“Come on, Henry,” Benny said the next morning. “We have to practice for the race one more time!”
But Henry didn’t come out of the garage next to the house where the Aldens kept their bicycles.
“Henry?” Jessie called.
“I can’t find it!” Henry said. His voice was muffled.
“Find what?” asked Violet. She leaned her bike against a tree and started toward the garage.
Just then, Henry burst out of the garage door. His eyes were wide. “I can’t find it. I can’t find my bicycle!” he cried.
“Isn’t it in the garage?” asked Jessie. “I saw you put it there last night. You leaned it against the ladder.”
Propping her own bike against Violet’s, Jessie hurried toward the garage. Benny, Soo Lee, and Watch quickly followed. As soon as they walked into the old garage, Watch growled softly.
“What is it, boy?” asked Benny.
But Watch couldn’t answer. He could only growl.
Jessie looked at the ladder in the corner where she’d last seen her older brother’s bike. It wasn’t there.
She glanced around the garage. She didn’t see Henry’s bicycle anywhere. She peered behind an old trunk. She raised the edge of a tarp, but found only spiders, dust, and a broken lawn mower beneath it.
The dust made her sneeze.
“It’s not here,” reported Violet, who’d been making a search of her own.
“Maybe you didn’t leave it in the garage. Maybe we got yesterday mixed up with some other day. Maybe you forgot to put it away and left it out by the boxcar,” Jessie said.
But as she spoke, Henry shook his head. “I’m sure I put it here last night,” he said. “I never took it out to the boxcar.”
“Then someone must have sneaked into the garage last night and taken it,” said Violet. “But why?”
Henry shook his head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t worth much — except to me.”
“We’ll find your bike,” said Jessie.
Suddenly she squatted down. “Look.” She pointed to the track of a wheel through a patch of old motor oil on the floor of the garage.
“Any one of us could have made that track,” Violet objected. “It’s not the only one.”
“But look how clear it is,” Jessie said.
Henry bent forward. “You’re right. That’s the track of a new tire. You can see every ridge. All the other tracks are much smoother, with many fewer tread marks.”
“You’re the only one of us who has a brand-new tire,” said Soo Lee.
“And look at this!” Violet’s voice rose in excitement as she pointed to the tracks leading from the garage.
The Aldens followed the tire track out of the garage. It curved suddenly and went off into the grass.
“The track leads out of the garage onto the grass at one side of the driveway and I know Henry always goes straight up or down the middle of the driveway,” Violet concluded.
“Why would someone ride your bike in the grass?” Benny wanted to know. “It’s not a mountain bike. Is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” Henry said.
“Here’s a streak of grease on the grass,” Violet said from around the corner of the garage.
“That’s funny,” said Jessie. “It looks as if whoever took the bike wasn’t taking it out to the road to ride away. He or she was going in the opposite direction.”
“Then that’s where we’ll start looking,” said Henry.
The five of them and Watch spread out and searched all around the big old white house. Henry checked the basement door just in case someone had moved the bike in there for a joke. But the door was locked from the inside, just as it always was.
Soo Lee suddenly cried, “Look!” She pointed to a slash of red on a large rock near the edge of the woods behind the Aldens’ house.
“Is it blood?” gasped Benny.
“No,” said Soo Lee. “I think it’s paint.”
Henry raced over, with Jessie and Violet close at his heels. He stooped and examined the red mark. “You’re right, Soo Lee. It is paint.”
“And it’s exactly the same color as your bicycle,” added Jessie.
“If the scrape is on this side of the rock, whoever took the bike was probably going in that direction,” said Violet, pointing toward the woods.
“Maybe the thief made a getaway through the woods?” asked Soo Lee.
“Then I guess we’d better look for more clues in the woods,” Henry said.
“Let’s spread out about five or ten feet apart,” Jessie suggested. “That way we can cover more ground.”
“Good idea,” said Henry. “If anybody sees anything, shout.”
“I will. Really loud,” Benny said.
The Aldens began to search the woods. They crunched through the leaves and pushed aside branches. Benny and Watch found two rusty tin cans and an old pop bottle. Violet found a tattered plastic bag caught in some bushes. She and Benny put the cans and the bottle in the bag to throw away later.
Just when they were about to give up, Violet called out, “I see something red. Over there by that big tree.”
Henry squinted in the direction she was pointing. “You’re right, Violet,” he called back. “Let’s go.”
He and Violet pushed through the bushes. A moment later, Jessie, Soo Lee, Benny, and Watch heard Violet wail, “Oh, no!”
“Let’s go!” shouted Jessie, and led the rest of the search party to Henry and Violet.
They all stopped and stared in stunned silence at what lay in the small clearing beneath the big old oak tree. It was Henry’s bike—or what was left of it.
“Who would do such a thing?” Soo Lee asked.
“I don’t know,” said Henry in a choked voice.
The tire on the rear wheel was flat, and several of its spokes were broken. The paint was scratched and scraped. Dirt clogged the gear wheels and bike chain. The chain itself was snapped. The bottom of the front fork, which held the front wheel on the bike, was bent.
“Oh, Henry,” said Violet. “I’m so sorry about your bike.”
“Me too,” said Henry.
“Maybe whoever took it ran away in such a hurry that it got all beaten up in the woods,” said Soo Lee.
Jessie said, “Well, whoever took this bike didn’t seem to care what happened to it.”
“Maybe we can get it fixed,” said Benny. “Let’s take it to Greenfield Wheels.”
“I guess we can try,” said Henry.
With Jessie’s help, Henry carried the bike out of the woods. They told Grandfather what had happened and he called the police to report the theft. Then they all walked slowly into town. As they walked, they tried to figure out what had happened.
“Maybe it was Ms. Whatney and her driver. Ronald, that was his name,” said Violet. “Maybe they wanted to keep us from riding in the race.”
“It could be,” said Henry. “After all, it’s Ms. Whatney who wants to buy Eagle Mountain.”
“And she knows where we live,” Benny added.
“And Ronald the chauffeur even asked about our bikes,” said Soo Lee.
“Maybe it was one of the people who were so mean to us when we were raising money,” said Violet.
“Like that guy who made fun of Henry’s bike in front of our lemonade stand,” said Soo Lee.
“Or the man at the card shop who told us he hoped we’d all have flat tires,” Benny said.
Henry sighed. He said, “It could be any of those people, I guess. But it doesn’t really make sense and we don’t have any proof.”
“When people do mean things it usually doesn’t make sense,” Violet added softly.
Henry looked sadly at his battered bicycle and added, “And now I don’t have a bicycle for the race.” |