by Nancy Krulik
Leo looked at me. “Dude, aren’t you happy to be here?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m just worried about leaving Tut.”
“Who cares about that stupid tortoise?” Leo asked.
“I have to care,” I said. “Mia will kill me if anything happens to him.”
“That tortoise is going to ruin our trip,” Leo said. “You’ll be thinking about him all day.”
“No, I won’t,” I promised.
Leo gave me a look. I could tell he wasn’t so sure.
“Where do you want to go first?” I asked, trying to sound like I’d forgotten Tut already.
“To the bathroom,” Leo admitted. “All that bumping up and down on the bus made me have to go.”
I laughed. “Okay. I’ll meet you in the reptile room.”
“Sounds like a plan,” my buddy agreed. “It’s always important to have a plan.”
“Whoa, check out these snakes!” Leo said a few minutes later in the reptile room. “They’re huge.”
A woman walked over. Her nametag read Aggie.
“These snakes were found on the farm,” Aggie said. “That one’s a northern red-bellied snake.”
I reached into my backpack and pulled out my worksheet. Yuck! There was a small spot of brown and white goo at the bottom of the paper.
“Ewww,” I groaned. “Tut pooped in my backpack!”
I grabbed a tissue from a shelf and wiped off the poop. Then I got a closer look at the snake. “What are you sssstaring at?” the snake hissed.
“Those stripes are neat looking,” Leo said.
I wrote reddish brown with four stripes on the description part of the worksheet.
“Hey, you got any wormssss or cricketssss?” the snake asked me. “I’m sssstarving.”
“When do you feed this snake?” I asked Aggie.
“In the morning,” Aggie replied. “He had a huge breakfast today—three crickets and an earthworm.”
“What a pig,” I said with a laugh.
“I’m not a pig. I’m a ssssnake,” he told me. “You two-leggeds are really sssstupid.”
Talking about food had made me thirsty.
“I’m gonna run back to the red barn for a juice box,” I told Leo.
“Can’t you wait?” Leo asked me. “I wanted to help collect the eggs from the chicken coop.”
“I could just meet you there,” I suggested. “The barn’s not far from the coop. I’ll be quick.”
“Okay,” Leo agreed. “Can you bring me one, too?”
“Sure thing!” I said.
I hurried over to barn and pulled out two very berry juice boxes from the cooler. Then, since I was there, I figured I’d check on Tut.
I walked over to the small haystack near the back of the barn. Tut’s box was on the shelf beside it, just where we’d left it. There was only one problem.
Tut was missing!
Chapter 5
This was bad. Really bad. I was going to be in big trouble. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. Mia the Pain was definitely going to make sure I paid for this. I had to do something.
So I ran. As fast as I could.
I needed to find the Brainiac! I had to tell her that we had a mystery on our hands. A big one!
Luckily, Elizabeth wasn’t far away. She was in the dairy barn with a bunch of other kids who had gone there to see the milking demonstration.
Okay. Now all I had to do was figure out a way to actually talk to Elizabeth in private. It wasn’t going to be easy. Elizabeth wasn’t just watching a cow being milked. She was actually doing the milking.
Sasha was crouching down and holding the milk pail, while Elizabeth pulled on those faucet-looking things underneath the cow’s belly. Elizabeth seemed to be having a good time. Sasha did not.
“How do you know that cow wants to share its milk with us?” Sasha asked the farmhand. “You’re stealing her milk. I bet she could have you arrested. I’m not going to hold this bucket. I’m not going to be a criminal.”
I rolled my eyes. Sasha was such a drama queen.
“Actually, if we don’t milk her she might be in pain,” the farmhand said.
Sasha crossed her arms and glared.
As the farmhand explained how important milking was, I went over to Elizabeth. “I’ll hold the bucket,” I said, pushing my way up front.
“What are you doing here, Jack?” Elizabeth asked. Then she looked behind me. “And where’s Leo?”
“I need to talk to you,” I told Elizabeth.
“So you don’t really want to help me milk the cow?” Elizabeth asked.
I shook my head. “It looks kind of gross.”
“The udders are all wrinkly and warm,” Elizabeth admitted. “And Bessie stinks.”
Elizabeth wasn’t kidding. I’d never been that close to a cow before. Bessie smelled worse than Scout when he came in from the rain. And that was saying something.
“Will you mooove a little faster, please?” Bessie mooed loudly. “The sooner we fill this bucket with milk, the sooner I can go back to the pasture.”
“Bessie wants you to milk faster,” I whispered to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth pulled harder on the wrinkly pink udders. Milk squirted out into the bucket.
“That’s better,” Bessie mooed. “This may be fun for you. But for me, it’s just an udder day.”
“I’ve got a problem,” I whispered to Elizabeth. “I need your help.”
“Can’t Leo help you?” Elizabeth asked. “He’s your buddy, remember?”
I didn’t know why Elizabeth was mad about me picking Leo as a buddy. But right now I couldn’t fight with her. I needed her brain too badly.
“Leo doesn’t solve mysteries,” I whispered.
Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide. “What mystery?” she asked.
“It’s my sister’s tortoise,” I said. “He’s disappeared.”
Elizabeth was so surprised she almost fell off her stool. Her hand twitched excitedly.
SQUIRT! A big glob of warm milk squirted me right in the face.
“Yuck!” I wiped the milk out of my eyes. “That’s disgusting.”
“Don’t be ruuuude,” Bessie mooed angrily. “My milk is the tastiest on the whole farm. You’re lucky to try some fresh.”
I didn’t feel lucky. I felt like someone who was missing a tortoise and smelled like warm milk. “Come on,” I said to Elizabeth. “We’ve gotta get on this case.”
Elizabeth looked up at the farmhand. “Maybe someone else wants to try milking the cow,” she suggested.
“I’ll do it,” Trevor said. “I’ll bet I can fill that bucket faster than Elizabeth.”
“Good for you, Trevor,” Mrs. Sloane said. “I like when students volunteer. How about I hold the bucket for you?”
I wanted to tell Mrs. Sloane that I had volunteered to take Sasha’s place just a minute before, but there was no point. Trevor was just Mrs. Sloane’s favorite.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth had already jumped right into detective mode. She grabbed her backpack and pulled me away from the milking demonstration. We went over to a bench under a tree, where we could talk without anyone hearing us.
“Here, hold this,” she said, reaching into her backpack and handing me a yellow sock. “And these,” she added, handing me a glow-in-the-dark bandage, a stopwatch, and a clothespin.
“You carry the weirdest stuff,” I told her.
“I like to be ready for any emergency,” she said.
“This is definitely an emergency,” I told her.
“We’ll solve this mystery,” Elizabeth promised me. She pulled her notebook out of her backpack and opened it to a fresh page. Elizabeth and I were now officially on the case.
Chapter 6
“Where’s my juice box?”
I jumped off the bench when I heard Leo’s voice. In all the missing-tortoise mess, I’d forgotten why I’d gone to the red barn in the first place. Leo had probably been waiting at the chicken coop for a while bef
ore he came looking for me.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “I forgot all about meeting you when I realized something horrible had happened.”
“What?” Leo asked. He sounded really worried.
“Tut’s missing,” I said.
Leo didn’t seem so worried anymore. “I knew that tortoise was going to ruin things,” he grumbled.
“It’ll be okay as soon as we find him,” Elizabeth promised.
“We?” Leo repeated. “You mean you and Jack?”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said. “I’m his detective partner.” She moved a little closer to me and smiled.
I moved a little farther from her and frowned.
“Forget it,” Leo said angrily. “I’ll get my own juice. I’ll meet you at the stables for horseback riding—if you can get away from your mystery long enough to ride.”
“We’ll be there,” I promised.
“Okay,” Elizabeth said as Leo walked away. “Let’s get started. What do we know so far?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “Just that Tut is missing. I don’t even know if he escaped or if he was stolen.”
“I’m sure he was stolen,” Elizabeth said. “A tortoise has short legs. Even if Tut escaped from his box, he never could have climbed down from the shelf.”
That was true. But there was no reason for Elizabeth to be acting so proud of herself. It didn’t take a Brainiac to figure out a tortoise can’t climb down from a high shelf. I would have thought of it, eventually.
“The question is, who stole him,” Elizabeth continued. “We need to find some suspects who had motive and opportunity.”
I was used to Elizabeth’s detective talk. She meant we were looking for someone who had a reason to steal Tut and the chance to do it when no one was looking.
Unfortunately, we weren’t going to be able to figure that out right away. The clock on the barn read 9:58. We had two minutes to get to the stables. And considering they were halfway across the farm, Elizabeth and I really had to hurry.
“Whoa! Hold it! STOP!”
We had been on the horse trail for about twenty minutes when I heard Mrs. Sloane yelling. I looked to my left and saw her horse take off into the woods with her still on him.
“Bucky’s out of control,” I heard one of the farmhands shout.
“I’ll go get him,” another farmhand answered.
“WHOA!” Mrs. Sloane shouted again.
“GET OFF MY BACK!” Mrs. Sloane’s horse whinnied to her.
I was really glad Sasha couldn’t understand horse-talk. If she knew Mrs. Sloane’s horse was complaining about taking her for a ride, Sasha would never let the rest of us hear the end of it.
But Sasha hadn’t understood a thing. She was riding quietly along the trail, two horses ahead of me, with her long brown braid hanging out from under her riding helmet. She didn’t even turn around when one of the farmhands hurried off to bring Mrs. Sloane and her horse back onto the trail.
“Roy must have really hated that two-legged one,” my horse, Buttercup, suddenly whinnied to the horse in front of her.
“You’re not kidding,” the other horse replied. “He gave her Bucky to ride.”
“Why do you say that?” I whispered into Buttercup’s ear.
Buttercup stopped right where she was. She turned her head as far as she could to look at me. “Did you say something?” she whinnied nervously. I guess she’d never met a kid who could talk to horses before.
Just then, one of the farmhands rode up beside me. “Give Buttercup a kick,” he told me. “That’ll get her moving again.”
“Sorry,” I whispered in Buttercup’s ear as I kicked her gently in the side. “He told me to do it.”
“No problem,” Buttercup whinnied back as she started to move along the trail again. “I’m used to it. It’s a two-legged way of telling me to move. It’s not like two-leggeds can talk to me. At least not usually. But you …”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “It’s weird.”
“But how?” Buttercup asked.
“It’s a long story.” One I didn’t have time to tell. So instead, I just asked, “Why do you think Roy hates my teacher?”
“Bucky’s a wild horse,” Buttercup explained. “He gallops to his own beat. No clip-clop, clip-clop for him.”
“More like clip-clop-drop,“ the horse in front of us whinnied cheerfully. “Sometimes Bucky throws people just for fun.”
Uh-oh. Poor Mrs. Sloane.
“Roy is the head farmhand. He knows Bucky can be trouble,” Buttercup told me. “He’d never give him to anyone he liked.”
“But why wouldn’t Roy like my teacher?” I asked Buttercup. “They just met today.”
Buttercup shook her head back and forth. “I don’t know. Roy doesn’t like strangers coming to the farm.”
“How can you tell?” I asked her.
“Horse sense, of course,” Buttercup whinnied.
As we rode along the path, I thought about what Buttercup had said. It sounded like Roy would do just about anything to keep strangers away from the farm.
Maybe even kidnap a tortoise, just to get back at us for daring to visit.
Chapter 7
“I think I have a suspect,” I whispered to Elizabeth as we got off our horses and led them to the water trough. I made sure we were far away from everyone else so we could talk about our detective stuff in private.
“Who?” Elizabeth asked excitedly.
“The head farmhand, Roy,” I said. “He doesn’t like when people visit the farm. I think he’s trying to scare away visitors. That’s why he gave Mrs. Sloane that wild horse.”
“Her horse was wild,” Elizabeth said. “It looked like he was trying to throw her off his back. But Mrs. Sloane held on.”
“Mrs. Sloane was definitely impressive,” I agreed.
Buttercup swished her tail up and down. “Darn flies!” she whinnied.
“Ouch!” I heard a small voice say. “What do you horses have against us flies, anyway?”
“Buzz off, Buzzy,” Buttercup neighed.
“Who told you about Roy?” Elizabeth asked me.
“My horse,” I replied, petting Buttercup on the head as she took a drink from the trough.
Elizabeth wasn’t surprised. She was used to my unusual sources by now.
“Move over,” Elizabeth’s horse, Ladybug, scolded Buttercup. “You’re hogging the water.”
“I’m no hog!” Buttercup whinnied. “Do you see a curly pink tail on this rear end?”
I laughed. But I stopped laughing when I spotted Leo watching Elizabeth and me. As soon as he saw me, Leo turned and walked over to Roy.
I wanted to stop him. But I couldn’t. How would I explain why I knew Roy didn’t like visitors? I couldn’t just say, “My horse told me.”
“Can I brush my horse?” I heard Leo ask Roy.
“No,” Roy answered gruffly. “You’ll mess up his coat.”
“Not if you teach me how to do it,” Leo said.
“Fine, I’ll show you,” Roy grumbled. “But it’s not easy to groom a horse. Look at those pictures on the barn wall. Those are our horses at shows. See how tightly braided their tails are? It takes a lot of time. Time I don’t have because I’m babysitting you kids all day.”
“Roy’s nasty,” Elizabeth said. “He really could be the tortoise kidnapper.”
“I know,” I said. “Should we interrogate him?”
Interrogate was another detective word Elizabeth had taught me. It means to ask a bunch of questions to find out if the suspect did the crime.
“Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “We should be really sure before we talk to him.”
I looked over at Roy. He was stomping around in his heavy cowboy boots. The guy had huge feet. He left massive, muddy footprints everywhere he walked.
Elizabeth was right. There was no point in accusing a guy like that of anything unless you were really certain. He could squash you like a bug.
Just then a fly landed right on
my nose. I tried to shoo him away, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Get lost, bug,” I said.
“I prefer to be called insect,” the fly said. “Or by my real name, Buzzy. You said something about a crime. Maybe I can help. I’m a detective.”
I laughed. “Right. A fly detective.”
“Exactly,” Buzzy said. “And a good one. How many detectives do you know who have two hundred lenses in their eyes that can see in any direction?”
“What’s the fly saying?” Elizabeth asked me.
“He wants to help,” I said. “He’s a detective.”
“So, what are you looking for?” Buzzy asked me.
“Tut,” I answered.
“What’s a Tut?”
“My sister’s tortoise,” I said.
“What’s a tortoise?” Buzzy flew onto my arm and started tiptoeing up to my elbow.
“Cut it out,” I said. “That tickles.”
“You humans are too easily distracted,” Buzzy said. “If you want to solve a case, you must stick to the topic. Why don’t you tell me where you last saw this Tut-tortoise thingamabob?”
“He was in the red barn,” I said. “And now he’s not.”
Buzzy flew up to my ear. “You’re in luck,” he hummed. “I spent half the morning in the barn. If someone took something, I saw it happen.”
“What’s he saying now?” Elizabeth sounded tired of understanding only half the conversation.
“Buzzy was in the barn this morning,” I explained. “He could be a witness.”
“Great!” Elizabeth said. “Start interrogating him.”
Sheesh. Did she think she was the only detective here?
“Did you see anyone suspicious in the barn?” I asked.
“It was pretty quiet,” Buzzy buzzed. “Until that tall, scary human came by.”
Whoa. Buzzy may have been all eyes, but suddenly I was all ears. I pointed across the stables to where Roy was slamming our riding helmets back into a big trunk. “Was that the human you saw?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see its face,” Buzzy admitted. “All I know is the human was really angry. It stomped into the barn, grabbed something with its front legs, and stomped out.”
