The Case of the Lost Task Book (a Shirley Colmes adventure)

[hullukoira]

The Adventures of Shirley Colmes

Welcome to the adventures of Shirley Colmes, the beloved girl detective of 40K scholarum yards. The following story will introduce our young and resourceful heroine, as well as her best friend and ally, Dotty Weston, as they go about solving the mysterious and sinister case of the Lost Task Book. More sinister stories will follow later, wether you want them or not!!!

Please do not let the childish manner of writing fool you. This is not a story for children, but rather, a funny story. Mind you, it is suited for children too! But now...




The Case of the Lost Task Book


Shirley Colmes and her best friend, Dotty Weston, were hanging around the swings at the school yard of the Scolarum Primaris.

Shirley Colmes was a daughter of a well known commissar Colmes. She went about dressed in a severe, old fashioned scholarum uniform that was slightly too large for her (it had been her mother's). She was a dark haired, serious young girl of eleven years. She was also a genius. Not that people noticed. People merely thought her weird.

Her friend, Dotty Weston, was as unlike miss Colmes as you could get. She was of blonde complexion, and in her uniform of light tweed, quite a fetching sight for young boys. As her friend, she was clever enough in some fields, but did have a habit of being, as her mother put it, a wishy washy dreamer. Her parents were doctors in the medical field. They had invented the Weston parallering, as you might know. They, her parents that is, wanted Dotty to become a doctor like them. Dotty herself wanted to become a vet. She liked rabbits and ponies. Especially if they were pink.

It was a nice day. The sun was shining, and there was hardly any sulphur in the air so the children had been let out without gas masks. Dotty was swinging and singing a silly ditty about the moon. Shirley, on the other hand, was merely squatting her swing, frowning at some distant thought or another.

Suddenly, from the mass of other students, a boy detached and started towards the pair. The boy was bespectacled, extremely skinny, and had the awkwardness of a young teen in his walk. He stumbled a lot. Coming to the girls, he coughed politely, trimmed his specs and was then quite lost for words when the sharp, steely stare of Shirley Colmes measured him up and down.

'Dotty,' said Shirley, then again louder. 'Dotty! Please desist that horrid ditty and quit swingeing about. We have a case to solve, have we not, Ralph Hornby?'

'By the Emperor! How did you know my name?!?' the bespectacled boy amazed out loud.

'You're in my class, silly,' answered Shirley, rolling her eyes. Boys...

'Oh,' Ralph ohhed. 'OH! So you are, miss Colmes. I do apologize!'

'Yes, yes,' Shirley was getting impatient. 'Get to the point, please, Ralph Hornby. Tell us of the history task book that was stolen from you.'

The boy stared at Shirley, his mouth agape. 'That is UNCANNY, miss Colmes,' he finally intoned. 'How on the Emperors earth did you know I had lost my task book???'

'It is quite elementary, dear mister Hornby!' answered Shirley, a bit smugly in Dotty's opinion, then launched into one of her lectures on detection and cogitation. 'I have noticed, that during the last two history classes, you have been acting rather strangely, mister Hornby! When the teacher of history did the rounds to check on our homework, you were all hunched over your books so that he only could have a glance at them! Knowing that you always did your homework perfectly, the said teacher did not bother to take a closer look! So, luckily, the missing of your book went undetected by him! But not by me! You might not have noticed, but when I went to sharpen my pencil during the last history lesson yesterday, I walked by your desk! And sure enough, I did not see a task book there! Thusly I assumed it lost! And now you want it to be found, am I not right?'

'Um, yes, that is right,' stammered the lad, his eyes glazed over. This was what listening to Shirley Colmes for any lenght of time usually did to people. It was probably all those exclamation marks that did it. Her father took this a sure sign that she would make a fine commissar one day. Shirley readily concurred. 'So can you find it?' continued Ralph. 'Because it is truly lost! I cannot find it anywhere! And I have heard that you do things like that, find lost pets and so forth. I can even pay you...'

'No payment is needed!' exclaimed Shirley, standing up from the swing and starightening her black uniform. 'However, you will owe me a favor I will surely collect one day! Is this acceptable, mister Hornby?'

'Um, I guess so,' said the said Hornby, a bit perplexed by the formality of the girl. 'So how do you go about this? And how long will it take? Myt mother is suspecting something already! So I would be mightily pleased to have the book back before next week so as to avoid a scolding...'

'Before next week?' exclaimed Shirley in his theatrical way. (Please forgive her: she had been reading a lot of cogitator novels) 'I rather think you are underestimating our abilities as private investigators! Before next week indeed! I say we can reclaim your missing task book before this very recess is over! Miss Weston, please be so kind as to fetch mister Armstrong! We have a need of him!'

'Very well,' said Dotty, knowing not to argue. It was her job, in these instances, to fetch things and operate in the field, as Shirley liked to put it, while the said girl concentrated on the cranial aspects of the work. With brisk skip Dotty started towards a bunch of toughs.

'What has Johnny the dumb have to do with this?' quizzed Ralph, perplexed.

'He has everything to do with this!' exclaimed Shirley. 'For it was he whom stole your book!'

'What!?! But, but how could you know?'

'I did not verily know, not until now! I did suspect, though! But now the pieces have come together and I'm sure of it! Ah, here comes the culprit!'

Indeed he came. A brutish looking boy with a crew cut, Johnny Armstrong was not renown for his mental capacities. He was a bully, to tell the truth. And a silly one to boot. He looked Shirley up and down, his face in a sneer.

'What you want, pigtails?' asked Johnny the dumb in his winning manner, taking a potshot at punching Ralph in the ear. He missed.

'So good of you to come, mister Armstrong!' exclaimed Shirley (yes, she exclaims a lot, doesn't she?) 'Ralph here needs his history task book back, so would you be so kind as to give it to him!'

'Huh!' huffed Johnny. 'So he came to you, you little snoop, to find out where his pressus little book is gone. Well, I'm not gonna just give it back am I? I mean the stupid speccy has filled the book already and the school year's not even half way through! It's the bestest thing I ever stolen! So there, miss snoop!'

'Mister Armstrong!' cried Shirley, 'my father is a commissar! And if you do not give the book back right now, he will be having words with your parents! Moreover,' she added, when the word commissar did not seem to have the desired effect, 'if you do not hand over the stolen property, I shall have to KISS you! Right here, right now! See if I wont!'

'You would not dare!' exclaimed Johnny (it's cathing, see?!?)

'Really?' asked shirley. She puckered her mouth and started towards the bully with swaying hips and furiously batting eyelids. Johnny Armstrong tried to back off but suddenly noticed he was held in place by both Dotty and the skinny Ralph. Shirley was ever closer, her lips moist and pouting. Johnny was shivering in cold fear.

'All right!' Johnny finally acquiesced. 'I give up!' He dug furiously into his school bag, from whence soon emerged the desired papery object. 'Here! I did not want it anyway, you poo-poo brains!'

The bully dropped the book and stepped away. At a safe distance, he turned and shouted, 'This is not over Ralpihie! I'll have your dessert for this! And it's jam roly poly!'

'Well, you win some, you lose some,' stated Shirley as the bully disappeared amongst his syncopates. 'Still, the book is worth the jam, do you not think?'

'Indeed it is!' exclaimed Ralph (not him too!), studying his book for signs of damage. There was none, except for traces of drool. 'But how on the Emperors earth did you know he had it in the first place???'

'Yes, dear Colmes!' exclaimed Dotty (oh dear), sitting back on the swing and swinging her legs back and forth. 'Do tell us how you knew! It is rather extraordinary! I surely could not have spotted it!'

'Hah!' exclaimed Shirley, stepping animatedly back and forth. 'It was far from extraordinary! It was elementary! And if you would notice things that happen around you, dear Weston, you would have known where to look for the missing book too!

'You see, there were TWO students acting funnily during the last two history classes! Ralph was the first, Johnny was the other! For Johnny, first time in the recorded history, had done his homework perfectly! Our teacher even congratulated him on the work well done and gave him an eagle sticker for it! If you, Dotty, had not been writing a secret note, and had you, Ralph, not been too preoccupied by your booklessness, you would have noticed this discrepancy, nay an anomaly, too! At that moment, I merely assumed Johnny had forced some poor, um, nerd, for want of a better word, to make his homework for him! However, when I now heard that Ralph's book was indeed lost, and not accidentally burned or some such bother, I drew the only conclusion possible, viz, mister Armstrong had pilfered Ralphs task book!'

'Astonishing, miss Colmes!' exclaimed Ralph, taking Shirley's hand and shaking it. 'Truly astonishing! Well, I have to go now! Thank you for the book, and do not hesitate to ask for me if you need something done! See you in class!'

'Singular, I should say,' exclaimed Dotty, trying her bestest to copy her firiend's style of talking. 'I shall have to put this into my little notebook! Who knows, when we are both big, we can publish these memoirs and become famous!'

'That would be too preposterous, my dear Weston!' said Shirley, but blushed slightly nonetheless. 'But now, my violin, if you please! I feel in the mood for some stately music!'

'Oh no, not the violin,' begged Dotty. She had just spied Henry Mullins, a VERY handsome boy form fifth grade. The boy was quietly edging closer, his eyes on the pretty Dotty.

'The violin, Dotty!' exclaimed Shirley, nudging her friend. 'This is no time for mooning! We've just had a resounding success in our cogitating careers! And there is no better way to celebrate the occasion than a fine play upon a violin, the most graceful of instruments!'

Sighing, Dotty dug up Shirley's violin case form the bottom of her spacious bag, opened it, and handed the instrument to the cogitator Colmes. She took the violin eagerly, set it to her cheek and started playing.

The noise that rose from the tortured instrument was a horror to behold. Or rather, to beheard. Muffling her cure ears with her fingers, Dotty watched as the handsome Henry turned around, appalled, and run for sound cover.

'Oh, poopie,' sighed Dotty.


The End