Noise in the Night: The Brady Street Boys Book Three: Brady Street Boys Midwest Adventure Series, #3

By Katrina Lee

A hostile young stranger. Terrifying sounds in the dark. Can three brothers mend fences they didn't know were broken?

 

Indiana, 1987. Gary Fitzpatrick can't wait to go camping. Relaxing with his two siblings in their swimming hole, the thirteen-year-old won't let his amputated leg get in the way of their exciting adventure. But he's bewildered and upset when an unfamiliar, angry kid throws rocks at the trio and threatens revenge.

 

Trying to put the mysterious boy out of his mind, Gary's worries escalate after repeated run-ins with him at the ice cream shop and along the shore. And his vacation goes from bad to worse with a sabotaged rope swing, an alarming note, and a campsite invasion by fearsome creatures snorting in the shadows.

 

As another sleepless evening in their tent looms, can Gary find a peaceful way to end the torment?

 

Noise in the Night is the page-turning third book in The Brady Street Boys Adventure Series. If you or your child like positive role models, problem-solving, and turning enemies into friends, then you'll love Katrina Hoover Lee's wild tale.

 

Buy Noise in the Night to conquer frights today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katrina Lee
• Release date: Mar 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781735903590

Book preview

1

A Bad Start

Arock fight with a stranger was not the way we intended to begin the peace project.

We weren’t thinking about the Fruit of the Spirit project at all. Certainly, we weren’t thinking of peace, our fruit for the week.

We were mostly thinking about how hot it was and about how much we would like to go for a dip in our swimming hole. When Mom finally turned us loose from our garden duties, we shot down the street, past the Number Ten house, past Tina’s house, through the weedy skeleton of what was once a tennis court, and into the grove of trees that protected our swimming hole.

It was hard to make the case that the swimming hole was ours. It really was part of the park, just like the tennis court. But for now, in the summer of 1987, no one else in Stratford seemed to know about the lovely spot, and having our own private place to cool off on summer afternoons suited us fine.

Grasses and shrubs camouflaged the entrance to the hole. Two dogwood bushes guarded the hidden path our bare feet had stamped in the riverside grasses. The path fell over the edge of a short bank of roots and rocks down to the pebbles at the water’s edge.

What was down there? No white sand. No huge limestone boulders as there had been at Promontory Point. But with the possible exception of the maple tree in our own backyard, the swimming hole held all of our favorite spots.

My seat: A rock shaped like a chair, with a flat rock beside it where I can place my notebook for writing. I’m thirteen. I have a wooden leg, and I just helped solve a couple of mysteries.

Larry’s seat: A large fallen tree on one side, which protects the swimming spot from strong currents and allows him to lie flat and read if he chooses. Larry is twelve. He’s the baby of the family, and he’s always talking about the books he’s read as if he expects everyone to be interested.

Terry’s seat: A tall cottonwood tree leaning out over the river on the left side of the swimming hole. He’s fourteen, and takes the lead in everything except reading books and rowing our boat, the London. Those two activities are what Larry and I excel in.

The swimming hole was a bulge off the St. Joseph River. A half circle of trees provided shade to the hole, creating a continual coolness. Driftwood pieces piled on the downstream curve of the bulge, under Terry’s cottonwood tree. We had pulled a few pieces of this wood, worn smooth by the water, onto the bank for a clothesline. Up on the shore on the opposite side, a willow tree leaned out toward the river, its long slender leaves falling around it like silver hair.

We had spent many hours in this swimming hole, cooling off, arguing, and splashing. Terry had spent many hours high above the swimming hole, too. At the risk of his life, he had tied a rope to a high branch of the cottonwood tree for a swing. Other ropes connected the branches to make climbing easier and safer. A rope ladder with small pieces of tree limbs for rungs fell from the lowest branch down to the pile of driftwood. He constantly modified his construction, lengthening the swing, adjusting the rope ladder, or adding extra rope between branches.

Terry’s cottonwood tree had just finished snowing a few weeks before. Every spring, puffs of cotton fell from its branches. They floated away on the water and piled on the edge of our swimming hole with the driftwood. They got in our clothes. We all loved the summer snow, and Terry was especially pleased that it came from his tree.

I shouldn’t have said there were no others who came to the swimming hole. A family of geese lived in the area and occasionally floated through when we were there. It was mid-June, so the goslings were out of the nest and losing their cuteness. But, annoying as the goose droppings on the tennis court could be, we liked these geese and had adopted them as friends. We had even named them.

Larry said it was his turn to choose the names. I had named our rowboat London, and our new motorboat Big Ben. Terry didn’t care at all about naming things. But Larry wanted to name the geese.

Larry called them Sherlock and Holmes after the old British detective. The only problem was that we never knew which was which. Larry told us that the only way to tell which was the male goose and which was the female was that on average males weighed ten percent more than females.

Unless we carry a scale with us, we may as well give up trying to call them the right name, he said.

Which is the female name, anyway? I asked.

Holmes, of course, he said.

I rolled my eyes because I certainly didn’t know of any women named Holmes. Terry suggested we call them Sherlock and Sherlocka. But in the end, we always said, Look, there’s Sherlock! and hoped we were right.

This afternoon, we pushed between the dogwood bushes into the pebbly edge of the swimming hole. We hung our clothes on the dead branch as we dived into the hole in swimming trunks.

Terry splashed into the water to cool down before climbing the rope ladder up into his tree. Terry loves ropes. His bed at home is canopied with them. He had brought an extra length along today to connect the branch his swing hung from to the branch below it so he could more easily adjust the tie.

Larry took a splash as well, then climbed on his log where he had left a guide to woodland plants he had gotten at the library. I have to figure out what that grass is with the purple kernels, he said. I want to get this figured out today so I can focus on the plants we find on the island when we go camping this weekend.

It’s not this weekend, I said. We’re going Thursday night. Tomorrow!

And Friday night. Dad said we could go two nights.

Okay, right. Better be careful. If you drop that book in the water, you’ll have to pay for a new one.

I took my wooden leg off and sank luxuriously into the water. I let my toes dig into the cool sandy bottom of the hole, and paddled out to the edge of the bulge where I could feel the push of the river’s current. After a few minutes, I settled on the rock with my notebook and imagined what I could say in a letter to the international fugitive. I began writing, just to try out my thoughts.

Dear Sir. I’m sorry to hear you are in jail. Can you tell me any more about the man you mentioned named Bruce? I am wondering if he could be the surgeon who amputated my leg, and I would like to talk to him. Also, what does CHEL stand for? You said he got the C-H-E-L, but we don’t know what those letters mean.

I studied the lines.

Should I start my letter by saying I’m sorry to hear that he’s in jail?

No, I don’t think so, Larry said from the fallen log.

Letter to who? Terry’s voice fell from high above. Most of Terry’s cottonwood tree was still living, but a few limbs had died high in the tree. He fastened his rope swing—to one of the living branches, of course.

The international fugitive!

Oh, him. Of course not! He broke the law.

Although you could be sorry for him, anyway. Larry’s voice came at me sideways from the log.

I erased the line.

How should I start then? I asked, my eyes drifting to the patchy sunshine sparkling in the water.

I’ll send you a secret idea, Terry said.

I raised my head to ask him what he meant and ducked just in time. A fragment of dead wood sailed past my right ear. I rolled my eyes.

Hey Terry! Larry looked up from his guidebook. Did you know that your tree is a female? You should name her. How about Mary or Janet?

Both Terry and I looked at Larry in surprise.

You’re making that up! Terry said.

No, really. I read that only the female cottonwood trees make cotton.

You read too much. Terry pinged a piece of dead wood down on Larry next, which landed right between the pages of his book.

While extending this generosity, Terry spotted the boy tormenting Sherlock. Larry and I, down below the bank, could only listen in.

There’s a boy out there on the tennis court. Terry pointed from his perch, which hung out over the water of the St. Joseph. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he just threw a rock at Sherlock!

Larry sat up on his log. I put down my pencil.

Hey! Terry yelled from his perch. Stop hitting our goose!

Who’s asking?

I am! Terry said. Up here in this tree!

I hopped on my good leg to the bank. The bank was about as tall as I was, so by lodging my foot in a root and leaning against the bank, I was high enough to part the grasses with the purple kernels and see out. Beside me, I saw Larry doing the same, guidebook abandoned.

A boy in a black hoodie, with the hood up despite the heat, leaned against one of the tennis net poles. He held something in his hand. Scissors, maybe? He looked down at something on the ground, but we couldn’t see what it was. A backpack sat beside the pole.

Sherlock and Holmes and their band of scrawny goslings stared at the boy, their long necks motionless with concentration.

For a second, I thought Terry had made up the part about throwing rocks at Sherlock. Then, the boy reached for a piece of broken concrete beside him, and whipped it toward the goose closest to him.

This sizable piece of work caught Sherlock in the neck. He squawked and leaped away, frightening Holmes and the goslings.

Hey! Terry said again. I said stop hitting our goose!

Was it our goose? Only as much as the swimming hole was ours. So no, it was not our goose. But still . . . I didn’t like to see Sherlock tormented.

In reply, the boy threw another piece of concrete. It didn’t connect with any of them, but it landed right in front of one of the goslings, and another fluttering occurred. Sherlock hissed.

Terry jumped from limb to limb, using his ropes as handholds, and dropped onto the shore. He crawled up the bank and looked through the weeds as we were doing.

The boy in the black hoodie picked up a stick and sent it whirling through the air. It bounced off the back of a gosling. We hadn’t named the goslings yet, although Larry had been considering it. I had asked for the rights to name them, but he said that since I got to name all the boats, he should get to name all the geese. Again, he wanted to give them names from detective stories, and again, it would be pointless because we couldn’t tell them apart.

The gosling jumped and squawked. Sherlock and Holmes fluttered backwards, then turned, hissing at the boy.

The boy picked up another piece of cement.

Stop! Terry said, stepping through the weeds into plain sight. A river pebble glinted between his fingers.

Oh, no. I glanced at Larry to see if he noticed Terry’s weapon. Terry! Don’t—

Before I could say another word, the boy raised his cement and hurled it at Sherlock. Terry lifted his pebble and fired it at the boy in the black hoodie. It bounced at the boy’s feet.

The boy turned toward Terry. He stooped for a piece of concrete the size of his fist.

I feel like Moses on the mountain watching the battle. Larry parted the grass to widen his view. A long-legged spider hustled away from his fingers.

I didn’t bother asking Larry to