The Case of the Wilted Broccoli Read online

  She called on Maddie, a quiet girl sitting near the front.

  "The grocery store," Maddie said.

  "True," Mrs. Dozen said as she drew a box toward the right side of the board and wrote the word 'Store' inside the box. "Where did the grocery store get it? Any ideas?"

  "A farm," Basil yelled out.

  Mrs. Dozen walked to the other end of the long board, and made another box with the word "Farm" inside it. Then she looked at the white bag of flour with the yellow label. "Correct, but I'm pretty sure wheat doesn't grow in the form of a bag containing flour. Other thoughts?"

  "A flour mill," Willow said, waving her hand in the air.

  "Right, Willow," Mrs. Dozen said, as she added a box in the middle with the label "Mill". "What does the mill do?"

  "Grinds the wheat seeds into flour."

  "Very good, Willow. Now, how does the wheat get to the mill?"

  Hands went up.

  By the time they were done, a long diagram on the board stretched from the farm to Mrs. Dozen's kitchen, and in between sat trucks, mills, grain silos, and warehouses.

  Mrs. Dozen held up her hands for quiet. "How far do you think the food you eat has to travel from the place where it was grown or raised, to get to your plate?"

  "A hundred miles," Basil said.

  "Two hundred," Atlanta said.

  "Five hundred miles," Willow said.

  Mrs. Dozen picked up an orange off her desk and tossed it into the air while looking at it admiringly. "Where do oranges grow? How far away is that?"

  Alice had her hand raised. "Florida. I saw orange farms when I visited."

  Mrs. Dozen nodded. "They grow in warm places like Florida, California, and Texas." She picked up a banana. "Where does this come from?"

  No hands went up.

  The teacher waited for a minute. "Even warmer places, tropical places. Mexico, Ecuador, Columbia, Panama. Do you think a truck drove this banana from Columbia to Portland? On average, the food you eat has traveled one thousand, five hundred miles to get to your plate. That means some has traveled less, but some has traveled more, much more. "

  Now the diagram on the board got airplanes. And after a discussion about how some fruits and vegetables have to be shipped before they're ready to eat (imagine mushy bananas bouncing around in a cargo hold), she also added ripening rooms at the distributor. They talked about trucks driving long distances across the United States, and how they needed air conditioning to keep the food cold, and how that added to the cost and environmental impact.

  "Mrs. Dozen," Willow called out loud with her hand raised.

  "Yes?"

  "We raised money to get local, organic food in the cafeteria. I donated my own money. Where does that food come from?"

  "Good question. The amount of money raised was about a hundred and twenty dollars per student. The purpose was to get local, organic food. There's no single definition of how far is still local, but often it's considered four hundred miles or less."

  "So our lunch average is less than four hundred?" Willow asked.

  "Not exactly. How many meals does a hundred and twenty dollars buy?"

  The class shook their heads.

  Basil raised his hand. "Lunch costs two dollars and twenty cents. So it's one hundred and twenty divided by two dollars and twenty cents."

  Mrs. Dozen wrote the numbers on the board and did the math. It worked out to fifty-four lunches. But now she shook her head. "The cost of the ingredients is not the total cost of your lunch. Who makes your lunch?"

  "Miss Berry!" Willow called out.

  "Exactly. Miss Berry and other cafeteria staffed are employed by the school. But your lunch is also partly subsidized by the school, which means that you pay less than the full price. But it's still a good estimate, and if we don't have an exact number, an estimate is better than nothing."

  Now she wrote more math on the board.

  "The school year is more than fifty-four days long. It's about one hundred and seventy days. Which means that roughly one in three days is the local food you've paid for. So on about a third of days, the average distance your food travels is less than four hundred miles. All the rest comes from a lot farther away." She pointed to "1500" on the board.

  Then the bread-maker dinged and the class rushed over.

  Basil and Willow jockeyed for a place in line to get a slice. She wasn't exactly sure how long or how far the bread had to travel to get into her stomach, but it still tasted great.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ELON AND LINDEN sat together on the bus home. Elon drew a picture of an airplane with swept-back wings and a propeller in his notebook while Linden watched over his shoulder.

  "We need to use a quadcopter, not a fixed-wing plane," Linden said. "A quadcopter is like a helicopter with four rotors, one at each corner." A football flew through the air, thrown from one of the forward rows, and Linden ducked just in time. It sailed overhead and went right out the window. "Oh, snap. Did you see--?"

  "I know what a quadcopter is," Elon said, ignoring the football and other insanities of the school bus. "But a plane will be faster and have a longer flight time." He'd researched all kinds of autonomous drones before suggesting the project to his brother and sister.

  "True, but you also want to put a camera on it. A quadcopter can hold steady to take better pictures."

  Elon knew Linden was right, but he still had dreams of their drone swooping in like a fighter plane.

  Linden must have seen the hesitation in his face. "Quadcopters can hover and pick up and drop off stuff. Some guys in England even built a copter that can carry a person!"

  Elon jumped out of his seat. "Can we build one like that?"

  "Sit down back there!" the bus driver called.

  Linden shook his head. "No, but we can definitely carry the camera. We might be able to do a small grappling hook."

  "Could we pick up someone's backpack?"

  Linden shook his head no.

  "Someone's lunch box?"

  "No."

  "A baseball?" Elon asked.

  "Uh-uh."

  Elon threw his hands up in the air. "Well then, exactly what can we carry?"

  "Maybe a piece of paper."

  "A piece of paper? What good is a piece of paper?"

  Linden's head drooped. "Forget it."

  Elon realized he'd hurt his brother's feelings. He needed Linden's help, though, so he had to be more diplomatic.

  "Can you explain why?" Elon asked in his nicest voice.

  Linden looked up. "We have to buy an ArduPilot, a frame, battery, engines, controller, and transmitter. We're borrowing the camera from dad. Between the three of us, we have barely enough money. If we want to carry more weight, we need bigger engines, which cost more money."

  "How much more for the bigger engines?" Elon asked.

  "Fifteen dollars."

  "We can get that. We can wash mom and dad's cars. Twice." The going rate was four dollars per car.

  "But if we have bigger engines," Linden said, "then we need a bigger battery and bigger motor controllers, and if we have those, then we need a bigger frame."

  "How much does all of that cost?"

  "A hundred dollars," Linden said. Just then two wrestling boys flew into their seat, landing in Linden's lap.

  "Stay in your own seats!" the bus driver yelled.

  The wrestling boys went back across the aisle.

  Elon did the math in his head. They needed to have the project done in three weeks. He didn't want to wash mom and dad's cars twenty-five times, and besides, they probably wouldn't pay to have them washed more than once per day.

  "OK, a piece of paper it is. We'll figure out something to do with that. Show me the design."

  Linden flipped open his notebook and showed off his plans. "We'll use Willow's laptop to monitor the drone's camera in real-time. We can take photos or video."

  "How fast can it go?" Elon asked. He had a vision of racing after cars to take pictures of their license plates
.

  "Twenty miles per hour. At least."

  So not racing after cars. "Well, how far can it go?"

  "It should be able to fly for fifteen to twenty minutes, but it depends on exactly how heavy it is."

  Elon was deep in thought when he noticed Linden staring at him. "I'm trying to figure out something useful we can do," Elon explained. "The science fair judges are going to ask what we learned or what we can use the invention for."

  "We can use it to take pictures of criminals," Linden said. "You know, we can match people with the wanted posters at the post office."

  Elon nodded vigorously. "Sure, or we could pick up our homework at school when we're absent."

  Willow was sitting four rows back, but she must have been able to hear their conversation, because she popped up and yelled, "Or we can use it to fly over a neighborhood and take pictures of all the animals to find lost dogs."

  "Brilliant!" Elon yelled back, half standing.

  "Sit down back there!" the bus driver roared.

  Linden smiled and said quietly, "Willow loves animals. It's good she's excited."

  "Exactly." They were both worried that Willow might back out of the project. It's going to take their combined savings and Willow was the only one that knew how to program computers.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, Linden played wall ball with Kazuki and a group of boys in the schoolyard. He was just about to serve when another kid bumped into him, and then, without apologizing, kicked the wall ball halfway across the field. Linden's heart sank. Why did people do stuff like that? There were only a few minutes left to play before the bell rang.

  By the time he got the ball, the bell rang for class. He stuffed the ball into his pack, then swung it onto his sweaty back and ran for the door. He found Elon just outside playing a videogame with another kid. He stopped to watch Elon hack and slash at zombies until a teacher yelled at them to go inside.

  They bolted for their classroom, but stopped short midway through the school. Basil had set up shop in the main hallway by the front entrance.

  "Hi Basil!" Linden yelled.

  Basil was surrounded by piles of hair, Principal Winterson, Vice Principal Henry, and half the office staff. He must have started his science-fair hair-braiding project.

  "I asked for permission to cut their hair," he argued.

  "It's simply not okay to cut students' hair on school grounds," Principal Winterson said.

  "Why?" Basil asked.

  "First of all, it's dangerous. You shouldn't be using scissors like this and you need a license to cut hair."

  "You only need a license to get paid for cutting hair," Basil said. "I'm not getting paid. And we use scissors every day in school."

  Linden was impressed Basil had done his research.

  "You're still not cutting hair on school grounds. You'll return that hair to the students you took it from."

  Basil, Elon, and Linden all looked sideways at Mrs. Winterson. Return their cut hair? Basil appeared dumbfounded too.

  "And then I'll want to discuss this with your parents."

  Linden was dying to know what was going to happen, but he and Elon were ushered to class by the school counselor.

  In their classroom, Linden noticed a lot of girls with short, uneven hair. He didn't see any boys with haircuts, but then few boys had hair long enough to be worthwhile to the hair-braiding project.

  In class, their teacher reviewed the bridge-research assignment. "You've all picked your bridges, and you should have started your research. You have one week left to turn in the first draft of your report, which should be two pages long. And remember, no using Wikipedia."

  Linden groaned inside. Teachers were always saying they shouldn't use Wikipedia, but he loved, loved, loved everything about it. He raised his hand.

  "Yes, Linden?"

  "We should be allowed to use Wikipedia," he said. "Wikipedia is equally accurate and more comprehensive than traditional encyclopedias."

  "Anyone can edit Wikipedia. It's simply not a credible resource."

  Linden's felt his blood start to pound in his ears. He respected his teachers, but they weren't always right. "But it's been studied by dozens of researchers, and they've found it has high quality, even in specialized subjects. Even if someone puts incorrect information into Wikipedia, the editors usually spot and correct it within minutes."

  The teacher tapped her foot. Linden couldn't tell if she was annoyed or amused.

  She looked at the wall for moment, then turned back to the class. "Regardless of the accuracy of Wikipedia, if you all do your research using it, everyone's reports will look exactly the same. Each person researching the Fremont Bridge will read the same information, and I'll get back ten of the same reports. So no Wikipedia."

  The teacher's point was good. But Linden knew some secrets about Wikipedia. Some of the best stuff was not in the main page for an article, it was hidden on the Talk page. That's where the people writing an article had discussions. And if two people disagreed about a subject, the history of their arguments was preserved forever on the talk page.

  That wasn't the only secret, of course. The History link displayed every change ever made on a Wikipedia page, so visitors could know what had been deleted or added.

  Linden had already started his research on the St. Johns Bridge last night. After he read the main article on Wikipedia, he discovered on the Talk page that there was a disagreement over whether the bridge should have an apostrophe in the name. Should it be written St. Johns or St. John's? It turned out the bridge was named after James John, also known as "Old Jimmy Johns" or "Saint Johns." Since Johns was his nickname, the name of the bridge shouldn't have an apostrophe in it. And yet the main article hadn't said anything about who the bridge was named after.

  He'd also checked to see what had changed in the last year, figuring that it was an old bridge, so any change would reflect recent news. The main difference was a note that the St. Johns bridge had been used in a TV show filmed in Portland.

  Wikipedia had all these cool secrets to uncover.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS SATURDAY morning and Willow worked on the drone with Linden and Elon. Her brothers had gone to the hobby store yesterday with dad, and came home with what seemed like hundreds of parts that were now spread across the project table in the garage.

  She'd brought her laptop into the garage, too, and was reading the documentation for ArduPilot, the auto-pilot computer and software that would fly their quadcopter. Even before her brothers finished building the hardware, she could test the software with a simulator. Right now Willow had bits of circuit boards plugged into each other, and she configured the ArduPilot software to explain what type of airplane they were building and which GPS they'd use. The GPS was a radio receiver that listened for satellites and could figure out exactly where in the world it was. They'd use it to let the plane find itself on a map. It was critical to allow the copter to fly itself around.

  When the software was configured with the basics, she read instructions on how to set up the camera to take a photo every fifty feet. She daydreamed about having the copter fly back and forth in a pattern, taking photos automatically until she had a picture of every backyard in the neighborhood.

  By lunchtime the boys had the frame of the copter assembled and they wanted to put the electronics in place. Willow reluctantly surrendered the circuit boards, and focused instead on connecting the transmitter to the software. The transmitter would let them take a picture or control the grappling hook from the ground, and fly the copter on manual control.

  After a glance at the clock on her computer, Willow started to rush. She had to finish up, because Atlanta would be over soon, and they were going to the park to ride bikes. Suddenly the house phone rang, and her mom called Willow to get the phone in the kitchen.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, Willow. This is Atlanta's mom. Atlanta can't meet you today. She has another stomachache."

  Willow wa
s silent as disappointment filled her, then said weakly, "I hope she feels better. Thank you for letting me know."

  She hung up, and remembered that Atlanta hadn't been feeling good yesterday afternoon, right after lunch. Atlanta had eaten hot lunch again, some sort of meat thing, which Willow had passed over in favor of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  On Monday, they'd eaten the same thing, and both of them got sick. Yesterday, Atlanta was hot lunch again and got sick again, but Willow's sandwich seemed fine. Maybe there wasn't a stomach flu going around. Maybe it really was the food. She grew suspicious something was wrong with their school lunches.

  "What did you have for lunch this week?" Willow asked the boys on returning to the garage.

  "The same thing as always," Linden said. "Spaghetti, bread, and rice."

  Linden was a fan of plain white, tan or brown foods and always brought his own lunch except for Brunch for Lunch Day, because pancakes fit within his color palette.

  "Did you ever feel sick this week?"

  "Nope," Linden said.

  "And you, Elon?"

  "Umm..." He was surrounded by wires and small circuit boards and electric motors. "What?"

  "What did you have for lunch this week?"

  "I can't remember," he said.

  This was a problem. It was just plain hard to remember what you ate several days ago. She'd read enough detective novels to know that good detectives kept meticulous notes. She'd need a chart of what people ate and whether they got sick or not.

  "How's the auto-pilot coming?" Elon asked.

  "Good." Willow got back to work and forgot about food for a while.

  Before they knew it, their dad was calling them to come in. They stopped only with reluctance, because they were making good progress. They might get a flight in with another day of work.

  Their mom reminded everyone to dress up because they were going to a fancy restaurant to entertain an out-of-town coworker. Willow changed into a black dress with tights and came out to see Linden and Elon in pants and button-down shirts. For boys, and especially her brothers, they looked pretty sharp. Just for the heck of it, she gave them both hugs before they got in the car.