September Sneakers Read online

  “And the ones in the tree,” Nate said.

  “None of it makes sense,” Bradley said. “I just want Goldi back!”

  “So what do we do?” Brian asked.

  “We should follow Ms. Tery home,” Bradley whispered. “If she’s stealing stuff, maybe we’ll catch her in the act!”

  A soccer ball shot past Bradley. When he grabbed the ball, he saw some high school kids walking by the school. The tallest kid had another boy on his shoulders. Two of the others were tossing a basketball back and forth. They were pretty big, so Bradley figured they were seniors.

  The school bell sounded, and Bradley bounded back to the other kids. He carried the soccer ball and handed it to Ms. Tery.

  “Thank you, Brian,” Ms. Tery said.

  “I’m Bradley,” Bradley said.

  She grinned. “Who says?”

  “I have bigger freckles than my brother,” Bradley said.

  Ms. Tery made the kids wash their hands. Then she marched them to the school library. “Walk single file, like little ducks,” she said. “And no quacking!”

  Bradley picked a book called Charlotte’s Web. The cover showed a big spider hanging from its web and a girl with a pig in her arms.

  When it was almost time to go home, Ms. Tery told the kids they could read quietly for a few minutes. She walked around the room, checking out everyone’s books.

  At Bradley’s desk she stopped. “I love that book,” she said. “But I really don’t like spiders!” Ms. Tery rubbed her arms. “Spiders give me goose bumps!”

  A few minutes later the bell rang.

  “Class dismissed!” Ms. Tery called out. “See you tomorrow!”

  The kids jumped out of their seats. Bradley nodded good-bye to Ms. Tery. He had a lump in his throat. Were they really going to spy on their teacher?

  Outside, Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy hid behind some bushes on the side of the school. Ms. Tery would have to walk right past them.

  “What if she doesn’t walk home?” Lucy asked. “What if she has a car?”

  “I never thought of that,” Bradley said.

  They sat and waited. They heard teachers saying good-bye. They heard car doors slam and engines start.

  Bradley heard a bird call and looked up into the nearest tree. It was the same tree where the sneakers had been hanging. Only now they were gone.

  Suddenly his brother grabbed his arm. “She’s coming!” Brian whispered.

  Ms. Tery loped past them, heading for Main Street. She carried a shopping bag with a picture of a kangaroo on the side.

  “She’s walking!” Bradley whispered.

  “I’ll bet she carries the stuff she steals in that bag!” Nate said.

  “Or maybe it’s filled with tiny sneakers,” Brian offered.

  The kids watched Ms. Tery cross Main Street.

  “She’s headed for Bridge Lane,” Nate remarked.

  “Let’s go before we lose her!” Brian said.

  “We can’t lose her,” Nate sniggered. “She’s too tall to lose.”

  “She’s going into the supermarket!” Lucy said.

  Ms. Tery disappeared inside the store. The kids waited for a WALK signal, then hurried across Main Street.

  “I’ll go in to see what she’s doing,” Brian said. “The rest of you stay out here.”

  Brian slipped through the supermarket door.

  “I wonder if Ms. Tery plans to steal something from the store,” Bradley said, “and leave a sneaker behind.”

  “How cool would it be to have a teacher who goes to jail for shoplifting!” Nate said. “Maybe we’d get a vacation!”

  Two minutes later Brian came running through the door.

  “Did she see you?” Bradley asked.

  Brian shook his head. “Nope. She’s in the checkout line,” he said. “And guess what she bought?”

  “Candy?” Nate guessed.

  “Nope,” Brian said.

  “Hamster food?” Lucy offered.

  “Nope.”

  “Brian, tell us right now!” Bradley said.

  “She got a bunch of carrots and some broccoli!” Brian said, his eyes all excited.

  The others just looked at him.

  “Don’t you get it?” Brian said. “She bought orange and green stuff, like all the sneakers!”

  “Like her orange skirt and green shirt,” Lucy added.

  “And look what I found!” Brian whipped a paper from his pocket. He showed it to the others. The printing on the paper said:

  SWEET FEET COMING SOON!!!!!

  Below the words was a picture of green-and-orange sneakers.

  “There was a pile of these flyers inside the door,” Brian said.

  “What does sweet feet mean?” Nate asked.

  No one had an answer.

  “Yikes, she’s coming out!” Nate hissed. The kids raced behind a row of shopping carts.

  Ms. Tery strolled outside and took a right, heading up Bridge Lane. Her shopping bag was fat. Bradley wondered what was in there besides carrots and broccoli. Bobby Arnold’s basketball? Mr. Vooray’s tennis racket? A hamster named Goldi?

  The kids ran behind Bill’s Bikes. They watched Ms. Tery walk past Pheasant Lane and Owl Road. She turned left onto Thrush Court.

  The four kids crept from behind the bike shop. They darted toward some hedges on the corner of Bridge Lane and Thrush Court. Now they had a perfect view of their teacher marching up the street.

  Ms. Tery turned in at a small yellow house. She walked up the steps, unlocked the front door, and disappeared inside.

  “Now what?” Nate asked. “Want to peek in her windows?”

  “No, that would be trespassing,” Bradley said. “Let’s just walk past her house. If she sees us, we can always say we’re going to visit someone.”

  The kids ambled past the yellow house, looking straight ahead. Bradley stole a peek into the yard. He saw some bushes. He saw a garage with a basketball hoop nailed over the door.

  “Look,” Nate whispered. He jerked his head toward the front porch. They all saw a basketball on a small bench by the door.

  “I wonder if that’s Bobby Arnold’s,” Brian said.

  “Don’t stop and gawk!” Bradley said. “Let’s go back!”

  The kids turned around and walked away. They stopped under a giant tree that grew on the corner of Thrush Court and Bridge Lane. The thick limbs spread all the way to the other side of Bridge Lane.

  “If we climbed this tree, we could see right into Ms. Tery’s backyard,” Brian said.

  The others gazed up into the tree.

  “Oh no!” Bradley yelled. “There’s another one!”

  Hanging from a limb ten feet over their heads was a pair of sneakers.

  “Green-and-orange sneakers,” Nate said. “Looks like the sneaker maniac is following us!”

  “They look just like the ones we saw hanging near the school,” Brian said.

  “I think they’re the same ones,” Bradley said. “That other pair is gone. I noticed they were missing after school.”

  The four kids gazed up at the pair hanging above them. “And you think that’s them up there?” Nate asked.

  Bradley nodded. “I saw some high school kids near the tree,” he said. “They might have taken them down and brought them over here.”

  “But why?” Brian asked. “This is crazy!”

  “I’m going up to get them,” Lucy said. She dropped her book bag on the ground and began climbing the tall tree.

  “What for?” asked Nate.

  Lucy stopped climbing. “Maybe whoever left these sneakers is the same person who put the little one in the barn,” she said. “And that person stole Goldi.” Lucy pointed up. “These sneakers might be clues!”

  Lucy climbed until she came to the limb holding the sneakers. But the limb was too thin for her to go any farther. “I need a long stick,” Lucy called down.

  The three boys scurried around in the bushes under the tree.

  “I got one!
” Bradley yelled. He held up a dead branch. “Is this okay?”

  “Perfect,” Lucy said. “Can you hand it to me?”

  “I think so,” Bradley said.

  “We’ll give you a boost,” his brother said.

  Brian and Nate put their hands together and linked their fingers. This made a step for Bradley’s foot. With one hand on his brother’s head, Bradley held the branch up to Lucy.

  “Got it!” Lucy said. She used the stick to knock the sneakers to the ground.

  Lucy scurried down, and Nate plucked a leaf out of her hair.

  “Cool climbing, Lucy,” he said.

  Bradley took a whiff inside one of the sneakers. “They smell new,” he said. “Look how white the laces are. I don’t think they’ve even been worn.”

  “Why would anyone toss a pair of cool new sneakers up into a tree?” asked Nate.

  The kids studied the sneakers. They were bright green, with a lightning bolt on the side. Inside, a label said SWEET FEET.

  “Like the flyer I found in the supermarket!” Brian said. He held up the small sneaker they’d found in the barn. “They’re the same, only this little one doesn’t say sweet feet inside.”

  “This is getting weirder and weirder,” Bradley said.

  “Let’s head home,” Brian said. “My tummy needs a snack.”

  They decided to walk down Owl Road. Nate had the SWEET FEET sneakers hanging around his neck. Bradley was studying the flyer, trying to make sense of it.

  Suddenly a voice rang out. “Hey, you kids!”

  A man with gray hair walked over to them. He was holding a leaf rake.

  “You kids live around here?” the man asked.

  “No, we live on the other side of Main Street,” Brian answered.

  The man looked suspicious. “What’re you doing over here?” he asked.

  “We were looking for our teacher,” Nate piped up. “Ms. Tery? She lives on Thrush Court.”

  Finally the man smiled. “Okay, but there’s been some stealing going on, and I just wondered.”

  “What kind of stealing?” Bradley asked.

  “Someone took my front doormat,” the man said. He pointed to his porch. “It was there last night, and gone this morning. Who’d want an old doormat?”

  “Sir, did you find a little green sneaker like this?” Brian asked. He held up the one clipped to his book bag.

  “I’ll be danged!” the man said. “I found one like that on the porch. Gave it to my grandson.”

  “It’s been happening all over town,” Bradley said. He told the man about the kids in school who’d lost stuff. “They took our hamster!”

  “My pal Hector lost his garden hose!” the man said. “He lives on Pheasant Lane. I’ll ask him if he got one of those sneaker things.”

  The man shook his head and went back to his raking. The kids waved, then kept walking down Owl Road. “Something very weird is going on in this town,” Bradley muttered. “And I intend to find out what!”

  Five minutes later the kids piled into the kitchen at Bradley and Brian’s house. They found a note and a plate of cookies on the table.

  The note said:

  Out shopping.

  Will be back soon.

  Play with Pal!

  —Mom

  “Cool!” Brian said, grabbing the plate. “Hey, Pal, come and get a cookie!”

  Pal came loping into the kitchen with his leash in his mouth. The kids took him out into the yard. Bradley and Brian’s older brother, Josh, was sitting at the picnic table. Josh was a freshman in high school this year. He was drawing in a notebook. He slammed it shut when he saw the kids coming.

  “Hey,” Josh said. “What’s going on?” He grabbed a cookie.

  “Josh, Goldi got stolen last night!” Brian said.

  “No way!” Josh said. “Cute little Goldi? Are you sure she didn’t just run away?”

  “Not unless she took her aquarium with her,” Bradley said.

  The kids all explained about the green sneaker mystery. Brian showed Josh the little sneaker, and Nate showed him the big ones.

  “Where’d you get these?” Josh asked. He took the sneakers from Nate.

  “They were hanging in a tree over on Bridge Lane,” Bradley said. “Lucy climbed up and got them.”

  “Could they be a clue?” Lucy asked. “The little ones look just like these bigger ones.”

  “I don’t know about a clue,” Josh said. “But I saw one of the seniors wearing a pair exactly like these in school today.”

  “You did?” Bradley cried. “Who?”

  Josh handed the sneakers to Bradley. “A kid named Will. He plays basketball, and he’s in the Junior Inventors club I joined.”

  Bradley’s mind was going a hundred miles an hour. Did this Will kid steal Goldi? Was he leaving little sneakers all over town?

  “What’s the Junior Inventors club?” Nate asked.

  “Just a bunch of kids who like inventing things,” Josh said. He waved his notebook and grinned. “Someday this invention is going to change the world!”

  Josh headed for the barn. Nate, Brian, and Lucy sat at the picnic table with the cookies between them. Bradley stood next to the table with the green sneakers in his hand.

  Bradley felt a tug. Pal yanked the sneakers out of his hand and dropped them on the ground. His big, wet nose traveled all over the sneakers, inside and out. Then he threw his head back and let out a howl.

  Pal flopped down on his belly and tossed one of the sneakers into the air. It landed on his head. Pal whimpered and looked at the kids with big brown eyes.

  “He used to look just like that when he was playing with Goldi,” Lucy said. “He must miss her.”

  When he heard Goldi, Pal barked. Then he stuck his snout inside one of the sneakers.

  Bradley thought about Pal’s sense of smell. He dropped down and clipped the leash on to Pal’s collar. “Come on, Pal, let’s go to the high school!” he said.

  “Why do you want to go there?” Nate asked.

  “To find this Will kid Josh mentioned,” Bradley said. “He has sneakers like these. If we can find Will, I’ll bet we can find out everything else!”

  They headed down Farm Lane. Nate was carrying the sneakers, looped around his neck. They cut through a field to get to the high school.

  The outdoor basketball court was next to the gym. Three tall kids were shooting hoops. None of them was wearing green-and-orange sneakers. The four kids and Pal walked over to the players.

  Bradley took the sneakers from Nate. When one of the big kids looked at him, Bradley held them up. “Do you know who these belong to?” he asked.

  All three players walked over. “No, but I’ve seen a few guys wearing sneakers just like them,” one of the boys said. “They’re way cool!”

  “A few guys?” Brian asked. “Like who?”

  “Will Taylor and Buddy Plotsky,” the tallest boy said. “And I think Hunter Tery has a pair.”

  “Hunter Tery?” Bradley asked. “Our teacher is Ms. Tery.”

  The tall boy grinned. “Yup. Hunter’s her kid. Those guys hang out together all the time.”

  The three boys continued their game. Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy looked at each other. Finally they walked over to a bench and sat.

  “Ms. Tery has a kid who owns sneakers like these?” Nate asked.

  “I guess a bunch of his friends do, too,” Bradley said.

  “So how do we know which one owns these?” Nate asked.

  Brian pulled out the flyer he’d taken from the supermarket. “And what’s up with this?” he asked. He read from the flyer: “ ‘Sweet feet coming soon!!!!!’ ”

  “Maybe feet means sneakers,” Nate suggested. “A lot of sneakers have been showing up around here!”

  “You’re right, Nate,” Bradley said. “I wonder if there’s a pattern to where the little sneakers have been found. That man on Owl Road found one on his porch. And his friend on Pheasant Lane found one.”

  “And Bobby A
rnold, who lives on Blue Jay Way, got one,” Nate said.

  “Zack lives on Wren Drive,” Brian said. “He found a little sneaker, too.”

  “And Mr. Vooray did,” Lucy added. “Where does he live?”

  “On Eagle Lane,” Brian said. “Not too far from our house.”

  Bradley jumped up. “All those places are pretty near Thrush Court,” he said. “Where Ms. Tery lives with her son, Hunter. And Hunter owns green-and-orange sneakers, too!”

  “Sneakers that Pal thinks smell like Goldi!” Lucy said.

  Bradley grinned. “I think we need to go visit Ms. Tery,” he said.

  The kids trekked up Bridge Lane. Pal tugged on his leash, as if he knew exactly where he was going. They stopped in front of the little yellow house on Thrush Court, then walked up the driveway to the garage. The basketball was lying under the hoop. Pal began whimpering and tugging Bradley toward the garage.

  Suddenly they heard laughter from inside the garage. Pal began barking and yanked the leash from Bradley’s hand. He raced to the garage, barking like crazy.

  “Pal, stop!” Bradley yelled. He grabbed the leash and pulled his dog away from the door.

  Two things happened at once: A skinny, barefooted teenager opened the garage door. And Ms. Tery came running out of the house. Anyone could tell she was the teenager’s mother. Both were tall with big feet and red hair.

  The teenager stepped out onto the driveway. He shut the garage door behind him. Bradley noticed a sign on the door. It said DANGER—SPIDERS INSIDE. NO MOMS ALLOWED!

  “Well, hello there,” Ms. Tery said to Bradley, Brian, Nate, and Lucy. “What brings you to my humble home?”

  “Hi, Ms. Tery,” Bradley said. “We came to talk to your son.”

  “I don’t even know these kids, Mom,” the tall boy said.

  Nate held up the sneakers. “Do you know these?” he asked.

  Hunter Tery blushed as red as his hair.

  “Those look just like mine!” Ms. Tery said. “Are they yours, Hunter?”

  “Yeah, they’re mine,” Hunter said. He took the sneakers and slipped them onto his feet.