Lucky Cap by Patrick Jennings

Author:Patrick Jennings
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781606842751
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2011-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

10. UnKapped

Coach appeared from somewhere. Had he been in his office this whole time? Had he seen me looking in other guys’ lockers? Had he heard me bawling like a baby girl?

“Something wrong, Enzo?” he asked in his deep, manly voice. Coach had this way of talking that made a guy snap to attention and want to salute.

I shot to my feet. I didn’t salute, though I did raise my hand to my face—to wipe away my girlish tears.

“No, sir,” I said, my spine stiff. “My ca—I—I lost something.”

“Something important?”

Important? Only the magic cap that made my life a dream come true.

But Coach was not the guy to explain this to. He was tough as nails. Hyper-serious. He wouldn’t buy the magic-cap business, or that any cap, magic or not, was worth blubbering about, especially if you were a starter on his basketball team.

“No,” I said. “Nothing important.”

He gave me a quick nod, satisfied with this answer, then strode away in his crisply creased slacks. (He had to dress up on game days, too.)

I ran to the Lost and Found. The cap wasn’t there.

I asked around. No one had found it. No one had seen it. That was because it was gripped in the dastardly thief’s villainous clutches.

There would be no point asking my dad for another cap. It was a prototype, a model of a cap that wasn’t even available to the public yet. There couldn’t have been many of those lying around, waiting to be handed out to new employees’ kids, especially to those kids who had already lost one. And even if Evan did find me another prototype, what were the chances it would be lucky? I mean, Kap couldn’t be making lucky caps on purpose.

Could they?

Maybe Dad would get in trouble if Kap found out I lost their prototype—the secret cap they stupidly trusted me with. Maybe he’d even get fired!

Maybe, I thought to myself, I shouldn’t be running around telling everyone I’d lost it. What if Lupe got word of it? She’d go right to Dad.

I decided not to report the cap missing to the office or to the police or the FBI. Other than Evan and the people at Kap, no adults would care anyway. They would say that it was just a hat and that there was nothing they could do about it. Adults have screwed-up priorities.

No, I was on my own. I was going to have to solve the case myself.

Obviously, someone stole the cap. But who? There was a school filled with suspects. I started a list:

Chase was at the top because he was mad at me, because Misa liked me instead of him, and because I was starting instead of him.

Then came Lance, who would have stolen it because he hated me, because Chase was mad at me, or both.

Kai also could have done it. He felt rejected and abandoned. I hadn’t seen him in the crowd during the rally. But, then again, he’s so short I could have missed him.

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