Dictionary Dick and the Missing Money
It was another exciting day in Decklestone, Pennsylvania, home to twelve and a half thousand humans. One of them was little Richard Button, but even his own family didn’t call him that. They called him Dictionary Dick, because even though he was just in the fourth grade he’d already read the entirety of Frank & Wagner’s 1952 Standard Encyclopedia. This made him just the person to be consulted when people were puzzled, and he’d already helped his father, a police detective, solve over four and a half cases.
Today wasn’t a day for detective work though. It was a day for schoolwork. Dictionary Dick sat in class with his fellow schoolmates and wondered what the weird little glowing rectangles they were holding were.
“Phones,” explained his best friend, Katie Greene. She wasn’t holding one herself, instead doing bicep curls at her desk with a barbell.
Dictionary Dick’s brow furrowed. “But where are the rotary dials?” he asked, bewildered.
“Oh NO!” came a sudden wail, sharp and piercing. It was their teacher, Mr. Morguns, who stood stricken at his desk over a cartoonishly empty cardboard box, its padlock dangling wide open. “Our class’s donations to the Decklestone Orphans and Dolphins Fund have been taken – stolen! One of the three people in this class I entrusted the lock’s combination to must have done this over the weekend….but who?”
“Not me,” said little nerdy Nedd, straightening his bowtie. “I was in the big city all weekend, visiting the museum’s temporary exhibition of feathered dinosaurs from the Jehol Biota.”
“It can’t have been me,” argued the principal’s daughter, Petunia, who was applying her morning antibacterial soap. “I hate touching money. It’s all germ-y. You can catch poor people from it.”
“I would never ever steal,” said Sam ‘Slick Sicko” Swanson, leader of the local gang of tough kids (the ‘Serpents’), and the directly proven culprit of half of Dictionary Dick’s schoolyard casework so far, “but of all the stealing I haven’t done, I wouldn’t have stolen the hardest from this cause. I love dolphins! They’re some of my favourite fish. I’d never do anything to take money away from them…a lake without dolphins would be like a lake without sunshine!” He wiped a tear from his eye and sniffled dramatically, which turned into a slight squeal as Katie Greene turned her menacing frown upon him.
“Oh no, this is impossible to figure out!” sobbed Mr. Morguns. “Who will provide for the Orphans and Dolphins now?”
“Not to worry,” said Dictionary Dick, pushing back his chair and putting away his slide rule. “After what we’ve just heard, I can safely say that the thief’s excuse doesn’t hold water!”
Who’s the culprit? Do you think you know the answer? READ BELOW TO FIND OUT!!!
Answer: Nerdy Nedd can’t have seen any feathered dinosaurs at the museum because Dictionary Dick knows for an absolute fact that dinosaurs are basically big dumb dead lizards, which could never have grown feathers! Nedd was put on academic probation, his parents were ordered to replace the missing money, and Slick Sicko started the fund anew with a single shiny nickel before leaving class early to buy all the Serpents triple-decker-deluxe fudge sundaes down at the ice cream shack.
***
Dictionary Dick and the Absent Dinner
After a long day of hard work at school – the first day back after the Long Weekend – Dictionary Dick – the amazing fourth grader who had memorized all the facts from Frank & Wagner’s 1952 Standard Encyclopedia – took the bus home with his friend, Katie Greene.
“I’m bushed,” said Katie, doing one-handed pushups in the aisle. The bus driver had given up on warning on her. “Are you sure your parents are going to be okay with my staying over?”
“Absolutely,” said Dictionary Dick. “I asked last week and they said it was fine.”
But when the two of them walked into the Button home, the air was not full of savory smells – rather, it was full of confusion and argument.
“I could’ve sworn it was your turn to make dinner,” said Dictionary Dick’s father. “Besides, I was late at work. I got called in to interview the Nortons after their kid got caught stealing from school.”
“And I could’ve sworn it was your turn to make dinner,” countered Dictionary Dick’s mother. “Besides, I had to work overtime at the nuclear power plant. The number three cooling tower was an absolute wreck.”
“If only there were some sort of simple solution that entails neither of us making dinner!” bemoaned Dictionary Dick’s father. “Or at least a way to know who should be making it right now tonight!”
“Not to worry!” said Dictionary Dick, pulling out a chair. “I know exactly what’s confusing the matter here!”
What do you think has thrown Dictionary Dick’s Parents off their schedule? After you make your guess, READ BELOW FOR THE ANSWER!!!
Answer: Dictionary Dick’s mother has clearly been telling fibs about her schedule to avoid chores – there’s no such thing as a nuclear power plant, let alone one under civilian administration! After a long conversation for the rest of the evening, Dictionary Dick’s mother moved out of the house, leaving Dictionary Dick’s Father, Dictionary Dick, and Katie to order late-night pizza.
***
Dictionary Dick and the AWOL Mayor
On the weekend, Dictionary Dick went with his father to city hall. His father was going because there was a special meeting happening that the deputy mayor had requested police presence for, and Dictionary Dick was going because fourth-graders – even amazing ones that had memorized Frank & Wagner’s 1952 Standard Encyclopedia – shouldn’t be left home alone for too long.
“I worry what you’ll get up to with that Greene kid,” Dictionary Dick’s father confided in him as they walked up the steps into city hall. “The two of you solve so many crimes, you’ll put me out of a job.”
“Katie’s busy today though,” said Dictionary Dick. “She’s out deadlifting all the benches in the park.”
“Well,” said Dictionary Dick’s father, “so long as she puts them back where she found them.”
The council chamber of city hall was in an uproar: a cluster of three prominent local businessmen had perched themselves around the deputy mayor, whispering strange and surreptitious things into his ears.
“Fellas, I keep telling you, the mayor’s on vacation in Estonia,” whined the deputy mayor, twiddling his thin little thumbs together.
“And that makes you the man in charge, doesn’t it?” hissed Carolyn Peats, chair and CEO of Peats’ Meats. “Just initial here and your town can have the world’s first jackalope slaughterhouse at the low, low, low, low price of a few billion dollars.”
“Don’t go throwing your money at just any old money-for-meat scheme,” snarled Devin Boggs head of Bogg’s Birds, “not when you could invest your nest egg in eggs! A pittance, a mere ten billion dollars, and I can make you the nation’s foremost provider of snipe eggs – no hunt required!”
“Lunatics! Frauds! Liars!” ejaculated Ed Urp, tech bruncle and safari-taker. “Gimme all your bitcoin, the keys to this building, and your daughter’s hand in marriage and I’ll set you up with a bigfoot conversation park that’ll draw every tourist’s eye from here to Dubai! Sure thing!”
“I’m not so good at big decisions…” fretted the deputy mayor, brushing his fingers back and forth through his wispy moustache. “Detective? What should I do?”
“I’ll tell you what you should do right now, Dad!” interrupted Dictionary Dick, “and don’t take no for an answer!”
What does Dictionary Dick detect is off about these offers? READ BELOW TO LEARN THE ANSWER!!!
Answer: Estonia is a member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – the deputy mayor is a spy who has kidnapped the mayor and sent him behind the Iron Curtain to Stalin! Thanks to Dictionary Dick’s quick thinking the deputy mayor was arrested and interrogated until he confessed to committing not only the commie kidnapping, but also every unsolved crime in Decklestone in the past decade! Well done, Dictionary Dick! In the interim, it was agreed upon that the mayor’s office would be jointly filled by a team of concerned local investors and businessmen who were deceived by the traitor through no fault of their own.
***
Dictionary Dick and the Invalidated Deal
At half an hour past eleven PM, on a clear, cloudless night, the roof of Dictionary Dick, fourth-grade detective and the only boy his age to ever memorize all of Frank & Wagner’s 1952 Standard Encyclopedia, was yanked into the sky by means of science unknown to humanity. Dictionary Dick’s father lurched off the living room couch only to find his gun fused to its holster and his shoes seared to the carpet; while Dictionary Dick himself only made it halfway down the stairs before being confronted by a tall, glowing biped composed entirely of what appeared to be fingers.
“We are representatives of the Glorteezian Hyperpublic,” it seethed into the knowledgeable mind of the crime-solver, “and we are here to investigate a terrible breach of intragalactic property laws! By all rightful legislation our pre-existing claim on the lunar regolith of your planet’s satellite for use in beach replenishment programs throughout the lesser widdershinsward core! Your civilization’s unlawful and wilful orbiting of said satellite in and crudely manufactured manned vehicle constitutes interference in a sanctioned industrial, commercial, and recreational necessity of multisolar import! We demand restitution, and repentance!”
“Don’t worry, dad,” said Dictionary Dick. “This is the most obvious case I’ve ever handled!”
What does Dictionary Dick know? What will he do about it? IF YOU DON’T KNOW, READ BELOW!!!
Answer: No human being has ever orbited the EARTH before, let alone the moon! These so-called ‘aliens!’ are clearly ordinary humans in costumes, playing an elaborate hoax! Alas, while trying to prove this point by removing the Glorteezian’s ‘mask’ Dictionary Dick partially removed the skin from the entity’s face, for which he was punished by having his brain ‘Full Degloved’ from his entire body and placed within a Mind Amphorae to be shipped to Glorteeza.
Decklestone was only lightly menaced following the spacecraft’s departure, as the single six-story sentry quadripod left behind was uprooted and hurled into the lake by local fourth-grader Katie Greene.
***
Dictionary Dick and the Pontifex Precarious
This was by far Dictionary Dick’s most perilous case yet, in all the years he’d worked from first to fourth grade – even with his full and staggering command of all the knowledge contained within Frank & Wagner’s 1952 Standard Encyclopedia, his current position (Full Degloved and floating in a Mind Amphorae) and location (in the Cerebralplex of the Glorteezian Pontifex) were quite tricky.
“Your MEAGER BRAIN is of MODERATE WORTH to my GLORIOUS PERSON,” bellowed Pontifex Precarious from atop its Self-Throne of glorious tentacular forces, from whence it commanded the life and death of a thousand thousand thousand thousand million worlds across the lesser widdershinsward core of the galaxy. “REJOICE GREATLY as I PREPARE INGESTION of your SMALL SELFHOOD into my GREATER PERSONA. Following this TRIFLING MATTER I shall ANNEX UTTERLY your TINY WORLD using your very own HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE of its PUNY DEFENSES. Any LAST WORDS?”
What will Dictionary Dick say in reply to this chilling ultimatum? ANSWER FOUND BELOW!!!
Answer: Trick question – Dictionary Dick has been Full Degloved, remember? He can’t say anything anymore, because he has no mouth! However, luck was on his side: after ingesting Dictionary Dick’s intellect, the strain of trying to parse hundreds of pages of tiny cramped font caused the Pontifex’s amygdala to implode, decerebrating it instantaneously and subsequently collapsing the Glorteezian Hyperpublic into feuding warlord star-states for generations of untold strife. Another case solved by Dictionary Dick, fourth-grade detective!
Katie Greene went on to solve global inequity and poverty through a series of targeted suplexings.