This Gum for Hire Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Frontispiece

  A private message from the private eye . . .

  Case of the Mopey Monster

  Cakey Breaky Heart

  Another Brick in the Chuckwalla

  Neither a Burrower nor a Lender Be

  Stroganoff the Wall

  Team & Sympathy

  No Nurse Is Good Nurse

  Wombattle-ax

  Rookie Tookie Tavi

  Bruised, Battered, and Bewildered

  Hickory, Dickory, Jock

  Beefie Baby

  Punk Skunk

  Have Gum, Will Travel

  Polecat in the Hat

  Phone Vivant

  Gym Dandy

  In Hog We Trust

  Countdown to Injury

  The Perils of Petsadena

  Tackling Dummies

  Gopher the Gusto

  For Love and Cake

  Sample Chapter from THE MALTED FALCON

  Buy the Book

  Look for more mysteries from the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko

  Read More from the Chet Gecko Series

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2002 by Bruce Hale

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  www.hmhco.com

  Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt, Inc., 2002.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Hale, Bruce.

  This gum for hire: from the tattered casebook of Chet

  Gecko, private eye/by Bruce Hale,

  p. cm.

  “A Chet Gecko Mystery.”

  Summary: To save his own skin, private eye Chet Gecko sets out to solve the mystery of Emerson Hicky Elementary School’s disappearing football players.

  [1. Football—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Geckos—Fiction. 4. Animals—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories. 6. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H1295Th 2002

  [Fic]—dc21 2001008127

  ISBN 978-0-15-202491-8 hardcover

  ISBN 978-0-15-202497-0 paperback

  eISBN 978-0-547-54573-8

  v2.0216

  For Michael, eagle-eyed editor and partner in crime.

  Couldn’t have done it without ya

  A private message from the private eye . . .

  My workout philosophy has always been a simple one: no pain, no pain. You won’t find me trying out for soccer, baseball, or basketball, because I’m not big on team sports (or even individual sports, for that matter).

  Fact is, I’d rather work out the angles of a mystery than work out at the gym any day. Of course, you’d expect that from a private eye. That’s me: Chet Gecko, best lizard detective at Emerson Hicky Elementary.

  Don’t get me wrong—I like exercise. I could sit and watch other people do it all day. But this one case gave me more action than I could handle. It plunged me deeper into the sports world than a dung beetle in elephant poop.

  I thought the case was a slam dunk. But as I struck out on one clue after another, the trail led me straight to my least favorite place on earth: P.E. class.

  And there I learned the truth about sports: If you watch a game, it’s fun; if you play it, it’s recreation; if you work at it, it’s football.

  1

  Case of the Mopey Monster

  The stink alone should have tipped me off. I was taking a brain break, just swinging on the swing set, when a serious stench grabbed me in its funky blue fist.

  It was strong enough to make a skunk blush.

  Hmm, I thought, as I whooshed forward. Cabbage and beans for breakfast?

  Right stink, wrong source.

  Something snagged me in midswing—glomp!—and there I hung, stuck in the sky.

  I twisted to look under the seat. An ugly mug met my gaze.

  Even wrong way around, I could tell: It was Herman the Gila Monster. He wasn’t as big as Beijing, he wasn’t as mean as a six-pack of hungry sharks. But the Big Bad Wolf could’ve learned something from Herman—his breath was stinky enough to melt a brick house.

  “What’s up, Herman?” I asked, coughing.

  “You,” he said.

  That’s Gila monster humor for you.

  Normally, I kept my distance from the big lug. But since he’d already caught me, my best move was to play dumb.

  Unfortunately, you can’t play dumber than Herman without a lobotomy.

  “You wanted to see me?” I asked.

  “Yup,” he said, hoisting me by my tail. “I like talk.”

  I almost told him, Go see a speech doctor, but it was a long way down to the ground.

  “I talk better on my feet,” I said.

  “Okay.” Herman let go my tail.

  The ground rushed up to meet me like a car salesman at closing time.

  Whonk!

  As I climbed to my feet, the burly Gila monster clapped a hand onto my shoulder. “We go . . . someplace private,” Herman growled.

  My life flashed before me. It wasn’t pretty. But it was my life, darn it, and I wanted to live to see fifth grade.

  “Let’s go to the scrofulous tree,” I said. “I do my best thinking there.”

  With a grunt, the Gila monster steered me in that direction. Two small squirrels were playing Frisbee under my favorite tree.

  “Scram!” Herman growled.

  They scrammed. Herman shoved me down on the grass. I rolled and raised my fists and feet, ready to fight back. Then, with a thud like a meteorite hitting the earth, the Gila monster flopped down beside me.

  “Gecko,” he said, “I got problem.”

  “I’ve been meaning to mention that,” I said. “You know, a little mouthwash—”

  “Not funny,” he rumbled. “Problem big.”

  I sat up. He was serious.

  I’d never figured myself as a friendly ear for school-yard thugs, but what the heck. I bit.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked. “And I use that term loosely.”

  Herman sighed like an avalanche on a distant mountain. “Team in trouble. Coach blame me.”

  The Gila monster was a fearsome football player. Several times, he’d been kicked off the team for his hijinks, but he always got called back. Emerson Hicky Elementary took its sports seriously, and a monster on the front line is hard to find.

  Like I cared about that.

  “So,” I asked, “why tell me?”

  Herman’s heavy head swung my way. “Players go bye-bye,” he said. “Not my fault. Gecko can find players.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Not me.”

  Herman moved faster than a starving toad at a fruit-fly fest. Before I could even twitch, he grabbed my ankle.

  “Gecko will help,” he growled. “Or Gecko will need help.” The Gila monster shook his other fist meaningfully. I got the picture.

  Then, a thought took that long, lonely trip across Herman’s mind. His fangs twinkled in a smile. “Plus, Herman will pay. One chocolate cake for every player you find.”

  I smiled back. “That should’ve been the first thing you said, buddy boy. Tell the nice detective all about it.”

  2

  Cakey Breaky Heart

  I paced under the scrofulous tree while Herman spilled his guts. (Not literally; even a Gila monster isn’t that disgusting.)

  The football team had begun disappearing, lunk by lunk. Players didn’t show up for practice, didn’t turn up in
class. Coach “Beef” Stroganoff, being the understanding type, blamed Herman.

  “Not my fault,” Herman repeated. “I never scare them off.”

  This big hunk of bad news had terrorized plenty of kids over the years. But a glimmer of sincerity in his beady black eyes made me believe him.

  “How long have the players been disappearing?” I asked.

  “Since last week,” he grunted. “Hugh gone on Wednesday.”

  “Anyone else vanish?”

  His mouth hung open in thought. “Uh, Lou on Thursday. Dewey Friday.”

  I frowned. “You mean you’ve lost Hughey, Louie, and Dewey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it must be hard to get your ducks in a row.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Never mind. Are you sure these guys disappeared?”

  Herman scratched his head. It sounded like a file grating on granite. “They never come to practice.”

  I spread my hands. “So . . . did the coach call their parents?”

  The Gila monster glowered. “Duh,” he said. “Coach no dummy. Players not at home, not at school. All gone.”

  I smiled a little, in spite of myself. This was a mystery.

  “Not funny,” said Herman. “Coach kick Herman off team if players not back Thursday.”

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked. “You’ve been tossed off the football team more often than I’ve snagged the last brownie on the plate.”

  Herman looked down. “Big game Friday.”

  True, we were playing the low-down sultans of stinkeroo, Petsadena Elementary. But he wasn’t telling me the whole story.

  “And so . . . ,” I said, trying to draw him out.

  The Gila monster glanced left and right. “Must play,” he muttered. “Girlfriend coming to game.”

  Girlfriend?! Eeew. The thought turned my stomach. What kind of girl would go for a thug like Herman?

  But then, what kind of sap would want a girl to go for him in the first place? Mysteries, mysteries everywhere.

  Herman clenched his fist and glared. “Find players or . . .” He didn’t need to spell it out (which was good, ’cause he couldn’t spell).

  “I’m on it,” I said. Just then, my stomach growled. “Hey, any chance for a couple of pieces of cake as a retainer?”

  Herman growled back.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” I turned and started off across the playground. Touchy-touchy, these clients.

  3

  Another Brick in the Chuckwalla

  It’s hard to just sit in Mr. Ratnose’s class when there’s a case afoot. Of course, it’s hard to just sit in Mr. Ratnose’s class, period.

  Still, the minutes passed, as minutes will. Lunchtime found me on a bench by the krangleberry trees, munching a peanut butter ’n’ dragonfly sandwich and nibbling a Lice Krispie treat.

  I was working on a wing and waiting on a dame. I didn’t have long to wait.

  “What do ya know, Eskimo?” squawked a cheerful voice.

  “Not much, er . . . double-Dutch,” I said.

  It was my partner, Natalie Attired, a spiffy mockingbird with a detective sense sharp enough to cut cheese. (Not that I like friends cutting the cheese around me.) She plonked down and dug into her own lunch—a sesame seed–and–earthworm casserole.

  Bird food, again.

  “Hey,” said Natalie, “I just heard the best new joke. What’s made of plastic and hangs around French cathedrals?”

  I braced myself. “I dunno, what?”

  “The lunchpack of Notre Dame.” She giggled.

  I groaned. “Listen,” I said, “you want to work on your comedy act, or you want to do some sleuthing? We’ve got a case.”

  A sparkle lit my partner’s eyes. “Really? Who’s the client?”

  “Herman the Gila Monster.”

  Natalie reared back and spread her wings. “Chet, I think you’ve got a case—of amnesia. Didn’t Herman try to marinate us in chlorine a while back?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And tie your tail in a knot just last week?”

  I held up my hands. “Yeah, but he’s paying us in cake.”

  My partner sat back, her feathers settling. “Why didn’t you say so? What’s the case?”

  I ran down what I knew so far.

  Natalie pecked at her casserole. “Let’s see . . . why did these players disappear?” she mused.

  “They all ran off together to play hooky?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or . . . someone was trying to get Herman in trouble?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But there’s one thing wrong with that theory.”

  “What?”

  “Too many suspects. Everyone hates Herman.”

  “Good point,” she said. We ate awhile.

  An idea struck me in midcrunch. I pointed a Lice Krispie at Natalie. “Or . . . what if someone had a grudge against football players and kidnapped them?”

  Natalie stopped eating. “Hmm. I like that theory. So who’s got something against football players?”

  We stared at each other, but nothing came.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I know who would know.”

  “Who do you know who would know?”

  “You know: Coach Stroganoff.”

  Coach “Beef” Stroganoff put the meat in meathead. A massive, crew-cut groundhog, he was as charming and graceful as a monster-truck rally on a muddy day. Although Coach Stroganoff had a tendency to hibernate when football season wasn’t going well, he ruled the gym like a furry emperor.

  We found him on the field advising a ragged group of soccer players.

  “No, Tiffany!” he yelled. “Kick the ball, not his—”

  “Coach Stroganoff!” I called. “Can we talk?”

  He turned a heavy, bewhiskered face on us. “Huh? G’wan, I’m busy.”

  “But—”

  A sleek, well-muscled chuckwalla eased off the bench and pulled us aside. “Never bother Coach when he’s working,” he said. “Catch him after he eats.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said, “Mister . . . ?”

  “Schortz. Jim Schortz,” said the handsome lizard. “But you can call me Jim, dude.”

  “Thanks, Jim dude,” said Natalie. She smiled up at him until her dimples grew dimples. “And what are you, his head quarterback?”

  Our new buddy Jim puffed out his chest, stretching his gold lamé shirt. “Nah, I’m the assistant coach—ol’ Beef’s right-hand lizard.”

  Jim palmed a rubber ball and began to squeeze, making his arm muscles dance like spastic chickens at a hoedown. Jocks.

  I tried to ignore his flexing. “So,” I said. “You and the coach must be pretty pumpset—er, upset over the missing football players.”

  The chuckwalla’s eyebrows drew together like lonely kindergartners in the fog. “Whoa, how did you know about that?” he asked.

  “News travels fast,” I said. “Is it true?”

  He chewed a leathery lip. “Yep. We’re at our wits’ end.”

  You didn’t have far to go crossed my mind. But my mouth said, “Hmm.”

  Natalie batted her eyes. “Maybe we can help.”

  “And who might you be?” asked Jim.

  I squared my shoulders and curled my tail. “We might be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hardy Har-Har,” I said. “But sadly, we’re not. I’m Chet Gecko, and this is—”

  “Natalie Attired,” said my partner. “So pleased to meet you.” She cast the chuckwalla another dewy-eyed look.

  Any more of that and I’d be ready to upchuck-walla. Natalie was getting almost as flirty as Frenchy LaTrine.

  “What she’s trying to say is we’re detec—uh, we know about situations like this.” No need for Mr. Schortz to hear we were working for his team’s number-one bad boy, Herman the Gila Monster.

  Jim sat on the bench. Natalie and I leaned in.

  “The guys who disappeared,” I said, “did they have any enemies?”

  “Dunno,” said
the assistant coach. “Maybe on the other schools’ teams?”

  Natalie bent close enough to smooch him. “Did they have anything in common?”

  “Um, they all played football.”

  This guy was as sharp as a pencil—the eraser end, anyway.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  Natalie’s beak parted. Unless something stopped her, she was about to lay a juicy one on Jim. Yuck.

  “Heads up!” someone cried.

  Natalie began to straighten, then—bonk, whap!—a speeding soccer ball conked her on the noggin and ricocheted into Jim’s face, sending them both sprawling.

  I shook my head. Mushy stuff will knock you for a loop every time.

  4

  Neither a Burrower nor a Lender Be

  Science class passed as pleasantly as it always did—like spending an hour napping on a bed of nails.

  Recess came, and not a minute too soon. As my classmates stampeded for the door, I shouldered between them, bound for the office. I needed to get the lowdown on the missing players.

  As luck would have it, a student in a football jacket was just leaving Principal Zero’s lair, rubbing his furry behind. The spanking machine must’ve been repaired.

  I called out to the broad-shouldered squirrel. “Hey there, ace. Got a minute?”

  He turned half-lidded eyes on me. “What?” he grunted.

  “I wonder if we could talk about your missing teammates?”

  “I wunner if you can fly widout wings,” the squirrel sneered, flexing his clawed fingers.

  “Easy, big fella,” I said. “I just want some info.”

  “What makes it your beeswax?” he said.

  “I’m a detective; Herman hired me.”

  “Yeah, right.” He lumbered past.

  “Wait!” I said. “Were you close to the players who disappeared?”

  The squirrel turned. “Yup,” he said. Then he spun and limped off.

  Dang. I would have to work on my interviewing technique.

  I reached the office door. Maybe I’d have better luck with the principal’s secretary, Maggie Crow. She had a soft spot for private eyes.