D is for Detective, An Ollie Bug Mystery #atozchallenge

 

Ollie Bug; Detective of Adventure.  That’s’ what the sign says on the door.  There was a knock at the door.  It was a Koala with a bow in her fur.  She said her name was Spoon.  She told me she needed help, that someone stole her jewelry box full of jelly beans.  It was full of the green ones, her favorite.  She said she spent a lot of time picking them out because no one else in the Meadow liked them and now they were gone.  She was willing to pay in cookies, butterscotch.  She knew my weakness.  I was on the case.

I went to the clubhouse, where she said she’d last seen them.  We went there to look for clues.  The Bearly Brothers, Bearly There and Clownley Clown were there playing a board game with Artemouse.  My dragon pal Gordon was there, too.

I searched the place but there was no box of green jellybeans.  I decided to question the suspects.  All of them remember seeing the box but no one confessed to taking it.  Artemouse left before Spoon.  Bearly There had fallen asleep, as usual, before Spoon went home and didn’t remember seeing it after he woke up.  Clownley said he played video games with Spoon but didn’t know anything about a box of jellybeans and besides, he didn’t like the green ones.  Gordon said he’d left before anyone and excused himself to go pick up the pizzas he ordered for lunch.

I was back to the start.  No box, no clues and no suspects.  Spoon was very upset.  She couldn’t figure out why any one of her friends would want to steal a box of jellybeans from her.  First, they were the least popular flavor and second, there were her friends.  She couldn’t believe someone would do that.  I asked her if she had a picture of the box.   It was a small round wooden box that looked sort of like a bird’s nest. The jelly beans inside looked like green eggs in the nest.  I had found the key clue.

I excused myself and took a quick trip up into the mountains on a hunch.  There among the rocks I found fragments of green eggshells.  I had my answer.  I knew who took the jelly beans and why.

I returned to the clubhouse later that evening and found everyone together as usual.  I had a slice of pizza (maybe two) and addressed the group.  “After my extensive investigation I have concluded that one of you here took Spoon’s box of green jellybeans.”  There was a collective gasp.  I silenced them.  “One of you took the box, but you didn’t mean to.  You see, Green jelly beans aren’t the favorite so no one wanted to eat them, except Spoon so she put them in a box to take home but they never made it.  All of your stories checked out.  Except something occurred to me as soon as I saw the box.  It looks like a nest.  A nest full of eggs.  Green eggs.”  Everyone looked puzzled.  Almost everyone.  One of them broke a sweat.  I continued.

“Green eggs.  Where does one find green eggs?” I asked.  “Isn’t that where limes come from?” asked Bearly There.  “I thought that’s how they make mint chocolate, from mint green eggs,” said Artemouse.  I shook my head.

“As I was saying,” I went on, “Green eggs are only found on mountain ridges.  Where dragons come from!”  I looked straight at Gordon who was fumbling with something in his hands.

“You’re right.  I did it,” he said.  “I didn’t know they were jellybeans.  I thought it was a nest of dragon eggs because I wasn’t here when they were divided up.  I sat on the box every night waiting for them to hatch.  When I saw what was going on here I felt silly so I was waiting to sneak them back here.  I’m sorry, Spoon.  I had no idea.”  He handed the box to Spoon.  She took her box, gave Gordon a hug and everyone had a laugh at the thought of a giant dragon sitting on a box of jellybeans.

That was the case of the missing box of beans.  I went back to my office and feasted on my butterscotch cookies wondering where they get mint chocolate anyway.