The Spy Who Came North from the Pole (3 page)

“And coming here was a mistake, Mister—”

“You can call me Gargoyle,” said the spy.

“Just one question, Gargoyle,” said Mr. Pin. “Why the boxes of chocolate?”

“You and I are a lot alike,” said the spy. He stepped out of the fog, and it all suddenly became clear to Mr. Pin how it could look as if he had been in two places at once.

The spy was a rock hopper penguin, too!

It was a lot to think about. But Mr. Pin didn't have time to think. Gargoyle lunged toward the statue, desperate for the codebook. The chisel glinted in the glow of the streetlight. Mr. Pin stepped aside. Gargoyle sprang forward and tripped on the wire. Alarms screeched. Museum guards rushed outside.

Gargoyle struggled to get up, then spun on his webbed feet. He sped down the stairs just as a bus pulled up, and he jumped on. Mr. Pin watched from the museum steps. And then, although he wasn't sure why, he raised the missing codebook to his brow and saluted the only other penguin who had ever walked the streets of Chicago. Gargoyle raised his wing, returning the salute as the bus, driven by a man in a trench coat, disappeared into the fog.

Meanwhile, O'Malley was first on the scene, along with Maggie, who had somehow forgotten about not calling the police. Most of the time, Maggie listened to Mr. Pin. But this wasn't one of those times.

Maggie jumped out while O'Malley hauled his large frame out of the squad car. Mr. Pin came down the stairs and handed O'Malley the book.

“This is what the gargoyle smasher was looking for,” said Mr. Pin. “But it looks like he got away. Turns out he was a spy named Gargoyle. I found the book inside the lion's mouth. It was a good thing I got here first. It looked like he was going to hit the lion with a chisel. He didn't know I had already found the codebook.”

“I'm just glad you're all right,” said Maggie.

Mr. Pin explained to the museum guards and O'Malley what had happened, but O'Malley just kept shaking his head.

“I don't understand,” he said. “You're here, but as I was driving up, I thought I saw a rock hopper penguin hop into a bus.”

“You're right,” said Mr. Pin. “And he may be back.
That
was the spy who came north from the Pole.”

The Spitter Pitchers

1

Wrigley Field was hot. But it was hotter in the bleachers. The rock hopper penguin detective Mr. Pin and his friend Maggie were sitting under the Scoreboard, watching the Cubs.

So far it was a close game with a lot at stake. The Cubs were in second place. The game they were playing against the Dodgers could put them in first.

“Frosty malt! Frosty malt!” called a vendor. It was unusual for someone to be selling ice cream in the bleachers. Mr. Pin held up his wing. A cold frosty malt came down the row, hand to hand, until it reached the penguin detective. Mr. Pin sent his money back the same way.

“Thanks,” called Mr. Pin as he took the lid off the frosty malt. He was about to shovel the ice cream into his beak when he noticed some writing on the lid.

It was a message for him! Interesting, he thought. But it wouldn't be the first time he had found notes in strange places.

“Come to my office after the game,” the note said. It was signed: “Walter Wavemin.” Walter was the Cubs manager.

Mr. Pin ate the frosty malt but saved the lid. He dropped it into his black bag.

The Dodgers were up at bat. Runners were at the corners. And the game was tied 5 to 5 in the top of the seventh.

“Steeeeerike!” growled the umpire. The bleacher fans went wild. Someone threw peanut shells into the air. Maggie kept score on a pad of paper held on her lap.

“Ball one.” The crowd was suddenly quiet.

After three more pitches, the count was full, and the batter fouled down the right field line.

The next pitch came in low, over the plate. The Dodgers' batter got behind the ball, and it rode the breezes toward the bleachers. Cubs fans gasped. An outfielder leaped but was unable to reach the homer. Several fans sprang eagerly for the ball. But it was a black wing that easily grabbed it out of the air and threw it back onto the field. A TV camera zoomed in.

“Nice wing on that penguin,” said the outfielder as he tossed it to the shortstop.

Wavemin went to the mound. He called in his ace relief pitcher Sam Spitter, hoping he could get the Cubs back in the game. Sam held the Dodgers in the eighth inning. But he let two runs score in the ninth. The Dodgers won 10 to 5.

“There's always the next game,” said Maggie to Mr. Pin. “We're not out of the race yet.”

“No. And we're not out of the park yet either,” said Mr. Pin.

“What do you mean?”

“Walter Wavemin wants to see us,” said Mr. Pin.

“Really!' said Maggie. “How do you know?”

“I was given a note on a frosty malt lid.”

Many strange things had happened, thought Maggie, since Mr. Pin had come to live at her aunt Sally's diner. But never before had the manager of a major league baseball team written a note on a frosty malt lid asking to see Mr. Pin.

“Do you think the note is really from Walter Wavemin?” asked Maggie as the two detectives made their way through the crowd.

“There's only one way to find out,” said Mr. Pin.

Maggie and Mr. Pin slipped through an unmarked door and went down a flight of stairs. They waited for some time until all of the players had gone home; then they went inside the locker room.

The room was shaped like a cylinder and smelled like bubble gum, wet towels, and sweaty athletic tape. Uniforms tumbled out of hampers, and a box of new baseballs had been left on a table along with an unfinished game of cards. Maggie and Mr. Pin made their way past the wooden lockers as the batboys came in to clean the players' spikes.

The two detectives walked down another hallway and up a flight of stairs to Wavemin's office. He was sitting behind a desk, a pile of bubble gum wrappers at his elbow.

“Detective Pin,” said Mr. Pin. He tipped his checked cap and added: “Reasonable rates.”

“You have quite a reputation as a crime solver and lover of chocolate,” said Wavemin. “That's why I gave a note to a frosty malt vendor. I knew you were at the game and would be buying a lot of chocolate. He'd have no trouble spotting you.”

“I like frosty malts,” said Mr. Pin. “Especially chocolate. Now, what's the crime?”

“There isn't one yet,” said Wavemin. “But something's not right with Sam Spitter. He's been getting strange phone calls here in the clubhouse. When anyone else answers and asks who it is, the caller hangs up. And just the other day I saw Sam putting on a fake mustache.”

“Really!” said Maggie. She wrote what Wavemin had said on her pad of paper.

“Anything else?” asked Mr. Pin.

“He's in a slump,” said Wavemin.

“Could happen,” said Mr. Pin.

“But it can't happen now!” said Wavemin. He thumped his fist on his desk, and the wrappers flew up like a pile of leaves. “We're going to win the pennant this year.”

“I understand. I'm on the case,” said Mr. Pin as he hopped over an Ace bandage and left the manager's office with Maggie.

2

It was still crowded on Waveland Avenue as Maggie and Mr. Pin made their way from the ballpark through a cluster of people who were eating hot dogs and listening to a street-corner drummer.

“If there were any more people,” said Maggie, “I think we'd stick together.”

“Like penguins,” commented Mr. Pin.

“Wait!” shouted Maggie. “Isn't that Sam Spitter?” At first the person she pointed to looked like an old man. He was bent over and had a gray beard. He wore overalls, dark glasses, and a mustache.

“I think that mustache is fake,” said Mr. Pin.

Only Mr. Pin's and Maggie's sharp eyes for detail could detect the ace pitcher beneath the disguise.

“I wonder where he's going?” said Maggie.

“Quick,” said Mr. Pin, spinning on his webbed feet. “I think he's headed north.”

Maggie and Mr. Pin hurried after the disguised Sam Spitter, through the turnstile, up the stairs, and onto a train headed north.

It was a tight fit as the elevated train, or el, careened along its tracks. It was tricky, too, because Spitter was sitting next to the door. Maggie and Mr. Pin were at the back of the car behind a lot of tall people. At any moment, Sam could jump out, and if the detectives didn't move fast, he'd disappear before they could find out where he was going and why he was wearing a disguise.

It was several stops later that Mr. Pin suddenly said to Maggie, “This is our stop. Spitter's getting off.”

Mr. Pin was able to wedge his way gently through the crowd with his beak while Maggie followed close behind. As they left the train, they saw Sam hurrying down the stairs toward a bus. Sam got on and sat in the back. Maggie and Mr. Pin made it just in time and sat toward the front.

Mr. Pin took a newspaper out of his black bag and held it up so they couldn't be seen. He didn't want the pitcher to know he was being followed.

But it wasn't long before Sam pulled the bus cord and got off. The two detectives rode to the next stop, left the bus, and doubled back. From a distance, they watched as Sam unlocked the gate of a Little League baseball park. Once inside, he relocked the gate.

Maggie looked up at a sign shaped like a giant baseball. It stood next to the park where hundreds of Little League teams would play that summer.

“Thillens!” said Maggie excitedly, reading the sign. “I played baseball here last summer. Pitched a no-hitter.”

“I remember,” said Mr. Pin.

“You helped me with my fastball,” said Maggie.

Maggie and Mr. Pin weren't sure what a major league pitcher disguised as an old man was doing in a deserted Little League park. But they wanted to find out. Hiding close by in some bushes, Mr. Pin rested his beak on the chain-link fence. The two detectives watched to see what Sam would do.

Pretty soon a small truck pulled up. A man about the same height as Sam stepped out. He also unlocked the gate.

“If I didn't know better,” said Maggie, “I could swear that man was also Sam Spitter.”

“Maybe it is,” said Mr. Pin.

Sam and the man who looked like Sam strode onto the field together. The man the detectives had followed on the el took off his dark glasses. Still wearing a beard, he put on a catcher's mitt, a mask, and a chest protector. He squatted behind the plate. The man from the truck went up to the mound. He started a windup.

Zinnnng! Smack
. The ball sank into the catcher's glove.

“Nice!” said the catcher. “Fingers on the seams for a split-finger fastball.”