The three friends watched Nick turn the corner of the hallway and walk out of sight. Hannah wheeled on Ben and Corey.

“Where are we gonna get a hundred and fifty dollars in cash?! By four thirty!” she hissed.

“Well,” Ben said, “the answer is that I don’t actually know.”

He started walking briskly down the hall toward their next class. Hannah and Corey followed him.

“Maybe we could borrow it from Mrs. Ramirez’s desk,” Corey said.

“Very funny,” Hannah said.

“How much do each of you have?” Ben asked.

“Maybe thirty bucks,” Corey said. “At home, not on me. A little more in the bank. But I can’t take it all out. I think there’s some kind of minimum you have to leave in there to keep the account open.”

“I might be able to scrape together fifty-five,” Hannah said. “And then what I’ve got in my savings account, though I’m not really supposed to touch that. It’s for college.”

Corey said, “I thought you were going to be a crime scene investigator.”

“I am,” Hannah said, “but what’s that got to do with it?”

“Crime scene investigators don’t go to college, do they?” he asked. “They go to the police academy.”

Hannah shook her head. “No, they definitely go to college. They get degrees in science before they receive their CSI training. Or at least, I’m going to.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get a scholarship,” Ben said. “Because we’re going to need your savings. Or at least part of it. I’ll get money out of my savings too.”

They agreed to run home after school to gather up whatever cash they could find in their rooms. They’d also go to the nearest ATM to withdraw money out of their bank accounts. Together, they were pretty sure they could scrape together a hundred and fifty bucks. Barely.

 

It was almost four thirty. Ben and Hannah were already impatiently waiting by the fort. Corey came running up.

“Here,” he said, handing Ben some cash. “Forty-five dollars. It’s all I could manage. And that was with going through my drawers for change.”

Ben quickly counted their money. “It’s just enough. Let’s go.” The three of them hurried toward the big rocks at the edge of the park.

When they walked around to the back of the rocks, they saw Nick perched on one of them. On a nearby rock lay his backpack. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would carry his homework with him at all times.

“Hi, Nick!” Hannah said, trying to keep things friendly.

Nick didn’t smile. He lifted his chin less than an inch to show he’d heard her. He jumped down from the rock and slowly walked toward them.

“You bring the money?” he asked, picking up the backpack without looking at it.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “A hundred and fifty dollars. But not all in bills. I hope quarters are okay.”

“Did you bring the Quark Pad?” Corey asked.

Nick smacked his own forehead. “Oh, I knew I forgot something!”

The members of Club CSI looked thrown. What were they going to do now? Give Nick the money and just trust him to give them the tablet later?

Then Nick smiled. He pulled a Quark Pad out of the backpack. “Oh no, wait. Here it is.”

Behind them, they heard a voice. “What are you doing?!”

They turned and saw Alex Gray walking toward them quickly.

“Oh, great,” Hannah muttered.

Alex did not look happy.

“Just making a sale, dude,” Nick told him.

“To these dorks?” Alex said, pointing a thumb at Ben, Corey, and Hannah. “What grade are they in?”

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. Uh . . . seventh, I guess.”

Alex scowled. “We said no seventh graders. They talk too much.”

Ben took a small step toward Alex and Nick. “We won’t say anything, Alex.”

The big kid stared at Ben. “How do you know my name?”

“Everybody knows who you are,” Ben said, hoping to flatter him. “Alex Gray and Nick Ross. You’re famous.”

It worked. Alex actually smiled a little. “Okay, so you know my name. You’re still a seventh grader.”

“They said they’d pay extra,” Nick explained.

“How much extra?”

“A hundred and fifty.”

Alex considered this and then he shook his head. “No,” he said with a grunt. “A hundred and seventy-five.”

Corey’s mouth dropped open. “We don’t have a hundred and seventy-five!” he cried.

“How much do you have?” Alex asked.

“A hundred and sixty-four,” Ben said. He figured Alex really didn’t care that much about the money. He just didn’t like it that Nick had set this up without talking to him.

“Cash?” Alex asked. Ben nodded. Alex stood there for a minute, staring at him. “Okay,” he finally said. “A hundred and sixty-four.” He stuck out his hand.

Ben started to give Alex the money. Corey whispered, “Ben! Shouldn’t we get the Quark Pad first?”

“It’s okay, Corey,” Ben said in a normal speaking voice. “I trust Nick and Alex.”

Hannah wasn’t sure about trusting these two guys doing business behind a pile of rocks in the park, but Ben’s tactic worked. Nick and Alex clearly liked being trusted.

Alex took the hundred and sixty-four dollars from Ben, and Nick handed Ben the Quark Pad in a box that looked just like the ones Corey had seen in stores.

“You guys are still getting a really good deal,” Nick said. “But keep your mouths shut about this. We don’t want all your little seventh-grade friends coming to us.”

“Thanks,” Hannah said. She offered her hand to shake. Amused, Alex shook it.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said, grinning.

As the three friends started to leave, Nick said, “Put that box in your backpack. And don’t take it out until you get home.”

“No refunds,” Alex added as he and Nick ran off. Club CSI went to Ben’s room to open the box and check out the Quark Pad. Hannah flopped down in the room’s one chair. “I didn’t like that warning about no refunds. I hope we’re not going to open the box and find it full of rocks.”

“It’s not full of rocks,” Ben assured her.

“How do you know?” Hannah asked.

“It’d be heavier,” Corey said. “And it’d rattle. And smell like rocks.”

“Just open it,” Hannah said.

Ben opened the box and peered inside. Then he reached in and pulled out an electronic tablet.

“Smells like a Quark Pad to me!” Corey said, delighted.

In fact, it looked exactly like the one Greg had given to Brittney. Except that this one didn’t have any fingerprints on it—yet.

“Let’s fire it up and see what she can do,” Ben said.

He turned on the tablet and the screen came to life. They tried out every single app, and they all worked exactly the way they were supposed to. It was a fast, elegant device.

“Well,” Ben said. “It doesn’t seem like a fake.”

“And it doesn’t seem used,” Corey added. “It looks brand new.”

Hannah said, “So it’s real and it’s new. But is it stolen?”

Ben and Corey exchanged a look. They’d been enjoying trying out the Quark Pad so much that they almost forgot they were investigating how Nick and Alex were able to sell them so cheaply.

“How can we tell?” Corey said. “Look for a sticker that says ‘stolen’?”

Hannah used Ben’s desktop computer to do a quick Internet search. She found a company website that would tell you if a Quark Pad was registered as stolen. All you had to do was enter the unit’s serial number.

Ben found the serial number on the tablet and read it out loud to Hannah. She entered the number into the website and hit enter.

“Stolen,” she said.