The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue (4 page)

Water, Water …

A
s we tiptoed down the hall to the pool, my heart was going a mile a minute. But my feet were going an inch a minute. They knew I didn’t want to be near the pool or hear any more spooky splashing. No such luck.

Splash!

“The thief is
so
in there,” whispered Kelly, her fingers nervously twisting her blond curls.

“I hope it’s not that monkey,” Brian whispered. “Or Violet. Her pink hair really wigs me out.”

“We need disguises,” whispered Mara. “What do they have lots of at pools?”

“Water?”

“Diving boards?”

“Slippery tiles?”

“I was thinking of towels,” said Mara. “If we wrap up in towels, the thief can’t identify us. Plus we won’t get wet. Plus-plus we’ll be like fluffy bunnies, which is always good.”

Everything Mara said was true, so we snuck into the supply room and wrapped ourselves in towels so that the thief couldn’t identify us. We were so chubby with towels, we could barely identify ourselves!

We tried to wrap Sparky in towels, but he just growled at us and ran away.

“When we solve the case, he’ll be back to claim his share of the glory,” Brian said.

“Or his share of your pants,” I said.

Suddenly, we heard footsteps sloshing in the next room and a door banging closed.

“We’ve trapped him!” said Mara. “Be stealthy,” I whispered. “Brian?” “I know what it means now,” he said.

I waddled up to the door to the swimming pool. I pushed it open. The room was empty, but we saw wet spots in the shape of shoes. They seemed to lead from the pool to a closed door behind the diving board.

Kelly pointed to the door. “He’s in there!”

Wiggling his head out of his towel disguise, Brian leaned close to us. “I lost my shoes in that room once. I got to know it backward and forward. I’ll surprise the thief.”

“Did you ever find your shoes?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It turned out they were on my feet the whole time. Now, hold my climbing rope. I’m going in!”

Brian tiptoed to the door, threw it open, cried, “Aha!”—then leaped into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

A loud fight broke out. It sounded like furniture cracking and people groaning and something being thrown against the door.

“Take—
that
!” cried Brian. “And
that
!”

There was a loud squeak, and water streamed out from under the door.

“Help!” Brian cried, falling out the door, soaking wet, with his towel disguise falling off. With him came a bunch of mops and brooms and other stuff. Water was spraying all over the floor from a broken faucet.

“Where is the thief?” asked Kelly.

Brian picked himself up and looked into the room. “He escaped! Which never would have happened if he’d stepped on golf balls!”

“Wait. You
saw
the thief?” Mara asked.

“It was too dark,” Brian said. “But he attacked me with mops and junk. Then he turned on the faucet and tried to drown me!”

“The thief turned on the faucet?” I asked.

“And broke it in half,” said Brian, holding a piece of faucet in his hand.

Kelly peeked in the empty room. “But this is the only door. And there’s no one in there.”

“Sure, now,” said Brian. “But I fought him pretty good.”

“Brian?” I said.

“Yes?” he said.

“Did you maybe fight the
mops
?” I asked. “And maybe
you
broke the faucet?”

He looked at me, at the faucet in his hand, at the mops, and at the water gushing from the open pipe. “It may have happened that way. But in my defense, it was really dark.”

Kelly sighed. “So the footprints didn’t lead
to
the closet. They led
away
from it, to the door to the hallway.”

“What do they keep in that closet besides brooms and mops?” asked Mara.

“You mean now?” said Brian, tying the climbing rope around his waist to hold his soggy pants up. “Mostly water.”

Then something gold floated past my feet. I snatched it up. “The other half of the broken pencil!” I pulled out the stub of pencil I had found in the Caf. I fitted them together.

“A perfect match!” I said.

Now I could read words on the pencil.

My whole body began to shake.

I flipped open my cluebook and found what I was looking for. “Ah … haaa!”

“Bless you,” said Kelly. “If that was a sneeze.”

“It wasn’t, but thank you,” I said. “Goofballs, listen. This pencil isn’t from a very rich man. In fact, there’s only one place in the whole world to find a pencil like this!”

“The Pencil Association?” said Mara.

“The Museum of Writing Stuff?” said Kelly.

“The Pencils R Us Superstore?” said Brian.

“No, no, and no,” I said. “I’ll bet anything that this pencil is the special gift Principal Higgins was planning to give out tonight. If it is, and if the thief had one, the thief must have been in the principal’s office. So the office is where we need to go right now. Come on!”

“What about the water leak?” asked Mara. “Should we tell Mr. Wick?”

“We’re hot on the trail of the thief,” I said. “There’s no time.”

“Besides, what’s a little drip when you’re solving the Crime of the Century?” said Brian as he quietly closed the closet door.

“Goofballs, to the office!” I cried.

T
earing off our towel disguises, we raced down the hall. The water seemed to follow us. We slid into the principal’s office.

The water followed us there, too.

The office was empty. The desk was clear except for two things. A big, crusty orange book. And a big carton of gold pencils exactly like the broken one.

“I knew it!” I said. “The thief was in this office. We are close to solving this mystery.”

“I think we’re so close,” said Mara, blinking through her big green glasses, “that my lenses are fogging up!”

All at once, we heard footsteps outside the office. My heart skipped a beat.

“Take cover!” I said. “Under the desk!”

“Wait!” said Kelly. “Didn’t we hide under a desk once, and didn’t we say we’d never do it again?”

“Ah!” I said. “The Ridiculous Riddle of the Dusty Desk. One of our first mysteries. But I don’t remember why we said that.”

“I think I blocked it out,” said Brian.

Footsteps were coming closer.

“Does anyone have a better idea?” I asked.

Stomp! Stomp!

“Under the desk!” they all said.

But the instant we piled under the desk, we
all
remembered why we said we’d never hide under one again.

Even without Sparky, there was room for only one medium-size person under there. Or two tiny people. Or one tiny person and a medium skateboard. Or a medium climbing rope and one small person. But not four medium people, a purple skateboard, a thick climbing rope, two halves of a pencil, the best cluebook ever, and a smelly slip of paper.

Brian’s foot was wedged against my chin. My shoulders were in Kelly’s and Mara’s ears. Someone’s knee was squishing my behind.

We were about to explode into a hundred pieces when the office door squeaked open and someone stepped in.

Squish-squish!

A person with wet shoes!

Squish-squish … squish-squish
!

Two
people with wet shoes!

Two thieves
?

We heard heavy breathing. The two thieves were only inches away from us.

They knew what
stealthy
meant. They didn’t speak. The next thing I saw was light from a flashlight scanning the top of the desk.

I wiggled my arms and legs to alert the Goofballs to do something we learned on a case last summer.

We were all stuck in a place where we had to talk without anyone hearing us. So we learned to read each other’s lips.

Here’s how you do it.

You form words
very carefully
on your lips. And you “say” them very
s—l—o—w—l—y
, moving your lips and tongue in a BIG way. But you don’t use your breath to make sound. That way you can be silent and still understand each other.

I wrote all about it in my cluebook. We call it Silent Speak. It’s one of the finest of the many fine Goofball detective techniques.

Even as the two thieves searched the desk we were hiding under, we each shifted our eyes so we could all see everyone else’s lips.

Our Silent Speak conversation went like this:

“Who can see what’s going on?”

“Not me. Can you?”

“No. But I think I smell stinky feet.”

“You hope it’s only stinky feet.”

“A bony elbow is in my face.”

“So that’s where my elbow is!”

“I can’t even feel my elbow.”

“I can’t feel my face! Or my toes.”

“I feel my toes. But someone’s licking them.”

“Mine too! I really hope it’s Sparky.”

“Sparky ran away, remember?”

“Then I think I’m going to barf!”

“Go ahead. It already smells like
stinky feet.”

All of a sudden, one of the thieves sneezed. Then something fell to the floor next to me.

“A piece of cheese!”
I mouthed.

“Swiss?”
mouthed Mara.

“Looks like cheddar,”
I answered.

“Never mind the cheese,” said a gruff voice. “I have what I came for. The last piece of the puzzle. Come on. We have to get rolling.”

“Rolling? Good one, Gramps.”

“Gramps? Did you hear that?”

“I have cramps in my knees!”

The four shoes turned and squished out of the room. The door closed behind them.

We untangled ourselves.

“There are
two
of them!” said Kelly.

“One kid and one grandpa!” I said.

“And neither of them sounds like a monkey!” said Brian.

Then Mara snatched up the cheese from the floor. She studied it through her big green glasses.
“This cheese has marks on it,”
she mouthed.
“Not teeth marks. These marks were made by … a cheese grater. It all makes sense!”

“Yes!” said Brian. “Wait. It does? How?”

“Don’t you get it?”
Mara mouthed.
“It’s what’s on Kelly’s torn paper.
HEES GRATE.
Add a
C
, an
E
, and an
R
, and you get
CHEESE GRATER
.”

“Brilliant!” I said.

Kelly pointed at the desk. “The big orange book is gone. The thieves stole that, too!”

“Also brilliant,”
Mara mouthed.

“Mara,” said Brian, “you can say your words out loud now. The thieves are gone.”

“But this is so much fun!”
she mouthed.