# 16. I, Isabel Scheherazade Solve the Mystery of the Missing Paper and Another Mystery Pops Up in It’s Place.
by storytellerisabel
Is it possible that the papergirl hasn’t come yet? Not likely. I’ve just arrived at the breakfast nook for breakfast. Something’s up. The paper isn’t spread out in the usual messy, comfortable manner. It’s weird to see Pop and Mimi without a “table cloth” of newsprint under their elbows. No comics for the twins. No editorial or quirky story under discussion.
It’s unusually silent too. The twins look from me to Pop to Mimi and up to the bookshelf at the window end of the nook.
As I pour Cheerios I spy the paper out of the corner of my eye, HIDDEN, sticking out a bit from between a cookbook called How to Cook Everything New and Revised and Pop’s notebook, also new and revised, of the recipes he’s creating for the five of us.
I can just make out the top part of the headline and the date. (Okay. Okay. I know my blog-readers are probably saying, Right, Isabel, how can you read the print on a paper that’s been hidden? Easy. I bet you can read a sentence even if all the vowels are removed? Or the letters are scrambled in the word? Well, me too. Only difference is I’m reading the TOP half of each word. Put a card halfway through the headline below. See? You CAN read it!) I make some guesses and see that the headline says:
Preliminary Hearing Scheduled for Traffic Fatality.
I pretend I don’t see the paper, sprinkle blueberries on the toasty o’s, slice in a banana, add the milk, sit down, and dig in. I’m halfway through when Mimi and Pop say they’re taking the twins off to get their teeth brushed. (We have to go to Dr. Moon for shots and school checks.) Teeth-brushing will take a while, so I reach up to the bookshelves and yank out the paper. I spread it out after pushing my bowl to the side. No more appetite for Cherrios. The Killer’s picture is above the fold in the center of the page. He still has that dusty, jean jacket look about him.
The article says the Killer’s “Preliminary Hearing” will be in two weeks. At the courthouse on Main Street. Right down the street from the school. Right after school starts.
Could this be my chance to seek revenge? I must go to this hearing and, er, well, I don’t know what I’ll do. What’s a hearing I wonder?
And why did Pop and Mimi hide this important information?
Isabel Scheherazade
(My sketches are by my friend, Ryan.)
I Am Isabel the Storyteller 
*it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervy lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
f y cn ndrstnd ths thn srly vwls r nncssry prt f lngg n th ftr?
(These are examples I found of words I could still read even though the spelling was all mixed up or the vowels were removed. Don’t worry, if you’re a teacher or a parent or a grandparent, I’m NOT going to start writing without vowels, etc. It would distract from my stories. Dad talked about “Grammar Glamour.” He said that grammar or spelling errors pull a reader away from the message of the writer; the grammar errors ruin glamour. But that’s a story for later. 🙂
I’m just saying.
Oops. Delete “I’m just saying!” It’s not me. I was influenced by that group of retired people who play bocci at the playground. The bocci set up is near my favorite swing–the one that goes so high I can kick the leaves of the Sugar Maple. The bocci-players use phrases like this: “I’m just saying” and “It is what it is.” AND!! “You see what I mean?” If I were a spy, I would have come up empty on that mission of eavesdropping. They weren’t SAYING anything.
Isabel Scheherazade