Billie and Mika find the two boys a little way down the street.

‘I think we’ve found the thief!’ Mika squeals.

‘Really?’ Jack and Alex say, looking excited. ‘Who? Who?’

‘Someone really scary looking…’ Mika says, giving them a clue. ‘She lives in a big scary house and has long white hair.’

‘Andrea?’ Jack frowns. ‘She’s not a thief.’

‘She’s been making strawberry jam,’ Mika says. ‘Lots of it! She made enough to have some left over for Alf to sell in his shop. Where do you think she got all those strawberries from, huh?’

Mika puts her hands on her hips to show that she has made up her mind. ‘She’s our strawberry thief. I’m sure of it!’

Jack shakes his head. ‘I don’t think it’s Andrea,’ he mumbles. ‘She wouldn’t do something like that.’

‘Only one way to find out!’ Alex says, his eyes lighting up with excitement.

He and Mika run along the footpath towards the big scary house at the end of the street.

Billie looks at Jack. She was as excited as Mika before. She felt sure they had discovered who the thief was. But now she sees Jack’s worried expression, she’s not so sure. ‘Come on,’ says Billie gently, taking Jack’s hand. ‘Let’s catch up with the others.’

The four of them arrive at Andrea’s house, a little out of breath. Now that they are standing in front of the big spooky house, Alex and Mika don’t look as brave as before.

Billie remembers that only she and Jack have ever been inside Andrea’s house. Mika and Alex have only heard about it from them.

Jack walks past them all and knocks on the door. They all stand quietly, listening to the footsteps clomping down the hall towards them. Andrea pulls open the door and blinks into the sunlight. She looks as scary as ever. Today she is wearing a long white apron with red smears all down the front of it.

Even though Billie knows there is nothing to be afraid of, Andrea still makes her shiver a bit.

‘Well, well, well!’ Andrea says, grinning. ‘You kids have arrived at the right time! I’ve just taken a batch of scones out of the oven to have with home-made strawberry jam. Come in! Come in!’

Mika jabs her elbow into Billie’s ribs. ‘Thank you!’ she says, her voice sounding extra brave. ‘I love strawberry jam!’

Then she steps past them all and follows Andrea into the house.

As they walk along the corridor, Billie can smell a sweet fruity smell coming from the kitchen. ‘Is that the jam I can smell?’ she asks Andrea.

‘Yes!’ says Andrea. ‘My brother runs a strawberry farm and he brought me three crates of ripe strawberries yesterday.’

‘Oh!’ says Billie looking at Mika.

Andrea opens the door onto the kitchen. There on the sticky wooden table are two empty crates covered in pink stains and one crate full of big fat strawberries.

‘I knew I’d need a lot of strawberries to make jam, but I think I ordered a few too many.’ Andrea grins. ‘I’ve got strawberry jam coming out of my ears and I still haven’t been able to use them all up. Will you kids take some home with you?’

‘See?’ Jack hisses in Mika’s ear. Mika looks down at the floor, her cheeks turning as red as berries.

‘Sit down, sit down,’ Andrea says, pointing to her big wooden table. ‘And I’ll get some scones for you all. They’re fresh from the oven.’

Billie and her friends sit up at Andrea’s kitchen table feeling downhearted. But they can’t stay glum for long. Fresh scones with strawberry jam and cream is enough to cheer anybody up!

Walking back to Billie’s house, swinging plastic bags full of strawberries and jam, Billie and her friends talk about their next move.

‘Well, we’ve ruled out the neighbours,’ Alex says, counting people off his fingers. ‘Nobody saw anyone or heard anything that night. And besides, you can’t get into Mika’s backyard without going through the house.’

‘And the back fence is too high for anyone to climb over,’ Jack adds.

‘It wasn’t birds,’ Alex says.

‘Or any other creature,’ Jack says. ‘Otherwise the net would have been disturbed.’

‘It might just have to remain an unsolved mystery, Mika,’ Billie says kindly, draping her arm over her friend’s shoulder. ‘We can’t solve everything.’

‘Yes we can!’ Mika says angrily. ‘You are all giving up too easily.

You think just because it’s strawberries and not something important that was stolen, it doesn’t matter. Well, it matters to me! There’s a new lot of strawberries about to ripen and I’ll bet the thief will be back any day now. And it will happen again and again if we don’t catch them. I thought you were my friends! I thought we were a team!’

Billie, Jack and Alex all look at Mika in shock. Mika hardly ever loses her temper.

Mika is always the quiet one. The one who lets other people make all the decisions. The one who is always happy to go along with what other people say.

Billie understands now how important it is to Mika. That’s why we can’t let her down, she thinks.

‘Well, I guess there’s one last thing we can try,’ Billie says slowly. ‘But it might be scary. And it will definitely be risky.’

‘What?’ say the others, their eyes growing wide.

‘We set a trap,’ says Billie. ‘To catch the thief.’

The others hoot with excitement. Billie grins. She is the most excited of them all.