Toy Master
Book 5 Mosquito Creek Detective club - Chapter 1...
CHAPTER 1
Those First Impressions…
Dear Patrick, its January 2, 2000! A whole new year and a whole new century, but I’m not kidding when I say the old-crazies came back to Mosquito Creek!
It was way cool seeing the beginning of a brand-new century. But I bet the entire world didn’t have the kinda excitement at the end of 1999 that we did right here in Montana, but you havta keep what I’m bustin to tell you real quiet until you hear it on your BBC. You can’t even tell Aunt Helen or Uncle Angus till then!
I haven’t written for a while cause it was real quiet around town for over a full year since our wild Halloween and the stolen art. Good thing too. Every one of our parents were wigging out about the danger we kept getting mixed up in. Each member of the club was pretty much grounded.
We could only hangout at school or at each other’s houses when our parents were home. No club meetings allowed – it was like the ranch, and that train, and the mayor’s brother, and the stolen art was somehow our blunder. We didn’t think it was fair because all that weird stuff found us! Just like this one…
………..
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22
Joey Salas hurried up the steep stairs balancing the appetizer tray his grandmother gave him. The snack was for Thor Wilbur, one of the toy factory owners. Joey noticed the frosted glass door to the office, Mr. Wilbur shared with his cousin Hans and their Uncle Penn Ziv, was open a full inch so Joey could easily push it open further without needing to juggle the tray with one hand.
As he reached the narrow landing that looked down over the factory floor and the festivities of the community open-house, Joey heard a voice and realized Mr. Wilbur was on the phone. Not wanting to disturb the call he stepped aside and waited.
“Yah, all the parts we need are here now, but they still must be modified in order to pass all the security inspections at the White House and at each governors’ mansion.”
Silence came from inside the office.
Laugher and muffled conversation drifted up from the social gathering below.
Then Mr. Thor spoke again. “That is not good enough. We need accurate scheduling for the White House and all state mansions. If neither the Clinton family nor the governors’ families, will be in their public homes for Christmas then we must quickly adjust our timing so that all nutcrackers can be activated simultaneously prior to Christmas Eve, or we lose the effect of our surprise.”
Joey Salas leaned against the wall for support, bewildered. He began to shake and almost dropped the tray of miniature tacos. What was Thor Wilbur saying? Who was the person at the other end of the phone line? Mr. Wilbur didn’t sound happy. What Joey overheard couldn’t possibly mean what he was thinking it meant. Maybe it was nothing – maybe it was just his overactive imagination.
He stepped away from the wall and took a deep breath then balancing the tray he knocked on the office door.
Mr. Wilbur lowered his voice. “No do not send it to me and certainly nothing like that by fax. That is a needless paper trail that could cause serious trouble and jeopardize our contact. Just handle it from there, assure me it’s done, and then give me an exact ship date. I must go there is someone at my office door.” He hung up.
“Yes come in.”
With a forced smile Joey nudged the door open with one shoulder carrying the tray with both hands. “My grandma sent me to deliver this for you. She noticed you weren’t downstairs, and the buffet table was being “invaded” as she called it.
Thor Wilbur stood with a smile and reached for the tray. “Your Grandma Rosa is very thoughtful. I must return a few more phone calls then I will be downstairs to provide a tour of the machinery and our assembly process. I shall thank your grandmother in person.”
When Mr. Wilbur sat down again, he put the tray to one side then picked up the receiver of his desk phone to dial another number. Joey took his cue, relieved to go.
………..
As Thanksgiving drew closer, Heritage Toys, Inc. had become a familiar sight in Mosquito Creek, Montana. The owners, Hans Wilbur and his cousin Thor Wilbur had breezed into town the previous March. After two days of looking around town on their own they met with Sonia Molosky’s mother who had listed the empty Bonner Building for sale. With one quick tour of the former old two story Larabie Brother’s Bank, they bought it for the full asking price on-the-spot.
The cousins worked quickly. By the end of May, they had finished renovations and installed their equipment. They hired and trained ten local people. By the end of June, they were making and selling old fashioned wooden toys and novelties.
At a Chamber of Commerce meeting Mayor Peters called them “…the kind of decisive businesspeople Powell County needed more of…” He was so enthusiastic about the new enterprise, he almost sang when he talked.
Everyone said that Heritage Toys brought a renewed burst of energy to the entire community. Gordon McKenna’s grandfather Park Sullivan printed a large ad every week in his newspaper for Heritage Toys’ featuring what was new in the company’s catalogue and on their store shelves.
By the end of summer just about every house in town had at least one new brightly painted bird house, and go-cart sales outpaced new bikes. Cart races during the summer might have replaced the regular bike races except there were too many competitors and few paved roads that didn’t carry motor traffic.
Mia Cho’s dad had a new accounting client. Sonia Molosky’s mom, not only sold the owners of Heritage Toys a new manufacturing location, but she also sold them the old six-bedroom Coleman mansion to move into with their wives Gabrielle and Kristine and their Uncle Penn Ziv, who was the factory’s production manager.
However, though the two Mrs. Wilburs, who ran the storefront and the family in general were friendly to customers, the five newcomers kept to themselves for much of the time their first seven months in business.
So, when Mr. Hans Wilbur contacted the Mosquito Creek Review, to advertise a Community Thank You Open House just before American Thanksgiving – the social event was a surprise.
The afternoon open house and factory tour was set for Sunday, November 22nd and Joey’s grandparents, who owned the Los Tres Luna Restaurant were asked to cater the food.
With such a major catering job the entire Salas family was expected to pitch in. Joey’s Granddad Ricardo cooked at the restaurant, while Fredrico, Joey’s father took a day off from his pharmacy to drive food from the restaurant kitchen to the event and Grandma Rosa hovered over the buffet table.
But they still needed more assistance, so Joey had asked his friend Leif Anderlund, his best girl Mia Cho and her friend Sonia Molosky. They helped him and his younger sister Lena to carry serving trays among the guests.
When the double doors to the factory opened in the back of the store at 1PM – there were so many colorful, dazzling displays visitors hardly knew where to look first.
The Christmas exhibit of several styles of small-scale doll houses with furniture and trains with inner working parts and scale models of log forts caused a human traffic jam immediately to the right just inside the factory warehouse doors.
The displays had been set up in the shape of a giant fan. On long narrow triangle-shaped pine tables were showcased the new line of toys along with Yuletide ornaments and decorations. But it was the center table that became the jaw-dropping hit.
The display was a pyramid of fifteen large nutcrackers in the likeness of George Washington on his horse. Each of the mounted nutcrackers was three feet high and painted in accurate detail. The banner hanging over the stunning presentation read: ‘Our gift to our new country.’ Thirty-six more were still in production.
Beside each finished carved wooden figure was a card indicating the state it was destined to be shipped. The nutcracker at the top was ready to go to the White House. Thor Wilbur had told the newspaper editor that the generous ‘gift’ had been his marketing idea that he expected would bring national attention for the new company.
On the stairs, Joey felt weak again and wondered if he thought the worst because of everything that had happened in Mosquito Creek over the previous few years.
From his vantage point between the office and the warehouse floor, Joey watched the crowd. Thor’s Uncle Penn was having an animated discussion with Sonia’s Grandpa Molosky by the pyramid display. Hans Wilbur was all the way around the half circle fan-display demonstrating the inside mechanics of one of the painted trains to a large group of kids.
Philip Peters, with two cameras and three lenses hanging from his neck as usual, was taking photographs of food, people, toys, the ceiling - literally everything in the building for the local weekly newspaper.
As Joey stopped behind the buffet table to put more napkins in a basket and more salsa into a serving bowl, Thor Wilbur reappeared. He smiled broadly at Joey as he walked by the table to return the tray. With a cordless microphone he announced the start of a formal tour of the factory’s machinery and how it worked for anyone who was interested.
Everyone in the crowd looked happy and relaxed. None of the factory owners appeared menacing or anything like a threat to national security. Joey shook his head and decided he had overreacted and there was nothing sinister about to happen in Mosquito Creek again.
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