Hauntings and Heists

by Dan Poblocki

  “Then, Mickey Molynew came down the aisle and knocked into Kyle’s shoulder, obviously on purpose. Kyle banged his shin on the nearest bench. I knew it must have hurt, because those benches are bolted to the floor, but Kyle kept his cool. Still, Mickey shouted out, ‘Watch where you’re walking, nerd!’ You all know Mickey, right?”

  “I don’t,” said Viola, curious. “He’s sounds like a jerk.”

  “You could say that,” Woodrow said. “Mickey is like five times Kyle’s size and sort of terrifying. He’s always wearing these really bright Hawaiian shirts, as if he’s daring you to make fun of him for it. He loves a fight.”

  “Once he gets you in his sights,” said Sylvester, nodding, “it’s a battle to the finish.”

  “Well, Mickey was searching for one,” Woodrow continued. “And even though he scares me, I wasn’t going to let him get away with picking on my friend.

  “Kyle noticed how angry I was, so he grabbed my sleeve. ‘Forget him. Coach Winslow can see us.’ He nodded at the gym teacher’s office door, which is right next to the locker room’s entrance. ‘If we fight, we’ll get detention.’ I was nervous that Mickey might try to shove Kyle into one of the tall lockers, like I’d seen him do to other kids. Then Mickey bolted out of there, so I figured we should too. But it wasn’t over.

  “In math class, just as Mrs. Frankle began passing out the quiz, Mickey told her that his textbook had been stolen after school the day before — and that one of his friends had seen Kyle breaking into his gym locker to swipe it from the top shelf. Mickey claimed that he hadn’t been able to study for the quiz.

  “Kyle turned strawberry red. When Mrs. Frankle asked him if that was true, Kyle whispered that he’d never steal anything from anyone.

  “Mrs. Frankle doesn’t know Mickey the way the rest of us do. I think she’s blinded by his ridiculous Hawaiian shirts. So she had no way of knowing which of them was telling the truth. She finished handing out the quiz and told both of them that they could sort this whole problem out at the principal’s office when they were finished.

  “Mickey needed to have the last word. He asked, ‘But I can make up the quiz once he gives me my book back, right, Mrs. Frankle?’ She agreed that he could, if in fact Kyle had taken it in the first place. Kyle rolled his eyes, but then got to work.

  “After class, when everyone had left the room, I went up to Mrs. Frankle and told her that I was certain I knew which of them was lying. Do you know?”

  “It was Mickey, of course. Still, Mrs. Frankle just stared at me, as if she needed to know more before she could make any decisions. She wanted proof. Where do you think I found it?”

  “In the locker room before class, I saw the inside of Kyle’s locker. His stuff was piled at the bottom. The locker room lockers are different than the hall lockers. They’re taller. Kyle had to bend down to pick up his math notebook. He’s not tall enough to reach the shelf. Since Mickey accused Kyle of taking his textbook from the top shelf in his gym locker, I knew he must be lying.

  “Mrs. Frankle crossed her arms. ‘Kyle could easily have used the bench to climb to the top shelf,’ she told me.

  “‘Not true,’ I answered.

  “‘Why not?’ she asked.

  “‘All the benches in the locker room are bolted to the floor,’ I answered, ‘so he couldn’t have moved one over to the lockers.’

  “Mrs. Frankle still wasn’t happy. ‘He might have jumped,’ she said. I knew he hadn’t, and I told her so. ‘How can you be so sure?’ she asked.

  “Kyle couldn’t have jumped, because he hurt his ankle earlier that week. Besides, if Kyle had come back into the locker room after class was over, Coach Winslow would have noticed. His office is right next to the door.

  “Mrs. Frankle was finally convinced. For her proof, all she needed to do was check with Coach Winslow, who confirmed that Kyle had not returned to the locker room before it had been locked up for the night.

  “Kyle told me that Mrs. Frankle apologized to him, especially since he managed to get an A-minus on the quiz, even under all that pressure. Mickey, on the other hand, failed the quiz, was not allowed to retake it, and ended up in detention that afternoon. In fact, Kyle says that when the faculty checked Mickey’s locker, the math textbook was sitting up on the top shelf, untouched … probably since the beginning of school.

  “Just goes to show that if you’re going to start accusing people of stealing your stuff, you better make sure that your stuff is actually missing.”

  11

  THE MYSTERY OF

  THE EARLY MORNING VANDAL

  (A ? MYSTERY)

  “That is amazing, Woodrow!” said Viola. “You solved the mystery and helped out your friend. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Woodrow’s smile grew extra-wide. “Hey, speaking of weird accusations, I’ve got another story.

  “A couple nights ago, after dinner, my parents turned on the police scanner, and we listened to the strange reports people were calling in. I know it’s an odd family activity, but my mom used to have to do that sort of thing for her job in Philly, and we all got into it. And you all know how much I like a good mystery.” She laughed.

  “One of the calls was a complaint from an elderly man about a suspicious car he’d noticed crawling really slowly through this neighborhood every morning, just before dawn. What the old man was doing up that early, he didn’t say. But he did mention that whoever was driving this car was vandalizing his neighbors’ houses.”

  “In this neighborhood?” said Sylvester.

  Viola nodded. “He claimed that the driver was throwing heavy objects, possibly water balloons, which would smack into the front porches. The man was worried his house would be next. The police planned a stakeout the next morning.

  “I decided to have a stakeout of my own. I set my alarm clock for super-early. I crawled out of bed before dawn, dug around in my detective kit, and pulled out the binoculars that my grandparents got me for my ninth birthday — back when I thought I might want to be a spy, just like Harriet in those old books.

  “I crawled downstairs, happy not to hear any eerie tapping noises. Then I crouched behind the loveseat near the front window, hiding just under the windowsill so I had a great view up and down the road.

  “For a long time, nothing happened, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I think I dozed off for a minute or two, but I jolted awake when I heard an engine puttering up the street. I peered up the hill just as that black car let out a big bang and disappeared over the horizon. Its noisy exhaust pipe was backfiring again. I still don’t know who that car belongs to, but I’m dying to find out just so I can tell him to fix it!”

  “I think I heard it again this morning too,” said Rosie. “It woke me up and everything.”

  “So annoying!” Viola said. “Anyway, a few minutes later, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, and I was about to give up. But then I heard another car coming up the road. This one was a small blue hatchback. To my surprise, I saw the driver throw something hard out the window. The object flew across Rosie’s yard and hit her front porch.”

  “It did?” Rosie said, sounding scared.

  Viola nodded. “But the driver did the same thing again in front of my house. Suddenly, all thoughts of vandalism flew out of my head. The guy was only doing his job. Do you have a clue who he was?”

  “It was the newspaper delivery guy. Some high-school kid with a route. In fact, he was delivering the Moon Hollow Herald, the paper my mom works for! The old man who had complained to the police was just being paranoid.”

  “What a weirdo!” said Woodrow.

  “Don’t be mean,” said Rosie. “My grandparents get confused sometimes too. We all do, in fact.”

  “Sorry.” Woodrow blushed. “But, hey, I’ve seen that black car driving around. It looks like that one Mr. Reynolds drove.” He glanced at Viola. “He lived in that weird old house across the street from you.”

  “The car might have come from across the street
,” said Viola. “I could have missed it when I closed my eyes.”

  “Yeah,” said Rosie. “But I thought that house was empty. My dad told me Mr. Reynolds died in there last year.”

  “Weird,” said Viola. “Maybe someone else bought his car. Maybe they bought the house too.”

  “But there was never any For Sale sign out front,” Rosie said, rubbing her arms, as if chilled.

  “Speaking of strange cars,” Sylvester added, “listen to this.”

  12

  THE HOLE IN THE TRUNK

  (A ?? MYSTERY)

  “A few days ago, I was doing my homework at the diner counter when two teenagers, Derek and James, came in and sat down a few chairs away. Marjorie, our waitress, knows them pretty well and asked for their order, but they could barely stop their conversation to glance at her. Marjorie doesn’t take nonsense from any of the customers, but she also can’t pass up a bit of gossip, so she interrupted them and demanded to know what was so important that they couldn’t even order their usual root beer floats. I, of course, listened in stealthily … if that’s even a word.”

  “Technically,” said Viola, “I think it is.”

  “Derek and James are next-door neighbors and best friends. They live up in the hills past Loon Lake. Whenever they come into the diner, they always seem to have something to argue about, like whose favorite team is going to win the playoffs, or who’s going to ask out Tamara Gillespie first, or which of them has a higher grade point average. They’re always in competition.”

  “I know what that’s like,” said Rosie, thinking of her own siblings.

  “Derek had just bought his first car—a used Buick. Big as a boat and bright green. He was really excited about it. Anyway, the morning before, Derek was woken by a massive boom from outside. It sounded like a gunshot or a cannon, he said.”

  “Hey, maybe that black car was driving around up there?” Woodrow suggested.

  Sylvester shook his head. “You’d think so, but no. It was something completely different. Derek scrambled out of bed and raced out to the driveway where he’d parked his new car. When he saw it, he screamed. There was a huge, smoking hole punched all the way through the Buick’s trunk. The back tires were flattened. He was certain that someone had vandalized the car.

  “Furious, he ran across the yard and pounded on James’s front door. James had already been woken up by the sound of the explosion, and once he answered the door, Derek accused James of being jealous of him having a car first. James freaked out, angry that Derek would even think he was capable of doing something like this.

  “After Derek calmed down and came to his senses, he apologized. Then, together, they decided that they would find whoever did this … and they would destroy him.”

  “Yeah!” said Woodrow, rubbing his hands together.

  “They examined every inch of the car, looking for clues, and figured that the only way the damage was even possible was by gunshot. But what kind of gun could punch a hole through a car?

  “Finally, James looked at the driveway underneath the hole. To his surprise, he found a deep indentation in the asphalt itself, almost like a small crater. He instantly knew that this had not been caused by a gun. Inside the crater, James said he found the evidence to prove that, in fact, no one had vandalized the car. Any clue what James found?”

  “James reached under the car and pulled out a fist-size, pockmarked piece of metal. It was warm to the touch. It didn’t look like any sort of bullet or cannonball. In fact, they said it didn’t look like anything they’d ever seen. At first they were confused. Passing the piece of metal back and forth, they began to comprehend their awesome situation.”

  “Where did the chunk of metal come from?” asked Rosie.

  “Outer space! Based on the crater and the damage to the car, the boys believed that Derek was the victim of an extremely rare meteorite fall.”

  “Hey!” said Woodrow. “I watched a meteor shower from my bedroom window a few nights ago. There were a few really bright ones. Maybe that was when it happened.”

  “Wow, cool!” said Sylvester. “I wish I’d seen that. Anyway, the boys went back inside and did some research online. They found out that, in the past century, small meteorites had crashed through several other cars, and even some roofs!

  “They called the police to report the accident. Since then, some scientists have already been up to their street to examine the damage. In fact, Derek says a museum offered to pay him for the meteorite … and for the car itself. He says he’s thinking of using the money to buy a brand-new one.”

  “That’s an amazing story,” said Rosie. “Maybe we could all go up to the house and see if the crater is really there.”

  “I’m sure Derek wouldn’t mind,” said Sylvester. “He is a regular at the diner, after all.”

  That Saturday morning, the group rode their bikes up into the hills and found a crater nearly three feet in diameter in Derek’s driveway. In the pavement, several giant cracks reached out from the center of the hole. It was as impressive as they’d hoped it would be. Derek came out of his house and, recognizing Sylvester, said hello with a look of pride that he had suddenly become a local celebrity.

  The group didn’t stay long. Woodrow and Sylvester were taking the train down to New York City that afternoon to meet up with Woodrow’s father. They were staying the night. The next day, Mr. Knox was taking the boys to a comic book show.

  While Woodrow and Sylvester were gone, the girls decided that they would hang out at Viola’s house.

  As it turned out, their weekends were quite eventful.

  On Monday afternoon, at the Four Corners, the group had plenty to talk about.

  13

  THE MYSTERY OF THE GREEN MOOSE

  (A ??? MYSTERY)

  “After you guys left for the city,” Viola began, “Rosie came over for lunch. It’s a good thing she did, because we ended up helping my mom solve another crime.”

  “What?” said Woodrow. “Again?”

  Rosie chuckled as Viola continued. “At the kitchen table, Mom was writing an article about a dispute between two local men. We asked her to explain the details, figuring that maybe we could help.

  “Mr. Fredericks owns an antiques shop at the edge of town. My parents took me by there when we first moved here. You’ve probably seen the place. The building is an old barn, and there’s a whole bunch of junk outside leaning against one of the walls near the gravel parking lot. Inside, there’s real neat stuff—lots of old books and toys and furniture—piled right up to the rafters.

  “So, last week, Mr. Klein, who runs a local dairy farm, happened to come into the shop. He noticed a moose-shaped, green-copper weather vane for sale. He approached Mr. Fredericks and told him that this very weather vane had once belonged to his grandfather, who had purchased it from an artisan way back in the nineteen thirties. The weather vane had sat atop the dairy barn on Klein’s farm until several years ago, when someone had stolen it. Mr. Klein was really upset and demanded that Mr. Fredericks give it back.

  “Mr. Fredericks refused, insisting that he himself had crafted the moose many years ago, but had kept it in storage. Only recently had he decided to sell it—so he reasoned that Mr. Klein had made a mistake. This was a different moose than the one that had been stolen from the dairy. When Mr. Klein began to argue, Mr. Fredericks accused him of making up the story about the theft in order to get the weather vane for free. Furious, Mr. Klein stormed out of the shop and went directly to the police, hoping that they could settle the matter.

  “But the police told him that it was one man’s word against the other’s.

  “My mom said it was an interesting story but told us that the case might never be settled because there really was no proof.

  “Well, Rosie and I put our heads together, and after a while, we realized that there was proof. And we used it to figure out who was swindling who.”

  “Which man was telling the truth?” Rosie asked the boys.

  “Mr
. Klein’s claim that the weather vane was stolen from the roof of his barn is the truth,” said Viola. “How did we know?”

  “The fact that the moose is made out of copper but was green proves that the moose spent a lot of time outside. Rosie explained to me that the copper had oxidized, which means a chemical reaction occurred that made the metal change to a greenish hue when it was exposed to water. Years of rain and snow while sitting on top of the dairy barn turned the moose the same color as the Statue of Liberty.”

  “So what does that prove?” asked Woodrow.

  “Mr. Fredericks claimed that he’d kept the moose in storage since he’d crafted it himself a few years ago. If that was true, the moose would have been shiny and penny-colored. Since Mr. Fredericks obviously made up his story, we reasoned that he might have actually been the thief. We certainly had no proof of that, but my mom contacted Mr. Klein and told him how he could get his moose back. When Mr. Klein approached Mr. Fredericks again — this time armed with our argument — Mr. Fredericks gave in.

  “To thank us, Mr. Klein gave us each a month’s worth of farm-fresh dairy. Rosie and I are going to teach ourselves how to make ice cream. You guys can help too if you want.”

  The boys glanced at each other, then quickly nodded.