Chapter Eleven

I sat under the tree and thought. And thought. And thought some more. My head was starting to hurt from all the thinking. And I was getting hungry. I wished I’d eaten more of Halmoni’s French toast. Something about this case just didn’t quite add up. Something was missing.

Mrs. Robinson was a grown-up, and she was really, really responsible. Maybe she really had just lost the key. But I didn’t think so. And I didn’t want to give up. And I really didn’t want to break my promise.

I closed my eyes and listened to the wind in the trees. That made me feel better. But it didn’t solve the problem. So I thought about what we had done so far. We had listened to Mrs. Robinson’s story. Then we had followed her—as the P.I. would say, we had retraced her steps. Then we had listened to Sophie’s vershun verzun version of the story.

What hadn’t we done?

I listened to the wind again. Suddenly I realized what we’d missed. And that made me smile.