The Encyclopedia Brown Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia and Sally had just left the hospital. They had been visiting Benny Breslin, who had recently had his tonsils removed.

Suddenly, a blue car sped by them. Shortly after that, they heard a scream coming from the block where the car had come from. They ran to the screaming and saw a woman shouting for someone to call an ambulance. They also noticed a man sitting on the curb, holding his back, obviously in pain.

An ambulance appeared with its siren blaring and the woman stood in front of it, telling it to stop. The driver slammed on the brakes and told the woman to get out of the way. She explained that the man on the ground had just been hit by a car. The ambulance driver told the woman that they were on their way to picking up someone having a heart attack and they didn’t have time to stop.

At this point, the injured man told the woman to let the ambulance go because he was able to walk himself to the hospital, which was only two blocks away. The woman wasn’t having any of it and she proceeded to make a big stink about the ambulance drivers not helping the injured man. The EMTs then decided to pick this man up and the heart attack patient.

As the EMTs were getting him on the stretcher, a few police cars turned down the block, but they were blocked by the ambulance. Chief Brown stuck his head out of the first police car, telling the ambulance to move. As it was moving, Chief Brown noticed his son. Encyclopedia filled him in on what was going on.

Chief Brown explained that he was chasing some bank robbers. A bunch of men wearing masks and long black capes held up the First City Bank. Chief Brown reasoned that the blue car may have been the robber’s getaway car and he asked the man and the woman for a description of the car. While that was going on, Encyclopedia watched the EMTs, wearing crisp, white uniforms, roll the man into the back of the ambulance, feet first. Chief Brown returned to Encyclopedia, telling him that they were no help in describing the car and that it may be a while before they’ll be able to catch up with the robbers.

Encyclopedia calmly told him that finding the robbers wouldn’t be as difficult as he thought and that he’d be able to arrest them right away. What did Encyclopedia mean?

He meant that the men in the ambulance weren’t real EMTs. They had worn hospital uniforms under their capes when they robbed the bank, and they used a stolen ambulance as a getaway car. I’m not getting the capes. Why would they wear capes to rob a bank? It’s not as if it would effectively hide what they were wearing underneath. Oh sure, someone from behind wouldn’t get a clear view of what they were wearing, but someone looking at them from the front would just see a bunch of weirdoes wearing capes and hospital uniforms.

Actually, using a stolen ambulance is a pretty good idea, because they could speed through town and people would get out of their way. It does have its disadvantages, like if they were to accidentally come upon a medical emergency, like what had actually happened in this story.

The fact that these weren’t real EMTs became apparent when they saw them wheel the patient into the ambulance feet first. Patients get wheeled in head first because the equipment is right behind the front seats.

Were there any reports of a stolen ambulance? Wouldn’t anyone who happened to be outside of the bank think it was odd that a few men wearing capes ran out of the bank carrying bags of money and into an ambulance?

Oh, and also they caught the driver of the blue car who hit the man, based on Encyclopedia’s description. So, I guess that’s good, too.

Caswell Philpott went to the Brown Detective Agency and immediately started prattling on about yoga. He went on to say that he has taken to practicing his headstand. He mentioned that while fishing at Mill Pond, he decided to do a headstand there at the pond. While he was doing that, he overheard two men walking by. One of the men was talking about stealing Blue-Point Blackie’s overnight bag at the bus station that afternoon.

No one knew who Blue-Point Blackie was, but it sounded like an important bit to overhear. Caswell didn’t get a good description of the men, because he was upside down. Sally asked Encyclopedia if he wanted to get his father involved, but he decided to leave the police out of it, because there weren’t enough facts. After all, they didn’t even know if Blue-Point Blackie was getting in on a bus into Idaville or not, so they just decided to go to the bus station themselves.

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. The Blue-Point Blackie was in danger of being robbed, there was no reason to bother the police. There was no reason to waste police resources on finding out whom or where this man was and ensure his safety. There are better ways the police could spend their time, like staking out for a fictitious creature or investigating something that may not even be illegal. This Blue-Point Blackie would be fine under the watchful eyes of a few 10-year-olds.

Also, I think it’s a really good idea for children to hang out at a bus station; especially when there was a possibility of someone being robbed.

Caswell was really annoying Encyclopedia by suspecting everyone he saw at the bus station. First, it was a man in a tan hat at looking through a magazine on the rack. He eventually bought a paper and sat down. Caswell thought he wasn’t really reading it, but looking out for Blue-Point Blackie. Then it was two men he saw at the soda machine. Then it was two men in dark suits near the ticket window who wasn’t actually buying ticket; no one wore dark suits in Idaville in the summer.

Encyclopedia kept an eye on the men in dark suits, but lost sight of them when the 2:00 bus from Glenn City came in. That’s when he heard a woman scream. Encyclopedia ran over to the source and saw a dark-haired man unconscious on the ground. He didn’t seem to have an overnight bag, so it had probably been stolen.

Encyclopedia found Caswell who admitted that he got bored looking for people, so he started doing headstands and didn’t see anything. How did Caswell go from being completely interested in looking for possible suspects to being so bored that he decided that his time was better spent doing headstands in a crowded bus station? This kid’s attention span seems dangerously low. He explained that he saw the man in the tan hat. He had folded the newspaper in half and was reading the bottom half. Caswell said he got distracted by trying to read the headlines that were facing him, but he was having problems because it was upside down.

This kid’s a complete idiot.

At this point, Officer Carlson arrived on the scene and recognized the victim as Blue-Point Blackie. He was surprised that a “Chicago crook” was in Idaville. Why was a Chicago criminal so well-known in Idaville? If he was known for being a crook, then why was he not in jail?

Also, this serves as good example why Encyclopedia should have told his father what he knew. Chief Brown would have responded, “Blue-Point Blackie, the very famous criminal from Chicago who is not currently serving time, is possibly coming to town? And people plan to rob him when he gets off his bus? We should probably look into that.” The Idaville PD would have arrested Blue-Point Blackie, who had apparently been eluding the Chicago PD, as soon as he got off the bus and they may have even apprehended his would-be robbers.

No one actually saw Blue-Point Blackie get attacked, but Encyclopedia knew that something Caswell saw was helpful. Caswell said that he was having trouble reading the headlines on the man’s newspaper were upside-down. However, since Caswell was doing a headstand, the headlines should have appeared right-side up to him. That meant that the man wasn’t actually reading the paper, he was just pretending to, but keeping an eye for Blue-Point Blackie.

Encyclopedia remembered that this man was looking through a magazine, so the police got fingerprints from the magazine. The assumption there was that this man was the only person who handled that magazine in a crowded bus station. And with that, they were able to eventually arrest him. The man was actually in a rival gang who caught wind of the fact that Blue-Eyed Blackie was coming to town with a bag full of stolen diamonds. The gang wanted to steal the diamonds from him.

But that actually doesn’t make any sense. Encyclopedia figured out that the man was holding the newspaper upside-down and that he was probably just pretending to read it. But what he didn’t consider was the fact that at the time of the attack, Caswell was trying to read the headlines on a newspaper that this guy was reading. How could this man be pretending to read the newspaper and attacking Blue-Point Blackie at the same time?

So really, this guy’s crime was doing a shitty job of pretending to read a newspaper at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Odd-Ball Olympics was a competition where open to any child under the age of 13 who could do a crazy stunt. Sally, celebrating girl power, desperately wanted a girl to win the event. Most of the girls kind of bombed their performances, except for Lindylou Duckworth.

Lindylou’s talent was “wrist-wrestling” anyone who challenged her while she stood on a banana peel. I’m not sure what wrist-wrestling is. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant arm wrestling. I guess we’re going with the assumption that banana peels are as slippery as they are portrayed to be in old-timey slapstick movies or Mario Cart games, so arm wrestling someone while standing on one would be extra difficult?

Lindylou was awarded nine points out of a possible ten for that trick, and she was the leader. That is, until Stinky Redmond came along.

The previous year, Stinky Redmond apparently imitated a blizzard by shaking dandruff out of his hair. I don’t know why a boy with a lot of dandruff would be considered a threat in this competition.

A lot of parents complained about Stinky’s stunt, so he had promised to do something cleaner the following year. His talent was going to be taking a shower in six seconds, but that got nixed because there were no showers in the park. That’s right, the problem wasn’t that no one thought it was inappropriate for a child to get naked in front of everyone for this competition. They would have been fine with the child nudity. The problem was that there were no showers in the park. So instead, Stinky’s talent was going to be killing fifty mosquitoes in an hour.

I guess that’s kind of a talent, because it also required luring mosquitoes. I would have to say that, for me, a red flag was the fact that Stinky insisted on performing without being observed by any of the judges. He claimed that he worked best alone. Sally voiced her concern that Stinky would possibly use the time away from the judges to cheat. Encyclopedia pointed out that the Odd-Ball Olympics were run on the honor code and that there was no cheating.

Seriously, Encyclopedia? We’re thirteen books deep into the series and there hasn’t been a single instance of some sort of competition taking place in Idaville that hasn’t been marked by someone trying to, or intent on, cheating. Encyclopedia had been in the middle of all of this cheating every single time. That fact that Encyclopedia isn’t suspicious of this “oh, I can’t do my talent if judges are watching me” shtick is a sure sign of either naivety or insanity on his part.

When the hour was up and judges checked on Stinky, he was lounging on a picnic table. He told everyone that he killed so many mosquitoes in the first twenty minutes that he took a nap. Surrounding the picnic table were a bunch of dead mosquitoes. So clearly, Stinky did what he said he was going to do. There was nothing fishy here.

Encyclopedia checked the area out and noticed an ant hill. The ants were crawling around the hill, just kind of chilling out. That’s when he knew shit was afoot.

If all of these mosquitoes had been killed in the area up to an hour earlier, the ants would have discovered all of these mosquito corpses near their hill and they would be hard at work bringing the food back to their colony. So, Encyclopedia knew that Stinky actually brought dead mosquitoes to the area and sprinkled them around the area right before the judges appeared.

And that’s why we never allow anyone to perform some feat in a competition without them being observed by judges.

With it being proven that Stinky cheated, he was disqualified and Lindylou was crowned the Odd-Ball Olympics champion.

If the name Lindylou Duckworth sounds familiar, it’s because she once sexually assaulted a boy because he was annoying her by jingling the change in his pocket.

John Stanley was one of the best juniors tennis players in the town, but he wasn’t looking forward to his upcoming match against Ike Quilp. Ike was the younger brother of Rowdy Quilp, who was a Tiger member. John suspected that the Tigers were going to pull some shenanigans to make sure their member’s brother won the tennis match. Even though John had a fresh can of tennis balls with his lucky number 8 printed on them – which he thought would guarantee a win – he still wanted to pay Encyclopedia to make sure there was no funny business going on.

John, Encyclopedia and Sally went to the tournament together. John’s parents apparently had no interest in their son’s performance, otherwise John would have probably gotten a ride with them. John went to check in, and the two detectives wandered around. In their travels, they saw Fremont Smith with Bugs Meany. Fremont lives on the same block as Sally, so she struck up a conversation with him. She asked him if he was a tennis fan. Fremont admitted that he knew nothing about the sport and that he was only around because Bugs wanted him to join the Tigers, which Bugs had claimed was a “service” club. He explained that the Tigers do a lot of good. That day, they were there to help the judges.

The judges wanted the Tigers there to help them? Didn’t they do any kind of background check before they depended on them to help with an event? Were the Hell’s Angels unavailable?

You’re going to find what happens next completely unbelievable, but at this point in the story, John announced that his racket and good luck tennis balls had been stolen. He had another racket, but it was heavier. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to beat Ike with the heavier racket.

Encyclopedia’s bright idea was that the racket and balls would be in the pro shop. I don’t know why he would assume that, but of course, that’s where they ended up. John, Fremont and the two detectives went to the pro shop, where they found a big basket filled with tennis balls. Encyclopedia decided that John’s tennis balls must have been in that basket, so he told Fremont to look for them.

Encyclopedia’s reasoning was that brand new balls by that had manufacturer’s name (Wilkins) with the number 8 printed on them would have been the ones stolen from John. Except, no. Wilkins didn’t make just that one can of number 8s. They make tons of those, and this country club probably had dozens of tennis balls with “Wilkins 8” printed on them. Just because John’s balls were stolen, that doesn’t mean anyone the right to just take balls from the country club to replace them.

While Fremont dug through the basket of balls, Encyclopedia found John’s racket hanging on the wall. Are we sure it was racket? No, we’re not. But we’ve learned that Encyclopedia had decided that anything vaguely similar to the items stolen from John was ripe for the pickings.

Fremont appeared with three “Wilkins 8” balls. John looked them over and noticed that one of the balls looked old. See? That only proves my point. Just because it was a Wilkins 8 ball, it doesn’t mean that it was John’s.

Fremont went back to look for another new ball for John. With him gone, Sally and Encyclopedia started talking. Sally floated the idea that Fremont was behind this. Encyclopedia knew for sure. How?

Because Fremont claimed that he knew nothing about tennis. No one told him how many balls to look for. If he knew nothing about tennis, then how did he know that tennis balls are sold in cans of three?

I don’t know, about this. It’s not like he was claiming that he knew absolutely nothing about anything having to do, even tangentially, with the sport. He may have never watched a single tennis match in his life. He may even be one of those annoying people who pronounce it “Wimbleton.” But I’m sure he may have unknowingly picked up tennis knowledge without realizing it. He knew nothing about tennis, but it’s somewhat reasonable to assume that he had, at some point in his life, stepped foot in a sporting goods store. Anyone even half-paying attention would note that tennis balls are sold in cans of three. I mean, I admit to know very little about fishing, but I would recognize a tackle box.

Where would Encyclopedia draw the line here? He thought it was weird that Fremont knew to look for three tennis balls. Using Encyclopedia’s reasoning, Fremont shouldn’t even know what a tennis racket looks like.

Cuthbert DeVan DeVoe was walking around with his dog, Frederick the Great. Frederick the Great was a big, mean looking dog, named after the Prussian king. For seemingly no reason, Cuthbert announced that Frederick guarded the house and that he was a pure killer. He feared nothing, could carry an auto tire with his teeth and break wood with his jaws. When Nancy Pringle’s cat, Juno, meowed, Cuthbert told everyone that Frederick could swallow a cat whole.

It’s not as if Juno was in Cuthbert’s yard. Everyone was minding their own business when Cuthbert came out with his dog and starting doling out unprovoked threats. Cuthbert’s kind of a dick.

Juno, unable to understand the bullshit coming out of Cuthbert’s mouth, freed herself from Nancy’s arms and chased Frederick the Great. Frederick responded by yelping and running away.

Cuthbert was angry and warned Nancy that if his dog got Juno into the house. He explained that Frederick didn’t eat cats outdoors. Why not? Why would the dog only eat cats indoors? That doesn’t make any sense. I really don’t understand this character, like, at all.

Later that day, Nancy dropped by the Brown Detective Agency, telling the detectives that Cuthbert had Juno in his house and refused to return her. She saw Juno chase Frederick into Cuthbert’s house. Cuthbert then slammed the door and she hadn’t seen Juno since.

They went to Cuthbert’s house, but he claimed that he let the cat out and that the cat climbed a few boxes to get over the fence. The boxes had muddy paw prints, so it was possible that Juno did, in fact, climb the boxes and jump over the fence.

The problem with that story was that Encyclopedia examined the paw prints and they all had five toes. Cats have four toes on their back paws. Cuthbert seemed to have dipped Juno’s front paws into mud and put her paws on the boxes to make it look like it walked on the boxes, except he didn’t realize that anyone as familiar with feline physiology as Encyclopedia would be able to notice that half of the paw prints had too many toes.

When Encyclopedia pointed this out, Cuthbert confessed and returned Juno, who was safe in his house.

What, exactly, was Cuthbert’s reasoning for stealing Nancy’s cat? What was he going to do with Juno? And why did he go through the trouble of half-assing putting paw prints on the box? Didn’t he worry that someone would notice someone awkwardly forcing a cat’s front paws into mud and onto a few boxes outside in broad daylight?

Nothing Cuthbert did makes any sense.

Idaville was getting ready to bury a time capsule and the entire town was swept up in the fervor. The town was selling envelopes, so that the people could fill them with their own personal touches, for the future of Idaville to enjoy.

Encyclopedia wrote a report of his toughest case for the capsule. Without Encyclopedia, I wonder how the future of Idaville would fare. One would hope Encyclopedia’s good sense would be passed down to future generations. However, the fact that his parents seem to be idiots makes me think that Encyclopedia’s talent isn’t genetic. Idaville could be screwed.

At the event, Encyclopedia and Sally ran into Abe Smathers, founder and president of the Idaville Riddle Club. He was upset because his lunch – lox and bagels – was stolen. He later found the empty bag in the trash. He was more upset by the fact that that his envelope for the time capsule was still missing.

See, he had already sent an envelope for the capsule. The envelope had a riddle, but he wasn’t very pleased with the riddle. “Why is the Statue of Liberty standing in New York Harbor?” Answer: because it can’t sit down.

Since he didn’t like that riddle, he thought of another to add to the capsule. “Why is the Statue of Liberty hollow?” You’d be hollow too if you’d given birth to a nation.

First off, these aren’t riddles; they’re jokes. Secondly, I’d actually say that one was worse than the first one, both for the fact that it’s a dumber joke and because it makes me picture the Statue of Liberty giving birth. As a general rule, I’d say any joke where I have to imagine the Statue of Liberty’s vagina giving birth is not a good joke.

The stolen envelope worried Abe because he thought the thief would put his name on the riddle. Then Abe wouldn’t be able to use it. He wasn’t about to buy another envelope and put the same riddle in it. He worried that it would look bad that the president of the Idaville Riddle Club had used the same riddle as someone else. “I’d be ruined,” he said. This was his concern.

“Oh my goodness! The president of the Idaville Riddle Club used the same riddle as someone else. How horribly embarrassing for that person. That person’s reputation is now besmirched for eternity.” – Absolutely no one, Idaville, 2077.

Someone was more likely to say, “Another stupid joke about the Statue of Liberty? Why were these people obsessed with that thing back then?”

Sally didn’t know what they could do, short of searching everyone at the event. Encyclopedia knew that that wasn’t necessary. All they had to do was watch the water fountain. Since lox is salty, the person who ate Abe’s lunch was likely to get thirsty. The person who was seen taking several trips to the water fountain would be the thief.

The assumption here was that this water fountain is the ONLY source of any kind of drink at this entire event. No one is selling any kind of refreshments, and no one brought anything from home. It’s drink from this water fountain or suffer dehydration.

When the three noticed blue-eyed Rockwell Harrison III taking his fourth trip to the water fountain, they knew that he was the thief.

Well, no. Granted, eating something salty may make someone thirsty, but eating lox isn’t the only reason one would be thirsty. Maybe Rockwell ate something that was salty that wasn’t Abe’s lunch. Maybe Rockwell has some medical condition. Being thirsty isn’t a crime, or at least, it shouldn’t be.

The story ends with Encyclopedia walking from Abe and Rockwell right after Abe asked, “What has two blue eyes and one of them is black?”

That’s right, Encyclopedia. Use specious reasoning to accuse other children of petty crimes and don’t try to stop the needless violence as a result. Just turn your back on it.

Mark Reardon was upset because his pet gerbils, Herman and Sherman, had been disqualified from an art show, and he wanted Encyclopedia to find out who had snitched. He figured that it was one of three boys; Farnsworth Grant, Jerry Tilson or Scott Wells. It’s always three suspects. Why is it always three?

Aside from Mark and his parents, those three boys were the only ones who knew of the gerbil’s talents. And they had all been at Mark’s house a few days earlier. At different points in the day, they all had reasons to be in the kitchen alone, which would have allowed them to sneak a peek in the garage, to see the gerbils painting.

One kid went into the kitchen to get a drink. Another injured himself playing ping pong, so needed access to the first aid kit in the kitchen. The other kid had been reading and came upon the word “misled,” and asked everyone what it meant. Everyone in the room thought it was the past tense of “misle,” so he went to look it up in the dictionary, which was in the kitchen.

To add a bit of intrigue to this mystery, each of the three boys had a relative competing in the art show and had something to gain by knocking the supposedly talented gerbils out of the running.

Who did it?

Encyclopedia said it was Jerry Tilson, the one who looked something up in the word in the dictionary. I say Encyclopedia is full of shit.

Encyclopedia said that Jerry invented a reason to go into the kitchen to see what the gerbils were up to. He pretended to not know what the word “misled” meant and went into the kitchen to pretend to look the word up. How do we know that? What if he actually didn’t know what the word meant? It’s really not all the far-fetched considering the fact that he was in a room with three other boys who thought it was the past-tense form of the word “misle,” which isn’t a freakin’ word.

So the accusation falls on Jerry for not knowing a word that no one else in the room knew either.

But the biggest question I have about this whole thing is why would someone need to see the gerbils to know what they’re up to? All three of the boys knew that the gerbils were able to paint. You know how I know that? Because Mark told Encyclopedia.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: You suspect Farnsworth Grant or Jerry Tilson or Scott Wells of telling on them? Why?
MARK: All three knew Herman and Sherman are artists.

There. If they already knew that the gerbils were artists, then there’s no use in trying to find out who concocted a fake reason to go into the kitchen to try to catch the gerbils painting, because everyone in that house already knew that the gerbils painted..

Of course, all of this is beside the point. Mark had entered Herman and Sherman’s works as being done by a “Herman Sherman.” He knew that the rules stated that the judges would only consider works done by human artists, which is why he lied and entered it under a fake name. Mark deliberately lied and cheated. It’s good that he got disqualified.

Carmine Oldfield came to the Brown Detective Agency with a human skull that had two holes in it. She was pretty sure that they were bullet holes, but Encyclopedia explained that the skull was from the skeleton owned by the high school’s science department. The holes were from where the skeleton was hung up. The high school got a new skeleton, and they had apparently just thrown the old one out.

I’m pretty sure you can’t just throw a human skeleton in the trash.

Encyclopedia asked Carmine where the rest of the skeleton was because he was interested in taking it for himself. Carmine told him that it was in the junkyard. She even offered to show him where. When they got to the junkyard, she pointed out an oil drum. Encyclopedia opened it and found a sack in it. That’s when Bugs and Officer Murphy showed up.

Murphy demanded to see what was in the sack. Encyclopedia handed it to the officer, who opened it and didn’t find a beheaded skeleton. Instead, he found wallets, pens and other small objects. Murphy explained that Bugs had claimed that Encyclopedia and Sally had been shoplifting and picking pockets and keeping the loot in that oil drum. At that point, he realized that Carmine had set Encyclopedia up.

Bugs had told Murphy that he had seen a boy with a red sweater reaching into the oil drum – Encyclopedia was wearing a red sweater when he was being questioned. Mr. Dillon, who owned the junkyard, had reported that he saw the same thing, though he couldn’t make the face out because he was far away.

Dillon saw someone trespassing in his junkyard, acting suspicious, and he didn’t bother looking further into it. That sounds about right.

Sally accused Bugs of wearing a red sweater when Dillon saw him, and then changing into the brown sweater he was currently wearing. Bugs denied it, saying that for him to change sweaters, there would have had to have been a red sweater somewhere because he didn’t have enough time to go home. Sure, there’s absolutely nowhere in a junkyard where one could just stash a red sweater.

At that point, Sally noticed the buttons were on the wrong side. She asked Bugs why he was wearing a girl’s sweater. He stammered and claimed that he was wearing his girlfriend’s sweater.

No one believed that Bugs had a girlfriend.

Encyclopedia looked at the stain on the sweater he had just gotten when he reached into the oil drum. He looked at Bugs’ sweater and noticed that he had a similar stain, only in a different spot. That’s when he realized that Bugs wasn’t wearing a girl’s sweater; he was wearing a sweater inside out. He wore the red side out to be spotted by Dillon, and changed before talking to Officer Murphy.

So to review, in addition to framing Encyclopedia, filing a false police report and trespassing in the junkyard, he has also been shoplifting and picking pockets. Bugs was also collecting all of these stolen items with the sole purpose of eventually framing Encyclopedia, which is probably a sign that he’s a sociopath. Also, Bugs somehow got his hands on a human skull and gave it to Carmine to set his plan in motion.

In the solution of this story, we find the first mention of Bugs having a father. He paid for the things that Bugs had stolen. No mention of him making any other sort of attempt at being a halfway decent father.

Elmo Thomas was blaming his mother for his favorite yo-yo getting stolen. It actually wasn’t her fault. In a rare instance of a parent in Idaville being sensible, Elmo’s mother made him practice outside after a few instances of things in the house being demolished. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when his poor mother tripped on the yo-yo string while he was doing some trick.

Elmo went outside to practice. For some reason, he practiced with a blanket over his head. It isn’t explained why practiced under a blanket. Maybe so that no one stole his moves? I don’t know what kind of yo-yo tricks one is able to do while wearing a blanket. I would imagine the blanket would seriously limit ones mobility, which would probably make yo-yo tricks really difficult.

Well, whatever. He was under the blanket with is favorite glow-in-dark yo-yo – because if you’re going to practice under a blanket, you’d need to see what you’re doing, I guess?

At one point, Bugs Meany walked up to Elmo and kicked him on the butt and ripped the blanket off his head. He then flipped Elmo a penny and took the yo-yo. However, Elmo saw the penny Bugs gave him was from 1864. (Why do these children have such easy access to antique coins?) When Bugs realized his mistake, he took the penny and made off with both the coin and the yo-yo.

Encyclopedia and Elmo went to the Tigers’ clubhouse, but it was empty. Encyclopedia figured that they would be able to find Bugs at Friedman’s Deli, because that’s where he normally went when he “celebrates a crooked deal.”

So, everyone knows Bugs is an asshole. They even know that he goes to a certain place every time he steals something. Yet, everyone allows him to continue stealing stuff.

When they got to Friedman’s, they saw Bugs piling sauerkraut onto a hot dog. When he was done with that, he moved onto the mustard.

Encyclopedia confronted Bugs, and of course, Bugs denied even knowing Elmo. He even offered to let Encyclopedia search him, but the boy detective declined. Bugs then asked the two boys to watch his hot dog while himself another soda.

When Bugs was gone, Elmo asked Encyclopedia why he didn’t bother searching him. Encyclopedia answered that he knew where the penny was; it was in the hot dog.

See, Bugs saw that the two boys were coming for him, so he hid the penny on the hot dog and covered it in sauerkraut. That way, when they searched him, the penny wouldn’t have been found. But he made his mistake when he put his mustard over the sauerkraut. No one does that!

True, it’s weird. But I wouldn’t say it’s suspicious behavior to put sauerkraut on first. Maybe Bugs prefers mustard on top. That isn’t crime.

Encyclopedia’s plan was to watch Bugs eat the entire hot dog, knowing that he would eventually fess up. I actually wouldn’t put it past Bugs to swallow the penny out of spite.

When Bugs got to his last bite, he confessed and gave Elmo the penny.

But what about the yo-yo? Did Elmo suddenly not care about the yo-yo? Where did it go? If Bugs still had the penny on him, he must have had the yo-yo on him as well.

And how disgusting is Bugs for putting an old penny on his hot dog? That thing must have been teeming with disease.

Millionaire C.T. Butler had been kidnapped, and it should come as no surprise that Chief Brown had no idea how to solve this one.

Mrs. Butler was of no help. She and her husband had been watching late-night television in their bedroom when there was a knock on the door. Butler went downstairs to see who it was. Mrs. Butler didn’t recognize the other person’s voice, but she said it sounded as if it was a friendly conversation. The voices eventually migrated towards the den. She eventually lost interest and fell asleep. She awoke briefly when she heard the front door close. When she woke up the next morning, her husband was gone. However, she didn’t think anything odd of that. She had figured that he had gotten up and quietly got dressed and left for the office without waking her up. Although the front door was unlocked, she figured that her husband must have forgotten to lock it on her way out. She didn’t know anything was wrong until she had received a call from the kidnappers demanding a half-million dollar ransom.

Chief Brown didn’t have a lot to work with here, but that didn’t stop him to speculate the hell out of things.

He figured that the kidnapper had a friendly conversation with Butler, and they moved things into the den. He then opened the window and forced Butler to climb out of it into the backyard where other men were waiting to take him. The kidnapper then went out of the front door. That way, anyone watching Butler’s house would have seen the kidnapper enter and exit alone and wouldn’t have seen Butler taken. Therefore, it wouldn’t have appeared suspicious to any neighbor with nothing better to do than to stare at Butler’s door all night.

Yes, that’s one possibility. Or maybe they all went out of the front door, but no one was watching the Butler’s house, so the kidnapping went undetected.

Oh, who am I kidding? As unlikely as Chief Brown’s theory was, we just have to accept that that’s the way things actually went down. There was still one problem. Who?

The only clue they had was that “7891011” had been written on the calendar in the den. Mrs. Butler said that that hadn’t been on the calendar the night before, so 7891011 must have pointed to something.

Encyclopedia asked his father if Butler had any enemies, but the Chief answered that all rich people have tons of enemies. He even went on to name a few: Arthur Jason, John McNear and Matt Short. But really, there were probably dozens more.

But since Chief Brown went through the trouble of naming those three men, we have to assume that one of them was the kidnapper.

Encyclopedia figured that Butler seized a moment and wrote “7891011” somewhere where it would be seen that would point to the kidnapper, and Encyclopedia figured it all out.

Since “7891011” was written on the calendar and not a notepad near the telephone, that must have meant that the number, written on a calendar, was of significance. 7891011 was referring to the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh months. Taking the first letter of those five months, you get “Jason.” So the bad guy was Arthur Jason.

Wow, that’s crazier than the kid who answered a test all palindromes to snitch on Bob and Anna.

How did Butler think that would have worked? It did, but it shouldn’t have. He’s lucky Encyclopedia has this weird mind meld ability where he’s able to get inside the heads of any victim/suspect and picture exactly what they’re thinking. Otherwise, Butler would have stayed missing for a lot longer.

And what was Jason going to do after he got the ransom and Butler was released? I know what I would do if I were Butler; I’d march to the police and say, “Hey, guess who kidnapped me.”