by Robin Yardi
A flash burst from a clump of boulders on the opposite side of the road, lighting up the reflectors along the highway. The sudden dazzle of light gave Mattie a look at the gloopers’ clothes, but it also sent the pair of them scrambling toward the back of the truck.
Hovering near the truck’s bumper, the gloopers glared over at the boulders where the flash had lit everything up. But rather than investigate, they began to shove at each other, flinging the hose around. Before Mattie had moved another five steps, the truck was squealing around the corner.
They were gone.
Mattie kicked a pinecone with her bare foot. Which is always a big mistake. Hopping along with a bleeding big toe, Mattie wasn’t sure what she would find. Everything had happened so quickly, she hadn’t even paid attention to the truck’s license plate.
“So stupid,” she said, hopping a little slower.
But sore toe or not, there was a new mystery to investigate. What was that flash?
When Mattie got a couple feet from the highway, she stopped, staring down at the asphalt. Her heart hammered as she listened for the hiss of a coming car. She looked both ways, checking for headlights, and limped across the road.
Peering into the ditch, Mattie saw the shine of a new puddle of slime. It shimmered all the way down to the pipe that went under the highway. She didn’t think those dumpers had had time to unload a whole batch of whatever it was, but the ugly goopyness of it made Mattie feel hopeless.
That’s when the sirens echoed down the road.
Mattie teetered at the edge of the ditch as the flashing lights and blazing high beams of a cruiser blinded her. She stumbled and fell back down the ditch, out of the car’s path but scrambling to keep herself out of the gloop.
Gravel crunched. A door slammed. The car’s siren clicked off. Blue and red lights bounced off the tree trunks above her. A flashlight’s bright glare swung through the branches before sliding over the rim of the ditch and lighting her up.
Mattie, in her pajamas, with a bleeding toe, next to a trail of sour slime.
She blinked up into the light. The cruiser had slowed to a stop, but she felt like it was still speeding right at her. Mattie knew she must have looked suspicious, but she also knew she had about thirty seconds to convince the flashlight shiner to chase down that gloop truck. They were getting away!
“Miss?” The voice and outline of the man behind the light were husky and tough.
Mattie took a breath so big it was like swimming in the ocean. “They went that way,” Mattie pointed. “In a big white truck with a hose on the back. You’ve got to go get them.”
“Miss, please walk up the embankment.”
She limped up the side of the ditch. Once the man stopped shining his flashlight into her face, Mattie could see that he was from the sheriff’s office. The gold star on the side of his car gleamed in the fog.
There was a deputy already writing something down in her very official looking notebook. Great. The other deputy, the one who had stepped outside the cruiser, reached out and put his hand on Mattie’s elbow.
Very gently.
When he touched her, Mattie noticed that she was shivery shaking.
“Let’s get you home,” he said.
Mattie knew the deputy’s name without even checking his badge. She remembered his voice. He was the same one who drove down the highway from Monterey to tell them about Mom.
She let Deputy Nuñez tug her across the road.
Crossing the highway was easier with him holding on to her arm. Deputy Nuñez had always been nice. More than that, he’d always been honest. Mattie knew he was a person she could trust. But walking beside him made the night harder too. He reminded her of the things she couldn’t fix. Couldn’t save. Couldn’t have again.
As they stepped back onto the donut shop parking lot, tears plunked onto her shirt.
How could she explain the white truck without everybody thinking she’d invented some horrible story to . . . to what? She couldn’t guess why a grown-up would think she had made up her story, but they would have a reason. Deciding why she’d lied would be easier than believing her.
When Mattie looked up, Aunt Molly was on the deck outside the trailer in her pajamas. She looked a little worried, but not confused. She looked like she’d been expecting something like this to happen.
Deputy Nuñez’s partner pulled the county car into the parking spot just in front of Owl’s. She eased out of the cruiser, shut the door, and waited on the concrete sidewalk while Deputy Nuñez walked Mattie home.
His shiny black shoes crunched against the pine needles that poked against Mattie’s bare feet. He stopped at the end of the path, before the start of the deck steps, and didn’t let go of Mattie’s arm.
“Hi, Ms. Waters,” Deputy Nuñez said. “We’ll need to get a statement.”
Aunt Molly nodded and tried to smile. “Okay. We’ve got one of Mattie’s friends asleep inside. Let’s go over to the shop and have some coffee.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Deputy Nuñez.
Aunt Molly quietly closed the trailer door and swept down the stairs like she wasn’t embarrassed to be wearing her pajamas and talking to a sheriff’s deputy in the middle of the night. Deputy Nuñez finally let go of Mattie’s elbow, and Aunt Molly wrapped an arm around her. All Mattie wanted to do was be crumpled into a big hug. But that would have to wait. She shuffled through the pile of clues in her brain. Tried to think of what else she could have done. How else she could have busted those gloopers.
She’d messed everything up.
She had zero proof to show Deputy Nuñez.
She got caught out in the ditch at midnight.
And no way was that truck coming back now.
Whatever trouble was on the way because of that gloop, Aunt Molly would have to fix it. And Mattie didn’t know if she could.
Deputy Nuñez’s partner hadn’t turned off the cruiser lights, and they bounced all over the place as Aunt Molly unlocked the shop’s front door. They were brighter than a donut covered in shiny red sugar.
Too bright.
Molly insisted on making both deputies fresh cups of coffee. Mattie slipped into her favorite booth and stared at the tabletop. Deputy Nuñez took a sip and started in on the questions. “So, Miss Mattie, what were you doing out on the highway in the middle of the night? Are you the one who called 9-1-1?”
Mattie crinkled her eyebrows, confused. “There was this truck . . . it’s been dumping stuff,” Mattie faltered. Aunt Molly looked at Deputy Nuñez.
“I wanted to catch them in the act, so I took Aunt Molly’s old phone to get a picture, but Beanie must have unplugged it even though I told her not to. And they . . . they got away. But I didn’t call 9-1-1.”
Deputy Nuñez sighed and nodded. His partner stopped writing in that awful black notepad. Aunt Molly rubbed her shoulder. Mattie knew what they would all say. Exactly what Sasha said.
That Mattie had made the truck up and then had got so scared she called 9-1-1. They’d say owls don’t talk and flowerpots don’t fly.
Would they even check the gloop out? Mattie shivered in her pajama shirt. In her mom’s pajama shirt.
She couldn’t say anything else.
They wouldn’t believe her.
“I think you should get her back to bed, Ms. Waters. We’ll check in tomorrow and get that statement.”
The deputies said goodnight and backed out of the parking spot. After giving Mattie a look that said I love you anyway, Aunt Molly slipped into the back to put the empty coffee cups into the washer and clean up.
Then the front door slid open.
So softly the bells didn’t jingle.
Sasha snuck into the shop. She put her finger to her lips, like her being there was a secret. Which, Mattie guessed it was. But at least Sasha wasn’t the one who had been caught out on the highway in the middle of the night. Mattie didn’t have the energy to keep fighting everybody.
“I messed it all up,” she whispered. “I didn
’t get any proof, and now they think I’m the one who was up to something.”
“You didn’t mess up,” Sasha whispered back, pulling a crushed wind-up camera from her pocket. “I did, because I didn’t believe you.”
The wind-up camera’s domed lens was cracked down the middle. “I only turned the flash on for the last picture, because I thought they’d notice. They definitely did. Then, when I was running away, I fell, and the camera got kind of crunched. But I saw it.”
Mattie’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t even bother to swipe her tears away. “The gloop truck?” she asked.
“Yep,” said Sasha, nodding. “I called the police from the pay phone in the parking lot as soon as I saw that truck pull over.”
“That was you?”
“Yeah,” Sasha said. “It’s almost a good thing we get such bad reception around here. If I’d called from my dad’s cell phone, I bet the deputies would be headed to my house next.”
Sasha looked down at the table instead of at Mattie. “I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble. Sorry. But don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.” She looked back up and gave Mattie a little scrunched smile.
Mattie’s thinking swirled like ice cream and hot fudge. The owl. The truck. The gloop. Sasha believed her and Sasha was sorry. Mattie could tell.
The sound of Aunt Molly clanging in the back room made Sasha flinch.
“Come to my house in the morning,” Sasha whispered, stuffing the camera back into her pocket. With that, she zipped out the door and ran across the parking lot.
Aunt Molly poked her head out of the back room. “Did the deputies come back? I thought I heard the door.”
“Nope,” Mattie said, sitting up straighter. “Just your imagination.”
She let herself be hugged, but inside the hug, her mind stopped swirling until all she could see was that gloop. Shiny, wet, stinky gloop.
Gloop that even Sasha knew was big trouble.
The S’more Bomb
A round, yeasted donut filled with puffy marshmallow cream and topped with a hazelnut-milk-chocolate glaze and graham cracker crunchies!
The next morning, Mattie pushed herself up in bed and saw Aunt Molly outside on the deck, staring across the highway at some bright yellow caution tape. It was blocking off the ditch. That meant the sheriff’s deputies coming last night hadn’t been all bad. The deputies must have noticed the gloop. And now maybe Aunt Molly knew that the gloop could be trouble too. But somehow that didn’t make Mattie feel any better. She knew now that grown-ups weren’t always able to fix things. Even when they wanted to. Even when they tried.
Aunt Molly was going to need her help.
Mattie crawled across a still-snoring Beanie and tiptoed out onto the deck. She hugged her goose-bumpy arms in the morning chill. Next to her, Aunt Molly sighed and put her mug of tea down on the rail.
Steam curled up into the air.
“Does Mrs. Mantooth know yet?” Mattie asked.
Aunt Molly flattened her mouth into an I’m-trying-not-to-worry line and pulled Mattie in for a sideways hug. “Don’t worry about that, kiddo. I’m sure this will all be fine. I’m sorry those dumpers have been waking you up in the middle of the night, but the officers will figure out what’s been going on. Your job is to have the best last six days of summer ever.”
A little less than six days, Mattie thought. Aunt Molly was counting today too, which wasn’t something Mattie ever did. To Aunt Molly, a dozen donuts was always thirteen. But although it was still morning, Wednesday had already slipped by a little bit. So there were really only five days of summer left. But Mattie didn’t correct her aunt. And she didn’t argue with Molly about the sheriff’s department being able to figure out what was going on.
Even if, last time, they never were.
Just then, Mrs. Mantooth came mincing down her driveway and across the parking lot. Her black leggings and fleece sweater were crisp and sharp in the fuzzy morning light. Even though she was on the official suspects list in Mattie’s notebook, Mattie didn’t really think that she was a glooper. She’d decided nobody would dump bad stuff near their own well. Not even Mrs. Mantooth. Besides, she was enough trouble as a neighbor already.
“Mattie, why don’t you take Beanie home and play at the Little’s for a while?” Aunt Molly asked. “I need to go talk with Mrs. Mantooth. Have fun—no worrying—okay?”
She turned toward the deck steps but waited for Mattie to answer.
“Okay,” Mattie said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. She’d try not to worry. But she had to catch the gloopers before Mrs. Mantooth could make too much of a fuss. She’d make sure Aunt Molly’s donut shop was safe. And she wasn’t going to count on the county sheriff.
Not again.
Aunt Molly swept down the deck steps, off to intercept Mrs. Mantooth before she could make it to their trailer. She had left her tea steaming on the railing, and the scent of peppermint prickled in Mattie’s nose.
Mattie hurried inside and changed into her softest T-shirt, her shorts with the biggest pockets, and a fuzzy green fleece with even more pockets. She loaded the pockets up with Aunt Molly’s old phone, a charger, and her notebook. She almost put the jar of gloop into her jacket pocket too, but she’d already showed that to Sasha. Besides, it might break.
Before leaving, she shook Beanie awake. “Come on, we’ve got to get Sasha—I’ll explain on the way.”
Beanie blinked a couple times and hopped out of bed. She had to hike her pajama bottoms up by the time they got to the creek. But she splashed along behind Mattie, nodding while Mattie tried to explain about the stakeout and the deputies and Sasha.
Over at the Little Family Campground, Sasha was already awake. As soon as Mattie made it up the bank and into the campground, she heard Sasha’s window rattle open. Sasha knelt in her top bunk, peering down, waiting for them to arrive.
“Beans, grab some cereal from the kitchen,” she said through the opening. “We need to have a meeting.” Then she rattled the window closed again.
Beanie looked up at Mattie.
“Told you she believes us,” Mattie said.
“How’d you do that?” Beanie asked with amazement.
“I didn’t. She figured it out by herself.”
Beanie huffed up the back stairs and charged into the kitchen. Somehow she got two boxes of cereal, a carton of milk, and three bowls and spoons to fit within her tiny arms. She was like an octopus. Mattie kind of wished she had snuck over some of Aunt Molly’s Wednesday specials. The S’more Bomb was a serious donut for serious thinking.
But cereal would have to do.
Sasha thumped to the floor in one jump when Beanie and Mattie came in with breakfast. She snatched a box of granola from Beanie, crammed her hand in, and crunched away.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s list what we know about these . . .”
“Gloopers?” Mattie suggested.
“Right. Gloopers it is.”
Mattie pulled her notebook out of her pocket, happy to finally have Sasha on her side. “Let’s start with the night of the broken pot. The owl tapped on my window and woke me up, spinning its head toward the road three times so I’d notice the white truck. I saw two people. One skinny and tall. One shorter, but not short-short, and roundish. That one was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. They were both doing something with a floppy hose when the owl dropped or threw or maybe pushed a flowerpot off the trailer.”
“Let’s stick to the facts,” Sasha interrupted, making a face. “A pot got smashed. You didn’t actually see the owl do it, right?”
Mattie squeezed the little notebook. Working with Sasha was never going to be one-hundred-percent easy.
“What happened next?” Sasha said, trying to ignore the whole owl thing.
Mattie sucked in a breath. At least she had Sasha listening. “The gloopers heard the crash and sped off. I didn’t get their license plate, and Aunt Molly woke up.”
“Okay, next!” Sasha said, pacing.
“Th
e gloop clue. It came the day after. The owl visited me at the campground—I’m sure it was following me around until I was alone—and it dropped a load of gravely gloop for me to find.”
Mattie raised her eyebrows, waiting for Sasha to question her account of the owl, but this time Sasha didn’t interrupt.
“That’s when we became detectives!” Beanie said, raising her spoon.
“Right,” Mattie replied. “The gloop trail. We found more stinky goo at the side of the highway, right where that truck had been parked the night before. It looked like people had dumped the gloop a few times. Some of it was almost dried up.”
Sasha squished her mouth like she wanted to hurry past the part of the story where she’d been so totally wrong, so Mattie charged ahead.
“Night two,” she said. “The owl woke me up and left the second clue. Two jiggety lines drawn in the flowerbed with its talon.”
Now Sasha couldn’t help interrupting. “Come on, Matt. How do you know it was some special message? It didn’t look like anything to me.”
Mattie was determined not to get off track. She didn’t have time to try to convince Sasha of something Sasha didn’t already believe, because that would take forever. She flipped to the next page in her notebook. “Focus, Sasha. I still need to show you the list of suspects I made.”
“We made,” Beanie squeaked.
Mattie nodded at Beanie.
Sasha stopped pacing and peeked over Mattie’s shoulder to read the descriptions. She poked at the list of people from the campground. “That guy checked out this morning. The mom and her teenage son are still here . . . Those guys are gone.”
Sasha narrowed her eyes when she got to the notes about Mrs. Mantooth, the angry arguing couple, and Hermit Harriet from the donut shop parking lot. “Why don’t you have that Mr. Slug guy on the list? I saw him drive by yesterday.”
Mattie shook her head. “No, Mr. Slug only comes on Sundays. Besides, he’s an old friend of my grandma’s. You must have seen somebody else.”
