The Case of the Missing Zucchini

by L. M. Falcone

  To young detectives everywhere

  ISBN 978-1-77138-450-6 (EPUB)

  Text © 2015 L. M. Falcone

  Illustrations © 2015 Kids Can Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Kids Can Press Ltd. or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Kids Can Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative; the Ontario Arts Council; the Canada Council for the Arts; and the Government of Canada, through the CBF, for our publishing activity.

  Published in Canada by

  Published in the U.S. by

  Kids Can Press Ltd.

  Kids Can Press Ltd.

  25 Dockside Drive

  2250 Military Road

  Toronto, ON M5A 0B5

  Tonawanda, NY 14150

  www.kidscanpress.com

  Edited by Yasemin Uçar

  Designed by Marie Bartholomew

  Illustrations by Kim Smith

  Chapter icon illustrations by Andrew Dupuis

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Falcone, L. M. (Lucy M.), 1951–, author

  The ghost and Max Monroe. Case #2, The missing zucchini /

  written by L. M. Falcone ; illustrated by Kim Smith.

  (The ghost and Max Monroe)

  ISBN 978-1-77138-154-3 (bound) ISBN 978-1-77138-018-8 (pbk.)

  I. Smith, Kim, 1986–, illustrator II. Title. III. Title: Missing zucchini.

  PS8561.A574G463 2015 jC813'.6 C2013-908317-0

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Spot the Difference

  Don't Miss Case #3 …

  Praise for Case #1 …

  About the Author

  Answers to Spot the Difference

  PROLOGUE

  Max sat down beside his grandfather. “Your brother, Larry, is a ghost?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he haunts the detective agency in the backyard?”

  “Yup.” Harry shot some whipped cream into his mouth. “Sometimes he hangs around the house. But mostly, he sits in the coach house, bawling his eyes out.”

  “I heard crying!”

  “That’d be Larry. He likes to have a good cry around this time of day.”

  Max shook his head. “Crying ghosts … haunted detective agencies … I’ll wake up any minute and everything will be normal.”

  CHAPTER 1

  THE BIGGEST POOP I’VE EVER SEEN

  Max woke up to the sound of a train whistle. The sound made him think of traveling, and traveling made him think of his dad — a reporter who covered the news all over the world. Max’s mom had died two years ago, and his dad’s latest assignment had taken him to China, so Max was staying with his grandpa Harry and his great-uncle Larry in a big, old house in the country. Max slept in a room just down the hall from his grandpa. And Uncle Larry? Well, who knew where he slept — or even if he slept — being a ghost and all. But if he did, it was probably in the old detective agency in the backyard.

  Max rolled out of bed, pulled on his jeans and headed downstairs for breakfast.

  Grandpa Harry was in the kitchen, lying in his hammock with a frog on his head.

  “Why is there a frog on your head, Grandpa?” asked Max.

  “His name’s Fred, and he’s helping me get rid of my headache. I don’t believe in taking pills for every little thing.”

  Just then, Larry poked his head through the pane of the big bay window. His hand, on the other side of the window, held a filled pooper-scooper. “What the heck are you feeding that dog, Harry?”

  “Puppy Chew. I had a coupon. Buy one — get one free.”

  “Puppy Chew?” said Larry. “This is the biggest poop I’ve ever seen. No way this mutt is a puppy. It doesn’t take a detective to figure that out.”

  BUMBLING DETECTIVE

  Back when Larry was alive, he was a detective. But he wasn’t very good. His nickname was the Bumbling Detective because he never solved a case. Everything changed when Max came to stay with his grandpa Harry. After Max got used to the idea of living with a ghost, he and Larry became a successful detective team. Max loved solving mysteries, and an invisible grown-up made a great partner.

  Fred jumped off Harry’s head and hopped away along the floor.

  Harry sprang out of the hammock. “Where d’you think you’re going?”

  “He’s behind the fridge!” shouted Larry, coming in through the window. “There he is! There he is!”

  Harry crouched down. “Get back here, you little rascal.”

  Max left the frog hunting to his grandpa and Uncle Larry. He grabbed a bowl of cereal, walked out the back door and waded through the waist-high grass toward the run-down coach house where the Monroe Detective Agency office was. Instead of entering through the door, he climbed in through the window. The door key had been lost long ago.

  ANSWER IT! ANSWER IT!

  Max was just coming to the end of a Starchy comic when the phone rang.

  “The phone! The phone!” shouted Larry, rushing into the office through the wall and waving his arms. “Answer it! Answer it!”

  Max picked up the receiver of the old rotary phone. “Hello?”

  Larry shifted excitedly from one foot to the other, like a kid who needed to pee.

  “Max Monroe?” said the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Yes,” said Max, a little surprised that someone would be asking for him on the detective agency phone.

  “This is Zeeta and Zelda Zamboni. We need your help. Our most prized possession has been stolen!”

  Larry leaned in to listen. As he did, he caught sight of the Starchy comic on the desk. “Oh, oh, I love that Starchy!” he gushed. “It’s the one where he has to save Chihuahuas that have landed on Pluto — the planet, not the dog. Then he gets —”

  Max frowned at him, putting his finger to his lips to try to shush him.

  Larry nodded, then leaned back in to listen.

  FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

  “We’re friends of Marty the magician,” said Zelda, “and he told us how you got him out of a sticky situation by finding Daisy Dee. He said you’re a great detective. Will you help us? Please?”

  Larry’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Say YES! YES!!”

  Max didn’t look too sure, so Larry grabbed the phone.

  “Would you hold the line for one moment, please?” he said sweetly, then threw the phone into the desk drawer and slammed it shut.

  “Max, don’t you realize what a great opportunity this is? It’s another chance to redeem the Monroe name — and another chance for you to be a detective. Kids your age have paper routes, for crying out loud! You’ve got to do it. For both of us.”

 
Larry had a point — about the paper route, anyway. Max was enjoying being a detective. The summer was turning out way better than expected.

  He opened the drawer and pulled out the phone.

  “I’d be glad to help,” Max told Zeeta and Zelda. “What’s the prized possession that was stolen?”

  “Our zucchini.”

  Max’s face dropped. “Your zucchini?”

  “Yes,” said Zelda. “The one we’re entering in this year’s Harvest Fair. This is the tenth year of the competition, and we’ve won nine years in a row.”

  “We’re determined to make it ten!” Zeeta piped in.

  Max slumped in his chair. “All right,” he said. “Give me your address.” Looking for a zucchini was sure to be duller than dirt — but he’d given his word, and he never went back on his word.

  After Max hung up the phone, he turned to his uncle. “They want me to find their zucchini, Uncle Larry.”

  “So? Sherlock Holmes had lots of unusual cases.”

  Max shook his head. “I seriously doubt anyone ever asked him to find a missing vegetable.”

  CHAPTER 2

  HOME OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST ZUCCHINI

  Larry rushed to the garage to get the motorcycle. When he honked, Max slipped on his coat and met him in the driveway. Whenever Larry drove the motorcycle, he wore an aviator’s cap, goggles and a long coat. Without them, he’d be invisible, and that would be a weird sight — a motorcycle with no driver. Grandpa Harry and Max were the only ones Uncle Larry let see and hear him.

  Max put on his helmet and stepped into the sidecar.

  Larry revved the engine a couple of times, then they took off like a flash.

  When they reached the end of the block, Larry shouted, “Where are we going?”

  Max looked at the crumpled paper in his hand and shouted back, “To 77 Hoodwinked Lane! In Harrow.”

  The motorcycle roared down the road. Half an hour later, Max and Larry passed a sign that said, Welcome to Harrow (Home of the World’s Largest Zucchini).

  In the middle of a field stood a humongous zucchini made of metal.

  Larry drove across the open field, then up a small hill, and turned onto a dirt road. They whooshed past farmers’ fields with grazing horses and finally came to a neighborhood with wide, tree-lined streets. They found Hoodwinked Lane, turned left and, as usual, Larry screeched to a stop. They parked about a block away from Zeeta and Zelda’s house so that Larry could stash his clothes in the sidecar. When he was invisible again, he and Max headed toward number 77.

  THE CASE BEGINS

  All the houses they walked past had ordinary front yards with grass, trees and flowers. But one house, the one next door to the Zamboni sisters’, was different. It had dozens of beautiful yellow rosebushes surrounded by a circle of red rosebushes. A man was standing out front watering the garden.

  “Holy cow!” said Larry. “Those roses are big enough to swallow a cat.”

  Max spotted a name on the mailbox: Leonard.

  “Beautiful roses, Mr. Leonard,” he said.

  Mr. Leonard released the handle on the hose nozzle, and the water shut off. “Thank you very much, young man. I take great pride in my garden.”

  Larry frowned. “Why’s he wearing a fur hat on such a hot day?”

  Max ignored the question. “I’ve never seen such huge roses,” he said to Mr. Leonard.

  Mr. Leonard beamed. “I grow vegetables, too — largest tomatoes this side of Toledo.”

  “I had an uncle who lived in Toledo,” said Larry. “He never said anything about giant tomatoes. And he sure didn’t wear a fur hat in the middle of summer.”

  Max hid his mouth with his hand and whispered, “It’s his hair, Uncle Larry.”

  “Can’t be!” Larry walked right through the rosebushes, leaned in close to peer at Mr. Leonard’s head and even lifted some strands of hair.

  “Uncle Larry!” hissed Max.

  “Pardon?” asked Mr. Leonard.

  “I … uh, I said, I’d love to see your tomatoes.”

  Mr. Leonard’s face darkened. “Well, I don’t have any this year,” he said, almost snarling. “Thanks to those two next door.”

  “Zeeta and Zelda?”

  “Around here we call them the Zucchini Sisters.”

  Larry smiled. “Zucchini Sisters? Has a nice ring to it.” A truck slowly rolled by playing a jingle. “Ice cream!” shouted Larry, and he took off like a shot.

  “What did the Zucchini Sisters do to your tomatoes, Mr. Leonard?” asked Max.

  “I’ll show you.”

  Mr. Leonard led Max into his backyard.

  CHAPTER 3

  HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SUCH PUNY TOMATOES?

  Mr. Leonard’s backyard was big and well kept. The lawn was mowed, the hedges were trimmed and there was a fountain in the middle.

  “Take a look at that!” said Mr. Leonard, his voice cracking. He pointed to a garden full of scrawny plants with small, unripe tomatoes hanging off the branches. “They’re all stunted!” he exclaimed. “Have you ever seen such puny tomatoes in all your life?”

  Max nodded in agreement. “They are pretty small.”

  “My reputation will be ruined. I’ll be the laughingstock of the community.”

  “How will the community know about your tomatoes?” asked Max.

  “How will they know?!” Mr. Leonard’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Because I’m the Tomato King, that’s why! Every year I enter my tomatoes in the Harvest Fair Tomato Competition and, by golly, my tomatoes are winners. But there’s no way that’s going to happen this year — and it’s all their fault.” Mr. Leonard jabbed his finger toward Zeeta and Zelda’s house.

  “What did the Zucchini Sisters do?” asked Max.

  “They grow their vegetables in different parts of their garden each year so the minerals in the soil don’t get depleted. And this year they chose to grow their monstrosity of a zucchini right next to my fence! Why, its leaves grow ten feet high! And the shade extends halfway across my yard! Look for yourself.” He waved his arms at the fence that separated his yard from theirs. Big green leaves crept over the top of the fence.

  “Ten feet?” asked Max, looking at the leaves. By his estimate, they came up to about six feet at the most.

  Mr. Leonard took another look. “That’s strange. They were at least ten feet high yesterday morning. They completely blocked the sun!”

  Larry appeared, holding a vanilla-chocolate twist ice-cream cone.

  “What did I miss?”

  Max’s eyes opened wide. Just as Larry leaned in for a lick, Max slapped the cone out of his hand. It whizzed right behind Mr. Leonard’s head and landed in some plants on the ground beside the fence.

  “Hey!” said Larry, diving after it. “What did you do that for?”

  Luckily, Mr. Leonard was too preoccupied with his problem to notice the flying ice cream. “My tomatoes haven’t been able to get any sun all summer,” he continued. “It’s impossible to grow tomatoes without sun!”

  Max noticed some three-leaf plants growing along the base of the fence. “That looks like poison ivy,” he said, pointing to where Larry was crouched, trying to salvage what he could of his ice cream.

  “Yikes!” Larry gasped and jumped back.

  “You’re very observant,” said Mr. Leonard. “That’s exactly what it is.”

  “It’s growing through the fence into the Zucchini Sisters’ yard,” said Max.

  “Good,” sniffed Mr. Leonard. Then he turned and stomped away.

  “Let’s go for more ice cream,” said Larry.

  “You can’t just go running off, Uncle Larry. We have a mystery to solve.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  “And you can’t go around holding things, either. It’ll freak people out.”

  MY
FINGER SLIPPED

  When Max and Larry got back to the sidewalk in front of Mr. Leonard’s house, Zeeta and Zelda were standing on the front porch of their big, green-shuttered house.

  They waved at Mr. Leonard. “Yoo-hoo! Mr. Leonard! Hello!”

  Mr. Leonard took one look at the sisters, grabbed his hose and sprayed them head to toe.

  Max was shocked. Larry burst out laughing.

  “Oops! Terribly sorry,” said Mr. Leonard. “My finger slipped.”

  “Not to worry!” called Zelda, smiling. Even though they were dripping wet and their hair was hanging in their eyes, the sisters acted like nothing was wrong.

  “Every time I see those two, I get so mad I could spit,” muttered Mr. Leonard.

  Larry pulled Max a few steps away and whispered, “Never stand too close to a man who might spit.”

  Max and Larry left Mr. Leonard to his watering and made their way toward the Zucchini Sisters’ house. As they walked, Max took out his notebook and wrote …

  Suspect #1 — Mr. Leonard

  Motive — Revenge

  “If Mr. Leonard stole the giant zucchini,” said Max, “he could get revenge on the Zucchini Sisters for stunting his vegetables and ruining his gardening reputation.”

  “Right!” said Larry. “We have our first suspect.”

  CHAPTER 4

  NO TIME TO DILLYDALLY

  Max spoke with the two sisters on their front porch. Larry slumped down on a rocking chair and put his feet up next to a large potted plant.

  “I’m just going to nip inside and get us some freshly squeezed lemonade,” said Zelda.

  “Thanks,” said Larry. “I’m parched.”

  As Zelda stepped inside to get the lemonade, Zeeta motioned for Max to sit down, and she started to explain. “Every year, a vegetable competition is held on the last day of the Harrow Harvest Fair. My sister and I always enter the vegetable competition because, well, we grow unusually large zucchini!”