Chapter Ten

The first of the events of the second day of the Jamboree were underway on The Mall as Troop 46231 arrived. Adyson led the group out of her cousin's van and they marched proudly onto the grounds. That got the attention of passersby, regardless of whether they were a Fireside Girl or not. Among those that turned their head upon the troop's arrival was Elizabeth, who had been watching some of her girls compete in that aforementioned event.

But she got up from her seat on the temporary bleachers and went over to see what was going on.

"You girls are a bit too happy considering where you are in the standings."

Adyson held up her hand, signaling for the others to stop.

"And seeing as how Isabella is still not among you, I predict you're going to stay down there."

Adyson fired back. "And may I say that you're acting a little bit high and mighty given your troop's only…"

"Six!" shouted Gretchen.

"Thank you, Gretchen, SIX points ahead of us."

Elizabeth went on the defensive. "It might as well be sixty! Our best events are today."

Adyson smiled confidently. "As are ours."

She snapped her fingers, and each of the other girls pulled out something from behind their back. Milly was holding a wooden spoon, Katie a bag of carrots, Holly a wireless microphone, Ginger a math textbook, Gretchen a wrench, and Adyson a kids' size golf club.

"I hope you and your girls have fun today," Adyson said, before adding, in a more friendly tone, "I know we will!"

With that, Adyson walked away from Elizabeth, and the others followed her, as they went off to find a spot to set up base for the day.

"You can't walk away from me!" cried Elizabeth. "I'm not done making me and my girls look more superior than you! Come back here!"

But they ignored her. Elizabeth heard Lauren walk up to her from behind.

"Troop meeting?" guessed Lauren, seeing the look on her friend's face.

"Troop meeting," grumbled back Elizabeth, who was clenching her fist in anger.

Meanwhile, Adyson signaled for Gretchen to come to her side.

"She's reacting as expected," Gretchen said, looking back at a flustered Elizabeth.

"Good," replied Adyson. "We don't need to worry about her any more. We can just focus on us. And I got a good feeling that's all we'll need."

And with that, Troop 46231 began their participation in the Jam's second day. And many of their events had them going up against Troop 28933, sometimes even directly.

First up came the Engine Trouble event, which was a race to see who could diagnose an engine problem in a go kart and fix it so it could start in the shortest amount of time. Gretchen watched Lauren compete in her heat, taking note as the latter completed the task in 47 seconds. Lauren smiled happily, pleased with her performance. But that smile would not last long, as Gretchen was in the very next heat, and she did her one second better, fixing the engine and starting it up in just 46 seconds.

Next was the Mega Word Problems event. Ginger and Abigail were in the same heat as each of the four girls in their group were handed a piece of paper with the same problem. It detailed a story about a jar filled with 100 marbles and four girls, labeled as A to D, each taking turns pulling marbles out, with each of the girls taking out a different amount than any of the others, but the same amount each time. They were to figure out who would pull out the 25th, 60th, and 100th marbles from the jar. The four competitors, each sitting at a desk, went to work figuring out the answer using a provided notepad. The idea was to solve the problem as fast as possible, then get out of their seat and run to the judges to show their answers. Ginger and Abigail finished simultaneously as they jumped out of their seats and made a break for the judge. Abigail won the race and presented her work, but was surprised when the official shook his head, which was the signal that she did not get all of the answers correct. He then took Ginger's notepad and, after a couple seconds, declared her the winner by grabbing her arm and raising it in the air.

Then there was the Not That Miniature Golf event, in which Adyson and Elizabeth had the misfortune of being put in a threesome together along with one other girl. Elizabeth took her tee shot at the first hole and, for a minute, it seemed as if she was a professional, as the ball landed on the green 95 feet away and rolled toward the hole, stopping about nine inches from it. Elizabeth stuck out her tongue at Adyson, non-verbally daring her to beat that. Adyson took her spot on the tee, and it turned out, she was prepared to rise to the challenge. She swung her club and her ball went airborne. It got to the green as well, bouncing on the ground twice, going over Elizabeth's ball, hitting the flagstick, and dropping directly into the hole. In disbelief, Elizabeth's jaw dropped. She then turned to Adyson, expecting to see her celebrating her hole-in-one and getting the chance to berate her for being overjoyed for a lucky shot. But the brunette was all business, as she had her scorecard out and was writing a one on it for the hole. When Adyson finally did react, it involving flashing a teeth-baring smile at Elizabeth, and that was it.

And then there was the Cooking Soup over a Campfire event. Sisters Betty and Veronica were attempting to pick the meat off of four fried chicken breasts to dump in their broth, while friends Milly and Katie were chopping carrots for theirs.

"Five-minute warning," said one of the event's judges through a megaphone. "Judging begins in five minutes!"

All of the competing pairs continued their work, many of which were throwing the last of their ingredients into their already boiling pots. Both Betty and Veronica and Milly and Katie were among them, and they were beginning to season their soups. Suddenly, Betty could be heard grunting loudly.

"Ugh! UGH!"

Betty had grabbed her older sister's hand to stop her from dumping something into their pot.

"Betty!"

"Bad! Bad!"

Betty pointed at the cylindrical container Veronica had. Betty took a second look at it and gasped in shock when she read the label.

"Rat poison! Eew! Where did that come from?"

She dropped it on the grass, where it rolled out in front of the table to the point where Katie could see it from where she was standing behind her table.

"I'm so glad we started paying attention to what we put in our dishes," Katie said in relief, recalling their past incidents.

"Salt!" called out Milly, who was stirring the pot and had her back to her friend.

Katie picked up what she thought was the salt container and, despite what she had just said, did not even look at it as she handed it to Milly. Milly, though, did remember to check what was being handed to her. She gasped, then tapped Katie on the shoulder to show her what she had just handed her.

Katie's reaction said it all.

"Rat poison! I've checked the bag that had all of our ingredients no less than a dozen times today alone!"

"So did I," admitted Milly, "and that was never in there! Where did it come from?"

"It came from me!"

Everyone turned and saw a man dressed pointing at himself with one hand and using the other to cradle an empty cardboard box under his armpit. A box that had the words 'rat poison' written in marker on each side.

"I am the great Ratpatooie, and I go around the country giving out canisters of rat poison to unsuspecting little chefs to teach them to always look at what they put in their dishes! A-ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

But his maniacal laughing was short-lived, as a second later two police officers appeared from the crowd, and they handcuffed him on the spot.

"Your 13-month, 22-state reign of poison food terrorism is over, Ratpatooie!" exclaimed one of the officers. "Time to come with us!"

"But who will keep people safe from poisoned dishes if I don't poison dishes?"

"Tell it to the judge."

The guy was led away, leaving everyone stunned and perhaps stupefied by what had happened.

"Wow," Milly finally spoke up. "Didn't expect our running gag ending that way."

"Me neither," said Katie in agreement.

There were no more odd interruptions the rest of the day as the competition continued. Eventually, it was time for the Tug of War event, and it was no surprise to see Troop 46231 draw Troop 28933 in the very first round.

"I'm not gonna sugarcoat it," Gretchen said, seeing that the heavy-set Betty was among their rival team's four participants, "we've got a 0.00015 percent chance of winning this."

Adyson agreed with Gretchen's analysis, but…

"As long as it's not zero, we still have a chance!"

Of course, everyone looked at her as if she was crazy.

"Don't give me those looks! Isabella would say the same thing and you know it!"

"Speaking of the Chief," Gretchen said, pointing at her watch, "she should be due in at Union Station in T-minus 20 minutes."

"I suppose someone should be there to greet her. Gretchen, I nominate you. And take Milly with you. Neither of you have anything lined up for the next couple hours."

Gretchen and Milly saluted Adyson, then ran in the direction of the nearest metro train station. Adyson and the remaining girls then picked up the rope on the ground at their feet. They then turned their attention to their opponents.

"Everyone ready?" Adyson asked.

"Yeah!" shouted Holly, Katie, and Ginger, in the order that they were behind her.

The official blew the whistle. Betty tugged hard on the rope once, and all four of Troop 46231's members were pulled off of their feet and dragged until the flag at the center of the rope crossed Troop 28933's cones. That took less than three seconds.

Each of the girls had their face planted in the back of whoever had been in front of them, save for Adyson, whose face was in the dirt. But she was not buried too deeply in, as she could hear Elizabeth laughing at Adyson.

"Even a foursome of toads would last longer than you wankers! Ha ha ha!"

Elizabeth skipped away to rejoin her teammates as Adyson lifted her head up out of the dirt. She was frowning as she heard Holly make a comment behind her.

"I'm starting to see why you don't like her."

At Union Station, Gretchen and Milly were at the arrivals board, trying to figure out what train Isabella would be on. Well, rather, Milly was looking at the board, while Gretchen, who happened to have her laptop with her, was using the station's wi-fi connection to try and figure out where Isabella had caught the train.

"No way!" Gretchen exclaimed upon finding the information. "Milly, Train 1539!"

Milly searched the board and saw it at the top of the list. She was shocked as well that Train 1539 was coming in from Danville. And confused.

"Wait, I thought she was in North Carolina! She took a train back home first?"

"No, that's a different Danville than ours."

"There's more than ONE Danville?"

"Twenty, in fact, including ours."

"Wow. Talk about unoriginal."

Milly then spotted something else out of place. The board listed Train 1539's scheduled arrival time as 9:58 a.m. It showed the current time as 3:05 p.m. and that the train had been delayed.

"According to the online schedule," Gretchen told Milly, "there is only one train from Danville to Washington every Saturday, and it leaves at 4:45 in the morning. It must've been severely delayed by the storm. The fact that it left at all makes me believe that the Danville area was not hit by it as much as I originally thought."

"Okay, so how do we find out what time she's going to get here?"

Gretchen pointed at the ticket counter, where they got one of the workers to do an inquiry into the train's current location.

"At last check," the man told them, "Train 1539 should arrive at 3:43."

The pair thanked him and then walked off to figure out what to do until then.

On board Train 1539, Isabella was looking out her window and enjoying the sights as it passed through the Northern Virginia suburbs, on its way towards its final destination, Union Station.

But then, without warning, the train started braking hard. Bags started falling out of the overhead compartments and some people were tossed out of their seats. Isabella grabbed the armrests of her seat and hung on for dear life. A few seconds later, the train had come to a complete stop. As everyone in Isabella's car was curious as to what was going on while checking if anyone had been injured, they heard the voice of the train conductor over the PA system.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing some electrical problems. We ask that you please remain seated until the train has resumed operation."

Facing the possibility her third attempt to get to Washington in as many days would end up just like the previous two, Isabella's face grew serious, knowing she had to do something to get this train back on track. So, against the conductor's orders, she got out of her seat and ran for the front of the car, determined to make her way to the head of the train no matter what.