Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Disgusting Sneakers (5 page)

“Where?” Ike blurted.

Encyclopedia pointed to the shopping bag. On it was printed the name Just Skirts, a phone number, and an address.

“The pamphlet has to be at Just Skirts in the Suniland shopping center!” Ike exclaimed. “I’m saved!”

He rushed into the kitchen to call Just Skirts. Encyclopedia heard him dial, hang up, dial, then hang up again.

“Nobody answers,” Ike said mournfully.

“I’d drive you,” Mr. Ryan said, “but I’m waiting for Harry Clark. We have business to discuss.”

He reached into his pocket.

“The number-nine bus stops at the Suniland shopping center,” he said. “It’s only a ten-minute ride.”

He handed the boys bus fare and went back to his newspaper.

Encyclopedia tried to comfort Ike. “You’ve got more than an hour before you have to return the pamphlet,” he said encouragingly.

“Th-That’s all?” Ike gurgled. “Do you think Hewitt would really hit an unarmed little kid?”

The Suniland shopping center was a strip of five stores along Gelula Avenue. Just Skirts was at the southern end. A sign,
CLOSED FOR INVENTORY
, hung in the window.

Ike put his forehead to the glass pane. “There’s no one inside. They’ve quit for the day!”

Encyclopedia was puzzled. “Over the telephone your mother sounded as if she were coming here to bring back the gray skirt.”

“I thought so, too,” Ike said.

“Maybe she changed her mind and went straight to your grandmother’s.”

Ike whooped. “So she took the shopping bag with her! Encyclopedia, your brain never stops!”

Ike used a pay phone to call his grandmother.

Encyclopedia sat down on an iron bench. Something was bothering him. He looked at the store signs hanging below the ceiling of the covered walk.

Next to Just Skirts was a hardware store.
Then came a beauty parlor, a drugstore, and a dry cleaner.

The detective closed his eyes and did some deep thinking. It took half a minute to come up with the answer.

He opened his eyes and saw Ike standing by the telephone, clutching his wrist.

“What are you doing?” Encyclopedia asked.

“I’m taking my pulse,” Ike whimpered. “There’s no answer at Grandma’s. Mom must have driven her somewhere.” He let out a groan. “What can Hewitt do to me that will make people ask if I was ever dead?”

Encyclopedia could name a dozen things. He said merely, “Cheer up. I know where your mother is.”

WHERE?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Missing Shopping Bag.)

O
n the day of the Disgusting Sneaker Contest, Phoebe Eastwood, last year’s champion, walked into the Brown Detective Agency. She had on shoes.

Encyclopedia immediately knew something was afoot.

All year Phoebe had prepared for the defense of her title by wearing the same pair of sneakers. She had them in really disgusting shape.

“I want to hire you,” she said, laying twenty-five cents on the gas can beside Encyclopedia.
“Some girl swiped my right sneaker.”

Bad as her left sneaker was, her right sneaker was worse. It had two large holes in front. Her toes poked through like stunned tadpoles.

“I kept the sneakers outside the garage,” Phoebe said. “Mom never allows them in the house. She says the smell would make an elephant faint.”

All at once Encyclopedia wished he were somewhere else, like somersaulting down a ski jump.

“Go on,” he said bravely.

“An hour ago I was sitting in the garage, clipping my toenails, the ones that show through the right sneaker,” Phoebe said. “The door was open, and I noticed a girl running across my yard.”

“Who was it?” Sally asked.

“I only saw her back,” Phoebe said. “But she was carrying my sneaker.”

“Whoever stole your sneaker wants to stop you from winning again,” Sally said. “That means she’s in the Disgusting Sneaker Contest herself.”

“Then go out to South Park and watch the contest,” Phoebe urged. “Maybe you can spot the thief.”

Encyclopedia cared less than zero about getting up close and personal with the rottenest sneakers in Idaville.

Still … duty called.

As they biked to South Park, Phoebe told the detectives all about the Disgusting Sneaker Contest.

The event raised money for charity through entrance fees and sponsors. There were only two rules. Sneakers had to belong to the child whose feet were in them, and damage couldn’t be caused by anything but natural wear.

“The judges grade sneakers on a scale of one to twenty,” Phoebe said. “They look at eyelets, tongues, soles, heels, and overall condition.”

The judging had begun when they reached South Park. Ann Little, Phoebe’s classmate, hurried over to her.

“I was getting worried,” Ann said. “I thought something happened to you.”

“Something did,” Phoebe replied sadly.
“Somebody stole my right sneaker while I was clipping my nails.”

“I don’t see Bugs Meany,” Sally remarked, glancing around. “He’s been bragging all week that he’s a ‘shoe-in.’ ”

“Bugs was thrown out on his ear,” Ann answered happily. “He beat up his sneakers with an electric weed cutter, but he didn’t fool the judges.”

“Have you been judged?” Phoebe asked.

“At the moment I’m in the lead,” Ann said. “But Stinky Redmond, Tessie Bottoms, and lots of others haven’t had their turn.”

“Tessie’s just been called,” Sally said.

Tessie, an eighth-grader, strutted up confidently. She removed both sneakers and laid them on the table in front of the judges.

All the judges wore rubber gloves for protection. They picked up each sneaker and examined it at arm’s length.

Tessie received seventeen points, putting her in the lead. She paraded over to Phoebe.

“Top that, kiddo!” she gloated.

“Knock it off, Tessie,” Ann said. “Phoebe’s not in the contest this year. Somebody stole her right sneaker while she was clipping her toenails.”

“If she ever learns what socks are for, she won’t have to worry about her toenails,” Tessie jeered.

Suddenly there was a big fuss by the table. Mrs. Carstairs, one of the judges, had swooned and couldn’t continue.

“You’ve got to smell this contest to believe it,” she muttered as she was helped away. “I should have brought a gas mask.”

“Maybe the judges should get prizes,” Sally observed.

Encyclopedia mumbled. His mind was on something else.

Something he had heard or seen bothered him. He was trying to remember what it was when Stinky Redmond’s name was called.

“Stinky could have dressed up as a girl and stolen Phoebe’s sneaker,” Sally said. “He’s tricky enough to slip a full moon past a werewolf.”

Stinky wore black-and-white jogging sneakers. He laid them on the judges’ table and looked cockily at Tessie.

“Did you see that?” Phoebe exclaimed. “He looked at Tessie as if she were his biggest rival, not me. He knows I can’t defeat
him because I have only one sneaker!”

“Phoebe’s right,” Ann said. “Stinky gave himself away. He’s the thief!”

“Someone ought to wrinkle his chin,” Sally said.

“Wait,” Encyclopedia cautioned. He was still trying to remember.

The winners were announced at three o’clock. Stinky won. Tessie finished second.

Sally and Phoebe and Ann cheered an instant later. Ann had taken third.

Encyclopedia didn’t groan or cheer. He had remembered.

“You’re the thief,” he said to …

WHO WAS THE THIEF?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Disgusting Sneakers.)

O
n Friday, Encyclopedia and Charlie Stuart went camping. They pitched their pup tent by a stream miles from town.

The next morning they were awakened at dawn by the tapping of rain—and by the noise of a helicopter flying too low.

“Sounds like it’s going to crash!” Charlie yelped.

Both boys struggled out of their sleeping bags and into their clothes.

They raced from their campsite, across a bridge and into a thick wood.

The helicopter had not crashed. It had
landed in a muddy clearing.

“Something’s funny,” Encyclopedia whispered. “Get behind a tree and stay down.”

A gray van drove up. The driver got out. He and the pilot moved three large boxes from the helicopter to the van.

“Smugglers,” Charlie breathed.

The men shook hands, and the pilot got back inside the helicopter. It took off in a whir of blades. The van rocked but did not move. A rear wheel whined, spinning in the mud.

The driver got out of the van and swore, looked at the wheel, then swore again. He started for the wood.

“He’s seen us!” Charlie squeaked.

“He’s coming for branches to put under the tire,” Encyclopedia said. “However … let’s get out of here!”

“I don’t know how you do it,” Charlie said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

The boys hightailed it back to their tent.

“I’ve got to get to a telephone and call Dad,” Encyclopedia panted, climbing on his bike.

“Something tells me I’m going with you,” Charlie said shakily.

The rain was falling harder as they
reached the outskirts of Idaville.

None of the stores were open, but on Third Street they saw a pay phone. It didn’t do them any good. They had only fifteen cents between them.

“I’ll bike on home,” Encyclopedia said.

“You’ll be too late,” Charlie replied. “By the time your dad gets to the clearing, the rain will have washed away all trace of the helicopter and the van. He won’t—”

Charlie’s jaw dropped in surprise. The gray van was coming down the street.

“Let’s follow it,” Encyclopedia said.

“I wish us a lot of very good luck,” Charlie said with a moan.

The van turned left into an alley and stopped at the rear entrance to R. C. Duggan’s Import-Export Shop.

The driver and a big, dark-haired man unloaded the boxes. Encyclopedia and Charlie hid behind a dumpster.

“That does it,” the big man said. “Ditch the van and get back here.”

The van roared off. The big man went into the shop, leaving the door open a crack.

“Let’s take a peek,” Encyclopedia said.

“Not me,” Charlie replied. “It’s better to be a coward for a day than a dead fifth-grader for the rest of my life.”

“Just a quick look around,” Encyclopedia said. “In and out before the driver returns.”

“Okay,” Charlie murmured. He gulped and pressed his hand to his chest. “Be still, my foolish heart.”

The boys slipped through the door and entered a storeroom. Encyclopedia heard the big man moving in a front room.

The three large boxes stood against the storeroom wall.

In the dim light of the room’s two naked bulbs, Encyclopedia read the writing on each box.

“What does this mean?” Charlie whispered.

“It’s Spanish,” Encyclopedia replied. “It says the three boxes were shipped from Peru, a country in South America, and are going to a man in Spain.”

He pulled the tape off one box and opened it. Inside were clay pots. They appeared very old and were wrapped in foam material to keep them from breaking.

“Look in them,” Charlie urged.

Encyclopedia looked. The pots were empty.

“I figured we’d find something valuable hidden inside,” Charlie muttered. “Like diamonds.”

“They seem to be copies of ancient Indian pots,” Encyclopedia Brown said thoughtfully. “South American Indians made pottery more than three thousand years ago. If these pots were real, they’d be worth a fortune.”

He pointed to the word
copy
, painted in white on the bottom of each pot. The paint rubbed off.

“Let’s open the other two boxes,” Charlie said. “There has to be
something
more.”