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Give Cheetos a Chance
Mysteries by Kids 2: April 1998
by Sandi
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Something was missing. I began to examine the
fingerprints with my magnifying glass, when I heard a
noise behind me. I heard the rattle of the door knob so I
scooted under the desk to hide. The door opened, and from under the
desk I could see the shoes of the evil Courtney. Courtney was the
meanest girl in school.
Tiptoeing,
Courtney walked to the desk and moved the papers around looking for
something. I would have thought that she was the thief but it
wouldn't make sense that she would come back to the scene of the
crime. As I watched her shoes she turned and walked out of the room
without taking anything. Softly, she closed the door behind her.
I was there
because someone had stolen the answers to the math exam we were
supposed to take today. Ms. Nelson had confronted the class and told
us that this would not be accepted and that we had the rest of the
day to confess or to put the answers back on her desk. I didn't
think anyone would confess so it was up to me to discover who the
thief was.
Crawling out
from under the desk, I continued my examination of Ms. Nelson's
desk. Something was missing and I couldn't think what it was. Once
again I put my magnifying glass over the fingerprints. I discovered
that the fingerprints were orange. That was odd. Looking around for
something that would leave orange on a person's fingers I realized
what was missing! Ms. Nelson always kept a bag of Cheetos on her
desk for any kid who forgot their snack. Since we hadn't had snack
time yet, the Cheetos bag should have been there. So whoever stole
the answers to the math exam had also helped themselves to the
Cheetos!
Taking a piece
of scotch tape, I laid it across the fingerprints, lifting them onto
the tape. I then put the piece of tape with the fingerprints onto a
file card I had in by back pocket. This way I could take the
fingerprints with me as evidence when I found the culprit. Leaving
Ms. Nelson's office, I closed the door behind me. Now the hunt was
on for someone with orange fingers.
My class was
at recess, so I went outside. Passing the basket of softballs we had
for recess I picked one up. First, I threw the ball to Ginger. When
she threw it back I looked at it and it was clean. Next, I threw the
ball to Brittany. When she threw it back it was still clean. Chance
yelled at me to throw the ball to him next. I tossed the ball to
Chance and he threw it back to me. Looking at the ball I discovered
five orange fingerprints.
As my
classmates yelled at me I ran back into the building and into Ms.
Nelson's office. Taking another piece of tape I lifted the prints
off the ball and placed them beneath the fingerprints already on the
card. Examining them with my magnifying glass I discovered the two
sets of prints were the same. Now that I had the evidence, I went to
Ms. Nelson and explained what I had discovered.
With great
satisfaction I watched as Chance confessed to his crime.
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