The Colorado Curveball Read online

  “He must be throwing away dirt!” Kate whispered. “That looks like the entrance to a mine! I read all about mines in the book about Colorado.” Kate liked to study up on places before she went on trips.

  “Where’s Regina and Ronan?” Mike asked.

  “They must be in the tunnel,” Kate said.

  Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!

  Kate nudged Mike. “Parker is coming back!” she said. “We’ve got to do something before we get caught!” She pointed to a closet opposite the entrance to the tunnel. “Quick, head for the closet!”

  Kate and Mike zipped across the room and ducked into their new hiding spot. Luckily, the doors opened into the closet. Mike and Kate could stay out of sight behind them, even if one of Regina’s workers reached for something inside.

  A moment later, Parker and the squeaky cart came into the room. He pushed the cart near the pile of dirt and started filling it up again. When it was full, he wheeled the cart down the hall to the dumpster.

  As Parker left, Kate glanced around the edge of the half-open closet door at all the tools near the tunnel opening: a pickax, two shovels, an assortment of chisels, a bunch of brushes with black bristles, a plastic bottle of liquid, a tape measure, and a hammer with a pointed tip. Then she looked at the entrance to the tunnel.

  “I think I figured out what they’re digging for in there,” Kate said.

  “What?” Mike asked.

  “Gold!”

  “Gold?” Mike asked.

  Kate nodded. “Yup, oro!” she said. Kate was learning Spanish and liked to practice speaking it. “Gold! Look at all this stuff. Pickaxes, chisels, shovels, and a mining entrance! Colorado is loaded with gold and silver deposits. There are old gold mines all around Denver. They must have discovered gold when they were working on the heating wires!”

  “Wow, cool,” Mike said. “Maybe we could find some, too, and get rich. If I had all the money in the world, I could pay someone to do my homework and I could drink PowerPunch all the time! I’d be the king of Cooperstown!”

  “I don’t know about that,” Kate said. “If you had all the money in the world, I think you’d be more like the giant of goofing off! But we’re not going to take any of the gold. We need to get out of here to tell security.”

  “Yes,” Mike said. “And then we can solve the second mystery! We need to figure out why someone’s threatening to do something to the scoreboard!”

  Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!

  Mike and Kate hid behind the closet door as Parker and the cart came back into the room. He pulled up the cloth from the floor and put it in the corner. Then he ducked into the tunnel.

  Kate tapped her finger on the floor. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, “and I have a theory. What if Regina sent that note?”

  “Regina?” Mike asked. “Do you think Regina or her workers are going to do something to the scoreboard, too?”

  Kate smiled. “No! That’s the whole point!” she said. “Nothing’s going to happen to the scoreboard.”

  “Then why did they send George that note?” Mike asked.

  “Because they wanted him far away from all this digging!” Kate said. “If he spent the whole game watching the scoreboard, they could keep digging without anyone figuring out what they were doing! If George had seen them throwing away dirt, he would have been curious.”

  Mike nodded. “That’s a pretty good theory,” he said.

  “We should tell security,” Kate said.

  “Let’s go,” Mike said. “As long as they’re still in the tunnel, we can sneak out the way we came in. I’ll get to the door first and open it. Make sure to close it really quietly after you go through it.”

  Kate gave him a thumbs-up.

  “It’s go time,” Mike said. He was just about to sprint for the door when he heard voices from the tunnel.

  Kate tugged on his shirt. “It’s too late,” she said. “They’re coming!”

  Mike pulled back.

  They quickly ducked behind the closet door and watched through the crack near the door’s hinges.

  The voices grew louder. A moment later, Regina, Parker, and Ronan walked through the tunnel entrance. They carried a large piece of plywood with something on it. They placed it on top of the cart and then stepped back.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Regina said. “Let’s cover it.”

  The two men grabbed a large cloth and put it over the board on the cart.

  “Perfect,” Regina said. “We’re almost there. Let’s put these tools away and get rid of the evidence.”

  Regina, Parker, and Ronan scurried around the room cleaning up. They dumped the tools into a large canvas bag, swept up the dirt, and pushed the empty bookcase back in front of the tunnel.

  “Good job! Now let’s get this to the truck and get out of here,” Regina said. She headed for the hallway door.

  “Okay,” Parker said.

  They started to head for the door, but then Ronan stopped. He pointed to the closet door. “Hang on,” he said. “Let me close that.”

  Mike and Kate pulled away from the door. “He’s coming!” Kate whispered. “What do we do?”

  Mike pushed her flat against the wall of the closet. “Shh!” he whispered. “Don’t move!” He also stood flat against the wall and held his breath.

  They heard Ronan’s footsteps as he approached the door. They even saw the brown leather work boot on his foot as he grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it shut!

  Mike and Kate stood against the wall holding their breath in complete darkness.

  They could hear the clump-clump of the man’s boots as he walked away.

  Kate exhaled. Mike let out a sigh. “Whew! That was close,” he whispered.

  “Yes, it was,” Kate said.

  They heard the door to the hallway open. A moment later, they heard it shut.

  “They’re getting away with the gold!” Mike said.

  Kate grabbed the doorknob and tried turning it.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  “It’s stuck!” Kate said.

  Mike fumbled for the doorknob in the darkness. He tried to turn it hard to the side. But it wouldn’t move.

  His hands dropped from the doorknob.

  “It’s no use,” he said. “We’re locked in!”

  Kate tried the doorknob again. It wasn’t turning at all. The blackness of the closet seemed to be closing in.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Kate said. “They’re stealing the gold!”

  Mike fumbled in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. It lit up the closet. He held it close to the door and looked at the doorknob.

  “Hey!” Kate said. “Why don’t we call George and tell him what’s going on?”

  “Great idea,” Mike said. He dialed George’s number, but nothing happened. Mike tried again but didn’t hear a ringtone. He shook his head. “It’s no use. There’s no signal. We can’t call anyone!”

  Kate sighed. “Then we’ve got to get out of here ourselves,” she said.

  “What if we break the door down?” Mike asked. “Look around for anything we can use to punch a hole in it. Then maybe we can reach out and turn the knob to open the door.”

  They scanned the closet area as Mike moved his flashlight over the shelves. They were all empty except for a screwdriver and a carton of napkins.

  “Dead end,” Kate said. “And that’s where we’ll be if we don’t find a way out. No one even knows to look for us here!”

  “There’s always a way out,” Mike said. “We just haven’t found it yet!”

  “I know,” Kate said. “It just felt like a good time to be dramatic.”

  Kate dropped to the floor and peeked under the door. She could make out the wheels of the moving cart they had seen earlier.

  Mike nudged
her foot with his sneaker. “Hey,” he said. “I have an idea.”

  Kate popped up and moved away from the door.

  “I saw my dad do this once when he painted my bedroom door,” Mike said. “Maybe it will work here.”

  Mike grabbed the screwdriver from the shelf and put the blade against the top hinge of the door. Then he pushed at the thick metal pin that held the hinge together. It slid up about two inches. Mike reached up, pulled it out, and showed it to Kate. It was about four inches long and looked like a thick nail.

  “The pins hold the two hinge plates together,” Mike said. “They allow the door to swing open. If we can get the other one out, we can pull the door down!”

  Mike went back to work on the bottom hinge. A moment later, he popped the pin out.

  “Got it!” he said. He dropped both pins on the floor. “Now give me a hand.”

  Kate stood near the doorknob so she could lift that side of the door up. Mike stepped over to the hinge side and used the screwdriver to pry the side of the door off the hinges.

  The right side of the door dropped slightly, but Mike caught it and pulled backward. Light flooded the closet. Kate grabbed the doorknob. The door came out of the frame. Mike and Kate lifted the door and set it down against the wall outside the closet.

  The doorway was completely open!

  They were free!

  “Good job!” Kate said.

  She gave Mike a high five, and then they stepped into the room. It was empty. The cart loaded with gold was gone. Regina and her workers were nowhere to be seen.

  “We don’t have much time,” Mike said. “Let’s get out of here and warn George.”

  “No,” Kate said. “That would take too long. They’ll be gone by the time we talk with George. Our only hope is to stop them in the parking lot! I think there’s an exit at the end of the hallway, near the dumpster.”

  Kate and Mike ran out the door and down the hall. They passed the trash can where they’d hidden earlier and rushed for the door marked EXIT. On the way, they passed rooms marked UMPIRES, MASCOT, and STORAGE.

  Kate pushed open the exit door, and they bounded into bright mountain sunshine.

  They skidded to a stop and looked around as their eyes adjusted. In front of them was an employee parking area, filled with cars and trucks. There was no sign of Regina or the workers.

  “There’s the gold!” Mike said. He pointed to a cart with a tarp, standing against the wall to their left. “They must be getting their truck. We still have time!”

  “But not a lot,” Kate said. “We have to stop them!”

  “We will,” Mike said. “But let’s get a quick look at what they’ve found. I’ve never seen a real gold nugget before.” He stepped over to the cart and lifted up a corner of the cloth. He held it high, and then started pulling it back.

  “Hey!” Mike said. “There’s no gold here!”

  “That’s impossible!” Kate said. “We heard them digging. They had all those excavating tools.”

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what they were looking for!” he said.

  Kate ran over to the cart.

  A bunch of white and brown objects lay on the wood. Kate’s eyes lit up.

  “Hey, they weren’t digging for gold,” Kate said. “They were digging for dinosaurs!”

  “They’re stealing dinosaur bones?” Mike asked.

  “Yes, that’s it!” Kate said.

  Mike leaned over and picked up a large bone. It looked like an arm bone. “But why steal some old bones?” he asked. “Do you think they run a museum?”

  “Because they can be worth a lot of money,” Kate said. “Sue, the T. rex that was discovered in South Dakota, sold for over eight million dollars!”

  Mike let out a low whistle. “Wow,” he said. “Maybe I should take one or two of these, then.”

  “Not unless you want to get arrested,” Kate said.

  Mike put the bone down. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I think I’ll leave them right here!”

  “Good idea,” Kate said. She took out her phone and snapped pictures of the dinosaur bones. Then she covered up the bones and pulled Mike over to the door.

  “You stay here and watch for them,” Kate said. “I’ll go get security. If they return, you need to try to stop them somehow!”

  Mike flexed his muscles. “I can do that!” he said. He made a show of inhaling deeply through his nose. “All this fresh mountain air gives me superstrength!”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t know about that,” she said. “But maybe save your strength to keep them from leaving with those bones!”

  Kate tugged the door open and disappeared back inside the stadium. Mike tucked his hands into his pants pockets and stepped off to the side so he wouldn’t be seen. In the background, he could hear the announcer for the game call out the names of the batters as they stepped up to the plate. A few minutes later, he heard a roar go up from the crowd.

  “Another run for the Rockies!” the announcer boomed. “Now they’re ahead by three!”

  “Woo-hoo!” Mike said softly as he looked around for a TV screen. But instead of finding one, he spotted Regina and her crew driving up for the bones in a pickup truck! He glanced at the door. There was no sign of Kate or security yet.

  He stepped behind a pillar. The truck stopped in front of the cart. Parker and Ronan hopped out of the truck and walked around to the back. Parker clicked the tailgate open and lowered it. Regina stepped out and inspected the back of the vehicle.

  “We have to be careful loading our cargo in so it doesn’t get damaged,” she said. She directed the men to spread out a stack of blankets piled in the back. They took their time, carefully covering the bed of the pickup.

  Mike glanced at the door again, but with no sign of Kate, he started to sneak over to the pickup truck. “Maybe I can let the air out of their tires while they’re loading the truck,” he said quietly to himself. Mike headed for the outside front of their truck, where they wouldn’t see him. But before he could get there, the door to the stadium exploded open.

  ROARRRRRRRR!

  A purple dinosaur charged out of the stadium and straight for Regina and the pickup truck! Parker and Ronan jumped back. Regina ducked behind the side of the truck.

  The dinosaur spun to its left and made slashing motions with its giant purple hands.

  But when Mike looked more closely, something was strange. The dinosaur didn’t seem to have a body! It was all head, hands, and big white feet. It also looked awfully short for a dinosaur.

  What’s going on? Mike thought.

  The dinosaur twirled around and gave Mike a thumbs-up.

  It was Kate!

  A smile spread across Mike’s face. He gave Kate a thumbs-up back and then dropped down near the front tire of the truck and started to let air out.

  PFFFFFT!

  Mike popped up as air started leaking out.

  “You dummies!” Regina yelled to Parker and Ronan. “It’s just a kid! Let’s get our stuff and get out of here.”

  As Regina’s workers tried to grab the cart and pull, Kate took hold of the other side. But her dinosaur gloves were too slippery, and Parker and Ronan easily tugged the cart away from her.

  Kate dropped the gloves, pulled off Dinger’s head, and stepped out of the big white dinosaur feet. She ran between the cart and truck and said, “We’re not going to let you take things that don’t belong to you! You can’t just steal a multimillion-dollar dinosaur skeleton!”

  “Wrong!” Regina said. “We are stealing a multimillion-dollar skeleton, and you’re not going to stop us!”

  Parker and Ronan simply stepped around Kate to load the skeleton into the back of the pickup truck. Mike jumped in and tried to help Kate, but Parker and Ronan brushed both of them off. When the two workers finished, they covered t
he bones with a heavy tarp and hopped into the truck.

  Mike and Kate tugged at their door, but Parker had locked it.

  Regina slammed the driver’s-side door shut and revved the engine. As she started to drive forward, the truck pulled sharply to the left because of the tire that Mike had flattened. Regina punched the brakes.

  “Got ya!” Mike yelled. He gave Kate a high five. “We stopped them!”

  Regina jumped out of the truck and looked at the tire. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We caught you!” Mike called. “I guess we let the air out of your plan!”

  Before Regina could respond, the doors to the stadium flew open again.

  Three security guards ran into the parking lot and toward the truck.

  “Don’t move!” the guard in front said. “Nobody steals dinosaurs from the Rockies!”

  Before Regina, Ronan, and Parker could escape, the security guards rushed over and rounded them up. One security guard stayed behind to guard the dinosaur bones in the truck, while the other two led the three criminals back into the Rockies’ stadium.

  As the door closed, the security guard nodded to Mike and Kate. “George and the security chief said to tell you to meet them at George’s office after the game,” she said. “They want to go over what happened today.”

  “Sure,” Kate said. “No problem!”

  The announcer’s voice boomed in the background as another player stepped up to bat.

  Mike turned to Kate. “If we hurry, we can catch the end of the game,” he said. “But what about that?” He pointed to Dinger’s head lying on the ground, and the dinosaur hands and feet nearby. “Shouldn’t we return it? And where did you get it from, anyway?”

  Kate smiled and walked over to the costume. “When I ran into the building, I went to the nearest security phone I could find,” she said. “They said they’d send some guards right down. But I was worried that Regina and her crew would get away, so I was trying to think of ways to delay them. When I passed a room labeled MASCOT, it gave me an idea. Luckily it wasn’t locked, and there was an extra Dinger costume on the shelf!”