We unhooked the boats and started moving. Nanny X took us under a bridge and into the Tidal Basin, where the current wouldn’t flop us around anymore. We saw the white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, and lots and lots of people.
“Something’s fishy,” said Nanny X.
I thought it was weird that the thing that made Eliza’s fish less fishy (meaning gears and things) actually made it more fishy (meaning suspicious).
“We’ve got mysteries out the ying-yang,” Nanny X said. “Who can tell me what they are?”
“Someone named The Angler is trying to force the president to put a fish statue on the White House lawn,” Ali said. “And we don’t know why.”
“We caught a robot fish,” I added. “And we don’t know why.”
Maybe those things weren’t connected. But one weird fish thing plus another weird fish thing happening on the same day seemed like more than a coincidence. Of course, with Nanny X, there were always weird fish things. I was just glad that this weird fish thing didn’t involve my lunch.
Now that it was warmer, people were renting paddle-boats—the kind you pedal, like a bicycle—so we weren’t the only ones on the water. Nanny X scanned the crowd again with her spyglass. I hoped my new powers of observation would catch something that everyone else missed, but nobody looked suspicious or artsy. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, except for the robot fish.
Nanny X looked at her watch. “Ninety minutes,” she said. “I have one more thought as to where The Angler could be killing time.” She pointed to another bridge across the basin, and the passageway beneath it. “That leads to the waterfront. And you know what’s there.”
“The baseball stadium!” I said.
“The fish market!” said Ali. We’d visited the Nationals’ stadium more than we’d visited the fish market, which was where we got oysters the one day a year our mom made oyster stew. I had a feeling we’d be visiting the fish market a lot more with Nanny X around.
“Brilliant,” Boris said. “I’ll give you a tow.”
Nanny X didn’t look like she wanted any help, but my arms felt all noodle-y from paddling. If this kept up, I wouldn’t even be able to swing a bat at my baseball game against the Green Sox. If we were done being special agents in time to even go to my game, which was at six o’clock on the nose, as Nanny X would say.
“A tow would be arctic!” I told Boris.
But Nanny X did something even more arctic: She took another fishing lure from her hat and attached it to the back of our canoe. Bbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrttt. It might have been the world’s tiniest motor, but it zipped us across the water ahead of Boris and Stinky, who started their own motor and followed us. Our boats left a wake, which blurped some of the paddleboaters around. They looked angry, but I don’t think they were angry at us; mostly, I think, they were tired of pedaling.
“Government business,” Nanny X told them. She stood with one foot on the side of the boat and dipped her paddle in the water to help control our direction. She looked like that picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware, except Washington wore a different kind of hat.
We went through a tunnel under a bridge and pulled into a small marina, which is a parking lot for boats. There was even a spot with our name on it: NAP. Both boats fit in there, side by side. I helped tie the canoe to a post. Then we pulled out the stroller, the diaper bag, the coloring book and the bag with the mechanical fish parts, and went to explore the market.
It smelled worse than my lunch box the day Nanny X gave me the anchovy sandwich. But there were good smells, too; they were just hiding underneath the bad ones.
We walked by stalls with piles of scallops and shrimp and crabs and fish. Lots and lots of fish. They were the whole kind, with their heads still on and their mouths wide open. Ali was as googly-eyed as the fish were. I think the smell was getting to her.
“Our scallops pack a wallop,” said the man behind the counter of Fernando’s Fish Hut. He smiled like on a TV commercial, where people act very excited about insurance or Doritos or cars. “Our grouper is super. Our crab is fab.”
A lady walked up and took a photo of him standing behind the seafood. He kept smiling for the photo, but then he stopped smiling and shook his head.
“All people do is take pictures. Yesterday somebody stood here and actually drew one of my catfish.”
Drew? That could be a clue. “What did he look like?” I asked.
“Oh, about yay big and kind of slimy. He had a mustache like my Uncle Dusty.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean the catfish,” I said politely. “I meant what did the person drawing the catfish look like?”
“Hard to tell. He had a hat pulled down and he wore a rain slicker. I tried to sell him my scallops but all he cared about was that fish. I wish he’d cared enough to buy it.”
I think he knew that I was not going to buy a catfish, either. But then Nanny X came up and bought six bowls of Fernando’s Couldn’t-Be-Prouder Clam Chowder, which made him happy. There were saltine crackers, too. We ate them outside in this porch-y area that had tables but no chairs. Stinky ate his chowder, after going back to tell Fernando that it would be better for the environment if he didn’t serve the chowder in Styrofoam.
Boris ate, too, after saying what a shame it was that no one at the fish market sold lentil soup. (Boris liked lentils the way Nanny X liked fish.) He poured the bag of robot fish parts on the table.
“Look at the craftsmanship here, in the mouth,” he said. The fish had tiny spiky teeth, the size of lettuce seeds. Chunks of Eliza’s coloring-book page were still stuck between them.
Nanny X brushed away some cracker crumbs and pulled out a thin package of baby wipes. The soapy smell didn’t fool me. The mini baby wipes package was really her NAP computer, which gave us direct access to 149 different crime databases.
She clicked on a couple of keys.
“Type in ‘paper,’ ” Boris suggested. “And ‘herring.’ Is there anything for ‘paper-eating herring’?”
“I know what to type, thanks,” said Nanny X. Click, click, click went the keys. “Nothing.”
“Robot fish?” I suggested.
Click, click.
“No.”
Some seagulls came over to see if we had any more crackers, but we didn’t.
Then we heard a sound that was a cross between clicking and gargling. It didn’t come from the seagulls or Yeti or from Nanny X’s computer, either. The sound came from a squirrel. He was the darkest brown, with a fluffy tail and shining eyes. He looked a little sad. He ran up to Nanny X, who kept typing.
“I’m sorry,” Boris told the squirrel. “We don’t have any food for you.”
The squirrel scooted closer anyway. He climbed onto the table. His tail flicked up and down and he made that click-gargle sound again.
That’s when he opened his mouth. He grabbed Nanny X’s computer with his teeth, which were much bigger than the fish’s.
“Holy cats!” Nanny X said, even though it was a squirrel. He ran down the table and jumped off the end, heading through the market. Then he crossed a busy street and started running up the grassy hill on the other side.
Nanny X moved fast, but she did not move as fast as that squirrel. By the time we’d zigagged through the market and crossed the street, we could make out the squirrel climbing a tree in the distance. We caught up to him and then sproing. He jumped to the next tree. We followed the sound of rattling leaves.
“I can’t let that computer get into the wrong hands,” Nanny X said. “NAP would be . . . disappointed.”
I didn’t point out that squirrels had paws instead of hands, because actually? They look like hands. Here are some other things I know about squirrels, thanks to my Fantastically Freaky book.
One: Their front teeth grow forever, so they have to chew on things like walnuts to keep their teeth short. The book doesn’t mention chewing on computers.
Two: People have used squirrels as spies.
Nanny X must have read that book, too; that’s why she was so worried. Because if this squirrel was being used for spying, he could be taking Nanny X’s computer to the enemy.
Fortunately we had Yeti, who is a professional squirrel chaser. At home, all you have to do is say “Squirrel!” and he will run straight to our bird feeder, where there are always squirrels trying to steal birdseed.
But Yeti didn’t run. He sniffed the air and then walked over to Boris and sniffed his shoes.
“Squirrel!” I said again. Yeti looked at me like I was talking in pig latin.
The squirrel moved to a tree where the branches were low enough for me to grab. But as soon as I started climbing, the squirrel changed trees.
We needed someone who could move quicker than we could, someone who was extremely flexible and who was on our side. It would help if he was furry and could move from tree to tree like that squirrel.
“We need Howard,” I said.