Sophie Manning
Mrs. Roskamp
LA, 8A
17 February 2017
The Mystery of the Stolen Snacks
It was a cold January in Zeeland. Timmy Trueheart was getting ready for school. There was three feet of snow on the ground, but the principal never canceled school for snow in this stern Dutch community near Lake Michigan. Timmy was 15 years old and lived with his mom, dad and big sister, Lucy, in a small, brick duplex on the corner of Lawrence and Pine.
“Timmy, have you got your boots?”, his mom shouted anxiously from the kitchen.
“Yes, mom.” sighed Timmy as he pulled on his furry brown Uggs.
“Timmy, did you eat all the Doritos?” his mom said as she stepped into the foyer and handed Timmy his lunch. “I just bought a jumbo size bag at Walmart last week, and now I can’t find it anywhere!”
“It must have gone to the same place as the box of Oreos and the six pack of Mr. Pibb last week,” said Timmy. “We sure have been missing a lot of snack food around here lately. I think Lucy is eating it. She keeps bringing stuff to school so she doesn’t have to spend her lunch money at Zeeland High. Since she got her driving licence last year, she’s been saving for a car, you know.”
“Yes, but Lucy doesn’t like Doritos. She says they’re made from ‘genetically modified organisms’ that hurt the planet,” said mom thoughtfully. “I just can’t think where they might have gone!”
Timmy loaded up his backpack with his books and computer, grabbed his brown paper lunch sack and headed out the door. Walking to school, he wondered where all the junk food in the house had been going. For about a month now, the soda, chips, cookies and candy bars were always disappearing from the refrigerator and the snack cupboard at their house. It was really becoming quite a mystery.
At school, in English class, Timmy was reading short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. He thought to himself that maybe he should investigate the “junk food caper” going on at his own house. When Timmy got back from school, he got out a big piece of posterboard and wrote down the most obvious suspects.
First, there was his mom, Mrs. Trueheart. She certainly had means and opportunity. She brought the food home from the store and she put it away. She had a motive, too. Mom was always on a diet. Last month, it was the grapefruit diet. She had been eating nothing but grapefruit for four solid weeks! Now, certainly, a little Mr. Pibb and a few Oreos would have helped her choke down all those grapefruits. Still, mom was not really known for telling lies. She seemed genuinely concerned about the missing snacks.
Next, there was dad, Mr. Trueheart. He was a 54 year old banker. Mr. Trueheart also had reasons to be a good suspect. Because he sat a lot at work, he had become quite overweight. Also, as he suffered from sleep apnea, he was often up late at night walking around the kitchen trying to catch his breath. Mr. Trueheart, however, didn’t really care for soda. He usually drank wine, beer or coffee. Anyway, he could just buy snacks at work if he wanted them.
Then, of course, there was sister Lucy. She was saving for that red Chevrolet Camaro down at Van Andel’s used car dealership. But Lucy went to bed early. You also couldn’t get her up in the morning for anything. She slept like a rock. She really didn’t have the opportunity to steal junk food without anyone knowing about it.
Timmy’s poster of suspects wasn’t very helpful. Nobody on it really fit the crime. So, Tim decided to do some more investigating. He got out his magnifying glass and started searching the house for clues. As he began to look around, he found pieces of pink insulation from the attic on the floor in front of his sister’s closet. There were two more pieces in front of the refrigerator. In Lucy’s closet, in the ceiling, there was an access panel to the attic. Timmy climbed up the shelves of the closet and opened the trap door in the ceiling. He stuck his head in, and pulled the string to turn on the light. He didn’t see much except the rafters and a wooden walkway going across the house into the attic of the duplex next door. A few bits of the pink insulation blew down from the hole and stuck to his clothes.
That night, Timmy went to bed early. He was wondering late into the night about the clues he had found. Then, suddenly, there were scuffling sounds in the ceiling above his bed. It was kind of a scratching, like moving squirrels or birds. The sounds stopped, and, then, after a while, they started up again, and then were gone. This was all just too weird! Timmy pulled the covers over his head and went to sleep.
The next day, after school, Timmy paid a visit to the neighbors in the duplex next door, the Healthy family. It was occupied by Harriet Healthy and her ten year old son, Henry. Harriet was a nutritionist at Zeeland Hospital. Henry went to different public school than Timmy, so he didn’t see him much. After asking a few questions of Henry and Mrs. Healthy, Timmy dashed back home.
“Mom! Mom!” he called from the door. Mrs. Trueheart, wiping her hands on her apron, emerged from the kitchen.
“What is it, Timmy, I’m trying to get dinner on the table,” she said.
“I did it! I did it!” said Timmy. “I solved the mystery! I know where the snacks are going!”
“Do tell!”, said Mrs. Trueheart skeptically.
“It’s Henry…Henry Healthy from next door! He’s taking the snacks!”
“That’s impossible!” said his mom. “Henry’s never in our house. You two almost never see each other, at least not since Henry started church choir rehearsals after school.”
“Nope! It’s Henry all right. He crawls through the attic from the other side of the duplex! He does it at night. ‘Cause she’s a nutritionist, his mom won’t let him have any junk food! That poor kid was desperate!”
“Well…I declare!” exclaimed mom. “You and I better get right over there and talk to Harriet!”
“Don’t worry, mom, I got it all worked out. I already talked to them. Two snacks a week. That’s what Mrs. Healthy said…two snacks a week. That’s so as Henry can have ‘all things in moderation’. She feels really bad about what Henry did and he’s coming over to apologize later. She also said she was going to bring over snacks tomorrow and replace everything!”
“My little Sherlock!” said mom, smiling warmly. “Let’s get back in the kitchen and clean up that pink insulation.”
