by Doug Cornett
Shanks bit her lip. “Well, we stole that one duck. But not from the storage shed! From Mr. Babbage’s backyard!”
“Mmm-hmm,” Portnoy said skeptically. Then he turned serious. “I think we ought to have a little chat. Now, you kids are not under arrest. In fact, this isn’t even an official police interview. If it was, I’d have to call your parents.” He burped again and slid his gaze across the three of us. “And I’m guessing you guys aren’t too eager to get them involved.”
All three of us shook our heads simultaneously. Our parents getting a phone call from the police telling them we were suspects in multiple crimes was about as appealing as thumb-wrestling King Kong. Besides, we were innocent. We just needed to convince Portnoy of that.
“Okay, then. But I do have some questions for you. So let’s call this a—blarpuh! Er, excuse me. Let’s call this a friendly chat.”
Portnoy placed Mister E back on the lean-to roof, then twirled around like a clumsy ballerina, surveying the surroundings for a good place to sit. When he didn’t find any, he awkwardly folded himself into a cross-legged perch on the ground. The One and Onlys sank to our bottoms, too.
“Well, that was fun while it lasted,” Peephole whimpered.
“The investigation?” I asked.
“No, my life,” he said. “Looks like the rest of it will be spent in a jail cell.”
My voice cracked as I pleaded, “I know it looks bad, Officer Portnoy, but we’re completely innocent. In fact, we’re investigating the duckies ourselves.”
“You’re…investigating?” Portnoy asked, shifting his weight around in an attempt to get more comfortable. He reached into his shirt pocket, felt around for a minute, and came out with a roll of Tums. He popped three into his mouth and crunched them loudly.
“That’s right,” Peephole said. “We’re detectives.”
“Is that so? Okay, kids, I want to believe you. So let’s clear a few things up.” He leaned forward, trying to rest his elbows on his knees. After a few seconds he thought better of it and leaned back again. “Let’s start with Mr. Pocus’s bushes. Do you know Mr. Pocus?”
Reluctantly we nodded. “He was our teacher,” I said.
“Was he a good teacher?”
“Would Godzilla make a good house pet?” Peephole answered.
“Peephole!” Shanks hissed.
“What?” Peephole shot back defiantly. “Mr. Pocus was a horrible teacher. Everybody knows that. He made fourth grade feel like a yearlong wet willie. Don’t believe me? Go ask Antarctica Boy!”
“Who?” Portnoy grunted.
“Never mind,” Peephole said. “Mr. Pocus is the worst. But we didn’t touch his tomato plants.”
“Then what were you doing in that neighborhood? And why are your knees and hands covered in dirt?”
The three of us exchanged looks. It seemed to me like we didn’t have many options. “I think we should tell him everything,” I said.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Portnoy agreed.
“Okay, it goes like this,” Shanks began, and she launched into the story of our investigation. She told him about the duckies and then went on to our visit with Babbage and the retrieval of Tina Fish, all the way through to the burial, which explained why we were dirty. When she left details out, Peephole and I supplied them. Portnoy crossed and recrossed his legs as he listened, tugging occasionally at his mustache. His eyebrows poked up a little when I mentioned what Babbage had to say about Mr. Pocus, specifically his Isaac Newton quote about getting what’s coming to him.
When we were done, Portnoy squinted at us for a disconcertingly long time. I had to fight the urge to wave a hand in front of his face to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep with his eyes open. Finally, he said, “And if I call up Ms. Tuff, she’ll confirm that you brought the fish to her this afternoon?”
We nodded.
“And if I called up your parents, they’d confirm that you were each at home last night?”
We nodded.
He sighed and stretched out his legs in front of him, speaking in a soft grumble: “I’ll be straight with you kids. First of all, I don’t much care about Pocus’s tomatoes.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “He’s a grump. It’s true. And between you and me, it’s probably just an old-fashioned neighborly dispute. Second of all, I believe you. You haven’t supplied me with any real evidence to absolve yourselves, so I’m not entirely sure why I believe you. But I do. Call it a hunch. Or maybe it’s that your story is so weird that nobody could make it up.”
The three of us breathed out deep sighs of relief.
He continued, “What interests me most is the duckies. Not how they got to Babbage’s lawn to begin with, because that’s not really a crime, is it?” His voice suddenly turned sharp. “But when somebody breaks into a police facility and steals our property”—he swung his fist down for emphasis, probably forgetting that he wasn’t sitting at his desk—“now that’s a crime worth investigating. And I don’t think you kids had anything to do with it. For one, dispatch told me they found tire tracks leading away from the storage shed, and you aren’t even close to being able to drive. She also told me the lock was destroyed. Seems like somebody took a hammer, or some other blunt object, and went to town on it until it broke. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you don’t strike me as hardened criminals.” He was looking at Peephole, who had sweat pouring from his head like a leaky watering can.
“Thanks,” I said, “for believing us.”
“Somebody really wanted those duckies, huh?” Shanks said, jumping up to her feet. “But who? You got any leads? Want to compare notes? When do we get to see the crime scene?”
“You three? Never,” Portnoy muttered, casting a stern look at Shanks.
“It sounds like a pretty complicated case,” I said, trying a softer approach. “We’re really good detectives. Maybe we could collaborate?”
A little smile poked out from under Portnoy’s mustache. I’d seen that smile before: it meant he wasn’t taking us seriously. “You kids let the real police do their work. I can assure you that—blurf—excuse me. I can assure you that we will handle—blop.” He raised a finger to his mouth and blew out a defeated sigh. “I’m working on a spicy bratwurst recipe for the Triple B this weekend,” he explained with an embarrassed shrug. “I’ve always wanted to enter a dish, but I never thought I could do it. This year I figured, why not? But it’s repeating on me. I think I—bloomp—know where I went wrong.” He raised his index finger to emphasize his point. “See, there’s too much hot sauce in the—” He stopped suddenly, aware that he might be giving us more information than we wanted.
“I understand,” I said, feeling bad for the guy. “It’s anybody’s Bonanza.”
“So what’s the next step?” Peephole asked.
Portnoy raised his eyebrows and gave Peephole a curious look. “Well, for me, the next step is to head back to Mr. Pocus and report that I’ve investigated his damaged-property complaint and the results are inconclusive. Since he’s the chief taster at the Triple B and I don’t want to make him mad, I have to find a way to politely tell him that we probably won’t ever find out who tore up his tomato plants and that I won’t be spending any more of my time investigating it.”
“Good plan,” Peephole said, sounding as if he was one of Officer Portnoy’s deputies. “And what about us?”
“As for you,” Portnoy said, clambering from a squat to a stand, “there is one thing I think you should do. Go home and take a shower. All of you.” He pinched his nose. “Somebody here smells like a dead fish.”
Portnoy had barely disappeared from view when Shanks catapulted up. “Come on! We don’t have much time!”
Peephole blinked at her. “Where are you going?”
“Where do you think? To the police station!” She was hopping in place, but Peephole and I didn’t
budge. “Didn’t you hear Portnoy? He’s heading back to talk to Pocus. If we’re going to investigate the break-in at the storage shed, we have to go now, before he gets back!”
“Didn’t you hear Portnoy?” Peephole countered. “He said to stay away from the storage shed. We could get in real trouble if he catches us meddling with a crime scene.”
“But how do you expect us to solve the case if we don’t evaluate the clues ourselves? We have to take some risks, Peephole!” Shanks said, her voice practically a whine as she edged toward her bike. “Paul, what do you think?”
There it was: I was usually the tiebreaker in their arguments, and now it was up to me. I bit my lip and considered the situation. Peephole was right, of course: it would be bad news for the One and Onlys if Portnoy caught us noodling with the crime scene. Our solving the case of the duckies would be pretty much impossible if we were all grounded for life. On the other hand, I agreed with Shanks. What kind of detectives would we be if we didn’t try to at least get a look at the storage shed? After all, if we were serious about solving this mystery—and I knew I was—this was the only way we could make it happen.
“If we’re going to get there before Portnoy,” I said, rising to my feet and running toward my bike, “we’ll need to take some shortcuts. Follow me!”
As we pushed our bikes through the tall grass out to the road, I noticed that the little wooden stakes with pink ribbons were lining the perimeter of the whole field now. And I saw something else. It was a small sign, poking up from the grass. In neat black letters, it read THE CONQUISTADOR IS COMING.
Seeing the sign sent a little tremble through my body. Hadn’t my parents been whispering about “conquistador”? But now wasn’t the time to contemplate this new development. We were in a race with Portnoy to get to the police station. I made a mental note to investigate the Conquistador more thoroughly when I had more time.
By now, Portnoy was probably walking up to Pocus’s front door. Luckily, nobody knew the secret pathways of Bellwood better than me. First, I busted a quick right into the Sanchez’s driveway, my bike squeaking crazily down the pavement. In second grade, I went to Buddy Sanchez’s house for a birthday party. The clown who was hired to entertain us accidentally crashed his car into the basketball hoop in Buddy’s driveway. We all thought it was part of the act. When the clown got out of the car, twirled for a minute, and then collapsed on the front lawn, we all clapped. I guess it was pretty hard to drive in size twenty-five shoes.
Buddy’s backyard connected to a hidden path that spat you out onto the Winklers’ driveway, which led to Rory Drive. We zipped by Dr. Dave’s Ice Cream Parlor, which had the second-best rocky road in town. Dave, who was not a doctor, turned from wiping down the window and gave us a quick salute. From there, we pedaled through the elementary school playground, then past the water tower that always reminded me of a Martian tripod waiting to attack. Next, we cut through the parking lot of my family’s very own Honest Hardware, just as Bella Tuff was getting into her old blue pickup truck, which barked like a sick sea lion when she started it. And as they always had ever since I’d known her, her brakes squealed so bad that I could still hear them even from a block away.
Finally, we reached the Bellwood police and fire station. We whipped around to the side and skidded up to the ramshackle little building located behind the station. It had flaking navy-blue paint and a sun-bleached roof. My legs burned and my lungs were aching, but we’d made it in record time. And here we were, about to investigate our first real crime scene. All three of us swiveled our heads to and fro to make sure Portnoy was nowhere in sight. We let our bikes rattle to the ground and trotted over to the shed.
“Tire tracks!” Shanks shouted, and then immediately put a hand over her mouth, remembering that we were trying not to draw attention to ourselves.
“They lead right up to the shed,” she continued in a high whisper.
A set of tire tracks zigzagged across the dusty dirt road that led from the storage shed, around the station, and to the road.
“Looks like somebody couldn’t make up their mind,” she said, squatting down and inspecting the tracks up close.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“These tracks.” She pointed. “They’re all over the place. It’s not just a straight line. See?” She stood and walked a wayward pattern, tracing the edges of the tire tracks in the dirt. “My guess is the driver pulled up to the shed, then decided they would rather have the back of their vehicle against the door.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “That would make it easier to load all of the duckies, if the person was driving a pickup truck.”
“And it would allow for a faster getaway,” Peephole added. “They could just hop in their truck and go.”
“And that’s not all.” Shanks was on a roll. “Look at all these short track marks. Only a couple of feet here in this direction, then a few feet in that direction. Seems like they did a lot of reversing for a pretty simple turn-around. And look!” She hurried over to a cement post at the edge of a dirt path, and bent down to inspect something on the ground. “Broken red glass!”
“Broken red glass?” Peephole repeated slowly, pulling absentmindedly at his ear. “I’ve got it! What if it’s from some expensive piece of jewelry that the thief was wearing? And what if it broke while they were stealing the ducks? Or what if the thief wears red-tinted glasses, and they fell and smashed during the robbery? All we need to do is find a person who is…uh…not wearing red glasses. Or wait…um….”
Shanks scratched her nose. “Actually, I think it’s from a taillight. The thief probably bumped his truck against this cement pole.” She leaned in close to the pole. “Look! There are scratches of green paint here. That must be where the truck’s bumper backed into it.”
“Oh…yeah,” Peephole agreed, but he was clearly deflated.
“It was a good idea, though,” I offered, but Peephole didn’t look like he wanted my encouragement.
“Let’s take a look at the busted lock,” I suggested.
We huddled around the door to the shed, which had a latch rather than a doorknob. The paint around the latch was chipped more than the rest of the door, and a broken padlock was on the ground.
“Somebody really did a number on this lock,” I said.
Shanks whistled. “A lock like this would require a lot of force to break, and with something heavy. A hammer is my guess.”
Suddenly, the door to the shed swung open from the inside, and the three of us fell back onto the ground, startled. A pair of muddy sneakers stood before us. I followed the legs up to see a familiar figure standing in the doorway, a stack of little orange training cones in her hands, and her short black hair poking out from the bottom of a yellow baseball cap.
“Janice?” I said.
“Paul? Is that you?” My neighbor and old babysitter peered down at the three of us with her forest-green eyes and a curious grin. Her red T-shirt and yellow cap had the same words printed on them in block letters: BELLWOOD FIRE DEPARTMENT. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Uh…” I wracked my brain to come up with a good excuse for snooping around the police storage shed. I shot desperate glances at Peephole and Shanks, but they just returned them. “Are those…cones?” was all I could manage.
“Yep,” Janice said, taking the dumb question in stride. “We’re helping Byron set up for our field exercises.” She stepped aside, and through the door we could see several other kids wearing the same red shirt and yellow cap, unloading more cones from a row of lockers against the opposite wall. “Oh! You guys must be here to sign up for the Bellwood Junior Firefighters. Is that it? It’s really fun!”
Behind me, the sound of a car door slamming caught my attention. I turned to see Officer Portnoy standing next to his police cruiser, arching his back and stretching his arms to the sky. He removed his
hat and scratched the top of his head. With a fist to his chest, he burped.
“Junior Firefighters?” Peephole repeated inquisitively. “Actually, we’re here to—”
“That’s right!” I cut him off. “We’re here to sign up!” I hopped to my feet, pulling Peephole and Shanks up as well. “Well, we’re here to learn more about the Junior Firefighters. And then we’ll decide if we want to join.” I shuffled us all past Janice into the shed, out of Portnoy’s line of vision.
“What are you doing?” Peephole whispered, annoyed at being yanked around like a dog on a leash.
“Portnoy’s back,” I said quietly enough so Janice couldn’t hear. “This will be our cover story if he sees us.”
Janice stepped back into the shed with us. She was smiling. “Well, I understand why you’re interested in joining. The forest fires this summer have kinda freaked me out, too. When the air starts to get smoky, I feel so helpless, like there’s nothing I can do. But then I realized I can do something, and that’s why I’m here.”
“That’s cool,” Shanks said, with genuine admiration in her voice. “So you guys are, like, out there fighting the fires?”
“Yeah!” Janice said, then cocked her head. “Well, not me, or any of the other recruits. We’re mostly doing drills and exercises.” She pointed the cones in her hand at a tall red-headed teenager. “Byron is the son of the fire chief, and he’s the chief of the Junior Firefighters. He’s done some training in the helicopters with the real firefighters!”
“Awesome,” Peephole said, staring at Byron.
“Yeah, hopefully someday I’ll get a chance to do something like that, too.” Janice looked at me and smiled. “So, Paul, are your parents getting ready for the Triple B?”
I chuckled. “It seems like they’ve been getting ready their whole lives. But, yeah, they’re taking it pretty seriously this year.”
She rolled her eyes sympathetically. “My parents are, too. For some reason, they think this is going to be their year. Hey, Byron!” she called out, and the nest of red hair turned to us. “Here are a few potential recruits who want to talk to you!” She turned back to us. “I gotta get going, but it was good to see you again, Paul.”
