Case of the Crooked Carnival

  To Nav, Mehra, Andrea, and Katie,

  whose brilliance and creativity

  are quite astonishing.

  M. T.

  For my guys: Phil, Dave, Mike, and Ben.

  B. J. N.

  STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered

  trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

  Lot #:

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  03/10

  Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

  387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016

  Text © 2010 by Michele Torrey

  Illustrations © 2010 by Barbara Johansen Newman

  All rights reserved

  Sterling eBook ISBN: 978-1-4549-0397-0

  For information about custom editions, special sales, premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales Department at 800-805-5489 or specialsales@sterlingpublishing.com.

  One • Gloom and Doom

  Two • Ghosts and Ghouls

  Three • The Gory Details

  Four • Alien Invasion

  Five • A Pleasant Outing?

  Six • Step Right Up!

  Seven • The Winner!

  Eight • Fun-O-Wama

  Nine • Danger in the Air

  Ten • Bridge Gone Bananas

  Activities and Experiments for Super-Scientists

  Dawn had barely cracked in the small town of Mossy Lake. A few squirrels sleepily rubbed their eyes. Mostly, though, the town was still asleep on this early, lazy Saturday morning.

  But in one particular house, up the stairs and in the attic, all was astir. Beakers boiled. Solutions swirled. And electrical currents flowed.

  In the center of it all stood Drake Doyle. Now one might think he was mad, in the mad scientist sort of way. His cinnamon-colored hair stood straight up, as if he’d slept upside down. He wore a lab coat. He stared through the apparatus in front of him as if he’d unlocked the secret to brain transference. Or Martian communication.

  But Drake was no mad scientist. No indeed.

  He flipped the switch. He said, “Aha!” and scribbled in his lab notebook.

  Just then, the phone rang. Who would be calling at such an hour? Perhaps it was because his business cards said to call anytime:

  Doyle and Fossey:

  Science Detectives

  call us. anytime. 555-7822

  Drake and his partner, Nell Fossey, were the best amateur science-detective geniuses in the fifth grade (besides being best friends). They had a long list of satisfied customers and cases solved.

  And that’s why, on this early, lazy Saturday morning Drake picked up the phone: “Doyle and Fossey.”

  “Uh—uh, hello? Is this Detective Doyle?”

  Drake’s heart sank. It was Edgar Glum, the gloomiest kid in school. Edgar never told jokes. Edgar always wore black. If someone passed out cupcakes on their birthday, he’d say, “I only got one.”

  But, sinking heart or not, Drake was a professional, and professionals never lose heart entirely. “Ah, yes, Mr. Glum. What can I do for you?”

  “Woe is me. I have a problem. I’m hearing ghosts and ghouls at night.”

  By this time, Drake and Nell were considered ghost experts. Even so, Drake’s heart still skipped a beat. “Ghosts and ghouls, you say?”

  “Their moaning and howling and clanking have kept me awake for a month. Oh, woe,” Edgar sighed drearily. “I suppose you won’t take the case. I’ll have to call James Frisco.”

  Frisco! While Drake only appeared to be a mad scientist, James Frisco was the real deal. Frisco splashed and spilled chemicals, while Drake carefully poured them. Frisco made paper airplanes out of instructions, while Drake carefully read them. Frisco’s favorite scientist was Dr. Frankenstein, while Drake’s was Dr. Einstein. (In fact, Frisco’s mother was still having nightmares following Frisco’s latest attempt to reanimate dead cockroaches.) So you see, Frisco was a very bad, very mad scientist indeed:

  FRISCO

  bad mad scientist

  (Better than Doyle and Fossey)

  Call me. Day or night. 555-6190

  Drake could never let Frisco take the case! “Never fear, Mr. Glum. No ghost or ghoul is too frightful for Doyle and Fossey!”

  Drake hung up and called Nell. “Edgar Glum’s got ghosts and ghouls. We must investigate.”

  “You do know, Detective Doyle, that Edgar lives in the dreariest, spookiest house in town?”

  “Check.”

  Click.

  The Glum mansion was indeed the dreariest, spookiest house in town. Porches sagged. Gnarled trees loomed overhead.

  Now Drake might have lost heart entirely had it not been for Nell, who, as usual, was the first to arrive, ready for business. Her coffee-colored hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had a pencil behind her ear. “Ready, Detective Doyle?”

  “Ready.”

  Together they stepped onto the sagging front porch and rang the doorbell.

  After a few tense moments in which Drake thought he felt something tickling the back of his neck, the door opened.

  It was Edgar, looking as if he’d just eaten a lump of cold oatmeal. “You rang?”

  Inside, Edgar’s home was dark and creepy. Yellowed wallpaper peeled from the walls. A rickety staircase led upward into the shadows. A chilly draft crept through the hall, smelling like mummies and wet socks.

  If truth be told, Drake wished with all his heart that he could turn right around and pedal like mad toward home. However, being the professional that he was, he merely said (and a bit too loudly), “Nice place.”

  “I suppose,” sighed Edgar.

  Just then, something brushed against Drake from behind. He gave a little yelp, much relieved when he saw it was only a dog.

  “That’s Poe,” said Edgar.

  Poe’s license tags jangled as Drake patted him. “Good doggie.”

  Nell whipped out her notebook and pencil and began to take notes. “Dogs can often sense ghosts and ghouls. Has Poe noticed anything unusual?”

  Edgar shook his head. “He’s almost blind, and mostly deaf. Plus, he stopped sleeping with me in my room on the same night the ghosts and ghouls started howling. Now he sleeps next to our new furnace in the basement. I’m all alone.”

  Ignoring the chill in the air, Drake whipped out his notebook and pencil as well. “The haunting started one month ago, you say?”

  Edgar nodded.

  “Has anything else happened in the past month?” asked Nell. “Anything unusual?”

  “Well, not unless you count the chandelier crashing to the floor, and my pet tarantula dying. Now it’s just my grandmother, Poe, and me.”

  Drake jotted furiously: Poe won’t sleep in Edgar’s room anymore, chandelier crashed, tarantula died, house could use a little cheering, new wallpaper maybe….

  Edgar licked his lips nervously. “Do you … do you think it’s a ghost? A real ghost?”

  “Impossible to tell at this point,” said Drake.

  “Let’s take a look around,” said Nell.

  And so they did. They shone their flashlights in this corner and that one. They stole up and down the rickety stairs. They opened the creakity door to the attic and peered under sagging beds and in cluttered closets. They inspected the broken chandelier. They said “hello” and “nice day, isn’t it?” to Edgar’s grandmother, who sat knitting in the living room, listening to the radio. And finally, they headed down the stairs and into the basement, where Poe was already taking a nap.

  “Nothing supernatural so far,” said Drake, tripping on a step.

  “Roger that,” replied Ne
ll, catching Drake by his lab coat. “Even the chandelier appears to have fallen because the cord was old and frayed.”

  “Well,” said Drake, “at least it’s warm and toasty down here.”

  Edgar nodded gloomily. “Like I said, we got a new furnace. Now I have to add wood to it twice a day. It’s such a chore.”

  “Better than being cold,” Nell said, as she shone her flashlight about, illuminating cobwebs, old open pipes, dusty boxes, and rusty bicycles.

  “I suppose,” sighed Edgar.

  Then, just as Drake was warming his hands near the furnace, a strange thing happened. A strand of music floated through the air like a wisp of cobweb.

  Drake stopped warming his hands.

  Nell stopped shining her flashlight around.

  Edgar stopped sighing.

  Poe snored, moaning a wee bit.

  And they all stared at each other (except Poe, who had his eyes closed).

  “Great Scott!” whispered Drake.

  “What is that?” whispered Nell.

  “It’s the ghosts,” whispered Edgar. “They’re singing.”

  Now, if one could have used a heart-o-matic meter at that moment, one would have seen three hearts hammering like crazy.

  Edgar’s heart was hammering especially hard. He wrung his hands, his face turned white as glue, and he moaned, “Oh, gloom and doom! Oh, spiders and bats! Now the ghosts are haunting us during the day, too!”

  But Drake Doyle and Nell Fossey were science detective geniuses. And, like all science detective geniuses everywhere, they had a job to do, hammering hearts or not. They had no time to waste on gloom and doom.

  Drake scribbled in his notebook, ghost music, not bad, bebop maybe, and then he drew a quick chart. (In a pinch, all good scientists draw charts.)

  Meanwhile, Nell put her ear next to one of the open pipes. “Mr. Glum, where do these pipes go?”

  “Oh, woe!” wailed Edgar. “I—I don’t know where they go. I only live here!”

  Nell frowned. “The music appears to be coming from these pipes.”

  “Curious.” Drake knelt next to Nell. “Hellooooooo. Aaaaaanybody theeeeeeere?” he called into one of the pipes.

  And, just like that, the music stopped.

  “Fascinating,” said Drake.

  “Eerily so,” said Nell.

  “See what I mean?” cried Edgar.

  Nell cocked an eyebrow and looked at Drake. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.

  Drake nodded. “At least I think I’m thinking what you’re thinking.”

  “Well then,” said Nell, sticking her pencil behind her ear, “I think we’ve seen enough.” And up the stairs they went.

  To everyone’s surprise, Edgar’s grandmother was standing at the top of the steps. She looked rather upset, as if she’d forgotten her name, or perhaps left her favorite book out in the rain. “They’re here,” she said.

  “Who?” said Drake and Nell and Edgar together.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper and glanced over her shoulder. “The ghosts. The ones Edgar’s always talking about. I—I heard them.”

  Drake patted her hand. “Never fear, Grandmother Glum. We heard the ghosts, too.”

  Grandmother Glum gasped. “You—you did?”

  “Indeed,” said Nell, handing her a business card. “Only we have a hunch that it’s not what you think.”

  “Now, without further ado,” said Drake, “Scientist Nell and I must return to the lab.”

  “And then?” asked Edgar and Grandmother Glum together.

  “Expect our report before nightfall,” said Nell.

  Edgar sighed sadly. “You probably won’t call. No one ever does. And even if you do, it’ll be too late.”

  And on that cheery note, out the door they went, blinking in the brilliant sunshine, leaving Edgar and his grandmother behind in the dark.

  Back at the lab, Drake pulled a book off the shelf and thumbed through it to find the right section: “Haunted House Analysis: What to Do When Ghosts Moan, Play Bebop, or Just Clank Their Chains, and Everyone Is Quite Gloomy.”

  And while Drake and Nell read the section aloud, Drake’s mom, Kate Doyle, stuck her head around the door. “Had breakfast yet?”

  “Negative,” they replied.

  “How do cinnamon pancakes sound, with whipped cream and strawberries?”

  “Make it so,” said Drake.

  “Like a dream,” said Nell.

  “Affirmative,” replied Mrs. Doyle. “Hot chocolate anyone?”

  “No, thanks,” said Drake.

  “Just coffee,” said Nell. “Decaf. Black.” (Real scientists don’t drink hot chocolate. It makes them sleepy, and as everyone knows, it’s more difficult to crack cases when one is sleepy.)

  “Roger that,” said Mrs. Doyle, and she was back in five minutes twenty-two seconds with coffee and breakfast. (Scientifically speaking, Mrs. Doyle was a whiz. You see, she owned her own catering company and so was quite used to whipping up specialties in nothing flat.)

  So after saying “Thanks a billion!” to Mrs. Doyle, Drake and Nell washed their hands and sat at the lab table. They ate their breakfast and shared their observations. Then they developed a hypothesis. (Of course, as any scientist knows, a hypothesis is simply an educated guess.)

  “Based upon our observations, Scientist Nell, I believe the haunting of Edgar’s home is being caused by …”

  Nell took a few notes, and nodded. “Agreed, Detective Doyle. Let’s test our hypothesis.”

  So, for the rest of the morning, that’s what they did. Using the latest in scientific gadgetry (their lab was filled with gadgets, compliments of Mr. Sam Doyle, who owned his own science equipment and supply company), they assembled a mini-simulation of what they believed was occurring at Edgar’s home. After lunch (peanut butter and banana sandwiches with apple slices on the side), they tested the simulation.

  “Ah-ha! Just as we thought,” said Nell with a satisfied smile.

  “Our hypothesis is correct,” said Drake. And without wasting another second, he phoned Edgar. “Meet us in the lab, Mr. Glum. Bring Poe. Ten minutes and counting.”

  Nine minutes fifty-six seconds later, Edgar rushed into the lab with Poe at his heels. “Give me the gory details.”

  Drake sat on a stool with a drum in his lap. “Allow Scientist Nell to explain.”

  Nell clasped her hands behind her back and paced around the room. “Let us begin with a loud noise. Detective Doyle, if you would be so kind?”

  “Certainly.” Drake banged the drum with a drum stick. BOOOOM!

  Nell stopped pacing and looked quite serious. “Did you hear that, Mr. Glum?”

  Edgar frowned. “You’d have to be deaf not to hear that.” (And indeed, Poe, being quite deaf, had settled into what looked to be a nice afternoon nap, completely undisturbed by all the ruckus.)

  Nell continued, “Sound is caused by a vibrating object, in this case, a drum.”

  “You see,” Drake explained, “the vibrating drum causes the molecules in the surrounding air to vibrate also, creating a sound wave that travels in all directions.”

  “And when that sound wave reaches your ear it signals your brain that you have heard a sound,” finished Nell.

  “But what does this have to do with ghosts and ghouls?” asked Edgar.

  “Ah, yes,” said Nell, stopping her pacing. “Now we’ve come to the heart of the matter. Imagine, if you will, a gigantic football stadium. Imagine the announcer calling the game play-by-play. Now I ask you, if you’re sitting in the crowd, how are you able to hear the announcer?”

  “But—but I’ve never been to a football game.”

  “Answer the question, Mr. Glum,” said Drake.

  Edgar crumpled and put his face in his hands. “I—I don’t know!”

  “It’s because,” said Nell, “the announcer’s voice is amplified.”

  Now it was Drake’s turn to pace. “Amplification is when a sound is made louder. Even the shape of
your own ears helps to amplify sound. Your outer ear funnels the sound into your ear canal, concentrating the sound. You can funnel even more sound by cupping your hands around your ears. Try it, and you will hear the difference.”

  And while Edgar cupped his ears, Drake placed a pipe next to Poe, who by this time was running in his sleep, moaning and howling a wee bit, while his license tags clinked and clanked. “Put your ear on the other end of this pipe, Mr. Glum.”

  Edgar listened through the pipe, and his mouth dropped open. “It’s—it’s my ghost! The howling, the moaning … it’s him … it’s Poe.”

  “Quite right,” said Drake. “We first became suspicious when you said that Poe stopped sleeping in your room on the same night the haunting started. And not only that—you had a new furnace.”

  Nell nodded. “A warm furnace, to be exact, one that burns wood—the perfect spot for sleeping if you’re an old dog living in a chilly house.”

  “Very simply,” said Drake, “Poe’s moaning and howling, not to mention the sound of his license tags clinking together, were amplified through the pipes, which, no doubt, went all over the house, as old pipes often do.”

  “But what about the music we heard?”

  “Elementary, really,” said Drake. “It was simply your grandmother’s radio being amplified to us in the basement. And when I hollered to ask if anyone was there, she heard my voice amplified, thought it was the ghost, and immediately turned off her radio to listen.”

  “It’s all very logical once you think about it,” said Nell. “Just plug up the pipes. Should take care of the problem.”

  “Thank you,” Edgar said. “I’ll tell my grandmother all about it.” And suddenly, without any warning, rather like the sun bursting through fog, Edgar smiled and gave them each a hug. It was quite astonishing, scientifically speaking.

  Later that evening, Drake wrote in his lab notebook:

  Case solved.

  Poe the sleepy culprit.

  Invited Edgar to football game.

  Received pet spider as payment.

  (Gave to Nell, who named it

  “CREEPERS.”)