by A. J. Low
“No lah, many of the shops here sell. But our shop has the biggest range of different kinds of paper. And if you buy in bulk, we surely give discount!” the shop Auntie replied.
Wendy ended up buying some special art paper and paint, and we left the store soon after.
“Well, that was totally pointless,” Eliza said.
“No one asked you to come,” Wendy replied.
Mom shook her head at Wendy. Our parents always said that even if someone was mean, we should still try to be nice. Wendy looked at her shoes, and didn’t say anything after that.
“That’s not entirely true, Eliza,” I said. “At least we now know not to chase this particular lead any further. That will allow us to focus on other clues.”
Eliza shrugged and fiddled sulkily with her pigtails.
“Eliza, do you need us to send you home too?” Dad asked.
“No need, Uncle, thank you,” Eliza said sweetly, her attitude changing immediately. She and her helper left to look for a taxi to go home.
“What’s next, Sherlock?” Nazhar asked.
“Since this was a dead end, we’ll need to take a more direct route to solving the mystery,” I said. “It might be riskier, but time is of the essence!”
“What does that mean?” Jimmy asked. “Like chicken essence?”
“We are going to catch the culprit in the act!” I replied.
“I-am-not-foliage,” Watson said.
It was Wednesday and we were back in school. I was trying to convince Watson that he needed to remain in the classroom during recess and use his new holographic recording ability in case the culprit decided to put letters in Luis’ bag!
“I know you’re not a plant, Watson, but I’m asking you to pretend to be one, or at least hide behind that fern over there so that we can catch this guy,” I said.
I really needed to install a camouflage function in Watson. Then, he would be able to change colours and even pretend to be a giant hamburger!
“Please, Watson?” Luis said. “You’re our only hope.”
“I-will-do-this-only-because-Luis-asked-me-nicely,” Watson replied, looking at me.
With Watson safely hidden behind the giant fern in Luis’ classroom, the rest of us went down to the canteen for recess. I had a delicious chicken wing and a slice of pizza as well.
“Wow, Sherlock. You really like to eat!” Luis said. “You could be Mexican!”
Wendy laughed so hard she almost fell off the bench. Even Nazhar couldn’t hide his smile.
Just then, the bell rang, signalling the end of recess. We were all anxious to view Watson’s recording, but it was time for Language Arts and that meant that we had to write letters to the authors whose books we had selected. The recording would have to wait until lunch break.
I wrote a letter to the author of Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey politely asking about the inconsistencies in the science and maths relating to time travel in the book. I also congratulated the author on picking a very clever pseudonym—The Physician’s Companion. I recognised a Doctor Who fan when I encountered one.
I peeked over at Luis and saw that he was writing a letter to the author of Indestructible Shapes, John Halson, asking him what his favourite shape was. Jimmy looked up at me and waved his sheet of paper about. He had drawn lots of robots that looked suspiciously like Watson.
Once everyone was done writing their letters, Mrs Chi gave us envelopes to put our letters in and collected them all. I checked the clock in the classroom and saw that we still had an hour until lunch! I knew Luis and Jimmy were just as anxious as I was to view Watson’s recording. Fortunately for all of us, the hour passed quickly and the bell signalling lunch soon rang.
Jimmy, Luis, Watson and I made our way down to the corner of the basketball court. That was our prearranged meeting place, and Wendy and Nazhar soon joined us.
“Let the meeting of Sherlock Sam and his Supper Club begin!” Jimmy said.
“We-are-not-his-Supper-Club,” Watson said.
“Supper clubs are things grown-ups do. You all are just kids,” a voice said from behind us.
We turned around.
“Eliza!” Wendy said. My sister didn’t look at all happy to see her classmate. “Please stop eavesdropping.”
I didn’t like Eliza any more than Wendy did, but I had noticed Eliza seated by herself during recess and lunch the past two days. It was likely that she didn’t have any friends to eat with and that was a very sad thing. Plus, if we were nice to her, maybe she’d be nice to us.
“It’s okay, Wendy. You’re here to protect us from her. What can she do? Besides, we don’t have much time,” I whispered to my sister. She nodded but still didn’t look happy.
I pushed the button on Watson’s tummy and a beam of light shot out.
“Woah!” Jimmy said.
We all watched as absolutely nothing happened for five minutes.
“This is boring,” Eliza said.
Right at that moment, the recording showed the classroom door opening and someone stepping in. Luis gripped my arm. His face was pale and he looked terrified. It was Alejandro! He closed the door securely, went over to Luis’ bag and put a letter in! Alejandro was the culprit!
“But he’s so nice!” Jimmy said. “He can’t be the bad guy!”
“Hey! That’s awesome! Watson is just like R2-D2!” another voice said from behind us.
We spun around.
It was Alejandro! In the flesh!
We all looked at each other and simultaneously decided on the same course of action.
We gave chase!
Alejandro gave a loud yelp, threw the basketball he was holding to the side, and dashed away.
We chased him through the football field where Nazhar got hit in the stomach by a stray football. Alejandro ran to the playground and through the slide. Jimmy followed, but was caught by Rachel and Nathan, and then they started a tickle fight. Jimmy was lost! He would never escape from the dreaded tickle monsters! Luis had almost caught up with Alejandro, but stumbled and ended up in a tangle on the grass.
After the playground, Alejandro ran through the canteen, where I finally had to stop. I was made for thinking, not running. From afar, I saw that Wendy had gotten tangled up in a basketball game at the nearby courts. Eliza was the last one left. She finally caught Alejandro as he tried to lose her in the classrooms. Wendy joined them as Eliza brought him back to the canteen. He looked extremely confused, so I guessed he didn’t want to mess with the two girls.
“Really, Sam? This is where your legs gave out?” Wendy asked as they walked over to where I was.
“I do not control when my body gets tired,” I said, munching on a hamburger.
I turned my attention to Alejandro. “Why are you putting letters in Luis’ bag?” I questioned in between burger bites.
He looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“You put a letter in Luis’ bag during recess, don’t deny it,” Wendy said.
“Yeah, why did you do it, Alejandro?” Luis said angrily. “What did my dad ever do to you?!”
“What? Do what to who? Yeah, of course I put the letter in there. Why would I deny it?” Alejandro asked. “It’s part of the game.”
“What game?” Nazhar asked.
“The Chain Mail game?” Eliza said. “The one that everyone’s playing?”
“Yeah,” Alejandro said. “I’ve been getting letters with instructions to put other letters inside Luis’ bag. The game is ruined now that he knows it’s me.”
“If you’re just playing a game, then why did you run?” Eliza asked.
“I’m from New York, man! My dad told me: when someone chases you, you run!” Alejandro said.
Luis thought about it for a bit and said, “Like in LA.”
Alejandro and Luis grinned at each other.
“Can we take a look at these letters with the instructions you received?” I asked.
“They’re at home, but I can bring them for you tomorrow,” Al
ejandro said.
“That would be great, thanks,” I said. We would have to wait until tomorrow to discover if those instructions had any clues. And I would have to ask for permission before opening this latest sinister letter. I did not like waiting! Not when there was a mystery to be solved!
Alejandro went off to play basketball with Elena, Marissa and Tehillah. Nazhar came and joined us at the table, but Jimmy was still being tickled at the playground. Watson decided to finally join us. I told Nazhar what had happened.
“And where were you while we were running ourselves ragged?” I asked Watson.
“I-was-comparing-the-fern-in-Mrs-Chi’s-classroom-with-the-bush-in-the-basketball-court. They-are-both-very-interesting-plants.”
“Oh, now plants are interesting,” I muttered under my breath.
“So, you guys solve mysteries all the time?” Eliza asked. “That’s…that’s actually kind of cool.”
“You’re only saying that because you have no one else to hang out with,” Wendy retorted.
“No, I’m not. I really think it’s cool,” Eliza said. “But you guys are still nerds.”
“That’s a bit better, I guess,” Nazhar said, shrugging his shoulders.
Jimmy suddenly ran up, out of breath. “What did I miss?” He grinned his enormous Jimmy grin.
“Why do these have crayon marks all over them?” Jimmy asked the next day.
Jimmy was looking at the original envelopes that were addressed to Alejandro. They had contained both the instructions for Alejandro to put the envelopes addressed to Uncle Fidel in Luis’ bag and those envelopes themselves. We were in the canteen during recess. The original envelopes that Alejandro had received were covered in colourful crayon markings.
“Oh, I have a little brother and he’s just learning to draw,” Alejandro replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“When Sam was three, he used to write equations in crayon on our walls,” Wendy said. “It drove Mom crazy when Dad told Sam that he did a good job.”
What Mom didn’t know was that Dad was the one who had started writing in crayon on the walls first. It was his way of teaching me equations. He just forgot to use washable crayons.
“So, Alejandro, can you explain exactly what your letters have been instructing you to do?” I said.
“Okay. See? It says that in order to stay in the Chain Mail game, I will have to take this letter that’s addressed to Fidel Alvarado and put it in his son’s bag, when Luis isn’t around,” Alejandro said as he showed us the latest letter he received. “Sorry, man. If I had known what these letters were, I would never have done it.”
Luis waved his hand to show that it was okay, but he still looked worried and tense.
Alejandro’s letters were also written in very precise capital letters, just like Uncle Fidel’s letters. It was almost as if someone had used a ruler to form all the letters. Someone was taking a lot of care to keep his or her identity a secret. The letters to Alejandro were far longer than the letters to Luis’ dad. And like Uncle Fidel’s letters, the paper used was of very good quality.
“And you didn’t think the instructions were weird at all?” Eliza asked. She and Wendy rolled their eyes and exchanged an incredulous look. Wendy might not admit it, but I think she rather enjoyed having another girl around.
Alejandro went to play basketball, but he left all the letters for us to look through.
“I called Uncle Fidel last night and he gave me permission to open the latest sinister letter,” I said. “Luis, are you ready for this? Your dad said he explained to you last night what’s been going on.”
Luis nodded, his arms folded tightly across his chest. I opened the envelope carefully.
“Wow, that’s really awful,” Luis said. “No wonder Officer Siva thought it was a school prank. Would an adult really write this horribly?”
Luis seemed less afraid after seeing how terribly written the supposedly threatening letter was.
“He or she used ‘untoward’ incorrectly,” Wendy said, wrinkling her nose.
“How did this person get Alejandro’s address?” Nazhar asked. “Children’s names aren’t listed in the telephone directory.”
“I was just thinking the same thing, Nazhar,” I said. “How indeed.”
I shelved this question away so that I could think about it more carefully later. I felt it in my bones that this was a very important clue.
“We could go to the post office to ask the post office Auntie where the letter came from!” Jimmy said.
“Unfortunately not, Jimmy. The letter doesn’t have a return address. I don’t think the post office would be able to tell us where this letter was dropped off,” I said.
I picked up the original envelopes that Alejandro had received to investigate if there were any clues left behind. So far, we’d only seen the envelopes that were addressed to Luis’ father. Upon investigation, I discovered that both sets of envelopes were of the same high quality paper.
I also noticed that the stamps were Singapore stamps so we knew for a fact that the letters were being mailed locally.
I then brought one of the envelopes close to my nose to take a sniff. It smelled like cheese but that was most likely from the cheese sandwiches Mom had made me for breakfast.
Just then, I spotted something underneath the crayon markings.
“Take a look at the stain on this envelope, everyone,” I said.
“That’s just crayon, Sherlock!” Jimmy said. “It’s not important!”
Not important? Unlikely!
“Wendy, does this look like fountain pen ink to you?” I said. Dad was a huge fountain pen fan and was constantly staining his shirts and fingers.
“Let me see,” Wendy said as she took the envelope and used her fingernail to scratch away the crayon markings. “It does. It looks like…purple fountain pen ink!”
“Watson, please find out if Alejandro’s family uses fountain pens,” I instructed.
“This-is-why-I-am-such-a-slender-robot,” Watson said as he walked slowly towards where Alejandro was playing basketball with his friends.
“Why didn’t you do that yourself, Sherlock?” Eliza asked. “It would have been much faster, wouldn’t it?”
“I forgot that Watson didn’t have wheels installed so that he could speedily make his way over there,” I said. I really needed to install all those upgrades I’d been planning for my robot.
“Alejandro-said-his-family-does-not-use-fountain-pens,” Watson said when he returned a million seconds later.
“So it’s possible that this stain was made by the person who sent the threatening letters,” Eliza said.
“Yes, it’s possible, but it’s still not conclusive,” I said. “It could have been made by a careless postal worker as well. Still, it’s a clue that we should keep in mind.”
“It honestly seems like there are no clues at all,” Eliza said. “I thought this would have been more exciting.”
She was right. It did seem that way. But I knew that all of this information fit together somehow. Solving a mystery was like putting a puzzle together, only you didn’t know how many pieces there were in total, and there were no corner or border pieces to help guide you either. But there is always one key piece. By itself, it’s almost meaningless, but it ties every other piece together to give you a complete picture.
We were still missing that key piece.
“Can you believe this?” I asked Eliza.
It was our last day at Enterprise International School, and we were looking through the replies we had received from the authors we had written to. The Physician’s Companion wrote that she was happy there were young fans of Doctor Who, and that I should not be too concerned about the science in science fiction books, as the story was more important than getting the science and maths exactly right.
“A science fiction story does not work if it doesn’t have a proper foundation of science to work from! It’s perfectly okay to invent your own technology, but it needs to have a prope
r scientific base. You can’t just say a laser cannon shoots a million joules of energy. What creates that energy? Where does it come from? The law of conservation of energy clearly states energy can’t be created out of thin air!” I continued.
Eliza stared at me blankly.
“You’ll get used to these sudden outbursts. He calms back down when he realises no one has any idea what he’s talking about,” Wendy said.
“What does your letter say?” I asked Eliza, ignoring Wendy.
“Luis’ dad said that as long as I keep reading, he’ll keep writing,” Eliza said. “And that it was nice to meet me the other day.”
“I think Mr Halson wrote me back in code,” Nazhar said. “I don’t understand a word of this.”
“Ooooh! A code! We’ll crack it later!” I said.
“Mr Yeo said that my robots are super cool, and that he might use some of them in his next Trill and Sofa book!” Jimmy said.
“He-asked-me-to-pose-for-his-next-book,” Watson said. “I-am-going-to-be-a-supermodel.”
“What about you, Wendy?” Eliza asked.
“Ms Zhang said that I should always try to be the best, no matter what,” Wendy replied.
“Remember, everyone, we’re going to my place after school to go over all our clues,” I said.
We enjoyed our last day fully. We finally got a chance to play Four Square at recess (we were terrible at it) and we had a party with delicious pineapple upside down cake to celebrate our last day. It was amazing: it had pineapple and it was upside down!
I was going to miss our new friends, but not as much as Jimmy was going to. They put up one of his robot drawings on the wall, as well as the drawing he made of Mrs Chi’s Fourth Grade Class. I talked to Luis again and assured him that I would get to the bottom of the Case of the Sinister Letters no matter what!
After school, Eliza, Nazhar and Jimmy followed Wendy, Watson and me home.
“Okay, let’s go over all our clues,” I said.