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NECKLACM 4' Detective and the case of the stolen necklace

"Michaela, we need you again!" said the policeman on the other
end of the phone.

Lucifer Snidely was in prison, but that didn't stop him from
planning the robbery of the world's most valuable necklace.

As usual, the robbers did not have the necklace with them when
they were arrested just two blocks away from the museum. Before
the police called Michaela, they searched the entire museum to
see if the robbers had hidden the necklace there. But the search
found nothing.

When Michaela arrived at the museum, she asked to see the
recordings from the cameras. One of the cameras showed one of
the robbers carrying the necklace when he left the museum. That
meant that he must have hidden the necklace somewhere between
the museum and where he was arrested.

The police searched both sides of the streets the robbers used
for their escape, including the storm drains, but found no trace
of the necklace.

"It's raining outside." said Michaela.

"Yes. So?" asked the policeman.

Michaela replied, "So, that means there's water flowing down in
the storm drains."

"Yes. So?" asked the policeman.

"What if the robbers hid the necklace inside of a toy boat and
floated the boat down the storm drain?" she asked.

"How do we find out?" asked the policeman.

"The storm drains all flow into the river and the river flows
into the ocean." explained Michaela.

Michaela rode with the policeman to the beach where the river
flowed into the ocean and they waited for a toy boat to float
by.

"There it is!" shouted the policeman as he waded into the water.

But when he came back to shore with the toy boat, he exclaimed,
"It's locked. The boat is really just a floating vault and it's
locked!"

Sure enough, the boat had the familiar keypad that Lucifer
Snidely had hidden the necklace in several times before. But
this time, the keypad didn't have ten numbers. Instead, it had
ten colors.

"How do we know which colors to push?" asked the policeman.

Michaela inspected the toy boat carefully with her magnifying
glass.

"Aha!" she exclaimed.

"Did you find something?" asked the policeman.

"Yes." replied Michaela, "This thin stripe along the length of
the boat looks like a decoration, but it's actually several tiny
words written in a straight line."

"What do the words say?" asked the policeman, "Are they the
colors?"

"No." replied Michaela, "They're the names of birds."

"Well, that's no help!" exclaimed the policeman.

(Here are the names of the birds that were written in teeny tiny
letters along the side of the boat)

cardinal pigeon crow canary egret sparrow bluebird flamingo parrot

(can you tell from these names which buttons to push to open the
toy boat?)

Michaela examined the names for a few seconds, then explained,
"These birds are all different colors. If we know what colors
these birds are, we know which colored buttons to push."

(Now, can you tell from these names which buttons to push to
open the toy boat?)

Here are the colors of the birds:

cardinal = red

pigeon = grey

crow = black

canary = yellow

egret = white

sparrow = brown

bluebird = blue

flamingo = pink

parrot = green

(did you have the same combination of colors as the world's
greatest detective?)

When Michaela pushed the colored buttons in the correct order,

(red, grey, black, yellow, white, brown, blue, pink, green)

the boat split apart and out fell the world's most expensive
necklace.

©2008 Bob Snook. Conditions for use:
This story is free. Pay no fees or royalties.
Do not sell this story or rewrite it.
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http://www.bobsnook.org/kid  email: bob@bobsnook.org

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