Penny woke earlier than usual. The sunlight was thin and the room was dark. She could smell the morning air, damp and cool, the prelude to the heat of the day. By her bed on the bedside table was a clean notebook, a sharpened pencil and a little white card with the words " Be Sensible" written at the centre in curly script. She then noticed that under the subject line on the front cover of the notebook,the word 'clues' was written. Then she knew it was clueday.
She puzzled over the card " Sensible.... Be Sensible..." She wrote the words down in the notebook. Then she wrote " What does it mean to be sensible?" She paused, musing, her pencil resting on her bottom lip and her eyes to the ceiling. The daylight was stronger now, so she opened her curtains and sat up properly. She turned to a new page and wrote all the letters from the words 'Be sensible' all jumbled up. Then she tried to make new sentences from the words:
See Ben's Bil
Been Libess
Less in Beeb
Was that a clue?
Suddenly a sneaky tendril of breakfast smells reached her nose, eggs and bacon, banana and maple syrup and frying butter. Penny realised that she was starving, so she gathered up her sleuth kit, threw on her clothes and pelted down the stairs. On the table there was orange juice, fried eggs, bacon, pancakes in a big stack, maple syrup, a sugar bowl and a lemon cut in half. Next to her plate there was a green cassette tape. It stood out strongly against the red table cloth. Penny looked at it, chewing and musing, noting it's position close to her plate and the contrasting colours. She made a little sketch in her notebook of the table and all it's bounty. Then when she was full, she picked up the cassette tape, noting the smoothness of the green plastic against her hand. Suddenly one of her father's puns came back to her. "Be Sense-able.... Use your senses!" She thought of how the smell of breakfast and lead her to the table, and the contrasting colours of the tape and tablecloth lead her to discover it. She wrote " USE YOUR SENSES" in capitals and underlined it several times. Then she went into the lounge and put the tape in the player. The room was suddenly filled with the colourful beats of salsa music. Penny tapped her fingers on top of the player and tipped her head to one side, trying to listen to the different instruments: trumpet, cowbell, bongo, drums, maracas and guitar. She wrote all of them down in her notebook. Then she felt the music take hold of her and she did a little shimmy across the carpet, stamping her feet and clapping her hands. " Something is missing" she thought and she ran up to her bedroom and pulled out the big wooden chest that served as a dressup box. She opened the lid and rummaged around until she found what she was looking for, an old, floaty skirt that used to belong to her mother. She slipped it one and fastened it with a safety pin. Then she picked up her clip on hoop earrings from the dresser and some jangly bracelets. Moving back through the house, she passed by her father's study to pick up his trumpet and some maracas that had been a present from her travelling aunt. She stood on a chair and looked at her reflection in the big gilt mirror over the fireplace in the study. "Getting into character" she said to herself, and she wrote a list of everything she had with her:
Floaty skirt
Hoop earrings
Bracelets
Trumpet
Maracas
Then she headed back to the lounge and danced around leaping and waving her arms and lifting the trumpet to her lips whenever she heard it on the tape. After a while she felt quite tired, so she collapsed on the couch and feebly shook the maracas. She noticed right away that one of the maracas wasn't making the sssh sssh sound that it normally makes, but a ssh clunk kind of sound. She examined it carefully and shook it by her ear. Something was definitely amiss. She held both maracas, one in each hand and looked from one to the other to see if anything was different. They were both red and blue and they both had raffia woven around the handles. But when Penny looked really closely, one had a groove around the top of the maraca, and a little dent in the wood. The dent made it easier to push against the top of the maraca so that is slowly revolved and spun around and around. It was a screw top to the maraca! A hiding place for all things secret, and she had found it!!
She placed the lid beside her and peered inside. There was a small iron key poking out of the dried beans. Penny grabbed the key and immediately tried to fit it in all the locks on the cabinets and windows in the lounge. No luck, she tried the ones on the kitchen cupboards, the vanity in her mother's bedroom, the side table in the hall, the glass display cases in the dinning room, the safe in the study, the filing cabinets in the library, the tool box in the garage and the door to the greenhouse. No luck.
She sat down on the step by the back door and considered her options. Through the open window, she could still hear the salsa music playing. She leafed through the notebook, idly flicking through the pages. Suddenly she stopped. There on the page was a message.
If at first you don't succeed, take a step back.
Upon reading this Penny leapt up and went back to the lounge. She'd left the maraca on a low table and the open top was facing her as she walked through the door. Amongst the dried beans there was something white. She went over and gave the beans a shake to see it more clearly, sure enough there was a stamp half hidden in the surrounding shiny black beans She took it out and looked at it. It was a little blue grey one with a picture of the Queen's profile on it.
" A stamp" said Penny " Where do we find stamps?" She walked about the room stroking her chin. She went into the kitchen and checked the miscellaneous drawer. There were cotton buds, corks, old coins, corn pins, a needle and thread and a box of buttons, but no stamps. She checked the study upstairs, here there were pencils and pens, rulers and compasses, a calculator and a rubber thimble, but no stamps. In the study on the desk, Penny noticed a small magnifying glass with a red handle. " That's odd" she said to herself, " I haven't seen that before. She pulled out the stamp to look at it more closely. She could see the finely detailed pieces on the crown, and the little studs that the Queen was wearing in her ears. At the top of the stamp, there were two thin wavy lines. Penny paused, trying to remember where she'd seen those sorts of lines before. Then she remembered that there were lines like that on the stamp that was on a present her grandmother had sent her. It had been........posted.
"It must be..." said Penny and she raced out of the room, down the stairs, through the kitchen, down the hall and out of the front door. She went down the front path past the roses and lemon trees to the front gate. and the white, tin letterbox. She lifted the lid. In the darkness of the box was an oblong thing. Penny drew it out. It was the size of a shoebox with a little hinge on one side and a tiny knob on the other. It had been carved to look like a miniature door! Underneath the carved knob was a lock. Penny fitted the key from the maracas into the lock. To her amazement the key was a perfect fit! She turned it and lifted the door-like lid.
There inside, like a jewel, like pirate gold was a glorious cupcake. It had a blue wrapper, pink icing and a cherry nestled on top. Penny took a big, well deserved bite and it was delicious.
