Cracking the Magikarp Code Read online

  Devin stopped running. He could almost hear the screech of her feet on the trail. “But we can’t go there!” she said. “Those areas are off limits for dogs.”

  “I know,” said Ethan. “We’ll figure it out. Let’s just get close enough to see if Gia and Carlo are there.”

  They walked toward the beach first, ducking around the NO DOGS ALLOWED sign and keeping Mystic on a short leash. When she tugged too hard, Ethan made her sit and then fed her a bite of Magikarp biscuit.

  “Are we going to get in trouble?” asked Devin, slowing to a crawl.

  Ethan shrugged. “Not if we keep her under control. Wait, I think I see them. Is that Gia’s bug cap?”

  Something green and springy stood out from the crowd of kids on beach towels. It suddenly popped up and started bobbing toward them. Sure enough, there was Gia’s smiling face, jogging closer. She met them just beyond the beach, where the grass was still green and dogs were still allowed.

  “We couldn’t wait to get started,” she said, her eyes flashing. “And Ethan, I think you were right! The beach and the picnic grounds are both crawling with Pokémon. Someone set a lure at the refreshment stand. Carlo already caught a bunch of Magikarp, plus a Staryu, a Psyduck, and a Seel.” She counted them off on her fingers.

  “He caught a Seel?” asked Ethan.

  “Yep,” said Gianna. “And all in the last twenty minutes. Carlo is still hunting down by the water. So you were right about the Magikarp Code.”

  “Wait,” said Devin. “So one fish on the map means good Pokémon hunting, not bad?”

  “I guess so,” said Ethan with a grin. “Just like Badfish Creek. Whoever marked the code on the maps is like a Pokémon fisherman who doesn’t want to give away the best spots—at least, not to everyone.”

  “Weird,” said Devin. “So who’s the fisherman? And who is he—”

  “Or she,” Gianna interrupted.

  “Or she making the map for?” Devin finished asking.

  Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we solved part of the mystery, but not all of it.”

  Carlo jogged toward them from the beach, smiling widely. “Good job, buddy,” he said, slapping Ethan on the back. “We brought in quite a haul already this morning! I scored three Magikarp in twenty minutes.”

  “So I heard,” said Ethan wistfully. “Did you leave some for me?”

  Gianna nodded. “Sure. I’ll watch Mystic so you and Devin can take a turn. But I hope you have a lot of Poké Balls. You’re going to need them!”

  Ethan handed her Mystic’s leash, plus part of the Magikarp cookie. “If she tugs, make her sit,” he told Gianna. “And reward her with a Razz Berry.”

  “A what?” she asked, looking at the dog biscuit. “Oh, I get it! Cute.” She looked down at Mystic, who was already begging for a bite. “Okay,” said Gianna, breaking off a piece of the biscuit. “I can’t resist. Just one Razz Berry. Can you sit?”

  Ethan smiled and raced to catch up with Devin, who was already exploring the beach.

  His phone vibrated as soon as he hit the sand. And there was Seel!

  Ethan tapped on the seal-like Pokémon, who started blowing bubbles—and blowing raspberries with his tongue.

  “This is my lucky day!” said Ethan, tapping his items list. “And yours, too, Seel. You, my friend, get a Razz Berry.”

  Ethan sat on the rocks beside the lake, staring at the map. He was fresh out of Poké Balls, but he’d collected a ton of Pokémon. He felt like a whale that had just swallowed a giant school of fish. He was full, but happy.

  “So who do we think this ‘fisherperson,’ is—the one who made the map?” asked Gianna. She gazed up toward Badfish Creek Bridge.

  Carlo chewed on a piece of grass beside her. “Do you think it’s a real fisherman?” he asked. “Because that really tan kid is always there. He’s leaning against the rail right now. See him?”

  Ethan shaded his eyes. “I see him. But why do you think a fisherperson made the map? Wouldn’t it be someone who’s playing Pokémon, not looking for real fish?”

  “Well, we did find both maps by the bridge,” Devin pointed out. “So it might be someone who’s there a lot.”

  “True,” said Ethan, settling back down on the rock. But something about Devin’s theory still didn’t feel quite right.

  Gianna had Carlo’s phone. Ethan watched her turn it upside down to catch a Poliwag.

  “Can you really catch them that way?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said, just as she snagged the Poliwag. “Sometimes it’s easier, and it’s a lot more fun, too.”

  Ethan couldn’t turn his phone upside down to catch Pokémon—not till he had more Poké Balls to fling. So he turned the map upside down in his lap instead.

  He stared at the red fish.

  “You know,” he said, “maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Maybe instead of trying to figure out who made the map, we should figure out who it was made for.”

  “Who knows?” said Devin. “Maybe it was made for us! By someone who knows how much we like hunting for Pokémon.”

  “But who? Like Dad, you mean?” said Ethan, glancing back toward the willow. Dad was definitely sleeping now, his hands behind his head and his legs crossed. Ethan shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. We found the maps by accident, at least the first one. If Mystic hadn’t chewed it to shreds, we probably never would have even seen it.”

  Devin rubbed Mystic’s furry mane. “You’re right,” she said. “Mystic is the one who got us into this mystery. Now can you get us out, Misty?” When she leaned over and kissed the dog on the mouth, Ethan had to look away.

  “You know she eats worms, right?”

  Devin kissed Mystic again—on the head this time. “Don’t listen to him,” she crooned right into the puppy’s ear.

  “Okay, time out, you two,” said Gianna, holding her hands up in a T shape. “Devin just gave me an idea. Maybe the map wasn’t made for us, but it was made for someone like us—someone who likes to catch Pokémon.”

  “Right,” said Carlo. “And judging by what we caught this morning, it’s a Pokémon GO player who catches a lot of Water-type Pokémon.”

  “Like … Magikarp?” said Ethan.

  His eyes immediately flicked toward the bridge. He saw his friends’ heads swivel, too.

  There was one Pokémon GO player here at the lake who not only caught Water-type Pokémon, but seemed to love them. Especially Magikarp.

  “The Magikarp Kid,” Ethan whispered.

  CHAPTER 10

  “So what do we know about this Magikarp Kid?” asked Carlo. His voice suddenly sounded gruff, like a real detective interrogating a witness.

  “Um, we know he really, really loves Magikarp,” said Devin.

  “Or at least that he catches a lot of them,” said Gianna. “So maybe he lives around here.”

  Ethan thought about that for a while. He scanned the perimeter of the lake, looking for houses. But the park was pretty far out of town. The only houses he could see where the little cottages past the bridge—the ones that people from out of town rented for summer vacations.

  “What else?” he asked. “Is the kid a phantom? Because we’ve never seen him battling at the gym, and yet he always manages to win it back. When does he come here? The middle of the night?”

  Carlo was still staring toward the bridge. “Maybe we’re looking right at him and we don’t even know it,” he said.

  Ethan followed his gaze straight to that tan kid, the one who was always fishing off the bridge.

  “You think that’s Magikarp Kid?” he asked.

  Carlo shrugged. “He’s always there, and he likes to fish—at least, he pretends to.”

  “It’d be pretty hard to play Pokémon GO with a fishing rod in your hand,” Gianna pointed out.

  “Yeah,” said Ethan. Sometimes it’s hard to battle even when you’re not holding a fishing rod, he thought, remembering how his phone had almost slipped out of his sweaty palms during the la
st one.

  “I say we go check it out,” said Gianna, and she wasted no time. She hopped right up and brushed off her shorts. “Can I borrow your phone, Carlo?” As soon as he handed it to her, she straightened out her bug cap and marched toward the bridge.

  “What’s she going to do? Just go ask him if he’s the kid getting all the maps?” asked Ethan, shading his eyes against the sun. Sometimes he thought Gianna was the bravest kid on Team Mystic.

  Carlo shrugged. “With Gianna, who knows?” he said. “But she might need some back up.”

  “I’ll go,” said Ethan, before he’d really thought his plan through.

  As he walked toward the bridge, he felt his stomach flip-flop. What’s Gia going to do? he wondered again as he watched her lean against the rail near the boy.

  She didn’t talk to him right away. She pulled out her phone as if she were taking photos of the water below.

  Ethan stopped at the end of the bridge a few feet away. He pulled out his own phone and pretended to play Pokémon GO. Then he heard the boy ask, “Is that Pokémon GO you’re playing?”

  But he wasn’t asking Ethan. He was asking Gianna.

  “Yes!” she answered brightly. “Do you play, too?”

  Good! thought Ethan. She’s getting somewhere already. He angled his phone and his body so that he could see Gianna’s face.

  “Who’s your favorite Pokémon?” Gianna asked the boy. “I’m a fan of Bug types, obviously.” She tilted her head back and forth until her antennae wiggled.

  The teenager shrugged. “I don’t really play,” he said. “I like that sneezy one, though. What’s his name, again? Achoo something?”

  Gianna’s smile froze on her face. “Pikachu? Yeah, he’s cute. Well, nice talking to you. Gotta go.” She turned and abruptly walked off the bridge, right past Ethan.

  He had to sprint just to catch up with her.

  “That’s not our guy,” she said, her teeth gritted and her body facing forward so that the kid wouldn’t know they were talking about him.

  “He’s definitely not the Magikarp Kid,” agreed Ethan. “I mean, who doesn’t know Pikachu’s name? Mom could even come up with that one—no problem.”

  As they neared the rocks, Devin looked up expectantly. Ethan shook his head at her. “It wasn’t him.”

  She sunk back down to the ground in disappointment, and Mystic gave her a sloppy kiss on the chin.

  “Let me have my phone back,” Carlo said to Gianna.

  She handed it to him, and he immediately pulled something up. “So we don’t know who Magikarp Kid is,” he said. “But what about this girl? Do we know who Sandstorm could be?”

  He had pulled up the image of the other Defender of the Badfish Creek Bridge. Sandstorm was a trainer with brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. But Ethan could barely see her, he was so distracted by the giant Kingler that had wiped out his entire team of Pokémon in the last battle.

  “Have we seen any girls with brown ponytails?” Carlo asked Gianna. “How about at the beach? Maybe Sandstorm is someone who really likes sand.”

  Gianna nodded. “I see where you’re going with this, but … I just don’t remember. I was too excited about all the Pokémon on the beach!”

  But Carlo’s question had sparked a memory in Ethan’s mind.

  “Wait,” he said. “I think Devin and I met a girl named Sandy here. No, not a girl—a dog. We met a dog named Sandy. At the dog beach!”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Devin. “The first day we came here.”

  Carlo laughed. “So you think this Trainer is a dog?” he asked. “That would be a first.”

  “No,” said Ethan, shaking his head. “But Sandy’s owner was a girl—a girl with a long ponytail. So maybe Sandstorm is—”

  “Sandy’s owner!” Gianna interrupted.

  “Yes!” said Devin, jumping up. “Go, Team Mystic!”

  At the sound of her name, Mystic started barking.

  “Follow me,” said Ethan, jogging toward the dog swim area. “We’re going back to the beach—the one where dogs are allowed. And where I hope we’ll find a dog named Sandy!”

  The dog beach was empty. Totally and completely empty.

  Ethan sank down onto the end of the pier in disappointment.

  Mystic seemed pretty bummed, too. She whined and ran up and down the pier, as if looking for her tennis ball-toting friends.

  “Hold her tight,” Ethan warned Devin. “Don’t let her throw herself off the end of the pier in despair.”

  “I’m trying!” said Devin. “She’s so strong, though. She really wants to play. We should have brought her tennis ball.”

  Ethan patted his pocket. “Wait, we did bring her tennis ball,” he said, fishing it out. Mystic immediately sprang to attention.

  “You’re not going to throw it in the water, are you?” asked Gianna.

  “Of course not,” said Ethan. “I’d throw it onshore, but we probably shouldn’t take Mystic’s leash off. Mom would kill us.”

  “True,” said Devin.

  So he rolled the ball on the ground toward Mystic, which seemed like the best compromise.

  When the ball rolled straight toward her, Gianna clapped. “Excellent throw!” she joked. “A hundred extra points for you.”

  Devin wrestled it out of the puppy’s mouth and tossed it back to Ethan.

  His next throw rolled too far to the right—way too far. “Curveball!” Carlo called, chasing the ball down and then throwing it back.

  Pretty soon, Devin was rating Ethan’s throws, too. “That one was only ‘nice,’” she said. “Actually, I’m lying. It wasn’t nice at all. I think you can do better.”

  In between throws, Mystic dropped her front paws to the ground and barked. She was loving this! But she wasn’t loving giving up the ball when it was time to throw it again.

  “Here, give her Razz Berries—er, biscuit pieces,” said Ethan, taking the Magikarp biscuit out of his pocket. There wasn’t much left. He hoped Dottie would decide to bake more.

  After Ethan’s next throw, Devin broke off a piece of the biscuit, and Mystic gladly dropped her tennis ball to gobble it up.

  That’s when it happened. A brown blur tore in front of Devin and scooped up the tennis ball.

  A yellow blur chased after it.

  And then Mystic took off, too, disappearing into the trees.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Mystic!”

  Ethan tore after the puppy, straight into the bushes. There was no trail here—just brambles and tree branches slapping against his face. But he couldn’t let Mystic get away.

  He couldn’t see her, but he could sure hear her yipping and yapping after the bigger dogs, demanding that they give her ball back.

  The woods gave way to a grassy field, which was easier to run through.

  But Ethan groaned when he saw what was coming up next.

  Sand.

  The beach!

  Would the dogs jump into the water? Would Mystic jump in, too?

  Ethan was halfway across the beach before he remembered that dogs weren’t even allowed there. But apparently those dogs hadn’t read the signs, because they’d been here, alright. Ethan followed the paw prints crisscrossing back and forth in the sand, making figure eights around swimmers and beach towels.

  As he leapt over a sand castle, a toddler with a shovel stared up at him, eyes wide.

  He couldn’t even stop to apologize to the kid’s mother. There was no time. He had to find Mystic. Where was she?

  “Mystic!” Devin and the others were calling for her, too. Ethan heard the frantic voices behind him, growing closer.

  Then he heard something else: barking coming from the picnic area.

  He took off running again, past yet another NO DOGS ALLOWED sign.

  It must have been lunchtime, because the picnic area was packed with grills and coolers, people and picnic blankets, grilled hot dogs and plates full of chips and salad. The dogs could be anywhere, following their noses from one feast to the
next.

  Ethan wasn’t sure whether to look under the tables, around them, or even on them. But when he heard a commotion in the far corner of the picnic area, he knew just where to run.

  “Sandy, stop!” he heard someone call.

  It was her! The girl with the ponytail.

  Right now, Ethan didn’t care at all whether she was Sandstorm, the Gym Defender with the giant Kingler. He just hoped she could stop her dog so that Mystic would stop running, too.

  “Sandy. Stop!” She said the word with such force that Ethan almost stopped running, himself.

  Then he saw the Yellow Lab pop out from under a picnic table and trot toward the girl, its tail between its legs. There was no tennis ball in its mouth. And there was no Chow Chow running after it.

  Ethan felt his hopes pop like a bubble at a Poké Stop. Where was Mystic?

  As the girl bent down to grab Sandy’s collar, he hurried toward her. “Have you seen my dog?” he asked. “A little red Chow?”

  The girl blew her bangs off her forehead. “I’m not even supposed to be seeing my dog right now,” she said. “My little brother was on dog duty. He was supposed to keep the dogs under control. Dogs aren’t allowed here in the picnic area, you know.”

  Ethan almost laughed out loud. “Yeah, I know. But mine got loose, too.” He described Mystic again, hoping the girl would say she’d seen her. But she just shrugged.

  “Let’s check the bridge,” she finally suggested. “Maybe Snickers ran back to my brother, Noah. He better have, anyway, or Noah’s going to be in big trouble.”

  By then, Devin, Gianna, and Carlo had caught up to Ethan. “Did you find her?” Devin asked, the panic rising in her voice.

  “Not yet,” said Ethan. “We’re going to check the bridge. C’mon!”

  They followed the girl with the ponytail toward the bridge. Actually, they followed Sandy the Retriever, who was leading with her nose.

  She led them out of the picnic area. They ran past Dad’s willow tree, where Dad was snoring in the sun. Past the boat launch. Past the Poliwag rocks. All the way to Badfish Creek Bridge.