Box That Watch Found (3 page)

“How far are we from the cache?” Jessie asked.

“It says .14 miles,” Violet read over Benny’s shoulder.

“Then let’s stay on the trail for now,” Jessie said. “This trail curves a lot. I’ll bet in a little while the GPS will be pointing straight ahead again.”

So they stayed on the trail. And sure enough, after a little while the trail curved back the opposite direction.

“How far are we now?” Henry asked.

“We’re 133 feet away,” Benny said. “And it’s straight ahead.”

The Aldens kept walking. The path curved again toward the lake, but this time the Aldens followed the GPS and walked off the path.

“The GPS says it’s 82 feet straight ahead,” Benny said as they made their way through the brush. Dried leaves crunched beneath their feet. “Now it’s 67 feet … 42 feet … 30 feet.”

They could see the lake through the trees.

“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Henry said, looking around.

They checked logs, tree hollows, piles of brush, the same sorts of places they’d found the Walk in the Woods and Edge of the Forest caches.

But they weren’t able to find the Squires Point cache.

“It’s not here,” Benny said sadly as he sat down on a log. They’d been searching for fifteen minutes.

“Maybe this one is harder to find,” Violet said.

“Why don’t we look for another one nearby,” Jessie suggested.

“There’s supposed to be one called ‘Muffy’s Hideaway’ right around here, too. It’s over that way.” Henry pointed back the way they’d come. “Let’s see if we have better luck finding that one.”

So the Aldens set the GPS to find Muffy’s Hideaway. Then they turned around and headed back to the path. As they walked, they watched the numbers on the GPS get smaller and smaller.

“It’s probably over here,” Jessie said, leading the way to a stand of trees.

The children searched every tree and rock in the area. But once again they came up empty.

“It’s not as much fun when we don’t find the caches,” Benny grumbled.

“There’s one more we can look for,” Henry said. “I think the ‘Chipmunk Challenge’ cache is going to be down that other trail across the parking lot from where we parked our bikes.”

The children tromped back to the parking lot, then crossed over to another dirt trail.

Henry peered down at the GPS. “It looks like this one is about a quarter mile straight ahead.”

The Aldens followed the trail up and down a hill, over a small wooden bridge, and into a thicker part of the woods.

“It should be right around here now,” Henry said.

The children split up and checked various trees. While they were searching, a boy and a girl came charging down the trail. They wore matching denim jackets and looked a lot alike. They were the same height, same weight, and they had the same shade of brown hair. The girl wore hers in a long braid down her back. They looked around Jessie’s age.

The boy held something in his hand that looked a lot like a GPS. Were they geocachers, too? Henry wondered.

“This way!” The boy stared at the gadget in his hand. The two veered off the path and headed straight for Benny.

“Hello,” Benny said to them.

They ignored Benny, their eyes fixed on the gadget in the boy’s hand. Then the girl walked around behind Benny. She bent down and pulled a metal container out of the hollow in the bottom of the tree.

“Oh, you found it,” Benny said.

“Looks like we were looking for the same thing,” Henry said cheerfully as he, Jessie, and Violet joined them.

“We’re the Aldens,” Jessie said. “I’m Jessie. This is Henry, Violet, and Benny.”

“That’s nice,” the boy said absently. He and the girl knelt down on the ground pried the lid off the container together.

“Is it in there?” the girl asked once the lid was off.

“Yes!” the boy exclaimed. He pulled out a stuffed armadillo and the girl squealed in delight as she took it from him.

“Hey, that looks a lot like the armadillo we found in another cache yesterday,” Violet said.

The girl looked up at Violet. “Was it the ‘Walk in the Park’ cache?”

“Yes, I think so,” Violet said.

The girl rolled her eyes. “Then of course it’s the same armadillo. It’s a travel bug!”

“What’s a travel bug?” Jessie asked.

But the mysterious boy and girl didn’t answer. They stood up and the girl put the armadillo in her pocket.

“We got what we came for,” the girl told the Aldens. “You guys can put the cache back.”

Then they left as quickly as they’d arrived.

“That was odd,” Jessie said.

“They sure weren’t very friendly,” Henry said.

“They didn’t even put anything in the box when they took the armadillo,” Benny said.

“I wonder why they wanted the armadillo so badly,” Violet said.

“They said it was a travel bug,” Jessie said. “What’s a travel bug?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said. “But I think I know where we can find out.”

On Friday morning, Grandfather drove the children to the nature center so they could go to the Greenfield Geocachers club meeting. When Grandfather dropped them off, they saw a crowd of people milling around the patio and picnic area in front of the nature center. There were families, college students, and retired couples. Many of the people had dogs with them.

“We should’ve brought Watch,” Benny said.

“Maybe next time,” Henry said.

“Hey, Boxcar Kids!” Andy Robertson waved at the Aldens.

“Hi, Andy,” Jessie said as the Aldens made their way over to him. The Aldens were glad to see someone they knew.

“I’m glad you came to the meeting,” Andy said. “We’re just waiting for Cal Edwards to come and unlock the nature center for us. Then we’ll get started.”

“Cal Edwards is in this club?” Violet asked.

“He sure is,” Andy replied. “In fact, he’s our club secretary. Why? Do you know him?”

“Yes,” Jessie said. “He’s a friend of our grandfather’s.”

“That’s wonderful,” Andy said. “Cal was one of the people who started this club.”

“How did geocaching start?” Violet wanted to know.

“It’s a neat story,” Andy said. “One person started the whole thing. He was a computer consultant and he wanted to see how well his GPS worked. So he hid a container out in the woods. Then he posted the coordinates online. Sure enough, someone else was able to find the container using a GPS! From there, the idea grew.”

“And now people all over the world do this?” Jessie asked. “Wow!”

“Let me introduce you to some of the club members while we wait,” Andy offered.

He turned to the brown-haired man and woman who were seated at the picnic table behind him. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Zeller,” Andy said. “And these are the Aldens: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. The Aldens are new to geocaching, but they want to join our group.”

“That’s good,” Mrs. Zeller said, smiling at the children.

“You know, we have a boy and a girl about your age,” Mr. Zeller said. “Zack and Zoe. They’re twins.” He glanced around. “I’m not sure where they are right now.”

“They’re probably giving our son a hard time,” said a tall man who came up behind them. He had dark hair and dark eyes. His wife stood a head shorter, but she also had dark hair and dark eyes. Neither one of them smiled.

The Zellers exchanged looks. They did not look happy to see this other couple.

“Perhaps
your
son is giving Zack and Zoe a hard time,” Mrs. Zeller said stiffly.

Andy stepped in between the adults. “Mr. and Mrs. Greene, have you met the Aldens?”

The tall man nodded at the children.

“Nice to meet you,” his wife said coolly.

“The Greenes have a son around your age, Jessie,” Andy said. “His name is David.”

“Oh, maybe we can meet him?” Jessie said.

“I’m not sure where he is right now,” Mr. Greene said.

“Let’s see if we can find him,” Mrs. Greene said. Then they walked away.

“We should find out where Zack and Zoe went, too,” Mrs. Zeller said, getting up from the picnic table.

“It was nice meeting you all,” Mr. Zeller said. Then he and his wife went off in the opposite direction from the Greenes.

“Those people don’t seem to like each other very much,” Benny said.

“There’s a little rivalry between those two families,” Andy said as he checked his watch.

“What kind of rivalry?” Jessie asked.

“Well, right now our club has a contest going on. Whoever finds the most caches this month wins a new GPS.”

“Wow!” Violet said. “That’s a good prize.”

“Yes, it is,” Andy said. “The Zellers and the Greenes do a lot of geocaching. Probably more than anyone else in the club. And I know they both want to win that prize.”

“Well, there are only a few days left in the month, so I don’t think we’ll win the prize,” Henry said. “But we did do a little more geocaching the other day.”

“You did?” Andy smiled. “Did you find any caches.”

“Well, we couldn’t find the first two we looked for,” Jessie said. “But we found the third one. It was called ‘Chipmunk Challenge.’ ”

“Actually, another boy and girl found it before we did,” Violet said. “There was a stuffed armadillo inside. It looked just like the one we found in the Walk in the Park cache with you.”

“In fact, the kids who found it said it was the
same
armadillo,” Jessie added. “They said it was a travel bug, but we never found out what that meant. What is a travel bug, Andy?”

“A travel bug is something that travels from one cache to another,” Andy explained. “Sometimes a travel bug has a goal. For instance, maybe it’s trying to visit caches in all fifty states, or maybe it’s trying to visit cities that start with a certain letter. If you can help it reach its goal, you can take it. Otherwise you should leave it for someone else to take.”

“How can you tell whether something is a travel bug or not?” Henry asked.

“If it’s a travel bug, it should have a tag attached to it that tells you it’s a travel bug. There will be a tracking number on the tag. You can use that number to get to the travel bug’s own page on the geocaching website and see where the travel bug has been.”

“Cool!” Benny said.

All of a sudden the Aldens heard raised voices behind them. They turned and saw the brown-haired boy and girl in matching denim jackets arguing with a dark-haired boy wearing a green baseball cap.

“Tell us!” the girl demanded as she flipped her braid over her shoulder. “Tell us how many caches you guys have found this month.”

The boy in the baseball cap shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you,” he said with a grin. “But it’s probably more than you’ve found!”

“It is not,” the other boy argued. “Otherwise you’d tell us how many you’ve found.”

The Aldens looked at each other. “Isn’t that the same boy and girl we ran into out when we were looking for the Chipmunk Challenge cache?” Jessie asked.

“I think so,” Violet said.

“That’s Zack and Zoe Zeller,” Andy said. “The other boy is David Greene.”

Mr. and Mrs. Zeller led their children to one side of the crowd and Mr. and Mrs. Greene led their son to the other side.

“Hey, are we going to start this meeting or not?” Mr. Greene called out.

“I wonder where Cal is,” an older man said, checking his watch. “Our meeting was supposed to start ten minutes ago.”

“I don’t think Cal has ever missed a meeting,” Andy’s dad, Mr. Robertson, said.

“There was one time he missed one,” Mrs. Zeller said. “He was out of town. But he gave someone else a key to the nature center so we could get in.”

“We could try calling him,” Andy said.

“I’ll try,” Mr. Zeller said. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “I think I’ve even got his cell phone number right here.”

Mr. Zeller dialed, then put his phone to his ear.

Everyone waited.

After a couple of seconds, Mr. Zeller said, “He must have his phone turned off. It didn’t even ring once.”

“He’s probably on his way,” Mr. Robertson said. “Maybe we should just go ahead and start without him? It’s a nice day. I don’t mind holding our meeting out here. Do any of you?”

No one did. So they all made themselves comfortable on picnic tables, benches and the grass. Then, as president of the club, Andy’s dad called the meeting to order.

Everyone went around and introduced themselves, and Andy introduced the Aldens.

Then Mr. Robertson asked, “Is there any new business to discuss?”

“Yes.” Mr. Zeller raised his hand. “There are a few caches in the area that seem to be missing.”

Jessie and Henry looked at one another. Were these the same caches that they couldn’t find?

Mr. Greene chuckled. “Are you sure they’re missing? Maybe you and your family just couldn’t find them.”

Mr. Zeller frowned. “Of course I’m sure.”

“We always find the cache when we’re out geocaching!” Zack called out.

“I don’t know,” David teased. “I can remember one that you guys had a little trouble with last summer.”

“That’s because the river was high and we couldn’t get to it,” Zoe said hotly. “We knew where to look.”

“I’m telling you, some of these caches are missing,” Mr. Zeller said. “And I think they’ve been stolen!”