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Chapter 1: Dirty Rotten Hairy Thief!

A long, hairy arm reached through my open window and pounded around the top of my desk.

I stared, eyes wide, sitting in my chair. The first thing I thought was: That man has the hairiest arms in the world. Then I saw that the fingernails at the end of spindly, hairy fingers were painted with pink nail polish. So I thought: That woman has the hairiest arms in the world.

The hand knocked over my jar of pencils, bumped my Einstein bobblehead statue, and flicked the latest copy of Science Weekly to the floor. Finally, it found the plate of untouched Nanaimo bars, picked them up, and pulled them toward the window.

I grabbed the other side of the plate and began a heroic tug-of-war. The bars were so sticky they didn’t slide around.

“Hey!” I yelled.

“Hey!” Archimedes shouted. He flapped his parrot wings and flew to the top of his cage. “Hey!”

I was too busy holding the plate with a steely grip to talk back to Archimedes. “Not my Nanaimo bars! They were a gift from an unknown admirer.”

The hairy woman’s arm (I assumed there was a body attached to it, but scientists aren’t supposed to jump to conclusions) pulled hard. My chair lurched forward on its wheels, and I slammed into the desk, smacking my knees. But I still clenched the plate.

“Ugh!” came a grunting from outside the window. “Uuuurgh uggh!!”

She gave another yank and pulled me up onto the desk.

“You can’t have them!” I held on with all my strength. “They’re my favourite food group!”

I do know that Nanaimo bars aren’t a food group all by themselves. That’s just a joke that we use in Nanaimo to express how good they taste and how important they are to the city.

The arm yanked again, and the plate came free. Before I could move, the arm, the plate, and the Nanaimo bars disappeared out the window.

“No one steals from Gordon Whillickers!” I shouted. Which I immediately knew was a false statement since someone had once swiped my calculator. “Not without a fight, at least.”

“Fight! Fight!” Archimedes echoed. “Fight!”

With his words ringing in my ears, I dived through the window, expecting to tangle with an extremely hairy woman. Instead, I heard only the snapping of branches at the far end of our leafy yard. Dad does botany as a hobby and has grown every sort of shrub, bush, plant, and tree he could jam into our soil. I glimpsed a rather large foot that looked hairy, or maybe she was wearing mukluks, and then the dastardly thief plopped over the slat fence and out of sight.

I ran, dodging bushes and smashing through the rhododendrons and roses. I dashed up to our fence and scrambled to the top. From that height, I glared down into the Reids’ yard.

No sign of the thief. Not even a smidgen of movement.

I jumped over and stalked around. The farther I got from our house, the more my brain began to analyze the situation. These are the three conclusions I came up with: a) I didn’t know who the thief was. b) If she stole willingly, she might also be willing to break other laws. c) She could be dangerous.

But the legendary Whillickers stubbornness rose up and took control of my thoughts. No. They were my Nanaimo bars, someone had left them on a plate at the front door with my name on them, and I hadn’t even had a bite yet. Maybe they were the most delicious batch ever made. I’d planned on rewarding myself after I was done writing a paper about space elevators. Now, they were just a memory.

The Reids’ dog, Bruiser, was in his doghouse. Why hadn’t he barked? I got on my knees and looked in. “Come on, boy!” All I could see were his two glowing eyes. “What are you doing in there? Shouldn’t you be chasing thieves?”

He was a big dog, but in the shadows, he looked even bigger—as though he were filling up the whole doghouse.

I peered. He blinked two yellowish eyes.

“Bruiser?”

Maybe it wasn’t Bruiser. He certainly wasn’t acting like himself.

“Bruiser?” I took a step back. Another.

A nose poked out of the doghouse, came a little farther, and sniffed. Then, a head slowly emerged.

It was Bruiser. He looked frightened, a look I’d never seen on his German-shepherd face. He glanced left and right, then lowered himself to the ground as though coming out into the open had sucked up all his energy.

“It’s okay, boy,” I whispered. “We’re safe.”

I patted his back. He was shivering like it was minus 40 degrees Celsius. What could scare him?

I was much more careful as I searched around the Reids’ yard for clues. There wasn’t even a sign of the Nanaimo bars.

I went to the fence at the back of their yard. Had the thief climbed out here? I couldn’t tell. It was as though she had completely and utterly vanished into the pine-scented British Columbia air.