The Case of the Piggy Bank Thief (7 page)

Standing just inside the dig's taped-off boundaries was Mr. Golley, the head White House groundskeeper. When we stopped to talk to him, Hooligan sat down on my left, exactly the way he learned in Canine Class.

“How come you're out here, Mr. Golley?” Tessa asked.

Mr. Golley nodded at the ground. “I think we've got a guest out here, a mole. Sometimes they're awful hard on a lawn, not to mention the flowers and shrubbery.”

I had a sudden thought. “Wait a second. One of Professor Mudd's students found a bunch of holes out here yesterday. Could a mole have dug them?”

Mr. Golley shook his head. “Moles most of the time dig up from under, not down from above. You've heard of a molehill, right?”

While Mr. Golley explained about moles, Hooligan was on high alert—nose up and quivering like the wind carried some special doggy deliciousness. I should've predicted what was coming and braced myself, but I was paying attention to Mr. Golley.

Silly me.

Because five seconds later, Hooligan forgot he was a good dog and did his frenzy thing: lunged forward, thumped his paws, sprang high in the air and spun so fast he turned blurry.

You can imagine what all this did to the leash attached to his collar, my arm attached to the leash, and my body attached to my arm. Tangled and tripped, I fell, and—grabbing for assistance—brought Tessa and Dalton down with me.

Ouch, ouch, and
owieee!
But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that the leash slipped from my grasp, and Granny was going to kill me.

FREE at last, Hooligan zeroed in on the hedge where yesterday we'd seen the waddling cat disappear.

Uh-oh.

With a big head start, the cat had been able to outrun Pickles. But Hooligan's legs are a whole lot longer than Pickles's, not to mention Hooligan's jaws are a whole lot bigger. If Hooligan got wind of the fat cat, we would probably be witnessing fat-cat-snack.

Time to mount a feline rescue!

Nate, Zach and Mr. Golley took off, and as soon as I was back on my feet, I followed at full speed. Behind us came Dalton and Tessa, both waving their arms like Hooligan might understand sign language, except he doesn't, so all that waving just added commotion.

We were closing the gap a few strides from the hedge when Hooligan abruptly changed course.

Did he hear what I heard—something growling from the bushes?

Whatever the reason, Hooligan all of a sudden hung a U-y and circled back in the direction of the canopy.

Trying to cut him off, I made a sharp turn, too. Meanwhile, Mr. Golley went right, and Nate and Zach left. Next thing you know, all us kids and Mr. Golley were running in breathless circles that probably looked like NASCAR—only on foot and more prone to pile up and collision.

I guess Hooligan himself thought it was good entertainment, too, because he sat down panting to spectate, which was when—“Bad dog!”—I finally managed to tackle him.

A second later, Tessa caught up with us. “No, he's
not
a bad dog, are you, puppy?” She scratched behind his ears, while I got back on my feet and tried to sort out the tangled leash.

What had happened to the cat? Was it the cat that growled?

Anyway, I guessed it was safe for now.

Meanwhile, Mr. Golley, Nate, Zach and Dalton had all come running from different directions.

Mr. Golley caught his breath and shook his head. “I'm afraid ‘bad dog' pretty much sums it up,” he said. “Have you seen all the holes your canine dug around here yesterday?”

It was a second before that sank in; then Nate said, “You mean it was Hooligan who was digging for treasure yesterday afternoon?”

Mr. Golley laughed. “For treasure? Not hardly. More like greasy grimy mole guts.”

Tessa said,
“Ewwwww!”

And Zach said, “There goes our million-dollar reward.”

I tried to defend my dog. “Hooligan never dug a bunch of holes in the lawn before! How do you know for sure—?”

But before I could finish the question, a dirt clod smacked my shin, then another, then another, and—
“Hey, what . . . ?” “Get out of the way!” “Stop!”
—we were all jumping back and shielding ourselves, trying to avoid the sudden eruption of splattering dirt, grass and mud caused by Hooligan, world-champion hole digger.

Thinking fast, Dalton pulled a bag of jelly beans from his pants pocket. “Hooligan, look here, buddy—treats!”

Granny's right that jelly beans are unhealthy, but I was grateful because they're also effective. Instantly, Hooligan gave up digging to snarf a dozen right out of Dalton's hand.

Some other junk had dropped out of Dalton's pocket when the jelly beans did, pink plastic things. Dalton either didn't see or didn't care, but I bent down, picked them up and stuffed them into my back pocket. We were in enough trouble with Mr. Golley already, and he can't stand litter on the White House grounds.

By then it was eight a.m., and Zach and Dalton had to leave because they'd promised their parents they'd be back early. We all would have gone, except I saw Professor Mudd busy at his desk under the canopy. Somebody really had to tell him about Hooligan and the holes.

I nominated Mr. Golley.

“Please?” I said, and tried to smile sweetly the way Tessa does.

But Mr. Golley shook his head. “That professor fellow scares me,” he said. “Besides which, I've got a mole to catch.”

So much for smiling sweetly. Next I looked at Tessa and Nate, hoping maybe one of them would volunteer.

But they didn't.

“Oh,
fine
,” I said. “I'll do it. Come on.”

AS we approached the office under the canopy, Professor Mudd was sitting in front of his computer with his back to us. On the screen were numbers and dollar signs. We could tell he was concentrating, so we tried to be quiet, and I guess we succeeded, because he jumped when I tapped him on the shoulder.

Then he swiveled around, looked at us and scowled.

I was so eager to get this over with that I started right in, didn't even say good morning. “We're really sorry,” I said, and then I explained. All the time, Hooligan sat next to me on his leash wearing his most innocent and sincere expression, like he had never dug a hole in his life, like the dog I was talking about was some totally different dog.

The problem was all that dirt on his paws and muzzle. It kind of gave him away.

Eventually, I ran out of apologies, and then it was quiet for a second, and then Professor Mudd shook his
head and opened his mouth, and I thought,
Oh, no—we're in for it now!

But instead of chewing us out, he showed his teeth and laughed.

“So you want to be an honorary shovelbum, do you?” He scratched Hooligan behind the ears. “I thought we had a case of canine excavation as soon as I saw the holes myself yesterday. There's no real harm done. A lot of that section we'll dig up ourselves soon enough.”

What a relief! Nate, Tessa and I all exhaled at the same time, and after that it would have been “See you later,” except Nate elbowed me. I looked up and saw Wen Fei and Stephanie coming toward us from the West Gate. Were they still mad at Professor Mudd? They didn't act like it; they smiled and said good morning. Then, while Stephanie petted Hooligan, Professor Mudd explained how Hooligan had done some digging of his own.

Meanwhile, Tessa straightened her detecting hat. We had solved one mystery—who had dug the holes. But we still didn't know what had happened to the gold . . . if there ever was any gold.

“Would you guys mind if I asked you a few questions?” Tessa asked Wen Fei and Stephanie.

The two students looked at each other, then at Professor Mudd.

“Does this have anything to do with the so-called gold?” Professor Mudd asked Tessa.

Tessa answered honestly. “Yes.”

I thought Professor Mudd might get mad again, but
he just nodded. “Then it's a good thing the girls and I have already discussed it.”

Wen Fei gave Professor Mudd a hard look and repeated,
“Girls?”

Professor Mudd rolled his eyes. “Pardon me,” he said. “I meant the
women
and I have discussed it. And as far as I'm concerned, you are free to answer any questions.”

Wen Fei nodded. “Come on, Tessa. We can talk over here.”

We all headed for the tool cabinet. On the way, Stephanie mentioned my find from the day before. In all the excitement about gold, I had pretty much forgotten it, but she hadn't.

“I have a suspicion about what it is, but I haven't confirmed it yet,” she said.

“I should be able to tell you later this afternoon.”

While Wen Fei and Stephanie got out their tools, I got out my notebook and pen. Then Tessa crossed her arms over her chest.

“Wen Fei and Stephanie,” she began, “where did you go yesterday afternoon after you told everybody about the gold and no one believed you? Did you figure since it didn't really exist, it was okay to steal it for yourselves and hide it?”

Nate cringed and said, “Nice.”

Wen Fei sniffed and looked offended.

Stephanie giggled. “No, sweetie, we didn't steal anything.” She pulled her gloves on. “Although I admit stealing gold might be tempting for us poor, starving students.”

“And as for where we went,” Wen Fei said, “that was to the computer lab at the university. Professor Mudd asked us to double-check our results on their supercomputer.”

Nate asked, “What did you find out?”

“Hey.” Tessa gave him a Granny look. “I'm the one that asks the questions, remember?” She turned to Wen Fei. “What did you find out?”

“Same results,” Wen Fei said. “A small piece of gold located at the northwest corner of the excavation site.”

Tessa asked the question we were all thinking. “So do you know where the gold is now?”

Wen Fei pulled on her gloves, then looked at Tessa. “
We
have no idea,” she said. “Do you think maybe you should ask your dog?”

It was getting late, so we thanked Wen Fei and Stephanie and started walking back to the White House to get ready for church. On the way, Tessa asked, “Wen Fei and Stephanie are still our prime suspects, right?”

“Maybe,” Nate said. “But did you guys see what Professor Mudd had on his computer screen just now?”

We hadn't.

“I'm not entirely sure, but it looked like a letter asking someone to give him a lot of money for his research,” Nate explained. “Do you think he's broke?”

“If that's true, he could be saying there's no gold just to throw us off the track,” I said. “He could want it for himself to pay for his research.”

“Or how about this?” Tessa said. “Stephanie and Wen Fei are starving students. They could definitely use a coin that's worth a million.”

“I'm not so sure about that, though,” I said. “I mean, it makes sense that they went to the university to check the data on the big computer yesterday.”

Tessa looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn't have a chance. By now we were at the Dip Room awning, where Mr. Ng was waiting. Delighted, Hooligan tried to jump up and give his pal a big doggy kiss, but Mr. Ng knows Hooligan too well and dodged.

“He's a little bit overexcited owing to sugar,” Nate apologized. “He had a few jelly beans. It was an emergency.”

Mr. Ng took the leash and nodded. “Before I got this job, I could not have imagined a jelly bean emergency. Now it makes perfect sense.”