The Great Cake Mystery (5 page)

Sepo had brought his piece of bread and jam in a brown paper bag. While Big Mrs. Molipi served lunch, he had left the bag in the classroom, tucked away
safely under his desk. He was sure that this was where he had left it, and so when he went back in and saw that it had disappeared he was very surprised indeed.

“My bread!” he wailed. “Somebody's taken my bread!”

Precious was walking past the open door of the classroom when she heard this. She looked in: there was Sepo standing miserably by his desk.

“Are you sure?” Precious asked.

“Of course I'm sure,” Sepo said. “It was
there when we went out for lunch. Now it isn't, and
I
didn't take it.”

Precious walked into the classroom and stared at the spot being pointed out by Sepo. There was certainly nothing there.

“I'll ask people if they saw anything,” she said, thinking that she may have found her first case. “In the meantime, you can have half of my biscuit. I hope that will make you feel better.”

It did. Sepo was still upset, but not quite as upset as he had been when he made the discovery.

“What do you think happened?”

“I don't know, it's mysterious,” she said and thought how fun mysteries were.

“There must be a thief in the school,” Sepo said as they walked out into the playground. “Who do you think it is, Precious?”

Precious shrugged. “I just don't know,” she said. “It could be …” She paused. “It could be anyone.”

“I think I may know who it is,” he said. He did not speak very loudly, even though there was nobody else about.

Precious asked, “How do you know that? Did you see somebody taking it?”

Sepo again looked over his shoulder. “No,” he said. “I didn't see anybody actually take it. But I did see somebody walking away from the classroom door.”

Precious held her breath, waiting for Sepo to say more. He stayed silent, though, and so she whispered to him, “Who?”

Sepo did not say anything, but after hesitating for a moment or two he very carefully pointed to somebody standing in the playground.

“Him,” he whispered. “It's him. I saw him.”

hat night, as Precious lay on her sleeping mat, waiting for her father to come in and tell her a story—as he always did—she thought about what happened at school. She did not like the thought of there being a thief at school—thieves spoiled everything. They made people suspicious of one another, which was not a good thing at all. People should be able to trust other people, without worrying about whether they will steal their possessions.

But even if she did not like the thought of there being a thief, neither did she like the
thought that an innocent person might be suspected. She did not know the boy whom Sepo had pointed out—she had seen him, of course, and she knew his name, Poloko (PO–LOW–KO), but she did not know very much about him. And she certainly did not know that he was a thief.

Poloko was a rather round boy.

If you saw him walking along the street, you might think that perhaps that was a boy who ate a little bit too much. And if you got to know him a bit better, then you might be sure that this was so and that those bulges in his pockets were indeed sweets—a lot of them.

But just because somebody has lots of sweets does
not
mean that he has stolen them. One thing, you see, does not always lead to another. That is something that all detectives learn very early in their career.

The next day at school, when they were copying out letters from the board, Sepo whispered, “Have you told anybody about the thief?”

Precious shook her head. “We don't know who it is. How can I tell the teacher about something I don't know?”

“But
I
know who it is,” Sepo said. “And Big Mrs. Molipi told me that somebody has stolen three iced buns from her kitchen! She told me that this morning. Poloko's probably eaten them already!”

Precious listened in silence. She thought that this was a very unfair thing to say and she was about to tell Sepo so when the teacher gave them a stern look. So Precious just said, “Shh!” instead and left it at that. But later, when the children were let out to play while the teachers drank their tea, Sepo and Tapiwa came up to her and said they wanted to speak to her.

“Are you going to help us deal with the thief?” Tapiwa said.

Precious tried to look surprised. She knew what they meant, but she did not want to help them without any proof. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “How can we deal with the thief if we don't know who it is?”

“But we do know,” Sepo said. “It's Poloko, that's who it is.”

Precious stared at Sepo. “You don't know that,” she said. “So I'm not going to help you until you have some proof.”

Sepo smiled. “All right,” he said. “If you want some proof, we'll get it for you. We're going to look at his hands.”

Precious wondered what he meant by that, but before she had the time to ask him, Sepo and Tapiwa ran off to the other side of
the playground where Poloko was sitting on a rock. Precious ran behind them—not because she wanted to help them, but because she wanted to see what was happening.