A Murder Mystery LUCY BOOTH • AGE 12 WRIT TEN IN A WRITE AWAY WORKSHOP
I
t was a bright and beautiful morning. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the midnight rain had washed away all of the crime and darkness of last night. Newly hired journalist, Olive Greene, had just sat down to work on the week's articles with a freshly brewed cup of coffee in hand when she remembered the cookie. Not just any cookie, but the last one from the summer bake sale her cousin had. In short: her aunt, Ophelia Greene, was a pastry chef, so her bake sales were always a hit. As lethargic as she was, Olive stumbled to the kitchen of her small house on Oakley Street to grab the cookie but, upon sticking her hand in the jar, realized it was gone. Well, not immediately. It took a couple seconds for her tired brain to put two and two together and realize that it was gone. She was puzzled by this, but assumed that she must have eaten it earlier and forgot that she had. Of course, when cookies are missing, one doesn’t normally think of some elaborate plot that could be ruined by someone’s sweet tooth. But, we do know that pulling one stray thread can undo an entire piece of fabric. Olive just had to pull on that thread to see where it would lead. When she got up to get her lunch, Olive inspected the jar more carefully and saw the faintest fingerprints on the jar. The only reason she saw them was because, unlike most fingerprints, these were colored red. Thinking of a logical reason for this wasn’t 149
