14

Zack tossed and turned in bed. The solution was coming to him, he knew it...but who did it? That was what he needed to know.

"Professor Plum in the conservatory with the lead pipe," he muttered, wondering what the possible outcome to his unfinished Clue game could be. "No, wait, I have those cards. Um...Miss Scarlet in the hall with the revolver?"

He was suddenly reminded of something. He got up and walked over to his sock drawer. He had a crazy thought that maybe he had just accidentally buried his gun underneath a deep pile of socks. He opened up the drawer—and was surprised to see the gun, plain as day.

"That's funny," muttered Zack, barely noticing the door creaking open. "I don't recall the gun being in here the last time."

"Nor did I," spoke a voice that made Zack jump about a foot in the air until he saw it was only Cody, wearing his teddy bear pyjamas.

"Hey, that was supposed to be our secret!" cried Cody.

"Ah, ah, ah," said Zack, waving a finger. "You expose my humiliating secret, I expose yours."

"I heard voices and I couldn't get to sleep," explained Cody, taking a few steps forward. "You were muttering something about Plums."

"Oh yes, I was trying to figure out the solution to that unfinished Clue game," said Zack quickly. "But that's not important right now; what's important is that this gun wasn't here hours ago and now it is here! Who dares to play mind tricks on the great Zack Lombard?"

"The last person you ticked off," replied Cody. "Which would probably be..." His eyes widened. "Patrick!" he gasped. "He's not in his bed!"

"What?" asked Zack. "Are you sure? Did you check?"

"Yes, I checked earlier when I was trying to find out where the voices are coming from," explained Cody.

"Maybe he's just in the bathroom," suggested Zack.

"No, I checked the bathroom," said Cody, shaking his head. He paused and said, "Although...Patrick has a deep, dark secret I never knew about until I looked into his bathroom."

"He's a Republican?" gasped Zack.

"Worse," said Cody, shaking with trauma. "His—"

"He's a My Little Pony fan!" exclaimed Zack.

"Worse," repeated Cody. "His brother—"

"He's a—"

"Would you just let me finish already?!?" said Cody irritably. "His brother didn't murder anyone. He did."

"Wait, so Patrick killed that Clees woman?" said Zack slowly.

Cody nodded fearfully, then remarked, "Hey, it's the first time you actually got a name right."

"That's because it's easy to remember," said Zack. "It rhymes with 'cheese'." Then, "So what evidence did you find?"

"A confession note saying he did it all," said Cody.

"Wait," said Zack, holding up a hand. "You don't think he killed the others, do you?"

"He never said anything about that," said Cody. "But anything's possible."

"What's possible?"

The two boys screamed and whipped around to see a confused-looking Maddie standing there. "Oh, hi, Maddie," said Zack nervously. "What are you doing here?"

"I couldn't sleep," said Maddie. "Everything's just getting to me."

Zack gave Maddie a gentle hug, which she accepted. Cody cleared his throat and the two lovebirds separated. He said, "I was just explaining to Zack that Patrick has disappeared and he murdered that Cheese woman—Clees, I meant Clees!" he said quickly.

Zack stifled a laugh.

"Boys, this is no laughing matter," said Maddie gravely. "For when I went downstairs, I saw only three Indian boys remaining on that mantelpiece."

"Only two chapters left to go," said Zack sadly. "You know, Cody, I actually kind of liked working on this story. I'm going to be bored when this is done."

"Well, let's get working on that next chapter," said Cody. "Hopefully, we won't run into too many problems at the end."