The Adventures of Alex Spider

by Dele Daniel

  “Well then, why is it looking about to storm in Silver Creek?” the detective removed his hat to wipe his brow.

  “Since it’s a prototype all the voting is anonymous and for some reason, people have been voting in record numbers for rain. Near as I know, for the moon corn, they are about due for a downspout anyways, but the silly thing, oddballs or whomever have been voting in record numbers for a flash flood.”

  “Well that’s a bit strange, isn’t it?”

  The Spaghetti Squad exchanged confused looks. That WAS strange.

  “Well,” continued Mr. Leibowitz, “it is. But there’s not much to be done about it. It won’t be a voting option again for a little while but that’s about all there is to it.”

  “What if there was a trail to follow? Be pretty difficult to find any clues.” It was Alex who spoke up, and all eyes were on him.

  “That’s true,” said the detective.

  “Darn toots,” said Mr. Leibowitz.

  Alex suddenly felt very nervous that two adults agreed with an idea that he had come up with. He gathered his courage and continued, “I’m thinking that maybe there’s something else, if we retrace from where the Junker rolled over, we might catch a clue.”

  “Alright, back in the rover,” instructed the detective.

  “Spaghetti Squad, mobilize,” shouted Angelo.

  “That’s a great name. I love spaghetti,” stated the detective.

  Everyone, even Kathy, suddenly beamed with pride over the acknowledgment of their little collective. And with that, everyone piled in, with Alex on the passenger side, and the rover departed in a cough of sand, back to the scene of the rollover.

  8

  The Police rover bobbed and skittered along the winding road back to the site of the roll over. Captain Leibowitz followed close behind in his own Silver Creek P.D. gravity-skimmer. This time Detective Kratnz slowly took the rover off road to follow the crushed greenery, flattened in the wake of the junker. Up they crept, inching slowly along the embankment coming to a hidden side road, the rumble of thunder bursting overhead.

  Detective Krantz gave Alex the nod and they all piled out to survey the scene. “How are you kids at reading tracks?”

  “We’ve never really tried,” said Kathy, already crouched and looking at some tire tracks that made a sharp angle from the dirt road and down the embankment.

  “Looks like you’re doing it,” encouraged the detective.

  “Umm,” trailed Kathy. Elon joined her. After a few hastened whispers, Kathy answered. “He maybe drove off in a hurry?”

  The detective smiled, “Not bad.”

  “So that might mean—” Elon began.

  Alex finished the thought, “—that he might have been trying to avoid something.”

  “Bingo,” said the detective.

  Droplets of rain began to darken the ground in fat little polka-dots. Mr. Leibowitz joined the group having parked his skimmer down by the road and walking up. “So what we got here, Galan?” He was slightly out of breath from the climb.

  “Not sure just yet. Looks like something spooked the junker,” the detective answered, scratching at a patch of neck stubble, deep in thought.

  “Well, climbing up, I found some bits of junk cleverly glued to what looks like it used to be a crate.”

  The detective paused, “Didn’t take the fella to be the artsy type.”

  Mr. Leibowitz gave a quick snort, “Nah me either, but it looks more like a crate disguised as a hunk of junk. So I’m wondering maybe—” but he was interrupted by Angelo’s call from the woods.

  “Hey guys! Mr. Detective and older Policeman! Squad! Hurry!”

  Alex and Kathy had been examining some animal prints near where the junker careened off the dirt road when they heard Angelo, bolting immediately.

  There had been a note of urgency in Angelo’s call. They found him kneeling over a couple of, “Corgis!” exclaimed Mr. Leibowitz.

  “I…I…think they’re dead,” Angelo said, trying to hide the quake in his voice.

  “Hold on, youngster, let me take a look,” Mr. Leibowitz got to a knee and put a hand on Angelo’s back.

  Kathy hadn’t realised it but she had been holding her breath the minute they found the two dogs, but she exhaled when she realised none of the dogs was Jack. One was too big and the other was the wrong colour. “Are they dead?” Kathy asked as well.

  Mr. Leibowitz put a hand on each dog, feeling its side. “Rest easy, kids,” he began, getting up from his knelt position, “Looks like these little guys are just frozen.”

  “Frozen!” burst the Squad in disbelief. Detective Krantz just nodded.

  “Yup, frozen.” Mr. Leibowitz continued, “Looks like they froze the dogs, probably an illegal ray-gun. Not many around here. Should be able to get these little guys back up to snuff back at H.Q.”

  The Squad let out a collective breath, this time in learning the dogs would be alright. It was the detective that laid out the sequence of events, “So we got Joe Stump passing this way, gets spooked by something, swerves, and takes a tumble, spilling the hidden crates, little frozen puppers get loose, and along comes us.”

  “Hey!” shouted Kathy. “There were tracks that Alex and I found just before Angelo started calling. They were— they were—” she began to stammer with excitement.

  “Maybe corgi prints,” Alex clarified.

  “Well let’s take a looksy,” said Mr. Leibowitz, making his way over to where Alex and Kathy had been searching. Suddenly, the polka dots of rain became a flash downpour. Within seconds, the prints were washed away.

  “Well there goes that evidence,” sighed Angelo.

  Alex watched in frustration, the rain washing clean any possible clues left behind. Detective Galan Krantz placed a hand on Alex’s back, “Cheer up, bub. We just need to know where those bums are launching their rocket from. I got an idea of where that just might be, Mr. Leibowitz is going to follow up on where the road leads. If it goes where I think it goes, I believe we may have found our launch site.

  “Where?” shot Kathy.

  “Oh, all in due time. Right now it’s just a hunch, and we should be getting you kids back home, what with this weather.” He turned back to Mr. Leibowitz, “You alright to get back?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ll take a look down that way real quick and let you know what I find.”

  “Thanks, Donald.”

  With a nod, “Galan,” was all Mr. Leibowitz said as he made his way back down the hill.

  “Alright squad, back in the rover, let’s get you kids out of the rain.”

  The Squad, tired and wet, piled back into the warm Police rover. Elon was lamenting the hard luck of the rain washing away all the good data. Kathy was distraught with not having found Jack just yet. Angelo was trying to ring out his felt fedora, and Alex just stared out over the dash. The timing of the weather was awful. Then it dawned on him.

  “Detective,” asked Alex.

  The detective had just been making to engage the auto-drive when he paused, “yeah?”

  “Well, that weather is really bad luck, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is, kid.”

  “Well, and in the dome, they don’t have to have downpours like this, it gets decided by vote?”

  “That’s what they tell me.” The detective considered what Alex was really saying and began to nod.

  “So maybe its not a coincidence that the rain is so heavy? Like maybe someone wants all that rain? Didn’t they say it was all anonymous but there have been record votes for rain?”

  “That’s also what they tell me. So perhaps if we find out—” the detective was cut-off.

  “We can find out who wanted to wash away the evidence!” cheered Angelo.

  “But how can we do that if it’s all anonymous?” asked Elon.

  “For that, we may need to talk to who installed the system, except I’m not sure who that would—” and the detective was interrupted once more.

  “That’s Mr. Gagarin!” shouted
Angelo.

  “You are just full of tips, aren’t ya?” Detective Krantz chuckled.

  Angelo smiled.

  ***

  The door of the Gagarin home swung open wide as Serge greeted Detective Krantz and Angelo. The rest of the squad waited in the Rover as the rain pummelled over the trees and rooftops.

  “Little Angelo! What a pleasure this is and on such a rainy day. Come in, come in!”

  “Thanks, Mr. Gagarin!” Angelo wasted no time with the invitation and was already through the doorway. The detective gave a flick of his brim to acknowledge the kindness and followed Angelo.

  “So how can I help you little Angelo and who should I say is your friend?”

  The detective offered a hand, “I’m Detective Galan Krantz of the Moon City P.D. I got sent here to look into all these missing Corgis.”

  “Ah yes, yes. Such a sad business. How may I be of help?”

  “Well, Angelo here tells me you installed the programing for the weather app. Let’s people vote on weather?”

  “Oh, that thing. It’s been a bit strange. The idea was to allow residents of Silver Creek to vote on their weather, it was just a test project, you know. But, for some reason, people have been voting in record numbers the past five days, so, we get the big shower.”

  “So all of a sudden people love bad weather?” the detective said with raised eyebrow.

  “Well just the one’s voting. Most of Silver Creek’ residents don’t vote on it, I don’t think they are even aware. It’s in all the houses and public facilities. The electronic voting signatures are anonymous, but I can tell location. The school in fact has been very consistent. By now, it could have voted collectively, maybe, fifty times.

  “Wait a minute,” began the detective.

  ***

  Outside, the rest of the squad discussed the same peculiarities as Angelo and the adults.

  “So what do you think? Some sort of weather conspiracy?” Elon asked.

  “I think it’s too much of a coincidence to ignore,” said Alex.

  “You know, there was something I saw at school that I remember now,” said Kathy.

  “About the weather?” asked Alex.

  “Yeah, it was…a club. A club for math students,” Kathy continued.

  “Hey, that’s right,” joined Elon. “It was something to do with math games to play on a rainy day or something. I remember signing up but then no meetings were ever called.”

  “Hmmm,” Alex hummed aloud.

  “Wait, that’s right. That’s right! I almost forgot, we got passed a form in Math class before summer break, something about extra credit. I think. It was… it was the Rainy Day Club.”

  “Who passed out the form?” asked Alex.

  Kathy’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Armstrong.”

  ***

  Back inside, Serge was elaborating on the bureaucracy required to have the weather voting passed. Angelo, was sitting on the floor trying to stay awake. The detective routinely nodded at every fact and every name.

  “And so, after much filibusting, Mr. Armstrong forced the initiative through with overwhelming student support. He had the signatures. So I suppose it is of no big surprise that is where most of the votes are coming from. They like rainy days, I think. Very strange. Only means, at maximum, one downpour a month. It’s not a big change in weather because it balances out, but still. Maybe for some, the clouds are a reminder of earth.”

  “That is a nice thought,” replied the detective. “We’ll be off now, I should get this little guy and his friends back home.” He said, nodding at the groggy Angelo, wiping sleep from his eyes.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Gagarin,” the detective finished, shaking the Geographic Information System analyst’s hand.

  “Please, call me Serge.”

  The disk was just retracting which turned the grey overcast clouds to a dark black. There was a peculiar effect that occurred on the moon that could not on earth with nights such as this. The moon reflects the sun’s rays at night. Silver Creek rests in the crater on the dark side of the moon while Moon City rests right on the equator. When clouds form in Silver Creek, they can catch the moon’s reflection, all the way from the equator, emitting a sort of glow throughout the bubble. Alex, once more, was in awe.

  “Oh, I forgot how nice it is when this happens,” said Elon.

  As Alex remained enchanted by the captured moonlight, the detective let Angelo into the car and then climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  “You guys wouldn’t happen to know a math teacher by the name of—” the detective, once more, did not get to finish his sentence.

  “Mr. Armstrong?” answered Kathy.

  And once more, a quiet smile snuck across the face of Detective Galan Krantz. These kids were something.

  ***

  With Angelo delivered back home and Elon offering to walk from the Goodweather’s, Alex and Kathy were finally calling it a day. Uncle Dave and Aunt Jessie had offered the detective a cup of coffee.

  “Thank you,” Detective Krantz said, breathing in deep the aroma.

  “The least we could do. I mean, you are searching for our dog, among others” assured Uncle Dave.

  “Have you had any luck at all?” asked Aunt Jessie.

  “Well there are a few things I could share,” said the detective, removing his hat and placing it gently on the table. “Something spooked a driver outside of town that caused him to rollover and we got two corgis back. Captain Leibowitz is looking into the driver who probably gave a fake name.”

  “Oh Donald’s looking into it, that’s good,” added Uncle Dave.

  “Long story short, Kathy said she found paw prints just before the downpour. She thinks they were about Corgi sized and they sure couldn’t belong to those two we recovered frozen.”

  “You think Jack…what?” Aunt Jessie trailed off.

  Detective Krantz smiled, “I’m not sure what I think. Just got a hunch, but maybe, some Corgi spooked that driver. They fetch for quite a price overseas, at the moment.”

  “Overseas?” Uncle Dave said, raising one eyebrow.

  The detective chuckled, “So to speak.” He took another large gulp and finished his coffee. “I should be checking back in with Donald at Silver Creek P.D. Thanks for the hospitality.”

  “Of course, detective. Any time,” smiled Uncle Dave, taking the cup from Galan.

  The detective made his way back to the rover, opened the door and paused. They didn’t get moon-glow back in the City. It was nice, he thought. The moon was always just full of surprises.

  9

  The next morning felt different. Alex awoke in a bed that was beginning to feel like his own. He looked to a window that opened out to their backyard, no, his backyard. Amidst all the hard work of the last few days, trying to find Jack, Alex had learned to forget his anger. He still missed his mom and dad but he was a part of something else now. He didn’t just mean the Spaghetti Squad either. Uncle Dave and Aunt Jessie had made him feel like part of the family, no, reminded him that he was part of the family. He got up and got dressed because he couldn’t sleep. Today was going to be a big day.

  ***

  Detective Galan slept in his rover outside of the elementary school back in town. The previous night he had met with Donald and discussed the case of Mr. Armstrong’s Rainy Day Club. There had been quite a bit of voting activity coming from the school. It just so happened that yesterday, only minutes before the downpour, the weather had been poised all morning. With the disc maintenance scheduled for tonight, and the roll over leading them to the hidden dirt road, they may have forced the hand of the thieves who would have used the weather app to wash all the evidence away tomorrow. This meant the detective had caught a break.

  On a hunch, Galan staked out the entrance to the elementary school from the café across the street. He was finishing off his second cup when the door-chimed and the pinewood smell of the outdoors mixed with the aroma of fresh ground coffee. To Galan’s rare surprise
, it was Alex.

  “Alex Spider,” chuckled the detective. “What are you doing here?”

  Alex was a little embarrassed, it had taken him a while, and he’d had to ask Aunt Jessie how to get to the café. “I was,” he stammered for a moment, “I had a feeling.”

  The detective gestured to the chair opposite himself, “Sounds like you had a hunch,” he said with a wink.

  Alex blushed ever so slightly and took a seat. He adjusted his felt fedora and then stared at the floor before answering, “I, um, I thought that maybe that if Mr. Armstrong was busy at the school yesterday, maybe he’s been spending a lot of time there. I thought… I don’t know,” Alex cut himself off, feeling too self-conscious to elaborate.

  “You thought that maybe he would still be operating out of the school,” the detective finished Alex’s thought before adding, “But you also realised that there’s no guarantee he would be here.”

  “Well, exactly, yeah.” Alex just sort of looked at his feet but then looked up to meet Detective Galan Krantz’s eyes, and finished, “I guess that’s why it’s just a hunch.”

  The detective nodded, “Sometimes it’s just about going with the gut. What does that look like to you?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

  Alex, got up and rounded the table to the big plate-glass window. The parking lot of the school sat perpendicular to the entrance, skirted by a short chain-link fence. And parked next to the only other vehicle in the lot, was the old junk hauler. “That’s Mr. Stump’s hauler!” exclaimed Alex.

  “You betcha,” said the detective, coolly sipping his coffee. “But I wouldn’t bank on him sticking around once he catches wind of us.”

  “You think he gave you a fake name?”

  “Just sayin’ it wouldn’t surprise me,” the detective finished his coffee, left a few dollars on the table and joined Alex at the look-out. “Well, you’re here now kid. Want to come see a bit of real detective work in action?”

  Alex just nodded, but he was smiling the kind of smile a kid couldn’t hide. They made their way across the street and tried the doors. Locked. “Well, that’s no big surprised,” said the detective. “I bet they’ve been using the back entrance. Alex nodded again and they made their way around the back, but cutting through the parking lot to take a look at the banged-up utility truck of one Joe Stump.