Joe Sherlock Kid Detective 2 The Neighborhood Stink (8 page)

Animal Instincts

My dad once told me that there’s a section of a person’s brain about the size of a hockey puck that controls our animal instincts.

Basically, it’s the chunk of brain that helped the first humans survive in the world before we invented things like frozen burritos and cable TV. “This section controls your ‘fight or flight’ response,” he said, tapping the back of my head. “It’s the only part of the brain we humans have in common with donkeys and ferrets and other animals of that ilk.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

Until now.

My brain’s hockey puck is now in full flight mode, and my legs are pumping as fast as hummingbird wings.

The fight part of my hockey puck doesn’t seem to be working, because all I can get my brain to think about is running.

Cujo has quickly become a legend in my neighborhood. Once Sherman Sheldon told me a mailman mysteriously disappeared without a trace one day, right after delivering the Ashers’

mail. The snarling I hear from behind me makes me believe that story more than ever.

For a second I think I can even smell Cujo’s breath—which smells weirdly like my dad’s burps after he eats too much candied-yam casserole.

Bottom line: Cujo is closing in fast.

Could the odor of olive oil on my skin be causing a feeding frenzy?

I’m too far from my house to make it safely there (and my sisters would probably lock me 93

out anyway). Lance’s house is in the opposite direction. So I try diversion.

I cut onto the Castros’ lawn and run through their sprinklers. I jump over several neatly trimmed hedges. I even knock over a big stone birdbath by accident, but Cujo is still at my heels.

In front of me I see Mrs. Fefferland’s white picket fence. It just might provide some protection. I have nothing to lose . . . but my legs and my arms!

So I make the leap of my life, spin around, and through the slats of that fence I see that Cujo is just three feet from me and moving in fast for the kill.

Alarm Bells

Have you ever watched one of those nature shows where some crazy guy is underwater in a cage and a giant shark is rocketing straight at him with his jaw open and all 364 razor-sharp teeth ready for business?

That’s all I can think of as I wait for my life to flash before my eyes. But it never does . . .

Because Cujo just runs on by.

He doesn’t burst through the fence and snatch me up like a rag doll. He doesn’t snarl and gnash his big teeth. He doesn’t even look at me.

He’s just gone. There is just a faint whiff of candied-yam casserole in the air. Nothing more.

My heart is banging around in my chest like a cat in a paper bag. But I’m safe. I’m all in one piece.

So why do I hear alarm bells? Did someone call the police? Is a fire truck rolling down the street to come to my rescue?

I realize the clanging is just my mom’s dinner bell. Even after my near-death experience, I still find that bell irritating.

When dinner is ready, my mom always walks out onto our porch and rings this big cowbell so me and my sisters will come and eat. But she rings that dang thing even when we’re

already sitting at the table. She says it was a tradition on her family’s farm when she was growing up. On a farm, a cowbell calling you for dinner is no big deal. But in a neighborhood with kids like Sherman Sheldon around, you might as well wear a sign that says I’M A MAJOR DOOFUS. PLEASE KICK ME HARD ON MY BACKSIDE.

“Between that cowbell and all that talking to plants,” Lance told me one day, “your mom just might be loony.”

I stand uneasily on my now-rubbery legs and steady myself against Mrs. Fefferland’s fence. This had been some day. In any detective’s notebook, I figure that this day would be marked down as a complete and total and utter disaster without any—

That’s when I hear it . . . a creepy scratching noise that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

I spin around in terror. There’s nobody there. Just that spooky scratching noise that sounds like it’s coming from another world.

And that’s when it hits me: Maybe the poops covering Mrs. Fefferland’s lawn have been planted by Elvis’s ghost!

My old dog has returned to haunt my neighborhood!

The Ghost Appears

When I see the white shape float silently onto the lawn in the dim evening light, my heart stops beating.

My brain’s hockey puck does a backflip.

My body prepares to launch a scream so loud that it will set off car alarms for several blocks.

But then the scream gets caught in my throat.

As the white ghost trots across the lawn and starts spinning in preparation for what dogs like to do on lawns, I realize that I’m not looking at Elvis’s ghost at all . . . I’m looking at Mrs. Fefferland’s dog, Tinker.

“What the—,” I gurgle. I stagger back a few steps and blink, trying to grasp exactly what this means. It’s as if the computer in my mind has crashed and I’m waiting for it to reboot.

I look back over my shoulder to confirm that the gate is closed. It is. My eyes scan the entire length of the fence for any open-ings that I’ve previously overlooked. There are none. “Mrs. Fefferland?” I call out in a high-pitched voice that I don’t even recognize as my own. There is no answer.

At this point my head begins to spin and my vision becomes a blurry mix of white picket fence, lovely green grass, and swirling dog poops.

Suddenly, in a remote area at the back of my brain, a small connection is made. I’m rebooting. My head stops spinning. Something clicks into place.

I take several carefully placed hops across the lawn and over to the fence. Somehow I know what I’m looking for. Then I find it! In the darkening shadows behind the bushes is the entrance to a small tunnel. Of course! The scratching noise I just heard was actually Tinker coming through a tunnel. Tinker has a secret tunnel that runs from Mrs.

Fefferland’s backyard, under the fence, and directly into the gated front yard!

I watch as Tinker finishes her business, scampers past me, and slips back down into her secret tunnel. She disappears down the hole and returns to Mrs. Fefferland’s backyard.

The tunnel is not more than three feet from where I sat a few hours before and got covered with ants during my stakeout.

I’m not sure if this fact makes me want to laugh or cry, and for a moment I teeter on the edge of both.

Finally I laugh. My case is solved. I’ve solved my second official case as a detective.

Case Closed

Mrs. Fefferland is more surprised than I am.

She doesn’t even believe me until I show her the tunnel myself.

She wheezes and clacks at her husband about getting a shovel out of the garage and plugging up Tinker’s tunnel. She rumbles around in circles several times, clacking to herself, before she realizes I’m still there.

After Mr. Fefferland produces a ten-dollar bill, Mrs. Fefferland wheezes good night, and then she asks me to keep this little incident between us.

I agree.

As I’m about to leave, Mr. Fefferland stops me. “Good work, Sherlock,” he whispers with a chuckle and a wink. He quickly slips me another ten-dollar bill. “That’s a tip for a job well done.”

“Thanks a million,” I say, carefully folding and pocketing my twenty bucks and running off to celebrate with a few heaping piles of spaghetti.

Looking back now, it seems like I should have figured out the Case of the Neighborhood Stink a lot earlier than I did. But as a kid still new to the detective game, I learned that every mystery has to run its own course. Because if you stick to it long enough, and keep your eye on the ball, the answer eventually falls right into your lap.

And if you’re lucky, you’ll be home in time for dinner