The Kids From B.A.D.
	Stories by Allen Morgan
	detective story collection
	no illustrations
	six stories - 128 pages

The Lunch Box Phantom (part 5)

After that the situation got a lot worse. Shane and Eddie hit the lunch boxes every day and took everything that was good to eat. They paid special attention to John's lunch. Three days in a row his thermos was opened and milk poured all over everything.

Nobody was happy with the way things were turning out. Especially not the grade twos.

"I thought you guys said you could handle them," Billy told John when they had an emergency meeting to discuss the case.

"We can," insisted John. "Just give us some time."

"All the kids are getting nervous," Billy said. "We have to bring five dollars in tomorrow to pay for a trip our class is going on. Everybody is scared Eddie and Shane will rob us."

"That's all we need," said Sally unhappily. "Maybe we should just go to the principal after all."

"No way! This is just the break we want," said John excitedly. "We want them to steal that money. We'll even make it easier for them. We'll tell all the kids in the class to keep their money in their lunch box."

Everyone looked at John as if he were crazy.

"Are you kidding?" said Billy.

"Why do we want them to do that?" asked Sally.

"We'll get the kids to mark their money before school," John explained. "Then when Eddie and Shane steal it from the lunch boxes we can prove it was them."

"Pretty smooth," said Ben. "That'll fix them."

"There's one thing you're forgetting though," said Mike. "How do we stop them long enough to check for the marked money? Those two guys are pretty tough, you know."

"We'll just have to find a way," said Jessica. "We can't let those guys push us around. I've been taking judo lessons..."

"She's taught me a couple of tricks too," Sally put in.

"I'll help," Billy offered. "I can fight pretty good.

"You're too small to take on Shane and Eddie," Mike told him. "Those two guys'll cream you."

"I don't care. I hate them. My whole class does."

"You better leave the fighting to us big guys," said Ben, trying to look tough. The only trouble was, he didn't feel very tough at all. None of the detectives did. They knew that even together they might not be as tough as Shane and Eddie.

But John had an idea. He turned to Billy."Maybe that's not such a bad idea-for you to take care of Eddie and Shane, I mean. You could do it if you had a little help."

"From who?" asked Mike. "From us? There's only five of us."

"From his class," explained John. "How many kids do you have?"

"Twenty-four," said Billy. "They'd all help for sure."

"And there's another grade two class and all the grade one kids," said John. "I know a couple of guys in grade three who'd go for the idea too. I bet we could get almost a hundred kids to help us. Then we could take care of Eddie and Shane, no sweat."

"They'd see everybody coming and take off," Sally pointed out.

"Not if we kept it secret until the last minute," John explained. "The detectives go over to them first. Then when we need help to make the arrest we give a signal and all the little kids come running over to help us."

Everybody agreed that it was a good plan. John went back with Billy to tell the rest of the grade two kids. Mike and Ben went to get some grade threes in on it too. Sally and Jessica told the grade ones.