Judy Moody, Girl Detective - Megan Mcdonald [10]
“How is this like some old clock?” Rocky asked.
“C’mon, guys. You read the book.”
“No, we didn’t,” all three boys said at the same time.
“First of all, there’s a dark van. Second of all, there’s this girl named Judy. She’s trying to cross the street and she almost gets hit by a moving van and she falls off a bridge and Nancy Drew has to rescue her and it turns out the bad-guy jewel thieves stole an old clock and stuff.”
“I thought you said the jewel thieves were in The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk,” said Stink.
“And The Mystery at Lilac Inn and The Ghost of Blackwood Hall and —”
“Wow, Nancy Drew must have more jewels than the queen of England!”
“She doesn’t get to keep them, Stink.” Judy took out her notebook. “So, did anybody see anything? Like a license plate?”
“The first three letters were K-G-B,” said Rocky.
“K-F-C,” said Frank.
“K-L-F,” said Stink. “Or E-L-F.”
“Great,” said Judy, putting her pencil behind her ear. “So we know who took Mr. Chips. Some secret bad guys who eat chicken and look like elves.”
“I think the one guy did have pointy ears,” said Stink.
“ROAR,” said Judy. “What about the van? Did it say anything on it?”
“Flush ’n’ Flo?” said Stink.
“Push and Go,” said Rocky.
“Flash and Glo,” said Frank.
“Toilet emergency!” said Stink.
“Stink, not now.”
“It had the words Toilet Emergency on the side. I saw. For real. No lie.”
“Stink’s right,” said Frank.
Judy chewed on the end of her pencil. “Toilet emergency. Flush ’n’ Flo. So they must be like those guys that fix toilets and stuff. RARE!”
“The super-bad guys are plumbers?” Frank asked.
“That’s just their cover,” Judy explained. “Everybody knows that international jewel thieves can’t ride around in a van that says Jewel Thieves.”
“The phone number was like 1-800-UN-DOG,” said Rocky.
“‘UN-DOG’?” said Judy. “Are you sure it didn’t say ‘UN-CLOG’?”
“1-800-UNDER-DOG!” said Stink.
“Great,” said Judy. “Let’s all take an Underdog Super Energy Pill and find a phone booth and change into superheroes. Then we’ll find Mr. Chips.”
“Hip, hip, hip, and away we go!” yelled Stink.
“I know,” said Frank. “Let’s stake out the supermarket till they come back.”
“Yeah, we know Mr. Chips is hungry, right?”
“Yeah, ’cause why else would a cop dog steal a dog bone?” Frank said.
“I can’t believe Mr. Chips is a shoplifter,” said Rocky.
“I don’t think Mr. Chips is the thief,” said Judy. “I bet these guys are so bad, they’re not even feeding him, so poor Mr. Chips has to steal his own food!”
“He’s still gonna have to arrest himself for breaking the law.” Frank cracked himself up. Rocky and Stink cracked up, too.
“This isn’t helping us find Mr. Chips,” said Judy.
“Rule Number One,” said Stink. “A good detective always keeps a sense of humor.”
The rest of Saturday, and all day Sunday, Judy and her fellow junior detectives biked all over the neighborhood in search of a dark green van. They saw black vans, blue vans, brown vans, maroon vans, but not one single green van with Toilet Emergency written on its side and driven by chicken-eating guys with pointy ears.
On Monday morning, she, Judy Moody, was in a mood. A why-can’t-I-solve-a-mystery mood. Then came a clue, when she least expected it.
Judy was doodling paw prints with her Grouchy pencil through Mr. Todd’s talk about Healthy Habits when out of the blue, the principal came on the loudspeaker and said three magic words.
“Girls and boys, I’m afraid we have a bit of toilet trouble in the third-fourth wing. We had an emergency this morning when a pipe burst and flooded the girls’ bathroom. The plumbers are here to fix the problem, but we ask that you use the bathrooms by the library until further notice.”
Toilet! Emergency! Plumbers! Those three words were music to Judy’s ears. She craned her neck to look out into the parking lot. That’s when she saw it: a dark green van, parked right across from the entrance to the school!
Judy took out her notebook and wrote SOS in red