BACK NECKLACG 9' Detective and the case of the stolen necklace Michaela dialed the phone. "Museum of Art." said the female voice on the other end. "May I speak to the owner, please?" asked Michaela. "One moment please." she replied. "This is Mr Brubaker," said the owner. "This is Michaela." "You again!" he exclaimed. "Please check the necklace again for me." begged Michaela, "I'm sure it's been stolen." "I'm standing here in the main showroom." explained the owner, "I'm looking right at the necklace! It's right here! Why do you keep calling?!" "Lucifer Snidely has never gone for more than two weeks without stealing the necklace." explained Michaela, "And it's been months since his last robbery. So, I think he already has the necklace." "I'm telling you, I'm looking at the necklace right now!" exclaimed the owner. "I think Lucifer Snidely had a necklace made that looks just like the real one. I think he stole yours and left the fake necklace behind. Can you please check for me?" asked Michaela. "No!" exclaimed the owner. "Why not?" asked Michaela. "Because, in order to inspect the necklace I would have to take off the protective cover." replied the owner, "And in order to take off the protective cover, I would have to tell all my customers to leave. And I'm not going to do that! Now leave me alone and quit calling here!" "Don't say I didn't warn you." said Michaela. So, she quit calling the museum. One day a few weeks later, Michaela was sitting in her classroom when a man in a police uniform walked in the door. She knew why he was there, so she packed up her books and things into her backpack. Her teacher said, "Michaela, you need to go with this policeman." "I know." replied Michaela as she hurried out the door with the policeman. When they got into the police car, Michaela said to the policeman, "Don't tell me. Let me guess. Lucifer Snidely hired someone to steal the world's most expensive necklace again." "Yes," replied the policeman, "But this time we have no idea how they did it or even WHEN they did it, because... Michaela interrupted, "...They switched the real necklace for a fake necklace weeks ago." "How did you know?!" asked the policeman. Michaela explained, "I warned the museum owner that Lucifer Snidely never goes more than a week or two without stealing the necklace. And it's been months since the last robbery. I'm sure that the robbers stole the necklace just a week or two after the last robbery. But the owner didn't want to open the protective display to inspect the necklace. So, how did he discover that it was a fake?" "He opened the display to have the necklace cleaned and polished." explained the policeman, "The jeweler who cleaned the necklace discovered the fake. But if what you say is true and the necklace was stolen months ago, it could be anywhere in the world by now." "I don't think so." replied Michaela, "Lucifer Snidely is obsessed with that necklace. He wants it to be near the prison so he can get to it as soon as he gets out. He may have even had it smuggled into the prison so he could hold it in his hands." "Well, Snidely has hidden the necklace INSIDE the museum before, so I think we should start there." said the policeman, "I think we should check the recordings of the television cameras." They played the television tapes from the day before the fake necklace was discovered, but didn't find anything unusual on the tapes. "Let's try the day before." suggested the policeman. "We could be looking at the tapes for weeks before we find something!" exclaimed Michaela, "We need to try something else!" "Like what?" he asked. Michaela explained, "If the robbers opened the display case, the alarms would have gone off. Right?" "Right." he replied, "but I checked. The alarms have never gone off since the last robbery." "So?" asked Michaela "So, how did the robbers open the display case without setting off the alarms?" asked the policeman. "What if the robbers stole the necklace during a power failure?" asked Michaela. The policeman asked the owner if there was ever any power failures during the last few months. "Well, yes, now that you mention it." the owner replied, "Just a couple of weeks after the last robbery, the lights went off right in the middle of the day.... but just for a minute or two. Then the lights came right back on again." Michaela said, "Let's look at the television tapes from that day." They played the tapes from that day, starting a few minutes before the lights went out. "There!" exclaimed Michaela pointing at the screen. "That's the janitor." replied the owner. "What about him?" Michaela asked, "Does he usually empty the trash in the middle of the day?" "No," replied the owner. "The trash cans are only emptied after the museum closes." On the screen, the janitor is pushing a trash dumpster in front of the display. Two customers had to step back away from the display to let him pass. The owner pointed and exclaimed, "Look how rude he is to those customers!" Just then, the television screen turned black. The policeman exclaimed, "You know, Michaela, I think you're right! That janitor was right next to the display when the lights went out. If he stole the necklace, he probably carried it out of the building inside of that trash dumpster!" A few seconds later, the television picture was back on again. The picture showed the janitor pushing the dumpster out the door directly under the camera. "Wait a minute!" exclaimed the owner, "That's not the janitor! He doesn't even work in the museum!" The policeman compared the television picture with pictures of robbers in the police station. They found the robber and arrested him. "Now, the only thing we have to do is find the necklace." said the policeman, "Where should we start looking?" Michaela replied, "I'll bet it's in the prison where Lucifer Snidely can see it and touch it." "The prison is a big building." replied the policeman, "Where will we start looking? Maybe his cell?" "No," replied Michaela, "That's the first place Lucifer Snidely would expect you to look. I'll bet that a day or two after the robbery, Lucifer Snidely volunteered to work somewhere else in the prison. That's where he'll hide the necklace." Sure enough, two days after the robbery, Lucifer Snidely volunteered to work in the prison laundry washing and drying bed sheets. The policeman went to the prison laundry. But because children are not allowed into that part of the prison, the policeman went in alone carrying a video camera so that Michaela could watch on television and help in the search. The policeman moved the camera slowly all around the room. "Any idea where he might have hidden it?" he asked. "Remember," Michaela replied, "We're not looking for a vault. We're looking for a metal box with ten push buttons on it. It will look like it's part of the laundry. THERE!" she shouted. Next to the oversized clothes dryers was a steel box that was painted the same color as the other steel boxes hanging on the wall. The only thing that made it different was the ten-key pad, like a telephone. "That looks like it could be the vault." replied the policeman, "Now how do we open it?" Michaela replied, "The combination is around there somewhere. Keep moving the camera. We'll find it." After about five minutes of looking, they couldn't see any clues. "Try opening the lint filters on the dryers." suggested Michaela. The policeman had no idea what she was talking about. So, he asked a prison guard to open the lint filters on all the clothes dryers. Then the policeman pointed the camera inside each one. "There!" shouted Michaela. The policeman replied, "That's just an information sticker. There aren't any numbers on it." "It's a bar graph." explained Michaela, "And bar graphs are pictures of numbers." "I don't get it." replied the policeman. (here's what the graph looked like.) ___ ________ _ ____ __ _________ _____ ______ _______ (can you figure out the combination to the vault from this graph?) Michaela opened her backpack and pulled out a ruler to measure the shortest bar, the third bar on the graph. Then she measured the fifth bar. "Aha!" exclaimed Michaela, "I was right!" "Explain it to me." said the policeman. Michaela explained, "The third bar in the graph is exactly half as long as this fifth bar." (can you figure out the combination to the vault now?) Michaela measured the length of all the bars and wrote them down on the bar graph: 3 ___ 8 ________ 1 _ 4 ____ 2 __ 9 _________ 5 _____ 6 ______ 0 7 _______ The policeman exclaimed, "Oh, I get it! The combination is the length of each bar in the bar graph." He took the graph and pushed the buttons on the vault in this order: 3 8 1 4 2 9 5 6 0 7 (did you have the same combination?) There was a click and a buzz and a hum. Then the vault door opened by itself. There was the world's most expensive necklace! Thanks to Michaela, the world's greatest detective, the robber was caught and the necklace was recovered again! ©2008 Bob Snook. Conditions for use: This story is free. Pay no fees or royalties. Do not sell this story or rewrite it. You may reproduce and distribute this story freely, but all copies must contain this copyright statement. http://www.fea.net/bobsnook/kid email: bobsnook@fea.net BACK |