The Encyclopedia Brown Encyclopedia

Charlie Stewart stopped by the Brown Detective Agency. He said that the reason for his visit was because, “Duke Kelly, one of Bugs Meany’s Tigers, is selling what he says are the largest shark teeth ever. If it is true, I just have to have one. It would be the star in my collection.” This was the first mention of Charlie’s tooth collection since a story published in 1968. I had assumed that the author had stopped playing that element up because of how disturbing it is.

If I had been Encyclopedia, I would have said the following:

“First of all, Charlie, you don’t need to explain to me that Duke Kelly is one of Bugs Meany’s Tigers. I have a lot of experience dealing with him. We have a lot of experience dealing with him. I mean, he once shot you in the foot and then I had him enter your empty house to fetch one of your old shoes in hopes that it would prove that he was the one who shot you.

“By repeating the fact that Duke Kelly is one of Bugs Meany’s Tigers, you’re unintentionally acknowledging the fact that whatever it is that he’s selling is most likely fake. As one of my closer friends, you should know this already.”

But if Encyclopedia told everyone to stop trusting the Tigers, he’d be out of a steady stream of money. Charlie hired Encyclopedia, and they headed to the marina to listen to Duke’s sales pitch.

He explained that his uncle was a deep-sea fisherman who had recently hooked an enormous shark on one of his lines. He went on to say that the shark thrashed for hours and there were a few times when he thought the line was going to break. He was finally able to get the shark up onto the deck of his boat. The sharks thrashing did a lot of damage to the boat. After the shark stopped moving, Duke’s uncle looked into the shark’s mouth and surmised that it was old because its teeth were large and jagged. With as much stuff a shark chews on in the course of its like, it would make sense that older sharks would have damaged teeth. Duke finished the story by saying that his uncle had sent him a box of these teeth for him to sell.

Duke allowed everyone a close-up look, and Charlie was impressed. It was just want his collection needed.

Yeah, the teeth were fake. Encyclopedia knew that because sharks, unlike most other animals, don’t have one set of teeth for their entire adult life. In reality, new teeth grow in every month to replace ones that have worn or fallen out. When Encyclopedia confronted Duke with these facts, Duke explained that he had actually carved the teeth out of wood and painted it white.

Of all of the people in Idaville to know that sharks get new teeth on a monthly basis, you would think that Charlie, who devoted a big chunk of his childhood to his interest in animal teeth, would have known this. In addition to that, was he unable to tell the difference between a tooth and a small bit of wood painted white? Either Charlie’s an idiot, or Duke is a skilled craftsman. If it’s the latter, then Duke is wasting his talents because there’s a future for him in woodworking. It’s most likely the former though. Charlie’s probably just a gullible idiot.

Five-year-old Melissa Stevens came to the Brown Detective Agency after making a bad trade with Bugs Meany. He offered her what he claimed was an autographed copy of Alice in Wonderland in exchange for Taffy the Tiger, her favorite stuffed animal. Melissa went on with the deal with the promise that there was an illustration of a tea party in the book, and since she loved pretending to have tea parties in her front yard with her dolls and stuffed animals. The only problem was that the book had several pages ripped out of it, including the one that had an illustration of the tea party.

Melissa was resistant at first, so Bugs told her that there was a tiger thief loose in the town. Convinced that her tiger was eventually going to get stolen, she figured she might as well get something for it in return while she could.

Yes, that’s how low Bugs was; he tricked a little girl into trading one of her favorite stuffed animals for a badly damaged book. On the bright side, it did actually appear to be autographed. We shouldn’t celebrate that point just yet, though.

After thumbing through the book, Encyclopedia told Melissa that there was no tiger thief and that he was going to try to get Taffy back.

The two went to confront Bugs and saw that Taffy was being proudly displayed as the Tigers’ mascot. Bugs was also joined by Duke Kelly and Rocky Graham. Bugs argued that the book was worth a lot of money and that Melissa would be able to sell it and buy lots of stuffed tigers. He refused to undo the trade because he had grown attached to the tiger, which he renamed Terrible Ted the Tiger.

Encyclopedia claimed that the author had not signed that book, but Bugs said that Encyclopedia couldn’t prove that. To try to prove his point, he had Bugs write the author’s name on a blank piece of paper. Bugs grabbed the paper and wrote “Louis Carol,” and showed that, though the autograph read the same way, his writing looked nothing like the handwriting in the autograph.

Though Bugs was right, he proved that he cheated a little girl out of a stuffed animal.

Encyclopedia knew that the autograph was faked because the author of Alice in Wonderland was Lewis Carroll. Though the two names sound the same, they’re spelled differently. Bugs had found the old book which had been damaged by his baby cousin, so he had Rocky put the fake autograph on the book so that he could trick a little girl into taking it.

Unfortunately, his cousin had ripped out the book’s title page, so they didn’t know how to spell the author’s name correctly; because that’s not the sort of information that they would put on the cover or the spine.

And, for some reason, Bugs decided that the most logical step at that point would be to lie to a little girl so that he could get rid of this book that he didn’t even care about in the first place. 

Farnsworth Grant was the founder of the Idaville Flat Earth Association. This was a group that advocated the belief that the Earth was flat, despite the overwhelming amount of scientific proof gathered over the course of several centuries that stated otherwise. I’m willing to cut Farnsworth some slack for this belief, because he was only 10 years old. That being said, I can only assume that Farnsworth grew up to be a creationist and a climate change denier. Just a guess.

Farnsworth hired the Brown Detective Agency to recover a pizza that Bugs Meany had stolen.

The round-Earth denier was getting a pizza pie for his family when Bugs stopped him and helped himself to a slice of the pizza. Then Bugs told Farnsworth that he would be perfect for his new group, the Society to Preserve the Round Pizza.

The StPtRP was supposedly under the impression that someone had developed a square pizza – which actually exists, it’s called a Sicilian pie and it’s quite easy to get in Italian neighborhoods – and Bugs’ organization sought to hold on to pizza traditions. I don’t know why Bugs thought Farnsworth would be interested in joining the StPtRP. Was it because Bugs thought that Farnsworth would be willing to join any group that had to do with shapes? Or did Bugs think that someone who actually believed that the Earth was flat would be willing to join any stupid organization? If it’s the latter, then I really have to give Bugs some credit. While I’m against people taking advantage of ignorance of others, Farnsworth seems dumb enough to have it coming to him.

As a new member of StPtRP, Farnsworth had to pay dues. Since he didn’t have any money, Bugs accepted the rest of the pizza as payment.

I don’t see what the problem here is. Farnsworth agreed to join this group. If he didn’t want to pay dues, he shouldn’t have joined.

Encyclopedia and Farnsworth went to confront Bugs. When they got to Tigers’ clubhouse, Bugs was with two other Tiger members, enjoying the rest of the pizza. Bugs explained that StPtRP was celebrating its one-month anniversary. How else should the group celebrate than by eating pizza? Since he didn’t want any hard feelings, Bugs offered their remaining slice to Encyclopedia and Farnsworth, because StPtRP members share everything equally. That’s when Encyclopedia caught Bugs in a lie.

Pizzas are cut in even-numbered slices, usually eight. If there was one slice left, then the three boys ate seven slices. That meant that Bugs was lying and that he had three slices, and didn’t have an equal share.

That actually doesn’t prove a single thing.

While Bugs mentioned that StPtRP members share everything equally, I can’t imagine this rule was carved into stone and followed in every aspect in life. Therefore, proving that Bugs had three slices instead of two wasn’t the slam-dunk that Encyclopedia claimed it was.

I’m going to assume that the other members knew how many slices Bugs had eaten. I say this because Bugs appeared at the clubhouse with a pizza pie that was missing one slice. The other members must have noticed that a slice was missing. They couldn’t have honestly thought that the pizza parlor sold Bugs a pizza with one slice missing. Who would have taken that slice? Most likely the person who brought the pizza.

For all we know, Bugs even asked the other two if he could have that third slice. We don’t know. What were they going to do? Kick him out of the group for suggesting that an item gets shared unequally? Even if Bugs did return with a full pizza, they were going run into a problem when they tried to divide eight slices evenly among three people.

I don’t see how proving that Bugs had three slices and saying that his group shared everything equally points directly to him stealing the pizza.

That being said, it’s Bugs Meany. Clearly that meant that he stole the pizza. Why does Encyclopedia feel like he has to resort to such specious reasoning in order to prove that Bugs did something wrong? It’s Bugs, of course he did something wrong.

Josh Whipplewhite went to the Brown Detective Agency saying that his lunch had been stolen. Josh explained that birthday party was that afternoon and that his mother put a birthday cake and a loaf of garlic bread on the window sill to cool, but both were stolen. He believed Bugs and a few other Tigers were behind it, so he enlisted the help of Encyclopedia and Sally to prove it.

The awkward part here is that Encyclopedia and Sally didn’t seem to know that Josh was having a birthday party that afternoon, which means that they weren’t originally invited, so Josh had to invite them at the last minute. Meanwhile, the two detectives had to ignore the fact that the only reason they were being invited was because they were needed for something, and had Bugs not just stolen something, the party would have gone on without them.

Also, garlic bread and cake is not a balanced lunch.

The three went to the Tigers’ Clubhouse to confront Bugs. As they approached, they saw that the Tigers were chewing parsley. Josh figured the best way of figuring out if it had been them who stole the bread was to smell their breath. He reasoned that their breath would stink of garlic. Sally explained that they had been chewing on parsley to cut the garlic smell.

First off, I had no idea parsley had that effect on garlic breath. How would have these thuggish children have known that? Secondly, assuming everyone in Idaville learned at an early age that parsley got rid of garlic breath, how would the Tigers explain their reasons for sitting around chewing on parsley? Wouldn’t the sight of a few kids sitting around, chewing parsley, look suspicious? Not even just to people looking for garlic bread thieves. If I saw a bunch of kids chewing parsley, I’d immediately suspect that something was wrong.

Sally smelled everyone’s breath, and there was no trace of any garlic. Damn that parsley trick once again! Sally had no other way of proving Bugs wrong and Josh was reserved to believe that his birthday party was ruined. However, Encyclopedia came to the rescue.

While chewing parsley would help get rid of garlic bread, since it was apparently general knowledge that the Tigers never washed their hands, the smell of garlic would still be on their hands. Bugs realized they were caught, he agreed to pay to replace the garlic bread and cake.

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.

It was just another boring day in Idaville until Sally alerted Encyclopedia about a fight breaking out at Butch Mulligan’s house. Mulligan was a very large 18-year-old, so it seemed unlikely that someone would pick a fight with him.

It actually wasn’t a fight, more of a one-sided ass-kicking. Mulligan was beating up a bunch of children. While I don’t have the stomach for adult-on-child beatdowns, the victims were Bugs Meany and a few other Tiger members, so this was a good kind of adult-on-child beatdown.

The children of Idaville share the same interest in seeing Bugs getting beaten up, because they had formed a crowd around Mulligan’s home, cheering him on. Encyclopedia asked Mulligan’s younger brother, Haystacks, what caused the fight.

It all started when Bugs tried to cheat Mulligan out of some calendars. Mr. Downing, a math teacher, had recently moved out of state. Before Downing left, Mulligan asked him for his collection of 25 calendars depicting scenes from the Civil War.

However, Bugs emerged with a note supposedly written by Downing that read the following:

Dear Butch,
I forgot that I promised the calendars to Bugs Meany. Therefore, so that you may each have the same number, please divide the 25 calendars by ½.                                                                                                                John Downing

Bugs had come to Mulligan’s home to divide the calendars up, but since 25 is an odd number, there was one left over. Mulligan and Bugs agreed to flip a coin to decide to go that final calendar. Bugs flipped a coin, Mulligan called heads, and Bugs said it had landed on tails without allowing Mulligan to look at it. Mulligan had had enough of Bugs’ crap so he threw Bugs and 12 of the calendars out of his door. Bugs got the Tigers to gang up on Mulligan, but Mulligan didn’t have a problem beating these children up.

Though Mulligan was ready to part with 12 calendars in the collection, Encyclopedia figured out that Bugs faked the letter. No math teacher would tell someone to divide 25 items by one-half, because dividing 25 by one-half gives you 50. He would have said “divide the 25 calendars by two.”

No, actually no one speaks that way. He probably would have said, “split the calendars amongst yourselves.”

Why is Bugs such an idiot? First off, he sucks at forging letters, as we’ve learned before. Secondly, why was he so interested in these calendars? He has pretended to be interested in the Civil War in the past, but even then, it was shown the he didn’t know anything about it. Bugs only seems interested in taking everyone’s prized possessions, just because they’re their prized possessions. That seems to be his only motive, and he’s willing to go to any lengths to ruin other peoples’ lives.

It’s one thing to cheat someone his own age out of a telescope, but to devise some sort of scheme to take calendars from someone much older and bigger than him? What is he getting out of that?

When he went to Mulligan’s home with some poorly thought out scheme, he ended up with 12 calendars that weren’t even rightfully his. Anyone halfway sensible would have walked away while he was ahead. But no, Bugs decided to get the help of his fellow Tigers to get Calendar #13. Even when they were completely powerless to Mulligan, they for some reason persisted. They kept coming back for more and Mulligan kept knocking them to the ground all so that Bugs could get one extra calendar.

And where are the police through all of this? It seemed as if every child in Idaville caught wind as to what was happening, didn’t any sensible adult figure it out? Wouldn’t one of Mulligan’s neighbors wonder why there was a group of children outside, cheering? And wouldn’t they find out that the reason they were cheering was because Mulligan, who is legally an adult, was beating a bunch of children? I don’t know, if I looked out my window and saw that, I’d probably call the police. Even if it was my neighborhood’s equivalent to Bugs Meany getting beaten.

Thank goodness my neighborhood doesn’t have a Bugs Meany.

Dave Foster came to the Brown Detective Agency suspicious that Bugs had cheated him out of money. This seemed very likely, so Encyclopedia heard Dave’s story in which Bugs charged Dave one dollar to teach him how to hypnotize a lobster.

It started when Dave walked past Bugs and the Tigers at their clubhouse as they were enjoying a lobster feast. He told Dave that he had caught eleven lobsters after hypnotizing them. He gave a demonstration for Dave, in which he hypnotized a lobster and had it balance a ping-pong ball on its tail as it balanced on its head. He offered Dave some lessons for a dollar. I guess Dave was so seduced with the idea of being able to hypnotize lobsters into being caught that he didn’t stop to think that Bugs was one of the least honest people in the entire town.

Dave took a lesson, but when he tried to hypnotize the lobster himself, it didn’t work. Bugs explained that one cannot just learn lobster hypnotism in one lesson, and offered to enroll Dave in a course for ten dollars.

At that point, Dave began to suspect that he was being cheated, because the only thing he had to show after a one dollar lesson was a Polaroid of Bugs and Dave with the big red lobster.

Encyclopedia and Dave went to the clubhouse to confront Bugs. Bugs was unable to perform more lobster tricks because he had eaten the last one. With all of the lobsters gone, Encyclopedia wasn’t able to prove Bugs was lying.

Except he still had the photo of the lobster, which showed that it was red. Lobsters are brown. They don’t turn red until they’ve been cooked. Bugs didn’t hypnotize a lobster to do his bidding; he was just moving a dead lobster around.

Seriously? Bugs made up some story about being able to hypnotizing lobsters in order to make a quick buck? Where does he come up with this nonsense?

And now that it’s obvious that he didn’t hypnotize those lobsters in order to catch them, I’m curious about how he got his hands on eleven lobsters. Did he actually catch them out of luck, or did he buy them in a store? If he was that adept at catching lobsters, then he could make lots of money selling the lobsters he was suddenly able to catch. If he could afford a lobster bonanza, then he obviously had some money coming in. Either way, he didn’t need to defraud children out of money through some lobster hypnotism scheme. 

Freddie Zacharias had a pretty sound money-making scheme. Apparently, people vacationing on the beaches of Key South and in the surrounding waters were constantly losing their false teeth in the water. I didn’t realize that this was an actual problem, but it was.

The way the water currents work, the false teeth would wash up on the beaches of Idaville a week later. As a result, people who lost their teeth would advertise in The Idaville News for anyone who may have found what went missing. The enterprising Freddie would go to the beach searching for any lost teeth in hopes for reward money.

Encyclopedia and Sally were throwing a football around on the beach. There was a strong wind coming in from the ocean, so they decided to stop that and build sand castles instead. They saw Freddie hard at work. He had a glass jar holding a set of false teeth and he was looking for more teeth and a few ads from the classified section to help identify the teeth he was finding. They exchanged pleasantries and then Freddie went off for more teeth and he returned a few moments later, empty-handed.

Two Tiger members, Duke Kelly and Rocky Graham, stole the jar from Freddie. Duke started playing with the teeth, pretending that the teeth were castanets and doing some faux-flamenco steps. At some point, he completely spazzed out and accidentally had the teeth bite his ear. He got angry and knocked the jar over, causing the ads to fly out of the jar. That’s when Duke saw one of the ads and figured out why Freddie was spending his afternoon collecting teeth on the beach. The two Tigers decided they should hold on to the teeth and collect the reward money themselves.

Encyclopedia and Sally confronted Duke, who said that he had been walking on the beach when he saw Freddie trip and fall. When Freddie fell, he dropped the jar, causing the ads to fly out. Duke, being the good guy he is, chased the ads towards the ocean. At that point, he tripped and fell into the water and a crab grabbed his ear, hence the injury.

There isn’t a single instance of a Tiger member doing a decent thing. Why do they think it’s believable when they try to come up with a story where they tried to help someone else?

Encyclopedia knew Duke was lying because the way the ads supposedly got blown towards the ocean. The wind was coming from the ocean, so he wouldn’t have chased them into the water; they would have gone further inland.

Phineas Cole called Encyclopedia and asked him to come to the First Church Summer Carnival as a preventative measure. He was expecting some sort of trouble from the Tigers, though he didn’t know in what form.

First a little background information. Phineas runs the “Be Your Own Dentist” booth. For two tickets, children with a loose tooth try their luck at the game AND have their tooth removed. The child ties a string around the loose tooth on one end and at the other end is a pool cue. The child shoots the cue ball and tries to get the 8-ball into one of the pockets. If the child gets it in, they get a prize. If not, well then they can take solace in the fact that their loose tooth is out, which means a visit from the tooth fairy.

I have a few problems with the “Be Your Own Dentist” game. First off, that just sounds all sorts of unsanitary. Even if it’s a new piece of string each time, no one knows where that string has been. Secondly, there’s no guarantee that the tooth will actually be pulled out. Third, and most important, this booth has a very limited customer base – children (actually, anyone) with a loose tooth. That’s like running a game that can only be played by people name Leroy. The goal for the booth is maximize the number of tickets they get, but this one keeps to a specific market, thereby drastically cutting down on the ticket income.

When Encyclopedia and Sally got to the booth, they watched a girl try for a prize. She concentrated on the ball, but at the last second, she lost her concentration and missed.

Phineas reminded Encyclopedia of what Bugs had done the previous year. Apparently, he stood by the booth and sold fake painkillers for a dime each to the children about to play the game. Though the pills were fake, it made the children not worry about the pain of having the tooth pulled out, which meant that they were more likely to win.

Actually, I’d really have to hand it to Bugs. That’s a pretty smart idea. In fact, I have less of a problem with Bugs selling the fake pills than I do with Phineas. In telling that story, Phineas was admitting how unfair the game was because it plays on the players’ fear of pain. Bugs just took that fear away, made a little money doing so and he did so without stealing. Yes, he was fraudulently selling the children something, but in the end, most of the children who bought the pills walked away with a prize.

Bugs was eventually escorted away from the booth that year, and he wanted revenge the following year. At around the time of the carnival, the Tigers had an opening. The buzz around town was that the boy who did something to Phineas without getting caught would be in the Tigers.

As Phineas was telling this story, a parade of children in costumes walked down the pathway between the lines of booths. All of them were wearing some sort of costume. The parade was to build interest in the amateur talent contest later that day, though some of the children in the parade were expected to lose their nerve and not audition.

All of them seemed to have been sporting some sort of minor injury, as well. Kitty Bly, the ballerina, had a bandaged leg. Hank Ives, the magician, had a cut from his elbow to the bottom of his sleeve. Ted Carter, the hog caller, had his arm in a sling. You get the idea.

Phineas explained that earlier that day, the office tent collapsed unexpectedly when all of the parade participants were meeting there. Tent collapsing plus injured children sounds like a lawsuit to me, but whatever.

As the parade was going by, Mrs. Garcia, the carnival chairwoman, called Phineas. She told him that a roll of tickets was missing and that she had just received a call from someone claiming that they saw him steal the tickets. Phineas denied the accusation, but Garcia found the roll hidden in the pool table.

This was obviously the work of someone trying to get into the Tigers, but who?

Encyclopedia theorized that it was Hank Ives. To him, it was clear that Hank caused the tent to collapse, stole the tickets while everyone was distracted and hid the tickets in the pool table while Phineas was helping with the downed tent. Why Hank? Encyclopedia reasoned that a magician hides things in his sleeves for his act, but Hank was wearing short sleeves. So Hank was going to pose as a magician to get into the tent, but then not audition of the show.

No.

I do not think there is enough evidence to accuse Hank, just because he’s a magician who wears short sleeves. There are plenty of tricks a magician can perform without pulling things out of their sleeves. I think there would be a terrible injustice in Idaville if this got pinned on Hank based on that alone. Encyclopedia should be ashamed of himself.

Encyclopedia and Charlie Stewart had just gotten off the bus after seeing a horror movie triple feature. Adding to their jumpiness was the fact that a thunderstorm was brewing.

The two boys noted the recent string of acts of vandalism where several neighborhood porch lights had been broken. Charlie feared that this was the work of two floating severed hands – like in one of the movies they had just seen – that turn off the lights right before it attacks its victim. Encyclopedia reasoned that that was impossible, but he let his imagination get away from him and began to think that that was a possibility.

Luckily, they had gone past the affected area, and had gotten to a block that was better lit. Then, like something out of a horror movie, there was a crash of lightning and some thunder, followed by the sound of glass breaking. Halfway down the block, they saw that one of the porch lights got knocked out. Before they knew it, they saw some figure running towards them. They thought it was the main villain from another one of the movies they just saw, The Headless Vampire.

That doesn’t really sound like much of a villain to me. Without a head, a vampire doesn’t have its fangs, which means it can’t attack you. A headless person up and around is scary enough, but the fact that it’s a vampire doesn’t add any terror to the mix. I don’t know, maybe the movie was done well enough that explained why a headless vampire would be scary. Again, Charlie is just a kid, so he probably wasn’t considering such logistics, and as a result, the more reasonable Encyclopedia was getting swept up in the fear.

It turned out that the headless figure wasn’t a vampire; it was Duke Kelly who was running while putting on a shirt. He told some story about how he had fallen asleep after reading by the window when the thunder woke him up. In the flash of the lightning, he saw the two of them throwing rocks at Mrs. Taft’s porch light, and that’s when he came out to chase after them.

In order to believe this story, you have to believe that the thunder woke him quickly enough for him to be cognizant enough to see Encyclopedia and Charlie throwing rocks in the tiny fraction of a second of light that the lightning provided. You also have to believe that Duke – the Tiger member who once shot Charlie for hanging around his secret target practice area near the ancient burial grounds – decided to play vigilante and catch the two supposed vandals. According to him, he was in such a hurry that he ran out of his house while putting his shirt on.

No, this is all bullshit. What had actually happened was that Duke broke the light and saw the two boys coming. Since he figured they would see him running home, Duke decided to pretend as if he was running towards the two who he said had broken the light. He even went so far as to pull his shirt half-off so that it could appear that he was putting his shirt on. That shirt detail seems totally unnecessary.

The problem with Duke’s story, aside from what I had already pointed out, is that the lightning comes before the thunder. If the thunder woke him up, he wouldn’t have seen them in the lightning flash.

Did any adult talk to Duke about his vandalism? No, of course not.