July Jitters Read online

  July Jitters

  The mayor announced that the pet contest would begin in three minutes. “ALL PETS AND THEIR OWNERS MUST LINE UP NOW!” he yelled through his bullhorn.

  Lucy and Brian tied the three-cornered hat to the wig. Bradley set the wig on Polly’s head and tied it on. Then he and Lucy taped the tinfoil buckles on to Polly’s front hooves.

  Nate and Bradley laid the Declaration of Independence on Pal’s back like a cape. They tied it to his collar and tail.

  “They look awesome!” Bradley said.

  “I sure hope the mayor thinks so,” Nate said.

  “ONE MORE MINUTE!” the mayor cried.

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  And that was when Polly and Pal took off running.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Ron Roy

  Cover art, map, and interior illustrations copyright © 2012 by John Steven Gurney

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Roy, Ron.

  July jitters / by Ron Roy; illustrated by John Steven Gurney.

  p. cm. — (Calendar mysteries)

  “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  Summary: Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy enter Polly the pony and Pal the dog in a July 4th pet costume contest, but when Independence Day arrives the animals are nowhere to be found.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89965-2

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Lost and found possessions—Fiction. 3. Fourth of July—Fiction. 4. Ponies—Fiction. 5. Dogs—Fiction. 6. Twins—Fiction. 7. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 8. Cousins—Fiction.] I. Gurney, John Steven, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.R8139 Jul 2011 [Fic]—dc23 2011025276

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  This one is for Christy Webster

  —R.R.

  To Riley, thanks for posing!

  —J.S.G.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  1. Pet Contest

  2. Bradley Has an Idea

  3. Pet Dress-Up

  4. Polly Says No

  5. No Parade for Polly and Pal

  6. Vanished into Thin Air

  7. The Police Join the Search

  8. They’re Really Gone!

  9. Never Give Up

  “Can you guess who I am?” Mr. Vooray asked the students in his first-grade class.

  He was wearing a white wig with a ponytail tied with a ribbon. On top of the wig sat a hat with three corners. He wore short pants, showing long white socks. Shiny buckles decorated the tops of his shoes.

  “Elvis Presley?” Nate Hathaway asked.

  Mr. Vooray shook his head. “I’m a king, but not the king of rock and roll,” he said, grinning. “Anyone else have a guess?”

  “King Tut?” Brian Pinto said.

  Everyone laughed.

  “Wrong period of history,” Mr. Vooray said. “And King Tut was nine years old when he became king. Do I look that young?”

  It was the last day of school, and warm in the classroom. Because of snow days, school was letting out late this year. A fan sat on Mr. Vooray’s desk, but it didn’t do much good. The windows were open, but there was no breeze.

  “Give us a hint!” one boy called out.

  “Okay, I will,” said Mr. Vooray. He pulled a stack of play money off the math shelf. He handed it to Bradley Pinto, who sat in the first row. “Pass it out, and make sure everyone gets some, Bradley.”

  Bradley walked down the rows, giving play paper money to all the kids.

  “Does everyone have money?” Mr. Vooray asked when Bradley was back in his seat.

  “But it’s fake!” Brian Pinto said. “We can’t buy anything with it.”

  “Pretend,” Mr. Vooray said. Then he pulled a box of prizes off the game shelf. “Lucy, do you want to come up here and buy something with your money?”

  Lucy Armstrong walked to the front of the class. She looked in the box. “Can I buy those stickers?” she asked.

  “Certainly,” Mr. Vooray said. “That will be one dollar, please.”

  Lucy handed him a fake dollar.

  “And ten dollars tax, please,” Mr. Vooray added.

  “Ten dollars tax!” Lucy said. “That’s a lot!”

  “Do you want the stickers, Lucy?” Mr. Vooray asked.

  “I guess so,” Lucy said. She gave him ten more dollars and took the stickers back to her seat.

  “You got robbed!” Nate told her.

  “Has anyone guessed which king I am?” asked Mr. Vooray.

  “King Robber!” Brian said, and everyone laughed again.

  “I am King George the Third,” Mr. Vooray said.

  “Who’s he?” Nate asked.

  “He ruled Great Britain back in the 1700s,” Mr. Vooray explained. “That included the American colonies. A lot of the king’s subjects didn’t think he was a very good king. For one thing, he taxed them way too much, just like I taxed Lucy too much. Even though the people in the colonies paid high taxes, they didn’t have anyone to represent them in the British government. They had made a new life for themselves. They had built homes, worked on farms, and started families. But even from far away, King George still tried to rule them.”

  “How could he do that?” Lucy asked.

  “He was a very powerful king,” Mr. Vooray said. “He had lots of money, ships, and men who could cross the ocean and keep an eye on the colonists. Finally, the colonists had had enough of King George. They decided to break away from his power. In 1776, they asked Thomas Jefferson to write a paper explaining why it was a good idea to declare independence from King George. We call this paper the Declaration of Independence.”

  “Hey, I saw that!” Scott yelled out. “It’s in Washington, D.C. Right, Mr. Vooray?”

  “Yes, but the original is quite faded and almost impossible to read,” the teacher said. “Remember, it was written almost two hundred forty years ago.”

  “But if it was so long ago, why do we have parades and fireworks on July Fourth?” a girl named Sue asked.

  “When the colonists separated from the king to form the United States, they celebrated,” Mr. Vooray explained. “And we still celebrate every July Fourth. Everyone wants to remember the importance of Independence Day.”

  “Are you going to the parade?” Bradley asked.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” the teacher said. “I’m going to enter my parrot, Patrick, in the mayor’s pet contest.”

  “What contest?” Brian asked.

  “It’s the mayor’s idea,” Mr. Vooray said. “Before the real parade starts, there will be a pet parade. The mayor wants people to bring their pets, dressed as someone from 1776. The winner gets a prize. It costs a dollar to enter a pet, and the money goes to the food pantry.”

  “What’s the prize?” a boy named Seth asked.

  “The owner of the winning pet gets to be mayor for a day,” Mr. Vooray said. “Pre
tty cool, right?”

  “You mean, like, sit in the mayor’s office all day?” Jackie asked.

  Mr. Vooray grinned. “You’d also get to drive around in his shiny black car and eat lunch in his favorite restaurant,” he said. “Plus, you’d be on TV. The local TV station will be filming the whole thing.”

  “On TV!” a bunch of kids yelled. They all started chattering about how they would dress their hamsters, cats, and canaries.

  “Way cool!” Brian said. “We can enter our dog! If he wins, I get to be mayor!”

  “But we both own Pal,” Bradley said. “If Pal wins, we both get to be mayor, right, Mr. Vooray?”

  Mr. Vooray smiled. “I think my parrot is going to win,” he said.

  The next day was July 1. Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy were in the Pintos’ barn, where it was cool. They were sitting on bales of hay. Pigeons made cooing noises in the roof rafters over their heads.

  The four kids were best buddies. The twins’ older brother, Josh, was friends with Nate’s sister, Ruth Rose, and Lucy’s cousin Dink Duncan. Lucy was visiting from California. She was staying with Dink’s family while her parents were helping to build a Native American school in Arizona.

  Bradley had a pad of paper and a pencil. “Okay, we need some ideas for how to dress Pal,” he said. “I want to be mayor for a day!”

  Pal was licking the edge of the pad.

  Lucy was sitting next to Pal. “Do you want to be in the July Fourth parade?” she asked him.

  Pal woofed a doggy yes.

  “Are you going to win first prize?” Brian asked his dog.

  Pal woofed twice as loud.

  “Come on, guys, we need ideas,” Bradley said.

  Pal had long, droopy ears, sad brown eyes, and short legs.

  “How about making Pal a moose?” Nate asked. “I have some antlers from a Halloween costume.”

  “That would look silly,” Lucy said. “Besides, moose have long legs.”

  “We could dress Pal as a cowboy and have him ride Polly in the parade,” Brian suggested. “Like Roy Rogers and Trigger.”

  Polly, the Pintos’ pony, was in her stall at the other end of the barn.

  Bradley laughed at his brother’s suggestion. “They’d both hate it,” he said. “But you gave me an idea!”

  “I did?” asked Brian.

  Bradley nodded. “Yep. Just think, if we entered both Pal and Polly, we’d have two chances to win,” he said.

  “That’s what I just said,” Brian stated. “Pal can be a cowboy riding on Polly. Perfect!”

  “But it’s a July Fourth parade,” Bradley said. “They didn’t have cowboys in 1776.”

  “What did they have?” Nate asked.

  “They had dinosaurs!” Brian yelled. “We can dress Pal as a stegosaurus and Polly as a pterodactyl!”

  The other kids laughed, and Bradley threw some hay at his brother.

  “They did not have dinosaurs in 1776,” Bradley said.

  “Besides, if we want to win, we need the costumes to have something to do with Independence Day,” Lucy said.

  “Lucy’s right,” Bradley said.

  “So we dress Polly as King George?” Nate asked. He started laughing and rolled over in the hay.

  “My idea,” Bradley said, “is to dress Polly as Thomas Jefferson. And Pal goes as the Declaration of Independence.”

  Brian stared at his brother. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “Bri, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence,” Bradley said. “Pal and Polly will be perfect, and it stays with the theme of the parade! We could win!”

  Lucy looked at Pal. “I think that’s a great idea!” she said. “But how do we make Pal look like a sheet of paper?”

  “I know!” Nate said. “I’ll ask my sister to find a copy of the Declaration of Independence on our computer and print it out. Then we tie it on Pal’s back, like a cape.”

  Brian grinned. “What about Polly?” he asked. “Thomas Jefferson had only two legs, and he wore pants. How do we make Polly look like him?”

  “Easy,” Bradley said. “We forget her hind legs. We put a wig on her head, with one of those funny hats with three corners.…”

  “Like Mr. Vooray was wearing yesterday,” Lucy put in.

  “Right,” Bradley said. “We can make some buckles and tape them to Polly’s front hooves. It’ll be so cool! Everyone will know who she’s supposed to be, and we’ll win the prize. I’ll be mayor for a day!”

  “No, we will,” Brian said. “We can each be half a mayor.”

  “Not so fast,” Nate said. “There are four of us here, so we each get to be a fourth of a mayor. I want to be his fingers so I can count all his money.”

  “I’ll be his feet so I can drive his car,” Bradley said.

  “I hear the mayor likes to eat ice cream,” Brian said. “I’ll be his stomach!”

  “How about you, Lucy?” Bradley asked.

  “I’ll be the mayor’s brain,” she said. “Then I control all of you guys!”

  The kids spent the next few days gathering what they would need to turn Polly and Pal into Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. On the morning of July Fourth they met on Bradley and Brian’s back porch. Pal lay under a small table with his eyes closed. It was a sunny, warm day.

  Nate had brought cardboard and a large sheet of paper. Printed on it was a copy of the Declaration of Independence. “Ruth Rose printed it out,” he told the others. “She’s going to enter her cat, Tiger, in the pet parade. She wants to be mayor for a day, too!”

  “No way!” Brian yelled.

  He handed Nate some string and a small bottle of glue.

  “Pal will hate this,” Brian said. “I tried to dress him as Superman for Halloween once, and he chewed on his costume.”

  Hearing his name, Pal opened one eye, yawned, then closed it again.

  Lucy showed them a fluffy white wig. “Dink lent it to us,” she said. “He said he was George Washington in a school play once. He told me he’s entering Loretta, his guinea pig. Dink wants to be mayor, too!”

  “There are hundreds of people with pets in Green Lawn,” Brian said. “They’ll all try to win!”

  “So we have to make sure Pal and Polly are the best,” Bradley said.

  “Look what I found in our attic,” Brian said. He flopped an old-timey hat on his head. “I think it was my grandfather Pinto’s.”

  “Dude, it needs to have three corners,” Nate said. “This one is round.”

  “It will have corners when I’m done with it!” Brian said. He showed them his mother’s sewing scissors. “I’ll make corners.”

  “What else do we need?” Bradley asked.

  “A ribbon for Thomas Jefferson’s ponytail,” Lucy said. “I looked him up, and he always wore one.” She pulled a black ribbon from her pocket. “My aunt gave it to me.”

  “And we need buckles for his shoes,” Nate said.

  “Easy!” Brian said. He ran into the kitchen and came back with a roll of tinfoil. “I figure we can cut buckles from some of this cardboard, then cover them with tinfoil.”

  “How do we keep them on Polly’s feet?” Nate asked.

  Bradley showed them a roll of tape. “Duct tape. It sticks forever.”

  “Duck tape?” Nate said. “Why do ducks need tape?”

  “I think they’re two different words,” Bradley said.

  “Listen,” Lucy said. “I hear drums!”

  “It must be the high school band practicing. The parade starts in an hour,” Bradley said. “Let’s get this stuff ready!”

  Bradley started cutting two squares from Nate’s cardboard. They sort of looked like buckles.

  Lucy made a ponytail on the back of the white wig and tied the ribbon on to it.

  Brian started snipping off pieces of the hat, trying to make it look like Mr. Vooray’s.

  Nate poked two holes at the top of his copy of the Declaration, and two more near the bottom.

  “W
hat’re the holes for?” Brian asked.

  “For the string, so we can tie the paper to Pal’s collar and around his tail.”

  Brian shook his head. “I don’t know if Pal will like that, Nate,” he said.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t try to put it on him until the parade starts,” Lucy suggested.

  “Good idea,” Bradley said. “Okay, let’s go show Polly her Thomas Jefferson wig!”

  The kids walked to the barn. Pal led the way with his tail wagging. Polly the pony was nibbling on straw in her stall. When the kids came near, she looked at them with big brown eyes. She let out a soft nicker and her ears went straight up.

  Bradley stepped into the stall and slipped a halter over Polly’s head. She playfully bumped her head against his and brushed his cheek with her soft lips.

  “We’ll need to make holes in the wig for her ears,” Bradley said.

  “Got it,” Lucy said. Brian handed her the scissors, and he turned the wig inside out. The inside was stretchy cloth. With Brian holding the wig, Lucy cut two holes big enough for two pony ears.

  “Let’s try it on her,” Brian said.

  Bradley held the harness while Brian and Lucy slipped the wig onto Polly’s head. Brian reached underneath and popped her ears up through the two holes.

  “How does she look?” Lucy asked.

  “Like a pony with a wig on,” Nate said.

  Suddenly Polly snorted and threw her head back. She stamped her feet on the stall floor.

  “I knew she wouldn’t like it,” Bradley said. He pulled the wig off. “Settle down, girl.”

  Polly quieted right down. But she kept her eyes on the wig in Bradley’s hand.

  “Okay, I guess we won’t put Polly’s costume on until the last minute, either,” Bradley said.

  “I think we should tie the hat to the wig,” Lucy said. “Then we can just plop the whole thing on her head when we get to the parade. We can tie it on with more of the ribbon.”

  “Good idea,” Brian said. “And we can tape the buckles on her hooves at the same time.”

  “Okay, we have to go,” Bradley said. He started to lead Polly out of her stall.