“I’m quite sure, sir. I kept watch all day. I was starving by the time I left. Had to take a slice of their pizza to keep me going.”
Possum locked eyes with Dino. “Did you hear what she said?”
“About me being a real professional?”
“Not that! She said that she didn’t leave the garage all day.”
“Another alibi.” Dino sighed.
“This has nothing to do with our pepperoni, either,” said Possum.
“But, Possum, doesn’t this stuff with the mice sound . . . just a bit . . . suspicious?”
“We’ve got to stay focused, Dino. Think: What would Butch Malone do? This pepperoni is our one chance at a BIG case. You want to drop it for mice and lunch ladies?”
“You’re right. Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.”
As they got to the ground, something caught Dino’s eye.
A single, beautiful slice of pizza. The fading sunlight shone on the gooey cheese topping. Dino licked her lips.
“Pizza!” she exclaimed, heading toward the slice.
“Wait, wait!” hushed Possum. “Dino, you shouldn’t . . .”
The smell of the cheese. The crispiness of the crust. All of it was too much for Dino, who charged toward her prey with Possum trailing behind.
“Dino! For once, will you just stop and w—”
But it was too late. Possum heard a faint snapping sound, followed by a rustle of leaves and a whooosh!
And all went black.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MRS. SNIFFLETON
Caught! Like a mouse in a trap. Or a possum and a dinosaur in a big canvas bag.
They heard a flutter of wings, and then the bag was opened, and they were dumped out. In front of them hovered Mrs. Sniffleton.
She did not look happy.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” asked the lunch lady. “Talk! Are you working for the mice?”
“No, we aren’t working for the mice!” huffed Possum. “We’re trying to catch a thief!”
“And what are YOU doing setting traps for hungry, innocent dinosaurs?!” added Dino.
“A thief?!” cried Mrs. Sniffleton. “What thief?”
“Someone snuck into our house and ate all the pepperoni, so we’ve been hunting around the entire town looking for clues but we aren’t getting anywhere and I’m REALLY HUNGRY!” cried Dino.
“Pepperoni?” Mrs. Sniffleton’s brow wrinkled in a deep frown. “Those mice are on the verge of the crime of the century . . . and you are worried about . . . pepperoni?”
An alarm bell went off.
“What is that?” asked Dino.
Mrs. Sniffleton didn’t have time to answer. A canvas bag, very similar to the one that had trapped Possum, Dino, and Plant, zoomed up through a trapdoor. The figures in the bag did not sound happy.
More alarms went off, and then suddenly a mouse in a clown costume flew through an open window. Its giant floppy clown feet made it trip as soon as it hit the floor.
“We’re onto you, Sniffleton!” cried an alien mouse as it burst through a different window. “We know you were in the garage!”
An Egyptian mummy mouse fell through the ceiling. “Give us the plans, Sniffleton, there’s no use fighting!” But Mrs. Sniffleton clearly wasn’t in the mood for talking. With swift karate chops, she dinged the clown and sent the mummy flying across the room. She grabbed the plans and stuffed them into her bag.
More mice came pouring in through the open window, mice dressed as ghosts, superheroes, wizards, and witches. All were grasping at Mrs. Sniffleton’s bag. Just as it seemed like they would get it, she furrowed her brow and disappeared.
The mice fell to the floor . . .
. . . and all looked up at Dino and Possum, who were too stunned by the cast of costumed characters to have really moved at all.
But now they moved. Possum grabbed Plant and jumped on Dino’s back, and Dino made her trademark exit. They scrambled down the branches, leaving mummies, clowns, and aliens in their wake.
CHAPTER NINE
NO CLUES LEFT
When they felt like they were far enough away from the tree, Dino slowed down, and Possum jumped off to walk by her side with Plant. “Well, there is only one thing to do now,” said Possum.
Eat pizza, thought Dino. Lots of pizza. “I’m thinking the same thing, Possum. We need to eat. Then we can get back on the case.”
After a full afternoon on the case, Possum was tired. He had seen enough pizza-stealing fairies and costumed mice. “I’ve had enough for tonight, Dino. I want to go home.”
“Home?” asked Dino. “We finally get a BIG CASE, and you want to give up? All we need is a quick snack, and then back to it.”
“Back to what?” snapped Possum. “We have no more leads, no more ideas. I know YOU would like to run blindly into the night, but I’m tired, Dino! I’ve been chasing you around all day! Maybe if you had STOPPED to THINK for a minute before smashing through walls and falling into traps, we might have solved the case already!”
“If I had stopped and thought more, we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have!”
“Fine! I’m going home!”
With that, Possum stomped off toward home, and Dino was left alone. She wondered about continuing the investigation on her own. But Possum was right. She had no leads, no clues to follow. Reluctantly, she headed back home.
As soon as she walked in, Dino immediately thought about eating the evidence, but thought that would probably make Possum even more angry.
Instead, she went upstairs to find Possum already in bed, sound asleep and snoring loudly. In spite of her rumbling tummy, Dino had to admit that she was sleepy, too.
But when she lay down, her mind spun with thoughts about the case. The pepperoni, the mice, Mrs. Sniffleton. One thing in particular kept playing over in Dino’s mind. Mrs. Sniffleton had mentioned something about sleepwalking through the investigation.
Sleepwalking?
Investigation?
Possum?
Dino drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER TEN
YOU DUNNIT
At first, Dino thought that the sounds were coming from her stomach. But as she slowly woke up, she realized that it was less a gurgling and rumbling and more a clanging and chomping.
And it was coming from downstairs.
“Wake up, Possum!” hissed Dino. “The thief is back to finish the job!”
But Possum did not respond, not even to snore.
Dino had to do something. She picked up Plant for backup and crept downstairs, ready to catch the thief in the act.
As she approached the door of the kitchen, she heard more chewing and chomping. She peered inside and saw that the fridge was open. A shadowy figure stood at the fridge door, rummaging around.
“No, Mr. Timms, that is my slice . . . ,” muttered the figure groggily.
Mr. Timms? thought Dino. He’s in on it, too?
Dino was ready to pounce. She wished that Possum were here. But what would Possum do? He would tell her to wait and watch, to gather information. But this was no time to wait. It was time for action. The figure stepped away from the fridge, with a large slice of Grandma Thunderclaps’s pizza in its paws.
“GOTCHA!” Pizza flew into the air, and Dino tumbled to the floor with the flailing thief.
A struggle! A real, Butch Malone–like struggle! There was rolling and grasping and an awful lot of confusion. Dino struggled to grab a pizza slice from the thief’s hands . . .
. . . but wait a sec, these hands seemed familiar . . .
“Possum!?”
Possum looked up groggily at Dino. “Dino? What’s going on?”
“I was about to ask you the same question. You’re supposed to be asleep, remember. Thought you’d help yourself to a midnight treat inst
ead?”
Dino looked suspiciously at Possum. She’d caught him red-handed, paws deep in the pizza. But something didn’t add up. This didn’t sound like something Possum would do . . .
Unless . . .
Dino realized why she couldn’t get Mrs. Sniffleton’s words out of her head. Suddenly, it all became clear.
“Possum! It was you! You are the pepperoni thief!”
“What? What are you talking about? It couldn’t have been me! I was asleep the whole afternoon.”
“Exactly! You said you were dreaming. Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”
“Mr. Timms! We were flying through space, eating pizz—”
Possum looked down at his pizza-covered hands.
He could taste the pizza sauce slathered all over his pizza-covered face.
Could it be true? The dream that afternoon had been so real, so vivid. At least, he thought it had been a dream . . .
“Sleepwalking!” cried Dino. “It was you! You must have come down here this afternoon, eaten the pizza, and then gone back to bed. All while asleep. It explains the bites, it explains why there was no sign of anyone else. And you do particularly like pepperoni.”
“You’ve done it, Dino! You solved the crime!”
“We’ve done it!” cried Dino. “We cracked the case! It’s a good thing we didn’t get distracted by those mice. What were they doing, anyway?”
“Never mind, Dino. Whatever it was, we didn’t have time, not when there was such serious detective work to do.”
EPILOGUE
The next morning, Possum woke to a familiar smell drifting up from the kitchen. He stumbled sleepily downstairs to find Dino sitting at the kitchen table with Dad, and Grandma Thunderclaps pulling something out of the oven.
“Good morning, dears!” said Grandma. “Fresh pizza, just for you!”
Possum sat down, ready to munch. Dad didn’t look up from his paper. “Morning, Possum. Have you read the news this morning? Crazy goings-on in town last night. Apparently, the town’s mice were . . . ”
Something caught Possum’s eye as he tuned Dad out.
“Dino, why are you only wearing one sock?” Possum asked.
“ . . . and they would have gotten away with it if your school lunch lady hadn’t . . . ,” Dad continued, uninterrupted.
“It’s all I’ve got left,” answered Dino, chomping on pizza. “It’s funny. I keep losing socks, but only one at a time.”
Dad carried on. “But still, no one knows why. It’s some kind of huge mystery.”
Possum froze. His mind whirred with the magnitude of what was happening (and it was also quite difficult to tune out the droning on of his father).
Possum’s socks had been mysteriously vanishing, too.
Every day it seemed that he found a newly single sock in his drawer. It had been happening for weeks now. Could it be a coincidence that they were both losing socks? Surely not.
But who would do such a thing?
Who would commit such a terrible crime?
This sounded like a case for:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tadgh Bentley is a picture book author and illustrator originally from the UK, now living in the Hocking Hills of Ohio with his wife, Emily, and puppy, Atticus. He is also the author-illustrator of Little Penguin Gets the Hiccups; Samson: The Piranha Who Went to Dinner; and Little Penguin and the Lollipop. You can visit him online at www.tadghbentley.com.
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The Case of the Nibbled Pizza Page 2
