The Canary Caper (5 page)

He slapped at a mosquito.

A white cat strolled through the yard.

Dink yawned.

Every few minutes, he checked his watch.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was nearly eleven o’clock. Josh was sound
asleep, but Dink could see that Ruth Rose’s eyes were wide open.

“Are you hungry?” she whispered.

He nodded and shook Josh’s shoulder.

Ruth Rose opened her pack. She brought out a bag of cookies, three bananas, and three cartons of apple juice.

They ate in silence, listening and watching for a burglar to show up.

“Thanks, Ruth Rose,” Josh whispered. Then he lay back down and shut his eyes again.

Dink yawned and tried to get comfortable. He wished he’d brought his sleeping bag. It was soft and…suddenly he saw something move in the shadows next to the house.

He shook Josh and put his mouth next to Ruth Rose’s ear. “Look,” he whispered, pointing.

But whatever he’d seen wasn’t moving now.

Dink trained his eyes on the back of the house. He saw only shadows of the trees and bushes.

Then one of the shadows moved.

Dink smelled Josh’s cookie breath. “He’s here!” Josh whispered. Dink could feel Josh trembling with excitement.

Dink’s stomach did a quick plunge. Someone dressed in dark clothes and a
baseball cap was creeping behind Mrs. Davis’s house. He carried a gym bag and a long pole. The prowler was in the shadows, and Dink couldn’t see his face.

The burglar set his bag and the pole on the ground. Then he checked each
first-floor window on the back of the house. Finding them all locked, he walked around the side, out of sight.

“What should we do?” Josh said. “Is he leaving?”

Dink shook his head. “He left his stuff.”

“Did anyone recognize his face?” Ruth Rose asked.

Nobody had. Suddenly the dark figure returned. He stood with his back to them, looking up at the house.

Then the prowler turned around. He seemed to be looking directly at Dink.

Dink was glad he’d blackened his face. Suddenly Josh grabbed Dink’s arm. “It’s the canary guy!”

Ruth Rose let out a gasp.

Fred Little was walking right toward them!

Dink tried to shrink into the dark space between the bushes. He could feel Josh and Ruth Rose doing the same.

His heart thudded as Fred Little stepped closer. Then he stopped, took off his jacket, and hung it on a tree branch three feet from Dink’s nose. He walked back toward the house.

Josh grabbed Dink. “Look, he’s wearing yellow suspenders!”

Dink remembered where he’d seen those suspenders. He grinned at Josh. “The Superman clown!”

“And the giraffe clown,” Josh whispered back. “I
knew
I’d seen him before.”

They watched as Fred Little opened his gym bag. He pulled out a coil of rope and looped it around his neck.

Then he picked up the long pole he’d brought with him. Only it wasn’t a pole.

Fred Little had brought a pair of long stilts. He carefully leaned the stilts against the house and scooted up the foot rests. Now about ten feet tall, he stilt-walked to a spot under a small window on the second floor.

A moment later, Dink watched Fred Little slip through the window. First he was standing there on stilts, and then he was gone, like a snake slithering into a hole.

The stilts remained leaning against the side of the house.

Josh was at Dink’s ear. “Should we-”

“Shhh, wait,” Ruth Rose whispered.

Suddenly the rope uncoiled from the window. One end dangled to the ground, between the stilts.

“That must be how he’s coming down,” Ruth Rose said.

“Let’s take the rope and stilts,” Josh whispered. “He’ll be trapped inside!”

“But Mrs. Davis is in there with him,” Ruth Rose said. “We have to let him come out, then follow him.”

“One of us should run to the police station now,” Dink said.

The trouble was, no one wanted to leave the excitement.

Suddenly three things happened at once: The upstairs light blazed on. Dink heard a loud scream. A police whistle blared through the open window.

Dink leaped to his feet, not sure
what to do. Mrs. Davis was up there, and the burglar was probably in the same room with her!

But which one had let out that scream?

Dink saw a silhouette appear at the window. A second later, Fred Little was climbing down his escape rope. With his feet still above the ground, he dropped.

Suddenly the backyard exploded in color and noise.

A police cruiser roared across Mrs. Davis’s lawn, flashing red, yellow, and blue lights. The backyard looked like a fireworks display.

The siren whooped loudly, shutting out the shrieking of the whistle.

Then the noise stopped as the cruiser doors burst open. Officers Fallon and Keene leaped out.

“Hold it!” Officer Fallon shouted.

Fred Little was still crouched on the ground where he had landed. Dink saw his mouth fall open in panic and surprise.

In seconds, he was wearing handcuffs.

As Officer Keene led the prisoner to the police car, the back door flew open. Mrs. Davis marched out in a white nightgown and floppy slippers. She flip-flopped across the yard toward Fred Little.

Her face was shiny with white cream. Some kind of lacy bonnet covered her hair. And she held a long sword high over her head.

“The nerve of you!” she yelled into Fred Little’s terrified face. “Coming right into my bedroom!”

The sword flashed in the cruiser’s headlights. Dink thought she was going to use it on the burglar!

“I heard you trying to find my jewelry!” she shouted. “And after I fed you tea and cookies!”

“Come on,” Ruth Rose said.

Everyone, but especially Fred Little, was surprised to see three little ninjas crawl out of the bushes.

Ruth Rose stomped up to Fred Little and glared at him. “Where’s my Tiger?” she demanded.

Fred Little backed away. “What tiger?”

“Tiger is my cat. Did you steal her? Where is she?”

“I didn’t take any cat,” he muttered. “I’m allergic to cats.”

“What’re you kids doing here?” Officer Fallon asked with a frown.

“We thought someone might try to break in tonight,” Ruth Rose said, pointing at the prisoner. “We wanted to get
proof so you could arrest him.”

“This is Fred Little,” Josh said. “The guy who returned Mrs. Davis’s canary. He’s also a clown in the circus.”

“And he’s probably the one who robbed Dr. Pardue’s house and the Gwynns’, too,” Dink added.

“It certainly looks that way,” Officer Fallon said. He gave instructions to Officer Keene, who locked Fred Little in the cruiser and drove away.

Officer Fallon looked sternly at Dink. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said. “You kids better skedaddle home and get some sleep.”

“Fiddlesticks!” Mrs. Davis said. “These children won’t perish if they stay up a little longer. And I won’t sleep a wink! Come inside for cookies and cocoa, all of you.”

Officer Fallon just smiled and shook his head as they followed Mrs. Davis
into her kitchen. Dink noticed Mozart’s cage sitting on the counter.

Mrs. Davis put water on to boil and took mugs from a cupboard. Then she pulled the cover off the birdcage. Mozart twittered and blinked his tiny black eyes.

“You’ve certainly put everyone through a lot of trouble,” she told her canary.

“Actually, Leona, your canary helped us to solve a string of burglaries,” Officer Fallon said. “I did some snooping and found out a lot about Fred Little and his girlfriend. They’ve been traveling with the circus, and robbing houses in the towns they visit, for quite some time. And they always do it the same way. First they steal pets. Then they return the pets to get a peek inside the houses. Later, they rob the same houses.”

Mrs. Davis shook her head. “You should have seen that creepy man’s face when I turned on the light. But how did he know I left my upstairs bathroom window open?”

“He probably saw that it was open when he took your canary,” Officer Fallon said.

“Or maybe he left it open,” Dink said. “He might have snuck upstairs when he used the bathroom.”

“You could be right, Dink,” Officer Fallon said. “On stilts, he could get into upstairs windows that most people leave unlocked. In the robbery business, he’s known as a second-story man.”

“After tonight,” Mrs. Davis said, “that window will be locked!”

“How did you know that Fred Little would try to break in tonight?” Dink asked.

“We were parked right around the corner,” Officer Fallon continued. “We figured the burglary had to be tonight or never, since the circus leaves town tomorrow.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Officer Fallon stood up and stretched. “That’ll be Officer Keene back with the car. We’ll drive you kids home now. I hope we didn’t wreck your yard, Leona.”

“Oh, pooh. You saved my jewelry and caught a pair of criminals,” she said. “Besides, I know three children who might like to earn some money raking and planting grass seed.”

Officer Fallon laughed. “You could have caught Fred Little all by yourself. Where’d that sword come from, Leona?”

“My husband brought it back from one of our trips,” she said, smiling. “It’s
been under my bed for years, in case I ever needed it.”

“Did you see that guy’s face?” Josh asked. “I think he was glad to go to jail!”

Officer Fallon and Officer Keene dropped the kids off at Dink’s house. “Good night, kids,” Officer Fallon said. “No more sneaking around, okay?”

The kids promised they’d go right to bed and watched the cruiser drive away.

“I wonder if Fred Little was telling the truth about Tiger,” Ruth Rose said. “All the pets got returned except mine.”

“Tomorrow we’ll help you search, right, Josh?” Dink said.

“Right,” Josh said. “We’ll ring every doorbell in Green Lawn if we have to.”

Ruth Rose nodded, looking sad. “Thanks, guys.”

The boys said good night to Ruth
Rose, then walked around back and crawled into their tent.

Josh giggled in the dark. “Did you see Mrs. Davis come flying out her door with all that goop on her face? I thought she was a ghost!”