Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Treasure Hunt (2 page)

“Not me,” Farnsworth said.

“Why not?” Encyclopedia demanded impatiently. “Give me one good reason.”

“I’ll give you three,” Farnsworth replied. “I’m afraid, I’m scared, I’m a coward.”

“Relax,” Encyclopedia said gently. “I’ve handled Bugs before. His breath is worse than his bite.”

The Tigers’ clubhouse was an unused toolshed behind Mr. Sweeney’s Auto Body Shop. Bugs and two of his Tigers were outside, sitting on orange crates.

“Well, well,” Bugs growled as Encyclopedia and Farnsworth approached. “Look who’s playing hooky from a padded cell.”

Farnsworth walked straight up to the thin pizza box that lay open on the clubhouse step. One piece of pizza remained.

“They’ve eaten nearly all of it!” Farnsworth screamed.

“Man, oh, man,” Bugs moaned, clapping himself on the forehead. “Do I ever get the screwballs! What’s he raving about?”

“Farnsworth claims you stole a slice of his pizza, and then you stole the whole thing,” Encyclopedia said.

“This pizza belongs to us Tigers,” Bugs retorted. “We bought it to celebrate the one-month anniversary of the Society to Preserve the Round Pizza.”

“What’s that?” Encyclopedia inquired.

“It’s not a useless society, like the Flat Earth Association,” Bugs declared with a sneer. “When you talk pizza, you’re talking something you can get your teeth into.”

“Who cares?” Farnsworth cried.

“All true pizza lovers care,” Bugs answered loftily. “Say, what’s the matter with you? Haven’t you heard? The square pizza was on
the edge of cornering the market until we Tigers met the challenge. We started our society to keep the round pizza rolling along.”

“Never mind the news brief,” Farnsworth said. “You stole my pizza!”

“I told you it belongs to us,” Bugs snapped. “Now you two crumb cakes move on. Go kiss a shark. Stick around and we’ll play chimes.”

“What’s … ch-chimes?” Farnsworth’s voice faded as he watched Bugs curl his fingers into fists.

“First I ring your head, and then I ring your neck,” Bugs snarled.

“I have a suggestion,” Farnsworth whispered to Encyclopedia. “Let’s get out of here before we are severely injured.”

Encyclopedia ignored the plea. He knew that if he stood calmly, Bugs would shed his tough-guy act.

Bugs did. “There’s no sense in arguing,” he said when Encyclopedia refused to scare. “Here, have a piece of pizza. We Tigers share everything equally. We each had a couple of pieces, so you can have the last one.”

“Thanks,” Encyclopedia said. “Do you have a knife to cut it in half?”

Bugs looked questioningly at the other
Tigers. They shook their heads.

“I’m not settling for half a piece of my own pizza,” Farnsworth said.

“You won’t have to,” Encyclopedia replied. “Bugs will buy you another. His story is too much to swallow.”

WHAT WAS BUGS’S MISTAKE?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to
The Case of the Round Pizza.)

W
hat Bugs Meany wanted most out of life was to get even with Encyclopedia Brown.

The Tigers’ leader hated being outsmarted all the time. He longed to shove the detective’s teeth so far down his throat that he’d have to do deep knee-bends to chew.

Still, Bugs never tried bullying Encyclopedia. Whenever he got mad enough to use muscle, he remembered Sally Kimball.

Sally was Encyclopedia’s junior partner. She was also the prettiest girl in the fifth grade, and the best athlete. What’s more, she had
done what no one had thought possible.

She had pounded rough, tough Bugs Meany dizzy.

The last time they had fought, Bugs finished on his back, lost in dreamland. “Your money will be cheerfully refunded, madam,” he had moaned.

“Bugs won’t quit till he gets even with you,” Encyclopedia warned Sally. “You’ve punched out his lights too often.”

“He’s not exactly fond of you, either,” Sally replied. “Heck, why worry? Bugs thinks he’s a tiger, but he’s really just an animal cracker.”

The detectives were riding the number four bus to the zoo in Glenn City. The previous evening, Sally had received a telephone call from a boy who had given his name as Phil Birch.

He had engaged the detectives by telephone. He asked them to pick up a white shopping bag that he had left at the zoo that day. He couldn’t go himself, he said, because he was sick. In the shopping bag were a few marshmallows and a birthday gift, a box of chocolates, for his mother.

As the detectives got off the bus, Sally looked worried. “I don’t know a Phil Birch,”
she said. “I wonder if this is another of Bugs Meany’s tricks. We could be walking into a trap.”

“We’ll just have to watch our step,” Encyclopedia murmured.

“Phil Birch said he may have left the shopping bag under a bench near the antelopes,” Sally said.

The crowd at the zoo was light, and the detectives reached the antelope enclosure quickly.

Encyclopedia saw the bench right away. It stood among a cluster of small palm trees. Under the bench was a white shopping bag.

Sally peered into the bag. “A few marshmallows and an unopened box of chocolates, just as Phil Birch said,” she told Encyclopedia.

Suddenly a voice shouted, “There they are!”

It was Bugs Meany. He carried a sketch pad. As he ran toward Encyclopedia and Sally, he called, “Guard! Guard!”

In a moment a uniformed guard approached, striding hurriedly.

Bugs wagged a finger under Sally’s nose. “Thought you could make a fool of the law, eh, sister?” he cried.

“Sister?” Sally exclaimed. “If that’s true, I’m leaving home.”

“What’s this about?” Encyclopedia demanded.

“They were feeding the antelopes candy,” Bugs said. “Oh, how cruel! Everyone knows that too much sugar gives animals heart problems.”

“We didn’t feed them a thing,” Sally protested. “You’re trying to frame us.”

“I saw you throwing marshmallows at the antelopes,” Bugs declared.

The guard held out his hand. “May I see what’s in the shopping bag?”

“Marshmallows and chocolates,” Sally said in a small voice.

“Cruelty to animals is an offense punishable by law,” Bugs sang. “Arrest them!”

“Not so fast,” the guard said. “I didn’t actually see the young lady feed the animals, and there is no one else around. Are you sure of what you saw, young man? Be honest.”

“Honesty is my weakness,” Bugs said. “I saw them tossing marshmallows to the antelopes not two minutes ago.”

“You living lump,” Sally said, raging. “You know you’re lying.”

“Lying?” Bugs cried. “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Judging by your grades, you don’t know the meaning of lots of words,” Sally retorted.

“What are you doing at the zoo today, Bugs?” Encyclopedia asked.

“And so conveniently close to us,” Sally added.

“I was drawing a zebra,” Bugs answered slyly. He flipped open his sketch pad and showed it to the detectives. “I’d just finished this sketch when I spotted you two tossing marshmallows to the antelopes.”

Encyclopedia looked at the zebra enclosure, fifty yards to his left. Then he looked at the drawing, a pencil sketch of a zebra. On one of the white body stripes, running from the front to the hind legs, Bugs had written his name and the date.

“Artists don’t sign their names in the center of a picture,” Sally said. “They sign at the bottom.”

“When you’re good, you don’t have to be modest,” Bugs said, gloating.

“You planned this whole thing, you babbling brook,” Sally snapped. “You had one of your Tigers call me and pretend to be Phil
Birch. That’s how you got us here.”

“A true artist like me never gets mixed up with juvenile delinquents,” Bugs declared. He clasped his hands over his heart and inhaled deeply. “Ah, how I long for some quiet place to paint, a place where the hand of man has never set foot.”

“You talk worse than you draw, Bugs,” Encyclopedia said. “I can prove you’re trying to frame us!”

WHAT WAS THE PROOF?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to
The Case of Bugs’s Zebra.)

E
very July 9, the town of Idaville celebrated Founders Day. The big event for children was the treasure hunt.

The hunt always began at a glass display case in the main library. The display case housed the diary of Samuel Dowdy. He had helped found Idaville.

Encyclopedia and Sally joined the other children waiting for the hunt to begin. Everyone knew the rules. Nevertheless, Mr. McPherson, the hunt director, went over them thoroughly.

This year, he said, the clues were hidden at
five checkpoints. Each clue told where the next checkpoint was. Hunt officials made sure every boy and girl reached every checkpoint and found the clue there. No one could cheat by simply following the leaders.

A red card was hidden at the fifth and last checkpoint. On it were written two words: “You Won.”

“The winner’s prize this year is a racing bicycle,” Mr. McPherson announced. “Here is your first clue.”

He read from a piece of paper. “Go to Clarson. Hurry up and get the lead out of your gas.”

“That must mean the next clue is hidden at Dan’s Service Station on Clarson Avenue,” Sally whispered to Encyclopedia.

The detectives moved quickly toward the front door of the library. Mr. McPherson stopped them.

“I must see you at once,” he said in a low, worried tone. He led Encyclopedia and Sally to a corner.

There he explained his concern. An hour ago, as he hid the clues, he sensed someone watching him.

“Whoever it was,” he said, “knows the
checkpoints and the clues. He or she is sure to win.”

Mr. McPherson looked at Encyclopedia steadily.

“I don’t want to go to the police,” he continued. “It would spoil the treasure hunt.”

Encyclopedia nodded in agreement. “You want us to find the cheater?” he asked.

“And keep it quiet,” Mr. McPherson cautioned. “I understand you are good at such matters. Will you help?”

“I’ll do my best,” Encyclopedia replied, though it meant withdrawing from the treasure hunt. “What is the final clue? The one that leads to the card with ‘You Won’ written on it?”

“ ‘Look beneath the best-known dairy in town,’ ” Mr. McPherson replied.

“That’s too easy,” Sally complained. “There is only one dairy in town, the office building of the Johnson Dairy Company.”

“Yes, but what most people don’t know is that there is a little four-car garage below the building,” Mr. McPherson said. “You enter it from a side alley. The card ‘You Won’ is tucked behind the windshield wiper of a pickup truck.”

Encyclopedia closed his eyes in thought. When he opened them, he said, “All we have to do is move the card from the underground garage to a new place.”

“But that will mean changing the wording of the last clue,” protested Mr. McPherson.

“Exactly,” Encyclopedia said. “But it’s important that the cheater doesn’t notice the change. If he does, he’ll be frightened off. We’ll never know who he is.”

“Or who
she
is,” Sally said tartly.