The Robot Ransom

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “He’s not wearing his Greenfield STEAM tee shirt today,” said Violet. Instead, Mr. Thompson had on a blue polo shirt.

  “He forgot his ID badge,” said Jessie. “Oh, wait, he has it on. It’s tucked into his shirt. I was wondering how he got in without a badge.”

  They watched as Mr. Thompson wrote something on a yellow sticky note. He put the note on a board standing behind the table.

  “Look at those yellow notes!” said Jessie. “They are like the messages someone left us.”

  “That kind of note is very common,” said Henry. “It might be a coincidence.”

  Mr. Thompson asked, “Who wants to try the drone next?”

  “You try flying the drone,” Jessie told Henry. “Keep Mr. Thompson busy while we look at the notes.”

  Henry waved his arm. “I would like to try the drone, please.”

  Mr. Thompson did not look happy to see the Alden children. His face grew red. Still, he nodded and waved Henry forward. Mr. Thompson explained how the drone worked. It was controlled by a program on a cell phone. With the phone, the user could make the drone go up or down, left or right.

  Meanwhile, Jessie, Violet, and Benny crept closer to the booth. Violet pointed at the sticky notes on the board. “He uses a red marker. It’s exactly the same color as the ransom note.”

  “What about the writing?” Jessie asked. “I think it looks similar, but it’s hard to tell from here.”

  Violet glanced at Mr. Thompson. He was not looking at her, so she slipped behind the table to look at the notes. Then she hurried back to Jessie and Benny. “The handwriting is the same! Remember, both of the sticky notes had tiny circles for the dots in the letter i? All of these are the same.”

  They turned to watch Henry and Mr. Thompson. The former coach said, “You must go through all the blue hoops on the way out. At the end, pick up one of the balls in that basket. You control the drone’s arms like this.” He made the drone fly low over the crowd. A tall girl was wearing a baseball hat. The drone dipped down and extended two arms to grab the hat from the girl’s head.

  The girl looked up in amazement as the drone hovered above her. Then the drone held out the hat to the girl, who took it with a smile as the crowd laughed.

  Mr. Thompson told Henry, “Once you pick up a ball, fly back. Go through the green hoops on the way back. If you miss a hoop or drop the ball, you lose. If you make it back with the ball, I will record your time. The best time each day gets a prize.”

  Henry nodded and took the cell phone. Benny ran over to him. “Can I see what you do?”

  “We’ll do it together.” Henry knelt next to Benny.

  Mr. Thompson held up a timer and called out, “Start!”

  Henry guided the drone through the blue hoops. It bumped into a few of them but got through. At the far end, Henry had Benny control the drone arms. It took them some time to pick up a ball. Then Henry guided the drone back through the green hoops as Benny bounced with excitement.

  When Henry landed the drone on the table, Mr. Thompson checked the time. “Seven minutes and twelve seconds. Sorry, Henry Alden. I don’t think you will get a prize.”

  “That’s all right,” said Henry. “Thank you.” He and Benny joined the girls. “I have an idea,” Henry said. “Let’s get out of here and talk.”

  Benny said, “Don’t forget lunch!”

  “That’s right,” said Jessie. “We can talk in the food court.”

  They ordered sandwiches to go from the waiter robot and sat at a table. Jessie opened her laptop to take notes. “We think Mr. Thompson wrote the ransom note.”

  Violet nodded. “The ink on the notes in his display is the same color. The handwriting looks the same too.”

  “But how did he get our robot?” Jessie asked.

  Henry said, “That drone gave me an idea. SARA was guarding the robots last night. She says no one went through the front door. She also says no human was in the staging area. But something got back there. Maybe it flew over the wall.”

  Jessie gasped. “You mean a drone?”

  Henry nodded. “Mr. Thompson is really good with that drone. It even has a camera so he can see where the drone is going.”

  “Could he control the drone from outside the building?” Violet asked.

  “I think he could,” said Henry. “With the cell phone, he can control the drone from hundreds of feet away. He could have left the drone on overnight, left the building, and used the phone to fly the drone into the staging area. It could fly over the walls, since they don’t reach the ceiling.”

  “I get it,” Jessie said as she tapped on her laptop. “The claws on the drone held the ransom note. That’s why it was crumpled up in a ball. The drone dropped the note and picked up our robot.”

  “That’s right,” said Henry. “When it grabbed our robot, it broke off some pieces. They fell to the floor.”

  “And that’s the noise SARA heard!” said Benny.

  “It all makes sense,” said Violet. “A robot really was the thief, but it was a robot controlled by a person.”

  “Have we really solved the mystery?” Benny asked.

  “Not quite,” said Jessie, studying her notes. “We still don’t know what’s going on with Coach Kaleka. And Logan still might be involved somehow. Plus, why would Mr. Thompson steal our robot for ransom? And there’s one more question. The most important question of all.” She looked around at the others.

  Henry nodded. “How do we get our robot back?”

  A Fishy Story

  The Aldens found Naomi and Rico hard at work in the hotel room. “How is it going?” Henry asked.

  Rico pushed his hair out of his face and gave a sigh of frustration. “Slowly, very slowly. I don’t see how we can finish in time.”

  Jessie sat on the floor next to them. “What’s wrong?”

  “We left our design notes at home,” said Naomi. “I guess we should have brought them.”

  “We didn’t think we’d have to rebuild our robot,” groaned Rico.

  Benny looked at the pile of parts. “That doesn’t look like DogBot.”

  “No,” Rico agreed. “It won’t bark either. We don’t have time for that. We’ll be lucky to get the new robot working well. For DogBot, we tried many things to see what worked best. But we can’t remember all our final decisions. We don’t have time to try everything again.”

  “We can get a working robot,” said Naomi. “But it won’t be as good as DogBot. Not even close.”

  Violet unpacked the lunches they’d brought. “Why don’t you take a break?”

  As they ate, the Aldens told Naomi and Rico what they had learned.

  Rico put down his sandwich. “You really think Coach Thompson stole our robot?”

  “It looks that way,” said Henry.

  “Coach Thompson taught us a lot,” said Naomi. “He helped us with the design for our robot over the summer. He was pretty mad when he got fired from coaching. Maybe he still believes DogBot is partly his robot.”

  “So he steals it and asks for ransom?” Rico asked. “Is he trying to punish us? We didn’t fire him!”

  Naomi shrugged. “Think about it. The note asked for two hundred dollars. That is half the prize money. Maybe Coach Thompson thinks he did half the work.”

  Jessie had her laptop out. “We still don’t understand some things. SARA said Coach Kaleka came to the staging area yesterday. Could he be helping Mr. Thompson?”

  Rico shook his head. “I doubt it. Coach Thompson was mad at Coach Kaleka for taking the job.”

  Jessie said, “Oh, I wish we knew what happened to Coach Kaleka!”

  “How can we find the answer?” Violet wondered.

  A knock came at the door. Rico jumped, and the others stared in surprise at the door.

  “Grandfather should not be back this early.” Henry went to the door and looked through the peephole. He turned to the others. “We’re going to get some answers right now!” He opened the door.

  “Coach Kale
ka!” Jessie, Naomi, and Rico all spoke at once. They stared at the man standing in the doorway wearing a fishing shirt and hat.

  “Hello,” Coach Kaleka said. “May I come in?”

  “Of course,” said Henry. “We’re glad you found us.” He introduced Violet and Benny. They let Coach Kaleka take the one chair in the room.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” Benny asked.

  Coach Kaleka put down his fishing pole and tackle box. “I’ll give you a hint. When I got your messages, I came straight here as fast as I cod. I’ll bait you thought I disappeared into fin air, and you wouldn’t be herring from me at all this weekend. But I’m not that shellfish.” He chuckled. “I’m hooked on fishing jokes.”

  Jessie smiled, but she had more important questions. “Did you forget the conference was this weekend?”

  Coach Kaleka shook his head. “My memory wasn’t the problem this time. I got an email about two weeks ago. It said the conference dates had changed. It gave the new dates as next weekend. That’s why I got so confused. You would talk about certain dates. Then I’d go home and check my calendar, which had different dates.”

  “We talked about the contest earlier this week,” said Rico. “You said you’d see us here Thursday night.”

  “I meant Thursday night of next week,” Coach Kaleka said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I don’t understand what happened. Something is definitely fishy!”

  “We all got the first email about the conference,” said Jessie. “That one listed this weekend, which was correct. Why did you get an email saying the dates had changed? None of us got that.”

  “It’s a good thing!” said Rico. “We might have missed the whole conference.”

  Coach Kaleka pulled out his phone. A minute later, he showed them the email.

  Henry compared it with the email he had received. “They are very similar. They both have the conference logo. But your email added the word Correction and new dates. And it’s from a different email address. The two email addresses are almost the same, but this one has an extra letter on the end.”

  Naomi turned to Coach Kaleka. “I’ll bet Mr. Thompson sent you a fake email.”

  “Why would he do that?” Coach Kaleka asked.

  “We have a lot to tell you,” said Henry.

  It took a long time to explain everything. Then Coach Kaleka helped answer some of their questions. “It looks like Mr. Thompson pretended to be me,” he said. “First he sent the email with the wrong dates. He knew it worked when I said I was going fishing this weekend. I talked about it in the teachers’ lounge at school. I said I would be out of touch all weekend.”

  “He knew you wouldn’t get my messages!” Rico said.

  Coach Kaleka smiled. “He wasn’t quite right. I didn’t get any messages yesterday, but this morning I went to a different river. I was able to check my messages. Boy was I surprised!”

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” said Jessie.

  “I’m sorry I missed all the excitement,” Coach Kaleka said. “Let’s see, where were we? Mr. Thompson came here, knowing I was out of town. He must have picked up my registration. That way he had my ID badge.”

  “Of course!” said Jessie. “It also explains why he wore a Greenfield STEAM Team tee shirt yesterday. He was pretending to be the Greenfield coach.”

  Rico jumped up and paced the small room. “No one would be surprised to see him in that shirt. People would recognize him from other years. They wouldn’t even look at his name badge. He used your ID to go to the staging area and leave the first note.”

  “That’s why he was covering up his badge when we saw him the first time,” said Henry. “I thought he was fidgeting because he was nervous. And when we were trying out the drone, his badge was hidden under his shirt. He didn’t want us to see that he had a stolen badge.”

  “I guess I was wrong about Logan after all,” said Naomi.

  “Are you going to apologize to him?” asked Henry.

  Naomi made a face. “I’m not sure I’ll go that far. He still said some mean things. And he might have pushed the first note under the hotel room door.”

  “He probably did,” said Rico. “We know he was here in the hotel. He was standing nearby when your grandfather said our room numbers.” Rico checked the time. “Now what do we do? If we have to build a new robot today, it won’t be as good. Can we get DogBot back from Mr. Thompson?”

  “I don’t know,” said Coach Kaleka. “We still can’t prove anything. If we tell him we know what he did, he can deny it. It’s a fine kettle of fish!”

  “It’s what?” Violet asked.

  “Sorry,” Coach Kaleka said. “I meant it’s a tricky problem.”

  “We might never get our robot back,” Rico groaned.

  “Don’t give up,” Coach Kaleka said. “There must be some way to find DogBot.”

  “Mr. Thompson doesn’t know you’re back,” said Henry. “He doesn’t know we figured out he’s the thief. He might come to collect the ransom tomorrow. We need to catch him in the act.”

  Benny had been quiet during all the talking. Now he jumped to his feet with a smile. “We can do it! We’re good at figuring things out.”

  “Benny is right,” said Jessie. “We have a few hours to come up with a plan. Tomorrow, we’ll rescue our robot!”

  Search and Rescue

  Sunday morning, they all met in the girls’ hotel room. The new robot sat on a bed next to a laptop. Naomi was using her computer to add the programming to the robot. “We got the new robot working, but we won’t have time to test it very much,” she said.

  “No matter what happens, I’m proud of all of you,” said Coach Kaleka.

  Jessie smiled at their coach. He might tell bad jokes, and he might not be a robot expert. Still, it was nice to have him back. He reminded them that how hard they worked together was more important than whether they won. Even Rico managed to smile at Coach Kaleka’s words.

  “What will you call your new robot?” Coach Kaleka asked.

  “I know!” said Benny. “NotDogBot!”

  They all laughed. “That is a good name,” said Naomi. “At least we have a robot for the contest if we can’t rescue DogBot. Now what is the plan to get our first robot back?”

  Henry placed a piece of paper on the table. “Violet drew this map. It shows the park area in front of the convention center. Here is the fountain.” He pointed. “That bench is where we are supposed to leave the money in a paper bag.” Henry put a paper bag on the table. Something inside made the bag bulge.

  “Where did you get two hundred dollars?” Rico asked.

  “We didn’t,” said Henry. He opened the bag and pulled out a roll of toilet paper. “We’ll leave this in the bag and close it up. Mr. Thompson won’t know there isn’t money in there.”

  Rico peered down at the map. “Do you think he will bring DogBot when he comes for the money?”

  “We talked about that a lot,” said Henry.

  Jessie nodded. “We don’t think he will come in person for the money.”

  Rico stared at them. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s too risky,” said Jessie. “He must know we could be waiting and watching. He won’t want anyone to see him pick up the money.”

  Naomi frowned. “Then how will he get it?”

  Benny bounced up and down. “With his drone! You didn’t see him yesterday. He’s really good at flying that thing.” Benny pretended to be a drone flying through the room.

  “That’s right,” said Henry. “We know he can use his drone from a distance. The drone has a camera, so Mr. Thompson can see where it’s going. It has arms to grab and carry things. We think the drone will pick up the bag and carry it to him.”

  “I get it,” said Naomi. “But when he gets the bag, he won’t find money. Why would he return DogBot?”

  “Because we will follow the drone,” said Jessie. “We need to catch him with the fake ransom. Hopefully he will have DogBot with him too!”

 
“Even if he doesn’t, he’ll know we caught him,” said Coach Kaleka. “I think he’ll give your robot back then. Mr. Thompson has been angry lately, but he’s not a bad person.”

  Rico picked up the map and studied it. “The drone can fly. It might go up and over a building. How will we follow it?”

  “We will spread out around the park,” said Henry. “See the letters on the map? They stand for our names. That is where each of us will be. Benny and Violet will wait with Coach Kaleka in his car. If the drone goes very far, they can drive after it. We will communicate by cell phone.”

  “But there’s one more thing,” Jessie said with a grin. “We have a backup plan in case we lose the drone.” She pulled something out of the toilet paper tube.

  “Is that a watch?” Naomi asked.

  “That’s right,” said Jessie. “We borrowed it from Grandfather. It’s used for exercise. It keeps track of location. The drone will pick up the bag, and the map on Henry’s phone will show us where the watch is!” She folded the top of the bag closed and sealed it with tape.

  Henry looked around at all the others. “Is everyone ready? We should get in place early.”

  “Let’s go rescue DogBot!” said Benny.

  Benny and Violet went with Coach Kaleka to his car. Benny had snacks and games to keep himself busy. Coach Kaleka told Violet about the wild animals he had seen on his fishing trip. Violet told him about their dog, Watch. Coach Kaleka said, “I get it—he’s a watch-dog!”

  “That’s right!” Violet said.

  Coach Kaleka grinned. “I’m paw-sitive he’s your best friend fur-ever!”

  The older children walked to the park and found hiding places. A few minutes before 11:00 a.m., Henry got ready to drop off the paper bag. They hadn’t wanted to leave it earlier, since someone might have thought the bag was garbage and have thrown it away. Henry made sure his cell phone was showing where the exercise watch was. He crossed the park and put the bag on the bench. He paused and looked around. No one was paying any attention to him.