Science Fair Sabotage Read online

  Ms. Sterling followed Mr. Blackstone. The two of them stopped at Claudia’s lab table and began talking. They seemed very interested in Claudia’s project. Jessie organized the samples and the binder on her table.

  Before long, it was her turn to share her project with Ms. Sterling and Mr. Blackstone.

  “Hi,” Jessie began. She glanced over to where Mr. Cooper was still standing with Ms. Kennedy. He wasn’t walking around with the others. Jessie wondered if she’d get a chance to talk to him too.

  “What are you working on?” Mr. Blackstone asked. But Ms. Kennedy called out to Jessie from the front of the classroom.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she told the judges, not wanting to seem rude. “Ms. Kennedy needs me.”

  “We’ll come back at the end, if there’s time,” Ms. Sterling told Jessie.

  They moved on. Jessie left her binder on her desk and hurried over to her teacher.

  “I want you to meet Mr. Cooper,” Ms. Kennedy said.

  “I hear you’re working on an interesting project,” the man said.

  “I think so too.” Jessie felt a little shy. “I’m studying the water quality in the Greenfield River,” she told him, trying not to sound nervous.

  “Very good!” he cheered. “As an engineer, I always need to pay close attention to things like water quality. If water issues aren’t handled, a building project might be stopped or delayed.”

  Jessie felt like Mr. Cooper understood what she was doing and why. She couldn’t wait to show him her binder and get his thoughts on what might be going on at the river.

  “My research is on my desk,” she told him.

  “All of it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jessie said proudly. “Everything I’ve found so far is written in my binder.”

  He nodded and started to walk that way. Ms. Kennedy stopped Jessie and said, “I’m proud of your project, Jessie. Be sure to ask Mr. Cooper about his work too. He might have helpful information to share.”

  They talked for a minute about what kind of questions Jessie might ask. Then Jessie thanked her and hurried to meet up with Mr. Cooper.

  “Purple,” he said, putting a finger on her binder. “My favorite color.”

  “That’s my sister’s favorite color too,” Jessie said. She wondered if she could volunteer for his company during summer vacation. She’d never thought of being an engineer. She’d like to know more about it.

  “My brothers and my sister helped me take water samples from the river,” she explained. “I counted up the bugs and critters in each sample, plus recorded the water’s color and smell.” Picking up her binder she said, “This was the first river visit. We’ll go again next weekend to compare new samples.”

  “Sounds like a big project,” Mr. Cooper said. He looked worried. “I was thinking you were doing something easier. Most of the other students are working with partners. You don’t have a partner, do you?”

  Jessie glanced at Claudia, who was chatting with the other judges. “I’ve got it under control,” she said.

  “All right,” said Mr. Cooper. “Let’s see what you’ve found so far.”

  Jessie smiled and opened her binder. But when she looked inside, all of the papers were gone. Jessie searched the lab table. She must have picked up the wrong binder.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jessie said. “I don’t know where it all went. My papers must be around here somewhere.”

  “Hmm…” Mr. Cooper said, his mustache stuck in a frown. “It looks like you have a long way to go. As we say at my company, you need to start with a good foundation to build on.”

  “I do…” said Jessie. “Or I did.”

  The man gave Jessie a sympathetic look. “You have chosen a big project. With only a couple weeks until the science fair, maybe you should try something else. Something simpler,” he said. “Good luck.”

  And with that, the judge and all of the answers to Jessie’s questions walked away.

  That night in the boxcar, Jessie told Henry, Benny, and Violet about what had happened at Science Club. “I only left the table for a minute,” she explained. “I’ve gone over the whole day in my head. I don’t know when the pages might have gone missing.”

  “Are you sure you put the papers in the binder last night?” Henry asked. He had already asked her this question once before.

  Jessie answered again, “I’m sure. I made sure it was all on the lab table just before the judges came over. Then poof! It disappeared!”

  “Can I see the binder?” Benny asked. “Maybe there’s a clue.”

  Jessie handed him the binder.

  Benny got out a magnifying glass and started looking over the front cover. “Benny Alden is on the case,” he said, slowly studying every inch.

  Jessie sat down in her desk chair. She put her head down on the desk. “All that work,” she groaned, “for nothing.” With a long sigh, she said, “I think I have to drop out of the science fair.”

  “We can help you with another project,” Henry said. “There’s still time.”

  “We’ve lost all of our data from the river,” Jessie said, not raising her head. “I don’t want to start something new. I liked that project.”

  “We still have the jars showing the water color,” Henry said. “If we think hard, we might remember what the bug counts were at each spot. Violet can print new photos. It shouldn’t be too hard to make the chart again.”

  “The jars with the color of the water are a good start,” said Jessie. “But they aren’t very scientific.”

  Violet jumped up. “Hang on!” she shouted as she dashed out of the boxcar. A minute later, she came back with her camera. “Remember, I took pictures during our critter count?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Jessie. “But we won’t be able to get the right count using a photo.”

  “No,” said Violet, shifting through images on her camera. “But we can get the right count from this.” She stopped on the photo where Jessie was holding onto the chart she had made. The critter count was clear as day.

  Jessie’s eyes lit up. “We can remake the chart!” She gave her sister a big hug.

  Then Benny said, “I found something! I found a clue!” He had been looking the binder over with his magnifying glass when he came across a piece of paper in the pocket.

  “What does it say?” Jessie asked.

  Benny pulled out the fortune-cookie-sized paper and read the note out loud. He used a deep, scary voice. “It says, ‘Give up now. You will not win!’”

  “Oh no!” said Violet. “Someone really is trying to stop your project.”

  Henry paced across the boxcar. “So now we have two problems. First we need to figure out what is going on with the river. That’s the experiment. Then we need to find out who doesn’t want you to do your project. That’s the mystery.”

  “Yay! A mystery!” said Benny. He paused. “Wait. There are always suspects in a mystery. Who are they?”

  “I think Claudia is a suspect,” said Jessie. “She has been acting weird, and she was in the room when my papers went missing.”

  “Speaking of acting weird,” said Violet, “Mrs. Fernando and Mr. Cho were acting strange the other day. Maybe one of them knows something about what’s going on at the river.”

  “Let’s not forget about the pump we found at Vasquez Farms,” said Henry. He reminded them of the name on Claudia’s notebook. “Maybe the farm is putting something bad in the river, and Claudia knows about it.”

  “She did tell me her project was a secret. And that she has a secret partner,” Jessie told them. “But I still don’t think Claudia would do something so extreme.”

  “Uh-hum,” Grandfather cleared his voice from the boxcar doorway. “I came to say good night. Don’t stay out too late, children,” he said.

  But before he left, Jessie had a question for him. “Grandfather, do you know Mrs. Vasquez at all?” Grandfather had lived in Greenfield a long time, and it seemed like he knew just about everyone.

  “Melinda Va
squez?” he said with a smile. “Well, of course! She was part of the Big Cleanup of the Greenfield River. She went to all the meetings. She talked to the neighbors. When people disagreed, she worked to convince them that the Big Cleanup was a good idea.”

  Grandfather put his hands on his hips. “Without Mrs. Vasquez, I’m afraid of what might have happened to Greenfield’s water. She’s a great lady.” With that, Grandfather wished the children good night and went back into the house.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Jessie said, biting her bottom lip. “If Claudia is working with Mrs. Vasquez, what are they working on? And why doesn’t Claudia seem to want to know more about what’s going on in the river?”

  “Hmm…” Benny said. He didn’t have any answers. So he said, “There’s no other word that means the same thing. So just hmm.”

  CHAPTER

  Rivers and Streams

  On Saturday morning, Team Alden once again piled into Grandfather’s car with all of their equipment. The children were excited to get another round of testing in so they could compare new samples to the first batch. And with only a week until the science fair, Jessie needed to make sure they did the tests the right way.

  Grandfather parked at the Lookout Café, and everyone climbed out. Jessie looked at the patio. Today there were no customers sitting outside. Why weren’t people enjoying the warm weather?

  She wanted to go ask Mrs. Fernando what was going on. But then she remembered how upset she had been when they had tested under the patio. “We better go a little farther downstream today,” Jessie said.

  “Have fun, children,” Grandfather said. “Your chauffeur will be waiting here with a good book.” Grandfather waved a paperback in the air.

  The children followed the path at the back of the parking lot down to the river. As soon as Jessie got near the water, she understood why no one was sitting on the patio of the Lookout Café. The rainbow on the waterfall was gone. The water flowing over the falls was orange and brown. And from where she stood, Jessie guessed that the smell ranked at least an eight on the rotten-egg scale.

  Benny walked to the water’s edge then quickly turned around. “That is a lot of stink,” he said. “And murk.”

  Henry put the waders on and moved out into the water. “The current isn’t very strong. I had to be careful not to tip over last time. Now it’s less like a river and more like a stream.”

  “Henry, what’s the difference between a river and a stream?” Benny asked.

  Henry pointed at the river. “A stream and a river are both running water. Usually a river is wider and flows fast and is deeper than a stream.”

  “Stream. River. River. Stream,” Benny repeated the words over and over to memorize them.

  Jessie put on her waders and joined Henry in the water. She took a sample, and Benny plugged his nose and wrote L2 on the label.

  Violet snapped photos as Jessie and Henry took their soil sample. When they were done, they counted the critters:

  0 worms

  1 crawdad

  2 water bugs

  1 clam

  4 total

  “That’s a big change from last time,” said Henry.

  “I read that clams don’t mind pollution,” Jessie answered. “I don’t even know if that one should count.”

  “There aren’t as many birds or turtles around either,” said Violet, lowering her camera.

  “Let’s see what we find at the other sites,” said Henry. “I have a feeling something big is going on.”

  Together, the children walked back up to the Lookout Café parking lot. Mrs. Fernando was waiting for them, arms crossed. “Are you children still doing that experiment?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jessie. “We did our test farther down the river, away from the Lookout.”

  Mrs. Fernando shook her head. “That is not what I’m worried about.” She motioned to the empty patio. “No one is here to scare away. The water has already done that!”

  Jessie looked at the waterfall. From where the children were standing, it looked like brown sludge was flowing over the rocks.

  “I thought you children were going to figure out who was doing this to the river?” said Mrs. Fernando. “This experiment isn’t helping anyone.”

  “We think it will,” Jessie said. “Eventually. We just need to collect all of the data first. Then present it at the science fair.”

  Mrs. Fernando sighed. “I don’t know if I can wait that long,” she said. “By then, the Lookout Café might be closed for good.”

  Grandfather pulled into the parking lot for the fishing dock. This time, there was no one fishing on the dock. The water looked even browner and lower than it had by the Lookout Café. Jessie took a sample of the water, and she and Henry did their count:

  2 worms

  4 crawdads

  6 water bugs

  1 snail

  0 water bugs

  2 clams

  15 total

  “I don’t understand what could cause such a big change so quickly,” said Jessie. “The Greenfield River has been flowing for hundreds of years. I don’t know if it has ever looked like this.”

  Violet took pictures of the scene. Benny wrote F2 on the jar that Jessie passed to shore.

  Henry had an idea. He stepped back into the water and started to wade across to the other side. This time the water only came up to his waist. Jessie followed.

  Once they reached the other side, Henry bent down. He was looking for the pipe he’d found the last time they’d visited the fishing dock. Before long, he found it and listened. “The pump is turned off,” he called. “There’s no noise.”

  He followed the pipe up the riverbank.

  “Henry, that’s private property,” said Jessie. “Come back.”

  “I just want to take a look,” Henry said. But before he could take another step, a woman wearing overalls and muddy boots appeared at the top of the riverbank.

  It was Mrs. Vasquez. “Oh my,” she said. “Well, hello there!”

  “Hello, Mrs. Vasquez,” said Henry. He took a step back toward the river, but Mrs. Vasquez did not seem upset.

  “I thought I heard some voices over here. Then I saw that nice car, and I thought it might be James Alden at the fishing dock.”

  “He’s our grandfather,” said Jessie.

  “Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Vasquez. “Well, then you must be Jessie.”

  Jessie was going to ask how Mrs. Vasquez knew her name, but instead she said, “Sorry we came onto your property. We were just working on my science fair experiment.”

  “Something is changing with the river,” said Henry. “And we are trying to figure out what.”

  Mrs. Vasquez nodded. “So I’ve heard. And now I see it’s true.”

  “Didn’t you know about the water before this?” Jessie asked.

  Mrs. Vasquez shook her head. “I’m afraid not. After all we did during the Big Cleanup, though, it’s heartbreaking to see our town’s river like this.”

  Henry and Jessie looked at each other. Mrs. Vasquez sounded very upset. Maybe Grandfather was right. Maybe she didn’t have anything to do with the river changing colors.

  “Do you see this grassy area between my field and the river?” she asked, helping the children up onto the top of the riverbank. “It may not look like much, but you are standing on ground that could make a whole lot of money if we planted crops here. Do you know why we don’t?”

  Henry shrugged.

  Jessie said, “Is it because of the rules from the Big Cleanup?”

  “Ding! Ding!” Mrs. Vasquez said. “This is called a buffer zone. It makes it so all of the water we use on our fields doesn’t flow straight into the river. It has to go through this ground first.”

  “Why do you do that?” asked Henry.

  “That way, the chemicals farmers like me use to help our crops grow don’t find their way into our water,” she said. “The soil here filters out all the bad stuff. When we found out how much of a difference just a
little bit of grassy land makes, I helped make it a rule for all farmers around Greenfield.”

  “That must have upset a lot of farmers,” said Jessie.

  “It sure did,” said Mrs. Vasquez. “It takes courage to take action at first. But eventually people saw that it was the right thing to do.”

  Jessie worked up her own courage. She said, “We found this pipe the other day, and it leads onto your land. Do you know what it does?”

  Mrs. Vasquez smiled. “Is this what you wanted to know about?”

  Jessie blushed. “We were worried you were pumping something into the water to make it change color.”

  “I’m afraid the answer is much more boring than that,” said Mrs. Vasquez. “We aren’t putting anything into the river. We are trying to pump out from the river.” She bent low to show them how the pipe and pump worked. “I like to use natural sources to water the crops.”

  “That makes sense,” said Jessie. “But the water level by the pump seems a bit low.”

  “At the café it’s even lower,” Henry added. “Could you be taking out too much water?”

  Mrs. Vasquez shook her head. “This is such a small pipe. And the pump is small too. What we are doing barely changes the river at all.”

  “We’re sorry we were suspicious,” said Jessie.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m used to people being suspicious,” said Mrs. Vasquez. “Just today, Mrs. Fernando from the Lookout Café called me. She thought I was polluting the river. I suppose it’s what us farmers deserve for not taking better care for all those years. But I’m working to make things better. I’m even working on a project right now with my niece. You know Claudia, right?”

  “Claudia Tobin is your niece?” Jessie said.

  “That’s right. We’re working to use even less water. And less water means less pollution.”

  “Is that her science fair project?” Jessie asked.

  “Oh dear!” Mrs. Vasquez put a hand over her mouth. “Was it a secret?” She dropped her hand. “I am the worst at keeping secrets. You should never tell me anything! I’m such a chatterbox!”