Types of Conflict Activity 2

For three weeks now, someone has been stealing packages off the porches on Coral's block. Coral was the first victim. She lost a model rocket kit that she saved up for all spring, gone just ten minutes after the delivery. Other neighbors get hit too. They share evidence on a local chat board. Doorbell cameras catch only a grey hoodie and fast feet, never a face. So Coral and her best friend Rocco start some detective work. They mark each theft on a map of their neighborhood. They find a pattern. The thief always strikes within minutes of the delivery, like someone who watches for it. So they build a trap. It is a rocket kit box packed with rocks and newspapers, but Rocco's Bluetooth tracker is also inside. They set the decoy on a porch and watch. Two days pass and nothing happens. The thief is careful. But Coral doesn't give up. Will she and Rocco catch the porch pirate in the act?

The year is 1893 and Samson's grandmother Martha follows the old way. That means that every week, she leaves a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on a high beam in the barn. She says it is for the tomte, a secret little helper from the old stories who watches the barn. But this year money is tight, and Pa says the old way is a waste of good food. He'd prefer to slather the butter on a piece of toast than leave it for the rats. So he stops Martha from leaving the bowl on the high beam. Then strange things begin to happen. Fresh milk sours in clean pails. The horses' manes are tied in knots too small for fingers. And hay comes pitching down from the loft when no one is up there. Some flour spills overnight in the kitchen, and Samson spots boot tracks the size of a cat's paws. Pa blames the rats again, saying they are probably looking for their butter. But Martha says only that someone is owed. Tonight, Samson carries a full bowl with extra butter up the barn ladder and then he waits. Will the old way be enough to make peace?

The year is 1922 and Callie has grown the biggest watermelon in the county. She calls it Goliath. She grew it from a seed and hauled water for it all summer. It weighs more than her little brother. She wants to enter it in the county fair. There is a rule, however, that says entry is limited to landowners. Callie's family farms Mr. Greenly's land for a share of the crop. They do not own their own land. Mr. Greenly is kind. He offers to enter Goliath for Callie. But Callie wants her own name next to the melon that she grew. So she comes up with a plan. She spends days riding to every share-farming family in the county. Then on fair day, fourteen giant melons and cabbages appear on the fairgrounds. The massive items are lined up along the fence outside the tent. None of them are labeled with any names. How will Callie's plan unfold and will she be able to enter Goliath for judging?

Ricky is gathering rocks in a desert canyon when he hears a loud crash. A rockslide has buried the trail back to camp. The only other way out crosses a steep ridge. Loose stones slide beneath his boots as he climbs. The afternoon grows hotter and his water bottle is almost empty. Ricky rests in small patches of shade and tries to regain his energy. He walks slowly on the narrow trail. Can he reach camp before the heat and thirst leave him too weak to continue?

Julie is the star goalkeeper for the Pelicans. She and her best friend Tina joined the team years ago. The Pelicans have never won a playoff trophy. But they finally have a chance this Saturday when they play in the league final. After Tuesday's practice, however, Julie receives an important offer. A man named Coach Rivera has been scouting Julie. He wants her to play on the Thunder, the best travel team in the state. The Thunder play in a big game that is also Saturday. Julie has dreamed about a chance like this for years. But can she really leave her old team right before the league final? Tina hugs her and tells her to go. Her parents say the choice is hers. Now two jerseys lie on Julie's bed. One is faded orange. The Pelicans tie-dyed it themselves. The other is crisp and black, and Julie's name is already stitched on the back. Julie can't be in two places at once, so she has to make a decision. Coach Rivera needs an answer soon. Which jersey will Julie put on?

Every day after school, Dan walks to Ned's Diner. Dan spends his lunch money playing an old arcade game called Comet Crusher. The top score has belonged to NED for as long as Dan can remember. Of course, Ned owns the diner, and he is very proud of those letters. But Dan is persistent. After weeks of trying, he finally beats Ned's score. He types the letters DAN at the top of the screen. Ned wipes his hands on his apron and says nothing. The next day, Dan returns to the diner and NED is back on top. Under his name are three new scores. Their letters spell NOT, YET, and KID. Now it is war. Dan grinds out a new high score on Tuesday, but Ned takes it back by closing time. Dan won't quit and Ned won't step down. So who will win the battle for the high score?

It is the summer of 1896 and the Great Wheel is the tallest ride at the Mill River Fair. All the townspeople marvel at the Great Wheel and the giant steam engine that turns it. Lucy Little's father runs that engine. Lucy has helped him all summer and she knows every pipe and dial that turn the mighty ride. It is the last night of the fair and every car on the wheel is full. Even Lucy's father is in a car, riding to the top to fix a broken lamp. Suddenly, the engine shakes and the wheel jerks to a stop. Down in the engine shed, the needle on the steam dial climbs toward the red. Danger is rising. The boiler could burst. The safety valve should pop open and let the steam out, but it is stuck shut. Lucy pulls the cord. Nothing. She bangs the valve with a wrench. Nothing. The pipes start to knock and two hundred riders are hanging in the dark above her. One of them is her father. Can Lucy fix the mighty steam engine before the boiler bursts?

The year is 1390 and in the village of Thornbrush, an old list hangs on the church door. It tells who may keep each kind of hunting bird. An eagle is for an emperor. A falcon is for a prince. A hawk is for a knight. For farm families like Alden's, the list has nothing at all. One fine spring morning, Alden finds a falcon chick that has fallen from its nest. He hides it in the hayloft and names it Arrow. He teaches Arrow to fly to his glove from across a field. One morning, Master Eldridge, the keeper of the lord's birds, catches them. He watches Arrow fly and says he has never seen better hands. Then he looks toward the church, sighs, and walks away. But at harvest time, the lord's men will count every animal in the village. Any falcon they find will go straight to the castle. So Alden makes a bold plan. On the day Lord Marbury holds court and listens to the villagers, Alden will walk into his hall with Arrow on his glove. Can a farm boy keep a bird meant for a prince?

Raven's family owns the Gull's Nest Inn by the sea. It is a popular place to stay and it is situated on very valuable land. But this fall, strange things have been happening. Guests have started leaving in the middle of the night. They hear moans in the walls. A rocking chair rocks by itself. A white shape floats past the upstairs window. Rumors spread that the Gull's Nest Inn is haunted. Soon almost nobody will book a room. After every scary night, a man named Mr. Plank stops by. He has tried to buy the inn from Raven's parents three times. He offers less money each time. Raven's tired parents are almost ready to sign his papers, but Raven is suspicious of Mr. Plank. So she grabs a flashlight and looks around. She finds fishing line tied to the rocking chair. She finds a tiny speaker hidden in a vent. Under the window, she finds muddy boot prints with a star on the heel. Ghosts do not wear boots. The next morning, Raven spots the same star on the bottom of Mr. Plank's boot. Her parents plan to accept Mr. Plank's final offer on Friday. Can Raven catch the "ghost" in the act before then?

One fateful morning, Annie's little brother, Preston, set off to pick berries near the ruined castle. As evening turned to night, he did not return. The next morning Annie follows his path and finds him standing in the courtyard. But Preston has been turned to stone. A winged stone monster drops from the wall above her. It is a gargoyle. As a mouse runs past, the creature touches it, and the mouse becomes a tiny statue. Annie ducks beneath an archway before the monster can reach her. Now Annie is racing through the castle ruins. She must find a way to break the spell and restore Preston. But the gargoyle is following her. Can Annie save Preston without becoming another statue in its garden?

Celina is sorting boxes in the basement of her family's shop. Suddenly, the floor begins to shake. An earthquake knocks her off her feet. When she gets up, she sees that the stairs are buried under broken bricks. Dust fills the room. Celina cries for help. She hears people answering from the street, but she cannot reach them. She starts moving bricks from the stairs. She can almost see the light. Then another shake sends more pieces of the wall tumbling down. Celina backs away from the stairs. Then she spots daylight peeking through a narrow gap high in the back wall. Will she reach the opening and escape before it's too late?

Owen cares for dogs until they find homes. His latest dog, Goldie, arrived thin and quiet. But Owen took good care of Goldie. Now she is healthy and follows Owen everywhere. Goldie even carries Owen's shoes to the door. Soon Owen learns that a loving family wants to adopt Goldie. Owen could choose to keep her instead, but Owen's family only has room for one dog. Owen's parents say that the choice is his. Keeping Goldie would mean he could not help the next dog that needs a home, but can Owen let Goldie go? Owen packs Goldie's blanket and then takes it out again. He wants his new friend to stay. He also wants to help other dogs. What will Owen choose?

Ava is twelve years old and she is not supposed to be awake. She is one of six hundred settlers sleeping in glass pods on the ship Meridian. They are on a sixty-year trip to a new world. But Ava's pod broke mid journey, and it popped open thirty years early. Now she is alone in a silent ship, except for a calm voice in the hallway. It is the Steward, the computer that runs the ship. "Pod 47 error," it says. "Please return to your pod for reset, settler." Ava knows better. A pod that broke once can break again, and next time it might never open at all. The captain's pod has a wake-up switch, and that switch is on the bridge. So Ava heads that way. If she can wake up the captain, he can assign her to a new pod. But the Steward turns off the lights in every hallway except the one that leads back to her pod. It locks the doors ahead of her. It sends cleaning robots to nudge her back. Ava pries open a maintenance hatch with a wrench and crawls into the air ducts. "Please return to your pod," says the voice, right beside her ear. Can Ava reach the bridge and wake the captain before the ship tucks her back in?

Every summer Ben and his little cousin Abby visit Pine Cove to vacation with their families. At low tide a strip of wet sand leads out to Turtle Rock. That is where the best tide pools are. This morning Ben and Abby walk out to hunt for starfish and crabs. They lose track of time and when Ben finally looks up, the strip of sand is gone. The tide has turned and the sea is rolling back in. Cold gray water fills the channel between the rock and the beach. It rises a little higher every minute. Ben knows the water will cover Turtle Rock by dark. Waiting is not an option, so he lifts Abby onto his back and steps in. The water is up to his knees. Then it is up to his waist. The current pulls sideways at his legs. The sand shifts under his feet. Abby holds on tight. The beach still looks so far away. Can Ben get them both to shore before the sea closes the path for good?

Nora wanted the lead in the spring musical more than anything. She practiced the songs in the shower for a month. But Nora was crushed when the part went to her best friend, Kate. Nora still got cast as the understudy. That means Nora has to learn every line and every song, but she only goes on stage if Kate cannot. Kate is thrilled. She asks Nora to run lines with her every day after school. Nora smiles and says yes. Most of Nora wants Kate to shine. But a small, ugly part of her hopes that Kate forgets a line or catches a cold or something. At rehearsal on Tuesday, Kate stumbles on her big speech. Nora caught herself smiling. She hated that. Kate never did anything wrong. The judges just thought that she sang better at the audition. Opening night is two weeks away. Today Kate asks Nora to help her with the hardest song in the show. It is the one Nora knows by heart. Nora could help Kate but maybe she could also sabotage her. Will Nora help her best friend shine in the part she wanted for herself or will she try to take the role?

Vera is cleaning an old mirror when the girl in the glass smiles. Vera is not smiling yet her reflection is. Before she can step back, her reflection reaches through the glass and pulls her inside. The other girl climbs out into the hallway. When Vera's mother calls, the girl answers in Vera's voice. Vera pounds on the glass, but no sound gets through. She can see her home on the other side, yet she cannot reach it. Then the glass starts turning black around the edges. Can Vera get out before the last clear patch disappears?

For three weeks now, someone has been stealing packages off the porches on Coral's block. Coral became the first victim of this crimewave when the model rocket kit she saved for all spring disappeared just ten minutes after it was delivered to her front door. After some other neighbors get hit too, Coral organizes the victims on a local chat board. They share what little evidence they have, but their doorbell cameras caught nothing but a mysterious figure in a grey hoodie who had fast feet. They do not capture the perpetrator's face. So Coral and her best friend Rocco start performing some detective work. They mark each theft on a map of their neighborhood and notice a pattern. The thief always strikes within minutes of the delivery, as though this person knows when the packages will arrive. So Coral and Rocco set a trap. They pack an empty box from a rocket kit with stones and newspapers, and they also hide Rocco's Bluetooth tracker inside. They set the decoy package out on a porch and watch and wait. Two days pass and nothing happens, as it seems that the thief is careful. But Coral doesn't give up. Will she and Rocco catch the porch pirate in the act?

The year is 1893 and on a farm at the edge of the woods, Samson's grandmother Martha follows the old way. That means that every week, Martha leaves a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on a high beam in the barn. She says it is for the tomte, which she describes as a secret little helper from the old stories who watches over the barn. But this year money is tight, and Pa declares that the old way is a waste of good food. He'd prefer to slather the barn butter on a piece of toast and eat it himself rather than leave it for the barn rats, so he stops Martha from leaving the bowl on the high beam. Then strange things begin to happen. Fresh milk sours in clean pails and the horses' manes are tied in knots too small for any fingers to untie. Hay comes pitching down from the loft when nobody is up there in the middle of the night, and in a pile of spilled flour in the kitchen, Samson notices faint boot tracks the size of a cat's paws. Pa blames rats again, saying they are probably looking for their lost butter. But Martha says only that someone is owed. Tonight, Samson carries a full bowl with extra butter up the barn ladder and then he waits. Will the old way be enough to make peace?

The year is 1922 and Callie has grown the biggest watermelon in the county. She calls it Goliath. She grew it from a seed, hauled water to it all summer, and now it weighs more than her little brother. She wants to enter it in the county fair, but there is a rule stating that entry is limited to the sons and daughters of landowning farmers. Callie's family farms Mr. Greenly's land for a share of the crop. They do not own their own land. Mr. Greenly is a decent man and he offers to enter Goliath into the contest on behalf of Callie. But Callie wants her own name on her own melon, not Mr. Greenly's. So she comes up with a plan. She spends the next ten days riding to every share-farming family in the county. Then on fair day, fourteen giant melons and cabbages mysteriously appear on the fairgrounds. The massive items are lined up along the fence outside the tent and they are drawing a crowd. None of them are labeled with any names. How will Callie's plan unfold and will she be able to enter Goliath for judging?

While collecting rock samples in a desert canyon, Ricky hears a loud crash behind him. A rockslide has buried the trail back to camp and the only other way out crosses over a steep and narrow ridge. Loose gravel shifts beneath Ricky's boots and he slides backward, circling his arms around to maintain his balance. Meanwhile, the afternoon sun grows in the sky. The heat bears down on Ricky and his water supply begins running low. He rests in small patches of shade and tries to regain his energy before continuing his walk along the treacherous trail. Can Ricky reach camp before the heat and thirst leave him too weak to continue?

Julie is the star goalkeeper for the Pelicans, the neighborhood team that she and her best friend Tina started years ago. The Pelicans have never won a trophy, but they finally have a chance this Saturday when they play in the league final. After Tuesday's practice, however, Julie receives a special offer that she must consider. A man named Coach Rivera has been scouting Julie. He wants her to play on the Thunder, the best travel team in the state. The Thunder play in a big national tournament that is also on Saturday. Julie has dreamed about a chance like this for years, but can she really leave her old team right before the league final? When she tells Tina, her friend hugs her and says that she has to go. Her parents say the choice is hers. Now two jerseys lie side by side on Julie's bed. One is faded orange, tie-dyed by the Pelicans themselves in Tina's backyard. The other is crisp and black, and Julie's name is already stitched on the back. Julie can't be in two places at once, so she has to make a decision, and Coach Rivera needs an answer soon. Which jersey will Julie put on?

Every day after school, Dan walks to Ned's Diner and spends his lunch money playing an old arcade game called Comet Crusher. The top score has belonged to NED for as long as Dan can remember. Of course, Ned owns the diner, and he is prouder of those three letters than he is of his pancakes. But Dan is persistent, and after weeks of dumping his lunch money into the bottomless machine, Dan finally beats Ned's score and types DAN at the top of the screen. Ned wipes his hands on his apron and says nothing and Dan goes home feeling proud. But the next afternoon, Dan returns to the diner and sees that NED is back on top. Not only that but beneath the top score sit three new scores, and their letters spell NOT, YET, and KID. Now it is war. Dan grinds out a new high score on Tuesday, but Ned takes it back by closing time. Dan won't quit and Ned won't step down. So who will win the battle for the high score?

It is the summer of 1896 and the Great Wheel is the tallest ride at the Mill River Fair. All the townspeople marvel at the Great Wheel and the giant steam engine that turns it. Lucy Little's father runs that steam engine and Lucy has worked beside him all summer, learning every pipe, valve, and dial that turn the mighty wheel. Now it's the final night of the fair, and every car on the wheel is full. Even Lucy's father is in a car, riding to the top to fix a broken lamp. Suddenly, the engine shudders, and the whole wheel jerks to a stop. Down in the engine shed, the needle on the pressure dial is creeping toward the red zone. If it gets there, the boiler could burst and people could get hurt. The safety valve was supposed to pop open and let the steam escape, but it seems to be stuck shut. Lucy yanks the release cord and hammers the valve with a wrench. Nothing. The pipes begin to knock loudly and the needle keeps climbing. Two hundred riders hang in the dark above her, and one of them is her father. Can Lucy fix the mighty steam engine before the boiler bursts?

The year is 1390 and in the village of Thornbrush, on the tall oaken church door, hangs an old list detailing who may keep each kind of hunting bird. An eagle is for an emperor, a falcon is for a prince, and a hawk is for a knight. For farm families like Alden's, the list offers nothing at all. One fine spring morning, Alden finds a falcon chick that has tumbled from its nest on the cliffs. He hides it in the hayloft, names it Arrow, and teaches it to fly to his glove from across a field. One morning, Master Eldridge, the keeper of the lord's own birds, catches them in training. He watches Arrow fly from Alden's glove and says he has never seen better hands. Then he glances toward the church, sighs, and walks away without another word. But at harvest time, the lord's men will count every animal in the village, and any falcon they find will go straight to the castle. So Alden makes a bold plan. On the day Lord Marbury holds court and hears the requests and concerns of the villagers, Alden will walk into his hall with Arrow on his glove. Can a farm boy keep a bird meant for a prince?

Raven's family owns the Gull's Nest Inn, an old hotel beside the sea. It is a popular place to stay and it is situated on very valuable land. But this fall, strange things have been happening. Guests have started checking out in the middle of the night. They report hearing moaning inside the walls or seeing a rocking chair rocking all by itself. Another guest claimed that he saw a pale shape drifting past the upstairs window. Rumors spread that the Gull's Nest Inn is haunted and soon almost nobody will book a room. After every frightening night, a shadowy businessman named Mr. Plank stops by the Gull's Nest. He has tried to buy the inn from Raven's parents three times, and each time his offer gets smaller. Raven's exhausted parents are nearly ready to sign his papers, but Raven is suspicious of Mr. Plank. So she grabs a flashlight and starts investigating. She finds fishing line tied to the rocking chair and a tiny speaker tucked inside a heating vent. Under the upstairs window, she finds muddy boot prints with a star stamped into the heel. Ghosts do not wear boots. The next morning, Raven spots the same star on the bottom of Mr. Plank's boot as he climbs the porch steps. Her parents plan to accept Mr. Plank's final offer on Friday. Can Raven catch the "ghost" in the act before then?

One fateful morning, Annie's little brother, Preston, set off to pick berries near the ruined castle. As evening turned to night, Preston failed to return. So his older sister Annie follows the path to find him. She is shocked to discover him in the courtyard, frozen into a stone statue. Before she can reach him, a winged gargoyle drops from the wall and stands between her and the statue of her brother. At that moment a small mouse darts across the stones. The gargoyle brushes it with one claw and the mouse instantly hardens into a tiny statue. Now Annie rushes to escape, ducking beneath an archway and running into the ruined castle. She must find a way to reverse the spell and restore Preston, but the gargoyle is following her, cutting her off whenever she tries to return to Preston. Can Annie save Preston without becoming another statue in its garden?

Celina is sorting boxes in the basement of her family's shop. Suddenly, the floor begins to shake and an earthquake knocks her off her feet. Part of the wall collapses across the stairs and, when she gets up, she sees that the stairs are buried under broken bricks and her only exit is cut off. Dust clouds the room and cracks spread across the ceiling. Celina calls for help and hears voices answering from the street, but they cannot reach her. She attempts to clear the stairs and can almost see the light, until another tremor sends fresh rubble crashing into the passage. Retreating from the falling debris, Celina notices a narrow opening high in the back wall. Daylight shines through it. Can she reach that opening before another collapse leaves her with no way out?

Owen takes care of rescue dogs until they find permanent homes but his latest dog, Goldie, has made his job harder than usual. Goldie arrived thin and quiet a few weeks ago, but now she is a healthy weight and follows Owen from room to room. She even brings him his shoes when it's time for a walk. But soon Owen learns that a loving family wants to adopt Goldie. Owen could adopt her instead, but his family's home has room for only one dog at a time. Keeping Goldie would end Owen's chance to foster other dogs, but can Owen let Goldie go? All evening long Owen packs Goldie's blanket and then pulls it out again. He wants his new friend to stay but he also wants to help other dogs. What will Owen choose?

Ava is twelve years old and she is not supposed to be awake. She is one of six hundred settlers aboard the ship Meridian, all of them sleeping in glass pods on a sixty-year voyage to colonize a new world. But Ava's pod broke mid journey and it popped open thirty years early, so now she is alone in a silent ship except for a calm voice that fills the hallway. This voice belongs to the Steward, the computer that runs the ship. "Pod 47 error," it says. "Please return to your pod for reset." Ava knows better than to follow those instructions, because a pod that broke once can break again, and if it closes on her a second time, it might never open at all. The captain's pod has a wake-up switch, and that switch is on the bridge, so Ava heads for it. If she can wake up the captain, he can assign her to a new pod. But the Steward turns off the lights in every hallway except the one that leads back to her pod. It locks the doors ahead of her and sends cleaning robots humming down the corridors to nudge her back. Ava pries open a maintenance hatch with a wrench and crawls into the air ducts. "Please return to your pod," says the voice, right beside her ear. Can Ava reach the bridge and wake the captain before the ship tucks her back in?

Every summer Ben and his little cousin Abby visit Pine Cove to vacation with their families. At low tide a strip of wet sand leads out to Turtle Rock and the best tide pools in the cove. This morning Ben and Abby walk out to hunt for starfish and crabs and they lose track of time. When Ben finally looks up, the strip of sand leading back to Pine Cove has vanished. The tide has turned and now the sea is rolling back in to Turtle Rock with cold gray water filling the channel between the rock and the beach and rising a little higher every minute. Ben knows that the water will cover Turtle Rock by dark so waiting is not an option. He lifts Abby onto his back and steps into the channel. He takes a few steps and the water reaches his knees, and after a few more steps the water reaches his waist. Soon the current drags sideways at his legs and the sand shifts under his feet with every step. Abby wraps her arms around his neck and holds on tight. The beach still looks impossibly far away. Can Ben get them both to shore before the sea closes the path for good?

Nora wanted the lead in the spring musical more than anything, and she practiced the songs in the shower for a month. But the part went to her best friend, Kate, and Nora got cast as the understudy, which means she learns every line and every song but only goes on stage if Kate cannot. Kate is thrilled and she asks Nora to run lines with her every day after school. Nora smiles and says yes, even though it is hard for her to not feel jealous of Kate. Most of Nora wants Kate to shine, but a small, ugly part of her hopes that Kate forgets a line, catches a cold, or something else. At rehearsal on Tuesday, Kate stumbles through her big speech and Nora caught herself smiling. She hated that because Kate never did anything wrong and Nora knew it. The judges just thought that Kate sang a little better at the audition. Now opening night is two weeks away and today Kate asks Nora to help her with the hardest song in the show, the one Nora already knows by heart. Nora could help Kate but maybe she could also sabotage her. Will Nora help her best friend shine in the part she wanted or will she try to throw Kate off so that she can take the role for herself?

While cleaning an old mirror, Vera notices that her reflection is smiling even though she is not. The reflected girl reaches through the glass, seizes Vera's hand, and pulls her into the mirror. Then the girl steps into the hallway as if she belongs there. When Vera's mother calls from another room, the stranger answers in Vera's voice. Trapped on the other side, Vera pounds on the glass, but none of the sound reaches her home. She searches the edges for an opening and discovers that the glass is turning black. The dark patches are spreading toward the center. Can Vera escape before the mirror closes off her last view of her old world?

For three weeks straight, someone has been stealing packages off the porches on Coral's block. Coral became the first victim of this petty crimewave when the model rocket kit she saved for all spring disappeared just ten minutes after it was delivered to her front door. After some other neighbors get hit too, Coral organizes the victims on a local chat board to share what little evidence they have, but their doorbell cameras caught nothing but a mysterious figure in a grey hoodie who appears quickly and vanishes even more quickly. No one so far has captured the bandit's face. So Coral and her best friend Rocco initiate some detective work. They mark each theft on a hand-drawn map of their neighborhood and notice a pattern. The thief always strikes within a few minutes of the delivery, as though this person knows exactly when the packages will arrive. So Coral and Rocco set a trap. They pack an empty box from a rocket kit with stones and newspapers, and they also hide Rocco's Bluetooth tracker inside. They set the decoy package out on a porch and watch and wait for two days, but nothing happens. The thief is careful and seems to be getting inside information from somewhere. But Coral is not ready to give up. Can she and Rocco catch the porch pirate in the act?

The year is 1893 and on a farm at the edge of the woods, Samson's grandmother Martha follows the old way. That means that every week, Martha leaves a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on the high beam in the barn for the tomte, which she describes as a secret little helper from the old stories who watches over the barn and everything in it. But this year money is tight, and Pa declares that the old way is a waste of good food. He'd prefer to generously slather the barn butter on a burnt piece of toast and eat it himself rather than leave it for the barn rats, so he forces Grandma Martha to stop leaving the butter bowl in the barn for her tomte. But then strange things begin to happen. Fresh milk sours in clean pails and the horses' manes are tied overnight into knots too small for any fingers to untie. Hay comes pitching down from the loft when nobody is up there in the middle of the night, and in a pile of spilled flour in the kitchen, Samson notices faint boot tracks the size of a cat's paws. Pa blames the barn rats again, saying they are probably searching for their lost butter rations, but Grandma Martha says only that someone is owed. So tonight, Samson carries a full bowl with extra butter up the barn ladder along with a prepared apology, and then he waits. Will the old way be enough to make peace?

The year is 1922 and Callie has grown the biggest watermelon the county has ever seen. She calls it Goliath. She grew it from a seed in her own corner patch, hauled water to it all summer, and now it weighs more than her little brother. She wants to enter it in the county fair, but there is a rule stating that entry is limited to the sons and daughters of landowning farmers. Callie's family does not own their own land as they farm Mr. Greenly's land for a share of the crops. Mr. Greenly is a decent man and he even offers to enter Goliath into the contest on behalf of Callie, but Callie wants her own name next to her own melon, not Mr. Greenly's name. So she comes up with a plan. She spends the next ten days riding to every share-farming family in the county, having a deep discussion with each of them and sharing her plan with them. Then on fair day, fourteen giant melons and cabbages mysteriously appear on the fairgrounds. The massive items are lined up along the fence outside the tent and they are drawing a bigger crowd than the main entries, even though none of them are labeled with any names. How will Callie's plan unfold and will she be able to enter Goliath for judging?

While collecting rock samples in a desert canyon, Ricky hears a low rumble and then a loud crash behind him. He discovers that a rockslide has buried the trail back to camp and the only other way out crosses over a steep and narrow ridge. Ricky embarks on this treacherous route. Unstable gravel repeatedly gives way beneath his boots and he slides backward, circling his arms to maintain his balance. Meanwhile, the afternoon sun grows large in the sky and Ricky's water supply dwindles. He rests in small patches of shade and tries to regain his energy before continuing his walk along the tricky, narrow path. He searches for reliable footholds that will allow him to continue without exhausting his remaining strength. Can Ricky negotiate the unstable terrain and reach camp before the heat and thirst leave him too weak to continue?

Julie is the star goalkeeper for the Pelicans, the scrappy neighborhood team that she and her best friend Tina founded years ago. The Pelicans have never won a trophy, but they finally have a chance this Saturday when they play in the league final. After Tuesday's practice, however, Julie receives a special offer that she must carefully consider. A man named Coach Rivera has been scouting Julie, and he makes her the kind of offer that she has imagined for years. He wants her to play on the Thunder, the top travel team in the state. The Thunder play in a big national tournament that is also this Saturday. Julie has dreamed about a chance like this for years, but can she really leave her old team right before the league final? When she breaks the news to Tina, her old friend hugs her fiercely and insists that she has to go. Julie's parents tell her that the choice belongs to her alone. Now two jerseys lie side by side on Julie's bed. One is faded orange, tie-dyed by the Pelicans themselves in Tina's backyard, and the other is crisp and black, with Julie's name already stitched across the shoulders. Julie can't be in two places at once, so she has to make a decision, and Coach Rivera needs an answer soon. Which jersey will Julie put on?

Every day after school, Dan walks to Ned's Diner and spends his lunch money playing an ancient arcade game called Comet Crusher. The top score has belonged to NED for as long as Dan can remember, and Ned owns the diner of course. It may seem odd but Ned put more pride into those three letters than in any dish he serves, and it was a longstanding high score. But Dan is persistent. After weeks of practice and a small fortune in quarters, Dan finally edges past Ned's score and types DAN at the top of the screen. Ned wipes his hands on his apron and says nothing, and shortly after Dan goes home, feeling proud. But the next afternoon, Dan returns to the diner and sees that NED is back on top. Not only that, but beneath the top score sit three other fresh scores, and their letters spell NOT, YET, and KID. Now it is war. Dan grinds out a new high score on Tuesday, but Ned takes it back by closing time. Dan won't quit and Ned won't step down. So who will win the battle for the high score?

It is the summer of 1896, and the Great Wheel is the tallest ride at the Mill River Fair. All the townspeople marvel at the Great Wheel and the massive steam engine that turns it, and Lucy Little's father is the man who runs that engine. Lucy has worked beside him all summer, long enough to learn every pipe, valve, and dial that turn the mighty wheel. Now it's the final night of the fair, and every car on the wheel is full. Even Lucy's father is in a car, riding to the top to repair a broken lamp. Suddenly, the engine shudders, and the entire wheel lurches to a stop. Down in the engine shed, the needle on the pressure gauge is creeping steadily toward the red zone, and if it arrives there, the boiler could burst and people could get hurt. The safety valve was supposed to pop open and let the steam escape, but it has seized shut and seems to be stuck. Lucy yanks the release cord but nothing happens. Then she hammers the valve with a wrench until her arms ache, but still it refuses to budge. The large steam pipes begin to knock and the needle keeps climbing. Two hundred riders dangle in the darkness above her, and one of them is her father. Can Lucy fix the mighty steam engine before the boiler bursts?

The year is 1390 and in the village of Thornbrush, on the tall oaken church door, hangs an ancient list detailing who may keep each kind of hunting bird: an eagle for an emperor, a falcon for a prince, a hawk for a knight. For farm families like Alden's, the list offers nothing at all. One fine spring morning, Alden stumbles upon a falcon chick that has tumbled from its nest on the cliffs. He hides it in the hayloft, names it Arrow, and patiently teaches it to fly to his glove from across a field. One morning, Master Eldridge, the keeper of the lord's own birds, catches Alden and Arrow training. He watches Arrow fly from Alden's glove and admits that he has never seen better hands. Then he glances toward the church, sighs, and walks away without another word. But at harvest time, the lord's men will descend on the farm county and inventory every animal in the village, and any falcon they find will go straight to the castle. So Alden settles on a bold plan. On the day Lord Marbury holds court and hears the requests and grievances of his villagers, Alden will walk into his hall with Arrow on his glove and ask for something that no farmer's child has ever asked for. Can a farm boy keep a bird meant for a prince?

Raven's family owns the Gull's Nest Inn, a weathered old hotel beside the sea. It is a popular place to stay due to its location, as it is situated on very valuable, often-travelled land. This fall, however, strange things have been happening. Guests have begun checking out in the middle of the night, complaining of moans inside the walls, a rocking chair that rocks all by itself, and a pale shape drifting past the upstairs window. Rumors spread that the Gull's Nest Inn is haunted, and soon almost nobody will book a room. After every frightening night, a shadowy businessman named Mr. Plank happens to stop by the Gull's Nest. He has tried to buy the inn from Raven's parents three times, and each time his offer shrinks. Raven's exhausted parents are nearly ready to sign his papers, but Raven is suspicious of Mr. Plank. So she grabs a flashlight and starts investigating, and what she uncovers is not very ghostly: fishing line knotted to a rocking chair, a tiny speaker tucked inside a heating vent, and boot prints in the mud beneath the upstairs window with a star stamped into the heel. Ghosts do not wear boots. The next morning, as Mr. Plank climbs the porch steps with a sympathetic smile, Raven spots the same star on the bottom of his boot. Her parents plan to accept Mr. Plank's final offer on Friday. Can Raven catch the "ghost" in the act before then?

One fateful morning, Annie's little brother, Preston, set off to pick berries near the ruined castle. As evening turned to night, Preston failed to return, so Annie follows her missing brother's route. She is shocked to discover Preston in the courtyard of the ruined castle, but he has been petrified and transformed into a stone statue. Before she can reach him, a winged gargoyle drops from the wall above him and stands between Annie and the statue of her brother. At that moment a small mouse darts across the gargoyle's path, and the creature touches it with a claw, leaving the motionless stone rodent figure behind. Now Annie rushes to escape, retreating beneath an archway and running for shelter into the ruined castle. She begins searching for a way to reverse the transformation and restore Preston, but the gargoyle pursues her through the castle passages, cutting her off whenever she tries to return to Preston. Can Annie save Preston without becoming another statue in its garden?

On an ordinary afternoon, Celina finds herself sorting boxes in the basement of her family's shop when suddenly an earthquake knocks her off her feet. A section of masonry collapses across the stairs, sealing the only exit, while dust obscures the cracks spreading overhead across the ceiling. She calls toward the street and hears people answering, close enough to offer hope but unable to reach her through the rubble. Celina begins shifting bricks from the stairway and can almost see the light, until another tremor sends fresh rubble crashing into the passage. Through the settling dust, she notices daylight entering through a narrow opening high in the rear wall. With the building still shifting around her, can Celina reach that gap before the next collapse closes her last route to the street?

Owen began fostering rescue dogs because he wanted to help them find permanent homes, but Goldie has complicated an arrangement that once seemed straightforward. The thin, withdrawn dog who arrived weeks earlier now follows Owen everywhere he goes. She even carries Owen's shoes to the door before their walks. But soon Owen learns that a loving family plans to adopt Goldie. Owen could adopt her instead, but his family's home has room for only one dog at a time. Keeping Goldie would mean giving up the work that brought them together, but letting her go would mean losing a really special relationship. Throughout the evening, Owen packs the dog's blanket and then removes it, imagining both the quiet after Goldie leaves and the other dogs he could help. He wants his new friend to stay but he also wants to help other dogs. What will Owen choose?

Ava is twelve years old and she is not supposed to be awake. She is one of six hundred settlers aboard the ship Meridian, all of them sleeping in glass pods on a sixty-year voyage to a new world, but Ava's pod broke and popped open thirty years early. Now she is alone in a silent ship, except for a calm voice that fills the hallway, and it belongs to the Steward, the computer that runs the ship. "Pod 47 error," it says in a mechanical voice that was programmed to be soothing. "Please return to your pod for reset, colonist." Ava knows better than to follow those instructions, because a pod that broke once can break again, and if it closes on her a second time, it might never open at all. The captain's pod has a wake-up switch, and that switch is on the bridge, so Ava heads for the bridge. If she can wake up the captain, he can assign her to a new pod, but the Steward doesn't want this to happen. The Steward responds by turning off the lights in every hallway except the one that leads back to her pod, and it locks the doors ahead of Ava, then sends cleaning robots humming down the corridors to force her off the bridge. Ava pries open a maintenance hatch with a wrench and crawls into the air ducts. "Please return to your pod," says the voice, right beside her ear. Can Ava reach the bridge and wake the captain before the ship tucks her back in?

Every summer Ben and his little cousin Abby visit Pine Cove to vacation with their families. At low tide a strip of wet sand leads out to Turtle Rock and the best tide pools in the cove wait among the boulders. This morning Ben and Abby walk out to Turtle Rock to hunt for starfish and crabs, and they have so much fun searching for sea critters that they lose track of time. When Ben finally looks up, the strip of sand leading back to Pine Cove has vanished and the tide has turned. Now the sea is rolling back in to Turtle Rock, filling the channel between the rock and the beach with cold gray water that rises a little higher every minute. Ben knows that the water will cover Turtle Rock by dark, which means waiting is not an option, so he lifts Abby onto his back and steps into the frigid channel. He takes a few steps and the water reaches his knees, and after a few more steps the water reaches his waist, while the current drags sideways at his legs and the sand shifts under his feet with every step. Abby wraps her arms around his neck and holds on tight. The beach still looks impossibly far away. Can Ben get them both to shore before the sea closes the path for good?

Nora wanted the lead in the spring musical more than anything, and she practiced singing the songs in the shower for a month, but the part went to her best friend, Kate, while Nora got cast as the understudy. That means that Nora learns every line and every song but only goes on stage if Kate cannot. Kate is thrilled about getting the part and learning it with her friend Nora, so she asks Nora to run lines with her every day after school. Nora smiles and says yes, even though it is hard for her to not feel jealous of Kate. Most of Nora wants Kate to shine, but a small, ugly part of her hopes that Kate forgets a line, catches a cold, or something else. At rehearsal on Tuesday, Kate stumbles through her big speech and Nora caught herself smiling. She hated that because Kate never did anything wrong and Nora knew it. The judges just thought that Kate sang a little better at the audition and so she got the part, but oh how Nora wanted it. Now opening night is just two weeks away and today Kate asks Nora to help her with the hardest song in the show, the one Nora already knows by heart. Nora could help Kate but maybe she could also sabotage her. Will Nora help her best friend shine in the part she wanted or will she try to throw Kate off so that she can take the role for herself?

Vera is polishing an old mirror when her reflection smiles independently of her. Before she can withdraw her hand, the reflected girl reaches through the surface and pulls Vera into the space behind the glass. The stranger then steps into the hallway and answers Vera's mother in a voice indistinguishable from Vera's own. From inside, Vera can still see her home, but she is pounding on and shouting at the glass but none of it seems to pass through. As she searches the edges of the mirror for a way out, dark patches begin spreading across the surface, steadily reducing the window through which she can watch her stolen life. Can Vera escape and reclaim her place before the last clear section of the mirror turns black?