Great Bicycle Race Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

glance back told her she had just as many riders behind her.
    “Coming through! On your left!” Jessie called out cheerfully. She passed Violet and Soo Lee, waved, and disappeared around the curve ahead with a group of cyclists.
    “We’re right behind you,” Henry said. “You’re looking good, Violet, Soo Lee.”
    “Thank you,” said Violet.
    “Grandfather’s near the back,” reported Benny. “He said he was going to take it easy for a while.”
    “That’s what Soo Lee and I are going to do, too,” said Violet.
    “Not Jessie, though,” said Soo Lee, laughing. “I think she’s too excited to go slow yet.”
    They pedaled onward. They met a few cars, but it was too early for many to be on the road. A dog sat at the end of his driveway and barked at them as they went by.
    A girl on a bicycle delivering morning newspapers waved and shouted, “Helloooo! Good luck!”
    They passed farms and empty fields and ponds and heard roosters crowing from barns and hen yards. As they passed one house, a sprinkler began to spray water over the front lawn.
    “I’m thirsty,” Soo Lee said.
    “Me too,” said Benny.
    Soo Lee reached down and took her water bottle off the holder on the frame of her bicycle. She kept pedaling as she squirted water into her mouth.
    The sun rose higher. The roosters stopped crowing. Near the front of the riders, Jessie almost finished her water bottle. She wiped her sweaty face and kept going.
    Then she saw someone holding a sign. It was a thin girl with a shirt that said RIDE VOLUNTEER. As each bicyclist approached her, the girl waved the sign. It said, FIRST WATER STOP AHEAD! YOU’RE DOING GREAT!
    “Oh, good,” gasped Jessie. She could get water and refill her bottle.
    The water stop had been set up in the parking lot of an office building that was closed for the day. Jessie followed the arrows tacked to the trees and turned into the lot. A few bikers were leaving as she got there, but many more were behind her. Members of the volunteer support crew had set out paper cups on rows of tables while other crew members were getting more jugs from the truck.
    Jessie got off her bike and leaned it against a tree. She unbuckled her helmet and pushed it back. She wiped her forehead and squirted the very last of the water from her bottle over her hot face and sweat-soaked hair. Then she got her water bottle and headed for the refreshment table that had just been set up near her. She grabbed a cup of water that a volunteer had just poured out of a big jug and gulped down a giant swallow. Other riders were eagerly gulping down cups of water all around her.
    “Oh, no!” shouted a volunteer. “What kind of a bad joke is this?”
    He gestured at the jugs of water and fruit juice that volunteers were unloading from the truck. “All the jugs are either empty or leaking.”
    Sabotage, thought Jessie, but she didn’t say it aloud. She saw Nan arrive, jump off her bike, and go over to one of the jugs of water. She opened the spigot and held her water bottle underneath to refill it, but nothing came out.

    “Hey!” she said. “This jug is empty.”
    At that moment Benny, Henry, Violet, and Soo Lee came into the water stop. “I’m so thirsty. I could drink a million gallons of water!” Benny declared.
    “You might not get anything to drink, Benny,” said Jessie.
    “What do you mean?” Benny asked.
    A gray-haired woman in a cap that said CREW CAPTAIN on it put her hands on her hips and said, “Almost all of our jugs are empty! Someone opened the spigots while they were in the truck.”
    “They must have done it after we got here,” another crew member said. “The jugs were filled when we left.”
    “Well, whenever it was done, we don’t have enough water for the riders!” the crew captain said. “It’s all on the floor of the truck.”
    Sure enough, a thin sheet of water was pouring out of the back of the truck.
    “Maybe there’s a water fountain in the building,” Henry