Christmas Adventure

“Christmas Adventure” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Ameya Kakade, National public school, Bangalore, India.

Christmas Adventure

It was a routine Sunday morning, when Timmy and I were going for a run to a nearby park. The weather was chilly, perfect for a morning run. ‘Bhaw- Bhaw’, said Timmy when we reached back home, after an hour. I gave him his treat, filled up his water bowl and tied him in the backyard.

Soon after that I left for school. It was 3pm when I arrived and I was startled to see the backyard in such a mess. There were holes everywhere! In the piles of mud, I saw something glittering…I was taken aback to see a shining, gold necklace.

My first impression was that someone had broken into the house, but was relieved to see no necessary signs.

I surveyed the neighborhood, to see if someone had lost his or her necklace, but there was no robbery off late.

My next destination was the police station, where I handed the necklace to the officer in charge. I left for home soon after. The next day I got a call from the police station, saying that the case had been handed to the “Pearl Brothers”, one of the most renowned detectives in England. I enquired whether I too could be a part of the detective case and to my surprise they agreed readily!

The officer handed over Mr. John Pearl’s telephone number and told me to contact him. The meeting was held at 4pm, right after my school the following day. We decided that the three of us would try to solve the mystery as soon as possible.

The next morning, I was in a jolly mood as my Christmas vacation had started. At 11am my brothers and I set out to survey the neighborhood. It was decided that Andrew Pearl would sit in his car, unnoticed and overlook the neighborhood whether there was any suspicious activity.

Meanwhile, John and I were at the Pearl’s apartment, examining the necklace for any clues. Unfortunately we found none. At 3pm Andrew came back home, saying that there was no activity. This brought us to the conclusion that a thief might have stolen the necklace from another neighborhood and would be passing by our house, when the necklace might have fallen off.

Later that day we found ourselves in the police station again, explaining to the police about our investigation. The police also had no lead and the case was not heading anywhere.

At supper that night, I was a bit cranky, as we were not coming across any clues. Timmy came near me to calm me down. On seeing him realization dawned on me that he was the one who had seen the thief! I quickly removed the necklace from my pocket and showed it to Timmy, he barked and recognized it instantly. The next day I called the Pearl brothers home and told then about my idea of making Timmy sniff the necklace and taking him for a stroll around the area so that he can lead us to the thief.

In the next half an hour we got Timmy ready and set off on our mission. I let Timmy sniff the necklace thoroughly and allow him to guide us. Timmy went though small alleys and behind trees and finally he led us to an old cottage, behind a huge park. The four of us went to the cottage and rang up. A middle-agedman, named Joseph opened. We enquired weather the necklace belonged to him and he astoundingly said yes! There was a long silence until John asked him where he had lost it. The man was a little hesitant but he gave the correct location, which was nowhere else but MY NEIGHBORHOOD! At that moment we disclosed our identity.

We threatened the man to tell us the truth that who he was and whose necklace it is. The man was frightened and blurted out the whole story. He accepted that he had stolen the necklace and had jumped into my compound where Timmy had a fight with him when he dropped the necklace and ran away.

Joseph took us to the rightful owner of the necklace.

The woman was overjoyed to get back her necklace. She commended our efforts and expressed her gratitude. Joseph was put behind bars. Timmy was our hero.

The police honoredhim with a medal; he became an overnight celebrity in our neighborhood!

I was the proud owner…

The rest of the vacation went along quickly … Timmy and I are hungry for yet another adventure!