1 The Clue to the Missing Diamonds


"Home, James!"

I threw my book bag across the car's back seat and slid in, making room for Terry who was right behind me.

"Yeah," she said, and shut the door after her. "Home, James!"

Denny turned his head and gave us a bored look down his nose, the way a snooty butler would, and faked one of his accents.

"Why am I AHH-L-WAYS stuck with the reef-roff?"

"You're lucky to get work!" Terry giggled. "Now step on it!"

Denny closed his eyes and tilted his head up.

"Oh well... if I must..."

Terry's older brother Dennis could get us giggling pretty easily, especially with his voices and imitations of movie characters, or just movie voices like his Snooty Butler.

Dennis was a senior at Sacred Heart High and had his own car -- an old clunker that he had to work on just about every weekend so it would keep running. He was always doing something under the hood when I visited Terry. And even though he could have had a new car if he wanted, he said he liked fixing this one up. I guess it was kind of like his hobby.

Dennis and Terry were always teasing each other, but in a friendly way. And because we've all known each other for so long, I was like part of the family which meant that I could join in too -- as long as I was ready to get teased back.

Terry and I usually rode our bikes to school, unless we could talk Denny into giving us a ride. That worked maybe once a month, when he didn't have anything else to do after school and we caught him in time before he left.

Today was one of those days.

"You haven't seen the paper yet, have you?" I asked him as he drove.

"Not yet," he said. "I just got out. Why?"

"Toby's supposed to be in it," Terry answered. "She's a hero!"

"It's supposed to be in today's paper," I explained. "About how I rescued Mr. Potter in the clay marsh."

"Hey!" Denny said. "I didn't hear about this!"

"I told you all about it!" Terry argued. "I told you last night about what happened. You just weren't listening."

"It happened the day before yesterday." I said. "A reporter and photographer from Dad's newspaper came over and talked to me and everything. They even took my picture for the article. And I'm going to get a medal from the Mayor at this big dinner at the end of the month!"

"No kidding!" Denny said. "That's great, Toby. This is all going to be in today's paper?"

"Yep!" I said. "That's what they said. My picture's going to be on the front page with the whole story. I'm going to cut it out and put it in a frame on my wall with the other story!"

I had one newspaper story on my wall already, about the time two years ago when these two guys running a jewelry story said that they were robbed but they really hid the jewels in a secret place in the wall outside their store. It had something to do with the money they got from insurance, but when I found the secret place where they had hidden the jewels, they got into really big trouble because it was against the law to do what they did.

So that was the first time I got my picture in the paper (they used my fourth grade school picture) and that's when Mr. Potter ended up being the only jeweler in Greendale and also my very best grown-up friend after my Uncle Jack.

There was this one other time I was in the newspaper too, when I got stuck and sank up to my neck in quicksand at Wood River Creek on the way home from school and had to be rescued. I still have the article, but it's not on my wall because I don’t like my fifth grade school picture. And because it’s kinda embarrassing too.

"We're going to need to get a couple more copies," Terry said. "Maybe the neighbors will let us have them when they're done."

"Dad can get us as many as we want," I said. "He'll just bring a bunch home. Jeeps... everybody in class can have one!"

Denny laughed.

"Just be sure to sign them first," he said.

I was about to ask him why that was so funny when a weird sound came out of the engine... a kind of rattling that started fast then got slower. We started slowing down.

"Harrumph!" Denny said in one of his voices. I think he was being the Mayor just then. "Looks like an unscheduled stop for the moment. Passengers please return their seats to the upright position."

The car was going really slow now, and it seemed like the engine wasn't running anymore. He steered to the curb and let it roll to a stop.

Terry looked out her window. "The curb's red, Denny..." she said.

"I knew there must have been a reason why we found a parking place so easily," he said, and started getting out. Half way out his door he turned to us and wagged a finger in the air.

"Stay."

"Woof!" Terry answered.

"Don't forget to leave the window open," I said.

"And a bowl of water, too," Terry added.

Dennis lifted the hood of his car, and that was the last we saw of him for a couple of minutes. There was a lot of banging around and we could hear him talking to the engine, calling it funny names. Terry said that sometimes he used unfunny names, but only when he didn't think anybody was around to hear him.

It wasn't very long before he shut the hood again and got back in the car. He started the engine and it sounded okay to us.

"Hmmmm..." he shook his head. "I think we'll make it home, anyway".

We were all quiet for the rest of the ride home, trying to listen for any more weird sounds.

There were no more weird sounds, and soon we turned into the Blair's driveway. They have a bunch of bushes on both sides of their porch, so I couldn't see if the paper had come yet.

As soon as the car stopped, me and Terry got out and ran up the walkway to the front door. Sure enough, the paper was there.

I grabbed it, pulled off the rubber band and opened it up.

On the top was a picture of the mayor talking (he's always in the paper somewhere, I think). There was one of those funny shaped signs behind him like the kind they have on the billboard when you first drive in to Greendale.

"Mayor Says Blah-Blah-Blah" I announced like I was reading the headline. Terry giggled.

I unfolded the paper so we could seen the bottom half.

"Diamond Theft Suspect Captured".

“Wow!” I said and waved the paper a little like Dad does. “This was just yesterday. I guess they caught the guy!”

Underneath the headline was a picture of some guy who was already handcuffed standing by a car at the side of the road with a couple of policemen standing next to him. There were a few trees by the side of the marsh and the sand factory tower way off behind them.

Terry and I stood there and read the article. It was about how the police had caught this guy late yesterday afternoon driving out of Fawnhollow Marsh and tried to stop him. But he sped up and tried to get away so they had to chase him. And once they caught him, they figured out he was one of the guys who robbed Mr. Potter's jewelry store.

"This isn’t the guy who kidnapped Mr. Potter, " I said. “I remember that guy’s face, and this guy isn’t that guy. But it says there are more of them, so that guy must still be running around out there.”

Just then Denny cleared his throat real loud behind us, like he was trying to get our attention.

"Would the rabble kindly clear a path to the front door?" he said with his snooty butler voice.

"Oops," Terry said, "I'll do it." She pulled up a chain from around her neck. There was a key hanging from it, and she used it to open the door and let us all in.

Terry and I walked through the front room and into their big kitchen. We put our book bags on the kitchen chairs and I spread out the newspaper on the dining table. “Okay, they got this guy’s picture . . . so where’s mine?”

Terry stood at the refrigerator. "What'll it be?".

"Boot rear, please".

She came back with a can of orange soda for herself and root beer for me (my favorite). I left the can unopened on the table and turned the newspaper to the second page. We both leaned on the kitchen table and looked for my picture.

There was nothing on the second or third pages, either.

"Jeeps, they musta buried it," I said, and turned the page.

Still nothing.

We turned page after page, first looking for my picture, then reading each headline. There was no mention anywhere of how I rescued Mr. Potter.

"Maybe it's in the story about the crook?" Terry asked.

We went back to the front page and read through the article. Somebody at the sand quarry saw this car near where Mr. Potter had been left. They called the police. The police came just as the car was driving from the dirt road out of the marsh onto Highway 149. They put on their lights and sirens and he sped up. Then he pulled over and they arrested him.

"Not much of a chase," Terry said.

"Hmmmm..." I said. "I wonder why he went back there?"

The story continued on the back page.

The police recognized his face from Mr. Potter's description of one of the robbers. They searched the car and found a lot of stuff, but didn't find everything that was stolen. The crook didn't want to answer any questions. They put him in jail.

"Okay, here we go..." I said.

The crook was being held on robbery charges. He's also charged with attempted murder because he was one of the guys who left the jewelry store owner (Augustus Potter) unconscious in his car while it sank into "one of the many deep clay pits of Fawnhollow Marsh".

Terry started reading out loud.

" 'If it had not been for the curiosity of junior high school student Tobia O'Keefe, the sinking car --- with the unconscious jeweler still inside -- would have vanished from sight. ' "

"Hey," I said, "It wasn't curiosity... it was deduction!. They didn't use the stuff I told the guy in the interview."

Terry kept reading.

" 'Risking her own life in a daring rescue, young O'Keefe got inside the sinking car and awoke Potter. Together they were able to escape, moments before the vehicle sank beneath the surface of the clay.'

" 'Tobia O'Keefe, daughter of Greendale Journal Editor Francis O'Keefe, will receive a medal for her heroism at the monthly Police Officers' Review Dinner held at City Hall' ".

"I told him all about how I figured out where Mr. Potter was taken and how the guy shot at him and then he pushed me into the clay and everything. They didn't say anything about any of that. This just sounds like I was off wandering around the marsh and wondering why there was a car in the middle of it!"

“Well, maybe they're saving the story for when you get your medal?" Terry asked. "And maybe your picture will be there, too?"

I just shrugged.

"Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe the mayor will just blah-blah-blah all over the newspaper and there won't be any room left to put my picture anywhere."

I stared at the paper and wondered if Dad could make them write it over again.

"Uhmmm..." Terry said. "I think you're kinda feeling sorry for yourself, y'know?"

"Maybe..."

We both read the last part of the article quietly.

Mr. Potter said there were two other people out in the marsh when he was taken there, and that they had caught one of them. He didn't get a good enough look at the other two for a description. Police are questioning the suspect for the whereabouts of the missing jewels and his accomplices.

"There's bad guys still around, and loot's still missing," I said. "That means there's still a case to be solved."

Terry looked up at me and shook her head.

"I think you should let the police do the rest."

I turned the pages of the newspaper back to the front page and looked at the picture again. The bad guy was leaning against the police car, looking down at the ground. He had a really grumpy look on his face.

"He sure looks like a crook, huh?" I said.

Terry looked at the picture with me.

"I dunno... what's a crook supposed to look like?"

"Jeeps, Terr... just like him, I guess."

There was something about the picture that was looking kind of familiar. Something about the trees and the water behind the trees.

"C'mon... we gotta do our homework," Terry said.

Terry grabbed her book bag in one hand and carried her soda in the other. I did the same and followed her out into the living room and down the hall, past Denny's room and into hers.

The Blair's have a one-floor house, but it's spread out a lot so it's about the same size as our two-floor house without the stairs.

Terry has a really nice room, and she hasn't changed it since the first grade. It's all done in light blue. She has this big tent thing over her bed called a canopy and it looks like something from a storybook. Her desk and dresser are a really nice light wood with designs and patterns and things, and there's a long shelf running along two walls where she's put all her gazillions of dolls that she's had forever.

In my room all my dolls are put away and it's just me and my bear, Mr. Jeeps, and all my gazillions of detectove adventure books (and encyclopedias, of course).

"Bed or desk?" she asked when we walked into her room.

"My turn for the bed," I said.

Terry put her books and stuff out over her desk while I slipped my shoes off and rolled on top of her big thick comforter.

"Whuya-wanna first?" she asked.

"Whuya-got?" I asked. "I'm all done 'cept for Math."

"When?" she demanded.

"Study period," I answered. "Whudya-do?"

"I was reading," she said.

"An' I bet it wasn't homework."

"Nope," she said, and held up a paperback book with a cover picture of some teenage girl standing on a hill and staring out over a forest or something with this blank look on her face that always tells you she's thinking about her boyfriend.

I wrinkled my nose. "Snore."

Terry made a face back at me and put the book back out of sight.

"Can you help me do History, anyway?" she asked.

"Sure."

I pulled out the History book from my book bag and we started going over the questions at the end of the chapter.

This year, History was about the American Revolution. Now we have books with a lot more writing and the print is smaller and all the pictures are from paintings, so you have to spend a lot more time reading.

We got through History pretty easily. It's Terry's hardest subject but it's my easiest because I like to read a lot. My hardest is Math, especially when they started putting letters in with the numbers. I need Terry's help with some of the Math homework.

She says the letters part should be easy because you figure out what they mean just like a detective would, and I say they shouldn’t have to make Math harder by turning the numbers into codes you have to figure out before you can solve the same problems you had last year.

Terry likes Math. I hate Math.

We were in the middle of the chapter exercises when I started thinking about the newspaper picture again. There was something about where they took the picture that was making me think.

I guess it's kinda easy to think about something else when you're doing Math homework.

"Terr..." I said in the middle of a bunch of X and Y stuff.

"Huh?"

"You gotta map around?"

She looked up from her workbook and stared at the wall for a second (Terry's kinda easy to distract from homework) then got up and went to her closet.

"I've got some maps for 'Jays. Whuya need?"

I bounced off her bed and walked over to the closet, looking over her shoulder. She was pulling out a map from one of the pockets of her backpack.

"Where Highway 149 goes across the North end of Sparrow Lake," I said.

She unfolded her map, and we could see most of Sparrow Lake. It was a Bluejay camping map, so all the areas and trails around the south part of the lake were there.

Everything except for the part I needed.

"It's missing the top," I said.

She shrugged. "I cut that part off. This is for our hikes and things. What do you need to see the highway for anyway?"

"I want to see something about where the road goes out of Fawnhollow Marsh."

"Is it something about that crook they caught?"

She sounded interested. I guess she was bored with Math homework, too.

"I think I've seen that place where they caught him. Can we look at the paper again?"

We walked back into the kitchen where the newspaper was still lying on the table.

I pointed to a place way behind the crook's head.

"See that tower right there? That's part of the sand quarry mining stuff, where it's all lit up at night with steam coming out. And this tree right here..." I pointed to a big tree right at the edge of the picture, "I know where that tree is, too. And it's not too far away from the road into the marsh."

Terry wrinkled her nose at the picture.

"So?"

"So . . . I dunno. I need to see a map of this place before I make up my mind about something."

Terry raised her head up so fast that she almost hit mine.

"Denny's got one up behind his door!"

"Will he let us look at it?"

"Sure!"

We ran (fast walked) out of the kitchen and down the hall. Dennis' door was open but he wasn't in his room. The rules were that we couldn't go in unless he was there and said it was okay.

"Garage, remember?" Terry said.

We ran back into the kitchen and slid on our socks most of the way to the door into the garage. Dennis was there, as he usually was, working under the hood of his car.

"Hey Denny!" I called from the kitchen door.

"Hmmmmm?" he said from somewhere in the middle of the car motor.

"Can we go into your room and look at the map on your wall?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

"Is it okay that you're not there?"

"Sure. Just don't leave any muddy footprints, okay?"

"Den-Nee!" I was so embarrassed. He laughed.

"C'mon!" Terry said, and we were off to Denny's room.

Denny's room is a lot of fun. He has movie posters all over his walls from movies that were made a long time ago. He also draws a lot, and there are framed drawings of the mechanical stuff he's done that's gotten school awards. The biggest thing in his room is a huge drawing table with this weird mechanical thing hanging over it that has something to do with when he draws the insides of machines.

My favorite drawings are his cartoons. He draws them mostly for the high school newspaper and the yearbooks, and he makes cartoon animals that look like people. He even did one for me: a mouse with glasses wearing our school uniform and holding this giant magnifying glass. It's called "Toby the Marshmouse Detective" because of that accident in the creek last year. It's on my wall next to the newspaper article.

He coulda left out the marsh part, but, like I said, I get teased right along with Terry.

Dennis did a gazillion different things, and he'd say it was because he was a "Runny Sauce Man". When I asked what that meant, he would just laugh. Terry said it was probably another one of his weird jokes that came from his school radio show. I had to ask Dad what it might mean and he said it was a person who did a lot of different things like they did back during the European Renaissance (1300 AD to 1600 AD if you have to study that this year . . . I don’t), and that “Runny Sauce” was a joke on the word Renaissance. Big mystery.

The map we were looking for was on the back of his door, so we had to close the door to see it. The map was of all of Greendale and Sparrow Lake. There were different colored pins in places on the map that must have meant something but we didn't know what. Terry said it was probably all the places his car broke down.

"Okay," I said in my show-and-tell voice, and I pointed to the line that went right across the middle of the map. "Here's Highway 149. And here's the road that goes into Fawnhollow Marsh, named, strangely enough, Fawnhollow Road."

I traced a line along the marsh road up to the highway.

"The picture in the paper showed the side of the road where you could see that big tree in front of the sand quarry. That means he turned right and drove East, so that the lake was on his right."

I kept tracing the line, following it to the highway.

"They caught him at the place where that big tree is and you can park a car off the highway. I know the place, because you can see the sand quarry tower just the same way as in the picture."

I stopped tracing about an inch to the right of where the road met the highway.

"You were on the highway?" Terry asked, and she looked at me really surprised. "We're not supposed to be riding our bikes on the highway!"

"This was the way Mr. Potter and I walked after leaving the marsh. Just a little ways. And anyway, if you don’t see any cars and you pedal really fast you can go that far in under a minute."

Terry shook her head at me, then looked back up at the map.

"So the crook drove out of the marsh and they caught him right away," she said.

"Yes, but remember they said he tried to get away?"

"Sure. That's what crooks do."

"But then he stops just a little ways down the road."

"Okay... he just gave up fast."

"And they find a bunch of stolen stuff in his car..."

"Okay..."

That's when I turned from the map and looked at Terry.

"But not everything!"

She looked at me, up at the map, then back at me.

"I don't get it," she said.

"I think he threw something out of the car and into the marsh," I explained. "I think that's the only reason why he didn't stop right away. He knew he was going to be caught, and he didn't want to give up everything. So he tossed something into the marsh to go back and pick up later."

Terry shook her head.

"I dunno, Tow-bow. The police would have seen him do that. And anyway, he's gonna go to jail... his ‘later’ is going to be a long time."

"Okay, but what if the police didn’t see it, and that’s why whatever it is is still missing? And what about these other guys who are still running around? The guys Mr. Potter said were there too? Maybe he threw it there so they could pick it up later."

But Terry started drawing circles with her finger around her ear.

"Dontcha think that's kinda crazy? Who's gonna find a bunch of jewels that somebody throws into the marsh? Nobody. They're in the water and who's gonna go looking for them?"

That made sense. But I liked my idea too much to give it up right away.

"Okay, maybe they weren't jewels. Let's say that maybe it was something big, something you can't see from the road, but it's hidden in all the reeds and things."

"But they would have seen him throw something big out the window," Terry argued. "And, anyway, he's still gotta drive. How's he going to throw something out the window and all the way into the marsh and still drive the car?"

This time I was the one who shrugged. My idea wasn't sounding very good anymore.

"Well . . . jeeps."

I guess it was time to go back to Math homework.

We went back to Terry's room. I sat on the edge of the bed this time with my homework pad on my lap. All those 'X's and 'Y's weren't nearly as fun as missing jewels.

"What problem were we on?" I asked.

Terry started reading the problem out loud, but I wasn't really listening. I was thinking that if I found the rest of Mr. Potter's missing stuff, then they would *have* to put my picture in the paper. Even if the mayor talked all week long without stopping.

"Okay, how about this," I said, right in the middle of the Math problem. "Let me call Mr. Potter on the phone and ask him what's still missing. If it's something that could have been thrown out of a car and found later, then my idea is still okay. If not, then my idea is crazy."

Terry made a face that meant she thought my idea was crazy anyway. But just like before, it was more interesting than Math.

I got my wallet out of my book bag and pulled out Mr. Potter's business card. It was 3:30, so he was still in his store.

We slid back into the kitchen and I used the wall phone to call the number on the card. Mr. Potter answered right away.

I asked him how he was feeling and he said he was feeling okay but his head still hurt a little. He asked me if I was okay and was I having any nightmares or stuff and of course I said I was okay (nightmares . . . jeeps, Mr. Potter . . . gimme a break!).

Then I asked him if the police found everything that the crooks had stolen. He said there was still something missing and I started to get excited. Then he said it was a bunch of little, uncut diamonds and I stopped being excited. A bunch of little diamonds would be impossible to find. Then he said they were in a special canvas bag and I got excited again. And then, when he said that the bag full of diamonds was worth more than everything else that had been stolen, I got *really* excited!

I asked him what the bag looked like, and he laughed. He asked me if I'd found them. I said no, but that I wanted to know what it looked like so in case I did I and so I would know it belonged to him. He said it would be easy to tell. It was a white bag that closed with a zipper, with the name of his store in gold letters.

We said goodbye and I hung up the phone and grinned at Terry.

"The mystery of the marsh diamonds is on, and the game is afoot !"

"Huh?" Terry's eyes got wider. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to solve the mystery, of course! Mr. Potter is still missing a bag full of diamonds, and I bet I know where it is!"

Terry looked up at the ceiling like she couldn't believe what I was saying.

"Tow-BYE-Yah! You are double-dip crazy if you’re gonna go out into the middle of the marsh looking for stolen stuff that probably isn't even there!"

I was staring out her kitchen window, but inside my head I was seeing the highway next to the marsh. I knew exactly the spot where the crook could have tossed the bag so that he -- or his crook friends -- could come back for it later.

"We still gotta finish our homework," Terry reminded me. "We're only half done with the Math problems."

I looked at my watch again. I had almost an hour and a half before I had to be home to start helping with dinner.

"There's only a little while left before I have to stay in," I said. "We can finish the last problems before school tomorrow."

Terry shook her head.

"I'm gonna finish the last problems before dinner. And I think you should, too. This is all about getting your picture in the paper, huh?"

"No, this is about helping Mr. Potter get his stuff back," I said, but way back in my head I kinda thought Terry might be right.

"I think we should stay here and finish our homework. C'mon," she said, and led the way back to her room. I followed and sat back down on her bed.

I stared at the open Math book. Jeeps, I hate Math.

Terry sat down at her desk but was looking at me. I guess she was waiting for me to make up my mind.

"I could get there from here in ten minutes," I said to the Math book. "I just have to go home and change clothes. That's another ten minutes. Then ten minutes back. If I left now I could look for Mr. Potter's diamonds for more than a half hour..."

"That's hardly any time," Terry said.

I kept seeing the side of the road in my head. The crook couldn't have thrown it very far.

"That's lotsa time," I said. "I'm gonna go look."

I put my books in my book bag and slipped my shoes back on.

"Call me after dinner, 'kay?" Terry said. "Just in case you find them?"

"Sure," I promised, and headed to the garage where I'd left my bike that morning. Terry followed.

Denny was still working on his car when I put my book bag in the basket and started wheeling my bike out. He was too interested in whatever he was doing to his engine to notice me leaving, but I was extra quiet anyway.

Since me and Terry either had to be at her house or my house after school, Dennis usually kept an eye on where we were. I was glad he was more interested in his car today.

I waved to Terry and she waved back and I rode towards home.

Terry and I live only two blocks apart so it's quick getting from Willow street to Maple street.

Just as I turned the corner on Maple, I saw two cars in front of our house. Mom's car was in the driveway, and there was this other car right in front.

I coasted to a stop on the corner.

Oh jeeps.

If Mom was home and there was another car right in front of our house, then that meant she was doing an interview for one of her magazines.

And if I got home while she was doing one of her interviews, then that meant I had to stay home and change into a dress and look pretty while the other person stayed for dinner.

I had to make sure what was going on before I got any closer.

I reached around and pulled my book bag from the bicycle basket. Inside, in a special pocket, was my detective stuff: a pen light, a magnifying glass, a Brownie camera, a Swiss Army knife and a small telescope a little bigger than a pen. I took out the telescope.

When the drapes are open, I can usually see both of our white couches where Mom does her interviews. Depending on which one she was sitting on I might have to ride around the block (so I wouldn't be noticed) and look in from the other side of the house. If she was just sitting and talking, then it was a friend or visitor or something safe like that. But if she had her notebook open and was writing notes then it meant that her tape recorder was also going and she was interviewing whoever it was sitting on the other couch.

So if I went in now, I’d have to stay and change into a nice dress and stuff and look like the proper daughter of my newspaper boss Dad and my famous interviewer Mom.

I looked through my miniature telescope and I could see her sitting with her notebook open on her lap.

Interview.

I leaned forward on the handlebars and tried to think out what I was going to do next.

One thing I could do was hop the fence on the side of the house where my room was and climb up the tree to my window. It was a small french window, and I had a way of undoing the latch from the outside by sliding my knife up through the crack between the doors. It had taken me a while to get the doors to let me do that, and I’m pretty sure Dad wouldn’t like it if he found out, but it was the only way I could get in and out of the house without going through the front room or the kitchen where they could see me and ask what I was doing.

But sneaking in through my window took a lot of time because I had to be really quiet. If Mom and Dad ever found out about how I used the tree to get in and out of my room sometimes, they'd make me stop for sure. And that would be the end of my night time detective adventures.

I heard a sound behind me. I turned and saw Terry riding her bike around the corner.

"Whatcha doin' here?" I asked as she coasted to a stop.

"I dunno..." she said. "I guess I got bored with homework, too."

"You mean you want to come with me?" I couldn't believe it.

She nodded. "It'll be quick, right? Just go there, look around for a few minutes and come back?"

"Yep," I said. "It's either where I think it is, or it isn't. It won't take hardly any time at all."

"Okay! I got my change of clothes right here..." she pointed to a large paper sack in her bike basket. "Let's go get ready!"

"Uhh... well..." I looked at my house again. "We can't go to my place, Terr. Mom's got magazine company. If she sees me, I'll have to stay in and be Barbi for the rest of the day."

"You mean Skipper," she said, like I had to be corrected or something.

"Oh jeeps, Terr . . ."

We both stood there staring at my house.

"How about the tree? Couldn't we climb up to your window?"

I shook my head. "I thought about that. It would take too long that way. And if we're both climbing the tree during the day, somebody's gonna notice -- like my nosey babysitter across the street. How about your house?"

"I told Dennis I was going to your house, so if I go back, I'll have to stay home" she said.

We looked at each other for a few moments.

"Well..." she said, "it'll be safe to go in our school clothes, right?"

"Uh, well . . . maybe . . . I guess so..."

I wasn't very happy about us going into the marsh in our uniforms and school shoes. Especially right after having just ruined my last in the clay rescuing Mr. Potter.

But I knew that if I went home to change that would be the end of anything for today. Then maybe the police would search the marsh tomorrow while we were in school, or maybe even the other crooks would come back and find the bag of diamonds and then Mr. Potter would never get them back.

"We'll be careful," I said. "Let's get going."

That was good enough for Terry.

"Okay, let's go." she said, pulling a rubber band from her wrist and wrapped it around her long blond hair to make a pony tail. “I’m ready for an adventure!”

There's a fast way through Greendale and to the road that goes under Highway 149. It was like the way I went when I first found Mr. Potter's car, except easier because we were closer to Wood River Creek. Terry and I can keep up with each other on our bikes, so we both pedaled fast to get to the place where Fawnhollow Road went underneath the highway.

We rode to the highway overpass, then underneath it for a little ways down Fawnhollow Road. There was nothing to see anywhere but the tall marsh grass. You could only see the tower at the sand quarry from where we were. This was where the crook would have been seen before he got onto the highway.

It gets tricky from here, because the cars go really fast on the highway and you weren't supposed to ride bikes there. But we only had a little ways to go until we got to the right place.

We had to walk our bikes from the little road up onto the highway. Once we got there we watched for cars. There weren't any coming in either direction.

"Ready?" I asked Terry.

She nodded, and gripped her handlebars.

I started pedaling hard, standing up on the pedals to get as much speed as I could. I looked back, and Terry was doing the same thing. We went as fast as we could along the side of the highway. I kept looking back for cars. We were the only ones on the road.

Then we came to the big tree that was in the newspaper picture. We went off the road and into the dirt field right at the edge of the marsh, breaking and skidding and causing a whole bunch of dust clouds.

We waved our arms at the dust clouds. When it settled down, I looked for a place to hide our bikes.

"Look . . . there's a place we can put our bikes," Terry said, and pointed to a spot behind the big tree where the marsh reeds split up a little.

Once our bikes were hidden from the highway, we stood in the middle of the reeds and figured out what to do next.

I looked back the way we came. We weren't very far from the road where we got on to the highway. It took less than a minute to ride our bikes that far, so it was probably about ten minutes to walk along the side of the marsh back to the road.

Somewhere between there and here, the crook had tossed a white canvas bag full of diamonds.

Or so I hoped.

Terry was trying to see around the reeds from where we stood.

"Do we both have to go in there?" she asked.

"There's probably only enough room for one of us between the reeds and the marsh," I said. "I should go ahead and look."

Terry nodded, like she thought that was the best idea.

"So why don't you stand guard and watch for anybody who might show up while I’m looking?"

"Who would show up in a place like this?"

"The other crooks, maybe... looking for the diamonds, too."

She made a worried face and looked back out at the highway.

"Ya think?"

"Maybe," I answered. "That's why we had to get out here today. We gotta find the diamonds before they do."

Terry didn't look very happy about that, and kept looking back at the highway.

"I'll guard right here," she said, and stepped behind a large patch of reeds. There was no way she could have seen the highway from there, but I didn't say anything.

"Okay. See you in a few minutes."

I walked through the reeds, back toward Fawnhollow Road.

Fawnhollow Marsh used to be a regular marsh when there was more water in Sparrow Lake. But in the last year there had been less water, and you can see a lot of the dark yellow clay that comes out of the sand quarry.

Most of the ground I was walking on was hard clay, and my footsteps left crumbled dust as I carefully stepped along the narrow path. It would be easy for anybody to tell I'd been here. I wondered about that, like if the crooks came back looking for the diamonds. But I figured they wouldn't be able to tell who made the footprints.

I kept looking up toward the highway to make sure I wasn't very far away. On my right were reeds, then a steep bank about five feet high, then a narrow gravel lane before the highway. On my left was the marsh. There were tall grasses, reeds and cat tails that kept me from seeing the sand quarry and the rest of the marsh. I was completely hidden on this narrow trail.

The bag wouldn't have gone far, and it might even have stuck in the reeds. This was exactly where I wanted to be.

After about ten minutes of slowly walking down the path looking left and right and up and down, I hadn't seen anything. Up ahead I could see a little bit of the dirt road going deeper into the marsh. That was the road the crook had come out.

It wasn't looking like the diamonds were going to be here.

I kept walking right up to Fawnhallow Road, then turned around and looked at my watch. It was a little after four o'clock, and all I'd gotten for my searching were little green smudges on my white knee socks and clay-dusty penny loafers. I started walking back along the same narrow path, hoping that maybe that seeing thing from a different angle might turn something up, but not being really hopeful that anything would.

The cars along the highway went by fast. Even though I couldn't see them from where I was, I could hear them rush by about twenty feet away. I had gotten so used to the sound that I noticed right away when I heard a car go by slowly.

I froze where I stood and listened.

Way up where I'd left Terry I could hear the crunch that tires make on gravel when a car goes off the road. I stood very, very still. I heard a car door slam. Then a second car door slam.

I crouched down on my hands and knees. I looked through the reeds and grass they way I'd come, but I couldn't see anything.

I waited and listened.

About a minute later I could hear running footsteps and the sound of reeds being pushed away. I could feel myself getting ready to run, but I had no idea where I was going to run to.

Then I saw red and gray plaid through the reeds. It was Terry.

"Car! Two! Guys! Crooks!" she whispered loudly between gasps of air, then dropped down into a crouch beside me trying to catch her breath.

"Huh?" I said. "Crooks?"

Terry nodded, still breathing hard.

"Ta . . . talked . . . 'bout . . . jew . . . jewels . . . ‘n . . . stuff . . . !"

"Oh jeeps," I whispered back. "We gotta listen for them . . . "

Terry tried to breathe quieter, but she still hadn't gotten her breath back. I stood up and tilted my head to try and hear what was happening. All I could hear was Terry's breathing.

She finally got quiet. We both were absolutely still, listening for any sound coming from where we had been. I thought about our bikes . . . I wondered if they'd been seen.

Far away, I could hear the reeds being pushed aside.

The crooks were coming.

Terry looked back at me. I tried to keep listening. Maybe they weren't really following the same way we'd come. I could hear them talking to each other, but I couldn't hear the words. Then I saw the tops of some cat tails bend back, away from the narrow path.

They were coming our way.

"We gotta hide!" I whispered to Terry. She nodded her head up and down nervously, and we both looked around us for someplace where we couldn't be seen from the path.

We couldn't go up on the highway, so that just left the marsh.

I started back along the path, looking on my left for a break in the tall grasses where we might step just a few feet away from the path and hide behind the bushes and cat tails. The noise behind us was getting louder. Whoever was following was walking a lot faster than I had.

That's when I remembered my footprints in the crumbly dry clay. Terry would have made her own, too. Especially running. My mouth got really dry and my stomach started to hurt.

Terry grabbed my arm.

"There!" she cried, and pointed to a place just up ahead to a narrow break between two bushes.

She ran past me and into the gap between the bushes.

"Don't run!" I whispered loudly, and waited to hear a loud splash.

When the splash didn’t come, I ran after her.

She was huddled down about six feet from the path, surrounded by tall grass. I joined her there and made a really small break through the grass so we could see the path and watch who went by.

The noises along the path got louder and louder until two men passed where we had been standing. Terry grabbed my arm so hard that it started to hurt. Both of us crouched lower in the tall grass.

Even though we were behind reeds and crouching down in the grasses, I could see their faces in the breaks of the reeds as they went by. Two tall guys, older than teenagers but not very old anyway. Their faces were very familiar.

When they had gone far enough past us down the trail, I whispered to Terry, "I know those guys! They're the Bobs!"

She looked at me with wide eyes. "Huh?"

"The Bobs. The reporter who interviewed me the other night, and the photographer who was with him and took my picture. They're both named Bob, so I called them The Bobs. I'll bet they figured out the same thing we did!"

So they weren't the bad guys, but as far as I was concerned, they weren't the good guys either. I definitely didn't want us to be found in the marsh. If they saw us, they would be sure to recognize me. And since they worked for Dad...

My hopes of finding Mr. Potter's diamonds had just flown the coop.

I was about to tell Terry that we had to get back to our bikes and go home, when a new noise started up far off on our right. I figured it had to be more people coming down the narrow path. Terry grabbed hold of my arm again.

"Probably more friends of theirs," I guessed, trying to calm her down. "I'll bet they've brought an entire search party."

We huddled back down in the tall grass again and waited for the next bunch of diamond hunters to walk by.

Two men walked by, but they were being a lot quieter than the reporters. It was almost like they were trying to sneak up from behind them.

"Something's wrong," I said after they had gone by.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I don't think those last two guys are friendly. I think we better stay here for a while."

I nodded. The marsh was quiet. We both stayed very, very still. I thought about how easily our red sweaters would show up in the middle of a bunch of green. I got us to crouch even lower.

It was quiet for about a minute, then there was the sound of many footsteps on the hard clay path coming toward us from our left.

Four people walked back the way they had come. The first two, the reporter and photographer, went by quickly. Then the second two right behind them --- and they were pointing guns at the backs of the Bobs!

2 Professor Rope and the Stumbling Guy

Terry's fingers dug into my arm so hard that I almost made a noise. Almost. But I was holding my breath, so I didn't. I wish I had looked at their faces, but all I saw were the guns. I kept listening as the sound of their footsteps faded out, listening for any clue that might tell me what was happening. I waited to hear a car start up.

But what I heard were footsteps on wood.

I put my finger on my lips for Terry to see I was still listening. The wooden noise sounded kind of hollow, like maybe walking on a bridge except there was a sort of slight echo.

The footsteps stopped, and it was quite again. We kept listening. There wasn't anything else to do.

I looked at my watch. It was almost 4:30. We could have climbed up the embankment to the highway, but we would still have to go back for our bikes.

I kept listening for a car starting up so that I could tell they were leaving. Ten minutes passed while we crouched in the tall grass, barely breathing. It seemed like an hour.

Then the wooden footsteps again, except not as loud. Or maybe not as many? Then quiet. Another minute went by. Then a car started.

I let out a loud breath, and so did Terry.

"Wooden cabin in the marsh," I told her. "Four in, two out. The bad guys just left, and I bet we find the newspaper guys in the cabin . . . "

I was going to say "tied up", except that I suddenly imagined something a lot worse. So I didn't say anything else.

"How do you know?" Terry asked. She looked a little skeptical, but she also looked a little impressed.

I shrugged. "Deduction, I guess. Or female intuition. Anyway, we're about to find out. If the newspaper guys are in trouble, then they need our help."

Getting caught out in the marsh was one thing, but rescuing The Bobs from the bad guys was something else. It was the detective thing to do.

Terry wasn't so sure it was a good trade.

"Maybe I could watch the bikes again," she said.

"C'mon, Terr. I'm gonna need your help. Let's get going."

I stepped out of the bushes and looked back up the path for any sign of motion. After ten seconds of seeing nothing, I decided it was safe to walk back. Terry followed behind.

There had been no sign of a wood cabin when I was walking down the path the first time looking for Mr. Potter's diamond pouch. But half way back there were broken reeds that led to a narrow path into some trees. Between the trees and the cat tails was a small wooden cabin.

"Maybe we should just go get the police?" Terry whispered.

"Right," I turned my head and whispered back. "But first we have to make sure that they're okay and not hurt or anything."

The cabin was old, but it wasn't falling apart. You would think a cabin in the marsh would fall apart pretty quick if nobody was living there. And there was another strange thing. A telephone line was strung from the cabin roof and into the tree branches. It was a good bet that the line ended at a pole near the highway. I squinted through my glasses and looked carefully at the line. It looked new. There was hardly any fraying like you would expect to see from an old line.

A few steps led up to a narrow porch and the front door. Even though it looked closed, when I tip-toed up the steps I saw that it was open just a crack. I stood by the side of the door with my back against the wall, ready to run down the steps and back to the path.

Terry got ready to run, too.

Reaching around, I put my hand on the door and gave it a quick nudge. It swung open easily. I had expected to hear creaking noises like old doors make, but the hinges must have been oiled because it didn't make a sound.

Nothing happened. No noises from inside. Everything was very quiet.

I slowly poked my head around the door frame and looked inside.

The open door let in enough light to see, but my eyes still had to get used to the dark corners. I looked around the large room. It would have been nice to have my pen light

There were the two Bobs, sitting on the floor with their backs against the far wall, cloth gags in their mouths, their ankles tied with rope and their arms behind their backs, probably tied up too. They looked back at me but didn't try to say anything or even make a noise.

"Is there anybody else here?" I whispered to them. They both shook their heads.

I turned around and called back.

"Terry! C'mere!"

Then I stepped into the cabin, looking around carefully just in case somebody was hiding somewhere. But the only people there were the two tied up Bobs in an empty cabin room. I could see a few other doors leading to other rooms, but I had to take their word that it was safe.

The first thing to do was pull off their gags.

"You're O'Keefe's kid!" Bob the Reporter said when I had worked the cloth gag out of his mouth. "What are you doing here?"

Jeeps. He was sounding like my Dad now. Only not as upset as Dad was going to sound after we got out of this mess.

"Same thing as you, I think," I said while starting to work on the knots around his wrists. "Looking for missing diamonds."

The knots were too tight to pull apart, so I pulled off my hair band and opened up the plaid fabric at one end. The end of a flexible metal hacksaw blade poked out. I hid one there just for this kind of emergency.

My pocket knife would have been a lot easier to use, but the hacksaw blade would do the trick for at least one of them.

"Hey Terry!" I called.

"What?" She was standing right outside the door.

"Go back to the bikes and bring me my book bag, okay? There's some stuff in it I need."

She looked glad not to have to come into the cabin, turned and ran back to the path. I was starting to wish I had come alone. This wasn't the kind of thing Terry liked at all.

I started working on the ropes with the saw blade. Uncle Jack once told me that ropes were weakest next to the knot, where the strands would have been flexed the most. I began cutting right next to the knot, but the brown rope was thick and cutting through it was slow work, even with a hacksaw blade.

"Looks like a lot of people are looking for diamonds," said Bob the Photographer. "I think we ran right into Crooksville."

Bob the Reporter shook his head. "I gotta say I'm surprised to see you two girls out here."

I kept sawing. "When we get out of here, you're not going to say anything to my Dad, okay?"

"Well, let's get out of here first," he said.

I stopped sawing and looked up at him. He figured it out.

"Okay, not a word," he agreed.

Nobody said a word after that. I think we all wanted to get out of the marsh as soon as we could, before anybody showed up again.

I was almost completely through the rope when I heard Terry run up the steps, gasping for breath.

"Tow.. Toby! Our... ba... bikes... gone!"

"Huh...?" I turned around with my mouth wide open. I just about fell over. "Gone? Are you sure? Did you look everywhere?"

Terry leaned against the doorway shaking her head up and down, trying to catch her breath.

It had to be the crooks that took our bikes. That meant they knew we were here.

I quickly returned to cutting the ropes off Bob the Reporter's wrists. The sooner these two guys were untied, the sooner we'd all be a whole lot safer.

He twisted his hands loose just as I cut through, and reached over to start untying the other Bob's wrists.

"Take this," I said, and held out the hacksaw blade.

He found that he couldn't get the knot undone with his hands, and so he took the blade. That made me feel a little better about how long it took for me to cut through the rope by myself.

"There's a telephone line outside, so I think there may be a phone in here somewhere," I told them. "I'm going to find it and call the police."

"Good idea," Bob the Reporter said, not looking up from his cutting. "Tell them to get down here fast!"

Well, duh.

I looked toward Terry to see if she wanted to join me, but she still stood at the doorway, nervously looking back down the path.

"Toby... I'm ready to get out of here," she said.

"Me too, Terr," I answered.

There was a doorway to another room right next to us that lead into a kitchen. I walked in looking for a phone sitting on something. There weren't any chairs or tables, and nothing on the counters or walls, either.

The counters were clean. No dust. I put my hand in the sink and felt along near the drain. It was wet. I put my hand to my nose. No smell. Fresh water.

For an old abandoned cabin, this place had been really well kept up.

I walked back through the cabin's front room. Near the stone fireplace was another doorway. I followed it through a short hallway and into a back room.

This must have been the cabin's bedroom. The only things in the room were a chair next to a small table... with a telephone sitting on it.

"Bingo Ringo!"

I was just about to grab the telephone when I noticed something on the floor in the corner of the room. It was some kind of trap door or hatch with a small lock on it. It looked like a secret way to get out of the room.

But to where?

There wasn't time to worry about it now. I had to get the police here fast.

As soon as I picked up the telephone receiver I could hear a dial tone. Great! It was working! I started dialing the number I had memorized for the police, and then held the receiver against my head.

Suddenly I smelled a strong, chemical odor coming out of the receiver's mouthpiece. I coughed and jerked it away from my face. I started to get dizzy. I heard someone answer "Greendale police department". I tried to get the receiver close enough so I could talk, but the chemical smell was too strong. It made me pull my head back so fast that my glasses almost flew off.

Then I started getting really dizzy, and I felt my arms and legs get so heavy that I couldn't stand up. My legs felt as if they had turned into rubber, and I collapsed back onto the wooden chair.

The phone receiver fell out of my hand and dropped to the floor with a loud bang. I was sitting upright in the chair with my arms hanging uselessly at my sides, watching the room slowly spinning and getting fuzzier... darker...

It was impossible to keep sitting upright, and I started to lean over to my left. I wanted to grab the table or plant my feet, but nothing moved.

The chair tilted over with me and there wasn't a thing I could do to keep myself from falling. I toppled over onto the floor with a loud crash, sending the chair behind me skidding across the room and banging against the wall while my glasses flew off my face and rattled forward toward the opposite wall.

I tried to see, but it was like trying to look through a rusty screen door. Someone was asking me something in a small voice that sounded like they were in a tin can, saying "police department" over and over. I wanted to say something back, but I couldn't talk. I wanted to get up, but I couldn't move. It was like being in a really bad dream where you want to run away but you can't because your arms and legs are too heavy.

I could feel the chemical air in my chest and wished that I could cough it out, but I couldn't even do that. I imagined it was in there like some kind of poison, making me weaker and weaker. I lay there on the wooden floor with my mouth hanging open and probably drooling or something awful like that.

Then the floor pounded in my right ear as if someone were banging on the wood next to my head. The pounding got louder and louder, and when I thought it couldn't get any louder, it stopped.

Something pulled on my shoulder, and I rolled over like a rag doll until I was looking up through the dark fog at the ceiling. A man's face appeared out of the fog. I could barely see and didn't recognize him. I tried to say something, but nothing came out.

The face floated down and got close to mine. I could feel my arms being pulled up, and suddenly I was sitting up. My head dropped down and my chin hit my chest. Then I was lifted up off of the floor and draped over the man's shoulder. As my stomach hit his back, a lot of the chemical air got pushed out of my chest. With my hips folded over his shoulder and my arms and legs dangling toward the floor, it was hard to catch a good breath. But I was glad to have most of that poison out of my lungs.

My nose hit his back with every step as he carried me out of the back room and into the front. My arms flopped around uselessly, and a fuzzy thought in the back of my head wondered if my glasses were going to fall off, until I remembered losing them when I fell on the floor.

I didn't know where he was taking me, but I could guess that I was about to join the two Bobs. There hadn't been enough time to untie themselves and escape. That just left Terry, who maybe had run to the highway and was flagging down a car or something.

He knelt down and slid me off his shoulder onto the floor, holding my head to keep it from hitting the hard wood . I was starting to think more clearly. The poison must have been wearing off. But I still couldn't use my arms and legs.

"Hey!" came a voice from farther away, deep and angry. I knew it wasn't one of the Bobs, so this guy must have had a partner. "Look what I found hiding outside . . .".

It was easy to recognize Terry's frightened whimpering, and that meant our last chance at being rescued was gone.

"So now we got four to keep locked up in here." the one who carried me from the back room announced, like it wasn't obvious. "Better work fast and get outta here. No telling who they've already blabbed to."

Their voices had accents, and I tried to figure out what country they might be from. It was easy to tell if someone was from England, France or Italy. Spain and Mexico were pretty much the same. But these guys weren't that easy. After those other countries, everything else sounded pretty much like some version of German to me. So I tried to listen for what words they used when they put the emphasis on the wrong English syllable. Uncle Jack taught me how to listen for the rhythm of words, so that I could repeat the "song" that the syllables put together. You could imitate other languages that way. So if I remembered their word songs, then maybe somebody else could figure out who these guys were after we had gotten out of this jam.

I still couldn't see what was going on, because it was darker in this room and everything still looked like it was on the other side of that rusty screen door over my eyes. But it was pretty easy to tell what was happening to me when my shoulders were lifted up and I was leaned forward into a sitting position. The next thing I felt was something wrapping around my arms and chest, narrow enough to only be one thing -- rope.

"What are you doing?" the other voice demanded.

"I'm tying this one up so we've got time to get outta town."

"You don't know what you're doing, stommeling. A kid can wiggle and hop out of that kind of mess in a few minutes."

"And you're an expert, I guess?"

"I knew how to get out of better ropes than that when I was their age. Get over here and hold Blondie. I can keep them trapped here until we're a long way down the highway."

My eyes were starting to clear up enough so I could see legs of the other guy who was holding Terry from behind. Then I felt the tension go out of the few coils of rope around me, and I fell back to the floor. My head hit the wood and the screen door in my eyes filled up with shooting stars.

"Stommeling , . ." the other guy said again.

Then the next thing that happened, I was rolled over on my stomach and my arms were pulled together and folded across my back. I could feel them being held together by a large hand, and a strange, light wrapping pressure of rope being loosely wrapped around my wrists. If he was going to tie me up like that, I was going to get loose in no time.

Then he started talking to the other guy, explaining what he was doing, like a teacher in a classroom.

"You loosely wrap the rope around the wrists, then a few turns around the rope between them so that it looks like handcuffs. Then two wraps around the chest, pinning the arms against the sides. Then you take the legs . . . "

He was pulling, lifting, rolling and bending me around like a rag doll while he tied. I felt him grab my ankles and bend my legs back so that my feet were together in the air.

" . . . and wrap the rope loose around ankles like this, so you have enough slack for a couple of wraps in the middle, making it look like handcuffs again. Do two wraps under the feet so the shoes stay on -- don't let them use their toes for anything -- and back up to loop the rope again around the middle of the ankle-cuffs. Then back up to the wrists and tie off with the legs bent back like this. It's called a Hog Tie. In this case it’s a 'Piglet Tie' ."

My arms were being pulled back by the rope that was holding my legs in the air behind me. It didn't hurt, but it wasn't comfortable either. And there was absolutely no way I could move around or wiggle free.

"I think you enjoy this too much," the other guy said.

"I like being competent. You tie up Blondie the same way I just showed you. I'll make sure these other two won't get loose for a long while"

I could hear Terry put up a fight while the other guy lifted her up and set her stomach-down on the floor next to me. Her head was looking the other way, so I couldn't see how scared she was. I'd bet she was... a lot.

The guy wrapped rope all over the place around Terry, and I could tell that he didn't pay much attention to his "lesson". When he was done, Terry looked close enough to the way I did so that Professor Rope didn't say anything else.

They checked The Bobs over, and it looked like they had found the cut rope and replaced it. There went our last lucky break.

I couldn't see the crooks anymore, but tried to figure out where they were by listening to them walking on the loud wooden floor. More heavy walking on the wooden floor, then the sound of a door slamming shut. After about a minute there was a loud, steady hammering on the door.

Then everything was quiet.

As soon as their footsteps died away, Terry started twisting and rolling, trying to get loose.

"Toby!" she said in a loud whisper. "Toby! Wake up! Wake up!"

"Yeah . . . huh . . . ?" My mouth needed to wake up too.

"Oh!" Terry cried out, and I could hear she was trying not to cry. "I thought you were dead!"

Mark Twain had said something clever about that, but I couldn't remember what it was. Anyway, I wasn't feeling very clever. Not like a detective at all. I was feeling like a dumb kid who had walked right into a booby trap.

I could hear everybody else in the room wiggling around, trying to get themselves out of being tied up. But I was still too woozy to move around a lot. My stomach was warning me not to.

This went on for what seemed to me to be a long time, but maybe it wasn't. All the worst thoughts were running around in my head, wondering if anybody was going to get loose, or if we'd be found before it got to be night. It was probably after 5:00, and our parents were probably starting to wonder where we were.

"Are you kids okay?" asked one of the Bobs -- Bob the Reporter.

"Sure . . . " I answered. My mouth was working okay now. "Except for the tied-up part."

I guess he had gotten his gag off somehow, because he could talk and the other Bob wasn't saying anything.

"So how did you kids figure out the diamonds would be in the marsh grass?" he wanted to know.

"We were looking for the diamonds that guy must have had with him in the car, but that the police didn't find when they caught him," I explained.

"Okay," Bob said. "So you guessed he must of thrown the missing diamonds out of the car before he got stopped."

The word "guessed" reminded me about the newspaper article all over again.

"I didn't just 'guess'. It was a logical deduction based on what was in the newspaper. And how come my picture wasn't there like you guys promised?"

"Your picture? What about your picture?" he asked.

"You guys took my picture when we talked all about me saving Mr. Potter. You said it would be in the paper with the story. But it wasn't. So how come?"

It felt a little crazy, because I was trying to make him answer me at the same time my arms and legs were tied up tight behind my back so I couldn't move. It sure didn't feel like I could demand anything at all.

"Okay, I get you." Bob the Reporter said. "It wasn't our idea. It was your Dad's."

"Huh?" So what did Dad have to do with it, except that he ran the newspaper?

"The rest of the robbers were still out there at large, and he didn't want your picture exposed in public as the girl who rescued that jeweler. That makes sense, doesn't it?"

I had to think about that, but the pull of the ropes at my wrists and ankles kind of proved his point. If those guys had seen me after seeing my picture, I probably would have ended up like this anyway.

"I guess you're right," I said. "And Dad was right. I guess we just wanted to get Mr. Potter's diamonds back before those guys did. We were pretty sure we could find them first."

"YOU were pretty sure," Terry piped up, like she was making sure everybody knew this whole thing wasn't her idea. "I just came along so I could get kidnapped along with you."

"Jeeps, Terr . . . this isn't kidnapping. It's like in the Darcy Wenn books when she gets tied up in the basement so the Bad Guys can go do their criminal stuff."

I could hear her breathing hard, and I could tell she was struggling around on the floor still trying to get loose. I tried to roll over on my back, but the way I was tied up kept me from going anywhere but lying on my right side or my left side. I couldn't move my arms or legs at all. Professor Rope had really done a good job on me.

"Save your strength, kid" Bob the Reporter said. "It might be a while before anybody looks for us here."

But luckily, the "stumbling" guy (or whatever that word was) didn't do anywhere near as good a job tying up Terry.

"I think I'm getting loose!" Terry shouted. She had stopped rolling and wiggling around and didn't move for a while.

"Okay, there! . . . My wrists are loose!"

I saw her straighten out her legs, roll over and sit up to untie her ankles. Once she got free, she crawled over to me and started picking at the knots on my wrists.

"Terr . . . go untie Bob first."

"Okay . . . which Bob?" she asked.

"Oh jeeps, Terr . . ."

Terry figured out that it didn't matter, and probably felt a little silly.

It took longer, but she got one Bob free. He started working on his buddy while Terry came back and continued untying me.

Once both Bobs were free, everybody worked on me. I was tied up a lot better by Professor Rope than Terry had been by the Stumbling Guy.

Even after I was untied, I couldn't move very much. I lay there stretching and rubbing my arms and legs trying to get the cramps out so I could stand up. And I was taking big breaths of air to get rid of any poison gas that might still be in my lungs.

The smell of the poison chemical was pretty strong coming from that back room.

"What was that stuff?" I asked, just in case the Bobs knew.

"I'd guess it was chloroform, I heard you hit the floor pretty hard just before the crooks got back."

Terry was impatient to get out of the cabin.

"Let's get out of here before they come back again, okay you guys?"

She was trying to open the front door, but it stayed nailed shut. It was obvious that we weren't supposed to go anywhere before the Bad Guys got back . . . if ever.

But I'm sure they didn't expect us to get free this soon.

"If they’re still anywhere nearby, they'll be back in a second if they hear us break a window," Bob the Reporter said. "Maybe there's another way out of here."

"I think there is," I said. "In the back room. There's a trap door on the floor. It might be a way out."

The telephone was exactly where it was when I fell off the chair, with the receiver still lying on the floor. But one thing was different -- there was no sound coming out. I looked for the line to the wall and saw it had been cut in half.

I picked my glasses up off the floor. Luckily, the round tortoise shell frames and lenses hadn't busted when I fell off the chair.

I hadn't had a chance to look out the window on the back wall near the trap door. The glass was covered with dark water stains and plant streaks, but I could see that the cabin must have been at ground level in front and several feet above the marsh in the back.

The Bobs both knelt down next to the trap door while Terry and I watched. They pulled back the metal latch and, with a strong heave, pulled it open.

"We're in luck!" Bob the photographer said.

Terry and I leaned forward and looked down through the open trap door. I was right . . . the whole back of the cabin was held up above the marsh water by two thick poles, as thick as telephone poles, acting like stilts keeping the cabin up about ten feet above the marsh. They were planted on either side of a long wooden dock that stretched out into the marsh water. And tied up on the end was a long, aluminum canoe.

Bob the Reporter pointed at a ladder attached to one of the stilts.

"Let's see if this ladder is strong enough to get us down there," and he put his leg through the doorway and onto the top rung.

After a few hard pushes with his foot, he nodded.

"No problem."

He climbed down the ladder and stepped on to the dock, looking up at us and waving us to come down quickly.

"Ladies first," said Bob the Photographer. I stepped aside to let Terry go first, since she acted more like a lady than I did.

She made it down the ladder quickly. I followed next, then Bob the Photographer behind me.

We stood on the long wooden dock by the canoe and looked around. The tall grasses that lined the edge of the marsh kept us from seeing the road in front of the cabin. And they kept the Bad Guys from seeing us.

"I wouldn't recommend we try to climb out the front way, " Bob the Reporter said. "Those fellas might be sitting around somewhere close enough to hear us thrashing through the cat tails getting back."

"Yeah," Bob the Photographer said, and pointed to the canoe. "We have our escape route available right here."

Luckily, the canoe looked like it could hold all four of us. There were two paddles sitting in the middle, and no water inside that might have meant a leak. Terry and I got in carefully and sat in the middle and the Bobs sat at either end with the paddles. As soon as everyone was sitting, they paddled quickly away from the dock.

The water snaked around this way and that between tall stands of cat tails, reeds and a few wild looking islands. In less than a minute we were hidden from the cabin and the highway, floating along the narrow waterways. From time to time we could catch glimpses of Sparrow Lake beyond the grassy islands, but mostly the Bobs paddled through a maze of twisting little creeks where we could have easily become lost.

"Are we heading for the lake?" I asked.

"If we can find it from here," answered a Bob.

"What if we got on one of these islands and looked around?" Terry suggested, pointing to one whose banks were close enough to climb up.

"Better not," said the other Bob. "A lot of these are just grassy mud mounds. They're clay deposits left from when the sand mine over there flooded a couple years ago. You climb up on one of these and you'll disappear in a jiffy."

"Oh . . . " Terry looked at the nearby island with concern. "Yeah. Maybe not."

The creeks were starting to widen and the water deepen. We were getting close to the open waters of Sparrow Lake.

One Bob turned back to the other.

"Does this boat ride a little slow?"

"Very slow. I have to really push to get any kind of speed. It feels like something's dragging."

I was just happening to be looking down at all the rivets on the floor of the canoe when they said this. I had been wondering why there were so many in the pattern of a large square. I reached down and pounded my fist in the middle of the square and listened to its sound. Then I pounded outside the square.

"Hold up, you guys!" I said. "Stop paddling for a minute!"

The Bobs pulled their paddles up from the water and the canoe drifted along on its own. Now I could tell how quickly we were slowing down.

I hit outside the square, then inside the square. It was quiet enough to tell the difference each sound made. Outside the square sounded low and deep, and inside the square sounded high and hollow.

Hollow like a box.

"So there's something attached under the canoe!" Terry said. "Like a secret hiding place!"

Both Bobs wanted to hear it for themselves, and after a lot of pounding and knuckle rapping they were convinced.

"We'll pull into some of these cat tails and see what's underneath that plate," Bob the reporter decided. "At least getting whatever that is off the bottom of the canoe will help get us out of here faster."

Better than cat tails, the nearest island was pretty big and we could see the shore was sandy and dry where we could all safely step out of the canoe. Once on shore, the Bobs tried to drag the canoe out of the water, but it was catching the edge of the bank against something underneath. So they turned the canoe over right where it was.

Underneath, sticking out from the bottom by over a foot, was a large, wide metal box.

On the bottom of the metal box (which was now the top, since we had turned the canoe upside down) was a metal lid that was held down by four metal latches. Bob the Photographer was the first to start opening the latches by pulling up on the handles that locked them into position.

I took a few steps back to watch. I had already learned my lesson about getting surprised by things.

The latches were hard to open, and both Bobs worked at them to get them to unlatch. When all four had come away, it still took both of them to pull the lid up while pushing their feet on the bottom of the canoe.

With a loud rush of air, the lid finally came loose. Terry and I still stood back (and I held my breath). The reporter reached in and pulled out a large canvas sack.

"This sounds interesting..." he said, and gave the sack a shake. Something inside the sack made a faint sound, like a baby rattle.

The zipper at the top came open without much trouble, and the reporter looked in. He pulled out several plastic bags. I stepped closer to see what was in them. Each bag looked like it was half full of small bits of broken glass.

"Diamonds!" Bob the reporter said, and looked back into the canvas sack. "Uncut. Looks like there are hundreds of them in here!"

Then he took out a small leather-bound book.

"Hmmm...." he looked over the pages. "Names and phone numbers... names look Dutch... overseas numbers... same general exchange... different city names... Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Durban... looks like they're all in South Africa."

"Smugglers!" he said, and laughed. "How do you like that? A diamond smuggling ring right here in sleepy little Greendale. No wonder those fellows were keeping such a close eye on the place."

"I love it," the other Bob looked just as happy. "A story just falls into our laps. This'll go State wide. Maybe even national."

Bob the Reporter pulled out a small white bag with drawstrings on one end.

“Greendale Jewelers” he read from the bag. “Augustus Potter, Prop.”

“Those are Mister Potter’s stolen diamonds!” I almost yelled out of excitement of finding them. "But . . . what does Mister Potter have to do with any of this? He's not a smuggler."

Bob the Reporter was putting the book, the felt pouch and the plastic bags full of diamonds back into the canvas sack.

"He probably received a shipment that was meant for them," he said. "One way to sneak something in is by sending it to a legitimate dealer and then stealing it back."

Jeeps! So the crooks used Mr. Potter to send one little bag of diamonds from South Africa. That must have been why that robber was going to let Mr. Potter's car disappear into the marsh clay (and me along with him!). Mr. Potter must have found out about the smuggled diamonds before the Bad Guys could get them back. This was all making sense.

The two Bobs zipped up the canvas bag, put it back into the metal box and sealed up the latches again. Once the canoe was right side up and back into the water, we all stood around and tried to figure out where we were next to the open lake.

"What do we do now?" Terry wanted to know. I looked at my watch. It was 5:30. Terry and I were now officially late for half an hour. The Upset Parent Countdown was already ticking. We were going to need to be two of the heroes who discovered the smuggled diamonds, or be grounded for the rest of our lives.

"We wait right here for a few hours until it gets dark," Bob the photographer answered. "Then we'll cross the lake to the Scout camps at the south end and call the police from there."

Suddenly Terry cried out. I jumped and turned in the direction she was looking.

An old man with a short, white beard, hunter's clothes and a beat-up looking hat was standing in the bushes just a few yards away.

And he was pointing a big shotgun right at us.

"You folks made a big mistake coming to this island," he growled.

3 The African Hermit

Oh jeeps! This was the second time in my life I was looking at a gun pointed at me, and only a few days after the first time!

Well, he was pointing it more in the direction of the two Bobs than at Terry or me. But we've seen enough movies to know that we were supposed to raise our hands in the air.

"Oh, put your hands down," the man with the beard snorted. "Just stay where you are and tell me what you're doing with my boat."

"Your boat?" asked Bob the Reporter. "We got this from the cabin back by the highway."

"Yep," the man nodded. "That's my cabin. I suppose you were in there looking for something else to take? The only way you could have gotten to my canoe is out the back drop door."

"But it didn't look like anybody lived there," Terry said.

"That's right," he answered. "I live out here during the warm months, and I make sure I've put everything away before I leave. So what are all of you doing out here in the first place?"

There was something that made me distrust this man. His voice had that same accent as Professor Rope and the Stumbling Guy. So I guessed the were from the same country, and since it was his canoe, maybe even in on the same plot. That meant we really didn’t want to give him any clues about why we were here.

Luckliy, I had an answer ready, figuring that if anybody saw us they'd ask something like that.

"Science project," I said. "These are the teaching assistants for our class."

Bob the Photographer looked at me quickly from the side and half smiled so the old hunter wouldn't see.

The bearded hunter lowered his rifle and shook his head.

"I don't suppose I've got anything to worry about with the four of you. But you shouldn't be wandering around these marshes. Especially here. You're liable to meet up with Bowser."

Bowser... ?

"We got lost out here in the marsh," Bob the Reporter said. "We’re looking for a way to get back to land. We just pulled up to shore here to see what was causing so much drag on the boat."

"That's my ice chest," the bearded man said, nodding at the canoe. "It's where I keep my lunch when I'm out fishing, and dinner when I catch something. Don't bother to look in there, because it's empty."

I glanced at Terry, and she glanced back. Maybe he really didn't know anything about the diamonds. Or maybe he was lying to us.

"We'd like to head down to the south end of the lake," the reporter said. "I don't suppose you'd let us take your canoe that far?"

The man shrugged.

"I've got an outboard back of my cabin here," he said. "I can take two of you at a time to shore. I'd rather keep my canoe right here."

Now the two Bobs were looking at each other. I hoped they would come up with a plan, because I sure didn't have one.

"You could take me and Toby back first," said Terry. "We're already late getting home."

"That’s probably a good idea, " Bob the Reporter said. "We'll wait here for you to get back."

I smiled. That would give the Bobs time to divide the diamonds between the two of them to hide on their way back. Terry was really using her head, now. Maybe she wasn’t as bad at this detective stuff like she first acted.

"Okay then," the hunter said. "We'd better get going right now. It's not going to stay light much longer."

We waved goodbye to the Bobs and followed the hermit through the bushes and trees, back into a clearing. A really old cabin was almost hidden in the bushes under a single tall tree. It was made of logs and had a stone fireplace on one side. There were a few other buildings around the trees -- more like large shacks -- where you could barely see. None of them had windows, and all had big padlocks on their doors. I counted four of them, but there could have been more.

I strayed closer to the shacks and noticed that the ground in front of the locked doors was disturbed in front of each. And there were animal smells all around, kind of like a State fair at the 4H exhibit. When I tried to listen for noises coming from the shacks, I could hear a very faint sound of air, like an animal breathing. But there was no other sign that anything was living here. Not even anything that would have been called “Bowser”.

Closer to the water was a wooden trough about ten feet long and four feet wide. It looked really sturdy, and had been built into the ground. It was filled with water, but the water was too dark and murky to see anything swimming around in it. On the other side of the trough was another set of wooden planks set into the ground, but we were too far away to see what was on the other side.

Up ahead, through the cat tails, we could see a wooden boat with an outboard motor sitting in the marsh water.

"Is this where you live?" Terry asked as we passed his cabin. It looked like a smaller version of his cabin back at the shore.

“Yes, and I like being a hermit here," he said. “There's enough fish to catch and I make my own soup. I could live out here the entire year since it doesn't snow, but I stay just during the warm months, I haven't gotten used to the weather here. It's probably going to take me a few more years."

"Where do you live most of the time?" I asked.

"Durbin’s my home," he answered. "That’s in South Africa."

There was another clue about South Africa, and it meant he may know something about the bag of diamonds after all!

The first thing I thought to do was to try and find a way to let the Bobs know. The hermit must have seen me pause for a moment, because he put his hand on my shoulder and kept me walking toward the boat.

"We don't have much daylight left, Miss," he said. "We'd better be on our way."

Terry was already stepping off the small dock and into the boat. I joined her at the front of the boat while the hermit sat back by the outboard motor and began yanking on the rope to make it start.

I looked back to see if there were any sign of the Bobs, but the trees and bushes on the island hid everything. My intuition said that this old hermit knew a lot more than he told us, and that they were not safe staying on the island when he got back.

The hermit steered the boat into the marsh channel and headed toward the North end of the lake where the highway was. I snuck a glance back trying not to be obvious about looking for any sign of the aluminum canoe and the Bobs.

“So,” he started a conversation. “Where do you two go to school? Looks like it’s a Catholic school.”

“Sacred Heart,” I said. “I guess you could tell by our uniforms.”

He nodded. “Just about all the boys and girls go to religious schools of some sort back in Durbin. They all wear uniforms, some of them like yours. I just didn’t think I’d see as many here in the United States. Sacred Heart, eh? That’s probably explains all the red . . . ”

Heart. Red. Yeah, I got it. I sure hoped he didn’t start talking about blood or anything, or I was going to jump out of the boat. And I couldn’t think of anything else to say about school. The last two hours had pushed everything else out of my head. So I just stared at the water behind him and kept my eye out for the Bobs.

"What kind of dog do you have?" Terry asked him.

The hermit looked at her a little puzzled, then he smiled.

"Oh, you mean Bowser? Well, I guess you could say Bowser is a Burmese. Chocolate brown with light tan markings, and maybe a little dark olive thrown in here and there."

There was something about how he looked at Terry and the way he answered that made me think he was having a secret joke on us. I couldn't think of any animals that had dark olive fur "thrown in here and there". But I was too tired to worry about that, and didn't try to figure out what his joke was.

"But he's not friendly?" Terry wanted to know. Leave it to Terry to want to talk about pets after what we'd been through.

"Bowser's a she," he replied. "And I'd say she was friendly . . . as long as you like to cuddle."

Alarm bells were going off like crazy in my head, but nothing told me what I was supposed to be worried about. I didn't like the way he was talking, as if he were playing some kind of game and knew that we didn't have any idea about what he was really talking about.

That was when I noticed the reflection of sunlight off metal between two small islands behind us. I pretended not to look at anything in particular, and caught a glimpse of the two Bobs quickly rowing the aluminum canoe away from the hermit's island. Bingo Ringo! The mystery of the marsh diamonds was coming to a successful conclusion!

"Well, if she's friendly," Terry went on, "then why did you warn us about her when we were on your island?"

The hermit laughed out loud, and to me it sounded like he was laughing at Terry.

"Not everything that's friendly is always safe, you know," he said.

Oh jeeps . . . I REALLY didn't like the way he said that!

But we were almost to the banks near the highway, and pretty soon this adventure would be over. I didn’t think we could get away from this guy fast enough.

"Say there," the hermit pointing off to our left. "Those two bicycles wouldn't happen to be yours, would they?"

I looked where he was pointing and sure enough, both our bikes were on the embankment near the highway, leaning up against a tree. I was glad I didn’t break my glasses back at the cabin, or I wouldn’t have been able to tell they were ours.

They weren't where we had left them, so the Bad Guys must tried to hide them from us there.

"Those are out bikes," I said. My bright blue bike and Terry's silver. "It looks like they're okay. As long as they don’t have flat tires or anything."

"Well, I'm not entirely certain we can get there from here," the hermit said, squinting across at all the tall reeds between us and the embankment. "We might have to take a few detours around these small islands to get close enough for you to reach them."

He turned the handle on the motor and the canoe went into a narrow opening between two jungle-ish islands. The tall grass and cat tails kept us from seeing our bikes as he steered left and right through the winding creeks, getting closer to the road.

"Okay, I think you can get there from here," he said, and brought the canoe toward the dry banks of one of the jungle islands. "You might have to push a few reeds and bushes around to get through, but I don't think you'll have to go very far. It's a lucky thing we came this way -- I wouldn't want to see the two of you have to walk back home."

He turned off the motor and the canoe floated right up to the patch of marsh land. We still couldn't see our bikes, but I figured we must have been pretty close.

"Here you are, Ladies," he smiled and waved his arm at the land. "Have a safe trip home."

We got out of the boat, thanked him, and quickly made our way into the underbrush toward our waiting bicycles, too anxious to get home to be as careful as we should have been.

On the jungle island was a wall of reeds which we easily pushed back and stepped through. I was really glad to be out of sight of that hermit guy. All I could think of was getting on our bikes and pedaling away from the marsh as fast as we could.

"I don't trust that guy," I whispered. "Everything he said sounded too suspicious."

"You're right," Terry whispered back. "He was pretending to be friendly, but he wouldn't really answer any questions. I'll bet he's one of the crooks."

I nodded. "I'll bet he is, too. Do you think Bowser is a dog?"

"Well, I guess so. It's a dog's name. But he's got pretty weird color fur."

"That's what I thought too. I think he was either making stuff up so we wouldn't come back to the island, or he's completely color blind."

The reeds opened up into a clearing where a wide, shallow bowl of land lay between us and our bicycles. There were patches of short grass on the ground, sticking up from what looked like hard clay, with cracks running through it so that the whole clearing looked kind of like a giant plate that had broken into a hundred pieces. It was hard on top, and I figured it was just a dried up mud pond.

"Wow," Terry said, and laughed. "Don't break your Mother's back!"

There were a lot of these kinds of pits around the north end of Sparrow Lake, because of the sand quarry. For a long time the business that owned it made clay pits near the quarry wherever they wanted to, until they were told (by the State, I think) to only use the property they owned, and not the entire north side of the lake. And after the flood, they were supposed to clean up all the clay around the shores, but they still hadn't. This was what they looked like when they were dried up.

Terry walked out across the bowl first, and got several steps toward the middle of the clearing.

But as she walked on the dry little islands between the cracks she suddenly froze.

"OH!," she cried. "Wha . . . T-Toby! Stop! Stop!"

I was right behind her, watching out not to sprain an ankle stepping into a crack. But the clay pieces were starting to move and shift around. We both stood still, each foot on its own shaky piece of dried clay.

This wasn't a dried up pit. Not completely anyway. Now that we were standing in the middle of the bowl, we could see that the clay underneath the dry, cracked surface was dark and wet. And soft. The dry cakes under our feet were going down very slowly into the softer clay beneath them.

Terry shifted her weight and put one foot on a different piece of dry clay. That didn't help...her weight pushed down the new piece just as easily.

I was looking down at my own feet now, and watching the sides of the cracked clay seeming to slowly rise up, exposing the small, soft walls of clay beneath the surface.

Behind us, off in the reeds and deeper into the marsh, I could hear bubbles coming up through the water. This was definitely not a good sign. The clearing must have been a soft clay pit only about a week before, and the sun had baked a false top over it. Just a few inches below the crust was a pit of soft mud!

The hermit had made sure he left us off in exactly the right place, knowing we'd walk straight toward our bikes. I’ll bet he knew exactly what was waiting for us in the middle of the island.

"Terry! Stop moving around!" I tried whispering, but it was still a loud whisper. "We gotta walk back out of this pit!"

But Terry kept stepping around, trying to find a chunk that wouldn't sink under her weight. Each new clay island rocked and sank as she stepped on it. Even worse, each one was sinking lower into the wet clay than the last.

She started to lose her balance, and reached out and grabbed my arm. I suddenly felt the clay islands beneath my feet drop down several more inches!

"Hey!" I cried, forgetting all about whispering and trying to keep my balance.

She used my arm to steady herself, and lifted up her foot again to take a step onto a new chunk of cracked clay.

But this time it didn't hold. The hard chunk of clay sank right down into the softer clay, taking Terry's foot and leg with it!

"OH!" she cried, and the clay made a loud, hollow "GLUNK!" sound as her foot slid into it. She fell forward, still holding on to me!

I started to fall backwards and automatically took a step behind me. But I couldn't see where I was stepping and my foot went right down the middle of one of the cracks. Both of us toppled, Terry forward and me backward, into the clay pit!

I had twisted around and had tried to break my fall by putting my hands out, but they plunged through the cracks right down into more soft clay past my elbows. My glasses flew off my face and fell into one of the cracks. I tried to pull one arm up, but that just shoved the other one further down. I was stuck fast right where I was!

All around us, big chunks of clay wiggled like squares of custard jello in a shallow bowl. I turned my head to look at Terry. She was rolling over on her side, trying to work her legs up and out of the clay. But the chunks of clay just seemed to melt underneath her, turning into a thick soup of wet, goopy mud! Pretty soon she was totally covered in clay, swimming in place while the mud made deep "gloop-glop" sounds all around her.

I tried to bring my knees up so that I could rock back and get my arms out, but the clay was too soft now and my knees broke through the surface. I could feel myself slowly pitching forward again as my hands pushed through softer and softer clay.

All I could think to do was drive my knees through the clay and up into my chest. As soon as I had my feet and legs under me, I threw my head backwards and arched my back. I drove my feet down into the soft clay as far out in front of me as I could. That got my head up and away from the mud. But now I was trapped chest-deep in the pit, with my arms buried at my sides.

I looked back at Terry. She had gotten herself chest-deep too, with her muddy arms stretched over the pit. The clay was so churned up around her that I guessed she had wiggled and kicked in place to keep her head above the mud, and now was just as helpless as I was.

We were totally caught now... stuck and sinking in the soft clay pit!

Over our loud breathing I could hear the noise of the reeds and grasses being pushed away. The noise got louder and louder. Was it the old hermit? Or those two crooks who had tied us up?

Terry was crying as she wiggled around, trying to get out of the clay. I didn't know what was going to be worse -- struggling in the clay or calling to the crooks for help.

I could feel myself going down deeper. The clay was creeping up to my shoulders. And all I could see of Terry was her head.

Crooks or not, we were in such big, big trouble that I decided there was only one thing left to do . . . we had to take our chances now, while we still had time for chances.

"HELP!!" I yelled toward the noise. "Help! Please! Help us!!"

"Toby!" Terry cried. "The c-crooks aren't gon-gonna help!"

"J-jeeps Terry . . . they . . . they HAVE to!"

"But they were gonna let Mister P-Potter drown in his car! They're gonna want to g-get us out of the way! And -- and just p-push our heads un-under the mud so we die!"

Terry was right. If they wanted to shove us under the clay, there wasn't a thing we could do to save ourselves!

My mouth suddenly got very dry and I felt really, really dizzy. I was breathing hard with my head tilted back away from the soupy clay, getting dizzier and dizzier, I could hear my heart beating in my breath and I was sure I was going to pass out any second.

"Well, look what we have here!" I heard the hermit's voice say in a really sarcastic way. "You two little girls have really gotten yourselves into a mess!"

I could turn my head to the right just enough to see him at the edge of the pit, lying down with an elbow on the ground and his head resting on his palm like he was looking at bugs in the grass. It was easy to see he didn't care how much danger we were in.

"Please . . . " I started.

"Heh . . . I wasn't sure the clay would be soft enough to swallow you both up, so I hedged my bets. Looks like its doing a pretty good job, though. Just don't move and you'll be fine.

"B - but . . . we're s-sinking!"

"That clay is deep, but it's pretty thick and will hold you both tight. The last critter that fell into one of these clay pits was stuck for a day and a half before Bowser found it. Shouldn't be as long this time, though. It's been a while since her last feeding."

Bowser again . . . a dog? If not, then what?

He reached back into the grass for his shoulder pack and dug through it, looking for something. He pulled out a small, clear plastic bottle full of some green liquid and held it up over the pit like a can of bug spray.

His finger squeezed up and down on top of the cap. The bottle hissed a little, and small clouds of spray drifted over the pit, disappearing into the air.

"Woo . . . Wha . . . ? " I started.

The hermit smiled in the same "that's my secret" way he did back on his boat. Then he got up and swung his shoulder pack over his back.

"I have to leave you two in your lonely little predicament. But don't worry -- you won't be lonely for long. Once Bowser catches scent of . . ."

He stopped talking and got really quiet. That's when we could hear somebody crashing though the marsh grass and bushes nearby and getting closer.

"Looks like I have to go now," the hermit said and turned back in the direction he’d come.

Then Terry started yelling for help.

"Down here!" she shouted to somebody I couldn't see. "We're in the mud!"

"Hold on!" a voice shouted back. "I'm almost there!"

It was Dennis!

I looked back for the hermit, but he had disappeared.

"Hurry up!" I yelled. "We're almost under!"

Dennis broke out of the tall grass and suddenly stopped himself before he fell into the pit with us.

"What are you kids doing here!" he yelled at us, but didn't wait for an answer. He quickly dropped onto the grass at the edge of the pit, as close as he could get to Terry.

"Grab my hands!" he told her, reaching out to where she was flailing. "Grab and hold tight!".

Terry's muddy hands slipped through her older brothers' a couple of times before he got a good grip on her wrists. Then Dennis started working his way back from the edge of the pit by sliding on his stomach a little at a time.

But Terry didn't move. She was really stuck fast in the soft mud.

"Help me out, will you?" he urged her. "Wiggle around under there and loosen it up!"

I could feel the mud around me starting to shake as Terry worked her legs to get the clay even soupier than it already was. But it was also making me sink a little faster.

"Hurry up you guys!" I pled. "This is making me sink, too!"

Dennis started drawing her out from the clay, slowly at first, and then quickly as she began slipping across the muddy wet surface. He pulled her far enough out to where she could grab the grass that hung from the edge of the pit to keep herself from slipping back in.

"Hold on for just a little while," he told her, then crawled over beside me.

"C'mon, mud puppy," he said. "I'm sure you've been through this before"

"Hey!" I complained at him, and I could feel my eyes start to sting. He wasn't making a joke, and I was sure he was blaming the whole thing on me.

After he pulled me to the edge and had me holding onto the grass, he went back for Terry and pulled her all the way out of the pit. I hadn't really noticed at first, but she had been crying the whole time Dennis was rescuing me. That might have helped get him mad at me.

I guess he was right to blame me for getting Terry in trouble. It was my idea to come out here, and I let her join me. She wasn't the kind to get excited by mysteries and detective stuff. I remembered back to the romance paperback she showed me in her room. Yeah. I really should have known better.

When he got me out of the mud too, he sat with his back against the tall grass and shook his head.

"What kind of stupid game were you two playing?"

We both started talking at once.

" . . . in the PAPER! . . . and MR POTTER! . . . the ROBBERY! . . . two of Dad's REPORTERS! . . . had GUNS! . . . in an old CABIN! . . . tied us UP! . . . with POISON GAS! . . . full of DIAMONDS! . . . on an ISLAND! . . . with a BIG SHOTGUN! . . . full of ANIMALS! . . . our BIKES! . . . in the MUD! . . . sprayed something GREEN! . . . then YOU! got here . . . "

He sat there looking from me to Terry and back again all through our story, which really wasn't coming out very well, but neither one of us wanted to be blamed for playing some kind of game in the marsh.

"Man, oh man," he said and shook his head again. "There's going to be some big trouble at home tonight, that's for sure. You guys look like peanut butter sandwiches without the bread."

I hadn't been thinking about that, but he was right. Terry *never* got into this kind of trouble. And as for me . . . two ruined school uniforms in one week . . . the last ones I had . . . and two pairs of new shoes . . . I didn't think Dad was going to let me off with a lecture this time. Finding missing diamonds wasn't as good as saving Mr. Potter's life.

Dennis stood up and looked at the mud on his arms and on his shirt.

"You guys are going to get cleaned up before I let you ride in my car," he said. "Let's find some shallow water around here."

Terry got up slowly, and I could hear her breath making "I'm still crying" sounds. I slipped twice before I got enough mud off the soles of my shoes so I could stand up and not slide around. Then we both followed Dennis back the way he had come through the tall grasses and toward the embankment where our bikes were.

He pointed off to one side of our trail.

"That stream over there looks safe enough. You two wash off. Get all that mud off, or you won't be coming back with me, that's for sure."

We walked over to the shallow stream. The water was clear enough before we stepped in, and got cloudy yellow right away. I started taking off my shoes, socks and sweater, then looked back where Dennis was cleaning himself off a little ways away. Terry looked over at him too.

"Denny," she called. "Could you please clean up somewhere else?".

Dennis opened his mouth, and I thought he was going to say something. Instead, he quickly washed the mud from his arms and walked back into the tall grass.

"Jeeps, Terry" I whispered. "He saved our lives . . . "

She kept her eyes down on her own cleaning.

"He knows better than to be around if I'm not dressed."

Still . . . after everything we'd been through.

But after I found out just how muddy we'd gotten, I was glad she had him leave. We had to soak all our clothes and swim around in the steam to get clean. The water was really cold, so we didn't spend a lot of time swimming. After a lot of rubbing and rinsing mud from our hair and bodies, and squeezing water through our sweaters, plaid jumpers and (not so) white blouses, we got back up on the bank and started pulling on our wet clothes again.

The water made squishing noises in our shoes as we walked toward the highway embankment to join Dennis. I stopped for a moment and looked back down at the pit. The cracks surrounding the sides of the bowl ended in a big messy hole in the middle where we’d gotten trapped. There was no sign of the hermit or his boat, and no sound of a boat motor anywhere across the marsh.

There was little I could make out down there, especially since my glasses were buried in clay somewhere in the middle of all that yellow glop. But something moving just beyond the corner of my eye grabbed my attention. I couldn’t see anything if I tried to look straight at the marsh grass, but when I turned my head and didn’t try to look at anything I could see something moving. It looked like just a small shadow area, but I was certain it moved. And then I saw another shadow area maybe a few feet away move at the same time. And then another. If I didn’t look right at them, I could see three shadows moving, like three short, black animals wiggling in place, not moving anywhere. Then one shadow stopped . . . then the next one . . . finally that last one, like they’d dissappeard one after the other on some kind of signal.

“Hey! Let’s go, okay?”

Dennis was waiting for me with his hands on his hips like the way Dad does when he’s impatient and want me to hurry up. Terry was standing beside him, her arms wrapped around herself and her legs together feeling cold in the light breeze that had come up.

"Get your bike," he told me, and I saw Terry already had hers standing beside her.

My bike were the same as Id left it. My book bag was still in one of the side baskets. I looked inside to make sure everything was still there. Nothing was missing . . not even my math book.

By the time I'd walked my bike up to the gravel side of the highway and joined them, Dennis had the trunk of his car open and was glaring at us again.

"And how did you guys get down here? Did you ride your bikes on the highway?"

Another serious no-no. Terry and I looked at each other, and we new it was going to be a very, very bad night.

We were starting to put our bikes in his trunk when there was a sudden noise out of the bushes right behind us. Somebody was walking through them and out onto the gravel.

In another moment he appeared . . . a man holding a gun and pointing it at us!

It was the Stumbling Guy! And now that I could see his face, I recognized him as the man who shot at Mr. Potter and had pushed me into the clay pit a couple of days ago!

"None of you kids move an inch," he demanded. "We're all going for a ride back into the marsh."

If there was anywhere on Earth I didn't want to go with that guy . . .

Terry was frozen with her arms still floating over her bike in Dennis' trunk. Dennis stayed still with his hand on the car door handle, his eyes wide. And I wasn't moving, even though my toes were pointed in and I must have looked like a complete pigeon-toed idiot. No detective wants to look like a complete idiot when the Bad Guys get the drop on them.

"Get those bikes out of the trunk!" he commanded with a wave of his gun at Dennis' car. "Do it right now!"

Terry grabbed the frame of her bike and pulled it back out of the trunk. I was right behind her doing the same. We rolled them back to the bushes and let them down on top of one another.

The Stumbling Guy shook his gun at us.

"Now you two climb in and get comfortable!"

Terry gasped out loud and I got a hard, scared feeling in my chest that made my heart beat even faster than it was already. Neither of us moved an inch. We just stood there staring at him in our dripping clothes, hoping he didn't really mean what he said.

He walked at us quickly and started shoving us toward the car with his free hand.

"I said get in there! Hurry up!"

Dennis started to come around toward us, and I could see real anger in his eyes. But the guy with the gun was in charge.

"Get back kid, or I'll get rid of you right here."

Dennis stopped, and I figure I would have done the same thing. With that gun waving around, I wasn't going to do anything but what the Stumbling Guy said.

I heard Terry whimpering as we crawled into the small space of the trunk, and I was going to whisper something brave to her until I noticed that I was making the same whimpering sounds. My detective head said I should be embarrassed, but a whole lot more of me knew I couldn't stop. The dangers we'd gone through this afternoon had all left my mind. Getting forced into a car trunk by a Bad Guy with a gun was the worst thing ever.

The trunk lid came down with a bang that hurt my ears. Terry and I were both curled up facing each other. She was crying, and I was trying not to cry so I wouldn't make it worse for her. But I was having a hard time.

"Get in!" I heard the Stumbling Guy yell at Dennis. The door on the left opened, then the door on the right, then both closed at the same time.

Terry had buried her face into her arms so that she didn't make loud sounds while she cried. I was trying to listen to what the Stumbling Guy was saying.

"Drive up to East Pass Road, then turn around back to Fawnhollow Road. Just drive where I tell you and don't play any stupid tricks."

There was a few seconds of quiet, then

"I'm aiming this gun at the back seats. We wouldn't want it to go off accidentally, would we?"

It took me a moment to figure out what he meant. My heart sped up again when I did, and I hoped Terry hadn't heard. I had been trying to slow my breathing down to keep from using up the air, but when my imagination saw a gun pointed at the trunk, right at my back, I couldn't do anything about how fast I was breathing. Tears started to run down my cheeks again. I was very, very scared.

Dennis started the car. I could smell the oily fumes coming up from his tail pipe and into the trunk. I started to wonder if we might get suffocated before we got to Fawnhollow Road. Terry started to cough, and I could feel a kind of gritty feeling in my throat.

"Terry!" I whispered loudly. "Pull your sweater up over your face and breath through it!"

I yanked the front of my wet sweater to my face. It was like breathing through a wet rag, like they tell you to do if you are trying to get out of a house that's on fire. It was kind of the same thing. At least I sure hoped it was. Luckily the grittiness in my throat went away and Terry stopped coughing.

We stayed like this while Dennis drove the car up onto the highway, bouncing us around as we went. I followed our direction by paying attention to where my weight went as he drove, so I knew when he turned right at East Pass Road and made a u-turn back toward the west end of Sparrow Lake. I was trying to stay aware of where we were going so that I wouldn't think about what was going to happen when we got there.

The car slowed down, and I could hear another car pass by, going in the opposite direction. Then we turned left and I could hear the tires crunching across the gravel shoulder. We must have been at the top of Fawnhollow Road.

Then I heard the car make a funny noise. A kind of rattling noise coming from the front, probably the engine. It was rattling fast while the car was moving, then slowed down as the car slowed down, until we came to a stop and everything was quiet.

"What is it?" the Stumbling Guy demanded. "Why did we stop?"

"Something with the motor," Dennis answered. "I've been trying to fix it. The car won't start again until I clean off some hose connections."

"Then get to it!"

Two car doors opened at the same time, and I could imagine the gun following Dennis around to the hood, until I heard it open. Then the familiar banging noises.

"Maybe he won't get it started again," Terry whispered. "Or maybe he'll make sure it doesn't start. I don't want to go down in the marsh again . . ."

Dennis banged around longer than he had when he fixed it coming home from school. I started to wonder when the Bad Guy was going to get impatient and what he would do when Dennis couldn't start the car again. Like maybe shoot all three of us.

Then the Stumbling Guy started to use a bunch of words in a language I didn't understand, but the way he was saying them sounded like when Dennis said bad things to his car. Maybe everybody fixed their cars like that.

The sound of crunching gravel came from far away and quickly got louder and closer until it stopped and I could hear the motor of another car. A door opened and somebody yelled out, really close to where we were curled up in the trunk.

"Drop the gun and get your hands up into the air!" the new voice said. "Don't make a move or I'll shoot!"

"It's the cops!" Terry said out loud. "We're gonna get rescued!"

There was more gravel crunching and another car door opened and slammed.

"Where are the girls?" another new voice yelled. "Where are they?"

"They're locked up in the trunk!" I heard Dennis yell back, and then the jingle of keys hitting the metal of the trunk over us before sliding down to the gravel. Then crunching footsteps, another jingle of keys, then the metal sound of a key in the lock . . .

Then fresh air and sunlight. I squinted up at the tall man looking down into the trunk at us.

It was Dad.

"Here they are!" he called back to the police. "They look okay."

He pulled Terry out first, then me. Gosh he was strong. He lifted us one at a time like we were little kids. It was a long time since he'd done that with me.

Terry and I had to lean against the car, stretching our legs so we could stand up by ourselves. It was colder outside, and a little breeze made our wet clothes feel a lot colder. I was starting to shake all over, but it could have been because of a lot of things.

"Looks like you were right, Frank," the policeman said to Dad. "And it looks like we didn't get here a moment too soon."

I looked around the car and saw him leaning the Stumbling Guy over the hood and pulling his arms behind his back putting handcuffs on him.

"Hey!" Terry yelled at him. "How does it feel, huh?"

Dad put his hand on her shoulder, and his other hand on mine.

"One of my reporters called and told me you two were out here and in a lot of trouble. Are you really okay? You're both a mess. What did this guy do to you?"

Oh jeeps . . . he thought the Stumbling Guy had pushed us into the marsh or something. I looked at Terry at the same time she looked at me. Maybe we could figure out a way to scott free?

I looked over at Dennis. He had a face that said "Your dad hasn't heard anything yet".

So I figured our gooses were cooked anyway.

"Well," I said, and had to force the words out. "A lot of things happened out here, Dad. And I don't think you're going to put it in the paper this time."

Later, when I was home, washed and in pajamas, I told Dad and Mom the whole story. I won't go into all the details about what happened after that except to say the obvious thing: that I was not allowed to go anywhere near the north end of Sparrow Lake ever again no matter what the reason was, even if it was to save the world from total destruction (he didn't say that last part, but I'm sure he would have).

But I was going to see Fawnhollow Marsh again, and it wasn't going to be my idea. I was going to be caught by surprise by somebody I liked and trusted, and risk my life finding out the answers to the Mystery of the Swamp Snake.

- Toby Robin

Dedication:

Oh! Well I never Was there ever A cat so clever As magical Mr. Mistoffolees!