by Christopher Maselli

A Solve-It-Yourself Mystery

Ker-splash!

April’s heart skipped a beat as a bucketful of freezing water poured over her head. She whirled around, wiped aside a wet, tangled mess of black hair and prepared to let her little brother have it.

“Yaaaaaaa!” April screamed.

Inches away stood old Mrs. Jones, the crabbiest woman on the block. All the kids called her old because they figured she must be at least 60.

“I got you, Hooligan!” Mrs. Jones cackled. “That’ll teach you teenagers to play April Fools’ tricks on me!”

“What’d I do?!” April exclaimed, water dripping from her chin.

Mascara trickled down Mrs. Jones’ face, and water droplets sprinkled her soggy muumuu. She picked up the water bucket from beside April and shoved it into her chest. “As if you don’t know!”

“I don’t!” April exclaimed. “I was just washing my bike!”

She pointed to the shiny red bike behind her.

Mrs. Jones shook her head. “Don’t lie! I saw you do it!” she said, storming off.

For a moment, April just stood there, stunned and shivering.

“I didn’t do it!” she shouted again.

Call for Help

“I’m a Christian!” April told her best friend, Susie, over the phone. “I don’t drench old ladies!”

Susie listened as April poured out the whole story.

Susie was a good friend like that. The two girls were a lot alike. Both loved wearing old sneakers, had mischievous little brothers and thought a square meal was orange slices dipped in mayonnaise. It was strange, but that’s why they were best friends.

“She thought I was lying!” April said. “I’m going to solve this mystery. I’ll find out who played that prank. Maybe my little brother did it!”

“Brian’s been over here with Hank most of the morning,” Susie said, speaking for the first time.

April twisted her lip.

“I’ll be over in a few minutes,” she said.

She hung up the phone.

If it’s not Brian, it has to be someone else on the block, she thought. I’m going to get to the bottom of this!

Peephole Problem

Without wasting a moment, April went next door to Mrs. Jones’ quaint, one-story house. Just as April set foot on the porch, the front door burst open.

“Yaaaaaaa!” April screamed again. Mrs. Jones stared back at her from beneath a furrowed brow.

“What do you want, water soaker?”

“I came to search for clues to figure out who did this to you,” April said. “I didn’t do it.”

“It was you!”

“You saw me soak you?!”

“Yes, water soaker!”

April bit her lip, fighting to stay calm.

“OK,” she reasoned. “How did you see me do it?”

“I saw you through my peephole,” Mrs. Jones said. “You came up the walk, and just as I opened the door you soaked me!”

April examined the peephole. Something caught her eye. She ran her finger along the bottom rim of the peephole and found a squishy yellow substance resting on the glass. She smudged some off and smelled it. It was odorless.

“What’s that?” Mrs. Jones asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” April said.

April knelt down and lifted up a small welcome mat. Sloshy, yellow clumps of the substance ran under the mat.

“If this stuff was blocking your peephole . . . are you sure it was me you saw?”

“It may have been a bit blurry,” the woman admitted, “but it was definitely a teenager with a nose.”

“First of all, I’m 11,” April said flatly. “Second, you just described about 10 kids in our neighborhood.”

“I still think it was you, water soaker.”

“I’m going to prove it wasn’t.”

Slick Twins

April scanned the street. At the end she saw identical twin brothers Rick and Nick Slick riding their skateboards.

As she approached the twins, she noticed a makeshift ramp: a wooden plank propped up on four bricks. On the far side lay four smashed yogurt containers. It didn’t take much deduction to figure out Rick and Nick were attempting to Evil Knievel over the containers. Because yogurt was splattered everywhere, April figured their distance calculations needed work.

“Hey, guys,” April called. She had given up trying to tell them apart. The twins stopped skateboarding and glanced her way.

“Um, I was wondering if —” she began.

Rick and Nick snickered.

“What?”

“Your hair,” Rick said.

“It’s all wet,” Nick said.

“That’s why I’m here. Did you see anyone play an April Fools’ prank on old Mrs. Jones this morning?”

Rick and Nick exchanged glances.

“You should talk to those kids,” Rick said.

“Brian and Hank,” Nick said.

“I knew it!” April shouted. Leave it to our mischievous little brothers. . . .

Oh, Brothers! April quickly pushed Susie’s doorbell 10 times. She heard squeaky steps coming toward the kitchen door. Susie answered.

“Do you know what our little brothers did?!” April exclaimed.

Susie’s forehead wrinkled. “Yes!”

April entered and shouted, “Brian! Hank! Get in here!” She heard thumping down the stairs. Two sock-footed boys slid around the corner on the tile floor. Brian smiled innocently at April, his wavy black hair ruffled.

“I know what you did,” April said.

“We’re sorry!” Brian said.

“It was just a joke,” Hank piped in.

“Soaking someone with water is no laughing matter,” April scolded, “especially an old woman.”

Brian and Hank looked at each other, then back at April.

“We didn’t soak old Mrs. Jones with water,” Brian said. “We just egged her house.”

Hank shuffled to the kitchen sink and pulled out a skillet with egg residue on the bottom. “See? Scrambled eggs.”

April lifted an eyebrow. “You threw scrambled eggs?”

“Yeah,” Brian said proudly. “A good April Fools’ joke without the mess.”

“Using raw eggs would be mean,” Hank added.

Susie rolled her eyes. “How thoughtful.”

“We were going to clean it up later,” Brian said.

“You didn’t soak her with water?!” April demanded.

“No!” Brian answered.

“Then who did?!”

Brian shrugged. “Probably the Slick twins,” he said. “We saw them building a ramp earlier.”

“Yeah,” April said. “They were jumping yogurt.”

“Yogurt?” Hank asked. “When we were there, they had a bunch of buckets out. They said they were going to fill their swimming pool and jump that.”

“Sounds like they decided to use the buckets for something else,” Brian said.

Just Yogurt

April raced back to the end of the street. Feeling her blood beginning to boil, she took a minute to calm down. If I’m going to solve this mystery, I can’t be April Fool, she thought.

The Slick twins were in their back yard when April arrived. Stacked by the door were three buckets. A small, plastic swimming pool leaned on its side.

“Ah ha!” April said.

“Ah?” Rick asked.

“Ha?” Nick asked.

“Buckets!” April said, pointing. “A pool! Why didn’t you tell me about this stuff? Probably because you used those buckets to soak old Mrs. Jones!”

Rick and Nick exchanged glances.

“If we’d thrown water, we’d be wet like you,” Rick said.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “We’re not wet. Just yogurty.”

It was true: The twins were splattered with yogurt, but they weren’t wet. The inside of the buckets and pool were dry too.

“So why’d you give up on jumping the pool?” April quizzed.

Rick and Nick chuckled.

“That’d be stupid,” Rick said.

“Very,” Nick said, licking some yogurt off his elbow.

Clueless Back at Susie’s, April sat at the kitchen table. She stared at the tile floor as she bit into a mayonnaise- dipped orange slice. Susie sighed. Hank and Brian were nowhere to be found.

“Someone’s not telling the whole truth,” April said. “What am I missing?”

Her eyes shot to the scrambled egg pan. She thought about the ramp and the swimming pool. She thought about how peacefully her day had started. Then she thought about one more thing.

She looked up at Susie and smiled.

“I know who did it!” she exclaimed.

“You do?!”

“Yes,” April said firmly, “and I almost missed it.”

Do you know who soaked Mrs. Jones? How did April solve the mystery? Read the conclusion to see if you’re right!

The Answer:

“Who did it?” Susie asked.

“You did!” April said. “The Slick twins said whoever did it would have gotten wet. And you did!

Earlier today when I came over, I heard your sneakers squeak on the floor when you answered the door. At the time, I thought you were walking across creaky floorboards, but I just realized this is a tile floor.”

April stomped on the floor for good measure. It thumped solidly.

Susie’s eyes grew wide. She pulled her feet back, her sneakers squeaking across the tile.

“I’m so sorry!” she said. “But I didn’t mean to soak her!”

“I know,” April said. “You knew what Brian and Hank did. Being a good sister, you didn’t want them to get in trouble. So you went over to old Mrs. Jones’ house to wash away the scrambled eggs.”

“But she must have seen me coming through her peephole!” Susie cried. “Right as I threw the water, she opened the door —”

“— and got soaked,” April finished. “By the time she realized what had happened, you were long gone. And all she’d seen was a teenager with a nose.”

“What now?”

“You’re going to go apologize to old Mrs. Jones,” April said with a laugh. “Water soaker!”

	Q: How do you spell mousetrap with only three letters? A: C-A-T. Ashley M., 12, Virginia Clubhouse Jr. Click here to subscribe