Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme

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OY
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ETECTIVE

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ITCH

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INDS THE
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AN

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OLVES
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EEPS THE
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AVES THE
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AKES THE
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IDNIGHT
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ISITOR

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RACKS THE
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LEUTH

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S

DUTTON CHILDREN'S BOOKS

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2012 by Lobos Enterprises, LLC

Illustrations copyright © 2012 by James Bernardin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sobol, Donald J., date.

Encyclopedia Brown and the case of the soccer scheme / by Donald J.

Sobol ; illustrated by James Bernardin.—1st ed.

p. cm.—(Encyclopedia Brown)

Summary: Idaville's secret weapon against lawbreakers, ten-year-old Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown, helps the police force solve ten new cases, the solutions to which are found in the back of the book.

eBook ISBN 978-1-101-59167-3 [1. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Bernardin, James, ill. II. Title.

PZ7.S68524Epao 2012

[Fic]—dc23 2011049551

Published in the United States by Dutton Children's Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,

345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 • www.penguin.com/youngreaders

Designed by Jason Henry and Irene Vandervoort

 

For Rose,

Who Deserves All the Dedications

The Case of the Friendly Watchdog

Idaville looked like many seaside towns on the outside. On the inside, however, Idaville was different. Very different.

No one, grown-up or child, got away with breaking the law in Idaville.

The center of the war on crime was not police headquarters. It was the redbrick house at 13 Rover Avenue. There lived Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their only child, ten-year-old Encyclopedia.

Mr. Brown was chief of police. He was brave and smart. Whenever he came up against a case he couldn't solve, he went home to dinner.

Encyclopedia solved the case at the table. Usually by asking one question. Usually before dessert.

Chief Brown would have liked to tell everyone about Encyclopedia. Who would believe him? Who would believe that the mastermind behind Idaville's crime cleanup was a fifth grader?

So he kept his son's detective police work a secret, and so did Mrs. Brown.

Encyclopedia was content to forego fame. Helping to keep Idaville a safe place to live was the best reward.

However, he was stuck with his nickname. No one but his parents and his teachers called him by his real name, Leroy. He knew so much that everyone else called him Encyclopedia.

An encyclopedia is a book or set of books filled with facts from
A
to
Z
. So was Encyclopedia's head. He had read more books than just about anyone in Idaville, and he never forgot what he read.

On Thursday Chief Brown was in Glenn City helping the police there solve a holdup. Right before he had left, a theft had taken place in Idaville. He had one of his officers take charge of the case, write a report, and leave a copy with Mrs. Brown.

Mrs. Brown read the report out loud. Encyclopedia listened to every word.

Jewelry was stolen Wednesday from the home of Adam and Gilda Lang. Any other watchdog would have barked at whoever committed the crime, but not their Morris. The neighbors didn't hear a sound.

Morris was a Great Dane and as friendly as a kitten. If he saw a stranger in the yard, he didn't bark. He wagged his tail.

Earlier in the year Mrs. Lang had signed him up for obedience school.

Morris could not pass the first test—sitting still for two minutes.

Mrs. Lang had urged him in no uncertain terms. “Sit, Morris, sit. For just two minutes, dear. That isn't hard. Be a love and
sit
!”

Morris decided to forget the whole thing. He dropped onto his stomach and licked his paws.

The following week Mrs. Lang entered him in Calvin's Canine College to improve his mind. He flunked.

Next she entered him in the Idaville Dog Show. Brains didn't count. Looks were all-important.

That's where Morris started disliking bald-headed men.

A woman was judging him. A trainer, who was bald as a lightbulb, tripped and knocked her down. She hurt her hip. A male judge replaced her. He, too, was bald. Morris barked like crazy at him and had to be pulled away.

Ever since then, Morris loses his temper whenever he sees a bald-headed man. He barks but never bites.

Mrs. Lang discovered her jewelry missing when she came home from a trip yesterday. Mrs. Lang's brother, Dudley Nelson, lives across the street from the Langs. The Langs were out of town for two days. Whenever they are gone, Dudley takes care of Morris.

Before they left, the Langs told Dudley to expect two repairmen in the morning. Hans was to fix the pool pump. Tex was to fix the lawn sprinklers.

* * *

Dudley tended his garden in front of his house while waiting for the two men. A little after nine o'clock Hans parked his truck by the gate of the Langs' fenced property. Two minutes later Tex drove up. Both men were bald. Neither had a hat.

Dudley told them that Morris barked at bald men. He loaned Hans a Yankee baseball cap. Hans, a baseball fan, was delighted. Dudley loaned Tex a ten-gallon Texas cowboy hat. Tex was delighted. Its wide brim shaded his face and neck.

Both men worked outside behind the house. Dudley lost sight of them. A seven-foot hedge surrounded the fence, and so the men were also out of sight of neighbors.

At ten o'clock, Hans drove off for about an hour. He returned with a bulging shopping bag. Then Tex drove off and came back in a little more than an hour. He, too, had a bulging shopping bag. When questioned by detectives, both men claimed to have gone to buy parts. That turned out to be true.

Each man was alone while the other went for parts. So each man had time to steal the jewelry. Morris never barked.

The doors to the house were locked. However, Morris goes in and out by a doggy door between the kitchen and part of the yard behind the house. It is automatically locked at five o'clock. Hans and Tex are small. Dudley said either man could have squeezed through the doggy door and into the house and stolen the jewels.

The men quit work within a minute of each other. Their tool cases could easily hold their tools and the jewels.

There the report ended.

“The report has all the facts except who was the thief, Hans or Tex,” said Mrs. Brown. “It has to be one or the other.”

“It's the one at whom Morris wouldn't bark,” said Encyclopedia.

WAS IT TEX OR HANS?

(
Click here for the solution to “The Case of the Friendly Watchdog.”
)