Andy Russell, NOT Wanted by the Police Read online

  Detective Andy Russell is on the job again, Andy thought as he stood in front of the Perlmans’ house.

  The house looked the same to him. The door was closed. The lights were off. The shades downstairs were down, and the ones upstairs were up.

  Andy walked slowly to the side of the house. The shades in the study were still up. Andy walked quietly to one of the windows. He got on his toes and looked in. He saw his reflection in the mirror again, but this time he wasn’t frightened by it. He looked around the study. Everything looked the same.

  “Hey,” someone said.

  “YIKES!” Andy shouted.

  He dropped his books and very slowly turned. It was Tamika.

  “You scared me,” Andy said.

  Tamika looked through the window. Then she said, “Let’s hurry. Let’s check the rest of the house before the bus gets here.”

  The lights in back were off, too, and the shades were the way they were the day before. Andy lifted the lid off the garbage can. There was still just one bag in there. The torn box of Oat Bran Toasties was still on top.

  Toot! Toot!

  “That’s the bus,” Tamika said.

  Andy and Tamika ran to the front yard. They looked both ways and then quickly crossed the street. When they got to the bus, they both thanked the driver, Mr. Cole, for waiting.

  “I’m used to waiting for you,” Mr. Cole said. Then he asked, “And do you know how long bus drivers should wait?” Mr. Cole waited. When neither Andy nor Tamika answered, he said, “Long bus drivers should wait the same way short bus drivers wait.”

  Mr. Cole laughed.

  “Oh,” Andy said, and looked at Tamika.

  Tamika smiled and rolled her eyes.

  During the ride to school, Andy kept thinking about the Perlmans’ house. He imagined a onelegged pirate hopping up and down the Perlmans’ stairs, turning lights on and off, and laughing.

  When Andy got to class, he opened his notebook, copied the homework assignment, looked up at his teacher, Ms. Roman, and waited. The first lesson was history, something about the Revolutionary War. Andy wasn’t sure what Ms. Roman said. He wasn’t really listening. But he looked like he was listening. Throughout the lesson, he stared straight at Ms. Roman. He even pretended to take notes. But he really had no idea what she was talking about. All he could think about was the Perlmans’ house.

  Stacy Ann Jackson, the girl who sat right in front of Andy, closed her notebook, so Andy did, too. She folded her hands and looked up at Ms. Roman, so that’s what Andy did.

  I’m getting good at this, Andy thought. Ms. Roman actually thinks I’m listening.

  Some days Andy was so deep in his own dream world that he didn’t hear the lunch bell ring. But this time he heard it.

  In the cafeteria Andy bought a container of chocolate milk. Then he sat with Tamika and their friends Bruce Jeffries and Stacy Ann Jackson. Andy unwrapped his jelly sandwich and bit into it.

  “What are you writing about?” Stacy Ann asked Andy.

  “I’m not writing. I’m eating,” he answered.

  “Well,” Stacy Ann said, “I’m writing about a kitten in the Revolutionary War. It’s going to meet everyone—George Washington, Paul Revere, Molly Pitcher, and Thomas Jefferson. It may even help write the Declaration of Independence. And I’m calling the cat Cobalt, just like our Cobalt.”

  Andy and Stacy Ann took care of a kitten that lived in the school yard. The kitten had dark gray, almost silver, fur. Andy named it Cobalt, after the silvery metal. They brought food for it.

  Bruce said, “I’m going to write about a talking dog named King that thinks it’s a lion, the king of the beasts. The dog will even try to roar.”

  What are they talking about? Andy wondered.

  Tamika said, “I’m writing about a girl who can’t be with her parents for a while, so she lives with different families. She’ll be happy and unhappy, all at the same time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Andy asked.

  “Weren’t you listening?” Stacy Ann asked. “Ms. Roman said that tomorrow in class we’ll be writing stories. She wanted us to think about what we’ll write.”

  “Oh,” Andy said. “Was that what she said?”

  “You were there,” Stacy Ann told Andy.

  “Only his body was there,” Tamika said. “His mind was somewhere else.”

  “It was?” Bruce said in wonderment. “You can do that? If I could, I’d have my mind at the beach, making a sand castle.”

  “I was thinking about the Perlmans’ house,” Andy said. Then he and Tamika told Stacy Ann and Bruce about the garbage, lights, and police.

  “That’s so strange,” Stacy Ann said. She wrote on her empty lunch bag, Mysterious garbage and a light that goes on in the middle of the night.

  “And the shade in the study,” Tamika added, “which was down and now it’s up.”

  “Hey,” Andy told Stacy Ann, “that’s a great idea. Make a list of clues.”

  “But those are the only clues we have,” Tamika said.

  “Oh no. We have the garbage clues.” Andy told Stacy Ann and Bruce what he and Tamika had found in the garbage.

  Stacy Ann wrote those on her lunch bag, too. Then she looked at the bag. “Skim milk!” she said, and gave the bag to Andy. “That tastes bad. And purple stockings, that’s bad taste.”

  Tamika laughed and said, “Andy thinks there’s a thin, one-legged man living at the Perlmans’.”

  “I just got a great idea,” Stacy Ann said. “You could make that your story. You could write what you imagine is going on there.”

  Andy thought for a moment. Then he smiled and said, “Thanks, Stacy Ann. That is what I’ll write. I imagine all sorts of weird things are happening at the Perlmans’.”

  Chapter 7

  I’ll Scare Him Out

  That afternoon Andy tried to pay attention in class. Ms. Roman was explaining how plants grow. When she showed the class an illustration of the different parts of a leaf, Andy imagined that somewhere there was a classroom of young plants and a large plant was explaining to them how people grow.

  “This brown bubbly stuff is called soda,” Andy imagined the large plant said. “And this brown, round disk is made from a dead animal. It’s called a burger. This one looks almost the same, but it’s a cookie. People seem to like to eat brown stuff. It all goes into people through this door with teeth. The door is called the mouth.”Andy opened and closed his “door with teeth.” He imagined a class of plants was watching him.

  “Fractions are parts of things,” Ms. Roman said.

  Andy looked up. Ms. Roman was teaching math now, about halves and quarters and other fractions. Andy had trouble paying attention during that lesson, too.

  Throughout the afternoon Andy kept his notebook open. He kept his eyes on Ms. Roman, but his mind was elsewhere. He thought about the Perlmans’ house and what might be happening there. This is schoolwork, too, he told himself. I’m thinking about the story I’ll write tomorrow.

  Andy thought about the garbage. He decided someone must be living there. Thieves don’t eat breakfast in a house they rob, and they don’t take out the garbage. Only someone who lives someplace does those things. Andy thought again about the one boot he found in the garbage. Maybe the thief doesn’t have one leg. Maybe he has three, Andy thought. He’d have to buy two pairs of boots and have one extra. Maybe he has five legs or seven!

  The school bell rang. It was time to go home.

  “I was very pleased with your work today,” Ms. Roman told Andy as he was on his way out of class. “You seemed to be paying close attention to the lesson.”

  “Sure, Ms. Roman,” Andy said.

  He tried to imagine a seven-legged thief. He tried to imagine Ms. Roman with seven legs.

  Andy shivered. A seven-legged Ms. Roman was just too frightening an image.

  “Over here!” Bruce yelled when Andy stepped onto the bus. “I saved you a seat.”

  Andy walked past Rachel and Tamika t
o the seat Bruce had saved for him in the back of the bus.

  “I didn’t get all that stuff about plants,” Bruce said.

  “Listen,” Andy told Bruce, “plants probably don’t get all this stuff about us, how we do things. But right now I don’t care about that. I have to worry about the Perlmans’ house.”

  Bruce nodded.

  “And right now I think there is someone living in it. And if there is, then Tamika and I have to get him out.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “First I have to be sure someone is in there. That’s what I have to do first.”

  Bruce turned and looked out the window of the bus. And Andy thought about how to get rid of a one-legged man, or a three- or five- or sevenlegged man.

  Maybe I’ll scare him out. I’ll bang on the windows and hide, or maybe I’ll let my pet snake, Slither, in through the mail slot. Some people are afraid of snakes.

  The bus stopped.

  Or maybe once I can prove he’s in there, I’ll call the police again.

  “Excuse me,” Bruce said. “I have to get off.”

  Andy let Bruce out. Then he got ready to get off, too.

  Rachel was the first one off at the next stop. Then the Belmont girls, Tamika, and Andy got off.

  “Look,” Rachel said. “There’s a package by our door.”

  Andy, Tamika, and Rachel hurried across the street. They hoped the package was the surprise from Mrs. Perlman. But it was just something for Mr. Russell.

  Rachel took the package inside.

  Right by the front door, inside, was a large wooden maze, with one end labeled START and the other labeled FINISH.

  “Great!” Rachel said. “Now I can start on my experiment. And you promised you’d help me,” she told Andy.

  “Before he helps you, and before we do our homework, we’re going next door,” Tamika said, “to check the Perlmans’ house.”

  Andy and Tamika left their backpacks in the hall and went outside again. The front of the Perlman house looked the same as it did in the morning. The door was closed. The lights were off. The shades downstairs were down, and the ones upstairs were up.

  They went to the side of the house. The shades in Dr. Perlman’s study were still up.

  Andy and Tamika walked slowly toward the house. Tamika got on her toes and looked in.

  “Oh, wow.” Tamika gasped and quickly bent down, away from the window.

  “What?” Andy asked.

  “That soda can and that cup weren’t on the desk yesterday,” Tamika whispered.

  “Are you sure?”

  Tamika nodded.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Andy whispered. “This is spooky.”

  “Yeah,” Tamika said. She slowly backed away from the window. Then she and Andy ran next door. When they were both inside, Andy locked the door. He leaned against it. He was panting.

  Chapter 8

  LOOK! LOOK!

  When Andy and Tamika got inside the house, Rachel was waiting for them.

  “I put the maze downstairs,” she said, “so we can get started with the experiment.”

  “Not yet,” Andy told her. “Not yet.”

  Andy and Tamika hurried to the dining room. Rachel followed them. They all looked out the window at the Perlmans’ house.

  “I don’t see anything,” Tamika said.

  “I don’t, either,” Andy said.

  Tamika told Rachel about the cup and soda can.

  “That is weird,” Rachel said.

  They watched the Perlmans’ house for a while, but nothing happened.

  “Come on,” Rachel finally urged. “Let’s go downstairs.”

  “Just a minute,” Andy said. “A detective always writes down his clues.” He took Stacy Ann’s lunch bag out of his backpack. He wrote Cup and soda can on the bag.

  Andy took one last look at the Perlmans’ house. Then he followed Rachel to the basement.

  Tamika stayed upstairs to watch the house.

  Alongside the maze Rachel had set sticky labels, a bunch of colored markers, a chart, a stopwatch, and a camera.

  “First you have to take the gerbils out of their tank and put labels on them,” Rachel said. “Then I’ll time them as they run through the maze.”

  First I have to take the gerbils out and put labels on them! Andy thought. He realized Rachel didn’t plan to actually touch the gerbils.

  “Why don’t you take the gerbils out,” Andy said, “and I’ll time them.”

  “Because they’re your gerbils and this is my watch.”

  “Oh,” Andy said. “Well, first I have to make sure all my pets have food, that they’re all OK. Then I’ll help you.”

  “Hi, Sylvia,” Andy said to the goldfish as he sprinkled some flakes of food into its tank. “How was your day?”

  He watched the goldfish swim to the top of the tank and eat.

  “And how are you?” he asked Slither, his garter snake.

  Slither stuck out his forked tongue.

  Next Andy looked in the gerbil tank. He watched the gerbils run through the plastic tunnels and on the treadmill. He fed them. Then he said, “I need a volunteer. Which one of you wants to take an IQ test?”

  Rachel was impatient. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “Do you expect one to raise its tail and shout, ‘Pick me!’?”

  “You’re the one who’s testing them,” Andy said. “Like it really matters if one is smarter than the others! All that really matters is that they’re happy!”

  “They’re happy,” Rachel assured Andy. “Now could we please get going?”

  Andy looked into one of the tanks. He took out one of the gerbils and held it near Rachel. “Meet your psychologist,” Andy told the gerbil.

  “Very funny,” Rachel said.

  Andy gently put a label, which Rachel had colored red, onto the gerbil’s tail. He put the gerbil in the maze, at the end marked START.

  “Go!” Rachel called, and pressed the button on the top of the stopwatch.

  The gerbil didn’t go. It looked around. It sniffed the wood. But it didn’t try to find its way through the maze.

  “Go on!” Rachel urged. “Go on!” But the gerbil didn’t go on. It continued to look and sniff.

  “See? This proves Red is a smart gerbil,” Andy said. “It’s thinking, Why should I run through this maze? What’s in it for me?”

  Red took a few steps forward and stopped again to look and sniff.

  Andy told Rachel, “You have to give the gerbil a reason to go through the maze.”

  “Don’t you want to do well?” Rachel asked the gerbil. “Don’t you want everyone in school to know you’re the smartest one?”

  Andy looked at Rachel. “I hope you’re joking,” he said. “Wait here,” Andy told his sister. “I’ll give Red a real reason to go through the maze.”

  Andy ran upstairs. He got a box of raisins from the pantry and some cheese from the refrigerator. Then, before he went downstairs again, he asked Tamika if she had seen anything unusual at the Perlmans’ house. She hadn’t. Andy looked out the dining room window. The shades next door seemed the same to him. He didn’t see lights on or anyone outside the house.

  Andy told Tamika, “Let me know if you see anything.” Then he hurried downstairs.

  Andy took Red out of the maze. He put some raisins and cheese at the end of the maze marked FINISH. Then he put the gerbil at START again, and Rachel pressed the button on the top of her stopwatch.

  Red sniffed. It smelled the raisins and cheese and tried to find its way through the maze. It bumped into the walls of the maze lots of times and made a few wrong turns. Then, at last, it found its way to FINISH.

  Rachel pressed the button on her stopwatch and announced, “One minute, forty-three seconds.” She wrote that on her chart and said, “Let’s get another one.”

  “Oh no,” Andy said. “Not yet. Red went all the way through this maze to get a treat. Now let him eat.”

  They watched Red eat some raisins and
cheese. When Red was done, Rachel took its picture. Then Andy returned it to the tank.

  Andy took another gerbil from the tank. He put a blue-marked label on the gerbil’s tail. Then Andy spoke to his pet. “Now, Blue, I am going to put you in a maze. You just do the best you can getting through it. No matter how long it takes you, the raisins and cheese will be waiting for you.”

  Andy put the gerbil in at START, and Rachel timed it as it made its way through the maze.

  Andy and Rachel tested five gerbils, Red, Blue, Purple, Green, and Gray. The gerbil with the green label made it through the fastest. Andy congratulated Green. Then Rachel took a few pictures of the winner.

  Andy thanked the gerbils for their help. “Now you thank them, too,” he told his sister.

  Rachel leaned over the gerbil tank and said, “Thank you,” but Andy could tell she didn’t mean it.

  When his parents came home, Andy told them about the cup and soda can. They both thought it was strange. But they weren’t ready to call the police again until they were sure someone had broken into the house.

  “Maybe yesterday you just didn’t notice it,” Mrs. Russell said.

  But Andy and Tamika knew the can and cup hadn’t been there the day before. And they were determined to find out how they had got there.

  Andy and Tamika did their homework by Andy’s window. They looked out often at the Perlmans’ house, but nothing happened. That night Andy planned to wait up and watch for a light to be turned on next door. But he hadn’t had much sleep the night before. He was tired, and soon after he got into bed, he was asleep.

  The next morning, after breakfast, Andy and Tamika checked the Perlmans’ house again. The front door was closed. The shades were down.

  Tamika told Andy, “We should really go to the side of the house and look into Jonathan’s study.”

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “We should.”

  Andy looked at Tamika. Neither moved. Neither wanted to look in the study window.

  Then they saw the bus coming. They were happy to see it. Now they couldn’t look through the window. They quickly crossed the street.