Kate looked out of the window of the van and again noticed the beautiful Amish farms they were passing. She watched an Amish buggy rolling down the road. Then she turned her attention to a grassy field with a dozen grazing dairy cows. Kate wondered what it would be like to live without electricity, internet, or phones. Could she learn to live like that if she had to?
“Hmm.” Shaking her head, she decided it would definitely be a challenge!
Kate quickly signed online. Within minutes all of the Camp Club Girls met her in their chat room. K8 here, she typed. Everyone else here?
Bailey: I’m here! Ready for adventure!
Elizabeth: I really want to help. How can I pray? Just tell me what I can do.
Kate smiled as she thought of how all of the girls depended on this fourteen-year-old to remind them of the spiritual perspective of their adventures.
Sydney: I’m here. What’s up, Inspector Gadget?
Kate grinned as she read Sydney’s familiar, yet humorous, nickname for her. By now, all of the Camp Club Girls knew how much she loved using her gadgets and gizmos to help solve mysteries.
McKenzie: Kate, can you tell us more about what’s going on? Your email didn’t have much information.
Sydney: Yes, just something about flat pretzels. Didn’t make much sense to me.
Elizabeth: Right. How are we supposed to puff up pretzels from halfway across the country?
Kate laughed as she realized how funny the email must have sounded.
Kate: Yes, this is a twisted-up mystery about pretzels. Something has gone wrong at the Twisted Twins pretzel factory in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Suddenly their pretzels aren’t puffing up like they should.
Elizabeth: Very odd. Are you saying someone is sabotaging the factory?
Sydney: That’s strange, don’t you think? Why would someone do that?
Bailey: Doesn’t make any sense to me.
Kate: I can think of dozens of reasons. But let’s start with the obvious. Someone is angry.
McKenzie: But…WHY? Angry WITH who? Someone who works there?
Kate: Maybe. I know I’m usually the one doing the internet research, but I’m so busy with the festival. Do me a favor and check the internet to see if anyone has ever filed a complaint against the pretzel factory. Like maybe an unhappy customer.
“Yes, and ask them to check the Better Business Bureau’s records too,” Alex said. “Maybe someone has filed a complaint against the owners or something. Let’s keep checking until we figure this out.”
Kate typed Alex’s comments into the box and waited.
Elizabeth: I’ll check on that. But maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. What if it’s not sabotage at all? Then what?
Kate: Then we look at other possibilities. Faulty machinery or something like that.
McKenzie: Ooo, maybe it’s an inside job. An unhappy worker. Maybe he—or she—has done something to the machinery to mess it up to get even with the owner for not paying him enough, or for making him work extra-long hours or something.
“There was one guy there who looked really tired,” Alex said, her eyes growing large. “Remember? The man who was twisting the pretzels was yawning the whole time. Mr. Whipple. He looked exhausted. Did you notice?”
“Yes.” Kate nodded.
Kate: Great. Now you’ve given us another possibility!”
The girls continued to chatter and the time passed quickly. Before long, Kate’s father pulled the van up to the hotel.
“We’re here,” he said. “You’ll have to tell your friends goodbye, Kate. Don’t you have to be in your booth from six to eight this evening?”
“Oh, that’s right!” She looked up from the computer with a grin. “I almost forgot. The public is invited to see our inventions this evening. The exhibition hall is supposed to be filled with people from all over the country.”
“No time to solve a crime right now,” Alex said with a nod. “Figuring out the pretzel problem is going to have to wait. Right now the Turbo Heat-Freeze comes first!”
Kate signed off with the words Supersleuths Forever! Then she giggled as she shut down the computer and pressed it back into its bag. “You’re right. Only one project at a time…and right now the Turbo Heat-Freeze is the project that’s most important.”
She saw her father smiling in the rearview mirror and gave him a happy grin. He understood what it was like to be an inventor, after all. And she wanted to make him proud. So staying on track was, by far, the most important thing she could do!
A Hoppy Night
After a quick dinner, Kate and Alexis hurried to the exhibition hall. Kate spent the next couple of hours talking to people as they stopped by her booth. Most were very excited about her invention. A few looked doubtful but loved the candy-covered pretzel samples once they tasted them.
“Wow, that’s amazing!” one woman said, nibbling a candy-coated pretzel from the Turbo Heat-Freeze.
“How do you do that?” a little boy in a blue shirt asked. “It’s like a miracle!”
“No, I’m no miracle worker, trust me. But it is a lot of fun.” Kate grinned as she explained the process.
Off in the distance, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Phillip stood at his booth talking to people about his Weather-Cast Watch. Every now and again she would look his way and smile, but he only glared back. Kate wondered if they would ever get along, or if this friction between the two of them would go on forever. She hoped it would end soon. In the meantime, staying busy was a nice distraction. And besides, she loved talking to people. Kate had the time of her life chatting about her inventions.
I wonder if this is how Dad feels whenever he invents something? She smiled, thinking about how much like her father she had become. Maybe one day she would teach robotics at Penn State too. Or work at the Twisted Twins factory. Or work for the Hershey Company. The possibilities were endless when you enjoyed creating gadgets and gizmos as much as she did!
A few minutes before eight, Kate began to have a few problems with her machine.
“Strange,” she said, as the chocolate came out too soft. “That’s never happened before.”
“Maybe you’ve overused it,” Alex said. “We could take a break for a while and look around at the other booths.”
Kate glanced to her right, noticing several other competitors were wandering around looking at the other competitors. She shrugged. “Okay. Sounds good to me.” She stretched her arms and groaned. “I’m tired, anyway. And stiff.” She quickly scribbled the words BE BACK SOON on a piece of paper and left it on her table.
“We won’t be gone long,” she said, giving Alex a smile.
“It will be fun to walk around. There’s so much to see!” Alex looked excited by that prospect. “Just let me ask my mom if it’s okay first.” She walked over to a nearby booth to chat with her mother, who waved at Kate.
“You girls have fun,” Alex’s mom said. “We’ll probably run into you at one of the other booths.”
“Yes, have a good time,” Kate’s mom added. “There’s a lot to see!”
Kate wandered past Phillip’s booth. He didn’t look up, so she just kept walking. She wanted to stop and talk to him, to tell him how much she liked his invention…but didn’t. Maybe next time.
A couple of booths past Phillip’s, she saw something very interesting.
“What is that?” she asked Alex, pointing at an unusual invention.
“Hmm. Looks like some sort of cage with little trap doors. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
They drew near to have a closer look. She noticed the girl in the dark blue Amish dress and white cap near it—the same girl she had seen earlier.
“Hi, I’m Emma.” The girl nodded and smiled, so Kate did the same.
“I’m Kate,” she said. “And this is my friend Alex.”
“Thanks for stopping by my booth,” Emma said. “I’m afraid my cousin is bored to tears with all of this.” She pointed to another little girl in Amish dre
ss who looked up with an impish smile.
“Hi!” The girl gave them a bright smile. “My name is Rachel. Rachel Yoder.”
“Rachel Yoder.” Cool name, Kate thought.
Rachel leaned forward and began to play with the frogs through the bars of the cage, talking to one of them.
Kate turned her attention to Emma. “Tell me about your invention,” she said, pointing to the cage. “I’d love to hear about it, if you have the time.”
“Oh, I have the time.” Emma blushed. “But in our community, we don’t like to brag about our accomplishments. Daadi calls it ‘singing your own praises’ and he frowns on that.”
“Daadi?” Alex looked confused.
“Daadi is what I call my father,” Emma explained.
“Oh, I get it! Like Dad,” Alex said.
Emma and Rachel nodded and giggled. “Yes.”
Kate glanced through the bars of the cage at the frogs inside. “I’m curious about your cage, that’s all. Are these trap doors?”
“Yes.” Emma pointed to one and began to explain how the cage worked.
Afterwards, Rachel looked at Kate and grinned.
“So, what do you think of my cousin’s invention?” she asked. “Pretty clever, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
Emma turned to Rachel with a scolding look on her face. “Rachel! Don’t brag! You know that’s wrong.”
Rachel hung her head, and Kate giggled.
“She’s not really bragging,” Kate said. “She’s just happy for you, I’m sure.”
“That’s right.” Rachel looked up with a crooked grin. “I’m happy. There’s nothing wrong with being happy, after all! The Bible says we are to be joyful. You can’t argue with that, Emma!”
“No, I can’t.” Emma smiled. “Not that I would argue with you anyway. Who could argue with someone as sweet as you?”
Before long, all of the girls were giggling. Kate and Alex started talking to them about their trip to the pretzel factory, telling them about the flattened pretzels.
“That’s quite a mystery,” Emma said when she finished.
“Very odd,” Rachel added. “We see a lot of pretzels in Amish country, but I’ve never seen a flat one before.”
“We’ve seen all sorts of unusual things since coming here,” Alex said.
Kate’s gaze shifted to the table as she saw something green and slimy start to hop, hop, hop across the tablecloth. “Um, Emma…” She pointed. “Is that frog supposed to be out of the cage?”
“Out of the cage?” Emma’s face paled. “No!”
Kate glanced at the table and squealed as she saw not one, but two frogs hopping around. “Oh no!” Before long two turned into three and three turned into four. Within seconds, half a dozen slippery green frogs were hop, hop, hopping all over the table. One took a giant leap through the air and landed on the floor. Kate squealed. A second frog leaped from the table to the floor. Then a third. Before long, all of the frogs were loose, creating chaos underneath the booth.
Emma dove under the table and came out with one, which she quickly put back inside the cage. “One down, five to go!”
Rachel leaned down and grabbed another one, now giggling merrily. “Two down, four to go!”
“We each need to grab one,” Alex said, racing toward one of the frogs. “Hurry up, Kate! We’ve got to help.”
“Ugh.” Kate didn’t move. She didn’t like frogs. Still, she couldn’t stay frozen in place forever! Not with four frogs going crazy at her feet!
“Let’s work together!” Emma said, racing past Kate. Just as she reached the table, the frog jumped down and began to hop toward the next table. Seconds later, he disappeared underneath it.
“Oh no! Now what are we supposed to do?” Kate asked.
Rachel giggled as she came up with one of the frogs in her hand. “Never fear. I’ve been through this before, actually. Frogs are slippery little creatures, but they can’t outrun me!”
She put the frog in the cage, hollering, “Three down, three to go!” then dropped to her knees and began to crawl under the table. Seconds later, Emma joined her. She came out with another frog seconds later.
“Four down, two to go!” She put the frog in the cage then dove back under the table at a nearby booth, almost causing it to tumble.
“Watch out!” Alex shouted. “You caught the edge of the tablecloth—” She never got to say the rest because Phillip’s tablecloth—the one with the larger version of the Weather-Cast Watch on it—came sliding off.
Phillip let out a yelp and reached for his invention, grabbing it just before it toppled off the edge.
“Watch what you’re doing!” he yelled.
“Sorry, Phillip,” Kate said. “But Emma’s frogs got loose.”
He shook his head and rearranged his table.
“I don’t care anything about goofy frogs,” he said, glaring at Kate. “I only care about winning.”
“Wow.” She tried not to stare, but the angry look on his face made it difficult. “Sorry.”
“You’re sorry all right,” he muttered. “And I know what you’re doing, Kate Oliver. You’re trying to sabotage me.”
“Sabotage you?” She could hardly think of how to respond to such a silly suggestion. How could he think such a thing?
“Two more frogs to find!” Emma’s voice rang out. “C’mon, girls! We need your help.”
All four girls dropped to their knees and began to crawl under the tables, one after the other. Kate did her best to put Phillip’s angry words out of her mind, but found it difficult.
“I’ve got one!” Alex hollered, coming up with a slippery green frog in her hand. “You girls keep looking for the last one.”
Kate squeezed her eyes shut, praying she wouldn’t be the one to find the last frog. So far she hadn’t had to touch one. Hopefully it would stay that way.
“Do you see him yet?” Emma asked, looking around.
“He’s so small!” Rachel said. “I hope we find him.”
“What if he doesn’t turn up?” Emma asked, suddenly looking worried. “Then what?”
“Then we’re in big trouble!” Rachel said. “He’s got to be here…somewhere!”
They continued to search. Kate decided to keep her eyes open. Something caught her attention, and she looked to her right to discover a hopping green frog.
“Get him, Kate!” Alex cried.
“I–I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” the other girls echoed.
She reached out her hand, squeezing her eyes shut. Maybe this would be easier if she couldn’t see him. Seconds later, she felt something slippery and slimy in her palm. She closed her hand tight, praying he wouldn’t get away. Scooting out from under the table, she came up with the last frog.
“Quick, let’s get him back in the cage,” Emma said, joining her.
They all raced back to Emma’s table, where Kate pressed the frog back into the cage. She sighed with relief as the cage door closed.
“Awesome!” Alex hollered. “You’re the best frog catcher in the world, Kate!” A shiver ran down her spine. She’d rather be good at a thousand things, just not frog catching!
She stared at her hands, realizing they still felt slimy. “I think I’d better go wash my hands,” she said. “Alex, are you coming with me?”
“Sure.” Alex giggled, then waved goodbye to Emma and Rachel. “It was fun meeting you! Maybe we can catch up later.”
“I would love that!” Rachel said, her smile widening.
As Kate and Alex walked toward the restroom together, they began to talk about what had just happened. Within seconds, they were both laughing. In fact, Kate laughed so hard that tears flowed out of her eyes.
“I wish you could have seen the look on your face when you grabbed that frog, Kate,” Alex said, pushing open the restroom door. “It was priceless.”
Kate shivered. “No thanks. I hope I never ever have to touch another frog.”
“Still, you see what h
appened when we all worked together, right?” Alex said. “We accomplished our goal because we were all on the same team.”
“Yes, teamwork is great,” Kate agreed.
As she washed her hands, she thought about Alex’s words. Life really was easier when you worked together on projects. Her thoughts shifted at once to Phillip and she sighed.
“Everything okay?” Alex asked, giving her a funny look in the mirror.
“I guess.” She leaned against the sink and sighed again. “It’s just that sometimes I get a little competitive.”
“Well, you’re at a competition, silly,” Alex said. “Of course you want to beat others.”
“Yes.” Kate shrugged. “But I’m starting to wonder if being competitive is a good thing. I mean, a little bit can be good, but when you’re always trying to beat someone, it’s hard to get a lot done. And did you hear what Phillip said to me? He thinks I would actually sabotage him! Isn’t that crazy?”
“It is crazy,” Alex said. “And he obviously doesn’t know you very well, or he would know better.” She paused a moment. “But if you’re concerned that you’ve become too competitive, just pray about it, Kate. God knows your heart.”
“That’s true.” Kate smiled. “He does.”
The girls made their way through the crowd until they found their parents. Kate yawned and her mother smiled.
“Tired, honey?
“Mm-hmm. Is it time to go back to the hotel? I’m wiped out.”
“Yes, it’s time.”
A short time later they arrived at the hotel room, where Kate plopped down onto the bed, completely exhausted. “It’s hard to keep my eyes open.”
“You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow,” her mother said. “So get some rest.”
As Kate crawled into bed a few minutes later, she thought about everything that had happened that day—how she and Alex had visited the pretzel factory together. About how Mr. Whipple twisted the pretzels, one after the other. How the pretzels were flat, like pancakes, instead of fluffy and chewy.
She sat up in the bed.
“Is everything alright, Kate?” her mother asked.
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