The Alex and Amelia mysteries

Alex looked on, astonished as the living room transformed before his very eyes. A woman he’d seen on occasion was busily painting the walls with broad strokes of a rolling brush. Dip. Roll. Dip. Roll. Within minutes, almost the entire wall was a new color.

Alex was astonished because only a few months prior he’d tried his hand at painting on the walls and gotten scolded. It was a colorful combination of orange crayon, a glitter pen, and various pencil marks, culminating in what he considered to be a wonderful abstraction detailing his relationship with the universe.

His parents were not happy, scrubbed the art off the walls, and Alex lost his crayon privileges for a week.

Amelia’s explorations in food art had met a similar response. They both thought her Rage in Spaghetti Sauce to be an excellent representation of the trials and tribulations often experienced by a pre-adolescent testing the boundaries of parental tolerance.

Instead, more scrubbing and no dessert that night.

Alex had presumed that his parents were simply culturally inert, incapable of appreciating the walls for the canvases that they were. He was ready to populate them with wonderful creations that they need only put the frame around. It’s easier than hanging something up!

And yet, now, they’re letting an adult paint not just a little part of the wall, but the entire thing! Moreover, they moved the furniture to make it easier. The entire wall was getting painting in a single color, which didn’t strike Alex or Amelia as especially vogue. Parents just don’t get art.

CASE: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

It was raining that day. A hard rain. Actually, more of a light sprinkle, but that didn’t have as much dramatic effect as a hard rain.

After forty minutes of driving, Alex and Amelia arrived at ‘The Farm.” Much to Alex’s disappointment, it was not the CIA headquarters, but an actual farm. The parents said they were here for apple picking. Aunt Joy and Uncle Kevin came too.

Why they came all of this way to pick apples was a curiosity to Alex. After all, they picked apples every week at the grocery store, and that was only about ten minutes from the house. Yet here they stood, on the wet grass, under trees with leaves covered in droplets.

Alex insisted on carrying the bucket, so that he could more closely inspect these apples to figure out what made them different. Then he realized, there was no counter. Looking for the apples, he finally spotted them in the trees. This was only getting stranger! Why someone would hang apples in trees? At the store they were piled on a shelf, all together. Here they were all spread out!

Dad bent down and scooped up Amelia to where she could reach an apple. It took a few tries, but she finally managed to get her hands around one and pull it free. As she did so, the branch shook, pelting both of them in rainwater. Amelia squealed happily, and demanded that she be brought to another apple for pulling. Dad complied, and they dashed around the farm, scouting various apples for Amelia to wrench free of the tree and then carry back to the bucket all by herself. She had a bit of trouble in some of the wet grass, but overall thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Alex examined the apples closely as they went into the bucket, but could not figure out what about them made them so special. Mom and Dad helped him up to pull down apples as well. Aunt Joy and Uncle Kevin helped him when the bucket started to get too heavy, as well as reach more apples.

After an hour, with two buckets overflowing with apples, everyone quite soaked, only Amelia still wanted to continue picking, so they packed up and headed for Aunt Joy and Uncle Kevin’s house. There, they took off their socks and put them in the dryer, and Alex and Amelia changed into dryer clothes. The adults discussed uses of apples, and everyone had lunch.

Alex and Amelia both enjoyed themselves thoroughly, but never could quite figure out why someone would hang apples on trees.

CASE: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

Alex did not understand feet.

Feet seem to be inadequate for any real purpose, and need a lot of help to do anything. As Amelia demonstrated on a daily basis, they did not do a lot to support a person trying to walk upright. They’re simply too narrow to do the job effectively.

And even once you get decent with the whole walking thing, you need to cover them up to go anywhere. Mom and Dad insisted on Alex wearing both socks AND shoes whenever they went outside. Why not just one? But then inside, he could only wear socks, not shoes. Why not shoes?

As feet go, they seem to be really useless without at least socks and/or shoes. And the combinations and situations made his head hurt.

His sister’s selection was even more confusing. Alex had one pair of shoes. The socks rotated on a daily basis, but any random pair seemed to be sufficient, and you could always count on just one pair of shoes. If a pair got too tight or worn out, they disappeared and a new pair replaced them.

But for Amelia, she had at least three different pairs she could wear at any given time. Morever, she seemed to have opinions about which pair she should wear.

Amelia could not explain it, but the pink shoes with the ribbony lace were not for day to day use. Most of the time, you choose between the red or the purple shoes, depending on which onesie you’re wearing. But also the pants, or overalls, and possibly even the socks helping to determine which option to go with made for an absurd number of combinations to keep track. Sometimes, none of the options seemed right, and Amelia wished she had still more pairs of shoes to choose from to find a pair that was right.

Dad seemed just as puzzled by this as Alex, which worried him greatly. Dad seemed to understand a lot of things, but choice in clothing was not one of them. Often Dad might pick out an outfit, only for mommy to deem it unsuitable and go and choose something else. This never bothered Dad, it was simply beyond his grasp.

Alex sat by the door, waiting to go play in the park, while Amelia peered at the shoes on the mat in front of her. After a few moments, she picked up a pair and brought them to Dad to put them on. Once Dad finished, he proceeded to put on his only pair of shoes to also go to the park. But, while he did so, Amelia wandered over to the shoes again. After several moments, she picked up a different pair and brought them to Dad for him to swap out. He sighed, acquiesced, and then resumed putting on his shoes, slightly more hurriedly when he saw Amelia wandering back over to the shoes.

All of this to cover up things that don’t even really do anything? Feet are weird.

CASE: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

Of all the strange toys and all the houses in all the town, this one had to roll into Alex’s.

Dad presented Alex with a car, but not just any toy car. This one was larger than most. It was designed to look like a real car, with lots of little accents and details. The side mirrors had a chrome sticker to provide an actual reflection. The spoiler had a sticker that said “Zoom!” The only thing that seemed out of place was the radio antenna, coming out of the trunk, sticking up way too tall, completely out of scale with the rest of the car.

But the strangeness came with Alex realized it could drive without anyone pushing it. Dad flipped a switch on the bottom, and the car seemed to come to life on it’s own. Without anyone touching it, the vehicle would zip back and forth across the living room. It seemed to take a particular interest in the cat, which quickly vacated upstairs.

Amelia found herself so astonished, she needed to lean against the Ottoman to support herself.

After several minutes of wonderment, Dad walked over and handed a curious little box to Alex. A thin wire supported by a straw stuck out the front of the box. On top were two levers, one that could only go forward and back, and one that could only go left and right.

Alex fiddled with the levers for a bit, but noticed a curious thing as he did so. The car seemed to move about in unison with the lever. Screaming with delight, Alex realized that he could control the car from a distance. No longer would he be forced to get down on his knees and push things along himself! No longer would be struggle to convince his sister to bring toys back to him that rolled out of his reach (she never listened anyway)! The power! The incredible –whoops!

Alex, lost in the wonderment of his newfound power, accidentally drove the car into Amelia. Knocked off balance, she fell backward and sat on the car with a sickening CRACK! Dad ran over and checked on Amelia, who was fine, and even thought it was pretty funny. Then he checked out the car. The drivewheel could still spin, but the pinion system for steering was snapped in several places.

Dad shook his head, smiled, and apologized to Alex. “They’re not designed for little girls to butt-stomp,” Dad explained. “Good thing we got this at the dollar store.”

Alex wasn’t sure what that meant, but he sadly relinquished the control box back to his father. He’d need to practice driving some more before he did that again. Perhaps he’d go read up on driving on his dad’s computer….

CASE: CRUNCHED

The Alex and Amelia Mysteries

It was Dad’s turn for a mystery.

Like every modern day investigator, Alex began most of his searches by going to a computer to try and find new things, and the computer he could most easily reach would be the one down in Dad’s office. He’d figured out how to turn the computer on, but didn’t know the password. Dad added the password after Alex accidentally rotated the desktop and dad had to spend several days looking at the screen sideways before figuring out how to fix it.

Alex had a rough idea of what the password was. He knew it involved keys on the keyboard, so he tried different combinations in hopes of happening on the right one.

What his Dad did not understand, however, was how Alex managed to access the contrast settings from the lock screen, changing visibility to black and white, as well as locking out the keyboard, making it impossible to change it back without restarting the machine.

This made his Dad think that the real hackers were actually a bunch of three year olds in Germany whose childcare service provided them with a computer lab. The adults thought it was adorable, watching them tap away at the keys ‘randomly’, while they are actually conversing on Usenet, figuring out zero day exploits, and creating hacking scripts in a proprietary language called drool++.

Dad finished restarting the machine, logged in, and updated the visibility settings to return color to his machine. As he did so, he noticed that the machine’s fan had started making an odd sound. Peering around the case at the air intake, dad discovered where all of his paperclips had gone. Dad sighed with a smile. Make that two mysteries for him to solve.

The Alex and Amelia Mysteries

Alex sat in the recliner that faced the dining room. Having eaten his dinner, he now watched as his little sister experienced the wonder of freshly steam broccoli.

He also marveled at the strength of her throwing arm with said broccoli.

Watching her made him think of his first big case. It was hard for him to imagine that it had been only a year ago. Mom and Dad had gone to the hospital to see about doing something regarding mom’s weight gain. She’d been packing on the pounds, especially in the stomach area, for several months, and it was looking pretty serious. She’d been having trouble getting around and looked at the stairs going up like they were eight inch monsters she needed to crush to get to bed at night.

Alex had sampled the food, as he’d heard that eating too much makes people put on a lot of weight, but it didn’t have the same effect on him or dad. He started to worry that something might be wrong with Mom.

Nanna and Grandpa came to stay with Alex for a few days, which made things even more mysterious. It wasn’t like mom and dad to stay away overnight. Alex knew there was only one things to do: mount a search and rescue operation.

Alex made his way to the kitchen, and began stockpiling food stuffs for the long search. Unfortunately, the only thing he could reach was the salt and pepper. Next he went down to pack some clothes, but he could only reach the lower drawers, which had his pajamas, and he knew he wasn’t allowed outside wearing only pajamas.

After several hours, he looked at his pile of supplies: a pepper grinder, three chips found beneath a sofa cushion, a pair of pajama bottoms, a sock, and his toy piano, and concluded this would have to do. But, as he went to find a bag to carry his supplies, Nanna and Grandpa came and put him in the car.

To his surprise, they took him to the hospital, and mom and dad were still there! Mom had lost a lot of weight. Apparently, they found a baby inside her! Alex looked at the small figure as dad was holding her. He knelt down and showed the two to each other.

“Alex,” dad said, “Meet Amelia. Your little sister, and partner in crime.”

Alex looked at his dad, a little bewildered. Crime? Dad just didn’t understand. Alex didn’t commit crimes, he solved mysteries. He looked at his new little sister and smiled. At last, a partner to help him…

A shriek of glee from Amelia snapped him back to the present. Something new had appeared on her tray. Alex dropped down to look more closely. It looked like a cheerio, but there was something else spread on top of it that smelled sweet.

But before he could finish his examination, Amelia grabbed the cheerio and popped it in her mouth. They didn’t find out what it was, but Amelia knew it was delicious!

Case: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

Alex knew this would be a tricky case. Every time he and Amelia tried to get close to it, one of the parents would step in and impede their investigation.

The item in question was a drink that mommy and daddy would both have on occasion. It looked a lot like his grape juice, but they always drank it in these clear glasses that started wide on the bottom, got super skinny in the middle, and widened out again at the top where the juice was.

Amelia tried to use her charms to get a sampling. By pointing and asking, she’d managed to sample different kinds of cheese, chicken nuggets, macaroni, bread with cream cheese, and on and on. But not in this case. Their refusal to let either kid try it only piqued their curiosity.

So, with some clever cunning, Alex and Amelia coordinated Operation Juicegrab. They had to wait for one of  the parents to be out of the picture, so both could focus on just a single one. At last, after waiting for brutally long three days, one evening daddy went downstairs to work on his computer, leaving mommy alone sipping from the funny glass on the couch. Alex and Amelia put their plan into action.

Alex cautiously made his way to the nursery, just beyond the living room, trying to act casual. Once there, Amelia took her place near the couch. The plan was for Alex to make a noise, mommy would put the glass down to check on him, leaving it free for Amelia to grab and crawl away with it.

At the signal, Alex cried out. Sure enough, mommy got up to check on him, but placed the glass on the counter, not the end table. Amelia scooted over as quickly as she could, pulled herself up, and reached out as far as she could, but the glass was too far away. She called to Alex to come help her.

Alex raced out of the room, saw the situation, and made a break for the glass. But, mommy emerged from the nursery with a puzzled look on her face. She saw where Alex was headed and took off in hot pursuit.

Alex leaned into the sprint, making every moment count. He was 8 feet from the glass! 4 feet! 1 foot!

But mommy caught him as his fingers brushes the clear, smooth texture. The glass tipped, and the juice sloshed around inside, but then settled as mommy reached out to steady it.

Both were heartbroken at the failure of the plan. Mommy looked at them both, still more puzzled. Then, daddy came upstairs to help put them to bed.

CASE: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

“Stairs! The Final Frontier! These are the adventures of Amelia Rose. Her one year old mission, to explore where she can’t get to. To seek out new toys and new things to chew on. To bravely go everywhere she’s seen her brother go before!”

Occasionally, Alex and Amelia’s Daddy would say this, or things like it when carrying Amelia around. Now that she could crawl, he didn’t carry her as much, so she didn’t hear it as often, but she still needed help with the stairs. But she did not understand why he said these things.

Alex had similar stories from when he was smaller. There were times that Daddy would be changing a dirty diaper and say, “In the words of JFK son, ‘Ask not what your diaper can do for you. Ask what you can do, in your diaper!’”

Daddy always had satisfied look when he said these things, believing them to be very clever, but Alex and Amelia simply found them cryptic. After comparing notes for several months, they arrived at the only logical conclusion: Dad is weird.

CASE: SOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

For a long time now, Alex was the primary investigator, with Amelia providing assistance, mostly in the form of determining what was and was not edible. But now, she could truly say they were partners.

Amelia could crawl.

No longer bound to the limitations of dad showing up to move her in for a closer look, Amelia could finally approach mysteries. Literally.

Her big break came with the appearance of the bag left on the floor. She’d seen her mother with it many times, usually when they were out, and from that bag came the most marvelous things.

Alex was not around, so she had to take this one on solo. Steeling her resolve, Amelia crawled over to the bag and began to examine its contents.

The findings were amazing. There was a treasure of wonders to behold. She pulled out a heavy black object that would occasionally ring, chirp, buzz, and glow. She pulled out an even heavier, smaller bag that was rolled up with lots of colorful plastic cards and some green paper with funny pictures on it. As she unrolled it, a little side pocket came open and small metal discs rolled out, making a wonderful sound as they hit the ground and rolled away in every direction. She pulled out a tissue. Then another. Then another. Peering in, Amelia found a little pouch full of tissues. Excitedly, she pulled them all out. She found a little plastic cylinder she’d seen mommy apply to her lips on occasion. She found bags of snacks that mommy would give her, but she couldn’t get them open. She could tell this was all only the top layer…

But then, disaster! Dad showed up, made a face, and pulled Amelia away right in the middle of her investigation. He picked up all of the things Amelia had found and returned them to the bag, except for the tissues, which he stacked up and placed on the counter, and hung the bag on the wall out of reach.

Amelia was crestfallen. Her first solo investigation, and dad ruined it! But then, dad picked her up carried her over to her favorite stuffed puppy dog toy. Within moments, the hurt went away and Amelia found herself laughing again.

CASE: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

The case of the disappearing bed.

For a hardboiled, seen it all detective, Alex sure did see lots of things he’d not seen before. One would think that, by the age of 4, there would not be that much left, but this old world still had a few surprises in store for the old boy. He could understand his sister, merely 9 months old, was still a new babe, but this flummoxed them both.

Alex’s bed had disappeared.

It was there in the morning when he woke up. He’s pretty sure it was there when he left for school. But, upon his return that afternoon, it was simply gone.

In its place was a new structure, one taller than Alex. He could easily walk underneath it Amelia could not. Not that she was taller than Alex. She simply could not walk. Amelia pondered the structure as well, then tried to fit it inside mouth. It did not fit.

As Alex examined the structure, he discovered  a ladder of sorts, and proceeded to climb up. Amelia watched with both envy and  concern, and made this known with a loud squawking sound. But Alex was an investigator, and this needed to be investigated.

The top of the ladder revealed a site not altogether different from Alex’s old bed! His pillow was there, his blanket was there, but everything else was much bigger. Above all of this was a blue vinyl canopy that felt good to run his hands along.

Amelia squawked for an update, but Alex could not hear her over the sound of the fabric rustling. She proceeded to eat her hand.

After a while, Dad come into the room, or perhaps he’d been there the entire time, it  was hard to tell with this mystery going on, and announced that it was time to go to sleep. He covered Alex in the blanket and left him up in the structure and turned out the light.

Alex began to get worried. Dad had left him in this strange structure…. but… so soft.

Alex awoke the next morning feeling quite refreshed, but still not sure what happened to his bed. Still, this new thing might work.

Case: UNSOLVED

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

The case of the mystery flap

Alex is nearly four years old. He’s no fool. He’s seen it all. But this? This is different.

In the door to the basement, there is a small plastic flap. Whenever Alex is trying to make friends with one of the cats, they would disappear downstairs. Finally, he figured they were disappearing through the flap in the door.

He’d heard his parents mention a ‘cat door’ before, but this did not look like any door. There was no handle, there was no light switch next to it, and it hinged on the top instead of the side.

Alex went to consult with his associate and little sister Amelia, but Amelia was busy with a mystery of her own. Namely, why she could not fit the entire plastic toy phone inside her mouth. Alex tried a few helpful suggestions, like taking the toy away entirely, but none seemed to help. On his own, Alex decided that the only way to understand the nature of the flap was to figure out what would fit through it.

Two hours later, having exhausted his supply of toys, towels, tissue boxes, remote controls, pieces of computer hardware, clothes and drinking cups, Alex found himself only certain that large blankets would definitely not fit through the flap. He retreated to the living room to think.

A short while later, daddy reported to mommy that the door to the basement could not be opened. Apparently, it had been barricaded.

Alex suspected the flap had something to do with this, but wasn’t sure. As soon as daddy retrieved all of his toys though, he’d try again!

Case: UNSOLVED.

The Alex and Amelia mysteries

The case of the strange cup

Alex and Amelia were playing in the backyard, enjoying the first warm day of spring after a long, cold winter. Amelia, only 8 months old, was too young to even remember when days were warm. She was also too young to walk, so had to be carried everywhere by her daddy. She was fine with this.

Alex, on the other hand, relished the opportunity to run around and play on his swing set. It was a simple affair with three swings, rings, and a slide. He was too short for the rings, but would play with each swing in turn before finishing his playtime with a few zips down the slide.

Today, however, was different. Alex noticed after getting off the first swing that there was a cup sitting on the second swing. It looked just like the cup he had been eating goldfish out of earlier, but he did not remember placing the cup there. Immediately, Alex moved in to investigate. Amelia, who had all this time been watching her brother, spurred on her daddy to come over and join in the investigation.

Together, the two of them peered at the cup. It did look like the cup Alex used to eat his goldfish crackers. In fact, it had goldfish crackers in it, but neither one could figure out how it ended up on the swing.

Suddenly, daddy wrinkled his nose and announced that Alex needed a diaper change. He gather the two of them up and began to herd them back to the house. Alex looked back to the swing, but saw that the cup had disappeared.

Later, after the diaper change, Alex’s daddy gave him his cup of goldfish. Alex wondered if the two cups had anything to do with each other, but could not be certain.

Case: UNSOLVED!