Sly the Sleuth and the Food Mysteries

by Donna Jo Napoli

Princess gave me a cockeyed smile. “You two.” She laughed.

  “Besides us,” I said.

  “No. What’s this all about?”

  “Just asking.”

  Lunch

  “Wait here,” said Princess. She left us in the sunroom.

  Jack looked over his shoulder. “Have you got any leads on my case?” he whispered.

  “Maybe.”

  Princess came back. “Want to stay for lunch?”

  “Sure,” said Jack.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Do you like gorgonzola?” asked Princess.

  “What’s gorgonzola?” I asked.

  “It’s smelly cheese.”

  “How smelly?” asked Jack.

  “Very.”

  “Do you like it?” I asked.

  “I love it,” said Princess.

  “I’ll try it,” I said.

  “The smellier, the better,” said Jack.

  We sat at the table with Princess’s mother and father and her big sister, Angel.

  We ate polenta with gorgonzola. It was really corn mush with blue cheese. But they called it polenta with gorgonzola.

  It was fabulous.

  Afterward Mr. Monti brought out a bowl of oranges.

  Jack threw me a quick look.

  “Are those from your trees?” I asked Mr. Monti.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Monti. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Monti and Jack exchanged glances.

  Princess grabbed the bowl. She took two oranges and passed the bowl. Away from Jack.

  “Hey, I want one,” said Jack.

  “I know,” said Princess. “I’ll fix it for you.”

  “I don’t want you to,” said Jack.

  “I’ve seen you eat apple cores.You’ll probably just eat the orange whole too,” said Princess.

  “So you’re the one,” said Angel. “I heard all about you. That’s gross.”

  “Gross and dangerous,” said Princess. “I already told you that, Jack.”

  Dangerous?

  Princess peeled an orange.

  “It’s red,” I yelped.

  “Blood oranges,” said Princess.

  “Aw, cool,” said Jack. “Blood.”

  “That’s just the name. Because the flesh is red.” Princess divided the orange into sections. She popped the seeds out onto her plate. She gave the seedless sections to Jack.

  “Want an orange?” Princess asked me.

  I didn’t like the idea of eating bloodcolored fruit. “Next time,” I said.

  “I’ll take Sly’s orange,” said Jack. “And don’t peel it.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll save one for Sly.” Princess rolled an orange in her hands. “I’ll put it with the oranges for Noah.” She put my orange into a bowl on the shelf.

  Nutrition

  Jack and I walked back to my house.

  “Princess is saving oranges for Noah,” Jack said. He sounded worried.

  “What’s wrong with that?” I said.

  “One of them was really big. Perfect. I wanted it. Maybe Princess is saving it for him because . . . ”

  “Because what?”

  “Nothing.You better take my case.”

  “Where is Noah today?” I asked.

  “He’s working on a school project.You know, the nutrition one. His partner is Princess.”

  “Oh.” Now it made sense. “That’s why Princess thought it was Noah at the door. That’s why she’s saving him oranges. So he can have a snack when he comes over to finish the project.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Jack. He kicked his soccer ball. He ran after it and dribbled it back.

  “I worked with Kate,” I said. “We finished already. On potassium. Bananas are full of potassium.What’s your project on?”

  Jack jumped in front of me. He put his hands up like claws. “Blood!”

  I walked past him. “You can’t do a nutrition project on blood.”

  “Iron, really,” said Jack. “It’s in bloody meat.”

  “Not just meat,” I said. “Spinach too. And most dark green vegetables.”

  “Yeah, but meat has more. Paul and I wrote all about meat. Bloody meat.” Jack tilted his head. “I wonder if those blood oranges have iron.”

  “Oranges don’t have iron.”

  “You don’t know everything, Sly.”

  That was true. But I know a lot about fruit. The only fruit that has a lot of iron is raisins.

  I didn’t feel like arguing with Jack, though. I had other things on my mind. “What’s Noah and Princess’s project on?” I asked.

  “Poisons,” said Jack.

  “Poisons!”

  “Noah has all the luck. He gets to write about poisons in our food. But blood is almost as good.”

  Someone in the Family

  Jack stopped in front of his house. “You have to work harder, Sly.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “You’ve been on the case since this morning. And you haven’t solved anything yet.” He dribbled his soccer ball in a circle around me.

  “Jack, I never agreed to take your case. And I won’t.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “There is no case.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no thief,” I said. “Or not a thief thief.”

  “What’s a thief thief?”

  “Someone who sneaks in and steals. No one like that stole oranges from your backpack.”

  “How do you know?” asked Jack.

  “A thief thief would have left footprints. But there were no footprints in the snow around Princess’s house this morning. The only footprints were on the front walk.”

  “How do you know?” asked Jack.

  “It’s my job.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” said Jack. “A tricky thief could have used the front walk.”

  “True.” I stuck my hands deep in my pockets and leaned into the wind. Sleuths do that. “But Princess said no one had visited them except us. The footprints on their front walk were from their family.”

  Jack picked at a muddy spot on his jacket.

  “You mean someone in Princess’s family robbed me?”

  “Yup.”

  “I was afraid of that,” said Jack. “It’s Princess, isn’t it?”

  “I think so.”

  “I knew it.” Jack looked like he might cry. “She’s against me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Jack kicked the snow.

  “Come on, Jack.”

  “I can’t explain without telling you my secret.”

  “Listen, Jack. Sleuths are good at keeping secrets. So long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  Jack screwed up his mouth. “Okay, but you have to swear. You absolutely can’t tell Princess. Because then she’ll tell Noah.”

  “This is getting complicated,” I said. “But I swear. So, why do you want oranges?”

  “For soccer.”

  “You want to kick oranges?”

  “No. I’ll juggle them with my feet. Like Pelé. He’s a famous player. People say he got good by juggling grapefruits. My feet are smaller. So oranges are better. Mr. Monti picks oranges that are exactly right.”

  “Mr. Monti knows what you want to use them for?”

  “Mr. Monti knows everything about soccer. I can ask him anything and he talks and talks and talks.”

  “Why don’t you want Noah to know?” I asked.

  “He’s already good at soccer. Too good. What if he sticks around till spring? What if he makes the team and I don’t?”

  “Oh,” I said. I sympathized. Jack worked even harder at soccer than I worked at baseball. And I love baseball.

  “Now I’ll never get better at soccer.” Jack’s voice was sad. He dribbled his soccer ball around me again. “Why? Why would Princess take my oranges?”

  “I’m not entirely sure it’s Princess.”

  “Why would anyone t
ake my oranges?” Jack kicked the ball against a tree. “Someone is being mean to me. Find out who, Sly.”

  Decision

  Did I want to take Jack’s case?

  Jack’s case was about oranges. I love fruit. So this case was fun.

  But Taxi had no interest in fruit. I couldn’t take a case Taxi wouldn’t care about.

  I went home and into our garage. That’s where we keep Taxi’s little house. It’s really a picnic cooler. Brian had the idea. He turned it upside down and my mother cut a hole in it so Taxi can get in and out. Taxi loves it.

  “Hey, Taxi.”

  Taxi came out of her cooler. She rubbed against my legs.

  I squatted to pet her. “Do you even know what an orange is?”

  Taxi purred and pressed harder against my legs.

  I pet her more.

  She bumped her head into me hard. I fell onto my bottom on the cold garage floor.

  Taxi jumped in my lap. Then she climbed to my shoulder. Like she used to do when she was a kitten.

  “Hey, I’m not a tree.”

  Taxi purred more.

  I laughed. That was it. This case wasn’t just about oranges. It was about orange trees too. Taxi loved to climb trees. She’d care about a tree case. Probably any cat would.

  Good. Because this case had hooked me. I was almost sure Princess was the culprit. The question was, why?

  Hunches

  In sleuthing it helps to make a list of what you know.

  This is what I knew.

  Jack went to Princess’s house three days in a row to talk about soccer with Mr. Monti. Mr. Monti gave him an orange. Jack slipped it into his backpack.

  When he got home, his orange was gone.

  Always.

  Maybe Princess was nabbing back the oranges that her father gave Jack. Maybe she didn’t want Jack to have oranges.

  But she gave him an orange at lunch. She even peeled it. And she seeded it. Seeds.

  Princess had cored the apples this morning. She said it was important to get rid of the seeds.

  And at lunch she and Angel talked about how gross it was that Jack ate apple cores.

  Princess and Noah’s project was on poisons in the foods we eat.

  Fruit’s my favorite food. I know a lot about apples. And I know a lot about apple seeds.

  I went home and put a baked apple into a plastic container. I went back to Princess’s house. I rang the doorbell.

  “Hi, Sly. What’s up?”

  “I brought you a baked apple,” I said.

  “Thanks.” Princess took the apple. “This is the third time we’ve seen each other today.”

  “I know.” I couldn’t think of what else to say. Finally, I blurted out, “Did you know that your father has been giving Jack oranges?”

  “Yes,” said Princess.

  “Do you know why?”

  “Is there a special reason?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I can’t tell you. Have you been stealing them back?”

  “Yes,” said Princess.

  “Because you’re afraid he’ll eat the oranges whole, seeds and all, like he does apples?”

  “Yes,” said Princess.

  “And you think he’ll get poisoned?”

  “Yes. With arsenic.”

  “But arsenic is in apple seeds,” I said.

  “Not only apple seeds” said Princess. “All kinds of fruit seeds.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell Jack the seeds have poison?”

  “I did. But Jack never listens.” Princess shrugged. “What else could I do?”

  No One Dies

  Princess showed me her library book. She was right: Arsenic is in most fruit seeds. But we checked out another book. That’s where we learned about the amount of arsenic in a seed. It’s very little.You’d have to eat a barrel of seeds all at once to poison yourself. Even then, you would probably only vomit.

  Princess was relieved.

  Jack was happy to learn that no one was being mean to him. Princess had been protecting him. He went to Princess’s house and thanked her.

  Then he got into a conversation with Mr. Monti about the orange trees. And before you knew it, Jack had a job. From now on Jack has to go to Mr. Monti’s house every weekend. He’ll help with the trees. He’s going to learn how to fertilize them. And when to repot them. How to prune the tips. And how to do root cuttings.

  Mr. Monti will pay him in oranges. That’s because Mr. Monti loves soccer as much as Jack does. He said he’ll teach Jack how to juggle good. Serious practice will use up lots of oranges. But Mr. Monti thinks Jack has promise. He said Jack’s worth the oranges.

  Jack is going to give me half a dozen oranges as my payment for this case.

  I don’t really want bloody-looking oranges. But I’ll find something to do with them.

  And Jack is going to give Melody an orange every day. He’s going to surprise her.An orange in her school cubby. An orange in her backpack. Oranges here and there.Then, when he’s sure she likes them, he’s going to tell her he was the secret giver. And he’s going to invite her to the school Valentine’s party.

  He told me because of the hearts on my sleuth sign. He said they mean I know about romance. He wanted my opinion.

  I don’t know about romance. I know about sleuthing. I told him that.

  This case was about seeds. And when Jack showed up this morning covered with snow and mud, he had looked seedy. My seedy case was solved. Ha.

  These last three cases were all like that.They were about food.And they had plays on words. The first was about fish, and there was something fishy in it. The second was about food allergies, and there was something cooking in it. And the third was about fruit, and there was something seedy in it.

  Playing with words is something poets do.

  Somehow all my cases wind up being poetic. I like that. Ha. These cases were food for thought, all right. Ha, ha.