Super Puzzletastic Mysteries

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Introduction by Chris Grabenstein

  Snow Devils: A Riley Mack Story by Chris Grabenstein

  Possum-Man and Janet by Steve Hockensmith

  Monkey Business: A FunJungle Mystery by Stuart Gibbs

  The Fifty-Seventh Cat by Sheela Chari

  The Perfect Alibi by Fleur Bradley

  Three Brothers, Two Sisters, and One Cup of Poison by Lauren Magaziner

  The Haunted Typewriter by Gigi Pandian

  Surprise. Party. by Lamar Giles

  The Dapperlings by Kate Milford

  Codename: Mom by Laura Brennan

  The Red Envelope by Lara Cassidy

  Whiz Tanner and the Pilfered Cashbox: A Tanner-Dent Mystery by Fred Rexroad

  The Magic Day Mystery by Bryan Patrick Avery

  Puzzling It Out by Eileen Rendahl

  The Mechanical Bank Job by Mo Walsh

  The Scary Place by Alane Ferguson

  Ottonetics by Peter Lerangis

  Gridlock Jones Cracks the Case by Bruce Hale

  The Case of the Mysterious Mystery Writer by Tyler Whitesides

  TRICKED! A Framed Story by James Ponti

  Solutions

  About the Authors

  About the Editor

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Introduction

  For me, a lot of the fun of reading mysteries comes from trying to solve the story’s puzzle before the characters in it do.

  I think this fun started one Christmas when Santa brought me a book: Donald Sobol’s Two-Minute Mysteries (Sobol was also the creator of Encyclopedia Brown).

  There would be some sort of crime, the clues would be presented, and the story would end without a solution. I had to rack my ten-year-old brain and try to figure out whodunit or what happened.

  I confess, I seldom got the answer right, but I had fun trying. When I ultimately flipped to the back of the book to read the author’s solution, I usually slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand and said, “Doh! Of course. I knew that. I just forgot to think it.”

  Such was the inspiration for this collection of Super Puzzletastic Mysteries, created by some of the best criminal masterminds from the Mystery Writers of America organization and the world of kidlit.

  Here you will find twenty stories—some by authors you’re familiar with, some by authors you’ll want to read more of—all of them filled with clues, red herrings, and clever sleuths. The stories will take you right up to the brink of a solution . . . and then you’ll have a chance to match wits with the characters and attempt to solve the mystery on your own. (Or with your classmates. These stories were all written to be the perfect length for a classroom read-aloud.)

  And yes, you’ll find the solutions in the back of the book to make sure your deductions are correct!

  I was so lucky that so many terrific writers accepted an invitation to contribute to this collection—a number of whom, like Donald Sobol, have been singled out by Mystery Writers of America committees judging the prestigious Edgar awards:

  Edgar nominee Stuart Gibbs will take you to the world of his FunJungle series, where some “Monkey Business” has led to chaos and confusion in the cages. It’s a case that must (with your help) be solved.

  The always hysterical (and Edgar-nominated) Steve Hockensmith will introduce you to the funniest superhero you’ve ever met: Possum-Man. With the help of his niece, Janet—and, of course, you—will Possum-Man be able to avert disaster?

  Edgar winner Kate Milford will take you camping in “The Dapperlings.” But, at this camp, solving puzzles (not making lanyards) is the number one activity.

  Edgar nominee Lamar Giles will introduce you to a brainy young man who is only called a nerd because he is so much better at unraveling puzzles than all his classmates. Will he be smarter than you?

  Edgar winner James Ponti will treat you to “TRICKED!” a new tale in his amazing Framed! series. There’s a reason twelve-year-old Florian Bates is a consultant with the FBI. He’s very good at making observations and solving mysteries—something you’ll be great at after you work your way through these twenty mysterious puzzlers.

  And my own story? Well, let’s just say it’s based on something I actually saw out the library window when I did a school visit the day after a snow day.

  I hope you enjoy Super Puzzletastic Mysteries. I know I did when I first read the stories as they came in.

  Could I solve ’em all?

  Of course not. But that’s half the fun!

  —Chris Grabenstein

  Snow Devils

  A Riley Mack Story

  by Chris Grabenstein

  The FART was huge.

  The biggest one Riley Mack had ever seen.

  “Looks like somebody enjoyed their snow day yesterday,” Riley said to himself with a grin.

  The towering word had been cleverly shuffled into the deep snow on a hill facing the school library windows. Each letter was at least twenty feet tall and surrounded by the daintier boot prints of the mystery writer moving from one leg-plowed letter to the next. The F-A-R-T spanned at least forty feet across the backyard of a house on the other side of the school’s perimeter fence.

  “Mr. Ball’s not going to like that,” said Riley’s friend Ben Markowitz, who was sitting with him at a table in the library that more or less served as Riley’s office.

  Mr. Ball was Fairview Middle School’s vice principal. Its disciplinarian. The guy who liked nothing better than running detention hall. He’d strut up and down the rows of chairs, tapping a ruler behind his back, his eyes darting from one inmate to the next, just itching to whip out his pink pad and give one of the troublemakers another hour in the after-school punishment zone.

  Troublemakers.

  That’s what some grown-ups called Riley and his friends Ben, Briana, Jamal, and Mongo (whose real name was Hubert Montgomery but, because he was so huge, everybody called him “Humongo,” which quickly morphed into “Mongo”).

  In truth, Riley’s crew didn’t make trouble. They were fixers. The school’s go-to team of Robin Hoods. They only tried to right wrongs, protect innocent kids from bullies, look out for abused animals, and, basically, use their talents to do all the good they could.

  Riley had a strict ethical code for his team’s operations, too. They would never execute a caper that was just plain wrong. For instance, on Monday, an eighth grader named Steve Duffy had come to Riley’s office in the media center, begging for help.

  “What do you need?” Riley asked.

  “The answers to my history makeup quiz.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I missed the quiz last week. So Mrs. Henkin is going to give me a makeup exam Thursday morning with all new questions! And I’ll be on my own. Jenny Myers won’t be sitting next to me.”

  Riley arched an inquisitive eyebrow.

  “She’s smart,” Duffy explained. “Always knows what answer to circle. I sometimes copy her moves.”

  “I see,” said Riley.

  “But I don’t need Jenny Myers. I saw where Mrs. Henkin stashed the answer key.”

  “Oh, you did, did you?”

  “Top right-hand drawer of her desk. The one that locks. I figure your guy Jamal could sneak in after school, pop it open, copy the answers, and BOOM! I’m golden. But we have to hurry. Like I said, my makeup test is first thing Thursday!”

  “Nope,” Riley told the eighth grader. “Not gonna do it.”

  “Why? What’s your problem? I can pay you ten dollars. Twenty! Okay, thirty.”

  “That’s not how we roll, Steve.”

  “Why not?”

 
; “Because I might need brain surgery someday.”

  “What?!!”

  “You think I want to be operated on by some Dr. Dingus D. Doofus who cheated his way through middle school, then high school, and all the way through medical school?”

  “Oh,” fumed Steve. “Funny. Guess Brandon Kilmeade was right. He said you and your crew were yesterday’s news. He’ll do the same job for twenty bucks. But I came to you first, Riley Mack. Out of respect.”

  “Steve?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why don’t you just study for the test? You say it’s not till Thursday. Today’s Monday. You have three whole days.”

  “Um, no, I don’t. Every single one of my after-school hours this week is spoken for. I made it to the next level of Alien Annihilator. I can’t miss a single online Thrash or my avatar will lose his force field and his bludgeon balloon.”

  Riley shook his head in disbelief, remembering that Monday morning conversation.

  “So, Ben?” he asked his friend. “Who do you think’s the prime suspect for the FART art?”

  “I’d go with Sam Morkal-Williams,” said Ben, tapping the glass of his smartphone, pulling up a database. “Kid’s a real cutup and class clown. This looks like his kind of prank.”

  “You have to admire his craftsmanship,” said Riley. “It’s not easy bulldozing letters into snow while making the minimum number of moves necessary to hop over to the next letter.”

  Ben nodded. “The leap from the right leg of the A to the left leg of the R is amazing. Winter Olympics–caliber stuff. Kudos to Sam.”

  Ben was the brainiac in Riley’s crew. He used words like kudos a lot.

  “OMG, you guys?!!” Briana Bloomfield made a dramatic entrance into the library. She was their actress. She could imitate voices, create disguises, and become whoever Riley and his team needed her to be. Her locker was full of costumes, hats, wigs, makeup kits, and all sorts of disguises. She was so theatrical, almost every entrance she made was dramatic. “Did you guys see the FART?”

  “We’re kind of looking at it right now,” said Riley.

  Briana gasped. “That thing is huge. No. It’s ginormous! Who do you think did it?”

  “Sam Morkal-Williams,” said Ben.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Briana. “Although it could’ve been Elyssa Shapiro. That girl is hard-core.”

  “Interesting choices,” said Riley. “Any idea whose yard that is?”

  “Old Man Jenkins,” said Briana. “I mean, Old Man probably isn’t his real first name, but that’s what everybody calls him.”

  “Is he old?” asked Ben, innocently.

  Briana rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah. He’s also a widower. Doesn’t really like kids. You do not want your ball to end up in his backyard. If it does, you will never see it again. They say the inside of his garage looks like a sporting goods store.”

  Jamal Wilson came strutting into the library. He was the youngest and newest member of Riley’s “gnat pack.” That’s what Fairview’s sheriff, Big John Brown, called Riley Mack and the “other known troublemakers” he associated with. The sheriff thought they were a bunch of annoying little pests. Probably because the bully they busted most often was his son, Gavin Brown.

  Riley didn’t mind the gnat pack label. In fact, he kind of liked it. Gnats were small, almost microscopic creatures. But they could drive full-grown adults crazy.

  “Dag,” said Jamal. “That FART out there is elephantine. You know what that word means, Riley Mack?”

  “Yeah. Big.”

  Jamal was good with his hands and could crack open just about any lock you tossed his way. He also liked memorizing big words out of the dictionary.

  “It is positively behemothic,” Jamal continued. “Man, I wish I’d thought to write something in the snow yesterday. I know so many better words than fart. For instance, flatulence. You know what that word means?”

  “Yeah,” said Riley. “Fart.”

  “Correct. But I spent the whole day yesterday sledding with Mongo over on the golf course. Let me tell you—that dude is strong! He gave me such a mighty shove downhill, I was flying!”

  “Hey, speaking of Mongo, has anybody seen him this morning?” asked Riley.

  Everybody shook their heads. Mongo was the group’s muscle. Sure, he was a seventh grader, but he was growing so fast that he was already bigger than most high school kids.

  “Maybe he’s in the cafeteria,” suggested Ben. “He sometimes needs a second breakfast.”

  “And a third,” said Briana.

  Riley and his crew usually met up in the library every morning before the first bell. After school, they’d meet up again at the Pizza Palace on Main Street. They were a little like firefighters or the Avengers. They were always ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

  “Excuse me, guys,” said the librarian. “The first bell is about to ring. I’m going to need these tables. Mrs. Henkin is still snowed in so she asked me to give a makeup quiz for her.”

  Riley nodded. He figured Steve Duffy’s private history quiz had slid back a day on account of yesterday’s snow.

  “No problem,” he said to the librarian. “Come on, guys.”

  Riley and his crew stood up from the table.

  “Enjoy the view,” cracked Jamal, nodding his head toward the big FART outside the window.

  “Oh, my,” gasped the librarian. “Who did that?”

  “That,” said Ben, “is today’s sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

  Riley led his crew out of the library.

  “Dag,” said Jamal when they were in the hall. “There’s a reward? Sixty-four thousand dollars? For finding the FART felon?”

  “It’s just an expression, Jamal,” said Briana. “It was the title of an old TV game show back in the 1950s.”

  “Now,” explained Ben, “whenever a question is extremely important or difficult to answer, we call it a sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

  “Really?” said Jamal. “I mean y’all might do that, but not me. I’d call that question onerous. Or troublesome. Maybe even enigmatic. You know what all those words mean?”

  “Yeah,” said Riley. “It won’t be easy for Mr. Ball to figure out who wrote FART in the snow.”

  “Mr. Ball thinks I did it,” said Mongo.

  On his way to his first period class, Riley had seen his friend Mongo, the gentle giant, sitting in his stocking feet on the bench outside the school’s main office.

  “He told me to wait right here while he investigated. So that’s what I’m doing. Waiting. Right here.”

  “Why aren’t you wearing any shoes?” asked Riley, sitting down on the bench alongside his friend.

  Mongo wiggled his toes. His brown socks were decorated with cute little teddy bears. Not that anyone at Fairview Middle School would dare make fun of him for it.

  “Mr. Ball took my boots,” he explained.

  “Why?”

  “He wants to go see if they match the boot prints near that big FART in Old Man Jenkins’s backyard.”

  “He thinks you did that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you were at the golf course yesterday. Sledding with Jamal.”

  “I know. I told Mr. Ball. He didn’t care. He said I was a miscreant and ne’er-do-well.” The big guy furrowed his brow and scrunched up his eyes. Riley could tell he was thinking. Hard. “Hey, Riley?”

  “Yeah, Mongo?”

  “What’s a miscreant and a ne’er-do-well?”

  Riley winked. “They’re both very important members of any top-notch gnat pack.”

  “Oh. Cool.”

  Mr. Ball came through the front doors wrapped in a dull gray parka that made him look like a quilted pork sausage. He stomped snow off his rubber boots; shook it off his pant cuffs. Then he wiggle-waggled the large pair of tan hiking boots he held in his hand.

  “If the boot fits, Mr. Montgomery,” he said with a sneer as he marched over to the bench, “wear it.”

/>   “Okay,” said Mongo. “Thanks. My toes were getting kind of cold . . .”

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Mack?”

  “Sitting.”

  “Shouldn’t you be on your way to class?”

  “No, sir. Not when one of my best friends is shoeless and the RealFeel temperature outside is fifteen.”

  “Your ‘friend,’ as you put it, Mr. Mack, is not wearing shoes because he was wearing boots. These boots. The ones I hereby hold in my hands. But now they are more than boots, Mr. Montgomery. They are evidence!”

  Mongo nodded. “Okay. But can I still wear them?”

  “No! Not until you confess!”

  “To what?”

  “Writing that foul word in the snow.”

  “Oh. I didn’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes you did. You’re the only student at Fairview Middle School who wears a size fifteen shoe or boot.”

  “How can you know that?” asked Riley.

  “Because I keep statistics, Mr. Mack. Why? For situations just like this one! Plus, Mr. Montgomery, these are Timberland brand boots. They leave an extremely distinctive, easy-to-identify footprint pattern in the snow. The same pattern I found at the scene of the crime.”

  “Wait a second,” said Riley. “Timberland boots are very popular. And who said a student from Fairview wrote that word in the snow? Some adult with size fifteen feet could’ve—”

  “Ha! Don’t make me laugh, Mr. Mack. Ha, ha, ha. Look at me. I’m laughing. I warned you not to make me do that.”

  Briana came up the hall, hugging her books to her chest, trying to blend into the background of lockers. Riley touched his ear. She nodded and moved to the nearby water fountain where she could eavesdrop.

  Riley stood up. “I can prove Mongo, I mean Hubert, didn’t do it.”

  Mr. Ball gave Riley some snide stink eye. “Oh, really? How?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” said Riley. “But you definitely don’t want to accuse the wrong student. Remember what the new school superintendent said about false accusations and lawsuits.”

  “Mrs. Worthington said something about lawsuits?” Suddenly, Mr. Ball’s left eye was twitching. “She’s a very important person,” he sputtered. “We haven’t met, not yet, but, well, I, of course, respect her opinions . . .”