“No, silly. The boy. The big boy.”
It was Winston.
Jazz stared at the girl. “He gave you the rubber snake to put into the ball pit?”
The girl nodded happily. “And a piece of chocolate pie.”
“Oh, man,” Crash said from inside his watermelon costume. “That guy makes the best pie ever. I could not believe he didn’t win first prize last year.”
“Second place three years in a row,” the eggplant added mournfully.
Jazz stared at them. Then at Winston. Then at Mrs. Smalley, who by now had turned as purple as the eggplant.
“So, Winston was the prankster. . . .” she said slowly. “And his pie lost out to Mrs. Smalley’s, three years in a row. . . .”
“And now Mrs. Smalley’s pie is missing!” Milo said.
They stared at each other. He knew they were thinking the same thing.
Milo and Jazz pushed their way forward. The Zoo Crew scrambled after them. At the sight of fruits and vegetables on the march, the crowd fell silent.
Jazz faced Winston and announced, “You took Mrs. Smalley’s pie.”
All eyes turned to Winston.
“Wh-wh-why would I do that?” he stammered.
“I think you were sick of Mrs. Smalley always winning first prize, just because the pie judge is her son,” Jazz said.
Now all eyes turned to Chief Smalley. His mustache twitched. He cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything.
“JEFFREY!” Mrs. Smalley howled. “Are you just going to stand there and let her insult my Luscious Lemon Pie?”
Ignoring her, Jazz said to Winston, “With Mrs. Smalley’s pie out of the contest, the other pies would have a chance to win. But—”
Milo jumped in. “But everybody knew you always came in second to Mrs. Smalley. You realized that if her pie went missing, you would be suspected.”
“Right,” Jazz said. “So you tried to distract everybody—by making them think the fair was jinxed. You figured if lots of things were going wrong, then nobody would pay much attention to one missing pie.”
“That’s why you pulled all those other pranks,” Milo added. “The chickens. The switched CD. And—”
Jazz pulled the girl out from behind her. “The snake in the ball pit.”
Winston took one look at the girl and crumbled.
“Okay,” he confessed, “I did it. But the pie contest wasn’t fair! Everyone knew that—but no one would do anything about it! My pranks didn’t hurt anyone. . . .”
“The chickens you let loose popped Uncle Sam,” Jazz pointed out.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Winston looked sad. “All I wanted was a fair shot at first prize. I know my chocolate-cookie cream pie is good!”
Milo thought longingly of his lost slice—that one crunchy, creamy, chocolatey bite. Winston did make good pie. Really good pie.
Reaching down under the table, Winston pulled out Mrs. Smalley’s pie and put it back where it belonged.
Then he took his own pie off the table. Gazing at it sadly, he said, “I guess I’ve disqualified myself. Sorry, chocolate pie. You should have been a winner.”
He turned to leave.
Chief Smalley cleared his throat again.
“Not so fast, young man,” he said.
“That’s right, Jeffrey!” Mrs. Smalley cried. “ARREST HIM!”
The police chief looked at Winston sternly. “Later, you and I are going to have a long talk about these pranks.”
Winston bit his lip and nodded.
“But right now,” the chief went on, taking the pan from Winston’s hands and setting it back on the table, “I’m here to judge pie.”
Then he served himself a big slice, smiled, and dug in.
Milo lay back on the picnic blanket and looked up at the darkening sky. Nearby, Ethan and the snake girl played dinosaurs, while the Zoo Crew—out of costume now—tossed a Frisbee around with Carlos and Spencer.
Next to Milo, Jazz read aloud her letter to Dash Marlowe about how they had solved The Case of the July 4th Jinx.
“. . . and while Milo may not be so good at acting tough, everyone at the parade agreed that he made the pinkest, yummiest-looking strawberry they’d ever seen.”
“What?” Milo sat up fast.
Jazz laughed. “Just making sure you were still listening. Don’t worry, I left that last part out.”
Winston appeared with his chocolate-cookie cream pie and a stack of paper plates. “Anybody want some pie?”
“ME!” they chorused.
Milo eagerly took a slice and crammed it into his mouth. He wasn’t taking any chances on losing more pie.
Jazz took a bite of her own slice, and then a bigger bite. “This is fantastic!” she said to Winston. “I can’t believe your pie only got second place again.”
Winston grinned. “Yeah, but it beats Mrs. Smalley’s third.”
“She looked pretty mad,” Milo said.
“Oh, she cheered up when she found out the announcer job was open for next year. Now she is telling everyone she’s meant for bigger things than pie.”
Mrs. Smalley with a microphone? Milo thought. Yikes!
Just then, Chief Smalley strolled past, arm in arm with Viola Pritchett. Viola held a pie tin and a first place ribbon.
“. . . best pie I ever tasted in my life,” the chief was saying.
Viola Pritchett’s large, pink face turned even pinker. “Oh, Chief Smalley!”
The chief smiled. “Call me Jeff.”
Jazz made a face, and Milo laughed. Good thing Chief Smalley had decided not to be the pie judge next year. It would keep him out of trouble with his new girlfriend.
Jazz swallowed her last bite of pie and said to Winston, “I’m glad you’re not mad at us for busting you.”
“Naw. I had it coming,” Winston said. “Besides, I’ve got to hand it to you—that was pretty sharp detective work.”
“We had it all wrong at first,” Jazz said. “If the Zoo Crew hadn’t told us about your pie getting second place three years in a row . . .”
“And if Jazz hadn’t found the girl with the rubber snake—” Milo stopped and looked at her. “Where did you find her, anyway?”
Jazz smiled. “At the bake sale. I had it staked out. Remember yesterday, how she had all that chocolate on her face?”
Winston shook his head and joked, “Next time I bribe a little kid, I’ll use something that’s not so messy.”
“What did Chief Smalley say to you?” Milo asked. “Are you in a lot of trouble?”
“I have to do twenty hours of community service,” Winston said. Then he brightened. “But the chief told me I could volunteer at the after-school program. Teach the kids to bake.”
Spotting Winston and his pie, the Frisbee players crowded onto the blanket along with Ethan and his new friend.
Carlos tagged after Crash, asking, “And did you really blow up the microwave in the teachers’ lounge?”
“We didn’t mean to,” Crash said. “See, what happened was . . .”
Milo smiled to himself. Dash had been right that people weren’t always what they seemed. The Zoo Crew hadn’t turned out to be the rough, tough troublemakers he had imagined.
But that sure didn’t make them safe to be around. If it wasn’t a fire, it was a flood. If it wasn’t a flood, it was an explosion—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Milo screamed, dove headfirst off the blanket, and rolled across the grass.
“Gosh, Milo,” Ethan said, giggling and pointing at the sky. “It’s only fireworks.”
A few days after Milo and Jazz wrote to Dash Marlowe, a letter arrived in the mail. . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lewis B. Montgomery is the pen name of a writer whose favorite authors include CSL, EBW, and LMM. Those initials are a clue—but there’s another clue, too. Can you figure out their names?
Besides writing the Milo & Jazz mysteries, LBM enjoys eating spicy Thai noodles and blueberry ice
cream, riding a bike, and reading. Not all at the same time, of course. At least, not anymore. But that’s another story. . . .
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Amy Wummer has illustrated more than 50 children’s books. She uses pencils, watercolors, and ink—but not the invisible kind.
Amy and her husband, who is also an artist, live in Pennsylvania . . . in a mysterious old house which has a secret hidden room in the basement!
The Case of the July 4th Jinx Page 3