Sure enough, Jessie came pedaling into the camp. Right behind her were Soo Lee and Violet.
Jessie pulled to a stop and spun to look back down the road. “We beat it!” she gasped. “We beat the sweep wagon.”
She, Violet, and Soo Lee were all breathing hard.
“What took you so long?” Henry asked.
“We were getting just a little bit worried,” put in Grandfather.
“Got lost,” panted Soo Lee. “Tell you about it at dinner.”
“Dinner,” said Benny. “Where’s dinner?”
“This way, Benny,” said Grandfather.
“I’ll show you where to check your bikes at the bike corral,” said Henry. “And walk you to your tents. They’re right across the row from Grandfather’s and mine.”
“I’m staying with you, Jessie,” said Benny.
Jessie managed a smile.
The sweep wagon rolled into camp and the crew began to close the camp gates.
Jessie turned. Her eyes widened. “It’s a whole tent city,” she said. “It’s huge.”
“I guess you’d better show us around, Henry/’ said Violet, “or we might get lost again!”
Grandfather smiled and took Benny’s hand. “We’ll meet you at dinner,” he said.
“Someone changed the signs,” Jessie concluded. She, Soo Lee, Henry, and Violet stood in a long, long line that snaked from the dining tent all the way across the park where the tent city had been set up.
The line hadn’t moved in a long time. Some of the riders had sprawled in the grass, waiting for dinner. The last light of day was fading in the west.
“We weren’t the only ones who got lost,” Violet said. “But we met the others on our way back and told them, and they turned around. So they didn’t have to ride as far as we did.”
“Sabotage,” said Henry. “Someone wanted you to get lost. Or to not finish.”
“Maybe they wanted to wreck the whole ride,” said Benny.
“Maybe—” Violet broke off. “Look,” she said. “Remember that man we saw this morning, talking to Ms. Whatney and Ronald? He just walked out from behind the dining wagon. And he’s headed this way.”
The man was still wearing his scruffy coat and backward hat. He walked slowly, his eyes traveling over the tent city: the riders, the tents set up for dining and repairing bicycles and selling Eagle Mountain T-shirts. The man saw the Aldens watching him and raised his eyebrows.
The outdoor lights came on, and now they could see him clearly. He was older than he had first appeared to be.
“Are you a rider?” Benny blurted out.
“No,” said the man. “But I can see that you all are. How’s it going?”
“We’ve had some bad luck today, but it’s fine,” said Jessie stoutly.
The man’s eyebrows rose higher. “Bad luck? You’ve had good weather. Looks like a great volunteer crew.”
“Not enough water at the first stop,” said Henry. “Someone sabotaged it.” He watched the man closely as he spoke. The man didn’t appear surprised.
“Really,” he said.
“And someone put up signs that made us get lost,” Soo Lee said. “We almost didn’t make it back to camp before the sweep wagon.”
“Oh?” the man said.
“And someone stole my brother’s bike the night before the race and wrecked it,” Benny put in.
“Hmmm,” said the man, looking at Henry. “But you’re here.”
“The bike shop gave us a tandy bike,” Benny explained.
Now the man changed expression. He looked puzzled.
“A tandem bike,” Henry explained. “Lent to us by our bike shop, Greenfield Wheels.”
“Ah,” said the man. “Well, you’ve had some tough luck. But it could be worse.” He drew back one corner of his mouth in what might have been a smile and walked away.
“He’s weird,” said Soo Lee.
“Definitely,” agreed Jessie.
“Do you think he sabotaged the water and moved the signs?” Henry mused. “Nothing we told him seemed to surprise him.”
“You’re right,” Jessie said, staring after him. The man went around the corner of a tent and, following two signs that said BIKE CORRAL and INFORMATION TENT, he disappeared.
Jessie shivered. “Did you hear what else he said?” she asked. “He said, ‘It could be worse.’ That sounded like a threat.”
“It did,” Soo Lee said softly. And although it was a warm night, she shivered a little, too.
CHAPTER 7
“I’m Hungry!”
A grumble went down the line. A crew member ran out of the dining tent, followed by another. They raced past.
“I don’t believe this,” one of them said as she ran by.
“What’s going on?” asked Benny.
A moment later, another member of the dining hall crew walked down the line. “Dinner will be delayed,” he announced as he walked. “Come back when we ring the bell. It will be at least an hour.”
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Jessie inquired.
The crew member shook his head. “We got everything set up. We were ready to unload the food and start dishing it out. And then we discovered that someone had tampered with the lock on the food wagon.”
“It’s broken?” asked Violet.
“No. Looks like someone put glue in it. It’s going to take a locksmith to get it open,” he answered. He shook his head again. “I just hope the food doesn’t spoil.”
“Me too!” said Benny.
Henry said, “Did you see anybody suspicious around the food wagon?”
“Ha,” the crew volunteer said. “Like anyone would have time to notice. We’ve all been too busy to notice anything.”
“I’m hungry,” said Benny.
“I have some snack bars in my tent, Benny,” said Soo Lee. “You can have one.”
“Maybe we could all have one?” Jessie asked hopefully.
“There might be enough to go around,” Soo Lee said. “Let’s see.”
They went back across the park to the tents. Soo Lee had enough snack bars for everybody. She even had one left over. They took the snack bars to a picnic table overlooking a small pond.
“If I had my fishing pole,” said Benny, “we could catch fish and cook them for dinner. I wonder who put glue in the lock? I guess whoever it was, wasn’t very hungry.”
“Whoever it was is trying to sabotage the ride,” said Henry. “Too many things have gone wrong.”
“Your bike. The water mess at the first rest stop. The fake directions. And the glue in the lock,” said Violet, counting each one on her fingers. She held up four fingers.
“Wow. And we haven’t even started the second day of the ride yet,” said Soo Lee.
“Who could it be? Do you think whoever wrecked your bike is the same person who did everything today?” asked Jessie.
Henry said, “Well ... it could be. After all, Al came by the lemonade stand and knew which bike was mine. And he was at the water stop this morning when we got there.”
“That’s right,” said Jessie. “He could have gotten there early and slipped in and opened the spigots.”
“Or it could have been Ms. Whatney and Ronald. He knew about the water and he was glad it happened. And he was right there, remember?” Soo Lee pointed out.
“And they could have driven ahead in their car and changed all the signs around,” Henry said.
“Or the mysterious stranger could have done it,” Benny said. “With the backward hat. He knows Ronald and Ms. Whatney. And we saw him walking away from the mess tent tonight.”
Henry rubbed his forehead. “They all seem suspicious, don’t they? But Ms. Whatney wants to buy Eagle Mountain and make money by cutting down the trees and putting up a resort, so she has a reason.”
“Or it could be someone else,” said Violet.
“But how do we figure out who did it?” asked Soo Lee.
“We’ll have to watch everyone very carefully from now
on,” said Henry. “Tomorrow, Benny and I will keep an eye out for Ms. Whatney and Ronald.”
“And the mysterious stranger,” said Violet. “Soo Lee and I will help.”
Soo Lee nodded distractedly. She was looking in the direction of the dining tent.
“And I’ll ride extra fast and try to stay near Al to keep an eye on him,” Jessie promised.
Soo Lee stood up.
“Soo Lee? What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Violet.
Soo Lee grinned. The sound of a bell floated through the early evening dusk.
“Dinnertime!” she announced.
But their troubles weren’t over. Soon after dinner, the lights went out in the camp. Soo Lee and Violet, who had been brushing their teeth, had to hurry, shining their flashlights up and down the rows of tents to find their own.
Other flashlights crisscrossed the rows of tents as other riders looked for their sleeping spots. Each row had a letter and each tent had a number.
“N,” whispered Violet. “Here’s our row.”
“We’re near the end,” Soo Lee reminded her. As they walked past the tents, they could hear people talking in soft, sleepy tones. Everyone was tired.
They stopped in front of their tent. Violet crawled in, then Soo Lee followed. Soo Lee leaned out. “Good night,” she called softly to Henry and Grandfather, and to Jessie and Benny, who were in the tents across from Soo Lee and Violet.
Behind her, Violet said, “Sleep tight.”
“I will,” said Benny, his voice muffled.
“Night,” called Jessie.
Grandfather and Henry didn’t say anything. The only sound that came from their tent was a quiet snore.
Violet pulled up her sleeping bag. Soo Lee snuggled down into hers.
“Good night, Violet,” whispered Soo Lee.
“Good night, Soo Lee,” Violet whispered back.
She turned off the flashlight and yawned.
And then she screamed as something dark and smothering swooped down on her.
“Help! Help!” cried Violet, thrashing her arms above her head.
“Oh, oh, oh,” shouted Soo Lee, punching and kicking.
“Ow!” said Violet as Soo Lee kicked her in the leg.
“Ouch!” said Soo Lee as one of Violet’s thrashing arms caught her in the shoulder.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Henry’s voice came to them through the darkness. “Your tent collapsed.”
Struggling out of the tent with Soo Lee, Violet became aware that they weren’t the only ones who’d been kicking and shouting for help.
Violet blinked. “Wha-at?” she managed to say.
“It’s not just your tent,” Jessie announced. “It’s the whole row. Look at that.”
Now volunteers came running with flashlights.
“Just a tent problem, folks,” a woman called as she hurried along. “The night crew will fix it in no time.”
“Look at this,” Jessie said. She had gone to the end of the row. The Aldens followed her voice until they found her. She had her flashlight pointed down at something on the ground. “It was deliberate. Someone made those tents all come down on purpose. All the rear tent pegs at this end of the row have been linked together with a single piece of thin rope looped over each peg. Whoever did that only had to yank the rope and all the rear tent pegs came up. Boom. The tents collapse,” Jessie said.
Henry squatted to examine the rope. “Just plain cord,” he said. “But whoever did this is pretty smart. It’s simple and quick. All he—or she—had to do was walk by and pull. No one would even notice.”
As Henry had predicted, no one had. Dozens and dozens of bikers had been up and down the rows of tents since they were put up. “Anyone could have tied the pegs together,” said Henry.
“Not anyone,” said Violet. “It had to be someone staying in the tent city. Remember? They closed the gates.”
“That rules out Ms. Whatney and Ronald, then,” said Jessie.
Soo Lee said, “That’s right. Only riders and crew members and volunteers are allowed to stay in the tent city.”
“Maybe Ronald sneaked in,” said Benny. He yawned. “Or maybe the backward hat man.”
“Or maybe it was Al,” said Henry softly.
They walked back to their tents and helped put them back up. Soon the camp had settled down again. People began to fall asleep.
But Henry and Jessie lay awake in their tents, trying to figure out who wanted to sabotage the bike race, and why.
“Oh, good. No glue in the locks this morning,” said Benny.
A yawning crew member shuffled by and heard Benny’s words. She smiled wryly. “That’s because we left someone on guard,” she said. She shook her head. “We have strict security to guard the bicycles in the corral. No one allowed in without their bike number and race ID pass. But who thought we’d have to guard the food?”
She yawned hugely and said, “I need a shower,” and broke into a trot toward the shower wagons.
The Aldens quickly ate their breakfast of cold cereal, juice, and muffins, and headed for the bike corral. On the way, they ran into Nan.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Okay,” said Henry. He didn’t feel like talking about everything that had gone wrong.
Nan fell into step beside him.
Henry looked down. “What happened to your leg? Did you fall off your bike?”
A large new bruise was on Nan’s shin. It was purple and shiny.
“I bumped into something last night,” she said.
“Why didn’t you use your flashlight?” Violet asked.
Nan made a face. “Well, it was late. I didn’t want to wake people up. I thought I could find the bathrooms in the dark.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t fall into someone’s tent,” said Soo Lee with a little laugh. “Our tents fell last night.”
“Was that the noise I heard? I’m all the way at the end of the tent city, so I couldn’t tell what it was,” Nan said. She showed her rider identification and race number to the corral volunteer.
They were among the first riders to get there. The volunteer guard waved them through.
Nan walked straight down the rows toward her bike, but it took the Aldens a little while to find theirs. When they did, they discovered that something was wrong.
“Hey,” Benny said. “This isn’t my helmet. My helmet doesn’t have pink stripes on it!”
“My helmet’s not orange and silver,” said Henry.
“This helmet’s the wrong color and the wrong size,” said Soo Lee, turning to show a helmet that was sliding down over her nose.
“All our helmets have been mixed up with other people’s,” said Violet.
“Not just ours,” said Jessie. “Look!”
As bikers poured into the bike corral, voices were raised all around them in indignation. Several rows of helmets, which had been tied to the bikes during the night, had been switched around.
For the next hour, noise and disorder ruled. Cyclists ran up and down the row, peering at helmets and waving the ones they had above their heads.
Henry finally found his helmet and the owner of the one that had been attached to his bike. He helped Benny locate his helmet while Violet, Soo Lee, and Jessie looked for theirs.
“What about Grandfather?” asked Violet suddenly. She had just found her own helmet, much to her relief. “I’ll see if he needs help finding his helmet.”
But the helmets on Grandfather’s row, much farther away, hadn’t been switched around.
Violet also couldn’t help but notice that the helmets on the row where Al had his bike hadn’t been switched, either. All the riders in his row of parked bicycles were calmly picking up their helmets and putting them on.
Then Violet noticed something else: The man with the backward hat was standing just inside the entrance of the bike corral, staring at the rows of bicyclists trying to find their helmets. He had his hands in his pockets and no expression at all on
his face.
As if he felt Violet staring, he turned. He smiled at her, that funny jerk of the corner of his mouth.
Violet gave him a halfhearted wave, ducked her head, and hurried back to join the others.
As they walked their bikes out of the corral after finally finding her helmet, she told her family what she had seen.
“It does seem a little suspicious that Al’s row didn’t have any mixed-up helmets,” said Jessie.
“And why did the mystery man suddenly turn up just as it all happened?” Benny wondered out loud.
No one knew the answer to that. And the mysterious man was gone when they reached the entrance of the corral. The Aldens looked around, shrugged, and then rode out of the camp to begin the second day of the great bike race.
CHAPTER 8
An Unexpected Helper
“Uh-oh,” said Henry, just after they left the second water stop.
“Are we lost?” asked Benny. “I know how to get back to the water stop.”
“We’re not lost,” said Henry, pulling the tandem to a stop. “We have a flat tire.”
He got off. Benny got off. They squatted down to look at the tire. It was very flat. “Looks like we picked up a piece of glass,” said Henry. He got out the tire-changing kit and went to work.
“Can I help you?” Nan asked, slowing her own bike down.
“Hmmm,” said Henry, prying the tire off the wheel. He pulled the tube out from the inside. If he replaced the tube inside the tire, the tire wouldn’t be flat. The tube was what held the air in the tire, and the tire protected the thin tube.
“Why don’t you try to patch that tube and I’ll put the new tube in for you to save time,” Nan said.
“Thanks,” said Henry.
“No problem,” Nan answered. “I’ve changed about a million tires.”
As Benny watched, Henry patched the old tube and folded it into the tire patch kit he carried strapped under the back of the bicycle seat. Nan finished putting the tube and tire back on and jumped up. “Keep your tire pressure low,” she said. “That’ll help avoid flats.”
“Will do,” said Henry. “Thanks again.”
“Glad I could help,” Nan said. She swung her leg over her bike and pedaled away.
Great Bicycle Race Mystery Page 4