Who Stole Halloween? Read Online Free

compliment from her. Mean-while,Bub thought it would be great if Yasmeen and I went to work on another mystery, and he offered to help.
    â€œMaybe you can,” I said. “Mom said something about the missing cats being connected to a Halloween story. Do you know anything about that?”
    Bub nodded. “I think I know what she’s talking about. It has to do with the old Harvey house downtown, the one the Blancos put all that work into.”
    â€œThe one that’s
haunted
,” I said, looking at Yasmeen.
    â€œThat’s how the story goes,” Bub said. “Supposed to be that the ghost has it in for cats—black cats in particular. It’s been years now, but I can remember cats disappearing around Halloween time and the Harvey ghost taking the blame.”
    â€œThere’s no such thing as ghosts,” Yasmeen said.
    Bub shrugged. “I don’t know if there is or there isn’t. But if you want to know more about the story, we have an authority nearby—JonathanStone. He was born here in town—knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak.”
    Mr. Stone also lives on our street. He’s an older guy. His wife is dead, and his kids are grown-up.
    â€œHave you seen him tonight?” Yasmeen looked around.
    Bub shook his head no. “He’s not much for parties.”
    This was true. In fact, Yasmeen and I used to be afraid of him. But then last year when he caught us trespassing in his yard, he didn’t yell, he invited us in, served us hot chocolate, and even gave us a really important clue to the mystery we were working on. That was the first one Luau, Yasmeen, and I solved, and it turned out to be pretty scary, as well as confusing. Somebody had been stealing pieces of our neighborhood’s annual Twelve-Days-of-Christmas display.
    â€œYou know who else is missing tonight?” Bub asked. “The father.”
    It was my turn to look around. “Mr. Lee?”
    â€œAh-yup,” said Bub. “I hear a business deal came up, and he’s out of town.”
    This was no surprise. Mr. Lee works all the time, same as my dad did before he quit to be a househusband.
    Now Miss Deirdre stood up and clacked her knitting needles to attract everyone’s attention.
    â€œBoys and girls?” she said. Then she looked all embarrassed and shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s force of habit. What I
meant
to say was welcome!”
    She said a few more smiley words about the wonders of new babies and moms and all that. Then it was time for presents.
    The first one was a baby monitor, one of those walkie-talkie things. You put the microphone by the crib so you can hear on the receiver if the baby fusses or burps or tries to escape. Bub had never seen one, so I explained.
    Bub shook his head. “I never knew a baby that had trouble making itself heard.”
    Next, Mrs. Lee opened a tiny outfit with bears on it, and all the moms in the room said,
“Awww.”
After that came a blanket with pictures of sailboats. Then another baby monitor. Thisone was what my dad would call high-tech, everything really small and shiny.
    After a while, I learned something about baby showers: The presents are boring. About the only interesting one was a teddy bear that played music by Mozart. It came from Mr. and Mrs. Sikora, who explained that classical music makes babies smart.
    â€œIf that’s true, they must have forgotten to plug in Sophie’s bear,” Yasmeen whispered.
    I laughed, but Bub shook his head. “You kids are wrong about her. She’s rambunctious, but she’s smart as a whip. When my doorbell busted, who do you think rewired it?”
    Yasmeen and I looked at each other. Was it possible Sophie was some kind of genius with electronic stuff?
    Or maybe this was another one of Bub’s famous jokes.
    Anyway, after that, Mrs. Lee opened a battery-powered wastebasket for smelly diapers, and Yasmeen and I