The Headless Mummy Read online

  Dave Keane

  Joe Sherlock

  Kid Detective

  Case #000004: The Headless Mummy

  For Mom and Dad, who blessed me with a

  marketable sense of humor

  —D.K.

  Contents

  Chapter One: Nightmare on Baker Street

  Chapter Two: Let the Head Games Begin

  Chapter Three: Long Beard

  Chapter Four: Head Games

  Chapter Five: Dead Heads on Parade

  Chapter Six: The Naked Truth

  Chapter Seven: Unseen Crime Scene

  Chapter Eight: Some Other Time

  Chapter Nine: Calling All Cars

  Chapter Ten: The Closet Detective

  Chapter Eleven: Escape Plan

  Chapter Twelve: Sudden Death

  Chapter Thirteen: The Mysterious “Butt”

  Chapter Fourteen: Wake-up Call

  Chapter Fifteen: Darkness Falls

  Chapter Sixteen: Monster Terror

  Chapter Seventeen: Dead Man Walking

  Chapter Eighteen: Of Mice and Men

  Chapter Nineteen: The Big Reveal

  About the Author

  Other Books by Dave Keane

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Nightmare on Baker Street

  My fourth case as a private detective arrives while I’m having a nightmare.

  Not a good sign of things to come.

  This nightmare starts out as many of my bad dreams do—with a cricket stuck in my nose. They call this kind of dream a recurring dream, which means you dream it all the time. And for some strange reason, I always dream about crickets crawling up my nostrils.

  Sounds weird, I know. But it gets worse.

  As I flop around, trying to snort the insect out of my nose, the floor suddenly turns into a sea of ants. I start to sink into the ants like quicksand.

  It keeps getting worse: Suddenly I’m not wearing pants.

  Then I hear my little sister’s voice.

  “Not that ridiculous grasshopper dream again,” Hailey says, slapping me on my forehead like she’s playing a game of Whack-a-Mole.

  I am so startled by my sudden return to the real world that I fall off the edge of my bed. I proceed to slap myself all over to knock off any leftover imaginary ants.

  “Ants, too?” she chuckles. “Sherlock, you are so messed up.”

  “Thanks for waking me up,” I say simply.

  “Doreen heard you screaming,” she explains.

  “Who the heck is Doreen?” I ask. It’s at this point that I notice the surgical glove she’s holding. It’s filled with water and tied off at the wrist. Hailey has painted a face on it with big red lips and long eyelashes. “And you think I’m weird?” I whisper.

  “Say hello to Doreen,” Hailey says in the kind of voice people use when they talk to babies. “She’s our long-lost sister.” Hailey tickles the glove on the chin.

  Maybe my nightmare hasn’t ended after all.

  I wait a moment for my head to clear. “That’s just a plastic glove filled with water.”

  “Sherlock!” she says, pretending to be angry. “Look what you’ve done; you’re making our baby sister cry.”

  “She probably just sprang a leak,” I say. Hailey is supposed to be my assistant, but she’s actually more like a monkey wrench dropped into my brain’s delicate gears.

  Hailey rocks Doreen in her arms and hands me a slip of folded paper.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Mr. Klopper from down the street dropped it off while you were napping,” she says with a shrug. “He said it’s very urgent.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?” I ask, jumping to my feet. “I wasn’t napping, you know. I just fell asleep.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Yes!” I snap. “A nap is something you do on purpose. I fell asleep by accident.”

  “Oh, brother,” Hailey says, waving at me like I’m being silly. “Besides, Doreen says you need to catch up on your beauty sleep.”

  I hold my breath as I unfold the paper. I know before I even read Mr. Klopper’s note that the painfully long and boring wait for my next case has finally ended.

  Chapter Two

  Let the Head Games Begin

  I’m immediately struck by three things as I read Mr. Klopper’s note:

  He sure knows how to get to the point.

  He likes to doodle.

  Hailey is reading over my shoulder.

  “Do you mind?” I sniff without bothering to look back at her. “I can’t concentrate with people reading over my shoulder.”

  She giggles. “Let’s be honest, you can never concentrate. Do you want me to read it to you?”

  “I can read!” I grumble, looking over my shoulder to give her some of my best stink-eye. “I’m just trying to figure out if Mr. Klopper’s doodles are part of the mystery.”

  “Those aren’t doodles,” Hailey sighs. I could swear I hear her eyes rolling in her head. “That’s early Egyptian writing. It’s some sort of message.”

  “I already know that,” I say, although I’m really thinking that I’m not even that great at reading English, let alone scribbly ancient languages.

  “That’s called Egyptian hieroglyphics,” Hailey says slowly and clearly, as if my brain has turned into a fruitcake. “It’s an ancient form of writing. Each of those symbols is called a glyph and has a special meaning.”

  “Do you think I was born yesterday?” I ask with a squeak in my voice. I secretly clench my teeth at the sheer humiliation of having a little sister who’s smarter than I am.

  “No, I can’t tell you what those symbols mean,” she says, anticipating my next question, which is just one of her many irritating habits.

  “Oh, you’re not fluid?” I scoff, as if she’s not so smart after all.

  “You mean ‘fluent,’” she corrects me.

  “That’s what I said,” I say with another unconvincing squeak.

  “No, I can’t translate that,” she explains. “I went through a big Egyptian phase when I was younger, but it’s not like I can read it.”

  “Younger?” I snort. “Hailey, you’re only in the second grade.”

  I’m reminded of the time my teacher, Miss Piffle, asked me how I could have a little sister with a brain like a power plant, while my brain works more like an old hamster running on a rusty exercise wheel.

  “You’re done with your nap?”

  It’s my mom. She’s poked her head through my open door.

  “It wasn’t a nap,” I say. “I fell asleep by accident.”

  “There’s a difference?” she asks.

  “Did you two have a meeting to coordinate your attack?” I ask.

  My mom shakes her head in confusion. “All I know is that Mr. Klopper is here again.”

  “He is?” Hailey and I chirp at the same time.

  “Does he still have a good head on his shoulders?” Hailey asks.

  “He’s waiting in the family room…with Billy Frick and Jessie.”

  “Oh, no,” I croak. “I’ve got to get him out of there before Jessie and her creepy boyfriend scare him away for good.”

  As I hurry down the hallway, I’m struck by the fact that the great Sherlock Holmes never had to deal with a big sister who could creep out his clients so bad that they’d go running for their lives. There isn’t a moment to lose! I’m not about to let my fourth client slip away, whether or not I can read his Egyptian doodles.

  Chapter Three

  Long Beard

  When you first lay eyes on Mr. Klopper, all you see is his beard. It’s a whopper. A force of nature. It’s easily the biggest, puffi
est beard on the planet. It basically looks like he’s walking around with a large sheep stuck to his neck.

  “Mr. Klopper, sorry to keep you waiting,” I say with a sigh of relief, mostly because he hasn’t left yet but also because his head still seems securely attached to his body.

  “Sherlock Sherlock,” he says, apparently thinking my first name is the same as my last name. He’s not the first. It’s a pretty common mistake. See, everybody has called me Sherlock for so long that most of the residents of Baker Street have forgotten that I actually have a first name. But I don’t mind. Joe just doesn’t seem to stick to me, kind of like a spitball without enough moisture. But Sherlock has more than enough sticky mouth goop—which is how I like it.

  “How can I help?” I say, shaking Mr. Klopper’s meaty hand.

  I may not know how to read body language, but he sure seems uneasy. The way his eyes keep darting over to Jessie and Billy Frick tells me that he’d rather discuss his situation in private.

  “Why don’t we step into the living room?” I ask, and extend my arm in a slick “you go first” kind of way. He doesn’t pick up on my slickness, so I add, “After you, of course.” Mr. Klopper takes the bait; he and his beard exit stage left.

  Jessie and Billy Frick seem to be unaware of the drama going on right in front of them. In fact, whenever Billy comes over, Jessie seems like she got hit on the head with a grand piano. She smiles, giggles, and snorts like aliens have invaded her body and are taking it out for a test drive.

  By the time I reach the living room, I find Mr. Klopper sitting quietly across from Hailey. He’s staring uncomfortably at Doreen, who’s sitting up alertly on the couch, like she can’t wait to hear what’s going on.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Klopper,” I say. “Whatever you need to say to me, you can feel safe saying in front of Doreen.” This statement seems to irritate Hailey, which I consider a small victory.

  After several awkward moments, Mr. Klopper pulls his eyes away from the glove. “I’ll be off to jail if you can’t help me extricate myself from this predicament,” Mr. Klopper announces, stroking his beard like it was a cat.

  I have no idea what half of those words mean.

  Hailey saves me. “That means he’s in a serious jam, Sherlock.”

  “Yes, I know what it means,” I say, although everybody in the room knows that I don’t. I’m a terrible liar. But I can solve mysteries like most people can crack eggs, which is why the people of Baker Street come to my door when they’re in a pinch. “Please, tell me everything,” I say, borrowing one of the phrases I’ve learned from watching hundreds of Sherlock Holmes movies.

  I don’t know that the story he’s about to tell me will take me to places where The Great Detective wouldn’t go in four thousand years.

  Chapter Four

  Head Games

  “I’ve lost the head of a four-thousand-year-old mummy,” Mr. Klopper says, cutting right to the chase.

  I wait for him to add more, but he seems choked up. “Interesting,” I say, although I’m really thinking that the idea of some ancient guy’s head bouncing around in somebody’s trunk like a coconut makes my stomach roll over.

  “I work at the private Egyptian museum in town,” he continues. “Tonight is our big annual fund-raising gala. This party is the only time we open our doors to the public. During the festivities, we unveil our newest showpiece to important community leaders, scientists, reporters, and bigwigs from other museums.”

  “‘Bigwigs’?” I ask.

  “Yes, other museum muckety-mucks,” Mr. Klopper says.

  “‘Muckety-mucks’?” I ask, feeling slightly embarrassed now.

  “Yes, the big fish,” he says, looking puzzled.

  Now I’m really lost. “‘Big fish’?”

  Mr. Klopper looks over at Hailey, then back at me. He shifts uncomfortably on the couch. “Why do you keep repeating everything I say?”

  “Sherlock, he’s talking about important people,” Hailey says. “Excuse my brother, Mr. Klopper. He sometimes gets lost in those little empty spaces between words.”

  “Oh, I see,” he says, fluffing up his enormous beard with his stubby fingers. To be honest, Mr. Klopper’s beard is distracting me. It seems to be sprinkled with tiny crumbs, bacon bits, and mysterious white flakes that keep getting flung into the air every time he touches the thing. The sight of it is making my stomach do jumping jacks.

  “That mummy’s head needs to be in place when our museum director pulls the sheet off the display case at seven-thirty this evening. It’s a priceless artifact that I…”

  “Did someone steal the head?” I ask.

  “I did,” he says.

  “What?” Hailey and I blurt out at the same time. Doreen remains silent.

  “I borrowed it, actually,” he says, nervously dragging his fingers through his beard and filling the room with more air pollution. “I secretly brought it home last night to take some photographs of it. I snuck it back into the museum this morning. But when I tried to return the head to its proper place, it was suddenly gone.”

  The room goes silent. I clear my throat.

  “Gone?”

  “The mummy’s head had turned into a head of butter lettuce,” he mumbles.

  “How could some old guy’s pickled head turn into a head of butter lettuce?” I ask.

  “I have no idea,” he says, his voice rising. “It’s so strange. It’s as if I’m being punished for doing something I shouldn’t have done. Nobody knows I took the head, but they’ll figure it out soon enough. I’ll be shipped off to prison. That head is priceless.”

  Wow! This case is a doozy. But something doesn’t add up. “Are you sure nobody knows you took the head?” I ask.

  “As far as I know, you two are the only people who know of this,” he says with a sniff. “But it will not take long for the museum director to figure out it was me. Will you help me, Sherlock Sherlock?”

  “All I can do is try,” I say. My natural mystery-solving instincts have already started to stretch their hamstrings. “When was the last time you saw the head?”

  “Last night in my basement,” Mr. Klopper says in a faraway voice. “I took some digital photos. I’m thinking of writing a book about mummies, and I—” His voice tightens up with emotion. “This may be the result of some kind of ancient mummy curse,” he whispers.

  I get chills on the back of my neck. I spring to my feet and smack off any leftover imaginary ants that may be crawling around back there. Mr. Klopper also jumps to his feet and looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

  I begin to explain my fees, but Mr. Klopper doesn’t seem to be listening. I tell him I’ll meet him at his house in five minutes. He exits noiselessly.

  “You’re going to need help on this one, big brother,” Hailey says. Or maybe it was Doreen. I can’t be certain. I’m already “in the zone” from a mental standpoint, which is the place a detective needs to be when the stakes are this high.

  Chapter Five

  Dead Heads on Parade

  “How much would a mummy’s head weigh?” I ask over my shoulder.

  My head is still swimming in the strangeness of this case as I hustle down Baker Street with Hailey trailing behind me. She’s singing lullabies to Doreen, who she refuses to leave behind. Hailey tells me you don’t leave family behind. I know she doesn’t really believe we’re actually related to a rubber glove, but she continues the whole business because she knows it’s driving me loco.

  “It wouldn’t weigh much,” Hailey says cheerfully. “They used to remove the brain while they were preparing the body to become a mummy.”

  “What?” I ask, stopping dead in my tracks. “Why would they do that?”

  “They were preparing the body for the trip to the afterlife,” she says casually.

  “That makes no sense,” I say, holding my stomach. “It’s hard enough to find a clean pair of socks with a whole brain; how were those guys supposed to find the afterlife with a hollow skull?” I shake my
head in disbelief. “Did they remove the head from the body to get the brain out?”

  “No, that wasn’t how they removed the brain,” she says thoughtfully. “The brain was usually pulled out through the nose with a long, bronze hook—”

  “STOP!” I holler. My lower back suddenly gets sweaty. My legs go watery. My tongue feels too big for my mouth. It’s maddening, but I always get dizzy and light-headed when it comes to anything of a medical nature. In fact, just the thought of cotton balls or one of those wooden tongue sticks can make me instantly queasy.

  Hailey usually finds my dizzy spells hilarious. Sensing her opportunity to toss a few more medical bombs my way, she continues. “Most of the major organs were pulled out, too. They were each put in separate jars called—”

  “You know what?” I shout to drown out her voice. “I don’t need to know every bit of mummy-making trivia to solve this case. Is that clear?” I inch closer to some nearby bushes to soften my landing in case I actually pass out. The world is doing cartwheels around me.

  “They did leave the heart in, though.”

  “HAILEY!”

  “Touchy!” she says. She places Doreen on her shoulder and starts patting her back like she needs to burp. “I’m just trying to have a little fun.”

  I place my sweaty palms on my knees and take a few deep breaths. “Mr. Klopper’s in big trouble,” I say between clenched teeth. “So you can at least pretend to be interested in helping him.”