For Ages
8 to 12

Finally, Something Mysterious is a part of the The One and Onlys collection.

The best mysteries can only be solved with your best friends. The perfect summer read for fans of Stuart Gibbs.

Paul Marconi has always thought that Bellwood was a strange town, but also a boring one. Not much for an eleven-year-old to do. Fires are burning nearby, Paul's parents are obsessed with winning a bratwurst contest, and his best friend, one of the founding members of their only-child detective club, the One and Onlys, is about…

An Excerpt fromFinally, Something Mysterious

1

The First Weird Thing

The weirdness in Bellwood all began with the smoke in the air and the ducks in Mr. Babbage’s backyard. After they showed up, a lot of other weird things started happening. Mysteries, you could call them. Some of them were scratch-­your-­head-­and-­say-­hmm kind of weird, but a couple of them were big-­time weird. Stare-­up-­at-­the-­night-­sky-­and-­wonder-­about-­the-­meaning-­of-­life kind of weird. And-­hope-­that-­while-­I’m-­staring-­up-­there-­a-­bird-­does-­not-­poop-­on-­me-­cuz-­that-­would-­not-­be-­a-­good-­sign-­regarding-­the-­meaning-­of-­life. That kind of weird.

The smoke was easy to explain: a wildfire was burning in a big state forest outside of town. When the wind shifted the wrong way, all of Bellwood smelled like a campfire. 

The ducks in Babbage’s yard were a different story. They appeared one seemingly normal Tuesday morning, scattered all over the grass. There must have been hundreds of them, their little yellow tails poking into the air, each duck with the same creepy look on its face: eyes wide open and vacant, like empty garages; bill curved upward in a kind of lipsticked maniac smile. I could picture the moment Babbage discovered them: he looks out at his backyard as he drinks his…

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