The Trail Home

She searched the whole street. She asked a neighbour who was washing his car. The neighbour said he saw a child riding a blue bike toward her own house an hour ago.

Suki wrote it all down. A wet track. A note. A child on a blue bike, going home. The clues were leading somewhere strange — back to her.

She walked home and opened the garage door. And there was her bicycle, wet from the rain, leaning against the wall.

Then she discovered the truth. Her older brother came out of the house.

“Oh, did you need it?” he said. “Sorry. I borrowed it this morning. I left a note at the shop, but the wind must have blown it away.”

Suki looked at her notebook. There was no thief. There was no real crime. Her brother just forgot to ask.

The case was over before lunch. It was, she had to admit, a very boring crime.

But Suki was not sad. She closed the notebook and put it in her pocket. The bike was back, the mystery was solved, and she was still a detective. Tomorrow there would be another street, another clue, another small case waiting for her.