The Case of the Sleeping Dog (2 page)

E
ncyclopedia helped his father solve mysteries throughout the year. During the summer, he helped the children of the neighborhood as well.

When school let out, he opened his own detective agency in the garage. Every morning he hung out his sign:

Brown Detective Agency
13 Rover Avenue
LEROY BROWN
President
No case too small
25¢ a day plus expenses

The first customer Thursday was Kitty Depugh.

She laid twenty-five cents on the gas can beside Encyclopedia.

“I want to hire you,” she said. “Get back my grandma’s pie before Bugs Meany eats it.”

Bugs Meany was the leader of a gang of tough older boys. They called themselves the Tigers. They should have called themselves the Gift Factory. They were always giving some little kid the works.

“Suppose you tell me what happened,” Encyclopedia said.

“Every Thursday I take one of Mom’s homemade key lime pies to my grandma,” Kitty began. “I was taking one to her half an hour ago.”

“Bugs was watching for you?” Encyclopedia asked.

“He stopped me a block from Grandma’s house,” Kitty replied. “He offered to trade a magic flashlight that makes writing invisible for the pie.”

“You believed him?” Encyclopedia asked.

“I had to have a look,” Kitty admitted. “Bugs took me to his clubhouse and gave me a red pencil and a sheet of paper. He had me write my name. Then we went inside. He shut the door and suddenly it was pitch dark. I couldn’t see a thing. I was scared.”

“What then?” Encyclopedia inquired.

“Nothing. Bugs said the magic flashlight was broken. I’d have to come back when he had fixed it. He pushed me out of the clubhouse and kept the pie!”

“Our first step is to go see Bugs,” Encyclopedia said.

Kitty shook her head. “No, thank you. A person can get hurt near Bugs.”

“You’ve got to come,” Encyclopedia insisted. “If you don’t, how will I know the pie Bugs has is yours? Don’t be afraid. I’ve handled Bugs before.”

Kitty brightened a little. “Well, all right. But if anything happens, please notify my next of kin.”

The Tigers’ clubhouse was an unused, windowless tool-shed behind Mr. Sweeney’s auto body shop. Bugs was alone when Encyclopedia and Kitty arrived.

A pie in a green-and-brown dish rested on an empty orange crate by the door.

“That’s my pie,” Kitty said with relief. “Thank goodness Bugs hasn’t eaten it yet.”

At the sight of Encyclopedia, Bugs’s face twisted into a sneer. “Well, well, look what crawled out of the Dumpster!”

Encyclopedia was used to Bugs’s greetings. “Kitty claims you stole her key lime pie,” he said calmly. “She was taking it to her grandmother.”

“Little Red Riding Hood here has a shortage of brain cells,” Bugs snarled. “No kid in her right mind dares call Bugs Meany a thief.”

He threw back his head and roared, “I am overcome by unspeakable fury!”

Kitty retreated a step. “I just remembered,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be here.”

Encyclopedia held her firmly by the arm.

“Kitty claims you were going to trade her a magic flashlight for the pie,” he said to Bugs.

“The key lime pie you see before you I baked myself,” Bugs retorted. “I am a master baker and a master at making things disappear.”

“Come off it, Bugs,” Encyclopedia said.

“Once I went too far, I confess it,” Bugs said. “I made a pack mule invisible. The only way I could find him was by the smell of hay on his breath.”

“Cut the comedy and let’s see some writing disappear,” Kitty challenged.

Bugs grinned. He led them into the clubhouse and handed Kitty the sheet of paper on which she’d signed her name.

He laid the sheet on an old stool. He took two flashlights from a shelf and shut the door.

It became black as coal inside the toolshed.

He shined a flashlight with a red bulb on the sheet.

Kitty gasped. “I don’t see my name anymore!”

Bugs turned off the flashlight and turned on the other one. Under its white light, Kitty’s name appeared clearly.

“You switched papers in the dark!” Kitty blurted out.

“No way,” Bugs said. “I used a bulb rubbed red with a ruby from Baghdad, city of mystery. It makes writing disappear! To make the writing appear again, I used a bulb rubbed white with a sacred altar stone from ancient Egypt.”

“Baloney,” said Kitty.

“That does it!” Bugs bellowed. “Forget the trade! I’m keeping the pie
and
the magic flashlights. Now scram before I bend you out of shape!”

“I don’t care to end up looking into my own ear,” Kitty muttered to Encyclopedia. “Let’s scram.”

“Not without your key lime pie,” Encyclopedia replied.

How did Bugs make the
writing disappear?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Invisible Writing.)

B
ugs Meany hated being outsmarted by Encyclopedia all the time. He longed to get even.

The Tigers’ leader dreamed of pressing the detective’s belly button until his ears rang. But Bugs never used muscle. Whenever he felt like it, he remembered Sally Kimball.

Sally was Encyclopedia’s junior partner in the Brown Detective Agency. She was also the prettiest girl in the fifth grade and the best athlete.

What’s more, she had done what no little kid had thought possible. She had punched out big, bad Bugs.

The first time they had fought, Bugs had gone into his famous fighting stance. “This won’t take long,” he had boasted.

It hadn’t.

Sally had walloped him—once.

Bugs had spun around and sat down. His eyes had glazed over, and his eyelids had started fluttering like moth wings.

“Remind me to get in touch with my lawyer,” he’d moaned.

Sitting in the detective agency, Encyclopedia told Sally, “Bugs doesn’t exactly love me, and you’ve driven him crazy. He thought he owned the neighborhood till you flattened him a few times. He won’t rest until he gets even.”

“Bugs is too dumb to get even,” Sally snapped. “Ask his Aunt Eve. He still can’t spell her name backwards.”

“Don’t sell him short,” Encyclopedia warned quietly.

A sudden squeal of tires and a slam of metal nearby tore the air.

Sally jumped to her feet. “What an awful sound! Someone may be hurt.”

The detectives ran to the scene. Two cars had banged fenders on Dunbary Street. People were still streaming from their homes and offices to see what had happened.

Encyclopedia caught sight of Bugs Meany. Bugs was standing in front of a house that doubled as a real estate office.

No one in either car was hurt. The drivers shouted at each other until the police arrived.

The police took charge. After twenty minutes, Encyclopedia and Sally returned to the detective agency.

“Uh-oh,” Sally said. “We left the garage door open.”

“There they are, the rotten little thieves!”

Bugs Meany came bounding out of the garage. Behind him was Officer Feldman.

“You’ll learn crime doesn’t pay!” Bugs jeered.

“Bugs claims you two stole a white electric fan from the desk of John Mann,” Officer Feldman said.

“Who is John Mann?” Sally asked.

“He has a real estate office near where the accident happened,” Officer Feldman said.

“I was walking past his office just before the accident,” Bugs put in. “I saw Mr. Mann at his desk. He took a paper from his pocket and laid it in front of him. His desk fan blew the paper onto the floor.”

“Did you see what was on the paper?” Officer Feldman asked.

“Naw, he’d just picked it up when the two cars hit each other,” Bugs said. “He shoved the paper into his pocket and raced out to the accident.”

“What did you see next?” Officer Feldman said.

“I saw these two goody-goods sneak into Mr. Mann’s office,” Bugs answered. “I didn’t worry about them. I worried that someone in the accident might need my help.”

“How did you know the fan was missing, Bugs?” Encyclopedia asked.

“I saw Mr. Mann come back to the office,” Bugs replied. “I heard him yell, ‘Someone stole my fan!’ I figured it must be you two. I’m always thinking overtime.”

“We never stole anything in our lives!” Sally protested.

Officer Feldman reached behind a sheet of plywood. He pulled out a small white fan.

“Bugs says he found the fan here,” the policeman said.

“It’s Mr. Mann’s fan, all right,” Bugs declared. “It’s white, it has four blades, and when you turn it on, it moves from side to side.”

Officer Feldman plugged the fan in at the workbench outlet. The whirring fan moved from side to side, spreading a cool breeze.

“Bugs is trying to frame us,” Sally said to Officer Feldman.

“Tell that to the Supreme Court,” Bugs sneered. “As soon as I learned the fan was gone, I ran here. I saw you two dewdrops hide it behind the plywood. I’ve suspected all along that the detective agency is just a front for moving hot goods.”

Bugs grinned. “After they hid the fan, I followed them back to the accident. They tried to make it look like they had never left.”

He rubbed his hands together and gloated. “The poor fools forgot about Bugs Meany, crusader for law and order!”

Sally turned to Encyclopedia with a pleading, do-something look.

“We didn’t steal the fan,” the detective said to Officer Feldman. “Bugs did.”

What made Encyclopedia so sure?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Stolen Fan.)

E
lmo was more than Meg Kelly’s beagle. He was the only dog in Idaville that could hold three tennis balls in his mouth at once.

Other than that, he had done absolutely nothing special in his whole life. Meg worried over him.

Wednesday morning she came into the Brown Detective Agency all excited.

“I’ve found a way for Elmo to fulfill himself,” she said. “Tomorrow he’ll try out for a job as a taster with the Good Eating pet food company.”