Read The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys Online

Authors: Christopher Helwink

Tags: #family, #lesson plans, #no foul language, #action adventure childrens book, #fifth grade first grade fourth grade friendly junior high kid combat kids, #no violence rainy day, #safe for kids schools, #second grade spy kids teachers, #third grade young adult

The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys (4 page)

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys
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The Playground was definitely coming into the
shape Kid Combat wanted it in. As Samantha entered Hallway 2, she
started down the newly finished corridor. The shiny silver walls
reflected the light from the overhead fixtures into Samantha’s
eyes. She blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted from the darkness of
RD1 to the brightness of Hallway 2.

She walked by Gears’s empty workshop and
proceeded directly to Kid Combat’s room. The door was open a crack,
and she pushed it gently. There, she saw Kid Combat sitting at his
desk and staring at his computer screen. She didn’t even get a foot
into the room and didn’t have a chance to speak.

“You’re late. I had you leaving the museum
over an hour ago, and it’s only a twenty-minute trip, tops,” Kid
said as he tapped his computer screen. He sounded more like a
parent disciplining his child than a concerned friend.

“Yeah, well, I took the long way here, just
in case I was being followed. I didn’t exactly have a smooth exit,
you know,” Samantha answered in an equally terse tone. She entered
the room and took a chair in front of Kid’s desk. She gave Kid a
look of frustration and waited for more of his verbal concerns.

“We lost your locator device and your radio
is out. We’ve been worried,” Kid said back.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you about
the radio,” Samantha said. She took it out of her pocket and
jiggled it around. The radio sounded like a handful of marbles
smacking around in a glass jar. You could tell by the sounds that
it was making that the radio was trashed, probably from the
fall.

“Seems fine to me,” Samantha added
sarcastically. Kid, for the first time that night, allowed himself
to smile. The tension in the room quickly evaporated, and the two
friends shared a small laugh. It didn’t last long as Samantha’s
face went from relieved to concerned in the blink of an eye.
Focusing back on the mission, Samantha filled Kid in on the
details.

 

 

 

 

“Kid, I’m afraid the rumors are true. Spring
Road Toys is in trouble. I overheard the curator talking to two
boys. They’re planning something. I can tell.”

“So I heard,” Kid said. He looked over
Samantha’s shoulder. Behind her, Gears and Roller entered the room.
They came in, both with their heads down, unable to look at
Samantha. They were intimidated by her and what she might do to
them because of the rover’s failure. Samantha turned in her chair
and greeted them just as heatedly as they thought she would.

“What the heck happened back there?” Samantha
asked harshly, still shaken from the misadventure.

“I, I don’t know, Sam. I’m sorry,” Gears
mustered. “The rover just wouldn’t respond. I checked it ten times
today alone. Everything was working fine. I don’t know what else to
say.”

“I have some blame in this as well,” Roller
said. “I checked it with him, Sam, really. I don’t know what to
say.”

“Let’s just make sure it doesn’t happen
again, all right guys?” Samantha said harshly. Kid tried to bring
the focus back on the mission.

“What does a museum want with a small toy
store?” Kid asked as he shut down his computer.

“They want to expand the museum,” Samantha
said turning back to Kid. “The toy store is in their way. They
already have most of the stores surrounding it bought up and are
ready to go. It seems that Spring Road Toys is one of the last
ones. They want to demolish all of the stores and make room for
their new wing.” Samantha paused and looked down at the ground,
very upset with herself. “I had it all on film. Only …”

“Only?” Kid questioned.

“Only I lost the camera. I was tackled. It
slid out of my hand. There was nothing I could do,” Samantha
pleaded.

Filled with disappointment, Kid sat back. It
seemed this mission was a huge failure. First the rover failed,
even after his two top engineers looked it up and down. Samantha
was nearly caught, and now it seemed they had absolutely no
evidence.

“Can’t you remember what they look like?” Kid
asked a little bit sarcastically. Samantha looked up at Kid with a
glare in her eyes. She was not in the mood tonight.

“I took the pictures so I wouldn’t have to
remember!” she said in frustration. Kid sensed her tension and
backed off.

“Yes. Well, don’t worry Sam. We’ll think of
something. Besides, they’ll slip up,” Samantha, still agitated,
didn’t agree with Kid’s sentiment.

“Really? And how do you know that Kid
Combat?” She said in a nasty tone.

“They always do, Sam. They always do.”

 

 

Chapter Three:

Meet the Thompsons

9:00 am

 

 

The next morning was Friday. As usual, summer
vacation days were full of baseball games in Maple Forest. The boys
would gather there before lunch and prepare the field and pick
teams for the day. They would then sit with their new team in a
circle, eat lunch, and strategize for the day’s games. Meanwhile,
the girls would be out walking around the park and talking about
different gossip. They would also eat lunch, in their own circles,
and talk about the boys.

Before today’s games were supposed to begin,
though, the members of SOCKs decided to swing by Spring Road Toys
to see if there were any clues to what Alfred E. Scott was
planning. From the small amount of intel that Samantha was able to
get yesterday, the kids feared that something, sooner rather than
later, was going to happen to their favorite shop.

Kid walked with Samantha over to Gears’s
house where he and the twins were waiting. The five friends then
walked the distance of little over a mile to Spring Road Toys. It
was a bright and sunny day in Elmcrest. The kids talked briefly
about the case, and even more so about the games that were going to
be played that day. They rounded the corner of Madison Street and
headed for the intersection of Spring Road.

As they walked down the street, they passed
by Lincoln Elementary. The small, brown brick building was quiet
during the summer. It almost resembled a ghost town. A few kids
played on the playground in front of the school.

“I’m not looking forward to going back there
in a couple of weeks,” exclaimed Wedge as the group walked
past.

“One more year, guys,” Kid stated. “Then we
move to junior high.”

“Yeah, and start all over,” Rocket said very
pessimistically, almost under his breath.

“Don’t worry, ’lil brother. I’ll look after
ya,” Wedge said to Rocket. He then wrestled his little brother to
the ground. Rocket’s legs flailed in every direction trying to
break free. He didn’t. “If anyone tries to do this to ya, I’ll give
him one of these! And one of those!” Wedge continued, throwing fake
punches into the air. The group shared a laugh at Rocket’s expense
and Wedge finally let his little brother up.

“Thanks. Can’t wait,” Rocket said as he
dusted himself off. The members of SOCKs continued to walk by their
school, making their way to Spring Road. They hooked a left and
headed straight for Spring Road Toys.

The journey concluded as they walked past the
Science Museum—the same one Samantha had escaped from last night.
She almost glared at the building as she walked by it. Kid noticed
her tension.

“Close one last night, eh?” he said to
her.

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Samantha replied.
Her glare heightened. “I’m going to stop them, Kid, if it’s the
last thing I do.”

The group of friends continued to a light
brown brick building. Two stories tall and long enough to hold four
shopping stores, the building was covered in a green ivy. The ivy
had just started to bloom in June, and the brown bricks were slowly
lost to the maze of green.

Spring Road Toys had a little sign hanging by
two rusted old chains that held the three-piece board sign. Each
one of the three boards held one word of the title “Spring Road
Toys.” The boards were painted white, while the words were painted
in blue.

Kid Combat was the first to enter Spring Road
Toys. He was followed by Samantha and then the boys. Kid pushed
open the screen door and held it open for his friends.

Spring Road Toys on a Friday morning was
always busy. Children stopped by throughout the day to pick up
supplies for the weekend. They purchased kites, candy, and other
items by the gross. Spring Road Toys was known for the “little
things” that the other big department stores didn’t carry. You
wouldn’t find the latest and greatest toys here, but you would the
hard-to-find items. You would also find Mr. and Mrs. Thompson here.
They were the owners and only employees of Spring Road Toys. They
were both elderly, in their early sixties, and they were very kind
to the children and treated them as equals. Maybe that’s why so
many kids came here. As soon as the five friends entered the door,
they were greeted with warm welcomes from Mrs. Thompson.

“Hello there, children, so nice to see you
all again.”

“Hey, Mrs. Thompson,” the twins rang out in
unison. They gave a quick wave and were quickly lost in the comic
section. Gears headed right for the magazine rack, looking for the
latest PC magazine. Kid and Samantha were on the case, though, and
walked directly up to the Thompsons and questioned them about the
museum and Alfred E. Scott.

“No, no. We haven’t had any problems with him
that I can remember,” answered Mrs. Thompson. “Besides his
inquiries about if we were going to sell our store to the museum or
not.”

“Are you?” rang out Samantha, faster than she
wanted to.

“Oh, heavens no, my dear,” Mrs. Thompson said
with a small chuckle. “We would never leave this place. It’s been
our home for many years.”

Mr. Thompson was hard at work behind his
wife, but you could tell he was not as optimistic. He shuffled some
dolls back and forth on the shelf and grunted as he worked.

“We have reason to believe that Mr. Scott is
planning something against you,” Kyle said to Mrs. Thompson. He
questioned her carefully as not to tip off he was Kid Combat, but
just a kid curious about his favorite toy store.

“Like what, my child? We know the other
businesses on this street have already agreed to sell their land to
the museum. We know that we are the only ones stopping that
progress, but I can’t just bear to sell this place. I would miss it
too much,” Mrs. Thompson responded.

“You be careful. We don’t want anything
happening to you,” Samantha said, her anger for the museum starting
to show.

“Oh, don’t worry. We will be just fine. We’ve
survived worse than this, haven’t we, Charlie?” Mrs. Thompson said
to her husband. Mr. Thompson just grunted and walked out from
behind the counter. He proceeded into the back stockroom to get
more toys for the shelves.

“After all, Kyle,” Mrs. Thompson said. “If
something were to go wrong, I’m sure Kid Combat would do something
to protect us.”

There was a pause, and then Kyle shot a
glance over to Samantha. She looked back at him with a nonchalant
look on her face. Kyle was always a bit more paranoid when an
outsider mentioned Kid Combat around him. He always felt they knew
something. Maybe they knew he was Kid Combat. Kyle then turned his
head toward the back room. Mr. Thompson stood in the doorway. He
too looked up from what he was doing and looked right at Kyle.

The two exchanged a glance. Mr. Thompson
finally looked away and disappeared back into the darkness. His
wife, not sensing any of the tension that just happened, managed to
change the subject.

“Now, enough of this talk. What can I get
you?” she asked of Kyle.

Kyle let out a little smirk, shaking his
tension. “Well, is my new slingshot airplane in yet?”

Kyle had ordered the plane a few weeks ago,
and it was due in any time now. The slingshot planes were a hot
commodity around Spring Road Toys. The small planes, about six
inches long and four inches wide, were made of plastic. They came
in a variety of colors—red, green, black, and white—but they could
be special ordered in blue or gold. Kyle was the first one to order
the blue plane and was excited to show it off to his friends. The
planes came with a launcher that looked similar to a slingshot. The
boys would head off to Maple Forest, shoot the planes up into the
sky, and watch them fly.

“I’ll have to check in the back. I’ll be
right back,” Mrs. Thompson replied, and she headed toward the rear
of the store.

 

 

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys
13.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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