to my little brother Connor He wasn’t cooling his heels like me and Max though He was studying Connor was reading a book about baking Did you know North Americans eat two billion cookies every year he asked That’s a lot of cookies I said This book says it works out to three hundred cookies a person Connor closed his book and looked at me serious-like Do you know what that means Someone has been eating our cookies I said because there’s no way Mom and Dad let us have three hundred cookies a year Do you think they eat our share when we’re sleeping That would explain why they’re always so strict about bedtime I said 2
And why they don’t like us getting out of bed and going to the kitchen to get a glass of water added Connor We’ll have to do some I tried to think of the word It started with a k or an o and it was a great word that meant secret I couldn’t think of it so I said Secret investigating If we put our heads together we can solve this mystery He made a frowny face Can we be our own clients That summer Connor and I had investigators We’d become private found the missing key to the library for Mrs Robinson recovered stolen diamond earrings for the Lees and discovered who had been playing pranks at the community theater Being a P I is a lot of fun I like figuring out puzzles and putting clues 3
together and helping people solve their problems Plus we have a mascot It’s an alligator because I love them Pluser alligator rhymes with investigator And I really like that I think we can be our own clients I said But our case will have to wait We have a more important job today You mean going to the baking contest said Connor And making sure we eat as many cookies and cakes as we can I have to get in those three hundred cookies before Mom and Dad catch us No well yes that’s true But we’re also judges for the contest so we need to make sure we’re fair about who we choose to win Judging the contest was a privillage privaledge privilege we were given for being so good at solving mysteries 4
Every year Mrs Hamilton runs a baking contest She owns a great bakery in our neighborhood called Cake’n’Bake The winner of her contest will have their dessert sold in her bakery for four months Connor pulled out the paper that listed all the rules for judging He covered up the lines so I could only see one at a time I have dyslexia That means I reverse letters and numbers and sometimes they jump around Seeing only one line at a time helps the words stay still We have to judge the best dessert That means tasting the food That’ll be easy said Connor Nothing burned wins Connor moved his hands so I could read the next line And we have to judge the dessert based on the presentation 5
