The Mystery at the Calgary Stampede (7 page)

Henry smiled at Violet. “All right?” he asked.

Violet gave a little wiggle of happiness. “Yes!”

Below them was a mosaic of colors. They
could hear laughter and chatting, music
and singing, and animals bleating and
mooing. Smells of popcorn and hotdogs
wafted their way.

“Hey!” called Jessie.

Violet had almost forgotten that Jessie
and Benny were in the gondola behind.
She turned to see her sister pointing down
at someone.

Mr. Sutton was behind a building going
through a garbage dumpster.

Violet twisted in her seat to watch him as
the Skyride moved along.

Jessie and Benny were watching too.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Henry
asked.

“I don’t know,” Violet said.

They watched until Mr. Sutton was out of
sight.

“The ride is almost over,” said Henry.
“We’ll try to find him.”

Everything looked a bit different once
they were on the ground, but the Aldens set
off quickly and managed to find the building
they’d spotted on the ride. As they rounded
the corner, Mr. Sutton was just disappearing
around another corner, his shoulder bag
looking heavy. He had another full bag in
his hand.

“Follow him!” said Henry.

The Aldens followed Mr. Sutton through
the crowds of fairgoers. The grounds had
been almost empty when they arrived, but
now the fair was filling up, so they had a
hard time keeping their eyes on him. He
was heading toward the Saddledome, the
huge stadium shaped like a saddle. It was in a
corner of Stampede Park that the Aldens had
not yet explored.

Jessie chuckled and took his hand. “It’s a
good thing our Mr. Sutton has on a dinosaursized
cowboy hat, otherwise we’d never be
able to follow him like this!

Mr. Sutton took a quick left through
another long barn, and then another quick
turn left between horse stalls. They children
almost lost him, but Violet spotted him and
called out, “Over there!”

Then they were all in front of the
Saddledome with its red entranceway.

“
Now
what is Mr. Sutton doing?” said
Jessie.

Mr. Sutton didn’t go into the building.
He walked farther along and paused near a
concrete column covered with posters. The
Aldens moved closer and watched.

He was taking down a poster from the
column. Then he took another. The children
circled him.

“Mr. Sutton?” said Henry.

The old man started, but when he saw
Henry, he smiled. “Isn’t this a nice one?” he
said and held out the poster for the children
to see. “Someone missed this poster,” he said,
and Jessie looked closely at the thick, colorful
paper to see what he meant. He pointed to
the date on it. The date was from the previous
summer. “Here, you hold it while I put this
one back.”

She held the poster while he replaced the
newer poster.

“This one,” he explained, pointing to the
one he’d just put up again, “was covering that
one. A poster left over from last summer is a
treasure!” he said, his eyes shiny. He took it
from Jessie and carefully rolled it up and slipped
it inside a cardboard roll from his shoulder bag.

“What’s in your bag?” Benny asked Mr.
Sutton. “Is it full of treasures?”

Mr. Sutton smiled. “Yes, it is.”

“Where do you keep all the treasures you
find?” asked Henry.

“Somewhere we could see?” asked Jessie.

The old man looked at them. “You want to
see my collection?”

The Aldens looked at each other. “We’d
like that very much,” said Jessie. “Let’s find
Aunt Judy, and she can take us. You can show
us the way.”

“All right,” said Mr. Sutton. He sounded
pleased.

They found Aunt Judy having lunch with
Daisy at a picnic table by the river. They’d
bought sandwiches for all of them and
offered an extra one to Mr. Sutton too. They
collected the sandwiches and headed toward
Aunt Judy’s van.

Mr. Sutton directed her onto the highway
leading to the far corner of town.

“I’m so pleased that all of you want to see
my collection,” he said. “I love showing it. So
many people just don’t care about artifacts.”

“We’re happy to see it,” said Aunt Judy.

“Wow! This sandwich is weird, but good,”
said Benny from the back seat. “What is it?”

Aunt Judy laughed. “Deep fried jalapeno
tofu on a bun, Benny,” she said. “I told you:
it’s a competition here at the Stampede to see
who can come up with the strangest food.
That can mean deep-fried anything!”

Benny had to think about that for a
moment. “Wow!”

Mr. Sutton directed Aunt Judy to pull
into a driveway. “Here is my home,” he said.
“Marian and her mother live upstairs and I
live downstairs. I have a small barn out back.”
He took them around to the back of the house
to a little barn-shaped house.

He unlocked the door, and the Aldens
were surprised to see a miniature museum
inside.
Cow Town Amateur Archives!
said a
sign hanging from the ceiling.

“These Stampede posters are just like the
ones at the Glenbow Museum,” said Benny.
“But some have water stains,” he added,
looking closer.

“My little group of Cow Town Amateur
Archivists rescued those from the flood,” Mr.
Sutton said.

In the middle of the room were glass
counters with shelves inside filled with coins,
postcards, passes for midway rides, and all
sorts of Stampede mementos.

“Oh, look!” said Violet, pointing to a large
unfolded fan with a bucking bronco painted
on it.

“This is amazing!” said Jessie, and Mr.
Sutton smiled. Daisy was carefully looking
through each item under the glass.

“Where does all this come from?” asked
Aunt Judy.

“I’ve collected these treasures since I was a
little boy going to the Stampede. I started the
first year my father took me to the Stampede.
My family didn’t have much money. My
father would buy just the tickets to get in,
and we couldn’t buy the special program with
the descriptions of all the rodeo events and
photos of the cowboys. I really wanted one of
those. One day—I’ll never forget it—I found a
program that someone had just abandoned on
his seat. He hadn’t even bothered to throw it
away in the trash. After that, I found all sorts of
things. People don’t take care of treasures.”

“But you do,” said Violet. “And now all
these treasures are here.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Sutton said.

“Oh!” said Aunt Judy from a corner. “Will
you look at this!”

The children gathered around her. She
was looking at a poster of herself on the far
wall. Below the poster were some shelves
with ticket stubs to her concerts, a funny old
Stampede mug with her face on it, and an
official Grandstand Show photo of Aunt Judy
as a teenager.

On a nearby mannequin was a red-and-white
child-size dress with a huge maple leaf
in the middle of the skirt. Aunt Judy smiled.
“That looks like a costume I wore years ago
to celebrate Canada Day! Wherever did you
find that?”

“Someone came across a box of costumes
that were almost ruined by the flood,” replied
Mr. Sutton. “She gave the box to me because
she knows about my collection and the work
of the Amateur Archives. I have a few friends
who help me with this work.”

“We remember your float in the parade,”
said Henry, and the rest of Aldens nodded in
agreement.

“All these artifacts,” Jessie said slowly, “are
things that need you to care for them.”

Mr. Sutton nodded. “Look at this!” he said,
reaching into his pocket for something. Jessie
had a feeling he was about to show the item
his granddaughter had handed him on the
riverbank the day before.

It was an ancient bottle cap from a bottle
of Crush soda. “Marian found it to add to my
collection,” he said gleefully. He motioned to
another display, this one of bottle caps in all
colors. Some looked very old.

Henry turned to his siblings. “I don’t think
we’re going to find Daisy’s pin here.”

Mr. Sutton shook his head. “I never take
things that don’t belong to me.”

Aunt Judy spoke up. “We know that.
Mr. Sutton, thank you for showing us your
collection.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I like when other
people enjoy our collection.”

“But we still haven’t found my pin,” said Daisy.

Henry looked at his siblings. “Well,” he
said, “if it’s not here, and Marian doesn’t
have it…then there’s only one other person
who would.”

Jessie spoke up. “And she likes costumes
and anything to do with Young Canadians.
Or being a Young Canadian.”

“I think we need to go visit down the
street,” said Henry.

M
r. Sutton fetched Marian before the group
set off down the street.

As they neared Clay’s house, they could
hear music coming from the backyard. Daisy
recognized it as a recording of one of the songs
the Young Canadians performed. There was
the sound of applause and cheering.

When the group rounded the corner of
the house they found a low deck on the back
of the house decorated to look like a stage.
Somebody had painted props, including a
barn and big, green chickens. Dried cornstalks
lined the edge of the stage. A group of kids
from the neighborhood were sitting on bales
of hay in the yard below the stage.

Little Clay was taking bows onstage. The
show was just finished, and some of the
neighbor children drifted back to their own
yards while a few of them stayed to play in a
sandbox in the corner of the yard.

Little Clay saw the Aldens and their friends
approach and climbed down the porch steps
to meet them.

“Oh my,” said Aunt Judy when she caught
sight of the pin on Little Clay’s shirt collar.
“You have the pin.”

Little Clay looked at Aunt Judy and then
at the rest of the group. She touched the
pin. “Are you looking for this?” she asked. “I
started to wonder about it. You were making
such a big deal about Clay’s pin.”

Clay came out of the house just then and
made his way over to the group. “What…?”
he started to say as he saw his little sister undo
the pin on her shirt.

She looked at the pin in her hands. “I found
it on the floor,” mumbled Little Clay. Her
voice was so soft they could hardly hear her.
“I thought no one wanted it.”

“But it was in my locker,” said Daisy. She
tried to keep her voice gentle but she felt
frustrated. She was surprised Little Clay
didn’t know not to take things that didn’t
belong to her. Then Marian spoke up, and her
voice was a whisper. “Little Clay is telling the
truth,” she said. “It was on the floor. I know…
because I was the one who dropped it.”

Daisy gasped. “Dropped it?”

Marian sounded miserable. “I was the one
who picked it up when I saw your locker door
open, Daisy. It was sitting there, and I…I just
wanted to see it.”

Everyone stared at her, and she turned very
red, reminding Henry of the first time he’d
ever seen her.

“It’s like you said about making a mistake
and trying to fix it,” she said. “I admit it
crossed my mind to take it. But I thought I
couldn’t do that because it wouldn’t be right.
I started to put it back in your locker, Daisy.
Then somebody came rushing through the
room, ran by me, and knocked it right out
of my hand. I searched everywhere, but I
couldn’t find it!”

Clay looked at her. “I think that was me,”
he said. “I was rushing around in a panic
looking for my missing cowboy hat.”

Little Clay spoke up. “I saw the pin under
the counter in the dressing room. It looked
like it was forgotten. I thought having my
own pin would make me into a Young
Canadian too. It was just like Big Clay’s so I
could return his.”

Clay spoke up and he sounded grumpy.
“Can you just call me Clay?” he said. “I’m so
tired of being ‘Big Clay.’”