The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen

Summary

In need of a vacation after their last laser-beam-filled adventure, Lily, Jasper, and Katie have flown off for a restful stay at a distant mountain lodge, which just so happens to be hosting a gathering for characters from other middle-grade series novels. Two--the marvelous Manley Boys--look suspiciously like a pair of crime-solving brothers named Frank and Joe Hardy. Two others are a pair of boy-crazy twin sisters who attend a high school in some sweet valley somewhere. And then there are the Hooper Quints, who, along with a wealthy heiress's priceless diamond necklace, have suddenly gone missing. Does it surprise you that the supposedly "on vacation" Katie, Jasper, and Lily are the only ones around who have the chops to solve this challenging mystery? National Book Award finalist M. T. Anderson has done it again with this second volume of his riotous and wonderfully weird new series.

Author Biography

M. T. ANDERSON is the author of Whales on Stilts, The Game of Sunken Places, Burger Wuss, Thirsty, and Feed, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

Summertime TantrumGreat scott! cried Jasper Dash, Boy Technonaut. Your mother just lost her hand in the rotating band saw!Katie Mulligan kept dribbling her ball of wastepaper back and forth between her knees. Uh-huh, she said. Sure.Katies mother screamed and held up her bloody stump.Katie kicked the ball of paper into the trash basket, scoring two points. She asked, Right at the wrist?Jasper rushed to Katies mothers side. Dont you worry, Mrs. Mulligan! exclaimed Jasper. He grabbed her arm. Lie down flat while I prepare a tourniquet.They were in the Mulligans garage, watching Mrs. Mulligan make a roulette wheel for the Salvation Armys charity casino or at least thats what theyd been watching until Mrs. Mulligans gruesome accident.Where do you want to go to dinner? Katie asked her friend Lily.Lily shrugged. When she was alone with her friends, she was very quiet, hiding behind her bangs, watching rather than speaking. She was naturally pretty shy. She was also made bashful by the sight of industrial accidents, even though she knew that Katies mother was just playing a prank on Jasper, the way Mrs. Mulligan always did. Run over by a moose, decapitated by the dryer, burnt to a crisp by a defective AM/FM clock radio there was no tragedy too weird and stupid for Jasper to believe.Dont you worry, Mrs. Mulligan, he was saying. By next Thursday Ill have you fitted up with a bionic hand that will be every bit as good as your old hand. And it will have extendable fingers and photon thrusters, and therell be a space in the thumb to conceal your cyanide pill and lock-picking tools.Mrs. Mulligan stopped screaming. She looked at him skeptically. My lock-picking tools?Or whatever, said Jasper. Whatevers small and can be concealed in a secret chamber.Mrs. Mulligan took off the fake rubber arm stump and stretched her fingers. Why would you possibly think I would want lock-picking tools?Ah, said Jasper, somewhat displeased. I see you are not actually wounded at all.Who has lock-picking tools?Mrs. Mulligan, was your accident with the band saw just a jolly prank to put one over on me? Because if it was, may I maam may I say that I did not entirely appreciate the humor.Jasper, do you have lock-picking tools? What do you kids do all day?Good question, sighed Katie. Its vacation, and were bored out of our minds.Mrs. Mulligan waved her rubber wrist in the air. Well, thats why I was trying to cheer you all up a little.By sawing off your own hand? said Jasper.You girls didnt even jump, said Katies mom.Because we see it all the time, said Katie. She groaned, Aaaaaaalllllllll the tiiiiiiiiiiime. She let her tongue hang out of her mouth and her head roll back.Katie Mulligan lived in Horror Hollow, a small, eventful suburb where there were constantly problems with phantasms, murderers, door-to-door tarantula peddlers, and slime. She even had her own series of books written about her. They told every gory detail of how she fought of

Excerpted from The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen: M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales by M. T. Anderson
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