CHAPTER 5

Before heading off to the Big Rock, we stopped at home so Lester could go to the bathroom. His bladder was going to be a problem. On top of the hay fever and allergies that made him a human sneeze factory, you could set your watch by Lester having to go to the bathroom every hour on the hour. Mom said the constant bathroom breaks were related to his nerves. All I knew was we’d have to include plenty of pit stops in our plans.

While Ralph and I waited for Lester, I stared out the large living room picture window that faced in the direction of the dugout. Of course, I couldn’t see the dugout because of the trees, but I could imagine it. In my mind, it had become a place of excitement and secrets. Probably once we returned the money to its rightful owner the town would want to erect a plaque at the baseball field in Ralph’s and my honor. Something like: THIS DUGOUT IS WHERE TRACY MUNROE AND RALPH HUFFMAN FOUND MONEY AND BECAME HEROES. As I stood there daydreaming, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Zach was cutting through the trees behind my house, heading to the baseball field. I couldn’t help but admire how mature and confident he looked as he loped along.

“Whatcha looking at?”

I jumped at Ralph’s question. I’d forgotten he was in the room, too. When I pointed at Zach, Ralph snorted. “He’s everywhere. I hope he gets poison ivy.”

I laughed. “There’s no poison ivy in those woods.”

“Maybe we should plant some.”

“I can’t believe how much you’re letting this guy bug you. Normally nothing bothers you, except maybe a cake that doesn’t rise.”

Ralph sighed. “I know. I feel about him how you feel about Jasmine.”

“We definitely need to avoid him then.”

“All set!” Lester was back, dragging a knapsack behind him, bump, bump, bump.

Ralph watched with amusement as Lester tried, unsuccessfully, to hoist the beast onto his scrawny shoulders. When it fell to the ground for the third time with Lester still attached, Ralph leaned over and tapped my brother on the shoulder. “What’s with the knapsack? We’ll be gone for an hour, tops.”

“Supplies,” Lester said decisively. “If we’re going to solve a mystery, we need supplies.” He managed to right himself and started for the door, only to fall over again. He reminded me of the little dog, Max, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Ralph gave me a what on Earth? look, grabbed the knapsack, and slung it across his own shoulders. Lester got back up, a big grin spreading across his face like a rising sun in a universe of freckles.

“What kind of supplies?” I asked.

“You’ll see.” Lester loves to be mysterious and it’s so annoying.

Our first destination wasn’t far: the train tracks that ran perpendicular to Marks Street. I stopped and looked both ways. The train only passes by three times a day—at eight o’clock, five o’clock, and around seven-thirty—but I liked to be sure, all the same. As I turned left to follow the guys, satisfied that I’d live another day, I caught a glimpse of something red slipping into the bushes farther down the tracks to my right. Curious, I waited to see if I could catch sight of whatever it was again, but after several seconds of seeing nothing, I ran to catch up with Ralph and Lester.

We exited where the tracks passed the Junkyard, which isn’t a junkyard at all, just part of a gravel pit where people dump old machinery and other garbage. The rust and weeds that have taken over the equipment make the place feel wild and dangerous, and I’d often seen teenagers hanging out there on hot summer evenings. Despite the ruin, it had always been a place of lost treasures: an owl brooch I’d discovered beside an old tractor, the Red Sox cap Ralph found hanging from a nearby tree. You had to brave the Junkyard if you wanted to get to the Big Rock.

Ralph and I’d discovered the Big Rock the previous summer during one of our many expeditions. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a massive boulder ten feet high and thirty feet long located in the forest that borders the gravel pit. It isn’t easy to reach, which ups its secret lair potential. To get there, we had to cross Dennis Stream, hopping from one slimy stone to the next, walk straight for a quarter of a mile, scramble over some other smaller boulders, and then make the final ascent to the top. We’d tried to think of a more interesting name than the Big Rock, but nothing had stuck. It had been our place to talk or to hide from annoying brothers. But now that we were showing Lester where it was, Ralph and I had lost our secret hangout. That made me kind of sad.

The forest was peaceful—just the odd chirp of a bird and the buzz of insects, interrupted now and then by the boom-boom sound of a dump truck loading gravel back at the pit. Shafts of dappled light touched the path here and there, little beacons guiding us onward. I taught Lester how to avoid tripping over tree roots and how to use the crevices on the side of the Big Rock as handholds. He scrambled up behind me without any trouble, and I could tell that he was impressed with himself.

At the top, I surveyed our rocky kingdom. “This is where we hold our meetings,” I said, plopping down on a green carpet of moss, still slightly damp from the dew that never quite dried this far into the forest.

Lester looked around, thrilled.

Meanwhile, Ralph reached up, grabbed a thermal bag we’d left hanging on a nearby branch, and plunked down. He unzipped the top, pulled out a package of Ganong pink peppermints—also made at the local chocolate factory and our meeting candy of choice—and popped one into his mouth before passing the bag to me.

I took one and handed Lester the package. “So what do you think of our secret lair?”

“I didn’t know this place existed. I’ve never been in these woods. It’s awesome.”

I nodded, satisfied. It was awesome.

Settling himself on a particularly cushy spot, Lester reached over and took back his knapsack from Ralph. He unzipped it and pulled out three bottles of water, his asthma inhaler, a box of candy corn he’d bought in Old Orchard Beach, a set of cheap walkie-talkies he got last Christmas, and an iPad.

“You took Dad’s iPad!” I said in horror, reaching out to rescue it. “He’s gonna kill you!”

Pig Face was too quick and managed to evade my grasp. “He’s napping. Mom says he’s tired after the long drive and two weeks at the beach. She said I could borrow it to play games.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t mean you could take it out of the house!” I protested. I watched as he powered it up and typed in Dad’s password.

“She didn’t say I couldn’t. Besides, we need it to do research. First, we should see if anyone’s reported any missing money.”

“He’s got a point.” Ralph crunched his peppermint to smithereens and reached for a piece of candy corn. “I wish I had a tablet. Does your dad like this one?”

Lester loved to talk about boring stuff like computers and Ralph had just opened up a whole can of boring stuff for Lester to chew on.

“He does. It’s interesting, because—”

“Focus, Lester,” I interrupted. “You’re right. We need to do some research. Start with the local paper and then try the big-city ones. See if anyone’s reported lost or stolen money.”

Ralph and I leaned in close on either side of my brother to see the screen. A couple of taps later and we were at the home page of the St. Croix Courier. After searching several days’ worth of news, it was clear that if someone lost money, they hadn’t reported it to the paper. We checked the big papers—the Telegraph Journal and the Daily Gleaner—but found nothing there, either.

“What about Facebook?” Ralph asked. “Maybe someone’s talking about it there.”

I started to say that neither Lester nor I had an account because we were too young when suddenly Dad’s Facebook page popped up, a big picture of him with his arms around Lester and me filling the screen.

“Pig Face—I mean Lester—how’d you do that?”

“I just watched Dad log in and memorized his password,” Lester said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Why didn’t I think of that? I thought about how much trouble Lester would get in when I told Dad about his account being hacked, then realized sadly that my days of ratting Lester out were over now that we were working together on this mystery.

Dad owned a sporting goods store, which meant he pretty much knew everyone in town. Or so it seemed to me: he had over seventeen hundred friends and the population of St. Stephen is only around five thousand. I thought there was a pretty good chance if anyone had lost a bunch of money, someone would be talking about it on Facebook.

“I can’t believe how many grown-ups are playing games online,” I snorted, as we saw yet another person crowing about getting a high score on Milltown Monster Mash.

“Yeah, and look at how many of them are talking about the weather,” Lester added. “‘Jack Fletcher wishes it would cool down,’ ‘Tammy Doyle hopes it rains soon.’ Who cares about the weather?”

He continued to scroll down the screen, past barbecue pictures, birthday celebrations, funny cat videos, and inspirational messages. After hundreds of posts, it was clear that no one was talking about the money we’d found.

“Here’s something interesting,” Lester said, more to himself than to Ralph and me.

“What is it?” I shoved in closer to get a better look.

Hazel McNutt’s face was beaming at me. Yuck. I wanted to keep scrolling to get away from her, except Lester was right: it was interesting. She wasn’t alone in the picture. There was an old guy with silvery-white hair sitting beside her, his arm outstretched, obviously taking the selfie. I checked the date. Hazel had posted the picture last night.

I read the caption out loud. “Me and John Favola—a.k.a. The Silver Fox, LOL—cuddling after our walk.” Hazel’s post had fifteen likes. Even my dad had liked it for crying out loud.

I looked over at Ralph. “Yuck.”

Ralph leaned away from the screen. “If Mr. Favola is anything like Zach, double-yuck. Hazel’s going to regret dating him.”

Given how mean Hazel had been to me earlier, I wasn’t really interested in her regrets. I was thinking of poor Zach and how awful it must be for him that his father was dating Hazel.

It was Lester who brought us back to the task at hand: “Earth to Tracy and Ralph. Who cares if Hazel McNutt and Mr. Favola are dating? We still don’t know who left the paper bag at the dugout.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but he had a point. Whose money was this, anyway?