The Case of the Bear Scare Page 2

  “Worse,” Lucy answered.

  “An animal?” Mila guessed. “Like a stray dog or something?”

  “Worse than a stray dog,” Lucy repeated.

  “Did you see Bigfoot tiptoe through the tulips?” I joked.

  Lucy looked to the carpet. Her face went pale.

  “A bear …?” Mila guessed.

  Lucy slapped a few dollars into Mila’s hand. “You’re the detectives. What are you waiting for? Start detectin’!”

  Chapter

  7

  Growl

  We stepped into Lucy’s large, sprawling backyard. Tall trees towered above us. The sky was clear and bright. A light breeze blew, carrying with it all the promises of spring.

  “Look at this, Jigsaw.” Mila held up a wooden pole that had been snapped in half. At the top, there was a bird feeder.

  “It would take a very chubby squirrel to do that,” I quipped.

  “Or a bear,” Mila stated. “They love birdseed, remember? Lightning Lou told us that.”

  I remembered.

  We searched the yard for bear tracks but didn’t find any. “It hasn’t rained in a while,” Mila pointed out. “The ground is hard and firm. A bear might not have left tracks.”

  Mila was right, as usual. In the far corner of Lucy’s backyard, I noticed a compost pile ringed with wire fencing. Beyond it lay the woods. The compost looked like last week’s garbage to me. Banana peels, coffee grounds, melon rinds, and other scraps.

  “What a smelly mess,” I groaned.

  Mila tapped her front tooth thoughtfully. “I still don’t see paw prints. No scratch marks on the trees. It’s hard to tell for sure.”

  Growl.

  “Shhh,” Mila whispered. She grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Did you hear that?”

  I listened.

  Growl, rumble, gurgle, growl.

  She squeezed tighter.

  “What’s that growling sound?!” Mila asked, her eyes wide with fear.

  GROWL.

  Mila backed up a step. Then another.

  I smiled. “Relax, partner,” I said. “That’s my stomach. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

  “Jigsaw!” snapped Mila. “Tell your stomach to pipe down! You nearly scared me to death.” She turned and stomped back into the house.

  Lucy was waiting for us in the kitchen. “What do you guys think?”

  I opened my detective journal and wrote:

  * * *

  CLIENT: Lucy Hiller

  CASE: The Bear Scare

  * * *

  I jotted down a few notes. “You didn’t see anything?” I asked Lucy.

  She shook her head.

  “Did you hear anything?” Mila asked.

  Lucy lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “I don’t know. Maybe some noises. I didn’t pay much attention to them.”

  “What kind of noises?” Mila asked.

  Lucy thought for a moment. “Rustling noises,” she concluded.

  “Like leaves?”

  “Not exactly,” Lucy answered. “It was more like a stomping-through-the-bushes kind of sound.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Right before I called,” Lucy said. “I looked out the back window. I like watching the birds when I eat my Eggos. That’s when I noticed the bird feeder had been knocked down.”

  Mila pointed out the window. “Those woods. How far back do they go?”

  “Not too far,” Lucy said. “There’s Merkle’s Stream, then a big hill. There are more houses on the other side of the hill.”

  Mila murmured, “Hmmmm.”

  “What do you mean, ‘hmmmm’?” I asked.

  Mila sat down heavily. “Merkle’s Stream goes for a few miles. It flows from the river.”

  The words of Lightning Lou echoed in my ears. He had said, A young male will often follow a river. And if a bear will follow a river, a bear might also follow a stream. It all made sense.

  “May I use your phone?” I asked Lucy.

  “It depends,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Who are you going to call?”

  “Nine-one-one,” I said. “This case is too big for us. We should notify the police.”

  “No way,” Lucy said. She crossed her arms and glared at me.

  “Take it easy, Lucy. I’m just trying to help,” I countered.

  “No police,” Lucy demanded. “If there’s a bear out there, I don’t want anything to happen to him. You heard Lightning Lou. Sometimes innocent bears get hurt.”

  “But, Lucy, it may be a real bear!” I argued. “With real teeth and real claws. We’re not talking about Winnie-the-Pooh.”

  “It’s not his fault he’s a bear,” Lucy snapped back. “Let’s leave him alone. Just pretend we never saw anything. And, well, we didn’t. Did we?”

  Lucy crossed her arms. Slowly, the expression on her face softened. “Look, it might not even be a bear. You said so yourself. We’d all feel pretty silly if the police came and it turned out to be an angry woodchuck.”

  “Lucy has a point,” Mila noted.

  I sighed. “This feels like a mistake to me.”

  “No police,” Lucy repeated. “At least not until we have proof. Is it a deal?”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “Let’s go, Mila. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “Where are we going?” Mila asked.

  “To the library,” I replied. “Then back to my tree house. I’ll feel safer there—it’s ten feet above the ground.”

  Chapter

  8

  In the Tree House

  Stringbean Noonan and Joey Pignattano joined us. We needed all the help we could get. Stringbean already knew a lot about bears. He watched nature shows all the time. And Joey, well, he was a nice guy to have around.

  Mila spread the books on the tree house floor. “Here are all the books about bears that we could find,” she said. “We need to learn as much about them as possible.”

  We each picked a book and started reading. Every few minutes, somebody would share an interesting fact. Stringbean said, “There are three species of bears in North America: brown, black, and polar. A grizzly bear is a brown bear,” he explained. “They mostly live out West.”

  Mila added, “And polar bears live in one of the coldest spots on earth—the Arctic Circle.”

  “Don’t forget Teddy bears!” Joey said.

  “Say what?” I asked.

  “It says here they got their name from President Theodore Roosevelt,” Joey explained. “Write it down, Jigsaw. It may be an important clue!”

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  Joey was as serious as a math quiz. I wrote down Teddy bear to keep him happy.

  “You never know,” Joey said.

  “Some people never do,” I murmured. I returned to hunting down bear facts in the book on my lap.

  I held up my book. “Anybody want to see a picture of bear poop?”

  “Gross, Jigsaw,” Mila exclaimed.

  “It’s research,” I replied. “It’s important to know what this stuff looks like.”

  Stringbean and Joey peered over my shoulder. “They call it scat,” I explained. “I guess that beats calling it ‘poop’ all the time. Sounds more professional.”

  “Too bad we didn’t find any at Lucy’s house,” Mila mused. “That would have been all the proof we needed.”

  Stringbean nodded thoughtfully.

  Suddenly, my dog, Rags, barked below. Joey stopped talking and looked down. His face went white.

  Mila noticed Joey’s nervousness and teased him with a song:

  “The bear climbed up in the tree house.

  The bear climbed up in the tree house.

  The bear climbed up in the tree house …

  To eat Joey and me!”

  “Better change your tune,” I suggested to Mila. “That song’s getting on Joey’s nerves. Besides, bears can’t climb trees.”

  Stringbean clucked with his tongue. “Grizzly bears can’t climb trees,” he said. �
��But black bears can. They do it all the time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?!” I exclaimed.

  “I didn’t think of it sooner,” Stringbean said.

  “That’s just great,” I muttered. “Here we are, up in a tree. And down there somewhere is a hungry bear who happens to like climbing trees. Let’s get inside, and fast.”

  Chapter

  9

  A Tricky Code

  I dug out my homework folder. I thought it might be fun to look at the slang words Ms. Gleason had given us.

  It read:

  A knock sounded at my door. “Jigsaw, telephone!”

  Dog and bone, I thought. Rhyming slang.

  It was Stringbean Noonan. “Hi, Jigsaw.”

  “G’day, mate,” I answered. I was beginning to get the hang of this Australian slang.

  “Er, yeah,” Stringbean replied. “I was thinking about the bear. What if you called Lightning Lou?”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I answered. “A hotshot TV star doesn’t want to mess around with kids like us.”

  “No, no, he does!” Stringbean protested. “He said so himself. Remember?! He’s doing research on bears. He wants to do a television show about bears. Lightning Lou would love to find out about this.”

  “Well, maybe you’re right,” I said. “Just the same, I’d like to get proof that there really was a bear in Lucy’s backyard.”

  “Bear scat would do it,” Stringbean said.

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “The real poop.”

  “And if you found bear droppings, then would you call Lightning Lou?” Stringbean asked.

  “In a heartbeat,” I answered.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Um, Jigsaw …”

  “Yes, Stringbean?”

  “Can I come? I mean, if you do call Lightning Lou. It would be great to meet him again. He’s sort of my hero.”

  “Sure, Stringbean,” I answered. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Lightning Lou told us he was staying at the Holiday Hotel,” Stringbean said. “I even looked up the phone number for you.”

  I wrote down the number and said bye. It was a good thing, too. Because my lugs hurt from all that yabbering.

  I took out my detective journal. It helped me to review the facts of the case. I got inspired and drew a picture of a bear, growling and snarling. Hopefully I’d never meet him in real life.

  Before bed, I wrote a message to Mila. We send all our messages in code. I used a Vowel Code. See, the five vowels are A, E, I, O, and U. When you use a Vowel Code, you switch the vowels a little. The vowel A in the real word becomes E in the code word, E becomes I, I becomes O, O becomes U, and U becomes A.

  My message was simple:

  O YEBBIRID WOTH STRONGBIEN UN THI DUG END BUNI.

  It really said:

  I YABBERED WITH STRINGBEAN ON THE DOG AND BONE.

  Cool, huh?

  Chapter

  10

  Scat!

  Mila and I went back to Lucy’s house bright and early Sunday morning. We found Stringbean Noonan waiting for us on Lucy Hiller’s front steps. Lucy sat beside him.

  “I thought you might need some help,” Stringbean offered.

  “Thanks,” I replied. “Okay, let’s spread out. And watch where you step.”

  “What are we looking for?” Lucy asked.

  “Winnie-the-Poop,” I joked.

  Lucy made a face. “On second thought, I’ll wait inside.”

  A few minutes later, Stringbean cried out, “Found one!”

  We gathered around. There we were, the three of us, staring at a pile of bear poop. Funny thing was, it didn’t seem gross or anything. It was sort of, um, muddy and leafy, with lots of blueberries mashed up in it. Still, I felt a chill run through me. A real, living bear had been right here where I was standing. Strong and wild and very dangerous.

  Mila spoke first. “Here’s the proof,” she said. “Now let’s get inside.”

  “And call Lightning Lou,” Stringbean said. “Right, Jigsaw? Maybe he’ll bring a cameraman. We might even get on TV!”

  Stringbean didn’t seem the least bit worried about becoming some bear’s idea of a nice breakfast. He was happy and excited. As if finding bear scat made it the greatest day on earth. Strange kid, that Stringbean Noonan. He was afraid of his own shadow. He was afraid of lightning, dentists, and bees. But not bears. Go figure.

  Lightning Lou was thrilled by my phone call. “By crikey!” he exclaimed. “A bear! The fair dinkum? Really? I’ll rock on over.” He hung up before I could say much else.

  “What did he say? What did he say?” Stringbean asked, tugging on my sleeve.

  I scratched my head. “He said, er, ‘I’ll rock on over.’”

  Mila nodded. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

  Crikey.

  Just as Stringbean had hoped, Lightning Lou arrived with a cameraman. Except it was a camerawoman. She said her name was Dee-Dee, and she was nice-nice.

  Mr. and Mrs. Hiller stood outside on their deck, scratching their heads. They blinked a lot and slurped coffee. “A bear? Here?” Mrs. Hiller kept repeating.

  Mr. Hiller frowned. “Let’s wait inside, shall we?”

  Meanwhile, Lightning Lou glanced around the yard. Stringbean stayed by his side like a faithful puppy. The rest of us tagged along—me, Mila, and Lucy, who seemed to feel braver with Lightning Lou on the scene.

  “Those woods?” he asked.

  “They lead to a stream,” I said.

  “And the stream leads to a river,” Mila added.

  Lou nodded.

  I showed him the smashed bird feeder.

  He glanced at it, then looked away. “Where’s the scat at, mate?”

  I showed him.

  Lightning Lou knelt down on his hands and knees. “The size is right. But something seems dodgy about this.” He fixed me with a gaze. “Is this some kind of shonky business?”

  “Dodgy? Shonky?” I asked. “Huh?”

  Lightning Lou brought his nose close to the bear scat. He smelled deeply, frowning all the while. Then he stuck his thumb into the middle of it, just like Little Jack Horner. Grossed me out the door.

  Lou stood up, shaking his head. “Very shonky indeed,” he said. “Sorry, Jigsaw, Mila, Lucy, Stringbean. But you’ve been tricked.”

  “Tricked?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Lightning Lou replied. “Come on, Dee-Dee. Let’s get something to eat. I’m hungrier than a koala in a gum tree.”

  He eyed me closely. “You’re a detective, right?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “You are missing an important clue, mate,” he said. Then Lightning Lou did a curious thing. He rubbed his belly and said, “I’d love a blueberry muffin right about now. Too bad blueberries aren’t in season.”

  He gave me a long, slow wink. Then he walked away.

  “Lightning Lou?” Stringbean called out. “Where are you going?!”

  There was no answer. Lightning Lou just kept on walking. Down the path. Into his van. And out of our lives.

  Stringbean called out one last time, “Don’t you want to put me on TV?!”

  That’s when I knew.

  Chapter

  11

  Putting the Pieces Together

  “Sorry, Lucy. We didn’t do our best work on this case,” I grumbled. “Isn’t that right, Stringbean?”

  He coughed. “Excuse me?”

  “Let’s take a little walk,” I said.

  It was like a small parade. I marched into Lucy’s backyard, with Mila and Lucy following. Stringbean dragged behind.

  I picked up the broken bird feeder and ran my thumb across the broken edge. “Look.” I showed Mila. “Here’s a clue we missed.”

  I gave Mila the magnifying glass. “Half of the pole is perfectly flat, and the rest is splintered off,” she observed. “Like it was cut halfway through with a saw.”

  I took what was left of the pol
e and handed it to Stringbean. “Go ahead. Try to break it.”

  Stringbean tried and frowned. He handed the pole back to me.

  I gave it a try. Nothing doing. “This pole is pretty thick,” I explained. “A bear could break it. But a skinny kid? No way. He’d need to cut it halfway through first. Then he could break it.”

  Lucy glanced at Stringbean.

  Stringbean became very interested in the tops of his sneakers. He stared down in silence.

  “The next clue was even easier,” I said. “But we missed that one, too.” I led them back to the pile of bear scat. Or whatever it was.

  “Blueberries,” I said. “That makes sense, right? Bears love blueberries. Everybody knows that, right, Stringbean? Except there’s one problem. Lightning Lou figured it out instantly. My Grams would have known it, too. Fortunately, Lightning Lou was nice enough to give me a little hint before he left. He said he wanted blueberry muffins, but blueberries aren’t in season.”

  Mila snapped her fingers. “Blueberries aren’t ripe until late summer! There are no blueberries around here right now!”

  I nodded. “Isn’t that right, Stringbean?”

  He shrugged.

  I reached down and picked up the bear scat.

  Lucy gasped. “YUCK!”

  “It’s not real poop,” I explained. “So how did you do it, Stringbean? Did you wake up early this morning and throw a bunch of leaves and junk into a blender? Did you add a scoop of blueberries?”

  Stringbean looked upset. He nodded once.

  Yes.

  “It’s okay, Stringbean,” I said. “I think I know why you did it. You wanted to be on TV. You wanted to be friends with Lightning Lou. It was that simple.

  “When he came to town, you saw your chance. So you created this whole phony bear scare. That’s why you weren’t afraid up in the tree house. You knew there weren’t any bears around.”