Free Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case by Donald J. Sobol Page B

inquired Encyclopedia.
    Scoop shook his head. “As I was running out, I saw a big kid in the next room trying to hide. I think it was Bugs Meany.”
    “Bugs! ” exclaimed Encyclopedia. “I might have known he was mixed up in this!”
    Bugs Meany was the leader of the Tigers, a gang of tough older boys. Encyclopedia was often called upon to stop their dishonest doings.
    Only last week he had put a halt to the Tigers’ “Giant Summer Pet Sale.” Bugs had dipped seven sparrows in peroxide and tried to sell them as canaries.
    “Can you get back my money?” asked Scoop. “I’ll have to pay you later.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” said Encyclopedia.
    He took out Scoop’s splinter, and the two boys set off for the old beach house.

    Bugs lay on the porch. He was scratching his dandruff and picking his teeth.
    “Bugs must have seen you run away,” Encyclopedia told Scoop. “He knew you were heading to see me. He’s probably waiting for us-with an alibi!”
    Encyclopedia was right. Bugs lay on the porch. He was scratching his dandruff and picking his teeth. When he saw the boy detective, he sat up quickly.
    “Scram, or your face will need help,” he snarled.
    Encyclopedia was used to Bugs’s warm welcomes. He nodded and went inside with Scoop. Bugs followed them.
    Scoop stopped among the many footprints in the deep sand that covered the living-room floor.
    “I started to put the dollar and a half on that shelf,” he said. “Then the splinter bit me. I got scared. I dropped the money and ran.”
    Encyclopedia studied the large cracks in the walls. “Bugs could have stood in the next room, watching and listening,” he said.
    “What’s with you two crazy cats?” demanded Bugs. “I came here for some wood. I’m adding a poolroom to the Tigers’ clubhouse.”
    “You made me think the house was talking,” said Scoop. “You took my money.”
    “I didn’t take anything except a nap,” said Bugs. “The wood in this dump wouldn’t make a good slop bucket.”
    He began walking slowly around the room.
    “Your money is still here if you really dropped it,” he declared. “You shouldn’t go around accusing people of stealing. There are laws against that sort of thing.”
    Suddenly he gave a cry and pointed.
    In the sand on the floor lay a half dollar. Under it was a dollar bill.
    “G-gosh, Bugs,” stammered Scoop. “I thought the worst of you. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be,” said Encyclopedia. “If you hadn’t run out of the room and seen Bugs, he’d have kept your money!”
    WHAT MADE ENCYCLOPEDIA
SO CERTAIN?
    (Turn to page 88 for the solution to The Case of the Talking House.)

The Case of the Two-Timers
    If Bugs Meany had a goal in life, it was to get even with Encyclopedia.
    Bugs hated being outsmarted all the time. He longed to sock the boy detective on the side of his face so hard that he could look down his back without turning his head.
    But Bugs never threw the punch. Whenever he felt like it, he remembered a pair of lightning-fast fists.
    The fists belonged to Sally Kimball, Encyclopedia’s partner. Sally was the prettiest girl in the fifth grade as well as the best athlete. And she had done what no boy under twelve had dreamed possible.
    She had out-punched Bugs Meany.
    Every time they had come to blows, Bugs had ended on the ground, mumbling about falling rocks.
    Because of Sally, Bugs was afraid to use muscle on Encyclopedia. However, he never stopped planning his day of revenge.
    “Bugs hates you as much as he hates me,” Encyclopedia warned Sally. “He won’t ever forgive you for showing him up.”
    “I know,” said Sally. “He’s more like a magician than a Tiger. He can turn anything into trouble.”
    “Trouble,” thought Encyclopedia, “may be where we are heading.”
    The detectives were walking in downtown Idaville. Half an hour earlier, Lefty Dobbs had telephoned them. Lefty had said to meet him in front of the city hall right away.
    “I wonder why Lefty