“INTO THE WOODS? He could have caught you and . . . hurt you or something.”
I held out the journey box. “But we found this.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Celeste swept her hand across the top of the box.
“Is that what she thinks it is?” I guess Doug decided to leave the couch after all.
“It’s exactly what she . . . you think it is, Celeste,” said Derek. “The journey box! It was in our . . . uh . . . it was out there in the trees. Found after all this time.”
“And it had a gold envelope inside.” I pulled it out of my pocket. “With clues. Zoe, the clues have something to do with the token. I can feel it.” I touched my hand to my shirt where the token hung beneath it. It was warm, but in a soothing way, like a heating pad.
“Alright,” said Celeste, in a huff. “Y’all get in the house.” She opened the screen door.
CREAK!!!
Celeste cringed. “Derek! When are you gonna oil this thing?”
CHAPTER 15
Clueing Them In
Tell us everything.” Celeste led us all to the couch, where we sat in a circle, the journey box in the middle.
“Yeah, tell us everything.” Doug sat next to Celeste, munching on a bowl of cereal.
I told them everything I knew. The old lady at the library. The adventures we’d been on so far. The trip to the past where Zoe and I watched our parents win the token and then disappear.
“And that’s pretty much it up to now. Except Egypt, and you were all there with us. But you didn’t see the lady.”
Zoe bounced on the couch. “You saw her again? Did she say anything?”
“We had a short conversation. She said that the travel guide knows where we’re going, and we find out the ‘why’ after we go.”
Zoe narrowed her eyes. “NOT helpful.”
“And she said that a pyramid is a square, so I guess she thinks like me.”
Zoe threw her arms up. “Of course.”
“And, speaking of courses! Check this OUT!” I opened the journey box, pulled out the golden envelope, and showed everyone the clue. “I’m sure it’s talking about hole one of the windmill course at Forest Games and Golf.”
Zoe read it out loud. “‘Hole number one: The journey starts with a humble heart’? It’s a stretch, but worth looking into.” Then she frowned. “But how are we going to get over there with this Mr. B watching our every move?”
“He can’t be there all the time. He was here just a little while ago.” I snuck over to look out the window. The truck was gone. “We know what he drives, so we can keep an eye out for that.”
“And we know where he lives, so I say we turn the tables and spy on him!” Derek had popped his yellow visor back on his head.
“Wait!” Zoe stuck out a hand. “What do you mean, we know where he lives?”
Derek’s eyes shifted over to mine, and then back to Zoe. “Well, I do. I helped him move in.”
“Where does he live?” Celeste narrowed her eyes at Derek.
“Yeah, where does he live?” repeated Doug.
“He lives at the end of the street.”
“WHAT street?” Celeste crunched her eyebrows together.
Derek swallowed hard. “Our street. Four houses down. 2292 Cimarron Road.”
Zoe gasped. “We’re going to be spending a month here! And that guy is right on the corner? How are we supposed to go in and out knowing he’s there?”
Derek cleared his throat. “He’s got a few video cams out there too.”
“So we just grin and say cheese as we go by.” Doug smiled big.
Celeste pushed her brother over. “Derek! Why did you help him?”
“I didn’t know he was possibly some bad guy! I thought he was just the guy from the arcade. And I still don’t know what’s goin’ on. I just found a post-it in his house with Arcade’s name on it.”
“He wants the Triple T Token. He’s not going to get it. It belongs to me.”
“I think it belonged to him first,” Zoe said.
“But the old lady says it’s mine now. I don’t understand why, but maybe we’ll find out if we go check out hole one at Forest Games and Golf. Anyone up for a game?”
CHAPTER 16
Suspicious Fivesome
Sorry, Loop, remember what the sign said? No dogs allowed.”
Woof!
I ruffled Loopy’s fur and placed him behind the dog gate in Derek’s room. “We’ll see you soon, boy.”
I brushed dog hair off my hands and grabbed my wallet from Derek’s desk. “Okay, let’s do this thing! And instead of a bright visor, maybe you should wear a dark ball cap.”
We all wore hats. And baggy jackets. Luckily, it was drizzly, so it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary.
Derek snuck out the front door so he could spy down the street. “The truck is there now, so if we go around the cul-de-sac, through the woods on the other side, we can sneak out of the street from behind Miss Gertrude’s house without his video camera catching us.”
“Miss Gertrude is still alive?”
Miss Gertrude was an old lady when I was little! She would sit in her rocking chair, out on her porch, and hold her hands up in the air, praying for us kids in the neighborhood. I know because whenever I would be over playing with Derek, Miss Gertrude would wave from across the street and say, “Arcade Livingston, I’m praying for you, son! God’s got great plans for you!” And then she would just keep on waving.
“Yep, she’s still there,” Derek said. “She doesn’t sit out as much anymore, but she’s out there a lot.”
“I wonder if she knows about Mr. B across the street?”
“Yeah, she does. She was watching when we were unloading things. She had her hands up, praying. Mr. B said she was a crazy old lady.”
“Maybe we can get her to help us in some way.”
A spy in a rocking chair. I thought, That’s the best kind of spy! But can we trust her with our information?
We were huffing and puffing after our three-mile hike from the Cimarron woods to Forest Games and Golf.
“I’m glad Aunt Weeda is picking us up.” Zoe panted as she bent over to catch her breath. “This town needs a subway.”
We walked to the arcade entrance. “Okay,” I said, “let’s split up, but play next to each other. Girls in a group, boys in a group. Pretend we don’t know each other.”
“That will be pleasant.” Zoe walked by and flicked me in the shoulder.
“Very funny, whatever your name is. And we need a signal if we see anything suspicious.”
“How about we turn our caps around? Bill to the back.” Derek has a way with hats.
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
We went into acting mode, pretending we didn’t know the girls. “Ladies, first!” I gestured to Celeste and Zoe to go ahead of us in the mini-golf line.
“That will be six dollars each.” The clerk, a teenage boy, smiled at Zoe. “And the clubs are behind you. Let me know if you have any questions.” His eye fluttered like Jacey’s did in the bakery.
What’s with all the eye trouble in this town?
Zoe tilted her head and grinned. “Thank you very much.” Then she and Celeste turned to get their clubs. She bumped my shoulder. “Hey, kid, watch yourself!” Then she walked on.
You are enjoying this way too much.
Derek, Doug, and I paid for our games, picked up our clubs, and headed out to the windmill course. The windmill lay on its side over the creek, just as I always remembered it.
“This place is a dump,” Doug said as he experimented with his grip on the putter. “Why don’t they fix it up?”
I looked over the drab surroundings and shrugged. “Don’t know.”
And then the token heated up. I stopped in my tracks. The last thing I wanted was for the doors to appear here, now, at Forest Games and Golf. I grabbed for the bill of my cap, and almost turned it, when the token cooled back down.
Whew!
The gir
ls sat on the bench at hole one, looking up the hill at the fallen windmill. Zoe checked her scorecard. “Keeping score is a joke.” She printed her name on the scorecard. “You can’t control where these balls go. If I hit my ball in the trough up there where the windmill used to stand, it’s going to roll through the pipes and pop out behind a barrier. And from there, it’s like eight shots before you get it in the hole. It makes no sense at all.”
Celeste placed her ball on the starting mat. “Maybe this game will be different. I’m gonna close my eyes.” She shut her eyes tight then smacked the ball. It flew up, bounced over the fake blue grass, and hit the fallen windmill, getting stuck in one of the blades.
The boys and I laughed.
Zoe gave us the stink-eye. “That was a nice shot, Celeste. You can chip it into the hole from there.” The hole was down the hill from where the broken-down windmill was resting. Zoe placed her ball on the mat and smacked it right in the trough.
We waited and watched as the ball rolled through the pipes to the bottom level and popped out on the wrong side of the barrier.
Zoe placed her putter on her shoulder. “Yep, I’ve seen this all before.”
“Try not to take too long getting it in the hole and holding up everyone’s game.”
She glared over at me. “I don’t know you and I don’t care.”
I grinned and placed my ball on the mat. But then the token heated up again. So did the envelope in my pocket! I stepped away from my ball. “Hang on, guys,” I said through gritted teeth. I scanned the course for video cameras, then hid behind a bush so I could pull out the envelope and read the first clue again.
Hole number one: The journey starts with a humble heart.
And then it hit me.
I know what I have to do.
I folded up the envelope, put it back in my pocket, and picked up my ball. “You guys go before me.”
“Ah, man, a gentleman!” Doug smiled and placed his ball on the mat. He chipped it in the creek, watched the ripples in the water for a moment, and then grabbed his belly. “This game is making me hungry.”
“No food till we round the corner at the tenth hole,” Derek said as he set his ball, took a second to line it up, and then putted it perfectly into the trough.
A few seconds later, Zoe hollered from the green below. “Hey! You didn’t wait for us to putt out! You hit my ball!”
“Oops! Sorry!” Derek looked down the hill at the girls. “Looks like my ball is behind the barrier too.”
“There has to be a way for a ball to end up on the correct the side of the barrier.” I took a hike up the hill.
As I approached the windmill, the token heated up a little. How did this thing fall, and why had no one bothered to pull it back up? It’s clearly one of the most noticeable attractions here.
I walked on the fake grass and stared inside the trough. Sure enough, there was one skinny tube right in the center. That had to be the one that would spit you out on the right side of the barrier. Most would fall into the wider tubes on either side of it, ending up on . . . Zoe’s side.
“Okay, Doug, I see what you have to do! Fish your ball out of the creek and try again! You have to putt it perfectly straight!”
Doug scratched his head. “Perfectly straight?”
“That’s what I said.”
He sniffed and shook his head around. “Okay, then, here we gooooooo!” He jogged over to the creek, pulled out the ball, put it down on the mat, and hit it pretty hard. And crooked! I snatched it off the grass, walked over to the trough, and dropped it in the skinny tube.
“Hey! Isn’t that cheating?” This from the guy who I let have a do-over after hitting in the creek.
“Doug! This isn’t the PGA tour! I wanna see what happens!”
Doug ran down the hill to where the girls and Derek were putting out. Just as Zoe was lifting her ball out of the hole, Doug’s ball came dribbling out on the correct side of the barrier, rolled a few feet, and plunked into the hole.
“Hole-in-one!” I held both hands in the air. “Way to go, Dougie!”
Doug took his hat off and bowed for the crowd.
The girls shook their heads and took off to the next hole. After all, they weren’t supposed to know us.
“Hit your ball, Arcade!” Derek watched from above.
“In a minute. I have to check something out.” I made my way over to the windmill. Its base lay exposed to the elements, and the top with the wind blades lay on the other side of the small man-made creek. It was hollow inside and didn’t seem like it would be that difficult to pull back up. I looked under it and tried to rock it with my arms. It wouldn’t budge.
“Okay, you’re heavier than I thought. But not too much for a small crane to lift.” I walked around the back of it and, as I did, a flash of light caught my eye. The token flared back. “What was that?” The light flashed again. I followed its beam to a gold plaque bolted to the windmill. I leaned closer and used my jacket sleeve to wipe the dirt off. It had a word etched into it in bold letters:
Humility
And underneath the word humility, there were small words . . . Arcade Adventures.
I pulled the clue out of my pocket and stared at it.
Hole number one: The journey starts with a humble heart.
I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the plaque.
“Arcade, are you gonna take your turn?” Derek came running up alongside me. “Did ya find somethin?”
I scratched my head. “Maybe.” I pointed to the plaque.
Derek read it. “Humility, huh? Seems to match the clue. But what does it mean?”
“You got me. What does humility mean to you, Derek?”
Derek put his hand to his chest. “You’re askin’ me? You’re the word guy.”
“You must have some idea.”
“Hmmm.” Derek rubbed his chin. “Humility means not acting like you’re all that, but treating others like they are?”
I stared at Derek. “That’s profound.”
“Oh, good. What does profound mean?”
“Profound. Showing great knowledge or insight.”
Derek stood up a little straighter. “Oh. Thanks!”
“I think this course has some kind of life lesson hidden in it. And humility is at the start of it. At the start of the course . . . wait a minute! At the start of a journey? If you don’t think you’re all that, that means you’re willing to learn . . . the journey starts with a humble heart!”
“Cool.” Derek scratched his chin. “But what does that have to do with the token?”
I grasped the token under my shirt. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe the other clues in the golden envelope will tell you.” Derek’s smile turned to a frown as he looked behind my shoulder toward something in the distance. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s going on?”
Derek slumped down. “The truck just pulled in.”
“Oh, man! We gotta tell the girls and get outta here!” We ran down the hill where Doug was now playing golf with Zoe and Celeste.
“So you finally decided to join us?” Zoe was lining up her shot on the mat of the second hole.
“We gotta go. Mr. B just pulled up!”
Zoe turned and looked toward the parking lot. “He’s coming this way. Quick, let’s go through the arcade.”
We grabbed our clubs and hurried through the front entrance. Now this was the arcade I remembered. A few old games, plinking away, and the smell of stale pizza lingering in the air. Small groups of kids hung out and talked in different areas of the dark room. A couple of kids were playing ping-pong with worn-out paddles, and players at the air hockey table had to hit the puck harder because the air vents didn’t work. It certainly was not the same place it had been when it was called Arcade Adventures.
“Derek, can you call your mom to see if she can pick us up early?” I watched the front door like a hawk for any sign of Mr. B.
“Nah, she’ll get mad if I bother her. Maybe you sh
ould call her, Arcade. You’re her favorite nephew.”
I pulled out my phone and poked the contact button to pull up Aunt Weeda’s number. But for some reason, when I did that, my phone started dialing . . . The Bridgeview Bakery!
“NO! That’s not what I wanted to do!”
The phone only rang once. “Bridgeview Bakery. This is Jacey. How can I help you?”
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no! I just called a GIRL!
“Hello? Is this Arcade Livingston?”
And she has caller id!
“Um . . . hello, Jacey.”
“Hey, Arcade. Do you need more bread already?”
“Uhhhhhhh . . . no . . . I . . . uhhhhhhh . . .”
Derek grabbed the phone. “Hey, Jacey. He called because he needs a ride home.”
Derek! What are you saying? That’s not true! Well, it is true, BUT . . .
He handed the phone back to me. I held it to my ear. “Ride . . . home. Yeeeeaaaah. That’s what we need.”
“Oh, that’s easy! Mom and I are just closing up. Where are you?”
“I’m sure it’s way too far . . .”
Jacey giggled. “You’re too funny. This is Forest, Virginia. The town is the size of a postage stamp.”
Derek grabbed the phone again. “We’re at Forest Games and Golf. There’s five of us. Do you have a big car?”
“You bet! We’ve got an SUV that seats eight! We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
My mouth suddenly lost all its saliva. Jacey—the cute girl—was coming to pick us up!
This. Is. Not. Happening.
“Good thinking to call Jacey!” Derek gave me a high-five. “Mom’s not off work for another hour anyway.”
Zoe punched me in the arm and winked uncontrollably. “Yeah, good thinking, Arcade.”
Heat radiated from my neck up into my hair, causing sweat to run down my forehead, my glasses to fog up, and my red frames to slide down my nose.
This is worse than what the token does to me.
“Hey! Is that him?” Celeste whispered and pointed over to the golf counter. Mr. B was talking to the teenage boy who sold us our golf games.
“We can’t go out the door now. He’ll see us.” She put her finger to her lips. “Follow me.” Zoe led us back to the corner by the claw machine—the same place where we had spied on Mom and Dad when they won the token.
Arcade and the Golden Travel Guide Page 6