“Wilford didn’t tell me about the secret meeting,” said Encyclopedia.
“He must be afraid you’ll shoot him down again,” said Chester. Suddenly his face clouded. “Say, maybe I’d better hire you to come along—just in case.”
“It’s nearly two o’clock now,” said Sally. “Let’s go”
They arrived at the dump as the meeting was starting. Wilford stood on a burnt table. Beside him was a tall boy dressed in a crash helmet, goggles, and a jumpsuit. Strapped to his back was a parachute.
The detectives and Chester moved in quietly. They found places at the rear of the crowd of eager children.
“It’s terrible,” whispered Chester. “Everyone is money mad —including me.”
Wilford raised his hands for quiet.
“I see you’ve all brought an egg,” he said. “Good. Now take a look at your egg. What do you see?”
He let the children stare at their eggs for a moment. Then he said, “Every egg has the same shape —round!”
“You got us out here to say that?'’ shouted Bugs Meany. “If you went completely out of your mind, no one would know the difference.”
“Calm down, kiddo,” growled Wilford. “I ought to get angry and not allow you in on the big moneymaking deal I have for all the faithful.”
“Well, what egg isn’t round?” snarled Bugs.
Wilford chuckled mysteriously. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small box.
“The egg inside this box isn’t round,” he announced. “It’s square!"
Gasps rose from the crowd, plus one shout of disbelief. It was Bugs again.
“Man, oh, man!” cried the Tigers’ leader. “When you go to the zoo, you must buy two tickets —one to get in and one to get out!”
Wilford ignored the wisecrack. “Think of what eggs shaped like square blocks will mean to America —to the world!” he said.
The children considered the possibilities. Their doubts gradually turned to wonder as they thought about it. What a gift to mankind!
“Square eggs won’t roll off the table,” offered Charlie Stewart.
“You can slice them and use them on sandwiches and not waste the bread corners,” sang Otto Beck.
The children chattered about the possibilities. They saw a fortune at their fingertips.
“Others have made square eggs,” admitted Wilford. “But they had to boil the egg, remove the shell, and then squeeze the egg into a square block. That’s not what will make us millions. No, siree!”
Wilford threw back his head triumphantly. “I’ve done it! Me, Wilford Wiggins! I’ve bred chickens that lay square eggs!”
The youth with the parachute spoke. “You’re asking yourselves if a square egg will break too easily. And you want to know why Wilford doesn't show you the egg inside the small box.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Wilford. “I’m a man of my word. I promised the newspaper and television people not to show anyone the world’s first square egg before they see it.
“A lot of bigshots are waiting at the airport right now,” he went on. “This young man beside me is Buddy Stilwell, a skydiver. He hopes to take off in half an hour. You can see that he’s dressed and ready to jump.”
Buddy Stilwell said, “111 drop from twenty thousand feet holding the square egg in my hand. When I parachute to a landing, I’ll show the reporters and the cameras the egg —unbroken! The news will flash around the earth. People everywhere will demand strong, square eggs.”
“I’m asking you to trust me,” said Wilford. “But I can’t lie. I spent all my money developing my sensational chickens. I need your dollars to rent the airplane.”
“The minute we rent it,” said Buddy Stilwell, “that’s the minute the egg and I soar into the sky.”
“Right,” said Wilford. “So I’m offering all my young friends a chance to strike it rich. For Five dollars, each of you can buy a share of the biggest opportunity in history.”
The children took out their money. They lined up excitedly to buy shares.
“Encyclopedia,” said Sally. “You can’t let all these kids fall for Wilford’s fast talk.”
“Fall is the right word,” said Encyclopedia.
WHAT WAS WILFORD’S MISTAKE?
(Turn to page 68 for the solution to “The Case of the Marvelous Egg.”)
The Case of the Overfed Pigs
Although Lucy Fibbs was only nine, she was already a swimming teacher. She didn’t teach children. She taught pigs.
The job was not all glory. Wednesday morning Lucy telephoned Encyclopedia with a weighty problem.
“Someone is secretly fattening my pigs so they’ll sink instead of swim,” she said.
“Oh, my achin’ bacon,” thought Encyclopedia. “What next?”
“You’ve got to find out who is doing it!” exclaimed Lucy.
“I’ll be right over,” promised Encyclopedia.
He and Sally caught the number 9 bus. They rode to the farming country north of town. Lucy met them at the stop near her house.
“I’ll show you around First,” she said. “We can start in the pig barn.”
Over the barn door was written: “Through These Doors Pass the Fastest Racing Pigs in the World.”
“Pigs are smart,” said Lucy, herding four young ones into a chute. “Watch.”
She yanked open the starting gate. The four pigs dashed on a four-second sprint to a feed bowl Fifty feet away.
“A man in Iowa is planning to hold the first AllPig Olympics next summer,” said Lucy. “I’m going to enter a team.”
“Won’t these pigs be too big and slow by next summer?” inquired Sally.
“Sure they will,” replied Lucy. “I’m just practicing on them —learning how to train for speed. Maybe I’ll cut the workouts down to two a day.”
“You don’t want them to keel over from teaching you,” agreed Encyclopedia.
“By next summer, I should have a few sprinters that can go fifty feet in three seconds flat,” said Lucy. “That’s about equal to a Five-minute mile, you know.”
“Do you train them to swim at the same time?” asked Sally.
“Golly, no,” said Lucy. “The runners are Hampshires. The swimmers are Yorkshire Whites. Come along and you’ll see.”
She led the detectives to a small swimming pool surrounded by a wire fence. Near the pool several whitish pigs snoozed in the sun.
“You have to start the swimmers when they’re two or three days old,” she said. “First you teach them to drink milk from a baby bottle. Then you lead them to the water. Soon they dive to get the bottle. In six weeks, splasho! They’re swimming.”
“Breaststroke or crawl?” asked Encyclopedia.
“Piggypaddle,” answered Lucy.
The pigs, the detectives learned, performed four shows daily at Submarine World in nearby Dade Springs. They had a ten-minute act that included perfect “swine” dives.
“My sister Carol dreamed up the act four years ago,” said Lucy. “She works with the pigs at the show. I stay here and look after training. I have to have understudies ready to replace overweight swimmers.”
“And someone is helping them to gain weight?” said Sally.
“I’m sure of it,” said Lucy. “Usually, pigs can perform until they are two years old. At that age, they weigh about a hundred pounds. If they are heavier, they tire in the water. They sink and can drown.”
Lucy told the detectives that last month several pigs were found swimming too low in the water. Her sister Carol put them on the scale. They were twenty to thirty pounds overweight!
“They must have been fed on the sly for weeks,” said Lucy. “Somebody is trying to put us out of business.”
“Why should anyone do that?” asked Sally.
“Jealousy, I guess,” said Lucy. “Lots of farmers would like their pigs to be swimming stars.”
"They must hog the show at Submarine World,” said Sally.
Encyclopedia winced. Then he said, businessl
ike, “Where do your swimmers sleep at night?”
“In the rear of the pig barn,” answered Lucy. “My sister trucks them back and forth to the show each day.”
“The barn isn’t very safe,” said Sally. “Anyone could sneak in.”
“I think someone did last night,” replied Lucy.
She explained. Her family had returned from the movies late at night. As they drove up, they spied the kitchen lights on. Then they saw a teen-ager run out the back door.
“We didn’t get a good look at him,” said Lucy. "He moved too fast.”
There was more. Lucy’s father later questioned the neighbors. One of them, Mr. Brandt, had seen two cars, one towing the other, not far from Lucy’s house.
“That was about half an hour after we returned from the movies,” said Lucy. “It was too dark for Mr. Brandt to see the cars clearly,”
Lucy had a second clue.
“Dad found a slip of paper on the kitchen floor,” she said. "He gave it to the police. It had two words typed on it: pig iron. ”
“Pig . . . iron ...” Encyclopedia repeated to himself.
To Lucy, he said, “Where are the telephones in your house?”
“There is only one,” replied Lucy. “It’s in the kitchen.”
“Good. It all fits,” said Encyclopedia.
“You mean you know who has been fattening Lucy’s swimmers?” gasped Sally.
“Not yet,” said Encyclopedia. “But the police shouldn’t have much difficulty finding out who he is.
WHY WAS ENCYCLOPEDIA SO SURE?
(Turn to page 69 for the solution to “The Case of the Overfed Pigs.”)
The Case of the Ball of String
Encyclopedia and Sally visited the Children’s Hobby Show at the junior high school two hours before it opened. Cosimo Bender had asked them to hurry over.
Cosimo was waiting by the flagpole. “The show is being set up in the west wing,” he told the detectives. “I’ve entered a ball of string.”
“Say that again, please?” requested Sally.
“String,” said Cosimo, squaring his shoulders. “My ball is nearly two-and-a-half feet across. It has a good chance of winning the Collecting for Fun prize.”
Cosimo explained. The Collecting for Fun category was a new one at the hobby show.
“Nothing entered in Collecting for Fun can be worth trading or selling,” he said. “It has to be — well, junk.”
“Is Ralph Stockton showing his broken golf tees?” asked Sally.
“In sixty-six different colors,” said Cosimo. “Bubba Ludwig entered his corks. Jim Sunshine brought his blown light bulbs, no two alike. There are four other great collections, but my ball of string is the favorite.”
The children walked into the west wing of the school. In classrooms on both sides of the hall, boys and girls were busy setting up their exhibits.
“I want to hire you,” said Cosimo. “I’m worried.” “What about?” asked Encyclopedia.
“Someone is trying to stop me from winning,” answered Cosimo. “A rumor is floating around that my string is a fake —that it has a basketball in the center.”
“How rotten!” exclaimed Sally.
“My ball is true string, through and through,” insisted Cosimo. “Oh, it has a little bit of wrapper twine and some binder twine. And maybe a few acorns, but — ”
“Acorns?” repeated Sally.
“I keep the ball in the backyard where I can look at it whenever I want to,” said Cosimo. “Squirrels like to sit on it. They can’t sit on a two-and-a-half- foot ball of string just anywhere.”
The children had come to a large door at the end of the hall. Above the door was a sign: “Room 9 — COLLECTING FOR FUN.”
The room was small, and crowded with eight tables. Collections of useless objects were spread lovingly upon seven of the tables. The eighth table was bare.
“My ball of string!” wailed Cosimo. “It’s been stolen!”
A narrow door stood in the back wall of the room. It led, Encyclopedia discovered, to the grounds behind the school.
The boy detective’s brain raced. Whoever stole the ball of string probably took it out the back door. The thief wouldn’t have dared to use the large door to the hall. Too many children would have seen him.
Cosimo was in shock. So Encyclopedia sent Sally to search the grounds. Then he examined the room carefully.
The table from which the string had been stolen drew his attention. The top of the table was marked with scratches about half an inch long. He found similar scratches on the floor of the back doorway.
Encyclopedia borrowed a ruler from the office and measured both sets of scratches.
The table had six scratches in a line. The first five were almost exactly 6 inches apart. The sixth was 4 inches from the scratch before it.
The scratches in the doorway were the same. Only the last scratch, instead of being 4 inches from the one before it, was 5 inches away.
“So that’s it!” murmured the boy detective.
He read the name cards beside each collection. Four of the boys were his friends. The other three — Tom Gelb, John Morgan, and Charles Frost, he had never met.
By now Cosimo had recovered himself. He was able to tell Encyclopedia a little about each of the three boys. All of them had a hobby beside the one displayed in the Collecting for Fun room.
Tom Gelb was ten. He built model ships. His model of the Queen Mary was on exhibit in room 5. He was a good math student.
John Morgan was eleven. He had the best collection of rare money-bills and coins —of any boy in Idaville. He knew everything there was to know about money minted after 1900.
Charles Frost was twelve but looked fourteen. His collection of baseball cards was in room 6. He was not a good student, but he shone at sports and art.
“Do you know who the thief is?” asked Cosimo.
“I have a pretty good idea,” said Encyclopedia. “But I must be sure. Here’s what I want you to do.”
He instructed Cosimo to gather all the boys in the Collecting for Fun group. After asking their help in solving the theft, Cosimo was to mention the lone clue: the scratches spaced 6 V8 inches apart.
Within half an hour, Cosimo had the boys assembled in room 9. He closed the door.
As Encyclopedia waited in the hall, Sally returned.
“I looked all over the grounds,” she said glumly. “I didn’t find the ball of string.”
A few minutes later Cosimo came out.
“Your plan fell on its face,” he said to Encyclopedia. “I spoke about the scratches and pointed out that most of them were 6 inches apart. But no one had any idea what that meant.”
“Perfect,” said Encyclopedia. “The thief has to be-”
WHO IS THE THIEF?
(Turn to page 71 for the solution to “The Case of the Ball of String.”)
The Case of the Thermos Bottle
On Saturday, Encyclopedia and Sally hiked to the elementary school.
The Parent-Teacher Association was holding its summer carnival. Money from the ticket sale would help buy a new air-conditioner for the cafeteria.
The detectives each bought a dozen tickets. They had started down a row of booths when they heard Benny Breslin calling to them.
They turned toward the athletic field. A large crowd had gathered to watch the chicken-flying contest. Benny had emerged from the crowd and was fast approaching them. He had a hen under one arm.
“What happened to the worm race?” Sally asked him.
“It’s been dropped,” said Benny. “Too many kids stepped on opponents’ worms last year.”
Encyclopedia remembered. Bugs Meany alone had stepped on five worms. Bugs had been boiling mad. He had painted a caterpillar to look like a worm. But the day of the race, it turned into a butterfly. His worm, Fast Ernie, finished next to last.
“How are you doing, Benny?” inquired Sally.
"Queen Cluck here is leading,” answered Benny, patting his hen.
"If she holds form in the Finals, I’ll win. First prize is two tickets to the Crest Theater.”
“Has Bugs entered a hen?” asked Encyclopedia.
“If he has, its probably a baby eagle with its claws trimmed,” said Sally.
As she spoke, Bugs and several of his Tigers came out of the school. Bugs was carrying a large green thermos bottle, the kind Encyclopedia’s mother Filled with a hot or cold drink and took on picnics.
“I smell a rat,” said Sally.
“Uh-uh,” said Benny. ‘Bugs is trying to make up for being such a poor sport last year. He got Adler’s Sporting Goods Store to donate a baseball glove. He’s holding a drawing for it at noon.”
“I don’t trust him,” insisted Sally. “Bugs stands for everything he thinks you’ll fall for.”
“He can’t pull any tricks today,” said Benny. “Too many parents are here.”
A whistle blew. Mr. Pardee, a Fifth-grade teacher, called for the Finalists in the chicken-flying contest.
“Boys and girls,” he shouted. “Prepare to start your chickens!”
The detectives wished Benny happy landing. They should have spoken to the hen. Queen Cluck refused to come out of the starting pad, a mailbox.
Benny pleaded. Benny coaxed. Benny poked her gently with a toilet plunger.
After two minutes, Queen Cluck came out — backward. A hen named Juliet won with a flight of 137 feet, 9 inches.
“Maybe I’ll win the baseball glove,” said Benny glumly.
The detectives followed him to a table near the library door, where Bugs Meany and his Tigers were selling chances. The baseball glove rested on the table beside a can of root beer.
Benny gave Bugs two tickets and received a slip of paper with a number on it. Bugs wrote the same number on a Ping-Pong ball. He dropped the ball into a box made of clear plastic.
Something bothered Encyclopedia. The green thermos bottle stood under Bugs’s chair —yet Bugs sipped from the can of root beer.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN CARRIES ON Page 3
