A Fish Named Yum Read online

  They wouldn’t be out long.

  Around eleven o’clock, the quiet was suddenly broken by the sound of a portable radio broadcasting an old baseball game. It was a tape Mr. Pin used as an alarm clock.

  Runners are in the corners. The game is tied 5 to 5, top of the seventh.

  Phil woke up slowly and put on his disguise: a fake beard, a helmet, and heavy work clothes. He decided to forget about the sunglasses. It wouldn’t make any sense to be wearing them at midnight and might arouse suspicion. Then he looped a rope around his waist.

  Mr. Pin wasn’t looking much like himself either. He had put on goggles, a waterproof watch, and an underwater equipment belt. The ropes and fishing equipment were draped around his wide stomach.

  Nice wing on that penguin, the radio broadcaster said.

  “I remember that game,” said Maggie, coming down the stairs. “You were great. The Case of the Spitter Pitchers. Are you sure you can walk around in that stuff?” Maggie had a way of talking all at once.

  “This is the easy part,” said Mr. Pin. “The rest could be dangerous.”

  Suddenly a truck roared down the alley. Hank burst through the back door. He said a “few” trucks were parked just outside.

  “Very satisfactory,” said Mr. Pin.

  “What do you want us to do with the trucks?” asked Hank. “Rescue more ice cream?”

  “Not this time. We’re going to fix a leak. By the way, our first stop will be Pete’s Chocolate Emporium on the west side.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure what Pete’s had to do with the flood. Pete, also known as the chicken man, had bought the factory to manufacture chocolate pigeons for his chicken shop. But that was another story. Sally and Mr. Pin usually bought most of their chocolate from Luigi the pasta man. Some things made no sense.

  It was a strange group that rode west into the eerie, blacked-out midnight city. Under Mr. Pin’s direction, a caravan of sixty-five trucks followed the detective to Pete’s factory and then to the Kinzie Street Bridge, which overlooked the leaking river.

  It was an even stranger sight when a disguised Phil convinced workers to allow a rockhopper penguin to inspect the damage.

  The air was brisk. A crowd gathered and people held their breath as Mr. Pin dived into a dangerously swirling eddy to examine the leak. The water was too murky for a light to be of any help. But Mr. Pin could feel the water being sucked out of the river into the tunnel that flooded the city’s underbelly. At any moment, the current could pull Mr. Pin into the tunnel. Phil was getting worried.

  “It’s too dangerous,” he said to a worker. “Get the divers.”

  But before they could get their equipment on, Mr. Pin finally came up and gave the command:

  “Bring the buckets!”

  Maggie stood by, ready for anything. But she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for this. One bucket at a time, Mr. Pin pulled buckets with flopping fish out of the narrow hole where they were trapped. Then they were loaded into a larger tank on one of the trucks.

  Phil gave the signal:

  “Unload the trucks!”

  At first, Phil wasn’t sure what would come out of those trucks. But suddenly it all made sense.

  Never would the Chicago River look like this again. The truckers formed a line from their trucks and passed bucket after bucket of instant chocolate pudding mix fresh from Pete’s Chocolate Emporium. It didn’t taste very good. But it was great for fixing floods. Better than fast drying concrete. In less than an hour the eddying whirlpool had stopped. The hole was plugged. The danger was over.

  “So that’s what you used to fix the leak in the diner,” said Phil.

  “A good way to get rid of bad chocolate,” said Mr. Pin.

  Television crews and newspaper reporters hurried over to find out how the flood had been stopped so quickly when so many had tried and failed.

  “Sorry,” said Mr. Pin, “no more pictures. But you can talk to Phil. A great man who loves this city and never should have been fired. Not only that, he works well with chocolate. Not easy to find that kind of talent.”

  Mr. Pin took the long way back to Smiling Sally’s Diner. He needed time to think things over. As he walked along Michigan Avenue, he watched the sun come up over the Art Institute, a friendly sight after seeing too much water.

  Caramel fudge pancakes were on his mind. A good stack with extra chocolate syrup. Besides, with all the work he had done, he was able to see his feet again.

  Settling in with Smiling Sally’s best pancakes, Mr. Pin unfolded the morning paper to the front page. There was a large picture of him holding buckets of fish. Next to that was a picture of Phil with a headline Mr. Pin would probably put in his memoirs:

  PHIL O. DENDRUM—A GREAT MAN WHO WORKS WELL WITH CHOCOLATE!

  Nice to be quoted. Nice to hear that about Phil. But even better, with that praise, he might get his job back. At least the city might recognize a true hero. Besides, he had even managed to save a few fish. Not a bad day’s work.

  It was just about time to get back to writing his memoirs and watering his plants … his plants! He’d almost forgotten.

  Just then, the door opened slowly. A man who could have been Phil’s twin stepped into the diner. A shock of white hair caught the sun as he came inside.

  “We’ll be open in a few minutes,” said Mr. Pin. “Can I help you?”

  “Why, yes, I think so, uh, I don’t know,” he said. “I need to talk to a Mr. Pin. My Name is Dr. Herbert Rootrot from Herb’s Bionic Garden. I’m a plant expert.”

  A Fish Named Yum

  1

  Chicago was hit hard by a blizzard that had frozen pipes and closed schools. Buses ran late. Snowplows buried cabs. And more snow was on the way.

  It was a bad day to be out. But it was a good day to be inside Smiling Sally’s Diner on Monroe. Mr. Pin was helping Sally bake chocolate chip cookies. He tasted every batch that came out of the oven. Along with her cinnamon rolls, the cookies were beginning to make Sally famous.

  In fact, Sally’s cookies were so good that truckers took bags of them on long trips. The word about Sally’s cookies was spreading fast. A businesswoman said Sally should sell them to stores and call them “Famous Shamus” cookies after Mr. Pin.

  “It’s a good idea, except who would know that a shamus is a detective,” Sally had said. “But I’ll think about it.”

  Besides eating, Mr. Pin spent much of the morning hand-feeding chocolate chips to his fish named Yum. Since the fish had popped out of the basement during the great Chicago flood, the diner had become his home. There was only one problem. Yum was a picky eater. He refused to eat regular fish food. He ate only the chocolate chips Mr. Pin hand-fed him. Not only that, they had to be fresh chips from Luigi’s Pasta Shop. Luigi sold only the best pasta and chocolate. Mr. Pin knew that. And Yum knew that. They had something of … an understanding.

  So at the height of the blizzard, when Yum ran out of sustaining food and Sally ran out of her secret ingredient, there was only one thing to do. Mr. Pin headed into the storm.

  It was a mission of chocolate. An appointment with destiny. A time when only the brave or the desperate faced the perils of Chicago’s snowbound streets.

  Mr. Pin fought the swirling, blinding snow several blocks down Monroe to Luigi’s. Speed on dry land was not Mr. Pin’s specialty. But he naturally loved the cold and made up some time by tobogganing down snowbanks … beak first.

  While Mr. Pin revelled in the snow, a shadowy figure in a trenchcoat lurked in the doorway of a sushi shop. Unseen by the rockhopper penguin, he watched Mr. Pin slide down Monroe. Then he slipped into the diner.

  In addition to slow overland speed, Mr. Pin was not noted for his speed in chocolate shops. It was several diet-free hours later when Mr. Pin returned to the diner from Luigi’s. He was barely recognizable. His checked cap and red muffler were completely white. Salt from the streets stung his webbed feet, and his yellow plumes were iced together. But the dangerous mission was a success. Tucked un
der his wing was a large sack of chocolate chips.

  “There’s been trouble,” said Sally.

  “Trouble,” said Mr. Pin setting the bag on the counter. “Looks like I returned just in time.”

  “It’s Yum,” said Maggie.

  “Why yes, the chocolate is quite tasty,” said Mr. Pin.

  “Not the chips,” said Maggie, “the fish.”

  “Yum!” said Mr. Pin, unwinding his red muffler.

  “He’s gone,” said Sally.

  “Gone?” asked Mr. Pin, slowly creating a large puddle of melting snow.

  “Yum,” said Sally, “has been fishnapped!”

  2

  Late that afternoon, it was a small gathering of mournful diners who discussed Yum’s disappearance over mugs of hot chocolate. The truckers were fond of the fish that had grown rapidly under Mr. Pin’s watchful eye and generous wing. The resident detective, himself, sat somewhat apart considering the case. Every now and then he would shake his head and say something like, “I can’t believe it,” or “Impossible. Doesn’t make sense.”

  But there it was. The fish Mr. Pin had befriended and taught to love chocolate was now missing. Not only that, it was possible that Yum had fallen into desperate hands.

  Mr. Pin reviewed the facts. Yum had been fishnapped while Mr. Pin was out buying chocolate. Sally and Maggie were in the kitchen making cookies. The diner was empty. It would have been all too easy for the thief to make his move then.

  There were plenty of footprints on the black and white tile floor. Which ones belonged to Yum’s fishnapper? A fish doesn’t just walk away. One of the truckers had seen a short, shadowy figure lurking in the doorway of a nearby sushi shop just that morning. But what diabolical mind would steal a fish in the middle of one of Chicago’s worst snowstorms?

  There was a possibility he didn’t want to consider. Gargoyle! Master spy. Had Gargoyle, the Spy Who Came North from the Pole, returned to Chicago to cause greater chaos? And for what reason? And why would he steal a fish?

  The police were hesitant to help.

  “We’ll keep an eye out,” Sergeant O’Malley had said on the phone. “We don’t have to wait twenty-four hours to say he’s missing. But in any case, unless Yum’s a person, we can’t file a report. Sorry.”

  “No harm in checking,” Mr. Pin had said.

  His thoughts now were interrupted by the ring of Sally’s pay phone.

  “It’s for you,” said Hank, handing the phone to Mr. Pin. The detective pulled the long cord out of the booth and leaned against the accordion door.

  The connection rattled with the strange sound of some kind of motor in the background.

  “All right, Pin, here’s the story.” It was a low gravelly voice, probably disguised.

  Mr. Pin held up his wing to silence the diner.

  “Can’t get something for nothing,” said the strange voice.

  “What is it you have?” asked Mr. Pin coolly.

  “Just listen,” said the voice.

  Mr. Pin tipped his head and held the phone close. It was the sound of a pump … just like the kind used in a fish tank!

  “Is he all right?” asked Mr. Pin.

  “For now,” said the voice. “I’ll be in touch. Meanwhile, be prepared to pay more than a fin for your fish!”

  Click.

  Mr. Pin knew he was right about one thing. A fish and his chips are soon parted. Yum had fallen into desperate hands.

  3

  Now what?” asked Maggie later that night. “Yum is gone. The police won’t help. And whoever stole our fish probably wants more money than we have.”

  Mr. Pin was quiet for a moment. Perhaps he had missed something. Something right under his beak. Maybe even in the diner itself. The fishnapper was likely to call again. In the meantime, Mr. Pin had to do something.

  “We need to look for clues,” said Mr. Pin.

  “In the diner?” asked Maggie.

  “Exactly.”

  Mr. Pin hopped off his typing crate in the back room, which he called both home and office, and headed for the darkened diner. He brought along his black bag. Sally had closed the diner early and gone upstairs to pay a few bills. Maggie followed closely on the heels of Mr. Pin.

  First he retraced the possible path of the fishnapper. From his black bag he took out a large magnifying glass. He had asked Sally not to clean the floor.

  “Hmmm. There is something suspicious here. Something white and gluelike.”

  “Can’t be snow,” said Maggie. “What else is white?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Mr. Pin, slipping a sample into a plastic bag.

  “What’s that?” asked Maggie.

  “Evidence,” said Mr. Pin. He padded slowly from the door over to the diner stools. Sally had already cleaned the counter, but there was a chance she had missed something underneath.

  “What are you looking for now?” asked Maggie.

  “I won’t know until I find it,” said Mr. Pin.

  “Makes sense,” said Maggie.

  “There!” shouted Mr. Pin. He had spotted it on the side of the old green marble counter right next to where Yum’s jar once sat.

  “Definitely chocolate,” he said, extending his wing and preening. Then he announced: “This is very familiar.”

  “You could have tasted it in the diner, maybe it’s just some smooshed chocolate chips,” suggested Maggie.

  “Not possible,” said Mr. Pin. “This is not Luigi’s chocolate. I am certain of that. It is quite tasty, but not as good as Luigi’s.”

  “It’s amazing,” said Maggie. “Everything’s chocolate. Chocolate dinosaur eggs. Chocolate pudding. Chocolate pigeons. Chocolate ice cream. And then there was the time we went to bakeries, dozens of them, all over Chicago to sample chocolate.”

  “Crimes of chocolate,” said Mr. Pin softly, “are what I know best.” He started to pace back and forth, musing about the small sample of chocolate still clinging to his wing.

  Somewhere he had tasted this chocolate before. But where? It was a little late to visit bakeries. And what would that prove? Mr. Pin remembered his stomachache after solving the Case of the Picasso Thief. Too much chocolate seemed to be a hazard of the business.

  There was another thing to keep in mind: the short, shadowy figure near the diner. He didn’t want to admit it, but the evidence was there. Could it really be Gargoyle? That spy had slipped through his wings before. Would he do it again? He had been after a government codebook then. That’s all Mr. Pin knew. What mission might he be on now? And why … would he steal a fish named Yum? Some gargoyles looked like fish. Was there a connection?

  Some cases, thought Mr. Pin, were slippery indeed.

  4

  It had been almost twenty-four hours since Yum was fishnapped from the diner. Mr. Pin was worried. How long could his fish go without chocolate chips? Mr. Pin even had trouble eating his caramel fudge pancakes, one of Sally’s specialties.

  The diner had cleared out early. It was still snowing and a lot of people just stayed home. Maggie’s school was closed so Mr. Pin had help thinking about Yum.

  Brrrring! It was a cold sound in the warm diner coming from the phone booth in the corner. Mr. Pin picked up the phone as he wedged himself into the tiny booth.

  “I got your fish,” said a raspy voice. A tank gurgled in the background. Mr. Pin felt a lump in his throat.

  “Who are you?” he asked with authority. He motioned for Maggie to come over and listen.

  “Never mind that,” growled the voice.

  “Why do you want our fish?” asked Mr. Pin.

  “You’re the detective. Figure it out. Bing. Time’s up. I’ll make it easy for you. I want ransom.”

  “Ransom?” asked Mr. Pin startled. “We are hardly in a position to pay anything. None of us has any money.”

  “Too bad,” snarled the fishnapper. “I want something better. You have a secret recipe that I need.”

  “Which one is that?” asked Mr. Pin.

  “O
kay. Here it is, penguin. I want a batch of Sally’s chocolate chip cookies along with her recipe. And I want them by midnight tonight or your fish sizzles. Ha!”

  Click.

  What cruelty. What sinister, twisted criminal mind could put the life of an innocent fish in jeopardy.

  “What did he want?” asked Maggie.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” said Mr. Pin. “He wants Sally’s chocolate chip cookies and her recipe or Yum will be a fish fry. And it’s not even Friday.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Maggie.

  “The fishnapper might be Gargoyle.”

  “How do you know?” asked Maggie.

  “He’s short,” said Mr. Pin. “He probably likes chocolate, judging from the sample I found in the diner. He seems to like fish that look like gargoyles. And, of course, he’d steal a recipe that could make him millions for his spy operation.”

  “Oh, no,” said Maggie. “We have to act fast.”

  “Right,” said Mr. Pin.

  “So how do we find Gargoyle?” asked Maggie.

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Pin. “But I’m beginning to get an idea.”

  5

  The snow was getting much worse. It was piled up so high that customers couldn’t see out the diner’s windows. Every now and then, Mr. Pin went out to clear a path in the snow to the door. Some of the truckers were snowed in on Monroe and just stayed in the diner all day. It looked like they might even spend the night in sleeping bags. No one was going anywhere.

  Except for Mr. Pin. He suddenly remembered where he had tasted that chocolate before.

  “We need to get to Ohio Street,” he announced.

  “Have you thought about using the phone,” drawled Sally, her hands on her hips. “It took you hours to go to Luigi’s. Ohio is much farther.”

  “I have to visit a bakery.”