Secret of the Time Capsule Read Online Free

temperature was perfect. The Redoaks News predicted a huge turnout for the parade and ceremony.
    Sean couldn’t help feeling proud. The fourth graders’ float looked great. The miniature space shuttle was covered with strips of crepe paper that rustled in the breeze. Strings of brightly colored banners flew behind it. It rose into the sky almost like the real thing.
    Debbie Jean, wearing her Halloween princess costume and a rhinestone crown, climbed into place. She clutched a bouquet of mixed flowers from her mother’s garden. Sean was sorry the bouquet didn’t have some stinkweed in it.
    There were other floats, many of them decked in red, white, and blue. Some of the float riders carried flowers and some wore costumes from the early decades of the twentieth century. There were clowns and horseback riders, and at the head of the parade, in shiny new convertibles, rode Mayor Harry Harlow and the members of the city council.
    Most of the fourth graders marched with Mrs. Jackson, close to the head of the truck, but Sean lagged behind. By the time they had almost reached the park he was walking alone, next to the flatbed. His thoughts were on the time capsule and what Mayor Harlow and his secretary would say when the newspaper was opened.
    “Sean!” he heard Brian yell. “Sean! Look out!”
    Sean glanced up to see his brother pushing toward him through the edge of the crowd. The people who were looking in Sean’s direction froze in terror. Some gasped or screamed. A few started to run toward Sean.
    Brian was first. He shoved Sean and shouted, “The shuttle! It’s falling! Get out of the way! Run!”
    Sean looked up to see that the shuttle’s supports had given way. The heavy cone had cracked and was dropping down upon him!
    Sean ran, stumbling into Brian. With a loud whack, the shuttle smashed on the street, right where he’d been standing.
    As people screamed and yelled, the parade came to a stop. Officials from the front cars ran back to see what had happened.
    “Thank goodness you weren’t hurt!” Mrs. Jackson said over and over.
    Debbie Jean screeched, “Sean! What did you do to my float?”
    Sean leaned against Brian, his knees wobbling. “Bri! The shuttle just missed me!” he cried out. “It would have fallen on me if you hadn’t been here.”
    Some of the men in the crowd dragged the shuttle off to one side. “That’s strange,” one of them said. “The way this support broke off, it looks almost like it was sawed through.”
    “Couldn’t have been,” another said. “Nobody’d do a thing like that.”
    “It must have been badly designed,” someone else suggested. “The cone was probably too heavy for its base.”
    Mr. Vlado was helped off his perch on the float. He hobbled to where Brian and Sean were standing and shook his head. “They showed up, didn’t they?” he said. “In spite of not getting invitations.”
    “Who?” Brian asked.
    “Cropper, Jones, Murphy, and Slade. The ones in the cemetery. You can thank them for spoiling the parade. They didn’t like not being invited.”
    Sean gasped and whispered to Brian,-“Ghosts did that?”
    “No,” Brian said, wishing that Mr. Vlado wasn’t quite so creepy. “Don’t even think about it. I’m sure that the space shuttle broke because of its own weight. It had to have been an accident.”
    Most of the crowd had drifted into the park, and the floats were being parked along the street. Brian lingered to run his fingers over the broken support under the shuttle. He gasped. It had been deliberately sawed. Somebody had planned for the shuttle to fall.
    “Come on, Bri,” Sean called. “The mayor’s giving his speech.”
    Brian wanted to talk to Dad, or maybe his friend Detective Thomas Kerry of the police force. But they weren’t on hand, so he hurried to catch up with Sean.
    Brian had just reached a place at the edge of the crowd, where he could see the row of dignitaries balance on wobbling folding chairs, when his parents showed