by Gary Paulsen
Lash held out his hand to Dirk. “Greased, man … too much—”
“Where’s the makeup man?” Dirk shouted. He started pacing back and forth in front of the camera. “Did you see that gob of makeup? It left my chin undefined. Where is he?” He hurried off toward the van that was serving as his dressing room while the skateboard championships were going on.
“Nice run, Lash,” Amos said.
“A real jam,” Lash said. “Like jelly.”
“I didn’t know boning out would be so painful.” Amos shook his head. “I broke a tree with my body.”
“Ecological.” Lash smiled and patted him on the back.
“So how do you do stunts like that?” Dunc asked. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
“Bone out, tweak, and ride the high five.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Maggie’s a new prototype made by Slapjack Skateboards.”
“How did you know that?”
“I don’t know. Ever since I hit that tree branch, he’s started to make sense to me.”
“Doesn’t that scare you?”
“It terrifies me.”
Lash took his helmet off and shook his hair free. “Next jam.”
“What?” Dunc asked.
“He said he’ll see us later.”
“Oh.”
“Later, dude.”
“Tomorrow night”—Amos nodded—“after you win the championship. That’s all Mom’s been able to talk about. She’s had me cleaning the house all day. I have to defumigate the chair where Uncle Alfred sits.”
Lash laughed.
“It’s not funny,” Amos said.
“Too radical …”
As they watched Lash, the two ugly men pushed their way through the crowd in the direction of the gate. They followed him. The breeze rushed past them right into Amos’s and Dunc’s faces. They looked at each other and wrinkled their noses.
“Who do you suppose they are?” Amos asked.
“They look like thugs out of an old black and white movie. Something out of the forties.”
“Yeah, maybe a horror movie.”
“The Stench That Strangled Detroit.”
“Exactly.”
The men disappeared behind a building.
Amos and Dunc hadn’t taken two steps when Lash came running over to them. His eyes were wide and wild. He was panting, too out of breath to say anything.
“What happened?” Dunc asked.
“Crash and burn, crash and burn!”
Amos’s eyes popped wide open. “Someone just stole Maggie!”
They stared at Lash.
“Relax,” Dunc said. “We’ll find her.” He wasn’t as sure of himself as he tried to sound.
“Copped, copped.”
Dunc looked at Amos. “He means stolen,” Amos said. “Not lost.”
“We’ll still find her. You said she disappeared in the bathroom?”
Lash nodded.
“Then let’s go check out the bathroom.” Dunc led Amos and Lash through the crowd over to a small white brick building. They went in the door marked MEN. There was no one else inside.
“What happened?” Dunc asked. The air was stiff and stale and caught in his nose.
“Like, toilet.”
“He says he was using the toilet and a hand came under the door and grabbed the board and it was gone.”
“Did they take anything else?”
“That’s all he’s got,” Amos said. “The board and the helmet and his glasses.”
“Did you see or hear anything else?”
Lash shook his head.
“What do you suppose happened?” Amos asked. He walked over to the closed door next to the stall Lash had been in. “Could she be in one of the toilets? Does Maggie float, Lash?”
“Be serious, Amos,” Dunc said.
“I am serious. Stranger things have happened to us.”
“The board didn’t fly into a toilet.”
“Total—you think—right?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Dunc said.
“Have thoughts,” Amos said. “Like you think—have thoughts. That’s cool, man.”
Dunc stared at Amos. “Amos, aren’t you getting a little … loose?”
Amos had turned to wash his hands. He cut the water off and wiped his hands on his pants. “Places like this make me want to wash over and over. Kind of like bus depot bathrooms.”
Dunc walked over to the door. “Let’s look for something out here.” The fresh wind cleared their nostrils. They couldn’t find anyone with a skateboard.
“Now what?” Amos asked.
“I guess we look for clues,” Dunc said. “If there was a crime, there must be clues. Amos, you look back in the bathroom. Lash and I will check out the park.”
“As long as I don’t have to touch that floor. If finding clues means touching that floor, forget it. I’ll look for clues on the walls. Maybe there’s a few on the ceiling.”
“All right. If you find any clues on the floor, leave them. I’ll get them later.”
Just as Amos reached the bathroom door, a chubby man in a long gray trenchcoat scuttled around the corner. He saw Lash and made a little whistling squeak like the sound of a frightened mouse.
“Where’s the skateboard?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Dunc asked.
“I’m Sherman,” he said. “Sherman Hemlock—the skateboard company hired me to protect the board.” He looked at Lash’s empty hands, then around on the ground next to them. “Where’s the skateboard?” he repeated.
Lash shrugged his shoulders and sighed and shook his head. “Bummer.”
“She’s gone,” Amos said. “Somebody copped her.”
Sherman’s face was small and pudgy, and every time he breathed the nostrils on his pug nose flared in and out. “Oh dear, oh dear.” He rubbed his hands together and paced back and forth. When he turned around to look at them, his face was redder.
“I was hired to watch that board. That was my only job, just watch the board, and now it’s gone. I just went to get some cotton candy, for goodness’ sake, and just like that the board is gone. Mother always told me to be an accountant, but no, I wanted the glamour of private investigation, the new Sherlock Holmes, and now I’ve gone and blown a simple thing like watching a skateboard. What am I going to do? Tell me, what am I going to do?”
“Bummer,” Lash said again.
“First of all,” Dunc said, “I think you have to calm down.”
Sherman stopped pacing and stood in front of them. He was still wringing his hands. “You’re right, of course. Give me a moment to get control of myself.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he was finished, some of the redness had gone out of his face.
“Better.” He breathed deeply again. “A rational mind requires control. That’s the first rule of the art of deduction. Now, what is the first step to take in the case of the missing skateboard?” He took a notebook and pencil out of his pocket, licked the end of the pencil, and looked at the boys. “What are the facts?”
“The facts are what we’re trying to find out,” Dunc said. “Maggie disappeared in the bathroom. Lash and I are going to look for clues in the park while Amos tries to find some in there.”
“Unless they’re on the floor,” Amos said. “I don’t want any new clues if they’re on the bathroom floor. That floor is more disgusting than my uncle Alfred’s feet.”
“Al-fred,” Sherman said, writing furiously in his notebook. “Is that with one r or two?”
“One,” Amos said.
“Let’s get going.” Dunc led Lash off into the crowd while Sherman followed Amos into the bathroom.
“Step back, son,” Sherman said. “Let an eye trained in the art of deduction investigate this first.” He pushed Amos out of the way.
Sherman walked with his chin out and his hands clasped behind his back, clicking his tongue as he searched. “See this ceiling?” he ask
ed.
“Yeah.”
“It’s called a dropped ceiling. Remind me to get a ladder and look in the air space above it.”
He went into the first stall. “Just as I suspected.”
“What?”
“Look at the toilet paper. See how the roll comes over the top instead of down the back?”
“So?”
“So that is a fact, and a fact could be a clue.” He wrote something down in his notebook and tapped the side of his head with his pencil. “Remember that.”
He stopped by the sink and carefully examined the porcelain. Amos watched him.
“Sherman, I don’t see where any of this is getting us.”
“That’s because you don’t have a trained professional mind. I do.” He turned on the water and turned it off again. “The spigot,” he said as he wrote, “is made of stainless steel, and it does not drip. Hmm.” He thought for a moment and shook his head as if he were puzzled. “Kneel down here with me.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll do it alone.” Sherman knelt down to examine the drain trap. As he did, something crunched beneath his knee.
“Hello, what’s this?” He stood back up again. “It looks like a clue.”
“It looks like a peanut. A crushed peanut.”
“Pea-nut,” Sherman said, writing furiously in his notebook. “Is that p-e-e or p-e-a?”
“On this floor it’s probably p-e-e,” Amos said. He wiped his hands on his pants. He couldn’t stop wiping his hands on his pants.
“P-e-e.” Amos could hear Sherman’s pencil scribbling.
“Where do you suppose it came from?” Amos asked.
“Use your deductive reasoning. Where do peanuts come from?”
“The store.”
“Be more creative. Where do people buy peanuts still in the shell?”
“At the zoo, to feed the elephants.”
“A possibility,” Sherman said, “though rather a remote one. No, I think a better possibility would be the circus.”
“But we haven’t had a circus in town for months, and the zoo is just across the street.”
“All the more reason to suspect the circus. Always suspect the obvious, son. In this line of work always assume the probable is improbable.” He started pacing back and forth in front of the stalls. “Now, circuses always have elephants, right?”
“Right.”
“And they always teach circus elephants tricks, right?”
“Right.”
Sherman closed his notebook and stuffed it in his pocket with a flourish. He looked at Amos smugly. “Case solved,” he said.
“Where’s Maggie?”
“On her way to Florida,” Sherman said, “for the winter.”
“Florida for the winter? You figured that out from a peanut you crushed with your knee?”
“It’s a simple case of deduction. The facts: A skateboard is stolen. Peanuts are found at the scene of the crime. The circus sells peanuts and has elephants. Elephants perform tricks. Circuses are on their way to Florida this time of the year for the winter. The deduction: The skateboard was stolen to be a part of an elephant trick in the circus. It is now on its way to Florida. Simple.” He strode toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To check on plane tickets to Florida. I’ll apprehend the villains just as they cross the border. Head them off at the pass, as they say in the movies.”
“Don’t you think—”
“Why? We don’t need to think anymore. The case is solved. You can consider the zoo if you like. I’m off to Florida. Good luck.” He bounded out the door and was gone.
Amos was standing in the sun in front of the bathroom when Dunc and Lash came back. “Where’s Sherman?” Dunc asked.
“On his way to Florida.”
“What?”
“You don’t want to hear about it.” He looked at them. “What did you guys find out?”
“Wasted,” Lash said.
Amos nodded. “Nothing, right? We found a peanut.”
“One peanut?” Dunc asked.
“Yeah. Maybe we should check out the zoo. Maybe the thieves bought the peanuts there.”
“You got all that from a peanut? We don’t know who stole the board. How will we know them when we see them? Look for somebody with another peanut?”
“Tripping.” Lash sighed.
“What else can we do?” Amos asked.
Dunc sighed. “Not much, I guess. Let’s go.” He started leading them toward the park entrance. He stopped. “Wait a minute.”
“What?” Amos bumped into him.
“What about those two guys that smelled so bad?”
“The thugs out of the forties horror movie?”
“Yeah.”
“What about them?”
“Didn’t they seem a little suspicious to you? I mean, do guys like that spend their Saturdays watching skateboard tournaments?”
“No. Guys like that spend their Saturdays at the rest home kicking the canes out from under old people.”
“Dudes.” Lash’s head bobbed.
“There were two guys in raincoats that watched your run,” Amos explained. “You didn’t see them because you were busy.”
“Rock and roll.”
Dunc smiled. “At least now we have suspects. Let’s keep our eyes open.” He started walking toward the street. “Come on. Let’s get over to the zoo.”
At the zoo entrance they were confronted by a post covered with signs pointing to the different exhibits.
“So what kinds of animals eat peanuts?” Dunc asked.
“Elephants,” Amos said. They followed the sign that pointed to the elephant exhibit. “And monkeys.”
As they were passing a side trail, Dunc grabbed them both by the shoulders and pulled them behind a tree.
Dunc glanced around the trunk. “Very carefully and very quietly look around the tree toward the elephants.” They did. The two thugs were standing in front of the exhibit with their hands in their pockets and their hats pulled down over their foreheads.
“So what?” Amos said. “They don’t know who we are.”
“They know who Lash is.” Dunc peeked around the side of the tree. “Listen to what they have to say. Maybe we can learn something about Maggie.”
The men stood like dirty statues, not moving and not saying anything, either. The elephants were all standing at the back of their pen with their trunks curled up.
“Are they dead?”
“Come on, Amos,” Dunc said. “Of course they’re not dead.”
“Then why don’t they move?”
“There is something about them,” Dunc said. “Something funny.” He looked at them for a moment. “Look at the back of the one closest to us.”
His raincoat had white and green splotches all down the left shoulder and back.
“What does that look like to you?”
“It looks like someone squirted a whole tube of toothpaste down his back,” said Amos. “The multicolored kind.”
“No.” Dunc shook his head. “It looks more like bird droppings, don’t you think?”
“Could be. Yeah, wait a minute. That looks like the bottom of the parrot cage at the pet store.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“I don’t want to get involved with that bird again.” There used to be a repulsive old parrot that sat in the window of the pet store. Sometime back, Dunc and Amos had learned that it triggered on swear words. They taped some of the things it said and found out that it knew where there was a treasure.
The treasure turned out to be a sack of wheat, which is a great treasure for a parrot but not of much use to two boys. “That was the most disgusting bird in the world.”
“Right, and the color on the thug’s coat matches the color of the droppings in the bottom of the parrot cage.”
Amos looked around the tree again. The thugs still hadn’t moved. “I think you’re right,” he said. “Maybe they bought the
parrot.”
“Either that, or they’ve been wherever the parrot is.”
“Do you think Maggie might be at the pet store?”
“I don’t know.” Dunc shook his head.
“Rad. Gerbils, guinea pigs. Boned.”
“No,” Amos said. “The animals didn’t ride Maggie—”
“Quiet.” Dunc nudged his shoulder. “Watch.”
As if coming out of a trance, the man with the bird droppings down his back reached into his pocket. He took out a peanut and threw it toward the elephants. One of the larger ones sniffed at it but shook his head and snorted and left it where it lay.
“So now what, Emile?” the other thug asked.
“Now we wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Claude, you were born with oatmeal for brains. We wait for the highest bidder.”
“Oh yeah,” Claude said, “the highest bidder. Give me a peanut.” Emile reached into his pocket, took out a peanut, and handed it to Claude. Claude threw it to the elephants. They all moved away and stared at the peanut on the ground.
“So why do we wait?”
“Claude—”
“No, I mean why don’t we find out the skateboard’s secret ourselves? If we did, we could make a fortune.”
“Because nobody except the designer knows how the skateboard’s frictionless bearing works. We might screw it up. If that skateboard is broken, it won’t be worth a hundred dollars.”
“And what if it isn’t broken?”
“It’ll be worth a million.”
Claude scratched his ear. “Is that more than a hundred?”
Emile slapped Claude on the back of the head. “You’re so dumb, Claude. You couldn’t pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the bottom of the heel. One million has lots more zeros than a hundred—it’s at least three times as much. Maybe four.” He threw another peanut to the elephants. They ignored it.
“A frictionless bearing?” Amos whispered.
“Rad—Maggie!” Lash bounced, and Duncan held him down.
“So that’s why you can do that stunt,” Dunc said.
“The Maggie sky-high inverse sub-sub-shakysault with mctwist.” Amos nodded his head. “It’s tubular, man.”
