One bright, sunny morning, Dudley the Detective woke up, stretched, and yawned.

Dudley is a detective. He loves to solve mysteries. He loves to spend his mornings looking for and finding clues, then reading what they tell him about the latest mystery in town.

“What a GREAT morning,” he thought to himself. “This will be a fine day for solving a mystery.”

Dudley’s favorite afternoons are spent thinking about all the

information he has gathered. He’s always careful not to jump to

conclusions. He prefers to ponder a mystery until after dinner.

Once Dudley has eaten dinner, the phone will begin to ring,

for all the folks in town know that Dudley will have figured out

the one correct answer while doing his dishes. He’ll exclaim,

“I’VE GOT IT!!”

As Dudley stretched and yawned on this particular morning, he realized that he did not have a mystery to solve today! “How

disappointing,” he thought to himself, but he put on his detective uniform anyway.

First, Dudley slipped on his trench coat, since many detectives wear trench coats. Then, he put his magnifying glass in his coat pocket. Detectives need magnifying glasses to search carefully for clues.

The only thing Dudley needed now to be ready for a good

mystery was his detective badge. Dudley had received this very special gold badge for graduating from his detective school with honors!

As he searched his room, however, Dudley could not

find his badge anywhere! He looked high. He looked

low. He looked to the left. He looked to the right. He

looked everywhere, but his detective badge was not

to be found.

This was definitely a very distressing situation, but Dudley knew that he was the best detective in the Woods, so if anyone could find his badge, certainly he was the one.

The first thing Dudley needed to do was to find some clues.

He noticed that his window was open. He also saw muddy paw

prints in his room that appeared to be those of a raccoon.

Dudley knew that Rascal Raccoon often got into trouble, but

Dudley did not want to jump to the wrong conclusion, so he

continued looking for clues.