The
Last Case of the
I.C. Detective Agency
“Hey!” Ivan’s little brother, Ben, yelled. “The new people are pulling up. I see a kid.”
Ivan
didn’t care if twenty kids moved into Apartment 2A
where his friend Charlie used to live. Nobody could replace
Charlie. It was Charlie who had started the I. C. Detective
Agency (I for Ivan, C for Charlie). It was Charlie who had
thought of all the good ideas and found all the good cases.
Now that he had moved away, there would be no detective
agency, no cases, and no fun.
For two whole days Ivan managed to avoid the new kid in 2A. “Her name is Ursula, and she’s going to be in your class,” his little brother told him. “She says she wants to be friends with you.”
Ivan didn’t want to be friends with her. But one day she came right up to him while he was sitting on the front steps, and she said, “Hi. Ben told me you have a detective agency.”
“Well, I don’t,” Ivan mumbled. He started to leave.
“That’s too bad,” she said with a frown. “I need a detective.”
He stared at her. “What for?”
“Why should I tell you if you’re not a detective? I’ll figure it out myself.” She started down the stairs.
“Wait! Figure what out?”
She took a crumpled paper out of her pocket and shoved it at him. “What does this mean?”
Ivan smoothed out the paper and read the words printed on it:
“Where did this come from?” he asked, staring
at Ursula.
“It was between the window and the screen in my bedroom,” she answered.
“Spooky, huh? It looks like code. I think spies lived in our apartment before we moved in.”
“Charlie lived there, dopey,” Ivan said.
“Maybe he was a spy.”
“He wasn’t a spy, dopey. He was my partner in the I.C. Detective Agency.”
“Well, he couldn’t have been a very good detective if he didn’t see this note,” Ursula said, pulling it away from him. “And stop calling me ‘dopey’!”
“I’m sorry,” Ivan said quickly. “I’ll help you.”
He knew it wouldn’t be the same as working on a case with Charlie, but it was better than nothing.
“Do you want to take a look at the crime scene?” Ursula asked.
Ivan’s eyes widened. She knew detective talk.
It was strange seeing Ursula’s mother instead of Charlie’s in Apartment 2A, and it was even stranger to be working on a case in the room where he and his friend had solved so many mysteries together. Ursula pointed out the spot where she’d found the note, then sat down at her desk.
“Here,” she said, handing Ivan a paper and pencil. “Let’s get to work.”
“We have to find the code breaker,” Ivan said, bending his head over the paper.
“1234567 has to be it. We’ve got to figure out what that word is.”
“You mean the numbers stand for letters?” Ursula asked.
“Sure. At least that’s how most codes work,” he explained. “They substitute a number for each letter of the alphabet, like 1 for A, 2 for B, and 3 for C. Charlie and I used that code sometimes.”
But when Ivan and Ursula tried it on the note, it didn’t work. “It doesn’t make sense,” said Ursula, looking over his shoulder.
“I
know.” Ivan scratched his head. “I wish Charlie
were here,” he muttered. “We’d work it
out in no time.”
Ursula looked up. “Hey!” she said suddenly. “Was this Charlie’s room?”
“Yeah. So?”
She didn’t answer but started scribbling furiously. “That’s it,” she yelled. Then she ran to each corner of the room and tugged at the edges of the rug.
Ivan watched with a puzzled expression as she bent down and pulled up a loose corner of the rug.
“Bingo!” Triumphantly she held up a second note. She read it quickly. Dancing across the room, she handed the first note to Ivan. “Read this,” she ordered.
“Charlie?” Ivan wrinkled his forehead.
“Your
friend Charlie left that note,” Ursula said, laughing.
“He used his own name for the code breaker.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ivan said.
She handed him the second note. “Read it out loud.”
Ivan
read:
TO WHOEVER FINDS THIS NOTE:
You passed the test. You cracked the code. Ask Ivan if you
can be in the I.C. Detective Agency. He needs a new partner.
Charlie (code breaker 1234567)
“Boy, leave it to Charlie to do something like this!” Ivan said.
“Well?” Ursula asked. “Can I be in the I.C. Detective Agency?”
Ivan shook his head. “No.”
She frowned. “But didn’t Charlie’s note say . . . ”
Ivan
laughed. “I think we need a new name,” he said.
“How about the I.C.U. Detective Agency?”
“I get it,” Ursula said. “I for Ivan, C for Charlie, and U for Ursula.”
“Right! You’re a great detective!”
“I know,” she said with a grin. “I think our first case should be to send a letter to Charlie. In code!”
Ivan grinned back. They started writing:
“Let’s see if Charlie can figure that out, partner,” said Ivan.
Ivan (code breaker 1234) and Ursula (code breaker 567583) shook hands.
