March Mystery

• Angela Gale, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2010

March Mystery
By Angela Gale
I’m Samantha March. My friends call me Sam. I’m 16; I have dark blonde hair, blue eyes and I’m a detective. I just love a good case. I’m on holidays with my assistant detective, Gail Foster. I decided to visit my cousin, Joe, and his wife, Mary, who live one kilometre from the edge of the Daintree rainforest. It was supposed to be a work free holiday, but naturally, it wasn’t. Then one day we came home from shopping, and Mary found that her family jewels had been stolen.
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Of course, once I got a whiff of a good case I had to start investigating. So, Gail and I started to search Mary’s room. Fairly soon we had found a muddy footprint and a grubby note. The note said ‘bury it three paces to the left of the cassowary nest near the stream in the Daintree rainforest.’ I thought ‘These are some pretty stupid crooks. I mean, seriously, who would write where they were going to bury some jewels?’ So, as soon as we had collected our detective gear (a torch, a notebook and pencil, a rope, a radio and some chocolate) and a lightweight shovel, we got Joe to drive us to the edge of the Daintree.
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When we got there, the first thing we did was turn on our radio and check if our mobile phones had reception. Then we proceeded to look for a stream. We walked for half an hour and then I was thinking about having a drink when Gail asked ‘Can you hear running water Sam?’ I listened closely ‘Over there!’ I shouted, pointing to the right. We ran through the trees and almost tripped over a huge cassowary nest. ‘Well,’ I grinned ‘We found the cassowary nest.’ I took three steps to my left and started to dig, while Gail looked around for more clues. Finally, after several pauses, we dug up a plastic bag, which contained Mary’s jewels.
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The crooks had a camp ten metres away. So, Gail and I tied them up and called the police. We met the police on the edge of the rainforest and the police took the crooks away. We returned Mary’s jewels and finished our holiday in peace.