Bus Station Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

Benny.
    “Well, there are a lot of things you’d never think of. You must go and see the clock with three round faces. It tells the time and the month and the temperature. The three faces go round and round. You can stand and watch it for a long time.”
    “Thank you,” said Henry. “We’ll go right to the clock.”
    But when they reached the clock, the crowd was huge. The Aldens could not get near it.
    “We’ll never see it,” Jessie said.
    “Never mind,” said Benny. “We can come back to see the clock later. I just saw a sign that says ‘Fishermen’s Corner.’ We’ve just got to see that.”
    A crowd of men and boys were looking at a board covered with fishhooks.
    “How many!” said Violet. “I thought fishhooks were all alike.”
    “Not at all,” Henry told her. “There are different hooks for different fish.”
    “What are those?” Violet pointed at a display of bright-colored fishing flies. “They look like insects made of feathers.”
    “They are called flies,” the man who had the exhibit told Violet. “They are made to look like little insects, so the fish snap at them. Only now the river is spoiled by the paint factory. The pollution kills the fish.”
    Violet read the names of some of the flies, “Gray Ghost, Silver Doctor, Royal Coachman.”
    “There’s a hook inside each one,” said Henry.
    An old man looking at the exhibit said, “I remember when you could catch fish by just dropping a line in the water. It’s not that way anymore.”
    The man who had explained the fish flies to Violet nodded. “Yep. Every factory pours dirty water into the rivers. It’s time to stop them! That’s what the meeting is about tomorrow night—how to save our river.”
    Benny tried to think who else had spoken of a meeting tomorrow. Then he remembered. The boys on the bus!
    “Let’s go somewhere else,” said Violet quickly. She didn’t want to think about hooks in fish.
    The Aldens went over to the pottery display. A girl was spinning her potter’s wheel. She had just finished making a vase out of clay. Now she was making a design on the vase with a small wooden tool. As the vase whirled around on the wheel, the girl pressed the tool against the side of the vase. The tool made a perfect ring around the vase. Then another and another.
    It was so fascinating to watch that Violet forgot all about the fishhooks.
    Jessie turned to the others and said, “Now we can go see the clock. The big crowd is gone.”
    After Henry had looked at the clock he said, “It’s hard to believe a boy invented this clock. It’s clever the way it’s made. The boy must be a genius.”
    Jessie began to smile. “Look at this eggbeater,” she said. “It cleans itself! I always hate to wash an eggbeater. The egg is hard to wash off.”
    Benny said, “Come on. I see a good wildlife exhibit. Let’s see what it’s about.”
    The Aldens found there were drawings of birds, insects, and small animals. There were pots of wild plants and a bunch of wild flowers.
    “Look at this,” said Henry. “Now whoever thought of this is very clever.”
    Jessie looked at the card. “It says there are one hundred plants growing in this square—only one square yard of earth.”
    “You can see the square was taken from the earth just as it was, with nothing planted on purpose,” remarked Benny.
    Violet said, “Here is sour sorrel and wood sorrel, and white, pink, and red clover.”
    Jessie went on, fascinated with all the little plants, “Here is a yellow five-finger and chickweed and a strawberry plant.”
    “And a buttercup,” said Benny. “I wonder who put this exhibit together?”
    Then suddenly the Aldens saw the boy who was in charge of the wild flower exhibit. It was the older boy who had caught the bus from Plainville Junction—the very one Frank had ordered out of the bus station! He was busy explaining something to some people who were interested in the exhibit.
    “Yes,” he said, “we took a piece of land