by Bruce Hale
This fiend tried everything—flattery, friendship, food—but he still couldn't keep me off the case. Natalie and I followed a trail of clues as thin as the cheese on a cafeteria hamburger. And we found a ring of corruption that went from the janitor right up to Mr. Big.
In the nick of time, we rescued Principal Zero and busted up the PTA meeting, putting a stop to the evil genius. And what thanks did we get? Just the usual. A cold handshake and a warm soda.
But that's all in a day's work for a private eye.
Case #3 Farewell, My Lunchbag
If danger is my business, then dinner is my passion. I'll take any case if the pay is right. And what pay could be better than Mothloaf Surprise?
At least that's what I thought. But in this particular case I bit off more than I could chew.
Cafeteria lady Mrs. Bagoong hired me to track down whoever was stealing her food supplies. The long, slimy trail led too close to my own backyard for comfort.
And much, much too close to my old archenemy, Jimmy "King" Cobra. Without the help of Natalie Attired and our school janitor, Maureen DeBree, I would've been gecko sushi.
Case #4 The Big Nap
My grades were lower than a salamander's slippers, and my bank account was trying to crawl under a duck's belly. So why did I take a case that didn't pay anything?
Put it this way: Would you stand by and watch some evil power turn your classmates into hypnotized zombies? (If that wasn't just what normally happened to them in math class, I mean.)
My investigations revealed a plot meaner than a roomful of rhinos with diaper rash.
Someone at Emerson Hicky was using a sinister video game to put more and more students into la-la-land. And it was up to me to stop it, pronto—before that someone caught up with me, and I found myself taking the Big Nap.
Case #7 The Malted Falcon
It was tall, dark, and chocolatey—the stuff dreams are made of. It was a treat so titanic that nobody had been able to finish one single-handedly (or even single-mouthedly). It was the Malted Falcon.
How far would you go for the ultimate dessert? Somebody went too far, and that's where I came in.
The local sweets shop held a contest. The prize: a year's supply of free Malted Falcons. Some lucky kid scored the winning ticket. She brought it to school for show-and-tell.
But after she showed it, somebody swiped it. And no one would tell where it went.
Following a strong hunch and an even stronger sweet tooth, I tracked the ticket through a web of lies more tangled than a rattlesnake doing the rumba. But the time to claim the prize was fast approaching. Would the villain get the sweet treat—or his just desserts?
Case #8 Trouble Is My Beeswax
Okay, I confess. When test time rolls around, I'm as tempted as the next lizard to let my eyeballs do the walking ... to my neighbor's paper.
But Mrs. Gecko didn't raise no cheaters. (Some language manglers, perhaps.) So when a routine investigation uncovered a test-cheating ring at Emerson Hicky, I gave myself a new case: Put the cheaters out of business.
Easier said than done. Those double-dealers were slicker than a frog's fanny and twice as slimy.
Oh, and there was one other small problem: The finger of suspicion pointed to two dames. The ringleader was either the glamorous Lacey Vail, or my own classmate Shirley Chameleon.
Sheesh. The only thing I hate worse than an empty Pillbug Crunch wrapper is a case full of dizzy dames.
Case #9 Give My Regrets to Broadway
Some things you can't escape, however hard you try—like dentist appointments, visits with strange-smelling relatives, and being in the fourth-grade play. I had always left the acting to my smart-aleck pal, Natalie, but then one day it was my turn in the spotlight.
Stage fright? Me? You're talking about a gecko who has laughed at danger, chuckled at catastrophe, and sneezed at sinister plots.
I was terrified.
Not because of the acting, mind you. The script called for me to share a major lip-lock with Shirley Chameleon—Cootie Queen of the Universe!
And while I was trying to avoid that trap, a simple missing-persons case took a turn for the worse—right into the middle of my play. Would opening night spell curtains for my client? And more importantly, would someone invent a cure for cooties? But no matter—whatever happens, the sleuth must go on.
* * *