Goofballs 4: The Mysterious Talent Show Mystery Read Online Free

did.

    “We need to get to the bottom of this,” I said.
    “In the meantime, our guilty party is still on the loose,” said Kelly.
    “I hope my costume isn’t loose,” said Brian. “I need to look good for my family. They’ll all be there to see the show.”
    What Brian said turned out to be a big, large, huge, and enormous clue.
    But I didn’t know it yet.
    No one did.

5

The Big Costume Mix-up
    B efore school on Friday, Kelly, Brian, Mara, and I talked about the talent show mysteries.
    We talked between classes.
    We talked on our way to the high school.
    But nothing was coming together.
    “Three mysteries and no suspects,” Kelly said with a sigh. “You don’t have to be a math expert to know those numbers don’t add up.”
    “
Brain
could probably add them up,” said Brian. “But he doesn’t want to right now.”
    When we entered the auditorium, Mrs. Rinkle and Tiffany were carrying a big box onto the stage.

    “Costumes!” Mrs. Rinkle said.
    “I even made one for Sparky on my professional sewing machine,” said Tiffany.
    “Goof!” said Sparky.
    “That’s his one line!” said Mrs. Rinkle as she set down the carton on the stage.
    Suddenly, Tiffany stomped her dancing foot. “I forgot the animal hats and gloves. I’ll be right back.” She went up the aisle, leaving the door propped open with a shoe.
    Mrs. Rinkle beamed. “We’ll try these costumes on one at a time in the—”
    “Me first!” cried Brian, snatching his bat suit from the carton and running into the costume room to change.
    Mrs. Rinkle laughed. “That’s the spirit. It shows that no matter how many delays we’ve had, this will be the best show—”
    “Ugh! Ouch! No, you don’t! Hey! HELP!”
    “That’s Brian in the costume room!” I said
    “His hands are fighting!” said Kelly.
    “Maybe it’s a duel to the death!” said Mara.
    But when we raced into the costume room, Brian’s hands weren’t swordfighting.
    He was twisted up in his bat costume and desperately trying to get out.
    “My arms disappeared,” he cried. “And I still need them for lots of stuff!”
    Brian’s feet were down where the knees should be. His head was invisible. His arms were lost in big folds of fuzzy black fabric, and his bat wings flopped across the floor.

    “Something about this isn’t right,” said Mrs. Rinkle.
    Then Billy tried on his Mr. Monkey suit. But it came up only to his waist.
    “I think this was made for my little monkey brother. And I don’t
have
a little monkey brother! Or any kind of brother!”
    Kelly slipped into her River Fairy outfit. Except that it sort of slipped into her.
    “What kind of River Fairy wears baggy pants?” she asked.
    “River Fairies are elegant and beautiful. Like me,” she said.
    Mara couldn’t get her actual trunk into her tree trunk. “My roots can’t breathe! Help!”
    None of our costumes fit.
    “Let me see the measurement sheet,” I said, taking it from Tiffany’s costume box. It was a sheet of blue paper. “Wait a second. Weren’t the measurements on a sheet of
yellow
paper? I wonder …” Then something occurred to me. “I have an idea. Kelly, would you try on Tiffany’s zebra suit?”
    “I don’t look good in stripes, but okay.” But when Kelly tried on Tiffany’s costume, it fit her perfectly. “I
do
look good in stripes!”
    Mrs. Rinkle’s jaw dropped. “What can this possibly mean?”
    “It means,” I said, “that someone
deliberately
switched each person’s measurements to the next person on the list,” I said.
    “It also means that Tiffany is going to explode when she finds out,” said Brian.
    “Finds out what?” said Tiffany, clacking into the room with a box of animal hats and gloves. But the moment she saw the crazy zoo in front of her, she wailed loudly.
    “Ohhhhh!”
    She dropped the box of hats and gloves and tried on her outfit after Kelly had taken it off.
    “Someone switched the measurements!” she cried. “I slaved day and night to