The Case of the Bug on the Run

by Martha Freeman

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

  The next morning was Thursday, and we had to get up early. It was our California visitors’ last day in Washington and—along with Mr. Amaro and Hooligan and Mr. Bryant—we were going to play tourist at the Lincoln Memorial.

  Since the cats were still in not-so-solitary confinement down the hall, it was Granny who waked us. Apparently, the Bug Liberation Front protesters had taken the day off. Had they given up on freeing James Madison?

  I hadn’t told Tessa I had solved the mystery. I knew I might be wrong, and I didn’t want to disappoint her again.

  I didn’t say anything to Nate, either. With him, if you’re wrong, you will hear about it for the rest of your life.

  So many people were going on our field trip that we had to take two vans on the mile-and-a-half drive. The Secret Service says it’s a lot easier to keep us safe on the road than on the sidewalk, not to mention that we attract less attention.

  Likewise, it’s easier to keep us safe if we go places before they get crowded. That’s why our vans pulled up to the bus zone behind the Lincoln Memorial at eight o’clock—a time in summer when sensible kids are still in bed.

  Have you ever noticed that some ideas won’t let you sleep? My idea about the identity of the spy was one of those. That’s why I was yawning. And that’s why—when I saw what I saw out the window—my first thought was that I had to be dreaming.

  Then Tessa saw it, too. “What are they doing here, Cammie?”

  It was the BLF! There were about a dozen people carrying signs, banging tambourines and chanting:

  “I-N-S! E-C-T!

  Every insect should be free!”

  For a few minutes, we waited in the van on the street behind the memorial while Secret Service agents checked to make sure the area was safe. Then our driver got the all-clear, stepped out, came around and opened the door. One by one, we piled out of the air-conditioning and into the warm, sticky sunshine.

  “I wonder how the BLF even knew we’d be here today,” Nate said.

  Tessa smacked her forehead. “I’ve got it! They’re the ones that have been listening to us! It’s the Bug Liberation Front that bugged James Madison!”

  Mr. Verity was standing beside us, adjusting the strap on his fanny pack. “Hey—Lily said something about a spy yesterday, right? So is that what she was talking about?”

  I didn’t know what to say, but Tessa never has that problem. “The First Kids have been investigating another mystery, Mr. Verity,” she explained. “Someone was spying on us. Yesterday we ran out of suspects, but over there are twelve perfectly good new ones. Now that our brains are rested, we should interview them, Cammie.”

  “Uh . . . possibly, dear sister,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “But not till after our tour of the Lincoln Memorial.”

  “I think,” said Granny, “that the BLF is here because the press is here. They have an amazing instinct for publicity.”

  Hooligan had been in his carrier in the back. Being a dog, he wouldn’t be allowed on the tour. Instead, he was going for a walk with Mr. Bryant. We all hoped he would behave himself and no one would recognize him as anything more than a slightly funny-looking, too-energetic mutt.

  “You know,” Nate pointed out, “technically James Madison isn’t a person, either. So he shouldn’t be allowed on the tour.”

  “Wait—you’ve got the bug with you?” Mr. Verity asked.

  “He’s in his mobile home in the zipper pouch of my Barbie backpack,” said Tessa.

  “I don’t think the Park Service will mind,” Granny said, “provided he stays where he is.”

  Mr. Verity tapped his jaw with his finger. “You people,” he said, “are too much!”

  “Too much!” said Lily.

  “Excuse me? Good morning!” A Park Service ranger waved to get our attention. “If you’re all here, I’d like to get started.”

  The Lincoln Memorial is a big, old-fashioned temple made in a shape the Greeks used long ago, with plenty of white marble pillars around the outside. In the middle is a twenty-foot-tall statue of President Abraham Lincoln sitting on a chair that’s more like a throne, if you ask me. On the walls are carved the words of two famous speeches he made. One of them is the Gettysburg Address, which begins, “Four score and seven years ago . . .”

  Besides telling us about the building and the Civil War times when Lincoln was president, the ranger also told us a story about the statue. Some people think Lincoln’s hands, resting on the arms of his chair, are forming his initials—“A” and “L”—in sign language. This could be because the sculptor had a deaf son, and Lincoln started a college for deaf people.

  Or it could be that some people have too-energetic imaginations.

  Our tour of the Lincoln Memorial took about half an hour.

  When it was done, Mr. Verity, Nate, Tessa and I ended up standing next to each other on the steps overlooking the Reflecting Pool, and beyond it the Washington Monument; that’s the tall skinny white one. A few feet away from us was a plaque marking the place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made his “I Have a Dream” speech about civil rights to thousands of people.

  Because it was still pretty early, the only people we could see by the Reflecting Pool were Mr. Bryant and Hooligan, a park ranger on a mini-tractor, and the BLF protesters, with their signs and a tambourine.

  Mr. Verity patted my shoulder. “Hey, Cammie, baby. Why the long face? Wassamatta U? Get it?”

  “The boss means what’s the matter with you?” said Max’s voice from the phone clipped to Mr. Verity’s belt. “The boss thinks he’s hilarious.”

  “Because I am hilarious, buddy boy!” Mr. Verity said.

  I tried to fix my face. “I’m okay.”

  But it wasn’t true. I felt like an idiot. All through breakfast, the drive to the memorial and even the tour, I had been trying to think of a good trick question. But nothing sounded right. And if the spy figured out why I was asking, he’d lie and avoid my trap.

  Not to be a drama queen like some people I could name (Tessa), but I was afraid that if that happened, we would never catch him, and James Madison would never be safe.

  Standing on the steps, I was ready to give up.

  Then Tessa asked me a question. “Did you feed James Madison this morning?”

  And just like that, my problem was solved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I spoke carefully. “I, uh . . . didn’t feed him, dear sister. But don’t you have some spicy taco chips in your bag? James Madison really likes those.”

  The phone on Mr. Verity’s belt lit up. “Not the spicy ones!” said Max. “They’ll upset his tummy!”

  I turned toward Mr. Verity and saw his suntanned face turn almost as white as his teeth. Sounding exactly normal, I said, “Max, how do you know that?”

  And Max said, “Uh . . . oops?”

  And before he could say more, Mr. Verity grabbed the straps of Tessa’s pink Barbie backpack, yanked it from her shoulders and ran.

  Tessa was so surprised she didn’t move for a moment. Then she slapped the place where her backpack used to be and shrieked, “Hey! You give that back!”

  But by this time Mr. Verity was halfway down the memorial’s marble steps.

  “Come on!” I grabbed Nate with one hand and Tessa with the other. “We’ve got to catch a bad guy . . . and save a cockroach!”

  Together, the three of us gave chase, but Mr. Verity had longer legs and a head start. In a few more steps, he’d be on level ground, and then he’d have the whole National Mall ahead of him. Could I run two miles to save a cockroach? On a July day in Washington, I didn’t want to have to find out.

  Luckily, the Secret Service agents Malik and Jeremy were loping in our direction. And so were the BLF protesters, marching in time to their tambourine. That sound plus approaching sirens, Park Service loudspeakers and screaming tourists added up to a whole lot of noise.

  Did I mention that Mr. Verity’s run for it had al
so tripped the Hooligan alarm system? “Awh-roohr!”

  Mr. Verity forged a zigzag path among the BLF protesters, but finally he busted free and beelined for the far end of the Reflecting Pool near the World War II Memorial. Jeremy and Malik were on their radios by now, alerting the combined forces of order to Mr. Verity’s location so they could cut him off.

  Tessa, Nate and I, meanwhile, fell farther and farther behind.

  Then Mr. Amaro shouted: “Kids! Over here! I got me some awesome wheels!”

  He was standing beside a green Park Service mini-tractor.

  “Thanks!” Mr. Amaro told the ranger who had been driving. “I’ll bring it back in no time.”

  The mini-tractor had a seat up front by the driver and a bench seat in back. Nate, Tessa and I settled in, and Mr. Amaro gunned the motor.

  “He lent you his tractor?” Nate had to holler to be heard.

  “What can I say? He’s a fan!” Mr. Amaro shouted back—and we sped toward the far end of the Reflecting Pool.

  By this time a swarm of officers, tourists and news guys—not to mention one too-energetic dog—had Mr. Verity backed up against the pool’s north rim. Brakes squealing, the mini-tractor jerked to a stop, and we all hopped off.

  Mr. Verity was trapped, and he knew it. He looked right, looked left, looked over his shoulder . . . but there was no way out except to wade in.

  I would have raised my hands in surrender, but not Mr. Verity.

  He had one trick left. With a flourish, he pulled James Madison’s mobile home from Tessa’s backpack, then revealed what he was holding in his other hand—a spray can.

  The crowd gasped. “Bug spray!”

  Mr. Verity, who has probably seen every Clint Eastwood movie ever made, narrowed his eyes and snarled. “Do as I say and no bug gets hurt. Turn your backs, close your eyes, count to ten and then . . . say adios to me and the cucaracha.”

  “Mr. Verity?” said Tessa. “May I just say one thing? That can you’re holding? It’s hairspray.”

  Mr. Verity hesitated just long enough to look at the label. It wasn’t much time, but it was enough. In a single bound, Hooligan performed a tricky leap-and-bump maneuver that knocked Mr. Verity back into the shallow water while at the same time jolting James Madison’s mobile home free. Straight up into the air it flew, seeming to hang for a moment above the water.

  Oh, no!

  Madagascar hissing cockroaches can’t swim!

  Luckily, Aunt Jen played center field for her high school softball team. She jumped, she stretched, she reached . . . she gathered in the mobile home as if it were a high fly ball.

  “Your cockroach, dear.” She handed it to Tessa and made a face. “Ewww.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Wait,” said Courtney after lunch that same day, “does this mean my dad’s not going to get his own reality-TV show?”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  The two of us were in the Solarium with Hooligan. I was catching her up on our morning at the Lincoln Memorial.

  “My dad’s gonna be super-disappointed,” said Courtney. “He was already shopping for houses in Hollywood. And was it really bug spray in the can?”

  “It was,” I said. “When Lily told Mr. Verity that she heard Tessa, Nate and me talking about spies, he knew he might be caught and bought bug spray just in case.”

  “I don’t get it, though,” said Courtney. “Why did Tessa say it was hairspray in the can?”

  “To confuse him,” I said. “And it worked, too.”

  Courtney shook her head. “Whoa—your little sister is smarter than she looks. But I still don’t see how you knew Mr. Verity was the spy.”

  “It only came together after we’d eliminated all the other suspects,” I said—leaving out the part where her dad had been one of them. “That’s when I realized Mr. Verity could’ve been in our room when James Madison disappeared and again later when he came back. Plus, Mrs. Verity told us he was missing yesterday afternoon at the exact time somebody set off the Hooligan alarm in our room. Then, when we were watching Playground Smackdown last night, I figured out Mr. Verity knew the technical stuff the spy needed to know. Some of the cameras for his shows are miniature, same as the one the spy used on us. Finally, there was the orange nail polish.”

  “What shade of orange?” Courtney asked.

  “Cockroach,” I said. “We thought the spy must have painted the transmitter to hide it when it was attached to James Madison. Orange nail polish was perfect for the job, and the Verity family had a solid supply.”

  “That still didn’t prove anything,” Courtney said.

  I nodded. “It was just a hunch. For proof, I needed a question. From listening in on Tessa and me, the spy knew certain things nobody else knew. If Mr. Verity let on that he knew one of those things, then he had to be the spy. When Tessa asked me about James Madison’s breakfast, I remembered how we had talked about spicy taco chips being bad for cockroaches. Maybe Mr. Verity wouldn’t have slipped, but Max did. He didn’t want James Madison to have an upset tummy.”

  All this time, Hooligan had been sacked out motionless on the rug. Now he heard something, blinked and thumped his tail. When I looked, I saw Mr. Amaro coming up the ramp from the third floor.

  “Hey, kids, I had an awesome visit to the White House, but this party’s over and I am so, so gone!”

  “I’m glad I had a chance to see you before you go,” said Courtney. “My dad is really sorry he got it wrong about the bugs in lunches and everything.”

  “No skin off my nose,” said Mr. Amaro. “I still think it’s a genius idea, and if one of these days somebody wants to try it, I’ll be the go-to guy.”

  “Are you taking the chef job in a certain nearby nation?” I asked.

  Mr. Amaro shook his head. “Oh, man! You’ll never guess! Turned out he wanted a personal chef for his dog! Not for me, chickadee. I’m headin’ home to see the fam and rethink. No worries, though. When your name’s Amaro Amaro, everything is awesome.”

  Solving the mystery and catching the spy made the First Kids pretty popular in the White House . . . at least for the rest of that day.

  Tessa and I got a break from chores. Nate didn’t have to practice piano. Granny even let the Ks out of not-so-solitary confinement. At dinnertime, we got our favorite: pizza from the White House kitchen, with blueberry ice cream for dessert.

  Tessa and I were reading in bed when Mom came in to say good night. We hadn’t seen her since we solved the case, but we knew she’d been briefed.

  “Congratulations, muffins.” She gave us each a kiss and a snuggle. That felt great, but a few things had been bugging . . . er, I mean bothering me.

  One was Lily.

  “It must’ve been really hard for a little kid to see her dad arrested like that, wasn’t it, Mom?” I asked.

  “I don’t think Lily saw what happened at the memorial,” Mom said. “Kendall must have suspected something was wrong because she kept Lily far away from the action.”

  “What’s going to happen to Mr. Verity?” Tessa asked.

  Mom sat down on the edge of my bed and looked at her watch. “The family should be back in California by now. Next week, Ruben will have to return to Washington to go to court. He’ll be charged with reckless endangerment of an insect and unlawfully attempting to dispose of a foreign invertebrate in a US government facility.”

  “What about spying on us?” Tessa asked.

  “Ruben didn’t do anything harmful with the information, so he’ll probably get off with a fine,” Mom said. “In fact, the news coverage of the standoff today caused ratings on all his reality shows to spike. I bet his company makes more money than ever.”

  “Well, that’s not fair,” said Tessa.

  “I’m not saying he won’t be sorry,” Mom said. “For one thing, he will never be invited back to the White House. And for another, he has lost a good friend—me. It’s a shame when money and fame make people think they can get away with bad behavior.”

  “
I have another question, Mama,” Tessa said. “Why did Mr. Verity want to spy on us in the first place?”

  “I think I know,” I said. “He wanted the First Kids for a reality TV show. We didn’t know it, but we were auditioning.”

  Mom nodded. “That’s about right. And you know something else? Even before the transmitter was broken, he knew the show wasn’t going to work out. Not enough drama. Not enough humiliation. You guys are just too nice.”

  “Hmmph,” said Tessa. “I think I am insulted.”

  “There is one other thing,” Mom said. “Just what exactly is this? My staff has found them all over the West Wing.”

  Mom held up a sheet of paper—one of the flyers Tessa had made. It said: KITTENS FOR SALE. $100 EACH. Underneath was a picture of a black cat with sharp white teeth and fiery eyes. Surrounding the cat were stickers of ghosts and witches.

  Tessa couldn’t help it. She started to giggle.

  The scary picture made me think of something else. “Tessa—are you responsible for the devil kitten story on the news last night, too?”

  With an effort, Tessa straightened out her face. “Oh, fine. I confess. While Cammie was talking to Charlotte in the Kitchen Garden yesterday, I kind of told the news guys some stories about our kittens’ evil behavior.”

  “What stories?” Mom said.

  “You don’t have to worry,” Tessa said. “None of it was true.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mom said.

  Tessa shrugged. “I just want to keep the Ks. You can’t blame me for that, can you? And anyway, you’re always telling me to use my imagination.”

  “Can’t we keep ’em, Mom?” I asked. “We have plenty of room.”

  “My job title says commander in chief,” Mom said, “but it doesn’t say a thing about kittens. You’ll have to win over your grandmother.”

  “No problem. I have another idea,” said Tessa.

  “Oh, no,” Mom and I said at the same time.

  “It’s nothing to worry about!” said Tessa. “Only . . . one of my friends from ballet has this really cool pet. It’s a tarantula.”

  “Tessa . . .”