The Colorado Curveball Read online

  Signed, the REAL ROCKIES

  Mike let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said. “That doesn’t sound good. What are you doing about it?”

  George shook his head. “We’ve told the police, and they’re watching the stadium. I’ll be near the scoreboard for all the games this week,” he said. “But now I’m worried about the humidor and the baseballs.” He scratched his head.

  Kate nudged Mike. “Maybe we can help,” she said. “We’re good at solving mysteries. You watch the scoreboard, and we can keep an eye on the humidor.”

  George glanced at Mr. Hopkins, who nodded. “They are good at mysteries,” he said.

  George smiled. “Okay,” he said. “That’ll help me out a lot. I’ll let Donna, the guard, know you’ll be down to keep an eye on things.” He looked at his watch. Then he handed Kate a business card. “I have to go get ready for the game, but here’s my phone number. Call me if anything comes up.”

  “Thanks,” Kate said. “We’ll check the humidor and hallway every couple of innings once the game starts.”

  George slipped the last box of balls back onto the shelf and stepped outside. Once everyone left, he locked the door to the humidor.

  George led them down the hallway. He waved as he passed the field heating system room that Mike and Kate had spotted earlier. “Oh, hi, Regina!” he called to one of the construction workers inside.

  A curly-haired woman wearing blue coveralls waved back.

  “That’s the control room for the forty-five miles of heating wire we have under the field,” George said to Mike and Kate. “Regina and her team have been here for weeks making sure it’s working for opening day.”

  When they reached the end of the hallway, George spoke to the security guard. Then he turned to Mike and Kate. “Call me if you see anything,” he said. “Thanks for the help!” George turned and headed off to check on the scoreboard.

  “And I’ve got a few things I need to do, too,” Mr. Hopkins said. “I’ll meet up with you after the game.”

  Kate gave her dad a hug, and he headed off to do his work. It was getting closer to game time, and Mike and Kate could hear thousands of fans pouring in for opening day. Mike and Kate walked back up to the main walkway. The sun was out. The field was now bright green grass with no hint of snow. Players tossed baseballs to each other, and some ran sprints. Crowds of fans, still in winter jackets, filled the seats.

  “Hey, look at that,” Mike said. He pointed to small piles of snow that had been pushed into the edge of the warning track next to the field. “This field is perfect for a special play today. Do you know what play I hope we see?”

  Kate studied the snow and then shook her head. “Um, no…,” she said.

  “A snow-cone catch!” Mike said. “That’s when the fielder catches the baseball way up near the top of the webbing, and the upper part of it pokes out of the glove like the shaved ice at the top of a snow cone!”

  Mike jumped up and pretended to snag a baseball out of thin air. “Got it!” he said. Then he stuck his tongue out and licked an imaginary snow cone. “Mmm, mmm! Cherry!” he said with a smile. He rubbed his belly. “That was good. Let’s go find our seats so we can wait for an amazing play!”

  Kate and Mike wound through the stadium until they reached their seats behind the Rockies’ dugout. The stadium was almost full when the announcer came on the loudspeakers to start the pregame ceremony.

  Mike nudged Kate and pointed to the giant scoreboard in center field shaped like a mountain. “What’s up with George’s note?” he said. “Do you think someone is going to do something to the scoreboard?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “What do you think happened with the baseballs?” She took a small tube of lip balm out of her pocket and rubbed it on her lips.

  “I don’t know that, either,” Mike said. “If he’s the only one with a key, it didn’t happen from inside the room.”

  “Maybe someone stole his key ring and made a copy of the key,” Kate said. She was about to slip the lip balm back into her pocket when she stopped. “And I just thought of a way to test if someone else has a key!”

  “How?” Mike asked.

  “With this,” Kate said. She held the tube of lip balm up in front of Mike. “This is basically wax. All we have to do is put a little of it over the keyhole in the lock on the door. If someone slips a key in, the wax will be pushed into the lock. It won’t hurt anything, but we’ll be able to tell if someone else uses a key!”

  “Great idea!” Mike said.

  “We can do it after the first inning,” Kate said.

  A short time later, the Rockies took the field. Big Bill was pitching for the Rockies. He looked like an old-time train engineer, with a long flowing beard and small dark eyes. The crowd jumped to its feet and roared when Big Bill struck out the first Dodgers player.

  But Big Bill got behind in the count on the next batter. With three balls and two strikes, he threw a fastball down the middle. The Dodgers batter swung hard and nailed a long line drive toward the right-field fence. The Rockies outfielder ran as fast as he could for the warning track. The ball sailed over the base path and outfield. The fielder held his glove up high and zoomed to the edge of the outfield. The ball started to drop down just as the Rockies player crossed the warning track.

  “Oh no!” Kate said. “He’s going too fast! He’d better slow down!”

  It was too late!

  The Rockies right fielder turned to look for the ball, but he was headed straight for the wall.

  BAM!

  He smashed into it!

  The ball dropped behind the outfield wall for a home run!

  The wall shook from the force of the right fielder crashing into it.

  The player crumpled to the ground.

  The runner circled the bases and crossed home plate. Dodgers fans cheered.

  “Wow! I hope he’s all right!” Mike said. “He hit that really hard! Did you see that piece of padding fly off from the back of the wall?”

  Kate nodded. She bit her bottom lip and watched as the Rockies center fielder ran over to check on his teammate.

  A trainer ran to right field. The crowd grew silent. The trainer leaned down and said something to the player. Then he slipped his hand under the man’s back and helped him sit up. The crowd cheered.

  A moment later, the man stood. The crowd cheered some more. He waved and walked off the field with the trainer.

  Music blared over the loudspeakers. The Rockies players started tossing balls to each other until a replacement outfielder bounded out of the dugout and headed for right field.

  The music stopped. Mike watched as Big Bill stared down the next batter and waited for the catcher’s sign.

  “I’m glad he’s okay,” Mike said. “It seemed like he crashed pretty hard.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty hard,” Kate said.

  “It’s like that toy you have,” Mike said. “The one with the five steel balls in a line. You lift a ball on one side and let it clack against the ones in the middle. Then the ball on the far side swings up!”

  “That’s called a Newton’s cradle,” Kate said. She loved science. “It shows the law of conservation of momentum, or the energy in a moving body. The law says that when two things hit each other, the total momentum before and after the impact is the same.”

  “Exactly,” Mike said. “That’s what happened with the runner! When he crashed, his energy got transferred to the wall and knocked that piece off the back! Boom!” Mike pretended to catch a baseball and knocked his shoulder into Kate’s.

  “Hey, watch out!” Kate said. She pushed Mike back.

  He slumped into his seat. But then he sat up straight. “Maybe that’s how the baseballs fell to the ground,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Kate asked.

  “What if someone wasn’t inside the roo
m at all?” Mike said. “What if the balls fell from the shelf because someone bumped into the wall really hard from the room next door? A really hard bump might have knocked the boxes off the shelves to the floor. Just like your Newton’s cradle!”

  “Wow, I think you’ve got something there,” Kate said as she stood up. “We saw those construction workers in the room next door. Maybe they bumped into the wall. Let’s go check it out.”

  Kate and Mike ran up the steps to the main walkway and back to the hallway leading to the humidor. When the security guard saw them, she waved them on.

  As they ran, their footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. They stopped in front of the door marked FIELD HEATING SYSTEM, which was now closed.

  Kate held her finger up to her lips to tell Mike to be quiet. They stood and listened for a minute near the door.

  “I can bring another load to the dumpster in half an hour,” a man’s voice said. “I think we only have two more left.”

  “Let’s knock!” Mike said. He stepped up to the door and knocked. The voices stopped.

  Kate and Mike heard some scurrying inside and a sliding noise, like a table being moved.

  Kate raised her eyebrows. “Try again,” she said.

  Mike knocked again, even louder than before. He pulled his hand away and shook it. “Ouch!” he said. “Maybe that was too hard!”

  The door swung open.

  Regina, the construction worker they’d seen earlier, stood in the doorway.

  “Hello,” she said. “Are you lost?”

  “No,” Mike said. “George showed us around earlier. We’re trying to help him figure something out. I’m Mike, and this is my cousin Kate.”

  Regina looked from Mike to Kate. “Okay, well, I’m Regina,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  Kate spoke up. “We wondered if we could see what you were working on,” she said. “He said this room is where you control the heaters under the field.”

  Regina glanced over her shoulder. “Um, sure,” she said. “Come on in. But we need to get back to work soon.”

  Mike and Kate stepped into the room. Construction tools were piled near an empty bookcase on the other side of the room. In the middle of the room sat a pile of something covered in a cloth. Boxes of electrical wires were stacked in the corner. To Mike and Kate’s right, two men in blue coveralls leaned against a closet door.

  “That’s Parker and Ronan,” Regina said. The two men smiled and waved. Parker had curly hair and a Rockies baseball cap. Ronan had straight blond hair and glasses. “We’ve been doing some repairs on the heating system to make sure it will work correctly.”

  “So do you have to dig under the field to fix the wires?” Mike asked. “Imagine if you did that and dug a hole for the Dodgers’ first baseman to drop into at just the right time! You could win the game by making the other team disappear!”

  Regina laughed. “That’s a clever idea, but I think it’s against the rules,” she said. “And no, we’re not digging under the field.” She pointed to a big box mounted on the left wall. “We’ve been updating the control box all week.”

  Kate nodded.

  Mike pointed to the far end of the room at the wall that was near the humidor. “Do you mind if I look at the wall down there?”

  Regina shrugged. “Oh, sure, no problem,” she said.

  As Mike walked across the room, he stepped around some shovels and trowels lying on the floor. When he reached the far wall, he scanned it for a moment. He found what he was looking for just to his right, about waist-high.

  There was a wide black mark, like something had rubbed against the wall.

  Mike pointed to the mark. “Did something hit this recently?” he asked.

  Regina stared at Mike for a moment and then glanced at the spot. “Oh, maybe,” she said. “We were doing work here yesterday.” Regina turned to Parker and Ronan. “Do you remember anything hitting that?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Ronan said. “Yesterday morning we were moving a table and hit that spot pretty hard. But everything seemed okay. Why?”

  Kate walked over to look at the mark. “Some of the boxes of baseballs in the humidor were knocked to the floor,” she said. “If something hit here hard, it might have knocked the baseballs off the shelf!”

  “That must be it,” Regina said.

  Mike nodded. “George will be happy to know that no one broke into his humidor!” he said.

  “I’m sure he will,” Regina said. “But now that you’ve figured it out, we’d love to get back to work.”

  “Sure,” Kate said. She and Mike headed for the door. They stepped into the hallway, and Regina closed the door behind them.

  “We did it!” Mike said. “We solved the mystery of the spilled baseballs!”

  Kate glanced over her shoulder at the closed door.

  “We might have solved that mystery,” she whispered to Mike. “But I just discovered another one.”

  “Huh?” Mike asked.

  “What are Regina and her workers hiding from us?”

  “What do you mean, hiding from us?” Mike asked.

  Kate grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him down the hallway.

  When they were far enough away, Kate stopped. “Regina lied to us! She said that they were just working on the control panel and they weren’t digging under the field,” Kate said. “But there were shovels and trowels on the floor in front of the bookcase! And the sides and back of her coveralls had dirt all over them! That dirt didn’t come from the control box!”

  “Unless it controls worms!” Mike said with a smile. “But why would she lie to us? She works here. She doesn’t need to hide anything.”

  Kate poked him in the chest with her finger. “Exactly!” she said. “Something is fishy in there.”

  Mike glanced at the closed door and hallway beyond. “If that’s the case, we need to think of a way to get back in there to check things out,” he said. The hallway was basically empty. At the far end stood a large trash can. After that, the hallway turned to the right.

  “I know how to sneak back in!” Mike said. “I overheard one of Regina’s workers saying he had to bring something to the dumpster in half an hour. Follow me!”

  Mike led Kate down the hallway, past the humidor door. They stopped in front of the trash can.

  “We can spy on them from here!” Mike said. “And sneak back in when he goes to the dumpster!”

  “It’s not big enough to hide behind,” Kate said. “If someone passes by, they’ll see us!”

  Mike smiled. “We’re not spying on them from behind the trash can,” he said. “We’re spying on them from inside it!”

  Kate leaned over and gave a big sniff. “Pee-yew! That stinks! There’s garbage in there,” she said. “I’m not going to stand in a pile of garbage!”

  Mike shook his head. “We don’t have to,” he said. “Watch!” He took the red plastic top off. A black plastic bag lined the bin. Mike reached in and picked up the bag. He pushed the air out of it and tied it up tightly. Then he dropped it behind the bin.

  “All set! No more smell,” he said. “Hop in!”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’d hate to see one of your good ideas go to waste!”

  “Hey!” Mike said with a smile. “I’m just trying to clean this place up!”

  Kate climbed into the trash can. Mike grabbed the top and followed her. It was a tight squeeze, but he pulled the top back on. By lifting the flap, Mike and Kate could easily see the door to the field heating system.

  “Now we wait!” he said.

  Mike and Kate crouched, watching for someone to enter or leave the field heating system room.

  “How long?” Kate asked.

  Mike let the flap down. It was completely dark inside the trash can. “Let’s give it half an hour,” he said. “I might need to take a snack break aft
er that.”

  Kate lifted the flap. The hallway was empty and quiet.

  They waited.

  Mike fidgeted and kept moving, until Kate pointed out the TV on the wall near the corner of the hallway.

  “Cool! At least we can catch the game while we’re in here!” Mike whispered. They kept one eye on the TV and one on the door. Big Bill recovered from the home run he gave up and started striking out one batter after another, inning after inning. In the third inning, Josh Devlin from the Rockies swung at the second pitch and hit a home run.

  Mike nudged Kate. “He tied the game up!” he said. “Just one more run and the Rockies will be ahead. If Big Bill continues pitching like that, they’ll win!”

  But even though the Rockies were lighting up the ballpark, there wasn’t anything happening down below.

  Mike and Kate continued to wait.

  And wait.

  CLICK!

  Mike and Kate held their breath.

  The door to the control room opened.

  A large moving cart jerked into the hallway. It squeaked as it moved. Parker, Regina’s worker with the baseball cap, pushed it.

  “Whatever’s in there looks heavy,” Kate said.

  “I know,” Mike said.

  Squeak!

  Parker left the door open and pushed the moving cart down the hall toward the trash can. Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Kate let the flap drop, and she and Mike stayed as still as they could. Squeak! Squeak! The cart and Parker passed by them.

  The squeaking grew softer.

  Mike lifted the flap. Parker had turned the corner and pushed the cart to the end of the hall. They could hear him emptying buckets of something into the dumpster.

  “Come on, now’s our chance!” Mike said. He quietly but quickly lifted the top off the trash can. Kate climbed out and Mike followed. They ran down the hallway to the open door and stood behind it. Then they peeked into the room.

  There was a big pile of dirt on a cloth in the middle of the floor. The empty bookcase had been slid to the right to reveal a large hole in the wall. The hole seemed to lead to a tunnel under the field! They saw no sign of Regina or Ronan.