Museum Case within a Case - The Super Sleuth Trio

Author: Liu Dongyu, Wen Biao / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: I sat in the living room, to be precise, on my mother's comfortable single sofa, trying to think of a solution. A quarter of an hour ago, I had pried out the last steel coin from the piggy bank. I felt my pocket money was far too little, and this situation had to change. Sitting on my mother's sofa now, I decided to come up with seven reasons to convince her to give me a bit more pocket money. However, after thinking up seven reasons—since all my classmates had more than me—my brain froze. I felt I urgently needed oxygen. After opening the balcony door in the living room, I carefully moved outside. Caution was necessary because not long ago, I had almost fainted right here: that day, while standing on the balcony, someone suddenly threw a huge pile of trash down. That trash had come from my sister shaking out her schoolbag. My sister's name is Greta Maria, but we just call her Greta (of course, the "frog" Greta). She was packing her schoolbag at the time and casually tossed out unwanted items. Crumbs, small pieces of paper, and all the messy things that had been hiding in the seams of her schoolbag for months flew down and landed on me. I screamed in fear. Anyone who heard my scream would probably think I was seriously injured. But my mother wasn't concerned at all. She said Greta didn't mean to, and that I shouldn't be so fussy and sensitive. She also asked why I didn't just stay in my room and do my homework. A lesson learned! On this Saturday afternoon, I had to be extra careful. I looked up at my sister's room and felt relieved—her window was closed, so there wouldn't be any sudden misfortune flying in. I stood there, hesitantly glanced at the garden. The recent storm had flattened the grass in the garden, and some areas had turned into small puddles. I thought, perhaps we could turn those puddles into a goldfish pond. But let's leave that for later. I decided to check on our wooden cabin first. I hugged the thick trunk of the plum tree and prepared to jump up. Just then, I heard the branches above me rustling—crack, crack, crack—followed by pop, pop, pop sounds, and then someone splashed icy-cold water over my head.
"Greta, are you crazy?" I shouted upward because she had already drenched me from head to toe.
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