“You’re awfully ostrich-cized over here,” Vinnie said to the humungous bird. “Are you all by yourself because you’re trying to cover up something?”

  “Just covering these chicks,” he said. He stood as if in greeting, revealing ten or so eggs under his long, lean legs. Then he rotated the eggs with his beak to ensure even heat distribution. Each egg weighed about three times as much as Vinnie. I could see Vinnie attempting some math as he scribbled in his notepad.

  “Keep your mangy mitts off those eggs,” I mumbled.

  Vinnie gave me the side-eye before closing his notepad.

  “These two have some questions about the carousel,” said the first ostrich. She traded places with her partner.

  “Sure thing,” said the bird boss. He was even taller than his female counterpart, by at least three feet.

  I craned my neck to get a better view, and before I knew what was happening, I was on my back, rolling backwards down the sandy embankment.

  I curled into a tight ball, gaining speed until I hit the fence with a KA-THUNK. Something clonked me on the head and then clinked on the ground next to me.

  Vinnie scurried to my side, the bird boss right beside him.

  “You alright, boss?” Vinnie asked.

  I unrolled myself from my protective ball.

  “Looks like I rolled right into our next clue.” Then I rubbed my head with one hand while pointing to a wrench on the ground with the other.

  “Well, that puts a wrench in our investigation,” said Vinnie.

  I did some mental math. That made two missing wooden animals, a pair of prideful cheetahs, a smattering of strange noises, and a handful of abandoned tools. We had to find the culprits soon before everything fell apart.

  I gestured to the wrench.

  “Know anything about that?” I asked the bird boss.

  “No,” said the giant bird, “I’ve been on incubation duty.” He pecked at the wrench.

  “No tampering with the evidence!” said Vinnie, picking up the tool before it became ostrich food. He placed it in a secure evidence bag—at least, it was supposed to be secure. This one looked more like an empty potato chip bag.

  “How about this?” said Vinnie, pulling out his broken night vision camera and pressing play. The recording hissed and barked back at us. “Sound like someone you know?”

  The bird boss shook his comically small head. He wasn’t much help, which wasn’t much of a surprise. With brains the size of walnuts, ostriches aren’t exactly the brightest bird in the zoo.

  “Here’s what I know,” I began. “Two wooden carousel animals have gone missing: the cheetah and the ostrich.”

  The bird boss flopped to the ground and remained still, his head and neck flat as if he were trying to blend in with the surroundings. Either he, like the carousel, had a few screws loose, or else he felt threatened. “You said ‘cheetah,’” he said.

  “This cheetah won’t harm you,” said Vinnie. “He’s wooden.”

  And M.I.A, which is detective lingo for “missing in action.”

  Vinnie wrote down the ostriches as suspects, but then drew a line through it. Not only were these birds not a flight risk but they also weren’t a criminal risk either. They weren’t smart enough to identify a wooden animal, let alone steal one.

  It was time to BURN THE BREEZE and get out of there.

  CHAPTER 4

  I needled through the clues so far:

  Clue #1: The wooden cheetah on the zoo’s carousel disappeared.

  Clue #2: Vinnie discovered some nuts and bolts left behind at the scene of the crime. (I had to take Vinnie’s word on this one since he ate the evidence.)

  Clue #3: The cheetahs claimed to be cool cats.

  Clue #4: The wooden ostrich was M.I.A as well.

  Clue #5: Vinnie’s night vision camera caught some strange noises at the carousel.

  Clue #6: I rolled into a wrench at the Ostrich Oasis.

  Clue #7: The ostriches were thick as bricks. (Not that we found any bricks lying around.)

  I was connecting the clues when Vinnie turned up the volume on his walkie-talkie. “Sounds like another animal on the zoo’s carousel has gone missing, boss,” he said. “This time it’s the pea … nut?”

  “The peanut?” I repeated.

  “Now that you mention it, peanuts would be scrumptious right now,” Vinnie said. “I’d like some coconut-marinated short rib kebabs with peanut-chili oil. If we grill them, we’ll get that gorgeous marbling with the crispy bits. I love me some crispy bits. And then we can top it off with butterscotch blondie bars with peanut-pretzel caramel. Talk about an over-the-top crunchy texture and a sweet salty finish!”

  “Vinnie, concentrate,” I said. “Last I checked, peanuts aren’t capable of perpetrating crimes. What is that walkie-talkie talking about?”

  The walkie-talkie crackled.

  “Not sure,” said Vinnie. “I can’t make out the second syllable.”

  “Why not ask?” I said, pointing out the obvious. (It’s what I do best.)

  Vinnie shook the transceiver. He chewed on the antennae as if it were one of those teething toys kids are always leaving behind. “Because my two-way radio only communicates one way.”

  Of course Vinnie had a wonky walkie-talkie. It must have been another gadget from Vinnie’s Vault.

  It was time for some brainstorming. “What other zoo animals begin with the letters P-E-A?” I asked.

  Vinnie stopped his antennae chomping. “There’s the polar bear.”

  “Nope. That starts with P-O-L,” I said.

  “Pelican?”

  “P-E-L.”

  “Pangolin?”

  “P-A-N.” Now wasn’t the time for a spelling lesson. Not if we wanted to cap off this caper.

  “Penguin? Panda? Peacock?”

  “Peacock!” I shouted. “B-I-N-G-O! Let’s go!”

  Vinnie showed me the way to the peacocks’ penthouse.

  When we arrived, the head peacock (we’ll call him the pheasant president) was admiring his reflection in a mirror.

  Vinnie pressed play on his pen and cleared his throat.

  The peacock let out a loud screeching call that grated my ears and (probably) loosened a few of my spines.

  “Easy now, birdie,” said Vinnie. “We need to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright with you.”

  “Fine, you can ask me a few questions. But first I need to get ready.” With his back to us, the peacock rustled his little white fluffy tail feathers, turned around, and dazzled us, fanning out his large ornamental tail.

  “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” said Vinnie, admiring the bird’s tail feathers.

  “Do I look good?” the peacock asked himself. “Yes, yes, I do look good,” he replied to himself. (He seemed to like the sound of his own voice.) “Do I impress the peahens? Yes, yes, I do impress those peahens.” He rattled his train, producing a noise like the sound of a passing car. “Am I impressing you right now? Yes, yes, I am impressing you right now.”

  “And I need to impress upon you the importance of this investigation,” I said. “There’s a criminal on the loose, a criminal that we need to catch if there’s any hope of restoring order and getting some sleep.”

  I didn’t know where to look. I kept trying to make eye contact with the peacock, but I was distracted by his feathers and the hundreds of eyes that appeared to be looking at me. “Have you seen anything strange? Tell us what you know, and you can go back to fanning those fancy feathers of yours.”

  “Have I seen anything strange?” the peacock asked himself. “Only a group of meerkats having an eating contest.”

  “The only thing strange about that was that I wasn’t invited!” said Vinnie. He folded his arms over his chest, angry at the oversight.

  “What else do you know?” I asked before Vinnie could blabber on and on about his eating contest victories.

  “Do I know anything about a criminal?” the peacock asked himself. “No, no, I don’t know anything about a criminal,” he replied to himself. “I’ve just been here admiring my reflection. What’s criminal about that?”

  “Criminal act number one: VANITY. You don’t want all that pride going to your head and that fabulous head crest of yours,” said Vinnie.

  “Criminal act number two: VANDALISM,” I said.

  “That’s right,” added Vinnie. “Zoo property has been destroyed. And criminal act number three: THEFT.” He paused, twirling his tail for effect.

  “What was stolen?” asked the pheasant president.

  “Three handmade animals from the zoo’s carousel,” I said, “and there’re no fingerprints, pawprints, or wingprints anywhere. The only thing our technicians found in the fingerprint lab were traces of food and fluoride—”

  “Which suggests the criminal act was premeditated,” interrupted Vinnie. “It was planned ahead of time. The culprits also left behind some nuts and bolts and a wrench.”

  “The crime was done in a rush,” I added.

  Vinnie pointed his pen at the bird. “Any idea who’d want to GET A WIGGLE ON in such a hurry?”

  The peacock shook that fantastic floating crown of his with unnecessary ostentation.

  Vinnie turned to me. “Prepare for Operation Ostentation,” he whispered.

  Clever, I thought. “In addition to ‘ostentation,’ a group of peacocks is also called a bevy, a muster, a pride, and a party.”

  “No time for parties,” mumbled Vinnie. “We’re trying to get this pretentious peafowl to fess up. Commence rattling.”

  Vinnie pulled out some photographs from his secret agent briefcase, spreading them out on the peafowl penthouse floor. “These are all the missing wooden animals so far: the cheetah, the ostrich, and the peacock.”

  “The peacock is gone!” exclaimed the pheasant president. “What are my fans going to say? They’ll be so disappointed. You have to do something! Soon!” He let out another HONK.

  The honk sounded nothing like the bark on Vinnie’s night vision camera. There was a chance we were barking up the wrong tree.

  “You sure you’re not behind this?” asked Vinnie. “Perhaps you were hoping to muster some publicity and increase that fanbase of yours even more?”

  “Are you accusing me of stealing my own wooden likeness? No, it wasn’t me. One, I wouldn’t want to ruffle my own feathers. And two, I’d need a lot of peacocks—a pride—to pull off a stunt like that.” He shook his shiny feathers with an exclamatory flourish.

  Just then I got a bee in my bonnet. Not that I wear a bonnet (although I’d probably look really good in one).

  I had a hunch our hooligan wasn’t working alone. Whoever was pulling off these crimes didn’t mind a little grease and grime, and they had a lot of help. Which meant this peafowl hadn’t been involved in any foul play.

  CHAPTER 5

  Back at our headquarters, we had an unexpected guest.

  The footloose and fancy-free panda from our last case stepped into the office.

  “Are the rumors true?” he asked. “Is someone really stealing the animals on the zoo’s carousel? Because if that’s the case, then I’d like to enter the Witness Protection Program—not that I’ve witnessed anything—so perhaps you can enroll me in the Witness-less Protection Program since I’m scared. Really, really scared. What if the wooden panda is next?”

  I forgot how much this big lug blathered on when he got nervous. He was kicking into a handstand (he claimed it helped him calm down) when a troop of monkeys popped in as well.

  “Did we hear you have a Witness-less Protection Program?” the monkey manager asked. “We want in too. Now.”

  “Boss,” Vinnie whispered, “I think we have a problem.” He pointed out the window at the long line of animals making their way to the Hedgehog Hut. For a hedgehog who doesn’t like to socialize, it was a problem.

  A big problem.

  “Well,” said Vinnie, addressing the crowd and chomping on his tail. “We don’t have a Witness-less Protection Program, but we do have a Witness-less Affection Program (no witnessing necessary): My pincushion of a partner here can give you a hug.” Vinnie waved an arm in my direction. “Hitch’s also capable of shooting his quills at any potential culprits, so no need to worry. You’re all safe.”

  There was an audible sigh of relief from the animal mob.

  S I G H H H H H H.

  “Not true,” I said.

  The animals mumble-grumbled nervously.

  “About the shooting quills; I’m not a porcupine,” I added. “And we can discuss the hugs. I also don’t gather food with my spines, so don’t ask.”

  “Speaking of food,” said Vinnie, “we also offer the Witness-less Convection Program where we give you a fancy treat. Be right back.”

  Vinnie scampered off, and I was left wheeling and dealing snuggles. Not that any wheels were involved.

  Vinnie soon returned with a cart of candy.

  While I doled out more hugs (I couldn’t help myself), he doled out candied fruit, sugar-covered nuts, bonbons, and sugarplums.

  “These sugarplums are especially delicious,” Vinnie said. “They’re what sweet dreams are made of. Created by the Sugar Plum Fairy herself!”

  “Where’d you get the desserts?” I asked Vinnie.

  “I have connections,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  It didn’t.

  While the animals happily ate their sugared treats, Vinnie put on his thinking cap, a rat-sized orange construction cone, and wheeled in a chalkboard.

  He scribbled here and there, erased a few diagrams, ate some chalk, burped, and scratched out some more sketches.

  “Boss, I was thinking we could create a safe house with a safe word—how about “radicchio!”—for all of the animals who still have wooden counterparts on the carousel. To help them feel more, well, safe. We can call it Operation Home Sweet Home.”

  I had to give it to Vinnie: The rodent was creative, but his mind wandered more than a kid lost at the zoo.

  “A safe house?” I asked.

  “You know,” said Vinnie, “a house in a secret location that spies and criminals use in hiding.”

  “But we’re not spies or criminals,” I said. “We’re trying to find the criminals.”

  “All part of the plan,” said Vinnie, tapping the chalkboard for emphasis.

  “And where exactly is this safe house?” I asked.

  “Follow me!”

  We followed Vinnie past the trash can with the hidden camera, past the hippos’ home, and right up to Down Under.

  “Vinnie, what are we doing here? This is a construction site.” I pointed to the sign above our heads. The future home of the kangaroos and wallabies wasn’t scheduled to open for a few more months.

  “But surely an exhibit called Down Under has an intricate system of underground tunnels we can hide in,” replied Vinnie. “Maybe there are even some giant steel vaults and safes with those combination locks that are so much fun to pick.”

  “No tunnel system,” I said. “No steel vaults. No safes. No combination locks. Down Under refers to Australia and New Zealand, the marsupials’ home. It’s called Down Under because this area is under the other countries on a map.”

  Vinnie cocked his head as if trying to visualize a map.

  “In the Southern Hemisphere?” I added.

  Still nothing. “And this construction site is probably the least safe place in the zoo,” I said. I gestured to the monkeys swinging from a crane while lion cubs played King of the Hill on a massive mound of dirt. Meanwhile, penguins danced on a cement truck, waddling on its drum as if it were a treadmill. “I’m also not sure how this safe house keeps the wooden animals on the zoo’s carousel safe.”

  Vinnie considered this for a moment. “It doesn’t. But we’ll appoint two sentries,” he said, pointing to two shaggy llamas, Ned and Ted. “And we’ll hand out hard hats. Nothing says safety like a bright yellow helmet.”

  The animals took to wearing hard hats like they took to devouring sweets.

  Ned and Ted were harder to please.

  “We’d like some sunglasses,” said Ned.

  “Yes,” said Ted, chewing on a stalk of hay. “If we’re going to be on the lookout, we need something to reduce the glare from the moon and all these zoo lights.”

  Interesting, I thought. These pack animals were helping me unpack a few more clues about this case.

  Vinnie leafed through his secret agent briefcase while I leafed through what we knew about our thief:

  The thief could wield a wrench and didn’t mind a little grease and grime.

  The thief had helpers.

  Since there were helpers, there were probably sentries as well.

  And these sentries would need sunglasses.

  “Vinnie, you know this zoo like the back of your paw. Which animals wear sunglasses?” I asked.

  Vinnie continued rummaging around in his briefcase. He was practically inside it and upside down. Only his feet stuck out in the air.

  “Well,” he began. He tossed out some items. “There’s that shady hippo we ran into on the last case.”

  I crossed the hippos off my list of suspects. No way could those hooves hold a wrench.

  “And now these two camel-cousins,” Vinnie added happily, handing Ned and Ted two pairs of gigantic sunglasses.

  “How do I look?” asked Ned, modeling the specs.

  “G-llama-rous!” said Vinnie

  Ted laughed so hard he spit.

  Ned wiped the spit off his specs. “This will be easy as pie,” he said, and the two sauntered off to the highest point near the carousel, giggling and guffawing the entire way.

  “That’s it!” shouted Vinnie. “Pie!” He scampered around in circles, jumping up and down every now and then.

  “Pie?” I repeated.

  “Yes, pie.” Vinnie unrolled the construction site plans, flipped them over, and doodled right and left. He drew small pies, medium pies, and big pies. “More specifically, a pie operation.”

 

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