DEXTER MEETS MISS MUFFET

Annabelle Adderley — Girl Detective

A child’s garden of mayhem

Photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash

Annabelle Adderley poked her rapidly congealing oatmeal with her spoon. Why, oh, why did she never find a finger floating in her breakfast cereal? Mama had found one yesterday and raised a great fuss.

Annabelle’s lips pursed in a sly smile. Nanny tried to pass it off as the gardener’s pinky — no doubt a dreadful accident with the hedge trimmer. But Annabelle knew that was not at all the case. She had recognized her father’s signet ring on the offending finger. And, anyway, why would their gardener’s finger cause Mama to faint?

And, more to the point, where was the rest of Papa? A precocious child and curious by nature, Annabelle had always believed it fell to her to look out for her family. Especially her Mama and Papa.

Papa had been missing since Tuesday, fortnight, which in itself was troubling. And Mama, though tight-lipped about it, was showing definite signs of stress. Not as bad as when Baby Jilly was ill with the whooping cough. But worse than when their little brother Ferdie fell down the well and had to be retrieved in a leaky bucket by the Old Bill, their faithful gardener.

Of course, falling down the well had been mostly Ferdie’s fault. Really, what sensible…