The Man with the Red Bag by Eve Bunting

of sleep deprivation. Maybe Geneva could help? She wouldn’t. She’d ask if I was seriously crazy and stare at me with those navy blue eyes. No use depending on her. I knew that. So what could I do?
    I switched on the lamp again and studied my how-to-write-a-mystery book. I get a lot of help from this book. One of the paragraphs said, “If you come to animpasse”—which I knew means something that you don’t know how to handle—“ask yourself, ‘If this were real, what would my hero do next?’ He must use his ingenuity.”
    I laid the open book on my chest and closed my eyes. Okay. This was real and I was the hero, living out this mystery that, when I came to write it, would be superbelievable. “Write what you know,” the book said. I definitely knew this.
    Room 145 was three rooms down the corridor from mine.
    I got up, wedged my door open just an inch with a wadded-up washcloth from my bathroom so I could easily get back in, and tiptoed out into the hall. It was empty and almost silent, all the doors closed. At the very end, where the elevators were, an ice machine hummed faintly. I counted along with my eyes.
    Room 145. His room.
    Still nobody watching.
    A good detective has to be either a very quick thinker or a guy who thinks ahead. I went back into my room, got the plastic ice bucket, and took it with me. If someone saw me, if he saw me, I’d pretend Iwas going for ice, couldn’t sleep, needed a cold drink of water. I walked along the corridor.
    Room 145.
    Nobody looking.
    I put my ear to his door. Inside, a TV played.
    Ah. He was probably in bed, watching a program. That sounded safe. Unless he was already out and he’d left the TV on to fool anybody watching him. That was a scary thought. Or suppose he came out later, and I wouldn’t know?
    But then I remembered something. It might have been from one of Mrs. Nixon’s books. Reading mystery books is definitely a big help when you get yourself in a jam. Case in point: a map with a circle on it. I went quickly back to my room, tore a corner off the paper napkin that had been under the ice bucket, came back out, tiptoed again up to room 145, and wedged the small piece of paper between the door and the doorjamb. I’d get up early and check if it was still there. Then I’d know if he’d been out. If he had, I wouldn’t know where—maybe it would just have been for ice. But this was the best my ingenuity could come up with. The TV was still playing softly inside his room.
    I hurried back to bed, set my alarm for 5:30, and lay facedown on my blankey square again, breathing in the smell of it, letting my pulse slow down. I decided I was glad that in the future I was only going to write about mysteries, not be right smack in the middle of one.
    The day after tomorrow we’d be in Yellowstone and Millie would get the newspaper picture of the suspected terrorists. Yellowstone, which was in Stavros’s circle.
    Tomorrow I’d have to lend him the Greek dictionary. It wouldn’t take him long to translate the words I’d written.
    And then what?

CHAPTER 7
    I ’d checked at 5:30 A.M. The paper scrap was still in the door. It was still there when Grandma and I went past on the way to breakfast at 8:00. Stavros had been safe in his room all night long.
    He came into the dining room while we were eating our scrambled eggs and bacon. Grandma and I had a table for four and the nice Doves had asked if they could join us. They loved their room and the view and the whole tour but they were worried about our schedule for today.
    â€œI’m not sure if we feel up to going on the rafttrip,” Mrs. Dove told Grandma.
    â€œWe don’t party like we used to,” Mr. Dove added.
    Grandma and I laughed.
    â€œI think you’d like the river trip,” Grandma said. “I did it when I was here with my dear Jim. My late husband,” she explained. “It’s