7 Bedloe's Island

Chapter 7 Bedloe's Island But the hunt wasn't over yet. The man in the bowler hat and green jacket had vanished into thin air. Now Luke and Sarah were sitting despondently on a crate beside the water's edge, staring at the ferries and other boats moving up and down the gray water of the Hudson

River as it flowed toward the Atlantic Ocean. It was busier here on the docks than it had been in the heart of the city. "How do we tell the others that we've lost DeLay?" Luke said gloomily to Sarah. Sarah suddenly gasped. "Tesla!" she said. "At the ticket window! Look!" The neat tweed suit of Nikola Tesla could be glimpsed in the line at the ticket window, with his boxes and bags by his feet. It looked like he was buying his ticket back to Europe.

"Yes, I have a lot of luggage," Tesla was telling the ticket agent as Luke and Sarah hurried over. "But it is all vital for my work. Work which is unappreciated here in America. Work which I will continue to do in Europe, where my genius will be recognized at last." The ticket guy scratched his head under his cap. "Whatever, buddy," he said. "You've still got too many bags." "But I must have them all!" cried Tesla. "I must sail home on the first ship across the Atlantic!" "You're going to be waiting a while, pal," observed a bearded old sailor propping up the other end of the ticket counter. "Storm's coming. Best not to cross the ocean in a storm."

"Mr. Tesla, sir!" cried Luke. Tesla turned in surprise. "We're on the trail of your stolen part, please just wait a little longer!" "We've nearly caught the villain," Sarah said. "He's right here, at the docks." There was a rumble from the cloudy sky overhead and a boom of thunder.

"The old fella's right about the storm," said the ticket agent, nodding at the sailor, who gruffly nodded back. "No transatlantic sailings until it passes." Tesla sighed. He thrust his umbrella at Sarah. "Take it," he said. "To keep my stolen part dry, if you find it." "We won't let you down," Sarah promised, as she took the umbrella. "Cuckoo," added Tempo, which finally drew a smile from Tesla.

"Good luck," the inventor said. "I will be here, waiting." As Luke and Sarah ran back out to the dock, Luke glimpsed a flash of green. It seemed that their luck had changed. Luke pointed. "DeLay is boarding that boat!" DeLay held his bowler hat tightly as he slipped aboard a ferry. The wood sign beside the jetty said BEDLOE'S ISLAND. "Bedloe's Island was renamed Liberty Island in 1956," said Luke. "It's where the Statue of Liberty is. Quick, the boat is casting off. We'll have to jump!" Sarah and Luke took a running jump