The Case of the July 4th Jinx Read online

  by Lewis B. Montgomery

  illustrated by Amy Wummer

  The KANE PRESS

  New York

  Text copyright © 2010 by Lewis B. Montgomery

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Amy Wummer

  Super Sleuthing Strategies original illustrations copyright © 2010 by Kane Press, Inc.

  Super Sleuthing Strategies original illustrations by Nadia DiMattia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information regarding permission, contact the publisher through its website: www.kanepress.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Montgomery, Lewis B.

  The case of the July 4th jinx / by Lewis B. Montgomery ; illustrated by Amy Wummer.

  p. cm. — (The Milo & Jazz mysteries ; 5)

  Summary: With the help of ace detective Dash Marlowe, sleuths-in-training Milo and Jazz investigate a so-called jinx at the local Fourth of July fair.

  ISBN 978-1-57565-315-0 (library binding : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-57565-308-2

  (pbk. : alk. paper)

  [1. Luck—Fiction. 2. Fairs—Fiction. 3. Fourth of July—Fiction. 4. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Wummer, Amy, ill. II. Title. III. Title: Case of the July fourth jinx.

  PZ7.M7682Caj 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009049886

  ISBN 978-1-57565-362-4 (e-book)

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in the United States of America in 2010 by Kane Press, Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America

  WOZ0710

  Book Design: Edward Miller

  The Milo & Jazz Mysteries is a registered trademark of Kane Press, Inc.

  www.kanepress.com

  eISBN: 978-1-5756-5362-4 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-5756-5751-6 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-5756-5664-9 (mobi)

  For the wonderful staff of the

  Louisa Gonser Community Library

  —L.B.M.

  Milo stared at the white-frosted cake topped with tiny American flags. More frosting, red and blue, spelled out Happy Fourth of July. So much frosting . . .

  The Fourth wasn’t until tomorrow. That must be why the cake hadn’t been cut into slices like everything else on the bake-sale table. It still looked perfect.

  Perfectly delicious.

  His finger inched toward it. Nobody would miss a tiny dab. . . .

  “Looks real, doesn’t it?” The teenage boy by the table grinned down at Milo. His official fair badge said WINSTON.

  “It isn’t real?” Milo asked.

  “Nope, just for show,” the boy said. “All the rest is real, though. I promise.”

  Milo glanced at his friend Jazz. She was looking at the pies with his brother, Ethan. Lucky she hadn’t caught him being fooled by a fake cake. After all, detectives were supposed to be careful observers!

  Jazz and Milo were detectives in training. They got lessons by mail from world-famous private eye Dash Marlowe. With a little help from Dash, they had already cracked a few real-life cases.

  “Milo,” Ethan called across the table. “Can I have this?”

  He pointed to a slice of chocolate pie.

  Winston beamed. “Made that one myself! Chocolate-cookie cream pie. My new recipe.”

  It did look good. Milo paid for Ethan’s slice and bought another for himself. Jazz chose blueberry crumb cake.

  As Milo took his slice, a ride called the Scream Machine started up noisily behind him. Startled, he spun around. The pie slid off its paper plate and splattered on the ground.

  “Oh, no!” he moaned.

  Winston shook his head in sympathy. “Looks like the jinx has struck again.”

  “The jinx?” Milo asked.

  “People are saying that the fair is jinxed this year,” Winston explained. “Because of all the weird stuff that’s been happening.”

  “Weird stuff?” Jazz said. “Like what?”

  “Oh . . . like all the entries for the Hottest Chili Pepper contest disappeared. Then they turned up later in a box marked Fireworks.”

  “I’m going to stay up and watch the fireworks this year,” Ethan told Winston. “And I’m not going to be scared.”

  Milo rolled his eyes. His little brother had said the same thing last year. But as always, at the first big BOOM, Ethan had burst into tears and the whole family had had to go home.

  “What else has gone wrong?” Jazz asked Winston.

  “Well, some kiddie-farm animals got loose.” Winston made a face. “Do you have any clue how hard it is to catch a pig?”

  Milo glanced at Jazz. He was thinking of her pet pig, Bitsy. “Actually—”

  “And Uncle Sam keeps losing air, but nobody can find a leak.” Winston pointed toward a giant inflated Uncle Sam bobbing gently in the breeze.

  Milo took a look around. Sun sparkled off the game-booth roofs. He could smell the kettle corn and hear the shrieks of terror from the Scream Machine. Everything seemed perfectly normal. Could the fair really be jinxed?

  “I just hope nothing goes wrong at the prize judging tomorrow,” Winston said. “Or the parade.” He handed Milo a new slice of pie and waved away his money. “It’s on me.”

  Milo took a bite. Mmmm. Creamy . . . crunchy . . . chocolatey . . .

  Suddenly something slammed into his elbow. The pie flew from his hand—

  SPLAT.

  “Hey!” Milo protested. “That was my . . .”

  Whoa.

  His voice trailed off as he stared up at the boy who had bumped his elbow. Wow. The kid was huge.

  He didn’t seem to have noticed Milo at all. Laughing and shoving with his buddies, the boy lumbered off into the crowd.

  “HOOLIGANS!” a voice shrieked.

  A woman was storming toward the bake-sale table, clutching a foil-covered pie tin. She glared after the group of boys.“SCOUNDRELS! RAPSCALLIONS!”

  A man with a mustache jogged up behind her. Milo recognized him: the chief of police. Chief Smalley visited their school every year to talk about putting trash in its place and stuff like that.

  “Now, Mom,” the chief said to the woman. “I’m sure they didn’t mean—”

  She swung around on him. “Those young roughnecks nearly knocked this pie right out of my hands, Jeffrey! My PRIZE-WINNING LEMON PIE!”

  His mustache twitching nervously, Chief Smalley took the pie and set it on the table. He peeled off the foil cover. “It’s just fine. See? No harm done.”

  Milo wished his chocolate pie had been that lucky.

  “I’ll bet it will sell quicker than anything on the table,” the chief went on.

  His mother still looked furious. “What if that had been tomorrow’s pie? The one I enter in THE CONTEST?”

  She marched off, her son trailing after. “But Mom . . .”

  Winston began slicing the pie to sell it, and Jazz picked up the labeled foil.

  “Mrs. Smalley’s Luscious Lemon Pie,” she read aloud. “Blue Ribbon Winner, Three Years Running.”

  Milo whistled. “Must be good.”

  Winston stopped cutting. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Milo asked. “Didn’t she really win three times?”

  The older boy grinned. “Yeah, but guess who always judges the pie contest? The chief of police.”

  “You mean her own son is the judge?” Jazz said. “But that’s not fair!”

  Winston laughed and shrugged. “Probably not. But who’s
going to tell her that?”

  The Scream Machine ground to a stop, and riders streamed off. Milo spotted Spencer and Carlos, their friends from school, and he waved them over.

  Spencer’s face was greenish yellow.

  “We went on the Scream Machine twice in a row,” Carlos said. “It was great! Wasn’t it great?” He pounded Spencer on the back.

  Spencer wobbled.

  A burst of applause came from a nearby stage. An announcer’s voice boomed, “Next up, The Great Tripolini—”

  “It’s the juggling man!” Ethan pulled on Milo’s arm. “Come on!”

  Over by the stage, Milo saw the boy who had bumped into him. He was horsing around with his some of his pals.

  Carlos followed Milo’s gaze and groaned. “Oh, no. It’s the Zoo Crew.”

  “Zoo Crew?” Jazz repeated.

  “That’s what they call them at the middle school, ’cause they’re so wild,” Carlos explained. “The big one in the hat—that’s Crash, their leader. My sister said he set the school on fire.”

  “For real?” Milo asked.

  “Fire trucks and everything.”

  Spencer, closer to his usual color now, asked, “Are those the guys who flooded the boys’ bathroom, and they had to close the school?”

  Carlos nodded. “And did you hear about the farm stand?”

  “Out at Goose Egg Farm?” Jazz asked.

  “They knocked it over.”

  Milo gasped. Whodunnit magazine was always full of stories about bad guys “knocking over” banks.

  “You mean they robbed it?” he asked.

  Carlos gave him a funny look. “No, they knocked it over, like I said. Broken eggs and smashed tomatoes everywhere. It was ugly.”

  On the stage, the juggler finished up to a round of applause. A tall man bounded forward, microphone in hand.

  “Thank you, The Great Tripolini! Now, let’s have a big welcome for our next act: Viola Pritchett’s School of Dance!”

  A large, pink woman swept onstage. Behind her straggled a dozen little girls in purple flower costumes.

  Viola Pritchett clasped her hands. “Today my flowers will dance to a dainty little tune I call—” She let out a tinkling laugh. “—Viola’s Violets.”

  Jazz made a gagging noise.

  Viola fluttered her fingers toward the tall announcer, who popped a CD into the player and pressed a button.

  For a moment there was only silence. Then a voice from the speakers howled, “YOU’RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

  Electric guitar and pounding drums blasted out of the speakers and filled the air. Leaping back, the announcer crashed into Viola Pritchett as she rushed forward. They fell into a tangled heap.

  The little flower girls went wild, shaking and stomping to the driving beat. One slid across the stage on her knees as the crowd hooted and cheered.

  “Put your petals to the metal!” someone bellowed.

  The announcer was struggling to get out from under Viola Pritchett. She pushed him back, then fell on top of him.

  Spencer poked Milo and said, “That was a pancake slam! I saw it on America’s Craziest Wrestling.”

  Near the stage, the Zoo Crew was falling all over each other with laughter.

  At last Viola Pritchett peeled herself off the announcer and yanked the cord to the CD player. The music stopped.

  In the sudden silence, the girls froze. Then, after a look at their teacher’s face, they scattered off the stage to thunderous applause.

  A boy with a tuba took their place.

  Jazz nudged Milo. “Let’s get out of here. Last year that kid played ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ twenty minutes straight.”

  Pulling Ethan along, they squeezed their way through the crowd. Behind the stage, Milo saw the announcer arguing with Viola Pritchett.

  “All I know is, the CD case said Viola’s Violets!” the man was saying. “How was I supposed to tell it was the wrong CD inside?” He shook his head. “I’ve had enough of this fair. This switcheroo is the last straw.”

  Viola Pritchett put a large pink hand up to her forehead. “This is sabotage!” she cried.

  “If you ask me,” the man muttered, “it’s the jinx.”

  As they walked away from the stage, Milo asked Jazz, “Do you think the fair is really jinxed?”

  “I don’t believe in jinxes,” Jazz said firmly.

  “Then how come so many things are going wrong? Animals getting loose, Uncle Sam losing air, hot peppers in the fireworks box . . . and now this.”

  “Any of those things could have been an accident,” Jazz pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Milo said, “but that’s a lot of accidents.”

  Jazz frowned. “I wonder if somebody could be doing it on purpose.”

  “You mean, like those pranks that Gordy pulls?” Milo asked.

  Gordy Fletcher lived on Jazz’s street and had been in their class last year. He loved playing jokes on people.

  “Well, I can tell you it’s not Gordy,” Jazz said. “He’s away visiting his grandma. We haven’t found fake dog poop on our porch for weeks.” She looked thoughtful. “Anyway, this seems like a bigger deal than Gordy’s pranks.”

  “Viola Pritchett called it sabotage,” Milo said.

  “But who would want to mess with the Fourth of July fair?”

  Their eyes met. Milo grinned.

  “I think we’ve got a new case, partner,” he said.

  Jazz smiled too.

  Then, suddenly, her smile disappeared.

  “Milo . . . where’s Ethan?”

  Milo glanced to one side and then the other. He whipped around.

  His little brother was nowhere in sight.

  “Ethan!” Milo called. “ETHAN!”

  “Ethan!” Jazz echoed.

  “I’ll look around here,” Milo said.

  Jazz nodded. “And I’ll check the kiddie rides. Let’s meet back by Uncle Sam.”

  They split up, and Milo began searching the crowd.

  “Lose something?” a voice asked.

  It was Winston, the teenager from the bake-sale table.

  “My brother ran off,” Milo said.

  “Little kid in a T-rex shirt?” Winston asked. “Don’t worry. I just saw him.”

  Milo’s heart jumped. “Where?”

  “This way,” Winston said, and Milo followed him around to the other side of a big tent. Winston pointed to the batting cage and smiled. “There he is.”

  Ethan stood just outside the cage, his ear pressed up against the wire fence. As Milo ran toward him, the ball flew toward the batter.

  CRACK!

  Ethan leaped away.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Milo gasped as he came puffing up.

  “I’m getting used to the loud noise,” Ethan explained, “so I can watch the fireworks tomorrow night and not be scared.” He pressed his ear up to the fence again.

  CRACK!

  Milo yanked his brother away from the batting cage.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he scolded. He turned to thank Winston, but the older boy had left.

  Keeping a firm grip on Ethan’s arm, Milo steered him down the hill. On the way, he saw Crash and the Zoo Crew by the kiddie farm. They were mooing at the cow.

  Jazz was waiting by the giant Uncle Sam. “You found him! Where was he?”

  “At the batting cage,” Milo told her. “And you won’t believe—”

  Jazz’s eyes widened. She pointed to something over Milo’s shoulder. “Look!”

  He turned, and blinked.

  A flock of chickens rocketed down the hill. Behind the chickens came a swarm of people yelling, “Catch them!”

  Chief Smalley and the man from the kiddie farm were in the lead. As Milo watched, they each lunged toward a chicken and went sprawling.

  “FEATHERED FIENDS!” a voice shrieked. Mrs. Smalley came charging down the hill. Squawking in terror, the flock scattered, feathers flying. One chicken rose up and headed s
traight toward Jazz, Ethan, and Milo.

  “Duck!” Jazz shouted.

  As Milo pulled him down, Ethan said, “That’s a chicken, not a duck!”

  The chicken flapped over their heads and skidded into Uncle Sam. Frantically, it dug in its claws. There was a loud pop, then a long, low hiss.

  Uncle Sam swayed and shrank, finally collapsing in a giant, floppy heap.

  Stunned, the chicken gave up. The man from the kiddie farm grabbed it, then quickly rounded up the rest of the flock.

  Milo looked at Jazz. “Guess we know how Uncle Sam lost his air this time.”

  Jazz laughed. “Guess so.” She added, “But how did the chickens get loose?”

  Hmm. Good question.

  “Let’s check out the chicken coop,” Milo said. “Maybe we can find a clue.”

  They headed uphill, toward the bake-sale table, where Winston and Chief Smalley had joined forces against a stray chicken and a goat. The goat seemed to think the tablecloth looked as delicious as the cake. Milo and Jazz stopped to help, but the chief waved them off.

  At the kiddie farm, the flock was settling down. Jazz examined the latch on the chicken coop. “Looks fine to me,” she said. “And I don’t see any way it could be opened from inside. So, either the chickens are magicians . . .”

  “Or somebody let them out,” Milo finished.

  Jazz nodded. “And I’ll bet it’s the same somebody who’s behind the rest of this so-called jinx.”

  Just then, they heard yelling in the distance.

  “Not again!” Milo said. “What now?”

  Jazz turned. “I think it’s coming from the ball pit.”

  Milo tried to make sense out of the hubbub. Then a single word cut through.

  “SNAKE!”

  Milo and Jazz rushed toward the noise, with Ethan close behind. They saw little kids pouring out of a pit filled with brightly colored plastic balls.