The Case of the Wilted Broccoli (11 page)

Then the bell rang dismissing everyone. Mrs. Winterson looked like she wanted to say more, then changed her mind. "Go on, I know you want to go."

"Thank you, Mrs. Winterson," Willow said. "Thanks for believing us when we came in this morning."

Mrs. Winterson nodded, and they all filed out of her office in an orderly fashion, until they reached the hallway. Then they peeled out for the schoolyard.

The decadent meals continued. On Tuesday, the lunch was turkey pot pie, mac and cheese, stuffed artichokes, and brownies for dessert. On Wednesday, Linden decided he'd try hot lunch again. There was a cheese, sausage, and bread plate, olives, and bruschetta with fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil. Dessert was gelato they made in class from fresh ingredients.
 

Late Wednesday night, as they sat around the dining room table doing homework, the phone rang. Mom answered it, and called Elon. Linden and Willow watched with surprise, as Elon didn't get many phone calls. He took it in the kitchen, and listened at first, then asked questions too quietly for Linden and Willow to overhear until he finally hung up a few minutes later.

He came into the dining room, and Linden and Willow pretended they hadn't been trying to listen in. Elon cleared his throat, and they both looked up.

"We won't be getting the Silver Dragon back. It's been confiscated as evidence by the police. They expect they'll need it until the trial is finished."

He sat down heavily in his chair, his chin resting on his hands.

"What are we going to do for the science fair?" Willow said.

They sat quietly for a moment.

"We'll just have to do a good poster," Linden said.

They started that evening, laying out the stand-up poster they'd use. They took turns drawing an intricate diagram of the quadcopter, starting with pencil, then overlaying with black marker, and coloring it in. Willow suggested they blow up the photo of the three of them with the drone they'd taken in the garage after they finished building it and before they'd taken it out to fly.
 

By Thursday, word had gotten back to Mr. Bannon that he'd forgotten it was a Japanese immersion school, and fresh sushi showed up. They had salmon
nigiri
,
onigiri
,
unagi
, and
udon
noodles. Dessert was
mochi
with red bean paste.
 

That night they put the finishing touches on their presentation and practiced what they'd say with their parents.

On Friday they had bento boxes of teriyaki chicken or salmon, pickled vegetables called
tsukimono
, rice, and dessert was fried ice cream.

And then before anyone realized it, it was Friday night, the science fair.

The cafeteria, which doubled as the auditorium, was hot and busy when they arrived back at school at six o'clock. Students and parents ran around, frantically setting up experiments. Electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen was next to an experiment to measure the voltage from a potato battery.

Basil and Atlanta's project was so immense, they'd gotten placed by themselves on the stage. The large wooden structure was fifteen feet tall, their rope swing hanging from the crossbar. Atlanta stood on a tall ladder, attaching the human-hair braid to large eye-bolts. Atlanta's dad brought a wheelbarrow in, and together Basil, Atlanta, and their parents carried sandbags onto the stage for the four corners of the structure.

The attention of the entire crowd was focused on the hive of activity around Basil and Atlanta's construction project.

"We're in the back," Willow said, holding the map of project locations in front of her. Linden and Elon followed her, Linden carrying the poster and Elon bringing a small crate of the spare parts they hadn't used in the drone. Linden stood up the poster board. Elon set out the parts with their accompanying labels, a half-dozen in all: two rotors, some wiring, an extra motor that didn't work, the transmitter.
 

They stepped back. The left-hand side of the poster was the line drawing they'd made together of the design of the Silver Dragon, showing each of the parts and its function. The right-hand side featured a printout of the photograph of them with the finished drone. The parts on the table didn't even fill the space.

They were sandwiched between kindergarteners with a baking-soda-and-vinegar volcano and second graders who'd put different foods in closed glass jars, and then left them for a month to see what would open. Every so often, they'd open a jar to give someone a sniff, and the whole area would be overcome with noxious odors.

Some kids ran by without a glance, talking about the liquid-nitrogen display down the aisle.

Willow sighed.

"I imagined we'd have the drone here, hovering above the crowd," Elon said, "picking things up, and carrying them around. It was going to be more impressive."

"If only we could have gotten it back," Linden said. "Even if we didn't fix it, at least there'd be something for people to see."

"It doesn't look like much," Willow agreed. "Let's go see Basil and Atlanta's project."

There was a thick cluster of kids surrounding the swing structure.

Basil stood on a chair to be seen over the crowd. He picked up an orange traffic cone and shouted into the thin end to amplify his voice. "Ride the world's first human hair swing. Feel the incredible strength. Braided from the hair of one thousand cheerleaders. Step right up. The line forms on the right. Come on now, don't be shy."

The crowd shuffled to the right, leaving a clear line of sight between Willow and Atlanta.

"Cool!" Willow said. "Can I have a turn?"

Atlanta beamed. "It's awesome isn't it? Basil -- let Willow and her brothers go."

Basil nodded and bowed toward them with a gracious wave of his hand. "Ladies and germs first."

Willow sat down, grasping the rope on either side of her. It was coarse, with little strands poking out here and there. She could see brown hair, blonde hair, bits of black hair, even purple, blue, and pink streaks here and there. "Are you sure this can hold me?"

"We tested it with me, Atlanta, and my mom and dad at the same time, and my dad was even holding Bermuda." Bermuda was their great dane. "All together we weighed over six hundred pounds, and we jumped up and down."
 

Basil gave Willow a big push and she flew up into the air. With each additional push, she went higher and higher, until she was nearly horizontal to the ground. A big smile spread across her face as the wind blew through her hair. Then Basil slowed her down after just a couple of swings. "Sorry, but there's a lot of people waiting."

"No problem," she said. "That was awesome!
Arigatou gozaimasu
." Thank you.

"
Dou itashi mashite
," you're welcome, he replied, bowing his head. "Next!" he called, and Elon ran up.

Willow wandered back toward her exhibit. Still no one came to see what they'd done. Most of the kids were up at the hair-swing. Well, it was no wonder. Atlanta did have a great idea, and Basil had done an excellent job putting most of it together while Atlanta was sick, and they deserved all the attention. Still, Willow wished their drone would have at least gotten some notice.

Elon joined her, followed by Linden, once they'd gotten their turns on the swing. Soon after, there was a squealing from the PA system as the microphone was turned on. Mrs. Winterson took the stage, glancing behind her with some alarm at the towering swing structure. "Good evening students, parents, relatives and friends. Thank you for coming to our school science fair. As you know..."

Willow tuned out the speech, and looked around. Holy cow, there was a working laser beam on the next aisle over! She decided to leave her station to go see the laser when she felt a tug on her arm.
 

She looked next to her. Linden was pointing at the stage.

The big projector screen had come down, and the projector flashed white on the screen. Principal Winterson stood to one side of the screen. "One of the science-fair projects this term was of particular importance. Some of you may have heard that we had certain problems with the cafeteria food and students were taken ill. Thanks to the deductive skills of Willow, Elon, and Linden, the mystery of the school lunches was solved. Their science-fair project was an autonomous drone." Here even Mrs. Winterson stumbled slightly over the unusual words. "They used this drone to trace the food supply chain back towards its source. In doing so, they identified criminal activities. They used their drone to record an instrumental video that led to an arrest by the police. Without further ado, I'd like to show you this video, and afterwards you may ask them any questions you like about their project."

With that, the room lights dimmed, and the video started. The video began with a short test flight of the drone. The Silver Dragon flew in their yard. It turned toward their workshop window, and for a few moments, they could see the reflection of the drone in the dark window. Then the drone zipped around the yard and their tree.

"I remember that," Linden said. "The day we had the practice flights!"

The video skipped forward to the scene of the Bannon Foods warehouse. The auditorium grew hushed as they listened to the roar of the quadcopter's four rotors as it dove into the warehouse and dropped onto the tall dry-goods stack. The video played out in its entirety, the crowd gasping at times, quiet as others, laughing as it swooped to escape toward the end. When Mr. Hutchins downed the drone with the thrown broom there were outcries of anger and booing. Then the video ended, and the room lights came back up.

"Thanks to the scientific and detective work of Willow, Elon, and Linden we once again have the local, fresh, good food we were promised," Mrs. Winterson said. "You'll find them in the back row if you have any questions. Thank you and enjoy the science fair."

With a last squeal the microphone was silenced and the crowd turned and faced them at the back of the room.
 

"I wanna see," a kid yelled, and ran toward them. Within seconds, they had a crowd surrounding them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

O
N
THE
S
ATURDAY
morning after the science fair, Willow went to Atlanta's house. The human hair swing was set up in her backyard under a covered patio.

"It's a really good swing," Willow said. "It was a brilliant project."

"Thanks," Atlanta said. "It turns out that both of our projects were big hits at the science fair."

"It's funny how things worked out." Willow kicked higher. "You had the idea, but then got too sick for most of it. My brothers and I built an amazing drone, but it was destroyed before the fair."

"Things don't always work out the way you expect. Now it's my turn on the swing."

Willow jumped off, her feet skidding across the floor. "I'm really glad you're better."

"Me, too. Thanks for fixing the school lunches."

A few weeks passed, and they heard nothing about getting their drone back. One day, Mrs. Winterson called them into the office, and told them the trial would be starting the following week. Willow, Elon, and Linden would be called as witnesses.

The trial started on a Tuesday morning. They dressed up in their best clothes and their parents took them to the courthouse. Because they were supposed to be in school, the kids testified first in the morning, then had to go back to school.
 

Miss Berry and Mrs. Winterson were gone for three days, leaving the kids puzzled over what was happening. But on Friday morning, when they entered the cafeteria, Miss Berry was back behind the counter serving breakfast.
 

"Miss Berry, what happened?"

Miss Berry looked up from the tray of orange juice boxes she was putting out. "It turned out to be exactly as Elon had said in Mr. Bannon's office." She sighed and took a breath. "When Tom Bannon's father died and Tom inherited the business, he didn't know much about operating it. He testified that he depended on Mr. Hutchins, who had worked there for many years, to explain how things worked."

"And?" Willow said.

"The state lawyer investigated and found Mr. Hutchins hadn't had much money until about eight months ago. Then during the testimony it came out that Mr. Hutchins hadn't saved for retirement. What little he had was poorly invested. He wanted to retire, but couldn't. He started skimping on some of Bannon's smaller customers, but when we gave them the school contract for local food, Mr. Hutchins saw his opportunity to make even more. He was sure Tom wouldn't know enough to figure it out."

"I knew it!" Elon said.

"He also figured that kids wouldn't appreciate expensive food," Miss Berry said. "But he knew restaurants did. So he took the local foods that were supposed to be for Mt. Hood Elementary, and sold them to restaurants, without telling Mr. Bannon. The restaurants paid a lot of money, not knowing they were getting stolen food, and Mr. Hutchins kept it all."

"Where'd he get the food for our school?" Linden asked.

"Mr. Hutchins still needed to make the deliveries to hide his crime, so he looked around for really cheap food. He found a company in California that was selling excessed foods." Here Miss Berry swallowed deep, then continued in a whisper. "Food that were supposed to be served to farm animals because it wasn't good enough for people. He bought that junk, getting weekly deliveries in the early morning when no one else was around." She went back to a normal voice. "It was much cheaper than fresh food, so Mr. Hutchins was making thousands of dollars every week. For a long while no one had noticed. Until you three figured it out. Good job."

The bell rang, and the sound of six hundred kids running for class sounded out.

"Thanks, Miss Berry," Willow said as they ran to class.

That evening at home the phone rang.
 

"I got it," Elon yelled, running for the kitchen. "Hello?"

"Hi, it's Tom Bannon," the voice said.

"Hi, Mr. Bannon." Elon wasn't sure if Mr. Bannon would be angry. Was he in trouble?