Kate Dunlap

When the men finally got home it was almost time for lunch. “What took you so long?” Mrs. Dunlap asked as they walked in the door.

“Well, we had to stand in line forever at the auto license bureau, and then we went back inside to ask the guy behind the counter a question,” Edward explained. “Then it took us a while at Target.”

“You went to Target?” Kate asked. “Was it to get a new watch?”

“What did you ask the man?” Emilie wanted to know.

“Yes, it was to get a new watch,” Edward answered Kate, pointing to the new watch on his wrist. In answer to Emilie he said, “I’ll tell you later. I want to talk to you girls about it after lunch.”

After lunch the children met in Edward’s bedroom. “So what is it you want to tell us?” Kate asked her brother.

“I want to talk about the mystery,” Edward replied.

“But I thought we already established the fact that we are not going to solve it,” Emilie said.

“Yeah, but listen to what happened this morning!” And Edward told the girls the story of what had taken place in the auto license bureau.

“I agree with Dad,” Kate said after Edward had recounted the entire story. “The man there is not the one who stole your watch.”

“I don’t agree with Dad,” Edward said stubbornly. Then he said, almost pouting, “I thought you girls would agree with me.”

“I do want to solve this mystery, though,” Kate said.

“We certainly don’t have many clues,” Emilie giggled. “I think it is close to impossible!”

“Let’s try anyway,” Edward said. “I have an idea. Why don’t we visit the scene of the crime?”

“Okay,” Kate responded. “I think that’s a great idea. We should’ve thought of that a long time ago. Let’s ask Mom if we may walk to the road on the retaining wall.” They all ran down the stairs to find Mrs. Dunlap. She agreed, much to their delight, so in a flash Kate and the twins were outside and carefully walking down the hill to the wall.

In no time they were to the end. “So what exactly are we looking for?” Emilie asked once they had jumped down to the side of the road.

“Clues,” Edward replied. “Whatever it may be.”

The children looked around carefully. Then Kate spotted something. She reached down to pick it up off the ground. “Hey, I think I’ve found something!”

“What? What?” Edward exclaimed very excitedly.

Kate picked it up. “It’s a wallet!” she said.

“Hey,” Emilie said slowly. “It probably has identification in it! Do you think it belongs to the thief?”

“Yes, he must have dropped it, and in his hurry didn’t notice that it had fallen out of the car,” Kate said. “It doesn’t look like it was left out in the rain from when we had that rainstorm. I don’t think anyone has walked by our house today, so no one else could have dropped it! Remember, Edward’s watch was stolen just last night.” She opened the wallet to see if there was identification inside.

“Nothing’s here,” she remarked after a minute, “except a few dollar bills and an AT&T calling card. We wouldn’t be able to track him with that. And his name’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Wait!” Edward said, taking the wallet out of Kate’s hands. “Look here! This must be the guy’s initials!” He pointed to the two letters “AG” which were monogrammed onto the outside flap of the wallet.

“I think you’re right,” Emilie exclaimed. “But that’s really not going to help us catch the thief!”

“Right. But there’s something strange here that I don’t understand,” Kate mused.

“What’s that?” Edward asked her.

“Well, how did the thief know that your watch was lying here?” Kate paused. “Let’s suppose he crashed his car on purpose to get the watch. How did he find out about it? Did he just drive by during the day, see it, and then plan on stealing it?”

“Hmm, that’s an interesting question,” Emilie said to Kate. “But suppose the thief didn’t crash on purpose.”

“That really doesn’t seem likely,” Edward said. “Think about it. If I had crashed into the wall, I don’t think I’d be looking around for things to steal. I don’t think I’d even look around at all! I should think I would be more concerned about what I had just done!”

Emilie and Kate laughed. “Another interesting observation,” Emilie said. “So let’s say the driver did crash on purpose. Did anyone notice a silver Toyota drive by yesterday or the day before?”

No one remembered seeing a new silver Toyota drive by. “Wait a minute,” Kate said after a moment. “There’s something here that doesn’t add up. We’ve been overlooking it this whole time! Why would someone want to steal Edward’s watch? I mean, he got it at Target! It’s not like it was really valuable!

Neither one of the twins could think of an answer to that.

“Well, I guess we really don’t have much to go by, do we?” Kate continued. “We found a wallet, but there’s no identification. But maybe if we looked in the phone book under the letter G…”

“No,” Edward said, knowing what she was thinking of. “There is no way we are going to call all of the people in town whose last name starts with G and find the thief.”

“Well, then, what about finger prints?” Emilie said. “Whoever ‘AG’ is, he must have left his finger prints on the wallet.”

“Another bad idea,” Edward said. “We’ve just had our hands all over it. However, we may not need any fingerprints, anyway. I think the culprit is the man that works at the Auto License Bureau.”

Kate sighed. “You know I don’t agree with you on that. But even if you’re right, what difference does it make? You already asked the guy where he got his watch. It’s not like he’s going to admit to stealing it – that is, if he stole it.” She paused, thinking. “Well, I don’t know what to do. I guess all we can do is to just let it rest. Maybe we’ll get more clues later. For now let’s go back inside and explore the attic.”

The twins thought that was a great idea, so all three children went inside the house and up the stairs to the attic. On the way to the attic they stopped in Edward’s room to put the wallet on his dresser. They wanted to show it to Mr. Dunlap later. Then they scampered up the stairs.

“Now, no more breaking vases,” Kate commanded, pretending to be stern with Edward and Emilie. She was remembering the night when the Dunlaps had found the twins hiding in the attic. The sound of breaking glass was one of the things that had given them away.

“Don’t worry,” Emilie told her. “I think we broke them all the night that we hid in here.”

Kate laughed. “I don’t think so,” she said. “There’s a huge box of them over there in the corner. You only broke two.”

“Hey, I want to look at those,” Emile said.

“Well, I don’t,” Edward stated. “I’m not really interested in vases. Kate, what would interest me?”

“Over there in that corner is a chest which might,” Kate said after thinking for a moment.

“What’s in it?”

“Look and see.”

Edward went over to the corner Kate had pointed out and opened the chest. “Oh, you’re right, Kate,” he exclaimed. “Military uniforms do interest me.”

“They belonged to my great-grandfather. He was a U.S. Marine during World War II.”

“Wow!” Edward exclaimed. “Look at this stuff!” He carefully examined each object in the chest.

“You know,” Kate said, “this is totally off the topic, but I’ve been meaning to ask you what it was like in the orphanage. I mean, we visited you while you were there and I saw it, but what was it like to actually live there?”

“Um, it was almost okay,” Emilie said.

Edward said, “Well, it was terrible.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kate.

“Well, most of the kids were mean, and they definitely weren’t good friends with us. And the adults…” Emilie’s voice trailed off.

“What did they do?” Kate wanted to know.

“Well, most of them were pretty mean. There was one lady that was nice, but she worked in the kitchen most of the time so we didn’t get to see her very often. Then there was this one man in charge who was always concerned about the orphanage running out of money, so he would tell the cooks not to give us as much food.”

“That’s terrible!” Kate said, shocked. “Did you get enough to eat?”

“Most of the time we were fed enough. But about once a week they gave us hardly anything! Besides that, the food wasn’t the greatest.”

“No wonder you ran away!” Kate said. “But tell me, didn’t any of the adults seem to want to care for you?”

“Yes, now that I think of it, there were a few,” Emilie replied. “Once in a while they would sneak us cookies or an extra blanket or more food if we wanted it. But if they were caught they would be in big trouble.”

“Who would get them in trouble?”

“That guy that I told you about that was always concerned about the finances.”

“That’s why we are so glad to live here,” Edward said warmly.

Suddenly there were footsteps on the stairs. The attic door opened and Mrs. Dunlap came in. “Oh, I didn’t expect to see you here!” she exclaimed cheerfully. “I was just coming up here to look through my grandmother’s old jewelry.”

“Can I look at it with you, Mom?” Kate requested. “I haven’t gotten to look at it in years!”

“Sure, that’s fine, Kate.” Mrs. Dunlap smiled and then said to all three children, “Just in case you’re wondering, the reason I’m looking through this old jewelry is because we’re going to a concert at the symphony orchestra tomorrow night!”

There were cries of “Really?!” from all of the children. “No way!” Kate exclaimed in delight. “Are you teasing?”

“I’m serious. Dad and I are taking all three of you to the symphony. Partly it’s to celebrate the homecoming of the twins.”

“Wow! I thought it cost too much money!” Kate replied to her mother.

“Well, normally it does, but we got a real discount this time,” Mrs. Dunlap said. “I knew you would like it when I told you. Dad and I wanted to surprise all of you.”

“You sure did!” Emilie cried. She was hardly less excited than her sister.

“Actually, I was planning on keeping it a surprise until tonight at supper, but when I saw all of you up here I just couldn’t help telling you. I couldn’t wait until tonight, even thought it will be time for supper soon enough.”

“Oh, I’m so happy!” Kate exclaimed. She jumped up and hugged her mother.

Edward had not said anything the entire time. “Oh, how fun!” he said after a moment. “Thank you! You are so great! But… what will I wear?”

Mrs. Dunlap chuckled. “Don’t worry about that. I know I can come up with something.” Mrs. Dunlap talked to her three children about the orchestra for a little while longer before they heard footsteps downstairs.

“The thief has returned!” cried Emilie.

“No, you silly, that’s not a thief – that’s Dad!” laughed Mrs. Dunlap. “At least I think it is. He’s home from the store.”

Emilie giggled. “I was just teasing. Wow, I didn’t know he was even gone!”

The children decided to go downstairs and show the wallet they had found to Mr. Dunlap. Mrs. Dunlap looked through the jewelry for a little while longer before selecting a few pieces. Then she went downstairs to start on supper.