Knowledge Doesn't Just Happen

(SCENE: The School Library)

WILLOW: How is it you always know this stuff? You always know what's going on -- I never know what's going on.

GILES: (points to pile of books) Yes, well, you weren't here from midnight to six researching it.

WILLOW: No, I was sleeping.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 1, episode 7, "Angel"

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Joss Whedon, as many know, is a hugely popular hero to many inclined toward geekery because of the intelligence and wit he works into his writing.  And not just displays of intelligence, but respect for it.  Buffy made him very popular in the library community, both because the very cool mentor character of Giles and because every episode emphasized the importance of hours of tedious research and investigation as key to catching bad guys.  You'll even find academic articles about it, like this one: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Research as a Public Good.

Anyway, I'm just thinking about this for a couple of reasons.  Since, after sporadically catching many odd episodes through the years, I've recently started working my way through the series from the start and enjoyed that quote when I heard it.  I've also been watching the recent British series Sherlock, so I seem to have investigative work on the brain.  And, finally, I've been preparing for tonight's monthly gathering of the Guys Read Book Club I lead at my library.  Each month I try to have something active to do along with discussion since the guys are still young, something that works thematically with the title I'm introducing.  This month it is Half-Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer, about a twelve-year-old aspiring private detective.  I thought I'd let them pair up tonight and do a quick bit of a scavenger hunt in the library to test their investigative abilities.

The Detective’s Investigation

In order to solve your case, you must track down and return with the following:

•    A booklist
•    A bookmark
•    A library flyer
•    A crayon
•    A magazine
•    Something magnetic
•    Something yellow
•    The name of a library employee (not part of this activity)
•    A phone number & address for a local McDonald’s
•    Mark Twain’s birthday
•    The Dewey Decimal number for Math
•    The number of wall clocks in this building
•    Something fuzzy
•    Something funny
•    The solution to this code:

Each of the following words is a color, written in a code that substitutes numbers for letters.  The same code is used for all five colors.  The first answer is given; name the other colors.

    25-5-12-12-15-23        Y-E-L-L-O-W
    7-18-5-5-14
    18-5-4
    15-18-1-14-7-6
    2-18-15-23-14

•    The answer to this mystery:

The Case of the Defaced Sidewalk

One Saturday morning, Max saw the three musketeers in the mall. John, Brett, and Simon called themselves by that name because they were always together.

"I've been shopping for sandals," John told Max. "But I have such a wide foot nothing seems to fit. We've been looking everywhere."

"And it's been slow going," Simon added. "On account of Brett's--"

"I know," Max said, looking at Brett. "I heard you sprained your ankle in gym yesterday. Does it still hurt a lot?"

"It's okay as long as I move really slowly," Brett told him. "We're going to get ice cream at the Just Desserts Shop now. Want to join us?"

"Better not. Marco is meeting me at home. See you later."

Max was taking a short cut through Harborville's city park when he saw Mr. Hansen kneeling beside a new sidewalk. The city maintenance man frowned as he drew closer. "Somebody jumped right in the middle here while the cement was still wet," he said, pointing at two narrow footprints embedded in the concrete. "Now I'll have to rip out this section and re-do it. Sure can't leave the sidewalk looking like this!"

"Any idea of who did it?" Max asked.

"A kid over there on the slide said that a group of boys named Brett, Simon, and John were the only ones near here. But he doesn't know which one ruined my sidewalk."

"I know who did it," Max declared.

Who did it and how did Max know?



From:
http://kids.mysterynet.com/quicksolve/quicksolve027/
MysteryNet’s Kids Mysteries