Karen's Mystery Read online

  I am training Emily Junior to be a circus rat. Here is what she can do so far: run really fast.

  I guess that does not sound like much. But just wait. I am sure that someday Emily will be able to turn a somersault, walk a tightrope, and fly through the air on a little rat trapeze. Right then, I was teaching her to jump through a hoop. Only I was teaching her in a box. The box was her playpen. Do you know what Sam had told me? He said that rats can get lost in walls and other places in big, old houses. So I was being careful. I did not want Emily to get lost.

  “JUMP!” I commanded again.

  Emily sniffed around her playpen.

  “AUGHHHHH!”

  I heard a scream. It came from down-stairs. It sounded like Elizabeth.

  “Yipes,” I said. “Trouble.”

  I scooped up Emily Junior. I put her back in her cage. Then I ran downstairs. Halfway there, I remembered that I had not put the top on Emily’s cage. Oh, well. Daddy had said the cage was in a safe place. I would remember to fix it later. Besides, a scream means a big problem.

  “Elizabeth?” I called. I dashed into the kitchen.

  Sam and Andrew and David Michael ran in also.

  “What happened, Mom?” asked Sam.

  Elizabeth tried to smile. “I’m sorry I screamed,” she said. “But look.” She pointed across the room to Boo-Boo’s food dishes. In one was … a dead bird.

  “Gross,” said Sam.

  “Does anyone know where that came from?” asked Elizabeth. “It is not a very funny trick. It is disgusting.”

  David Michael and I looked at each other. Another mystery!

  “Don’t worry,” I told Elizabeth. “David Michael and I will crack the Case of the Mysterious Bird.” Then I whispered to David Michael, “I bet this is one of Sam’s tricks.” My brother nodded.

  “Never fear!” I called to Elizabeth.

  David Michael and I ran back to the playroom. I remembered to put the lid on Emily’s cage. Then my brother and I interviewed the people in my big-house family. We said, “How do you feel about birds?” and, “Have you played any practical jokes today?”

  Sam had played several jokes. I was pretty sure he was the culprit. So David Michael and I looked for Elizabeth. We wanted to tell her the case was closed. She could rest easy. On our way to the TV room, we passed the back door to the house. Boo-Boo was waiting to be let in.

  “Hey!” cried David Michael as he opened the door. “Boo-Boo caught a bird!”

  “Oh, he couldn’t have,” I said. “Sam said Boo-Boo is too fat and lazy to catch anything. Remember? He said Boo-Boo never hunts.”

  “Well, he hunted for this bird. And he caught it,” replied David Michael. “He must have caught the other bird, too. Boo-Boo was smart to put the bird in his food dish.”

  “I guess. Anyway, we have solved another mystery,” I said. “We really are good detectives. Now we have solved three mysteries.”

  “We are crime-stoppers,” added David Michael.

  I nodded. Crime-stoppers. I liked the sound of that.

  Hiding Places

  I was feeling very cozy. My big-house family and I were curled up in the living room. Outside, the air was freezing. But Daddy and Kristy had built a fire in the fireplace. Now it was roaring.

  Daddy was reading stories. He was reading them aloud. They were kids’ stories, but my whole family was listening to them. Even Sam. First Daddy read The Tailor of Gloucester. It is by Beatrix Potter. I just love her books. They are gigundoly wonderful. Beatrix Potter has written lots of little books. Daddy was reading about the tailor because that’s a Christmas story. I was hoping he would read The Roly-Poly Pudding, too, even though it is not about Christmas. Maybe he would also read Squirrel Nutkin. That story is so, so funny.

  Elizabeth was sitting in an armchair. Emily Michelle was in her lap. I was in Kristy’s lap. (I am almost too big for it.) David Michael was in Daddy’s lap. While Daddy read, David Michael moved his lips. Andrew, Sam, and Charlie were lying on the floor, near the fireplace. And Nannie was next to Kristy and me. She was knitting a sweater for Andrew.

  See why I felt cozy? The living room was warm. And it was quiet, except for the sound of Daddy reading and Nannie’s needles clicking.

  The Tailor of Gloucester is about a poor, old tailor who lived in a town in the country of England long ago. The tailor had a cat named Simpkin. And Simpkin liked mice. (So do I.) The mice in Gloucester ran all through the town — without ever going out-of-doors. They ran from house to house in little passages behind walls. They knew lots of hiding places.

  When Daddy finished reading the story, I said, “Now could you please, please, puh-lease read The Roly-Poly Pudding?”

  So Daddy did. That is a story about these two rats who scurry around behind the walls of a country house and catch a naughty kitten who is exploring the inside of the chimney.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” said Sam, as Daddy put the book down.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “All those rats getting lost behind walls in old houses. Maybe you better remember that the next time you take Emily Junior out of her cage. This is a big, old house.”

  “Oh, Sam,” I said. “Those were mice in The Tailor of Gloucester. And they did not really get lost. Simpkin trapped them under teacups. And the rats in The Roly-Poly Pudding did not get lost, either. They were the ones who caught the kitten.”

  “I am just saying,” went on Sam, “that a lot of rodents were running around behind the walls in houses.”

  “Yeah, be careful with Emily Junior,” said Andrew.

  “She does not know this house very well,” added David Michael. “She could fall into a heating vent or get stuck in the attic.”

  “Or go down the drain,” said Sam. (Charlie punched him.)

  “Or run out into the hall and sail right between the railings of the banister and fall all the way to the first floor,” said David Michael. “Splat.”

  “Okay, okay. Enough,” said Daddy.

  “Anyway, Emily Junior is not going to get lost because she is not going to get loose,” I said firmly.

  “I hope not,” said Elizabeth and Nannie.

  Me, too, I thought. I felt a teensy bit worried.

  The Three Investigators

  Emily Junior had not gotten loose, of course. I checked on her as soon as Daddy finished reading. There she was, safe in her cage. She was waking up from a nap. She was getting ready to play.

  I made sure the lid was on the cage. Then I said to my rat, “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  The next day was Sunday. Hannie and Nancy came over to play.

  “Yea!” I cried. “The Three Musketeers, together again!” (We had been together on Friday, but that seemed like ages ago.)

  My friends and I raced to my bedroom.

  “Last one there is a rotten egg!” shouted Hannie. Hannie ended up as the rotten egg. She did not care.

  “What should we do today?” asked Nancy. She and Hannie and I had flopped onto my bed. (I was holding my nose since Hannie was a rotten egg.)

  “I doe! Let’s solve bysteries,” I said.

  “Stop holding your nose, Karen,” ordered Hannie. “I cannot understand you.”

  “I said we should solve mysteries. David Michael and I were detectives yesterday and we solved three mysteries.” I told my friends about tracking down Daddy’s glasses and fingering Emily Michelle and Boo-Boo. (That means we found the criminals.)

  “Wow!” cried Nancy. “Maybe we could start a detective agency.” (Nancy and Hannie had been reading mysteries, too. They like them almost as much as I do.)

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “And since we are the Three Musketeers, we will call ourselves the Three Investigators. Just like the kids in those books.”

  “Yeah!” cried Nancy.

  “Yeah!” cried Hannie.

  “If we are going to have an agency,” said Nancy, thinking hard, “and a name, then we should hang a sign on the door.”
/>   “Okay,” I replied. I found a large piece of paper. Hannie got out my Magic Markers. We got right to work. When we were finished, this is how our sign looked:

  Then Nancy and I stuck the sign on my door. We used Scotch tape, but not too much. Daddy says it can take paint off, and I did not want to do anything bad to my door. Especially not right before Christmas.

  “What should we do first?” asked Hannie.

  The sign was up, and we were sitting in my room. I guess we were waiting for a mystery to begin.

  “Hmm, I know,” I said. “I will be the head detective, and I will teach you guys how to solve crimes. I will show you how to use my magnifying glass and Decod-R ring. Then I will show you how to dust for fingerprints. Good detectives learn lots of things from fingerprints. That is because they are like snowflakes. No two are the same. You can make fingerprints show up by sprinkling powder over them. Then you just have to find out who they belong to. Also, you should look at footprints. If you can tell whose shoes they came from, then you might be able to catch a thief. Oh, and maybe we should learn how to make disappearing ink. And — ”

  “Karen?” Nancy interrupted me. “How are people going to know about our agency?”

  Uh-oh. Good question.

  No Case Too Tough

  “We need to let everyone know about the Three Investigators, Super-Detectives,” said Nancy. “But only the people in your family will see our sign, Karen.”

  “Right. We better advertise,” I replied. “Okay, let’s make fliers. We can give them to our friends.”

  “And to our neighbors and families,” added Hannie.

  I found some construction paper. Then Hannie and Nancy and I sat at the table in my room. We copied the words from our sign onto the papers.

  We worked very hard.

  When a voice said, “Hey! What are you doing?” I jumped a mile.

  “David Michael!” I exclaimed. “Don’t sneak up on us.”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I was very noisy. You just did not hear me.” David Michael pointed to the sign. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “We have started a detective agency,” said Hannie proudly.

  “And it was my idea,” added Nancy.

  David Michael’s mouth dropped open. “What about me?” he cried. “It was my idea to solve mysteries. I had the idea yesterday.”

  “We-ell …” I said. “But Nancy thought up the agency.”

  “So let me join,” said my brother. “Let me be a detective in your agency.”

  “But you can’t be. You are not a Three Musketeer,” I told him. “This detective agency is for the Three Musketeers. Besides, if you joined, we would have to change our sign and the fliers. They would have to say, ‘The Four Investigators.’ I do not want to change everything.”

  “That is not fair!” cried David Michael.

  “Is too,” I shouted.

  “Is not.”

  “Is too.”

  “Not.”

  “Too.”

  “All ri-ight,” said David Michael. “See if I care. But I am warning you, Karen. I will never solve another mystery with you again.”

  “Fine. I do not need your help.”

  “Do too,” said David Michael.

  “Not.”

  “Too. And anyway, your — ”

  “I know, I know. My epidermis is showing,” I said. My brothers are always trying to get me with that stupid skin joke.

  David Michael stomped down the hall. “I hope you get a stocking full of coal on Christmas morning!” he yelled.

  “I hope you get two,” I yelled back. “One for each foot.” I do not like to joke about Christmas, but David Michael had made me mad. He had taken some of the fun out of the Three Investigators.

  When we had made a stack of fliers, Hannie and Nancy and I took them outdoors. We gave them to our friends and neighbors.

  “No case too tough,” we told everyone.

  “How much do you charge?” asked Linny Papadakis. (He is Hannie’s older brother.)

  I glanced at my friends. They shrugged. I said, “I don’t know. I guess we are free. We work really hard, though.”

  “No case too tough,” added Nancy.

  But no one needed a mystery solved.

  The Mysterious Disappearing Present

  The Three Investigators handed out the fliers. Then we went back to my room. “We will make more,” I said. “Let’s keep working.”

  We sat at the table. But after a few minutes, Nancy said, “I have to go home soon. Mommy is coming for me.”

  “Now?” I replied. “It is still early.”

  “I know. But tonight is the beginning of Hanukkah. I have to be home before sundown. Then Mommy and Daddy and I will light the first candle on the menorah. And we will each get a present,” added Nancy.

  I jumped up. “Hey! I just thought of something,” I exclaimed. “I have a Hanukkah present for you. You should take it home with you.”

  “Thanks,” said Nancy. She was smiling.

  I ran to the drawer where I had hidden my presents. I opened the drawer.

  It was empty!

  I gasped.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Hannie.

  “I hid all my presents right here,” I said. “And now they are gone.”

  “A mystery!” cried Nancy.

  “Yeah, the first case for the Three Investigators,” I added.

  “Karen, did anyone see you hide the presents in the drawer?” asked Hannie.

  I thought hard. Then I cried. “Yes! Andrew did. I bet he took them.”

  “What a sneak,” said Nancy.

  “But wait. Why would he want the present I got for Elizabeth?”

  “What did you get her?” asked Hannie.

  “A carrot peeler.”

  Hannie raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “She said she did not have one.”

  My friends and I thought some more. Soon Nancy said, “I have an idea. Karen, try to remember everything you did with the presents today.”

  “Okay.” I frowned. “Let me see. When I got up this morning, I checked on them right away. I opened the drawer and I counted them. All there. Then, after breakfast, I decided to — Oh! That’s it! I decided to wrap them. Now I remember. So I carried the presents downstairs to the den. And I said, ‘Everybody, keep out! No peeking! Privacy, please.’ ”

  “Then you wrapped the presents?” asked Nancy.

  I nodded.

  “And then I — I left them in the living room so I can put them under the tree after we decorate it.”

  “That’s where Nancy’s present must be then,” said Hannie. “In the living room.”

  “No. I do not think so. See, I only put family presents there.”

  “Where did you put the other presents?”

  “There were no others,” I replied. “Except for Nancy’s.” (I had not bought Hannie’s present yet.)

  “Come on, you guys,” said Hannie. “Karen, I bet your forgot and put Nancy’s present in the living room with the others. Let’s look.”

  So we did. And there was the present for Nancy!

  “Open it before your mom comes,” I said.

  Nancy tore the paper off the package. “Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed. “This is cool, Karen. An activity book about mysteries and detectives. Mazes, riddles, puzzles … ooh, crossword puzzles! This is great.”

  “Happy Hanukkah, Nancy,” I said. Then I heard Nancy’s mom honking the car horn. “See you tomorrow,” I added. “Maybe the Three Investigators will find another mystery.”

  “She’s Gone!”

  “Well, good night, Moosie. Good night, Tickly,” I said. I was ready to climb into bed. I planned to read for awhile. Supper was over. The weekend was over. And I was tired. Starting a detective agency is very hard work. So is being the head detective.

  I jumped up. “Uh-oh. Guess what, Moosie. I almost forgot to say good night to Emily Junior,” I said. I ran into the playroom. Right away
, I saw that I had left the top off Emily’s cage. (Again.) “It’s a good thing I came in here, Emily. I would not want you to — Yikes!”

  I could not see Emily in the cage.

  I leaned over. I stared all around.

  Then, “Aughhh!” I screamed. “She’s gone!”

  I could hear footsteps. Kristy ran into the playroom. Daddy was right behind her. And Nannie and Charlie were behind them.

  “What’s the matter?” cried Kristy. “Are you all right?”

  I shook my head. “No. Emily Junior is gone! I came in to tell her good night and her cage was empty.”

  “Oh, Karen,” whispered Nannie.

  Daddy was giving me a Look.

  But Kristy said, “Maybe if you study her cage, you can find a clue to what happened to her, Karen. Don’t disturb anything. Just use your eyes.”

  I examined the cage. The top was lying on the floor where I had left it. But everything in the cage looked fine. Nothing was missing. Nothing was messed up.

  “No sign of a struggle,” I announced.

  “Then Emily Junior must have escaped,” said Charlie.

  “We have to find her!” I cried. “Oh, no. This is an awful mystery.”

  “I think I will go downstairs,” said Nannie. She tippety-toed out of the playroom. She looked as if she were afraid she would step on something icky.

  I began to cry. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” I said. “I did not mean to let Emily escape. I do not even remember leaving the top off her cage. Hey! Maybe I didn’t leave off the top. Maybe Emily was kidnapped.”

  “Oh, Karen,” said Charlie. “You were the one who said there was no sign of a struggle. Besides, you always forget to put the top on the cage.”

  Kristy put her arm around me. Daddy gave me a kiss. “You better start looking,” said Daddy. “Maybe we can find Emily Junior before you go to bed.”

  Emily Michelle was already asleep, but everyone else said they would help me search. Even David Michael said so. Even Nannie.

  “Thank you,” I replied. “Let’s begin the search here in the playroom.” Then I thought of something horrible. “Oh, no!” I shrieked. “What if Boo-Boo got Emily Junior? We did not think he could catch birds, but he caught two. Maybe he caught Emily, also.”