CHAPTER NINE
Tramp through Terror
I packed quickly for our road trip, taking only the essentials, like a change of clothes, and three pairs of socks. Oh, and the usual sundries: a comb, small bottle of hand sanitizer, shampoo, first aid kit, soap, and a flashlight. I also crammed Zeke Bartholomew: Superspy into my bag, just in case I got time to read. After I was done, I tossed my bed together and tugged on a pair of jeans and a shimmering skull T-shirt. Then I ran a brush through my long, tangled, blond hair and pulled it into a ponytail. Downstairs in the kitchen, I found my mom at the wobbly wooden table ringed by chairs, slurping coffee as she thumbed through The Covert Times. The room was small, and morning sunshine streamed through …show more content…
“But . . . this, my friend, is way cooler.” He rolled up his dress shirt sleeves while riffling through his duffel bag, throwing camping gear, bug spray, binoculars, matches, and some other whatnots on the ground with reckless abandon. As soon as he’d finished “displaying his provisions,” he punched Seth on the shoulder and said, “Hey, buddy, help me pick this stuff up.” Just then, Jack pulled up in a dirt-colored Thunderbird with the huge, shiny, chrome wheels. He jumped out and thumped the door handles, which was the only way to open them, and we climbed in. Jack thought the Thunderbird was a collectible piece from a bygone era. He’d bought it from Twist’s uncle for a dollar and had dumped all kinds of dough into the gem—or so he said—an antique whose ripe scent even the new-car air freshener couldn’t mask. The seats were duct-taped so that the springs wouldn’t pop out and snap you in the …show more content…
On the banks, gold, orange, and blood-red poppies drooped like pasty butterflies in the afternoon sun. Then we cut between the shaggy vines, where a few pickers were plucking bushels of green and purple grapes. Jacob told me there should be at least a hundred people in the fields and numerous trucks transporting the grapes they picked to the pressing houses. “But look. There are less than a dozen pickers and only one truck.” I watched the workers harvest the berries from clusters and couldn’t think of anything to say, but Seth tried. “The Dead Wood Detective Agency is on the case, and I can assure you we’ll have this mystery cracked wide open in no time.” Jacob nodded. “That’s cool.” “Hey, what’d you think about the cryptic note?” I asked. “I guess it helps to know Ryan was taken. Still, we really don’t know what happened. Who nabbed him? Or why?” “I wish Seth could’ve deciphered more of the words.” Jacob coaxed his horse onto the road. Our horses followed. “Maybe the missing terms were clues.” His expression was hard to read, however I wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. “What do you mean?” “Everyone has a certain way of arranging their words, and sometimes you can figure out who’s writing what, simply by examining the expressions they
Tramp through Terror
I packed quickly for our road trip, taking only the essentials, like a change of clothes, and three pairs of socks. Oh, and the usual sundries: a comb, small bottle of hand sanitizer, shampoo, first aid kit, soap, and a flashlight. I also crammed Zeke Bartholomew: Superspy into my bag, just in case I got time to read. After I was done, I tossed my bed together and tugged on a pair of jeans and a shimmering skull T-shirt. Then I ran a brush through my long, tangled, blond hair and pulled it into a ponytail. Downstairs in the kitchen, I found my mom at the wobbly wooden table ringed by chairs, slurping coffee as she thumbed through The Covert Times. The room was small, and morning sunshine streamed through …show more content…
“But . . . this, my friend, is way cooler.” He rolled up his dress shirt sleeves while riffling through his duffel bag, throwing camping gear, bug spray, binoculars, matches, and some other whatnots on the ground with reckless abandon. As soon as he’d finished “displaying his provisions,” he punched Seth on the shoulder and said, “Hey, buddy, help me pick this stuff up.” Just then, Jack pulled up in a dirt-colored Thunderbird with the huge, shiny, chrome wheels. He jumped out and thumped the door handles, which was the only way to open them, and we climbed in. Jack thought the Thunderbird was a collectible piece from a bygone era. He’d bought it from Twist’s uncle for a dollar and had dumped all kinds of dough into the gem—or so he said—an antique whose ripe scent even the new-car air freshener couldn’t mask. The seats were duct-taped so that the springs wouldn’t pop out and snap you in the …show more content…
On the banks, gold, orange, and blood-red poppies drooped like pasty butterflies in the afternoon sun. Then we cut between the shaggy vines, where a few pickers were plucking bushels of green and purple grapes. Jacob told me there should be at least a hundred people in the fields and numerous trucks transporting the grapes they picked to the pressing houses. “But look. There are less than a dozen pickers and only one truck.” I watched the workers harvest the berries from clusters and couldn’t think of anything to say, but Seth tried. “The Dead Wood Detective Agency is on the case, and I can assure you we’ll have this mystery cracked wide open in no time.” Jacob nodded. “That’s cool.” “Hey, what’d you think about the cryptic note?” I asked. “I guess it helps to know Ryan was taken. Still, we really don’t know what happened. Who nabbed him? Or why?” “I wish Seth could’ve deciphered more of the words.” Jacob coaxed his horse onto the road. Our horses followed. “Maybe the missing terms were clues.” His expression was hard to read, however I wondered if he knew more than he was letting on. “What do you mean?” “Everyone has a certain way of arranging their words, and sometimes you can figure out who’s writing what, simply by examining the expressions they