“Sorry, but the waterslide is not working today,” sneers a strange-looking man who pokes his head out through the museum door.
I think he’s making a snarky joke about my current state of bare-chestedness. But I can’t be certain, because his eerie face is unmoving and lifeless, like a brick with a nose.
Then it hits me: He looks like one of those giant stone heads on Easter Island.
My class learned about Easter Island’s ancient and mysterious stone blockheads in our reading comprehension workbooks. Apparently, some ancient guys carved hundreds of these giant heads on a grassy island out in the middle of the ocean a few million years ago. I distinctly remember not comprehending much of the story.
“I’ll be right back,” Stone Head sniffs after Officer Lestrade pleads his case for letting in a shirtless kid detective and his walking headache of a little sister.
He returns in moments and hands me a purple T-shirt. In enormous letters the shirt screams I LOVE ART!
“Does it have to be a lady’s T-shirt?” I groan.
“It’s the cheapest shirt on the gift shop’s clearance table,” Stone Head sighs.
“Does it have to be purple?” I murmur.
“That’s lavender,” Stone Head corrects me. “And rules are rules.”
Hailey’s having the time of her life watching me suffer. “At least it doesn’t smell like a sewage treatment plant,” she says, pulling the shirt over my head. “Oh, Sherlock, you could be in a little detective fashion show!”
“Follow me,” Stone Head orders us.
We follow his enormous forehead up a wide wooden staircase and to the entrance of the auction room. There is a yellow plastic strip strung tightly across the doorway. It says CRIME SCENE on it every five inches or so. That is so cool.
Before I can stop her, Hailey runs in slow motion through the yellow tape, her arms raised in the air, like she’s winning a marathon. The tape snaps. She makes the sound of a roaring crowd. “Hailey Sherlock has shocked the world and taken the gold medal!” she shouts like a TV announcer.
Stone Head doesn’t look amused.
I walk slowly around the auction room and get a feel for the place.
I count nineteen paintings of various sizes hanging neatly around the room. There is one empty space. I stare at the tiny hole in the wall that only yesterday was occupied by the hook holding Mrs. Bagby’s painting. I wonder what kind of thief steals a painting and the hook it’s hanging on.
I stare at that hole for a long time.
When I turn around, everyone is looking at me like I just kicked a sleeping dog. And I must admit, this case is starting to feel like one.
