The Crazy Case of Missing Thunder (4 page)

I
stared at him. “But you’re … you’re …”

“A kid?” Randall Crandall said. “You
are
a good detective!”

He
was
a kid. He even looked as if he was in the same grade as us. Except that he was dressed like a principal. A principal who wears short pants!

“Is that a bow tie?” Brian asked.

“Are those diamonds on your socks?” asked Mara.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “The phone call. Your voice just now.”

The boy stood and showed us a plastic cup with rubber bands stretched across the opening. He put it near his mouth.

“A simple trick,” he said. “You press your lips on the rubber bands, lower your voice, and talk into the plastic cup like this…. ”

The voice that came out next was raspy like an old man’s. “I have heard you are the best.”

“Except that you fooled me with a plastic cup!” I said.

“And it’s super hard to fool a Goofball,” Brian said, examining the cup closely.

Randall smiled. “That’s exactly why I asked you to come. Please sit.” He motioned to the big, soft chairs near the garage-size fireplace.

Before Randall could sit down, his butler rushed into the room and slid a chair under him.

Randall Crandall frowned. “Picksniff is always around. He’s been with me for—”

“—ages and ages,” said Picksniff.

“It’s Pick’s job to—”

“—help Master Randall with things,” the butler added.

Randall leaned closer to us. “Including helping me finish my—”

“—sentences,” said Picksniff.

“Watch this,” Randall whispered to us, a twinkle in his eye. He stuck his nose into a vase of daffodils on a nearby table.

Then he squinched up his face as if he were going to sneeze.

“Ah-Ah-Ah—”

“—CHOO!” said Picksniff.

Randall’s butler even sneezed for him!

“Please remove the flowers, Pick,” Randall said, wiping his nose.

The butler frowned. “But they were delivered fresh this morning, sir.”

Randall nodded at Picksniff. “I know, but unless you want to be sneezing for me all day, you’d better take them. Suddenly, I seem to be allergic to daffodils.”

“Yes, sir.” Picksniff took the flowers away.

“So, what’s this case all about?” I asked.

Randall’s smile faded, and he looked out the window as if at something far away.

“Thunder,” he said quietly.

I looked out the window, too. The sky was blue and clear. “I don’t hear thunder outside.”

“No, I mean my pony,” Randall said.

“Your pony is outside?” Brian asked.

“No, I mean my pony’s name is Thunder,” Randall said. “And he’s … missing.”

“That’s terrible,” Mara said. “Jeff, your cluebook.”

“Got it,” I said.

Randall continued. “I always hear Thunder neighing this time of day. We would go riding, then we’d have lunch together. But now he’s gone.”

When I wrote those words, I understood what Randall had meant on the phone. He had said that some
thing
or some
one
had disappeared.

You could say that a pony was a thing, but to Randall his pony was some
one
he cared about. I added another clue.

Kelly twirled her curls slowly. “Can you describe Thunder to us?”

“I can do better than that,” Randall said, reaching for a picture of a short brown pony with furry ears and a long, wavy mane. “This is Thunder. He’s ten hands high. That’s forty inches.”

“He’s pretty small,” said Brian. “With a name like Thunder, I expected a huge, monster-size horse.”

Randall sighed. “That’s our little joke. Thunder’s shy and not like his name at all. He’s terrified of storms, and he doesn’t like to travel. In fact, I have to trick him to get him into his trailer. He’s rather a scaredy-cat.”

Which is what I wrote.

“I think we’ll need some books about ponies,” said Mara.

Suddenly, I remembered the book that Joey Myers had dropped that morning at the library:
All About Horses
.

Could Joey possibly be a suspect?

Kelly jumped from her chair and stood up in the gigantic fireplace. She looked like an actress standing on a stage.

“One more question,” she said. “When exactly did you first notice Thunder was missing?”

“This morning,” said Randall softly. “His hoof prints just vanished behind the stable. How can we find him?”

I looked at my notes. “First, we take a look at the last place Thunder was. The stable.”

But when I tried to get up from the chair, I couldn’t. It was too squishy. Brian tried to get out and pull me up, but he was stuck, too.

“Kelly, help!” shouted Mara, reaching out for her but only managing to pull Kelly into her lap.

“Picksniff!” yelled Randall Crandall.

In two seconds, Picksniff was there, pulling us all safely to our feet.

“The butler did it!” Brian said.

“Butlers usually do,” said Picksniff. “But not this time. I do hope you find Randall’s pony.”

Twenty seconds later, we were in Randall Crandall’s personal elevator, heading down to Thunder’s personal stable.

T
he stable was a long white building as large as an airplane hangar.

“This is where Thunder lives,” Randall said. “Or, it used to be.”

When he pulled open the doors, a strong smell came floating out.

But it wasn’t what you think.

The smell was sweet. Like a garden.

“Look,” said Kelly, pointing to the ground inside the stable.

It was covered with yellow and purple flower petals.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why are there flowers all over the stable?”

“Thunder likes flowers,” Randall said. “He likes their smell and even likes to eat them. He’ll travel only if I fill his trailer full of flowers. He’s still scared and won’t move an inch once he’s in the trailer, but the flowers comfort him when we travel. These flowers were delivered first thing this morning.”

I wrote that down in my cluebook.

“In fact, there’s only one food Thunder loves more than flowers,” Randall said, “and it’s one of the reasons I called you—”

“I see footsteps!” Brian interrupted.

He sank to his knees, dug into a pocket, and took out a bendy straw, a folding toothbrush, and three quarters. He brushed and fiddled and rolled them on the ground for a minute, then he looked up. “Just as I thought.
Recent
footsteps!”

“They’re called foot
prints
,” said Mara, staring at them through her big green glasses. “And they’re definitely not grown-up prints. They’re
kid
footprints!”

Randall blinked. “A lady was driving the flower truck this morning. The flower shop is called Petals and Buds. There were a couple of boys with her.”

I frowned. “Petals and Buds? A couple of—”

Mara gasped. “Joey Myers’s
mother
owns that flower shop!”

“And those weren’t boys,” Kelly said. “They were Joey and Billy! I knew it was them! Who are the pirate eyeballs
now
, I wonder?”

“Randall, when did you say Thunder vanished?” I asked, opening my cluebook.

“First thing this morning,” Randall said.

“The same time the boys delivered the flowers!” Kelly said, twisting her curls into a knot.

I jotted it all in my cluebook and snapped it shut. “Next stop, the flower shop.”

“Hey, that’s a rhyme,” said Brian.

“I do it all the time,” I said.

“You’re a poet,” Mara said.

“I know it,” I said.

Randall Crandall laughed. Then he frowned. “Please bring Thunder back safe and sound. I miss him.”

I knew what he meant.

Just after we had moved to Badger Point, my dog, Sparky, had gotten lost.

I was afraid I’d never see his scruffy face again. When he had finally found his way home, I didn’t stop hugging him for a long time.

Randall missed Thunder as much as I had missed Sparky.

“We’ll find Thunder,” I said. “There’s no case we can’t solve.”

“There are plenty of math problems we can’t solve,” said Mara.

“And some mysteries of the universe,” Kelly added.

“But no case,” said Brian.

“I believe you,” Randall said. “Thanks.”

We all waved good-bye as the rich boy slowly walked back to his gigantic house.

“I bet he wants to come with us,” Mara said.

Brian nodded. “I wonder if he wants to be a Goofball.”

“I’m pretty sure everybody does,” I said. “But first things first. Joey likes horses. He helped deliver flowers to Thunder this morning. Maybe he’s graduated from hamster hider to horse rustler.”

“Goofballs,” said Mara, “it sounds like we have our first real suspect.”

Kelly grinned. “My favorite word!”