Fangs for Everything Read online

  Yes! I started daydreaming … This is my chance to prove them all wrong. The CrimeBiters will solve this case, and Abby will be a hero, just like in my dreams. Irwin and Daisy and—

  Oh, did I forget to mention that I hadn’t told the other CrimeBiters about my plan to bring Abby to the party? Yeah, I knew they would think it was a terrible idea, and I just wasn’t in the mood to hear all that negativity.

  FACT: Sometimes people are negative for a good reason.

  MARA LIVED AT the end of a cul-de-sac called Red Robin Way.

  FACT: Cul-de-sac is just a fancy way to say “dead end.”

  QUESTION: Why are there so many streets named after birds?

  OPINION: I think it would have been better if it were named Wed Wobin Way.

  When we drove up, Mrs. Cragg whistled. “Wow, pretty fancy neighborhood,” she said. “I could have done some real damage here, back in the day.” Whoa. That was the first time she’d ever mentioned her former life as a jewelry thief, except when she first starting working for our family and told us those were the darkest days of her life.

  I stared over at her for a split second: Was there any possible way she was the birthday-present thief? Nah, couldn’t be. Wait, could it?

  She glanced over at me. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, I didn’t take those gifts, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mrs. Cragg said. “Not in a million years would I ever go back to such stupid behavior.”

  “Of course I wasn’t thinking that.”

  Mrs. Cragg chuckled. “I’ll bet you weren’t.”

  “This is good,” I said as she was about to turn into Mara’s long driveway. “Abby and I can walk from here.”

  Mrs. Cragg looked surprised, but she stopped the car. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Mara said to get dropped off here, because they didn’t want people cluttering the driveway while the party was going on.” I didn’t want to tell her the real reason—you know, the part about no one knowing I was bringing Abby.

  “Huh,” muttered Mrs. Cragg. “Okay, hop out.”

  I grabbed Abby’s leash, and we headed toward the house. After a few steps, we noticed Amazing Andy’s big purple van at the exact same time. I kept going, but Abby stopped right in her tracks. Just like last time, the scent of the animals was just too fascinating for her doggy nose.

  As I tried to pull her leash, I heard a noise from the other side of the van, and Amazing Andy and Reptile Ron popped their heads around.

  “Hello there,” Amazing Andy said. “Are you here for the party?”

  I nodded. “Yup. I saw your show at Irwin’s party, and it was amazing. Too bad the only thing people remember is that someone stole the presents.”

  Andy looked concerned. “Yeah, did they ever get to the bottom of that?”

  “Nope,” I told him.

  Reptile Ron walked over. “This is a bit of a wrinkle,” he said, scratching Abby. “Who said you could bring a dog?”

  I tried to laugh it off. “Oh, you mean Abby? Everyone knows her. She’s welcome everywhere.”

  Andy and Ron weren’t laughing though. “Well, just make sure she stays far away from the stage when Bosco performs,” Andy said.

  “Who’s Bosco?” I asked.

  “He’s our baby chimpanzee,” Ron answered. “He’s got a bit of an attitude when it comes to dogs.”

  I scratched my head. “Huh. Was Bosco at the last party? I don’t remember him.”

  “Nope,” Andy said. “He just finished training. This is his coming-out party.” Andy pointed down at Abby, and his face got serious. “So like I said, please be sure to keep this cute little girl far away from the stage at that point. Maybe even keep her in the house.”

  “Oh, of course,” I said. “Come on, Ab, let’s go say hi to the guys.” Abby, who was staring up at Reptile Ron, didn’t look like she wanted to go anywhere, but after a few tugs on the leash, I finally got her to move. “Can’t wait for the show,” I said to Andy and Ron, and they waved.

  As I walked toward the house, I started having second thoughts about bringing Abby. This whole Bosco thing was a surprise, but I decided as long as I kept Abby inside near where the presents were, it wouldn’t be a problem.

  As I was trying to decide whether to ring the front doorbell or scrap the whole thing, two girls tore around the side of the house, screaming with laughter. “Last one back to the party is a rotten egg!” one of them shouted. They were both completely soaking wet, so it took me a second to realize it was Daisy and Mara.

  They stopped in their tracks when they saw me. Then they doubly stopped in their tracks when they saw Abby.

  “Hi, you guys!” I said.

  “Who?” said Mara, which didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at Abby, and her eyes were as big as saucers. Flying saucers. Giant flying saucers.

  “What do you mean, who?” I asked, but Mara just stood there.

  “Mara is really scared of dogs,” Daisy said, by way of explanation.

  “I was bitten by one when I was really little,” Mara said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The dog who bit me looked like your dog.” She backed up about five steps, never taking her eyes off Abby. Abby looked up at her and wagged her tail, but it didn’t seem to help.

  My heart sank. “Wow, really? That stinks. Abby is super friendly. She loves everybody.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Daisy said unhelpfully. “What were you thinking, bringing her here?”

  “Well, now, that’s a very good question,” I said. “A really good question. One of your best questions ever.”

  Daisy eyed me. “So what’s the answer?”

  I leaned in and whispered so Mara wouldn’t hear, “Well, to be honest, I thought she could help solve the Case of the Missing Presents.”

  “Are you serious?” Daisy said. The look on her face was a combination of displeasure and disbelief.

  “What are you guys doing?” I asked, changing the subject. “Why are you running around the house?”

  “Mara challenged me to a race. We love running against each other. We have to run three laps every day before cheerleading practice, because cheerleading is a sport.”

  “It sure is,” I agreed, relieved that she wasn’t yelling at me anymore about bringing Abby to the party. Then, hoping to score a few additional brownie points, I added, “I was really impressed with how good you guys were at cheering the other day.”

  “Thanks,” Daisy said. “You need to take Abby home now.”

  Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.

  “No problem,” I said. “Sorry if it was any bother.”

  Daisy narrowed her eyes at me. “It wasn’t yet, luckily for you.” She turned to Mara. “We should probably get back to the party, since you’re the guest of honor and people are going to start to wonder where you are.”

  Just then, the door to Amazing Andy’s trailer opened, and there was Andy, holding the hand of a very small, very dark, very furry person. They started walking toward us, and I noticed the dark furry person had a funny way of walking. Then I noticed that it wasn’t a person at all. It was a chimpanzee.

  Andy was talking on his cell phone, so he didn’t notice us at first. The little chimp noticed us right away though, and froze.

  “How cute!” Mara squealed, which made me realize, if you really want to change the subject, a chimp will do the trick. “What’s his name?”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “That must be Bosco.”

  “Huh?” Daisy said.

  “How do you know his name?” Mara said.

  Before I could answer, Andy, who’d spotted us at last, called across the driveway, “Hey, wait a second. I thought I told you to do something with that dog!”

  “I didn’t realize you were coming out yet!” I yelled.

  “I’m taking Bosco for a pre-show walk to calm his nerves!” he yelled back. “He tends to get very stressed out, and seeing your dog isn’t helping!”

  As if to prove
Andy’s point, Abby started barking at Bosco. Her bark got louder, and her fangs came out.

  Oh great, I thought. You know I love seeing your fangs, but now isn’t exactly the best time.

  Bosco stood up to his full height—which wasn’t very tall at all—and let out what he thought was a growl, but sounded more like an adorable squeak. To Abby though it was threatening enough, and she responded with a howl that made Mara scream and grab my hand. The problem was, it was the hand that was holding Abby’s leash—which I promptly dropped.

  Uh-oh.

  Newly freed, Abby took off toward the terrified baby chimp, who got one look at the charging dog and took off herself. The next thing we knew, the two animals were tearing around the corner and going full speed toward the back of Mara’s house.

  “STOP THAT CHIMP!” hollered Andy. He sprinted after Bosco, with the rest of us right behind him.

  When we turned the corner, I saw that the party was just getting going. Some kids were jumping through the sprinkler, and other kids were playing some sort of game that involved throwing popcorn and grapes into one another’s mouths. Meanwhile, Mara’s mom was setting up lunch at two long picnic benches, with small red and white balloons at every chair and a giant pink one tied to the glass at the head of the table—that must have been Mara’s spot.

  Everybody pretty much saw Bosco and Abby at the same time, and everything stopped.

  “Is that a monkey?” someone asked.

  “Is that Abby?” Irwin asked.

  They were both right (although technically, Bosco was an ape).

  Bosco and Abby’s first stop was the drinks table, where a couple of kids had just finished pouring themselves glasses of root beer. Sadly, they didn’t even get to take one sip before their drinks—and, in fact, every last bottle of soda and juice—were knocked over when the two animals crashed into the table.

  “Hey!” said one of the kids.

  “Where can we get more root beer?” said the other.

  From there, Bosco and Abby headed over toward the picnic area, where Mrs. Lloyd was busy folding special BIRTHDAY FEAST! napkins.

  “What the—?” she said, but she didn’t get to finish her sentence, because Bosco dove onto the table headfirst and slid all the way down the middle, knocking over every plate, cup, hot dog, hamburger, potato chip, and cheese doodle. Abby didn’t go up onto the table though—her move was to jump from chair to chair, bursting every balloon with her claws as she went by—POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! You get the idea.

  Mrs. Lloyd stared dumbfounded for about fifteen seconds, and then screamed, “LLOYD!” No one could understand why she was shouting her own last name, until a man came out of the house and asked in a very mild-mannered voice, “What is it, dear?” It turned out that her husband’s first name was Lloyd. As in, Lloyd Lloyd. I briefly wondered what kind of parents would do that to a child, but my attention immediately returned to Bosco and Abby, who had moved on to Amazing Andy’s stage. It was filled with pillows, because one of the first things Andy does is set up a pillow fight between the guest of honor/birthday boy or girl and an adorable raccoon named Roger. But unfortunately that pillow fight wasn’t going to happen at this party, because Bosco found the cutest, softest, furriest pillow he could find—and pooped right on top of it.

  “EWWWWWWW!” yelled pretty much everybody. Even Abby looked a little shocked.

  But Bosco wasn’t done. Absolutely not. No chance. Not in a million years. Nope. After finishing his business, Bosco leaned over, admired his handiwork, then picked up a fairly sizable piece of his poop and threw it randomly over his shoulder in the general direction of the house, where it happened to land, with a gentle plop, just above Lloyd Lloyd’s left ear.

  Well, Lloyd Lloyd wasn’t mild-mannered after that.

  He made a noise that sounded kind of like “AIEUWHRHFHFHEIWWI-WIIIEEEEGGGGH!” Then he ran over to the sprinkler and jumped into it headfirst, momentarily forgetting that he had his phone in his hand. After a few seconds, he threw the phone toward his wife, but I’m pretty sure it was ruined by then.

  Abby and Bosco, meanwhile, had decided that was enough excitement for one day. Plus, they were exhausted. Amazing Andy finally caught up to his chimpanzee and picked him up the way you pick up a newborn baby. “That’s enough of that,” he said to his baby chimpanzee. Then Andy glared in my direction. “I don’t know who said you could bring that dog here. That was a big mistake.”

  Abby came over to me, panting hard. She looked up at me as if expecting a treat. And the sad thing is, part of me was so excited to see her acting so crazy. But that was a very small part of me, and it got even smaller when Mrs. Lloyd walked over and said, “Obviously you and your dog need to leave. Please call your parents or your babysitter and have someone pick you up as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said in a defeated whisper. I caught Daisy looking at me like, What on earth were you thinking?

  I shrugged, picked up my dog’s leash, and went inside the house to wait for Mrs. Cragg to pick me up.

  I didn’t even get so much as a single kernel of popcorn.

  THE CAR RIDE home was quiet.

  I turned the radio on, but Mrs. Cragg said, “Now’s not the time,” and turned it right back off.

  We rode in silence for a while, until finally I said, “I’m sorry.”

  She flashed the same look she gave me back when she was the meanest babysitter ever and made me eat kale and seaweed for lunch. “Sorry for what? Sorry for lying to me when you said Abby was invited to the party? Sorry for Abby scaring the daylights out of a poor defenseless little baby chimpanzee? Or sorry for ruining the birthday party?”

  “The party isn’t ruined,” I mumbled. “It’s going on right now. Without me.”

  My attempt at self-pity failed miserably. “Well, thank goodness for that,” said Mrs. Cragg. “I hope they have a wonderful time.”

  “I’m sorry for lying,” I said. “It was stupid. I just really wanted Abby to come with me because—well, because I just did.”

  Mrs. Cragg shook her head and clucked like a disapproving chicken. “Well, that’s certainly a good reason.”

  “Did you tell my parents?” I asked. “Are they mad?”

  “No, they’re thrilled,” Mrs. Cragg answered. “Who wouldn’t want a son who doesn’t tell the truth?”

  I decided there wasn’t anything good that could come out of saying anything else, so I shut my mouth. When we got home, Abby followed me quietly as I went inside the house—I think she thought she was in trouble too. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal, then plopped down on the couch to watch some TV. I reached for the remote, but it wasn’t there.

  “Mrs. Cragg? Have you seen the clicker?”

  “Yes.”

  I waited, until I realized that was her whole answer. “Can you tell me where it is?”

  “No.”

  Oh, okay, I get it. So that’s how it was going to be.

  I went up to my room, Abby right behind me. I collapsed back on my bed and Abby climbed up onto my windowsill, which was her favorite spot. In the old days she used to jump out the open window when I went to bed and prowl through the night doing who-knows-what. But now she just liked to hang out there, watching the world go by.

  “Well, Abby?” I said. “Everyone is mad at me—my friends, my parents, even my babysitter. And I can’t watch TV. I’ll probably be punished. But I got to see you run around this afternoon like the good old days, so you know what? It wasn’t a total loss.”

  As I waited for Abby to answer, I decided to close my eyes for a second. It had been a long day. The next thing I knew, my cell phone was ringing. I groggily picked it up and looked at the time. 6:13! I’d been asleep for almost two hours! Then I looked to see who was calling.

  DAISY F.

  My heart did a tiny somersault as I answered. “Daisy?”

  “No, it’s me, Irwin!”

  The somersault collapsed, and my heart went splat on the ground
. “Irwin? What are you—why are you calling me from Daisy’s phone?”

  His voice sounded excited, almost out of breath. “Because we’re all together at my house! Me, Daisy, and Baxter!” In the background I heard Daisy yell, “Hey, Jimmy!” and Baxter try to sound cool by saying, “Yo, what’s up?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, how was the party?”

  “That’s why we’re calling!” Irwin took a deep breath, like he was winding himself up. “We solved the case! We solved it!”

  “What case?” I asked, pretending I had no idea what he was talking about. I started petting Abby, who was lying at the foot of my bed, and realized I was doing it to calm myself down, since I knew exactly what was coming.

  “The Case of the Missing Presents!”

  “Oh, really? I forgot all about that.” Yeah, right. “Why, what happened?”

  “Well, I was thinking after our meeting yesterday that if someone could come up with some sort of present that left a mark on the person when they picked it up, you could tell who the thief was,” Irwin explained. “So I went down to the Magic Emporium and got this gag gift that when you open it up, you get sprayed with water, but then I went home and replaced the water with blue paint. And then I put a hole in the bottom of the box, so whoever picked it up would get drenched in blue paint.”

  I was confused—this time, for real. “Wait, I don’t get it. What if there hadn’t been a thief and Mara had opened it?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Irwin said. “That was a risk I had to take. Which is why I didn’t say anything ahead of time. I figured you guys would’ve tried to talk me out of it.”

  Wait a second, I thought to myself. I do something without telling the other guys and I’m a bad guy—but Irwin does it and he’s a hero? How is that fair??

  “Well, I wish I’d been there,” I said, which was pretty much the understatement of the year.

  There was a shuffling on the other end of the line, and I could hear Daisy saying, “Let me tell him! Let me tell him!” Then another quick bit of shuffling, and Daisy’s voice came on the line. “Jimmy, it was incredible! We were just sitting down to lunch before the show, and Irwin told Baxter and me about the exploding present. We all talked about it and decided that sometimes you have to be bold and take chances to solve cases, and the CrimeBiters are bold. We waited for you to come in because we wanted the vote to be unanimous, but after the whole Bosco-Abby thing we decided to go for it. So we were all watching Amazing Andy’s show, and all of a sudden we heard this crazy scream, and everyone ran inside and there he was!”