Case of the Graveyard Ghost Read online

  “Detective Doyle,” said the caller in a trembly voice, “I daresay I have a highly irregular situation.”

  Drake spat his cereal into the sink. SF determinations would have to wait. After all, this was a highly irregular situation. “Who’s calling?”

  “It’s Mary. Mary Elizabeth Pendleton.” Mary was in Drake and Nell’s class at school. Mary was, very simply, a proper young lady. She never slouched in her chair or yelled at recess. She always wore dresses and used her lace handkerchief whenever she sneezed. Lastly, but most enjoyably, she threw charming garden parties where she served tea and crumpets while saying such witty things as “If you would be so kind” and “Jolly good weather, isn’t it?” and “More tea?” while every now and then reciting a lovely poem. Mary was the exact opposite of rude Sloane Westcott, and Drake felt more than a little relieved. (After all, there is a limit to the number of insults a top-notch scientist can bear.) “What can I do for you, Ms. Pendleton?” Drake asked.

  “I’m here at the Budding Botanists Junior Rose Club. It would be ever so splendid if you could hurry over. Of course, I’ll explain everything when you arrive.”

  “Ten minutes and counting. You have my word.”

  “Cheerio, ol’ chap,” she replied, and hung up.

  Drake called Nell. “Highly irregular situation at the Budding Botanists Junior Rose Club,” he told her. “Nine minutes fifty-three seconds, and counting.”

  “Check.”

  Click.

  Fortunately, Drake felt quite fortified after eating so much cereal. He pedaled his bike like fury, slowing down only once when he fell—crash! sploosh!—into a muddy pothole. (He was wearing his helmet and rain gear, and wasn’t hurt a bit.)

  “Ready, Detective Doyle?” Nell asked, once he’d screeched to a stop at the Junior Rose Club.

  “Ready, Scientist Nell,” he replied.

  Nell helped him lock up his bike. Together they entered the double doors, dripping as they went.

  “So kind of you to come,” said Mary, shaking their hands daintily.

  “What seems to be the trouble, Ms. Pendleton?” asked Nell as they hung up their raincoats.

  Mary dabbed her eyes with a hankie. “Perhaps it would be easier if you’d just come with me. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.”

  Drake glanced at Nell. He removed his detective kit and notebook from his backpack and shoved a pencil behind his ear. (A scientist is always prepared. Even in the gloomiest of weather. Even in the most irregular of situations.) “Lead the way, Ms. Pendleton.”

  They followed Mary into a large room where a few dozen club members milled about. A banner overhead read: ANNUAL BUDDING BOTANISTS JUNIOR ROSE CLUB COMPETITION! PRIZES GALORE! Bouquets of roses were displayed on tables.

  They smelled . . . absolutely heavenly.

  They looked . . . absolutely disgusting.

  “Great Scott!” cried Drake.

  “This is dreadful!” cried Nell.

  “Yes.” Mary nodded, wiping away a tear. “Perfectly dreadful. See this bouquet?” She pointed at a bouquet on the table beside her. The label read:

  EXHIBIT #19

  SPECIES: ANGEL GLORY

  “This is my entry. Yesterday the blossoms were a stunning, pure white. Today, well”—gasp!—“they’re the color of . . . the color of . . . dare I say . . . swamp slime! ”

  And indeed, she was right.

  All around the room, the roses were the nastiest of colors—mold, barf, dirt, snot, slug, grasshopper gut—if such colors really could be called colors at all.

  Drake flipped open his lab notebook. “When was this first discovered?” he asked.

  “At eight o’clock this morning, when everyone arrived to set up for the show,” replied Mary. “Yesterday we cut our bouquets in the greenhouse and stored them overnight in the walk-in refrigerator. When we went to fetch them this morning, well, naturally, we were all stunned. I imagine the judge will have a most difficult time of it.”

  “When is the judging?” asked Nell.

  Mary glanced at her watch. “Dearie me. In just an hour and a half.”

  “Hey, Mary!” someone hollered from behind them.

  It was Tess O’Brien, another classmate. Tess was an earthy sort of person—at one with the universe, aligned with the planets, and all that.

  She always wore shorts and sandals, even when the weather was gloomy. Today her fingernails were a mite crusty around the edges, and she smelled a little like not-so-fresh air. “Peace be with you,” she sighed, giving Mary a down-to-earth hug. “Sorry your roses look like swamp slime.”

  “Thank you, Tess, why, thank you indeed,” Mary replied, stepping back and smoothing her dress. “Sorry about your roses, as well.”

  Tess sighed again. “Must’ve been the water.”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” said Drake. “Have you noticed anything unusual?”

  Tess shook her head. “Nothing. I was the first one here because I always wake up with the sunrise. Of course, the roses were already ruined. I called Mary right away. Like I said. Must’ve been the water.”

  After questioning Tess and Mary, Drake and Nell set to work. They pulled on surgical gloves.

  Snap!

  They took out magnifying glasses. They examined the roses. They jotted notes. Drew charts. Took water samples. Pushed buttons on their calculators. Then, just as they completed a search of the premises, their archenemy appeared.

  That’s right. Frisco walked through the door.

  “Egads!” exclaimed Drake, his glasses slipping down his nose. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Someone else must have hired him,” said Mary. “After all, we’re not the only ones from our class who are in the Budding Botanists Junior Rose Club. There’s Peter Underwood, who won last year, and, of course, Sloane Westcott. Her mother makes her.”

  And as they watched, horrified, Frisco declared to all, “I’m here to save the day.”

  Everyone gathered around him, clapping and exclaiming.

  Peter Underwood approached Frisco, and while neither Drake nor Nell could hear what they said, they shook hands while Frisco handed him a business card. Behind them, Sloane Westcott stamped her foot and said, “What about me?” So he handed her a business card as well.

  Then Frisco whipped out his magnifying glass and began examining a bouquet of slime-colored roses.

  “Quick, Scientist Nell,” exclaimed Drake, pushing up his glasses. “We have no time to lose! We must find the solution before Frisco saves the day!”

  “Check!”

  Without wasting another second, they threw on their rain gear and hustled out the door.

  “To the lab!” cried Drake as he climbed on his bike.

  “For further analysis!” cried Nell as she climbed on hers.

  “Peace, my people,” said Tess, giving the peace sign.

  “Oh, do be careful,” cried Mary as she waved good-bye with her white hankie.

  The lab was quite comfy, just the thing after pedaling through mud puddles and gloom. Once inside, Drake pulled a book off the shelf and joined Nell at the lab table. Together they found the right section: “Irregular Situations: What to Do When Your Roses Look Like Swamp Slime and Your Archenemy Vows to Save the Day.”

  After they read the section, they shared their observations. They jotted. They sharpened pencils. They scratched their heads. They thought very hard. And through all this head-scratching and hard-thinking, they developed a hypothesis. (All good scientists know that a hypothesis is merely their best guess as to what is happening.) “We must test our hypothesis,” said Nell firmly.

  “Check,” said Drake.

  And so they did. (With a little help from Mrs. Doyle.)

  Afterward, Nell said with a satisfied nod, “Just as we thought.”

  “Indeed,” replied Drake. “Our hypothesis is correct.”

  They gathered their evidence and hurried back to the Budding Botanists Junior Rose Club, arriving just
in the nick of time. All the club members were seated at the front of the room facing Frisco.

  “And finally,” Frisco was saying, “my scientific conclusion is, it was the water. Without a doubt, it was definitely the water. I’m sure of it. Positive. No other possible explanation.” And he sat down with a smirk. Peter Underwood shook Frisco’s hand and thanked him for getting to the bottom of the matter. In return, Frisco handed Peter a bill.

  “Oh, dear me,” said the judge, rising from his seat. He shuffled through some papers on his clipboard. “Ahem. Well then, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but seeing as the water was bad, this year’s contest is . . . um . . . cancel—”

  “Hold everything!” cried Drake and Nell. Everyone gasped as they stepped to the front of the room. Drake unzipped his backpack and withdrew a bouquet of roses. They were a stunning pale pink. The color of a morning sunrise. Quite lovely, indeed.

  “Ooh,” breathed the audience.

  Then Drake withdrew another bouquet of roses from his backpack. This bouquet, however, was not so lovely. In fact, it was downright ugly. It was . . . the color of . . . bird doo.

  The audience gasped in horror. “Eeww!”

  “Just this morning,” said Drake in his most professional voice, “these were all beautiful roses.”

  “Mrs. Doyle’s roses,” added Nell, “which she generously donated.”

  “All in the name of science,” remarked Drake as he began to pace the room. “Earlier, we conducted a thorough examination of the competition roses. Based upon our observations, we suspected something was not right. Not right at all. Allow Scientist Nell to explain.”

  “Thank you, Detective Doyle. First of all, we noticed some discoloration along the rose stems. Second, at the site of each discoloration was a tiny hole, as if the stems had been pricked by a pin.” “Most suspicious,” Drake commented, stopping his pacing. He raised his eyebrow at the audience.

  “Indeed,” agreed Nell. “We developed a hypothesis and tested it. Worked like a charm. You see the results before you. Bird-doo-doo roses.”

  “Yes—quite,” said Mary. “But how did you do it?”

  “Excellent question, Ms. Pendleton,” Drake responded. “We’re coming to that.”

  “Hopefully after I leave,” griped Frisco.

  Nell clasped her hands behind her and began to pace. “Ask yourselves this question: If a tree doesn’t have a heart to pump liquid through its system, then how does water travel from its roots all the way to the top of the tree?”

  “The answer is, of course, capillary action,” Drake replied. “Instead of veins, plants have capillaries—”

  “—which are very tiny tubes,” added Nell.

  “You see, water molecules are rather sticky,” said Drake.

  “If you spill water on a table,” Nell continued, “water molecules stick together in a puddle. In the same way, water molecules climb up the sides of a capillary tube, sticking together and traveling through the plant. It’s quite remarkable, really.”

  “And your point is—?” said Peter Underwood, frowning.

  Drake replied calmly, “The perpetrator simply injected dye into the stems, using a hypodermic syringe. Capillary action transported the dye through the roses, changing their blossoms into different colors.”

  “But why?” asked Mary. “Why would anyone do something so dreadfully rotten?”

  And then there followed a great silence, because, after all, it really was an excellent question. And no one had an excellent answer.

  Except one.

  Suddenly, Tess O’Brien crumpled to the floor.

  “I confess! I confess! It was me! I did it! I did the dirty deed!” She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Oh, sobbed quite terribly.

  Everyone gasped, including Drake and Nell.

  “But why?” Mary asked again.

  For a moment, Tess didn’t answer because she was so busy sobbing. But finally she wiped her eyes and blew her nose on her sleeve. “Because I’m so horrible at gardening. Because every year someone else wins. Because . . . because . . . well, just look at my bouquet! It’s not only slimy, it’s puny ! I mean, after all, I’m supposed to be earthy. People who are earthy should be whizzes at gardening! I couldn’t stand it anymore! I cracked under the pressure!”

  “There, there,” murmured Mary, and she put her arm around Tess.

  It was quite a hubbub.

  In the end, Mary agreed to help Tess by giving her private gardening lessons. In return, Tess would help Mary align her planets. All in all, everyone was quite satisfied.

  “Call us, anytime,” said Drake, handing Mary his business card.

  “I shall, I shall,” said Mary. “You and Nell have proved ever so brilliant. Cheerio!”

  Later that day, Drake wrote in his lab note–book:

  Swamp-Slime Rose case solved.

  Tess used Super-Soupy

  Swampy Slime Juice & Other

  Disgusting Dyes, developed

  and sold by Frisco.

  Received open invitation to all

  future garden parties.

  Paid in full.

  It was a blustery night, perfect for charting the growth of guppies. So, after washing the dishes and feeding her animals, Nell sat at her desk and flipped on the lamp. Ten seconds later, the phone rang.

  “Doyle and Fossey,” she answered, shoving her pencil behind her ear.

  It was Drake. “Have you read today’s copy of The Frisco Files ?”

  “Negative.”

  “Read the cover story. There’s no time to lose.”

  “Check.” Nell set down the receiver and dug in her school backpack. Every week, Frisco published and sold his own science newsletter for five cents per copy. Although a nickel was too much money for such bad science, Drake and Nell always wanted to know what Frisco was up to.

  Nell read, her eyes growing larger by the second.

  “This is bad,” said Nell, shaking her head.

  “Agreed,” replied Drake.

  “And did you notice that today at school we could hardly give away copies of our own newsletter?” asked Nell. Drake and Nell also published a weekly newsletter called Amazing Science for Geniuses and the Merely Curious. This week their newsletter detailed Sloane Westcott’s laundry-chute blastoff. (Needless to say, Sloane was not amused.)

  “We gave away only five copies,” said Drake, “as opposed to our usual ninety.”

  “While Frisco’s newsletter was selling like hotcakes,” said Nell.

  “Here’s the deal,” Drake said, sounding very serious. “Our reputation is at stake. Therefore, we must go to the graveyard to investigate. Dad and I will pick you up at seven-fifty sharp.”

  “Check.”

  Click.

  Old Mossy Graveyard was the oldest, spookiest graveyard in town. Not only did it have crumbling, lichen-covered tombstones, but it also had twisted trees and things that went bump! and oooh! in the night.

  Fortunately, tonight was a full moon. Perfect for investigating. And as Drake, Nell, and Dr. Livingston, Nell’s dog, clambered out of the car, the wind moaned, sounding perfectly haunted.

  “Don’t be long,” said Mr. Doyle. And, like all the other parents in all the other cars, he turned on the interior light, rolled down his window, and opened his newspaper. “Scream if you need me.”

  “Roger that,” said Drake and Nell as they shut the car door.

  Up the winding path near the gardener’s shed, they saw a line of kids. Sloane was taking their money. “That’ll be one dollar. Seat 3C. Next!”

  When Sloane saw Drake and Nell, she frowned. “Wouldn’t you know. It’s the beaker-brain twins and their dumb dog.”

  Nell ignored Sloane and whipped out three dollars. “My treat,” Nell said to Drake and Dr. Livingston.

  “Seats 4A, B, and C,” snapped Sloane. “They’re the crummiest seats I’ve got. And no funny detective stuff, or I’ll kick you out. And no refunds.”

  Once Nell took her seat, with D
rake on one side and Dr. Livingston on the other, the show began.

  Sloane stood before the audience. “Welcome to the greatest ghost show on earth! And without further ado, let’s begin.” She waved her arms around, sprinkled some glittery dust, and said, “Abracadabra! Presto chango! Hocus pocus! Alakazam!”

  Nothing.

  More glittery dust. “Abracadabra! Presto chango! Hocus pocus! Alakazam!”

  Nothing.

  “Ahem. Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said , Abracadabra! Presto chango! Hocus pocus! And Alaka-ZAM! ARE YOU DEAF, OR WHAT?!” And then, just as Nell was about to cross her arms smugly, there appeared . . .

  . . . a ghost.

  A chill swept up Nell’s spine as both the ghost and the wind began to howl. Beside her, Dr. Livingston growled. Drake almost fell off his chair.

  “Oh my gosh,” whispered Nell. “I can’t believe it. It’s real. ”

  The ghost was terrifying.

  Ghoulish.

  Wrapped in chains and dripping with blood, it waved its arms about, moaning.

  And then, as if blood and chains and moans weren’t enough, Sloane walked right through the ghost. “I am not afraid,” she declared, with her hands on her hips.

  “AAAAHHHH!!!!!!” screamed the audience.

  “Fascinating,” murmured Drake.

  “Scary,” whispered Nell.

  Grrr, growled Dr. Livingston.

  And then the ghost began to speak. “Ooooooh! I ammmm the ghossst of Mossssy Laaaake. Yooou muuussst doooooo what I ssssaaaay. Yooou muuussst put all your moneeeeeeyyyy innnn the jaaarrr, or else I will haunt you forrrevvvver! Oooooooooh!”

  “AAAAHHHH!!!!!!” screamed the audience again.

  “Hmm,” murmured Drake.

  “Sounds fishy,” whispered Nell.

  Grrr, growled Dr. Livingston.

  Soon the clink of money filled the air.

  Nell ignored the money jar and took notes in her notebook, using her handy-dandy flashlight pen. Every now and then, Drake whispered his observations in her ear, which she jotted down as well. But there was something about the ghost’s voice that wasn’t quite right. Something Nell couldn’t put her finger on. It bothered her, rather like having an itch where you can’t scratch. Meanwhile, Dr. Livingston disappeared.