My name is Jeff Bunter, and I’m a Goofball.
In fact, I’m the first Goofball ever.
You can ask my friends Brian Rooney, Kelly Smitts, and Mara Lubin.
“Jeff Bunter?” they’ll say. “Yeah. He’s a Goofball. The first one ever.”
Of course, Brian, Kelly, and Mara are Goofballs, too.
Together, we’re the most awesome team of mystery solvers since mysteries were discovered.
Before mysteries were discovered, I don’t know what people solved. Math problems, maybe. Luckily, they did discover mysteries, and now we’re the best at solving them.
Take Brian, for instance. But don’t take him too far away. We need him.
Brian invents detective gear so nutty it almost never works. Maybe that’s because he’s the second Goofball ever, so he’s had lots of practice. He’s also the second shortest Goofball ever.
Kelly is the first shortest.
But she makes up for it by keeping an enormous pile of yellow hair on her head. She also power walks everywhere and is very smart and serious.
Kelly’s so serious that when you say, “Knock-knock,” she’ll say, “What are you knocking on? I don’t see a door. Are you knocking on your head? Is that what’s making that noise?”
Which just makes her a perfect Goofball.
Then there’s Mara.
She’s as tall as me and as skinny as a number-two pencil. But Mara isn’t as yellow as a pencil. Sometimes she wears purple shoes, red pants, a blue shirt, a white scarf, a pink headband, and big green glasses.
In other words, a truly goofy outfit.
And me?
I’m an expert at spotting clues. I’m so good that I spot clues even where there aren’t any.
I write them all in my cluebook, which is a handy little notebook detectives use to solve mysteries.
Completing the Goofball team is my pet corgi, Sparky. He’s been our official Goofdog since he was a puppy and barked like this:
“Goof! Goof!”
Together the Goofballs solve mysteries. We’re the best. We’re so good, it’s downright scary.
But little did I know last month that our next mystery would be both goofy and scary!
It started like this:
Swoosh! Whoosh! Vrrrm! Errrk!
No, it wasn’t Brian racing through the halls to the school cafeteria. It was me, riding my mountain bike to the Badger Point Library.
It was the afternoon of Halloween. The Goofballs were between cases, so we were helping Mrs. Bookman, the librarian, put on her annual Halloween Fun Day for Toddlers.
The official Goofball definition of toddler is someone too short to reach a doorknob but not too short to reach a cupcake.
Even Sparky was invited to Fun Day.
I was biking as fast as I could when—errrk!—I screeched to a stop at the corner of Main Street and Putney Lane.
When you’re a Goofball detective like me, your eyes are trained to see clues that normal people don’t see.
First, I spotted a big bunch of pink balloons coming out of the flower shop. Then I saw a couple of lady legs sticking out from under the balloons.
“I think so, too, Sparky. Definitely a clue to something.” I watched the balloons and the legs bobble around the corner and disappear down the street. Disappear is a special detective word that means vanish.
I wrote it all down:
I wrote down some other things I saw:
I wasn’t sure whether those last things were clues to a mystery, but you never know.
“We don’t want to be late for Fun Day,” I said to Sparky. “I heard there will be candy corn cupcakes.”
“Goof!”
I felt good about getting all those clues before there was even a mystery.
But I had no clue at all about what came next.
Because before too long, those fluffy clouds would turn dark, that stick would be wet, that bird would fly away, and our new case would go from super goofy to super scary!