What A Stolen Bike Was For
Hanna sat in her shed for the rest of the afternoon. She did not tell her father. She did not call Sergeant Leski.
Instead, she did what any sensible eleven-year-old detective does: she set out a small, friendly trap.
She wrote a note. The note said:
*Hello. I think you have been using my shed. I won't tell. But I'd like to know who you are and why you needed my bike. Please write back, here. I'll come check tomorrow morning. — Hanna.*
She left the note on top of the workbench, with a pencil. She locked the front door. She did not block the back slat.
In the morning, the note was gone. In its place was another note, in handwriting that was younger than Hanna's.
*Hello. My name is Theo. I am ten. I live with my grandmother on the next street. She is sick and we don't have much money. I needed the bicycle to deliver newspapers because I was offered a job and I don't have a bike of my own. I am sorry. I will return your bike tonight. The trowel was for my grandmother's garden. I will return it. The rope and the birdseed I cannot return, I have used them. I am very sorry. — Theo.*
Hanna read it three times.
Then she got her father.
Hanna's father was a thoughtful man. He asked her what she wanted to do.
She thought about it.
That afternoon Hanna went round to the next street, with her father, and knocked on the door of a small house. Theo opened it, and his eyes went