Super Puzzletastic Mysteries

by Chris Grabenstein

  “What’s going on?” she asked Kevin as they ran down the hallway leading to his apartment.

  “I knew we were right about Mom’s earrings. They were stolen. And now we know who did it.”

  “You do? Who was it?”

  “A ghost.”

  “A ghost?” Tara repeated, staring at Kevin.

  “A ghost?” said another voice. This one was older. “Ah, at last. Now this place is finally getting interesting.”

  Tara and Kevin turned and saw the magician peering out of his doorway. His front door was across from Kevin’s, one of the four apartments on the top floor.

  Tara didn’t have strong feelings about magic, but Kevin’s older brother, Braden, was in a junior magicians’ club. Braden was the one who’d recognized the new tenant on the floor as the Hindi Houdini. He didn’t go around calling himself that, of course. His real name was Sanjay Rai. The Hindi Houdini was his stage name.

  Sanjay Rai looked like he was from India, just like Tara’s dad, but he had the same California accent as hers. He was nice, too. When they’d first met, he’d asked Tara and Kevin to call him Sanjay. He also told them they and their parents could have free tickets to attend one of his magic shows. Now he held a steaming mug in one hand, his feet were bare, and his thick black hair stood up at funny angles, just like Kevin’s.

  “The ghost left a message for us on my dad’s typewriter,” Kevin told them both.

  “Your dad has a typewriter instead of a computer?” Sanjay asked.

  Tara laughed. “The Byrnes love collecting old stuff. Kevin’s dad, especially. He has a room of antiques he calls his office, with stuff like a letterpress—those old machines made of iron and wood that books used to be printed on—and a really old telephone that looks like one of the ones its inventor Alexander Graham Bell made.”

  “And the typewriter that my dad’s parents had when he was a little kid,” Kevin said, “before they had a computer. But the typewriter’s letter keys haven’t worked as long as we’ve lived here. There’s no way a message could have been typed on the typewriter.”

  Sanjay frowned. “Oh. I’m sorry, but it sounds as if your father simply fixed his typewriter. No ghost.”

  Kevin shook his head. “The message was signed The Ghost of SoMa.”

  “As in the South of Market area,” Sanjay murmured. “Then, perhaps, he is our friendly San Francisco neighborhood ghost.”

  Kevin’s front door flew open, and his parents bustled out. Kevin’s older brother, Braden, trailed behind.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to work after what we found,” Braden whined to his parents.

  “Kevin?” said his dad. “Your mom and I have to get to work. You know the rules. Until you start summer classes next week, no leaving the building unless you’re with Braden, or with Tara and her parents.”

  Braden scowled at his father. “You don’t, like, even care about a threatening note? You’re totally leaving me and Kevin alone with a ghost, and you haven’t even figured out what it wants, why it’s haunting us!”

  “The note is nonsense,” Kevin’s mom said to Braden. “Our building manager simply has a mean sense of humor. That’s all this is. Ms. Weber has a key to every apartment. She started this nonsense to get back at me for raising my voice when I spoke to her about the building’s security.”

  Kevin shook his head. “The message is written in code, Mom. That’s why I went to get Tara.”

  His mom smiled and kissed the top of his head.

  “I know you see codes everywhere,” she told Kevin. “Have fun working on codes with Tara today.” She turned to Sanjay. “Good morning, Sanjay. Sorry for the disturbance.”

  “No trouble,” Sanjay said. “I love a good ghost story to start my day.”

  Mrs. Byrne smiled, but it looked to Tara like it was a fake sort of smile. “Our children both have well-developed and sometimes overactive imaginations.”

  “What about the sound of the typewriter keys tapping?” Braden asked. He was still scowling.

  At least Tara thought that’s what he was doing. Since he turned thirteen, he’d been letting his hair grow out and it usually covered his eyes.

  “We must’ve heard something else,” said Mr. Byrne. “We just thought it was the typewriter. We have to run. Keep your brother out of trouble. See you guys tonight.”

  Kevin’s parents hurried down the hall to the elevator and disappeared into it.

  “So,” said Sanjay when they were gone, “you said you heard the keys typing the note?”

  “We sure did,” said Braden, flicking his bangs out of his eyes.

  “Fascinating. Why, that’s even more mysterious than a note found on a broken typewriter.”

  “You want to see?” Braden asked.

  “Of course. This is a mystery I can’t turn down. Just let me go inside and put on some shoes first. Back in a few seconds.”

  “He’s not kidding,” Braden said, smiling for the first time Tara had seen in weeks. “It’ll take him like a nanosecond. One of the things he does in his act is a quick-change routine. He can change complete costumes in a flash.”

  As predicted, Sanjay was back a few seconds later, his hair combed and perfectly laced sneakers on his feet. Tara and Sanjay followed the two brothers into their apartment.

  “We were all eating breakfast together,” Kevin said, “when we heard the sound of tapping coming from this empty room.”

  Breakfast was the one meal of the day the Byrnes ate together. Though it was brief, it was meant to be quality family time, so no electronic devices were allowed at the table.

  “We thought at first Dad left one of his laptops in here and some video started playing from the internet,” Braden said. “But there were no working electronic devices in the whole room. Only this note in the typewriter. The typewriter that’s still broken.”

  He held up the note for all of them to see.

  Tara shivered. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Not really. But how could anyone have typed the note on a broken typewriter—and then disappeared?

  “Wow,” Sanjay said, “that’s a really polite ghost. See how they sign off with sincerely? Very polite. But the first part of its message is scrambled.”

  He was right. The three lines read:

  SWITORWWDPR

  TPOKNATCROEEESILIAPA

  ORGFMJLLSE

  “It’s a cipher,” Tara said, studying the letters and dots as Sanjay looked at the typewriter itself.

  “I knew you’d see it, too,” Kevin said.

  “Almost,” Tara whispered. “I almost see it. It’s a coded message, and I know we can crack the code. What I’m more worried about is how the note appeared.”

  “A ghost did it,” blurted Braden.

  “I’m curious as to how the perpetrator disappeared,” said Kevin, using another one of his favorite big words.

  “It’s a ghost,” said Braden. “It can walk through walls.”

  “The note has to be related to the theft,” said Kevin. “Right, Tara?”

  Tara nodded. Two strange occurrences in Kevin’s apartment within one week. It would be too much of a coincidence if they weren’t related.

  The burglary was why Tara had suggested to Kevin that they form the detective agency. The two of them had always loved mysteries, ever since they first met the summer before second grade. And some of the biggest mysteries were codes. Tara and Kevin had invented several to communicate over the years. Tara’s favorite was still the first one they’d invented. The one that changed her name to Star Moon and Kevin Byrne’s to Kind Raven. Even though they’d outgrown communicating like that, they still liked their idea of changing words to reveal the secret meaning of each word. That’s why they’d become Moon Raven Detective Agency.

  They got their code names from their real names. The Sanskrit meaning of Tara Chandran’s name was Star for Tara and Shiny and Moon for Chandran. The meaning of Kevin Byrne’s Irish name was Kind and Handsome for Kevin and Raven for Byrne. Shiny sounded wei
rd, so they went with Moon. And Handsome? Eww. So their second grade code names became Star Moon and Kind Raven. Kevin’s brother Braden’s name meant a wise fish from Irish mythology. They had looked up the meanings behind other words they wanted to use in front of their parents without the adults knowing what they were saying.

  “You two are investigating the theft?” Sanjay asked.

  “Indubitably,” Kevin said.

  “He means yes,” Tara said, scowling at Kevin.

  “I don’t know why he doesn’t just say ‘yes,’” muttered Braden.

  Kevin darted out of the room.

  “Oops,” said Braden. “Did we upset him?”

  “I hope not.” Tara sighed.

  When Kevin came back a few minutes later, he handed Sanjay a flyer he’d printed with the logo Tara had designed. Along with the text, “Moon Raven Detective Agency,” was an illustration of a bird silhouette on a full moon.

  “I’ll keep you two in mind if I ever have a need for sleuthing,” Sanjay said, “and file this away for the future.” He held up the flyer in his hand—and it disappeared.

  Tara clapped.

  “Braden performs the same illusion nearly as well,” Sanjay said.

  Braden shrugged. When they’d all met Sanjay earlier that week, Tara had heard the magician talking to Braden about misdirection, which was how magicians fooled their audience. But Tara was sure she’d been looking directly at the flyer when Sanjay made it invisible.

  “Can we focus on the ghost’s message?” asked Kevin.

  “Well,” said Tara, “because it took you so long to find our flyer, I’ve already solved the cipher.”

  “You have?” Kevin and Braden said at the same time.

  “Look at the diagonal lines’ crisscross pattern at the top of the paper. I thought at first it was just a mistake, like someone testing the keys. But that’s the clue to what kind of cipher it is.”

  “A rail fence cipher!” Kevin said.

  Tara nodded. “So we don’t read the letters on each line from left to right. We follow the letters at a diagonal angle, starting on the left and moving to the right at an angle.”

  Kevin began writing on a fresh sheet of paper. He read aloud as he wrote each letter. “S-T-O-P.”

  Sanjay shook his head. “This isn’t right.”

  “It’s right,” Tara said. “The first letters even spell out a word. ‘Stop.’”

  “I’m not talking about the note,” Sanjay said, pointing at the typewriter. “This machine is broken. There’s no way it was used to type the note. You’re sure you heard the sound of keys tapping?”

  “Definitely,” said Braden.

  “I’m done decoding the message,” Kevin said. “Here’s what it says: STOPWORKINGATTFCORMOREJEWELSWILLDISAPPEAR.”

  “We need to add spaces to separate the words,” Tara said. “STOP WORKING AT TFC OR MORE JEWELS WILL DISAPPEAR.”

  “TFC?” asked Sanjay.

  “TFC,” said Kevin. “That’s Technology for Change. Seems like the ghost wants our parents to quit their jobs.”

  Braden called their parents on the cell phone he’d gotten for his thirteenth birthday, but they wouldn’t come home. They again insisted it was the building manager, Muriel Weber, who had written the note and left it in the typewriter.

  But that night they came home before dinnertime, which was such a rare occurrence that Kevin invited Tara to join them for dinner. Tara, Braden, and Kevin watched as Mr. and Mrs. Byrne searched the room with the typewriter thoroughly before locking the door.

  “I’m the only person who has the key to my office,” Kevin’s dad said. “The mystery ends here.”

  But Mr. Byrne was wrong.

  While the five of them shared a dinner of takeout Chinese food—the spring rolls dipped in sweet and sour sauce were Tara’s favorite—she heard a noise that made the hairs on her arms stand up.

  “That sound . . .” she whispered.

  “Keys tapping,” Kevin said. “The typewriter!”

  Everyone dropped their chopsticks and ran toward the study. Mr. Byrne got to the door first. He jiggled the handle.

  “It’s still locked!”

  “That typewriter doesn’t even work,” said Mrs. Byrne as she glanced around nervously.

  “The sound of keys tapping stopped,” Braden said. “Dad, can you open the door?”

  Mr. Byrne nodded and unlocked the door.

  “Look!” Braden shouted as the door swung open. “Another note!” He rushed forward and pulled a white sheet of paper from the typewriter. He held it up in his hands. “Another code.”

  “Cipher,” Kevin corrected him, taking the paper from his brother’s hands. “Codes are word substitutions. Ciphers are letter substitutions.”

  Braden rolled his eyes at his brother.

  “This cipher looks different,” Tara said.

  “There’s a different marking on top,” said Kevin. “And an additional line.”

  “But if we follow the diagonal pattern we did last time,” Tara said, “it doesn’t make real words. N-E-R-D-L-I-H-C-R-U.”

  Even though it wasn’t as easy as the first cipher, Tara was confident they could figure out the message. But the locked room? How did someone get into a locked room, write a note on a broken antique typewriter, and get out again? That’s what worried her most.

  “How did the note get here?” Kevin’s mom asked. “David, didn’t you lock the door properly before dinner?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Byrne. “And I’m locking it again right now. Then we’re calling the police.”

  “I don’t think you want to do that,” said Kevin. He was hastily scribbling letters on a piece of paper. It looked like he’d solved the new cipher.

  Meanwhile, Tara had solved a different mystery. She had an idea about the locked room. An idea that formed because the magician had made her detective agency flyer disappear from right in front of her eyes.

  Tara glanced at Kevin’s decoded message. Her heart began to pound as she realized what the message meant.

  “Oh no,” she said, looking up at Kevin. “I think I know who did it. You do, too, right? That’s why you don’t want your mom to call the police.”

  Kevin nodded. “Salmon,” he said, using their old code name for the person they both thought it was. “The person who left the notes and who stole Mom’s earrings. It’s the same person.”

  “Salmon?” said Braden. “There’s nobody in the building named Salmon. Do you mean Sanjay? The magician?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Byrne. “He didn’t move in until after my diamonds were stolen. I still say it was the building manager. She’s the only one who could have both bypassed security to steal my earrings and gotten into our apartment.”

  “But she doesn’t have a key to this inside door,” said Mr. Byrne.

  “Neither of you are correct,” Kevin said.

  “But, in a sense,” Tara said, “Mr. Byrne is correct that Sanjay Rai is involved. He’s the one who gave the ghost the idea to haunt the typewriter. Probably without realizing he’d done it.”

  Kevin elbowed her. “You’d better explain what we mean. I think they’re going to burst if we don’t tell them.”

  For the solution to this story, please turn here.

  Surprise. Party.

  by Lamar Giles

  Erica, in her lacy pink dress, with matching bows tying her swinging pigtails, had been a good birthday girl for the whole party.

  She smiled at all of her guests, even the ones Daddy made her invite. She’d suffered through dumb party games like Pin the Tail on the Robot (because in her family they don’t harm animals). She’d forced applause when kiddie magician the Sorcerer Farnsworth pulled a quarter out of her ear. But Erica was most concerned with opening her gifts, especially the biggest, brightest (and what had to be the bestest) gift on the present pile. A huge box, wrapped in metallic red paper, with a golden bow. From Mommy.

  “Your mother really outdid herself this time,” Daddy said of the wra
pping when he hefted the box onto the folding gift table he’d set up before the party’s start.

  As more guests had arrived, more boxes piled up around that centerpiece gift, making Erica anxious with anticipation. What could it be? Maybe a new dollhouse. Perhaps a Sea Breeze Blue fashion mirror for when she and her best friend, Paisley, played dress up. Or, even better, a surprise gift that would blow her expectations out of the water to make up for this being a “Daddy Weekend” and Mommy having to work all the way on the other side of the country, meaning she couldn’t be there.

  Once the games were done, and after the rabbit in the magician’s hat bit him, Daddy finally announced it was time to cut the cake (no candles to blow out, though, because in her family they don’t intentionally spread germs). Everyone knew what came after that.

  “Okay, sweetie,” Daddy said, “which one do you want to open fir—”

  Erica swept aside all the presents blocking her path, nearly throwing herself across the gift table to reach the red box. When she snatched it, she almost tossed it to the ceiling because it was so light, something that panicked her because no dollhouse should be nearly weightless!

  She dropped the too-light box at her feet, ripped away the bow and tossed it over her shoulder.

  She shredded the wrapping paper and pried the box top open. She peered inside with bulging eyes, and felt her face redden with fury. Registering the box’s contents, she shrieked.

  Because there was nothing inside.

  Surprise.

  A full five minutes of fear and chaos passed while Erica threw a tantrum of legend. Outside, by the pool, Sherman Tisdale—her fifth grade classmate and an amateur sleuth—absentmindedly noted the screams of terror and the hurried motion of his classmates fleeing the no-longer-festive festivities. Some rushed from the house so fast, they toppled into the pool. Sherman observed the huge waves his falling, splashing peers created, forcing water to lap the pool’s edge, wetting his plaid socks. Pity. Sherman despised wet cotton.