Who Stole the Cookies AND the Cookie Jar?

Alice Edmunds sorted through the papers on her desk. Technically, it was Detective Alice Edmunds, but the title hardly seemed to suit her considering her unorganized, head-in-the-clouds nature. There were a total of seven papers on her desk, each had been crumpled at least once and therefore looked much older than they were. The papers were the seven unsolved cases that she was currently working on, although that was an overstatement too, considering that three of them had been in her hands for longer than a year and one of them had been brought to her by a man who had now died of old age. Alice finally pushed all the papers into one pile that managed to look precarious despite not even being an inch tall. This left her desk mostly clear, other than a fountain pen and a plate on her desk that spelled out her name. It was left over from her first, and only other job, so it still read ALICE EDMUNDS, INTERN, but that was fine by her. It got the point across. The fountain pen had never been used, and it had gathered a slight film of dust, but it still made Alice look much more professional. Alice was surveying the room, trying to find something to do that made her look like she was working. There were two frames on the wall, both the type that were made to look as if they had been hand-carved and painted with really gold, but were actually plastic tinted with a light yellow-brown color. One held a picture of her graduating high school, and the other was her certificate from graduating Bluewood College, a place no one would ever believe existed. They were both hanging crookedly and although Alice knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to get them to hang straight, she still messed with them for three minutes and would have done so for longer had she not been interrupted by a knock. Alice was so startled, having rarely heard someone knock on her door, and nearly fell off the chair she had been standing on. 

“Ye-yes?” Alice called nervously, wobbling to get her balance on the chair before realizing—a bit belatedly considering that someone had already entered her little office—that it looked very unprofessional to be perched on top of a chair fixing the angle of a graduation certificate from a college that no one knew existed. She quickly—but not very gracefully—hopped off of the chair, wincing as a sharp pain coursed through her foot. She’d liked the design of the boots she was wearing (her only pair)—ankle high and made of black leather with black laces, but the only size that store had had was extra small, and Alice was a medium. She’d bought the boots and been cursing herself for doing so every day since. 

The person bustled over to her, albeit slowly, and checked on Alice in a way Alice associated with her grandparents. 

“I’m Roberta Simons,” The woman stuck out a hand to shake. She was short with flyaway strands of gray hair, mixed with a bit of orangey-red hair that looked distinctly as if she had tried to dye it and given up halfway through. She wore a dusty, lavender-purple beret and a dress covered in rainbow-colored daisies. Her socks came up to her knees and she wore sandals that might have been a size too big. Alice was still looking the woman over when she spoke again “And you are?” she prompted. It was as if Alice was with her grandparents all over again, being reminded about manners, only now she was on her own and the woman reminding her how to behave was a customer.

“Oh. Ah. Alice! Yes. Alice Edmunds, ah Detective Alice Edmunds, really.” Alice bumbled, then thought to add “At your service.” she stuck out a hand to shake, realizing as the woman squinted at it that it was the wrong one and quickly shoved her correct hand into Roberta’s, shaking it forcefully. A bit taken aback, the woman took a step towards the door and then decided that she’d better see if Alice could solve her case.

“My son’s cookie jar has gone missing,” Roberta informed Alice, a bit apprehensive. Then as if this hadn’t provoked enough reaction from Alice, she repeated “Missing! His cookie jar!” Alice nodded, then hurried behind her desk to find a notepad. “He painted it, all by himself when he was in kindergarten. It took him so long, and he was so proud of it! So proud!” Roberta continued, while Alice rummaged. It took her 45 seconds, but finally, she held a rumpled pad of paper into the air triumphantly. It took her another minute to find a pen, but eventually, she had both and wrote Case Number 10(!): The Missing Cookie Jar at the top. She studied her handwriting for a minute. Even of her few accomplishments, her handwriting stood out to her. She was quite proud of it—and although she would never admit to it, she had kept the sticky note she’d received from Ms. Higgins in second grade complimenting her handwriting, and she had even ordered a frame for it too, though that frame stayed tucked in a box, safe from judging eyes.

“So…his cookie jar is missing, not just the cookies?” Alice asked, eager to write more in her notepad. 

“Yes. Yes. He called yesterday, he has a bakery, you know, and he explained the whole situation to me. His cookie jar is missing! I told him, of course, that I’d help him find it, and so I looked in the telephone book and found you, my dear, you!” To help make her point, Roberta pulled a hefty, falling-apart phone book out of a huge pocket in her dress and leafed through the A’s to find a page where four different names of Alices were written. As a chubby finger pointed around the page and Roberta continued talking, Alice figured out how she had been picked for the job. Alice Williams, just below Alice Edmunds, on the phone book page, was the best detective in town, so good that her phone book entry included such. Alice Edmunds’ entry still stated that she was an intern at the Meringue factory. It had been a simple case of Roberta writing down the wrong address, even Alice could figure that out. “So, you’ll come visit the bakery? It’s on 234th Street, it’s only a few blocks away.” Alice neatly wrote out practically every word that had just come out of Roberta’s mouth, taking a moment at the end of every bullet point or sentence to admire her work.

“Yes. Of course. Of course, I will…go. Go to the bakery. That’s what I’ll do, I’ll go to the bakery and figure out your case. The case of…ahh…who stole the cookie jar. Is that acceptable?” The last part came out a bit more curt than Alice had been taught to say at the Meringue factory when a customer was unsatisfied, but she remembered her mother saying once to her that it was the thought that counted. She gathered her trench coat, which put together with her boots made a very nice detective’s outfit, she thought, and led Roberta down the rickety three flights of stairs and out onto the bustling street. Roberta took the lead, then, now moving with great speed. She was unafraid to elbow apart couples gazing up at the tall buildings and once even left a person who had been drinking coffee before she ran into him in a hurry with half of his paper cup spilled all over the ground. When they reached the bakery, she hurried right passed the neatly decorated windows and shoved open the door very aggressively. The bells made a pleasant tingling that seemed too happy for the all-of-a-sudden angsty woman’s mood. Alice caught up to the woman as she reached the counter, having cut a large line of people to get there. She hurriedly explained things to the confused teenager behind the counter, using lots of wild hand gestures and nearly hitting several people in the face. 

“Well, I understand that, ma’am,” The teenager interrupted, “However, Mr. Simons hasn’t informed us of this, so you must understand our hesitancy to believe such—” At that moment, a man who didn’t resemble Roberta in the slightest but must have been her son because his nametag read HENRY SIMONS, walked in from the swinging doors to the kitchen. 

“Hey, Mum.” her son looked startled to see her there but quickly recovered. “It’s okay Oliver,” He then muttered something else to the teenager before stepping out from behind the counter, only to have the whole situation explained to him all over again, hand gestures included. Henry eyed Alice as his mother finished up her story then looked at Alice, who in turn was studying a golden retriever that sat outside the shop windows.

“Hold that thought, Mrs. Simons. I’ll be right back,” Alice said, sounding more sure of herself than she ever had. She fought through the crowd of people inside the bakery and burst out into the blustery fall air of the city. The golden retriever’s head was turned towards the wall. Alice carefully bent down to peer at the animal. It was licking the inside of an old-looking, hand-painted tin box. Alice smiled for the first time in…who knew how long. She had solved a case! Her first case ever! “Good doggie,” Alice said as she slowly took the tin out of the dog’s reach and handed it to Henry, who had walked outside. He held it close to his chest and Alice smiled. This was the kind of thing she’d imagined when she’d decided to be a detective.

“Thanks, Alice.” Mrs. Simons said sweetly, her aggressive nature totally swept aside. 

“Of course, it is my job, anyway,” Alice said, finding that she was receiving confidence from somewhere now that she had solved a case. She nodded, somehow knowing it was the right thing to do, then walked away into the crowds of people.

As she opened the door to her office, she realized two things. Roberta had never paid her, and that the golden retriever had followed her back. Dismissing the first realization, Alice knelt down and looked into the dog’s eyes. The only pet she’d ever had was a goldfish, when she was nine, that she’d named Kessler, for some reason that she could no longer remember. She smiled at the dog, enjoying the feeling of being happy, and patted the dog’s head.

“Hey, Kess. Welcome to being a detective.”