Who Stole Halloween? (4 page)

Luau was right behind me, nose in the air like maybe he was trying to smell the key. I shook my parents' bedspread, opened bureau drawers, crawled around on the rug.

Luau, meanwhile, leaped onto my dad's bedside table, sat down, and watched me. Then he pulled one of his favorite tricks, one he usually uses for waking me in the middle of the night. He batted things onto the floor. The alarm clock. Two books. A magazine. A seashell from our vacation last summer.

A key.

I reached down for it. “Does this look familiar?” I asked.

“The key!” Dad said.

Mom smiled. “Where was it?”

I took a deep breath and tried to speak in my best let's-all-remain-calm voice. “On your bedside table, Dad.”

“I looked there!” Dad said.

“Well, you didn't look very hard,” Mom said.

“Well, possibly if you hadn't been dragging me toward the bathroom so you could do your
makeup
. . . .”

I unlocked the handcuffs for them. They shook out their arms and rubbed their shoulders but never stopped arguing.

“You really must have your eyesight checked, Dan,” Mom said. “You know, at your age—”

“
My
age?” my dad said. “You've got six months on me, Noreen.”

Luau gave me a look that meant,
Cats have excellent eyesight, in case you didn't know
. Then he jumped to the floor and padded out the door toward my room. I followed.

“Good night, honey, and thanks!” my mom called.

“Yeah, Alex, thanks!” Dad called.

Don't thank me, I thought. Thank Luau.

The next day was Sunday. I slept late, ate my bagel and cream cheese, then played Lousy Luigi Brothers on the PlayCube. It was looking like pretty much a perfect day—the kind when you never get out of your pajamas—until Dad said, “Don't I remember something about math homework?”

And Mom said, “The day's half gone and you're not even dressed, Alex? You're squandering daylight!”

When Mom makes one of her “squandering daylight” speeches, resistance is futile. So I pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt that didn't smell too bad.

The math homework turned out to be easy. When that was done and Yasmeen still hadn't called, I hoped that maybe she had forgotten all about detecting.

Yeah, right.

At three o'clock she knocked on the door.

“Sorry I'm late,” she said.

“That's totally okay,” I said.

“Mom and Dad were hosting the fellowship hour after church, so we had to clean up. It took forever. The people at our church can really put it away, that's what my dad says.”

“It's probably too late to do any detecting now, right?” I said.

“What do you mean?” Yasmeen said. “There's plenty of light left. Come on. We'll go over to the cemetery and walk from there back to Kyle's house. Bring the ace detective, too. Since we're on the trail of a catnapper, he's going to want to help.”

Yasmeen, Luau, and I have solved one whole mystery together. So I guess I can't claim to be an expert. But here is something I think I know. A lot of the time, solving mysteries is unexciting.

I mean, in the movies there are explosions and car chases and women wearing bathing suits. In real life it's more like you look around, you ask questions, and you think hard.

Anyway, unexciting is definitely how it was that Sunday afternoon. Yasmeen and I walked at the speed of snails from the cemetery gate to Kyle's house and back again. By the fence we
found an empty beer can. On the sidewalk we found a gum wrapper. Next to an old green car we found a grocery receipt. Yasmeen, who was wearing yellow rubber gloves, carefully saved each in a plastic bag.

“What's with the gloves?” I asked her.

“So we can preserve the catnapper's fingerprints,” she said.

“But we don't have a way to analyze fingerprints,” I said.

“Your mom does.”

“Right, Yasmeen,” I said. “She's gonna get the whole FBI crime lab involved to find a missing cat.”

“
Three
missing cats.”

“We don't even know if the others are connected to this one!”

“Oh, come on, Alex. Do you think there's more than one thief grabbing cats in the middle of the night?”

“How do I know? Maybe it's a coincidence. Anyway, the circumstances in the other cases were different. My mom said those owners were
negligent, didn't care that much about their cats. Does Kyle seem negligent to you?”

“No,” Yasmeen admitted. “But that just makes it more mysterious, right?”

Luau did not turn out to be keen on detecting, even though the case was catnapping. What he wanted instead was regular napping, and the cemetery didn't disturb his dreams either. While Yasmeen and I collected our useless clues, he slept in a cozy spot by a headstone. We were about ready to give up when he strolled toward us, tail swishing, nose in the air.

“He smells something,” I told Yasmeen.

“Does it have anything to do with Kyle's cat?” Yasmeen asked.

“More likely with some tasty rodent.”

Luau sniffed for a few seconds, then he walked down the sidewalk and stopped next to the old green car. I could see he wanted to get under it from the curb, but the car was parked too close, so there wasn't space. He did a quick ear swipe and looked back at me, which meant,
Take a look under there, why don't you? Something smells
very
interesting
.

I crouched and peered into the darkness.

“What do you see?” Yasmeen asked.

“Nothing,” I said, then, “Oh . . . wait. There is something. It's round.” I reached and brushed it with my fingertips. “I need a stick—do you see one?”

What Yasmeen found was more like a branch. It was awkward, but I managed to bump it against the thing till I had moved it over to the side.

“Gloves!” Yasmeen said, but by then I had already grabbed the thing. Any catnapper prints were now mixed up with mine.

In daylight our mysterious object seemed to be a handkerchief wrapped around a ball of crinkly stuff. I held it up for Yasmeen to see. “It's a sachet,” she said. “You know, you put them in drawers to make your clothes smell good.”

Okay. But then why was Luau acting crazy—mewing pathetically and trying to climb me like a tree?

“Can he have it?” I asked.

Yasmeen said why not, so I tossed it on the
ground. Luau pounced, then looked around like he thought for sure someone must want to steal such a marvelous prize.

“No, really, Luau. It's all yours,” I said. “Enjoy.”

Luau is ordinarily a very dignified pet. But whatever this stuff was, it brought out his inner kitten. Clutching the ball between his paws, he rolled onto his back and thumped at it with his hind feet, finally tossing it into the air. Then—and I never knew he was this coordinated—he caught it in his mouth and rolled over and over with it till you'd swear he had to be dizzy.

And that's when—
duh
, Alex—I realized what the white ball was made of. I opened my mouth to say the word, but Yasmeen beat me to it: “Catnip!”

Was the catnip a clue?

Or a coincidence?

Yasmeen and I had a lot to discuss that night, so I got permission to eat over at her house. The only trouble with having dinner there is that her parents are so strict. Grace before dinner. Cloth napkins. And no matter what kind of mushy, mysterious green stuff a kid finds on his plate, he is expected to eat it.

“Alex?” Mrs. Popp, Yasmeen's mom, looked up at me after we'd all said amen. “Would you like to start the conversation?”

When I was little, Yasmeen's parents scared me. By now, though, I've figured out that they're okay, they even like me—as long as I remember to speak in complete sentences.

“Sure, Mrs. Popp,” I said. “Yasmeen and I have had an interesting afternoon.”

“Tell us about it, Alex,” Yasmeen's dad said.

So—between small bites of some mysterious meat—I told them. In a way, it was nice to be telling the story now because for once Yasmeen didn't interrupt. At Yasmeen's house you don't dare interrupt.

“. . . a sachet Yasmeen called it.” I was almost done. “But then we both realized, because of how crazy Luau was acting, that it had to be catnip. After that, we brought it home. We're still trying to figure out what it means.”

For about a minute Jeremiah, Yasmeen's little brother, had been shaking his head and looking gloomy. Actually, he looks gloomy most of the time.

“Do you have something to contribute, Jeremiah?” Yasmeen's mom asked.

“Uh-oh,” said Jeremiah.

“Why do you say that?” asked Mrs. Popp.

“Because somebody's a litterbug,” said Jeremiah. “Miss Deirdre tells us
never
be a litterbug. And I never will.”

“Admirable, Jeremiah,” said Professor Popp. “What else does Miss Deirdre tell you?”

“Put the play dough back in the bag or it will dry out,” he said. “Drink your milk, unless you're allergic. Oh—and always be kind to animals. She says that a lot.”

Professor Popp said, “Excellent advice,” and he sounded serious, but he might have been kidding. Professor Popp has an English accent because he grew up on some island I can never remember; to me he always sounds serious.

Jeremiah nodded. “Miss Deirdre knows everything,” he said.

“Everything?” asked Mrs. Popp.

Jeremiah nodded again.

“There's one thing I bet she doesn't know,” Yasmeen said. “She doesn't know who stole Halloween.”

“So you two children are at it again, eh?” said Professor Popp. “Playing detective? I must say I think the catnip is a clue. Could the thief have dropped it?”

“That's what I think,” said Yasmeen. “The thief carried it so Halloween would like him—so she'd go with him and not complain.”

“That's reasonable,” said Mrs. Popp, “if we can associate the word
reasonable
with someone who steals cats. What kind of person would do such a thing?”

“A wacko!” said Jeremiah.

Professor Popp arched his eyebrows. “Jere
mi
ah?”

“Sorry,” Jeremiah said. “A nut case?”

Mrs. Popp pursed her lips and shook her head.

This time Jeremiah thought for a few seconds. Then he said, “A lunatic.”

His parents looked at one another. “Better,” they agreed.

“Did you know the word
lunatic
comes from
luna
—the Latin word for moon?” Mrs. Popp asked. “A lunatic was thought to be somebody influenced by the moon.”

“You mean like werewolves?” I asked.

Yasmeen laughed. “So now you think it was a werewolf who stole Halloween?”

Jeremiah shook his head again. “Uh-oh.”

“You don't even believe in werewolves,” I reminded Yasmeen, “or ghosts either.”

“But ghosts are real,” said Jeremiah, “aren't they?”

“No,” said his mom.

“Possibly,” said his dad. “You know, I've done a bit of research on ghost stories. Every culture has them. Is that coincidence?”

“Oh, Derek, for goodness sake,” said Mrs. Popp. “When people don't understand something, they invent a supernatural explanation. There are many mysteries in the world, but one thing is certain: Ghosts exist
only
in the imagination.”