The Case of the Stinky Socks (4 page)

He shrugged. “Maybe he had on his uniform.”

Jazz snorted. “Right. If I wanted to sneak into a locker room and steal stuff from a rival team, I would definitely wear my uniform.”

He had to admit that she was thinking logically. Dash Marlowe would approve.

“Okay. What's
your
brilliant plan, then?”

She smiled. “Are we partners?”

Milo considered. On the one hand, they
were
her brother's socks. And Jazz did seem pretty smart. But he didn't like her know-it-all attitude. And besides, what kind of private eye wore purple flowered clogs?

“We'd make a fantastic team,” she said. “I'll be the brains, and you can be the . . . uh . . .” She frowned. “Well, I'm sure you can help.”

Humph. That settled it. “I don't need a partner,” he told her. “I'm going to solve this case all by myself.”

“Ethan, do you have to be such a slowpoke?” Milo grumbled. Why did his mom pick today to make him babysit his brother?

“You'd be slow, too, if you had a ten-ton tail,” Ethan told him.

Milo rolled his eyes. He bet Dash Marlowe wouldn't solve so many cases if he had to drag along a little kid who thought he was a dinosaur.

When they reached the high school, Milo stopped by the baseball field to watch Dylan warm up.

His first pitch went wide of the plate. The catcher tossed the ball back, and Dylan tried again. This time he completely missed the backstop.

Wow, Milo thought. He'd better find those socks, and fast.

 

With Ethan trailing after him, Milo headed to the locker room.

“Excuse me,” he said to a boy in swim trunks. “Have you seen a pair of missing socks?”

The boy stared at him. “If they're missing, how am I supposed to see them?” The boy walked off.

Maybe that wasn't the best way to put the question. He tried another boy. “I'm trying to solve a mystery. Have you noticed anything strange around here?”

The boy grinned. “Yeah.”

“Really? What?”

“You!” The boy laughed.

This wasn't going very well so far.

Wait . . . what was that smell?

Sniffing, Milo followed the smell as it grew stronger. What a stink! It
had
to be Dylan's lucky socks!

A tall boy stood in front of the locker-room mirror squeezing goop out of a bottle and putting it in his hair. He looked down at Milo's notebook and flashed him a smile full of big, white teeth.

“Hoping for an autograph, kid?”

 

“Um . . . not exactly. I just—” Milo sniffed again. “What is that stuff?”

“You mean my moose?”

Milo stared at the smelly goop. “That's supposed to be a moose?” Moose
poop,
maybe.

“Not
a
moose,” the boy said. “Mousse. For my hair. M-O-U-S-E.”

“That spells
mouse,”
Milo said.

The blond boy tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Whatever. Look, kid, they don't call me Chip the Champ for winning spelling bees.” He grabbed his tennis racket and gave it a swing, checking himself out in the mirror.

“Sorry,” Milo said. “That stuff just smelled so bad, I thought it was the socks I was looking for.”

“If you want stinky socks,” said Chip, “you should've had a whiff of the ones I smelled in here yesterday.” He shook his head. “I hope that guy was taking them out to be burned.”

Smelly socks? Yesterday? A boy taking them out? Chip must have seen the thief!

Milo said, “What did he look—”

“Help!
Help!”

Milo looked up and saw Ethan sprinting toward him. Close behind his brother was a giant, furry cat wearing a blue-and-gold Westview Wildcats uniform.

“YOU LITTLE—”

 

“Wow,” Chip said. “I haven't seen Wildcat Willie that ticked off since the head cheerleader's Chihuahua wee-weed on his leg.”

Ethan rushed up and pointed back at Wildcat Willie. “It's a sabre-tooth tiger! It was about to pounce on me. I clubbed it with my tail, and then I sank my teeth into its—”

Wildcat Willie roared. “WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU—”

Milo reviewed his choices. He could try explaining to the angry mascot that his brother was a dinosaur. Or he could—

Wildcat Willie loomed up in front of them, and Milo grabbed Ethan's hand.

“Run!”