Chapter 3 - The Midnight Search

At recess that Friday, the students in Flo's class met at the edge of the playground and talked about the strange things that were going on at the pond. Megan S. said, "Let's all meet at my house for a sleep over and talk about it." "Maybe we can sneak out and go to the pond?" Emily asked eagerly.

"Tell your parents that my mom will take care of everything and that we will be fine," said Megan S.

Then all of the boys, led by Alex, yelled, "No way!"

Then Megan S. said, "Come on you guys, just one night won't hurt you, and besides, there will be other boys."

"Well OK, girls..." they said.

Megan S. went to the office to call her mom at work. She asked if her classmates could sleep-over that night because they had to work on a class project and they had to work on it during their own time. Her mom said, "Yes," hesitantly, and added, "as long as you promise to go to bed by 10 pm and clean up any messes you make."

Then, that night when they met at Megan's house, they talked about the pond.

Grace said, "I think that somebody is deliberately trying to kill all the wildlife in the pond."

Emily said, "Well, I think that somebody is digging for a buried treasure, maybe an old burial site from the Patwin Indians!" Others hypothesized all sorts of ideas about what might be going on. Then Derrick said, "Let's stop saying what we think, and start adding up the clues we've found so far."

"Well, we know someone is buying a lot of drilling equipment," pointed out Andrew, "and their initials might be A.W."

"And, we know there's pollution in the pond and that a lot of animals and plants have been destroyed," said Meghan C.

"What about those pits, like the one that I fell into!" exclaimed Phil. They talked for quite a while, but couldn't come up with any answers.