Who Stole Halloween? Read Online Free Page B

all about detecting.
    Yeah, right.
    At three o’clock she knocked on the door.
    â€œSorry I’m late,” she said.
    â€œThat’s totally okay,” I said.
    â€œMom and Dad were hosting the fellowship hour after church, so we had to clean up. It took forever. The people at our church can really put it away, that’s what my dad says.”
    â€œIt’s probably too late to do any detecting now, right?” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Yasmeen said. “There’s plenty of light left. Come on. We’ll go over to the cemetery and walk from there back to Kyle’s house. Bring the ace detective, too. Since we’re on the trail of a catnapper, he’s going to want to help.”

Chapter Seven

    Yasmeen, Luau, and I have solved one whole mystery together. So I guess I can’t claim to be an expert. But here is something I think I know. A lot of the time, solving mysteries is unexciting.
    I mean, in the movies there are explosions and car chases and women wearing bathing suits. In real life it’s more like you look around, you ask questions, and you think hard.
    Anyway, unexciting is definitely how it was that Sunday afternoon. Yasmeen and I walked at the speed of snails from the cemetery gate to Kyle’s house and back again. By the fence wefound an empty beer can. On the sidewalk we found a gum wrapper. Next to an old green car we found a grocery receipt. Yasmeen, who was wearing yellow rubber gloves, carefully saved each in a plastic bag.
    â€œWhat’s with the gloves?” I asked her.
    â€œSo we can preserve the catnapper’s fingerprints,” she said.
    â€œBut we don’t have a way to analyze fingerprints,” I said.
    â€œYour mom does.”
    â€œRight, Yasmeen,” I said. “She’s gonna get the whole FBI crime lab involved to find a missing cat.”
    â€œ
Three
missing cats.”
    â€œWe don’t even know if the others are connected to this one!”
    â€œOh, come on, Alex. Do you think there’s more than one thief grabbing cats in the middle of the night?”
    â€œHow do I know? Maybe it’s a coincidence. Anyway, the circumstances in the other cases were different. My mom said those owners werenegligent, didn’t care that much about their cats. Does Kyle seem negligent to you?”
    â€œNo,” Yasmeen admitted. “But that just makes it more mysterious, right?”
    Luau did not turn out to be keen on detecting, even though the case was catnapping. What he wanted instead was regular napping, and the cemetery didn’t disturb his dreams either. While Yasmeen and I collected our useless clues, he slept in a cozy spot by a headstone. We were about ready to give up when he strolled toward us, tail swishing, nose in the air.
    â€œHe smells something,” I told Yasmeen.
    â€œDoes it have anything to do with Kyle’s cat?” Yasmeen asked.
    â€œMore likely with some tasty rodent.”
    Luau sniffed for a few seconds, then he walked down the sidewalk and stopped next to the old green car. I could see he wanted to get under it from the curb, but the car was parked too close, so there wasn’t space. He did a quick ear swipe and looked back at me, which meant,
Take a look under there, why don’t you? Something smells
very
interesting
.
    I crouched and peered into the darkness.
    â€œWhat do you see?” Yasmeen asked.
    â€œNothing,” I said, then, “Oh . . . wait. There is something. It’s round.” I reached and brushed it with my fingertips. “I need a stick—do you see one?”
    What Yasmeen found was more like a branch. It was awkward, but I managed to bump it against the thing till I had moved it over to the side.
    â€œGloves!” Yasmeen said, but by then I had already grabbed the thing. Any catnapper prints were now mixed up with mine.
    In daylight our mysterious object seemed to be a handkerchief wrapped around a