Creeper on the Case

by Greyson Mann

  Then I remembered. Last fall, everyone had gone CRAZY over the punch at the dance. I had a theory that there was a potion brewing in there—like a love potion or something. I’d even told Sam that Willow MUST have used a potion on him. I mean, why else would he be with her? But he hadn’t really appreciated that deduction.

  Anyway, I decided to ask Willow about it. I said, “My sources tell me there was something up with the punch served at the dance last year. An unnamed bystander said he MIGHT have seen a fermented spider eye floating in the bowl. Anything you want to tell me about that, Willow? Anything at all?” I held up my magnifying glass and stared at her. HARD.

  She just snorted. “You’re so weird, Gerald. Who do you think you are, anyway? Sherlock Bones?”

  YES! I took that as a compliment. It meant I was doing SOMETHING right. So I told her that I was, in fact, a student of Private Investigator Bones.

  That’s when Ziggy Zombie plunked down next to me. I swear, no matter how hard I try to put some distance between me and that zombie at lunchtime, I always end up sitting close enough to hear him smacking on his rotten flesh sandwiches.

  “I LOVE Sherlock Bones!” he said. (SMACK, SMUCK, SQUISH) “Do you want to borrow my pet spider? He could be your Dr. Webson!”

  Well, I’d met Ziggy’s pet spider, Leggy. And that furry-legged critter was NO Dr. Webson, let me tell you. Besides, if I were going to hire a sidekick, it would have to be my pet squid, Sticky.

  So I told Ziggy that although I appreciated his generous offer, I wouldn’t be taking him up on it. No, I wouldn’t need any help from that zombie at all, thank you very much.

  Let’s just say that I did NOT get my newspaper article written at lunch. Instead, I scratched something out after school. But I only had like 10 minutes! I didn’t get very far before Mr. Zane staggered up and said I’d better not be late to the meeting.

  I actually SMELLED Mr. Zane before I saw him. And as I followed the stench of his briefcase toward the library, I kind of wished I’d taken Ziggy up on his offer to help with my sleuthing.

  See, Ziggy is the one mob that could probably help me identify the smell coming from Mr. Zane’s briefcase. Why? Because it smelled an awful lot like what Ziggy ate for lunch.

  As soon I walked into the library, Mrs. Collins started collecting our articles. Luckily, Emma wanted Mrs. Collins to read hers FIRST. She gave me the evil Enderman eye, as if she thought I was going to try to butt in line. She almost looked disappointed that I didn’t try.

  Instead, I thought fast and scrawled a headline across the top of my page: WHAT’S BREWING IN THE PUNCH BOWL?

  When I handed it to Mrs. Collins, she skimmed it quickly—all two paragraphs of it. Then she said, “Gerald, I think we might need to do a little FACT-checking on this article.” I didn’t exactly love her tone of voice.

  Whisper Witch leaned over and offered to help me with research next time. “Nah, I got this,” I told her. I kind of wished she would just keep her warty nose out of my business.

  I decided I was going to dive into the next story and make it the BEST article the MOB MIDDLE SCHOOL OBSERVER had ever published. I was going to blow Mrs. Collins’s socks right off—along with those little glasses she wears on a chain around her neck. Yup, I was going to out-sleuth even Sherlock Bones himself.

  But that was all before I heard my next assignment. When Mrs. Collins gave it to me, my hopes and dreams fizzled like a wet firework.

  “Gerald will interview the cafeteria staff about their plans to get more VEGETABLES into school lunches,” Mrs. Collins announced.

  GREAT. Beetroot soup, anyone?

  I was almost ready to hang up my trench coat right then and there—until I remembered my plan to unveil the “mystery meat” that the cafeteria tries to pass off as pork chops. Vegetables SMETCH-tables. I had a WAY better story in mind.

  When I caught a whiff of Mr. Zane’s briefcase, I had to stop thinking about food (or I was going to lose my lunch right in the middle of the library). Before I started investigating any mystery meat, I HAD to figure out what was in that briefcase!

  So after the newspaper meeting, I stuck around. I pretended to be super interested in the books in the back corner, right next to Mr. Zane’s briefcase. And when he got up to talk to Mrs. Collins, I seized my opportunity. I dropped to the floor, grabbed that case, and flung it open to find the most AMAZING thing …

  Well, that’s what would have happened in a Sherlock Bones book maybe. But in the Gerald Creeper Jr. detective novels, things don’t always go according to plan.

  See, the briefcase was LOCKED. Locked up tight just like Room 117. So all I really did was knock the briefcase over. Which made a super loud BANG. Which meant EVERY mob in the library looked my way.

  As Mr. Zane staggered toward me, I jumped up and grabbed a book off the shelf. “Found it!” I said, jogging toward the checkout desk.

  Except I didn’t exactly look at the cover of the book until I slapped it down on the desk. CHANGING BODIES: A BOOK ABOUT THE FACTS OF LIFE the title screamed in pink and blue letters.

  GREAT.

  I’m telling you, that would have NEVER happened to Sherlock Bones. I REALLY have to step up my sleuthing skills.

  But right now? All I want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. Maybe after a good day’s sleep, I can forget the look on Mrs. Collins’s face when she saw that library book. And everything I saw when I opened it up.

  Wish me luck.

  DAY 5: WEDNESDAY

  Well, I didn’t sleep a wink yesterday. I read a whole book instead. No, not THAT book. I mean, I might have peeked at the pictures in that one. And if any mobs want to know how their bodies are going to change over the next few years, I now have all the facts. WAY more than any creep ever needs to know.

  The book I actually FINISHED reading was the Sherlock Bones mystery. That is NOT a short book, let me tell you. But the story sucked me right in.

  (If Mom can write a mystery like that, we’re gonna get rich for sure.)

  See, in the book, this creeper family called the Blastervilles think they’ve been cursed by a legendary wolf—a wolf that FOLLOWS Henry Blasterville everywhere he goes. But it turns out the wolf is just a regular dog. Some bad dude got the dog to follow Henry by giving the dog one of Henry’s boots to smell.

  Well, that got me thinking. I could sure use a dog to follow SAM around—to find out where he’s been sneaking off to. I don’t have a dog, but I know someone who does: Eddy Enderman. He’s got this wolf named Pearl. He loaned her to me once to pull a minecart through the snow. (But that’s a whole other story.)

  Anyway, I finally had a plan that could actually WORK. I decided that when I got to school last night, I was going to go see a boy about a wolf.

  Eddy is pretty much the coolest kid at school, and we’re sort of friends. But Eddy isn’t exactly the kind of mob you can go up to and start a conversation with. No, you pretty much have to wait for HIM to come to YOU.

  So I was sitting at lunch sketching a picture of a wolf on the back of a napkin. That was when Bones and his gang walked by. He leaned over my shoulder and and whispered in my ear.

  Well, his skeleton buddies started laughing their bony butts off. But then Fate stepped in—in the form of an Enderman. Yup, Eddy showed up from out of nowhere, just when I needed him most. (He’s really good at that.)

  He said really loud-like (to drown out Bones and his gang), “I hear you joined the newspaper staff. Very cool, dude.”

  That gave me the perfect chance to ask my burning question. It was like Eddy had opened up a portal for me to walk right through. I took a deep breath and asked if I could borrow his wolf for some “official newspaper business.”

  He shrugged and said sure. “When?”

  “Um, Friday after school?”

  “Cool. Later, Gerald.”

  Just like that. It was actually one of the longest conversations I’d had with Eddy—long enough for everyone in the cafeteria to look my way. I p
retty much owe ALL my popularity to Eddy. When I’m a famous rapper, I’ll have to mention him in an awards speech or something.

  But when I got home from school this morning, I realized something. If I want Eddy’s wolf to help track Sam, she’s going to need something of Sam’s to sniff—something that has his smell on it. The dude doesn’t have a very big wardrobe. So at first, I started to panic.

  But now I’m staring at the PERFECT thing—one of Sam’s T-shirts with a picture of his cat on it. Sam loaned it to me like a month ago, hoping I’d wear it. (He has this dream that me and Moo are going to be besties, but THAT’s never going to happen. Did I mention I’m not a big fan of cats?)

  I’m pretty sure the T-shirt still has Sam’s smell on it. (At least there are little green blobs of slime here and there.) So I’ll bring the shirt to school with me, and then we’ll let Pearl the Wolf do her thing. We’re going to track down Sam—and FINALLY crack the Case of the Sneaky Slime!

  DAY 7: FRIDAY

  You know, I gotta say, THE WOLF OF THE BLASTERVILLES was a great book. But the WOLF OF GERALD CREEPER JR? Not so much. If Mrs. Collins recommended that book to me, I’d probably march right back in and demand a refund—or at least an apology.

  Seriously. Here’s how it all went down: Eddy must have teleported home and back in a flash, because he met me in front of the school with Pearl like five minutes after the bell rang. She growled at me, of course. It’s like the wolf has totally forgotten all the skeleton bones I fed her when we did our little sledding thing last winter.

  Anyway, Pearl didn’t have to like ME. She just had to smell SAM. So I got down to business. I pulled the T-shirt out of my backpack and gave her a good whiff.

  She sat on her rump and stared at me like I was nuts. Then Eddy reminded me I had to bribe her with a bone—which I’d totally forgotten to bring. When Bones and his buddies walked by, I thought about asking him for a loaner. But Eddy handed me one instead.

  I gave Pearl a few licks, and then I showed her Sam’s shirt again. “Where’s Sam, Pearl?” I said. “Go get ‘im!”

  And you know what? She took off! She tore up the steps to the school, straight through the doors, and past a bunch of surprised mobs in the hall.

  I tried to keep up, but my short creeper legs don’t move all that fast. I saw Pearl’s silver tail disappear down the hall toward the library, so I ran that way too. Then I heard Pearl howling.

  I THOUGHT she had found Sam. But she’d found someone else instead.

  MR. ZANE. Yup, she’d tackled him right to the ground in the hallway. That poor zombie was sprawled out on the floor, and Pearl was biting at his briefcase like it was the most delicious bone she’d ever sunk her teeth into.

  Eddy suddenly teleported into the hall and pulled Pearl off, but somehow, she’d already gotten that locked briefcase open. And you know what spilled out? The STINKIEST, SLIMIEST, MOLDIEST pile of rotten flesh I’ve ever seen—or smelled. Even Eddy took one LONG step backward.

  Mrs. Collins hurried out of the library with a horrified look on her face. “Mr. Zane,” she said, “Is that your, um, LUNCH?”

  He grunted and said it was actually for his DOG. He said he takes the scraps home from the cafeteria every morning.

  Well, I was pretty interested to hear that. I mean, it kind of proved my suspicions about the mystery meat in the cafeteria. I’d be quoting Mr. Zane in my newspaper article, for sure.

  But I hadn’t figured out a single thing about SAM.

  When I pulled out Sam’s slimy T-shirt again, Eddy said he had to get going. Before I knew it, he and Pearl had teleported away. POOF! And so had my big plan for figuring out where Sam had gone.

  GREAT.

  I mean, I guess I DID solve the Case of the Stinky Briefcase. (Mom always says I should focus on the positives.)

  But how am I going to solve the other two mysteries? I’m fresh out of ideas. And I’ve already read my Sherlock Bones book cover to cover. Where am I supposed to get inspiration NOW?

  DAY 8: SATURDAY

  So I thought I’d been super sly at school. I thought I’d done a PRETTY good job of keeping my investigations undercover. But tonight after dinner, Chloe cornered me and made some crack about my “attack dog” tackling Mr. Zane. How’d she know about that???

  Here’s the thing: Chloe is the LAST creeper I want sniffing around my business. She’s the MASTER at twisting the facts to make me look like the bad guy. (What can I say? She’s had a whole lifetime of practice.)

  She kept asking me why I’d had Eddy’s dog follow Mr. Zane. “What’s so interesting about that zombie?” she said.

  For some reason that I STILL don’t know, I started to tell Chloe EVERYTHING. Maybe it was because I don’t have a sidekick. I don’t have a Dr. Webson, and it’s really hard to figure out all this stuff on my own. So even though Chloe is at the BOTTOM of my list of possible sidekicks, I spilled.

  I told her about Sam—that he’s been sneaking around and giving me some line about “studying.” Chloe kind of snorted when I said that. I guess EVERY mob knows that studying isn’t really Sam’s thing.

  Well, it felt pretty good to get that off my chest, so I told Chloe about the mystery meat in the cafeteria. And about the rotten flesh in Mr. Zane’s briefcase. And about Room 117.

  Chloe actually looked kind of interested in that. Her eyes got all wide, and she leaned toward me. I thought she was going to help me make a plan for getting to the bottom of Room 117—or at least through the locked door.

  But she didn’t. You know what she said? She said there were some strange things going on in our VERY OWN HOUSE.

  She led me to the back of her closet. “Listen,” she whispered, putting her ear to the wall.

  So I did. And I heard this weird tapping sound—like a tiny creeper trying to axe his way out. There was SOMETHING in the wall, that’s for sure.

  I freaked out and asked Chloe if it was silverfish, because I’m REALLY not a fan of silverfish. But she reminded me that silverfish make more of a SCRATCHING and SQUEAKING sound. (GROSS.)

  Anyway, I decided that it was time to use my genius brain to figure this tapping thing out. See, Chloe’s room backs up to Mom and Dad’s room. There’s a strict Creeper Family rule that we kids stay out of their room. But Dad was working on a minecart in the garage, and Mom must have been writing in her new backyard office (a.k.a., the chicken coop).

  So we snuck into their room and examined every INCH of it. No silverfish. No endermites. No little creepers with pickaxes.

  “So what’s making the noise?” Chloe asked. She looked like a wolf, hot on the trail of a suspect’s scent. She REALLY wanted to figure this thing out.

  But I told her I couldn’t really help her anymore right now, because I have a couple of my OWN mysteries to solve first. Oh, and another newspaper article to write. I did make a suggestion though: I told Chloe she should check out some of Mom’s Agatha Crispy novels. Maybe Agatha Crispy will inspire Chloe the way Sherlock Bones inspired ME.

  DAY 9: SUNDAY

  So Mom’s on Day 9 of writing her bestseller, but she says she’s still working on chapter one. Now I’m no famous author, but I’m thinking she’d better get a move on—PRONTO. And I made the mistake of telling her that.

  Being a detective and all, I probably should have noticed Mom’s bloodshot eyes and the coffee stain on her sweater. I should have DEDUCED that it wasn’t exactly the best time to offer her suggestions.

  She almost blew her top, but she didn’t. She just said in a flat voice that she’d probably be DONE with her book if she could get some peace and quiet around here.

  I started to argue, but Dad crept past and shot me a warning look. So I decided to let Mom’s comment go. Then I tried a new approach: I offered to HELP Mom with her project, the same way Whisper Witch offered to help me research my newspaper article.

  That was when I remembered I still had an article to write—due in TWO days. I probably should have been working on my own stuff instead of helping Mom wr
ite her bestseller.

  But Mom said she didn’t need my help. And that no one was going to read a single PAGE of her book until it was finished. She actually stepped in front of her laptop, guarding it like an iron golem—as if her book held all kinds of secrets or something.

  Mom suddenly reminded me of someone else I knew—Sam. Was that HIS big secret too? Was he writing a bestselling novel on the sly?

  I almost laughed out loud. I’ve heard Sam try to write rap songs, so I KNOW he’s no writer.

  I’m not sure Mom is either, but she was sure giving it her best shot. When Dad offered to take my sisters to the Mob Mall so she could have some peace and quiet, Mom actually smiled at him. I know how much Dad HATES the mall, so I had to admit—that was a pretty generous offer.

  After they left, Mom said she was heading to her office in the backyard. “Don’t disturb me till breakfast time,” she said.

  No problem there. The LAST place you’ll find me around here is in the chicken coop. (I’m not a big fan of those birds.)