Riley Mack Stirs Up More Trouble

“But wouldn’t it make the cows sick?”

  “Not on its own,” Ms. Kaminski said. “Melamine is essentially nontoxic. But combined with cyanuric acid . . .”

  “KA-BOOM!” said Ron. “Mix the two, and the concoction causes crystals to form in urine, which can create kidney stones that lead to acute renal failure and death.”

  “Any other symptoms?” asked Riley. He was afraid he and Mongo might have contaminated themselves just by touching the leaky sack of pancake powder.

  “Well, let’s see,” said Ron. “Vomiting. Lack of appetite. Sluggishness. Frequent urination and increased water intake. So, if your dog is spending all day at the water bowl . . .”

  “But,” said Riley, “this isn’t dog food. It’s pancake mix. Why would anybody want to put extra nitrogen in pancakes?”

  “To fool food inspectors into thinking it was high in protein,” explained Ms. Kaminski.

  “The same reason a Chinese company put melamine and cyanuric acid in baby formula,” said Ron. “See, they could add the cheap chemicals and some even cheaper water and maintain the protein level while reducing the actual milk contents. Less milk in the milk powder meant more money in their pockets.”

  Riley suddenly realized what was going on. “The label on the bag where we found the powder, it said ‘Protein-Power Pancake Mix.’”

  “There you go,” said Ron. “Somebody was attempting to run the same scam. They made it look like their product was packed with protein when, in fact, it was just loaded down with nitrogen.”

  “Because,” said Ms. Kaminski, “the tests for protein content in food typically measure nitrogen levels, not actual protein.”

  “This is horrible,” said Riley.

  “Totally,” said Ron.

  “Where exactly did you find this pancake powder, Riley?” asked Ms. Kaminski.

  He showed the science teacher and chemist a printout of the image Jake’s underground radar had recorded during its scan of the sand trap.

  “These shadows suggest bags piled on top of bags,” said Ms. Kaminski. “Like you’d see in a warehouse.”

  “Do you know who made the pancake mix?” asked Ron.

  “A company called Mobile Meal Manufacturing. There was a flag on the bag, too.”

  Ron turned to his computer. Clacked the keyboard. “Okay. Here we go: Mobile Meal Manufacturing is a subsidiary of Xylodyne Dynamics. Somebody probably found out about the elevated nitrogen in the pancake powder and decided they’d better bury the evidence.”

  “Why didn’t they just burn it or something?” Ms. Kaminski wondered out loud.

  “That’d be a pretty huge bonfire,” said Ron as he turned back to his computer screen. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” said Riley.

  “This would explain that American flag you saw on the bag. According to their website, Mobile Meal Manufacturing is ‘devoted to feeding our troops a little taste of home no matter how far from home duty may call.’ They made this Protein-Power Pancake Mix for the United States military.”

  Riley remembered something else that was printed on the bag’s label:

  For Dining Facility Use Only.

  Dining facility was the new term for what the army used to call the mess hall.

  “They sold this poison to the army?” Riley mumbled in disbelief. “Ms. Kaminski?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you take me home?”

  “Well, sure, but don’t you think we need to—”

  “I need to call my dad. It’s urgent.”

  “You can use my phone,” said Ron.

  “Not really. I have to do a video link over the internet. He’s a soldier. Over in Afghanistan.”

  “Oh, my,” said Ms. Kaminski. “Do you think he ate some of these poisoned pancakes?”

  “I sure hope not. But I’m pretty sure some of his soldiers did!”

  38

  RILEY RACED THROUGH THE FRONT door.

  “Hi, hon,” said his mom. “Where you going in such a rush?”

  “Um, just up to my room. I want to make sure my shirt isn’t too wrinkled. For tonight.”

  “Well, if it is, bring it down and I’ll iron it later. I have to run off to the hair salon with my coupon!”

  “Have fun!”

  “I always have fun when everything is free.” His mom twirled her car keys on her finger. “Remember: we’re leaving for the country club at six.”

  “I’ll be ready. Hey, maybe you should go get that mani-pedi, too.”

  His mom looked at her fingernails. “Ooh. You’re right. Okay, I’ll be out for a couple hours. Can you stay out of trouble while I’m gone?”

  “I can try.”

  That made his mom smile. “See you later, Riley.”

  “Later.”

  As soon as she was out the door, Riley raced up the steps to the second floor. He couldn’t tell his mother what was going on. Not until his dad said it was okay. He had promised to keep her “out of the loop on all things Paxton.” This bombshell would definitely ruin her big night at the country club.

  He dashed into his room. Flipped open his laptop. It was 1:30 p.m., which meant that it was 10 p.m. in Afghanistan.

  “Be there,” Riley muttered as the computer made its transcontinental connection. “Be there!”

  The video box opened.

  “Good evening Mr. Mack.”

  It was Sergeant Lorincz.

  “Hello, Sergeant. Is my dad available?”

  “Negative.”

  “It’s kind of urgent—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Mack, but—”

  “Hey, did any of your guys, the ones you said are sick, did any of them eat pancakes in the mess hall?”

  “Pancakes?”

  “Yes, sir. Made with Protein-Power Pancake Mix from a company called Mobile Meal Manufacturing?”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Sergeant Lorincz. “Whenever we hit a base with a proper dining facility, a lot of the men go for hot grub like pancakes in the morning. Sure beats the MREs we eat in the field.”

  “Can you talk to the cooks or something? Find out what sort of mix they use when they make pancakes?”

  The sergeant had an extremely quizzical look on his face.

  “Sir, we found something. Something bad. See, we live near the headquarters for Xylodyne Dynamics and they own Mobile Meal Manufacturing and they’ve been putting bad junk in their pancake powder to fake out the food inspectors on the protein level.”

  “Come again?”

  “This could be what’s making your men sick. The symptoms you described, they’re what would happen if you ate melamine and cyanuric acid.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s what the Chinese did with that baby formula that got recalled, remember?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “So, maybe you and my dad could just make sure none of your guys have been exposed to . . .”

  Sergeant Lorincz was shaking his head. “I’m afraid your father won’t be able to help us out on this one, Riley. About an hour ago, some MPs took him to Bagram Airfield. He’s being detained.”

  “What?”

  “They think your father made our men sick by engaging in what some desk jockey is calling ‘risky humanitarian activities.’”

  Riley remembered his dad telling him how he and his troops were visiting hospitals and teaching the locals how to play baseball.

  “We visited several schools and hospitals over the past six months,” the sergeant continued. “Spent time with the locals. Earned their trust. Now, the brass says that, by encouraging these efforts, your father recklessly exposed his troops to germs and disease.”

  “They think my dad made all those soldiers sick?”

  “Roger that. They’re conducting a hearing. First thing tomorrow. Oh-seven-hundred hours.”

  “Is it a court martial?”

  “No. It’s an inquiry. But, Riley?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “They’re holding your father in the brig overnight.”


  Riley swallowed hard.

  He didn’t need Jamal to tell him what brig meant.

  It was the army word for jail.

  39

  RILEY CALLED HIS WHOLE CREW together for an emergency meeting at the Pizza Palace about “Operation Flapjack.”

  The five of them were seated in their regular booth near the back. Since it was 3:00 p.m., the lunch rush was over. That meant they could talk freely without anyone overhearing their conversation.

  “I cannot believe the horriblelocity of this situation!” said Briana after Riley had filled his friends in on what was going on over in Afghanistan. “It just keeps getting worse and worse.”

  “And worse,” added Mongo.

  “What’re we gonna do, Riley Mack?” asked Jamal. “Reassess, reevaluate, and revise?”

  Riley shook his head. “No. We stick with the original plan. We have Larry and Curly dig up the evidence under the ninth hole during the talent show.”

  “And then we hit them with the portable floodlights,” said Jake.

  “Which I drag from behind the construction trailer,” said Mongo, “and haul out to the fairway.”

  “Making sure you aim the lights at the ninth hole,” added Riley.

  “Right.”

  “But you don’t turn them on until nine thirty p.m.”

  “Right. Does anybody have a watch I can borrow?”

  Riley peeled his off his wrist. “Take mine. I’ll use my cell phone. Timing is crucial on this one, guys. There is an eight-and-a-half–hour time difference between Fairview and Afghanistan. My dad’s hearing starts at seven a.m. over there, which is . . .”

  “Ten thirty p.m. here,” said Jake, because he did math quicker than anyone at the table.

  Riley turned to Briana. “You’ll be backstage at the talent show.”

  “Right. I guess. Unless I go on last.”

  Riley shook his head. “You won’t. Sara Paxton will.”

  “How come?”

  “We need to make sure Mr. Paxton and his distinguished guests from the EPA and Pentagon don’t skip out early.”

  “Cool.”

  “Once Mongo flips the switch on the spotlights . . .”

  “I cause a commotion! I scream and, clutching both hands over my heart, shout, ‘Look, everybody! They’re digging up the golf course!’”

  “I run to the window,” said Jamal. “And say, ‘She’s right! They’re digging up the golf course!’”

  “And then,” said Briana, “we both peer out the window and say something like, ‘Is that poisoned army food? It looks like they’re digging up poisoned army food!’”

  “Which,” said Jamal, “ticks off the army general. So, he goes running outside.”

  “Then,” said Briana, “I win the talent show scholarship while the bad guys all go to jail for the rest of their lives and pay a bazillion dollars in EPA fines to clean up the creek.” She turned to Riley and smiled. “That’s basically the gist of it, right?”

  “More or less,” said Riley. “But we have to add in a new layer.”

  “Oooh. I love layers!”

  “Jake? Can you hook me up with some kind of wireless video camera and then feed its video stream into an internet teleconference?”

  “Sure,” said Jake. “We’ll borrow my dad’s helmet cam. It has microwave picture transmission. I’ll wire the receiver into your laptop via the USB port.”

  “Your father has a helmet cam?” said Jamal.

  “Yeah. He bought it to record his downhill runs when he goes skiing. If, you know, he ever decides to go skiing.”

  “Excellent,” said Riley. “Sergeant Lorincz is arranging things at the other end. We link up over the internet and feed the hearing all the evidence as it is being revealed and have General Clarke officially corroborate it. Briana?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When’s dress rehearsal for the talent show?”

  “In like an hour. Four o’clock. Then I have to get into my granny makeup. . . .”

  Riley shook his head. “No you don’t. Go with the ‘Hallelujah’ song from Shrek. We want you to win the scholarship.”

  All the guys were nodding in agreement.

  “But,” said Briana, “we told Mr. Paxton—”

  “Mr. Paxton isn’t one of the judges. Besides, by the end of the competition, he’ll be the one in jail instead of my dad.”

  “Okay,” said Briana. “That’ll make things a little easier.”

  “Good. Now, at the dress rehearsal, I need you to do some heavy-duty acting. I want Sara and that bunch to think we’re having a huge fight.”

  “Um, okay. But why?”

  “So they’ll listen to me when I tell her how she can beat you.”

  Briana’s eyes became sad and moist. “You’re on her side? I can’t believe this, Riley.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “After all we’ve been through?”

  Riley felt terrible. “No, Bree. It’s just a scam. I need Sara to go last and to add something to her act.”

  Briana sobbed.

  “I promise,” said Riley. “I’m not really rooting for her to—”

  “Psyche!” said Briana, smiling brightly. “Fooled you. I wasn’t really crying, I was acting!” She pulled her hand down in front of her face and bowed her head like she was taking a curtain call.

  “Wow,” said Mongo, dabbing at his eyes with the back of his fist. “That was fake?”

  “Yep.”

  “Fooled me. I thought my heart was gonna break.”

  “Me, too,” said Jake.

  “Not me, Bree,” said Jamal, leaning back in the booth confidently. “See, I knew it was a sham.”

  “You did?” Briana grimaced and wriggled her lips as she struggled not to cry. “My tears were that phony? Maybe we need to find somebody else to do this . . .”

  “No, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, Briana. Don’t cry. I think you’re a terrific actress and—”

  “Psyche!” Briana fluttered her eyes and smiled.

  “Dag. You are good, girl.”

  “I know. So, Riley—what do you want to add to Sara’s act?”

  “Some photographs and video clips.”

  “You’re making her a video?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t have a video for my song.”

  “You don’t want this one. It’ll be full of interviews Sergeant Lorincz will, hopefully, be sending us ASAP. Video clips of the cooks from some of the dining facilities where my father’s troops ate the tainted pancakes this year. They’ll testify how they fed the guys Protein-Power Pancakes from Mobile Meals Manufacturing.”

  “And the photographs?”

  “Oh, I’m not exactly sure what they’ll show. Maybe bulldozers digging up the golf course. Maybe dump trucks loaded down with black garbage bags.”

  “Maybe? Maybe? You don’t know?”

  “Nope. Not until Jamal and I sneak into the president’s office at the country club.”

  Mongo raised his hand. “Why are you guys going to do that?”

  Riley grinned slyly. “So we can grab Mr. Sowicky’s camera out of Mr. Paxton’s desk.”

  40

  WAITERS WERE PLACING SILVERWARE, GLASSES, and napkins folded into swan shapes on the cloth-covered tables in the Cranbrook Ballroom as the All-School All-Stars arrived for their final rehearsal.

  Riley, Jake, Jamal, and Briana stood on the elevated stage, set up right in front of the ballroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Mongo was off on a “reconnaissance mission” to make sure the diesel-powered portable floodlight tower was still parked near the construction crew’s trailer.

  “This is fabtastic!” whispered Briana as she checked out the view of the golf course through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the stage. “You can totally see the ninth hole!”

  “I know,” said Riley.

  “Hey, Jake?” cried Mr. Holtz from the back of the room. He was carrying a milk crate full of black cables and had a painfully puzzled look
on his face. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Holtz,” said Jake.

  “These microphone cords are all in a jumble and the mixer board is new and a bunch of these kids are singing to videos and . . . ah, it’s a mess.”

  Riley gave Jake a knowing nod.

  “On my way,” said Jake, tucking his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie.

  “Stick with Jake,” Riley said to Jamal. “See what gear they’ve got that we might be able to use.”

  “On it,” said Jamal. “Yo, Jake. Wait up, bro.”

  As the two guys headed back to help Mr. Holtz, the lobby doors swung open. Sara, Brooke, and Kaylie—all three of them wearing sunglasses and pink feather boas—swept into the ballroom. An entourage of four adults bustled in behind them.

  “We’ll do hair and makeup at six,” Sara barked over her shoulder.

  “Yes, Ms. Paxton,” said one of her grown-up flunkies.

  Riley checked out a guy in Sara’s crew and pegged him to be her accompanist because he was hugging a stack of sheet music against his chest. That meant Sara hadn’t totally decided on what she and the Star-Spangled Starlettes were going to sing in the show.

  Perfect, thought Riley.

  One woman in the entourage sort of walked like a stork. She clapped her hands together briskly and, in a clipped German accent, said, “Time to limber up, girls. We do the flap, ball, change, ja? And five, six, seven, eight . . .”

  “Oh, give it a rest, Helga,” whined Sara. “The walk from the parking lot wore me out.”

  Helga had to be the choreographer Mr. Paxton had told them about. The Broadway choreographer.

  “You ready?” Riley whispered to Briana.

  “Ready.”

  “Briana!” Riley exploded. “Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “Because you’re wrong, Riley! I don’t want to go on last.”

  “Last is best. You’ll be the big finish!”

  “Yeah—I’ll be totally finished if I sing that stupid song you suggested!”

  Smiling, Sara wafted ever so gracefully toward the stage as pink feathers fluttered from her fluffy scarf. Her backup singers and entourage trailed behind her.

  “Stupid?” Riley fumed. “Stupid? You’re stupid.”

  “You’re right. I am stupid for ever having listened to you. Get out of my life, Riley Mack!”