Chapter
1
In the Tree House
My name is Jones. Jigsaw Jones. I’m a detective. I solve mysteries.
If your socks are missing, I’m the guy to track them down. I get a dollar a day for my trouble. So here’s a free hint: Try looking under your bed first.
But let’s face it. Missing socks aren’t very exciting. Sure, they might have holes. They might even stink like old cheese. But they won’t scare you.
I’d rather track down a ghost than a pair of argyle socks.
The thing is, I just did. Track down a ghost, that is.
Go figure.
I was sitting in my tree house just a few days ago.
My partner and best friend, Mila Yeh, was the first one up the tree house ladder. Mila was followed by a girl I’d never seen before. She wore a baggy orange sweater, a skirt, and bulky green socks.
Mila introduced us. “Jigsaw, this is Cassandra. She’s the girl I told you about.”
Cassandra’s bangs were cut in a straight line across her forehead. And I mean a perfectly straight line. Her eyes were unusually large and peered out from behind extremely thick glasses. They made her look like a South American tree frog.
Cassandra’s body was short and stout. Before I knew it, I was absentmindedly singing in a soft voice, “I’m a little teapot, short and…”
Mila gave me a sharp look. I stopped singing.
“Grape juice?” I offered. “Cookies?”
Cassandra said yes to both. She took a noisy gulp of grape juice and swallowed loudly. She chomped on the cookies with all the delicacy of a Great Dane.
“Mila tells me you’ve seen a ghost,” I murmured.
I said this flatly. No feeling in my voice. I could have been talking about a stack of pancakes. But I wasn’t. This girl, Cassandra Something-or-Other, claimed that she had seen a ghost.
In our school.
At night.
The story gets even better. This ghost, she claimed, glowed in the dark.
Spooky, huh? Maybe.
I did my best not to roll my eyes. I listened carefully and nodded when it seemed like a nod needed doing. I took notes in my detective journal. And I kept my doubts to myself.
Here’s the thing: I don’t believe in ghosts. But I do believe in clients. And I believe in getting paid. So I was willing to listen to Cassandra’s story. What else was I going to do in a tree house in the middle of the afternoon? Ride a pogo stick? I don’t think so.
Besides, Cassandra had already eaten the last of my cookies. So I shut my mouth and listened.
Chapter
2
Cassandra’s Warning
“I live across the street from school,” Cassandra began. “I first saw the ghost about two weeks ago.”
I looked up from my journal. “You’ve seen this ghost more than once?”
Cassandra nodded. Yes.
“Tell me about the first time,” I said.
“It was during the witching hour.”
I held up a hand. “What do you mean, ‘the witching hour’?”
Cassandra leaned forward. She croaked, “You know, the hour when all the dark things, like ghosts and wizards and monsters, come out from hiding.”
“What time is the witching hour, exactly?” Mila asked.
Cassandra shrugged. “It changes every night,” she replied. “At least, that’s what Roald Dahl says.”
I was confused.
“Rolled … doll?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Cassandra noted.
Since it worked so well the first time, I repeated myself. “Rolled … doll?”
I’m guessing that the look on my face said something like, “Wha—?”
So Cassandra added: “He’s a famous author. He wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG…”
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Roald Dahl! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“I thought I did.”
Hmmm. Well, perhaps she did. “Don’t cloud the issue with facts,” I scolded, raising an eyebrow.
Mila explained. “According to people who believe in this—stuff—there’s a time in the night when everyone is asleep.”
Cassandra nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes. That’s when the monsters come out!”
I scratched the back of my neck. “How do you figure? You were awake at the time,” I noted.
“I was sleeping. Then I woke up, silly,” Cassandra replied. “Once the monsters are out, they can’t simply disappear in an instant. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I see,” I mumbled. But I didn’t see at all. And I didn’t like being called silly, either. The whole thing had me in a fog. Monsters? Ghosts? I felt like I was trapped in a bad Scooby-Doo cartoon.
Cassandra continued. “I woke up at around ten o’clock at night. For some reason, I looked out my bedroom window. It’s on the second floor. That’s when I saw the ghost.”
“Uh-huh,” I murmured. “The ghost.”
“Yes,” Cassandra replied. “It was floating by the classroom windows. It moved strangely. And it was glowing.”
I poured myself a tall glass of grape juice.
Cassandra explained that she’s seen this ghost two other times, always on Tuesdays.
Finally, I pushed the coin jar in front of her. “We’ll look into this mystery for you,” I said. “We get a dollar a day.”
Cassandra quickly looked at Mila.
“Er, Jigsaw,” Mila interrupted, “I told Cassandra that we’d do this pro bono.”
“Say what?”
“Pro bono,” Mila repeated. “For free.”
Cassandra smiled. “It’s awfully nice of you guys.”
“Yeah, awfully,” I muttered.
But I guess Mila was right. A good detective can’t walk away from a mystery.
Mila handed Cassandra our business card. “Call Jigsaw the next time you see anything. Anytime. Day or night.”
“Even if it’s the witching hour?” she asked.
“Yes, even if it’s the witching hour.”
Copyright © 2004 by James Preller
