Knuckles & Braeburn: Chapter One

From the first draft of my novel, Knuckles & Braeburn: The Case of the Cursed Bonanza

Clarence Braebern was pacing. Sneakers pressed against the squeaky floorboards of Mystery HQ (AKA the treehouse his dad built). He was clad in his usual jeans, blazer, and red bow tie, with red sneakers to match, pacing and squeezing a juice box.

Knuckles sat at her desk, eyeing him with a raised eyebrow as she adjusted her telescope.

“Better take it easy,” she said. “That’s your third box of Woo-Woo Juice. We don’t want you to get the shakes.”

“I’m on to something here, Knuckles,” he said, scratching behind his ear, just under his poofy afro. He went over to his desk, which was littered in clippings, and grabbed a newspaper. He whapped it on Knuckles’ desk.

“You saw the news, right?”

Looking down, she noticed the headline:

MAYOR’S GRAVE UNEARTHED

Underneath, there was another, smaller headline alongside a picture of Old Man Higgins looking wide-eyed and spooked:

OLD MAN ADDLED MORE THAN USUAL

“Yeah,” she said, peeking through the telescope, “another attempted grave robber trying to get rich. This town is lousy with ‘em.”

“I think we could have a case on our hands,” said Clarence.

Knuckles tucked a strand of shining black hair behind her ear as she picked up the newspaper. She pursed her lips.

“Grave dug up. ‘Course the idiots couldn’t get into the casket. Meanwhile, Higgins is found asleep next to the grave, not far from beloved Fifi. Claims to see some bright lights. Sounds like classic Higgins to me.”

“I think there could be more to this story,” said Clarence. “You know they say Mayor Muckworth was supposed to inherit some treasure left behind by the Conquistadors that landed here in the 1500s?”

“Oh, you think someone was after the treasure?” she said with some skepticism.

 “Precisely,” said Clarence, “AND I think that treasure is likely haunted. Possibly cursed.”

 Knuckles rolled her eyes.

“Urban legend!” she said. “Everyone gets it all twisted. Were there Spanish Conquistadors in Thistlewood once upon a time? Yes. Did they have some gold coins or some such around? Probably! But did they have some massive bonanza—much less a cursed bonanza? Highly unlikely!”

“Unlikely, but not impossible,” Clarence said, “but if you look back into the history of this town, you’ll see some pretty interesting accounts of ghostly goings on.”

"Yeah, from a notoriously sensationalist news rag. And accounts from some old cowboys who didn’t have any decent wifi to keep ‘em occupied. They probably went mad with boredom and conjured up crackpot stories about ghosts and curses.”

She leaned back and cracked her knuckles audibly.

“Anyway,” she said, “Let’s look at something you can actually see with the human eyes. The full moon!”

Braeburn bent down and looked through the telescope, which was pointed out the window of the old treehouse. The moon was out early, its craters on full display. There it was, in all of its glory.

“She’s a beaut,” said Knuckles, repositioning the telescope.

“Anyway, curse or no curse, I will agree with you that there’s been some strange stuff going on in Thistlewood as of late.”

“Yeah? How do ya reckon?” Braeburn said, zooming in on one of the moon’s many craters, but then repositioning to the neighbor’s house.

“I dunno,” Knuckles said, “people have just been a little… off since the Mayor died. Ms. Perkins down the way keeps adding more and more garden gnomes to her front lawn. It feels like a cry for help.”

Braeburn swiveled the telescope to Ms. Perkins’ house. It was, indeed peppered with an alarming amount of garden gnomes, all in red hats.

“Eh, let her have her gnomes,” he said. Then he turned to Knuckles seriously.

“Knuckles, how do you think the mayor died?”

“Umm… natural causes? Like how the official story said?”

“Right,” Braeburn said, rubbing his chin. He sat down on a bean bag chair. “The official story.”

“I mean, what else have we got to go on?” said Knuckles.

“I dunno,” he said, before slurping the last dregs of the Woo-Woo Juice packet, “just seems odd. Marla Muckworth, age fifty-five. Dies from ‘natural causes.’ It doesn’t sit right.”

“It is odd,” Knuckles said, wheeling around in her swivel chair. “But not impossible. What else could it possibly be?”

Braeburn looked up and out the window, at the yellowing leaves that fluttered gently.

“Guess we’ll just have to find out.”