The Case of the Bear Scare
Page 3
“You’re right, Jigsaw,” Stringbean admitted. “I confess—take me to jail.”
I laughed. “No one is going to jail, Stringbean. In fact, that was pretty smart thinking. You almost pulled it off.” I looked around Lucy’s backyard. “You picked the perfect place, too. The woods, the stream. It all made sense. I’m impressed.”
Stringbean looked surprised. “You are?”
I smiled at him. “Sure I am, mate.”
Mila pulled from her pocket the money Lucy had given us.
“You’re giving it back?” Lucy said in surprise.
“Well, sort of,” Mila answered. “I think Stringbean is the one who should pay.”
“Agreed?” I asked him.
Stringbean nodded. In fact, he looked relieved.
And that was that.
We’d solved another case. Call it The Bear Scare That Wasn’t. Only this time, we could not have done it without the help of Lightning Lou. Crikey.
I went home that afternoon and sat by myself, doing puzzle after puzzle. I thought about Lightning Lou and Lucy. But mostly about Stringbean Noonan. Just a skinny kid who nobody noticed much. He wanted to be friends with a TV star.
Go figure.
I picked up the last puzzle piece. I turned it this way and that way in my hand. Then I slid it into place. Suddenly, Rags—our living, drooling doorbell—started barking. My clock read exactly 3:59. Stringbean Noonan, I figured. Right on time.
“Here’s the money I owe you,” Stringbean said.
I took the money and nodded.
Stringbean sighed a little sadly, then turned to leave.
“Hey, Stringbean,” I called out. “Catch.”
Lightning Lou’s hat sailed through the air and into his hands.
Stringbean’s eyes widened. Without thinking, he put it on his head. Stringbean smiled brightly beneath the brim.
“It looks good on you,” I said. “Keep it.”
“What?! Keep it? Really?” he stammered.
“Sure,” I replied. “Besides, I prefer my old hat.”
“Thanks, Jigsaw,” Stringbean said. “Thanks a lot.”
He took a step toward me. Then another. At first, I was afraid he wanted to hug me. But instead, he sneezed.
Ah-choo!
“Bless you,” I said. Then I went inside to change my shirt. Yuck!
Read on for a special sneak peek at a brand-new, never-before-published JIGSAW JONES MYSTERY:
The Case of the
Hat Burglar
“Highly recommended.”—School Library Journal on Jigsaw Jones: The Case from Outer Space
It’s their toughest case yet … Will this be the first mystery Jigsaw Jones and Mila can’t solve?
Our Toughest Case
It reads “Theodore Jones” on my birth certificate. But, please, do me a favor. Don’t call me that. My real name is Jigsaw.
Jigsaw Jones.
The way I see it, people should be able to make up their own names. After all, we’re the ones who are stuck with them all our lives. Right? I get it. Our parents had to call us something when we were little—like “Biff” or “Rocko” or “Hey You!” But by age six, we should be allowed to name ourselves.
So I did. I took Jigsaw and tossed “Theodore” into the dumpster. These days, only two people call me Theodore. My mother, when she’s unhappy. And my classmate Bobby Solofsky, when he wants to be annoying. Which is pretty much all the time. Bobby is a pain in my neck. Let me put it this way. Have you ever stepped on a Lego with your bare feet? There you are, cozy and sleepy, shuffling down the hallway in your pajamas, when suddenly—YOWZA!—you feel a stabbing pain in your foot.
What happened?
The Lego happened, that’s what.
In my world, that Lego is named Bobby Solofsky.
And I’m the foot that stepped on it.
So, please, call me Jigsaw. After all, it’s the name on the card.
Mila is my partner and my best friend on the planet. I trust her 100 percent. Together, we make a pretty good team. We solve mysteries: lost bicycles, creepy scarecrows, surprise visitors from outer space, you name it. Put a dollar in our pockets, and we’ll solve the case. Sometimes we do it for free.
But the Hat Burglar had us stumped.
We were baffled, bewildered, and bamboozled. There was a thief in our school, and I couldn’t catch him. Or her. Because you never know about thieves. It could be anybody—he, she, or even it. That’s true. It happens. We once caught a ferret red-handed. Or red-footed. Or red-pawed. Whatever! Point is, the ferret did it. But in this case, no matter what Mila and I tried, nothing worked. The mystery stayed a mystery. It was our toughest case yet. And by the end, the solution very nearly broke my heart.
But let me back up a bit. It all began last week, on a frosty Tuesday afternoon …
Frozen
It was the coldest day of the year. Three degrees below zero. In other words, it felt like the planet Hoth from Star Wars. Or Canada, maybe. Even worse, there wasn’t a single snowflake on the ground. Just cold wind and frozen skies. It was so nasty my dog, Rags, didn’t want to go outside. And Rags lives for going outside. That morning, he stood by the open door, cold wind blasting his nose, and whined. “Sorry, Rags,” my father insisted. “I don’t like it any more than you do. But we gotta go.”
Rags put on the brakes.
Eventually, my father talked Rags into it. I think he promised a treat. Looking outside, I felt the same way. I didn’t want to leave my toasty house, either. But when my mother said, “Time for the bus, Jigsaw, no dillydallying,” I had no choice.
My mother lets me dilly. And she lets me dally. But I can never dillydally. That’s going too far. Not when there’s a bus to catch.
At the bus stop, several kids stood together like a bunch of Popsicles in a freezer. I knew that two of them were Mila and Joey Pignattano, but it was hard to tell who was who. Almost everyone was bundled in thick winter clothes, hats pulled down to their eyeballs. “Murfle, murfle,” somebody mumbled to me through a wool scarf. I murfled back.
The wind snarled as if it were a snaggletoothed wolf.
Once the bus dropped us at school, we headed for our classrooms. Geetha Nair walked into room 201, dressed in a long colorful scarf wrapped around (and around!) her neck and face. The only part of her head that showed through were two round, chocolate-brown eyes.
Helen Zuckerman burst through the door. “I can’t feel my nose,” she announced. “It’s frozen solid. I could snap it off like an icicle.”
Joey poked Helen’s nose with a finger. “Yipes, you’re right, Helen. It’s colder than ice cream.”
Bigs Maloney, in contrast, strolled in wearing shorts and a long-sleeve shirt. “No coat, Bigs?” Ms. Gleason asked.
“It’s in my backpack,” he explained. “Just in case.”
“Bigs, it’s below zero outside. When are you going to put on a pair of long pants?” Helen wondered.
The big lug shrugged. “I like shorts better. They let my knees breathe.”
“I wish it would snow,” curly haired Lucy Hiller muttered. “I don’t mind the cold if there’s snow. Then we could go sledding … or build snow forts … or—”
“Make snow pies!” Joey cried.
“What?” Mila swung her backpack around with one hand. It landed softly at the bottom of her cubby. “Seriously, Joey. Snow pies?”
“Yes,” Joey replied. “Snow pies are delicious. Only one ingredient: fresh, white, delicious snow. Yum!”
Stringbean Noonan gasped and pointed at Mila’s hands. “Look, it’s so cold your fingers turned purple!”
Mila laughed. She wiggled her fingers. “It’s only nail polish, Stringbean. I had them done at the mall with Geetha and my stepmom this weekend.”
“Phew!” said Stringbean. He seemed relieved.
Athena Lorenzo staggered into the room. “My hair. It was wet when I left my house. Now it’s frozen solid!”
“Oh, Athena. Don’t you have a hat
?” Ms. Gleason asked.
“I used to,” Athena said. “I think I lost it in school yesterday.”
“Well, that’s a problem,” Ms. Gleason said. “Hats keep heads warm. It’s important protection in this weather. Athena, do you know where we keep our Lost and Found?”
Athena shrugged. “I guess I lost that, too.”
Ms. Gleason looked at me. I gave her a nod to let her know that I knew. “Jigsaw, could you please accompany Athena to the Lost and Found?”
Thank you for reading this FEIWEL AND FRIENDS book.
The Friends who made
The Case of the
Bear Scare
possible are:
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Read more Jigsaw Jones Mysteries by James Preller
The Case from Outer Space—New!
The Case of the Hat Burglar—New!
The Case of the Smelly Sneaker
The Case of the Bicycle Bandit
The Case of the Glow-in-the-Dark Ghost
The Case of the Mummy Mystery
The Case of the Best Pet Ever
The Case of the Buried Treasure
The Case of the Disappearing Dinosaur
The Case of the Million-Dollar Mystery
The Case of the Golden Key
The Case of the Haunted Scarecrow
The Case of the Vanishing Painting
About the Author
James Preller is the author of the popular Jigsaw Jones mystery books, which have sold more than 10 million copies since 1998. He is also the author of Bystander, named a 2009 Junior Library Guild Selection, Six Innings, an ALA Notable Book, and Mighty Casey, his own twist on the classic poem, “Casey at the Bat.” In addition to writing full-time, Preller plays in a men’s hardball league and coaches Little League. He compares coaching kids to “trying to hold the attention of a herd of earthworms.” He lives in Delmar, New York with his wife, three children, cats and dog. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1 Lightning Lou
Chapter 2 Keen as Mustard
Chapter 3 Crikey!
Chapter 4 Bears
Chapter 5 Pancakes
Chapter 6 Home Alone
Chapter 7 Growl
Chapter 8 In the Tree House
Chapter 9 A Tricky Code
Chapter 10 Scat!
Chapter 11 Putting the Pieces Together
Excerpt: Jigsaw Jones: The Case of the Hat Burglar
Read more Jigsaw Jones Mysteries by James Preller
About the Author
Copyright
A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK
An imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC
120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271
JIGSAW JONES: THE CASE OF THE BEAR SCARE. Copyright © 2002 by James Preller. All rights reserved.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-250-20754-8 (paperback) / ISBN 978-1-250-20755-5 (ebook)
Illustrations by Jamie Smith
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
First Feiwel and Friends edition, 2019 Originally published by Scholastic in 2002 Art used with permission from Scholastic
eISBN 9781250207555
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