Parents and teachers gasped as both teams tumbled backward! The kids looked like dominoes as they fell to the ground.

BREEEET! BREEEET!

Mr. Hardy blew his whistle. “Quiet, everyone! Step back!” he barked. The kids scrambled to stand up.

Kat snapped picture after picture.

Mr. Hardy stepped forward. He checked to make sure that all the kids were okay. Once he determined that, he glanced at his watch.

“Don’t worry! I’ll have Mr. Jason look for another rope. We’ll redo the tug-of-war a little later,” he said. “For now, we can get ready for the gymnastics event. We’ll start that in ten minutes. And we’ll do archery after that.”

As the crowd moved away, Nico and Kat drifted over to the tug-of-war rope. Max, Alice, and Luke were looking at each side of the rope’s broken ends.

“Hey, look! This rope didn’t just break,” Max said. He showed them the two ends of the rope. Strands of fiber frizzed out from both sides. But about half of the strands weren’t frizzy. Instead, they had been cut!

Alice held up the red flag lying on the ground. It had been hanging down from the middle of the rope. “The Olympic troublemaker must have used a knife or scissors to cut the rope halfway through so it would break during the event,” she said. “Then he or she covered the cut with this flag so it would look normal!”

“That’s why we didn’t see any problems when we checked the rope!” Kat said. “Tricky!”

As Max and Alice studied the rope, Kat pulled out her camera. “Look, I got some pictures just as the rope snapped!” she said. “Here are Max and Alice falling backward!”

The kids leaned in to look at the pictures. But as Kat swiped through them, Alice said, “Stop! What’s that?” She pointed to one of the kids in the background. It was a middle schooler in a purple T-shirt.

“That’s Doug,” Max said. “He set the record for winning the most medals at last year’s Olympics. He won two gold medals, two silver medals, and one bronze.”

“I know who Doug is,” Alice said. Over Kat’s shoulder, Alice swiped back and forth through the pictures. “But look at all these pictures. When the rope breaks, Doug is smiling and laughing. Everyone else looks serious or surprised!”

“You’re right,” Kat said. As Alice moved back and forth between the pictures, Doug really stood out. He looked just like one of the crowd until the rope broke. Then he had a wide smile at the same time that everyone else was gasping!

“Why is he doing that?” Kat asked. “It almost looks like he thinks it’s funny!”

“Maybe he does,” Alice said.

“What do you mean?” Kat asked.

“Maybe he thinks it’s funny because he’s the one who cut the rope!” Alice said.

“Why would he do that?” Nico asked.

“That’s easy,” Alice said. “Max just said he won the most medals last year. What if he’s sabotaging our Olympics so no one can beat his record?”

Alice pointed across the field to the oily spot near the orange cones. “Maybe Doug was helping to set up the events. He could have poured the oil near the orange cones after they were put out. He probably did it when the other kids were busy with another event.”

“If Doug’s the one doing it,” Mike said, “we need to find him before he does something else!”

Everyone nodded. They looked around the field. But it was hard to find anyone with all the people moving around.

Nico pointed to the front of the school. “Hey, let’s go to the steps,” he said. “It’ll be easier to spot Doug from up there.”

“Good idea,” Kat said. The kids ran over to the steps and bounded up to the top. As they looked for Doug, Alice glanced at the posters taped to the front of the school. The posters were filled with blue-and-gold letters and pictures of ancient Rome. Alice spotted one that had the words Light the Fire Within in blue letters outlined in gold. Something in the top right corner caught her eye.

“Hey, Max,” she said. “Wasn’t this the poster that Doug was hanging up yesterday?”

Max looked at it. “Yeah, that’s the one,” he said. The poster had a big picture of the Parthenon on it.

“That’s what I thought,” Alice said. “Check this out.” She pointed to the top right corner of the poster. “That’s where Doug grabbed the poster when he was putting it back up after you knocked it down,” she said. “The paint on it must have been wet. Look what’s there.”

There were three blue fingerprints along the top of the poster!

Max fumbled for his back pocket. Finally, he took out his phone. He pulled up the photo he had taken of the blue fingerprints on the envelope and held it against the poster.

Alice and the others leaned in.

They matched exactly!