Inhaltsverzeichnis

Wanted Posters

The Blue Giant

The Mafia

The Champion

Noodles, Marlboro and Nutrimax

The Black Panther

Not a Case for Children

Counts and Community Gardeners

The Pouch

The Rubber Ducky

The Funeral

Shadows in the Moonlight

A Traitor

Into the Night

Operation Better Living

Under the Earth

Missing

The Trap

The Baumann Kick

The Duel

The Runaway

Niko’s Secret

The adventures of Bo and his friends continue ...

Ulrich Renz

The Hunt for Giant Blue

Translation from German by Samuel Cotten

Wanted Posters

Bo & Friends

- Name: Boris Blohm, called Bo

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: actually none (as he says himself).

- Name: Simon Böttcher

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: dreamy, nature freak, teeny heartthrob, has a small language problem.

- Name: Mariekje Marienhoff, called MM

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: sea blue eyes, math genius and computer freak.

- Name: Yorick, called YoYo

- Age: 13

- Distinguishing features: loudmouth, chubby, into fashion and trendy hair.

- Name: Mia Blohm

- Age: just turned 12

- Distinguishing features: Bo’s sister, precocious, likes standing in front of the mirror, talks everyone’s ear off.

Author

- Name: Ulrich Renz, called U

- Age: middle aged

- Distinguishing features: loves Spaetzle (a sort of Southern German noodles), likes making music, used to be a doctor, now writes books for children and grown-ups. More at www.bo-and-friends.com.

Translator

- Name: Samuel Cotten, called Sam

- Age: quite a bit younger than the author

- Distinguishing features: grew up in California, currently doing his master's thesis in Medical Neuroscience at the Humboldt University in Berlin, also an avid home-beer brewing enthusiast.

CHAPTER ONE

The Blue Giant

“Just like professionals ...” YoYo took off his glasses, as he always did when he had something important to say. With the other hand he adjusted his greenish-red plaid beret, without which he hadn’t gone out in public since the beginning of his Inspector-Hamilton phase. “Outwitted the alarm, cleared everything out, didn’t leave a trace. An absolutely professional burglary. That’s how it’s done, gentlemen!” His eyes were sparkling.

For MM, YoYo’s exuberance was quite off the mark. Restlessly, she slid around on her bicycle seat. “If they are professionals, then that’s even worse,” she said, more to herself than to her three friends who were sitting in front of her on the railing of the supermarket parking lot like chickens on a perch. As always, YoYo occupied the center place. Sitting between Bo and Simon, who towered over him by at least a head, he looked a bit like a ruffled chick. Normally MM would sit on the outside next to Bo, but today she hadn’t even taken the time to get off her bicycle. She hadn’t been able to wait, even for a second, to tell them the news.

“Top pros, top-of-the-line pros …” YoYo could hardly contain himself. As a world expert on everything, he was, of course, a world expert on burglary. “I once read about a burglary where the criminals, disguised as a moving company, drove up in broad daylight with a van and calmly took out everything. In the end, they claimed a receipt from the porter for their time and even got a tip ...”

While YoYo told his stories of the “coolest burglaries in the world” with growing excitement, MM again saw her father in her mind when he came home after lunch, wearing his rumpled shirt that stretched over his stomach with the slipped purple bow tie. She’d known immediately that something bad had happened. Wordlessly, he plopped down in the chair. He stared at the ceiling for what seemed like forever.

“All gone,” he finally said.

“What … gone?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“Everything. Everything stolen.”

“Giant Blue, too?” She held her breath.

He just closed his eyes and nodded slowly. His face was pale.

“Who?” she asked helplessly. But what answer could she get?

“Oh, Tati –” She wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came into her mind.

From the kitchen came Mom’s voice: “Now don’t worry, Robert, the insurance will cover everything!” She arrived with a bowl of cookies. “By the way, Professor Arnold invited us tonight. Don’t you remember? Try to put on something trendy, will you? And, for heaven’s sake, leave that horrible bow-tie at home!”

For the thousandth time, MM realized that her parents didn’t come from the same planet. Tati’s research, which meant everything to him, was just gimmickry to Mom. She didn’t even know that he had just built the fastest computer in the world – Giant Blue.

For her, only the stuff in her fancy-schmancy boutique clothing store really mattered. With the accusation, “no professor in the world wears such things!” she would come home with piles of new shirts, suits and ties for Dad. He would always thank her with a friendly smile and devoted sigh, but, sure enough, wouldn’t change anything about his outfit – which for years had consisted of baggy, black trousers and suspenders, a white shirt that typically wasn’t very crisp, and the inevitable purple bow tie. He just didn’t have the time to worry about things like clothes. For him, there was only Giant Blue – and the “Swinging Einsteins,” his jazz choir, which consisted entirely of gray-haired or bald-headed professors who met every Thursday evening to rehearse.

“Oh, Tati –” Again MM didn’t get further. Tati ... Somehow this was her name for him since the times when nothing was more fun than scrambling around on his belly roaring “Tati, Tati!” – especially on Sundays, when he just wanted to take his nap. She’d gotten the name from her favorite book at the time, ”Tati, the Wild Boar.”

Back then, her father must have already been busy with his supercomputer. She’d always been a bit scared when there was talk of it – a blue giant certainly was very dangerous.

Now she was almost fourteen, and herself well versed in the world of computers. She was, of course, no longer scared of the monster machine, but she still had a great respect for it. Giant Blue was almost a thousand times faster than any previous supercomputer. The secret was in the chips that drove him. MM had not yet understood in detail what exactly was so special about them, but apparently it had something to do with a material that Tati had discovered and called “XXI.” The wonderful thing about this XXI was that it could conduct electricity with no resistance, like a metal that had been cooled down to absolute zero. Giant Blue could therefore do without the cooling apparatus that all previous supercomputers required, which weighed tons and was necessary to bring the chips down to extremely low temperatures.

In the last two weeks it had finally become clear that the XXI chips in Giant Blue were really working properly. She remembered how Tati had come home in the evening after the first successful test run, and had danced with joy. He stretched his arms in the air and stood on his toes, moving his hips and belly to some music in his head, slowly at first, then faster and faster. That evening he could hardly stop, even though Mom shook her head, as she always did when he performed this dance, which he had learned as a child from “Babu,” his beloved Greek grandpa. After dinner, he took a bottle of champagne from the fridge. “This is a cause for celebration!” he beamed, and popped the cork so boisterously that half the bottle foamed out onto the tablecloth. In the process of filling the glasses, a good deal more was lost. What was left, sloshed upon the clinking of the glasses – but that bothered him as little as the disapproving glances of his wife. Even without champagne he was just happy, and MM with him.

Now he was sitting in his chair like a handful of misery. MM realized that he was fighting back tears.

“They knew exactly where to find everything,” he said, “and how to turn off the alarm.” Tati’s stomach heaved. “The locks weren’t broken, and neither were the windows. Totally professional, that’s what the police are saying. Either that, or they have an accomplice among my employees. They immediately called in Niko to the police station for interrogation. Next to me, he is the only one who has a key. I told them that I vouch for Niko without hesitation. Of course, they are interrogating him regardless.”

Of all people, Niko! How could someone think Niko was capable of such wickedness? Niko, he was always so helpful and reliable. He’d worked for Tati for as long as MM could remember – and he’d actually been her first love. As a first-grader, her heart throbbed in his presence when she visited Tati at the Institute. In her eyes, Niko looked just like Winnetou in the movie she’d once seen on television: tall, slim, and tan, with long, dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. And just like Winnetou, he had something mysterious about him. He spoke with a calm, deep voice and rolled his r’s in a strange way. Back then, she always thought he was doing it on purpose and admired him all the more for it. Later, she found out from Tati that his rolled r’s came from the fact that he had a different mother tongue and had only been twelve years old when he came to Germany. She could not remember where he came from originally. The scar that split his left eyebrow was another mystery to her. She had never asked him about it, but when she was little, she was certain that it had come from a buffalo hunt.

At age eight, when she started to get interested in computers, Niko patiently taught her the first steps. He could explain wonderfully – quite unlike Tati, who was absolutely willing, but only brought forth incomprehensible gibberish when it came to computers. He would start speaking of teraflops, Boolean operators and artificial acceleration, as if nowadays you learned all that stuff in kindergarten. Niko, on the other hand, could explain even the most complicated things in such a way that she could catch on to them. Under his guidance, she could now and then tinker with discarded computers. Last year she got to the point where she was able to assemble her own computer, which she christened “Little Blue,” a tip of the hat to Giant Blue. Little Blue couldn’t, of course, come close to competing with Tati’s supercomputer, but nevertheless was still faster than anything you could buy in a normal computer store. Tati had gotten her chips and processors that were not even on the market.

“No crime without a motive, gentlemen!” YoYo’s voice brought her back to the parking lot. “If you know what drives the crook, you can easily find out the rest.”

“Maybe it’s just about money in the end? They resell the stuff somewhere on the black market?” Bo said. As always, he was sitting slightly hunched with his tousled head of hair resting in his hands.

“I don’t think you can sell that stuff,” MM said. “From the outside, Giant Blue looks like a broken refrigerator, full of cables and chips and circuit boards.” Apart from that, it was still covered with the little blue flowers that she had “decorated” it with as a small child.

“Could be science espionage,” Bo said. “Maybe there are some other researchers working on a supercomputer who badly want to be the first? Or some company? Imagine the money you could make with a computer that is a thousand times faster than any other!”

YoYo cleared his throat to make it known that he was desperate to share his ideas. “The mafia,” he said gravely. He didn’t seem to feel the need for more words. But the familiar grip on his glasses showed that it was a definitive answer.

MM really couldn’t imagine what the mafia would have to do with a supercomputer. By mafia she imagined dark types with sunglasses and guns in their suit pockets.

As if he’d read her thoughts, YoYo said: “Guns and the whole sun glasses-stuff, that’s all water under the bridge. The real business now is done on the computer. Cracking passwords, plundering accounts, decrypting secret data, all of which can then be nicely resold to other criminals.”

Suddenly MM realized that this was not one of YoYo’s usual exaggerations. She gulped. Tati’s computer in the hands of hardened criminals who wanted to hurt innocent people?

“I also believe in the mafia,” came suddenly from Simon, and everyone turned to him. He spoke so little that the others were again and again surprised when he uttered something. As always, he was swinging his legs as though his thoughts were somewhere very far away. He shook the blonde mane from his face and grinned: “Was that wrong again?”

“No, absolutely perfect,” Bo said. Simon’s German had already improved a lot, thanks to the consistent tutoring of his buddies, who always corrected him immediately when he made a mistake. But still, the many years he’d spent in America with his family had, of course, left their mark.

“Yes, yes, absolutely perfect,” MM said, too – even though she felt that it was debatable if a sentence like, “I believe in the mafia” could really be called perfect.

For a long time no one said anything. MM was thinking back to Tati, and her heart sank.

“Gentlemen!” YoYo jumped off the railing with a leap, which one would not have expected from him, given his corpulence (as he himself liked to call his overweight). “One thing is clear: We must take care of the matter. This is a case for professionals.”

Although YoYo’s pro-obsession annoyed her, MM felt a load being taken off her mind. Not that she seriously believed they would find Giant Blue or the burglars. But she would not simply stand by and do nothing.

“What about Mia?” Bo asked somewhat despondently. “Shouldn’t we let her take part?”

Anyone who knew Bo’s “little” sister knew that the question was of no earthly use. They wouldn’t be able to prevent her from joining in, anyway. Mia was just like that: If she wanted something, she got it.

“Tell her that we’re really thrilled that she’s joining us again,” YoYo grinned. Then he planted himself like a soldier at attention. Everyone could guess that one of his famous speeches was imminent.

“Make it short, I have to go to dinner,” Bo grumbled. His mom couldn’t take a joke when serving her famous organic specialties.

YoYo looked at him reproachfully and took off his glasses. “Gentlemen –” With a look at MM he added: “Um, and ladies –” Then he pondered for a long moment. He didn’t seem to know how making things short really worked. Then he said, very solemnly: “I hereby declare our second case open.”

CHAPTER TWO

The Mafia

“Does Simon already know that I’m joining in?” was Mia’s first question. Immediately Bo regretted that he had let his sister in.

“Yeah, sure, he rolled his eyes out of sheer enthusiasm – for two minutes.”

Mia yelled out: “You’re mean! Tell me that’s not true!”

“Of course not. He didn’t roll his eyes, but just stared at me, asking: ‘Mia, who’s that?’ ”

This was too much for her – with a cry she threw herself on Bo and beat at him like a crazy person. Once again he was painfully reminded that twelve-year-old girls were certifiably insane by nature. In the case of his sister, the aggravating circumstance was that she happened to be in the worst hormone rush of puberty, which had unfortunately begun way too early and had completely befuddled her mind. “Looks like sixteen, but is eight in the head,” was his standard response when someone wanted to know more details about his sister.

On the wall above her bed she had posters of some guys with odd hairdos and electric guitars, but for the actual victim of her craving attacks she had elected Simon. Lately she’d been calling him “Sisi,” because she found it so “sweeeeet.”

When she had gotten herself somewhat together again, she started the same old story about the cell phone. “This time I need to have a cell phone like yours!” Last time, during the million-euros-blackmail affair, YoYo had equipped the whole gang with top-notch smartphones, complete with conference call capability and all the bells and whistles. There were different versions of the answer to the question of how he’d gotten the money for the phones. Bo was the only one with whom he had entrusted the whole truth.

“And what do you think Mom would say if you suddenly came up with a cell phone?” For their mother, cell phones were the devil. She was convinced that the radiation would make you sick. He’d been allowed to keep his on the condition that he used it “only in emergencies” – his interpretation of an emergency was, of course, somehow different from his mother’s. An emergency was when the phone rang. As a precaution, he always put it on vibrate only. Mom had long ago forgotten that he even owned a cell phone.

“Be glad that you’re allowed to participate at all,” he said, trying to get rid of Mia. That was, of course, such a lèse-majesté for her that she wouldn’t exchange a word with him for the rest of the day.

It was quite the contrary, however, with her best friend Melanie. Mia had a good cry with her on the phone later that day about her terrible brother. Melanie and Mia were insanity in a double-pack. Whenever the two of them weren’t hanging out on the phone, they were spending their time at H&M in front of the mirror. Or they were at home, also in front of the mirror, trying on clothes and make-up stuff. They were giggling and laughing incessantly, even though the result of their fashion ventures were sometimes enough to make one cry.

“If you tell Melanie even a single word about our case, I’ll wring your neck,” he preemptively made clear. She just shrugged her shoulders and uttered her usual, “Oh, brother sweetie ...”

Bo was not particularly unhappy that Mia was not present at the “strategic briefing” convened by YoYo the next day. She had an appointment with the orthodontist. She had “accidentally” flushed her braces down the toilet; in fact, she probably just didn’t like the color any more. Simon wasn’t exactly crestfallen. He tussled with Bo, who had greeted him with a “Hello, Sisi,” imitating Mia’s seductive glance. Simon gave him a load of water from his water bottle.

They arranged to meet, as usual, in the parking lot outside the supermarket, next to the little house for the shopping carts. Not exactly the most comfortable place – no one really knew why they would meet right here, where there was a constant coming and going of carts rumbling past. Regardless, it was their place. They would sit there together after school for a while, or would meet there whenever there was something to discuss – or just for the fun of it.

YoYo had his hands full trying to put a stop to the fooling around. He had to clear his throat several times before everybody finally sat quietly on the railing.

“Gentlemen,” he began and made a little dramatic pause. “Gentlemen, it is my honor to have the brightest minds of Great Britain gathered around me.”

Bo looked furtively at MM, but it would have been better not to. As soon as their eyes met, neither could help bursting into laughter simultaneously. “The brightest minds –”

“– of Great Britain!”

“Where did you get that from?”

“I don’t know what your point is,” YoYo growled.

After his audience had calmed down, he started from scratch. This time he greeted them as “the brightest minds in the world.” Instead of looking at MM, Bo focused on the dog poop next to the shopping cart shed.

Of course, Bo knew to whom they owed “the brightest minds of Great Britain”: Sir Leslie Hamilton, Inspector of Her Majesty the Queen, who had come into YoYo’s life in the form of 20 DVDs two months ago.

YoYo claimed that he had dug up the British detective series at the Sankt Ägidien flea market – a story that Bo considered rather unlikely, and not just because it was the annual flea market of the city’s nursing home. Poetry and truth were not always congruent with YoYo. Bo suspected that the films were actually part of the legacy of YoYo’s father, who had moved to Hamburg more than five years ago with another woman. YoYo never spoke about it, but Bo knew how much it bothered him that his father hadn’t come back to see him a single time. Maybe, watching his father’s favorite films was his way of dealing with the separation.

The inspector had left his most conspicuous traces on YoYo’s head. He had rustled up the beret somewhere on the internet. He had also supposedly been looking for a trench coat, the other trademark of the Inspector, but apparently it wasn’t available in his size. He was therefore forced to remain faithful to his previous mix of dress styles, following the motto: “Why are there colors if you don’t wear them?” Whether or not they fit together was one of the problems with which YoYo obviously didn’t burden himself. Today he again had his beloved yellow bowling shoes on, along with his bright blue, metallic shiny trousers. His purple-colored hair fit it like mustard on bread with jam.

In any case, the Inspector had revamped YoYo’s manners from scratch. He was now throwing about British titles of nobility, and addressing the German teacher as “Lord Siegwart” and the math teacher, Freudenthal, as “Duke.” Even the infantry, such as bus drivers, shop assistants, and ordinary passersby, were now dubbed “Sir” or “Lady.” In the afternoon he would invite his friends over for “tea time,” where, in the absence of tea, he would serve his favorite drink, the infamous “slush.” It was an iced, sweet slurpy drink that came from a machine in YoYo’s room. It came in bright red, purple, acid green, and bright yellow, and was drunk out of a cup with a straw.

After he had brought the welcome ceremony to a close, YoYo proceeded with agenda item number one, the “current status of the investigation,” which was promptly checked off. As MM had learned from her father, the police were still completely in the dark.

Agenda item number two was “necessity of observing Sir Niko,” whereby YoYo meant that they should take a closer look at Niko. Bo knew it was completely hopeless to wean YoYo off his inflated style of speaking. When it came to investigations, he inevitably and unerringly slipped into highly bureaucratic official language. A simple meeting became a “strategic briefing” and a cell phone an “electronic communication device.” They let him have his fun.

“Niko is the nicest person in the world,” MM protested. “It’s completely crazy to suspect him!”

YoYo couldn’t be dissuaded. “Maybe he surreptitiously obtained your father’s trust in order to pursue his evil schemes even more inconspicuously? We must follow each track. That’s how the pros do it.”

YoYo and his pros. But maybe he was right, Bo thought. After all, Niko had already aroused the suspicion of the police.

“So go hunt an innocent man,” MM said sharply. “I’ve got better things to do!”

Bo was glad all the same that she stayed seated.

Undeterred, YoYo announced agenda item number three: “Possibility of further break-ins.”

Further break-ins? What was YoYo cooking up this time?

Once again, YoYo kept them in suspense. He polished his glasses extensively before continuing. “Gentlemen, I have looked into the water.”

YoYo was apparently speaking the words of his London hero, who, while investigating particularly tricky cases, used to stand by the railing of the Tower Bridge, smoke his pipe and let his thoughts run wild while looking over the River Thames. Like the others, Bo had, more or less voluntarily, watched all twenty Hamilton-DVDs several times over.

“The burglars will come back.” YoYo looked around and obviously seemed to enjoy the question marks on his friends’ faces. After a long, dramatic pause, he continued: “Gentlemen, the burglars have indeed got Giant Blue, but they haven’t got its secret. When it comes to the mafia – and I am convinced of their involvement – it is not so much about possessing Giant Blue. What they really want is to build such supercomputers themselves. And for that purpose they need the blueprints. And above all else, they need XXI. Basically, what they are looking for is the formula of XXI.”

Bo had to admit that there was something to YoYo’s considerations. If the thieves only had it in for Giant Blue, why did they turn everything upside down in Tati’s institute? Why else would they have tried to break the vault where the most important backups, source codes, and passwords were kept – and certainly also the formula of XXI? It had been by pure chance that they didn’t manage to force the lock. Apparently they made a mistake in their choice of explosives.

“It’s just a matter of time before they strike again, gentlemen,” YoYo said. From the way he was rubbing his hands, you could almost divine a certain pleasant anticipation.

“Tati told me that the police have already discussed that,” MM said. “But they’d rather not assume they’ll come back, the risk of getting caught is too big. Nevertheless, they have advised Tati to stash all the documents somewhere else for the moment, in a secret, safe place.”

“A bank vault would be best,” YoYo said expertly.

When Bo came home after the briefing, Mia didn’t give him any peace until he had told her every minute detail. She was, of course, mostly interested in what her dear Sisi had been saying and doing, and, above all, what he had been wearing. “His frayed jeans? How sweeeeet!“ Bo couldn’t remember Simon having ever worn other trousers. “And the yellow sweater?” He had to disappoint her – Simon had been wearing something brown. “Oh, that hoodie! Isn’t that sweeeeet?”

How his sister could be a pain in the neck! “Get a grip on your Sisi obsession!” Bo growled at Mia.

“You just don’t have any idea what real love is, underdeveloped as you are,” she snapped back.

By the time he finally sat down at his homework, it was almost 6:00 pm. Luckily, they didn’t have any math homework today. However, there was proportionately more of the Horstmann nonsense – English precisely.

Horsti had thought of a very special task. He had given each of them a different issue of the Herald Tribune from his collection of old newspapers, and they were now supposed to summarize three of the articles, all of which had to be at least a hundred lines long. The summaries were supposed to be three sentences long, and in English, of course. Probably the real purpose of the assignment was to help him avoid having to bring the old newspapers to the recycling himself.

Bo flipped through the newspaper listlessly. Simon would bolster his scribbling the next morning anyway, so he didn’t have to strain himself. Financial crisis in Hungary, mine accident in Kazakhstan, plane crash in Mexico. Suddenly a headline at the bottom of the left page struck him like lightning.

MAFIA ON TRACK OF SUPERCOMPUTERS

WWas it something about the break-in at MM’s father’s institute? Hadn’t the police imposed a news embargo, for “tactical reasons,” as they called it? He once again looked at the date. Nonsense, the newspaper was more than three weeks old. Quickly, he began to read.

Modern computer technology seems to be increasingly targeted by internationally-operating criminal gangs.

Computer ... criminal ... international … – For the first time, Bo cursed that he’d always been so lazy in his English courses. He bravely fought further. Police ... top secret ... burglary ... Adelaide ... internet ... encryption ... – With a shake of his head he picked up the phone and called Simon.

“The person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later,” was the only answer that he got.

Now, of all times! Apparently, Simon was on Wolf’s Farm, where there was no cell phone reception whatsoever. Since new houses had been constructed on the grassland next to his parents’ house, he had resettled two of his four-legged problem children to the run-down farm down near Miller’s creek: Kolya, the plow horse that he had saved from the slaughterhouse, and its inseparable companion, the donkey Mischa, who could now look back on a long life in the world famous “Circus Renz”. Simon’s beloved Shah, which was either a dog or a wolf (nobody knew for sure), had also found its home there long ago. The animals lived under the care of two hard of hearing, old people that Simon had always called Aunt Elswig and Uncle William, even though he was not related to them. Lately, Simon had been spending more time on Wolf’s Farm. Ever since he quit the archery club, he’d been training regularly with his American rosewood hunting bow out in the meadow behind the barn.

Bo dialed MM’s number. She was, as in all other subjects, a straight-A English student, so she could surely help him.

“What are you saying?” she asked incredulously. “The mafia on the track of supercomputers?”

Less than five minutes later she was with him. She attacked the text immediately, quietly reading it out to herself.

Modern computer technology seems to be increasingly targeted by internationally-operating criminal gangs. During the last few years, police have documented a worrying increase in crimes committed with the aim of acquiring relevant supercomputer knowledge and know-how.

According to an international group of experts of the police Interpol, who recently held a conference in Adelaide, Australia, international criminal gangs are aiming particularly at superfast mainframes. With these computers it is possible to gain access to top secret, encrypted data over the internet, such as the information necessary for the construction of atomic bombs. There is growing concern that such breaches could bring dangerous information into the hands of terrorists.

MM looked at him with wide eyes. For a moment he forgot everything he had just heard, and could only see her blue-green ocean eyes. He still hadn’t really come to terms with it. He understood that she just wanted to be friends with him, but feelings weren’t so easy to just forget. He was glad when she continued reading.

According to police, burglaries in research laboratories of high-tech companies and universities are on the rise. A particularly spectacular caper was that of a gang of burglars in Osaka, Japan, in which an entire institute was emptied without a trace. An attempted break-in at a company in Finland that had been working on a promising technique to speed up processors was thwarted by factory security at the last minute. Although the perpetrators were arrested, the backers of the heist weren’t identified until today. In another burglary at National Semiconductor in California, secret plans for special chips were stolen, in which a newly developed acceleration technique was used for the first time. Again, there was no trace of the perpetrators.

As in our case, Bo was thinking.

“As in our case,” MM said softly.

CHAPTER THREE

The Champion

MM stormed up the stairs. Luckily, Tati was already there. She pressed the newspaper into his hand. “Bottom left.”

As he read, the furrows on Tati’s forehead grew deeper and deeper. “Where did this come from?” he murmured, without taking his eyes off the newspaper.

“Horsti, English homework.”

“The police need to know this, immediately,” he said when he was done. “And the Deano as well.” He looked at the clock. “He was supposed to come over just now, anyway.”

At that very moment the doorbell rang, and the university director was standing in front of them. At six feet tall, his tousled, blond hair and freckled face gave him a boyish appearance. “Hello, Marienhoff!” He beamed a broad smile at Tati and took him by the shoulder amicably.

Ever since MM could remember, the Deano had addressed Tati by his last name, even though they actually were on first name terms. Tati always called him “Deano,” which certainly didn’t only have to do with the fact that he was the dean of his university institute, but also that his last name was Dickmann and his first name Willy.

Tati handed him the article without saying a word.

As he read, the Deano shook his head in disbelief. Eventually he said: “The police need to know immediately! Where did you get this from?”

Tati pointed at MM.

“Really, you unearthed this?”

“No. A classmate ran across it by chance. Horsti ... uh ... Mr. Horstmann ... distributed old issues of the Herald Tribune for homework.”

“Can I take this newspaper to the police?”

“Um … in that case Bo could get into a bit of trouble … You see, he hasn’t even started the assignment yet.”

“Oh, let me arrange that. I’ll call Mr. Horstmann, we’ll get that settled,” he said with a sly smile before he and Tati disappeared into Tati’s study. The Deano was one of those people that you just had to like. He exuded a naturalness that you wouldn’t have expected of a big cheese like him. He still drove his rickety old Volkswagen Beetle from his student days. “Back then I swore to myself that I would never get out of touch with normal life,” he had once told Tati. Apparently, he had succeeded. He preferred to put his money into the arts. He always had a crowd of more or less penniless artists around him, for whom he would devotedly organize exhibitions and readings, and whom he would help financially by buying their works or even giving them money. His house in the Glockengießer Street looked like a museum. Even his weekend cottage on his plot in the community gardens was packed with sculptures. MM remembered one statue that had always scared her as a child. She used to see it when Tati took her to the barbecues that the Deano liked to host for his artists. It was a huge, pale figure made of marble, which had two strange trunks instead of arms.

“So, did he say anything about the progress of the police investigation?” MM asked, once the director had left.

“Nothing,” said Tati with a sigh. “All the police said is that they are ‘still completing the assessment of the leads’, which essentially means they haven’t the slightest clue. No fingerprints, no cigarette butts, nothing. They have offered a reward of ten thousand euros. Maybe that will eventually bring a breakthrough.“

“And Niko?” she asked cautiously. “What was the result of his interrogation?”

“Nothing – as I predicted from the beginning.” He paused. “See, I’ve known him now almost longer than I’ve known you – and I think I know a thing or two about human nature as well.”

“But all my friends think –”

Tati looked at her from the side. “I hope you’re not back at detecting again? You know that Mom –”

“Yes, I know.” Last time, after the blackmail affair, she had to solemnly promise Mom to never ever take such a risk again.

“You better leave it to the police, that’s what they’re there for.”

“Yes,” she said, so softly that he probably didn’t hear it. They really were leaving everything to the police. They were just having a few thoughts of their own.

How could Tati be so sure that Niko had nothing to do with the matter? The thought crossed her mind again and again that night as she sat working through her daily assignment of Japanese vocabulary. His knowledge of human nature, that was all well and good. But what did he really know about Niko? Sure, Tati valued him because he was a highly intelligent, hardworking, and reliable employee. But how could he know what Niko occupied himself with when he was out of work? Tati always stopped short of taking an interest in the private lives of his employees. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea that the boys take a closer look at him.

They hadn’t, however, found out a whole lot about him in their swaggering “surveillance activities.” Somehow Niko would just dissolve into thin air again and again – at least that was what they claimed. Perhaps they were just being a little clumsy. In any case, the first time they tried to shadow him on his way home from university, he had simply taken off on his bike. Even Simon had to throw in the towel after a few hundred yards.

“How in the world could a computer nerd be so fit?” YoYo complained during the briefing. Particularly annoying to the guys was the fact that Niko’s “means of transportation” was a half rusted pre-war model bike, the most modern part of which consisted of a yellow rubber ducky that he used as a bell. “It’s all camouflage,” YoYo said with certainty, leaving open the question of what a children’s toy on a decrepit bicycle should have to do with camouflage. At least, in the meanwhile, the boys had discovered that Niko was living somewhere in the Bornkamp settlement, where he rented a simple room from an elderly lady. Naturally, YoYo also saw this as some sort of camouflage.

An idea suddenly flashed through MM’s mind. Why hadn’t she thought of it earlier? She threw her Japanese book into the corner and turned on Little Blue. She stared at the screen impatiently until the computer booted up, and then she hammered “Niko Baumann” into the keyboard. When the search results came back, she rubbed her eyes – 15,470 hits!

She clicked on the first link.

Niko Baumann, three-time champion in TINJAKU TJADO DôKô

TINJAKU TJADO DôKô? From the picture, she could see at first glance what the article was really about. There were two men in white judo suits, one of whom had a ponytail and was unmistakably Niko.

She hastily clicked on the next entry.

Niko Baumann wins first place in the TINJAKU TJADO DôKô tournament in Gelsenkirchen

The next posts were also about Niko’s tournament victories. With growing excitement she typed “TINJAKU TJADO DôKô.”

TINJAKU TJADO DôKô is one of the toughest Asian martial arts. The name comes from an old North Korean dialect meaning “strong wind.” Various hitting, pushing, throwing, and kicking techniques are used. TINJAKU TJADO DôKô is one of the so-called “realistic defense techniques” – i.e., it is one of the martial arts where the opponent is really put out of action, and is only to be used in emergencies. It is not, however, about brute force, but about using an absolutely precise sequence of movements.

At that moment, her phone rang. YoYo, a glance at the display told her.

“Say, do you know what TINJAKU TJADO DôKô is?” he asked breathlessly. In the background she could hear Bo’s excited voice, “with such strange roofs on the o.” So their observation had produced a result, after all.

“How did you hit on that Tinjaku thing?”

“This is leading too far now,” YoYo said mysteriously. “The observation of the observation object ... um ... of Niko … shows the desired results. We ... um ... Simon managed to keep up with him.”

MM couldn’t help smiling as she continued to click through the websites.

“Niko met some guys on Seydlitz Street, somewhere down in a basement, all of them carrying heavy shoulder bags. They are for sure hatching something. On the doorbell there’s a sign with this Tinjaku thingy on it.“

“TINJAKU TJADO DôKô,” all three of them were now muttering. It sounded like the boy band of a Buddhist monastery.

“Looks like a damned secret language,” Bo noted.

“A clear case of a code name. Just like the mafia uses,” YoYo asserted.

MM bit her lip. As seriously as she could, she said: “Old North Korean dialect. Meaning ‘strong wind.’ ”

On the other side, there was an awed silence.

“And what would that be?” YoYo finally asked.

“Sports. The guys do some sports.”

“Sports?” The disappointment in YoYo’s voice was palpable.

“Well, not just any sports, combat sports.” She read the article on her screen to the boys.

“That sounds highly suspect, gentlemen,” YoYo blurted out. “Why does a computer geek have to know how to knock people out? Gentlemen – “

She didn’t let him finish, because at that moment another article popped up. “I’ve found something! Niko is somewhat of a star of the scene, he’s even been world champion once, three years ago!” She hastily started to read.

In the finals in Los Angeles, Niko Baumann beat the heavily favored Japanese Mitsushi, who hadn’t lost a single battle for ten years. This duel went down in the history of TINJAKU TJADO DôKô thanks to a completely new technique applied by Niko Baumann. It has become known as the “Baumann Kick.” The move is initiated by a pike jump going narrowly past the opponent, who is put out of commission by a kick with the heel to the stomach and a simultaneous karate chop to the neck.

“Highly suspicious, gentlemen,” YoYo grumbled again.

“What’s so suspicious about that?” MM asked. “Everyone has a hobby, and Niko’s hobby is this Tinjaku. Thousands of people practice martial arts, does that make them criminals?” But even as she spoke, she felt a creeping feeling of doubt. Tinjaku was anything but a normal sport. Perhaps Niko was in fact different than she had previously been willing to admit.

CHAPTER FOUR

Noodles, Marlboro and Nutrimax

Niko did, perhaps, have a violent hobby, but his everyday life turned out to be as harmless as could be. Even another week of hard work in shadowing him couldn’t change anything about that. Mostly he was in the institute until late, where the reconstruction was already running at full speed. He trained in his martial arts club three evenings a week, and for the rest he remained dutifully at home. Only once did he go out to the movies in the evening with a woman who turned out to be the neighbor from across the street. The movie was about the life of penguins.

Slowly but steadily, even YoYo seemed to grow doubtful that Niko was the villain they had taken him for. In one memorable briefing, “Project Niko” was officially buried.

“Actually, we might as well bury the whole investigation, gentlemen,” YoYo sighed, drumming his heels angrily against the bar of the railing. “We haven’t got the slightest lead. And with no leads, there’s no investigation.” He played with his Hamilton hat as if he were on the verge of throwing it away. “At least the police have no idea, either,” he added defiantly. Bo found it a weak consolation.

“Criminals can’t just dissolve into thin air,” Mia screeched so loudly that a few passersby looked at her anxiously. After that, they were just sitting in silence on the railing, each lost in their own thoughts.

The newspaper article crossed Bo’s mind again. In the other burglaries the offender had also never been found. Would the same thing happen now?

YoYo’s proposal “to suspend investigation activities until further notice” was adopted unanimously, except for Mia’s dissenting vote. For her, the investigations were just an excuse to get near Simon.

The next day, Bo was sitting at the dinner table with his family. Mom served tofu sausages with cooked celery from her favorite magazine, Healthy Cooking. On board today was a very special guest: YoYo. He and Bo had been working on a presentation on the medieval city that they were supposed to give in history. Afterward, he’d stayed for dinner – much to the delight of Mom. YoYo had always been something like her problem child. She felt terribly sorry for him because he had no “real family.” She saw him as a poor, neglected child, defenselessly exposed to the lures of modern times: TV, video, and computer games. And, of course, unhealthy food. Ever since Bo, in an unguarded moment, had told her of YoYo’s slush machine, she was convinced that YoYo didn’t have long to live – that is, if he didn’t find the path of Organic Food soon. She invited him to dinner frequently, but he always came up with the best excuses not to attend.

Today, however, he had immediately accepted, and expressed his gratitude with the words “Lady, I’ve always been helplessly addicted to your cooking skills.” The line obviously came from the third Hamilton film, in which the Inspector flattered a murderer’s mother with those very words in order to learn more about her son.

Surely Mom couldn’t know that YoYo’s sudden enthusiasm had less to do with her tofu sausages, and even less with the cooked celery, than it did with the project that they had in school that week, “Life without drugs.” It was not merely about drugs, but about dealing with addictions of all kinds, including gambling, television, and candy. Today, in sixth period, the project week had reached its peak with the solemn pledges. All of the students had to stand in front of the entire class and commit themselves to waiving any one of the many temptations for two weeks.

They had to give their vows to, of all people, Siegwart who had many a time been spotted staggering through the streets at night. He held a lecture, in which he once more verbosely explained the meaning of the whole project week, and eventually expressed his hope that “you will thereby be prepared for a life with drugs ... um ... I mean … without drugs.” Most didn’t notice the slip of the tongue, however, as they were already asleep. Only YoYo, much to Bo’s surprise and Lord Siegwart’s joy, was completely on topic. When it was his turn, he vowed in a firm voice, “not to consume any products of the fast food industry for two weeks.” As always when YoYo was in a solemn mood, he also got ponderous. He couldn’t help ending his vow with the words: “Thank you, gentlemen!”

Now he was sitting in front of Mom’s celery stew as if he had never eaten anything else in his life. In-between spoonfuls, he sipped with great relish a glass of unsweetened elderberry juice. Either he really liked it, or he was a brilliant actor.

The conversation at the table was once again dominated by Mia. It was about her birthday, and, more specifically, her birthday wishes. That there were still eight months to go before the happy event, didn’t seem to bother her in the least. Birthday gifts had always been her favorite subject. True to her motto “my topic is your topic,” she cheerfully went back and forth about whether she would rather have the “super awesome” D & C top in pink or in rose. While Mom seriously responded to her dilemma (or at least pretended to), Dad’s only remark was “main thing is that it’s waterproof.” No one seemed to notice that the contribution, as was so often the case, didn’t have any relation to the current topic. As always, he was just somewhere in his thoughts, and it was his way of signaling that he indeed tried to follow the conversation.

Mia’s monologue had just come to the next of her urgent problems that had to do with one of the guys on her Bravo posters, when Bo felt his phone vibrate in his pocket – out of all moments just now, when it was impossible to answer it. While he was still pondering what to do, YoYo jumped up beside him like a rubber ball, all eyes on him. Apparently he had the same problem in his pocket, and that made Bo conclude that it had to be a group message. MM? Simon?

YoYo apparently knew that cell phones were frowned upon in the Blohm home. He put on a beaten face, stepped from one leg to the other, cleared his throat and let out: “Ladies and gentlemen, I know it’s conceivably the most unfortunate time, but ... um ... it’s very unpleasant for me but ... um ... nature calls.” With that, he scurried through the door as elegantly as his corpulence allowed.

“Nature calls,” Mia mocked him. “Can’t he just say that he has to go to the bathroom?” She rolled her eyes. “Boys in puberty ...”

“Puberty – from the Latin ‘pubertas,’ sexual maturity ...” Dad apparently felt it was time to make another contribution. He had this tick that he always had to explain foreign words.

When YoYo reappeared, Bo immediately realized that something must have happened – and something that was more important than the tofu sausages left on his plate.

Fifteen minutes later they were all sitting on the railing at the parking lot. It had been a grade A getaway from Mom’s holy meal. When returning from the bathroom, YoYo announced that something had occurred to him in the bathroom. (“Oh, I thought you had been in nature,” said Mia. She had to stir things up, of course).

He told them something about a vigil outside McDonalds protesting against the fast food industry. “It takes place every day now. I completely messed up and forgot, that, today, we ... uh ... Bo and I ... have taken over the shift from ...” He looked at his watch, “7:25 pm to 8:25 pm. I’m so sorry, but we have to leave immediately!”

Mom was plain thrilled by the vigil matter and quickly wrapped up a few tofu sausages as fresh supplies. Mia, of course, immediately understood what was going on, and let it be known that she would be participating in the vigil, too. Mom found that just wonderful. Bo could hardly stop her from joining them.

“Come on, get cracking!” YoYo could barely stay on the railing for impatience.

“There is some new information from the police,” MM said. “Tati tipped me off. An investigation secret, so you didn’t hear anything. The caretaker of the university found a piece of paper in the bushes, right where the van had been parked the night they cleared Tati’s institute.”

“It’s a mystery to me why they have only just discovered it,” YoYo grumbled. “True professionals immediately comb through everything systematically –”

“It’s okay, YoYo,” MM interrupted him. “The police believe it could be a shopping list, which might have fallen from the burglars’ pocket.”

“And what’s on it?” Bo asked.

“Noodles, Marlboro and something very strange …” She looked at her palm and read from it: “Nutrimax forte for Bagheera.”

“Nutrimax forte for Bagheera? What’s that about?” YoYo asked. “Sounds like it’s a drill, extra strong. Gentlemen, surely they wanted to drill the safe open – “

“Nutrimax forte is a very special dog food, for smallish dogs.” Everyone turned to Simon.

“Puppy food?”

“Yes. Very expensive puppy food,” Simon confirmed. When it came to animals, he knew everything. In his garden at home, he had a kind of animal hospital where he took care of all sorts of sick or abandoned animals that he found, or that had been brought to him by neighbors or friends. The fawn Nala, for example, lost a leg from a combine harvester. Simon had cared for it and brought it up with the bottle. The latest patient was the sparrow Kutschulu, for which he had splinted a broken wing and was now laboriously bringing back to strength until it could fly again.

“Hmmm, and Bagheera? Isn’t that the black panther from the Jungle Book?” Bo asked.

“Criminals with a puppy? Kind of weird,” MM said.

“But it could actually lead us further,” said YoYo.

“If the list really is from the burglars,” MM argued.

“I’m sure it’s black, the dog baby,” murmured Simon.

WIt was not much, but at least they had a lead.

WA hot lead, as it soon turned out.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Black Panther

Mandy! The thought went through Simon’s head as soon as he had found the off button on the alarm clock. The dial showed 7:30 am. In exactly four hours he had to pick her up at the station, and before that, he had to clear out the guest room, which everybody had been using as a garbage dump. And he had to vacuum, put fresh sheets on the bed, tidy up his own room, and, and, and ...

Actually, he’d have preferred to immediately scour the pet stores of the city instead. Perhaps someone had heard something about a small dog named Bagheera. Nutrimax forte was only available in specialty stores, of which there were exactly six in town. Of course, it would be quite a coincidence if, of all places, the burglars had bought dog food here in the city, but perhaps they would be lucky.

Scowling, he peeled off the covers. Why in the world did Mandy have to come today? He remembered having mixed feelings when he received the request from his former American classmate, asking if she could stay with his family for a few weeks as an exchange student. Apparently her nutty parents wanted their daughter to achieve perfection in German, come hell or high water. And apparently they hadn’t the slightest inkling of Simon’s not quite untroubled relationship with his mother tongue. Mom and Dad, however, and especially his sisters, were immediately thrilled. For them, America still was their actual home.

Back in America, he and Mandy hadn’t really had so much to do with one another. To him she had always been somewhat too loud. She was used to being the center of attention; she was, of course, class president and on the cheerleading team. She was loved and swarmed by everybody, and was invariably in a good mood. Her good looks had always intimidated him a bit. She usually came to school in a luxury limousine with a chauffeur. Her father was some super big shot in a company that made bulldozers and heavy trucks. At home they employed at least twenty servants, and rumor had it that they even had a lifeguard for their swimming pool.

Only toward the end of his time in America did Mandy and he get a little bit closer. One day she showed up at his house with an Irish setter on a leash.

“This is Sam, Dad’s hunting dog. He has some illness that made him lose his sense of smell, and Dad wants to shoot him for it. ‘What should I do with a hunting dog that can’t hunt?’ he said. The vet says he might never be able to smell again. Since I know what Dad’s up to, I haven’t let Sam from my side and have even taken him into my bed at night. Dad’s been raging about what a wimp I am, that in nature that’s just the way it is, that the weak and the sick get singled out.”

Simon took Sam in, and within a few weeks the dog had recovered. Mandy’s father had then generously taken him back again.

Since the affair with Sam, Mandy had risen in his esteem. Now and then they had gone out riding together, he on his horse “Liberty”, she on one of her father’s thoroughbred stallions that “had to be moved” from time to time while the master was away in his private jet. Sometimes her twin sister Amy would join them. Although the two were very close to one another, their father had sent them to different schools. He was convinced that twins would have to live as independently as possible from each other, or else they would never develop “strength of character.”

At the breakfast table, Mandy was the topic. Simon’s sisters could hardly wait for her arrival. They had found her picture in the yearbook of Simon’s old school. “She looks like a princess,” said Sarah, the youngest, with wide eyes, running her fingers tenderly over the photo that showed Mandy with butt-length hair.

“Make sure you include Mandy in everything!” Mom pestered him for the umpteenth time. “Especially when you hang around with your clique. She’s here with us to learn German, and she certainly wants to get to know the country a bit. You could, for example, go check out the castle or the ramparts. And the excavations in Albershausen, they show really unique things there ...” Her enthusiasm brought more and more old walls into her mind, none of which could be missed.

Simon patiently nodded. He might have rolled his eyes a bit, because his sister Judith started to giggle and imitate him. The rest of the breakfast was lost in the girls’ giggles and cackles. Four little sisters – not the easiest of fates.

At least he could, with a bit of trickery, get the little ones to prepare everything for Mandy’s arrival. As an experienced big brother he knew exactly how to motivate his sisters for work – with the disguising trick for example. He tied Dad’s old BBQ apron around his waist and put on a mysterious face. “It’s as if we’re preparing a room for the princess in a luxury hotel, okay?” Now all he had to do was give each of the girls some cloth and they would enthusiastically do things they never would have done normally. Mia pushed the vacuum cleaner through the apartment, Leonie put the linens on the bed, and little Sara helped him tidy the room.

At the end he even had time to stop by at the pet store at the Linden Square before Mandy’s arrival.

“Bagheera? A puppy? No, the name doesn’t ring a bell,” said Mrs. Fish, the obese salesperson, shaking her head. “Weird, why would you name a dog after a panther?” As always, she proceeded to take him on a tour from cage to cage. She knew all the animals, including their likes and dislikes.

When Simon arrived at the station, the train was already there, and the passengers were heading for the exit with their baggage.

Good God, what does she even look like? It was the first thought that came to his mind as his gaze fell on Mandy. He probably wouldn’t have recognized her if she hadn’t been running toward him shouting, “Hi, Simon!” She looked like a creature from another planet: a black leather jacket down to the ground, all other clothes equally black, and around her neck a leather belt with studs, more studded belts around the wrists, arms and hips. The only splash of color were her bright green eyes and two thick red brush strokes in the form of flashes on her cheeks that looked like war paint of a Native American. Another flash of lightning, but in black, was on her shaved head.

He must have looked quite shocked, because Mandy encouragingly pushed him in the side. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you, it’s just my new look!”

When he heard her Texan accent, a bit of the old familiarity was back again at once. “Oh, okay ...” He tried a smile.

He stowed her things on his bike. While they were walking home, she talked about the school and the old classmates in Texas. For Simon it was fun to finally speak English again. Mandy was perfectly in the know about everyone in the class. Although she laughed a lot – she always had – Simon had the feeling that she’d somehow changed.

Mandy must have sensed Simon’s puzzlement. “A lot’s changed since you’ve been gone. I’ll tell you later,” she said seriously.

WAs they turned down Simon’s street, the girls came running toward them from afar, skirts and pigtails flying. At the sight of Mandy, however, they instantly stopped at a safe distance. Little Sara hid fearfully behind her big sister Leonie, then turned back and ran into the house as fast as her little feet could carry her. Her sisters followed.

Mom could hardly conceal her shock when Simon reached the house with Mandy. Stock-still she held out her hand to Mandy and awkwardly complimented her over to the kitchen table, where apple juice and cookies were waiting. Mandy played it off well. With an engaging smile, she recounted her journey. Mom was visibly relaxing, and soon the girls dared to come closer, too. Judith dragged along her doll Malaika, who was extensively admired by Mandy. Judith even dared to stroke her hand over the shaved stubble on Mandy’s head. “You feel like a hedgehog,” she said.

Mandy’s first appearance with the Gentlemen was not much different. Although he’d already warned his friends via cell phone, there was a loud gulping to be heard when Simon showed up with Mandy in the afternoon at their place in front of the supermarket. “Looks really shitty,” Mia whispered, loud enough to have been heard by everybody, including Mandy. He was pretty sure that she had in fact understood, as her German was surprisingly good. But she didn’t let anything on. With a “Hi, I’m Mandy,” she approached everyone, pulled each one close and gave them a hug. The ice was soon broken. First off, she wanted to know what the friends’ odd nicknames were about. Most of all, she found “MM” strange.

“Ask the guys. After all, they’re the ones who gave me the nickname,” MM said with a sly grin.

“Well,” Bo began in English, but then fell right back into German. “She’s actually called Mariekje Marienhoff – MM is quite a bit easier, right?”

MM nudged Bo in the side. “Don’t hesitate, you can tell Mandy the whole truth.”

“Okay then, at school ...” He was visibly uncomfortable. “At the very beginning ... when we didn’t even know her name, we were temporarily convinced of a rumor that she was a nerd. She had just skipped ahead two grades [1], and since she always knew everything in math, we called her Math Mousie.”

Then it was Bo’s turn. Simon himself hadn’t even been completely aware that Bo actually meant Boris. When explaining YoYo’s name, the fact was largely omitted that it actually stemmed not only from his official name, Yorick, but also from his body shape, which was reminiscent of the toy of the same name.

Sure enough, Mia then had to come forward with her “Sisi.” “Simon’s got a pet name, too, one that I’ve given him ...” She looked at him as if she wanted to eat him right away. In order to make things more embarrassing, she also started to show off by recounting their latest criminal case and telling of Sisi’s exploits on an epic scale.

Mandy didn’t seem bothered. On the contrary: She was downright thrilled by the story, and let out a sigh of relief when Mia’s story got to the last-minute rescue. She was totally impressed that they hunted criminals as a hobby.

Finally, they could come to the current case. YoYo gave a small introduction for Lady Mandy, which turned out somewhat bumpy, as he insisted on speaking English – or at least what he thought was English. Simon had his hands full with trying to make the matter somewhat understandable to Mandy. She was immediately enthusiastic. “Sure I’ll join in!”

Only, she didn’t know YoYo. He insisted on an official acceptance process, with an application and a vote, for which Mandy was not allowed to be present and was sent to the far end of the parking lot. Of course, all of them were in favor, except Mia.

“That is out of the question. I’m sure she can’t keep a secret for herself, the spoiled brat,” she snorted. “Or what’s it called when someone has five horses in the stable?”

Simon thoroughly regretted having ever told her anything about Mandy. It didn’t help that he’d told her that the horses didn’t belong to her, but to her father. “Is it her fault that he’s such a moneybag?”

It only made matters worse. “Now you come to her defense, too. All that stupid goth wants to do is fling herself at you!”

When she was outvoted, she started her next tantrum. It was better to just ignore her.

Mandy was called back. “For the duration of her stay in the Federal Republic of Germany, Lady Mandy is hereby admitted as a member of our investigation team,” YoYo said like a priest at a baptism. She was then informed of her confidentiality obligations – and with that, she belonged to the “Gentlemen.”

That Monday at school, Mandy caused quite a stir. Everyone tried to assign her to some trend. “Is this a new form of punk?” “Gothic with a Native American accent?” “Ethnic-goth?” Simon was asked over and over. Some found her style cool, some uncool, but Mandy won them all over with her open nature, and was soon engaged in lively discussions with half of the class. Of course, Kevin, the loudmouth from the 8th grade, had to diss her in the break. “Looks like an ass with ears,” he swore over the schoolyard. His fan base couldn’t calm themselves over the brilliant wit of their leader, whose head was just as bald as Mandy’s.

Right after school Simon took Mandy on his tour of the pet stores. On the way to “Animal Kaiser” they made a small detour through the pedestrian zone so that Mandy would at least catch sight of the Town Hall and St. Mary’s Church, and would not be completely caught off-guard when Mom would question her afterward.

They had turned straight onto Breite Street when Mandy nudged him at the sleeve.

“Look at that sweetie!” She pointed to the other side of the street.

Now he also noticed the pitch-black puppy that was awkwardly waddling between the bar tables at the snack stand. It stopped at every object and sniffed curiously. Simon estimated it to be just ten weeks old.

“American pit bull terrier,” he said. Seeing the little guy, you could hardly believe that it belonged to one of the most dangerous attack dog breeds. It couldn’t even pee properly. On one of the bar tables it lifted its legs like a full-grown dog, but lost its balance and fell over.

Simon parked his bike and went toward the puppy. He bent down to it and held out his hand, which was immediately sniffed curiously. “What are you doing here all alone on the street?” As an answer, the little one looked at him with wide eyes, crouched and began to wag its tail. Apparently it wanted to play. “Have you run away from home, kid?” Simon took it in his arms and stroked its soft coat. As a sign of thanks, the ball of fur tenderly licked over his face. Simon looked around. Where might this little animal have come from? A few passers-by looked at them delightedly, but no one seemed to know the animal.

He was about to ask the seller at the kiosk, as he winced.

From the opposite side of the street came a squeaky male voice, not loud, but uncomfortable. “Bagheera!”

“Keep cool and play it off,” Simon whispered to Mandy. In his mind, the thoughts were racing. Bagheera. This was their chance. Cautiously, he turned around. On the other side of the street he caught sight of a man who was looking uneasily in all directions.

“Bagheera!”

The squeaking voice belonged to him. The man was rather small, and dressed up as if he came directly from a men’s clothing outfitter. He had patent leather shoes, and on his doughy face he wore a neat beard.

Simon waved in the direction of the man. As soon as he saw him with the puppy, he shot across the street like a killer shark. “What are you doing with that dog?” he snapped.

“I ... nothing ... I was just ...” Before he could get any further, the baby dog was torn from his arms. Without a word, the man disappeared in the direction from which he had come.

“Unpleasant type,” he heard Mandy say from behind.

The man walked in lockstep to a store, which was marked with a sign “Antiques.” A fat man on crutches was waiting for him in the doorway and talked to him in an angry and upset tone. The man with the patent shoes bowed submissively and disappeared with his head down into the store, the animal in his arms.

Without letting the shop’s door out of sight, Simon reached for his cell phone. Within five seconds, he had everyone on the conference call. “I found out Bagheera.”

Silence. “You what?”

“Bagheera, the dog on the shopping list!”

Now everyone had got it. “You saw Bagheera?” – “And the burglars?” – “Where?” – “What does it look like?” Everyone talked wildly over each other.

Simon gave a brief report.

“Stay tuned,” YoYo said. “But be careful not to arouse their suspicion. One of us will come for backup as soon as possible. We mustn’t lose sight of the store. And someone has to call the police!”

“Hmm ... Actually, we are not supposed to know anything of Bagheera, because of the investigation secrecy, right?” Bo said.

“Bo’s right,” said MM. “I’ll immediately inform Tati, he just got home.”

CHAPTER SIX

Not a Case for Children

MM went over to Tati’s office. He was sitting at his desk making a phone call. “It’s hard, actually, starting over from scratch twice,” she heard him say. “Of course, the insurance will pay, and we’ve already installed the first devices. But somehow ... You know that I’m not superstitious, but somehow I can’t let go of the feeling that these people are still after us. I’m pretty sure that they are targeting the blueprints of XXI. And next time they’ll definitely crack the vault. That’s why I’m keeping the most important data on me at all times now.”

MM impatiently stepped from one foot to the other. Tati clearly had his brother Kostas on the phone, whom Mom had nicknamed the “Marathon Caller.” “Tati!” She gave him a sign with her hand.

He looked up in surprise. Apparently he had only now noticed her presence. “One moment,” he whispered to her.

Of course, the conversation took another quarter of an hour, because the last concert of the Swinging Einsteins had to be discussed in detail, as well as the upcoming trip to the Computer Congress in Mexico.

“Sorry,” he said as he hung up. “What have you got on your mind?”

She’d had plenty of time to figure out a tactic. But now she suddenly didn’t know where to begin. She had, actually, promised her parents to stay away from the matter.

Tati looked at her expectantly.

She decided not to go like a bull at the gate. “It’s about the break-in. – Have the police made any progress?”

Tati sighed. “Unfortunately, no. Hoffmann, the head of the department, says they’re still in the process of evaluating the leads. They’ve interrogated Niko for the third time now, of course without results. Somehow they find it suspicious that he practices some strange martial art, something Asian. Did you know that he was a real super crack in the field? He never told me, modest as he is. Apparently he was even world champion once.”

“Yes, in Los Angeles, two years ago, where he sidelined the Japanese Mitsushi after just 24.4 seconds,” she heard herself say.

“Oh, you are in the know,” he said, smiling. “I thought you wanted to stay out of the matter this time?”

MM looked for traces of anger in his voice. But at best, she could hear something like pride.

“And the thing with the grocery list?” she asked, relieved.

“The one with this weird Nutrifax? Could perhaps be a code word, Hoffmann said, but for the moment they don’t know more details yet.”

Lord, let the brain rain down on them, would have been YoYo’s comment now, thought MM.

“Nutrimax forte is a special food for puppies that is available in any pet store,” she said, and couldn’t resist adding: “Hoffmann could’ve found out on Google. Just a little tip, in case you see him.”

Tati raised his eyes to heaven, as he so often did when he wanted to say that people were, after all, fallible. “Bagheera,” he continued, “seems to be a character from a children’s book – as much as they’ve figured out, some bear or a monkey, I think. They’re not yet able to make use of all that, but it could be the key to the whole mystery. In any case, in the meanwhile they’ve christened their investigation team ‘Task Force Bagheera.’ ”

MM couldn’t help but smile.

He looked at her from the side. “Is there maybe something else the police should know?”

Yeah, we’ve gotten the criminals, she would have liked to say, but she bit her lip. As matter-of-factly as possible, she said, “Bagheera is a puppy, a small pit bull terrier, owned by an antiques dealer here in the city. 6 Breite Street.”

“So you were ...” A grin spread over Tati’s face. “I knew it!”

He then suddenly got very busy. “I’ll call the Deano immediately!”

He dialed and put the phone on speaker.

“This is a really big deal,” she heard the Deano exclaim over and over, while Tati informed him. “What are you saying? It’s the children who’ve found out?”

He told the Deano every detail.

“I’ll call Hoffmann right away!” said the Deano. “And tell the young lady that I thank her and her friends. Hats off! I’ll congratulate them personally later.”

A few minutes later the phone was ringing. Hoffmann. He also thanked Tati profusely and reported that everything necessary was already under way. “Of course it isn’t certain that the shopping list really came from the perpetrators, but I think we’ll know more soon.” Then he asked MM to come with her friends to the police headquarters the next day right after school to make a testimony. “That’s the way it is with the police – everything needs to be put into a report. If something isn’t in the report, it never happened.”

The police building reminded MM of school: Endless corridors, bare walls, gray doors with numbers on them. It even smelled like school.

Together with her friends, MM trotted behind an official who led them into a room that also looked like school: tables arranged in a horseshoe, a chalkboard in the middle, and at the front, a desk, at which Hoffman had already taken a seat. Six policemen in blue uniforms took the tables. The Task Force Bagheera.

Even though MM knew it was just a testimony, she still felt a little queasy. A look at Hoffmann’s face did nothing to reassure her. The usually friendly Hoffmann seemed angry and tense. Had something gone wrong with the investigation? Hoffmann gave a curt nod as a greeting and motioned for the children to take a seat.

For a few seconds there was a tense silence.

YoYo cleared his throat. He won’t start a welcome speech, MM was thinking. Ladies and gentlemen, dear Task Force Bagheera, I hereby warmly welcome you on behalf of the Gentlemen at the briefing ... He was already playing suspiciously with his glasses.

Fortunately Hoffmann preempted him. “So ... so you’ve figured out what this Bagheera is all about?”

“Yes!” Mia, of course, had to jump the queue. “Sisi discovered it!”

In response to Hoffmann’s questioning look, she added, with a beaming smile at Simon: “Simon Böttcher.”

“Well, Simon, so tell us more, will you?”

Simon shook his hair back from his forehead. “Sure, well, actually it was Mandy who saw it first, a girlfriend of mine –”

“Girlfriend? What do you mean, girlfriend?” Mia interrupted him. “She’s just a normal exchange student, and unfortunately kind of weird. Total goth bitch.”

Luckily, Mandy was not there. She didn’t want to have anything to do with the German police. “If my father found out, he’d send me to an asylum ...”

Simon pretended not to have heard Mia. “Bagheera was running alongside Breite Street, in front of that chaos there –”

“That kiosk,” Bo interjected.

“Can you describe it?”

“Yeah. A black American pit bull terrier.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it looked like an American pit bull terrier.”

“And how do you know what an American pit bull terrier looks like?”

“Well ... the face ... the snot –”

“The snout,” Bo corrected.

“And a bow in its hair?” Hoffmann asked.

What was this all about? The uneasy feeling in MM was getting stronger. Something was wrong here.

Simon was not fazed. “No. I’m completely sure it was a pit bull terrier. Black. Without ...” He apparently couldn’t think of the word. “Packaging.”

The policemen looked at each other.

“And how do you know that the puppy is called Bagheera?

“Because it was the name the guy used when he called it.“

“Bagheera or Alina?”

Alina? How did he get to that now?

“Bagheera.”

“Hm, indeed.”

This was followed by a minute of silence, in which Hoffmann stroked his chin. “Well,” he began at last, looking at all of them, one after the other. “Let me be frank with you. We’ve got a problem. This Bagheera may exist in your head, but it doesn’t exist where you think you saw it. At the very moment in which I was informed by Professor ... um ...Dickmann, I sent a patrol car to check the information. Three patrol cars, to be exact, and in addition I put the SWAT team on alert, the whole program. Under the leadership of Inspector Maier.”

He looked to a scowling officer with a full beard. “Michael, tell the children about your operation, please.”

Maier reluctantly sat up in his chair. He let it show that he thought it was all a waste of time. “I’ll make it short,” he said with a slightly nasal voice. “Well … So we go into this antiques shop and ask for the boss, whereupon the fat man appears instantly, introducing himself as Mr. Berger. I ask him for a pooch named Bagheera. – ‘Bagheera? What’s a Bagheera?’ I respond: ‘A puppy of an attack dog breed, a pit bull terrier.’ You should have seen the guy. He almost croaked with laughter. ‘Did you hear that,’ he said to the two employees who stood by him, ‘Alina’s supposed to be an attack dog! Show the beast to the gentlemen officers ... But be careful not to scare them!’ And here comes one of the men, with a kind of converted plush rat with a bow in its hair, which he introduces to me as Alina. I took a picture ...”

Hoffmann handed it to Simon.

“Yorkshire,” he muttered.

MM caught a glimpse of the picture: a chubby lap dog with a red bow on its head.

Maier snorted indignantly. “Of course, we’ve checked everything. No sign of an attack dog.”

Hoffmann cleared his throat. He even had a small smile on his face. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you wanted to help. But here you have apparently gotten a little carried away. And this may have rather unpleasant consequences for us. If Mr. Berger wasn’t so good-natured, he could’ve filed a formal complaint of abuse of office against us. So in the future, please restrain yourselves, okay? This is not a case for children.”

Mia jumped up and looked at Hoffmann as if she wanted to stab him with her eyes. “And how about last time? Was that perhaps a case for children?” She didn’t wait for an answer and raised her voice even more. “And one thing I can tell you: If Sisi saw an attack dog, then it was an attack dog!” Head held high, she rushed to the door.

Hoffmann smiled knowingly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Counts and Community Gardeners

“There’s something fishy going on here,“ Bo snorted. They were outside on the stairs in front of the police headquarters. “Damn fishy.”

Mia was still beside herself with rage. “I’ll get back at them! Treating Sisi like a liar!” Hoffmann would have had quite a scare if he had seen her now, her make-up smudged by tears.

“It really was a pit bull,” Simon murmured. “Mandy saw it, too. And its name really was Bagheera.” MM had never seen Simon so offended.

What would Tati say when he heard about the lapdog? How would he look in front of the Deano? After all, it was he who had sounded the false alarm. But what exactly was this false alarm? Simon had, after all, really seen an attack dog. Could he have made a mistake? In any case, something was definitely wrong here.

YoYo didn’t seem to be infected by the general excitement. “Keep cool, gentlemen! We may have lost the battle, but we haven’t lost the war! Not by a long shot!” One of his collected Hamilton lines. “A real inspector doesn’t give up that easily. Let’s put these guys through the mill even more. We have a track, gentlemen, and we’ll pursue it to the end.”

In the following days they patiently collected all tangible pieces of information. MM researched on the computer, and the others shadowed the antiques store whenever they could. Mandy, too, was part of the stakeout, although she was unrecognizable as Mandy: She was dressed in clothes from MM’s wardrobe; on her head she wore a blonde wig, plus a hat and sunglasses. As an American tourist she was keenly interested in the old junk in the store. “How lovely!” Her screams of enthusiasm could be heard from the street. “I have to tell Daddy!”

The antiques shop apparently belonged to a certain Thorsten Berger, who had to be the fat man with the crutches. Besides him, there were two other men hanging around the store. There was the guy with the patent leather shoes and squeaky voice, whom the children kept calling the “Lacquered Man.” The other was bald and had a crooked nose and a gap where his front teeth should have been. He wore a suit that his muscular upper body almost ripped through. The other two called him “Manni,” but the children had christened him the “Boxer.” He was constantly making stupid comments that he alone would laugh about.

The Boxer and the Lacquered Man always addressed the fat man respectfully as “General,” even though his appearance didn’t look anything like that of a sturdy soldier. With his chubby, unshaven face and the drooping lower lip, he looked more like a bulldog. His greasy, combed-back hair screamed for shampoo.

He was almost always sitting in the little room behind the shop counter, which was separated by a glass panel, and usually had a phone to his ear. Now and then he would come to the shop door and sit down on a folding chair that would almost collapse under his weight. The Lacquered Man would immediately come with a cup of coffee and deposit it submissively on the table in front of him. The General would drain his coffee, and meanwhile the Lacquered Man would stand again ready to light his boss’s cigar, whose doglike face would not flinch.

The lapdog that, in fact, went by the name of Alina had its place in a basket next to the entrance. From time to time the Lacquered Man would take it for a walk – if you could call dragging a dog on its leash to the next tree and back going for a walk.

Just in time for closing at 6:00 pm, the Lacquered Man would drive up in a silver-gray BMW with tinted windows, which during the day was parked in the gated lot around the corner. It was not just any BMW, but an absolute top-of-the-line model, with all-wheel drive, leather seats, GPS-Navigation, and all the gimmicks, including a burglar alarm. The alarm had once gone off while MM was shadowing the store. The Lacquered Man had just parked outside the door when a couple of children playing nearby accidently hit it with their ball. It provoked such a shocking pandemonium that the kids would probably remember it for their entire lives.

In the evening, when the Lacquered Man drove the car up to the shop, he would hold the door open for his chief like a servant and help him heave his body into the passenger seat. The Boxer took a seat in the back. The journey always went down Breite Street, headed toward Treeneberg.

“We absolutely must find out where these guys are going,” YoYo said in one of their afternoon briefings.

“How about we post a sentry at the next intersection,” Bo said. “Then we at least know whether they turn onto Viktoria Street toward the city center or go out of town.”

YoYo had evidently not been listening. He jumped from the railing with a leap, suggesting a mega brainstorm. Before sharing his idea with the others, he cleared his throat sensationally.

“Far too complicated. We simply follow them.”

“With the bikes?”

“No, by taxi.”

All heads turned to YoYo. Judging from their faces, they had long ago given up on trying to comprehend YoYo’s train of thought.

“We just take a taxi and get chauffeured behind the guys,” said YoYo without batting an eye.

“ ‘Follow that car inconspicuously, these are criminals,’ or something like that?” Bo asked, sparking general amusement.

YoYo wasn’t bothered. He took off his cap and narcissistically stroked his hair. “Stay cool, gentlemen! Let me take care of it.”

I hope he knows what he’s doing, thought MM, as she stood next to YoYo at the beginning of Breite Street the next day. Actually, the taxi should already have arrived. YoYo had ordered it by cell phone ten minutes ago.

“On Fridays it can take some time,” YoYo said, as if he had never traveled any other way than by taxi.

Maybe they don’t respond to calls from children, because they assume it was a prank call, MM thought. Even if someone does come, they’ll probably drive off at the sight of YoYo anyway ...

She again scrutinized him from head to toe. In addition to the obligatory Inspector-Hamilton beret, he was wearing a plaid velvet jacket, which perhaps fit the color of his headgear, but not his physique. The buttons in front couldn’t be closed. The trousers suffered from the same problem. YoYo, however, had solved it, more or less elegantly, with a wide leather belt. On his feet he had noble black dress shoes. The tie made him look a few years older – its mint green color, however, fit the rest of the clothes like chalk and cheese. The pampered offspring of a bigwig family – that’s what might come to mind at first glance.

YoYo kept his eyes on the road and impatiently tugged at the sleeve of his jacket.

“Just like I said!” he exclaimed suddenly, audibly relieved. The taxi was coming around the corner. He stood on his tiptoes and waved the taxi closer with a great gesture, superfluously calling “taxi!” He had probably seen it in his films.

I hope he knows what he’s doing, MM was thinking again, as the car came to a halt in front of them. The face behind the wheel seemed to consist almost exclusively of a mustache.

YoYo gallantly took her by the hand and held the back door open for her. “Please, my Lady!” Then he got in on the other side and sat down beside her.

In the rearview mirror MM could catch a glimpse of herself. Was that really her? “Lady” hit the nail pretty much on the head. At YoYo’s behest she wore her blue pinafore dress, straw hat, and the white lace gloves that her mother was so fond of, which she never would have worn voluntarily.

“Oh darling, I’m so excited that we can give your father this surprise,” YoYo said in an exaggeratedly high voice. He truly sounded as if he were in a film.

“Yes,” was the only thing she could bring herself to say. Feeling that it was part of her role, she hastily added a “darling.”

YoYo turned to the driver: “Sir, you will have noticed that silver sedan up ahead. In a moment a gentleman will get in it – the father of this lovely lady next to me, by the way.” He cleared his throat. “Lord Paddington, for those who don’t know.”

The mustache face broke into a friendly but helpless grin. The true fame of the Lord had evidently not yet dawned on him.

“Please wait until he has gotten in,” requested YoYo.

“Yes, I waiting.”

“As soon as he drives off, please follow him, but unobtrusively. This is an extremely delicate family matter. Isn’t it, honey?“

“Yes, darling,” MM managed to let out. Her heart pounded with excitement.

“We want to give my future father-in-law a surprise,” YoYo explained.

The mustache once again nodded amicably. YoYo seemed to doubt that his counterpart had understood. “Surprise, you understand?”

The mustache kept nodding.

“So, best you just follow my instructions, sir. It shall not be to your disadvantage.” To make sure that he was understood, YoYo reached into his jacket pocket and waved a few bills at the driver. That, too, could only come from a movie.

MM had not left the antiques store out of sight. “He’s coming,” she whispered to YoYo. The Boxer led the fat General to the car. With a slight bow, the Lacquered Man opened the passenger door for him.

“His Lordship,” YoYo said solemnly.

His Lordship let himself plop heavily down on the seat, and the BMW began to move. When he arrived at the bend, YoYo said: “Follow inconspicuously. And carefully, sir.”

“I understanding. Must driving careful, nothing too close!” The driver did his job perfectly.

YoYo talked on and on. Apparently he had rehearsed the story and now wanted to get it out, regardless of whether or not his audience understood. “We in fact just got engaged today, on the urgent request of my future father-in-law, the Lord, who in such matters is very conservative, if you know what I mean ...” He related something about a hunting lodge, to which the Lord was allegedly proceeding and where they wanted to surprise him with the good news.

Meanwhile, the ride went via the St. Jürgen Belt, headed toward Saint Nikolai’s church. At Treene Park they turned right onto the road toward the community gardens. MM took note of this with a ripple of unease. The community gardens had always been a bit of scary to her. Years ago the body of a young man had been found there, and she still remembered the headlines: “No leads in the sneaker murder case.” The strange name had to do with the fact that the corpse was wearing only one sneaker. A red one. She remembered it as if it were yesterday. For many nights MM couldn’t sleep. Since then she had only been there two or three times, when the Deano had invited her parents to his little weekend home where he used to celebrate barbecue parties with his artist friends.

The BMW continued to the community gardens. What business did these guys have there? Was the fat General a leisure gardener? Hard to imagine. MM looked over to YoYo. He also seemed to be a bit confused. In any case, his flow of words had stalled strikingly.

The car in front of them in fact turned into the parking lot in front of the gardens. The taxi driver didn’t seem to notice that the Paddington family’s hunting lodge turned out to be somewhat less glamorous than in YoYo’s story. To avoid attracting attention, YoYo made him continue for a bit, make a U-turn a little further down the road, and then stop on the opposite side. From here, the parking lot was clearly visible. The BMW had stopped directly in front of the gate with the inscription “Sunset Community Gardens Association.” They waited until everyone had gotten out and walked to the gate.

“Quickly, after them,” YoYo said to MM, reaching into his pocket and slipping a few bills into the baffled driver’s hand. “It’s okay, sir. You don’t need to wait.” He jumped out of the car.

When they came to the gate, the gentlemen had almost reached the end of the main path.

“Come on, we’ve got to hurry,” YoYo whispered – but that was easier said than done, at least for MM. Never in her life she had worn shoes with such high heels. Like a drunk, she lurched over the gravel. YoYo very stately gave her his arm, but it didn’t make her feel much safer.

Fortunately, the General was fairly slow on his crutches, so they had almost caught up with the three of them after a short time.

“Let’s keep distance,” YoYo whispered. As if to confirm, the Boxer turned around and eyed them suspiciously. The sight of the lovely couple, though, seemed to soothe him. The group went on and turned into a side path. MM and YoYo followed at a safe distance.

Apparently they had reached their destination. The Lacquered Man fumbled around with a little gate, and soon the three had disappeared onto the piece of land behind it. The garden seemed somewhat run down. The house, too, looked anything but well maintained. As YoYo and MM reached the little door, the men had already disappeared inside the shack.

“That’s enough for now!” YoYo whispered. “We’re too conspicuous to observe them now.” He took a camera from the jacket pocket. “Stand in front of the entrance!” He began to take pictures of MM. “For camouflage,” he said with an air of importance, “in case they’re watching us. I’ve put it on wide-angle, so the whole hut is in the picture.”

On the way back he took out a pen and a notebook from his pocket and sketched a map. “For our next visit.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Pouch

What a day, MM thought as she plopped down on her bed that night. Her feet felt like they were smashed and her knees were burning. Although she felt bone-tired, she was wide awake. Actually, she had only gone to bed because she had promised her parents to always go to bed “on time” in their absence. At that very moment Tati and Mom had to be somewhere over the Atlantic, as their plane was scheduled to land in Mexico City early in the morning. Would the two of them enjoy their trip?

Tati’s enthusiasm had been kept within reasonable limits. He couldn’t imagine a whole week without working on Giant Blue, especially now that everything had to be rebuilt. He had actually accepted the invitation as a guest lecturer before the International Computer Congress only for Mom’s sake, who wanted to “relax properly” at the expense of the computer company that was organizing the whole thing.

“The Acapulco is one of the absolute top hotels,” Mom had raved. “I’m so excited about the Ayurveda massages. You’ll see, they’ll do you good, Robert!”

MM had to grin. Tati in a massage room! It was her feet, however, that were in need of a good massage. Never again would she wear high-heeled shoes, that much was clear. What a crazy action YoYo had figured out! It was really a miracle that everything had gone so well. Almost everything. Thinking of her journey home from the community gardens made her groan involuntarily.

When they tried to call a taxi for the return trip, YoYo had found out that he had just 3.50 euros left in his pocket. He had obviously been too generous on the way out. The 60 cents that she herself managed to scrape together didn’t change the fact that their only choice left was to take the bus. But out there, of course, there was no bus, and she therefore had the dubious pleasure of wobbling along the road in her high heels for two miles to the nearest bus stop. After half a mile she fell into the roadside ditch for the first time, together with YoYo, who wanted to catch her elegantly. After that, neither one looked so lordly any longer. She pulled off her shoes and continued barefoot.

They must have looked rather wrecked when they arrived home: she with whipped knees, limping barefoot and leaning onto YoYo’s shoulder, he with a crimson face, crooked beret, and a shirt soaked with sweat. In his left hand he was waving MM’s shoes. That was exactly how they had bumped into Mom, who was just coming out of the door with her yellow travel bag. For some reason, her parents’ departure had been delayed.

Mom’s glance was one single, agonized question mark. Luckily, YoYo took over the conversation. “Lady Marienhoff, I have allowed myself to take your daughter out. I am sure you would have joyfully given your consent if I had had the opportunity to request it.” He very gracefully held out his hand in greeting, which she ignored.

Luckily, at the same moment Tati came out of the house. He had Mom’s heavy suitcase in one hand, his briefcase in the other, and on his lips the sigh, “Hopefully we’ll make it!” He looked at MM with a mixture of astonishment and amusement, and was still struggling for words when the taxi turned around the corner. The first thing MM saw was the mustache behind the wheel. She would have liked to crawl into a mouse hole – even more so when the mustache got out, walked up to YoYo and shook his hands with great cordiality. “Goodden evening, Mr. Paddington.”

YoYo just made a gracious gesture, without further elaborating on the greeting. In his enthusiasm, the poor man instantly darted over to Tati and Mom and shook their hands emotionally, congratulating them vehemently on the “Engrangement” of Lady Paddington, who at that moment would have beamed herself to Mars without batting an eyelash, if she’d had one wish.

Luckily, her parents seemed to interpret the taxi driver’s exuberance as a particularly warm gesture of welcome from a newcomer still deeply rooted in the customs of his native country. They didn’t, in any case, seem to pay heed to his words.

MM felt a thousand pounds lighter when the taxi finally drove off.

Later on, Mom had called her from the airport and given her a talking-to. “Do you really find it normal to come home in the evening in an outfit like that from who knows where, closely entwined with a boy that looks like a clown playing a clown? Don’t you think thirteen is a little too young for going out with boys?”

She would calm down again. The good thing about Mom was that her anger usually dissipated as quickly as it came.

MM looked at the time. Almost one. She decided to count sheep and pulled the blanket over her ears. She had barely arrived at the tenth when her thoughts were already back on the events of the day. What were these guys up to in the community gardens? Surely they were not planting radishes. Maybe they met to play cards or drink? In any case, the rickety shack really didn’t look like a high-tech mafia hideout. Perhaps they were on the completely wrong track and had crept behind some people who weren’t exactly nice, but weren’t necessarily criminals for that matter, either. After all, the police had checked them out, and apparently hadn’t found anything suspicious.

Their pooch, in any case, was clearly not an attack dog. Perhaps Simon had been wrong after all? “Alina” and “Bagheera” did indeed sound confusingly similar. Luckily, Tati had taken it all in stride. “Everyone makes mistakes, it could’ve been worse. I can’t distinguish a dog from a cat either.” The Deano had also been really nice about it. He even called her up afterward: “I’m nevertheless grateful that you informed me immediately. Better one false alarm than having the whole shack up in flames. Cheer up, the police can stand a couple of overtime hours.”

Maybe everything would clear up soon. YoYo was determined to raise a “first-class observation” and take a closer look at the shack in the gardens.

Out of the blue, the story of the sneaker corpse came to her mind. She could feel herself getting goose bumps. Now don’t panic, she told herself, and managed to calm down. She pulled the blanket further over her head and turned around.

She must have dozed off. At first she thought that the strange noise had come from her dream. In it, YoYo had plucked the taxi driver’s mustache, making it squeak funnily. She turned around again and snuggled into her pillow. Then it hit her: She knew where the noise had come from. The cellar door. Tati had wanted to lubricate its hinges for two years, but never got around to it.

She bolted upright. Her eyes roamed to the alarm. 3:30 am. She couldn’t think straight. With bated breath she listened to the silence. No, nothing. Absolutely nothing, only the pounding of her heart. Could it have been a breeze? The ketchup bottle, of course! She had been in the cellar to fetch a bottle of ketchup. And she must have left the door open. The turmoil in her head subsided slowly. After a while, her heart also came to rest again. She could finally lie down.

She was still busy trying to find the most comfortable position for her aching feet, when she saw a beam of light flashing under her door. This time she didn’t even dare sit up. Instinctively she closed her eyes, as if doing so would make the threat disappear. When she opened them again, the glow of light was gone. Her thoughts were racing. The light could only have come from a flashlight. And the one who had scurried with it past her door had to be in Tati’s room now. She wanted to scream, but she knew that it was the worst thing she could do now. No, just make no noise. Very carefully, she felt for her cell phone.

Who should she call? The Satoris, their neighbors? Her friends? Her hand clutched the phone. From Tati’s office, quiet footsteps could now be heard. Without thinking any longer, she pressed the emergency button. As quietly as she could, she whispered into the phone. “There’s a burglar in the house.”

It must have sounded so convincing that the officer at the other end of the line immediately asked for her street and house number. “Are you home alone?” Thank God, she seemed to take it seriously. MM hastily reported about the squeaky door and the glow of light. “I’ll send over a patrol car immediately. Stay in your bed until the officers are with you! Behave calmly! They can open the door from the outside if need be.”

The minutes felt like hours. She lay motionlessly in her bed and listened to the noises from Tati’s room, and at the same time waited for the sound of the patrol car to come through the open window. When would they finally arrive?

After an eternity, she thought she heard a car pull up. Then there were voices coming up from the hallway. Again and again she heard the word “police.” She did as she had been told by the woman on the phone and stayed in bed until the door opened and two police officers, both with their guns and flashlights pulled out, stood in front of her. She immediately recognized one of them: Maier.

“There, in Dad’s room!” She pointed over to Tati’s office.

When the policemen came back shortly after, she could immediately tell by their faces: No burglar.

“But I’m sure!”

Maier didn’t answer, but spoke into his walkie-talkie: “Top floor is clear, what about the situation down there?” Apparently there were other officers in the house.

“Ground floor and basement clear!” a voice croaked back. “No traces, nothing unusual.”

Maier still didn’t say anything, but his silence spoke volumes.

“You’ve been obsessing over something, haven’t you?” said the other officer. “You really don’t need to worry, there’s nobody in the house, guaranteed.” With that, they were gone. MM was still sitting in her bed, unable to think rationally. It wasn’t possible that all of that was just a dream!

Through the window she heard Maier’s voice on the street below. “The children are probably reading too many detective stories. First this attack dog story, and now an imagined intruder. As for me, I’ve had enough of this bunch. If I’m woken up in the middle of the night one more time because of some hysterical brat ...”

W“Hysterical brat, did he really say that?” YoYo asked indignantly as the friends were sitting in MM’s room the next morning. After her message, they had unceremoniously decided to sacrifice the first lesson with Lord Siegwart for a briefing. However, Simon and Mandy were slow in coming. Mia chewed on her lip nervously. “She must still be brushing on her war paint,” she snapped.

At that moment the doorbell rang. “Come all of you down in the garden!” Simon yelled up to them.

“There really was a burger here,” he said when everyone had gathered around him and Mandy. They were in front of the basement window at the back of the house.

“A burglar?”

“Yes. Burglar. The window is closed, but there are traces.” He pointed to a bent bud on one of the bushes. “And here are foodprints –”

“Footprints.”

“– in the flower mattress –”

“The flower bed.”

“The only question is,” YoYo said seriously as they gathered again in MM’s room, “what was the burglar, or the burglars, looking for?”

“Perhaps they were perfectly ordinary thieves who were after jewelry,” said Bo.

“And this, of all places, in MM’s father’s study?” YoYo grabbed his beret. “My nose tells me that it has something to do with Giant Blue.”

MM suddenly remembered what Tati had said on the phone to his brother: “That’s why I’m keeping the most important data on me at all times now.”

“It’s about the mystery of those XXI chips!” she shouted excitedly. “Tati always carries the most important data with him now. He said he thinks it’s safest that way.”

“And they’re in Mexico now,” said Mia.

It seemed rather unlikely that he had carried all that stuff with him on his journey, MM thought. It had to be an enormous amount of data that certainly took up several CDs or even an entire hard disk. “Surely he left the stuff here,” she said.

“And now it’s the burglar who has it,” YoYo muttered darkly.

Or Tati hid it well, thought MM. Suddenly she knew where she had to look. Without a word, she jumped up and ran into Tati’s room. She straightway opened the green closet. Here it was where all of the clothes that Mom brought him would end up, neatly stacked. Surrounded by her friends, she purposefully worked her way through the shirt piles. She didn’t have to search for long. She soon pulled out a pouch made of red imitation leather, marked When it comes to money – Savings Bank. She opened the zipper: six CDs, all of them labeled “XXI” in Tati’s handwriting. There it was, the secret of the superchips.

“Close shave,” Bo beamed and gave Simon a high five. “Too many clothes for the burglar.”

Only YoYo seemed to not be affected by the general joy. His face was thoughtful. “One thing is clear: The burglar must have known that Tati had taken the data home. Only, who told him?” After a short pause, he answered his own question. “Niko. Presumably your father made him privy to it.” He shot a glance at MM, as if to apologize, and continued. “Gentlemen, we will need to take a closer look at Niko once more. But anyway, this much is clear: The CDs are not safe in this house.”

And neither am I, thought MM. She would have to sleep at the Satoris’ house until her parents returned. That was actually what the Satoris had wanted all along, as was clear from how they had assailed Mom and Tati: “A 13-year-old alone in an empty house! And who’s going to cook for the little chicklet? No, no, she better come live with Mom and Dad Satori!” She had politely declined; the Satoris were somewhat too caring for her taste.

“Only, where should we put the pouch?” asked MM.

They were quick to agree that there was one thing they wouldn’t do: bring it to the police. “I have no interest in crossing paths with either Maier or Hoffmann,” Bo said. The others couldn’t agree more.

“Why don’t we bring the whole thing to the Deano?” Mia suggested. MM, however, strongly objected. After all, the Deano was something like Tati’s boss, and who knew if Tati hadn’t violated some rule by taking official documents home?

“Okay, until your father is back, we’ll take the pouch into custody,” YoYo decided.

After a long, fruitless discussion about the best hiding place, Simon said: “At my home in the garden, where the animals are, in the shed with the feed, down under the hay, nobody can find it there. And to be on the safe side, Mandy can set up her tent right in front of the shed.”

“I see, so Mandy has been spending the night in the garden with you?” Mia cut in sharply.

When the weather was fine, Simon would always sleep in his “tree camp” in the old apple tree in the garden. It was a simple platform cobbled together from wooden planks, with a low parapet of boards around it.

“Yes, Mandy now also sleeps outside in her tent. She helps me with Kutschulu, the little sparrow. It needs to be fed as well at night –”

“Simon didn’t want me to help him in the beginning,” she interrupted him, grinning. “He believes he’s the only one who has a special touch with the animals –”

She didn’t get any further. Mia stood up and slammed her fists on Mandy. “Why don’t you just go lie with Simon in the hay, then the CDs would be even safer!” With that she ran to the door. She turned back once again to Simon, tears in her eyes. “You don’t even notice that she has a crush on you!” She slammed the door with a loud bang.

CHAPTER NINE

The Rubber Ducky

“Just don’t get caught!” Simon gave Bo a friendly poke in the ribs.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” MM said and smiled at him. The red headband brought out her shining ocean eyes.

“It’ll work out all right ...” Bo meant to sound casual, but he could hear the tremor in his own voice.

“Relax, we’re professionally prepared,” YoYo said.

He didn’t find YoYo’s cockiness very helpful at the moment.

They were standing in front of the gate with the sign reading “Sunset Community Gardens Association.” YoYo’s “professional preparation” consisted of earplugs in their ears and the mini microphones on their cheeks, which were unobtrusively wired to their cell phones. For disguises, they were wearing the “community gardeners’ headgear,” as prescribed by YoYo: Bo had his father’s black flat cap, Simon had a straw hat, and MM had her red headband. Of course, they were also wearing the usual sunglasses. YoYo had taken the camouflage quite literally: He was wearing a brown mottled green camouflage uniform, in addition to which, of course, he sported the Hamilton cap. He looked as crazy as all get-out.

Apart from such details, “Operation Dawn,” as YoYo had christened it, really was perfectly prepared. The day before, Bo and MM had explored the terrain in detail and selected the hiding place from which Bo was to observe the suspicious shack: a small bamboo scrub on the corner, only a few steps from the front door.

According to the operational plan, Bo’s friends – with the exception of YoYo, who, of course, held the leadership of the operation (“I’ll coordinate you,” he had said) – were responsible for “active defense,” i.e., they should be on the lookout.

Mandy was the only one who didn’t come onto the garden grounds; her post was at a little table in front of the ice cream parlor on Breite Street, directly across from the antiques shop. She was again dressed as an American tourist. Her task was to report the departure of the three suspects via cell phone, using the code phrase “The sun is rising.” So far the guys had driven off in their BMW every day at the same time after closing, but YoYo didn’t want to leave anything to chance. MM was responsible for monitoring their arrival in the allotments. To this end, she was supposed to inconspicuously pick flowers on the slope in front of the parking lot. Simon, the climbing specialist, would keep an eye on the entire site from the big maple tree. For that purpose YoYo had procured for him what he called a “professional remote viewing device,” a special high-end telescope that he had borrowed from a hunting business. He had told the saleswoman a story about some lord who was allegedly dwelling at castle Wolfgangshausen over the weekend to hunt foxes (“My great-uncle, Lord Kensington, you certainly know him from the tabloids ...”) He had twisted the saleswoman around his finger in such a way that he didn’t even need to leave a deposit. “A velvet jacket and a tie are a guarantee for seriousness,” he told his friends. YoYo, the natural-born impostor.

Mia was not one of the party. “As long as this Yankee bitch is taking part, you can do without me,” she snapped at Bo. None of them were shedding a tear over her, only Mandy was seriously crestfallen: “I know that I’m the reason she doesn’t want to participate. I find her very nice, actually.”

“That’s a good way to put it.” Bo couldn’t resist the comment.

“No, I really like her ... She doesn’t hide her heart.”

Bo didn’t think it would hurt if his sister occasionally hid a bit of her heart. But now they had other priorities. He let his gaze wander over the gardens. As was becoming of a true community garden on a Friday night, there was a lot of hacking, mowing, digging, planting and harvesting going on everywhere. A Turkish family was having a picnic; the scent of barbecue was in the air.

The smell had obviously reached YoYo’s nose. “Hmm, I wouldn’t refuse just a little piece of something from the barbecue,” he said. Then a jolt went through his body. “I mean, if I weren’t bound by my vow.” He kept looking longingly over to the Turkish family. “Skewers ...” he muttered.

At the same moment, Bo heard the ringing in his earbuds and Mandy’s voice blurting out: “The sun is rising!” Her voice was so loud that Bo thought even the Turkish family must have heard it.

His heart began to pound. “Operation Dawn” had begun.

“Everyone to their posts!” ordered YoYo.

Actually, one couldn’t really imagine a better hiding place, thought Bo as he established himself in the bamboo thicket. From the outside it was as impenetrable as a wall, yet from the inside he could still see through the bamboo shoots. Really, not much could go wrong.

“You getting cozy over there?” Simon’s voice said in his earbuds.

“Yes. And you?“

“Yep, I’m good on my top!”

Bo pushed a few bamboo branches aside and looked over to the maple tree. “Great, you’re really invisible! Make sure YoYo doesn’t desert us for the skewers!”

“Very funny, you know I’m not allowed,” came from YoYo.

They waited impatiently as the next few minutes crawled by. Finally, MM’s voice came out of the headphones: “They’re coming! Their car’s just turning into the parking lot ... Now it’s stopping ... They’re getting out ...”

“All three of them? Over!” said YoYo. He’d probably heard this “over” thing on TV.

“Yes, all three, they’re now on the way to their shack!”

At the same moment Bo saw them appear. The Lacquered Man turned around, checking all sides again and again. The Boxer had the lap dog on its leash. Alina! Bo’s heart stumbled. He hadn’t thought of that at all! What use was it to be invisible, if he could be smelled? Could the lap dog smell at all? The thoughts were racing in his head. The Boxer’s voice could be clearly discerned now; he must have just made one of his jokes, as his nasty “hahaha” could be heard. But Bo’s eyes and ears were attuned completely to the lap dog. It had its nose in the air and began to yelp and tug on the leash, as if it were struggling for life. Bo ducked deeper into the thicket. As if that would do him any good. Should he start running? With a bit of luck, he could still escape ...

“Don’t drag so much! Stupid mutt!” The Boxer pulled the pooch roughly by the leash and kicked it, making it yelp.

“That barking is ticking me off,” snorted the General.

Immediately, the Boxer grabbed the animal and took it on his arm. It continued to look angrily over to Bo’s bush and sniffed frantically with its nose. At least it didn’t dare to bark any more. It only gave a muffled growl.

They had arrived at the door. If only they would just quickly disappear into the house with their pooch! But strange – instead of unlocking the door, the Boxer was busying himself with the wall next to it. He pulled a brick out of the wall that had apparently been loose. Had they perhaps hidden the key there? Apparently not, because the Boxer stopped in front of the opening in the wall. He stood motionless for a while and seemed to be thinking.

“Did you forget the code again?” the General hissed angrily. “How many times has this happened?”

“I’m sorry, General,” said the Boxer. He ducked slightly, as if he expected to get hit.

“8713,” growled the General, “and hopefully next time you’ll keep it in your brain! Complete idiot!”

In the spot where the stone had been, Bo could make out a silver-gray keyboard that the Boxer was working on. As if by magic, the door suddenly started to open very slowly. Bo could hardly believe his eyes. This hovel of a weekend house was apparently equipped with the latest technology. From the outside, one wouldn’t have even believed there’d ever been electricity in there.

With a soft click, the door fell back into the lock.

Bo gave a gasp of relief. At least the danger of the pooch had been averted. He looked at the wall next to the door. Everything looked like it had before.

“The guys are inside now,” he whispered into his microphone.

“Try to get to the window! Over!”

“On my way!”

A moment later he crouched under the open window at the rear of the shack. From inside, an indistinct murmur could be heard, but suddenly fell silent. Bo perked up, but the murmur didn’t resume. What in the world were these guys doing? He waited. Still no sound. The house seemed deserted.

Strange. Bo got up the courage and slowly stood up enough to peek cautiously through the window. It was a small room – a table, a few chairs, a small kitchenette with a red fridge that said Coca-Cola, and a half-opened door leading to the pantry. Just as he had encountered it the day before on his exploration tour with MM.

“Do you see anything? Over!”

“Nothing. The place is completely empty. Nobody in sight.”

“They can’t have vanished into thin air! Over!”

But he had no time for an answer.

“Attention, Niko is on the site!” Simon’s voice came through his earpiece. “I saw his bike! The one with the rubber ducky!”

“Abort mission immediately!” came YoYo’s command an instant later. “Inconspicuous retreat, everyone fall back, one by one! Meeting point at MM’s house! Over!”

“At least now we know that he’s in cahoots with them,” YoYo said.

They were sitting on the rug in MM’s room, still hot and out of breath from the hasty retreat.

“Your sweet Niko,” Bo couldn’t restrain himself, and regretted the comment immediately.

MM said nothing, but shook her head in disappointment.

“Actually, we should inform the police at once,” Bo said.

“So that they can laugh at us again?” MM interrupted him.

“Aha, my dear little children,” YoYo imitated Maier’s nasal voice, “so you’ve seen a bike with a rubber ducky? And the ducky has scared you? Did it squeak that much?”

“It’s okay, relax,” Bo said.

“I’ll give the Deano a call,” MM said without hesitation, “they won’t be able to just ignore him.”

She picked up the phone lying on the desk next to her. At the same moment the phone rang.

MM answered it.

From her expression Bo at once saw that something was wrong. Her eyes opened wide and looked around restlessly, as if searching for help.

Without thinking, he jumped up and put it on speakerphone.

The voice seemed to come from far away and sounded strangely distorted. “… and woe to you if one of you shows up there again. You’re crazy to mess with this! One more time, and you’re sunk. I will pretend not have seen you this time, but this is my last warning!” An ominous pause. Then the voice came again. “I’m not joking! And pass this to your friends, too. Got it?”

“Got it,” stammered MM.

The speaker crackled. The caller had hung up. MM was pale and trembling all over.

CHAPTER TEN

The Funeral

Bo closed the door behind him and flopped down on his rug beside the 2000-piece puzzle of New York. Phew, that had just gone well!

“Where in the world have you been?” his mom met him at the door; he had arrived home just after 10:00 pm. Judging by her tone, alert level one had been sounded.

With the courage of the clueless he said, “Oh Mom, we were at McDonald’s again, you know, this vig... –” He saw in her facial expression that he had bet on the wrong horse. “...il,” he nevertheless finished enunciating. Alert level three.

“And where were you at nine? In any case, I didn’t see a single one of you in front of McDonald’s.”

Bo’s heart sank into his boots.

“I wanted to bring you some whole-grain green spelt crackers –” She took a deep breath. “– but there were only two young people distributing leaflets: ‘Mega Deal of the Week, two giant burgers for the price of one, plus a free 64 oz. cola.’ Mom shook in disgust. “I thought the vigil always goes on until ten?” she persisted.

Bo threw a quick look at Mia, but realized at once that she hadn’t the slightest desire to come to his aide with her inexhaustible wealth of excuses. On the contrary, she seemed to be enjoying the spectacle.

“Yes, but we had to abandon the demonstration today prematurely, YoYo had a dizzy spell.” Bo didn’t know himself how he had thought that one up. Necessity was apparently truly the mother of invention.

“What do you mean, dizzy spell?” Mom asked, suddenly very worried.

“He said that he couldn’t stand the smell any more, since he stopped eating fast food because of this drug project. We all took him home together, he wanted it that way, I think he was afraid he might relapse, otherwise.”

In Mom’s face the anger gave way to pity. “Poor YoYo! I would have been happy if you brought him here! He sure is fond of green spelt crackers, and I also have a delicious buttermilk dill sauce for dipping.”

“Yes, sure, definitely next time …” He caught a disappointed look from Mia.

Bo got down to the light blue puzzle pieces. He didn’t really have the heart for it, but it was still better than doing homework. He could still get it done tomorrow before school. First of all, he sorted out all the parts belonging to the sky. Of these, unfortunately, there were a few hundred.

Of course, it was good that they’d buried the case. After the mysterious call, it would have been absolutely insane if they still continued. Once again he saw MM as she said trembling: “I can’t go on any longer!”

Niko – could the caller really have been Niko? He had not noticed the rolling r’s that MM had picked out. Simon, too, was sure that the caller had rolled his r’s. But basically it didn’t matter who the caller was, because this much was clear: The thing was out of their league. He thought of his parents. If they knew what he had gotten into again ...

YoYo was the only one who wanted to go on, at any rate. “A good inspector never gives up. Never, ever! Especially now that we have a hot trail? The access code to their hut? You can bet they’ve hidden Giant Blue there!”

But his enthusiasm wasn’t contagious.

Nevertheless, he insisted on a “formal decision procedure for terminating the investigation activities in the case of the missing supercomputer.” At the end of the vote, he took his cap reverently in his hands and stroked it tenderly. “I hereby declare our second case” – he swallowed – “buried.” He actually made a small sign of a cross with his hand, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

Of course, Bo also was sorry. Damn sorry. But after all, they didn’t have any other choice. They had told the Deano everything and the rest was now up to the police. The only thing they hadn’t mentioned was the pouch. It was now safe at Simon’s house until MM’s father returned. Tati could then decide for himself whether his boss should know about it.

The Deano had been completely shocked when MM told him on the phone about their discoveries in the community gardens and the mysterious call. He had spoken very sternly with her: “Mariekje, listen to me carefully. You need to take this warning seriously! You’ve got to leave everything to the police! This is no longer a game. If you want, I’ll call your father and tell him that he should come back immediately!” MM declined, either way he’d be home the day after tomorrow.

Bo had collected all the puzzle pieces belonging to the water in a large pile. He began with the edge. Outside, Mom’s worried voice was to be heard. “But what’s the matter with you anyway?”

“Nothing,” came Mia’s defiant answer.

That’s the way it had been for days now. Mia bullied the whole family with her bad temper. On her door hung a sign with a picture of a bomb and the words: “DO NOT DISTURB, OR ELSE!” When she wasn’t on the phone with Melanie, she was on the computer in her favorite chat where she was probably pouring her heart out to the entire world. Now and then she showed up with teary eyes.

Once, when Bo wanted to be nice and told her about the status of their investigation in the gardens, she got snotty at once: “Do you think that still interests me?” She demonstratively took the hand mirror from her purse and began to check her make-up. Only the strange code number made her perk for a moment. “8713! Wow, that’s what the new perfume from Antonioni is called!” Then her face clouded over again. “I don’t want to take part in your kindergarten games anyway, why should I bother with such knick-knacks?”

Knick-knacks? That was not Mia’s expression. A strange feeling crept up in Bo. “Knick-knacks? Where’d you get that from?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“Did you tell anyone about our gang?”

“Nonsense, what gives you that idea?” she yelled at him and ran out of the room. The bang of the door felt like a small earthquake.

Somehow, he felt a bit sorry for her. She was just a little more sensitive than the rest of the world. Even as a small child she would work herself into horrendous tantrums, and once she started, there was no turning back. How often she had packed her suitcase over some small dispute, in order to “go out into the wide world!” Once – she had been no more than six years old – she actually didn’t come back home. The police picked her up a few hours later at the train station, where she was about to empty her pink piggy bank to buy a ticket to Berlin. If Mia did something, she would do it whole-heartedly. As much as she’d loved Simon, she’d now thoroughly – in her words – “banished him” from her heart. Bo surprised her as she snipped her most beloved stuffed animal into pieces, the guinea pig, which she had christened “Sisi” and kept in bed with her every night. He wanted to comfort her and told her that Simon really didn’t want anything out of Mandy, and Mandy as little of Simon. But she just freaked out even more.

“You just don’t get anything! Even a blind person could see that she’s crazy about him! And he does everything for her! He took her to Wolf’s Farm last weekend! He’s never taken me there!” She sobbed uncontrollably. “He showed her all of his cute animals there!”

Bo had to grin. All the cute animals there ... He thought of Shah. Apparently, she had really no idea what it was all about.

“Why are you grinning so obnoxiously?” she asked sulkily. Once again she was about to snap. To avert disaster, he told her the whole story of Shah.

When Simon was eight or nine years old, his family once visited an old friend of his father’s in France, in the wild mountains of the Pyrenees. Bertrand was an old country doctor who still got to his patients on horseback. A large pack of wolves had settled in the region, and one of the male wolves had apparently one night impregnated Leila, Bertrand’s shepherd dog. When Simon was there, her three puppies were just six weeks old. They were sweet as sugar, but Bertrand had a problem. According to a new regulation of the Environmental Agency, crossbreeds of dogs and wolves had to be locked away in order to keep the wolf population pure. “For life into the shelter,” Bertrand said in exasperation, “without me!” He wanted to put the puppies someplace, where, as he said, they could lead a “humane life.” He’d already found a home for the two females with some patients of his who lived in remote valleys, but no one wanted the male. “Well, old buddy, what do you think? In your country there are no wolves, so no wolf authority either, right?”

That’s how they’d come by Shah. When he was still little, he would sleep at the foot of Simon’s bed. He recognized Simon as his master from the beginning and continued to do so, even after he’d grown to an alarming size and was no longer a cute puppy, but a real wolf. When the Böttcher family went to America, they boarded Shah in the farmstead where Simon always went riding. The farm was run by a nice elderly couple. They didn’t have children, but they treated Simon almost as their own son. He always called them Aunt Elswig and Uncle Wilhelm.

Since Shah lived there in his kennel behind the barn, the farm was called Wolf’s Farm, although no one, besides the two elders, knew (nor would anyone find out that Shah was indeed half wolf. For safety reasons, he always wore a muzzle when he left the kennel, a practice that began after he came within a hair of massacring a German shepherd. Despite everyone’s apprehensions, Shah once again accepted Simon as his master upon his return from America, and still obeyed his every word.

Bo was tired of the light blue puzzle pieces that all looked the same, and he got to work on the skyscrapers of the skyline. Outside, the drama with Mia continued. As always, it ended with what Dad had come to call the “Big Bang” – a slammed door.

Shortly afterward there was a knock. He had already guessed: Mom.

With a worried expression she sat down in his desk chair. “I just don’t know how to deal with Mia,” she said in a tired voice. “Maybe you know what’s wrong with her? Did something happen?”

Bo told her about Mandy.

Mom seemed somewhat relieved. “Maybe it’s not so bad that she finally gets away from Simon. That was almost pathological ... Although girls do have it a bit harder than boys, after all.”

Bo wondered how she’d gotten to this topic, but didn’t say anything.

“And all day long she sits at her computer. I don’t like it.” She shook her head reluctantly. “I was against it from the beginning, but Grandma Biene absolutely had to give her such a machine. Do you know what she’s doing on it? Don’t tell me it’s some games! Or is she on Facebook?”

Bo knew very well what she was up to. For a few weeks she’d been hanging around a fairly stupid chat site that her friend Melanie discovered. But it would be better if he didn’t tell Mom about it; she would only get even more worried. Like all adults, she was convinced that chat rooms were teeming with men who wanted to make a pass at children.

“Don’t know, maybe emails ...”

“And then the thing with this top that she supposedly bought. Where in the world did she get the money?”

“You think she stole it?”

“No, but she won’t talk about it. I can hardly reach her, she is so cold to me.” Mom gazed worriedly off into space. She sighed.

Bo sighed, too, although it was barely audible. What a day. The phone call. Mia’s craziness. It was all just too much.

“Mom ...”

No. He had promised to keep the secret.

“Yes, Bo?”

“Oh, nothing ... I’m going to bed.”

He lay awake for a long time.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Shadows in the Moonlight

What a strange dream! A skyscraper, a fire extinguisher, and Mandy, smoking a cigarette. Marlboro. And something with a quacking bird. A duck, Simon thought as he slowly emerged from sleep. Nothing else was left of the dream. Only the feeling was still there, something dark and threatening. He rolled over to the other side – and bumped his knee against something hard. The bow! He had taken it up to his tree camp because he wanted to tighten the string, but then had forgotten.

He pushed the bow further into the corner and sat up. Through the branches of the apple tree the moon was shining. It was a full moon, no wonder he had woken up.

Suddenly, the quacking again. This time it was definitely not a dream. Emma! Why was she awake in the middle of the night? Usually she slept as though she were under general anesthesia. Although she had always been somewhat certifiable – she did grow up without parents or siblings. The mother had cast away her brood and instead mothered a colorful toy tractor left behind by a child. A hiker had found the duckling just in time. Her siblings had already starved.

He looked over at Emma. Strangely, she swam in the middle of her pond. She was quacking again. Something scared her.

Suddenly he smelled it. A slight hint of cigarette smoke. He sniffed the air to check again. Hardly perceivable, but unmistakable.

There are people who slit animals’ throats at night, he thought. Nala! Where was Nala? He spotted the fawn in the back of the meadow. It sniffed the air uneasily, its ears perked up.

Simon cautiously peered through the gaps in the canopy, checking each side. Nothing. From which direction was the wind blowing? A glance at the crinkled surface of the pond told him: from the development area on the other side.

He didn’t need to search for long. In front of a new construction site with funny triangular balconies was a car. It was shining silver gray in the moonlight. A BMW. The General’s car! The window on the driver’s side was down. He could dimly see a figure. Right where the face must have been, a glow was flashing again and again. Simon strained his eyes. Right! Binoculars, the lenses of which reflected the moon momentarily.

Simon’s first reaction was relief. His animals were not in danger. But then, it hit him: the pouch in the shed! They were after it! Only – how in the world did they know it was here?

At that moment, the driver’s door opened. Even at first glance Simon recognized the Lacquered Man. The Boxer got out on the other side. The two looked searchingly in all directions, and then they started to move toward the garden.

At the fence they stopped for a moment. The Boxer had something in his hands that he was busying himself with on the wire mesh. A pair of pliers, most likely. It took less than half a minute for them to get to the meadow. Simon ducked involuntarily, even though he knew they couldn’t see him through the leaves. They came straight toward him.

Again, Emma started quacking.

“Damn bird, I’d like to wring its neck!” Even while whispering, the Boxer’s raspy voice sounded unpleasant. The two of them must have been standing right underneath him. “Roast duck ... Hahaha!”

When he stretched himself a little, he could see their shadows in the moonlight. His mind was working feverishly. How could he possibly secure the pouch? The way to the shed was cut off. He now had no choice but to stay as quiet as a mouse.

Suddenly there was music coming up to Simon from afar. Traditional German folk songs. So it was 3:30 am, the time for Kutschulu’s second feeding. Mandy always set the clock radio in her tent to that retiree’s channel where they played folk music around the clock. She thought it was “typical German music,” and was totally keen on it.

“What’s that?” drifted up to Simon. “Seems like it’s coming from back there, out of the tent next to the shed.”

“Are they having a party or what? Hahaha!”

“Shut your mouth and be quiet!”

Simon saw Mandy crawl out of the tent. The shadows of the men disappeared abruptly. They were probably taking cover behind the currant brushes.

“What the hell is that?”

Yes, the whispering was coming from the currants.

“A guy in a tent, no one told us about that, is he supposed to be on guard?”

“It’s not a guy, it’s a girl. Could be the Yankee chick.“

“She looks weird ... Hahaha! With a little hair on her head she’d be a little tastier ... Hahaha!”

Mandy stretched and went to Kutschulu’s cage.

“Eh? What the hell is she doing over there?”

“Maybe she’s gotta pee? Hahaha!”

“No, she’s got something in her hand. Like she’s feeding some creature in the cage there.”

“I’ll be damned, that might take a while.”

“Just be patient, the kid’ll fall back asleep again. Better check if you have everything with you. In case the shed’s locked.”

“Sure, I’ve got everything with me, it’s not my first time doing this, right? Hahaha!”

“But could be the last time, if things go as badly as they did at the professor’s.”

“Is it my fault that the cops were suddenly at the door?”

Now there was yodeling coming from the tent, “Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen,” repeatedly drowned out by Emma’s quacking, which didn’t seem to make Mandy the least bit suspicious. She calmly fed the sparrow.

“My God, this is taking forever! Why don’t we climb up to that wonderful perch up there?”

“For duck hunting? Hahaha!”

Simon’s heart skipped a few beats.

“It’s gotta be cozier up there than down here in the dirt!”

Emma must have sensed Simon’s panic. In that moment she started putting on a real show, flapping her wings and quacking her head off.

“Just forget it, the critter’s going to freak out completely, anyway.”

Simon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That had been a near miss. But – how could things go on now? Once Mandy was back in her tent, these guys had free rein. What could he do?

Suddenly he knew.

With slow, soundless movements he finished peeling himself out of the sleeping bag. Then he let his right hand glide searchingly over the ground. Somewhere in the corner ... There it was: the bow. The big question was whether or not he’d brought the arrows up as well. He continued to grope cautiously, always along the wall. Something leathery. He carefully pulled the quiver closer. As if in slow motion he rose to his knees and turned toward the new housing development. Through the branches he saw the silver license plate of the car shining in the moonlight. His fingers felt the arrow ends. He wanted the 23/64 with the Spin-Wing fletching; at this distance it was the most reliable because it spun the fastest during flight.

He had just gotten the arrow out, when the racket from Mandy’s tent fell silent.

“She’s back in the tent,” he heard the rasping voice. “The coast’ll be clear soon!”

Emma had now calmed down, too, and there was absolute silence.

Without letting the target from his eye, he slowly pulled the arrow from the quiver and put the notch on the string. With a steady hand he adjusted the bow, pulling the string steadily closer to him. He squinted his right eye slightly. For a moment he poised in deep concentration, all his senses aimed at the target. He didn’t even notice the shadows underneath him start to move, gliding silently over the grass to the shed.

He let the arrow go. Even while the string buzzed, he knew he would hit the target. Nevertheless, he winced as the deafening howling of the alarm system shattered the silence.

A moment later he saw the two shadows scurry across the meadow frantically, scrambling past his tree and back the way they’d come. He thought he’d heard a curse, but the noise of the alarm drowned out everything.

Without a second thought, he climbed down the rope ladder and ran toward the shed. He nearly collided with Mandy, who had just leapt out of her tent. “I’ll tell you everything in a second!” he called to her and stormed into the shed. The lock was broken. He fumbled under the hay – thank God, the pouch was still there! He tucked it in the front of his trousers.

By the time he came out of the shed, the noise had stopped. In the house, a light had been switched on, and in the neighbors’ the same. He heard the roaring of the engine. The car moved away quickly.

W“Gentlemen! The question is, how did the guys know about the hiding place?”

The very fact that YoYo had opened the briefing without any ceremony showed that he was quite exasperated.

Simon was sitting on the ground with his knees to his chest, leaning back against the chestnut tree. He felt the pouch in his trousers. He would have liked to lay his head in his arms, but then he would have fallen asleep immediately. The others sat in front of him on the ping-pong table. One could tell that they’d had a long night. Simon had rung them out of the sleep just after the break-in at the garden and told them everything. YoYo immediately scheduled a briefing – in the schoolyard, half an hour before school started. No one mentioned that they’d actually decided to drop the case.

The first students arrived in the schoolyard and darted curious glances at them.

“Maybe someone overheard us? Somewhere in a conversation or a meeting?” MM said.

“Or they intercepted our phone calls?” said Bo. “If the mafia is really behind all this, then they could manage to do so.”

“They could have also installed microphones in MM’s room,” YoYo said. He didn’t sound very convinced.

After a long pause he began to speak again. “If they didn’t spy on us, there’s only one possibility: One of us told them.” He looked at Simon.

Now he knew why he wasn’t supposed to bring Mandy with him.

“There was probably no ill will intended, but perhaps he or she simply blabbed away ...”

“It was not Mandy,” Simon said quietly.

“Why are you so sure?”

“Hmm ...” He couldn’t say for sure. A feeling. It was the way she had responded, and how concerned she was, after learning that the burglars were still after MM’s father’s invention. Perhaps more important, however, was what she had told him so openly when the criminals were gone.

The first birds had already started to chirp. He had just informed his friends by phone about the events of the night, putting them into a frenzy. For him, in contrast, the tension had abruptly eased. He lit a fire, and Mandy took the place beside him.

Eventually, she began.

“I’ve yet to tell you why I cut my hair – if you want to know.”

And then she told the terrible story of her sister’s car accident. “Some idiot was not paying attention while turning left. Nothing happened to my mom, but Amy was in the hospital for months. The whole right half of the face is now a single scar.“

He didn’t know what to say. Amy. He saw her in his mind wearing riding clothes, with her radiant smile. “How is she getting along with it?” he asked and felt stupid at once. How does one get along with a disfigured face?

“Badly. Very badly. But it isn’t only because of the scars, she seems somehow to accept that. It’s the behavior of her … friends that hurts so much. Her friends, who all had idolized and worshipped her, all the guys who found her so great, and the whole damn cheerleader group. In the beginning they all came to the hospital, outrivaling each other in showing their compassion to poor, sweet Amy. But as soon as the bandages were off, they started coming less and less frequently. Now, it seems like they’ve basically forgotten about her. Of course they all feel sorry for her; they find her destiny terrible and everything. But compassion is not friendship. Now they have others with whom they can talk about make-up, clothes and boys.”

She poked around in the fire with a branch.

“It all really made me open my eyes. I don’t want to be liked just because of my appearance. I want to be liked for who I am. The way I like my sister, whether or not she has scars on her face.”

She got louder and louder.

“I’m sick of hearing them all say, ‘Oh Mandy, you with your beautiful eyes, you with your nice hair, you with your beautiful skin.’ They have no idea! What’s so great about getting all the glances that others don’t get? They can only see your surface; they don’t have any idea what you’re like on the inside. You don’t live through admiration. I don’t give a damn about it. One lives through love, friendship and loyalty, only that is real.”

She said nothing for a long time. The fire’s glow looked like a city at night from an airplane.

“And what does that have to do with your hair style and everything?”

“Oh ...” Mandy chuckled. “It’s simple. I don’t want people to like me just because I’m good looking. I want them to make the effort to get to know my heart. I can do perfectly well without the guys that run after me just because they think my hair is awesome.”

“And the lightning bolts?”

“For me they are an expression of my anger – anger that, of all people, it had to be Amy, and also a sign of my closeness to her. The flashes look a bit like her scars.”

For a while she seemed to only be paying attention to the twittering of the birds. Then she smiled at him defiantly. “Now, tell me honestly. How do you like my new outfit? You can really be honest.”

He thought for a long time.

“Hmm ... I don’t know. Sure, you were somehow prettier before. I just wonder if people now really see your inside. It’s still about the outside, only now they don’t see you as a beauty queen, but as a punk lady, or a goth, or a grunge freak ...”

He paused again. “Somehow I get the feeling that’s not you either. It seems more like you’re playing a role.”

“Maybe you’re right – I don’t know exactly who I am. Do you know who you are?”

“I haven’t been thinking about that much …”

“You guys seem to not think a lot, anyway ...” She laughed, and pushed him in the side.

The sun had long since come up.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A Traitor

“If it wasn’t Mandy who gave us away, then who was it?” YoYo plopped down on the ping-pong table and began to clean his glasses. “Gentlemen, the crucial question is still unanswered. How did the General get wind of our hiding place?”

Bo again felt the ominous feeling creep up, a feeling that had accompanied him ever since Simon had called him that morning. He had pushed it aside at first, but when Mia didn’t show up for breakfast, it became overpowering. Despite the bomb warning at her door, he had entered her room. She was sitting in bed with the laptop on her lap. She immediately closed the lid. “Perhaps you’ve figured out that I’m sick, so please leave me alone!”

“Sooo ill, I see! Healthy enough to chat, though! With whom do you actually need to talk so badly this early in the morning?”

“That’s none of your damn business!” she spat. “And you wouldn’t understand anyway, underdeveloped as you are! Now if you would please scram, brother sweetie!”

Most of all he would’ve liked to knock her over. But it was no use. He swallowed down his anger and left the room as fast as he could.

“Hello? Got some secrets again?”

Bo looked up. Kevin, the loudmouth, was standing in front of him with his nasty grin.

“And if I do? You got a problem with that?” Bo said as calmly as he could.

“Nope, I don’t. It’s so cute how much fun you have with your detective games.” With a casual gesture he pulled his brand new Cybertec Hyperphone from his pocket, which had already been the number one topic on the schoolyard yesterday, and strutted over to a girl who was smiling and waving at him. Melanie! Since when had Mia’s friend had anything to do with Kevin?

“Ass face,” MM hissed after him. The brave MM was once again full of surprises.

YoYo cleared his throat to show that there were more important things than Kevin and his cell phone. “Gentlemen! We must face the fact that someone has betrayed us.” After a short pause he added: “And one of us, no less.”

For a few long seconds no one said a word.

Bo stared at the floor. “Mia,” he said flatly, sounding just as despondent as he felt. He took a deep breath. At least it was out.

“Because she’s jealous,” MM said softly.

“Jealousy makes one blind,” YoYo said. It sounded like he was speaking from painful personal experience.

“I just don’t understand. To whom could she have revealed everything?” MM asked. “There’s no way she went to see the General in his store and tell him what we’re up to. And even if she’s told something to her friend Melanie – that would take a while to reach the criminals ...”

While MM spoke, the scene in Mia’s room went through Bo’s head. How quickly she’d flipped the laptop shut as he appeared. Suddenly he realized, as though the curtains had been drawn back before his eyes. “The chat room! For days she’s been hanging around on some chat page on the computer.”

“Chat room?! How did we not think of that before!” MM shouted so that the whole schoolyard could hear it.

Apparently she also woke up Simon. “But Mia isn’t dumb enough to give secrets to strange people –”

“Strangers, you mean?” asked MM.

“With Mia anything is possible,” Bo said. “All they’d have to do is promise her some new threads ...” He felt his anger rising up.

“Someone must have fraudulently gained her confidence,” MM said softly.

“But how?” YoYo said thoughtfully. “If someone has made a pass at her, he must have found out her alias beforehand, right?”

“Alias?” Simon asked.

“Alias – sort of a code name that you adopt in a chat,” MM explained.

Bo couldn’t stand it any longer. If she really had disclosed the secret! He was already on his way to his bike. “We’ll give her a grilling!”

“Don’t we have to go to class?” Simon asked, yawning. It was clear that the question wasn’t really meant seriously.

When they stormed into Mia’s room they found her lying in bed, curled up like a baby with the blanket pulled over her head.

“You betrayed us!” he shouted at her.

In response, she pulled the blanket further over her ears and turned to the wall. Bo was ready to pounce on her, but YoYo stopped him. “When questioning, you only get information with sensitivity. Let me take care of it,” he whispered.

“Dearest little Mia,” he began to purr, “don’t get us wrong. Nobody wants to do you any harm –”

Bo already knew that it would go wrong. If there was one thing Mia couldn’t stand, it was being treated like a little kid.

“– but maybe while chatting, something slipped out unintentionally? Or someone pretended to be a good friend of yours? Or –”

He didn’t get any further. Mia jumped up with a jerk and looked at YoYo with flashing eyes. “Cut the chatter! I’m not a little kid any more, I can chat with whomever I want! She turned to Bo. “Mind your own business, and leave me alone!”

Bo got even angrier. “To whom did you betray us? Tell us!” He could barely contain himself.

She looked at him like a maniac with wide eyes, down from which thick tears were now rolling. “When you talk of betrayal ... who here has betrayed whom? You know perfectly well!” She began to sob and turned to Simon. “I’ve given you my whole heart, and you just threw it away! And all for the sake of such a stupid cow who’s just after your looks!”

The silence that followed was only the calm before the storm.

“It’s got nothing to do with you who I chat with,” she cried. “You’ve had your chance! And what did you do? You let me fall! All for this worthless Yankee chick!”

It was futile. When she was throwing one of her tantrums, you could only let her rage. Bo went to the door. The others followed. The stubbornness! He was so enraged that he could hardly breathe. Cut and run!

But when they arrived outside at the bikes, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He ran back to Mia’s room. “Do you feel better now?” he shouted at her. “If you want, tomorrow you can explain to MM’s dad how the General and his thugs knew where to look! No one but you is responsible for the fact that his secret has fallen into the hands of the criminals!” Sure, what he was dishing up to her, was a lie. The CDs hadn’t, in fact, been stolen. But she should have a guilty conscience! Perhaps it would finally bring her to her senses.

An hour later they were all in MM’s room in front of Little Blue, staring at the screen.

“Beautygirl,” what a bonkers alias, thought Bo. But it suited Mia, as did the fact that Beautygirl pretended to be sixteen. How MM had figured out the alias was still a mystery to him, although she’d explained it patiently to everyone. In any case, it had something to do with a spying program that she’d sent to Mia’s computer.

There was little going on in the chat room. No wonder, it was the middle of the morning. From time to time Beautygirl was accosted by some stray chatters, and each time Bo’s heart skipped a beat. In vain, of course. “Do you collect Pokémon cards, too?” – “Isn’t Justin sweet?” Probably somewhere in a primary school the teacher had gone to the bathroom and left the kids alone in the computer room.

Simon had long ago laid his head on his arms with the words: “awake me then.” MM drummed her fingers impatiently on the table. Only YoYo seemed not to mind the waiting. “Stay cool, gentlemen,” he said, “investigations are often trials of patience!”

Bo thought of Mia. What was she doing now? “Wait. What would happen if Mia were to try to enter the chat room right now?”

“She wouldn’t have any luck,” MM said. “I’ve made sure that she’d be locked out. She’d get some error message, ‘invalid password’ or something like that.”

After Beautygirl had been lying in wait for a solid hour, even YoYo was starting to get impatient. Again and again he looked at the clock and wriggled around in his chair. From Simon, deep and regular breaths could be heard. Bo, too, felt the effects of the short night and could barely keep his eyes open.

“Finally!” MM’s exclamation tore him from his twilight state. “That must be him! ‘Lonesome Cowboy’ ... these guys have imaginations!”

In an instant, all of them were wide awake and hanging around the computer, eyes fixed on the letters dancing across the screen.

Hello, sweetie, how nice you’re already here!

MM hesitated a moment, then she typed, Hello, how are you?

Back came: Fine. But don’t I get a hello kiss from my sweetie today?

MM let out a sigh. She looked around for help.

“As many as you like!” YoYo whispered to her.

As many as you like! MM hammered into the keys.

Don’t you have to go to school today, my sweetie?

Your sweetie is sick from longing for you, YoYo piped up. Since I’ve known you, it’s getting worse every day!

Bo caught a rather bewildered side view of MM, who could hardly keep up with the typing.

I feel the same way, came back.

“I’m also longing for you!” YoYo got going, “and your strong arms!”

“I’m also longing for you,” flickered back.

MM began to giggle, but YoYo didn’t let himself be put off. “I think about you all the time.”

Me, too. The lonesome cowboy seemed to be a bit simple.

“You’re the only one who understands me,” dictated YoYo. He was now completely unleashed. “Without you, I don’t know what I would do.”

“Now stop the flirting, otherwise he’ll never get to the point,” MM said as she worked on the keys.

The concern was unfounded. Sweetie, let’s talk privately, was on the screen.

Once they were in the private chat room, the lone cowboy got started. Surely you’ve picked up on what was going on last night. I have to give you some details about that.

Okay, MM typed.

I hope you’re not angry with me, but I really only wanted to do this for you, my sweetie!

MM was apparently so surprised that she answered immediately: For me?

Yes, for you. Not that you think I would be somehow interested in those weird CDs anyway, what would I do with them? I would’ve brought you the whole pile anyway. But I wanted to teach this Simon a lesson because of what he did to you. My sweetie deserves better than that!

How dumb did he think Mia was, Bo wondered.

“That’s sweet of you,” dictated YoYo.

I’d do anything for you, my sweetie. And if you want, I’ll send you another gift certificate right away. I’d love to see you soon in some new clothes!

Gift certificate? So the mystery of Mia’s top was solved.

Too bad that things have gone awry. But next time it will work out for sure! This ass Simon certainly deserves a little lesson. Do you happen to know where they’ve taken the stuff?

“No, no idea,” dictated YoYo.

No, no idea, typed MM. She leaned back for a brief moment, then again pitched into the keys: But I can find out!

Bo caught a confused look from YoYo, to which MM shot back a wink. Suddenly YoYo began to beam like a child unpacking presents.

Suddenly a response appeared: That’s so nice of you, my sweetie! You know that I owe you a big wish!

“My biggest wish is to see you soon,” YoYo said, rubbing his hands.

You’re so sweet. How long will it take till you’ll find out? It’s pretty urgent! You said that this professor comes home tomorrow.

MM looked at YoYo.

“Write him that you’ll be back again tonight,” whispered YoYo. “At half past nine ...”

“You can talk aloud, he can’t hear you,” MM said with her MM smile while she worked the keys.

Okay, sweetie! See you tonight at half past nine! I’m looking forward to you! You know I love you!

“I can’t live without you,” dictated YoYo.

This was too much for MM. She was shaken by an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Luckily the lone cowboy had already logged off. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to type another word.

YoYo didn’t seem to notice MM’s panting and snorting at all. “This is our chance!” he shouted, and didn’t know what to do with his Hamilton cap any longer.

Bo hadn’t quite yet understood what chance YoYo actually meant.

“A trap! We set a trap for them!” the answer came quickly. “We just have to tell this lonely cowboy where the pouch is hidden! And you can bet your life that he’ll show up there with his buddies. We’ll find a way to receive them properly!”

Guess we’ve buried the case indeed, thought Bo. “I thought that we wanted to stay out of this?” he asked cautiously.

MM had meanwhile recovered from her attack. “True enough. But YoYo is right, of course, this is our chance! Let’s think about it first, and see whether a reasonable plan comes to light. If so, we strike, if not, we can still walk away, right?”

It sounded reasonable. Naturally, YoYo insisted on opening a highly official “retrial of investigations,” with a vote, on his request, “to adjourn until further notice the previously resolved burial of the case.”

As Bo’s hand waved approvingly in the air, the anonymous caller suddenly came to his mind. A sinking feeling spread through his stomach. But his hand was already up. As were the hands of the others.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Into the Night

Mia pulled the blanket even tighter over her head. She wanted to see nothing and hear nothing. She’d have loved nothing more than to crawl into a cave somewhere far away, where no one could find her and she would never have to get up again.

She had lost all sense of time. Every once in a while Mom came in with a tea and some orange slices and to administer her a few of her miracle globules that supposedly always helped. It was impossible for her to know that she was fighting something very different than a bit of a scratchy throat. For her disease, there were no globules.

Even if it looked as though she’d simply slept all day, in reality she’d been wide awake. Her thoughts were racing. After the shame and anger, during which she hadn’t been able to think straight, her plan had started to become crystal clear.

In the hallway, Mom and Dad could be heard getting ready for the opera. Mia had just barely been able to dissuade Mom from returning the tickets. “With a sick child at home, I couldn’t enjoy even Verdi!” But Mia convinced her that the globules had already made her as good as healthy and that all she needed now was just some sleep.

As always, Mom and Dad were late, and once again Mom didn’t know what she should wear.

“Shouldn’t I wear the green one instead?”

“Yes, honey, that suits you wonderfully.”

“Or maybe the red one?”

“Yes, dear! Absolutely!” Dad’s thoughts were again everywhere except for the matter at hand.

“But then the shoes don’t match at all!”

“Then take the one with the handles!”

What he meant by that, came out only after a lengthy discussion: the white pinafore dress that hadn’t fit Mom for years. Finally, she put on what she always wore: The mauve wrap skirt with a white blouse.

Finally, the door slammed shut.

Mia waited until the engine howled outside, and then she jumped up and dressed hurriedly. She went into Bo’s room. He hadn’t been home since the idiotic dispute this morning, not even for lunch. He’d told Mom something about his vigil, which only meant that they were up to something. How much she would have liked to join them! But she’d ousted herself. How could she have been so bonkers? She briefly considered calling Bo on the phone, but she was too ashamed; not only in front of her brother, but, above all, in front of Simon.

She went to Bo’s desk, opened the second drawer and took out the envelope with the “B” on it. “B” for Bagheera. She pulled out the map and put it in her backpack. She’d never read a map in her life, but somehow it would work.

Then she took the flashlight from the dresser in the dining room and put it in her jacket pocket. In the kitchen she took a few slices of whole grain honey cake. These few calories really didn’t matter now. She looked for a pen and wrote “8713” on a piece of paper and put it in her purse – in the event her excitement should make her memory fail.

With firm steps she went to the front door. How often had she “gone out into the world” without a destination as a small child, just to get away from everything ... Now, too, she would have preferred to just run away. But she knew that this time she couldn’t.

It was already dusk when she got on her bike. When she arrived at the junction where Papenhagen Avenue branched off toward the cemetery, it started to rain. Maybe she should go back and get her rain gear? Actually, she also wanted to leave Bo a message, just in case. No, she had to get it over with now. She pushed her feet into the pedals.

Before long, she didn’t notice the rain. She just felt anger – anger at herself. What she’d done was inexcusable. She’d betrayed a secret, a secret that had been entrusted to her under the seal of confidentiality. Even if she didn’t mean for it to happen, she was now to blame for the fact that the life work of MM’s father was in the hands of criminals who wanted to harm innocent people. And all because she hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut! Tomorrow, MM would have to explain to her father what had happened with the pouch.

How could she have been stupid enough to be taken in by this guy? “Lonesome Cowboy,” even the alias should have made her suspicious. He’d known exactly that she would take the bait because she was feeling so lonely. “Do you have heartache?” he asked her, as he had addressed her for the first time in the chat. And she had been dumb enough to pour her heart out to him – after he had told her that he had been himself severely disappointed in love, and that he had a broken heart and so on. “You can tell me anything, your secrets are safe with me.” What did she even have a brain for? What did Simon think of her now? An idiotic, hysterical, unreliable tart! And he was absolutely right. She swallowed against the lump that had formed in her throat.

When she had passed the Habsburger Square the rain stopped. In front of the game hall a couple of guys were standing around booing after her. Behind the cemetery, the streetlights ended. Luckily, she had a light on her bike. Still one mile to go.

The parking lot in front of the gardens was empty. When she stopped, it was completely silent and pitch dark around her. The crunching of her footsteps in the gravel must have been heard for miles. She hid her bike behind the bushes on the side of the road, took the flashlight from her jacket, and pointed it at the rusted gate: “Sunset Community Gardens Association.”

She felt her heart throb. Never in her life had she felt so alone. Suddenly, the story of the red sneakers that MM had once told her popped into her head. The silence around her was immediately anything but quiet. She was sure she could hear noises all over. No one knew she was here, she thought. Where did she hide her bike again? Better turn around before it was too late!

No. She would never be able to forgive herself if she gave up now. And she would never be able to look Simon in the eye again.

With firm steps she walked up to the door. It was locked. How could she get over that fence? She briefly thought of her new trousers. If Simon knew that she was worrying about a pair of trousers! Without hesitation she grabbed the bars, pulled herself up to the latch, and swung herself over. When she landed on the other side, her fear was gone. All she felt was determination.

She took off her backpack and dug out the map. With the flashlight it looked like an old treasure map, mysterious and incomprehensible. Only, where on the map was the gravel path upon which she stood? Which way did she need to hold the map, anyway? She was surprised to find that, after a few trials, she discovered the correct orientation: Here was the path, about 300 feet further had to be the bench, and from there it went right into the side path. It was the third cabin on the left.

She took a deep breath and went on her way.

When she stood in front of the garden gate, she saw the moon. Blood red and round as a ball it hung above the house. Like my red jumping ball from the old days, she thought.

She slid the cone of her flashlight over the house. It looked exactly as Bo had described it. A dump, that was the right word.

As she stood in front of the door, she was hit by a wave of pride. She had made it. Through the rain, through the night, through the maze of the gardens. She would show everyone. And make up for everything.

What had Bo said? A loose brick, left of the door. She felt along the wall and pulled on all the stones. There it was! She was surprised at how easily it could be taken out. In the light of the flashlight she saw the numbers of the steel plate gleam.

Unflinchingly, she pushed 8-7-1-3.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Operation Better Living

“Wow, just look at the moon over there! Over!” Even with the crackling of the walkie-talkie, YoYo’s voice sounded outright reverent.

Bo looked around until he spotted the red disc, which hung low on the horizon between the tool shed and the barn. Like Mia’s jumping ball from the old days, he thought.

“In the British films they always show a moon like that whenever it gets really creepy,” YoYo said. “Like when they pull a body out of the water or something ...”

“Okay, okay. That’s enough!” Bo interrupted him. For him it was already scary enough. In the reddish light of the moon the old farm looked really spooky. Here and there, a flashlight played across the gravel courtyard or along the walls.

He could make out Simon at the stables. He was standing on a ladder, trying to fasten the end of a steel cable to the sliding gate. The two shadows on the wall of the old farmhouse to the left belonged to MM and Mandy. Apparently they were still busy arranging the fruit crates, which they were using to disguise their hiding place under the old stone stairs.

YoYo was nowhere to be seen, but he made his presence known by constantly talking into his walkie-talkie. “Attention, sound check,” his voice crackled again and again from Bo’s device. Then came, “one, two, three, over!” The “over” was compulsory. The walkie-talkies had been quickly procured by YoYo. They had to serve as a replacement for their cell phones – Wolf’s Farm was in the middle of a dead zone.

Bo climbed up the ladder to the barn. He and Simon had their hideout up there. He arranged the straw bales on top of one another so that narrow slits between the individual bales remained, through which they could peek into the yard. From below nobody would notice their hiding place.

While Bo, in the light of his flashlight, dragged and stacked straw bales, his thoughts wandered to Mia. Was she still lying in bed? No, she was probably on the phone with Melanie. Or she was sitting in front of the computer getting angry to death from not being able to log into her chat. Mom and Dad had to have long since left for the opera. Hopefully Mom wouldn’t decide to go into his room again when they came home. Although he had long ago forbidden her from coming in and giving him a goodnight kiss, he could never know if she obeyed while he lay in helpless slumber. Sometimes she had such strange needs.

He looked over to the moon again. All of the sudden, he felt the fear he had been painstakingly repressing. Was he the only one who was scared? Or were the others merely just not saying anything? He had kept his concerns to himself when they decided to resume investigations and lure the criminals into this trap. “Now or never,” YoYo had said, and no one contradicted him.

He shook the thoughts off and went back to work. So far everything had gone according to plan. First, they had paid a visit to Shah. They found him in his kennel behind the house, snarling and with his fur standing on end. “We have to show him right away that you are friends of me, otherwise he’ll keep on and on all night,” said Simon. The last time Bo had seen Shah was before Simon had gone to America. At that time he had been a playful puppy. And now? A beast! It was not just his size that made him so terrifying, but the wild twinkle in his eyes.

Like him, the others had involuntarily taken a step back. Simon didn’t seem to notice how they froze as he opened the kennel and called Shah to come. It was quickly clear that the wolf was obviously not looking for flesh, but rather some tender loving care. He lied down on his back in front of Simon and let himself be petted. “He quickly learns that you’re friends of me,” said Simon. Then he let Shah sniff each person extensively, one after another. “That way he learns that you are part of the pack.” In order to accelerate Shah’s learning process a little, Simon provided each of his friends with a sausage that they offered him cautiously. Shah took them in his mouth very gently, one after the other, and laid each down in front of him on the ground. Only when he had collected the last sausage did he go for the gifts, devouring them greedily. The wolf seemed to be satisfied. He had stopped growling, and was wagging his tail and looking pleadingly up at them.

Bo was nevertheless relieved when Simon locked Shah back in his kennel. Resigned to his fate, the animal let himself down on the ground, put his head on his front paws and looked after Simon with sad eyes, watching him all the way as he set out for the farmhouse to pay a visit to Aunt Elswig and Uncle Wilhelm. It was quite unlikely that the two old people would have noticed any of the bustle going on outside, stone-deaf and half blind as they were. Nevertheless, Simon wanted to make sure that they didn’t deviate from the usual procedure of the evening, which began at 6:00 pm with a glass of red wine in front of the TV and ended at 8:00 pm sharp when the lights in their bedroom went out.

Once Simon returned from the old couple’s house, the preparations could begin. Wolf’s Farm was perfectly suited for their project: The barn with the empty horse stalls was only accessible through the courtyard, and this in turn could only be reached through the large court gate. The criminals would thus have to cross the entire yard if they wanted to get to the pouch, which was allegedly hidden in the central horsebox. They couldn’t help but come directly into the line of sight of MM and Mandy, who, according to YoYo’s plan, were responsible for the “preservation of evidence” in their hiding place under the stairs. YoYo had equipped them with an extremely light-sensitive camera, which was supposed to be able to capture acceptable images in the dark. (“On loan,” he had mysteriously replied to the question of its origin. Probably some noble relative had been called into action).

The trickiest job was Simon’s. He had to pull the sliding door closed at just the right moment – when the criminals arrived inside the horsebox during their search for the pouch. For this purpose, a thin steel cable had to be attached to the top of the horsebox’s sliding door, the end of which reached their hiding place in the barn above. When the heavy door snapped shut, there was no escape. From the inside, the door couldn’t be opened, and the steel-reinforced oak planks could withstand even the hooves of a crazed horse. “This is a totally unique housing experience that we can offer our guests here,” YoYo had joked at the briefing. To everyone’s amusement, he had named the endeavor ”Operation Better Living.”

What they would do with their prisoners was the only gap in YoYo’s plan. In any case, YoYo wanted to call the police. “Why not? If we catch the guys in the act, with photographic evidence and all the whole shebang? The police will be only too eager to receive them!”

Bo was in favor of notifying the Deano first and foremost. Then he could arrange everything else.

MM had quite different plans. “Let’s let them rot in there for the whole night. Serves them right. Tati’s back tomorrow morning.” The thought of serving the criminals to Tati on a silver platter made her eyes begin to shine.

With the old adage, “Gentlemen, one should not distribute the skin of the lion before one has killed it,” YoYo put an end to the discussion. “Once they are trapped, we can still decide the next move without ruffle or excitement.”

As Bo neatly stacked the last hay bale, the moon had already risen quite a bit over the horizon. Now it no longer was bright red, but dark yellow.

He looked at the time. 9:20 pm. According to YoYo’s plan, the “establishing of contact with Lonely Cowboy” was to take place at 9:30 pm. Only ten minutes left!

He looked around. Where were the others?

At that moment, his walkie-talkie crackled. “Hello Bo, everything okay with you? Over!”

“Yes, everything okay, the hiding place is ready! Where are you?”

“In the communications center! Everything’s prepared, we’re just waiting for you. Over!”

Bo’s pulse started to pound. “I’m coming!”

The “communications center” was located in a small annex adjacent to the farmhouse. It consisted of YoYo’s laptop, which was connected by a long telephone cord to Aunt Elswig’s wall phone jack.

When he reached his friends, they were already gathered around the computer. MM sat on a folding chair, and the others stood around her.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re good to go!” MM said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Under the Earth

Slowly and silently the door swung open. Mia hesitated a moment, then took a big step into the shack. The first thing she saw in the glow of her flashlight was a huge red refrigerator with the words Coca-Cola on it. Then the light fell on an old sofa, a table, and a few chairs. It almost looked cozy. If she hadn’t come in through the magic door with the secret code, she’d have thought she was in the wrong house.

In any case, the room didn’t look like the headquarters of evil. Next to the refrigerator there was a small kitchen corner, and on the other side a half-open door led into the pantry.

They must’ve hidden the pouch somewhere. Mia went to the red fridge. There was a gaping void inside. She opened the freezer. Nothing. Next, she checked the cabinets and drawers – as empty as the fridge. No pots, no plates, no spoons. The shack seemed completely uninhabited. She moved on to the pantry. The light of her flashlight fell on a wall of tomato cans, which were all neatly stacked on one side of the chamber. As for the pouch, however, there was not a trace in sight.

She crawled around the floor of the entire shack, flashing her light in every corner. Nothing. Again, she opened all of the cabinets and drawers – without result. Had she come for nothing? Disappointed, she went into the pantry one last time. The cans! Something was wrong here. Why would they need fifty tomato cans if they didn’t even have a pot? She took one of the cans from the stack, then another. She’d almost cleared the top row when the light of her flashlight fell on a small switch on the wall. It didn’t look like a light switch. Without thinking, she pressed it.

She almost cried out. Beneath her feet, the floor suddenly gave way. The whole chamber was slowly descending into the depths with her. In her panic she tried to hold onto the stack of cans. With a loud rumble the cans tumbled and rolled out onto the floor. The chamber continued its descent relentlessly, floating down further and further.

After half an eternity there was another jerk. The chamber stood still. Silently, the wall to her left slid to the side. The glow of her flashlight revealed a long passageway with bare concrete walls. She could make out a couple of gray steel doors along the hallway. Mia clutched the flashlight tensely as she proceeded, step by step, into the cold, dark corridor.

She stopped at the first door. What if someone was down here? She held her breath and listened. Absolute silence. She gathered her courage and tried the handle. The door was locked. She went on to the next door – it, too, was locked. Then she tried the third. She was almost shocked when the lock gave way. Bewildered, she stared into the room at what appeared in the light of her flashlight: Computers, cables, monitors – the room was packed with electronic equipment. With a trembling hand she let the light slide over the devices. Was the blue giant among them, perhaps? How could she recognize it? Flowers, she remembered, and at the same moment she saw them: blue flowers, carefully painted on a giant metal housing. The blue giant actually looked more like a cupboard than a computer. She felt her heart pounding in her throat but couldn’t tell whether it was from joy or from fear.

She quickly stepped back out into the hallway. “Get out of here,” said a voice in her head. Another said: “Keep going!” Where might the hallway lead? For a split second she hesitated, then turned further into the dark passage. She didn’t make the effort to ascertain whether the doors she passed were unlocked or locked. Her steps became faster and faster.

The wall appeared so suddenly in front of her that she almost slammed right into it. So here was the end of the hallway. No door, no stairs, nothing. Just a bare wall. She was just thinking about turning back, when her light fell on a small switch set into the wall. It looked exactly like the switch in the pantry. Even though she’d have liked nothing more than to turn around and leave, she just had to try. She pressed it.

The wall in front of her silently slid to the side. The first things she could make out were pineapple cans, neatly stacked on the back wall of a small chamber. Had they been tomato cans and not pineapple, she’d have believed that she was back in the pantry where she first entered the underground passage. She automatically took the cans off the top row. It wasn’t long before the switch she was searching for came to light. Should she really press it? She had, actually, seen more than enough. But she again thought of the pouch. Should she just give up, so close to her goal? She pressed the button. Even though she expected nothing else, she still gasped as the chamber suddenly began to move. This time, however, it was going up.

With a slight jerk the chamber came to a halt. For a moment she thought her heart would stop. Before her stood a huge, pale figure with two strange trunks instead of arms. Horrified, she took a step back. It took what felt like an eternity for her to realize that what stood before her was not a monster, but a marble statue. She composed herself and took a look around, spotting some other sculptures in the small room that lay before her. Did the gang of burglars collect works of art? Or did they steal them? The shadows that the figures cast in the light of her lamp flitted across the room like ghosts.

Abruptly, Mia’s stock of courage was exhausted. She had only one thought in mind: Home! Home quickly! In a panic, she pressed the switch above the pineapple cans and closed her eyes. She opened them again only when she felt the jolt indicating that she had arrived back down.

When she entered the hallway, she was more comfortable. Her fear gave way to a sense of pride. She’d made it! She’d shown everyone. She imagined how she would tell the others that she’d found Giant Blue. What a surprise they were in for! Now she was a full member of the Gentlemen, and Simon would see that she wasn’t the immature, little girl that he had taken her for. For a brief moment she thought of the reward: Ten thousand euros! She would, of course, share the money with the others (but not with Mandy). She did the math. Ten thousand by five – two thousand euros! She thought of a pair of yellow Kimberley chucks for 59.90 euros.

The bright fluorescent light hit her like a blow. Petrified with horror, she let the flashlight drop out of her hand. The first thing she saw was the wide-opened mouth of a pitch-black attack dog. Then a pair of shiny black shoes. The Lacquered Man!

Her head said: Run!! But her body couldn’t accept any commands. Even if she could run, where would she go?

The dog barked furiously at her. The whole animal seemed to consist of only teeth.

“Quit it, Mufasa!” the man screamed with a high falsetto. Instantly there was silence. Behind her she heard heavy footsteps coming closer, stopping directly behind her. She didn’t dare to turn around.

“Bad luck. We aren’t completely stupid,” said the Lacquered Man with a nasty smirk. He wore a gray suit with a purple tie. A carefully cut goatee grew on his doughy face. He looked exactly as Bo had described him.

A hand grabbed her by the back of the neck. “Now let’s go!” The voice behind her was as rough as a cheese grater. “The General is waiting! Though, I wouldn’t be so eager to see him if I were you. He’s pissed that you interrupted his poker game. He was just winning. Hahaha!”

The hand on her neck pushed her forward, past the Lacquered Man and Mufasa, and through the hallway to an open door. Her gaze fell immediately on a little puppy that was moored with a leash to a table leg, welcoming her with a joyful wagging tail. He was as black as Mufasa. Bagheera! She realized immediately. So Simon was right after all. Her Simon. She felt hot tears rolling down her cheek.

“Surely you know the little one, at least from the stories your beloved Simon told you,” said the man behind her, who still had her in a death grip. “We managed to hide him just in time. We got a little tip ... You would crack up if you knew who gave it to us. Hahaha! I myself didn’t find it that funny. ‘You have ten minutes to bring me some pooch that doesn’t look like an attack dog!’ the General said. So I had to take a doggie from an old lady. Hahaha! ‘Oh, my poor sweet Lizzy,’ she was clamoring. Unfortunately, Mufasa has already made mincemeat out of her. Not out of the lady, of course, I mean the poochie. Hahaha!”

“Enough blabbing,” a voice suddenly came out of the room. Only now she saw that a man was sitting there at the table. A two hundred-fifty pound colossus with a bulldog face. This could be none other than the General.

The man behind Mia pushed her forward and squeezed her down into a chair exactly opposite the General. He himself sat down beside her. She caught a glimpse of his dented nose. The Boxer!

“No funny business!” he hissed at her.

She couldn’t help glancing toward the door. The Lacquered Man was leaning casually in the doorway. Next to him, Mufasa was looking at her grimly.

“So, you’re Mia?” the General panted.

Mia didn’t respond.

With a straight face he opened a drawer, pulled out a few cards and slammed them on the table. He started reading from one of them. “Mia Blohm, 12 years old, sister of Boris Blohm, residing 16 Lessing Street, attending 6th grade at Kopernikus School. Special features: obsessed with fashion, freaks out easily. Crush on Simon Böttcher, who is also one of the gang.”

While the General read, Mia’s gaze fell to the other cards on the table. On top was one with a photo of Bo. It had apparently been taken in the schoolyard; in the background she recognized the chestnut tree by the old ping-pong table.

The General seemed to have noticed her glance. “We found a nice helper out there, who fortunately was a bit more verbose than you ...”

Kevin, the swine! Now she knew where his brand new cell phone had come from.

“Well, you’ll still talk,” groaned the General as he tucked the cards back into the drawer. “Most of all, I’d like to know where you got the number code from – so far no one has gotten in here. You kids are smarter than I thought.”

Mia didn’t answer. Her mouth was so dry that she couldn’t make a sound, even if she wanted to.

Next to her, the Boxer crackled his knuckles. “Shall I, General?”

“Hold off, Manni,” he muttered darkly. “We’ve got time. We won’t get to play poker now, anyway.”

“Actually it’s quite comfortable here, too,” said the Lacquered Man, lighting a cigarette. With a grin he strolled toward her and sat down in front of her on the table. “By the way, it was nice chatting with you. Especially nice, of course, when you revealed the hiding place to me ... Even though everything unfortunately went awry. Damn alarm ...”

Mia could only shake her head in disbelief.

The Lacquered Man put on a wry smile. “If I may introduce myself: Lonely Cowboy, very pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand, blowing smoke into her face. “You were so keen at one point, though, to see your sweetie in reality, weren’t you? Don’t you want to give him a little kiss?”

The Boxer broke into peals of laughter. “Your cowboy takes a lot of pride in knowing that a hot young lady like yourself would be macking on him! Hahaha!”

Mia felt the anger rising in her.

“Yes, my beautygirl, it was particularly nice chatting with you. This morning, of course, in particular. You were so ... affectionate.”

This morning? Her? In the chat?

“I hope that your offer is still valid. For both of our sakes.”

“What offer?” she blurted out.

“Now don’t play naïve! You were going to tell me where the pouch is, right?” He leaned over closer to her. “Come on, honey ...”

This was too much for her. “You bastard! Jerk!” She jumped up and attacked him with clenched fists.

In her rage, she didn’t even notice that the Boxer had slowly risen from his chair and was standing beside her. As she screamed to the heavens, he made a lightning-fast movement. She felt as the wind was knocked out of her. Then everything went black.

When she regained consciousness, it was completely silent. Only a few fluorescent lights were humming on the ceiling. The glare was almost painful. She looked around. Concrete walls all over, bare concrete walls. A gray steel door. How many feet underground was she?

With difficulty, she scrambled to her feet and sat against the cold wall. Her arm and her shoulder ached.

She stared at the blank wall in front of her. Slowly, the memories came back. And with the memories came the anger. How could she have been so stupid? She’d let herself be fooled by every trick in the book. Like a dork, she let herself get chatted up by a stranger on the internet! And how did he get her alias? And how could he know that he would find her on that chat page? Did Kevin tell them that, too? Could he have figured out her alias? Had Melanie, in the end, not been able to keep her mouth shut?

She wanted to kick her feet against the wall. They had all tricked her. In her mind she saw the Lacquered Man leering at her: the apish beard, the icy eyes, the purple silk tie. She’d bared her heart to this sleazy jerk! She trusted him, and, to be honest, she was even a bit in love with him. She blushed with shame. “Sweetie,” she had allowed him to call her! These guys must’ve laughed themselves to death about her.

She shook her head to get rid of the thoughts. She didn’t succeed. Again and again the doughy face with the perpetual grin appeared.

“This morning it was particularly nice chatting with you,” he had said, or something like that. What did he mean by that? She hadn’t been in the chat all day because of the stupid problem with the password! And then this “offer” that she’d allegedly made to the lacquered cowboy – what kind of rubbish was that? She was supposed to tell him where the pouch was hidden, but didn’t he and his cronies already steal the pouch last night?

As she sat there, lost in thought, her gaze involuntarily wandered over the bare wall opposite from her. She was so preoccupied that for a while she didn’t even register that her eyes had come to rest on something. Suddenly she saw it: a metal grate about the size of an open notebook, right where the wall met the floor.

Even though every movement hurt, she scrambled to her feet. As she bent over the grate on all fours, she could feel a cool breeze. It must have been the opening of a ventilation shaft. She was just about to turn away when she thought she heard voices. She bent down lower to the grate. Voices were indeed coming from the shaft. They sounded like murmurs from afar.

She pressed her ears against the cold metal. Now she could clearly make out a voice. The chirping of the Lacquered Man.

“They really got on to us ... Damn!”

“It’s time to go ...” The murmur came from the General. “The supercomputer ... Carry to safety ... Tomorrow night ... All set, Manni?”

“Yes, all set ... Dickmann gave the green light,” said the raspy voice.

Dickmann? She’d heard the name somewhere. Dickmann ... Dickmann ... Dickmann ... The name floated around in her head while her ear stuck to the grate.

Suddenly, it was as if the curtains had been drawn back from over her eyes. The Deano! Willy Dickmann! Bo had once made fun of the name. Or had it been YoYo? Whatever! The Deano was in league with the villains! It was he who had given the “hot tip” concerning Bagheera that the Boxer mentioned!

“I’m wondering if the little one’s going to talk afterward,” the voice drifted out of the grate, “or if I’ll have to help out a bit ... Hahaha!” Mia thought she heard the crackling of finger joints.

“Enough!” The voice of General sounded like a hiss. “This Mia doesn’t know where the pouch is.”

For a long time, no words came.

“Why are you so sure?” asked the squeaky voice.

“Didn’t you notice that she was completely surprised when you asked her about the pouch? That was not theater.”

“Then why did she say in the chat that she planned to get at information on the hiding place before tonight?”

Mia heard a contemptuous snort. “How do you know that it was her that you’ve been flirting with in the chat?” The General’s voice became dangerously low. “Someone wants to mess with us ... Turn the computer on, pronto!”

Mia could make out the sound of chairs being pushed around. The voices had now become an indistinct murmur. She strained to listen, but couldn’t make out any more words.

Mia managed to jump up just in time when she heard the key in the lock, and the door flew open.

With a leap the Boxer was at her side. “Come along!”

Mia ducked instinctively, but he had already grabbed her by the neck and was pushing her out into the hallway. He brought her further and further down the corridor until they finally reached an open door. At a table, the General and the Lacquered Man were sitting in front of a screen.

The Lacquered Man didn’t bother to look up. “Well honey, maybe you can tell us what’s going on here?” He pointed to the screen.

The Boxer pushed her further. With a glance she caught the time in the corner of the screen: Shortly after half-past nine. She immediately recognized the website. Her chat room! And in the list of active users, she saw a blinking alias: Beautygirl.

“I asked you a question!” piped the Lacquered Man.

She just shook her head. “I don’t know,” she muttered. But the truth was, she knew all too well what was going on. It was easy for MM to get into the chat under her alias. They were up to something ...

“You’re trying to fool us, aren’t you? Hahaha!” The Boxer’s voice was right in her ear.

“Leave her alone, we’ve got better things to do now,” growled the General. “Come on, what are you waiting for?” he snapped at the Lacquered Man, who immediately started to type on the keys.

Hello Beautygirl, my sweetie, are you there? he wrote.

Yes, your sweetie is desperately longing for her cowboy, was the immediate reply.

No, that was not MM, thought Mia. That sounded like something YoYo would say.

I knew you wouldn’t let me down, my sweetie, the Lacquered Man wrote.

I will never let you down. You belong to me like my name at the door!

The Lacquered Man and the Boxer burst into laughter simultaneously behind her. For a moment she was tempted to laugh along. Only the General didn’t flinch.

“There’s a real poet at work,” said the Lacquered Man as he typed more. So, what’s new, sweetie?

Now they’ve hidden that thing somewhere else! At a place where they think it is completely safe.

The Lacquered Man and the General looked at each other knowingly.

Where?

At Wolf’s Farm.

Where the hell is that?

The old farm down on Miller’s creek. The pouch is hidden in the central horse stable, in the feeding trough under the hay.

The letters were blurring in front of Mia’s eyes. The Lacquered Man and the Boxer talked helter-skelter.

“In the horsebox, my ass! Hahaha!”

“This smells like a trap.”

“Sure! They want us to go in there, and then they’ll push the door closed from outside!”

“Your band of Indians has really come up with something good, sweetie! Hahaha!”

“Unfortunately, they’ll be waiting until the cows come home!”

“Silence!” The General’s voice sounded like rolling thunder. At once there was absolute silence. “We’re going there, and we’re going right now.”

“But why?” asked the Lacquered Man, very softly, like an intimidated schoolboy.

“Because I’m tired of being messed around with by kids!” the colossus roared. “They’ll have this pouch somewhere, anyway. Did you forget that we’re taking off tomorrow? It’s high time to get at the stuff.” In a lower voice, he added: “And Dickmann is also starting to get nervous.”

The Boxer cracked his knuckles. “I see, General. A lonely farm. No people around. No witnesses ... Hahaha!”

“Good thing you savvy up to something once in a while,” growled the General. “But if you think that you’re coming with, you’re completely mistaken. You stay here and take care of the little one!” He got up with a groan and gave the Lacquered Man a sign. “We’re taking Mufasa with us. Get the cannon ready!” He pointed to the two crutches lying on the table.

The Lacquered Man instantly busied himself with one of the crutches. After a few movements it was no longer a crutch, but – a machine gun!

“Well, that’s a surprise, huh sweetie? Didn’t see that one coming?“

Mia felt her heart clench. She wanted to scream, but couldn’t make a sound.

“Take her to her room,” growled the General. The Boxer already had her arm twisted behind her back and was pushing her out the door. In the hallway, the little black puppy came toward her wagging its tail. She got goose bumps when she saw the object he had in his mouth: a red sneaker.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Missing

A few miles away, on 16 Lessing Street, Mia and Bo’s parents had just gotten home from the opera. The whole drive home, Mr. Blohm had the prisoners’ chorus from the third act on his lips. Now, as they walked through the front door, he really cranked it up, “My deaeaear home, when will I seeeeee you agaiaiaian –”

“Shush, Reinhard! Not so loud, the kids are asleep!” Mrs. Blohm admonished him.

Her husband’s singing went on a little more quietly, but no less fervently.

Like every night, she wanted to take a brief look at her sleeping children.

The first thing that seemed odd to her was the fact that Bo’s bedroom door was open. Bo closed his door every time he went to sleep. She cautiously entered the room – the bed was empty.

Without thinking, she went on to Mia’s room. The door was closed. Quietly, she opened it. The hall light fell on an empty bed.

“Reinhard!” She didn’t notice that there was panic in her voice.

The singing stopped abruptly. Her husband came toward her in the hallway.

“The kids are gone!”

“Are you sure? Both of them?”

She could only nod her head.

“Solvejg, don’t panic. Let’s think about where they could be! Maybe they left a note somewhere? Let’s take a look around! I’ll see if their bikes are here!”

She wanted to call the police immediately, but Reinhard was right. She had to keep a cool head now.

She started the search. Living room table, pin board, chest of drawers in the hallway – no note, nothing.

Her husband came back. “The bikes are gone!”

At least they haven’t been kidnapped, she thought. But where on earth could they have gone?

“Wasn’t there something with this vigil thing? At McDonald’s?” her husband asked.

“Reinhard, it’s just before midnight, McDonald’s has been closed for a while!”

“They must be with their friends, maybe somebody’s parents are out of town. We used to do that, too, when we were young. Didn’t you ever sneak out secretly?”

“Yes, sure. You’re probably right,” she said absently. But at heart, she didn’t believe it. Bo and Mia together at a party? Never! She felt the panic rise in her again. Mia had been so strange the past few days, something was wrong with her. Something was different with Bo, too. He was with his friends so much. – She shook her head. “Somehow I can’t get rid of the feeling that all of this is connected to this burglary at Professor Marienhoff’s – the children must be chasing after something again.”

“Calm down, Solvejg, they’re just playing a little detective –”

“Playing a little detective?” Her panic only increased. “Reinhard, you know exactly what ... The last time, by a hair they’d nearly –” She broke off. “I’ll call the police right away!”

“Let’s not rush things! Let’s call the other parents first, they might actually know something.”

She was already on the phone and dialing the Marienhoff’s number. After the twentieth ring she hung up. Next was YoYo’s number – but again, no one answered. Mrs. Keßeböhmer frequently had night shifts. She tried to calm herself down as she dialed Simon’s number. She had no idea that the Böttcher family had left for a camping trip for the weekend with their hiking boots and backpacks. At that moment, they were lying blissfully asleep in a tent at Schellbruch nature reserve – all of them except for their son, who allegedly had insisted on staying behind to show his American exchange student the excavations in Albershausen.

She helplessly clutched the handset. Tears ran down her face.

“I have an idea!” she heard her husband say. “Doesn’t Bo have a cell phone? He might have it on him. You’ve written down his number somewhere, haven’t you?”

After a moment’s thought, she remembered where to look: in her favorite cookbook, Better Organic. She’d written down Bo’s number somewhere in the front.

Breathlessly, she dialed it.

“The number you are calling is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

She looked at her husband. Now she could see the fear in his eyes, too.

Without a second thought she dialed the emergency number, 110 [2] .

A man answered and introduced himself as Commissioner Maier.

“Name and age?” he asked curtly, after she told him about the disappearance of the children.

“Solvejg Blohm, forty-three –”

“I mean the kids,” he sighed.

“Oh, right ... Boris Blohm, thirteen, and Mia Blohm, twelve.”

“Oh, them,” she heard him say in a bored tone, “surely they are chasing down their criminals ...”

So she was right.

“What criminals? Is this about the missing supercomputer?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes, yes, indeed it is. The children have been obsessing over it, they seem to think that they’re hot on some trail. Apparently, they can’t give it up. After the last case, they are completely overestimating themselves and are seeing ghosts everywhere ... I mean criminals. I could tell some stories about it, they’ve been keeping us on our toes down at the station! As if we had nothing else to do! Would have been nice of you as a parent to have done a bit of moderating ...”

“We had no idea that our children –” She couldn’t contain herself any longer and started to sob.

“Just calm down, Mrs. Blohm, there’s really no reason for concern.”

“No reason for concern? Two children disappearing in the middle of the night!”

“In any case, I’ll share that with my colleagues on patrol.” Mrs. Blohm thought she could hear him fighting back a yawn.

“Yes, do so, and as quickly as possible! Bo ... um, Boris, is five foot two, medium brown hair –”

“No need to describe them,” the officer interrupted her. “The children are known to the police, so to speak ...”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Trap

Everything was prepared. The moon was high in the sky above the barn and flooded the yard with its silver light. How bright the moon made the night! MM thought. Better for the photos, at any rate. For the hundredth time she checked the settings on her camera. By no means could the flash go off!

“Are you excited, too?” she whispered to Mandy, who crouched on the floor beside her.

“Big time! Hopefully they come soon, I’m going crazy!”

“And my feet are going numb!” They were squeezed under the stairs like sardines.

MM peered through the wall of fruit crates that shielded their hiding place. The farm was peacefully sprawled out before them in the moonlight, not a sound to be heard anywhere. Nobody would have guessed that above in the barn there were three boys lying in ambush: Bo and Simon behind the hay bales above the horse stalls, and YoYo at the very top, in the attic under the roof. From here he could oversee the entire area around Wolf’s Farm with his super binoculars. It had been quite an operation for him just getting up there, climbing up rotten ladders and through small hatches.

MM was thinking of her parents. They would have already boarded their plane by now. They wanted to get back home by early morning. “Would be nice if you could get some bread rolls,” Tati had asked her. What would he say when she casually told him at breakfast that the burglars were under lock and key? (“By the way, we caught the guys that stole Giant Blue. You can go check them out at Wolf’s Farm in the horsebox. That is, if the police haven’t picked them up yet.”)

“Nothing special to report, no suspicious vehicles,” croaked YoYo’s voice from his walkie-talkie. Even though she’d turned the volume as low as possible, MM winced. “The target persons seem to be late. Over!”

MM tried to stretch her legs, but the fruit boxes were in the way. “I imagined ‘Operation Better Living’ to be a bit more comfortable,” she sighed softly.

“Me, too,” Mandy whispered back with anguish in her voice.

She checked the settings of her camera yet again. She wondered who she would be photographing. The Lacquered Man and the Boxer, probably. And if Niko was with them? She thought again of the mysterious phone call and felt a shiver creep up her neck.

“And if they don’t come at all?” Mandy whispered, “Perhaps the police have already caught them?”

“Red Alert!” she was interrupted by YoYo’s voice from the walkie-talkie. “Unknown source of light on the road to Wolf’s Farm! Distance about two miles. Over!”

MM felt Mandy’s hand closing around her arm.

“Suspicious object is approaching at a high speed! Over!”

She checked the camera settings again. Her hands were shaking.

“Suspicious object identified as passenger vehicle of the type BMW! Color silver gray, distance thousand five hundred yards! Over!”

MM’s hands clutched the camera.

“Radio contact will be discontinued for reasons of camouflage until further notice! ‘Operation Better Living’ enters its final phase! Over!”

An engine noise could now be heard in the distance. It quickly came closer.

A few moments later, the farmyard was bathed in bright light. The car sped through the gate and stopped with screeching tires in a cloud of dust. The driver’s door flew open and a man jumped out. MM recognized him immediately: The Lacquered Man! He looked in all directions, then walked with measured steps around the car to the passenger door and opened it. Groaning, the General dragged himself out of the seat.

The two were barely fifty yards away from MM. She gathered all her courage and pressed the shutter. No flash. She exhaled.

The two slowly walked toward the barn.

“Have you hidden yourselves well, you amateur detectives?” the General barked. His smile looked more like a snarl.

MM thought her heart would stop. So the criminals knew that they were here!

“A pretty dangerous hobby that you’ve chosen,” said the Lacquered Man with his squeaky voice. “Too bad you couldn’t stick to stamp collecting.” He let a suspicious glance rove across the yard.

MM felt her mouth go dry.

The General lit a cigar. Only now did MM notice that he wasn’t on crutches.

“Enough blabbing,” he barked at the Lacquered Man. “Let Mufasa out!”

The Lacquered Man hurried around the car and opened the backdoor.

MM gasped when she saw the raven-black attack dog jump out. He sniffed the air, bared his teeth, and shook angrily, as if he wanted to get rid of the chain that was restraining him. MM crouched lower behind the crates.

“Mufasa, down!” squeaked the Lacquered Man. The animal immediately lay down on the ground. His master continued to look around searchingly. “We would be too honored to finally make your acquaintance! After all, we already know your little friend, we had a nice time with her, didn’t we, Mufasa?” He leaned toward the dog. He jumped up and wagged his tail.

“Down!” At once he was back on the ground.

“Good idea, using the horse stable. You figured out a real trap, you part-time Indians!” His face broke into a grin.

MM had forgotten about taking photos a long time ago. She hardly dared to breathe. Once this guy let Mufasa go, it was over for them.

“But really a great idea you gave us there. We pack you kids into the stable where you wanted to catch us, and then – whoosh! – a match flies in. Tragic accident, I can already see the headlines: ‘Children burnt playing in hay.’ “

MM was sick with fear.

“Enough babbling!” growled the General.

“Mufasa, seek!” the Lacquered Man cried as he released the chain.

The dog immediately made a leap directly toward MM’s hiding place. MM heard a scream and didn’t know if it came from her or from Mandy. In a split second the beast was at the crates, snarling with bared teeth.

The Lacquered Man ambled leisurely toward her. “It’s like an Easter egg hunt – by the way, you’re allowed to come out! Or does my stuffed animal scare you? I can also send Mufasa in there to really find you, if you prefer ...”

In a panic, she rummaged in her pocket for her phone. Then it occurred to her that she wouldn’t get reception. She closed her eyes.

Suddenly, it was as if the air was trembling. The whole court was filled with a roll of thunder. The black beast in front of MM jerked its body and stood rooted in place, his eyes fixed on where the noise was coming from.

MM’s head, too, involuntarily jerked around: In the passageway between the barn and the tool shed she could make out a huge beast, his teeth flashing in the moonlight. Shah! And next to him – Simon.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Baumann Kick

Mia sat on the cold concrete floor, her eyes closed and her head leaning against the wall. She had her hands wrapped firmly around her knees, as if to protect herself. She knew that the Boxer was staring relentlessly at her. Now and then she heard the click of his lighter when he went to light another cigarette. Otherwise, it was completely silent.

How long had she sat there? She had lost all sense of time and her head was buzzing from the thick smoke in the air. Her parents would have long since returned home. Perhaps by now they’d noticed she was gone? They would surely call the police immediately – maybe they were already on their way?

But how on earth would they know to search here? No one had the slightest idea that she had gone to the community gardens. And even if someone did – how would anyone find their way down into this underground hideout?

The lump in her throat clenched further and further. Her eyes filled with tears. She thought of Mom. Perhaps she would never see her again! And Bo? Suddenly the machine gun appeared in her mind.

She began to sob uncontrollably.

The Boxer cleared his throat. “Honey, I’d really like to comfort you –”

She felt him come closer. She held her breath and stiffened.

“– but the boss has strictly forbidden me from touching you. ‘Unless she tries to run away, then you can beat her black and blue,’ he said. Hahaha!”

Mia acted as though she hadn’t heard anything and kept her eyes closed tightly. She felt him blowing smoke into her face.

“Okay, alright, honey, I understand that you’d rather be beddy-byes at home right now than here at uncle Manni’s – indeed it isn’t the fanciest hotel that we have here ... Hahaha! But anyway, it’ll be over soon, ’cause we vamoose. Dickmann is getting nervous that all of this is getting too hot ... uh –” He broke off. She felt him come even closer. “Actually, the General doesn’t want anybody to mention that name,” he said in a low voice, “but I assume you won’t spread the word ... Hahaha! If you know what I mean ... Hahaha!”

He blew another cloud of smoke in her face.

“Yes, good ol’ Dickmann ... You ever seen that old pile of junk he drives around? He gets a real kick out of it, himself. You should see, honey, the wheels he’s got parked in front of his villa in Florida! A Lamborghini, a Mercedes TX, a few Rolls-Royces, all the finest. And a yacht like you’ve never seen before, even the Shah of Persia would envy him for it ... Hahaha!”

Again, the lighter was clicking. “The guy is the most brilliant actor in the world. Runs around like a freak, but in reality he is the power. The boss of the Boss, so to speak. All the titles and all the nonsense – just camouflage.”

His voice was now right next to her ear. “Camouflage for the really big one. You can’t imagine at all what this big ol’ blue thing is worth. There are too many zeros in it to count. At any rate, it’s enough to make us all rich men. As soon as we’re done with your friends and we’ve got this damn pouch, we’re out of here. The Boss ... um, I mean, the boss of the Boss ... has everything prepared already: New passports, new names, the works. And then life in the lap of luxury starts: Taking it easy on the beach, broads without end ... If you know what I mean ... Hahaha!”

Finally, he drew back away from her. Mia exhaled almost audibly. She cautiously squinted through half-closed eyelids. The Boxer stood in the middle of the room with his legs apart, his back to the door, and was fishing another cigarette out of the box. Mia was just about to close her eyes again when she caught a glimpse of the doorknob. Had it not moved? Out of sheer fear that the Boxer might notice her glance, she let her eyes close again. Her heart pounded wildly. When she dared to blink again, she opened her eyes just a hair wide. Her jaw dropped. The door was just barely cracked open! And the crack was slowly increasing. A hand appeared in the doorway, then an arm, then a shoulder, and finally, a face. A scar over the left eye, a ponytail – Niko! Mia’s heart and thoughts were racing. Wasn’t he in cahoots with these criminals? What was he up to?

Silent as a ghost, the tall, slender figure slipped through the door. Niko slowly led his index finger to his mouth and looked intently at her from his dark brown eyes. Although she almost couldn’t stand it, she tried to keep her composure.

Now Niko was standing in the doorframe, about ten or twelve yards from the Boxer. Very slowly, like a panther before the jump, he ducked. The next moment he was in the air. In a full-length dive he flew toward the Boxer. More specifically, he flew just past the Boxer, who now turned with a jerk to his attacker. In flight, Niko made a lightning-fast movement with his heel, hitting the Boxer fully in his stomach. Simultaneously he struck him with a blow to the neck using the edge of his hand. The Boxer slumped to the ground. With a pike roll Niko came to a halt directly in front of her. Instinctively she ducked and took her arms above her head.

“Is everything okay?”

When she heard his voice, she abruptly relaxed. There was so much warmth and compassion in it that all of her mistrust disappeared. “Simon and the others are in danger!” she blurted out. “We have to get going at once and help them! The General and the Lacquered Man are probably already there, and they have weapons on them!”

Niko apparently didn’t understand a word. “First of all, calm down.” He pointed to the Boxer who lay motionless. “You don’t have to be afraid any longer. This guy won’t come around so quickly.”

He sat down beside her on the floor. “And now, tell me.” She started again from scratch. As Niko listened, he seemed to grow more and more anxious. When she told him of the cane that had become a machine gun, Niko grabbed her by the arm. “Come, follow me!” And there he was in the hallway. She rushed behind him. In no time, they reached the chamber with the pineapple cans.

It seemed to her like an eternity until the elevator had reached the top. At a run, Niko steered her past the statues. Outside, they were greeted by bright moonlight. But Mia had no time to marvel.

Niko had a phone to his ear as he hurried over the gravel paths. She struggled to keep pace. Scraps of conversation reached her ear. “Marienhoff case … Community gardens ... Wolf’s Farm ... Down at Miller’s creek ... Two armed men ... Urgent ...” With whom was he speaking?

“The police are on their way, they’ll be here in five minutes,” he told her as he hung up. “For Wolf’s Farm they requested the Special Operations Command, and that may take a bit. I’m going there right now, I know a shortcut through the dirt roads!”

They had arrived at the gate to the parking lot. She felt as if it had been days ago that she had climbed over it. When she arrived on the other side, Niko was already on his rubber-ducky bicycle.

“Mia, you wait here until the police come, okay? You’re the only one who can lead them to the underground chambers!”

“And if the Boxer wakes up and comes here?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be out of commission for a while. And within five minutes at the most, the police will be here. I’m taking off!” And he was gone.

Mia looked after him. “Good luck, Niko,” she murmured.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Duel

The shadow cast on the gravel next to Simon made the animal appear even bigger and scarier. How on earth had Simon managed to get to the kennel unnoticed? He had one hand lying on Shah’s back and spoke to him softly.

Shah again let sound his terrible roar. Every fiber of his body was tensed. His hackles were raised, his ears were flattened, and in his face there was an unspeakable rage, directed at Mufasa.

Mufasa looked like a dynamite keg ready to explode. He bared his teeth and growled softly. His gaze kept wandering from his opponent to the Lacquered Man, as though he were waiting for a command.

“Attack!” the Lacquered Man shouted. Bo thought he saw a derisive smirk on his face. Mufasa leapt forward like an arrow from the bowstring. At the same moment, Shah shot ahead. Both animals charged toward one another at full speed. Neither of them made any attempt to elude the other or to slow down. At full tilt, they collided in the center of the square.

The entire yard was filled with swirling dust. Pebbles flew in all directions, saliva splattered through the air. The Lacquered Man and the General jumped into the car with one leap and slammed the doors shut behind them.

Mufasa and Shah swirled around each other, separated, crouched to the floor, and then pounced on each other yet again. The game repeated itself several times until Mufasa succeeded in grabbing his opponent by the side and dragged him closer. Shah yelped. For a moment, it looked as though the wolf wanted to turn his tail and flee, but then he threw himself around furiously, reared up his legs, and lashed out at Mufasa’s shoulder with his teeth. Soon the animals had so fiercely locked jaws that they formed a single spinning ball, which slid and rolled across the gravel, making the ground shake.

The battle raged ever more fiercely. The entangled animals rolled back and forth, to and fro. The growling, snorting and panting became a deafening roar. Bo ducked involuntarily behind his wall of hay.

Suddenly, there was silence. It was as if the animals were suddenly frozen. The dust slowly settled. The wolf’s huge body stood erect and imperious, the cloud of his breath hanging like a flag of victory in the air. Mufasa was on his back underneath him, showing his throat to the conqueror. But the wolf didn’t seem interested in his subdued enemy anymore; he looked over to Simon and let loose a howl of pride, but also pain. Only now, Bo saw that Shah’s fur was covered in bloody wounds, which were gleaming in the moonlight.

Very slowly, Mufasa struggled to his feet. With his tail between his legs he crept toward the car and hid behind the front wheel.

The car door tore open immediately. The Lacquered Man jumped out. “Mufasa! Attack!” he shouted in his shrill voice to the dog, beside himself with rage.

But Mufasa seemed unwilling to continue the fight. He disappeared only further beneath the car.

“Damn creature!” hissed the Lacquered Man. With a glance at the wolf, however, he jumped quickly back into his car and slammed the door. His tail still tucked between his legs, Mufasa crept across the yard and holed up behind the rain barrel next to the door.

Shah didn’t seem to be interested by Mufasa in the slightest. The wolf began to make circles around the car.

“Come on, Bo, one of us has to call the police!” YoYo’s voice came from the walkie-talkie. “You’re closest to the back door, behind the barn the road goes up the hill, you should have cell reception on top!” There was panic in his voice.

The police? And if they rebuffed him again? The thought shot through Bo’s head. Fortunately, he had the Deano’s number saved in his phone.

Before he left his hiding place, he cast a glance into the yard. He winced.

The window of the driver’s door had been lowered. Behind the glass, Bo could see the Lacquered Man holding something silver in his hands. It looked like a telescope. Slowly, the tube directed itself at Shah, who had interrupted his rounds around the car to take a rest in front of the barn door.

In the same second Bo knew that it wasn’t a telescope.

“Shah! Run!” he cried down into the courtyard with all his might.

But instead of running, the wolf only sniffed the air in irritation. The silver tube was now pointed directly at him.

“No!”

As the cry echoed through the yard, Bo’s eyes fell on a shadow scurrying from the gate toward the car. He couldn’t believe his eyes: A man was racing, no – flying toward the car! He sailed in a straight dive through the air toward the silver tube. Still in flight, he grabbed it with his hands, made a pike roll on the gravel, and came back to his feet with the weapon in his hand. At the same moment Shah lunged toward him, knocked him down, and had his teeth at his throat. The man lay motionless on the ground.

“Shah! Here!” Simon’s cry rang through the air. Shah immediately let go of his victim and trotted to his master. The man stood up and brushed the dust from his clothes.

“Niko!” exclaimed Bo.

“Niko!” croaked his walkie-talkie at the same moment.

“Niko!” MM’s scream was heard from under the stairs.

But all screams were drowned by the noise of a roaring engine. The BMW revved throttle and the tires spun in the dust. It raced straight toward Niko, who just barely escaped it by jumping out of its path. The car turned around on its axis and shot toward the gate.

At that moment, Bo noticed the headlights – a whole army of vehicles was approaching at full speed!

The criminals must have noticed that their escape route was cut off. Just outside the gate the BMW swerved to the side, apparently they were trying to escape across the meadow. But they must have overlooked the ditch – with a loud crash the car flipped onto its side and came to a halt. The first police car had already arrived. Black figures with guns at the ready stormed the flipped vehicle.

Was this really happening? Or was he just dreaming? Dazed, Bo rose and slowly climbed down the staircase.

The yard was full of police cars and SWAT vans. The blue lights filled the night with a spooky flickering. Policemen with black facemasks and machine guns ran past him. It took a while for him to find MM and Mandy, who eventually approached him out of the chaos. And then Simon appeared next to the barn, only without Shah.

“I have taken away him fast,” he said when he came up to Bo. “Better that way ...”

Apart from that, no one could say a word.

Finally, YoYo came across the yard. When they were all reunited, they linked arms around each other’s shoulders without a word and formed a circle.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Runaway

MM stared at the giant arrivals board. Flight SI 875 from Mexico had just landed! Now Tati and Mom only had to get their luggage, and then ...

She had to smile. They didn’t have the slightest idea of the reception committee that awaited them. And even less of the news that it had brought.

Actually, they owed the surprise to old Mr. Satori. With the words, “Don’t you want to pick up your dear parents?” he had woken her up this morning. “I’d be happy to take you to the airport, and your friends, too!” Sure she wanted to, and the others as well – with the exception of Mandy, who pretended to prefer to sleep in. MM was certain, however, that really she was just doing so out of consideration for Mia.

So it happened that they all were sitting in Mr. Satori’s noble 1960 Mercedes, which normally only left the garage two times a year; once to change the summer tires and once to change the winter tires. YoYo, of course, had taken the passenger seat up front, while the others were squeezed in the back.

YoYo’s attempts at striking up a conversation with “Sir Satori” proved a bit tedious, as the old man was hard of hearing and also preferred to talk himself. “When I was a young man ...” he began again and again, and then told of his school days, the military, and his student years. And the more he recounted, the slower he drove. The traffic jammed behind him, but he was so engrossed in his stories that he didn’t realize it. He also failed to notice when YoYo eventually fell asleep in the passenger seat.

In the rear of the vehicle, only one voice was to be heard. Mia once more told the story of how she had “lead this whole company of policemen armed to the teeth” from the parking lot to the criminals’ shack, and how astonished they had been when she punched in the code before their eyes and the door had suddenly opened! And how they’d all been spooked when she pressed the switch in the pantry and they suddenly rushed into the depths. She told her friends how, down below, they had then drawn their guns and had sneaked into her prison, where the Boxer was still sprawled on the ground, together with Bagheera, who was cowering beside him, trembling with fear. The Boxer only opened his eyes briefly. “And you know what he said?” Of course they knew – but she nevertheless had to tell it once again: “ ‘It was so nice with you,’ he said, and then he was out again!” She couldn’t stop guffawing.

MM didn’t even listen. In her mind, she was already at the airport. Tati would be in for a surprise when she told him everything!

If only the old gentleman would step on it! If he continued to saunter along like this, they would be late. She would have loved to jump on the accelerator.

Luckily, they still arrived on time.

There was intense activity at the glass door, through which the arriving passengers came from the baggage claim. Tanned tourists pushed precariously loaded luggage carts, slick businessmen trailed their trolley cases behind them, arriving and departing passengers fell into each other’s arms, and there was calling, gossiping and cursing in all languages.

The boys made themselves comfortable on the bars of the barrier, exactly in the same seating arrangement that they occupied in front of the supermarket: YoYo in the middle between Simon, dangling his legs casually, and Bo, who rested his head in his hands. Mia, of course, stood as close as possible to Simon. Mr. Satori kept somewhat aloof. In his hand he had a large bouquet of flowers that his wife had given him, saying: “Give this to Mrs. Professor – but take off the paper first!”

Whenever the door opened and leaked a few travelers, the heads of the reception committee stretched – in vain.

But then they were suddenly there. Tati wore a super elegant suit and – yes, a green tie! Apparently, Mom had clothed him newly during the vacation. He was even wearing a chic hat.

“Mom said it would suit me even better than my bald head,” he said with a wink to MM, after he had thrown her in the air as a welcome, or had at least tried. He was beside himself with joy.

Mom was also happy – at least until she saw YoYo approaching, wearing a radiant smile and welcoming her by saying, “Lady Marienhoff, you can’t imagine what an honor it is for me …” He made a messed up bow and ventilated the Hamilton cap. Visibly irritated, she looked at Tati as if she wanted to say, “Do something!”

But Tati just gave YoYo and the others a friendly handshake. “How nice that you brought your friends,” he said to MM. Then he suddenly looked at her somewhat suspiciously. “You all look so ... excited. Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” she said, a little too fast, “not at all. On the contrary ...” Well, what was the best way to tell him the news? On the way to the airport she had pictured exactly how she would do it. She wanted to savor everything as long as possible and keep him on tenterhooks for a while. Perhaps like this: “Well, Tati, I’ll give you three chances to guess what the news is.”

But now it was suddenly very different.

“Giant Blue is back,” she blurted out before she could make any big decisions, and to her own surprise it sounded about as sober as if she had said, “There are 365 days in a year,” or, “Berlin is the capital of Germany.” Bone-dry, in any case.

Regardless, what she said had its effect. Without asking any questions, Tati let Mom’s suitcase drop, rushed to MM, took her in his arms and pressed her for a minute against his belly.

And then came the Babu dance. He threw his new jacket in a huge arc over his head, loosened up his green tie, rolled up his sleeves, raised his arms above his head, and began to move his belly and hips, first very slowly, then faster and faster.

A crowd had already gathered, and was apparently mightily amused by the fat guy spinning around in the middle of the arrival hall like a crazed dancing bear, his shirt wet with sweat and no longer tucked into his trousers. Mom looked intently at the display board above her head in a desperate attempt to show that she wasn’t associated with him.

When the music in his head had come to an end, he dropped his arms and beamed like a child on Christmas morning. “This is awesome! You have to tell everything immediately! Best in the ice cream café over there, right?”

“Oh, I can tell right here just as well,” Mia said hastily, and immediately went for it. “When I came down into this underground bunker, I thought right away that Giant Blue –”

“Can you zip it for one moment?” Bo snapped. Mia took a deep breath.

But MM didn’t catch her reply. Something had appeared in the corner of her eye that made her heart skip a beat: A giant of a man with blonde, tousled hair.

“The Deano!” she cried.

He was standing in the line at the passport control on the other side of the hall. He had almost arrived at the checkpoint with the glass panel.

Before she reacted, Simon was already sprinting, the others following him. “I’ll explain later,” she called out to Tati and ran. The hunt went across the hall, through pedestrians, suitcases, and luggage carts. Simon was a good fifty yards in front of her.

“Attention!” she heard him scream when he had reached the passport control. “This is the Deano! You have to fix him!”

“Arrest him!” Bo, running at full speed, shouted after him.

The Deano was just about to take the passport that the officer behind the glass panel was handing back. He spun around. For a moment, MM thought she saw panic in his face. But he regained control instantly. When they reached him, he smiled kindly.

“Ok, kids, now give me a break. I’d really love to play along with your game, but my flight is leaving in ten minutes!”

A couple of policemen came toward them. “What’s going on here?” hissed a thick officer who apparently was in charge. He built himself up in front of Simon. “You just ran straight into a prohibited area, are you even aware that this is forbidden?”

“I –” He was interrupted by the voice from the speaker “Passengers on flight AF 549 to Miami are urgently requested to proceed to gate 31!”

“He wants to abscond to Florida!” shouted YoYo. He had just caught up with them, and was still panting and red-faced. “This is Mr. Dickmann, he has been flagged for investigation! Willy Dickmann ...”

At the mention of the name Dickmann, the Deano winced shortly. “Dickmann, that really is the limit! Do I happen to look like Dickmann?” he ranted. Then again he clothed his face in the cutest of smiles. With an apologetic gesture he said to the thick officer: “As you have heard, my flight has just been called.”

The thick officer turned to the security guard in the passport control. “Take another look at his passport!” And to the Deano: “Just for good measure, to clear up any ambiguity.”

With a small sigh the Deano pulled out his wallet. “I’ve shown you a valid travel document, but here you go, if you insist.” He looked to the policemen with a sincere smile in the eyes. “I don’t have anything to hide, after all.” The official behind the glass panel took the passport.

After a few moments, he handed it back. “All in order, Mr. Tagliamonte,” he said indifferently. “Have a good flight!”

“And many apologies for the inconvenience!” added the police boss.

“No problem,” said the Deano in a friendly tone, and with that he disappeared through the barrier.

The thick officer advanced threateningly toward the children. “Now get out of here, or else!” They made an involuntary step back.

All except Mia. With clenched fists, she puffed herself up in front of him as if she were about to really go off on him. “You just let a suspected felon take off! He is the boss of an international mafia gang! If he escapes, it will have been your responsibility, and yours alone!” She literally pierced him with her eyes. Then she took a step toward him. “What’s your name? First name? Family name? Rank?”

The thick officer was so taken by surprise that he started to stammer, “Kowalski ... Lothar ... Police Chief Officer ...”

Hoffmann, we need to call Hoffmann! MM thought. She ripped the phone out of her pocket and dialed. It took an eternity. Finally, he answered.

“Police Chief Inspector Hoffmann.”

“This is Mariekje Marienhoff, we are here at the airport, and the police just allowed the Deano to get on a plane. They don’t believe us!”

“WHAT!?” She wouldn’t have even needed to put the phone on speaker, probably the whole hall still could’ve heard.

“Have they lost their marbles?! Get me one of these idiots on the phone immediately!”

She passed the phone to the thick officer, who now didn’t look so chief-like any more.

“Dickmann was flagged for investigation just this morning, at 2:45 am exactly! Can’t you read?”

At that moment the security guard came out of the checkpoint cabin. In his hand he held a piece of paper, which he showed to the police chief:

Dickmann, Willy, most likely uses multiple aliases and faked identity papers. Distinguishing features: Tall, slim, freckles, blond, mostly unkempt hair.

“Sorry, we just found the fugitive profile,” the thick officer mumbled into the phone.

“So do something!”

Hoffmann had hung up.

At the thick officer’s command, the policemen started running through the barrier to where the Deano had disappeared.

It didn’t take three minutes for them to get back again – with the Deano in their midst, his hands in handcuffs.

“What is going on here?”

Only now MM realized that Tati was standing beside her.

“I’ll tell you in a second –”

“– in the ice cream cafe!” added YoYo.

CHAPTER TWENTYONE

Niko’s Secret

SUCCESSFUL BLOW TO INTERNATIONAL MAFIA GANG, was the next day’s headline in the newspaper.

“Super photo of us,” YoYo said. “And on page one!”

The newspaper lay on the large, round meeting table in Tati’s office. The children put their heads together over it.

“My hair looks so dumb hanging in my face like that!” whined Mia. “I look outright stupid!”

“It’s great that you noticed, too! You can always get it operated on!” Bo consoled her.

The usual cordial tone of the two siblings was a sign that they had reconciled.

“Oh, brother sweetie, simmer down,” Mia snapped back. “You better think about why girls still aren’t interested in you!”

“Be glad that you’re still allowed to work with us at all,” Bo said angrily.

Mia gasped out of shock. She had, after all, honestly earned her readmission to the Gentlemen. Literally on her knees and with tears on her face had she crawled to Bo and his friends to ask for forgiveness: “I beg you, on my knees, to forgive me for betraying you!” With so much contrition, no one, of course, had the heart to refuse the “request for reintegration into the Gentlemen,” formulated by YoYo off the cuff. Least of all Bo, who was still plagued by the knowledge that his lie had brought Mia into mortal danger.

With a defiant shrug, Mia pulled the paper closer. “Simon, on the other hand, looks really cool. So manly!”

The others looked at each other, grinning. Only Mandy acted as if she hadn’t understood, in order to not pour oil onto Mia’s fire.

“Read it out loud!” YoYo told MM. He rubbed his hands in anticipation, even though he already knew the article inside and out – just like the others.

Successful blow to international Mafia gang, MM began to read. The mysterious theft of the supercomputer “Giant Blue” from the Department of Computing Technology, headed by Professor Robert Marienhoff, is finally solved. The break-in was carried out by an internationally operating mafia gang, the head of which has now been unmasked as none other than the dean of the university, Professor Dr. Willy Dickmann. Police caught him at the airport on Saturday, just as he was boarding a plane to abscond to Florida using a false name.

The other members of the gang, whose headquarters were located in a bunker system underneath the “Sunset” community gardens, had already been arrested by special police forces late Friday night on a remote farm.

These spectacular arrests mark the biggest blow yet by the police against organized crime. A decisive contribution to the success of the manhunt was made, according to police, by a group of primarily 13-year-old children who had already made their appearance in another criminal case concerning a million-euro extortion. According to police spokesman Kurowski, the children received a reward of ten thousand euros for their efforts.

“The young detectives supported our investigation to the best of their abilities,” said the head of the police department, Henning Hoffmann.

The children looked at each other. They knew that the best was yet to come, and they saved the fit of laughter for the next phrase:

“The children provided valuable support to our professional and thorough investigative activities, especially in finding the exact location of the offenders and the stolen goods.”

“Provided valuable support to our professional and thorough investigative activities,” they now snorted and chuckled. “Young detectives ... Provided valuable support ...”

It took quite a while for them to calm down again so that MM could continue.

“Actually, it’s Shah who’s the hero,” Simon said as MM had finished.

“That’s right. Without him we probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” Bo said softly.

“And Niko,” MM said. “Without his jump ...” She paused and put her most cunning MM smile. “Do you remember how you wanted to persuade me that he was the bad guy?”

“Yes, yes, all right,” Bo replied. “But there wasn’t really any way we could have known about his … secret, right?”

The others nodded in silence, reflecting on the incredible story that Niko had just told them before Tati called him into the kitchen, where some mysterious preparations were under way.

Niko Baumann’s real name was Ahmed Touhidi, and he was from Iran. He arrived in Germany as a young man with a few friends from the same slum, all of whom dreamed of a better life in the rich West. They struggled just to get to Germany, and were promptly sent home once they arrived. Except for Ahmed: Since he could already speak some German, he was the only one lucky enough to get a temporary residency permit, “for training purposes.” He attended the university, earned a prestigious diploma, and became fluent in German. Nevertheless, the authorities told him to leave the country as soon as he was done with his studies. He didn’t follow the order, though – but went into hiding for some time instead. A few days later, he showed up again in a faraway city. By then he had spent his life savings constructing a new identity for himself, even managing to get a fake passport. Since then, his name was Niko Baumann.

In the new city he found the job with Tati. He made good money, and since he lived frugally, he was able to send a little money home every month.

The fear that he might be discovered one day had made him regard new acquaintances with a healthy distrust. He’d always been especially suspicious of the Deano, sensing that his humility and kindness were not genuine. One day Niko was assigned to fix a broken computer in the Deano’s office. Just as he was fumbling around with the device, a letter arrived in the fax machine next to him. Although the Deano had taken the sheet quickly, Niko had already caught a glimpse of it, and recognized what it was: an agreement for the purchase of a luxury yacht. Apparently, the Deano noticed that Niko had seen something. “If you tell anyone even a single word, I’ll blow your cover and you can go back to where you came from!” Niko had no idea how the Deano could have known about his past, but he took the threat seriously.

When the burglary happened at the Institute, Niko immediately suspected that the Deano might have had something to do with it. But he didn’t dare go to the police out of fear that the Deano would compromise him. First of all, he had to be completely sure of his intuition. So he set out on his own to investigate. His first move was to take a closer look at the Deano’s weekend home.

“You can imagine that I was quite surprised when I then found you there on the community garden site – I sure recognized you at once, Mariekje, as you were picking flowers with your red headband at the parking lot. And then the blonde in the maple tree! It was then clear to me that you were on the trail of the Deano. At least, I thought so at the time. In any event, I could see that the situation could have gotten dangerous very quickly. Then I had the idea with this call ...”

“It worked,” MM said.

“For a while at least,” Niko said. “Next, I wanted to have a look at the inside of the Deano’s weekend home. That was yesterday evening, when the moon was so incredibly red.”

“And how did you actually manage to get in?” asked MM.

A smile flashed over Niko’s face. “That’s what you learn when you have to get by with an empty stomach. If you absolutely want to know – at the Deano’s cottage there’s a keypad at the door. It’s not hidden like at the shack; it’s totally visible. You just have to take an imprint with playdough, and then you can see which keys are used the most frequently. There is grease and grime on them, and you can see it clearly on the dough. From there, all you have to do is try the different possible number combos. With four digits, there are exactly 24 possibilities – after three minutes I had it.”

The friends nodded in awe.

“So, I got in,” Niko continued. “I’d already heard about the sculptures, so nothing was really too surprising – until something happened that made me seriously doubt my sanity. All of a sudden, I saw a girl with a flashlight. I didn’t realize that it was Mia, and I certainly didn’t know about the bunker system between the Deano’s cottage and the shack. Mia came seemingly out of nowhere, as if she’d grown out of the ground. It took me a while to realize that she’d come up in that camouflaged elevator. I pressed myself up into a corner to hide. At first I thought she must have seen me, frightened as she looked. But then I realized that it was the sculpture that was bothering her, this odd figure with the trunk. After Mia disappeared again, I absolutely wanted to follow her; apparently she knew more than me.”

Niko took a deep breath before continuing.

“But how to get down there? I searched for doors, stairs, levers, switches – but couldn’t find anything. Suddenly the pantry lift automatically came back up. I was lucky to quickly find the switch behind the pineapple cans. Once I arrived at the bottom, however, I immediately noticed that there was something cooking, judging by the male voices and the dog’s barking. Fortunately, the door to one of the rooms was ajar, so that I could hide out at first – the rest you know ...”

Although they did indeed know the rest, the children were still holding their breath.

“So, what happened with your residency permit?” MM asked anxiously.

Niko smiled. “It’ll be fine. Hoffmann said I shouldn’t lose sleep over it. He’s going to take care of everything.”

“Time to celebrate!” – Tati came radiantly through the door, some bottles of Coke under his arm. “And properly!” With these words he unfolded a white tablecloth and spread it carefully over the meeting table. He placed some glasses on it and started filling them.

He poured with such exuberance that a foaming brown puddle spread out onto the tablecloth. Undeterred, he filled the remaining glasses, and with each pour he followed the same principle: half in the glass, half on the tablecloth.

When all of the glasses were full, he took one of them and held it patiently in front of his belly until the others had their drinks in their hands. That was the end of the green tie, which had been dangling in his glass the whole time without him noticing.

He lifted his glass to make the toast with such momentum that now his shirt, too, matched the tablecloth in color.

“I’m not going to make a big speech,” he said, “because there is a better way to say the words on my mind.” He paused and looked expectantly toward the door.

The door suddenly flew open, and in came a big cake on a kitchen cart, pushed by Niko and MM’s mother. Behind it were – in alphabetical order – Mr. and Mrs. Blohm, Mr. and Mrs. Böttcher, Mrs. Keßeböhmer and the old Satoris.

Although the cake was not quite as big as Giant Blue, it looked just like it. It was decorated with blue flowers, and on the top “THANK YOU, GENTLEMEN!” was spelled out in big blue letters.

Tati cut into the cake and started passing out pieces. His wife’s disapproving glances didn’t seem to disturb him. Quite the contrary: With great pleasure he engaged in close combat with the layers of cream and sponge cake, ultimately destroying his trousers as well.

When everyone had a piece on his or her plate, YoYo cleared his throat. All eyes were on him. He set down his empty plate.

“Gentlemen!”

He had taken off his cap, a clear sign that there was no way to avoid a speech. For a while he stood completely absorbed in himself, his eyes closed in contemplation.

“Do we have to stand at attention?” Bo asked.

YoYo was not deterred. He bravely remained silent. Only when the tension became unbearable, he went on: “I’d like to have one more piece of cake.”

The End

Discover the other cases of Bo & Friends ...

"Bo and the Blackmailers"

“Okay, you'll get the million...”

Bo can’t believe his ears. What did Dad just say on the phone? Who was the mysterious caller? What million was he talking about?
Overhearing a call by chance puts Bo and his friends YoYo, Simon and MM on the trail of a blackmailers’ gang. With ingenuity and courage they get closer and closer to uncovering the criminals’ secret. What they don’t realize is that the noose is tightening around them as well...

Ulrich Renz: Bo and the Blackmailers

Sefa publishers, 2015

ISBN 978-3-945090-41-1 (Ebook, EPUB)

978-3-945090-38-1 (Paperback)

"On the Trail of the Kidnappers

"If he isn’t back by 8:00 pm, we’ll call the police."

Bo’s school trip is heading for a bad end. One of his classmates has disappeared without a trace! The police start searching with the K9 squad and helicopters – in vain. A tire mark in the woods brings Bo and his friends YoYo, Simon and MM on the right track. But the adventure soon turns into a nightmare. Their missing classmate is not the only victim that an unscrupulous gang has it in for …

Ulrich Renz: On the Trail of the Kidnappers

Sefa publishers, 2015

ISBN 978-3-945090-43-5 (Ebook, EPUB)

978-3-945090-40-4 (Paperback)

The adventures of Bo and his friends continue ...

www.bo-und-friends.com

- Discover the books of the series

- Come to know Bo, his "little" sister Mia, and his friends YoYo, MM and Simon

- Meet the author and the translators

- Sneak into the bilingual edition in German and English.

- And, if you want, you can download the complete first book, "Bo and the Blackmailers", as an ebook or an audiobook. Free!

Looking forward to your visit!

"The Hunt for Giant Blue" is the second book in the children’s detective series "Bo & Friends", www.bo-and-friends.com

Other books in the series:

„Bo and the Blackmailers“ (book 1)

„On the Trail of the Kidnappers“ (book 3)

The original edition was published in German in 2008 under the title "Auf der Jagd nach Giant Blue" by Bloomsbury Kinder- und Jugendbücher, Berlin, Germany. The current edition is a revised version.

© 2015 by Sefa Verlag, Lübeck, Germany, www.sefa-verlag.de

Translation: Samuel Cotten, Berlin, Germany

Copy editing: Charles Nesler, Chicago, USA

Cover: Ponke Grabo, Berlin, Germany, www.ponkegrabo.de

Font Bo & Company (cover logo): "Refurbished", © Billy Argel, www.billyargel.blogspot.de, courtesy of the artist.

ISBN: 978-3-945090-42-8 (EPUB)

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Going to school in Germany is somewhat different from going to school in most English-speaking countries. German students are, for instance, right from the start assigned to one fix group of about 20 to 30 students. This group is called a “class,” and the students of that class take ALL courses together, from math to music. German students don't have much of a choice of the courses they take, until they are 16 years old.

When going up from grade to grade, the students of a given class are always together until age 16. (Well, if you are as gifted as MM, you can be allowed to skip a grade. On the other hand, if you have a bad streak and your marks don’t reach the minimum level, you are “held back,” that is, you are not promoted to the next grade after summer holidays and thus are refered into a younger class. In German this is called “sitzenbleiben”, which means “to stay seated”. A funny word for an unpleasant thing, isn't it?)

Except for very small schools at the countryside, schools consist of more than one “class” per age group. Most schools have three or four of them. In Bo’s grade 7, for instance, there are four different classes, named 7a, 7b, etc. – these are the so called “parallel classes.” Basically there is only a small difference in the courses they take, but often they do have different teachers. The teacher who is specially in charge of a given class is called the “class teacher.”

A lot of schools in Germany are not full time. For most students school is finished at around 1:00 pm, they then go home for lunch or have lunch in the school cafeteria. In the afternoons they may take some elective courses, or work at home on the assignments of the next day.

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Hopefully you'll never need it – but just in case you do: In Germany you have to dial the number 110 in case of emergency.