Chapter
1
Old Rusty
“Wait up, Jigsaw!” Ralphie Jordan cried out. “My bike chain slipped off!”
Oh, brother. Not again.
The town library was five minutes from my house. Four minutes if the wind was right. But today it was taking forever—all because of Ralphie Jordan’s bicycle.
Ralphie called it “Old Rusty.”
I would have called it “Old Hunk of Junk.”
Old Rusty could shake and rattle. But it couldn’t roll. Not very well, anyway. Its tires were bent. Spokes were missing. The handlebars were twisted. The seat was ripped. The fenders rattled. The brakes squeaked. And worst of all, the chain kept falling off the what-cha-ma-call-it. After every block, Ralphie had to stop. He got off, turned the bicycle upside down, and carefully slipped the chain back onto the round thingy.
I turned and rode back to Ralphie. He was a mess. Grease from the chain covered his face, shirt, and hands. “Maybe we should go home,” I offered.
“Hang on,” Ralphie said. “Old Rusty will get me there.” Ralphie patted Old Rusty on the, er, rust, and away we zoomed. At least, I zoomed. Old Rusty sort of crawled. Banging and clanging all the way.
Our teacher, Ms. Gleason, had given us book reports for homework. We had to find a book in the library, read it, and write about it. The book had to be at least eighty pages long.
Ralphie chained our bikes to the bike rack and we headed inside. I wandered into the mystery section. Ralphie seemed to wander all over. First, Ralphie stared into the fish tank, making goofy faces and glub-glub sounds. Then he walked along, picked up a book, turned to the last page, frowned, and put it back. Over and over again.
“What are you doing, Ralphie?” I asked.
“Just looking,” he said.
“What kind of book are you looking for?”
“A short one,” Ralphie replied. “And I just found it.” He held up a book. It was called Plastic: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.
“You want to do a report on … plastic?” I asked.
Ralphie opened the book to the last page. “Look, exactly eighty pages—and it has lots of pictures, too.”
I sighed and kept searching in the mystery section. After all, I was a detective. For a dollar a day, I made problems go away. I loved everything about mysteries—the clues, the secret codes, the disguises, everything. I even loved mystery stories. I picked out an Encyclopedia Brown.
We checked out our books and went outside.
At the bike rack, Ralphie stopped suddenly. “My bike!” he exclaimed. “It’s g-g-gone!”
Chapter
2
The Scene of the Crime
Ralphie’s lower lip trembled. He blinked back tears. “Where’s Old Rusty?” he asked me.
But Ralphie already knew the answer. He just couldn’t believe it. Somebody had stolen Ralphie’s bike.
I was lucky. My bike was still there.
I pulled my detective journal from my backpack. I wrote:
THE CASE OF THE BICYCLE BANDIT
“Wait here,” I told Ralphie. “Don’t touch anything. I’m going inside to call Mila. We’ll need her help.”
I told Mila to get down to the library, fast.
“How fast?” she asked.
“Like, yesterday,” I replied.
“I’ll be right there,” Mila answered.
I went back outside. Ralphie was sitting on the ground, cross-legged. His chin was buried in his hands.
While we waited for Mila, I drew a quick sketch. When you’re a detective, it’s important to study the scene of the crime. That’s how you find clues. There were five bicycles in the rack. Mine was brand-new, not a hand-me-down like Ralphie’s. I used to ride my brother Nicholas’s beat-up old bike. Then I helped pay for a new one with the money I earned from my detective business. It was a Cobra Daredevil with a banana-yellow frame.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Isn’t this your lock, Ralphie?”
Ralphie nodded. “Yeah.”
“I thought you locked up both bikes.”
“I did,” Ralphie answered.
I didn’t argue. But facts were facts. Here was my bike, locked up with Ralphie’s chain. His bike was gone. Maybe Ralphie had locked up only my bike by mistake.
Mila pulled up, slamming on the brakes. Her back wheel skidded on the cement. Ralphie barely noticed. He stared at the empty space in the bike rack, frowning.
Mila is my partner. Together, we solve mysteries. We’ve found missing hamsters, stolen baseball cards, lost sleds. We’ve even tangled with phony lake monsters and runaway dogs. But a stolen bicycle—that was something new. “All right,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”
I told Mila what we knew. She listened carefully, arms folded across her chest. “The bandit was lucky,” I said. “It looks like Ralphie forgot to lock his bicycle.”
Mila nodded. “Looks that way.”
Ralphie protested. “Don’t blame me. I locked up both bikes. I know I did. I know it.”
Mila bit her lip. She put her hand on Ralphie’s shoulder. “No one is blaming you,” she soothed. “You’re right to feel mad. Stealing a bicycle—that’s like the worst thing on earth. Only a real creep would do something like that.”
Ralphie sniffed and looked away. His eyes followed a bird circling in the sky. It circled once, twice, three times. Then it flew off.
Leaving behind an empty sky.
“A real creep,” Ralphie muttered in agreement.
Copyright © 2001 by James Preller
