Mystery Mountain Getaway

by Walker Styles

  Rider popped out and moaned, “Worst. Case. Ever.”

  The Writing’s on the Wall

  “W-w-w-we n-n-n-need to get b-b-b-back up the m-m-m-mountain.” Rider shivered in the icy weather.

  “B-b-b-before the S-S-S-Snowbot gets away,” Rora agreed. Her teeth chattered.

  “Shouldn’t you warm up first?” Grumpy Gus asked. He offered them a tray of hot chocolate.

  Old Piney refused. “I don’t need anything from this ski lodge.” Then he walked into the forest by himself.

  Grumpy Gus turned back to the others and offered them a hot drink. “Please? If you are not careful, you will catch a cold.”

  “No way,” Rider said. “I will c-c-c-catch a c-c-c-cold if it means I’ll c-c-c-catch the Snowbot, t-t-t-too.”

  “Well, you’re n-n-n-not going b-b-b-by yourself,” said Rora. “The P.I. Pack stays together.”

  Ziggy and Westie shivered and nodded in agreement.

  The detectives hiked back up the mountain. When they arrived at the site, all of the movie equipment was gone.

  “Impossible!” said Rora. “We weren’t gone that long.”

  “I think Mystery Mountain just got a little more mysterious,” said Rider.

  Westie waved his phone in the air. “I’ll say! Check this out. There were a lot of monsters on this mountain. And one was a porcupine!”

  “Porcupine?!” Ziggy pointed out. “I told you Old Piney was the bad guy!”

  “Maybe,” Rora said with a sniffle. “He did say he hated the resort. Maybe he’s trying to run it out of business.”

  “Looks like we need to pay Old Piney a visit—ACHOO!” Rider sneezed.

  • • •

  Old Piney watched the P.I. Pack through his window. “Are you sneaking around again?” he called out. “Listen, it’s too cold for all this sneaking. Come inside, and let me make you some tomato soup and grilled cheese.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice!” Ziggy said. He ran through the front door and sat at the table.

  Inside, the house was small and cozy. There was a fire in the fireplace, and all the furniture had tiny holes from Old Piney’s quills.

  As Rora sat down, she blurted out the question that everyone was thinking. “Old Piney, are you the bad guy behind the Snowbot?”

  “Me? Use all that equipment?” The old porcupine started laughing. “I don’t even know how to use a phone!”

  “But you have been scaring all the visitors,” Westie said. “We read it in the news.”

  “If by scaring, you mean telling those skiers to stay off my land, then sure,” Old Piney said. He served the detectives their food, then sat down to eat.

  “Your land?” Rora asked. “I thought the mountain belonged to Monica Monkiki.”

  “Nope,” Old Piney said, dipping the warm grilled cheese sandwich into the hot tomato soup. He pointed to the wall with his free hand.

  The wall was covered in framed newspaper clippings. The articles had interesting headlines:

  “I own all of Mystery Mountain except for the ski resort. And that’s only because they tricked the Forest Preserve folks into selling,” Old Piney explained. “They’ve been trying to get me to sell the whole mountain to them for years. I always say no.”

  “Why?” Rora asked.

  Old Piney set down his spoon. “I love this mountain and all of its beautiful nature. I would never harm it or anyone on it. Not even those pesky skiers.”

  “So who is behind the Snowbot?” Ziggy asked.

  “I have a hunch,” Rider said. “But I just don’t know what their motive is. Not yet . . .”

  “What you need is some more hot soup in your tum—” Old Piney said just as a giant robot arm burst through the window and grabbed him.

  Snowball Fight

  “After that Snowbot, P.I. Pack!” Rider shouted. “We have to save Old Piney!”

  The four detectives found the porcupine’s ski and sled collection and raced after the Snowbot. As they moved closer, the mechanical monster tossed Old Piney down one ski slope as it went down another.

  “Time to split up!” Rider called out. “Ziggy and Rora, save Old Piney! Westie, let’s grab the Snowbot.”

  Ziggy leaned a sled down the left slope while Rora skied right beside him. They weaved through the trees as Old Piney tumbled in the soft snow. Finally, they caught Old Piney and tossed him on the back of the sled.

  “I’ve got you!” Ziggy cheered.

  “But who’s got you?” Old Piney asked as the sled hit a ski jump. The three of them flew through the air and landed in a giant, rolling snowball.

  “Not again!” Ziggy and Rora cried.

  Meanwhile, on the other ski slope, Rider rode a snowboard and zipped after the Snowbot. Westie had put his Snow-Jets onto a pair of skis.

  “I’ll get him, Boss!” Westie said as he flipped on the switch. ZOOM! The tiny jets blasted to life, but they sent Westie rocketing up the mountain instead of down! “Yikes! I have them in reverse!”

  Westie flipped another switch and the skis blasted forward. Now he was zooming in the right direction, but he was going way too fast. First he passed Rider. Then he passed the Snowbot, who looked very surprised. Westie was heading for a massive ski jump, but the Snow-Jets ran out of energy. He slid to a stop, but the Snowbot didn’t. It hit the jump and landed in a tree.

  Springs and wires flew everywhere. Rider pulled alongside Westie. “It really was a robot.”

  “Of course it was,” Westie said. “But who was controlling it?”

  “We need to get back to the lodge to find out,” said Rider.

  As Rider and Westie reached the bottom of the mountain, the Ziggy-Rora-Piney snowball rolled right into the side of the lodge. Monica and Grumpy Gus rushed outside.

  Monica pointed to Old Piney. “You are scaring my guests.” Then she found a device in the snow next to him. “What’s this?”

  “That’s the remote control for the Snowbot!” Westie exclaimed.

  “Looks like we have our bad guy,” Monica said. “Case closed.”

  Backward Ski

  After the police took Old Piney away, the detectives met in Rider’s room. “This doesn’t feel right,” Rider said.

  “They got the wrong guy,” Rora said.

  “Seriously,” Ziggy agreed. “Bad guys can’t make grilled cheese that delicious. It’s impossible!”

  “We did catch Old Piney with the remote control for the Snowbot,” said Westie.

  Rider paced back and forth. “I need some time to think.”

  The others watched as he went outside to skate on the frozen pond.

  “Um, what’s he doing?” Ziggy asked.

  “He’s ice-rink-thinking,” Rora said. “If anyone can figure this out, it’s Rider. I hope.”

  As he twirled gracefully over the ice, Rider was also spinning a plan to catch the true criminal.

  • • •

  The next morning, the P.I. Pack met for breakfast. Monica served them and asked how they had slept.

  “Terribly,” Rider complained. “I could hear the Snowbot all night!”

  “That is . . . impossible,” Monica said. “The Snowbot mystery was solved!”

  Ziggy shook his head. “I heard him too.”

  Then Rora pointed out of the window. “Well I see the Snowbot skiing on the hill right now!”

  “Impossible!” Monica cried again. “I . . . I . . .”

  “You what?” Rora asked.

  “I . . . I’ll catch him myself!” Monica shouted.

  “Here, use my skis,” Rider said with a smile.

  Monica raced outside, put on the skis, and chased after the Snowbot. They slid through slaloms and flew through the air. She was hot on the tail of the Snowbot, but when she reached it, the Snowbot vanished.

  “Where’d that machine go?” Monica yelled from the slopes. She looked back at the lodge and saw Westie on the top floor holding the movie crew’s projector. He had been projecting the Snowbot.

  Ri
der stepped out of the woods next to Monica. “There’s snow need to make up a story anymore. We know that you controlled the Snowbot!”

  “You’ll never catch me!” Monica darted toward the black diamond course and zoomed down the slope. She had an escape snowmobile hidden at bottom. But Rider didn’t chase her. Instead, he flipped a switch on the remote control for Westie’s Snow-Jets that were attached to the skis that he had given to Monica.

  Suddenly, the monkey stopped going down the black diamond slope, and started going back up—in reverse.

  “Argghhhhhh!” she screamed. The skis blasted her right into the same tree where the Snowbot had been stuck. A sprinkling of strange, bright icicles tumbled down from her snow-covered outfit. Rider held out his paw to catch them.

  “It seems like we’ve gotten to the root of this problem,” he said with a smile. “Monica Monkiki, you are under arrest.”

  A Good Gold Old Ending

  The police returned to arrest the real criminal, Monica Monkiki, and to release Old Piney.

  “Hmm, I don’t understand any of this,” Old Piney said.

  “I’m happy to explain,” Rider said. He was about to pat the porcupine on the back but then thought better of it.

  “Mystery Mountain is actually a mixture of snow and diamonds. When Monica discovered this, she tried to buy the whole mountain from you. But, of course, you wouldn’t sell. So she tried to scare everyone away, but she made it look like you were the one doing it. She made up lots of monsters, like the Evil Elf, the Risky Reindeer, and, of course, the Haunted Snowbot. If she could frame you for creating the monsters, then you would go to jail while she collected all the diamonds.”

  “But how’d you figure it out?” Old Piney asked.

  “When we first checked in, I found it odd that the owner wore so many diamonds,” Rider explained. “Then you showed us the weird icicles you kept finding. I realize now that those were also diamonds. But the final clue came when Monica tried to frame you with the remote. You shared your cabin, your food, and your kindness with us. We knew you weren’t the bad guy!”

  “What about the gorilla, Grumpy Gus? Was he part of it too?” Ziggy asked.

  “No,” Rider said. “He’s just grumpy.”

  “That’s true,” Grumpy Gus said gruffly as he brought the guests more hot chocolate.

  “But why scare off the skiers from her lodge?” Old Piney asked.

  “Because they wanted my diamonds!” Monica screamed from the back of the police car. “It was only a matter of time before the skiers discovered the diamonds on this mountain. I wanted them all for myself! Then that pesky movie crew came, and they were going to find the diamonds. So I had to get rid of them, too!”

  Rora smiled. “She used the Snowbot to scare them. We found the missing equipment in her lodge.”

  “Wait a minute. Those icicles I’ve been tossing out are honest-to-goodness diamonds, and I’ve been looking for gold all this time?!” Old Piney laughed. “Well, I’ll be a Snowbot’s uncle.”

  The dog detectives laughed.

  “Thank you for your help, P.I. Pack,” said Old Piney. “You’re welcome back here any time.”

  “Thank you,” said Rider. “This has sure been an action-packed vacation.”

  “What vacation?” Rora asked. “We worked the whole time!”

  “Hmm,” Westie said. “Maybe we could take one more run down the ski slope?”

  “And maybe I could order one or two or fifty more things from room service!” Ziggy said.

  “Sorry, P.I. Pack,” Rider said. “It’s time to head back to Pawston. Crime never takes a vacation.”

  Check out Rider Woofson’s next case!

  Flash! A large camera took a picture of the P.I. Pack office as if it were a crime scene. The photographer was a kangaroo. He hopped around the office, taking more pictures. Flash! Flash!

  “Hey! What’s hopping—I mean, happening around here?” Westie Barker asked. The furry inventor pointed to a sign. “This area is top secret! Who are you?”

  “Relax, Westie,” said lead detective Rider Woofson. “This is Scoops Hopper. He’s a reporter from the Pawston Paw Print newspaper. He’s writing a story on the P.I. Pack.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Scoops said. He held up his camera and snapped another picture. Flash!

  Westie rubbed his eyes. “I wish I could say the same.”

  “Don’t mind Mr. Science. He’s camera-shy.” It was Ziggy, the team’s youngest detective. “Not me though! Go ahead. Snap away. What kind of story are you doing about Pawston’s greatest detectives? Let me guess. Is it one about the time we battled Icy Ivan, the evil Penguin Prowler? Good thing I brought my appetite. I saved the day by eating my way out of an Ice Cream, You Scream trap!”

  About the Author and Illustrator

  WALKER STYLES grew up reading kids’ books, so it makes sense that he’s writing them now. And when he isn’t writing books, he’s out solving mysteries around the city of Manhattan, where he lives. Just the other day, he lost the book he was reading. Following all the clues, Walker deduced the couch ate it! (Well, the book was under the couch cushions. Still, mystery solved!)

  BEN WHITEHOUSE is an illustrator based in Birmingham, UK. He has previously worked in the animation industry as a character designer, animator, and stop-motion puppet maker before finding his feet within the world of illustration. You can visit him at stopmotionben.com.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  First Little Simon paperback edition October 2017

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  Designed by Laura Roode.

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  ISBN 978-1-4814-9895-1 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-9896-8 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-9897-5 (eBook)