Free Brownie and the Dame by C. L. Bevill Page A

and went to hold the younger girl in her arms. “There, there,” Janie said, patting the other girl’s back, and it was clear that the words were hard for her to say, “we’re on the job. We’ll try to find your p-p-penguin.”
    “D-d-do you think you c-c-can?” Lissa asked mournfully.
    Brownie took his notepad out again. The pencil was AWOL. Finally he located the pencil in a pant pocket where it had broken in half. He shrugged and used the part with the sharpened end to jot down some facts. “Can you describe Mortimer to us?”
    Lissa wiped snot and tears away and then shamelessly used Janie’s “Support your local police” t-shirt as a convenient Kleenex. ( See? If Janie hadn’t thrown herself on that grenade, it would be me, right there, with boogers and teardrops all over my good suit .)
    “He’s about this high,” Lissa said and put her hands about a foot and a half apart. “He’s black and white. He’s got an orange beak. And he’s ever so s-s-soft!” She began to cry again.
    “Black and white with an orange beak,” Brownie muttered as he manipulated the shortened pencil. We could get a sketch artist. Tape it on street posts. I could get Auntie D. to offer a reward.
    “When did Mortimer go missing?” Janie asked gently. She continued to pat Lissa on the back, even while she tried to pull the soggy shirt away from her skin.
    “Y-y-yesterday!” Lissa keened. “I was playing with him in the yard. Then the goats starting making a fuss, and I went to see what was going on. But all I saw were a bunch of billys who had fallen on their sides. Then I went to tell Daddy. When I got back to the yard, M-m-mortimer was g-g-gone!” She couldn’t talk for a while because she was busy bawling her baby blue eyes out.
    Dames , Brownie thought derisively. Then he wondered how he would feel if someone took something important to him. Ifin someone stole my stun gun, I would feel like crying, too. He stifled his impatience and tried to find some compassion. Even Sam Spade has a heart, see?
    “Mortimer isn’t a real penguin,” Brownie said as knowledge finally came into his head.
    “Well, duh!” Lissa snapped. “He’s a plush p-p-penguin.”
    “Stop being stupid,” Janie said to Brownie, patting Lissa’s back as Lissa rubbed her soaking face into Janie’s t-shirt.
    “So something scared the goats,” Brownie surmised, “and while Lissa was seeing about that, the perpetrator stole the p-p-penguin.”
    “M-m-mortimer,” Lissa confirmed sadly.
    Brownie frowned at his notepad. “A spatula. Two bras. A penguin plush. Maybe the tree Miz Holmgreen talked about, too. What do all of these have in common?”
    Janie continued to pat Lissa as her face twisted in concentration. “Good question. If we knew the answer to that, we could solve the inexplicable mystery.”
    “There’s other stuff missing?” Lissa asked.
    “Yes, something from Miz Adelia Cedarbloom and something from Miz McGee and possibly a tree from the Ford building.” Brownie frowned harder.
    “Did you notice anyone suspicious?” Janie asked Lissa.
    “Spicious?” Lissa repeated. “I don’t know no one named Spicious. Is that foreign?”
    “Well, Mortimer comes from the South Pole,” Brownie said.
    “M-m-mortimer!” Lissa howled in response.
    “Brownie!” Janie snarled.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Maybe we should have a look at the scene of the crime.” Maybe the skirt will finally stop crying. Are those boogers yellow or is that yellowish-green?
    * * *
    The crime scene was a picnic table with an array of plush animals. An entire zoo was represented and all seemed to get along very well. Lions, tigers, and bears cavorted with squirrels, Monster High dolls, and a baby doll that Lissa said actually pooped and peed.
    Brownie grimaced. Who wants a doll that poops and pees? Wait, how do they make it poop? Is it real poop? Cool, I mean, gross.  
    The picnic table sat in the front yard of a large house. It also sat in the shade of a