The L.A. Dodger (2 page)

A loud buzzer went off. It was the signal that the luggage had arrived. Soon, suitcases of all colors were dropping one after the other onto the baggage claim carousel. Mike and Kate dashed over to wait for their bags.

“Is your dad okay?” Mike whispered to Kate. “He seems a little tense.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s probably just his job or something,” Kate said. “I’ll bet having us here will be good. Maybe he can help us look for movie stars. The guidebook says you really
can
see movie stars around L.A.”

Kate and Mike scanned the airport for celebrities. Mike pointed to a woman wearing
a red dress with a white bow. “Think she’s a movie star?” he asked.

“She looks a little like Colleen Baxter from that TV show,” Kate said, “but she’s older. What about him?” She pointed to a squat little man in a white shirt and sunglasses. He wore a blue baseball hat with an old-fashioned
B
on it.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “With that hat, he looks more like a Boston Red Sox fan than a movie star. What about that woman near your father?” He pointed to a tall lady wearing a stylish hat and carrying a blue bag.

Kate squinted and shook her head. “That could be the woman from that vampire movie,” she said. “But I don’t think it is. I guess it’s not our lucky day.”

Behind them, more suitcases crashed onto the baggage claim belt.

“Ooh, there’s mine!” Mike shouted. A dark suitcase with baseballs along the edges fell on top of a red suitcase. “And there’s yours! At least our bags made it. I think that’s pretty lucky.”

Mike and Kate scrambled to grab their suitcases as they moved past. Mike plucked his off the belt first. When Kate bent down to grab her suitcase, her backpack swung off her shoulder. She had to drop everything to snag her suitcase before it passed by.

“See, it
is
our lucky day,” Mike said. “You almost missed it.”

Kate gathered the rest of her things, and they headed back to her father. He led them out to the car and stowed the bags in the trunk. Mike and Kate hopped into the backseat. “Anything you want to see on the way to my apartment?” Mr. Hopkins asked as he
buckled his seat belt. “It’s about thirty minutes to Santa Monica.”

“Let me look at my list,” Kate said.

She rummaged through her backpack for a moment and then looked up at her father. “Wait!” she said. “My notebook is missing!”

“I know I didn’t put it in the trunk with the suitcases,” her father said. “Are you sure it’s not in your backpack?”

Kate took another look. While she did, her father opened up his jacket again. He checked the small notebook in his shirt pocket. He seemed lost in thought for a moment.

“No, it’s not here,” Kate said. “I definitely had it just before we got our suitcases, because I showed it to Mike.”

Mike snapped his fingers. “That’s it!” he said. “Suitcases! I’ll bet you left it by the baggage claim. Remember when your backpack slipped off? You put your backpack and notebook down. Maybe you didn’t pick it up again.”

Kate unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door, and hopped out. “We’ll be right back, Dad,” she said.

Mike and Kate ran inside the airport to the luggage area. It had emptied out. Only a few unclaimed bags were left. Kate stopped at the spot where she had pulled her suitcase off the carousel. There was no sign of the missing notebook.

Kate searched the area. She even peeked under the edge of the carousel. Mike checked the seats and nearby hallways.

“I asked the janitor about it,” Mike said
when he returned to Kate. “He just cleaned here. If the notebook were here, he would have found it. That means someone must have taken it!”

Kate frowned. “Drat. I knew I should have put it away! Well, at least there wasn’t anything special in there. Just the list of things I wanted to see in L.A. Okay, let’s go back to the car.”

The ride to Mr. Hopkins’s apartment was pretty quick. He lived in a tall building on Ocean Avenue. It was across the street from Pacific Palisades Park and the ocean. After unpacking, Mike, Kate, and Kate’s dad walked a few blocks to a Chinese restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard. The restaurant wasn’t crowded. They sat at a round booth in the corner.

“So, Mike, I know you’re a baseball expert,” Mr. Hopkins said after they had ordered. “Can you tell me what’s unusual about Dodger Stadium?”

“Um … let’s see.” Mike leaned back in his seat and thought hard. “Oh, I know!” he said, snapping his fingers. “Dodger Dogs!”

Mr. Hopkins chuckled. “Good guess. I know that most fans think the Dodgers’ hot dogs are special, but I was thinking of something
else. Something about the park itself.”

Mike thought some more. Finally, he shrugged. “I give up. What?” he asked.

“The dugouts!” Mr. Hopkins said. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and drew the outline of a ballpark on a white paper napkin. “Usually the home team’s dugout is along the first-base line. But in Dodger Stadium, the visiting team sits on the first-base side. The home team is on the third-base side. Any idea why?”

“So the Dodgers can get to the hot dog stand faster?” Mike asked.

“No, not even close.” Mr. Hopkins laughed. “Think about something big and bright and hot.”

“The sun!” Kate blurted out.

“Exactly,” Mr. Hopkins said. “The team put the home dugout there so that the sun wouldn’t shine directly into the players’ eyes
during afternoon games. Instead, the visiting team sits in the sun, while the Dodgers stay cool in the shade.”

“That’s mean,” Kate said. “You’re supposed to treat your guests nicely.”

“Not in baseball,” Mr. Hopkins said with a smile. “The visiting team often gets a smaller locker room or older showers. Some clubs even cut the grass to different heights to throw the other team off. It’s fair to do anything within the rules to give your team an advantage.”

Mr. Hopkins slid the pen back into his shirt pocket. As he did, the smile left his face. He seemed deep in thought again as he checked for the small black notebook. Then he glanced nervously around the restaurant.

“Dad? You okay?” Kate asked. “You’ve been acting weird since you picked us up.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Work has been a little tough lately. But I’m trying not to think about it.”

“Is something wrong?” Kate asked.

Her dad sighed. “Over the past month, strange things have been happening to me and other Dodger employees. Someone stole a few of my old scouting reports. My car was broken into two weeks ago. And sometimes I feel as if I’m being followed,” he said. “At first I thought I was just imagining it. But last week, I heard that a few items, like notebooks, had been taken from coaches and managers.”

Kate touched her father’s arm. “Sorry, Dad,” she said. Then she pointed to his shirt pocket. “Are you worried about that notebook? You keep checking it.”

“Those are my scouting notes. They’re
very important. If someone takes them, they’ll know which players we’re tracking,” Mr. Hopkins said. “I’m going to give them to my boss after the game this week.”

“Why don’t you type the notes into your
computer and email them to your boss?” Mike asked. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”

“Our email system has been broken into,” Mr. Hopkins said. “My boss doesn’t want us sending anything important that way. Also, my laptop computer was stolen last week. Luckily, I had already deleted my scouting reports. I copied them into this notebook instead. I haven’t let it out of my sight since.”

“This is pretty creepy,” Kate said. She scrunched over, closer to her father. “Are we in danger?”

“I don’t think so, or I wouldn’t have let you come,” Mr. Hopkins said. He put his arm around Kate and gave her a hug. “I’m not sure who’s causing all this trouble or what they want, but we should be fine.”

Their talk was cut short when the waiter came back with their meals. Kate devoured
her beef with broccoli, while Mike tried to use chopsticks on his spicy peanut chicken. But all he did was drop globs of food on the table and his lap. He finally gave up and ate with a fork. During dinner, Mr. Hopkins told Kate and Mike more Dodger history.

At the end of the meal, Mike pushed his plate away. “That was really good,” he said. “Now I feel like a nap.” He put his head down on the table and pretended to snore.

“I didn’t know how hungry I was,” Kate said, yawning. “Or sleepy. I guess it’s later than I thought, since we’re three hours behind New York time.”

“We should head home, then,” Kate’s dad said. He asked for the check. The waiter delivered it with three fortune cookies. Right away, Mike and Kate tore off the clear wrappers.

Mike snapped his cookie in half. He pulled
out the ribbon of thin white paper.
“Plan for excitement ahead,”
he read. “Wowee! This should be a good week.”

Kate smiled, broke open her cookie, and pulled out her fortune. “Wait, mine’s better,” she said. “
Something lost will be found
. That has to mean we’ll find my notebook! Dad, what does yours say?”

Kate’s father unwrapped his fortune cookie and bit off one end. With a show, he unfolded the paper inside.

But instead of reading it out loud, he just stared at it. Mike nudged Kate. “Ummm, what does it say, Dad?” Kate asked.

“Never mind,” he said, crumpling it up. “It’s time to go now.” He reached for his jacket.

“Oh, come on, Dad,” Kate teased. “Tell us!”

Mr. Hopkins paused, and then his face
broke out into a large smile. “These things are silly,” he said. He picked up the crumpled fortune and handed it to Kate.