Mystery Writing Camp!

Hello everyone!
I know it's been a while since I blogged, But this past month I took a class that was really fun, so I'm going to blog about it!
Last month I took a mystery writing week-long class/camp.  It was SUPER fun! We got to solve mysteries, and wrote our own.  I really, really enjoyed it and learn more about different styles of writing.  We also learned about the different kinds of poems and wrote some of our own too.  My story is below, So, I hope you enjoy it!

The Thief on Brickett Street

In a quiet house on Brickett street in Cincinnati Ohio, there lived two parents, John and Charlene, and their two children.  Their oldest child, Bethany, who had recently turned 12 and was always being bossy, and her younger brother Nate, who was 8 and loved getting into Bethanys stuff.  “hey Abigail” said Bethany, calling her best friend who lived down the block. “do you want to start a secret club?”   “oh, that’s a good idea” Abigail replied.  “okay, I’ll go ask my parents.  Maybe my dad could build us a tree house so we have a place to have our meetings.”   

Bethany hung up the phone and went downstairs.  “Hey dad” she said.  “can I ask you a question?”

“sure” He replied.  “Me and Abigail want to start a secret club and we were wondering if you could build us a tree house?” “well” he said deep in thought.  “I guess I could, but if I do, you have to include Nate, you can’t leave him out.” He replied firmly.  

“okay, but he can’t be there while we are having our meetings.”

“secret club! Where? When? I want to be in a secret club!” Nate shouted as he ran through the den.  “the secret club is for me and Abigail ONLY!” Bethany said in her usual bossy tone of voice.  “well,” she said with a sigh. “ I guess maybe I’ll let you come.  Hey! I have an idea! You can be our lookout person, so if anyone is coming you can tell us who it is.  We’ll have our first meeting tomorrow, 4 o’clock sharp.  You better be there”  Don’t worry! I will.” 

Four o’clock came very quickly as the children gathered up into their tree house. 

“okay every” Bethany shouted.  “listen up! Now, I think our club needs a president, someone to direct the people, to organize the meetings to…”

“and I take it you were thinking someone like yourself?” Abigail interrupted sounding annoyed.  “well, I think I could do a pretty good job.” Bethany stated

“I guess you could be the president” sounding unsure.  “ for now- then we could rotate people so that everyone gets a turn.”  “okay, that sounds like a very good idea.” Bethany admitted.  “great” Abigail replied. 

“We’ll have another meeting tomorrow, same time, same place, okay?” 

“Okay!” Bethany and Nate replied in unison.

At four o’clock they headed up to the tree house once again to have their meeting.  Their parents had gone out grocery shopping and said that they would be back later.  Sometime during their meeting, they heard a noise. 

“I wonder what that could be, nobody is home.” Nate said.

“what are you talking about, I didn’t hear anything.” Bethany said, upset that he interrupted their conversation.  “I really did hear a noise!” he insisted. 

“yeah, sure you did.” His sister said sarcastically.

A few minutes passed.  “hey, did you hear that noise Bethany?” Abigail asked nervously.   “yeah, did you?” Abigail nodded.  “hey, Nate, I’m sorry I didn’t belive you.  Lets all go into the house and see what it was.” Bethany decided.

They walked right up the front sidewalk only to find the front door open! They gasped!

“who could be in the house, mom and dad are gone!”Bethany exclaimed!

“lets go inside and see.” Abigail said cautiously. 

When they went in, they we shocked to see the mail man in the kitchenwith a strange look on his face.  “what are you doing in our house?” Bethany demanded.

“I was, eh, just um –“  There was a long silence.  “ I was just delivering a package! Yeah that’s it!” “well you look pretty suh…suh…suspicious to me!” Said Nate. 

“well, this here package wouldn’t fit in the mailbox so I had to bring it in the house.” The mailman said. 

“you’d better be going.” Bethany said. With that the mailman was on his way back and on his mail route.

The kids, still a little startled, decided to stay inside the house and have a snack.  After they finished they cleaned up their mess and soon after they saw their parents pulling into the driveway.  “mom! Dad!” Nate yelled as he ran out to the driveway.  “the mail man robbed our house and-“ “what? Slow down, Bethany was there trouble here while we were gone? Their mother asked, sounding worried.

“well, while we were having our meeting, we heard a noise in the house, os we went inside and there was the mailman just standing there, and he looked kind of nervous.  He said that the package was too big to fit in the mail box so he told me he was just putting it in the house.” Bethany said, now sounding out of breath.

“wow, it sounds like you have a pretty exciting day.  I’m glad that you’re all okay though.” The father said, relived.

“I want to play detective and see who robbed us.” Nate declared.

“no one robbed us, so there is no need for you to “play” detective.” Bethany told him.

It was dinner time so they all ate, cleaned up, and then went to bed. 

When they woke up, they started to notice thing going missing. “hey mom! I can’t find the opal earrings grandma gave me.” Yelled Bethany, worried.

“you probably just misplaced them, they’ll turn up.” She replied calmly.

“mommy! I can’t find my birthday money I had saved, it was in my dresser drawer!” Nate said.

“Why all of the sudden are you missing everything?” their mother said to both of them.

“I don’t know but I bet it had something to do with that mailman who was in the house yesterday.” Bethany said angrily. “now just a minute,” said their mother “if the mailman said he didn’t do it, I think we should believe him until we have some real proof.”

“Okay, but I’ll be keeping my eye out for some “real proof”.” Bethany decided.

As the day wore on, they started to notice more and more things had gone missing.  John had discovered his watch was missing, Charlene noticed her pearl necklace was gone, and their safe had been tampered with.  They decided they had better call the police and report what had happened.  John picked up the phone and dialed the number.

“Hello?” A gruff sounding voice said on the other end of the line.  “Hello, my name is John Walters, and I would like to report a robbery that happened yesterday afternoon.”  “Okay, hold on a minute.” The police man said.  “Okay, I’m going to put you on with Officer McNab, He is the head of our robbery department.”  “Okay, fine.” John replied. 

“Hello.  Can you give me any information about what happened?” Officer McNab said when he picked up the phone.  “Well, we have a suspicion that it may be our mailman.  He was inside the house when me and my wife were out.  Only our two children were home.  We have also noticed some valuable items have gone missing.”  “Okay, what is your address?”  The officer inquired.  “It’s 4127 Brickett Street.” Said John.  “okay, I’ll be over in about an hour to get an estimated value on what’s been stolen, and you can give me a description of the man.” 

It was three o’clock in the afternoon and they door bell rang.  Charlene opened the door and greeted the officer.  Soon after, John came down the stairs and they all went in the den and talked about what had happened. 

While the grownups were talking, the children were upstairs chattering.  “Do you think they’re going to gonna shoot the mailman?” Nate exclaimed.  “No silly” Bethany said.  “They’d probably only put him in jail.” 

As the kid’s conversation went on upstairs, downstairs Officer McNab was just leaving.  “Thanks again, and we’ll let you know if we find anything.” The officer shut the door.

“Well,” Charlene said.  “That’s a relief to know we have somebody helping us.”

“yes, it sure is.” John said with a smile.  Bethany and Nate rushed down the stairs and looking excited announced that they were going out to look for clues.  They started in the backyard.  “Hey, look over here!” Bethany shouted.  Nate ran over to look.  “look at these footprints. No one has been over by this side of the yard since last week!” she said excitedly! “lets look around some more and maybe we’ll fine more clues.” 

They didn’t find anything more in the backyard, so they decided to tell their parents about the foot prints they saw, and then go look in the front yard. 

“mom!” Nate yelled.  “We found foot prints in the back yard!” “were?” Charlene asked.  “way back in the corner by the gate!” Nate said proudly.  “what’s this I hear about foot prints?” Their father questioned as he walked into the den. 

“The children told me they found footprints over by the gate.  No one’s been over there since a few days ago.”  “Maybe I should call officer McNab and see what he thinks.” John said with a sigh.  They phoned right away and the officer said not to touch the footprints until he could come the next day.  The children were walking through the kitchen when Bethany spotted a small handkerchief pushed under the counter.  “This looks like it belongs to a suit!” Bethany exclaimed.  “But the mailman was not wearing a suit.” Nate said puzzled.  “Let’s go show this to mom.”

“This should prove that someone was in our house on Saturday.”

Their father didn’t recognize the handkerchief.  “It’s definitely not mine.” He told them.  “Lets all go down to the police station and see if this is evidence.”  John said as he put on his jacket. 

They all hopped into their car and drove four miles down the road to the police headquarters.  The family showed the handkerchief to the officer and he had a puzzled look on his face as he saw it.  “I know of one thief that had been wanted in New York City for petty theft.  There is a reward for whoever can catch him.”  Officer McNab told the family.  “So” John said nervously.  “You think that is the man who robbed our house?”  “Yes, it is certainly a possibility.” Officer McNab said. “What does he look like?” Charlene asked.  “He’s always dressed nice, normally in suits clean shaven about 5 foot 9 inches, black hair, blue eyes, 160 pounds.  He is one of the reward posters.  Keep your eye out for him.” The officer said.  They went back home and went back to their normal routines.  “I guess we can cross the mailman off our list of suspects.” Charlene said.  “Yes, I guess we can.” Said John.  Upstairs the children were plotting a way to catch their thief.  “Maybe we can dig a big hole and he could fall in it!” Nate said excitedly. 

“Nah, I have an even better Idea…” Bethany replied.

Around two in the morning the children’s eyes were still wide open.  They both climbed out of their beds and crept down the stairs.  They were going to make a trap for the thief! They had a giant net and a string attached to the door so that when the door opened it would trigger the net to fall on the caller.

“how do you know that he is going to come tonight?” Nate asked. 

“well, I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea he might.”  Bethany said in a whisper. 

They sat quietly on the staircase watching and listening for any sound.  They gave up around 2:30 am and decided to go back to bed, when they heard a creak! They door was opening! They stood motionless on the staircase!

The thief took one step and the net dropped over his head! When their parents heard the noise they rushed down the stairs.  “What’s happened?” Their mother questioned.  “Yes, I myself would also like to know what is going on.”  John agreed.

The children explained their plan, and immediately their father phoned the police.  The police arrived on the scene and arrested the robber.  The whole story came out at police headquarters…

The mailman was delivering a package, but he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.  While he was delivering the package the robber broke in.  The mailman was blackmailing the robber!

Officer McNab went over and congratulated the children on catching the thief and handed them a check for one hundred thousand dollars.  They went to the thief’s apartment and recovered all of their stolen items.  A news reporter came and took their pictures and wrote a news article about their catching the thief. They were in the morning paper the next day!

Soon after, they sold their house and moved to a quiet farm in New Jersey.

THE END!!!

P.S- Stayed tuned, because in about a week and 1/2 we are have lots of company, so that means, lots of fun blog posts!