Dunc and the Flaming Ghost (6 page)

“Yeah. Too bad.” He flicked his paintbrush.
“This diplodocus will look great next to my triceratops.”

“When we were in the paper,” Amos said, “and they took my picture, I was sure Melissa would call.”

“Especially after you dedicated the smugglers’ capture to her,” Dunc said, nodding. “That was almost perfect.”

“It wasn’t much of a capture. It’s been three weeks, and I heard a cop at the drugstore say they still haven’t moved. They have them propped in a corner of the cell, and they just stand there.”

“They were pretty scared.” Dunc pointed a paintbrush at Amos’s leg. “You still haven’t told me about the leg.”

“Oh. After the story was in the paper and on television, I was sure Melissa would call, and I was dead right. Friday night I was sitting alone in my room when I heard the phone downstairs. So I made my move. You know, you have to hit by that all-important second ring, or they lose interest.”

“Lose interest.” Dunc nodded.

“So I cleared my room in record time and
hit the stairs with good form—almost classic.”

“Good form.” Dunc used two hands to steady the brush. There was a tiny part around the diplodocus’s eyes where it was hard to paint.

“I had it. It was a straight shot down the stairs, two jumps across the living room—that’s all I had to make.”

“And then?” Dunc said, nodding.

“And then my sister’s gerbil—”

“Gerbil?”

“Yeah. It escaped from its cage somehow, and when I stepped on it at the top of the stairs—”

“You stepped on a gerbil?”

“Sort of. When I felt something soft, I tried not to step on it, but that threw my pace off. I dived over the railing on the landing. I thought I was a goner, but luckily I had my shoes double-tied. My shoelace loop caught on the ornamental ball at the top of the staircase as I flew over, and I wound up hanging upside down from the railing until Mom came home from work.”

“How long was that?”

“About two hours.”

“You hung upside down for two hours?”

“That’s how I hurt my leg.”

“So you never reached the phone.”

“No. But it was Melissa—I could tell from the ring.”

“Amos …”

“I’m going to take it easy,” Amos said, leaning back against the wall. “Not push it and ask her to marry me right away.”

“Amos …”

“I should try to buy a home first, don’t you think?”

“Amos …”

“Or maybe a trailer house.”

“Amos …”

When Dunc Culpepper and his best friend, Amos, first see the parrot in a pet store, they’re not impressed—it’s smelly, scruffy, and missing half its feathers. They’re only slightly impressed when they learn that the parrot speaks four languages, has outlived ten of its owners, and is probably 150 years old. But when the bird starts mouthing off about buried treasure, Dunc and Amos get pretty excited—let the amateur sleuthing begin!

Dunc and his accident-prone friend, Amos, are up to their old sleuthing habits once again. This time they’re after a band of doll thieves! When a doll that once belonged to Charles Dickens’s daughter is stolen from an exhibition at the local mall, the two boys put on their detective gear and do some serious snooping. Will a vicious watchdog
keep them from retrieving the valuable missing doll?

Dunc and Amos are researching the Civil War cannon that stands in the town square when they find a note inside telling them about a time portal. Entering it through the dressing room of La Petite, a women’s clothing store, the boys find themselves in downtown Chatham on March 8, 1862—the day before the historic clash between the
Monitor
and the
Merrimac
. But the Confederate soldiers they meet mistake them for Yankee spies. Will they make it back to the future in one piece?

Best friends Dunc and Amos meet up with a new buddy named Lash when they enter the radical world of skateboard competition. When somebody “cops”—steals—Lash’s prototype skateboard, the boys are determined to get it back. After all, Lash is about to shoot for a totally rad world’s record! Along the way they learn a major lesson:
Never
kiss a monkey!

Dunc and his best friend, Amos, are planning the best route to get the most candy on Halloween. But their plans change when Amos is slightly bitten by a werewolf. He begins scratching himself and chasing UPS trucks: he’s become a werepuppy!

Best-friends-for-life Dunc and Amos have a small problem when they try hang gliding—they crash in the wilderness. Luckily Amos has read a book about a boy who survived in the wilderness for fifty-four days. Too bad Amos doesn’t have a hatchet. Things go from bad to worse when a wild man holds the boys captive. Can anything save them now?

Deciphering a code they find in a library book, best-friends-for-life Amos and Dunc stumble on to a burglary ring. The burglars’ next target is the home of Melissa, the girl of Amos’s dreams (who doesn’t even know that he’s alive). Amos longs to be a hero to
Melissa, so nothing will stop him from solving this case—not even a mind-boggling collision with a jock, a chimpanzee, and a toilet.