by Barrie Summy
“Dirty laundry,” I mumble. I’m in jeans and a pastel pink blouse. Why? Because pink isn’t a Donner school color, and pink isn’t a Saguaro school color. Plus, pink goes well with my skin tone.
Claire frowns. “Here’s the schedule I’ve made up for everyone.” She pulls a sheet off her clipboard and hands it to me. “Your responsibilities are highlighted. And there’s a note to remind you to bring the bling to our next meeting. We’ll glue it on before we crate our bot.”
I read the sheet. The eye twitch makes a comeback. “Claire, why am I mostly in the Saguaro booth? On spy duty.”
“That’s plan A,” Claire says smugly.
I throw my hands up in the air. “But I’m over there more than anybody else. By a bunch.”
“You’re new to the Donner Dynamos. Judges are visiting the booths. They have the right to ask any team member any question. And we get judged on the answer.” She flips the longer side of her hair back and it gleams under the fluorescent lights. “Imagine if they asked you a question?”
I glance back down at the paper. “What exactly is ‘driving time’ anyway? ’cause that’s what you scheduled yourself for.”
“The driver handles the controls. So I’ll be manning the remote that maneuvers our bot during the actual competition. I have the most experience driving. If you’re interested, you can try that position next year.”
Next year, schmext year. I want to grab her clipboard and whack her over the head with it. Repeatedly.
Claire points across the room. “The Saguaro Cacti are the next row over. They’re number 9141. We’re down this row. See our sign?”
“Yeah.” I can definitely see their lame-o poster-board sign with team photos glued on in a circle around a hand-drawn fireball.
She glances at her watch. “You better head over now to the Saguaro booth. Bryce’ll show you what to do. Don’t leave till Austin gets there. He’s your relief.” She fiddles with the clip, making sure the remaining papers are secure. “Mary, does your cell have a decent camera?”
I’m walking away and nodding. After a few steps, I veer off to the opposite side of the room. I can so not kick it at the Saguaro booth with Bryce.
I hang out by the fence surrounding the field, sort of watching the competitions. There are four bots in the field at a time, working together in pairs. You drive your bot around the field, sometimes even racing. You pick up plastic rings and drop them on these peg thingies. You can even remove rings your opponents put on. It’s all about getting points. There’s lots of cheering. A noisy buzzer blares when the match is over. The sound system starts up, blasting loud music.
Under different circumstances, it might be fun. But not this evening. In my mind, I’ve pretty much gone over all the angles, and I’m blowing this pop stand. I can’t chill with the Saguaro team because they’ll out me to Bryce. I can’t chill with the Donner team because Claire’ll just send me over to the Saguaro booth. So I can’t investigate. So I’m leaving. A good detective knows when to cut her losses and head home to finish her homework and catch some TV.
I should’ve gone to the movies with Josh. Instead he might actually be there with Candy. Hopefully, Polly Paulson knows her psychic stuff. I briefly squeeze my eyes shut. Not thinking about relationships right now. I just want out of here.
Hunched over and my chin leaning on my chest, I slink along the Plexiglas fence around the field toward the outside door. I’m totally focused on that door, my exit to freedom. And safety.
“Sherry! What a marvelous surprise,” The Ruler says, all bright and cheerful and full of competitive energy. She’s striding along in front of the Saguaro Cacti dolly + robot. Behind her is the entire team. A sea of purple, yellow and black T-shirts with a cartoony robot cactus on the front.
Yikeserama!
“How wonderful of you to come to support us.” Beaming, The Ruler turns toward her team. “Isn’t this great? We have our first groupie.”
Everything feels all slow-motiony, even my eye twitch. All buddy-buddy, Junie and Nerdy Nick are pushing the back of the dolly. Junie shoots me worried looks. Tongue-Stud Girl marches at one side, a tool belt clanking around her skinny waist. Honor Roll Girl marches on the other side, intent on her calculator.
No Bryce. A faint flicker of hope ignites in my chest. If I can make it to the exit …
The Saguaro Cacti join the lineup to check in for field time. Honor Roll Girl lags behind, frowning at her calculator. I inch, ever so slowly, like I’m in Jell-O, toward the door.
“Sherry.” The Ruler hands me her clipboard. “Hold this for a second, would you?”
Bryce jack-in-the-box pops up from behind a huge gray trash can.
I freeze, my back up against the Plexiglas. A sitting duck.
He points his phone straight at me. Click!
My mind is totally blank. Like I’m taking a math test. I can’t think of a single way to salvage the situation.
The Ruler finishes tinkering with the robot’s arm, then takes back her clipboard. “Thank you.”
Bryce skulks up to Honor Roll Girl. “Do you know her?” he asks, giving me a suspicious glare.
Honor Roll Girl doesn’t even meet his eyes, just keeps on punching long strings of numbers into her calculator. She delivers my death sentence. “Uh, Sherry Baldwin. She goes to our school. Ms. Paulson’s her stepmother.”
chapter
twenty
Those crazy Donner Dynamos totally freaked. Like when you kick over an anthill and the entire colony scrambles all chaotic and panicked.
In a calm, reasonable voice, I explained to them I would just ride home on my bike. I would not sabotage their bot. I would not talk to any judges. I would not even think one single robotic thought.
But, alas, the Donner Dynamos were all ants in their pants with Claire furiously flipping the long side of her hair back and forth and stomping around the booth. The others glared hot anger in my direction.
But it was Austin I felt the worst about. Austin, whose eyes usually sparkle with excitement for everything robotics, stared past me with a lackluster gaze. When I tried to apologize, he turned away. His flash drive hung still and lifeless around his neck.
Bryce got his big brother to drive me out to nowheresville in the desert so that by the time I walked back to town, the competition would be over.
I look around. It’s me, a bunch of saguaro cacti, scraggly bushes and tumbleweeds. The Arizona desert is not pretty. At least it’s May, and there’s still daylight.
From my backpack, I pull out the bottle of water Sarah gave me. I drink. I swallow. I think. This is the most bizarro mystery. Not that I have masses of experience, but still, absolutely nothing makes sense. Nothing. We don’t have one solid suspect.
I flip open my phone to call Grandma.
Ack. No cell service.
I’m sitting there, sipping away and minding my own business, when a tumbleweed starts rolling in my direction. Yikes. I jump up and sidle left, out of its path. It slows, turns, then veers left. I jog to the right. It loops right. It’s coming right at me, like I’m magnetized or something. I turn my back.
Whack. Whack. Whack.
Ouchie mama.
Suddenly, the crazed tumbleweed stops and just squats, like a giant pimple. There’s no breeze. What set it in motion? I sniff. There’s a faint odor of honey + dirty socks. So not a tumbleweedish smell.
Just as I raise the bottle to my mouth, it’s ripped from my hand. The bottle skitters across the dusty desert floor, droplets arcing through the air like a watery comet.
And then I fall. More like I’m pushed.
I go to stand. I’m shoved over again.
So there I am, lying on the hard-packed ground, cell phone serviceless, water bottleless, scratched up from a mean tumbleweed and surrounded by the yucky smell of honey + dirty socks. Something is way way wrong with the world.
“Stay out of robotics!” a raspy male voice shouts.
I leap to my feet and gaze around.
Not one single person.
Just me, a bunch of saguaro cacti and tumbleweeds.
The stalker is a ghost!
chapter
twenty-one
Ack! Eek! Ike!
The stalker is a ghost!
A ghost who smells of honey + dirty socks!
I yank the ziplock bag of coffee beans from my purse. I grab a handful of beans and toss them high in the air. It’s raining coffee beans. It’s raining coffee smell. It’s raining SOS signals to my mother.
“Mom!” I scream. “Mom! Mom!”
I flop on the hard desert floor, scrounging coffee beans off the ground and throwing them up in the air again. I’m thinking Mom thoughts. Desperate get-yourself-here-tout-de-suite Mom thoughts. As in, I’m beyond freaking out.
The tumbleweed is shaking. Then it’s spinning on the spot, like it’s pawing the ground and gathering up energy to attack again. The honey + dirty socks odor is overpowering.
Just as the tumbleweed starts toward me, a super-strong coffee smell swishes in.
The honey + dirty socks smell disappears.
“Sherry! Sherry! Are you okay?”
“The stalker’s a ghost, Mom! A ghost! He was here! But he’s gone now!” I take a deep, raggedy breath and tell her everything.
When I’m done, she says, “We need off this case. It’s too dangerous.”
I used to freeze in the face of a challenge. Freeze up like a Popsicle. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak.
But not anymore. Now I’m on top of my game.
I lean back on my elbows, legs stretched out, and shake my head. “I don’t want off the case, Mom. I want this guy. If we quit now, it’s like we’re letting him win.”
Mom’s quiet. She’s probably twirling her hair around her finger, thinking. “The fact that the stalker’s a ghost certainly explains a lot, doesn’t it?”
People used to always say how we looked alike, with our curly dark hair and dark eyes. I don’t think they realized we had similar personalities too. I don’t think I even realized it. But it feels excellent to be on track together.
“This ghost is talented,” Mom says. “He picked up a knife and slashed tires. Ballpark guess, he’s five levels ahead of me.” She pauses. “I couldn’t take it if something happened to you, Sherry.”
“Would it help if I got an amethyst?” I ask, thinking back to the psychic fair.
“Yes, in the sense that the stone will break his concentration and make it tougher for him to approach you.” She pauses. “Also, my presence and Grandpa’s will chase him off. We can see him, and he doesn’t want to be identified. The Academy has unpleasant ways of dealing with ghosts who harm the living.”
My arms are misshapen with goose bumps the size of golf balls. But I know my mom will do everything in her power to keep me safe. “Okay. I’m getting amethysts for me and The Ruler and Junie. I won’t go anywhere without coffee beans in my pocket, so I can call you the sec I smell him.”
“Good plan,” Mom says.
“The Ruler isn’t so totally losing it after all. The ghost has been messing with her stuff. And he probably made those prank phone calls in the middle of the night.” I stomp the ground, remembering the dirty sock smell in my room and how I’d blamed Sam. “I bet he sprinkled extra fish food in my aquarium.” And that seals the deal. Because you mess with my fish, you are definitely messing with me.
“I am so annoyed,” Mom and I say at the same time.
I jump up and start walking. “I gotta get outta here before the sun goes down.”
“We’ll talk with Mrs. Howard later,” Mom says, blowing along beside me. “When the Ghostlympics are done for the day.”
“The Ghostlympics!” I hit my forehead. “How’d you do?”
“I did well,” she says slowly, “but I’m disqualified. I left in the middle of an event.”
My stomach sinks to the desert floor, past the earth’s crust, all the way to the core. “I wrecked our chances for Real Time. It’s all I think about. How to spend those precious five minutes with you. And now they’re gone.”
Mom strokes my hair, so light and feathery I can barely feel it. “I think about them too. But calling me was the right thing, pumpkin. We’ll try again next year.”
Off in the distance, a tiny speck of dirt turns into a bigger speck of dirt, which turns into a flapping grandfather.
At the exact moment that Grandpa touches down on my slouched shoulder, the sweet scent of Cinnabon fills the air.
Mrs. Howard’s vague roundish shape lingers above me like a low cloud as Mom does the report thing.
“The PSS assured us this mystery was straightforward.” Mrs. Howard shakes her head. “Had we known the stalker was a ghost, we wouldn’t have assigned y’all the case. Far too risky. We’ll reassign it immediately.”
“No!” Mom and I shout together. “We can solve it.”
“We’re committed, Minnie May,” Mom says. “It’s personal for us.”
“And me,” Grandpa caws.
Mrs. Howard paces in front of me. About a foot off the ground. Finally, she says, “Fine. You can take a stab at it. I’ll give you two days to wrap this case up. Any more time than that, and I’m worried the stalker will lose it like a treed raccoon and the entire situation will spiral out of control.” Mrs. Howard runs pudgy sausage fingers through her hair. “Christine, there’s an independent tutorial in the library called ‘About Ghosts Who Don’t Move On.’ I suggest you review it tomorrow morning.”
“Will do,” Mom says.
Then, Mrs. Howard floats right in front of me. So close, the air is sickeningly sweet. “Sherry, honey, y’all were counting on Real Time?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t help it; I just freaked when the stalker turned out to be a ghost.”
Mrs. Howard paces some more, then drifts to me again. “I understand how important Real Time is, particularly between a mother and daughter.”
My eyes prickle with tears.
“Without going into great detail, I experienced a similar situation.” Mrs. Howard’s blurry hand covers her blurrier heart. “And, to this very day, I deeply regret the outcome.”
I blink a bunch.
“I do believe the Academy is, in an oblique way, responsible for your mother’s disqualification from the Ghostlympics.” She draws in a breath. “Therefore, if you solve this mystery within the two-day period, we’ll award you five minutes of Real Time.”
We have another chance at Real Time!
“That means talking the stalker into the silver box at midnight on Wednesday.” Her arms jiggle as she waves goodbye.
The sun’s starting to set. Grandpa flies ahead to check on The Ruler. Mom and I keep traveling the dusty road back to town.
“The silver box is for ghosts who haven’t moved on,” Mom’s explaining to me. “You somehow talk a ghost into the box and then deliver him to the Academy, who then moves him on.”
I kick a stone and it skips ahead of us. “Why’s he even hanging around?”
“There’s a variety of reasons. Maybe he doesn’t realize he’s dead. Or he was too sad or angry at the time of death to be able to move on. Or he has unfinished business.”
We catch up to the stone and I send it sailing again.
“You can’t talk a ghost in without knowing his identity.” Mom picks up the stone and lobs it. “Which is why I was saying earlier that the stalker won’t want Grandpa or me to see him.”
“So now we’re tracking down a dead suspect,” I say. “Like a dead student or teacher or parent who’s peeved at The Ruler. Or a dead rival robotics person.”
“Stalkers are often old boyfriends.” Mom scoops up the stone and drops it in front of my foot.
I kick the stone high. “That’s a lot of dead possibilities.”
We discuss our plans of attack. Mom knows a fair amount about ghosts who don’t move on, but the tutorial will teach her the very specific dot-your-i’s-and-cross-your-
t’s rules for talking a ghost in.
It’s dusky enough now that people are turning on lights, which twinkle friendly and happy to see me back safe and sound from my desert adventure.
My cell phone sings to let me know I’ve got messages. Which means, of course, that I’ve got service now.
Three people are hiking toward me. Two of them fill me with happiness. The other gives me the blahs.
chapter
twenty-two
“Hi, Junie! Hi, Josh!” I wave big. “Hi, Nick.”
“You’re okay now, with your friends?” Mom asks. “Be cause I want to find out the results of the semifinals.”
“I’m good.” I wave her on.
She retrieves our stone, then zings it at a cactus.
Bull’s-eye.
Just like how we’re going to nail this mystery.
The scent of coffee fades as Junie, Josh and Nerdy Nick start running toward me. I’d run too, but my feet are sore. Too much walking on uneven ground in inappropriate but cute footwear.
Josh sweeps me up in a big hug. Not the kind of hug you give your girlfriend if you’re thinking about a certain overglittered eighth grader. Polly really might know what she’s talking about. I inhale nice and deep. Nothing beats the essence of chlorine.
“Hey, you didn’t go to Janus,” I say from the depths of his chest.
“Nah, but I wish we’d gone together. Then this wouldn’t have happened to you.” Josh releases me and holds me out at arm’s length. “Look at you. You’re scraped up.” He frowns, all mad. “I just wanna get those guys!”
“Yeah, well, except for the long walk part, the Donner kids weren’t all that bad,” I say. “Just easily panicked.”
“What about this?” He traces the bruise on my arm.
“It’s from my brother. An accident.”
“What about all these scratches?”
“I tripped. A bunch. Plus, a tumbleweed blew into me.” I can’t mention the ghost-stalker. Academy rules. I’ll fill Junie in later.