Brain Games
Someone stole Dorrie’s car . . . can her neighbor solve this mystery? garage? What if they’d pinched my bike?” Steve was horrified. er other grandson, Andy, shook his head reprovingly. “You really should lock your garage at night.” When her son had ask
Dorrie, are you all right? Were you badly injured?” Seven in the morning was a bit early for a phone call, but Freda, her neighbor from the adjacent farm, sounded very concerned.
“Injured? Of course I’m not,” she replied.
“I thought you’d been in an accident. Your car is upside down in the ditch at the end of the road!”
“What? Impossible! It’s in my garage.”
Dorrie rushed to her garage to find the door open and her car gone, although the garage was still full of her grandsons’ sporting equipment, bikes and surfboards.
At the end of her driveway, in the distance, she could see wheels forlornly sticking up in the air.
As she was phoning the police, Steve and Andy came out of their bedroom, sleepy-eyed. “What happened, Gran?”
Dorrie signaled them to be quiet as she continued.
“Locked? I think it was.” Darn, her memory wasn’t that good these days. “Maybe I forgot. But officer, I’ve always thought I lived too far out of town for thieves to bother with my old car.” She listened. “Okay, thanks, officer.”
She hung up and turned to her grandsons.
“My car was taken from the garage and left in a ditch! The police say they’re on their way with a tow truck to get it out.”
“You didn’t lock the
Hable to fetch things down from the top shelf just by stretching, thanks to a growth spurt the previous year that shot him up to over six feet tall.
Cameron came out of his room and headed for breakfast in the kitchen.
“I heard you talking about your car, Gran. I hope it isn’t damaged too badly.”
“We’ll only know that when the cops bring it back,” she said.
Just then, Freda knocked briefly and walked in.
“So was your car stolen, Dorrie?”
Dorrie smiled. “It didn’t get very far. I’m sure it was just a joyrider.”
“You think a joyrider, eh?” Amused, Freda surveyed the boys eating their cereal. “That’s what teenagers do, isn’t it?”
Three indignant protests met her remark.
“Of course my boys would never take the car,” Dorrie huffed. “They don’t even have their driver’s licenses yet.”’
“Mark my words, all teenagers get up to mischief,” said Freda with a sly smile. “And all teenagers love driving. So, when you do the calculations . . . ”
The three boys flushed and studied their cereal.
“Oh, good, your car’s back.”
A bad scratch down the side was the only visible damage.
“You’re lucky, ma’am,” said the officer “Could have been much worse.”
Freda walked slowly around the car and opened the driver’s door.
“Dorrie, do you happen to notice anything different about the driver’s seat?” she asked. Dorrie shook her head. “Cameron, time to ‘fess up,” said Freda sternly. “You drove the car, didn’t you. And I’m betting your brothers went along for the ride.”