The Peanut-Butter Burglary

by Becky Freeman

  “Maaaybe,” said Marco. “But I can’t wait until I grow up and can start making some real money. There’s no way I’m going to settle for being as poor as my dad is.”

  Jake and Marco rounded the corner near Miss Nellie’s, then stopped and stared at the café display window. Jake let out a low whistle. Everything that had been there yesterday was gone—the bales of hay, the rocking chair, and the quilts.

  “What happened to your country window decorations?” Marco asked Miss Nellie as the two boys walked through the door and up to the counter. Miss Nellie brushed a stray curl off her forehead and tucked it back in place.

  “You are not going to believe this, boys, but when I got here this morning everything was gone. I’m also missing a big tub of peanut butter and a loaf of bread from the pantry. Not to mention about fifteen dollars in quarters from the cookie jar where I save change from the soda machine.”

  “Now that’s odd,” said Marco, scratching his head.

  “Did you get a chance to examine the cake?” Miss Nellie asked, leaning across the counter with a smile.

  “Yes,” said Marco. “The evidence points to Mr. Henley’s cat.”

  Miss Nellie blushed. “Oh, that’s right! Pumpkin loves sweets and breads! Mr. Henley and I were … uh … so busy visiting that I guess I didn’t notice the cat.” There was something about the way Miss Nellie said the words “Mr. Henley and I” that made Marco curious.

  “Are you and Mr. Henley becoming really good friends?” Marco asked.

  Miss Nellie chuckled. “Well, you may as well know, young man, that yesterday he asked me to marry him!” Miss Nellie had often talked about wanting to have a big family of her own someday. The way she obviously enjoyed kids, Marco was sure she would get married someday, but he dreaded the embarrassing, lovey-dovey looks that would surely be on Mr. Henley’s and Miss Nellie’s faces from now on. He didn’t know what to say.

  Jake had a grimace on his face. “What’s the matter, Jake?” Miss Nellie asked. “Don’t you like romance and love and weddings?”

  Marco and Jake laughed and made gagging motions at the same time.

  The café door opened and Mr. Henley poked his head in, wiggling a big metal key ring. Mr. Henley had let Marco examine the ring last fall, and Marco knew each key was attached to a label, including one that said “hardware store,” another “Nellie’s,” and another “art shop.” It was Mr. Henley’s duty to unlock and lock up their section of the town square. “Nellie, you’d better let me change your locks before you head home tonight. I’ve had several boards of lumber, some nails, a hammer, and a saw stolen from my shop sometime during the night, along with a small microwave oven I kept in the shop kitchen.”

  Miss Nellie looked frightened. “Ken, what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know, hon, I don’t know.”

  Marco carefully recorded Mr. Henley’s missing items in his clue book. How did all the stolen items fit together? He tapped his pencil on the paper in an effort to sort out the clues.

  What came to mind was … absolutely nothing.

  That night at supper, Marco was quiet, still trying to figure out what could be happening in town.

  Maria, however, was extra talkative. “Oh, Mama! Joy and I had so much fun at the library with Jamie’s family today. Thanks for letting me go. They are so funny, and there are so many of them! It’s like being in the middle of a circus with crazy stuff going on everywhere you turn. Toddlers laughing, sisters chatting nonstop in Southern accents, brothers playing tricks on each other. Their old car is about to come apart at the seams. In fact, after we went to the library, we had to stop by their house to put some water in the radiator so we could make it to Camp Wanna Banana. But the whole family seems to be having too much fun to worry about things falling apart around them.”

  Mama laughed and then asked, “What does their house look like, Maria?”

  “It’s kind of like their car—big and old but lots of fun. In fact, their dad had a bunch of lumber stacked up in the yard and was building a front porch.”

  Marco sat up, suddenly very attentive. “Was the lumber from Henley’s store?” Marco asked.

  Maria thought a minute, “You know, come to think of it, the wood was wrapped in a big plastic thing with Henley’s Hardware stamped on it. But why do you ask?”

  “I’m just wondering,” Marco replied. “That’s all. Just wondering.”

  Marco walked upstairs after dinner to his attic room across the hall from Maria’s. His room was so small that it barely held a bed and a small desk. He had to keep his clothes in drawers underneath the bed, and this, for some reason, had really begun to bother him. “This is ridiculous!” he found himself shouting in frustration. “I need a bigger room!”

  Maria heard Marco’s outburst and poked her head in his room. “What’s the matter with you lately, Marco? It never used to bother you that we live in a small house and don’t have much money. In fact, you never cared about your clothes or how you looked at all! You and Jake would wear just about anything you found in the laundry room, no matter how crazy it looked. But lately you just seem to have a bad case of ‘the wants.’ ”

  “I know, I know,” Marco had to agree. Maybe he was growing out of some of his little-kid ways. Or maybe it was something else gnawing at his heart. Something his Sunday-school teacher called greed.

  Maria shook her head and said softly, “Maybe you ought to pray about being more thankful for what we do have, Marco. This just isn’t like you. You’ve always been the brother I could depend on to remind me to trust God to give us whatever we need.”

  Marco couldn’t answer his sister because he knew she was right, and yet he could not change the way he felt. Maybe God could change his feelings. He would pray about that before he went to sleep tonight. Right now, though, he wanted to write something down in his clue book.

  He went to his backpack, grabbed his notebook and pencil, and sat down on the floor. He wrote Suspects and then underlined the word. Underneath Suspects, he wrote Mr. Klem. After all, Jamie’s father must be under a lot of pressure to feed all those kids, and they obviously didn’t have much money. Maybe he stole the milk and tuna to feed his family. And what about the lumber for a front porch? Marco thought to himself, leaning back against the bed. Is it just a coincidence that the lumber is from Mr. Henley’s store? Looks like Jamie’s father also has a bad case of “the wants,” Marco mused. Only he decided to steal what he wanted. At least I haven’t stooped that low!

  But if Mr. Klem was stealing from Miss Nellie and Mr. Henley, how was he doing it? Only Mr. Henley and Miss Nellie had keys to their stores, Marco remembered. Then he sat up with a start. Mr. Henley! It could have been Mr. Henley who stole the items from Miss Nellie’s Café! Immediately, Marco argued with himself. But Mr. Henley loves Miss Nellie. And why would he need stuff like milk and tuna anyway?

  Still, a good detective never overlooked any suspect until the crime was solved. And Mr. Henley did have the only other key to Miss Nellie’s store. With that, Marco sadly penciled Ken Henley underneath Mr. Klem’s name on his growing list of suspects.

  4

  PEANUT-BUTTER CLUES

  The next day at school, Marco shared his thoughts with his partner in crime solving.

  “Man, oh man,” Jake said as the boys stood in front of their lockers, which were next to each other. “Either way, somebody’s gonna be hurt. Think of poor Jamie’s family. What if her father is a thief? What if he gets sent to jail? And Miss Nellie! She was so happy about marrying Mr. Henley, but if he’s stealing from her … Hey, wait a minute, Marco. It couldn’t have been Mr. Henley!”

  “Why not?” Marco asked as he shoved his history book into the locker and shut the metal door. “Because Mr. Henley was also the victim of a crime. Remember, he had lumber and stuff stolen from his shop yesterday too.”

  “I thought of that,” Marco said. “But all we really know is that Mr. Henley said he was robbed. Maybe he just pretended to have been robbed in o
rder throw us off his trail!”

  “I dunno,” said Jake. “That seems pretty unlikely to me.”

  “Still,” Marco said as he and Jake walked toward the school cafeteria. “We have to keep him on the list of suspects until we have more proof.”

  Jake nodded. “Did Miss Nellie or Mr. Henley call the police about this yet?”

  “I’m not sure,” Marco answered. “Let’s ask them this afternoon. Right now, let’s get to the lunchroom. I’m starving!”

  “Me too,” said Jake rubbing his flat tummy. “It’s chili-dog and macaroni-and-cheese day!”

  “Anybody wanna trade?” a girl’s voice, thick with a Southern accent, drawled. “I hate peanut buttuh and jelly.”

  Chad Riggs, who was sitting across from Jamie, shook his head no as he glanced inside his new neon orange lunchbox with a picture on the lid of Kobe Bryant doing a slam dunk. “Sorry, Jamie, all I’ve got is peanut butter too.”

  Jamie frowned. “That’s okay. Hey, Chad, I saw you workin’ at Miss Nellie’s the othuh day. How come a rich kid like you is workin’?”

  Chad laughed. “Well, my dad’s got a good paying job right now—he’s a traveling salesman—but he grew up poor, and so he makes me work for half of most things I want. Says it’s good for me. Last summer I mowed lawns in the town where we lived to earn money for basketball shoes and video games and stuff.”

  Marco felt a pang of guilt. He assumed that all Chad had to do was ask for things he wanted and his parents shelled out the money.

  Joy Bigsley reached in her lunch kit and pulled out a Baggie with a sandwich inside. “I’ll trade you my ham sandwich, Jamie.”

  Jamie nodded and reached over the lunch table to complete the trade. “Thaaank you, Joah. I’m so sick of peanut buttuh I think could faint on the lunch table right this minute if I have to look at it again. It’s all we’ve had lately!”

  Marco’s detective ears perked up at this news from across the school lunchroom table. “Really, Jamie?”

  “Yessireee! It’s like my mothuh’s turned into a peanut brain ever since Daddy brought home this huge plastic bucket of peanut buttuh. Yesterday aftahnoon it was peanut-buttuh cookies. This mornin’ she made peanut-buttuh pancakes. Last night she fed us these noodles with peanut-buttuh sauce, some dish from a fahaway country called Thailand. She found it in her Cookin’ from Around the World cookbook.”

  “Yeah,” echoed one of Jamie’s little brothers from down the table a ways. “She called it Pad Thai Oriental noodles. But it was nothin’ but spaghetti with peanut buttuh and a bunch of ol’ vegetables on top!”

  A long, loud “Eeeewww!” went from kid to kid down the length of the lunch table as everyone but Marco made a different disgusted face. Marco was busy quietly jotting a note in his clue book. Under the word Evidence, he quickly jotted Large pail of peanut butter at the Klems’ house. Same as missing peanut butter from Miss Nellie’s Café?

  Then he cleared his throat and asked, “Jamie, where’d your father get such a big bucket of peanut butter anyway? They don’t sell those huge containers at Tall Pines Grocery, do they?”

  “Naw,” said Jamie. “He brought it home yestahday from one of those big discount warehouse stores in Desert City. He went aftah he picked up lumbuh for the porch from Mr. Henleh.”

  Marco nodded sadly. He hated to think how Jamie would feel when she found out her father had stolen both the peanut butter and the lumber. Mr. Klem just moved up to his number-one suspect.

  “What kind of sandwich did you have yesterday?” Marco asked, secretly checking for another clue.

  “Tuna-fish salad,” Jamie answered with a smile. “My favorite.”

  Jake looked over at Marco and raised one eyebrow. He, too, was catching on. Marco gave a small nod of understanding. Miss Nellie’s missing tuna salad must have ended up in Jamie’s lunch as well.

  Marco only wished he could keep Jamie as clueless as she was right now.

  5

  RUNAWAYS

  After school, Marco and Maria, along with Jake and Joy, headed over to Miss Nellie’s to wait for Mrs. Bigsley to pick them up.

  Maria stopped suddenly and nodded toward a thin, brown-haired girl walking across the town square. She looked to be about thirteen or fourteen and was holding hands with a preschooler who was maybe three years old. They were walking toward Henley’s Hardware. “Who are they?” Maria asked.

  “I don’t know,” Joy answered. “I’ve never seen them before. Maybe they’re new.”

  The girl stopped near Mr. Henley’s store and looked around as if to see whether anyone noticed them. Then she pulled the smaller girl around the side of the store, and the two were out of sight.

  “What are they doing?” Marco asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said. “But let’s follow them and find out.”

  The Twiblings followed the steps of the two girls around the corner, behind the hardware store, but the pair had disappeared.

  Scratching his head, Marco commented, “Now that’s weird. Where could they have gone so quickly?”

  The other three friends shook their heads, looking equally puzzled.

  “Must have run off into the woods back here,” Jake said. “Maybe they’re taking a shortcut home through the trees or something.”

  “We’d better get back to Miss Nellie’s!” Maria interrupted. “Your mom will be here to pick us up soon.”

  “Afternoon, Miss Nellie!” Marco called as he opened the door to the café and walked in for a quick visit. “Anything else missing today?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Miss Nellie said as she leaned her arms on the counter, “today I am missing a little doll I used to keep up on the shelf for decoration—a doll I was given when I was just a little girl. But other than that, everything seems to be in place. It’s a real puzzle to me, guys. These thieves pick the oddest things to take. After the quarters were missing, I’ve been careful not to leave any money lying around, so you’d think they’d steal from somebody else who had things of more value.”

  “Did you call the police?” Jake asked.

  “At first it seemed silly to call the police. I mean, how do you report a case of missing tuna and a jug of milk? But after Mr. Henley got robbed and more things disappeared here, we did report it to the police late yesterday afternoon.”

  “What did they say?” Marco asked.

  “They said they’d keep an eye out, but, of course, I told them I also had the Dos Amigos Detectives on the case as well,” she said with a wink. “Any suspects yet, boys?”

  Marco nodded. “Yes, but I’m not pointing any fingers until I have more evidence. It’s against our Dos Amigos Detectives Code of Honor. We’re getting closer to the truth, but there are still too many questions and not enough answers.”

  “Miss Nellie,” Jake interrupted, as if a thought suddenly occurred to him, “have you seen a couple of new girls in town? An older one with a younger one?”

  “Funny you should ask that, Jake,” Nellie answered. “The other day at the library I saw a girl—maybe about junior-high age—holding a young child in her lap, reading her a Dr. Seuss book. It was the middle of the school day, so I thought it was odd that they weren’t in school. But then, there are lots of homeschooling families these days, and they spend a lot of time at the library.” Miss Nellie paused a moment, then added, “Since Whispering Pines Estates opened up, our little town is beginning to grow. I actually see people at the grocery store these days that I’ve never met before! So I guess it’s not all that unusual to see a couple of new kids walking around town. We’d better get used to it, kids!”

  A horn honked outside. It was Mrs. Bigsley driving up in her red minivan. She was wearing overalls and a giant pink sun hat. Even from inside the store, Marco could see her singing a happy tune to herself, as Munch-Munch, Joy’s pet spider monkey, danced up and down in the front seat. Since Mrs. Bigsley had given the two sets of twins their Twiblings nickname, Marco and Maria had decided to give Mrs. Bigsley one of her own
: Merry Sunshine. She was nearly always cheerful, even if she was a little scatterbrained sometimes.

  “Gotta go!” Joy said to Miss Nellie before turning to leave.

  Miss Nellie nodded, then called out after the kids, “Tell your mom I said hello, Joy. And tell her I need to talk to her about playing the piano for our wedding!”

  “Hi, Mrs. Bigsley,” Marco said cheerfully as he climbed in the van behind Joy and Maria and Jake. “Nice hat you got there.” Munch-Munch jumped up and down, her yellow polka-dot ruffled skirt bouncing as she demanded some attention. Marco reached out to pet her head. “And very nice dress you have on there, too, Munchy.”

  “Why, thank you, Marco,” Mrs. Bigsley said, reaching for an enormous pair of purple sunglasses and propping them on her nose. “And Munchy thanks you too.”

  With this, the monkey reached in Mrs. Bigsley’s bag for her own miniature pair of pink sunshades, put them on, and settled back against the car seat with a tired sigh.

  Everyone laughed.

  “So, how are my Twiblings today?” Mrs. Bigsley asked.

  “We’re fine,” Jake answered. “Just peachy.”

  Mrs. Bigsley smiled and nodded, then lowered her sunglasses and adjusted the radio knob, searching for her favorite station. As she turned the dial, a news announcer said something about “missing children,” and Mrs. Bigsley paused to listen to the rest of the story.

  The announcer’s deep voice continued. “The missing children—two girls and one boy, all siblings—were put in three separate Desert City foster homes after their parents were killed in a car accident this past winter. Investigators believe the children managed to find each other and are on the run, possibly in hiding. A picture of the missing siblings will appear in local and surrounding newspapers tomorrow.”

  “Why did they run away?” Jake asked.