“It’s a torn slip of paper,” she said, sniffing it. “It smells strange, for one thing, and it’s damp and ripped, but you can still read it.”
We all looked and made out some letters.
HEES
GRATE
Brian gasped. “Hees grate? Why would the thief write about me? What could it possibly mean?”
“That you spell as bad as the thief does,” I said. “Let’s look for clues in the hall.”
“I don’t have my clue from here yet,” said Brian. “I’ll keep looking. You go on ahead.”
“Go on a head? We’re not hats,” said Kelly.
Brian laughed. “Good joke.”
Kelly frowned. “Who’s joking? We’re not hats.” Which is another thing about Kelly. Sometimes she only sees what’s there and doesn’t get the joke. But not getting the joke is sometimes the goofiest thing there is!
We left Brian and Sparky sniffing around the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium. Well, Sparky was sniffing. Brian was staring up at the climbing ropes hanging from the ceiling.
“Goofballs,” I said when we stepped into the hallway, “so far, we have a broken pencil, a skateboard, and a smelly slip of paper with letters on it. What do these clues tell us?”
“That we need more clues?” said Mara.
“Or we need to know more about the clues we do have,” said Kelly, sniffing the paper. “This paper smells like something—”
Suddenly, there came a loud cry from the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium. “Help!”
Mara, Kelly, and I stared at one another.
“That’s Brian!” I cried. “He’s in trouble!”
Rooney the Loony
We raced back into the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium, expecting to find Brian held prisoner by the statue thief. Instead, we found Brian held prisoner by the climbing ropes.
He was hanging halfway up and was as tangled as Kelly’s extra-curly blond hair when it’s windy.
Plus he had no pants on.
“Brian, get down from there!” said Mara.
“Give me my cargo shorts first!” Brian yelled.
“Why didn’t you keep them with you?” asked Kelly.
“They’re so heavy with invention stuff, they slipped off,” he said.
Sparky was dragging Brian’s cargo shorts around the room. I cornered him and got them back, then tossed them up to Brian. It was amazing how he put them on with one hand. Then he reached up and unhooked the rope next to his and slid to the floor.
“Why were you up there?” asked Kelly.
Brian held the second climbing rope loosely in his hand. “I saw something up there.”
“We saw something up there, too,” Mara told him. “And we wish we didn’t.”
“But this rope was hooked to the ceiling differently from the others,” Brian said. “And because of it, I know without a shadow of a doubt that our thief is a very rich man with bushy red hair and a tiny pet monkey!”
We stared at Brian.
“How do you figure all that?” Kelly asked. “And so quickly?”
Brian smiled. “Simple logic. Clues, please.”
We gave them to him.
“First of all,” he said, “only a rich man would have golden pencils. He used one to keep the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium door open while he did his stealing… .”
I nodded slowly. “The pencil in the door makes sense, but the pencil’s not real gold, you know.”
“Let me finish,” Brian said. “Second, everyone knows that rich men drive fancy cars. But you can’t drive cars in school, so naturally he would bring a skateboard.”
“Wait. Is that logical?” asked Mara.
“But there’s more!” Brian said.
“Because the thief didn’t want his fancy clothes messed up, he must have had a pet monkey, which he sent up one of the climbing ropes to unhook the one next to it. Just like I did.”
“But—” Kelly said.
“There’s even more!” said Brian. “Sparky, you be the statue.”
Sparky ran up onstage and stood very still.
Brian smiled. “Our thief lifted the statue from the stage onto the skateboard.” Brian lifted Sparky onto the skateboard. “Then the monkey used his tiny little fingers to tie the climbing rope to the skateboard. Together, they rolled the statue from the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium stage, down the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium ramp, and out the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium door, which closed behind the thieves, breaking the gold pencil and sending it spinning across the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium—”
“Stop!” cried Kelly. “Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium takes too long to say!”
“And takes up too much space in my head,” said Mara.
“And in my cluebook,” I said. “How about just … Caf?”
“Agreed!” everyone said.
“But how in the world do you know the thief has bushy red hair?” Mara asked.
Brian grinned. “For the simple reason that I don’t know anyone with bushy red hair. I also don’t know any very rich men. It follows logically that a very rich man must have bushy red hair.” I was about to object when Kelly stomped her feet. “But what about my clue? What about the smelly paper?”
“That’s easy,” said Brian. “The paper says HEES GRATE. And now I’ll prove that I am. Because here comes my best idea. Since Mara found the skateboard in the piano, I believe our rich thief is coming back for it. And I know the perfect way to catch him!”
Without a word, Brian went behind the curtain and came back with two buckets.
“What’s in those buckets?” asked Kelly.
Brian placed one bucket next to each of the two doors into the Caf, then turned and smiled.
“Golf balls!” he said. “The plastic ones they use for lessons. When our thief returns to the scene of the crime, he’ll knock over the buckets, fall on the golf balls, and we’ll catch him!”
“Brian,” I said, “I don’t know if your solution to the mystery really works—”
All at once, Kelly gasped. She waved the crinkled paper in the air. “I know what this paper smells like! It smells like chlorine!”
“Chlorine?” said Mara. “The blond girl in homeroom? She does have a strange smell.”
“No,” said Brian, “Chlorine is the girl with pink hair in the first row of math class.”
“I think that’s violet,” I said.
“I thought Violet sat behind Chlorine,” said Mara.
“I mean Chlorine’s hair is violet,” I said.
“Then who’s the blonde?” asked Brian.
“Cut—it—out!” shouted Kelly, looking ready to explode. “What I mean is, this paper smells like the chemical called chlorine in the swimming pool.”
Brian shook his head. “She shouldn’t be in the pool when school is closed—”
“Which means,” Kelly continued, glaring at Brian, “that this paper has been in or near the pool. Which means that the thief may have left clues there. We need to go there right now!”
“Goof! Goof!” Sparky barked.
Kelly power walked around a bucket of golf balls and straight out of the Caf, her arms flying like a couple of propellers. We followed her down the hall. But our arms were regular.
On our way to the pool, Brian nudged me. “Next time I lose my pants, I’m going in there.”
I looked across at the boys’ locker room. “Are you planning to lose your pants again?”
He shrugged. “You never know. But they have lots of extra clothes in the locker room.”
I blinked. “That’s the second time you’ve made sense today, Brian.”
He grinned. “It’s kind of my limit.”
Suddenly, we heard a splash coming from the swimming pool: Splash!
Then another: Splash!
And another: Splash!
Kelly screeched to a stop, her crazy arms frozen in midair.
“The statue stealer!” she whispered. “He’s in the swimming pool!”
Water, Water …
As we tiptoed down the hall to the pool, my heart was goi
ng a mile a minute. But my feet were going an inch a minute. They knew I didn’t want to be near the pool or hear any more spooky splashing. No such luck.
Splash!
“The thief is so in there,” whispered Kelly, her fingers nervously twisting her blond curls.
“I hope it’s not that monkey,” Brian whispered. “Or Violet. Her pink hair really wigs me out.”
“We need disguises,” whispered Mara. “What do they have lots of at pools?”
“Water?”
“Diving boards?”
“Slippery tiles?”
“I was thinking of towels,” said Mara. “If we wrap up in towels, the thief can’t identify us. Plus we won’t get wet. Plus-plus we’ll be like fluffy bunnies, which is always good.”
Everything Mara said was true, so we snuck into the supply room and wrapped ourselves in towels so that the thief couldn’t identify us. We were so chubby with towels, we could barely identify ourselves!
We tried to wrap Sparky in towels, but he just growled at us and ran away.
“When we solve the case, he’ll be back to claim his share of the glory,” Brian said.
“Or his share of your pants,” I said.
Suddenly, we heard footsteps sloshing in the next room and a door banging closed.
“We’ve trapped him!” said Mara. “Be stealthy,” I whispered. “Brian?” “I know what it means now,” he said.
I waddled up to the door to the swimming pool. I pushed it open. The room was empty, but we saw wet spots in the shape of shoes. They seemed to lead from the pool to a closed door behind the diving board.
Kelly pointed to the door. “He’s in there!”
Wiggling his head out of his towel disguise, Brian leaned close to us. “I lost my shoes in that room once. I got to know it backward and forward. I’ll surprise the thief.”
“Did you ever find your shoes?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It turned out they were on my feet the whole time. Now, hold my climbing rope. I’m going in!”
Brian tiptoed to the door, threw it open, cried, “Aha!”—then leaped into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
A loud fight broke out. It sounded like furniture cracking and people groaning and something being thrown against the door.
“Take— that !” cried Brian. “And that !”
There was a loud squeak, and water streamed out from under the door.
“Help!” Brian cried, falling out the door, soaking wet, with his towel disguise falling off. With him came a bunch of mops and brooms and other stuff. Water was spraying all over the floor from a broken faucet.
“Where is the thief?” asked Kelly.
Brian picked himself up and looked into the room. “He escaped! Which never would have happened if he’d stepped on golf balls!”
“Wait. You saw the thief?” Mara asked.
“It was too dark,” Brian said. “But he attacked me with mops and junk. Then he turned on the faucet and tried to drown me!”
“The thief turned on the faucet?” I asked.
“And broke it in half,” said Brian, holding a piece of faucet in his hand.
Kelly peeked in the empty room. “But this is the only door. And there’s no one in there.”
“Sure, now,” said Brian. “But I fought him pretty good.”
“Brian?” I said.
“Yes?” he said.
“Did you maybe fight the mops ?” I asked. “And maybe you broke the faucet?”
He looked at me, at the faucet in his hand, at the mops, and at the water gushing from the open pipe. “It may have happened that way. But in my defense, it was really dark.”
Kelly sighed. “So the footprints didn’t lead to the closet. They led away from it, to the door to the hallway.”
“What do they keep in that closet besides brooms and mops?” asked Mara.
“You mean now?” said Brian, tying the climbing rope around his waist to hold his soggy pants up. “Mostly water.”
Then something gold floated past my feet. I snatched it up. “The other half of the broken pencil!” I pulled out the stub of pencil I had found in the Caf. I fitted them together.
“A perfect match!” I said.
Now I could read words on the pencil.
CELEBRATE 100 YEARS OF
BADGER POINT SCHOOL
My whole body began to shake.
I flipped open my cluebook and found what I was looking for. “Ah … haaa!”
“Bless you,” said Kelly. “If that was a sneeze.”
“It wasn’t, but thank you,” I said. “Goofballs, listen. This pencil isn’t from a very rich man. In fact, there’s only one place in the whole world to find a pencil like this!”
“The Pencil Association?” said Mara.
“The Museum of Writing Stuff?” said Kelly.
“The Pencils R Us Superstore?” said Brian.
“No, no, and no,” I said. “I’ll bet anything that this pencil is the special gift Principal Higgins was planning to give out tonight. If it is, and if the thief had one, the thief must have been in the principal’s office. So the office is where we need to go right now. Come on!”
“What about the water leak?” asked Mara. “Should we tell Mr. Wick?”
“We’re hot on the trail of the thief,” I said. “There’s no time.”
“Besides, what’s a little drip when you’re solving the Crime of the Century?” said Brian as he quietly closed the closet door.
“Goofballs, to the office!” I cried.
In the Office of Principal H.
Tearing off our towel disguises, we raced down the hall. The water seemed to follow us. We slid into the principal’s office.
The water followed us there, too.
The office was empty. The desk was clear except for two things. A big, crusty orange book. And a big carton of gold pencils exactly like the broken one.
“I knew it!” I said. “The thief was in this office. We are close to solving this mystery.”
“I think we’re so close,” said Mara, blinking through her big green glasses, “that my lenses are fogging up!”
All at once, we heard footsteps outside the office. My heart skipped a beat.
“Take cover!” I said. “Under the desk!”
“Wait!” said Kelly. “Didn’t we hide under a desk once, and didn’t we say we’d never do it again?”
“Ah!” I said. “The Ridiculous Riddle of the Dusty Desk. One of our first mysteries. But I don’t remember why we said that.”
“I think I blocked it out,” said Brian.
Footsteps were coming closer.
“Does anyone have a better idea?” I asked.
Stomp! Stomp!
“Under the desk!” they all said.
But the instant we piled under the desk, we all remembered why we said we’d never hide under one again.
Even without Sparky, there was room for only one medium-size person under there. Or two tiny people. Or one tiny person and a medium skateboard. Or a medium climbing rope and one small person. But not four medium people, a purple skateboard, a thick climbing rope, two halves of a pencil, the best cluebook ever, and a smelly slip of paper.
Brian’s foot was wedged against my chin. My shoulders were in Kelly’s and Mara’s ears. Someone’s knee was squishing my behind.
We were about to explode into a hundred pieces when the office door squeaked open and someone stepped in.
Squish-squish!
A person with wet shoes!
Squish-squish … squish-squish!
Two people with wet shoes!
Two thieves ?
We heard heavy breathing. The two thieves were only inches away from us.
They knew what stealthy meant. They didn’t speak. The next thing I saw was light from a flashlight scanning the top of the desk.
I wiggled my arms and legs to alert the Goofballs to do something we learned on a case last summer.
We were all stuck in a place where we
had to talk without anyone hearing us. So we learned to read each other’s lips.
Here’s how you do it.
You form words very carefully on your lips. And you “say” them very s—l—o—w—l—y, moving your lips and tongue in a BIG way. But you don’t use your breath to make sound. That way you can be silent and still understand each other.
I wrote all about it in my cluebook. We call it Silent Speak. It’s one of the finest of the many fine Goofball detective techniques.
Even as the two thieves searched the desk we were hiding under, we each shifted our eyes so we could all see everyone else’s lips.
Our Silent Speak conversation went like this:
“Who can see what’s going on?”
“Not me. Can you?”
“No. But I think I smell stinky feet.”
“You hope it’s only stinky feet.”
“A bony elbow is in my face.”
“So that’s where my elbow is!”
“I can’t even feel my elbow.”
“I can’t feel my face! Or my toes.”
“I feel my toes. But someone’s licking them.”
“Mine too! I really hope it’s Sparky.”
“Sparky ran away, remember?”
“Then I think I’m going to barf!”
“Go ahead. It already smells like stinky feet.”
All of a sudden, one of the thieves sneezed. Then something fell to the floor next to me.
“A piece of cheese!” I mouthed.
“Swiss?” mouthed Mara.
“Looks like cheddar,” I answered.
“Never mind the cheese,” said a gruff voice. “I have what I came for. The last piece of the puzzle. Come on. We have to get rolling.”
“Rolling? Good one, Gramps.”
“Gramps? Did you hear that?”
“I have cramps in my knees!”
The four shoes turned and squished out of the room. The door closed behind them.
We untangled ourselves.
“There are two of them!” said Kelly.
“One kid and one grandpa!” I said.
“And neither of them sounds like a monkey!” said Brian.