When the dinner bell rang at lunchtime, they didn’t really want to stop. But they washed their hands at the pump and headed into the kitchen, where the grown-ups were already eating.
“You three young’uns have been mighty busy,” Grandpa said as he helped himself to the chicken and noodles.
“What’s all that pounding and rattling going on in the barn?” asked Zack’s dad.
“We’re working on a machine,” said Zack.
“What kind of a machine is that?” asked Grandma.
“We’ll show you when we’re done,” said Josie.
“Can we keep it there in the barn while we’re working on it?” Zack asked.
“You can keep it there for the summer, but once cold weather sets in, we’ll be parking our car in there at night,” Grandpa said. “And while you’re working around out there, keep an eye out for a gold watch chain, because mine has disappeared.”
“Oh, Ned! Did you lose that?” said Grandma.
Zack and Josie looked at each other.
“What’s a watch chain?” asked Matthew, taking another roll from the bread basket the minute he’d finished his first one.
“Oh, Zack’s granddaddy likes old-timey things, and it used to belong to his own father,” Grandma explained. “Back then men had round watches that slipped into a pocket and were attached by a little chain. Ned always carried his around in his overalls.”
“Then the chain came off the watch, and the next thing I knew, it was gone. Probably lost it somewhere out in the field,” said Grandpa.
“Just like my silver earring.” Grandma sighed. “The little things you like the most are the ones that disappear.”
When Zack and Matthew and Josie went back to the barn, all Josie wanted to talk about was the burglar.
“That’s two things stolen from your grandparents’ house, Zack, and two things stolen from mine!” she exclaimed. “I thought maybe the burglar just took one thing from every house and moved on, but I guess not. He’s back, and he’ll probably come again.”
“Do you suppose he comes at night?” Zack asked.
“He’s got to!” said Josie. “If he came during the day, someone would see him. Mom’s almost always home unless she comes over here to visit. It would be hard to miss a stranger walking around a farmyard.”
“When do you think the machine will be ready to fire?” asked Matthew.
“I’m not sure. We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Zack told him.
“Then can I come again next week?” Matthew asked.
“Sure, if you’re not too scared of the turkey,” Zack teased.
When Matthew pulled out his package of gum again, he offered a stick to both Josie and Zack.
Now that the top of the long rain gutter was high on a post, the problem was what to do with the other end of it. Zack knew he could set the pie tin and water balloon on the barn floor, of course, but once the ball reached the ground, the show was over. They needed things to happen at different levels all the way down, so he and his friends went back to the machine shack to look for something as high as their heads.
The only thing they could find was a skinny six-drawer dresser, warped by rain, with a broken foot that made it lean to one side. There wasn’t much in the drawers—just a couple of coat hangers and some old paint-stained shirts belonging to Gramps. The boys took out all the drawers so they could carry it more easily, and with Matthew and Josie holding one end and Zack holding the other, they got it inside the barn and standing at the end of the dangling rain gutter.
Matthew was still panting. “Now what?” he asked.
“Now we figure out a way to set up the pie tin and water balloon on top of the dresser,” Zack told him.
This wasn’t too difficult. Once again, Matthew took the gum out of his mouth and used it to hold the pie tin in place. Zack donated his gum to keep the balloon from bobbing away.
Josie was already climbing the stepladder. “Can we try it?” she asked.
“Fire away,” said Zack.
Rattle, rattle, rattle went the ball as it fell through one section of rain gutter, then the next and the next. On the dresser top, it shot out the curved end of the rain gutter, slammed into the pie tin, and the next thing they knew, there was a loud SPLOPP! as the balloon burst, water sprayed all over the place, and the ball dropped down onto the dirt floor.
The three kids cheered.
“Not bad for a first try!” said Zack, giving Matthew and Josie high fives.
Maybe they wouldn’t be able to point their machine in any direction they wanted, but this was a start.
* * *
Fourteen
* * *
MATTHEW AT NIGHT
Now we need something about as high as our shoulders for the next level,” said Zack. He and Matthew went back to the machine shack while Josie headed to the porch to fill another water balloon.
All the while, Zack’s hand was in his pocket, around a fistful of rice puffs he had taken from a cereal box in the kitchen. This time he was prepared for Tailpipe when he attacked. But of course this time the turkey was nowhere in sight.
There was an old three-drawer file cabinet in one dark corner of the shack, half-covered with a canvas tarp. Josie came back in time to help them open the rusty drawers.
“Magazines!” she said. “There must be a hundred National Geographics in there.”
Armload by armload, they took out all the magazines and stacked them in the empty dresser drawers that were sitting about. Then they managed to tip the empty file cabinet onto the wagon and pull it back to the barn. They set it up at the place the croquet ball would probably land when it rolled off the top of the dresser.
“Now what?” asked Josie, turning to Zack.
But Zack was already looking through their junk pile, and he picked up a dented rectangular cake pan. He set it on the file cabinet, half on, half off, and his friends knew right away what he was thinking.
“I’ll drop the ball this time,” said Matthew, with a grin, and he climbed to the top of the stepladder and plunked the croquet ball down the rain gutter.
Rattle, rattle, rattle it went again, with another loud SPLOPP! as the second water balloon burst, and then a BANG! as the ball rolled off the leaning dresser top, hit the part of the pan that hung over the edge of the file cabinet, and sent both pan and ball to the ground.
“Wow!” cried Zack. Their second success of the day!
“Boy genius!” Matthew said, slapping him on the back. “Way to go!”
The only thing they could find in the shack that was waist high was the old treadle sewing machine. It didn’t run by electricity, but by a person moving the big wide pedal up and down with her feet.
It was too heavy to carry far, so—just as they had done with the file cabinet—the boys tipped it over onto the wagon and pulled it to the barn. Zack didn’t know yet what they would do with a sewing machine, but he figured they had done pretty well for their first day of working together. Now they were getting tired, and Josie had to go home.
“Next Saturday then?” she asked. “We’ll think about something the ball can do next?”
“Yeah, something that makes a huge noise,” said Matthew.
“I’ll work on it,” said Zack.
When Zack and his dad stayed overnight at the farm, they slept in the two small bedrooms at the top of the stairs. The roof slanted down, so that in both bedrooms, the ceiling was high on one side of the room and low on the other.
Zack and Matthew took the bedroom with the twin beds. Because Matthew was the guest, Zack let him sleep in the bed on the high ceiling side so he wouldn’t bump his head if he sat up quickly during the night. Zack got into his bed first and told Matthew to turn out the light when he was ready.
But Matthew just sat on the edge of his bed in his Spider-Man pajamas and looked around. First he said his leg itched. Then he said he wanted to read awhile, maybe, and then he was too warm.
The next time Zack looked over, Ma
tthew was holding something in his hands. Something wrapped up in a pair of underwear.
“Uh . . . Zack?” Matthew said. “Can I tell you something?”
“Okay,” said Zack.
“I sort of have to have a night-light on when I sleep. That all right with you?”
Zack tried to think what a night-light was. He seemed to remember a teddy bear night-light when he was three.
“Sure. Whatever,” Zack said.
“Thanks.” Matthew unfolded the underwear and took out a little football nightlight. He plugged it in the wall socket, then turned off the ceiling light. The small football glowed orange in the dark room.
“Good night,” said Zack.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” said Matthew. “Promise you won’t tell Josie.”
“I promise,” Zack said.
It had been a busy day, and Zack was really tired. He felt himself falling asleep almost as soon as he rolled over, the pillow soft against his cheek.
He didn’t know how long he had slept, but suddenly he heard the floor creak, then creak again. And then he imagined that someone was standing beside his bed, looking down at him in the dark.
* * *
Fifteen
* * *
IN THE MOONLIGHT
Zack opened one eye, then the other. Somebody was standing beside his bed. It was Matthew.
“Zack!” his friend whispered, tugging at his arm. “I see something.”
“What?” Zack asked, but Matthew crawled toward the window.
“Come here and look!” he said.
Zack swung his legs over the side of the bed and crouched down beside him. In the moonlight, they could just make out a pickup truck moving slowly up the lane with its lights off.
“I was just sitting here, looking out the window, when I saw this truck coming down the road out there,” Matthew whispered. “I watched it slow down when it got near your grandpa’s place, and then its lights went off and it started up the lane!”
“What time is it?” Zack asked, wide awake now.
“Twelve thirty. I couldn’t get to sleep,” Matthew said.
“Why would somebody turn off his lights before he parked?” Zack wondered aloud. “And who would be coming here in the middle of the night?”
“Exactly!” said Matthew. “Only one person: a robber. He doesn’t want his headlights flashing on anyone’s wall.”
Goose bumps broke out on Zack’s arms. Always before, he had only half believed Josie’s stories about a burglary, but now . . . Was it possible that he and Matthew could catch the burglar?
“Who owns a pickup truck around here?” asked Matthew.
“Everybody!” said Zack. “The Smiths, the Baileys, the Hendersons, the Wellses, the Morenos . . .”
The pickup crept into the clearing between the house and barn, turned around, and stopped. Nothing happened for a few seconds. It was too dark to see anything clearly, but the moonlight helped. Zack kept his eyes focused on the truck.
Finally he saw the driver’s door open, and a figure in dark pants and a hoodie sweatshirt stepped out. If the turkey figured he owned the place like Grandma said, and was trying to take the place of their old dog Trixie, where was he now that they needed him? Zack thought.
The person in the hooded sweatshirt slowly swung the door of the barn wide open without a sound and went inside.
“Oh, man!” Zack said, scrambling to his feet. “If only our machine was ready to go! Let’s get out there!”
Matthew grabbed his arm. “We’d better wake your dad!”
“There isn’t time! All we need is the license number to give to the police and they’ll arrest him. Come on!”
At that moment the hooded figure came back out. He was carrying something big in his arms and was heading toward his truck.
“Hurry!” Zack said, pulling Matthew up from the floor.
The boys softly opened the door of their room and tiptoed across the hall and down the stairs. They went out the back door without turning on a single light.
By now the intruder was climbing back into the truck. This time, the engine didn’t even turn on. The thief must have simply released the brake, for the pickup began rolling slowly down the sloping lane toward the road.
The boys ran after it barefoot, as close as they dared—staying on the grass rather than the lane for fear the driver would see them in the rearview mirror. But because the truck’s lights weren’t on, neither was the light on the license plate.
“I can’t see it!” Matthew whispered hoarsely. “It’s too dark!”
“It’s getting away!” cried Zack.
Just as the pickup turned onto the main road, the engine started, the lights came on, and the boys scrambled up the bank, trying hard to read the license number as the truck sped away. Zack could make out the letters XPA and maybe the number five, but he wasn’t sure.
“What was it?” he asked, turning to Matthew. “Did you see it?”
“X something. XP? I didn’t get any numbers at all, did you?”
“I think it was XPA and maybe a five, but I couldn’t see the rest. Dang it!” Zack cried. “Now we know for sure there’s a robber, but we don’t even know what he took!”
He let out his breath and punched himself on the arm. “You were right. I should have tried to wake up Dad, but he wouldn’t have got out here in time.” Zack rubbed one bare foot where he’d stepped on a stone. A prickly weed was stuck to his pajama leg, and he pulled it off before starting back to the house.
“Well, if his license plate did begin with XPA and a five, that’s a start,” said Matthew.
But Zack was miserable. “Who knows what the guy took? Next time he could load up a cow, driving up in the dark like that!”
“Next time we’ll be ready!” said Matthew.
But it was hard for Zack to sleep after that. Did Matthew really think that the robber only came on weekends? That he’d only come when the boys were there? That he’d even come back at all. How could they tell Josie that they had actually seen the burglar drive up to the barn, load something into his truck, and drive off without even trying to stop him? Without even waking his dad?
“Arrrggghhh!” Zack moaned, and turned his face to the wall.
* * *
Sixteen
* * *
XPA 5
You boys are unusually quiet,” Grandma said at breakfast.
“Must have worn themselves out yesterday,” Zack’s dad said as he handed Matthew a plate of bacon. “We’ve got to leave early today, boys, after I help Gramps do a few things. Got some work to do at home.”
“I’m going to send along some of my cinnamon rolls for your mom and Emilene,” Grandma told Zack. She winked. “And I tucked in a few extra for you and Matthew.”
Zack managed a smile. He was almost glad they were leaving. He didn’t want to face Josie after what had happened. He hung around the table after breakfast in case Dad and Gramps might talk about anything they’d found missing. But Grandpa had milked the cows, then he and Zack’s dad had replaced some shingles on the roof. If something big had been taken from the barn, Zack thought, surely it would have been discovered missing by now.
He and Matthew checked on their machine, of course, but everything was there, just as they had left it. So they did some chores for Grandma, and then it was time to go.
“Good-bye, Gram. See you next week,” Zack said.
“I’m coming too, if it’s okay,” said Matthew.
“Of course,” said Grandma. “Long as you two boys don’t get into mischief, you’re welcome to come along.”
Zack’s mind was on the burglar, not the turkey, and both boys got pecked as they climbed into the truck, Tailpipe almost climbing in after them. Next time, Zack told himself as he slammed the truck door, he’d be armed with Cheerios when he came to Grandpa’s. Every time he forgot, it seemed, he got pecked. When he was watching for the gobbler, the old tom was somewhere else.
“Dad,” he said as
they drove along the highway, “how many cars have the same three letters on their license plates?”
“No idea,” said Dad. “Thousands? There are different license plates for each state, you know.”
“How about the same three letters of the alphabet and the same next number? Like . . . oh . . . XPA five or something?” asked Matthew.
Dad shook his head. “You’d have to ask someone else. I’m not an expert on license plates. Why?”
“Just wondering,” said Zack. “I mean, if somebody saw an accident and remembered only a few of the letters or numbers, would it help or not?”
“I suppose anything at all might help. Narrow it down a little, anyway. That’s one reason I keep a pencil there in my glove compartment. I wouldn’t trust my memory to remember a license plate if I saw an accident, so I’d write it down.”
It was a pretty awful week. Zack felt sure that any day his grandmother would call and say, “Zack, tell your father that we discovered our lawn mower is missing,” or “Zack, do you have any idea where our wheelbarrow could be?”
“What makes you so moody?” Emilene asked him when she found him out on the back steps, his head buried in his arms.
“Just thinking,” said Zack, and raised his head.
“About what?” said Emilene.
“About going to jail,” said Zack. “I know that a person could go to jail if he helped rob a bank, but if he just saw someone rob a bank and didn’t say anything, do you suppose they could put him in jail for that?”
“No,” said Emilene, “because if he didn’t say anything, nobody would ever know. Right?” And then she said, “If I make a banana split, will you eat half?”
It was the nicest thing Emilene had said to him all week, so Zack said yes. And he really did feel better when he scooped up a spoonful of chocolate syrup and butterscotch together and put it in his mouth.