by Kirk Scroggs
IÕm Sherlock Holmes,
and if I were still alive, IÕd
use the Magnus Maximus 10X,
for shizzle! It makes small
things look bigger, yo!
Beveled glass, hand carved in the
mountains of Bavaria, Idaho!
Objects look ten times
bigger and twenty times
more disgusting!
Comfortable rubber handle.
Great grip for serves and backhands!
Handy hidden
soup spoon for the
hungry detective!
I just discovered a
secret treasure map
that, for some reason,
just burst into flames!
I just used it to track
strange critter footprints
on the school playground!
KIRK SCROGGS
Snoop
Troop
IT CAME FROM BENEATH
THE PLAYGROUND
Little, Brown and Company
New York Boston
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Kirk Scroggs
Cover art © 2014 by Kirk Scroggs
Cover design by Tracy Shaw
Cover © 2014 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning,
uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the
publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would
like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written
permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected].
Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at lb-kids.com
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content)
that are not owned by the publisher.
First ebook edition: September 2014
ISBN 978-0-316-24273-8
E3
To Isaac
Special thanks to
Steve Deline; Joanna Stampfel-Volpe;
Diane, Corey, Candace, and Charlotte Scroggs;
Camilla and Marisa Deline; Joe Kocian;
Mark Mayes; and a twenty-one-Snoop-Troop
salute to Andrea Spooner, Deirdre Jones,
Tracy Shaw, and the whole Little, Brown crew.
Woo-hoo!
An Important Message
from the Narrator
Yo! Attention, all you wannabe
detectives out there!
Justice needs your help. Some lowlife, sneaker-
sniffin’ criminal is stealing all the fun from the
kids of Murkee Elementary School. Help my
detectives put this creep behind bars. Examine
each page of this case file closely for clues,
especially if you see a magnifying glass like the
one below. I’d help out, but I’m too busy looking
for Rocco the Racketeering Raccoon. Now, where
could that little fleabag be?
Find
Rocco!
Chapter 1
BY THE BOOK
After school at Murkee Elementary...
Silence creeps
over the halls
like a spilled
Blue Raspberry
Icee....
Chalk dust settles on
the cold classroom floors
like volcanic ash....
Tumbleweeds roll
through the empty
playground, tumbling
over and over, like a
narrator who just
won’t shut up....
The day is Wednesday.
The time is 4:25 PM.
Remember that!
All that we hold dear
could depend on it!
That’s fourth-grader Logan Lang sitting in the
dark, dank library, just like she does every day
after school, surrounded by her friends....
And when I say
“friends,” I mean
mystery books,
crime novels,
and twisted tales
of suspense....
They’re all she has in this cold, lonely world.
Okay, I think
they get it. IÕm
a little too into
mystery books.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOGAN
Circumstantial
evidence!
Your efforts
to conceal
the cookies
were futile.
How sweet!
YouÕre making
Mommy
pancakes!
Actually, IÕm
dusting for
fingerprints.
You know, IÕm really a lot
less nerdy these days.
Now, if youÕll excuse me,
I have to ask the librarian
something very important.
Ahem! Do you have any mysteries involving small,
furry animals, preferably of the order Rodentia?
This is her idea of being less nerdy.
You know, you
should really get
out more often.
Oh, thatÕs okay.
I love this stuff!
No, I mean you should
really get out. WeÕve been
closed for an hour!
Miss Perusa, the librarian, gives Logan just
five more minutes to grab as many small, furry
animal mystery books as she can find.
Find the small,
furry animal
mysteries!
But before Logan can check out her giant stack
of books, a voice blares out across the library!
It’s coming from her combination police radio/
lunch box....
It picks up a hundred
frequencies and
smells like bologna
and corn chips.
I REPEAT,
ATTENTION,
ALL UNITS!
ATTENTION,
ALL UNITS!
WE HAVE A CODE BLUE
AT THE CORNER OF
IVANA AND RALPH!
Ivana and Ralph?
ThatÕs the amusement park!
I better get over there, quick!
Logan tries to gingerly tiptoe down the hall
toward the exit when...
It’s Gustavo Muchomacho,
Logan’s arch-nuisance!
He’s conducting his weekly after-school Macho
Cop Club for Kids meeting.
You gotta stop by
todayÕs meeting. Today
IÕm demonstrating
martial-arts police
moves. Plus, Wiggens
brought Cheez Krinkles!
Uh…actually, IÕve got
somewhere to be.
AN EVEN BRIEFER HISTORY
OF GUSTAVO
Freeze,
punk!
I said
freeze,
dirtbag!
You’re headed to a real-life crime
scene, aren’t you? I knew it! Let me
grab my gear and I’ll join you!
Sorry, dude. Crime scenes are
very delicate. They require a highly
skilled master detective. No room
for junior rookie cops.
Oh, I get it! IÕm not good enough
for you! Well, this “rookie” doesnÕt
have time to help you anyway.
I have a Jujitsu Anaconda
Death Grip to demonstrate
on young Wiggens here!
Chapter 2
MERRY-GONE-MISSING
Hurling Rivers Amusement Park...
When Logan arrives, the place is taped off like
an unopened birthday present and crawling
with cops.
That’s Captain Mosely of the Murkee City Police
Department....
Boys, this oneÕs a doozy.
IÕve heard of stolen cars,
stolen paintings, stolen glances
across a crowded room…
but a stolen merry-go-round?
ThatÕs a new one on me!
Sure enough, there’s just a big hole in the ground
where the carousel used to be.
An amusement
park without a
merry-go-round.
ItÕs like a pizza
without pepperoni,
a Christmas
without Santa, a
pig without a tutu.
Look for
evidence!
Cap’n! We got some
pink, fuzzy fibers
over here!
It might be
some sort of
evidence.…Oh,
wait…um…
yummm.…My
bad. It’s just
cotton candy.
You’re right. Um…
yum.…We’re gonna
need more of these
fibers, and maybe
a churro and a diet
root beer.
We’re getting
nowhere here.
I’m gonna go
look for clues.
I don’t think you’re supposed to go past that
police tape.
Good point. Carry on.
Thanks!
Okay, but this is going
to be a pretty boring
book if I donÕt.
What have you got there?
My magnifying
glass and
pad of paper
for sketching
suspects.
I didn’t know you could draw.
Sure I can. HereÕs an
artistÕs rendering of the
notorious TeachersÕ Lounge
Cookie Bandit. Turns out it
was Principal Shrub. I let
him off with a warning.
That was nice of you.
While the cops eat the evidence, Logan sets out
in search of her own clues. Somewhere on the
deserted boardwalk, she gets the
creepy sensation that someone is
hiding nearby.
Who’s
hiding?
Suddenly,
a sniffly old man bursts out
of a pile of stuffed animals!
It’s Izzy Hurling,
owner of Hurling
Rivers Amusement
Park, and he’s quite
sneezy.
Gesundheit,
Mr. Hurling.
Don’t
let ’em get
away!!!
Don’t let
who get
away?
The ones who
stole my
merry-go-round!
Don’t worry—
I brought my trusty
doodle pad.
Why,
thank you!
Actually,
that paper’s
for sketching
suspects.
Oh.
Listen to Old Man Hurling’s
description and draw
the culprit on a piece
of scratch paper, the
chalkboard, or your
mom’s favorite tablecloth!
They were really short and pudgy
with brown, spiky hair all over.
They had itty-bitty beady eyes.
Their snouts were pointy.
Their arms and legs were stubby.
They had long claws that were
covered in dirt.
Is this what
they looked like?
Eeegah! ThatÕs
them! There
were hundreds
of Õem! Keep it
away from me!
You again? IÕve warned you about
trespassing on crime scenes. This place is
crawling with stuffed animals, candy, and
arcade games—itÕs no place for a kid!
But, Captain, Old Man Hurling just gave
me a description of the suspects. I think
weÕre dealing with criminal moles!
Moles, eh?
That would
explain the
big hole in
the ground.
I got the moles
cornered over
here! I keep tryinÕ
to whack Õem, but
they just dart
back in their holes!
ItÕs gonna be a
loooooong night.
All of a sudden, a pint-size detective with two
tons of attitude and a one-ton mustache is on
the scene....
Something about this guy looks familiar. Logan
can’t quite place him, but she already has the
urge to smack him with an overcooked bratwurst.
Step aside, Officers!
Detective Chuck Brawn
is here to solve this
carnival conundrum!
Dude, that badge is from a gum-ball
machine, and your ID is a frequent-shopper
card from the Canned Ravioli Emporium.
Since when do they allow
preschoolers onto crime scenes?
And what does a cop gotta do to
get a cup of coffee around here?
Detective Brawn, huh? I donÕt know
you. What division do you work for?
That would
be the…
uh, Long
Division…in
the Decimal
System.
You guys
walked right
over it!
But thatÕs not nearly as
important as this envelope I
found at your crime scene!
Hmmmm. The note inside is
just a bunch of random letters.
Must be a doctorÕs eye chart.
No, silly! ItÕs a word jumble.
If you unscramble the letters, youÕll
get a message from the culprit.
Unscramble
the note!
I’ve already
taken the
liberty of
unscrambling
it. It says
“I WILL
STRIKE
AGAIN!
YOU WILL
YAP!”
It's not Officer Chuck
Brawn at all! It's Gustavo
Muchomacho in a cheap
fake mustache!
I think it’s
actually
“YOU WILL
PAY!”
That is
your opinion,
missy. You
are entitled
to it.
Missy?
Why you…
My upper lip
!
Oh maaan! This
always happens when
I come here!
Why’d they
kick you out the
last time?
Let’s just say it
involved a clown, a
porta-potty, and
a chili dog.
Look, you two!
I can’t have kids at
my crime scenes.
Now, why don’t you
team up and form
a make-believe
detective agency
or something?
Team up? With him? Ha!
I’d rather eat deep-fried
lard on a stick!
Ahem! Hey, you two, maybe you should team
up like Captain Mosely suggested. Logan, with
your smarts and Gustavo’s...uh...enthusiasm,
