An AutumnTown Mystery

CHAPTER 1

Wilson and Francis

The W.D.A is the world's most infamous detective agency, in a place called Autumntown. To get there, all you have to do is look for the only three- storied building around those parts, on Maple Road. The WDA consists of Wilson, who doesn't see the reason why he has to mention his surname, and his best friend Francis, who doesn't see it either. Let me describe both of them to you. Wilson is a fourteen year old boy with shiny black hair, which sticks up in two directions. He says it's because of static electricity, but don't believe him. He actually does it with lots of hair gel. He likes wearing red coloured clothes. Wilson says that he never thought of starting a detective agency, rather, it was Francis who wanted to. Francis, his roommate, and also his best friend, is 17 years old, and quite tall, with orange hair that sticks upright. Because of this, the children around Maple Road shout after him, "Hey Tintin! Tintin! Why isn't Snowy with you?" And as Francis gets annoyed easily, he just picks up a baseball bat and chases after them. Francis always wears his favorite dark glasses, along with a blue sweater, white shirt and brown pants. That's another reason why they call him 'Tintin'. Now let me tell you about the W.D.A. It stands for 'Wilson Detective Agency', and is at the top of the three- storied building. Its headquarters (Wilson and Francis's house) have an office (which is actually their room). The center of the room has a large desk painted red, two rotating blue chairs on either side, a plain steel bunk bed, with the detective kit on top, and the bookcase with hundreds of mystery novels. They solve minor cases around Autumntown. One floor below, lives an old lady, Miss Annabelle. She was known for being one of the greatest snake collectors of all time before she retired, saying that her joints were too old to go chasing after reptiles. And finally, on the ground floor, lives The Mad Professor. His real name is actually Thomas, but thanks to his reputation, the whole town knows him by that name. He has grey hair that spreads all around his head like a lotus, and wears dark glasses. He also wears a long white coat that reaches down to his ankles, with black pants. The Mad Professor is obsessed with dinosaurs and has devoted himself to the process of cloning them, and thanks to his experiments with what he claimed was dinosaur spit, the whole neighbourhood nearly got blown up. Luckily for the W.D.A, after this incident, he decided to travel around the world studying dinosaurs and only made visits back home once a year.

Chapter 2

Autumntown Police Department

Autumntown must be the only place on earth where two boys function better than the police squad. This is because of Policeman Paul, a man with an inability to catch criminals. Even a thief could've stolen a necklace in front of his eyes and gotten away with it. He is a very fat man, and this doesn't help him while chasing criminals up a hill on his bicycle. While this was going on, he sounded like a steam engine. 'Puff-puff-Stop, thief! Puff- puff!' Unfortunately for the thief, by the time he reached the top of the hill, when he thought he finally got rid of Paul, two boys handcuffed him and pressed a gun to his head. Now we'll talk about Chief Inspector James. James is a fair man, with a bushy moustache which he was very proud of. Though he's better at catching criminals than Paul is, he's good friends with the W.D.A, and trusts them a lot. When they come across puzzling cases, Wilson and Francis always turn to him for help, and vice-versa. But he almost lost faith in them, after Autumntown's most serious case came up. It had a lot to do with the Mad Professor; in fact, the whole incident was his fault. I'll tell you about it now…

It all started on the first day of summer…

CHAPTER 4

Dinosaur Eggs

As soon as Francis woke up, the first sound he heard was – No, not the birds singing, not the morning breeze blowing through the trees, but it was….. Wilson snoring and it sounded like someone was playing a tuba. Francis rolled over and sighed. He always slept on the top bunk and Wilson on the lower. He checked the date on his watch. It said-'1ST April, 2014.' This gave Francis an idea. He slowly climbed out of bed, crept to the toilet, got a mug of cold water, went back, and threw the contents over Wilson, shouting 'April Fool!' Wilson immediately woke up and pulled Francis down and started punching him multiple times. After a long, wet and confused fight, the two of them heard the most terrifying noise in the world, which was the sound of… The Mad Professor's car. They looked at each other, screamed, and ran off to hide. Francis hid under the desk and Wilson pushed the couch in front of the front door and hid in the bed. They waited until they heard The Mad Professor talking to himself. 'This place looks like it could use some improvement, but I don't really mind, unless my experiments are successful, or going to Africa would have been a total waste of time.' Francis was stunned. He remembered- some time earlier, The Professor was telling Miss Annabelle that this year the only thing that he was going to do was make robots, and Annabelle had given a 'Huh!' and gone to make cookies. It was obvious that she didn't believe him. But as soon as he had come back, there wasn't a huge explosion, so the two friends took that as a good sign.

And that was their big mistake.

CHAPTER 5

The 'Incident'

A few hours later, the Professor started working on his latest experiment. He believed that if he built a dinosaur robot, he could use it to hatch dinosaur eggs he found while travelling around the world. The next day, he invited Wilson and Francis to have a look at it. He had built a robot of a Tyrannosaurus Rex right in the middle of his living room, and he had painted it brown, so it actually looked realistic. Wilson and Francis settled down on a couch squashed against the wall and waited for the Professor to arrive with the robot's remote control. The huge robot seemed to glare at them- The Professor had even painted its eyes. Wilson sighed, got up, and wandered around what was left of the room. 'I think that the Professor has actually done something interesting for once, right Francis?' he asked, patting the robot's snout. Francis was about to agree, when suddenly there was a huge explosion, and made the two of them jump. Then they saw that the whole apartment was filled with smoke, and a fire had started in the Mad Professor's home. 'RUN!' screamed Francis, pulling Wilson with him. They ran out of the building just in time to see people running around, and a fire engine coming to spray water on the fire. Then the two of them felt a hand on their shoulder. The two of them turned around and looked up into the face of Policeman Paul. 'Boys, both of you are coming with me.'

'WE'RE INNOCENT!'

Screamed Wilson, slamming Chief Inspector James's desk with his fist. They were in the Autumntown Police Station, being asked questions by Policeman Paul and Chief Inspector James. Francis pulled Wilson back. 'Calm down, Wilson.' He turned to James. 'Sir, we swear it wasn't us who started the fire.' Paul smirked. 'Well, then why were you two fleeing the crime scene?' 'No, we weren't, you nitwit, we were just trying to stop inhaling the smoke!' snapped Wilson. James raised his hand. 'Silence. Francis, Wilson, The Mad Professor had gone out because he thought he had left the remote control in the car, but he hadn't. Miss Annabelle had gone to buy baking ingredients, and when she returned, she found the place on fire. The two of you were the only ones in the building. What do you have to say to that?' Wilson swallowed. Francis said 'It's obvious, Sir. We've been framed.' 'I believe you, but until that can be proved, the two of you are under house arrest.' Said James.'WHAT?'

CHAPTER 6

In Action Again

The two friends were in terrible condition by the time they reached home. Five guards would be stationed around the building, day and night, until they found out who really set fire to the Mad professor's house. They weren't even allowed to go out and solve mysteries. If they had to buy groceries, an assistant would get it for them. Francis and Wilson were angry and restless. Sometime later, The Mad Professor paid them a visit. 'You know, I don't believe that the two of you set fire to my home. At least nothing happened to my robot, and that's why I was able to hatch a baby stegosaurus. I named it Stego. Here, I brought today's newspaper for you.' He handed it to them and left. Wilson opened it up and began to read aloud to Francis. 'THE AUTUMN DAILY- W.D.A accused of setting fire to Mad Professor's house…wow, Francis, it's really amazing that we've made the front page news.' said Wilson sarcastically. 'let me read out the rest to you.' Wilson began reading, then suddenly he stopped mid-sentence. Francis stared at him. 'What's wrong?' 'Listen to this- a poisonous snake, Black Mamba has been stolen from Autumn Zoo. Police are unable to catch the culprit- WARNING- if the Black Mamba escapes from the thief's hands, it could kill everyone in the neighborhood.' He put down the paper. 'Francis! How about we try to solve this one?' 'Yeah, Wilson, if only we could actually get out of this building.' 'But we can! Just listen to me…'

Some hours later, Francis peered out of the window. A guard was standing directly underneath it. Francis gave a 'thumbs-up' sign to Wilson, and dropped a piece of wood the size of an encyclopedia out the window and on the guard's head. He immediately fell unconscious. Francis let down a rope ladder and quietly climbed down. Wilson followed him, with the detective kit under his arm. Both of them had put on disguises, and now they looked like proper tourists. Then they stepped over the unconscious guard and began walking towards the zoo. It was only a 15 minutes' walk from there; Wilson and Francis discussed their plans as they walked. They were going to pretend that they were ordinary tourists, and had just come to the zoo for a visit, when they stumbled upon a crime scene. The Autumn Zoo was usually a very cheerful place, with people and tourists going in and out. It was very large, with each exhibition painted a different color. The Reptile Exhibition was painted green, the Big Cat Exhibition was painted red, and the Aquatic Animals Exhibition was painted blue. But today, it was really noisy, and the Press were clicking photos and moving around and interviewing whoever they saw. The two of them watched reporters interview the zoo manager. 'Sir, around what time did the snake theft take place?' asked one. 'It took place at night,' he replied. 'about 12:30 PM , I think. I heard from the security guard who was on duty at that time. He's a bit upset that the snake was stolen from right under his nose. His name is Robert. Why don't you all go and interview him?' Then every reporter went to look for Robert. Francis whispered to Wilson-'I'll go and look for clues. You go and spy on them; see if you can hear anything useful.' And they ran off in separate directions. Francis followed the signs that said-'COME SEE OUR ZOO'S PRIDE-THE BLACK MAMBA!' He followed them until he saw it. It seemed that the zoo keepers kept the black mamba in a glass case, on top of a pillar, protected by a laser beam fence. But the glass case was smashed, and the snake was missing. Francis looked upwards. In place of a roof there were glass panes. He frowned, and decided to look for Wilson, before going up to the roof and checking the window panes. However, his friend was having no such luck either. He listened carefully as the reporters interviewed Robert. 'Mr. Robert, what were you doing at the time of the theft?' 'Well, that night, I was assigned to look after the reptiles and by around 12:15, the snake was still in its case. Then I walked around the Exhibits and while I wasn't looking, I heard a smashing noise and then the alarm went off. I ran back to the Black Mamba's case, but I was too late and it was gone.' Wilson then decided to return to Francis.

CHAPTER 7

Nighttime Investigation

On the way home, Wilson told Francis what he had heard, and Francis told him what he observed. They then reached their house, the guard whom they had dropped wood on earlier showed signs of stirring, so they hit him around the head with the detective kit and he fell unconscious again. 'Francis, did you go up to the roof that time and check the window panes?' asked Wilson as he climbed up the rope ladder. 'Yes, I did.' he replied. 'And guess what? One of the panes was loose.' 'Really?' asked Wilson. Well, then the culprit must've removed one of them, and jumped through the window with the help of a rope.' By this time the two of them had climbed into their house. 'Yeah,' said Francis thoughtfully. 'And then, he or she must've smashed the case, taken out the snake, and escaped.' 'That makes sense.' said Wilson, nodding his head. 'But what if he comes back? If he's a snake collector, surely he'll want another one. And the next valuable snake in that zoo is a Boomslang.' Why don't we spend the night there?' suggested Francis. 'He's bound to come back, but we might not be able to handle that snake. It's said that, if a Boomslang bites you, blood comes out of every external part of your body. We'll need some help from the Professor.' And while he went to get a 'secret weapon' from the Professor, Wilson packed some extra equipment in the detective kit.

It was 11:50 PM by the time the two boys knocked the guard unconscious, took the 'secret weapon' with them, in a big bag, and ran all the way to the zoo. Francis picked open the lock of the back door, and they went in. In the detective kit were two guns, a knife, a stick, 2 flashlights, a metal chain, some medicines, and a bottle of snake bite antidote. They squatted next to the Boomslang exhibition. They could hear it hissing softly. Then suddenly, they heard footsteps. Wilson's muscles tensed. There was a sound of a lever being pulled, a trapdoor opened underneath them, and along with the snake, they all fell through it. Francis and Wilson hit the ground with a 'BUMP!' 'That hurt,' whispered Francis. A dark figure walked towards them. Francis quickly took out his flashlight, and shone it towards the figure, yelling, 'AHA!' But the figure was the least person they expected.

It was Miss Annabelle. 'You!?' shouted Wilson, standing up. 'But how? You're too old for this kind of stuff!' Annabelle snickered. 'I'm not as old as I look,' she said. 'I'm only 30, and I still haven't stopped collecting snakes. I tried to get both of you out of the way by pretending to go out shopping, but I turned back and started a fire in that Professor's room. But you guys are too stubborn… that's why, your end has come!' Quick as lightning, she pulled the snake out of its case and threw it at him. He smacked it away with a stick and covered it with a cloth. Francis took out his gun and pointed it at Annabelle, but she knocked it out of his hand, and taking out a knife, prepared to stab him. Then suddenly, Wilson pulled the 'secret weapon' out of its bag. It was Stego, the baby stegosaur that the Professor had hatched. Wilson flung Stego at Annabelle, and she fell to the floor, howling, because the stegosaur bit her everywhere, and wherever it bit, lumps the size of grapes appeared, and popped every two seconds. 'Quick!' said Francis to Wilson, as he handcuffed her. 'Get some medicines from the detective kit!'

CHAPTER 8

Happy Ending

Wilson and Francis got Annabelle to the police station and explained everything. Annabelle was soon arrested, and the two of them received a medal from Chief Inspector James, who was proud of them once more. Their house arrest was lifted, and they were now allowed to solve cases as they pleased. They did just that, and everything went back to normal.

Well, at least, that's what they thought.

THE END