Riley Mack Stirs Up More Trouble (23 page)

They were too busy gawking at the stage in disbelief at the three girls bouncing up and down while making kindergarten hand gestures and singing:

“Mix a pancake
,

Stir a pancake
,

Pop it in the pan.

Fry the pancake
,

Toss the pancake
,

Catch it if you can.”

As soon as the girls finished the first verse, video screens on both sides of the stage lit up with ridiculous footage of flipping, flopping pancakes.

“Second verse,”
sang Sara,
“same as the first.”

When they started doing their childish “mixing” and “stirring” choreography for the second time, Mr. Paxton was at Chief Brown's table, whispering in the police officer's ear.

“We have a vandalism situation,” said Paxton.

“Where?”

“Outside. On the ninth hole!”

“What's going on?”

Mr. Paxton looked out the ballroom windows again.

He almost had a heart attack.

“Some hooligan has commandeered a backhoe and is attempting to dig up one of our brand-new sand traps!”

RILEY AND MR. SOWICKY HAD
leveled off the backhoe's outriggers and swiveled around to the rear of the machine.

Riley switched on his helmet cam.

“You getting this, Jake?”

“You're coming in loud and clear. Sara and her pancake flippers are onstage. You want me to run the video clips from the army cooks?”

“Not yet. Wait until we hit the first stack of pancake powder sacks.”

“Hey, Riley?” It was Jamal. “I killed big, man. I slayed 'em.”

“Great. We're gonna start digging. Mr. Sowicky?”

“All right, little dude, let's rock and roll.” He manipulated two knob-topped control levers. “Nothing to it. We boom down, stick out, roll the bucket.”

The hydraulics on the toothed shovel stretched the boom out across the sand trap.

“Now we pull the stick in while booming up.”

The bucket bit into the sand and scraped a two-foot-deep trench into the ground.

“Swing the boom to the side, roll the bucket, and dump your load.”

A pile of sand fell on the fairway.

“Now we just repeat it all again.” Mr. Sowicky sent the shovel back to the trench in the sand trap.

“Um, Riley, uh . . .” It was Jake.

“What's up?”

“Mr. Paxton. Chief Brown.”

“What about 'em?”

“Mr. Paxton is like pointing at the window and the police chief is flipping open his sport jacket because . . . uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh what, Jake?”

“He has a pistol holstered to his belt. They're leaving the ballroom, Riley. They see you!”

“What? Mongo hasn't even switched on the spotlights.”

“It's the moon,” said Jake. “We forgot to check the moon phase.”

Riley glanced up at the night sky.

Yep. There it was. A full June moon. The kind they sing about in love songs.

“Okay, Mr. Sowicky,” said Riley, “thanks for the lesson. I'll take it from here.”

“What?”

“Trouble's coming. If they catch you doing this, they'll think you're vandalizing the golf course because Mr. Paxton fired you.”

“So?”

“Mr. Sowicky, you could go to jail.”

“So could you.”

“Nah. I'm a kid. The worst that happens to me is I spend the summer at some kind of juvenile delinquent work camp.”

“But . . .”

“I've never been to camp. Might be fun. Go. Hurry.”

“You sure you know how to . . .”

“Yes.”

Mr. Sowicky climbed out of the operator's seat and jumped down from the backhoe.

“Little dude?”

“Yeah?”

“When operating a backhoe, always remember: safety first!”

Riley shot him a two-finger salute. “Gotcha. Thanks.”

As Mr. Sowicky ran for the forest, Riley worked the two levers back and forth. “Okay,” he said. “Just like the claw game at the video arcade.”

After a few bumps and boom stutters, he swung the bucket back into place and sank it down with a thud.

“My bad,” he mumbled as he worked the levers to lower the shovel into the trench and drag it back toward the rig.

When his load was full, he heard a voice shout from maybe a hundred yards away, “What the blazes do you think you're doing?”

It was Mr. Paxton.

“Cease . . . and . . . desist!” cried Chief Brown. He had to catch his breath between words because he wasn't used to running.

Riley dumped his load and swiveled the boom arm back for a third dig.

“Riley?” It was Mongo.

He kept working the lever, kept digging. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Paxton and Chief Brown just ran past me.”

“I know . . .”

“The chief has a pistol!”

“Do you still have that bucket of balls?”

“Huh?”

Riley pulled back on the levers, scooped up another load. He could see the tops of the black garbage bags.

“Use them! Chuck a couple golf balls at the chief. Then run like you've never run before!”

“Gotcha!”

Floodlights thumped on. Riley and his backhoe were suddenly bathed in brightness.

“Owww!” he heard chief Brown scream. “That hurt!”

Yeah. Mongo had a wicked sidearm.

“Come back here, you! Freeze! Stop running! This is the police! You can't get away!”

Uh, yeah
, Riley thought,
he can.

The chief was slow. Mongo had his getaway golf cart.

“Jake? Roll the video! Now!”

Riley kept scooping. He hoped the chief wasn't mad and dumb enough to start shooting at a kid who had popped him in the butt with a golf ball. Riley's heart was racing and it didn't stop pounding until he heard Mongo say, “I'm clear. The chief slipped on the fairway when the sprinklers came on all of a sudden.”

Riley grinned.
Mr. Sowicky did that!
he thought.
He didn't run away. He ran to the sprinkler control panel!

“Good luck, you guys,” said Mongo. “I'm heading home through the hedges. Say hey to your dad, Riley. Mongo out.”

Riley finished his final cut across the trench. The claw edge of the bucket tore open the sides of a few plastic trash bags.

He could see the pancake powder packages.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm going in for the close-up.”

Riley swung the boom to the side and jumped out of the backhoe cab. He tumbled sideways when he hit sand. Hauling himself up, he felt for his helmet cam to make sure the lens hadn't been knocked out of alignment.

When he was absolutely certain it was still pointing dead ahead, he turned to the trench he had just dug.

Mr. Paxton was standing inside the six-foot deep hole.

Glaring up at him.

“Hello, Mr. Mack,” he said as an extremely creepy smile slithered across his lips. “Too bad your father, the ‘war hero,' isn't here to protect you.”

And that's when Mr. Paxton pulled out
his
pistol.

MR. PAXTON WAGGLED HIS WEAPON.

“You like it? It's a top-of-the-line Xylodyne semiautomatic G15.”

“You sell those to the army, too?”

“Indeed we do. What's that thing on your head? It's not some kind of video camera, is it?”

“This? Nah. It's just a stupid coal miner's lamp that doesn't work. I needed it to see what I was doing when I hot-wired the backhoe.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Paxton, aiming the pistol up out of the trench with a shaky hand while swiping at the sandy dirt in the bottom of the hole with his foot. He was trying to cover up the sacks the backhoe had just exposed.

“Yeah,” said Riley. “I needed a big steam shovel to pay you people back big-time!”

Mr. Paxton cocked his head sideways. “Pay me back? For what?”

Riley pretended to pout. “Not you. Your daughter. I wanted to be in her act, but she wouldn't let me! Said it was ‘girls only.' That's not fair, Mr. Paxton. I can sing! I can dance, too!”

Riley broke into what he hoped looked like somebody dancing.

Mr. Paxton lowered his pistol. Smiled devilishly. “That's what this is all about?”

“Well, yeah! Why else would I tear up your stupid golf course? I wanted to pay you back for what your daughter did to me! She crushed my dream, Mr. Paxton. She crushed my dream.”

“I see . . .” said Mr. Paxton, reaching up to place his pistol in the sand trap so he could bend down and use both his hands to claw and scrape at the loose dirt at the bottom of the pit. He was trying to cover up the evidence he now thought Riley knew nothing about. “You weren't searching for any kind of, oh, I don't know—buried treasure?”

“Underneath a golf course?” Riley gave that a lip fart. “Yeah. Right. I'm that dumb. Dig up a golf course to find where the pirates hid their gold after playing eighteen holes. How stupid do you think I am?”

“Incredibly,” said Mr. Paxton with a sneer. “To think you could pull off a stunt this blatant and brazen . . .”

Police Chief Brown huffed over the top of the green. His plaid suit was soaking wet. “What's going on back here?”

“I have apprehended our vandal,” Mr. Paxton said smugly from down in the scooped-out pit. “Young Riley Mack.”

“Well, well, well,” said the chief, looping his thumbs under his belt and waddling down the embankment from the green. “Fairview's number-one known troublemaker. What'd you do this time, you redheaded rascal?”

“Nothing!” He gestured toward the pistol lying on the ground. “Can I have my gun back now?”

“Oh,” said the police chief, strolling over to confiscate the weapon. “This is yours?”

“Well, it certainly isn't
mine
.” Mr. Paxton could lie faster than anyone Riley had ever met.

The chief pocketed the pistol. “My, my, my. Stealing a backhoe? Carrying a concealed weapon?”

“It wasn't concealed!” said Riley, trying to buy as much time as he could. “It was sitting right there, out in the open.”

“Tell it to the judge,” sneered the chief. “You just earned yourself another free ride in the back of my patrol car. And this time we're going to lock you up and throw away the key.”

Riley sniffled. “I want my mommy.”

“Ha!” said Chief Brown. “Too bad.”

“I want my mommy! Now!”

Riley hoped his mom heard her cue.

“What the heck is that thing on your head?” asked Chief Brown.

“A miner's lamp,” said Mr. Paxton.

“The heck it is. There's no lightbulb. Just a lens.”

Thinking fast, Riley leaped into the six-foot-deep hole with Mr. Paxton. When he found his footing, he tilted his head down so people in Afghanistan could see the evidence.

“Hey, what's in those plastic trash bags, Mr. Paxton?”

Riley dropped to his knees and started clearing away the thin layer of dirt Mr. Paxton had been pushing around with his shoe.

“Stop that!” shouted Mr. Paxton as he tried to shove Riley to the side.

“Is that pancake powder?” cried Riley as he ripped a ten-pound sack out of the ground.

He held it out at arm's length so his army audience could read the label.

“Protein-Power Pancake Mix?” He flipped the bag around. “Made by Mobile Meal Manufacturing. Say, isn't that a Xylodyne company, Mr. Paxton?”

Chief Brown stood frozen at the lip of the ditch, looking down and scratching his head. “Why would anybody bury pancake mix under a sand trap?”

“I'll tell you why,” said General Clarke as, finally, he, Mr. Kleinman, and Riley's mom made it to the hole. “It's poison!”

“POISON?” MR. PAXTON LAUGHED, PUTTING
his hands on his hips, trying to look tough.

But it's extremely hard to look tough when you're standing in a six-foot-deep hole, looking up at people.

“General, please. Don't be absurd.”

“We just saw a video clip from some mess hall cooks over in Afghanistan.”

Mr. Paxton shook his head like he was trying to unclog his ears. “What?”

“Your daughter sang to a very fascinating music video,” said Riley's mom.

“I'll say,” added Mr. Kleinman. “It was almost like people were testifying against Xylodyne Dynamics.”

“Let me see that sack, son,” said General Clarke, settling into a crouch at the edge of the trench.

Riley tossed the bag up out of the hole. The general caught it.

“Yep. This is the same stuff. It's been making our fighting men and women sick.” He handed the evidence over to the EPA man. “Can you check this out, Kleinman? Run a few tests?”

“It would be my pleasure, General.”

“Hey, look,” said Riley, pointing down at the bottom of the ditch. “There's a ton more of that stuff buried right underneath where Mr. Paxton is standing. If it's poison, I wonder if it's what killed all those fish in the water hazard.”

“Of course!” said Mr. Kleinman. “The excess nitrogen would seep out and pollute the watershed! Good environmental detective work, son.”

“He's very good at science,” said Riley's mom. “When he applies himself.”

“Keep it up, young man,” said Mr. Kleinman. “The EPA could use more minds like yours.”

“So could the army,” added the general.

“Wait a minute!” shouted Mr. Paxton. “Help me out of this hole, somebody!”

Chief Brown finally shot out an arm and hauled Mr. Paxton out of the trench. The general and his mom helped Riley climb up and out, too.

Mr. Paxton swiped at his dusty tuxedo in an attempt to spruce it up. “This is preposterous! Before you gentlemen jump to any conclusions based on a known troublemaker's slanderous accusations . . .”

Just then, a golf cart came bounding across the fairway.