The Berenstain Bears in Maniac Mansion (8 page)

After all that time in the dim cellar, the bears had to shield their eyes from the bright sunlight as they came out.

“Aha!” said Squire Grizzly. “Here's the getaway van!”

It was pulled up close to the cellar door. On its side was printed
THE BUG BEARS
in big letters. Smaller letters below said
We Do Mice, Too!

Just then Chief Bruno came walking around the corner of the mansion. Tillie and Maisie were with him.

“Greeves?” said Tillie, staring hard at the butler. “Is that you? What in the world are you doing in your pajamas?”

“My wife's antiques have been stolen, Chief,” said Squire Grizzly. “And we've caught the head burglar!”

“The butler did it,” said Bonnie.

“No, I didn't!” said Greeves.

“I believe him, Chief,” said Lady Grizzly. “The mansion is haunted! The ghosts of Bad Bart Grizzly and his band of thieves have made off with a dozen of my antiques!”

“I saw them stealing one,” said Maisie.

“And they tied
me
up!” said Greeves.

“Nonsense!” roared Squire Grizzly. “His partners tied him up, Chief! And
he
tied
us
up!”

“Then why is he in his pajamas, dear?” asked Lady Grizzly. “He was in uniform when he tied us up. Why would they make him get into his pajamas just to tie him up? I believe he
was
attacked while he was still in bed, just as he says.”

“What are you talking about, dear?” said the squire.

“And another thing,” said Lady Grizzly. “When Greeves tied us up, he had no bags under his eyes. But look at him now. The bags are back!”

“But you yourself just said that
he
tied us up!” cried the squire.

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Grizzly. “I did, didn't I? Now I'm confused . . .”

“You're not the only one,” said Chief Bruno. “What
I
want to know is where those so-called Bug Bears are. If we find
them
, I think we might be able to solve this crime.”

Just then Bonnie pointed across the lawn toward the west gate and said, “I'll bet that's them!”

Everyone turned to look. Walking toward them in a row were three bears. They were all handcuffed. Behind them marched Officer Marguerite with her pistol drawn. Two of the bears wore uniforms with
BUG BEAR
printed across the front. The third had on a different kind of uniform. A
butler's
uniform.

“I caught your butler and these two jokers trying to escape through a tunnel under your fence,” Officer Marguerite told Squire Grizzly. “They look pretty guilty to me. Case solved.”

But was it? Everyone looked from the bear in the butler's uniform to the bear in pajamas, then back to the bear in the uniform. There was Greeves in his pajamas, standing next to Lady Grizzly. And
there
was Greeves in his uniform, standing next to the Bug Bears.

“I still think the butler did it,” said Bonnie, her eyes wide. “I'm just not sure
which one!
”

Greeves One and Greeves Two. There they stood. But how could there be two of them?

Greeves in butler's uniform smiled at Greeves in pajamas and said, “Hello, Greeves.” It was Greeves's voice. It sounded just like the butler talking to himself.

“Oh, my goodness!” shrieked Lady Grizzly. “It's Greeves's
ghost!
” She nearly fainted, but the squire caught her and held her up.

“That is no ghost, madam,” said Greeves in pajamas, looking straight at Greeves in uniform. Again, it was Greeves's voice.
“That
. . . is my long-lost twin brother, Arthur!”

Greeves in uniform just smiled.

“Long-lost twin brother?” said Squire Grizzly. “I didn't know you had a twin brother, Greeves.”

“I'd nearly forgotten all about him myself,” said Greeves. “As a teenager, he ran away from home and joined the navy. Neither I nor anyone else in the family has heard from him in forty years. All that time we've had no idea where he was or what he was doing.”

“You'd better start explaining,” Chief Bruno said to Arthur. “If you cooperate, the judge might take a few months off that long prison sentence he's sure to give you and your partners.”

Arthur looked at the Bug Bears and muttered, “Lucky us.” Then he turned back to the others. “Oh, all right,” he said. “It's a long story. When I got out of the navy, I settled way up north in Polar Bear City and became an assistant to a carpenter there. Soon I had my own carpentry business and these two assistants, Chuck and Charlie.” He nodded at the Bug Bears. “The exterminators' van here is really our business van. We repainted it for this . . . er . . .
job.
”

Papa Bear was listening with widening eyes. “Do you mean to say that you three made the copies of Lady Grizzly's antiques?” he asked.

Arthur's smile showed more than a hint of pride. “Exactly,” he said.

“But how did you find out where
I
was?” asked Greeves.

“From an article about Squire Grizzly in the
Polar Gazette,
” said Arthur. “He had just given a lot of money to charity. Next to the article was a photograph of the squire and Lady Grizzly being served tea in Grizzly Mansion—by
you
. Though I hadn't seen you in forty years, I recognized you instantly.”

That's not surprising
, thought Sister Bear as she looked from one twin to the other. They were the same height and weight, and they had the same faces and voices. The only difference between them was that one was wearing a butler's uniform and the other was wearing pajamas.

Well, not the only difference. When Sister looked more closely, she noticed that the twin in pajamas had bags under his eyes, but that the twin in the butler's uniform didn't.

“Of course, as a carpenter, I already knew all about Lady Grizzly's famous antique collection,” continued Arthur. “I began to work on a scheme to get ahold of some of those priceless antiques by posing as Greeves. First I went to the history section of the public library and read up on Grizzly Mansion. That's how I found out about the secret tunnels and cellars that old Farnsworth Grizzly built under and around the mansion. They sounded like perfect places to set up a woodworking shop for a couple of weeks.”

“You made the copies down there?” gasped Squire Grizzly.
“Right under our noses?
”

“Of course,” said Arthur. “It would have been far too risky going back and forth, taking antiques out of the mansion and bringing copies in. We needed to be inside the mansion so we could switch antiques and copies over a long period of time. Then, once we were done, we could take the antiques out all at once.

“So we tunneled under the back fence and broke into the old cellar. We wasted no time in using the secret tunnels in the walls on the upper floors to spy on the household. The tunnels ran right behind portraits of Grizzly forebears. Very convenient. We just cut flaps in the portraits' eyes and spied through them. After a day of spying, we'd learned everything we needed to know.

“The most important thing we learned was when Greeves's next day off would be. As soon as he left, I sneaked into his room, put on his uniform, and buzzed the guard at the front gate to tell him to expect the Bug Bears. Meanwhile, my friends here had slipped out through the tunnel under the fence and gone to get our van. So, in they came, right through the front gate, carrying all our woodworking equipment along with plenty of lumber and a supply of canned foods. After unloading everything into the cellar, out they went again through the front gate.”

“So
that's
why you didn't remember about the exterminators!” said Tillie to Greeves. “Because it wasn't you who called them in. It was Arthur!”

“I thought Tillie here might get suspicious about that and come snooping in the west wing if she heard us moving furniture at night,” said Arthur. “So we prepared for that.”

“What do you mean,
prepared for it?
” asked Chief Bruno.