Super Puzzletastic Mysteries

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Nope.” Linda bursts his bubble. “We’re still missing puzzle pieces.”

  Catherine matches up the green books on the table, the yellow clues, and the blue puzzle bags. “This is a complete set. Six of everything.”

  “We need a seventh green book.” Kevin looks over at the book wall. “Did we miss a shelf before?”

  The students retrace their earlier steps.

  “Oh!” Janie cries. “I found the sewing book here.” She points at the shelf in front of her face. “I didn’t look any higher. Can someone tall help me out?”

  Kevin searches the top two shelves in Janie’s area. He pulls down a kelly-green paperback titled The Mathematical Papers of Sir Isaac Newton. “This probably shouldn’t be with books about painting.”

  “That’s it!” Catherine cheers.

  “Quick, find the message,” Tony says. “We only have fourteen minutes left.”

  Kevin pulls out the now-familiar yellow sheet. “It’s a crossword puzzle.”

  “No time to waste.” Peter studies the page. “One across is ‘First-timers in sports and leisure activities.’”

  “Beginners,” says Bill.

  Peter fills out the squares. “Two across is ‘In all places’—ten letters.”

  “Everywhere,” Janie answers.

  “Next is five across: ‘Be commanded to do something’—four letters.”

  “Tell? Told?” Janie throws out possible answers.

  “Told sounds better.” Peter writes it down. “Six across: ‘Go completely around something.’”

  “Detour,” says Tony.

  “Encircle,” Bill suggests, still thinking of the globe.

  “Forgot to say nine letters.”

  “How about encompass?” Catherine offers a longer alternative.

  “Encompass fits. Now the clues going down. Number three is ‘Have in the mind.’”

  “Know,” says Bill.

  Peter shakes his head. “Five letters, second one is an h.”

  “Think,” says Tony.

  “I am thinking,” cries Janie. Everyone laughs.

  “Four down has ten letters: ‘Devices originated after experimentation.’”

  “That could be anything. Skip to the next clue,” Bill urges.

  “Okay, but four down is plural—‘devices’—so the answer needs to end in an s. That means told is wrong for five across.”

  “Five across is must,” says Tony firmly. “If someone is commanded to do something, they must do it.”

  Peter changes the letters. “Seven down is ‘Lengthy.’”

  “The clue or the word?” asks Janie.

  “The clue.” Peter consults the puzzle. “The word has four letters.”

  “Long,” Janie responds.

  “Eight down—five letters: ‘Units of revolution around the sun.’”

  “Years.” Everyone answers at once.

  “Back to four down. Ten-letter word for ‘Devices originated after experimentation.’ So far, we have ‘blank-blank-V-blank-N-blank-blank-O-blank-S.’”

  “Inventions,” Janie answers.

  Peter holds up the completed puzzle. “Anyone see the clue in here?”

  “Try reading the answers in number order,” Catherine suggests. “I saw that in a book once.”

  Peter reads out loud: “‘Beginners everywhere think inventions must encompass long years.’”

  “Nonsense.” Kevin waves his hand.

  “It sounds like a memory-aid thing,” says Tony. He takes the crossword from Peter. “B-E-T-I-M-E-L-Y. The first letters of the words spell ‘BE TIMELY.’ The clock!”

  The students turn to the front of the room, where a large clock on the wall shows that they have less than five minutes left to answer the question.

  “Peter, hold this chair steady.” Kevin climbs up and reaches his long arm toward the clock. “I can see the blue bag, but I can’t reach it.” He looks around. “Stand back, it’s dunk time.”

  Kevin squats down, then jumps up in the air, as if jamming a basketball into a hoop. He swipes the blue bag from the top of the clock mid-jump, and lands in a graceful crouch on the floor.

  He gives the blue puzzle bag to Linda. “I didn’t come here to put puzzles together. Basketball is the only game I want to play. Later.” He grabs an answer envelope, scribbles something down on it, and walks out the door without a backward glance.

  Linda fits the final pieces into the puzzle and the picture becomes complete: a still life with a bowl of oranges, a vase of blue-purple flowers, and a handwritten note poking out of a purple envelope. The note says, “For a round seven.”

  “Two minutes, Catherine.” Tony consults his watch. “Ready to submit?”

  “Yes.” Catherine shows the other students her answer. “I put all of our names on the envelope.”

  Tony smiles. “Maybe we should call you McClever after all.”

  Mr. Michael reassembles the nine test takers in his classroom. “The Golden Answer Award for this year’s exam goes to Catherine McCleary.”

  Catherine looks pleased, but surprised. “I put all of our names on the envelope. How did I win?”

  Mr. Michael smiles broadly. “Why don’t you tell everyone the answer to the question, and we can find out together.”

  For the solution to this story, please turn here.

  Whiz Tanner and the Pilfered Cashbox

  A Tanner-Dent Mystery

  by Fred Rexroad

  Whiz! Joey! You’re gonna wanna hear this!”

  Bonnie Bachmann raced into Whiz’s driveway and skidded her bicycle to a halt—just inches from where Whiz and I were leaning on ours.

  “Bonnie . . .” Whiz remained unfazed even though she almost ran over us. “To what do we owe this excited entrance?”

  “A crime . . . a big one . . . just committed . . . at the school fundraiser.” She huffed and puffed as she tried to catch her breath.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Thorny stole the cashbox! Maybe Chuck, too. Just now! I heard it had over five hundred dollars in it.”

  “Thorny!” I let that out under my breath, and then a bit louder I added, “I knew he was no good. He probably needs the money for that drone with a panoramic camera he’s been talking about for weeks.”

  “Let us not jump to conclusions, Agent K.” Whiz, also known as Agent M, was the Chief Investigator for the Tanner-Dent Detective Agency, and one of his strong points was stepping back to analyze all the clues before jumping to a conclusion. But I guess it’s not jumping if you’ve analyzed the clues first—is it?

  “Well, it certainly looks like Thorny did it.” Bonnie was still breathing hard. “He was the only one near the cashbox when it disappeared.”

  “Tell us the facts, Bonnie,” said Whiz. “We need the what, when, and where of the situation.”

  “If she tells us the how and who, we’ll have the five Ws that news reporters are always talking about.” I gave a little chuckle, but nobody laughed. Well, I wasn’t expecting a laugh from Whiz—he doesn’t get most jokes anyway. But he did respond.

  “You misunderstand the five Ws, Joey. However, if she knew the how and who we would not have a mystery to solve. Determining the method used and the perpetrator involved is our job. Please continue, Bonnie.”

  “Certainly, Agent M,” she responded with a big smile. Whiz winced a little bit. He’s very uncomfortable with our secret code names being known by civilians—and Bonnie was definitely a civilian. She did know our secret identities but, basically, she’s cool about it. I don’t think she’s ever told anybody.

  “Fill us in on the details as we ride,” said Whiz. “We should visit the scene of the crime before too many clues become compromised.”

  With that, we rode off, Bonnie in the lead.

  We rode fast. Bonnie and Whiz were ahead of me, so I didn’t hear everything she told him.

  What I did get was that there’s a fund-raising event going on at the community center today. The Jasper Springs Combi
ned School Parent-Teacher Organization was raising money to repave the track around the high school football field. Even though it’s the high school’s field, it actually sits smack in between the high school on one side and the elementary and middle schools on the other. We sixth graders use it as much as the high schoolers.

  A couple of classmates of ours, Thorny—his real name was Arnold Rose—and Chuck Boyles—his real name may be Charles, but nobody’s ever said so—were cashiers and sat at a table in the back corner with a couple of cardboard boxes full of coffee mugs and T-shirts in various sizes and colors. They also had a cashbox. Chuck left for a few minutes to take a bathroom break. When he returned, Thorny was digging through one of the boxes on the floor and there was no cashbox on the table. Everybody looked but they couldn’t find it anywhere. Naturally, since Thorny was the only one near it, he got the blame.

  I knew he would turn crooked someday. He and a few other kids have tried to join our detective agency since we started. Whiz and I actually let Thorny help on some of our minor cases—nothing important, of course, just legwork when we were too busy to do it ourselves. But I never really trusted him, and now I’d been proven right.

  The three of us skidded to a halt in front of the bike rack at the community center. We locked our bikes to the rack and followed Bonnie toward the door where a Jasper Springs policeman, Officer Van Dyke, was entering. There was a small traffic jam at the door—nobody wanted to get in the cop’s way. After the scene cleared, several kids came out, including Jennifer Patterson—a high schooler—who was carrying, of all things, a fishing pole, and Megan Fields, who had a big wad of paper towels wrapped around her hand.

  “Gangway,” yelled Tyrone, one of the high schoolers who referees our middle school soccer games. “We’ve got an injured woman here. Let ’er through.” He acted like he was in charge, the way he did on the soccer pitch—he could be tough.

  “Oh, stop that, Tyrone. It’s just a little jab.” Megan held up her wrapped hand as if that was supposed to prove something to Tyrone.

  “Being hooked like a fish can be very dangerous,” replied Tyrone. “You could get gangrene and lose your whole hand . . . maybe the arm. Or you could get tetanus. You know they call that lockjaw? If your jaw locks, you might not be able to talk again . . . or eat.”

  “It was just an accident.” Jennifer grabbed Megan’s arm and led her away. “Come on, Megan, my house is close by. We have plenty of bandages there.”

  The two girls rushed off with Tyrone right behind. He kept talking about how dangerous it could be as they got out of earshot. “Maybe you could get mercury poisoning . . . ya know fish have mercury in them and the last fish Jennifer caught may’ve had a lot.”

  When the crowd cleared, the three of us entered. Being a gentleman, I held the door for Bonnie—Whiz went in right behind her. I was still holding the door as two adults went in. Then I hurried in before anybody else got the idea I was their doorman.

  The building was basically one big room like the cafeteria at school, but bigger and taller. At one end were food-serving counters with the kitchen behind them. To the side were the restrooms and a coat-check place. The ceiling was very tall so there was enough room to play basketball, volleyball, or other sports without the ceiling being in the way. They also had little cage-like catwalks and braces hanging from the roof so they could hang lights and string microphones when they used the place to put on plays. If you really tried, you could get a basketball stuck up on one of the catwalks. Then someone would have to go to the back of the kitchen and climb the ladder up to the catwalks to get it down. A very multipurpose building, and now a crime scene.

  Whiz stopped dead as he entered the room. The two adults nearly knocked him over as they swerved around him. I’ve banged into him enough to learn to expect him to do the unexpected. Whiz looked everywhere. He analyzed and cataloged every inch of the big room. The guy has a photographic brain.

  I looked over the big room, too. It was set up with a bunch of chairs facing the stage at the opposite end from the kitchen. There were supposed to be different acts going on all day: local bands, singers, actors putting on plays, a magician, poets and authors reading from their works, and almost anything else that a stage could be used for. They even had a raffle drawing about the time of the theft.

  Thorny sat at the cashier’s table and Officer Van Dyke was talking to him. Chuck stood next to Thorny. Nobody looked happy, especially Thorny. The rest of the people hung around in groups as they talked among themselves—I’m sure the topic in all the groups was who stole the money. Whatever was supposed to be happening at this event had stopped.

  When he snapped out of his trance, Whiz walked directly toward the cashier’s table where Thorny and Chuck were focused in on the cop.

  “Hello, Officer Van Dyke,” Whiz announced, as we got close.

  The officer turned around, looking at Whiz and me—and Bonnie.

  “Well, I should’ve known the Tanner-Dent Detective Agency wouldn’t be far away.”

  “Crime news travels fast in Jasper Springs,” Whiz replied.

  “It just disappeared,” said Thorny. “We’ve searched everywhere. Lots of people have searched. Some adults are watching the doors to see if anybody leaves with it. It just disappeared.”

  Whiz was looking around the whole time Thorny talked. At one point, he almost touched the table with his nose as he eyed the area around where the cashbox should have been. He even wiped his fingers along the tabletop—back and forth across some red spots that appeared to be drops of paint. He then looked closely at a small chunk of dirt he brushed up. He sniffed it and then brought it close to his lips and breathed in through his mouth. I thought he might stick his tongue out and lick it—but luckily, he didn’t.

  “Very interesting,” he said. He sniffed the dirt again.

  “Do ya think you can get some fingerprints off that piece of dirt, Whiz?” I let out a laugh, but nobody else did. I guess Thorny and Chuck weren’t in a laughing mood. Bonnie smiled, but it was one of those girl-smiles that said “boys are so dumb.” Tough crowd—I guess I needed to put a hold on making jokes today.

  “Never laugh at a clue, Joey. Plenty of truth can be discovered in the smallest one.”

  This is where he would’ve called me Agent K if there wasn’t a crowd of civilians around.

  “How can a piece of dirt be a clue to a robbery?” I wondered.

  “Perhaps it is not evidence of the robbery. But, until we know how this insignificant piece of dried river mud got on top of this particular table, we cannot rule it out as a valuable clue.”

  “It’s just a piece of dirt. It’s no more a clue than those drops of dried red paint.”

  “It is a grave mistake to assume what things are until you have had ample time to investigate . . . Agent K.” He dropped his voice very low as he said my code name. He wanted to emphasize the importance of maintaining professionalism while investigating a crime. “For instance, did you notice that Officer Van Dyke is not wearing his own pants?”

  At this, Officer Van Dyke turned away from his interrogation of Thorny and Chuck.

  “Of course they’re his pants,” I said. “It’s part of his police uniform.”

  “No, they most certainly are not his.”

  “How did you know that?” Officer Van Dyke asked.

  “You mean they’re not yours?” Bonnie asked. She looked at Whiz with her mouth wide open.

  “I spilled coffee on myself this morning,” the cop explained. “I didn’t have a spare uniform at the station, so Patrolman Edwards loaned me a pair of pants. How did you know they weren’t mine?”

  “Simplicity, sir. Your uniform is always very neat and clean. You take pride in it.”

  “Yes, we all do.”

  “That said, the bottoms of these pants end well above your polished shoes and your belt cinches the waistline, leaving some folded pieces of excess material. Those pants obviously belong to a shorter man with a larger waist. Patrolman Edwards w
as my deduction. But enough of these games, we have a case to solve.”

  He immediately looked around again. His eyes went from Thorny to Chuck and then toward the kitchen. He continued analyzing and cataloging the whole room. After gazing at the ovens and dishwasher—I think he was looking for places the cashbox could be hidden—he moved his eyes toward the rest of the room. He seemed to stop at each door and window—probably examining potential escape routes, and he even looked up at the ceiling for a long time. I watched his head move as he looked along the air-conditioning ductwork, the catwalks, the lights, and each of the big fans. He turned away from the table and looked at the front of the room where the main activity had been taking place.

  While he was doing this, a few kids and parents from around the room gathered around us. They knew that once Tanner-Dent was on the job the crime would be solved very quickly, and they wanted to see it. From the murmuring it was clear they thought it was Thorny—and it sure looked that way to me, too.

  “Whiz.” Bonnie nudged him to bring him out of Whiz World—he zones out a lot as he thinks. “Officer Van Dyke asked us a question.”

  “Oh, sorry, sir. We do.”

  “What?” His mind must have been very far away. “We do what?” I asked.

  “Officer Van Dyke asked if the Tanner-Dent Detective Agency had a theory yet on the robbery. My reply is yes, we do.”

  “You actually heard him? I thought you didn’t hear us when you were off in Whiz World.”

  “I hear everything, Joey.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Bonnie.

  Officer Van Dyke jumped back in. “So what’s your theory, Whiz?”

  “First of all, it is our opinion . . .” He actually said our. He’s like that. The whole agency—which so far is only Whiz Tanner and yours truly, Joey Dent—got credit for everything we do. “. . . that Thorny was not involved. At least not wittingly.”

  “See, it’s just like I said,” Thorny responded. “I was digging through the box of T-shirts and it disappeared. Hey, what do you mean by wittingly? I was not involved at all—wittingly or not wittingly, whatever that means.”