Part 8 (1/2)

Five as station and asked the attendant to look at the oil None was needed, so the boys bought another pair of cokes and engaged thesaucers in this area?” Rick asked

”Nope My brother did though, late one afternoon when he was on duty”

Scotty took out the notebook ”We're trying to get so Do you remember when it was?”

”Let's see I orkin' in the evenin' that day, so it must have been a Saturday Last month, it was Oh, I recall it now Next day I took the kids to my mother's It was her birthday That would make it the tenth”

”Where was your brother when he saw it?” Rick queried

”Puht here He said it sort of ca like fire” The attendant pointed to a patch of trees down the road The direction was almost directly southwest

Scotty scribbled in the notebook ”Any other details you remember? What time in the afternoon was it?”

”Between four and five Can't say exactly He was still buzzin' when I came on duty at six Wanted to call the newspapers, but I talked him out of it People would think he was a fool”

”Did you?” Rick asked quietly

”Nope I know Chick He's got a straight head on him It may not have been a flyin' saucer, but you can bet it wasn't anythin' common, or anythin' he'd seen before”

”Score one,” Scotty said triu saucer doesn't make a Martian invasion,” Rick reminded him

”Let's keep it up”

By lunchtime they had interviewed a dozen people who clais had been noted in Scotty's book During lunch, at a small restaurant in the old town of Oxford, they scored three more times after intervieith fishermen

After lunch, they crossed the Choptank and headed south to the little town of Vienna From there the route led to the shore town of Elliott, back to Vienna, and past the corner of Delaware to Salisbury, a good-sized town on the Maryland Eastern Shore

There was a newspaper office in Salisbury A chat with the editor and a quick ski list

Rick had a hunch there was a pattern shaping up, but he could not be sure until the information was all laid out for examination

By the time the boys met Steve at the small airport, both Rick and Scotty had writer's cramp, and the notebook was nearly used up They had recorded over half a hundred sightings

Steve listened to a report of their day with an appreciative s you two out of mischief,” he told them ”Want to eat out? Or cook a steak in the yard?”

”Eat out,” Scotty said proet steak at home,” Rick added ”But not Chesapeake Bay clam fritters or Maryland crab cakes”

Steve had a favorite place of his own, a small, nondescript joint called ”Louie's Crab House” up the Choptank River, near the town of Denton

There, on wooden trestle tables covered with brorapping paper, he introduced them to a favorite Chesapeake Bay pastime known as a ”crab feast”

The waiter set wooden blocks in front of the knife A stack of paper napkins was supplied, and individual pots of

The boys waited i Steve's word that the result orth the wait The waiter reappeared carrying a huge tray, stacked with a towering pyra and red, coated with the spices in which they had been cooked Placing the tray on the table, the waiter asked, ”Anything else?”