by Dave Keane
“FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, WAS THAT YOUR FATHER?” my mom hollers on the other end of the phone. “WHAT ON EARTH HAVE YOU CHILDREN DONE TO HIM!”
“No! Mom! Wait! That wasn’t Dad! That was just an evil spirit or something. I swear…. In fact, we can’t even find Dad.”
“Can’t find him? He can’t even walk. How could you lose your father?” she asks so loudly that I have to hold the phone a few inches from my ear.
“We didn’t exactly lose him,” I explain. “He just sort of vanished into thin air. Poof!”
“Your father poofed?” she blurts out, like she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
“Are you telling me someone has kidnapped your father?” she shouts.
“Kidnapped?” I sputter. “I never said….” This conversation is getting out of hand. I need to get control of this situation or I’ll be grounded until I’m a grandfather. “No, Mom. I don’t think he’s been kidnapped,” I say calmly into the phone. “Although I can’t be sure…because I’m not at home.”
“I’m taking the next flight home!” my mom exclaims, but not to me. I think she’s talking to Aunt Peachy. She’s in full panic mode.
“Sherlock, stay where you are. And stay away from the toilet!” The phone goes dead in my ear.
It’s at that moment I notice an enormous, strange van. The van jerks to a stop. Searching eyes stare at me from the passenger-side window.
Chapter Fifteen
Strangers in a Strange Land
“Nice backpack, kid,” a deep, grumbly voice says from the darkened passenger-side window of the van.
I gulp.
“You better get home and avoid the street tonight,” says Mr. Deep Voice.
The van rolls slowly past and into the darkness. I watch the two taillights fall away into the mist like the red eyes of a dragon.
“You’re not the boss of me,” my voice peeps. I want to sound tough and brave, but I sound more like a nervous guinea pig.
Who was that? Why were their headlights off? Could they be the ones trying to scare the Ashers off their property? Were they trying to scare me off my first official case as a private detective?
“The plots thickens,” I say to nobody, although I’m really thinking that if the plot thickens any more it’ll start to feel like quicksand.
I feel goose bumps crawl across my back, skitter up my neck, and spread across my scalp like a herd of spiders.
I remember something that my dad is always telling me: “Son, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.”
This really drives me nuts.
The truth is, when you’re really scared you can’t think about anything. Your body simply switches into autopilot and starts growing goose bumps like crazy. So in order to keep myself from looking like a plucked chicken all night, I decide to get organized.
I pull out the pencil and pad of paper Hailey put in the backpack. To organize my thoughts I make a list of the many puzzling facts of this case.
I read my list over. I realize I’ve simply organized my confusion.
I pull Hailey’s Girl Chat Sleepover flashlight out of the backpack. I stagger across Mr. Asher’s lawn and turn the corner. I lower my smallish chin, determined to make a major break in the case, goose pimples or no goose pimples.
One clue. One footprint. One trace of evidence is all I need. No detective likes going home empty handed. And neither do I.
Of course, the one clue I do end up finding is so shocking, so unexpected, it will change the way I think about fingers forever.
Chapter Sixteen
Can I See a Show of Hands?
“Red Leader. This is Blue Fox. Do you copy? Over.”
I forgot about the Girl Chat Sleepover walkie-talkie. Although I turned down the volume, Hailey’s voice is loud enough to make me jump.
“Did you find Dad?” I ask hopefully.
“Uh, that’s a negative, Red Leader. Please refer to that person as Hot Skunk for the remainder of the mission. Over!”
“Hot Skunk? You’ve got to be kidding me!” I holler.
“Uh, that’s a negative. Over!” Hailey’s faint voice replies.
“Is Jessie helping you look for him?” I ask.
“That’s a big negative, Red Leader. Happy Fish is not participating in Operation Hot Skunk Rescue. Over.”
“Happy Fish?” I growl into the phone. “Operation Hot Skunk Rescue? Hailey, I don’t have time for this!”
“Please don’t use real names on this freq—”
I turn the thing off before she can finish.
I’m convinced that my little sister is not good for my mental health. I clip the walkie-talkie back onto my belt.
Putting as little pressure as possible on my ballooning ankle, I teeter over to the area under the Ashers’ kitchen window.
I sweep the pink beam of light from the Girl Chat Sleepover flashlight across the ground, looking for any sign of a trespasser. But instead of the footprints I expect to find in the soft dirt under the window, I discover handprints. Deep prints made by long, super size hands with fingers as thick as sausages. Gross! I move the pink circle of light back and forth on the ground, but there are only handprints. Not one footprint? That’s odd.
Handprints? Why would someone walk on their hands like an acrobat to steal bundt cakes and a glass eye? So they wouldn’t leave fingerprints? So their face wouldn’t be seen? Or maybe they couldn’t walk on their feet….
“NO! It can’t be!” I croak.
I clutch my forehead as if to pull the hunch from my mind. But it just grows and spreads and blossoms like all the weeds in our front yard. There’s no escaping it….
The thief could quite possibly be my dad!
Chapter Seventeen
Calling for Backup
It all seems to fit.
My dad is missing. He can’t walk on his feet. He’s been moaning like a ghost because of his gout-infested toe. He’s been acting goofy. And he’s been eating like a vacuum since he dropped Mom off at the airport…and I think he likes bundt cake, too.
Despite the cool, misty air, I start to sweat like a pig in a blanket.
With a jolt of panic, I wrestle the phone from my pocket and punch in the phone number of the one person who can handle something this big. The person who will always stand by me no matter how bad things get.
“Da,” I hear Lance’s grandmother say after the first ring.
“Hello, Grandma Peeker! Sorry to call this late…anyway, I’m wondering if Lance can—”
“Who is this?” Grandma Peeker interrupts.
“Oh, sorry…this is Sherlock,” I say. “Um…I know it’s late, but this may be a matter of life or—”
The phone bangs down like it’s been dropped from the roof of a skyscraper. Whatever happened to phone manners?
Lance’s grandma is odd. She’s short with wide, wiggly arms. She has a drooping, gumdrop-size wart just under her right eye that I try not to look at, but the more I try not to look at it the more I do. I hate that. She smells like old cheese.
“Hiya, Sherlock!” Lance finally says on the other end of the line.
I clear my throat. “Would you like your milk in a bag?”
“What?” Lance asks.
“Would you like your milk in a bag?” I repeat slowly.
“Huh? Sherlock, did you bang your head on something?”
“Would you like your milk in a bag?” I say louder.
“What on earth are you talking about?” he asks.
“WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR STINKING MILK IN A BAG?” I shout.
Lance is quiet for a few moments. I can hear him breathing. “Have you gone completely crazy?” he asks finally.
“No! You knucklehead!” I holler into the phone. “That’s our secret code!”
“Secret code?” he asks, like he’s never heard those two words said together before.
“Yes! The secret code that means you’re supposed to drop everything and come running because your best friend in the whole world n
eeds you! The secret code that we were always going to remember for the rest of our lives!”
“I don’t remember making any secret code with you,” he says.
“What good is an emergency secret code if the only other guy who knows it can’t remember it? Just forget that I called.”
“Well, since you got me out of the bath, you might as well tell me what your big secret-code emergency is all about.”
“I need you to come and help me on a case,” I say, shaking my head because I already know what his answer will be.
“At this hour?” he snorts. “You are crazy. Besides, I just put on my pajamas.”
“C’mon, Lance! I need you on this one,” I beg.
“Sorry, pal, but we’re about to watch the final episode of Bug Chompers,” he says. “It’s the major television event of the season.”
I close the phone on Lance and his bug show. He’s my best friend, but I’m beginning to think he’s allergic to doing anything without a remote control in his hand.
My dad’s cell phone starts vibrating again in my pocket. Oh, brother. Could this night possibly get any worse?
Before I can answer that question, someone rushes up from behind me, grabs Hailey’s Girl Chat Sleepover backpack, and starts to run.
Sadly, I’m still strapped to the dang thing.
Chapter Eighteen
Close Encounter
If being dragged backward through the mud on your butt were an Olympic sport, I would surely win a gold medal.
I raise my arms up like I’m being robbed and slip out of the backpack’s straps. I look back for an instant and see Hailey’s backpack being carried off into the darkness by a short, burly man wearing a big fur coat.
Wild with panic, I sprint for my life.
I crash through thorny bushes. I hurdle neatly trimmed hedges. I scamper through Mr. Alessandri’s army of lawn gnomes. Not bad for a lame duck!
The next thing I know, my right foot knocks the head off a cement garden bunny and I’m belly surfing. I scramble across Mrs. Egan’s shadowy lawn and nearly knock myself silly when I whack my head on a low-hanging bird feeder. I almost suffer a severe panic attack when I become entangled in someone’s garden hose. Worst of all, I can smell boiling cabbage again.
Midway through my mad dash down the obstacle course that is Baker Street, I see the mysterious van again. This time I notice that there is a large painting of a ferocious lion on the side of the van. Before I can figure out exactly what that means, I am spotted. “Hey, kid!” Mr. Deep Voice shouts. But I keep moving. If dogs don’t like me, I can only image what a van full of ferocious lions will think of me.
By the time I reach my front porch, I am completely out of steam. I flop onto my back, gasping.
I begin to relax. I am safe. I will not need an ambulance.
As the night’s disturbing events begin to flutter through my mind, the screen door swings open and almost smashes my head down into my neck.
“AAAGHGH!” I scream, curling up in a ball and grabbing my head.
“What the…Dad, is that you?” Hailey gasps.
The porch light snaps on and I am blinded.
“Oh, it’s just you,” she says, clearly disappointed. “Whoa, you look like something even a cat wouldn’t drag in.”
“Thanks,” I sputter, checking my flattened skull for missing pieces.
“I’ve been calling you and calling you. Why haven’t you answered?” she asks.
I suddenly realize that during all the running, jumping, dragging, and head smashing, I’ve lost my dad’s cell phone. “I don’t have it.”
“It’s probably in the backpack,” she says, looking around.
“I lost that, too,” I say.
“And my walkie-talkie?” she asks.
I look down at my belt. The walkie-talkie is gone also. “You may want to try the area around Mrs. Egan’s bird feeder,” I moan.
“What kind of detective loses more things than he finds?” she says, crossing her arms.
“The three of you have a good point,” I groan as my blurry vision turns my little sister into triplets.
“What if that fresh pair of underwear ends up in the wrong hands?” she asks, just trying to irritate me. “Well, the cops are on their way here to find out what happened to Hot Skunk, so if you don’t want to get blamed for everything, you better find him fast.”
“The police?” I blurt out, leaping to my feet and waiting for my eyes to stop spinning in their sockets. “Dad’s not lost; he’s just misplaced,” I say, pushing my way into the house.
Jessie sighs behind me. “This family’s getting weirder by the minute.”
Chapter Nineteen
Spilling the Beans
Just as I thought, the location of my dad turns out to be not much of a mystery after all.
Two minutes into my search, I try the backyard. I hear him before I see him. He’s snoring somewhere in the backyard like a gas-powered chain saw. I find him sleeping underneath the cushion on one of our reclining patio chairs.
I return to the house and start digging through our kitchen’s many junk drawers for a flashlight. I find six flashlights, but none of them work. Then I remember my Inspector Wink-Wink battery-operated night-lights.
I return to the backyard and quietly check my dad’s hands for mud or dirt that could link him to the Ashers’ property. He’s clean. Whew! That’s a relief. I feel a little tug of guilt for even suspecting him in the first place.
The relief I feel at solving this mini-mystery makes me realize how much the mystery at the Ashers’ house has shaken my confidence. Even worse, it’s almost nine o’clock. As any good detective knows, almost all mysteries that can be solved are solved within the first few hours. My case is getting cold. And so is my dad; his hands feel like a pair of frozen dinners.
I get Jessie off the phone to help with my dad. Not surprisingly, she’s annoyed at the interruption. “Nice night-light, Detective Dimwit,” she says. “Are you wearing matching diapers?” My sister is just a laugh a minute.
We certainly can’t lift him. And we can’t seem to wake him, either. So Jessie and I roll my dad back into the house on the patio chair’s two creaking wooden wheels.
“Easy! Easy up that step, people!” Hailey commands, acting like she’s in charge of us. “Lift from the knees, not from the back. Get your head in the game, Sherlock. Look alive, Jessie!”
We leave Dad and his rolling patio chair parked in the center of the family room. I tell Hailey that she can’t give him any more pain medication until tomorrow.
“He sounds like he might sleep until Halloween anyway,” Hailey says.
“I’m calling Mom,” Jessie announces, marching out of the room. “She needs to know that I’ve got everything under control.” Moments later her bedroom door slams shut.
I shake my head. “Boy, I’d like to be a fly in the ointment,” I say.
Hailey laughs. “I think you mean a fly on the wall. Sherlock, you look like you were on the wrong end of an avalanche.”
“You wouldn’t believe the half of it.”
“Step into my office, big brother,” she says, pulling me down the hall to her room.
For some reason, I tell Hailey everything about my case. It just comes pouring out. The farting granny. The vanishing bundt cakes. The missing mailbox. The runaway eye. The chunky handprints. The burly backpack thief. Even the giant van with the lions on the side. “There are two hundred pieces to this puzzle, and none of them seem to fit together,” I grumble.
“Is there anything else?” she asks.
“Isn’t that enough?” I ask. “Oh…I also shortened a cement bunny.”
I don’t think she’s really listening. She bites her lip. She nods. She taps her chin a few times. She looks as if she’s trying to figure out whether my head will ever return to its original shape.
“I think I know what you’ve been overlooking,” she finally says.
“You do?” I exclaim, sitting up straight.
>
Before Hailey can say anything else, Jessie sticks her head into the room and giggles. “Uh, Sherlock, there’s an Officer Lestrade at the door about Dad. But he also wants to ask you something about a broken garden bunny.”
Hailey’s eyes grow two sizes. “I thought you were kidding.”
Chapter Twenty
Lightning Strikes
“Holy fandango!” Hailey whispers so loud she might as well be yelling. “We forgot about the cops! We’re surrounded! Quick, hide in my hamper!”
I narrow my eyes at Jessie. “Tell Officer Lestrade to have a seat. We’ll be right out.”
Jessie snickers. “Then I’ll call Mom. She’s gonna love this.”
Once the door clicks shut, I turn back to Hailey.
“Well?” I say.
“Well what?” she whispers back.
“C’mon, Hailey! You were just about to tell me what I’ve overlooked.”
“I was?” she replies.
“HAILEY!”
“Okay! Okay!” she says. “Let’s see…. Oh, I was going to say that you need to stop looking for connections and figure out what’s not connected.”
“Is that supposed to be helpful?” I ask.
“Yes!” she says, standing up straight and lifting her chin. “You’ve made the mistake of trying to put things together when you should be taking them apart.”
I jump to my feet. “I might go to prison in a few minutes for kicking the head off a lawn ornament! You can’t do any better than that?”
“You may have more than just one mystery on your hands. Don’t you see? There may be lots of strange things going on at Mr. Asher’s house, but that doesn’t mean they’re all connected in some way. Get it? Your mailbox mystery may have nothing to do with the missing cakes. The vanishing eye may not be caused by whoever is haunting Mr. Asher’s toolshed. The men in the weird van—”
