In front of every house on Pancake Court, there was a yard. Then there was a sidewalk. After that came the curb, and then came the street. At the front of every yard, near the sidewalk, there was a little cement rectangle. Every house on Pancake Court had one of these little cement rectangles in front of it, and every little cement rectangle had a small hole in it. Bean had known this for years.
But what was under the rectangle? Bean didn’t know. It could be a tunnel that led to the center of the Earth. It could be anything!
Bean crouched over the little cement rectangle in front of her house and peered into the hole. No good. She couldn’t see anything. She lay down on the grass and put her eye over the hole. Nothing but darkness.
“What’s down there?” said a voice.
“Yikes!” squawked Bean, flopping over like a pancake.
It was Ivy, leaning over her. “What’re you doing?”
It’s hard to be tough while you’re lying flat on your back, but Bean tried. “I’m cracking a case.”
“You’re what?” asked Ivy.
“It means solving a mystery,” Bean said. She sat up. “I’m practicing to be a private investigator. P. I. for short.”
“Pi?” Ivy said. “3.1415—”
“No, not that one. P. I. stands for private investigator. You know, someone who solves mysteries. Like Al Seven.”
“Al who?” asked Ivy.
So Bean explained everything about Al Seven and Seven Falls. For a while, Ivy thought Al Seven was seven, but soon she understood.
Bean told her about how Al Seven found clues and rubbed his face. She told Ivy about how Al Seven snuck after people and spied on them and asked them the hard questions. How Al Seven spied on Sammy La Barba and saw him put money in a mailbox. And then about how Al Seven gave all the money to a girl named Lola.
“Why’d he do that?” asked Ivy.
Bean shrugged. “Don’t know. But then he sits in his car for a long time and then the police come and some newspaper guys, and he’s a big hero. But he doesn’t care, and he walks off alone in an alley.”
“Wow.” Ivy was impressed.
“So,” Bean said. “I’m going to be a P. I. and I’m going to solve mysteries.”
Ivy looked around Bean’s front yard. “What mystery are you solving now?”
“The Mystery of What’s Under the Cement Rectangle,” Bean answered.
“Hey!” Ivy said. “I’ve always wondered about that!”
“That’s what makes it a mystery,” said Bean. She rolled over and looked into the hole again. “I was trying to see into it, but it was too dark, so now—” She hooked her finger into the hole. “Ew. It’s slimy.” But Al Seven wouldn’t let a little slime stop him, and neither would Bean. She pulled. The cement rectangle made a scraping sound. Just as she thought: It was a lid. She pulled harder. More scraping. She pulled really hard. The cement rectangle popped upward.
“Wow,” said Ivy, bending over the rectangle in the grass.
Underneath the cement lid, down below the grass, there was a rectangular space full of slime. In the middle of the space stood a gray machine with a dial on it. Pipes came from its sides and disappeared into the ground.
“Hey, look at that!” It was Sophie S. from down the street, bending over Bean. “I always wanted to know what was under there.”
“The Mystery of What’s Under the Cement Rectangle has now been solved,” Bean said. It felt good to have an answer.
Sophie S. peered down into the hole. “You think the same thing is inside all of them?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Bean the P. I.
