Case Of The Nosy Time Travellers , livre ebook

Read more in the Superlative Supersleuths series
The Case of the Candy Bandit
The Case of the Careless Aliens
Read more for middle-grade readers
Ninja Nani and the Bumbling Burglars by Lavanya Karthik
Ninja Nani and the Mad Mummy Mix-up by Lavanya Karthik
Ninja Nani and the Zapped Zombie Kids by Lavanya Karthik
Ninja Nani and the Freaky Food Festival by Lavanya Karthik
Against All Odds by Ramendra Kumar
Oops the Mighty Gurgle by RamG Vallath
The Deadly Royal Recipe by Ranjit Lal
Vanamala and the Cephalopod by Shalini Srinivasan
The White Zone by Carolyn Marsden
Flat-track Bullies by Balaji Venkataramanan
Ravana Refuses to Die by Rustom Dadachanji
Dhanak by Anushka Ravishankar and Nagesh Kukunoor
Simply Nanju by Zainab Sulaiman
Hot Chocolate Is Thicker than Blood by Rupa Gulab
The Sherlock Holmes Connection by Martin Widmark, Anushka Ravishankar, Katarina Genar and Bikram Ghosh
Tiger Boy by Mitali Perkins
Karma Fights a Monster by Evan Purcell
Karma Meets a Zombie by Evan Purcell
Karma vs the Evil Twin by Evan Purcell
The Hill School Girls: Alone by A. Coven
The Hill School Girls: Secrets by A. Coven
The Hill School Girls: Strangers by A. Coven
The Hill School Girls: Trouble by A. Coven
The Piano by Nandita Basu
Rain Must Fall by Nandita Basu
Bim and the Town of Falling Fruit by Arjun Talwar
Vanamala and the Cephalopod by Shalini Srinivasan
Gopal’s Gully by Zarin Virji

CONTENTS
Superlative Supersleuths Detective Decree
AARTI TURNS THIRTEEN
THE BETTER SLEUTHS
SUBSTITUTES
AN ANCIENT PRESENT
BANANAS AND EGGS
THE COASTER LANGUAGE
BATTLE NINJA 4
HARMLESS SLEUTHING
NOT ALL CATS
WHACK-A-MOLE
FATH IS MUN
CONVENIENCE
THE EXCHANGE
WEFARTS
THE NOSY TIME TRAVELLER
Superlative Supersleuths Detective Decree
Follow Penguin
Copyright
Superlative Supersleuths Detective Decree
As the founding members of Superlative Supersleuths, and in the presence of Aarti’s Dad (who is a real lawyer), we hereby make the following decree:
If a crime is committed, we’ll consider solving it.
Homework (especially maths word problems) shall be sacrificed in the interests of solving crimes.
Every new member shall take the crime-solving oath, and accept the rules of this decree. They shall not yawn during the process.
Only founding members can recruit new members.
A candidate, if not selected, shall not annoy the founding members for another chance.
All disputes shall be settled by the founding members.
If a dispute occurs between the founding members, all non-founding members will be removed. They must have done something wrong to make best friends fight.
Members who do not consult the internet for clues will be declared poop pancakes.
(There are many other rules, which the founding members will be happy to explain if they aren’t busy.)
Founding members (Rachita and Aarti)
AARTI TURNS THIRTEEN
‘Thirteen candles are down. The good luck candle is still lit. Task Alpha has been completed successfully,’ I whispered to my collar.
‘Happy birthday to you!’ we sang.
‘Woof!’ barked Arjun’s beagle.
‘Happy birthday tooo youuuu!’
Aarti cut a piece of the cake meant for humans and fed it to me (aww). I did the same.
‘Task Beta done,’ I whispered.
She cut pieces of the special cake meant for animals, and then she walked around the room feeding every pet in sight.
‘Happy birthday, dear Aaaaaart-eeeeee!’
If Aarti were sane, she would not have thrown a birthday party. It didn’t make any economic sense. But Aarti isn’t sane. Hence, there’s no point complaining about it not making economic sense.
‘Note to self: Stop whining while on mission,’ I mumbled into the microphone.
‘Happy birthday to youuuuu!’
‘You were born in the zo—’ Divya started.
I managed to cover her mouth just in time. ‘Task Gamma comple—Ouch!’
Divya almost bit my hand. Of all the creatures in the room, it was a human that attacked me. I was surrounded by savages!
‘Let her sing, Rachita. I don’t find it offensive!’ Aarti winked at me.
‘You were born in the zoo,’ Divya glared at me as she sang.
‘You were born in the zooooooo,’ others joined in.
Aarti looked at all her two- and four-legged friends. Her eyes gleamed.
‘With tigers and monkeys,
‘That look just like you!’
You spend your parents’ money to feed people cake. You entertain them with games, balloons and return gifts. They return the favour by comparing you to animals in a zoo. I know I shouldn’t be whining, but ugghhh, birthday parties are so pointless and unrewarding!
The guests were now in their seats, busy feeding themselves and their pets. Aarti had asked everyone to bring their pets to make her birthday extra special. I’d planted the idea in her head. This was the best opportunity to have all the suspects and their pets in the same place.
‘Initiate phase II,’ I whispered into the mic.
‘Do we really have to? Over.’ Ashwin’s meek voice made its way through the earpiece. Vipul looked at me pleadingly from the other end of the room.
‘Affirmative. If you still want to be a part of the Supersleuths,’ I said.
Ashwin and Vipul dejectedly went on all fours and crawled to the pet closest to them. They gently opened the pet’s jaws/beaks, took a long sniff, and made note of how bad their breath smelled.

Our sleuthing services had been in high demand since we got semi-famous last winter. I’d thought that having Vipul and Ashwin as official Supersleuths would help us manage the load, but the number of cases just kept growing.
Aarti had come up with the idea of creating a website during the summer vacations. It’s been a great success: anyone can anonymously request us to solve a mystery. We encourage others to solve them too. It reduces our workload, and we feel good about keeping the spirit of sleuthing alive. Jyoti and Shilpa from our class formed a team and claimed that they’ll solve one before us one of these days. They’ve been failing miserably so far.
We had got a request two days earlier. Someone was vandalizing walls in Aarti’s apartment complex, the Shobhana Hillside View. One of the boundary walls had been smeared with garbage from the dustbins. This had been happening for just under a week. The adults didn’t seem to care much since the wall wasn’t visible during their evening walks or early morning yoga classes, but it stank up the area where the kids played football. Aarti hadn’t noticed it either—she had been busy pet-proofing her home for the last five days.
We had scouted the boundary wall before the party began. It was already dark by then, but my phone’s flashlight was enough to make some initial observations. The garbage patterns on the wall looked random. If the vandals were human, I’d expect them to leave some sort of message behind. Vandals leave messages because it made them look cool. They’d have made some art out of the garbage or arranged it to form curse words or something like that.
Interestingly, smearing trash on the walls seemed a nice way to segregate it. The wet waste remained stuck on the walls, while the dry waste slowly fell down. Could it be that the vandals understood the importance of recycling and wanted the people in the society to segregate their waste better? I noticed a glum-looking eggshell and a banana peel on the ground. I picked them up and smeared them on the wall again so that they could be back with their wet-waste brothers and sisters.
I tried to convince the security guards to show me the CCTV footage. They didn’t take me seriously, even when I tried to bribe them. I put them on the suspect list.
My hunch was that the criminal was an animal, one that was really fond of playing with garbage. I’ve heard of pet owners complain about that. We couldn’t spot any strays in the society, so it was likely to be someone’s pet.
‘How many pets are left?’ I whispered into the mic.
‘Around a dozen, I guess. Over,’ Ashwin responded.
‘Make it quick, people will start to leave soon,’ I said.
I’ve explained to Ashwin several times that he doesn’t need to use ‘Over’ when he finishes a message. We’re not in the 1950s any more, when only one person could speak on the radio channel at a time. But he insists on doing it because that’s how he’s seen it being done in movies.
I’d asked Aarti to invite everyone in the society who had pets, even if she didn’t know them well. She didn’t have a problem with that. For her, it just meant more gifts and more pets to cuddle with. Uncle and Aunty weren’t pleased, but they couldn’t say no. Our school counsellor must have recommended to our parents that they be extra nice to us after what we had been through.
Well, last year, we had got into a bit of trouble, of the abduction kind. It wasn’t that bad; I’ve felt more upset at being grounded. Adults really freak out when stuff like that happens to kids, though. It apparently affects us psychologically. Everyone becomes extra nice to help you feel better. It’s worked a lot to our advantage. I’ve easily got away with stuff that would have otherwise got me grounded or suspended. But I won’t recommend that someone get abducted just for that.
Ashwin was trying to smell a German Shepherd’s mouth; he almost fainted after taking a sniff. My hypothesis was that a pet that ate garbage was bound to have very gross breath. I knew that the plan wasn’t entirely foolproof; most animals had bad breath anyway. It’s possible that the culprit wasn’t even here; it’s possible that it wasn’t an animal at all.
Was it wrong of me to humiliate my comrades with such a repugnant task when I wasn’t even certain whether it’ll advance our investigation? I didn’t think so. Had anyone really died of smelling high doses of bad breath? This is how you discipline your disciples. As the leader, I needed to be tough at times. All the masters I’ve seen in the movies are initially rude and grumpy with their apprentices; they are nice only when their students start realizing their true potential.
‘Phase II completed,’ Vipul annou