'Earth Abides' and our changing mores

I first became aware of George R. Stewart's Earth Abides a few months ago, after hearing a radio adaptation on Escape! That two-part episode aired Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, 1950, just a year after the novel was published. 

Some online sleuthing told me the book had been an influence on Richard Matheson, whose world-ending vampire plague I Am Legend is one of my favorites, and Stephen King, who went all apocalyptic—and post-apocalyptic—in The Stand.

Long story short, I decided to give Earth Abides a shot. A newish re-release from 2020 includes a terrific introduction by sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson that provides context for Stewart's story. It also points out the resurgence in the book's popularity in the wake of the COVID pandemic. 

The novel itself has a lot to recommend it. The main character, Isherwood "Ish" Williams, is one of the few survivors of a highly lethal pandemic. He spends the first half of the book wandering from one side of the United States to the other, serving as a human version of Marvel's Uatu the Watcher and chronicling the end times. 

Eventually, he meets some other folks and they form a loose-knit community that survives by pillaging the past—canned food from area grocery stores, clothing from department stores, and the like. Ish finds himself a reluctant leader in this tribe, even though everybody involved goes out of their way for as long as possible to avoid creating laws and rules. It's a be-on-your-best-behavior, honor code type of deal. 

The tribe's successes and failures make up the bulk of the book's remaining pages and are often characterized by collective procrastination, waiting as long as possible before addressing various fundamental issues, like what to do when the water supply peters out. (Today, these survivors would probably be diagnosed as suffering from global trauma.)

Stewart's novel is short on action and long on Ish's philosophical musing. He fancies himself an intellectual and often comes off as stuffy or smarmy when he observes, repeatedly, that his post-apocalyptic wife, children, and neighbors are hard workers but not very intelligent. He ranges from sympathetic to insufferable, sometimes on the same page. For example, Ish observes: 

George was a good man, too, in his fashion. He was a first-class carpenter, and had learned to do plumbing and painting and the other odd jobs around the house. He was a very useful man, and had preserved many basic skills. Yet Ish always knew that George was essentially stupid; he had probably never read a book in his life. (p. 187)

The last section of the book chronicles Ish's mental decline and eventual passing, where he is seen as The Last American, a term that carries almost spiritual significance with subsequent generations of survivors, for whom "America" is a nebulous term. 

I like that Stewart intersperses the story of humanity with the resurgence of the natural world. Vignettes every few pages let readers see how various other species adapt to the fall of humanity, and how the world heals. For 1949, this is pioneering eco-friendliness. 

Unfortunately, other parts of the novel have not aged so well. In particular, the way Ish and the rest of the community treat Evie, a mentally challenged woman, is problematic. At one point, an outsider—Charlie— preys on Evie and begins to abuse her sexually. Yet the best charge that Ish and company can devise against him is that "we don't want a lot of little half-witted brats running in on us, the sort of children Evie would have." 

The book also displays a post-apocalyptic vibe similar to Alas Babylon and a few others that intimate how a worldwide pandemic or nuclear disaster might actually be a good thing, a cleansing and rebirth, a chance to live more in touch with one another and the land. Your mileage with such an attitude may vary, but I find it, I don't know, communally condescending? As if the only thing standing between humanity and perfection is a few billion too many people, so why not sacrifice some today? 

I was glad I read the book and appreciative of Stewart's far-ranging imagination. Leaning into a more philosophical take on the end of the world was a gutsy narrative move, and if Isherwood "Ish" Williams is insufferable at times, at least Stewart gives us plenty of evidence to chew on, along with contradictions in character that make him more realistic. 

After all, if each reader had to face pages of his own thoughts written down over decades, wouldn't he or she find more than a few that are troubling, disingenuous, and downright wrong? In Earth Abides, these provide verisimilitude, and no matter what readers think of Ish by the final page, they can't deny knowing him. 

Blue Oyster Cult: 50th Anniversary Live in NYC First Night

 

Blue Ӧyster Cult's three-night anniversary celebration in the Big Apple has been immortalized in a series of recordings, the first of which was released earlier this month. 

50th Anniversary Live in NYC First Night, recorded at Sony Hall in September 2022, is the chronicle of a band that has weathered the ravages of time, touring, and changing musical tastes with grace and good cheer. The two-CD/one-DVD set showcases rock veterans who still look and sound terrific. 

The set opens with a performance of BӦC's debut album in its entirety. That self-titled diamond is the blueprint for all that came after, even if some of the songs—"I'm on the Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep" and "She's as Beautiful as a Foot"—are not among the band's biggest hits. Nevertheless, the decision is also a chance for BӦC to cut loose on a few bonafide classics, including "Stairway to the Stars" and "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll." (Future releases of nights two and three will feature BӦC's second and third albums—Tyranny and Mutation and the sublime Secret Treaties—as the openers.) 

The second half of the set is a mixture of have-to-plays and rarities, with a curious focus on cuts from Mirrors, an album not held in high regard by many fans. After 50-plus years, however, the band can damn well play what it wants, when it wants, and so fans are treated to the dubious charms of "Doctor Music." 

In happier setlist news, it is an unexpected treat to hear so many cuts from The Symbol Remains, BӦC's 2020 studio album and its first in nineteen years. "Tainted Blood," "Train True," "Box in My Head," and "That Was Me" are reminders that Blue Ӧyster Cult is still more than capable of pumping out the thoughtful hard rock and heavy metal that it built its reputation on in the 1970s. 

Co-lead vocalist and lead guitarist extraordinaire Don "Buck Dharma" Roeser proves again what his considerable gifts have brought to the band. He sings and solos like a performer one-fourth his age, casually transitioning from words to strings with the ease of a virtuoso who has spent thousands of hours on stage.  

Not to be outdone, co-lead vocalist Eric Bloom still emotes with the best of them, adding his powerful rasp to everything from country-adjacent "Redeemed" to stone-cold Cult classics like "Godzilla." 

Rounding out the band these days are drummer Jules Radino, bassist Danny Miranda, and all-around utility player Richie Castellano, who sings, plays keyboards and wields a wicked guitar second only to Roeser's own. Also enlivening the night is BӦC veteran Albert Bouchard, back as a special guest for these anniversary performances and leaning into the SNL parody of a crazy cowbell player on the band's best-known track, "Don't Fear the Reaper." 

A bonus DVD sounds great but is a little disappointing visually. The stage is small, the band's vaunted laser shows are long since retired, and the camerawork is only serviceable. Still, it captures everything that matters: the band's enthusiasm for the material, their mad skills, and the audience's appreciation. 

Both casual and hardcore Blue Ӧyster Cult fans will appreciate 50th Anniversary Live in NYC First Night. I look forward to the next two releases. 

 

Sixty-Second Solutions 12

The moving truck backed up to Samantha Spade’s garage, its tires spinning in the freshly fallen December snow.

Samantha lifted the garage door. She had a book bag slung over one shoulder; inside were her copies of The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and her two-volume Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Her father, Kent, jumped out of the driver’s side of the truck and almost slipped. He had left earlier two hours earlier to pick up the truck and cancel various utilities around town, including the electricity and telephone service.

“How you doing, sport?” he asked Samantha, adjusting the knot of his tie. “Did you get all that stuff stacked?”

She nodded her head. Behind her, on the concrete garage floor, were boxes filled with all their material possessions. Kent, a computer systems installer for CompuStall, had finished his work for the Sallami School System two weeks earlier

By this time next week, they would be in sunny New Mexico, where his next CompuStall job, wiring a security system for a Fortune 500 Company, was waiting. Kent had made Samantha stack all the boxes in the garage according to size, instructing her not to go inside the house until she had finished. The job had taken the better part of two hours.

The prospect of moving didn’t thrill Samantha. She and her dad had moved many times in the past few years, following Kent’s work across the country. He had been in the city of Sallami for longer than any past jobs, and Samantha had made quite a few friends.

She was going to miss Billy Archer, Flo Mason, Andy D’Brillo and the rest of her pals. Heck, she was even going to miss Vinnie Furnier, the teenager who lived across the street. He had given her some grief during her first few months in Sallami but had turned into a pretty decent sort after Samantha solved a mystery that allowed him to keep his job.

Solving mysteries was what Samantha did best. She was Sallami’s number one amateur detective, a title she relished. Now, she would have to start all over again, building a reputation in Newbury, New Mexico.

“What came in the mail?” Kent asked.

“The usual,” she answered glumly. Her steel-trap mind could have rattled off each envelope: A farewell card from Billy, two pieces of junk mail, an envelope from CompuStall, and a yellow envelope from a local company called TechSec.

“I’m cold, Dad,” Samantha said. “I’m heading inside.”

Her father opened the yellow envelope. “Sure, whatever,” he said.

Samantha had just stepped inside the back doorway and flipped on the light switch, brightening the kitchen, when her father sprinted after her.

“Hey, Sam, hold up for a minute, huh?” he gasped. “I forgot, there’s a box on the front porch that I need your help carrying.”

“Whatever,” she groused. “I’ll just go out the front door.”

“Better not,” said Kent. “You’ll just track the place up for the next owners. Come around this way.”

Together, they walked back down the sidewalk and around the side of the house, the wind gusting snow in all directions. Samantha noticed several sets of footprints leading to the front door.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Kent looked down at the footprints and said, “Must be from me carrying all those boxes out to the garage earlier this morning. Come on.”

Kent trudged up the front porch steps, still gripping the yellow envelope in his gloved hands. Samantha followed but continued to stare at the footprints, even as she walked over them.

Suddenly, she stopped and smiled.

Kent turned, saw her grin, and said, “Hey, Sam, we don’t have all day.”

“When were you going to tell me, Dad?”

“Tell you what?”

Sam ran to him and hugged him tight. “About your new job at TechSec, where you went for a final interview today, and how we don’t need to move after all. And how all my friends are waiting inside to surprise me with the news.”

WHAT SIX CLUES GAVE SAMANTHA’S FATHER AWAY? SEE BELOW FOR THE FINAL SOLUTION TO OUR SERIES.


Samantha picked up on six clues.

First, her father was wearing a tie when he came back with the moving van, slightly overdressed for that kind of work. Secondly, he was supposed to have all the utilities turned off, but when Samantha flipped on the light switch in the kitchen, it still worked. Third, Kent opened the yellow envelope from TechSec before he opened the letter from CompuStall, his employer. Fourth, all the tracks in the front lawn went toward the front door; none came back the other way. Fifth, her father had been gone for two hours, more than enough time for the three inches of new snow to cover the old tracks. Finally, Kent had not wanted her to walk through the house to get to the front porch; she would have seen her friends waiting there and spoiled the surprise.

Kent had been secretly interviewing for a new job to keep him and Samantha in Sallami. He didn’t want to get her hopes up, so he didn’t tell her about the interviews earlier. Meanwhile, he and Samantha packed for his next assignment.

When Kent went to his final interview, he learned TechSec had mailed a copy of his contract in a yellow envelope the day before. On the way home, he dropped off a key to the front door to Billy Archer and told him to call all Samantha’s friends for a surprise “Welcome Home” party while Samantha stacked boxes in the garage. He still picked up the moving van to keep Sam off guard until the very end.

But there’s yet to be a mystery that Samantha Spade, the Sixty-Second Solution, has been unable to crack, even when it involves her directly!

The End

So, this is the last installment of Sixty-Second Solutions. I enjoyed revisiting these, and I hope you—whoever you are—enjoyed reading them. 

I still have one more serial, Dog Daze, to share here. I'll put it on my radar for 2024. 

Bradbury's 'Zero Hour'

Above: My beat-to-shit copy of The Illustrated Man, purchased at a garage sale sometime in the 1980s. 

Readers who don’t like science fiction often complain the genre is unrelatable. Robots, ray guns, little green guys in spaceships—what does any of it have to do with the so-called real world? It’s a fair question, but a misguided one. Like horror, another unappreciated genre, science fiction deals in metaphor, dressing up contemporary issues until they are almost unrecognizable, especially if the reader is blinded by the strangeness of it all. But beneath the odd names, alien landscapes, and cryptic languages are bedrock truths that speak to the issues of each writer’s time—and that sometimes speak to future times in ways the author may have never imagined.

Ray Bradbury is a case in point. Known today primarily for Fahrenheit 451, a novel about a dystopian society where firefighters burn books in a totalitarian government, Bradbury began his career as a short-story writer, grinding out pieces for popular men’s magazines of the 1940s and 1950s. One such story, “Zero Hour,” published in 1947 in Planet Stories and collected in 1951 in The Illustrated Man, forecasts many of today’s concerns, even if the author himself couldn’t have known it at the time.

“Zero Hour” is the story of a future society—the audience knows this because “rockets hovered like darning needles in the blue sky” and “arm in arm, men all over earth were a united front” (Bradbury, 1951, p. 170)— where children are the entry point for an invasion from another world. The story is told from the perspective of the Morris family, whose youngest member, Mink, and her neighborhood playmates borrow innocuous tools from kitchens and garages at the behest of a mysterious invisible friend. This friend, Drill, whispers plans from beneath rose bushes because no adult would think to look for him there.

As the story progresses, Mrs. Morris realizes that similar scenarios are playing out across the country, with multiple children listening to their own versions of Drill, all of them playing a game called “Invasion,” set to culminate at 5 p.m. Then, the seemingly random collection of tools and kitchen implements, along with byzantine math formulae, is used to open a gateway from the fearsome invaders’ dimension into our own. The story ends with Mink’s parents cowering in fear in the attic. It is strongly suggested that Mink and all the other Earth children are willing to sacrifice their parents’ lives for their new friend, Drill.

Bradbury’s story predates the expression “generation gap” by at least twelve years, yet the author was likely aware that “kids these days” were acting in ways that alarmed their parents. At the time of the story’s writing, the very concept of teenagers as society knows them today was a relatively new phenomenon, created by marketers who realized the ’tween-12-and-20 set was an under-exploited consumer demographic. So, for a writer looking for a scary sci-fi premise, why not tap into the primal fear that children could and were being manipulated to dress differently, talk differently, and behave differently from their parents?

Bradbury’s story also anticipates modern social media, which makes the fears in the story more acute for today’s readers than for those in the author’s own time. The mechanism by which Drill and his invading buddies pierce the sanctity and security of the home reads a lot like today’s internet. When Mrs. Morris talks to her friend, Helen, via “audio visor,” they realize their kids are playing the same Invasion game, despite one family living in New York and the other in New Jersey. They speculate that Drill “must be a new password” and talk about how the game is “sweeping the country” (Bradbury, 1951, p. 174). Still, they laugh off any serious implications.

Viewing “Zero Hour” through a twenty-first-century lens, it’s easy to see Drill as a social media influencer akin to Mr. Beast or Logan Paul, grooming children with messages that run afoul of their parents’ teaching. Like Mrs. Morris, today’s parents may sometimes shrug their shoulders over the ubiquity of TikTok and Snapchat in their children’s lives, believing they can’t keep their children away from these platforms even if they tried. Drill is an invisible force in the lives of Mink and her friends, just as parents often can’t see the scrolling TikTok screens or hear the messages their children are ingesting, over and over, as algorithms lead them down rabbit holes to new, exciting, and often spurious information.

And, like Drill, TikTok influencers—and the teen’s own peers—can lead them to actions that are antisocial, dangerous, or even criminal. Readers may remember the various TikTok challenges of the past school year, where teens were enticed to vandalize restrooms and punch teachers, all while filming their antics for later uploading. In “Zero Hour,” Drill cajoled kids to essentially become Fifth Columnists, traitors to their own people. TikTok hasn’t gone that far—yet.

Noted fantasy writer Neil Gaiman once observed, “Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future” (Gaiman, 1996, p. vii). This is evidenced by some of Bradbury’s naming conventions in “Zero Hour,” comical by today’s standards: the aforementioned “audio visor,” “electro-duster” magnets, and “beetle cars,” which appear to be self-driving electric vehicles. But while Bradbury’s names may be less than gripping, he was eerily accurate when we compare those concepts to today’s Zoom and Facetime, Roombas that clean while homeowners are away, and all-electric and hybrid cars.

More telling, however, are the interpersonal dynamics and societal fears that Bradbury cloaks in the garb of an alien invasion, that hoariest of science fiction plots. Mr. and Mrs. Miller represent all parents who fear their children are growing up to be far different than they were at the same age, Mink and her friends are all kids who resent adult authority and await the day when they can rule the world, and Drill is every new technology that threatens to upend the social order.

Unrelatable? Science fiction is just the opposite. It spices up the truth to make it more palatable, and creates a mirror to reflect the audience’s and author’s own loves and hates and prejudices. It’s about the future, yes, but it’s also about the present. And sometimes, if it was written long enough ago, it’s about today in ways even the authors themselves, with all their imaginative faculties, could never have dreamed.

References

Bradbury, R. (1951). Zero hour. In The illustrated man (pp. 169-177). 

Bantam.

 Gaiman, N. (1996). Of time, and Gully Foyle. In Bester, A. The stars

 my destination. Vintage.

I wrote the above essay earlier this fall as an example of an analysis paper for a composition class I teach. Citations are in APA format, which specifies sentence case instead of title case for book and article titles on the References page. 

 

Sixty-Second Solutions 11

Sgt. Frank McDaniel’s turkey was AWOL.

The sergeant and his wife had opened the refrigerator on Thanksgiving morning, ready to put the pop the plump bird into the oven, but found an empty space on the bottom shelf where the turkey should have been.

After rousing their two children, Tom and Mary, who had no idea what happened to the bird, he called his neighbor, Samantha Spade.

Spade was in seventh grade, two years older than Tom and three years older than Mary, but her reputation as an excellent amateur detective had spread to people and students of all ages in the city of Sallami.

Samantha came right over, her hair still dripping wet from the shower. The McDaniel’s dog, Ginger, met her at the front door. She jumped on Samantha and licked her face while Samantha struggled to remove her coat.

“At ease, Ginger,” Samantha giggled, pushing the dog down. For a recruiting sergeant who prized discipline, Sgt. McDaniel had one of the worst-behaved dogs ever.

Mary grabbed the dog by its collar and pulled it off Samantha. “Get down, you dumb mutt!” she yelled. Mary had dark circles under her eyes, and Samantha had never heard her speak to Ginger so sharply.

“Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Samantha said.

“Don’t mind her,” said Mrs. McDaniel. “We went out to dinner and to see a movie last night and didn’t get home until late. She usually sacks out in the backseat on the way home, but couldn’t because of all the noise from the muffler.”

Sergeant McDaniel explained that their car’s exhaust system was going bad again, only one month after they had it replaced. The whole family had heard it rumbling last night.

“Dear, I think she’d rather hear about the turkey?” asked Mrs. McDaniel.

The sergeant ran his fingers through his crew cut as he led her to the kitchen.

“It’s like this,” he said. “Yesterday, at seventeen hundred hours…”

“Or five o’clock,” Mrs. McDaniel interjected, translating military time.

“Correct,” McDaniel said. “At five o’clock, I closed the recruiting office, turned off the lights, and exited through the back door to my vehicle. I drove to the Shopper’s Corner and picked out a turkey for today’s dinner, along with other items on a list that my wife had given me.”

Samantha liked the way Sgt. McDaniel talked as if he were testifying at a military tribunal instead of explaining how he had shopped for groceries the night before.

“The list had ten items,” said Mrs. McDaniel. She started to tick them off on one hand: A loaf of bread, a box of stuffing, a pound of flour …

“Actually, it’s all right here,” said Tom, pointing to the kitchen floor.

There, Samantha saw two brown bags filled with groceries. Sheepishly, Frank lifted the two bags to the cupboard, grunting at their weight. He began to put the groceries into the cupboards.

“Frank’s not much for putting things away once he’s bought them,” Mrs. McDaniel confided.

The sergeant told Samantha that while he did forget to put away the groceries, he distinctly remembered opening the refrigerator door and clearing a spot for the turkey.

“After I took the groceries from the trunk and carried them inside, I took the family out for dinner and a movie,” he said.

“Dad’s so absent-minded he even forgot to close the trunk, snickered Tom. “I did it for him when we left.”

“What time did you get home from the movies?” Samantha asked, eyeing Ginger suspiciously. If Sgt. McDaniel had absentmindedly left the bird out of the refrigerator, Ginger may have feasted on turkey while the family went to the movies.

“The movie ended at approximately twenty-two hundred…I mean, about 10 p.m.,” the sergeant said. “We got home soon after, maybe around 10:45.”

“It was 10:39,” said Mary McDaniel. “I saw it on the clock in the car when I should have been sleeping. Dumb muffler.”

“And was the turkey in the refrigerator when you got home?” Samantha asked.

“I don’t honestly know,” said Sgt. McDaniel. “We went straight to bed.”

“And where was Ginger?” Samantha asked.

“She was sleeping upstairs on my bed like she always does when we’re not home,” said Tom.

“Well, that clinches it,” said Samantha, petting Ginger’s head. “I know exactly what happened to your turkey.”

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TURKEY, AND WHAT CLUES DID SAMANTHA USE TO SOLVE THE CASE? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION. 




The turkey was still in the trunk.

After Samantha heard Sgt. McDaniel grunt when he picked up the two bags of groceries, she knew he couldn’t have carried them and the turkey into the house at the same time.

Instead, she realized that Sgt. McDaniel had put the two grocery bags on the floor, opened the refrigerator and cleared a space for the turkey. He intended to go back to the car and bring the bird on a second trip. Samantha realized this when Tom said he had closed the trunk of the car, an indicator that his father had something else to carry inside.

But the clinching clue was the rumbling of the car’s exhaust, even though Sgt. McDaniel said that the muffler had been replaced last month. The “rumbling” was actually the turkey, rolling back and forth in the trunk.

Luckily for the McDaniels, the weather was cold enough to preserve the turkey in the trunk overnight. They popped it in the oven and enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving meal that afternoon, courtesy of Samantha Spade’s sleuthing skills.

Sixty-Second Solutions 10

Samantha Spade was dressed as a banana.

Her face, arms and legs were the only body parts poking out of the furry, yellow costume. Samantha’s friend, Flo Mason, giggled as Samantha waddled up the sidewalk to Flo’s front porch.

“That’s an ap-peel-ing get-up,” Flo said.

“Very funny,” replied Samantha, “especially coming from a giant cell phone. Happy Halloween!”

“Same to you,” said Flo, touching the pound-sign button on her wireless telephone costume. A computerized version of “Monster Mash” played for ten seconds. “Pretty cool, huh? Having a mother who works for Sprint sure pays off for trick or treat.”

Flo opened the door and yelled inside to her parents, telling them that she and Samantha were going trick or treating. Her mother shouted back the usual precautions – stay together and only visit homes of people you know – and then the two girls, plastic bags in hand, were on their way.

As they went door to door, Samantha thought how lucky she was to spend Halloween in the city of Sallami. She had been afraid that her dad’s temporary computer installation job would end months ago, but so far he was still happily buried in line after line of binary code at the city school.

This was the longest she’d ever remained at one school; consequently, her reputation for solving mysteries – usually in one minute or less – had grown to an all-time high. She was now regularly known as the Sixty-Second Solution throughout Sallami.

But tonight she wasn’t thinking about mysteries. She was thinking, instead, about candy: M&M’s, Clark bars, Smarties and many others that filled her bag as she and Flo trekked along Watson Lane. But mysteries had a way of finding Samantha, even when she wasn’t looking for them!

At the intersection of Watson and Holmes Avenue, Samantha and Flo heard a child scream, “My pummin! My pummin!”

Flo said, “Hey, that’s Miranda!. Come on!”

She ran toward a small ranch house located on a wooded, corner lot. Samantha followed, doing her best to navigate in her Chiquita banana costume. The entire yard was filled with a six-inch carpet of fallen leaves, and they crunched loudly beneath her feet as she ran.

When Samantha caught up to her friend, Flo was already hugging a little girl dressed in bunny ears and a cotton tail. The child was sobbing uncontrollably, pointing at a shattered jack-o-lantern on the sidewalk.

“My pummin! My pummin!” she cried. “Somemody smashed my pummin!”

Flo wiped away the little girl’s tears. “Sam, this is Miranda, the little girl I babysit after school. She’s three years old. Somebody’s smashed her pumpkin.”

“They certainly did,” Sam said. Pumpkin pieces were everywhere.

“Just then, the front door opened, and Miranda’s parents, whom Flo introduced as Jack and Debbie Wright, came outside. Debbie lifted Miranda and hugged her tightly.

“This was her favorite jack-o-lantern,” Mr. Wright said, as he swept up the pulpy mess with a broom and dustpan. “We’d just carved it this afternoon.”

“Did you see who did it?” asked Samantha.

“Not really,” Mrs. Wright answered. “Since we’re on a corner lot, we give out candy at the front and back doors. The doorbell rang out back, and Jack and I gave treats to a ghost and a witch. That’s when I heard Miranda start to cry.”

“Ghost an’ witch,” repeated Miranda. “Ghost an’ witch broked my pummin.”

“No, honey,” said Mr. Wright. “The ghost and the witch were out back with us. There’s no way they could have broken your pumpkin in the front yard.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Sam, pointing toward the sidewalk on Holmes Avenue. Four kids, two dressed as ghosts and two dressed as witches, were walking there.

“Hey, you kids,” called Mr. Wright. “Come over here!”

They did. Jack asked them who was responsible for breaking the pumpkin.

“Not me,” said one witch, pulling off her mask. Underneath, she was Lora Dublin, a high school girl who lived in the neighborhood.

The other three Trick-or-Treaters also unmasked. Flo knew them all and introduced Samantha to them: Susan Taylor, Mark McMasters and Brett Sloane. Samantha noted that the two boys were the same height, as were the two girls. Their costumes were also similar: Standard issue sheets and pointy hats. The girls’ masks were identical.

“Look, if you’re trying to pin this thing on us, you’re …well, bananas,” said Mark. When his friends started to snicker, he looked at Samantha’s costume and smirked. “Uh, no offense.”

Miranda, hidden behind her parents, popped her head from around her mother’s legs and screamed, “Bad witch an’ ghost! Broked my pummin!”

Samantha asked Mrs. Wright what kind of candy she was distributing that evening. She answered Tootsie Rolls, a very popular Halloween giveaway.

“Mind if I take a look into your bags?” she asked.

The teens looked at one another, shrugged their shoulders and opened their treat sacks, grinning. Samantha saw Tootsie Rolls among the candy that all four had collected. Samantha sighed.


“Mr. and Mrs. Wright,” she said, “are you sure that only one ghost and one witch came to your door a few minutes ago?”

“Absolutely,” said Mr. Wright.

“Look, I’ll make this easier,” said Brett. “Mark and Lora were the two who came to your door. I had enough candy for one night, so I decided to wait around the corner of the house for Mark and Lora, while Susie went to the front door for candy, but …”

“So you broke the jack-o-lantern?” interrupted Mrs. Wright, turning toward Susie.

“Hey, let me finish,” Brett said. “She didn’t make it to the front of the house, because she doubled back through the yard to sneak up behind me and me half to death.”

“That’s right,” said Susie. “He was just standing there with his back to me, looking bored. It was too good to pass up.”

“She was just as quiet as could be,” sniggered Brett. “Got right up behind me, then – Boo! I jumped right out of my skin, believe me!”

“I wish I could,” said Samantha, shaking her head. “I wish I could…”


HOW DOES SAMANTHA KNOW THAT BRETT IS LYING? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION.


Brett said that Susan had been able to surprise him from behind while he waited in the Wright’s yard, but that would be impossible in a yard filled with a six-inch layer of leaves. Remember, when Samantha ran through the yard earlier, she made plenty of noise.

When Brett started to tell his lie, Susie went along with it, right up to the point where their alibi was spoiled by a seventh-grade-sized banana named Samantha Spade!

Once they realized they were exposed, Brett and Susie admitted they had smashed Miranda’s pumpkin, and Mark and Lora admitted their role was to ring the back doorbell and distract the Wrights.

To make up for their misdeed, the four teens raked all the leaves from the Wrights’ property the next day.

Sixty-Second Solutions 9

Larry Porter was known as the Boy of 1,000 Voices.

Not only could he perfectly imitate the speech of cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob SquarePants, but he could also mimic any teacher or student in Sallami Middle School, a talent that made him popular each morning in the hallway.

On this particular September day, Samantha Spade – the town’s greatest amateur detective – and her friend, Billy Archer, were part of a small crowd of seventh-graders gathered around Porter’s locker.

“Hey, Porter, do Mr. Cunkel,” said Aaron Posthaste.

Mr. Cunkel was the shop teacher, a tall, lumbering man with a very high voice. Behind his back, kids called him Canary Cunkel.

“No problem – for two bucks,” Larry replied, holding out his open palm. Aaron dug into his pocket and produced a one-dollar bill.

“This is all it’s worth to me,” Aaron said, waving the dollar in front of Larry’s face.

Frowning, Larry grabbed the dollar and stuffed it into his wallet. The Boy of 1,000 Voices had long ago learned to capitalize on his talent.

With payment made, Larry puckered his lips as if to kiss a lemon and squeezed shut his eyes. He was getting into character. When he spoke next, his voice was a dead-ringer imitation of the shop teacher.

“Aaron, put down that hammer and get out your shop project!” he squeaked. Everybody except Samantha and Billy roared with laughter. They both thought that Mr. Cunkel was a nice man and a good teacher.

“Porter, you’re a card!” said Aaron, clapping Larry on the back. “Better save that one for posterity.”

“Good idea,” said Larry, still imitating Mr. Cunkel. He reached into his pocket and fished out a small cassette recorder. Larry lived in constant dread of the day his voice would change and leave him unable to do funny imitations, so he carried a cassette recorder with him at all times.

With the “Record” button pressed, he imitated what Mr. Cunkel might sound like if he smashed his finger in a vice.

“OK, OK, break it up, kids,” said Mrs. Young as she came out of her. Larry stuffed the cassette player into his pocket before she realized what he was doing. “Everybody to their homerooms, pronto!”

As Samantha walked to her desk, she heard Aaron ask Mrs. Young if they could get a drink before the morning bell rang. The teacher said yes. A minute or so later, Larry asked the same question and was also given permission.

During the Pledge of Allegiance, Samantha saw Aaron stroll into the room and throw something into the trashcan before going to his desk.

As Mrs. Young was taking attendance, Larry burst into the room, his shirt ripped, his hair in disarray. He tripped over a chair and landed flat on his face.

“My goodness, Larry, what happened?” cried Mrs. Young as she picked him up from the floor.

“He – he stole my dollar!” shouted Larry, pointing toward Aaron.

“That’s a lie!” said Aaron, outraged.

Amid much blubbering, Larry told his story. He said that after the two boys had gotten a drink, Aaron started pushing Larry, demanding back his dollar. When Larry told him no, Aaron pulled him into the boys' bathroom and threatened to beat him up.

“When I saw what he was going to do, I hit the ‘record’ button on my cassette player when he wasn’t looking,” Larry sniveled. “I got the whole thing on tape.”

“He’s lying, Mrs. Young!” Aaron repeated.

Mrs. Young asked for the cassette.

“See, that’s the problem,” Larry continued. “When I told Aaron that the whole conversation was taped, he grabbed the recorder, took out the cassette and ran out of the bathroom. I only have the recorder now because he dropped it on the way out.”

Samantha raised her hand. “Mrs. Young, I saw Aaron throw something away when he came into the room.”

The teacher went to the wastebasket and peered into it. Sure enough, she found a micro-cassette.

Larry placed the cassette into his player and immediately hit “Play.” The first thing everybody heard was his voice imitating the shop teacher. Mrs. Young folded her arms across her chest and frowned.

Soon, they heard Larry’s own voice, begging Aaron not to push him again. A voice that sounded like Aaron’s demanded the dollar. Then, several thumps and bumps, followed by Larry explaining that the whole incident was on tape.

“Give me that,” they heard Aaron say. There was a click, then nothing but the hiss of the cassette tape.

Aaron stood up and repeated, “He’s lying, Mrs. Young. It didn’t happen that way at all!”

According to Aaron, he met Larry coming back from the drinking fountain. Larry had given him the dollar and the cassette tape, said that he was ashamed of himself for mocking a teacher, and asked Aaron to throw away the tape. He even waved the dollar bill for the class to see, not realizing that it made him appear even guiltier.

“But, Aaron, that’s your voice on the tape, demanding the money,” said Mrs. Young.

That doesn’t prove anything,” said Aaron. “He’s the Kid of 1,000 Voices! He was imitating me!”

Mrs. Young conceded that Aaron had a point. She said she wasn’t sure which story to believe.

“I am, Mrs. Young,” said Samantha, standing up. “That cassette tape is all the evidence you need.”

WHICH VERSION OF THE STORY IS TRUE, AND HOW CAN SAMANTHA BE SO SURE? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION.


Larry said that Aaron had snatched the cassette tape out of his recorder as soon as he knew about it. But when he played the tape to the class, it had already been rewound.

Aaron would have no way to rewind the tape without the player; only Larry could do that.

Larry, angry that his imitation had earned him one dollar less than expected, saw a chance to get even when he heard Aaron ask to get a drink. After receiving permission to do the same, Larry recorded the fake bathroom confrontation on the way to the drinking fountain, then gave Aaron the dollar and asked him to throw away the tape.

If no one had witnessed Aaron throwing the tape away, Larry would have volunteered to check all the area wastebaskets himself, to “prove” his story.

Larry received an after-school detention for imitating Mr. Cunkel’s voice, and spent it cleaning and sweeping the shop classroom.

Sixty-Second Solutions 8

The fair had come to town, and brought with it the smell of cotton candy and popcorn, the bright lights of the Ferris wheel and the screams of delight from riders on the rickety roller coaster.

Kent Spade had just returned from the restroom to join his daughter, Samantha, at a picnic table just inside the front entrance. He wiped his dripping-wet hands along the sides of his blue jeans before sitting down.

“Nice manners, Dad,” Samantha said, drolly.

“What? They were all out of paper towels.”

He immediately dug into a slice of greasy pizza that he and his daughter were sharing.

“Hard to believe it’s already August,” Samantha said. “Heck, a new school year is just around the corner.”

“You know, Sam,” said Kent, “I’m wrapping up all the programming here, and…”

His voice trailed off.

“Yeah,” Sam said softly. “I know.”

Kent Spade set up and programmed new computer systems; the work took him and his daughter around the country, and now the job that had brought them to the town of Sallami was almost complete, which meant that it would soon be time to move on. Sam might start her seventh-grade year here in Sallami, but she’d likely finish it in some other part of the country. Constant moving was a part of her life, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

What made it hard was that she’d made some real friends here in Sallami. Billy Archer, Flo Mason, Andy D’Brillo, the Markel twins … It would be hard to say goodbye to all of them. Plus, Sallami was a town that seemed rife with mysteries, and Sam liked nothing more than the chance to solve a good case as often as possible.

Fortunately, another such mystery was just around the corner, to take her mind off the prospect of moving.

“Get out, get out, get out!” a man’s voice shouted. Sam and Kent looked toward the rear of the French fry stand just in time to see the aluminum door fly open and Vinnie Furnier, the bad-seed neighbor of her friend Billy Archer, come stumbling through it. A short little man came behind Vinnie, shooing him out with a broom.

“Out, out,” he repeated. “And don’t ever come back.”

“OK, already, I get the picture,” Vinnie said, flinching as the broom smacked him on the head. “I’m gone, man.”

It looked to Sam like Vinnie had gotten himself into trouble yet again. Since she’d come to Sallami, she had caught the older boy in two big lies: The first, when he tried to steal Billy’s paper route, and the second when he’d tried to scare Billy by climbing on his roof and peeking in his bedroom window. The boy was incorrigible.

Vinnie saw the two of them staring at him and came sauntering over, brushing off his shirt where he’d fallen in the grass and trying to reclaim his dignity.

“Figures you’d be here to see all this,” he said. “You’re like the bad penny of my life or something.”

Meanwhile, the little man who’d beaten him with a broom had followed him to the picnic table. “But don’t think you can get away scot-free, young man,” he yelled. “I want that money you stole from the cash register.

The man raised the broom to take another swing at Vinnie, who flinched involuntarily. Kent Spade stepped in between the two.

“Enough with the broom,” he said. “Care to tell me what’s going on here?”

“That little no-good beatnik stole fifty dollars from the cash register while I stepped away from the French fry stand,” he said. “And only for a few minutes, too, the dirty little…”

He raised the broom again, but Kent snatched it away.

“And you are?” he asked.

“I’m Brant Brockman, manager of this fine potato vending establishment, which is owned by my brother.” Brockman shook first Samantha’s hand, then her father’s. He wore a bow tie and appeared fastidiously neat, right down to his polished shoes. His skin was as wrinkly and dry as a mummy’s, right down to his sandpaper handshake. When he touched Kent’s still-damp hands, he turned up his lip as if he’d touched a dead animal on the side of the road.

“Maybe we can help you figure out where the money is, Mr. Brockman,” said Sam. She briefly explained that she was an amateur detective.

“Great,” muttered Vinnie. “The great Buttinsky butts in again.”

Ignoring his comments, she asked him, “Vinnie, did you steal the fifty dollars?”

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I took this crummy fair job to try to save extra dough for a car, but I never took any money. I swear.”

Samantha asked Vinnie if he had access to the cash register. He said he did, and that while he wasn’t too good at making change, he knew he hadn’t shorted the register by such a large amount. He told her that the minute Mr. Brockman had returned, he opened the register and started screaming, then immediately chased him out the back door.

“Then answer me this, smart guy,” said Mr. Brockman. “Why when I counted the register was there fifty dollars more than when I came back?”

“How do you know that the missing amount is exactly fifty dollars?” asked Kent. “Didn’t anybody buy French fries while you were gone?”

Vinnie answered. “No, business was pretty slow. ‘Cuz it’s so hot, everybody wants ice cream instead of crummy French fries, I guess.”

Brockman scowled. “Thief worked fast, too. I was only gone to the restroom for a minute or two, and when I came straight back to the stand…. How am I going to tell Casey when he returns, huh?”

“Tell me what, Brant?” said a man behind him. He was also short, with polished shoes and a neat bow tie. Samantha could tell immediately that he was Brockman’s brother.

She said, “Your brother doesn’t know how to tell you that he stole fifty dollars from your cash register!”


HOW DID SAMANTHA KNOW THAT BRANT BROCKMAN WAS THE THIEF? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION.


Mr. Brockman told Samantha that he’d only been gone from the French fry stand for a few moments to use the restroom. But when he shook Samantha’s hand, she noted that his hands were completely dry. Her father’s hands were still wet from washing his hands in the restroom.

A person as neat and clean as Brant Brockman would never leave the restroom without washing his hands, Samantha reasoned, and so she realized that he had lied about his whereabouts.

When Samantha shared her deduction with the two Brockmans, Brant realized he was caught. He admitted to taking the money from the register and hiding it in his car near the front entrance during his supposed bathroom break. Since business had been slow, he thought he could use the opportunity to get rid of Vinnie, which would give him even more opportunity to raid the register during the fair.

Casey Brockman fired his brother and gave Vinnie his job back, with a raise. Although the fair only lasted three more days, Vinnie was appreciative of what Sam had done for him and started being nicer to her friend, Billy Archer.

Sixty-Second Solutions 7

The Big Blast.

It was the largest weapon in Theo Casey’s professional fireworks artillery, a red, white and blue phenomenon just waiting to erupt with color and sound, the centerpiece of the town of Sallami’s Fourth of July celebration.

And it was gone!

“Where could it be?” moaned Theo, peering inside his van, pushing sparklers and bottle rockets to the side. His beard and mouth were smeared with the remains of an ice cream cone. “Who could have taken it?”

Samantha Spade and Billy Archer had been helping Theo unload his truck inside the Sallami City Park on the morning of July 4 when the pyrotechnic expert realized that his biggest firework was missing.

“Did you have ‘The Big Blast’ when you left home today?” Billy asked.

“Yes, yes,” cried Theo. “It was in the back of the van, which was locked in my garage. With this much firepower, you’ve got to be careful.”

“What about when you got to the park?” asked Samantha.

“It was here when I unlocked the van,” Theo replied, twirling a set of keys on his index finger.

“And you didn’t leave the fireworks unattended?” Samantha continued.

“Not since you two rode by on your bikes and offered to help me unload,” said Theo.

“And before that?”

“Well, I did go and buy myself an ice cream cone,” Theo said, sheepishly. “I left the van unlocked, but it was only for a minute, and who could resist a vanilla-fudge-chocolate chip cone, hmm?”

“Hmm,” echoed Samantha, staring absently across the park’s access road at the ice cream vendor, who was selling two vanilla cones to Suzette and Melissa Markel, twin students in Samantha’s class.

The grass around the van was still soggy from yesterday’s rain, but Samantha could make out no clues there. She and Billy had trampled the grass flat in their many trips back and forth to the van.

Just then, the park supervisor, Jim Jezquin, pulled up in a refurbished golf cart. Theo, Samantha and Billy quickly filled him in regarding the missing firework and asked if he’d seen any suspicious-looking characters.

“Can’t say that I have,” Jim said. “But I’ve been pretty busy for the last hour posting signs in the park to let people know they have to sit on the west side tonight to watch fireworks. The east side of the park is still too muddy from yesterday’s rain. I guess I haven’t had time to watch for crooks.”

“Don’t bother putting up any more signs,” moaned Theo. “Without the Big Blast, there can be no fireworks!”

Samantha and Billy excused themselves, hopped on their bikes and rode out of the park.

“It’s not like you to give up on a mystery like that,” said Billy.

“Who’s giving up?” Samantha shot back. “We’re going to ride to Mr. Casey’s house to look for more clues.”

Theo Casey lived two blocks away. Everything was quiet around his home, except for three high school boys playing basketball next door. Samantha decided to ask if they’d seen anything suspicious, just in case Mr. Casey was mistaken and somebody really had stolen the firework from his home.

Without mentioning The Big Blast by name, Samantha let the three know that a firework was missing and asked them if they’d seen anyone or anything suspicious around Mr. Casey’s home.

“Nope, nothing suspicious around here, Sam,” said Rob Denver. Rob rode Sam’s bus and knew her by reputation as Sallami’s best amateur detective. “And we’ve been playing basketball all morning.”

The other two boys – Harry Saltpepper and John Crane – agreed. They’d seen Mr. Casey back his van out of the garage, close the garage door and drive off toward the park. They knew he was a pyrotechnics expert and that he was probably setting up for the Independence Day fireworks, as he did each year.

“Did you guys go into the park today?” Samantha asked.

“What’s up, Sam?” said Rob. “We’re not suspects or anything, are we?”

“Not especially,” Sam answered, “although I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard for you guys to get to the park and back, since it’s only a few blocks away.”

“Rest easy, little detective,” Harry said. “We haven’t been anywhere near the park, and don’t plan to go even tonight. It’ll be way too crowded, what with no sitting on the east side.”

“Yeah, I think we’ll stay right here shooting hoops,” said Rob.

“That sounds like a fine idea,” Samantha replied. “But first, you need to return The Big Blast to Mr. Casey.”


HOW DID SAMANTHA KNOW THAT THE THREE BOYS HAD STOLEN THE BIG BLAST?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Jezquin said he had just started that morning posting signs telling people that the east side of the park was off-limits to fireworks watchers. The only way the three boys could have known is if they had been in the park that morning, although they said they had been playing basketball the entire time.

Caught in a lie, the three culprits admitted to Samantha and Billy that they had followed Mr. Casey’s van to the park and waited until he went to buy ice cream to steal the biggest firework they could find.

Luckily, they hadn’t yet detonated The Big Blast and returned it to Mr. Casey unharmed. Mr. Casey in turn called each of their parents and reported what their children had done.

That night, the city of Sallami thrilled to the sight of The Big Blast, courtesy of Samantha Spade’s investigative skills.

Sixty-Second Solutions 6

It was the last week of the school year at Sallami Middle School, and everybody was anticipating summer vacation. You could feel it in the classrooms. You could feel it in the lunchroom. You could feel it in the gym.

You could especially feel it in the hallway, for several reasons. First of all, the entire sixth-grade class was cleaning out lockers, throwing out unwanted papers and folders and discovering hats, pencils and pens that, in many cases, were last seen in early October.

Secondly, the air conditioning had broken. It was a balmy eighty-seven degrees outside, and twice as hot inside.

Samantha Spade wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, then turned to her locker. She had quite a way to go before it would ever pass inspection by Mr. Entleman, her homeroom teacher. She had a huge pile of library books in the bottom of the locker: books on fingerprinting, the legal system and police investigation. She wondered how much her fine would be.

Mr. Entleman, patrolling the hallway like a guard dog, pointed to the books. “Better get those back,” he cautioned.

“Yes, sir.” She gathered up the volumes – thirty in all – along with the block of wood that doubled for Mr. Entleman’s hall pass and headed for the library. All those books in her hands made it hard for her to see, and she had to stop several times and use the walls to keep the stack from tumbling.

Finally, she reached the library door, which was slightly ajar, and pushed it open with her back. She nodded toward Mrs. Dewey, the teacher who had taken over for Mr. Oplin , the regular librarian, after he had tripped over a stray encyclopedia volume and broken both his arms three weeks before. Mrs. Dewey had books piled on all the tables and bookshelves. The piles made the load in Samantha’s hands look small by comparison.

“Oh, Samantha, my favorite AWOL book borrower!” Mrs. Dewey exclaimed. Usually, the librarian had a bright, sunny disposition; today, she looked frazzled. She had a typewritten inventory sheet in front of her, and a pencil tucked behind her right ear. “Just put them over on the table, dear.”

Samantha looked around the room, trying to spot an empty spot.

“Uh, which table?” she asked.

Dewey glanced around as if noticing the mess for the first time. She chuckled. “Oh, just pile them nicely on the floor, then.”

Samantha put down the books and came over to Mrs. Dewey. “What are you working on, ma’am?” she asked. “End of the year inventory?”

“Exactly,” the librarian responded. “I’m trying to match up missing books to kids, and smooth over inconsistencies. If students haven’t returned all books and paid their fines, the school can’t give them their report cards.”

“I’m sure most kids wouldn’t mind that,” Samantha giggled.“Can I help?” Anything was better than going back to her dirty locker.

“Well, I suppose,” said Mrs. Dewey. “Maybe it will help to work off your fine, which, judging by the pile of books you’ve returned, is significant.”

The librarian handed her approximately twenty sheets of paper. Each sheet listed a different student with overdue books, the amount of fines owed by each, and the cost of the books if they had to be replaced. Samantha’s job was to put them in financial order so that the information about students who had failed to return the most expensive books were on top.

Jasper Jankins, a seventh-grade student, was by far Public Enemy Number One in terms of book borrowing. Not only had he failed to return forty-seven books, but he had two books – “The History of Great Britain” and “True Stories of Gangsters” – valued at over $65 each. His total unpaid fines came to almost 40 dollars, and the total value to replace all the books he had borrowed was almost $250!

When Mrs. Dewey saw Jasper’s bill, she was horrified. She instantly got on the public address system and called Jasper down to the library.

“Look at this list,” she said, while the two were waiting for Jasper. “Why, he’s checked out twenty-five books in the Shivery Spine mystery series alone! I’m amazed we have any books left in this library!”

A few moments later, Jasper strolled in. He had a shaved head, deep blue eyes and what appeared to be a permanent smirk on his face.

“Hey, Mrs. D!” Jasper said. “What’s up?”

“Your library fine,” replied Mrs. Dewey. “And my blood pressure. Jasper, you owe this library forty-seven books.”

Jasper looked shocked. “No way!” he said. “I brought three books back last week. We’re all squared, Mrs. D.”

“Not quite, Jasper,” said Mrs. Dewey, looking over the list. “You owe us eleven books in the Sports Profiles series and nine of the Adventures of Strato-Man books, and …”

“No way,” Jasper interrupted. “I never checked out any of that stuff.”

Mrs. Dewey asked to see his card. Jasper reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, opened it, and frowned. He held the wallet upside down and shook it; only lint fell out.

“Hmm,” he said. “I forgot – I lost the card a couple of weeks ago. Somebody must have found it or stolen it and then checked out a bunch of books in my name! The bums!”

Samantha stepped up. “Mrs. Dewey, is it possible that somebody could use another student’s card to check out books?”

“Technically, yes,” Mrs. Dewey said. “The cards don’t have photos, and I don’t know all the students well enough to match names to faces. I’ve only been here a few weeks.”

“Right. And in that time, somebody must’ve robbed you blind in the Shivery Spine section,” Jasper said.

“Jasper, you’re still responsible for the titles checked out in your name,” said Mrs. Dewey. “You should have reported the card stolen.”

Jasper raised his voice. “I didn't know it was stolen! I thought I lost it! You know, in my bedroom or in the garage or something!”

“Be that as it may, you’re still responsible for the missing books. If I were you, I’d check around your bedroom and in your desk, just in case some of those forty-seven books are yours.” Mrs. Dewey pressed several keys on the library’s computer. “In the meantime, I’ll lock your account so that no other books can be checked out in your name.”

“Whatever,” said Jasper. “But I promise you that I don’t have any of those forty-seven books,” said Jasper.

Samantha spoke up. “Maybe not anymore. But you were the one who checked them out, and I can prove it.”

HOW DOES SAMANTHA KNOW? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION.

* * * * *

Jasper mentioned that somebody had robbed the library blind in the Shivery Spine mystery section, but how would he have known that unless he was the one who checked out the books? Remember, he interrupted Mrs. Dewey before she had a chance to tell him the names of all the books taken.

When he realized he was caught, Jasper promised to bring all the books back to school the next day and pay his past-due fines.

Alice Cooper, Road Warrior

I have some thoughts about Alice Cooper's latest, Road, but wanted to wait to share them until after I'd had time to digest his disappointing comments about trans people.

It's a testimony to how much Cooper is loved and respected that even fans who disagree with him are bending over backward to interpret his words in a way that paints the 75-year-old shock rocker in a positive light. 

Yeah, he's entitled to his opinion. But since he's built a career based in part on gender-bending wardrobe changes and inclusiveness for people who don't follow the dictates of society, some of his comments are a little ... well, shocking. 

Cooper didn't completely dismiss trans people, no matter what the headlines say. He said there were legitimate "cases of transgender" but also worried that it was a "fad." He repeated tired old talking points about men pretending to be trans so they could use women's restrooms and "have the time of [their] life in there." He also criticized "the whole woke thing."  

Sentiments like these aren't unusual from somebody Cooper's age, especially given the calcified grip with which that demographic clings to Fox News, but it's unusual to hear it from him. 

Unfortunately, the singer violated a policy he's articulated in many interviews and at least one song: "Shut Up and Rock" (from 2021's Detroit Stories). 

I had to parse how his words will affect not only his transgender fans but also their parents and grandparents. Granted, people should not place too much stock in the opinions of celebrities, yet they do. I've lost count of the social-media posts I've seen that say, "I stand with Alice," "Right on, Alice," "100%," and so on, indicating he's given some fans another reason to shun inclusivity. His words are going to make life a little tougher for kids and parents dealing with these challenging issues, and that's a shame. 

For this lifelong fan, his words also mean that Alice Cooper the Man isn't nearly as cool as Alice Cooper the Performer. Consider that bubble duly popped.

Now, on to Road.

It's solid. Cooper and his longtime touring band have crafted a loose concept album, with songs about world travel and hard rockin'.  This is a shallow theme around which to build an entire record, and that lack of depth is reflected in the lyrics, too many of which are basically about how cool it is to be a rock star in general and Alice Cooper in particular. 

Road could be more relatable to us working stiffs if it had included numbers about the different types of folks one encounters while traveling — salespeople, soldiers shipping out or on their way home, refugees, and the like. Instead, the record focuses on just the vagabond rock-star lifestyle—fine, but limiting. Imagine From the Inside without Nurse Rosetta, Millie and Billie, and Veronica for a sense of the missed opportunities here. 

Given the album's singular focus, though, it's not surprising how it pays homage to various Cooper classics that are staples of his live show. Listeners will hear callbacks to "Elected" at the tail end of "I'm Alice," and a lyrical echo of "Eighteen"— like it, love it, like it, love it — in "All Over the World." Self-reference has been a signature Cooper characteristic for decades; this album is no exception.

Road's great strength is how comfortable everybody is with everybody else. Cooper's touring band — Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen, Nita Strauss, Chuck Garric, and Glen Sobel — are here in full force, ripping through songs with the confidence that comes from playing with one another night after night. 

Cooper, too, is in fine voice. He has always had a raspiness to his delivery, which is used to especially good effect here. The song "100 Miles" addresses the end of the tour—and maybe the end of the line—for a nearly hoarse Cooper, who ruminates about having "no place at all to be" and "nobody yelling, 'Hey, man, it's time to go.'" The song suggests a more serious vein for Cooper to mine in future releases, one that would be entirely appropriate given his ouevre's morbid focus: impending mortality.

A highlight is "White Line Frankenstein," about a coked-up trucker. Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello provides six-string lightning throughout. 

"Baby Please Don't Go," an appealing ballad, reminds listeners of Cooper's softer side and wouldn't be out of place on FM rock radio today. A remake of "Road Rats" fits well with the road theme, as does a cover of "Magic Bus," which closes the album.  

It all goes down easy and actually grew on me with each listen. Road does not travel along any interesting byways or take any intriguing detours, yet it barrels down the highway at a fast clip. Sometimes, that's enough. 

I haven't had a chance to watch the blu-ray of 2022's Hellfest performance, included with the CD, but I suspect it will be a typically high-energy set. Alice seldom disappoints live. 

Safe to say that if you've always liked Cooper— and particularly if you like the musicians who have been playing with him now for many years—you'll like Road. I give it a solid B. 

Sixty-Second Solutions 5

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, Janson,” said Detective Dirkin, his hat pulled low over his eyes, “but you’re under arrest for stealing the Jewels of Jupiter.”

Flo Mason and Billy Archer sat up straight in their seats on either side of Samantha Spade. Popcorn fell from Billy’s mouth as he stared up at the movie screen. Detective Durkin was busy administering justice to Doctor Janson with the help of a strong right hook.

“Did you hear that, Sam?” Billy whispered to Samantha. “How the heck did he figure out it was the doctor?”

Samantha reached inside her pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. About thirty minutes into the film, “Mystery Ink,” she had scribbled the name “Dr. Janson.” She unfolded the paper and showed it to her friends.

“All the clues were in the doctor’s office,” Samantha said. “The doctor said he was giving injections at the time of the heist, but there were no needles in his medicine bag. That’s what tipped me off.”

As the film ended and the lights came up, the trio made their way toward the exit. It was the Saturday before Memorial Day, and the friends had kicked off the long weekend the night before by seeing another film at the theater, the two-and-a-half-hour “Arachnid Man.”

Samantha explained other clues to the mystery as they squinted in the late afternoon light.

Flo took her matinee ticket, which read “The Great History Mystery, 3 p.m. matinee, $2.50,” and threw it into a waste can. She shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it, Sam,” she said.

Samantha shrugged. “I just pay attention to stuff like that, I guess.”

That was an understatement. In the four months since Samantha and her father had moved to the town of Sallami, she’d built quite a reputation as a detective.

Samantha loved to read mysteries and watch mystery movies, like the 90-minute puzzler she’d just finished. But most of all, she liked to solve real-life mysteries. Her speed at figuring out even the most difficult of problems had led to her nickname: the Sixty-Seconds Solution. As her reputation grew, so did the number of mysteries that came her way.

And another puzzler was about to surface now, outside the Super Cineplex at the Sallami Mall.

Two boys in front of Samantha were laughing and ribbing each other on the way out of the theater. Just then, a security guard grabbed each boy by the arms.

“Are these the ones?” the guard asked, speaking to a blonde girl a few years older than Samantha.

The blonde nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, sir, those are the boys who slashed my bicycle tires.”

“What are you talking about?” said one boy, shaking free of the security guard. He was wearing a black stocking cap and a leather jacket, despite the heat. The other was dressed in a baseball jersey and carried a tub of popcorn.

“You’re the ones,” the girl said. “When I came out of the mall, two were hunched over my bike. When you saw me coming, you ran toward the ticket booth.”

“No way, Jose,” the boy sneered. “Mrs. Carly’s boy, Teddy, has been watching movies the entire afternoon. Isn’t that right, Chet?”

“That’s right,” answered the other boy. “Me an’ Teddy’s been seeing flicks all afternoon. We saw ‘Arachnid Man’ and ‘Mystery Ink.’ See?”

He pulled out his ticket stubs. Teddy did the same.

The security turned toward the blonde.

“Look, Miss…” he began.

“Williams. Lucy Williams,” the blonde answered.

“Yeah. Miss Williams, the two do have ticket stubs, and…”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” said Lucy. “Why, they could’ve bought tickets and not even seen the film. I’m telling you, these guys slashed my tires.”

Chet laughed. “Look, we saw both movies today. Arachnid Man had that cool explosion at the end, where we learn that The Jade Jack O’ Lantern is really Arachnid Man’s cousin.”

“Yeah, that was cool,” said Teddy. “And then, at the very beginning of ‘Mystery Ink,’ that detective dude gets chased off the mountain by those assassin ninja monks. That was my favorite part.”

By this time, Samantha and her two friends had stopped walking and were watching the situation closely. The security guard noticed them.

“Move along, kids,” he said. “Nothing to see here.”

Flo stepped up to him and explained that her friend, Samantha, was an amateur detective with a rock-solid track record. “Do you think she could take a crack at this one?”

The guard said he didn’t mind. Neither did Lucy or the two boys.

“Could I see your tickets?” Samantha asked Teddy and Chet.

They handed them over. Samantha examined the two pairs of tickets: “Mystery Ink” at the same time as she and her friends had seen it, and “Arachnid Man” at 1:35 p.m. Everything looked in order.

“Careful, you might want to dust those for fingerprints,” Teddy said, laughing.

“Have you seen either of these films before?” Samantha said, looking at the boys.

“Nope,” said Chet. “Saw ‘em both today for the first time.”

“You’re lying,” said Samantha. “And you’re probably lying about the bicycle tire, too.”


HOW DID SAMANTHA KNOW? SEE BELOW FOR THE SOLUTION.

* * * * * 

Samantha knew that Arachnid Man, which began at 1:35 p.m., was two-and-a-half hours long. But the boys had described the end of that film and the beginning of “Mystery Ink,” which started at 3 p.m., before the first movie was finished.

Realizing they had been caught in one big lie, Chet and Teddy admitted that they had skipped out early from the 1:35 showing of “Arachnid Man,” a film they’d seen the week before, to cause mischief in the parking lot. When Lucy caught them slashing her tires, they’d run back into the theater and bought tickets for “Mystery Ink,” where they dreamed up what they thought was a perfect alibi.

Sixty-Second Solutions 4

“Okay, class, turn ’em in!”

Mrs. Pierce, a former Army drill sergeant turned teacher, barked the order from her desk. Every student reached into their science folders and produced reports bound in clear plastic folders.

Samantha Spade was no exception. Her typewritten report, “Black Holes and the Scientists Who Love Them,” was carefully cradled between two plastic sheaths. It had a one-and-a-quarter-inch margin on the left, and one-inch margins on the other three sides, double-spaced, with page numbers in the top right margin exactly one-half inch from the edge of the paper. The report was also handwritten, per Mrs. Pierce’s directive. A handwritten paper taught discipline with a pen , she said.

When you were a student in “Precise” Pierce’s class, you learned to follow orders – or else.

Samantha placed her paper in the waiting left hand of the student in front of her, who then placed his paper on top of hers and passed it forward. Mrs. Pierce collected each row in turn, starting at the right of the room and working left with military precision.

When she finished, she thumbed through the collected stack, alternately nodding in approval or frowning in disgust at the quality of the class’s work.

“Shane, nice job on the right margin. Razor sharp!” she beamed, followed by, “Mary, only one “T” in astronomy. Spell check!”

But then she paused for a great while as she thumbed through the remainder of the reports. She scowled. “There are 24 students in this room, but I have only 23 papers.”

“Suzette and Melissa Markel!” she barked. In the last two seats of the third row, the two twins sat up straight, their pigtails nodding.

“Yes, Mrs. Pierce,” they answered in unison. Both were wearing soccer jerseys, blue jeans and bright white tennis shoes. Their own mother had a hard time telling them apart, let alone the rest of the class.

“I have only 24 reports here, and there are 25 students in this class,” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Pierce,” they said again. The rest of the class gasped. Failure to turn in a report by the due date resulted in the loss of a full letter grade.

“The problem is, one of the reports doesn’t have a name,” the teacher continued. “And from the way I collected the reports, it belongs to one of you two.”

“It’s mine!” said Suzette.

“It’s mine!” echoed Melissa, seated directly behind her.

“Well, quite a conundrum we have here, ladies,” said Mrs. Pierce, pacing back along the aisles.

“Melissa, what was your report about?”

“Jupiter,” they both answered, then frowned at each other.

“No fair,” said Suzette from behind her sister. “She saw the title of my paper when I passed it to her!”

Mrs. Pierce slapped the paper on top of Suzette’s desk. Melissa craned her neck around to see it. Samantha, who sat next to Suzette, could see the report clearly. It read:

Jupiter:

Gas Giant of

The Solar System

The words “gas,” “giant,” “the” and “solar” were terribly smudged.

Mrs. Pierce stared intently at the handwriting. Like everything else the twins were involved in, it was identical.

“That paper’s mine, you big cheater!” said Melissa, throwing her erasable pen with her left hand.

“Is not, it’s mine!” said Suzette, throwing down her pen with her right hand. “You left yours at home, and now you’re just trying to muscle in on my grade!

Samantha’s mind was racing. Here was a bona fide mystery, right in the middle of her sixth grade science class! Since they lived in the same house, each twin would know the topic of the other’s report, and probably know the contents well enough to fake their way through one of “Precise” Pierce’s oral interrogation.

Of course, a quick call home to the Markel house would reveal whose name was on any forgotten report, and so reveal the liar. But that was like cheating, Samantha thought.

Fingerprinting might answer the question, too, since even identical twins have distinct prints. But more than likely, the fingerprints of both girls would appear on the paper. Handwriting analysis would also reveal differences between the two girls’ cursive, but Samantha doubted that even Mrs. Pierce would want to go to that much trouble over a science report.

Samantha stared at her wristwatch. She’d been thinking about this for 45-seconds now. There was barely time to solve the case and still save her reputation for 60-second solutions!

The answer had to be close at hand …

“That’s it!” she said, barely suppressing a shout of “Eureka!”

Mrs. Pierce looked at her. “That’s what, Samantha?

“Can I see the report for a moment?” she asked.

The teacher shrugged and handed it to her. Samantha instantly pulled a pencil from her backpack and began erasing the word “Jupiter.”

“What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” Mrs. Pierce shouted, pulling the paper away from Samantha.

“Solving a mystery,” Samantha said smugly, sitting back with her arms folded across her chest. “I know which twin wrote that paper.”

WHICH TWIN IS TELLING THE TRUTH? SEE BELOW FOR THE ANSWER.

* * * * *

A left-handed person has great difficulty writing with an erasable pen without smudging the lines, as the side of the hand blots the ink while as he or she writes. Since the first few words on each line of the title page were smudged, Samantha correctly guessed that the person writing it was left-handed.

When Samantha saw Melissa throw down her erasable pen with her left hand, and Suzette with her right, she knew the two twins weren’t identical in all things. Melissa, the left-hander, had written the paper.

Confronted by the evidence, Suzette admitted that she had forgotten her paper

Even though she lost a whole letter grade, her exceptional report on “Real Astronomy in the Star Trek Universe” still netted her a solid B+.

Sixty-Second Solutions 3

“It was a leprechaun, I tell you – a leprechaun!”

Thelma Archer shouted at her grandson, Billy. Samantha Spade stood beside the window in Billy’s bedroom, wincing at the high-decibel level.

“Grandma, we believe you saw something,” said Billy. “But a leprechaun?”

“Don’t believe your old Grandma, huh?” Thelma retorted, tapping her temple with one forefinger. “Think she’s going soft in the attic? A few flakes short of a Corn Flakes box, maybe?”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Aw, Gram, it’s nothing like that.”

Thelma was getting geared up for another round of shouting when Samantha interrupted.

“Mrs. Archer, could we go over the facts once again, please?”

Billy had phoned Samantha and told her to get over to his house. His grandmother had been raving that she’d seen a leprechaun climbing the spouting on the house.

Thelma Archer sighed deeply and sat down on Billy’s bed, hands folded primly on her lap.

“It’s like this, dear,” Mrs. Archer said. “I was putting away the clean laundry in Billy’s room before I got ready for work when I saw the leprechaun outside the window, shinnying up the side of the house. He was dressed in green, with reddish-orange hair and a green hat.”

As she spoke, her thick eyeglasses slipped down her nose. She pushed them back up promptly.

“And you were wearing your glasses at the time?” Samantha asked.

“Well, no,” she admitted.

Billy looked momentarily triumphant and was ready to chime in when Samantha elbowed him into silence.

“And did this leprechaun ... do anything?” asked Samantha.

“He hopped up on top of the porch and danced around for a few seconds,” Thelma replied, fiddling with her glasses. “Then, he climbed back down. I called for Billy, but by the time he got here, the leprechaun was gone.”

From Billy’s bedroom window, Samantha could see down the street to Salvador’s Diner, where Thelma worked as a hostess. “What time do you go to work, Mrs. Archer?”

Thelma glanced at her watch and jumped up. “Oh my, I should be there now.”

“We’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind,” Samantha said.

While Mrs. Archer got ready for work, the two friends waited outside, next to a City of Sallami Municipal trashcan (“Keep Sallami Beautiful”). Billy kicked the can in disgust.

“She’s not crazy, Samantha,” he said. “But there’s no way she saw a leprechaun.”

“Calm down,” Samantha replied. “We just need to collect more information. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

A few minutes later the trio was making its way through the parking lot of Salvador’s Diner. Thelma had changed into her uniform, a green top and visor and navy blue slacks.

At the door, Vinnie Furnier, Samantha’s neighbor, who also worked at the restaurant, greeted them. He was also dressed in green and blue, his green visor clashing with his bright orange hair and freckles.

“Greetings, Mrs. Archer,” Vinnie said. “Care for a mint?” He held up a wicker basket filled with individual pieces of chocolate wrapped in green foil. “It’s part of our St. Patty’s Day special.”

“No thank you, Vincent,” said Thelma. “But it’s nice of you to ask.”

Billy leaned over to Samantha and whispered, “Do you smell what I smell?”

“Yeah,” Samantha whispered back. “A rat.”

“I’d offer you a piece of candy, kids, but the boss says to save ‘em for paying customers,” Vincent sneered. He was still angry with Samantha for foiling his attempt steal Billy’s paper route two months earlier.

“What does the boss say about leaving work to climb up people’s spouting, Vinnie?” asked Samantha, sweetly.

Vinnie rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about, Brain Drain? I’ve been here for the last three hours, handing out mints to customers and hawking the $5.99 St. Patty’s Day Stuffed Peppers. It’s a sweet job, too: Mr. Salvador told to eat as many mints as I want. He bought ‘em in bulk.”

Vincent pointed to three boxes of mints stacked against the side of the building. A broom and a dustpan leaned against the boxes. The dustpan was filled with cigarette butts, some restaurant receipts and a crushed Coca-Cola can.

As he spoke, Vinnie unwrapped a mint and popped it into his mouth, stuffing the empty wrapper into his front pocket.

“See, minty fresh breath,” he said, exhaling deeply into Samantha’s face. The reek of chocolate was overpowering.

“We believe you, Vincent,” said Thelma, who turned to scowl at Samantha. “Vincent’s a dear boy, Samantha. He would never lie.”

Behind her back, Vinnie mock-smiled and innocently batted his eyes.

“What’s going on out here?” boomed a baritone voice from the doorway of the restaurant. It was Mr. Salvador, the diner’s owner, wearing a bow tie and a white apron. “I pay you to give out candy, not talk with your school chums, eh?”

Samantha stepped forward and explained her suspicions to Mr. Salvador. He rubbed his chin as he listened. “Vinnie, is this true? Did you leave the restaurant and climb poor Thelma’s roof? I’ve been too busy inside to check on you.”

“No, sir, I’ve been here all the time, sweeping the sidewalk and handing out mints. Oh, and eating a lot of them, too.” He patted his stomach appreciatively.

“Good boy,” said Mr. Salvador. “But where’s your name tag, eh?”

“Oops, forgot to put it on,” Vinnie replied. He thrust both hands into his front pockets and pulled them inside out. The wrapper for the mint he had just eaten fluttered out. Otherwise, they were empty.

“Guess I must have left it at home, Mr. Salvador,” Vinnie said. “Sorry.”

“Sorrier than you know,” Samantha said. “Because now I can prove that you’re our roof-crawling leprechaun.”

HOW DOES SAMANTHA KNOW? SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS.

* * * * *

If Vincent had been eating mints at his job for the last three hours, the mint wrappers would either be in his pockets or in the dustpan. But they weren’t. Samantha concluded that Vinnie had dumped the wrappers in the City of Sallami trashcan outside the Archer’s house.

Faced with the prospect of dumping the municipal trashcan to find the wrappers, Vinnie confessed that he had left his job to pull a prank. He hoped to scare Billy by peeking in his bedroom window. When he saw Mrs. Archer, he was so scared that he lost his balance and almost fell off the roof. He ran back to work, hoping that she hadn’t seen him.

Without her glasses, the near-sighted Mrs. Archer confused Vinnie’s green uniform and orange hair for a leprechaun. The leprechaun’s “dance” was really Vinnie waving his arms to keep his balance.

Vinnie lost his job, but Samantha and Billy got a free meal – the St. Patrick’s Day Stuffed Pepper Special and all the mints they could eat, served by an appreciative Mrs. Salvador and Billy’s grandmother.