The Detective Club

  It was Jack’s idea. Why not? It promised to be quite interesting. Every town, no matter where you go in the United States, has mysteries, right? Sure! They’re everywhere! So why not try to solve some of them?

Of course, Jack didn’t come up with the idea overnight. The beginnings of it came one day when he was hanging out with his friends, Kurt and Robbie.  Those weren’t his only friends, of course; just his best. They were at Jack’s house playing table tennis in the basement. The problem with this was that there were three players, and table tennis was traditionally a two-person sport. What was to be done?

“I can take you both on,” boasted Kurt. Twelve (like Kurt and Robbie), he had a muscular frame and a somewhat squarish face. His hair was always in a buzzcut, though not the extreme kind that makes people appear bald. Confident and daring, Kurt never shied away from a challenge (not to say he was always up to them, just that he never shied away).

“Oh, really?” said Jack, skeptically. Jack tended to be more thoughtful, though he was just as confident when the challenge wasn’t over-the-top. He was quite thin, with black hair, green eyes, and a face that often bore what looked like a little smirk. It wasn’t due to any ill qualities of Jack; everyone who knew him said he was a good kid, respectful, never—well, almost never—in trouble.

“You want me to prove it?” said Kurt, picking up a paddle.  “If I remember correctly, there’s an extra one on the bookshelf for you, Robbie.”

“If you want this,” said Robbie, picking up the paddle. Robbie was the most unique-looking member of the group when it came to features.  He was the shortest, but he was also thin as a wire. Glasses with large round frames made him look like a computer geek.  In reality, Robbie knew almost nothing about computers, outside of how to turn them on and surf the Internet and stuff.  He was more at home playing table tennis, particularly when he was teaming up against one player.

Kurt picked up a red ball, lazily tossed it in the air, and thwacked it over in Jack’s direction. Ironically, Jack missed it, as did Robbie. Jack served the next one, and the ball went back and forth for a good two minutes before Robbie sent a well-timed shot past Kurt. After that, the game went more predictably, with Kurt getting destroyed. When he’d missed ten times, Jack and Robbie convinced him to declare them winners.

“Agreed,” said Kurt, who knew when he was licked. “Why don’t you play each other? I’ll watch and take over for whoever loses.”

“You got it,” said Robbie.  “That sound good with you, Jack?”

“It does,” said Jack, who took his paddle and faced off against Robbie. Jack was very good at multitasking, and when he was up 2—0, he said, “You know what?”

“What?” said Kurt.  “Is it important?”

“It might be,” said Jack. “I heard on the news today that crime is up for the last month.”

“So what?” said Kurt. “We live in a big city. There’s always crimes going on in Tacoma.”

“So why don’t we try to do something about it.”

“What do you have in mind?” Robbie asked, as he missed a ball. He bent down to pick it up (the nice thing about being short was that he didn’t have as far to go), then served it back to Jack.

“Wouldn’t it be fun,” suggested Jack, “to start a detective club?”

“A detective club?” said Kurt.  “You’re joking.”

“I’m serious, Kurt,” Jack said, hitting the ball past Robbie. “We could help out the city and have fun at the same time. Of course, you might not be up to the challenge.”

“Who, me? I’m always up to challenges.”

“We know that, Kurt,” said Robbie.

“Well, what about you, Robbie? What do you think of Jack’s idea? We all know you’re not always up to challenges.”

Robbie, for a change, knocked the ball past Jack. “No, but I’m up to this one. How much trouble could we get into?”

“It’s settled; we’ll do it,” said Jack. “We’ll start the Detective Club, consisting of us three as members.”

“Now if it’s a club,” said Kurt, “you’ve got to have positions. There’s got to be a president, a vice-president, and a treasurer.”

“It was Jack’s idea; why don’t we make him the president?” said Robbie.

“If you want,” said Jack, “though I don’t intend to boss you guys around. Our mission will be to get mysteries solved and make Tacoma a safer place.”

“Not bad,” said Robbie. “We should swear to it or something, right?”

Jack knocked the ball past Robbie and put down his paddle. “Right,” he said. “Gather around this ping-pong table, and we’ll swear ourselves in.”

Kurt joined the other two at their table.

“Hold on a second,” said Jack. “We need something to swear on.” He went to the bookshelf and grabbed a Bible off it. Returning, he placed the Bible on the table, put his left hand on it, and raised his right hand.

“I, Jack Barnes, do solemnly swear to protect and uphold the laws of the United States of America as part of the Detective Club,” he said. “There how’s that?”

“Good!” said Kurt. He walked to where Jack was and assumed the same position. “I, Kurt Morris, do solemnly swear to protect and uphold the laws of America as part of the Detective Club.” He picked up the Bible and handed it over to Robbie.

“I, Robbie Ransom, do solemnly swear to protect and uphold the laws of the United States of America as part of the Detective Club.”

“I, Emma Barnes, solemnly swear to whatever you all just said.”

Jack glanced down the room, then groaned. There was Emma, his younger sister by five years, at a table with her right hand raised and her left on top of her little pink New Testament. Somehow she’d slipped into the rec room while the rest of them hadn’t been paying attention.

“Emma, this is our club, not yours,” said Jack. “I’m sorry, but Kurt and Robbie are the only ones besides myself who belong to it.”

“And me!” said Emma, picking up her New Testament and darting back to the staircase. She charged up the stairs, ran to her room, and picked up her diary. “Dear Diary: Today I joined the…”

Meanwhile, Jack glanced around. He nodded at his friends. “It’s just us three, right?”

“Right!” agreed Kurt.

“Right!” seconded Robbie, “but try telling Emma that.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jack. “She’ll forget this by tomorrow.”