The Election Day Dilemma

  After the kitchen was all cleaned up, Mr. Eggleston’s mood improved. “Thank you,” he told the Aldens. “I just hate having a messy kitchen. Even when I’m baking, I clean up as I go.” He looked around. “I do miss baking.”

  “Speaking of baking,” Jessie said. “We were wondering if you had a recipe for an Election Day cake.” She explained about the Election Day traditions they had learned from Mrs. Draper.

  “I do have a recipe,” Mr. Eggleston said. “I’ve never made it because it’s not the kind of cake that people eat now. It’s more of a sweet, yeast bread with spices and raisins. It would be interesting to try though.”

  “We’d like to make some to hand out to people who are voting,” Jessie said.

  “We thought it would make the election seem more like a celebration,” Henry added.

  “The bread sounds really good!” Benny said. “I’d like to try it. My sister is a good baker.”

  “I suppose I could give you the recipe,” Mr. Eggleston said. “It’s not one of the secret recipes I use in my bakery.” He went over to a desk in the corner and opened up a box holding recipe cards. “It will just take me just a moment to make you a copy. Could you get me a blank note card out of that drawer?” Mr. Eggleston asked.

  He pointed to a drawer close to where Henry stood. As Henry pulled it open, something rattled inside. When Henry had the drawer open he said, “You’ll have to see this. Now we know where Alice’s campaign buttons went.” The drawer was full of white buttons with Appleville Needs Alice on them in red and blue letters.

  Everyone gathered around. “May we look in the other drawers and cabinets?” Jessie asked Mr. Eggleston. He looked confused but agreed, and soon the Aldens had found all the hats and buttons.

  They called in Alice to see. “I’m happy you found my campaign supplies,” she told them. “I just have no idea why someone would hide them.”

  “That someone has to be Albert Hund,” Henry said. “And we aren’t any closer to finding out who he is. We need to go back out to the farmhouse. We didn’t look carefully enough for clues.”

  “What kind of clues would we look for?” Soo Lee asked.

  “It’s been so muddy, we can look for tire tracks on the driveway,” Henry explained. “If Albert Hund lives there, he probably has a car. We can also see if there are any muddy footprints on the porch.”

  “Yes, and we can look at the back of the house,” Jessie said. “Last time we were there, we didn’t even walk all the way around the house.”

  “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” Alice told them. “It’s started to rain very hard. You wouldn’t be able to find any clues in this weather.”

  “We’ll go right after breakfast then,” Henry said.

  “I think we’ll need a big breakfast if we are going back there,” Benny added.

  Alice laughed. “We can manage that,” she said.

  Mr. Eggleston came over to Jessie. He had been busy copying the recipe down for her while they had been talking. “Let me know how this turns out,” he told her.

  “I will,” she promised. “I’m excited to try it.”

  Back at Soo Lee’s, Jessie made a list of the ingredients she needed while the other children sat at the kitchen table talking. “I wish Election Day was still like Mrs. Draper described it,” Violet said. “It will be nice to have cake but it would be more fun to have a big celebration.”

  “Why can’t we? We could have a parade too!” Benny said.

  “That’s a great idea, but do we have enough time to organize a parade? We need people to march in it and the election is the day after tomorrow,” Soo Lee said.

  Henry thought for a moment. “It doesn’t have to be a fancy parade. We could just ask people to wear red, white, and blue,” he said.

  “Just like a Fourth of July parade!” Violet said. “People can decorate their bikes and their wagons.”

  “We can make signs that say ‘Please Vote!’” Soo Lee said.

  “Can we have people walk their pets in the parade like they do in Greenville on the Fourth of July?” Violet asked. “They can dress them up in red, white, and blue if they want.”

  “What a good idea!” Jessie said.

  “We can dress Watch up,” Benny suggested. “He likes parades.”

  “Let’s get to work then,” Henry said. The children spent the rest of the day calling Soo Lee’s friends to tell them about the parade. They asked Soo Lee’s friends to spread the word to everyone they knew. Jessie baked some of the cakes. The other children decorated their bikes and put together their costumes. Violet made one for Watch too—a red cape made out of felt.

  By the end of the day, Jessie announced, “We’ve made good progress. Tomorrow after we get back from the Eggleston place, we should be able to finish up.”

  “I hope so,” Henry said. “I want to stay out at the Eggleston place until we find more clues, no matter how long it takes.”

  The next morning after the big breakfast the children requested, they rode out to the Eggleston place. It felt as empty as before. There were no muddy tire tracks or footprints around the house. The food and water bowls were full, but there was no sign of the dog.

  “Let’s investigate the back of the house,” Henry said. As the children went down the porch steps, the strange loud moaning noise came from the swamp again. This time the moaning sounded almost like a howl.

  “Let’s go!” Benny cried. “I don’t like that noise.”

  “It might be a hurt animal,” Henry said. “We should go look. What if it’s the big dog?”

  “What if it isn’t the dog?” Benny said. “We don’t know what lives in that swamp.”

  “I’ll stay here with you if you don’t want to go, Benny,” Jessie told him. “But someone needs to find out what is making that noise.”

  Benny thought for a moment and then took Jessie’s hand. “We’ll all go,” he said.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Real Albert

  It didn’t take long for the Aldens to find the source of the sound. A short distance into the swamp they came upon an old fence. Pieces of wire had fallen off of it and lay tangled on the ground. The shaggy dog was trapped in a section of wire, his long fur snagged in several places. A piece was wrapped around one of his front legs. The children could see where the wire had cut into his leg.

  The dog quieted down when he saw them, putting his head down on his front paws.

  “He looks scared,” Benny said.

  “Poor dog!” Soo Lee said. “We have to help him.”

  “Let me see if I can get him free. We don’t want to scare him by crowding around,” Jessie said.

  “Yes, we should be careful,” Henry added. “Hurt animals don’t always realize when you are trying to help them.”

  Jessie approached the dog slowly. When she was about two feet away, she held out her hand. The dog thumped its tail so she moved a little closer, still holding out her hand. The dog sniffed it and then thumped its tail again. Jessie reached out and petted it gently on the head.

  It took several minutes for Jessie to free the dog, but when she did the dog jumped up and bounded around, barking happily. He leaped up on Soo Lee, nearly knocking her over as he licked her face. She laughed and hugged him.

  “He likes you, Soo Lee,” Benny said.

  “We can’t just leave him here,” Violet said. “That cut might not heal on its own and it’s going to get colder and colder.”

  “We’ll have to take him to a vet, but I don’t know how we will get him back to town,” Soo Lee said.

  “I’ll call Joe,” Henry said. He took his cell phone out of his pocket. “He can bring their van.”

  Joe arrived in just a few minutes. He approached the dog as carefully as Jessie had. Once he was sure the animal wasn’t scared of him, he said, “Henry was right. This is a big dog. I bet he weighs eighty or ninety pounds.” Kneeling down, Joe petted the dog. “He seems like a nice fellow though. Let’s see if he’ll get in the van.”

/>   Joe walked over to the van and opened the side door. The dog jumped right in. Joe laughed. “Okay, I guess we know he likes car rides. Everybody else, hop in.”

  “What about our bikes?” Jessie asked.

  “Leave them here and we’ll come back and get them later. They should be fine,” Joe replied.

  The vet was a young woman named Dr. Mendoza. She had curly hair and a big smile, but when she saw the dog’s tangled coat with bits of mud and leaves in it, her smile turned to a frown. “Where has he been?” she asked.

  Henry explained the dog had been tangled in fence wire.

  “Let’s look him over,” Dr. Mendoza said. “He’s so big I don’t need to put him on the examination table.” She ran her hands over his back and sides and looked at his teeth and in his ears. “He’s a fairly healthy weight and I don’t see any serious injuries. We’ll do a few tests just to make sure, but he should be fine. My assistant will give him a bath and then you can pick him up in a few hours.”

  “He’s not ours,” Joe said. “I don’t know where we’d take him if we picked him up.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” Dr. Mendoza said as she got out a handheld scanner. “Let me see if he has a identification microchip in him. If he does, that will tell us who owns him.” She held the scanner over the back of the dog’s neck. It beeped. “He has a chip. Let me type his ID number into the identification registry and see what information we can get.”

  The vet went over to a laptop sitting on a counter and typed in the number. “His name is Albert and he’s four years old,” she announced.

  “Albert! That’s funny,” Benny said. “A dog named Albert was at a house where a man named Albert Hund is supposed to live.”

  “That is strange,” Jessie said. She looked over at Henry. He nodded in agreement.

  Dr. Mendoza shook her head and chuckled. “I’ve heard about the mystery candidate for mayor. Someone may be playing a strange trick. ‘Hund’ is the German word for hound. Albert Hund may really be Albert the otterhound.”

  “The dog is running for mayor?” Violet asked.

  “I don’t know how he could. A dog couldn’t fill out the paperwork to run for mayor,” Henry said. “What about the owners? Does the chip give their name and address?”

  “It gives a name and a phone number.” Dr. Mendoza took her cell phone out of her pocket. “The dog belongs to a Mr. Robert Clay,” she told them.

  “I don’t know anyone by that name,” Joe said.

  “I’ll call him,” Dr. Mendoza said. She punched in the numbers and waited. Once someone answered, she explained she had Albert. She listened, occasionally saying “I see,” and “yes, I can.” After a few minutes of conversation the vet shut off her phone.

  “What did they say?” Soo Lee asked. She was bobbing up and down with impatience.

  “Albert ran away a month ago from a town about ten miles from here,” Dr. Mendoza said. “The Clays had just taken him in after his previous owner moved away and left him behind. They were trying to be nice but didn’t really want a dog. And now they need to move to New York City. They definitely won’t have enough room for him there. They’ve asked if I could find him a home.”

  “If the Clays don’t live in Appleville, they wouldn’t have any reason to make Albert into a candidate for mayor,” Henry said. “It must be someone else.”

  “But who?” Jessie asked.

  “I have no idea,” Dr. Mendoza said. “I’ll leave it up to you to figure it out.” She petted the dog again. “I’ll call the animal shelter to come get Albert once he’s cleaned up.”

  Soo Lee tugged on her father’s sleeve. “You said we might be able to get a dog soon. And here’s a dog that needs a home. Could we keep him?” Soo Lee asked.

  “I don’t know,” Joe said doubtfully. “He’s a very big dog. We’ll have to talk to your mother first.”

  “You should know more about this breed of dog before you make a decision,” Dr. Mendoza said. “I’m almost sure he is an unusual breed of dog called an otterhound. They are great dogs who are very friendly, but they need a lot of room and exercise. They also make a loud barking sound called baying, which is almost like a moaning noise. Some people don’t like the noise.”

  “We heard that sound,” Henry said.

  “Yes,” Benny added. “It was scary until we knew what it was. Why are they called otterhounds? He doesn’t look like an otter.”

  “They were used to help hunt otters a long time ago,” the vet explained. “Now they are just pets. They were good at hunting otters for a couple of reasons. They have what is called a double coat. I’ll show you.” She parted the fur on a place on Albert’s back. “See how the outer coat is coarse and dense, but the inner coat is soft and water resistant?”

  Soo Lee reached out and felt the fur. “It is soft!” she exclaimed.

  “And the other reason is they actually have webbed feet.” Dr. Mendoza lifted up the dog’s foot to show everyone the webbing. “I’m sure he’s a good swimmer,” she said.

  “He does seem like a nice dog,” Joe said. “Let’s call Alice.”

  Alice said if Joe and Soo Lee thought Albert was the right dog, they should bring him home. Soo Lee danced around happily at the news. Within a few hours, Albert was all clean and at Soo Lee’s house, busy playing with Watch.

  While the Aldens watched the dogs play, they explained what they knew to Alice.

  “That is the strangest thing I’ve heard in a long time,” she exclaimed. “Who would want a dog to be mayor?”

  “Who even knew about the dog?” Henry asked.

  “That’s a good question,” Jessie said. “The only people we’ve seen out at the Eggleston place are Birdie Brinkerhoff and Logan Ford. Either one of them could have been feeding the dog.”

  “When we saw Logan, he had a backpack with him,” Violet pointed out. “Maybe Logan had dog food in it.”

  Albert stopped playing and came over to lie down by Soo Lee. She smiled at the dog and said, “Or Birdie brought some dog food when she was bird-watching.”

  “Birdie was at the town hall meeting, but she left before it started,” Henry said. “She could have been waiting in the hall to turn off the lights.”

  “So could Logan,” Violet said. “We weren’t paying attention to him since he was sitting behind us. He could have gotten up and gone into the hall.”

  Watch flopped down on the floor next to Benny. “Logan wants his grandfather to win,” Benny said as he got up from his chair and flopped down next to Watch. “Why would Birdie want Alice to lose?”

  Jessie sighed. “I don’t know how to prove who signed Albert up to run for mayor. Our only other clues are small footprints and that tiny disc we found,” she said.

  “Neither Birdie or Logan are very big,” Joe said. “The footprints could belong to either one of them. But which one of them could have gotten into the bakery?”

  “We’ve never asked Mr. Eggleston if he gave anyone else a key,” Jessie said. She got up and went over to the telephone. “I’ll call him and ask.” When Mr. Eggleston answered, Jessie said, “We are still trying to solve the mystery of who made a mess in your kitchen. Does anyone else have a key to your store?” She put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear his answer.

  “No, but I do keep an extra key under the mat outside the back door. The other store owners on the street do too. We know we can ask each other to go in and check on things if one of us has to go out of town,” Mr. Eggleston replied.

  “Thank you, Mr. Eggleston. That’s all we needed to know.” Jessie hung up the phone.

  “Since Logan works at his grandfather’s store and Birdie works at the pet shop, either one of them could have known about the key,” Henry said.

  “I know who we should talk to first,” Violet said. She went over to her jacket and took the tiny black disc out. “We really need to talk to Birdie. I think I know what this is.” She explained it the rest of the Aldens as they got their coats on.

  ??
?I’ll drive you there,” Joe said. “I’d like to know the truth.”

  “We’ll both come,” Alice said.

  “We need to bring Albert along too,” Henry said.

  When they reached the store, Mr. Pawson was surprised to see so many Aldens.

  “We would like to speak to Birdie,” Jessie said. “It’s important.”

  “I’ll go get her.” Mr. Pawson headed to the storeroom.

  “Tell her Albert is here,” Violet called after him.

  Mr. Pawson went into the storeroom. He and Birdie came back out almost right away. Birdie had on a different red sweater but the same pretty bluebird pin. When Birdie saw Albert, she cried, “You found him! I’ve been so worried.”

  “Have you been feeding Albert out at the Eggleston place?” Henry asked.

  “Yes, he was very frightened when he first turned up there and wouldn’t let me get close to him. I hoped that by feeding him he’d eventually trust me. I wanted to bring him into the vet,” Birdie replied.

  “How did you know his name was Albert?” Jessie asked.

  “I’ll show you. I have to get something out of the storeroom.” Birdie hurried away, returning just a few moments later. She carried a large black letter collar in her hand. When she held it out, the Aldens could see a nameplate on it. It said ALBERT.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Birdie asked. “Did you find his owners? I’ve been looking in the lost and found sections of the local newspapers but didn’t see any listings for him.”

  “We’re going to keep him.” Soo Lee explained about the previous owners.

  “I’m so glad. He needs a home. Now I’ll just get back to work,” Birdie said.

  “Would you wait a minute, please? I think I have something of yours.” Violet reached into her coat pocket and took out the tiny black disc. “This might be from your bluebird pin. Isn’t it the bluebird’s eye?”

  CHAPTER 10

  Ready for Election Day!

  Birdie took the small bit of glass from Violet. “It is from my pin!” Birdie exclaimed. “I was so upset when I realized it was missing. Where did you find it?”