The Loch Ness Lock-In Read online

  Still, it took us a few hours to find a boat place that would rent to us at night and ignore the constable’s order to keep tourists off the lake. But I think the kind old lady who ran the boat shop thought our scout uniforms made us look important. Like we were FBI agents in shorts and neckerchiefs.

  Unfortunately, Spitzer had already blown most of his money on mini-golf, so all we could afford was a small rowboat with a tiny outboard motor. I was just glad it had a motor at all, because did I mention that Loch Ness is twenty-three miles long? You try rowing that far. You can tell me how it went after your arms fall off.

  Loch Ness was covered in a heavy fog that night, and our flashlights barely helped. We decided to follow the shoreline so we wouldn’t get lost, but the mist was so thick that it was easy to lose sight of land.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” asked Manuel after about half an hour of floating aimlessly.

  “The Loch Ness Monster, duh!” said Ginger.

  “I know that!” he said. “I meant are we looking for any special signs, like something that would tell us we’re on the right track?”

  “Good question,” said Asma. “It’s probably time to check the handbook, right, Ben?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Darn it, I did it again!

  As I slipped it out of my backpack, I caught Spitzer eyeing his old handbook, but he didn’t say anything. He’d made it very clear back at Camp Spirit that he wanted nothing to do with it anymore. “Shine your flashlight over here,” I said to Manuel.

  With Manuel’s help, I found the page titled “Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster” and began reading. “Says here that Nessie stays away from humans whenever possible, and only appears to a very fortunate few.”

  “Walter already told us all that,” complained Ginger.

  “Hold on,” I said. “There’s more. ‘While being rather large, Nessie is surprisingly quiet, having learned to swim and even to walk on land with almost total stealth.’”

  “That doesn’t sound like the thing that smashed our bus,” said Asma. “I could barely think because of all the noise.”

  “Hmm,” said Manuel. “Could there be a second Loch Ness Monster? Like an evil twin Nessie?”

  No one answered right away because we were all thinking about how vulnerable we were out there on the lake at night, in a tiny boat.

  “Give me your light again, Manuel,” I said. “There’s a bunch of handwritten notes here. Maybe they can tell us some—”

  Without warning, Spitzer reached over and slammed the book shut, nearly catching my fingers.

  “That’s enough reading!” he said. “Put the book away. We’re heading back to shore. This was a bad idea.”

  I didn’t know what had gotten into Spitzer, but odds were he’d written those notes as a kid and for some reason didn’t want to revisit them.

  Of course, this only made me want to read them more. And out loud. To everyone. But seeing as I didn’t want to swim back to shore, I obediently put the book back in my pack.

  “Where is shore, exactly?” asked Asma.

  “We can’t navigate by starlight with all this fog,” said Spitzer. “But I think I see something up ahead. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but it might be a dock.”

  I peered into the mist. He was right. By the light of our flashlights, it did look like there was a shape, low and close to the water.

  And coming our way.

  “It’s moving!” I whispered.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Spitzer. “We’re moving.”

  But Asma pointed. “I think Ben’s right!”

  Finally!

  “Brace yourselves!” I cried. “It’s coming straight for us!”

  Okay, maybe my shouting “Brace yourselves!” was a little dramatic, but all that talk of an evil Loch Ness Monster really had me on edge.

  The truth is, while the mysterious shape in the water was definitely heading our way, it was doing so slowly. Very slowly. Like about as fast as an old man rowing a boat would go.

  “Ahoy!” called a familiar voice.

  Like I said earlier, you’d have to be crazy to try to row across Loch Ness.

  Unless you were Walter.

  The old Scout Master was rowing with gusto, I’ll give him that. He was in an even smaller boat than ours, and there was no motor.

  “Walter, what are you doing?” sighed Spitzer.

  “I’m looking for Nessie!” huffed Walter. “What are you doing? You all are supposed to be back at the lighthouse.”

  “Nessie smashed our bus!” said Ginger. She skipped over the part where we totally failed with the red caps, but, you know, priorities!

  “We didn’t actually see what did it,” I added. “But whatever it was, it came from the lake.”

  Walter scratched his beard. “Hmm. None of this sounds like Nessie. What could have riled the old girl up so?”

  “I remembered the Strange Scouts Oath and recited it by heart,” said Asma. “I thought if we could help, it was our duty to do so.”

  “Oh, brother,” muttered Manuel.

  “Can’t say I’m happy with you all putting yourselves in danger,” said Walter. “But I admire your spunk!”

  “Oh, brother,” muttered Spitzer.

  Walter wiped the fog from his glasses. “Little while back, I caught a glimpse of something in the fog that might be Nessie, but it’s so hard to tell in all this dang mist.”

  “What’d it look like?” I asked. “Roughly.”

  “Well, let’s see, roughly it looked…” He put his glasses back on. “Like that!”

  Suddenly something came out of the fog. It was still hard to make out details, but we saw a long neck, taller than a house, attached to a wide snout. It was the Loch Ness Monster, and it was coming right at us!

  “Brace yourselves!” I cried. “For real!”

  This time when I shouted “Brace yourselves!” I meant it, because Nessie was coming straight for us—fast. She must’ve been angry about something, as that rumbling roar was louder than ever.

  Spitzer threw the motor into high gear, and we started speeding out of there, but poor Walter didn’t have a hope of rowing fast enough to avoid getting capsized by the lake monster.

  “We gotta save Walter!” I yelled.

  Ginger, who’d been digging around in the bottom of the boat, found a life preserver attached to a rope. On the count of three, we threw it as hard as we could. Walter grabbed the life preserver and jumped just in the nick of time, right as his boat was crushed to splinters by the passing monster.

  It took the combined strength of all of Troop D to haul old Walter to safety. For a skinny guy, he weighed a ton!

  Once we were clear of the monster’s wake, Spitzer slowed down as Nessie disappeared once more into the fog.

  Walter coughed up about a gallon of lake water at our feet.

  “Eww,” said Asma.

  “I…I can’t believe Nessie would do something like that,” said Spitzer. It was hard to tell in the dark, but he looked like he actually had tears in his eyes.

  Boy, people sure can surprise you.

  “She wouldn’t,” said Walter, still gasping for breath. “This isn’t right.”

  “Hey.” Manuel sniffed the air. “Anyone smell something weird?”

  Asma held her nose. “Yeah, it’s really strong.”

  One by one, we all looked at Walter.

  “Jehoshaphat!” the old man exclaimed. “It’s me! I’m covered in motor oil!”

  Ginger shined the flashlight on Walter. A black sheen covered his hair and clothes.

  “Where’d that come from?” she asked.

  “Must’ve been in the water when Walter fell in,” I said. “Gimme your light again, Manuel.”

  I shined the flashlight at the water behind us. Sure enough, there was a trai
l of oil floating along the water. It followed the exact same path Nessie had just taken, toward shore.

  “Since when do lake monsters leak motor oil?” asked Manuel.

  “Since never,” said Walter. “Spitzer, turn this boat around and follow that oil trail!”

  For once, Spitzer didn’t argue. In fact, he followed Walter’s orders without hesitation. “Aye, aye, Captain!”

  And together, Troop D sped off into the night! Into danger!

  (Cue the awesome action-movie music, okay?)

  Though it was still foggy, the mist thinned out a bit as we got closer to shore. We’d followed the oil slick into a cove hidden by tall cliffs on either side. A long wooden dock stretched out into the lake from a sandy beach. A stairway led to a large lake house and garage.

  “Look!” exclaimed Ginger. “It’s Nessie!”

  Tied up to the dock was a massive lake monster.

  “What’s she doing?” whispered Manuel. “She’s just floating there. She’s not even moving.”

  “Hmm,” said Walter. “Let’s get a little closer, but quietly!”

  Spitzer cut the motor, and we used the oars to paddle the rest of the way.

  “Shine your flashlights there.” We aimed our lights up at the monster and finally saw the truth close-up. This “Nessie” was actually sitting in a small ferry, and the lake monster’s head and neck were cold, unmoving plastic.

  “Look!” I whispered. “She’s on treads.” The monster’s lower half ended in massive treads and metal machinery. A long rubber tarp was attached to the back. “That’s what destroyed that wind farm and smashed our bus. It’s a bulldozer dressed up like a monster!”

  “I don’t get it,” said Manuel. “Why is someone driving that crazy thing around?”

  “Because someone wants to blame all this destruction on Nessie,” I said. “Think about it—the ferry pulls up to shore, and the bulldozer drives up the beach and smashes whatever’s in its path. If anyone catches a glimpse, they just see the monster’s head in the mist. And it drags that big rubber tarp behind it to erase the tread tracks in the sand.”

  “And I think we’ve all seen that plastic lake monster before,” said Asma. “Or its twin.”

  “Yeah,” said Ginger. “Right, Spitzer?”

  The Scout Master looked crushed, but he nodded. “There’s one just like it at MacGregor’s Classic Golf Green. If you get a hole in one, you get your very own stuffed Nessie.”

  Manuel looked over at Walter, who’d been quiet. “Walter, what are we going to do?”

  The old man tugged at his beard for a moment. “This is a matter for local authorities now. It ain’t the real Nessie doing these crimes, so that means we need to get the constable involved. Troop D, I want you to sneak ashore and keep an eye on that house. If MacGregor is in there, he might try something again tonight. You keep watch but do not, I repeat, do not try to engage him in any way. Got it?”

  We nodded. “Where are you and Spitzer going?” I asked.

  “We gotta convince the constable that a mini-golf millionaire is destroying lakeshore property with a bulldozer dressed up like a monster. I’d say we’ve got a better chance at that than a bunch of kids do.”

  We rowed the boat close to the beach, and Manuel, Asma, Ginger, and I waded to shore through the cold water.

  “We’ll be back with the constable as soon as we can,” said Walter. “Remember, watch but do not go anywhere near MacGregor! Got it?”

  “Got it,” we said, all together.

  “Promise?”

  “Scout’s honor,” we answered, and then Spitzer and Walter turned on the boat’s motor and disappeared into the mist.

  And before you ask, yes, we totally had our fingers crossed behind our backs. Again. But I mean, what kind of story would this be if we always followed the rules?

  Walter and Spitzer weren’t gone five minutes before MacGregor stepped out of the lake house. He stood there for a while, smoking a smelly cigar, then started down the stairs toward the dock.

  “Guys,” I whispered. “What if MacGregor gets into that ferry and takes off with the fake Nessie?”

  “So?” said Asma. “We’ve seen him. We’ll just tell the constable what happened when he gets here.”

  “And you think he’ll believe the word of a bunch of kids over one of the town’s richest men? That fake monster is the only real evidence that he ran over that wind farm and ruined our bus. If he hides it, there’s no case.”

  “Oh, wow,” said Manuel. “Ben’s right.”

  Thank you.

  “So what do we do?” asked Ginger. “We can’t just ask him to wait around for the cops!”

  She was right. MacGregor had already reached the dock and was starting to untie the ferry. Either he was off to do more damage, or he was going to get rid of the evidence.

  “We need a plan and we need one fast!” warned Asma.

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” I said. “It’s not like these things just pop into your head….Wait, that’s it!”

  It was brilliant. And crazy. Okay, mostly crazy, but it was all I could think of at the time. I whispered my idea to Troop D, and after they’d finished telling me I was out of my mind, Manuel said, “You know, it just might work!”

  Teamwork was the key. If we could get close enough, Manuel and I were pretty sure we could disable MacGregor’s bulldozing monster, but we needed a distraction. That’s where Ginger and Asma came in.

  MacGregor had just hopped aboard the ferry when he saw flashlights shining up at his lake house. We knew he saw them because the girls purposely made enough noise to wake the dead.

  See, the idea was to make MacGregor think someone was snooping around his house so he’d go see who it was. Ginger and Asma would turn off the flashlights and hightail it out of there. While MacGregor searched for the intruders in vain, Manuel and I would sneak up to the dock under cover of darkness and sabotage his ferry. There would be no way for MacGregor to escape before the constable arrived.

  Brilliant, right? Well, we ran into a few problems.

  In their attempt to distract MacGregor, Asma and Ginger tripped his home security system. An alarm started to wail and floodlights shined out everywhere.

  Manuel and I were about halfway across the beach when suddenly it was as bright as day. So yeah, that was the first problem.

  The second was that MacGregor was totally psychotic. Who knew?

  “You!” cried MacGregor. “Why, I’ll teach you to trespass on my property!”

  He hopped into the cab of his bulldozer monster and literally cackled as the engine roared to life. This plastic lake monster didn’t just breathe smoke—it breathed fire!

  And it was coming for us.

  Manuel and I were helpless. There was nowhere to hide on the beach, and I doubted we could outrun that thing in the sand. But luckily, our troop mates didn’t abandon us.

  Asma and Ginger began pelting MacGregor with rocks, clumps of mud—whatever they could find. The evil businessman roared almost as loud as his engine as he turned the bulldozer to face them.

  “No one throws mud at Martin Mac— OOF!” Ginger had found MacGregor’s trash cans and had just beaned him in the face with a rotten tomato. Attagirl!

  She’d gotten his attention, all right. The bulldozer started climbing the hill toward the house. Toward Ginger and Asma.

  I started to run up the hill after him. “C’mon! Plan B!”

  “What’s plan B?” asked Manuel as he struggled to keep up.

  “Give me your backpack!”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  “Okay!” He tossed it to me. “Careful, though, my games are in there, man!”

  I yanked open the pack and shoved my hand inside. I wasn’t looking for video games.

  With all the commotion and panickin
g, the red cap was already looking pretty upset. He shook his fist at me as he bounced around inside the jar. He was starting to turn beet red.

  Good.

  We reached the bulldozer just as it was bearing down on Asma and Ginger, who’d armed themselves with an assortment of rotten vegetables. With Manuel’s help, I pried the lid off the jar and, with a heave, tossed the red cap at the machine monster.

  POP! Pop pop pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!

  It took about three seconds for the bulldozer to become overrun by red caps. They flipped switches and pushed buttons, bringing the machine to a sudden halt.

  MacGregor cried out as one of them yanked the toupee off his head and another snapped his suspenders.

  Still screaming, he bolted from the bulldozer and made for the ferry, batting away red caps as he ran.

  “He’s getting away,” said Manuel, but we were too far away to stop him.

  And then a strange thing happened. An enormous shadow appeared in the foggy lake. It was headed for the dock, picking up speed, but then it veered off at the last second, causing a massive wave to rise up out of the lake and smash into the dock. When the water cleared, the ferry had capsized and was sinking fast.

  Meanwhile, the wave had lifted MacGregor and deposited him halfway up the beach. He was soaking wet, shaking, and as pale as chalk. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost.

  Or a monster.

  As the constable took MacGregor away in handcuffs, the businessman confessed to everything. He also kept babbling on and on about how the Loch Ness Monster had destroyed his ferry. Of course, no one believed him except us, but who would trust the word of a bunch of kids, anyway?