Mercury's Missing Mutt

An IPPI Mystery Story.

- Kristin O’Donnell Tubb

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM needs you.” Chloe Minn and Miranda Knox looked up from

their lunch boxes. A dark-haired boy stood at the end of the table, holding out a business card:

I.P.P.I.: Inter-Planetary Private Investigator Jonathon Jones

We solve every crime under the sun!

“I don’t get it,” Chloe said. “Each planet has its own police force. Why would anyone hire you?”

“Hire us,” Jonathon said, dusting a chair with a napkin and sitting down. “Because startroopers don’t like to get the dust of other planets on their hands. It’s outside their territory. That’s where we come in.”

“We?” Miranda asked. She looked excitedly from Jonathon to Chloe, her curly hair sproinging from side to side.

“Oo! I wanna join!” Tommy Lutsinger said, leaning over his spaghetti.

Jonathon eyed him. “Miranda’s the school computer whiz, and nobody beats Chloe at math. How can you help?”

Tommy shifted, then sat upright. “I have the coolest dog in the universe, Comet!”

Jonathon scratched his chin. “Consider this your tryout, Lutsinger. We might need that pooch of yours.” He tapped some notes in his personal organizer. “Our first case is a missing mongrel on Mercury. One of its germy drool-hounds went missing from a dog kennel.”

Miranda knotted her fingers together. “A lost dog? Oh, poor whittle fuzzy wuppie!”

After school, Miranda used the supercomputer to teleport the crew, plus Comet, to Mercury’s Dog Star Kennel.