away something white was floating on the surface. It was the girl’s letter, and it was soaked through. With what? Alexis wondered. Tears or water?

  One more breath, that’s all she could take. Her arms hurt. They couldn’t support her anymore. She was sinking.

  An arm. A long, thin arm reached out and grabbed her. Alexis was pulled to the safety of the shore by the powerful sidestroke of a swimming prince.

  The Message of the Moon

  The next morning, Alexis met Elizabeth outside her hotel. There were loud voices coming from the area of the bridge, so naturally they drifted in that direction. When the bridge came into view, Alexis’s dream came flooding back. She shuddered.

  She almost told Elizabeth about it but decided not to. It had really been weird, and she didn’t think she could remember it all anyway.

  “Look,” said Elizabeth. “The bridge is still closed.”

  The bridge looked different than it had the day before. It was still decorated with yellow caution tape, but now there were big men in hard hats crawling all over it. They were all using strange instruments that looked like levels. A few of them were even in the wate
r near the closest pillar. It was only up to their waist.

  “That’s funny,” said Alexis. “I thought the water was a lot deeper than that.”

  “Those must be the engineers,” said Elizabeth.

  “Good. It shouldn’t take them long to figure out what’s going on.” Alexis led Elizabeth farther down the grassy slope, and they sat on the little beach, about twenty feet from the yellow tape. “Hopefully the festival can pick up where it left off.”

  The men in the water were pointing toward the second pillar, where the crack had grown overnight. They seemed to be arguing about something.

  “That’s strange,” said Elizabeth.

  “What?” asked Alexis.

  “The crack. It’s reaching up the arch of the bridge. See? It’s climbing closer to the top every day.”

  “I know,” said Alexis. “That means whatever is causing the crack is under the water.”

  “I wonder what it could be,” said Elizabeth. She shot Alexis a sneaky look. “We could check it out, you know.”

  “What? You mean under the water?” Alexis’s heart began to pound. Not only was she afraid of bridges, but last night she had also dreamed of this particular bridge falling on top of her. “That’s crazy! The engineers aren’t even getting close to that crack!”

  “It’s not crazy,” said Elizabeth. She leaned forward and shielded her eyes from the sun. She squinted, looking toward the middle of the river where the crack loomed. “The channel under the bridge is only eight feet deep in the middle. A lady at my hotel told me.”

  “Okay,” said Alexis. “Keep in mind that I am barely five feet tall. You, my giant friend, may be able to tiptoe out there, but I…” Alexis shivered again. Her dream had been way too realistic.

  “Oh come on, Alexis! All we need is a couple pairs of goggles. We brought our swimsuits, right? We can walk out most of the way, swim the last few feet to the pillar, and dunk our heads under to check out the crack.”