Mr. Alden had to wait for his game of checkers. The children spent the whole evening getting their new computer up and running.
The next morning, they went straight to the computer before breakfast.
“Looks like another day of playing solitaire, not checkers,” Grandfather said when the children disappeared into the den. He was smiling, though. Mr. Alden always enjoyed watching his grandchildren’s excitement over a new project.
In no time Jessie had Ringmaster I up and running just to see how fast it worked on the new computer. “Wow, this is super-fast. We could have become Ringmasters sooner on this new one.”
Henry and Jessie tested out the QuestMaster network next.
“Hey, we’ve got mail,” Jessie said when she heard the computer beep. “It’s from Andy. He must have sent this overnight.” She clicked open the e-mail and read it aloud to the other children:
“I’ll be over in the morning to set up all the software and games you need.”
Soo Lee tugged at Henry’s elbow. “Andy is too late, right, Henry? You and Jessie did it all by yourselves.”
Henry smiled at Soo Lee. “Not by ourselves. Everybody helped.”
The next thing the children heard was Watch barking. Benny scooted after Watch. “Somebody’s at the door.”
Mrs. McGregor was already there, talking to someone. “I’ll go check with the children. Were they expecting you?”
“Hi, Andy,” Benny said when he saw Andy Porter standing in the doorway
“Hi, Benny. Did you get my e-mail?” Andy asked. “I came over to get everything going like C.D. asked me to.”
By this time Soo Lee had followed Benny out to the hallway. “My cousins know everything. They put Ringmaster I and II on the computer. Henry’s trying Ringmaster II now. It’s very hard but not too hard for Henry.”
“What’s the matter?” Benny asked when he noticed that Andy looked upset.
“I wish they hadn’t installed the game without me,” Andy said. “They could have made a lot of mistakes.”
“Henry and Jessie hardly ever make mistakes,” Benny said. “Want to see?”
Benny and Soo Lee led Andy into the den. Henry and Jessie were glued to the computer. Up on the screen, Morka the dragon was breathing flames at the onscreen children.
“You won’t let the boy and girl get burned, right?” Soo Lee asked Henry.
Henry kept his hand on one of the keys and his eyes on the screen. “Don’t worry about that, Soo Lee. Now, just watch.”
Watch thumped his tail under the desk.
“No, silly,” Soo Lee said to Watch. “Henry means watch the screen.”
With one click, Henry sent a storm cloud chasing after Morka. Rain poured from the cloud onto Morka’s flaming breath. The dragon melted into a big green puddle. The boy and girl and Tracker were safe!
“Good for you, Henry,” Jessie said. When she turned around, she was surprised to see Andy standing there. “Andy! We read your e-mail. I guess you didn’t get our answer in time. We could have saved you a trip. As you can see, we got the new computer and everything going—even the QuestMaster programs, the same ones you use at work.”
Andy was so busy looking over Jessie’s shoulder, he didn’t seem to hear what she said. “Well, I ... uh ... needed to come over anyway. We just made some adjustments on the game, and I came over to add a couple of new features to Ringmaster II. It’ll just take me a minute to reprogram the changes.”
Jessie and Henry looked at each other. They were proud that they had set up the computer all by themselves. They didn’t know quite what to do now that Andy was here.
“C.D. said to come over, remember?” Andy said.
Jessie moved off her chair, and Andy took her place.
Henry didn’t move.
Andy wriggled in the chair. “Know what? It’s hard for me to work when people are watching. When I’m done, though, I bet you’ll want to check out everything again.”
“But Grandfather says that’s how we learn, by watching,” Benny said.
Andy’s ears got nearly as red as his Ringmaster T-shirt.
“It’s okay, Andy,” Henry said finally. “We’ll go have breakfast while you’re fixing things.”
“Mrs. McGregor is fixing things, too,”
Jessie said to cheer everyone up, including Andy. “She made waffles. Let’s get some in the kitchen. When you’re done with the computer, Andy, take a left down the hallway. Just follow the waffle smell to find the kitchen.”
She smiled at Andy, but he didn’t even look up from the computer.
At breakfast Mrs. McGregor set down an extra plate. “Where’s your friend?”
“Working on the computer,” Henry whispered. “We invited him for breakfast, but he didn’t answer.”
Benny looked up at Mrs. McGregor. “If he doesn’t eat his waffles, may I have seconds?”
Mrs. McGregor smiled. “First have firsts, Benny. Andy might get hungry in a while.”
Jessie stared at the maple syrup pitcher without picking it up. “Doesn’t it seem strange that Andy already had a new Ringmaster II section to add, when they are still having problems with the game?” she said in a whisper. “C.D. never mentioned that yesterday afternoon.”
Henry turned to look down the hallway. “I was thinking the same thing,” he whispered back.
Jessie remembered something. “Didn’t you say you saw Andy unwrap the computer in the trunk and check it with a flashlight?” she asked the younger children.
Benny and Soo Lee nodded.
Violet put down her fork. She dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Maybe Andy thought C.D. was going to give him the computer that he gave to us instead. After all, it’s supposed to be pretty new.”
Henry put down his glass of milk. “Good guess, Violet,” he said in a loud whisper. “Or else Jane wanted to keep that computer for home or something. That might explain why neither of them is too friendly with us.”
“Or else there’s something about the computer C.D. gave us that’s different from the others,” Jessie noted. “First Jane Driver seemed upset that we had it, now Andy is.”
Violet disagreed. “I think Andy just wants to help us out.” She picked up Andy’s plate and a glass of milk. “I know we’re not supposed to eat near the computer, but may I bring these to Andy?” Violet asked Mrs. McGregor. “Maybe he forgot to eat, since he came over here to help us out.”
Mrs. McGregor nodded. “Of course. Here’s one more waffle for him—a hot one, nice and crisp.”
Violet walked slowly down the hallway to the den.
“Andy?” she called as she came into the den.
But there was no Andy to answer her or to take the food she had brought him. The den was silent except for the Ringmaster II music playing quietly from the computer speakers.
Now that the Aldens had their computer back to themselves, they decided to finish the game of Ringmaster II they had started.
“Did you wash your hands, you two?” Jessie asked Benny and Soo Lee after breakfast. “No sticky fingers on the keyboard.”
“I don’t know why Andy went without saying good-bye,” Henry said. “He’s a hard one to figure out, that’s for sure.”
Jessie pulled her chair up to the computer. “I wonder if that was Andy and his father we overheard arguing at the warehouse yesterday.”
“I think so but I couldn’t tell for sure,” Henry answered. “They both sounded pretty upset. For such a great place, QuestMaster has a few grumpy people working there. And a mystery, too: Problems keep coming up with Ringmaster II.”
Henry restarted Ringmaster II. The screen the children had been playing on before breakfast came up. But it looked as if there was something new in the game.
“Are my eyes fooling me?” Henry asked the other children. “When we were on this screen before, the pictures were a little different. Maybe this is one of the bugs C.D. was talking about. I didn’t notice that sign—the one over the castle door. It says, ‘The Brass Horn.’ ”
“That’s a funny name for a castle,” Jessie said.
Benny didn’t think so at all. “That’s the name of our good lunch place in Greenfield, the one that’s almost like a castle inside. Maybe it’s a clue that we should go there for lunch! Remember, when we gave the troll food on the computer, Mrs. McGregor brought us food, too?”
Jessie laughed. “I don’t think the computer can hear your stomach talking, Benny!”
Violet stared at the on-screen castle. “What if Benny’s right? Isn’t it a little funny that the name of the castle is the same name as a restaurant in Greenfield? Look at the old wooden marker on the tree. It says, ‘Forest Lane.’ ”
Benny leaned against Henry and glued his nose to the screen. “Hey, the Brass Horn Restaurant is on Forest Lane! And the clock on the castle tower says twelve o’clock, right, Jessie? That’s lunchtime.”
Jessie and Henry looked at each other.
Were Benny and Violet on to something?
Jessie spoke first. “It would be pretty weird if a clue in a computer game was pointing to something outside of the computer game, to something in real life.”
“Probably a coincidence,” Henry finally decided.
Benny patted his stomach. “Being hungry isn’t a coincidence. It happens every day. If we walked all the way to the Brass Horn, I think I would be hungry by the time we got there.”
All the other children laughed.
“All right. I give in,” Henry said. “I’ll ask Grandfather and Mrs. McGregor if we can go there for lunch. Right now I want to explore this game some more.”
Henry was soon lost in Ringmaster II again. He began to click his way through the new game. Then he stopped.
“What’s the matter?” Soo Lee asked when she saw Henry staring hard at the screen. “Who’s that scary lady hiding in the castle?”
Henry clicked on a two-headed, green-faced woman. “‘Nadje,’” Henry read on the screen when the name popped up in a little box. When Henry clicked again, another pop-up box appeared over the character’s head:
Her two faces do you see,
One for them and one for thee.
Follow her footsteps wherever she goes,
But be careful to stay in the shadows.
“Wow, this is getting exciting!” Henry said. “I guess we’re supposed to keep an eye on Nadje while we look for the ring. She must be dangerous.”
“I don’t remember seeing her character when we tried out Ringmaster II before. Don’t you think that’s strange?” Jessie asked Henry. “Check the character list.”
Henry slid the computer mouse over to Jessie. She pulled down a list of characters. He moved the arrow keys up and down the screen. “There’s no Nadje listed. Maybe the designers just added her to the game but haven’t had time to put her name on the list yet. I’m going to exit the game and e-mail C.D. about Nadje.”
When Henry tried to send his e-mail, a warning box came on. He read it aloud for the other children.
“We are unable to send or receive e-mail at this time. Please do not use the QuestMaster network until further notice. Someone from the office will check your computer shortly. Please note that you should attend the meeting scheduled this afternoon at one o’clock in the QuestMaster studio.”
Henry shut down the QuestMaster network. “I wonder if C.D. has two screen names. That message was signed with the name EyeSpy. I’d better do what it says. I don’t want to cause a computer crash or anything.”
“Is there a crash?” Soo Lee asked her cousin. “Are you going to call the police?”
Henry patted Soo Lee’s hand. “A computer crash isn’t like a car crash. It’s some kind of problem that needs to be fixed inside the program or the computer.”
Benny looked as if someone had taken his favorite toy away. “But we didn’t really get much chance to try the new game. Is the computer really broken?”
Jessie stood behind Henry at the keyboard. “No problem, Benny. The message just said not to use the network. We can open Ringmaster II separately. Why don’t you give it a try, Violet?”
Violet took Henry’s place in front of the computer. Benny and Soo Lee shared the chair next to her.
“I think I’ll follow what the two-headed lady does,” Violet said. “Don’t worry, Soo Lee. There are some special spells in the little kids’ saddlebags on their horse. Look who’s in the other saddlebag.”
Soo Lee smiled at the screen. “Tracker!”
When Violet clicked on a spell in the saddlebags, the horse the two children were riding stopped at the castle gate.
“Uh-oh,” Soo Lee said. “The lady with two heads pulled up the drawbridge. How will you get the horse over the wall?”
The children carried on with the game, Again and again they were stopped by the two-headed Nadje.
“She keeps stopping us,” Soo Lee complained.
“If we can’t get to the end of Ringmaster II, we won’t be any help to C.D.,” added Benny.
“Maybe we should use all of our magic spells to get rid of her,” Violet suggested.
Jessie looked on thoughtfully as Violet moved the pointer across the screen. “It might take more than magic,” she said softly.
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