The Mystery of the Disappearing Underpants

by Nikki Young

  But we did learn something: ‘Colin’ is Gruesome Newsome and the old lady is his mum!

  We saw lots of funny pictures of him when he was a boy. She even let us keep one of them. James said he was going to use it to bribe Gruesome Newsome next time he wouldn’t let us have our ball back. He said we could threaten to stick posters of him all over the street for everyone to laugh at. I’m not sure if Gruesome Newsome would care about that really, but it would be worth a try. One thing we were sure of is Gruesome Newsome was not the thief.

  AND IF HE WASN’T THE THIEF, THEN WHO WAS?

  Friday

  After doing some more digging around, which meant asking more of the neighbours if they’d had any washing stolen from their lines, we found out that only me, Stacey and Mrs O’Connor had had clothes taken.

  ‘So, we’re looking for someone dressed in an underskirt, T-shirt and possibly my underpants, whilst carrying a pillow case,’ I said to James.

  We thought, based on the evidence we’d found, that the thief must be close by, so we searched around the three gardens for clues (luckily, Stacey was out all day today so she didn’t interfere). This is what we found:

  1.A punctured old football (mine).

  2.A chewed up old trainer (possibly Stacey’s).

  3.Loads of tennis balls (probably mine).

  4.A rusty old watering can (Mrs O’Connor’s).

  This was all very interesting but it wasn’t getting us closer to finding the thief. That was, until James found something VERY interesting: some pegs. There was one on our side of the garden and another on Mrs O’Connor’s side. There’s no fence between our two gardens, just a huge deep hedge.

  ‘The thief?’

  ‘In there.’

  James and I spoke at the same time, pointing to the hedge.

  ‘We need to tempt him out,’ I said. ‘We can hide in the lookout den and catch him in action.’

  So I got Mum to hang out some more washing and we sat and waited.

  We waited a long time. Mum even brought us some dinner as we didn’t want to come in to the house in case we missed him.

  Nothing happened, except that Stacey came round and started interfering and trying to find out what we were doing, AGAIN.

  MAYBE STACEY HAS

  SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS.

  Saturday

  Everything is going wrong and it has to be because I’ve lost my lucky underpants, I’m sure of it. I was at football camp today and played so badly: tripped over my own shoe laces, got nutmegged a million times, gave away a penalty and even scored an own goal. Everybody hated me and I think even James was pretending he’d never met me before. It was so embarrassing. If I don’t find those pants soon, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  To make matters worse, last night SOME MORE WASHING WENT MISSING. This time it was my dad’s T-shirt and Mum was not happy. She said she’s not going to put any more washing on the line until we’ve found out who the thief is. If only we’d waited a bit longer and if only stupid Stacey hadn’t interfered, then we might have caught the thief in action.

  Stacey is in our class at school. She’s bossy and annoying. Me and James pull her hair (him more than me) and call her a cry-baby and she’s always telling the teacher on us. She doesn’t like us and we don’t like her. But she still comes into my garden bugging us all the time. I don’t get it.

  We think Stacey might have taken the washing after we’d left, so we’ve been spying on her today, which isn’t easy as she always seems to catch us. First, we sneaked into her garden and had a search in her playhouse for evidence. There were a few things that looked as if they could be stolen washing, like a table cover, a tea towel and an old coat and dress. We didn’t find any of the missing things though.

  Then we hid in the bushes with Dad’s video camera and waited for Stacey and her friend to come into the garden. Unfortunately, we left her back gate open and Brosnan came sniffing around and found us. Stacey went screaming indoors. We ran off back to our lookout den, but about 10 minutes later my mum came down and gave us a long lecture about spying on girls. She took our binoculars and video camera off us. Stacey and her friend were there too. They looked so smug. I hate girls.

  It also turns out that the things in the playhouse are old hand-me-downs, so Stacey probably isn’t the thief either.

  Sunday

  Last night, the old football and the chewed-up trainer we found when we went hunting for clues the other day went missing. This is getting ridiculous.

  James decided to sleep over tonight, as we were determined to crack this case. We knew it wasn’t Stacey, Mrs O’Connor or Gruesome Newsome, but we still thought the thief was close by. We’d come this far, we were not going to give up that easily. That’s why we decided to do another stake-out and we’ve only just finished. This is what happened:

  I convinced Mum to do some more washing, so we could put it on the line to tempt the thief. She wasn’t pleased, as there weren’t many dirty clothes left. She said I would have to do all the ironing and so I agreed, hoping she’d forget she ever asked me. We warned Stacey not to come anywhere near us or we’d show everyone in school the video that shows her playing with dolls like a little girl. We got Max to take Brosnan for a walk so he’d be too tired to stay out with us (I had to pay him) and we took loads of snacks to the lookout den so we wouldn’t have to keep going back to the house.

  We didn’t want to take any chances and scare the thief away this time.

  At 8:00 p.m., something finally happened. The bushes between Mrs O’Connor’s house and ours started rustling.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ I whispered to James. We sat still as statues.

  ‘What can you see?’ I asked, as James had the binoculars (we’d managed to convince Mum to give us those back when we explained what we needed them for).

  ‘It’s a fox,’ said James.

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ I was disappointed, but I took the binoculars from James to see for myself anyway.

  You would not believe what I saw.

  The fox went up to our washing line, jumped up and pulled down one of my T-shirts with his teeth.

  ‘The fox is the thief,’ I said to James. ‘Can you believe that? What would he want with all those clothes?’

  We watched the fox go back into the thick hedge.

  ‘That must be where he lives,’ said James. ‘Shall we sneak in and have a look?’

  We peered into the hedge and stopped as we came face to face with the fox thief. I thought my heart had stopped beating as he stood there staring straight at us. Then we looked down and saw three cubs and realised it was actually a mother fox. You could just see Mrs O’Connor’s underskirt and Stacey’s T-shirt peeping out from under them. She had taken the clothes to use as a bed for her cubs.

  We smiled at the fox and backed out of the hedge very slowly.

  MYSTERY SOLVED.

  I didn’t see my lucky underpants though. I think they’ve disappeared for good and the fox didn’t take them after all. Perhaps it was someone else; someone who knew they were special pants. That person, or thing, might be running around in them right now (or flying, perhaps). They could be a superhero with the power to bring good luck. I wish I had them back. I don’t feel as though I’ve been a good agent so far. James has beaten me to every meeting, he was the one who was brave enough to knock on Gruesome Newsome’s mum’s door and we seem to keep getting into trouble. There was no washing thief after all that either, just a silly fox who prefers clothes as a bed instead of leaves. What will happen if there is a real mystery to solve?

  HOW AM I EVER GOING TO BE A SECRET AGENT IF I DON’T HAVE THOSE LUCKY PANTS TO HELP ME?

  Part 2

  Week 2

  Becoming a Double Agent,

  by James Murphy

  Sunday

  It was rubbish findi
ng out that a fox stole the washing. I was hoping it was going to be a runaway prisoner who was stealing stuff so he could escape the country with a new identity. We hadn’t heard of any escaped prisoners, so that was unlikely, but still, it would have been cool. We could have been on telly and everything and we might have even got a massive reward.

  I’ve decided it might get a bit boring doing this secret agent thing if the only mysteries we find are to do with stolen washing. Anyway, this whole thing was Harry’s idea and that’s why he got to be Harry Bond. I mean, come on, my name is James, so it should have been me who got to have the ‘Bond’ bit. We couldn’t think of any other famous secret agents, so I was just going to be Agent James, but my dad gave me the idea of being James Hunt, as in Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible, so I went with that.

  Now I’ve come up with my own way to make this secret agency more fun. We’re going to become double agents. This means that as well as solving mysteries (if there are any more) we are going to play tricks on people. Starting with Stacey. Let’s face it, she’s annoying anyway AND she’s a girl.

  I have a box of tricks and joke stuff that my granddad bought me for Christmas. It’s time to put it to good use.

  Can’t wait!

  Monday

  Today was awesome. I have been at Harry’s as usual, starting with a meeting in the agency headquarters, where I told him all about my plan to play tricks on people. I reckon he was a bit miffed he didn’t come up with the idea himself, but he thought my plan to get Stacey first was so cool.

  The best thing was my cat, Jasper, brought a mouse in last night. When Mum went downstairs this morning, she screamed and then shouted at me to come help her. When I saw the mouse, with its head bitten off and its guts hanging out, I just knew it would be perfect for what I had in mind. I put it in an old shoebox and took it outside, pretending to Mum I had put it in the bin.

  By the time I got to Harry’s house, the mouse was starting to smell a bit, so it was even more perfect. The first thing we did was to sneak into Stacey’s back garden and put the mouse in the pretend saucepan on the top of the play cooker. At school Stacey always tries to make out that she is really grown up and mature, but we know she still plays with that stuff when she’s at home, especially when she plays with her little sister, who isn’t quite as annoying as Stacey is.

  We set up all the tricks, then went and knocked on the door. Stacey answered.

  ‘What do you want?’ Stacey asked.

  ‘Do you want to come and join our club?’ I asked.

  ‘What, me?’ she said, pulling a face that suggested she didn’t really believe us, so I nudged Harry in the ribs, then quickly hid my hands behind my back (I didn’t want her to see what was on them).

  ‘Yeah, well, we thought we could do with more people and you’d do,’ Harry said. I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head.

  ‘Look, Stacey, do you want to come or what?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, OK then,’ Stacey said, jumping off the steps and skipping down the garden in her annoying girly way.

  We ran ahead of her to get back to the den first and when we were all inside I initiated trick number 1.

  ‘Here, Stacey, have a sweet,’ I said.

  ‘What’s this for?’ she said, as she unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth.

  ‘Peace offering for the other day,’ said Harry. ‘You know, the filming and stuff.’

  Stacey seemed embarrassed.

  ‘Oh, that… well, it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘So what’s the club all about then?’

  ‘We can’t tell you until you’ve completed the initiation process,’ I said. (Trick number 2.)

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘Well, it’s more of a ceremony,’ I said, and got us to stand in a circle in the middle of the room.

  ‘We have to each put a thumb on the other person’s forehead like this,’ I said. So they both copied me. ‘Then we say the words: “I promise to do my utmost to solve any mysteries that come my way.”’

  I was trying so hard not to laugh I almost wet myself.

  ‘Then you have to turn around in a circle like this,’ I said, demonstrating, ‘and put your thumbs back onto each other’s foreheads again. Then we say: “I promise to keep everything that happens in these four walls a secret, on fear of death.”’

  We all chanted the words then Stacey screamed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  ‘There is an enormous spider on that bench over there,’ she said, backing away. (Trick number 3.)

  ‘Oh that,’ said Harry. ‘We get them all the time in here. Don’t worry about it, Stacey, you get used to it. Here, why don’t you sit down on this chair?’

  Stacey sat down and there came the most enormous fart noise (trick number 4). Harry and I laughed so hard we fell on the floor. Then Stacey stood up, holding a whoopee cushion in her hands.

  ‘This was all a big joke, wasn’t it? I hate you two,’ she said, throwing down the whoopee cushion and running out of the den.

  We got up off the floor and ran through Stacey’s gate after her, sneaking up to hide in the bush near to her house. We could hear her mum talking.

  ‘Stacey, what have you done to your face, there are black marks all over it?’

  ‘What do you mean, Mum?’

  ‘Urgh, and why is your mouth all blue?’

  ‘Argh, Harry and James, I’m going to kill you!’ Stacey screamed.

  We legged it back to Harry’s house and stayed indoors for a while, hoping Stacey would calm down and wouldn’t come after us.

  *

  Later, when we were back in the lookout den with Brosnan, we heard a scream from next door. We ran out to the back gate in time to see Stacey and her sister running up the garden back to their house.

  ‘There’s a dead mouse in the saucepan,’ Stacey screamed. ‘And I bet I know who put it there.’

  We ran back to our den again and this time we barred the door.

  ‘That was really fun,’ said Harry. ‘But I don’t know if it will stop her from interfering in our business or just make it worse.’

  ‘Who cares?’ I said. ‘It was worth it to see her face. Did you see all those black ink marks from our thumbs and her mouth all blue from the sweet? It was so funny. I can’t wait to tell the others at school.’

  ‘So who’s next then?’ Harry asked.

  We both agreed it had to be Gruesome Newsome. So we made a plan for the next day.

  Tuesday

  We decided not to do too many jokes on Gruesome Newsome in case he had a heart attack and died or something; then we might end up getting done by the police. So we put some fake dog poo on his front doorstep and let off a stink bomb. I knocked on his door and we ran away and hid across the street behind a car.

  When he came out and caught the smell, then saw the poo, Gruesome Newsome swore so much and so loudly, we couldn’t believe it. Now we know he’s not as posh as he makes out. I hope the stink bomb smell went into his house and stayed there for ages.

  Next, we hid fake tissue money in various places all over the streets (ours and the next two along) and watched as people picked them up thinking they’d found a real-life fifty-pound note. The expression on their faces when they realised the money wasn’t real was hilarious. Then they would look around the street suspiciously as if someone from the telly was going to jump out in front of them and shout ‘got you’. Harry and I decided we should make a TV programme like this when we’re older.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ Harry said. ‘This is getting a bit old.’

  He’s so boring sometimes.

  ‘No, it’s not, we’ve only just started,’ I said. ‘We’ve still got the sneezing powder and the severed thumb yet.’

  Harry groaned.

  ‘Aw, come on,’ I said. ‘I know,
let’s go back to mine. I’ve got an idea.’

  Back at my house, we checked to see if my sister was around. Kate is twelve but thinks she’s a teenager. As luck would have it, she was with her best friend, Chloe, who happens to be scared of everything.

  After we’d made sure Kate and Chloe were outside and could see us, Harry and I went to the bottom of the garden to climb the tree. I pretended to fall and Harry started shouting, ‘Argh, James, what’s happened to your thumb?’

  I was crying out in pretend pain. ‘I don’t know but it hurts.’

  ‘Oh no, I think your thumb has come off,’ Harry said, but he’s really not that good at acting, so I was worried it wouldn’t work.

  ‘Kate, help,’ I cried. ‘Quick, Harry, pick it up and go get some ice.’

  Harry took the thumb and wrapped it in a hankie.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Kate said, as she came over with Chloe.

  ‘James’ thumb fell off when he was climbing the tree. Here, do you want to see?’ Harry thrust the thumb right into Chloe’s face.

  ‘Oh my God, ARGH!’ she screamed and ran off.

  ‘Don’t just stand there with it, you idiot,’ Kate shouted, ‘go get some ice, get Mum, QUICK. James, are you OK? I can’t believe this is happening.’

  Chloe was still screaming in the background. Kate was hysterical and almost crying. Then she stopped in her tracks.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  Harry was clutching his stomach and I was lying on the ground with tears pouring out of my eyes – tears of laughter, of course.

  ‘Why you little…’

  Harry and I bolted out of the back gate with Kate chasing after us. We were much faster than her and as we legged it we could hear her shouting, ‘You horrible, disgusting pigs! I’m going to tell Mum on you.’