Bailey’s Peoria Problem Read online

  Alex giggled, but the barking continued.

  There was a sudden rustling outside the bedroom window, then a yell.

  The girls bolted upright in bed, eyes wide.

  A Strange Place for a Message

  Bailey and Alex held their breath, too afraid to speak. They sat still as stones waiting for whatever would happen next. Only their eyes moved as their gaze shifted alternately from each other to the window that sat squarely between their twin beds. Finally, Alex put her index finger to her lips and motioned Bailey out of bed. Trembling, Bailey crouched on the floor by Alex, and then they crawled to the window. Alex peeked over the second-story sill, which was only three feet from the floor. The moon shone brightly, washing the huge oak tree just outside the window with pale blue light.

  Bolstering her courage, Bailey also poked her head cautiously over the sill so she could see into the dimly lit yard. “Look!” She pointed toward a grove of trees at the far side of the yard where a man limped toward the thicket.

  “That’s Yeller!” Alex whisper-yelled.

  The injured man disappeared into the woods. Wide-eyed, Bailey stared at Alex.

  “The yell we heard must have been Yeller, but what was the rustling just before that?” Bailey asked.

  Alex put her face to the window again. “Look under the tree.”

  Bailey’s eyes followed Alex’s finger. A broken branch and fallen leaves littered the yard. “He climbed the tree and then fell out!”

  “What do you think he was doing here?” Bailey licked her lips nervously.

  “Maybe he was trying to get a message to us,” Alex suggested, trying for an explanation that wouldn’t give her nightmares.

  Hoping to chase away her fear, Bailey flipped the light back on and sat on Alex’s bed to sort out what had just happened. “But how did he know which window was ours?”

  “Good question.” Alex picked a hangnail on her left thumb.

  “He had to have been watching the house, don’t you think?”

  Alex nodded, her eyes fearful.

  “Maybe he’s desperate to talk to us about helping him.” “I think we may need to tell someone about this,” Alex said.

  “No!” Bailey grabbed Alex’s hand. “We can’t! We’ll never be able to solve the Gonzo case if we tell. They’ll think it’s too dangerous.”

  “Well, maybe it is!” Alex’s nose turned red as if she were about to cry.

  “Come on, Alex. You know how careful we are. We won’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  Alex remained silent, head down.

  “Please?” Bailey pleaded. “With cherries on top?”

  A faint smile played at the edges of Alex’s mouth.

  “Come on…I see that smile,” Bailey teased. “You want to say yes, don’t you?”

  Finally, Alex broke down and laughed. “You are too much!” She tickled Bailey. “You know I want to solve this mystery as much as you do, but it’s pretty scary right now.”

  “That’s half the fun of it!” Bailey’s eyes gleamed.

  “I guess you’re right. I may be older than you, but I’m not braver!”

  “You’re brave enough. You were the first one to look out the window, remember?” Bailey yawned. “Wow. It’s already ten o’clock. We’re going to be beat in the morning.”

  “Yeah. We’d better try to get some sleep, though I’m wide awake after that scare.” Alex shivered. “Morning will be here before we know it.”

  Shoulders drooping, Bailey dragged herself to the light switch, flipped it back off, and staggered back to bed. “I’m half asleep already.” She stretched and snuggled back into her pillow.

  “Good night, Bailey,” Alex said.

  “Good night.”

  The alarm blared a loud country love song at six o’clock, and the girls dragged themselves out of bed. They put on jeans and pulled sweatshirts over their T-shirts. After scarfing down breakfast, they met Uncle Nathan in the barn for a morning of sheep shearing.

  “Morning!” Uncle Nathan greeted them over the noisy baaing of the sheep. “A nice crisp morning for shearing, huh?”

  “It sure is!” Bailey rubbed her hands together. “But it will warm up nice by this afternoon.”

  “Guess what I heard on the local news last night?” Uncle Nathan and Shy had already brought several sheep from the pasture and penned them up in the barn.

  “What?” Bailey asked.

  “The annual sheep-shearing contest for kids is this Saturday at the state fairgrounds.”

  “Cool!” Bailey gave a thumbs-up.

  “Yep. It’s here in the newspaper this morning, too.” Uncle Nathan snatched a rolled-up paper from his back pocket. “Says here there will be three age categories: nine to eleven years old, twelve to fourteen, and sixteen to eighteen.”

  “Will Brian be in it?” Bailey asked.

  “Maybe,” Uncle Nathan answered. “But I was thinking you might be interested in trying the nine-to eleven-year-old category. What do you say?”

  “Me? Could I?” Bailey’s dark eyes danced.

  “I don’t see why not. You’ve had a few summers to practice, and you can still work at it all week.” Uncle Nathan patted her back. “I’d be proud to have you participate as part of my family.”

  “Wow! I’d love to!”

  Alex grabbed Bailey’s hands, and they both jumped up and down. “I’m so excited for you! It’ll be fun to see how fast you can get this week.”

  “I just have to remember not to rush ’cause I don’t want to hurt the sheep.” Bailey petted the ewe Uncle Nathan just brought from the pen. “Right, girl?”

  “I’ll do this one; then you do the next.” Uncle Nathan reached for the shears.

  “And Alex wants to have a try after that,” Bailey added.

  Uncle Nathan nodded and smiled at Alex. “Good girl. You can’t let your fears get the best of you.” He flipped the sheep onto its rump, its front legs up in the air, so it wouldn’t struggle with him. Then he turned on the shears, running them along the sheep’s body. Fleece dropped, and Uncle Nathan was done in no time.

  Bailey giggled at the naked sheep.

  “Now it’s your turn, Bailey.” Uncle Nathan returned the first sheep to its pen and came back with another. “Wait a minute. I need to get something.” He handed Bailey the rope lead that circled the sheep’s neck while he went to the house.

  Uncle Nathan returned holding a stopwatch. “I’ll help you turn the sheep onto its backside. Then we’ll time you so we can have a record of your first training-day time and see how you improve by Saturday. Take your time. You don’t have to rush. You’ll just naturally get faster the more you do it.”

  “Okay. Tell me when to start.” Bailey held the sheep firmly with one hand and the shears in the other.

  “Ready…go!” Uncle Nathan watched his niece shear, his eyes moving back and forth from her to the watch.

  “You’re doing great, Bailey!” Alex encouraged over the buzz of the shears. “Keep it up!”

  Bailey kept working intently. “Done!” she finally yelled.

  Uncle Nathan stopped the watch. “Twenty-two minutes, forty-three seconds.”

  “That’s awesome!” Alex hugged her friend.

  “What’s the time that won last year?” Bailey asked.

  Uncle Nathan reached for the newspaper in his back pocket again and scanned the article. “In your age bracket, the winning time was twelve minutes, twenty seconds.”

  Bailey’s face dropped. “You mean I have to cut my time almost in half?”

  “Only if you want to win.” Uncle Nathan grinned.

  “You can do it, Bailey!” Alex’s natural cheerleading spirit bubbled to the surface, and she did a backflip.

  “With support like that, how can you lose?” Uncle Nathan laughed and put his hand on Bailey’s shoulder. “And like I said, don’t worry about the time. Just do your best. The time will take care of itself.”

  “I’ll try.” Bailey looked at Alex. “Your turn.” />
  The color drained from Alex’s face. Then she stomped her foot with determination. “I’m ready! No sheep is going to scare me!”

  “Good for you!” Bailey led a sheep toward her friend while her uncle swept up the wool from the sheep she had just sheared.

  Uncle Nathan leaned his broom against the barn wall and stepped in to sit the sheep on its rump for Alex.

  “Now hold it like this.” Bailey demonstrated how to hold the animal between her legs. “And flip this switch when you’re ready to start.”

  Uncle Nathan stood close by. “We’ll be right here to answer your questions and help you if you need it.”

  Alex turned on the shears. The sheep startled at the buzz but immediately calmed when the noise became constant.

  Alex ran the shears down the stomach, sides, and back of the sheep. Wool fell like a blanket onto the cleanly swept floor. Soon she said, “How’s that look?”

  “Great!” Uncle Nathan answered. “Looks like you’ll make a shearer after all!”

  “Way to go, Alex! You did it!” Bailey helped her friend turn the sheep back onto its feet.

  “I can’t believe I just sheared a sheep!” Alex bounced up and down.

  “Now, how about if you girls work on shearing the lambs and yearlings over there, and I’ll handle the ewes and rams over here?” suggested Uncle Nathan. “I think you’ll find shearing the smaller animals easier.” He looked at Alex. “I’ll turn the stopwatch over to you so you can check Bailey’s time again after she’s done a few.”

  Bailey and Alex moved about halfway down the barn where another set of electric shears hung from the ceiling. They decided they’d share the shears until Alex felt confident enough to handle her own shearing station. Then Bailey would move on down to the next set at the end of the barn. There were four shears in all, and Uncle Nathan said Brian would be out soon to help him with the ewes and rams.

  Bailey sheared the first young sheep while Alex played with the lambs. Then they swapped places. After two hours, they had finished five lambs, and the morning had warmed up enough for the girls to shed their sweatshirts. Alex checked Bailey’s time again and found she’d already taken two minutes off her time. They leaned against the sheep pen and admired their work. The lambs bleated woefully for their mothers.

  “That’s hard work!” Alex wiped sweat and dirt from her face with the bottom of her T-shirt.

  “I know. Even the little ones take a lot of time.” Bailey gulped a long drink of water. “I’ll take the next one.” She led a yearling from the pen and over to the shearing area. Alex stayed in the pen with the ones yet to be sheared.

  Bailey began shearing the yearling’s belly and was soon running the shears over the side of the young sheep. Strange dark markings appeared on its skin as the fleece fell to the floor. She turned it over to shear the other side. The same strange markings appeared on that side, too. They weren’t spots like some of the sheep had. They were more like black lines. “Hey Alex!” she yelled over the noise of the shears. “Come take a look at this!”

  Bailey shut off the shears. She set the lamb on its feet and asked, “What do you make of these markings?”

  Alex walked around the lamb to study them. “Weird!”

  “They’re on both sides.” Bailey turned the sheep for her to see.

  “Almost looks like writing,” Alex said.

  “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “Let’s walk him out to the sunlight so we can see better.”

  Bailey led the sheep out of the barn, squinting against the bright sun. The lamb jumped playfully in its warmth. “Hold still now,” Bailey cooed as she crouched beside the animal and petted it. “We want to get a good look at you.” She held the lamb firmly for Alex to inspect.

  Alex stepped back and cocked her head. “Oh my goodness!”

  “What?”

  “It spells something!”

  “What?” Bailey asked, excitement rising in her voice.

  “It says, ‘Help’!” Alex clapped her hand over her mouth when she checked out the other side. “‘Gonzo’! I think it says, ‘Gonzo’!”

  “No way!” Bailey said. “How could writing get under a sheep’s fleece, much less something about Gonzo, which is a nickname I made up only yesterday!”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure that’s what it says,” Alex insisted. “See for yourself. I’ll hold the lamb.”

  The girls traded places, and Bailey studied the animal. She looked at it standing up, and then knelt. She squinted while she examined the lamb, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. “You’re right.” Bailey stood back up. “It definitely says, ‘Help Gonzo.’ But that doesn’t make sense.”

  “We need to hide this lamb so no one else sees it.” Alex glanced over her shoulder.

  “Quick. In the pasture.” Bailey led the lamb toward the gate. “Let’s put all the sheared lambs back so no one wonders why they aren’t all together. You go get a couple others, and I’ll be there in a second to help you.”

  “I’m on it.” Alex swung back toward the barn. At the pen, she took the rope leads off a nail on the wall and slid them over the lambs’ heads. “Come on, let’s go.” The lambs resisted, loudly voicing their complaints, and Alex had to drag them a few feet before they gave up and started walking. “There, that’s better,” she soothed.

  Bailey ran back to the barn, so deep in thought that she hardly noticed Alex pass. She carefully examined the remaining sheep to make sure they didn’t have markings.

  When the last lamb was back in the pasture, Bailey leaned against the fence, watching them caper around playfully, glad to be back home. The young lambs quickly nuzzled their mothers to nurse. “What do you think the message means?” she asked.

  “It could read either ‘Help Gonzo’ or ‘Gonzo help.’ So it sounds like either Gonzo is asking for help or someone is asking for Gonzo’s help. I suppose it makes most sense that it’s a cry for help from Gonzo.”

  “Do you think this Gonzo is Marshall Gonzalez or someone else?” Bailey asked.

  “Who knows?” Alex pulled a blade of grass to chew. “I guess we could ask around to see if there’s anyone that goes by Gonzo around here.”

  “The other girls will go nuts when they hear this,” Bailey said. “I’ll snap a few pictures of our ‘talking’ lamb to send to them.”

  “Good idea. Maybe they’ll see something we missed.”

  Bailey took several photos from different angles. “We’d better get back to the barn before Uncle Nathan wonders what happened to us. I still need to sweep up before you start on your next sheep.”

  The girls worked for two more hours but found no more mysterious writing.

  Uncle Nathan turned off his shears and came by to check on their progress. “How you ladies doing?”

  “Great! We’ve done twelve sheep.” Bailey stood tall.

  “Not bad for the first day.” Uncle Nathan said. “You’ve had a long morning of shearing. Ready to call it a day?”

  “As soon as we get these last few back to the pasture and sweep up. We already took the first few out earlier.” Bailey looked down at her clothes. “I’m filthy! I need a shower!”

  “Just shows you’ve been working hard, that’s all.” Uncle Nathan laughed and hugged her. “Good job, girls. You can have the rest of the day off.”

  Bailey smiled at Alex. “See! I told you he wouldn’t make us work the whole day.”

  Alex laughed. “You’d better be quiet, or he might change his mind.”

  After the girls finished their work in the barn and showered, Bailey downloaded the pictures she took.

  “You’re getting better with that camera watch!” Alex watched the photos pop up on the computer screen. “Only two blurry ones this time—and that might be because the sheep were running around so much.”

  “Thanks. I held my arm against my body when I took the pictures so I’d be steadier. Maybe that helped.”

  “You got some pretty clear shots. Let’s
e-mail the other Camp Club members about this mysterious message.”

  “Okay,” Bailey said. “And we have to tell them about Yeller falling from the tree outside our bedroom window last night.”

  “Right.” Alex typed the note then pressed SEND, and off it went along with the picture attachments.

  Elizabeth was quick to e-mail back, reminding them to be careful and that she was praying for them and their safety.

  A knock sounded at the bedroom door. “Yes?” Bailey answered.

  “It’s me, Brian. Can I come in?”

  Alex quickly closed her computer and looked at Bailey. “Yeah, I guess.” Bailey got up and opened the door.

  “What’s up?”

  “Did you guys see the weird markings on that sheep you sheared?” he asked.

  An Unexpected Assistant

  Bailey decided to play dumb until she found out what Brian knew. “Weird markings? What are you talking about?”

  “You had to have seen them!”

  “What did they look like?” Alex asked innocently.

  “They looked like words!” Brian’s voice rose.

  “Words?” Bailey’s tone indicated she thought her cousin had gone stark raving mad. “What did they say?” She glanced at Alex. Alex had her hand over her mouth, trying to hide a grin.

  Brian looked at the floor, seemingly embarrassed at what he was about to say. His thick, wavy black hair hung like a curtain around his face, “It said, uh, well, it said, ‘Help Gonzo,’” he finally blurted.

  “Gonzo? Who’s that?” Bailey asked.

  “Yeah, and why does he need help?” Alex added.

  “I don’t know!” Brian threw his hands up in frustration. “I just figured you had seen the words, too, so I came to see what you thought about them!”

  Bailey and Alex’s eyes met, and they burst out laughing.

  “That’s it! I’m leaving!” Brian reached for the doorknob.

  “No! No!” Bailey gasped, regaining her composure. “We saw the markings. We were just having some fun with you, that’s all.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “Sorry if we took it too far.”

  “So you did see them. I knew it!” Brian raised a clenched fist. “What did you make of them?”