April Adventure (3 page)

Bradley found a dime inside the egg. “Ha, my brother is going to be so jealous!” He put the dime in his pocket and the egg in Lucy’s basket.

Lucy found egg number eight in one of the window flower boxes. Inside was a small roll of stickers. They searched everywhere else but didn’t find any more eggs.

Outside the playhouse, they heard someone yelling. Brian and Nate were running toward them from the high school. They were both shouting and waving their arms.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Bradley asked Lucy.

“I think Nate is yelling
please,”
Lucy said.

“I thought I heard my brother say
knees,”
Bradley said.

By then Brian and Nate were almost
at the playhouse. Their faces were red and their eyes were big.

“BEES!” they both screamed.

“What happened?” Bradley asked.

“Brian poked a bees’ nest!” Nate yelled. He and Brian flopped on the ground, out of breath.

“Did you get stung?” Lucy asked.

“No, we ran too fast!” Brian said.

“Did you find any eggs?” Bradley asked.

Nate grinned. “Yeah, we found two on the baseball field,” he said. He and Brian each pulled a plastic egg from their pockets. “They were on the
pitcher’s mound and home plate.”

“And they had candy kisses inside,” Brian said, rubbing his belly.

“So we’ve got ten eggs so far,” Lucy said. “But we haven’t found a real egg yet.”

Nate and Brian put their eggs into the basket with the others.

“Where haven’t we looked?” Bradley asked.

“How about over there?” Lucy asked. Not far from the playhouse were some wooden farm animals. There were ducks and chickens, cows, sheep, goats, and ponies. The animals had been painted to look real.

The four kids ran over to the make-believe farm. They looked behind the wooden animals and in the grass where they stood.

“Nothing!” Brian said.

“Wait, I see something!” Bradley
yelled. He looked inside a goat’s mouth and there was a plastic egg. “This is number eleven!” Bradley found a cookie inside the egg and ate it.

Lucy soon found another egg. It was under the hen, in its make-believe nest. Inside was a tiny plastic mirror.

The kids put the eggs in Lucy’s basket. “We have all twelve plastic eggs,” she said. “But we still don’t have the real ones.”

“I don’t know where else to look,” Bradley said.

“Maybe the eggs hatched,” Nate said, “and the little chickens ran away!”

“Talking about eggs is making me hungry,” Brian said. “Let’s go home and eat breakfast.”

The kids hiked up Eagle Lane toward Bradley and Brian’s house. The sun over the trees made them squint their eyes.

They clumped up the back steps and
walked into the kitchen. Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose were there making breakfast. A bowl of pancake batter sat on the counter. Pal sat near Josh’s feet, watching him.

“Pancakes, yum, yum!” Brian said. “I’m starving!”

Josh put his finger on his lips. “Shhh, Mom and Dad are still sleeping,” he said.

The four kids pulled off their sneakers as quietly as they could.

“Where have you guys been?” Josh went on. He looked upset.

“Searching for these!” Lucy said. She set the egg basket on the table.

“Plastic eggs?” Dink asked. “Where’d you get those?”

“You know where we found them because you hid them,” Nate said. “You left notes on our pillows!”

“Notes on your pillows?” Ruth Rose
asked. “What do you mean?”

“Inside plastic eggs!” Lucy added.

“Why would we do that?” Josh asked.

“Because you three are the Shadow!” Bradley cried. He pulled out his note. “This is printed off your computer, Josh!”

Josh laughed. “Okay, we’re busted,” he said. “We did it. So how many eggs did you find?”

“All of them,” Nate said.

Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose looked in the basket. “I only count twelve,” Dink said.

“We couldn’t find the four real ones,” Lucy said.

“Do we still get the treasure?” Brian asked.

“No way,” Josh said. “Wash your hands and let’s eat.”

The four younger kids washed up,
then pulled chairs to the table.

Soon all seven were gobbling up pancakes and drinking juice.

“So where did you hide the real eggs?” Bradley asked.

“Should we tell them?” Josh asked Dink and Ruth Rose.

The other two nodded.

“You know that sign telling people not to feed the swans?” Josh asked.

The four younger kids nodded.

“Well, the real eggs were on the ground, next to the sign,” Dink said. “You didn’t see them?”

“Nope,” Bradley said. “And I would have, because I was standing right next to the sign.”

“That’s funny,” Dink said. “I put them in the grass by the sign.”

“Maybe somebody stole them!” Brian said.

Ruth Rose grinned. “The mystery of
the Green Lawn egg thief!” she said.

“How
eggs
-citing!” Josh cracked.

“Anyone want any
eggs
-tra syrup?” Dink asked.

“There was someone else in the park,” Lucy said. “That man with the little dog.”

“Yeah, Mr. Pocket,” Nate said. “I saw him pick up something!”

“I don’t think he’d steal Easter eggs from kids,” Bradley said.

“But maybe he just saw the eggs and picked them up,” Brian said. “What did they look like, Josh?”

“We hard-boiled them, then painted them gold,” Josh said.

The seven kids looked at each other.

“Golden eggs,” Lucy said. “Anyone would grab one!”

“Hurry up,” Bradley said. “I know where Mr. Pocket lives.”

It took only a few minutes to walk to Indian Way Road, where Mr. Pocket lived. Bradley brought Pal. Pal liked to play with Randolph, Mr. Pocket’s dog.

The kids climbed up Mr. Pocket’s porch. Bradley rang the bell. They heard barking from inside. A man’s voice said, “Hush, Randolph!”

Then Pal barked, too. His big tail swung back and forth.

The door opened, and Mr. Pocket smiled at the kids. “Well, hello,” he said.
He was holding a fluffy dog in his arms. “Look, Randolph, we have company!”

Randolph wriggled to get down to play with Pal. Pal tugged on his leash to reach Randolph.

“Hi, Mr. Pocket,” Bradley said. “We were wondering if we could ask you some questions.”

Mr. Pocket raised his bushy white eyebrows. “Questions about what?” he asked.

“About missing Easter eggs!” Nate said.

“Oooh, a mystery!” Mr. Pocket said. “Come right in!”

The four kids and Pal trooped into Mr. Pocket’s living room.

Mr. Pocket set Randolph on the floor. “You can let Pal off his leash,” he told Bradley. Bradley did, and the two dogs began to wrestle.

“Please, come in the kitchen,” Mr.
Pocket said. “I have something on the stove.”

Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy followed Mr. Pocket. He walked over to the stove and stirred something in a pot. “Do you kids like spinach?” he asked.

“No!” shouted Nate and Brian.

“Yes!” shouted Bradley and Lucy.

Mr. Pocket laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you eat any,” he said. “Actually, I’m boiling dandelion greens. They taste even better than spinach.”

“You eat dandelions?” Nate asked. “My parents pull them up and throw them away. Aren’t dandelions just weeds?”

“Yes, they are weeds,” Mr. Pocket said. “But if you pick the leaves before the yellow blossoms open, they make a delicious meal. I just boil them for a few minutes, then add a little butter, salt, and pepper. Yum!”

Mr. Pocket set down his mixing spoon. “Now, what about this egg mystery?” he asked.

The kids told him how Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose hid some plastic eggs for them to find. “But they also hid four real eggs,” Bradley went on. “They painted them gold. They said that if we found
them, we would get a treasure!”

Mr. Pocket smiled. “And did you find the eggs?” he asked.

“No. They told us where they hid the eggs, but they disappeared!” Nate said.

“We remembered seeing you in the park,” Lucy added. “We wondered if you saw them.”

“No, I only saw the swans and a lot of dandelions,” Mr. Pocket said.

Randolph and Pal raced into the kitchen.

“I wonder if Randolph ate the eggs!” Brian said.

Mr. Pocket laughed. “My little dog doesn’t like eggs,” he said.

“Well, we’d better keep looking,” Bradley said. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Pocket. Sorry we disturbed you.”

“You didn’t disturb me at all,” Mr. Pocket said. “Randolph and I love visitors.”

He walked the kids to the door. “I hope you solve your mystery,” he said.

The four kids walked out onto Mr. Pocket’s porch.

“You know, I just thought of something,” Mr. Pocket said. He was looking through his screen door. “Raccoons often steal birds’ eggs to eat. I saw a family of raccoons this morning. I wonder if they took your eggs.”

“We saw them, too,” Brian said. “That’s a good idea, Mr. Pocket!”

The kids said good-bye, and Bradley put Pal back on his leash. “Let’s cut through the park and check one more time,” he said.

“Maybe we’ll see those raccoons again,” Lucy said.

“They’d better not be having eggs for breakfast!” Nate said.