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 water 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.”
Alexis was just about to say, “I’ll think about it,” when a noise behind them made them jump. Chipper whistling…to the tune of “London Bridge.”
The girls spun around where they sat and saw the old woman dressed as a hag coming toward the bridge. She spotted them, but she didn’t run away this time. Instead she turned a little so she was heading right for them. The spring in her step told Alexis the old lady was in a good mood and that maybe she wasn’t as old as they had thought. She kept whistling as she reached the bench near the sidewalk. Alexis moved to get up, but a sharp whistle made her freeze.
She looked up, and the old woman raised her eyebrows and shook a finger at her. Then she sat on the bench and looked around, much like a tourist just enjoying the view. What in the world is going on? thought Alexis. She watched the woman for almost five minutes before anything else happened.
The lady reached into the pocket of her ragged robe and drew out a small, yellow envelope. She held it in front of her for a moment and looked at the girls to make sure they saw it. Then she placed it beside her on the bench, got up, and left—whistling her tune again.
Alexis and Elizabeth looked at each other. They both asked the same question.
“What was that all about?”
When they could no longer see or hear the old woman, Alexis got up and approached the bench. The little yellow envelope lay facedown on the seat. Alexis picked it up and flipped it over. Three words were scratched on the front:
For the Curious
Alexis looked at Elizabeth and shrugged her shoulders. She tore the envelope open and pulled out a matching note card. The twiglike handwriting said:
442 Lakeview Avenue
7:00 tonight. Don’t be late.
That was all. No name. Nothing.
The girls exchanged glances again. What on earth did this mean?
“I guess she wants to talk to us,” said Elizabeth.
“Yeah,” said Alexis. “But why tonight? At…four hundred and forty-two Lakeview Avenue? Why not here and now? Wouldn’t that have been more convenient?”
“Maybe,” said Elizabeth. “But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe she wants to talk where no one can overhear.”
They glanced over their shoulders to where the engineers were still investigating the bridge.
“Or,” said Alexis, “maybe she wants to lock us in a cage, fatten us up, and throw us into her giant oven.”
“Enough with the Hansel and Gretel stuff, okay?” said Elizabeth. “Do you want to investigate this stuff or not?”
“Of course I do!” said Alexis. “I think my imagination keeps running away with me.” Alexis had no idea why she had been so freaked out lately. Maybe the dream and the bridge had her on edge. Whatever it was, she needed to get over it. She had never thought of herself as a chicken before.
“It’s okay, Alex,” said Elizabeth. “It’s easy to let that happen here. Half the town thinks it’s back in seventeenth-century London. You know what you need?”
“Huh?”
“A little water to wake you up.”
Alexis took a fearful step back and pointed to the channel. “I’m not going in there.”
“Not the lake, nerd! The swim meet! It will give us something to do until we go meet Miss Creepy.”
Alexis lit up. “Yes! Let’s go!”
Again she asked herself the question: Why was she so excited about a swim meet? Maybe it was just the allure of something new. She’d never been to one before.
The girls walked across downtown to the Aquatic Center. Alexis thought it looked like a giant concrete ice cube. They were greeted by more purple and gold signs and a gaggle of
giggling girls. It looked like the entire female population of Lake Havasu City had shown up.
Other schools were there, too. Alexis could tell by the many different colors on the swimming caps of the swimmers. Yellow and black, green and silver, red and blue—just like her school colors back home.
She and Elizabeth found seats halfway up the bleachers. From this place they could see everything. Swimmers were warming up or cooling down in a smaller pool at one end. The huge pool in the middle was divided into eight lanes. Small platforms lined one end.
Within minutes the crowd was on its feet screaming. Alexis and Elizabeth stood, too, so they could see. A woman with huge hair was standing right in front of Alexis. Elizabeth looked over and laughed.
“Here,” she said. “Trade me spots!” The girls swapped seats, and Alexis saw the reason for the insanity. The Arizona swimming champion was making his way to one of the platforms at the edge of the pool.
“In lane five,” said an intercom voice over the crowd, “David Turner!”
The crowd roared. All the other swimmers had waved and smiled up at the crowd when their names were called. Turner kept his eyes on the water in front of him. The swimmers bent forward, ready to enter the water, and the gun went off.
One swimmer on the end had been late jumping off, but everyone else was already gone. In the middle of the pool Turner hadn’t yet broken the surface. He powered through the water, moving his body like a dolphin, until he was almost halfway across. Then his arms came up at the same time, propelling his head and shoulders out of the water as they pushed back under.
It looked as if he were flying.
“So that’s why they call it the butterfly,” said Alexis. She had always heard of the butterfly stroke but had never seen what it looked like.
Turner was at the end of the pool, diving underwater to turn around. When he finished, the person in second place was still in the middle of the pool. The crowd cheered. Turner didn’t even look up at the board that showed the swimmers’ times in bright lights.
The crowd settled a little as the other swimmers filed out of the pool. The other competitors were greeted by warm hugs of family and the excited smiles of friends. Alexis saw David Turner receive a wet slap on the back from his coach before he slipped away to the locker room. Alone.
His fans, who were still cheering for him, hadn’t even noticed he was gone.
“He always looks so sad,” said Alexis out loud.
“What?” said Elizabeth, who was watching another race that had already started.
“Nothing,” said Alexis. But she couldn’t help thinking about the champion. How could someone be so popular—so adored—and still look so alone?
The girls watched the rest of the meet and then went to meet Elizabeth’s family for dinner. They ate at a little café near the square, where the jousting tournament was taking place. The sound of clashing metal and pounding hooves made it easy to ignore Elizabeth’s little brother, who kept pretending to pick his nose.
“Talk about little things that spoil stuff,” Elizabeth said to Alexis, nodding at her brother. “He’s a case in point!”
Alexis’s reply was drowned out by the thud of hooves. Every few minutes gigantic horses charged each other. The men on their backs wore real armor and held shields and lances.
Alexis was about to ask why they had to wear the armor when two knights clashed. The lance that the blue knight was holding slammed into the green knight’s shield, snapped in half, and then slid up and landed with a crack on the piece of metal protecting the man’s throat.
That was why they were wearing real armor.
“Hey, this isn’t any game!” she exclaimed to Elizabeth.
“What, jousting?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, I guess I thought they were like stuntmen. I didn’t realize they were really fighting,” she said.
“Jousting is a big hobby all over the United States,” Elizabeth said. “A lot of regions have jousting clubs where they’re really into it. A lot of cities have Renaissance festivals where jousting is part of the action.”
“Do people often get hurt?” Alexis asked.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth admitted. “I guess they sometimes have accidents, but I haven’t really paid attention or heard much about it.”
Alexis had no idea that people still did this kind of thing. Her heart was beating so fast she could hardly eat.
After dinner the girls began wandering through the streets of downtown. Alexis had gotten a map at her hotel that showed them how to get to 442 Lakeview Avenue. They followed the tiny red lines that indicated where streets were block after block. Finally they ended up in a small neighborhood.
The houses were perfect. Each one was small and built of stone or brick. Short fences surrounded each front yard, and wild—but beautiful—English gardens were in full bloom. The fall flowers filled the air with a smell that reminded Alexis of the honeysuckle back home in Sacramento.
When they finally reached number 442, it was getting dark.
“It doesn’t look like anyone is home,” said Elizabeth.
The girls walked up to the porch, and sure enough, no lights were on inside the house. The flicker of a light with an electrical short licked at the darkness, throwing shadows against the front door.
“Maybe she forgot,” said Alexis. “Let’s take a look around to be sure she’s not home.”
Elizabeth knocked, and Alexis left the porch to peek into the first window. The other side was absolute darkness. There was no way to tell what was inside. That didn’t matter, really, but Alexis found that she was very interested to see how this woman lived.
“Do you think this woman is really creepy, or is she pretending?” she asked Elizabeth.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “Does she dress up and walk around town cackling to entertain the tourists? Or is there more to her?”
“It’s awfully dark around here,” Alexis said. “Reminds me of a scary movie.”
“ ‘Men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil,’” Elizabeth quoted. “John 3:19. Sometimes the Bible just has the perfect words!”
“I don’t think anyone is home,” Elizabeth added.
“Yeah, maybe we’d better leave,” Alexis said. “It’s too much like a scary movie.”
“Yep. It’s after dark. Two young girls out alone. Supposed to meet someone at a house, but the house is empty,” Elizabeth said.
“And the light is flickering,” Alexis added.
“Now all we need is—” She abruptly stopped talking as the girls heard footsteps.
They heard the footsteps turn off the sidewalk and enter the gate of 442 Lakeview Avenue. The girls spun around, expecting to see the old woman. Instead, a tall man raised something over his head. It looked like a short baseball bat.
He was coming toward them!
Alexis tried to scream. Elizabeth covered her head.
Then the object in the man’s hand blinded them.
It was a flashlight.
“What are you doing poking around people’s houses?”
“Oh no,” groaned Alexis. It was Deputy Dewayne, the officer the girls had met on their first day in Lake Havasu City.
“I got a call about some trespassers, so I came to investigate.”
“We’re not poking, really, sir,” said Alexis. “We had an appointment. We were supposed to come see this woman at seven.”
“This woman?” asked the deputy. “And what is this woman’s name? Huh?” The girls looked at each other. He would never believe them. “That’s what I thought,” Deputy Dewayne said. He put his hands on his hips.
“I have half a mind to take you in,” he said.
“But sir, we weren’t doing anything,” said Elizabeth. “I promise!”
“Well, get out of here then. If I find you out here again, I won’t be so forgiving.” He shined his flashlight in their faces, and Alexis turned around to get out of the glare. That’s when she saw it.
A sentence, scribbled in pencil on the white paint of the front door.
Watch beneath the moon when the bridge calls out.
Deputy Dewayne gave the girls a ride back to their hotels. Alexis didn’t dare bring up the writing in the police car. The deputy hadn’t noticed it, and she wanted to keep it that way. She didn’t want him blaming them for graffiti, too. When the officer dropped off Elizabeth, Alexis waved good-bye. She would have to call Elizabeth later.
There was a note from her grandmother when she got to her room. Some old friends from Europe had come to the conference, and Grandma Windsor was going to be out with them until late. Alexis watched some old detective shows on TV Land for a while. But her mind kept going back to the things that had happened that day. Since she had so much to think about, she got in her pajamas and climbed into her bed.
Watch beneath the moon when the bridge calls out.
What on earth did that mean? Watch beneath the moon was easy enough. Alexis suspected it meant to watch when the moon was shining, which would mean at night. But what about the last part? What did the woman mean, When the bridge calls out? Stone and cement didn’t talk, as far as Alexis knew. Bridges definitely didn’t call out.
Whatever. The lady was obviously a little crazy. And who knew? Maybe the message wasn’t for the girls anyway.
Alexis looked at her clock. Too late to call Elizabeth. She would run the clue by Elizabeth tomorrow and see what she thought. She wondered if Elizabeth had gotten any e-mails from the Camp Club Girls.
Alexis rolled over onto her side. She had left the curtains and the window open to let in the fresh, cool evening air. The desert smelled wonderful at night—like cooling sage. She drifted in and out of sleep as she watched the moonbeams dance on the wall. And then she heard it: the distinct ringing of metal hitting stone, followed by a splash.
Alexis sat up, looked toward the window, and heard it again. Ring, thump, splash. Was the bridge calling out?
Moonlight Sonata
Alexis and the Arizona Escapade Page 4