19 Process of Elimination

Chapter 19 Process of Elimination As soon as Coke got back to the RV, he wrote out the new cipher for his sister. "Numbers?" she asked. "Now we've got to figure out numbers?" "You're the queen of the ciphers," he replied. "I'm sure you'll figure it out." Pep looked at the cipher for a few minutes. It was incomprehensible. The only pattern she could recognize was that the top row had higher numbers than the bottom row. Whoever was tormenting them with these ciphers was making each one harder than the last. Finally, she decided the best thing to do would be to sleep

on it. Maybe the answer would come to her in the middle of the night like the last time. It didn't. Breakfast was cold cereal eaten out of cardboard bowls with plastic spoons. Nothing fancy. Everybody was anxious to get up to Darwin, Minnesota, and see the largest—or maybe second largest—ball of twine in the world. As they were getting ready to leave the campground, Mrs. McDonald suggested they all go out to the movies that evening. She had checked the internet and seen that there was a theater in Litchfield, just a few miles from Darwin. Dr. McDonald pulled the RV onto Interstate 35 heading north toward Minneapolis. They had only driven a few miles down the road when he snapped his fingers. Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).

Click Get Directions. In the A box, type Owatonna MN. In the B box, type Darwin MN. Click Get Directions. "We forgot to do a dump back at the campground!" he exclaimed. "The holding tank is filled to the brim!" "I'll do it today, Dad," Coke said. "I promise." "You'd better!" To get to Darwin, you drive up I-35, and before you get to Minneapolis, you jump on I494 briefly and then west on the smaller Route 12. From there, it's about an hour—a straight shot into Darwin. The town looked a little like Cawker City, Kansas, where the other giant ball of twine was located. Small-town America. Driving down the main street, they started to see signs: The Twine Ball Inn. Twine Ball Antique Shop. Souvenir Twine Balls Sold Here. Dr. McDonald made a left onto First Street. He drove by a park and a water tower, and then they saw a large gazebo

covered by Plexiglas panels. "Thar she blows!" Coke yelled. Dr. McDonald went a block farther, turned the corner, and parked the RV on a side street. "Be careful now," Coke whispered to his sister as he grabbed their backpacks. "Something's gonna happen here for sure. Something bad. We've got to stop it. Keep your eyes open." "But we don't know when," Pep whispered back. "It may not even be today." They walked around the corner and joined the group of people mingling around the ball of twine. It was, of course, enormous—just about filling the gazebo. "Behold," Mrs. McDonald said. "The largest ball of twine in the world!" But once you've seen one gigantic ball of twine, you've pretty much seen 'em all. It was still interesting to look at, but some of the novelty had worn off. "It looks pretty much like the other one," noted Dr. McDonald. "I can't believe we drove

so far out of our way to see this." "I think this one is a little bigger than the one in Kansas," Pep said. "It was definitely worth the trip." "Think of it this way, Dad," Coke said. "Now we've seen the two biggest balls of twine in the world! How many people can say that?" Dr. McDonald shook his head sadly and went to sit on a bench nearby to read a book. He had seen enough giant balls of twine to last a lifetime. Mrs. McDonald seemed to be just as fascinated with the Darwin twine ball as she had been with the one in Cawker City. She insisted on reading every pamphlet and the wall plaque about the ball's history. Apparently, a few years before Frank Stoeber started rolling his ball of twine in Kansas, a farmer named Francis A. Johnson began rolling one in Darwin. Johnson even used a crane so he could lift the ball to continue rolling it properly. For years, the two men had a sort of long

distance dueling-twine-ball race going as their respective balls got bigger and bigger. After Frank Stoeber died in 1974, you would have thought Francis Johnson would have claimed victory and retired. But he kept right on going, rolling twine four hours a day, every day, until he died in 1989. By that time, his twine ball was 17,900 pounds and thirteen feet in diameter. Mrs. McDonald went across the street to interview some locals about the twine ball. Coke and Pep walked among the crowd looking for suspicious characters.