A Monster of a Mystery Read online

  But before he and Frank could move on, they heard a shout of relief from somewhere nearby. “That sounded like Chet,” Frank said.

  Joe looked toward the shout. He saw Chet coming through the Employees Only door, dragging Mimi with one hand and her friend Janie with the other.

  “Where’d you find them?” Joe asked, hurrying over with Frank at his heels.

  “We were hiding from the monsters!” Mimi informed him.

  “They were hiding in the bathroom,” Chet said with a sigh. “Janie’s sister just found them in there. She’s calling her parents to let them know.”

  “Whew!” Frank said. “That’s a relief.”

  “Yeah.” Chet dropped the little girls’ hands. They ran off toward the nearest Giggle Girlzies display.

  Then Chet reached into his jacket pocket. Pulling out a tissue, he mopped his face.

  Joe’s eyes widened as he noticed something. Namely, something that wasn’t sticking out of Chet’s pocket anymore.

  “Hey, Chet,” he blurted out. “Where’s your Morpho mask?”

  Secret File #5: A Surprising Solution

  Chet gasped. “Oh no!” he cried. “My mask!”

  He searched his jacket pockets. Then he checked his jeans pockets. But the mask wasn’t in any of them.

  Frank noticed the Morpho people turning to look at them from nearby. Had they heard Chet just now? Would they figure out what was going on and accuse him of the crime?

  Chet looked frantic as he searched his pockets again. “I can’t believe I lost it!” he exclaimed.

  “Where’d you have it last?” Joe sounded worried too.

  “I know I had it when Morpho first came out.” Chet glanced toward the stage. “I put it on and roared with everyone else. But then I took it off so I could hear better.”

  “Did you stick it back in your jacket pocket?” Frank asked.

  “I think so.” Chet stuck his hand in his pocket one more time. “But maybe I dropped it over there. I’ll go check.”

  He rushed off toward the stage. Frank and Joe stared at each other.

  “Do you think Chet could be the thief?” Frank asked.

  “No way!” Joe said. “Chet wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Frank bit his lip. “I can’t believe one of our best friends could be a thief either,” he said slowly. “But the evidence . . .”

  “The evidence is wrong,” Joe said firmly. “Chet didn’t do it. It was probably Adam, like I thought all along.”

  Frank wished he could be that certain. But every time he thought about their clues, they all pointed in one direction—straight at Chet.

  “How can you be so sure?” he asked his brother. “Neither of us saw Chet during the whole time the Spork was missing. Then we found that mask at the scene of the crime. And now it looks like it’s got to be Chet’s. What else could it all mean? The answer is as plain as the nose on your face.”

  Joe gasped. “That’s it!” he cried.

  “Huh?” Frank wasn’t sure what his brother was talking about.

  Joe looked excited. He spun around and waved his arms at Dave, Jack, and Mr. Roberts. “I just figured it out!” he called to them. “I know who really took that Morph Spork!”

  Frank felt worried. Was Joe going to blame Adam again? They didn’t have any proof.

  By now Joe had everyone’s attention. “Who was it, Joe?” Mr. Roberts asked.

  Joe smiled grimly. “It was . . .,” he began.

  Then he spun around and pointed—right at Biff ’s cousin Colin!

  ••••

  “Are you sure you don’t want to write up the case?” Frank asked. “You’re the one who solved it.”

  It was several hours later. Frank and Joe were in their tree house. Joe was lounging on the floor cushions while Frank stood in front of the whiteboard where they wrote up all their cases.

  “No thanks,” Joe said. “You can do it.”

  “Okay.” Frank jotted down a few notes. Then he glanced at Joe again. “I still can’t believe you figured it out.”

  Joe grinned modestly. “You helped,” he said. “It was what you said about the answer being as plain as the nose on my face. That reminded me of those masks.”

  “That’s when you remembered that the mask we found in the trash only had green ooze on its nose, right?” Frank said.

  “Right.” Joe leaned back against the wall. “But Chet’s mask had green and purple ooze. So I knew that couldn’t have been his mask. And then I remembered that when we asked Colin about his mask, he pulled out one with green and purple ooze. . . .”

  Frank nodded, thinking back. “Even though we knew his mask only had the green ooze,” he finished. “I should have noticed that.”

  “Me too,” Joe said with a shrug. “I guess that’s why Dad is always telling us to keep our eyes open.”

  “He’s also always telling us to follow the evidence,” Frank said. “That’s what you did today!”

  Joe sat up. “I guess so,” he said. “But you were following the evidence too, and you were ready to blame Chet for the whole thing. It was only because my gut told me Chet wasn’t the thief that I thought harder and remembered about the masks.”

  “Maybe.” Frank shrugged. “I guess sometimes there’s more to solving mysteries than just cold, hard facts.”

  “Yeah,” Joe agreed. “Anyway, I’m glad Colin confessed so we know how he did it.”

  Frank wrote something else on the board. “Me too,” he said. “He really wanted that special Spork to add to his collection. When he noticed nobody was in the back room, he put on his mask, sneaked back there, and snatched that Spork. He realized he wouldn’t be able to sneak it back through the store, so he tossed it in the Dumpster along with his mask. He figured he’d pick them both up later after things cooled off.”

  “Yeah. But once he sneaked back inside and found out we were investigating, he got worried,” Joe went on. “Especially later, when he heard we’d found his mask.”

  “So he saw that Chet was distracted and sneaked his mask out of his pocket so he’d have a mask alibi—not to mention the cool special-edition mask he wanted,” Frank finished. “Good thing you figured out the ooze thing, or he might have gotten away with it!”

  Joe sighed. “I feel bad for Biff. He was really upset when he found out what Colin did.”

  “I feel kind of bad for Colin, too,” Frank said. “He didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  “Uh-huh,” Joe agreed. “He seemed nice otherwise. I hope he learns a lesson from this.”

  Frank finished filling out the whiteboard, then stepped back to take a look.

  “There,” he said. “How does that look?”

  Joe grinned. “Like a monster of a case—closed!”