He was about to strike out for the third time in less than a month!
“Aren’t those Rockin’ Rollers amazing?” he heard Tony Peroni’s voice boom over the loudspeaker in the ballroom.
The talent show had started.
“Beautiful. I mean that, kids. Sincerely. Our next act comes from Crestwood Middle School, and wait till you see what this kid can do with a rubber duck!”
When Riley linked up with Afghanistan, he definitely needed to show his dad (not to mention everybody else in the room) a live video feed of something much more interesting than some kid squeaking out “Jingle Bells” on a tub toy or Sara Paxton singing “The Pancake Song”!
They needed a new plan. Operation Flapjack was a flop.
“Riley?” said Briana. “What are we gonna do?”
Suddenly, the answer hit him.
“We’re gonna do what we do best. Improvise.”
“Oh-kay. And how, exactly, are we going to do that?”
“I’m not sure. I need to go see what I can dig up. In the meantime—stall!”
“There’s only three more acts after the squeaky ducky, then I go on, then Sara.”
Riley nodded. He thumbed the talk button on the handy talky in his coat pocket. “Okay, everybody. We’re going to plan B.”
“Achoo-bee?”
Yes, his mom had apparently decided to use nothing but sneezes to communicate.
“I’m not sure, Mom. Stand by for updates. Mongo?”
“Yeah?”
“You all set up?”
“Yeah. But, Riley, the lights are off in the construction trailer. I don’t think those guys with the backhoe are here yet.”
“I know.”
His mom sneezed again. This time, it sounded like a sloppy, “Wha-a-at?”
“It’s a long story. Mongo, meet me at the trailer. We need to find some kind of hand tools. A shovel. A hoe.”
“Okay. I already found a bucket of golf balls.”
“Wait,” whispered Jake, “the poisoned pancake powder is buried six feet deep.”
“I’ll dig fast,” said Riley. “Mongo can help.”
“Sure I can,” said Mongo.
“You only have like twenty-some minutes, Riley,” said Jake.
“You need the backhoe, man,” whispered Jamal.
“I know. Do you know how to hotwire one?”
“Sorry. I do locks and magic tricks, not motor vehicles.”
“I-doo,” sneezed his mom.
“Mom?”
“Ah, ah—diesel?” It was amazing how many different sneezes she could come up with.
“I guess,” said Riley. “I know it’s a John Deere.”
“Screwdriver!” This she said out loud.
Riley could hear a passing waiter in the distance say, “Right away, ma’am.”
“I thought most people drank screwdrivers for breakfast.” Now smarmy Mr. Kleinman was whispering to Riley’s mom.
“Oh, they’re good anytime,” his mom whispered back. “Especially if you need to get your motor running.”
“I found a screwdriver in a toolbox,” reported Mongo.
“Great. Meet me at the backhoe. Mom? Stand by to walk me through it!”
47
RILEY GRABBED HIS BACKPACK, RACED up the hallway, slammed through the exit door, flew around the front of the country club, hopped a hedge, dodged a couple of trees, and found Mongo standing next to the big yellow backhoe proudly holding a giant screwdriver.
They had fifteen minutes to pull this off.
“Okay, Mom. I’m here.”
“Oops,” his mom said. “I dropped my napkin. Okay, Ri. I’m back under the table.”
“Cool.”
“Not really. We have a situation.”
“Now what?”
“The tap dancer who was supposed to go on before Briana got so nervous, he threw up. Briana is on now.”
Riley heard beautiful singing in the background.
“She’s good, isn’t she?”
“Fantastic. But, Riley? Even if Briana does an encore, you won’t have enough time to get out to the ninth hole and dig up the buried treasure before Sara goes on. We may lose our audience, not to mention our official witnesses!”
Riley scrunched up his face. Thought hard.
“You okay, Riley?” asked Mongo.
“Yeah.”
“’Cause your face is all scrunched up. . . .”
“Jamal?”
“Yo?”
“You got your magic tricks in your backpack?”
“Never leave home without them.”
“Okay. If Briana has to leave the stage before we’re ready for the big reveal, you jump up and start doing your act. Say you’re the upchucker’s best friend and you demand the chance to go on in his place.”
“All right,” said Jamal. “The swing is swinging into action.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“You back Jamal up. Be real mom-ish.”
“Mom-ish?”
“You know what I mean.” Riley pitched his voice up into a falsetto: “‘Give the boy a chance. It’s only fair.’”
There was a silence. For like two seconds.
“Is that what I sound like?”
“Not usually.” Riley grabbed the screwdriver from Mongo, climbed up into the backhoe, and crawled underneath the dashboard. “Okay. I’m under the ignition. I see two wires anchored to two screw posts.”
“Hold on to the screwdriver’s plastic handle and lay the metal shaft across the two connectors. It should start right up.”
“How do you know this stuff, Mom?”
“I dated your father. In Indiana.”
“Hang on. I’m gonna give it a try.”
“Hurry!”
Riley maneuvered the screwdriver into place.
He saw a couple sparks but nothing happened.
“Mom? It’s not working.”
“Try again.”
Riley did.
“Nothing.”
“You’re sure you’re making contact with both connectors?”
“Yes!”
“Mrs. Mack?”
A new voice under the table: Mr. Paxton.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Now. I was just feeling a little dizzy. Needed to put my head between my knees.”
“I see. Well, as a judge, you really should watch the show . . .”
“Okay. I’m feeling better. Here I come. Sorry.”
Riley knew that “Sorry” was for him.
He slammed the screwdriver handle down hard on the metal floor.
“Are you okay, Riley?” asked Mongo.
“No. I’m terrible.”
And then things got even worse.
A blinding flashlight snapped on.
Riley could barely make out the shadow of a man behind the beam.
“What’re you doing down there, little dude?”
48
IT WAS MR. SOWICKY!
The golf course’s former head groundskeeper. The guy Riley and his crew more or less got fired.
“You want me to take care of this guy?” asked Mongo, working his hands into fists.
Riley shook his head. “No.” He turned to Mr. Sowicky. “We found your camera. You were right. Mr. Paxton was burying something extremely toxic underneath the golf course.”
“I knew it, man.”
“We want to dig it up and show everybody. Tonight. While the EPA guy and the Pentagon general are here.”
“I know. Briana told me.”
“What?”
“I live like two minutes away. Bree texted me. Said you dudes needed help with a backhoe, but she couldn’t lay down the details because she had to go onstage and sing ‘Hallelujah.’”
“Mr. Sowicky, we need to hurry. We have maybe ten minutes to tear up the ninth hole green.”
“How come? Because it’s like brand-new and all.”
“That’s where Mr. Paxton had the landscap
ers bury all sorts of toxic chemicals and crap! So, can you help us?”
“Fer sure. Only, you can’t hotwire this particular John Deere because it has what they call an electric fuel shutoff.”
“What’s it do?” asked Mongo.
“Shuts off the fuel,” said Mr. Sowicky. “Electrically.”
“So what can we do to override the shutoff?” asked Riley.
Mr. Sowicky reached into his pocket. “Use my key. Larry and Curly asked me to hold on to their spare in case they, you know, ever dropped theirs down a sewer grate or whatever.”
Riley finally smiled. “Far out!”
Riley moved out of the way as Mr. Sowicky grabbed hold of a handrail and hauled himself up into the cab. He plopped down into the crinkled leather seat and slipped his key into the ignition. One twist, and the yellow earthmover rumbled to life. Fortunately, the applause and cheering in the ballroom was so loud, nobody heard the backhoe start up.
Unfortunately, that meant Briana had finished singing. Early.
“So, do you actually know how to operate a backhoe, Mr. Mack?”
“No. Not really.”
“Well, scrunch in there. It’s time for your first lesson.”
“Yes, sir!” Riley squeezed in behind the driver’s seat. “Mongo?”
“Yeah?”
“Toss me my backpack. I need the helmet cam.”
“You got it.”
Mongo heaved Riley’s JanSport up into the cab.
“Thanks. Stand by to hit the spotlights!”
“Good luck, guys!” Mongo took off through the trees and lumbered as fast as he could to the fairway.
Riley punched the talk button on his handy talky.
“Okay, everybody, we’re back in business and ready to rumble.”
“Ya-hooo,” sneezed his mom. Then Riley heard her say, “Come on, let Jamal do his magic act! We’re one contestant short. We have time. Then Sara can do her big finish.”
“You ready to roll, Mr. Mack?” asked Mr. Sowicky.
“Hang on. One second. I need to make sure we have cover inside the ballroom before we cruise across the fairway.”
Mr. Sowicky nodded knowingly. “I can dig it. Taking on the Man is never easy, little dude.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
In his earpiece, Riley heard his mother say, “Jamal has to go on. It’s what my husband, Colonel Richard Mack, would want.”
“You heard Mrs. Mack!” boomed General Clarke. “Let the young man go on!”
“But—” Mr. Paxton started to protest.
Mrs. Paxton jumped in to help him out. “This young man’s ‘magic’ act has not been pwopewee appwoved by ouw appwovoes committee.”
“Who cares?” barked the gruff general. “He’s a kid. He’s an American. He deserves his shot!”
“Fine!” said Mr. Paxton. “You have five minutes, young man.”
“Five minutes?” said Jamal. “You hear that, Fluffy? We need to hop to it.”
Riley heard the audience roar with laughter.
“What’d he do?” Riley asked.
From the control booth, Jake gave him a quick report. “Jamal just pulled a windup bunny rabbit out of his backpack and sent it up the center aisle.”
“Outstanding,” said Riley. “You ready to connect with Afghanistan?”
“Just give me the word and we’ll initiate the uplink.”
“Okay, Mr. Sowicky,” said Riley as more applause and laughter rocked the ballroom. “Let’s do it!”
Mr. Sowicky punched a couple of buttons on a control panel. “Hang on to something, little dude.”
The boxy backhoe lurched across the patch of gravel and dirt and crawled down a double-rutted access road to the fairway.
Dead ahead in the distance, Riley could see the humpbacked silhouette of the ninth hole. To his left, maybe a hundred yards away, he could also see the brightly lit windows of the Cranbrook Ballroom and the small, shadowy figure of Jamal sweeping across the stage.
Riley grinned.
It was time for him to do a little magic and pull some pancake powder out of the ground.
49
PRESCOTT PAXTON SAT WATCHING THE young African American boy do a card trick.
With General Clarke.
“Now, show the audience your card, but don’t let me see it, sir.”
Paxton’s face was hurting from pretending to smile.
How much longer would this chatty little fellow prattle on? So far, Jamal the Magnificent, as he called himself, had pulled a rabbit out of his backpack, flowers out of Mrs. Mack’s ears, and a bucket of gold coins out of his wife, Mrs. Paxton’s, nose.
But he’d be a good sport.
After all, the Pentagon’s chief procurement officer for Near East operations was enjoying the young man’s antics and that’s what this whole Greens for the Army Green event was really all about: a chance to hobnob with the military brass and bamboozle General Clarke into thinking he and Xylodyne Dynamics actually gave two hoots about the soldiers who consumed their products.
“Now put your card back into the deck, sir . . .”
The least Prescott Paxton could do was suffer through the final tedious moments of this interminable talent show.
His wife leaned in close and whispered in his ear: “Do something, Pwescott! That young wascal is a stage hog.”
“Nyes, dear . . .”
“Now, Pwescott, befowe it’s too wate. If that boy keeps chawming Genewa Cwawke wike this, Sawa might wose!”
“Nonsense, dear. Sara is far too talented to lose.”
“Pwescott? Do you want to be the one deawing with youw daughtew’s mewtdown when this twickstew steaws hew twophy?”
Paxton dabbed his lips with his napkin and thought about the last time Sara hadn’t gotten what she wanted. They had to repaint the living room after that little tantrum.
He needed to give this young magician the hook, pull him off the stage. Unfortunately, he couldn’t interrupt the card trick being played out with the general.
The boy made quite a production out of pulling a single card from the deck.
“Was this your card, sir? The nine of clubs?”
“Yes!” said General Clarke. “Amazing!”
“Do you like that card, sir? Is the nine of clubs your favorite card in the whole deck?”
“Yes.” The general played along.
“Then, presto-change-o, sir!” The boy tapped the squared-off cards and thumb-flicked through the entire deck to show the general and the audience that every single card had magically turned into the nine of clubs.
The audience applauded.
Mr. Paxton saw his chance.
He sprang to his feet and clapped louder than anyone in the room.
“Bravo! Well done!” He pivoted to face the back of the room. “Tony? Will you kindly introduce our final act?”
“I’m not finished,” protested the boy on the stage. “For my next trick . . .”
For whatever reason, the boy stopped talking and touched his ear, as if he had just received an incoming call on an invisible cell phone headset.
“Oh, okay,” the magician mumbled. Tucking his deck of cards into his coat pocket, he beamed at the audience and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, for my next trick, I’m gonna disappear.”
Tony Peroni strode onstage, laughing and clapping.
“Beautiful, Jamal. I love your act, love your spunk. It’s a lovefest in Tony Town. Okay, it’s time for our big finish! Time to bring on the act we’ve all been waiting to see: Sara Paxton and her Star-Spangled Starlettes singing . . .”
Peroni stared at an index card.
Looked off into the wings.
“Is this right?” he mumbled.
“Yes!” whispered Sara from the wings.
“Okay. Here it comes, folks: ‘The Pancake Song’!”
The what? thought Paxton. The last time he and his daughter had chatted, she told him she would be singing “God Bless America,” one of General Clarke’
s all-time favorites.
“About time,” Sara muttered as she and her two friends bounded onstage, dressed up in floppy hats and aprons like that Italian fellow, Chef Boyardee.
Mr. Paxton stood up to ask his daughter just what she thought she was doing. But as Sara grabbed the microphone and said, “Hit it, maestro!” he saw something even more disturbing.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the stage. The silhouette of what appeared to be a backhoe lumbering its way across the top of the newly sodded green for the ninth hole.
“What the blazes—” He tossed his napkin down on his seat. “Excuse me, everybody. I have a course-maintenance issue to contend with.”
The judges weren’t paying attention to him.
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!”
50
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.”