Great Bicycle Race Mystery Read Free Page A

some riding.”
    “Good idea,” said Jessie.
    “Not too far,” Soo Lee warned. “Remember what Thelma told us. Right before the race we’re just supposed to take short rides.”
    “We’ll go to the park and back,” said Henry.
    “And tomorrow, we pack and get ready for the race,” said Benny. “I can hardly wait. Then it will only be one more day. Isn’t it great, Watch?”
    Watch, who was standing beside Jessie’s bicycle, wagged his tail. He was ready to go for a ride, too.
    The Aldens pedaled away, with Watch hanging out of Jessie’s basket, his ears flying.
    “Eagle Mountain, here we come!” shouted Benny.

CHAPTER 3
Gone!
    “Come on, Henry,” Benny said the next morning. “We have to practice for the race one more time!”
    But Henry didn’t come out of the garage next to the house where the Aldens kept their bicycles.
    “Henry?” Jessie called.
    “I can’t find it!” Henry said. His voice was muffled.
    “Find what?” asked Violet. She leaned her bike against a tree and started toward the garage.
    Just then, Henry burst out of the garage door. His eyes were wide. “I can’t find it. I can’t find my bicycle!” he cried.
    “Isn’t it in the garage?” asked Jessie. “I saw you put it there last night. You leaned it against the ladder.”
    Propping her own bike against Violet’s, Jessie hurried toward the garage. Benny, Soo Lee, and Watch quickly followed. As soon as they walked into the old garage, Watch growled softly.
    “What is it, boy?” asked Benny.
    But Watch couldn’t answer. He could only growl.
    Jessie looked at the ladder in the corner where she’d last seen her older brother’s bike. It wasn’t there.
    She glanced around the garage. She didn’t see Henry’s bicycle anywhere. She peered behind an old trunk. She raised the edge of a tarp, but found only spiders, dust, and a broken lawn mower beneath it.
    The dust made her sneeze.
    “It’s not here,” reported Violet, who’d been making a search of her own.
    “Maybe you didn’t leave it in the garage. Maybe we got yesterday mixed up with some other day. Maybe you forgot to put it away and left it out by the boxcar,” Jessie said.
    But as she spoke, Henry shook his head. “I’m sure I put it here last night,” he said. “I never took it out to the boxcar.”
    “Then someone must have sneaked into the garage last night and taken it,” said Violet. “But why?”
    Henry shook his head. “I don’t know. It wasn’t worth much — except to me.”
    “We’ll find your bike,” said Jessie.
    Suddenly she squatted down. “Look.” She pointed to the track of a wheel through a patch of old motor oil on the floor of the garage.
    “Any one of us could have made that track,” Violet objected. “It’s not the only one.”
    “But look how clear it is,” Jessie said.
    Henry bent forward. “You’re right. That’s the track of a new tire. You can see every ridge. All the other tracks are much smoother, with many fewer tread marks.”

    “You’re the only one of us who has a brand-new tire,” said Soo Lee.
    “And look at this!” Violet’s voice rose in excitement as she pointed to the tracks leading from the garage.
    The Aldens followed the tire track out of the garage. It curved suddenly and went off into the grass.
    “The track leads out of the garage onto the grass at one side of the driveway and I know Henry always goes straight up or down the middle of the driveway,” Violet concluded.
    “Why would someone ride your bike in the grass?” Benny wanted to know. “It’s not a mountain bike. Is it?”
    “No, it isn’t,” Henry said.
    “Here’s a streak of grease on the grass,” Violet said from around the corner of the garage.
    “That’s funny,” said Jessie. “It looks as if whoever took the bike wasn’t taking it out to the road to ride away. He or she was going in the opposite direction.”
    “Then that’s where we’ll start looking,” said Henry.
    The five of them and Watch spread