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It was a chilly November day when Bronagh awoke to the 

smell of muffins baking in her house.   As she groggily rolled 

around in her sheets, she remembered why today was so 

special – today was her sixth birthday!   Jumping out of bed, 

she rushed downstairs, expecting to be greeted with gifts 

and congratulations, but her house was empty.   “Mom?” she 

yelled, thinking maybe she was somewhere else in the 

house.   Being met only with silence, she ventured outside in 

search of her parents.  

When she opened her front door, she was surprised to see her 

street filled with trucks of all sizes parked in front of her 

house.   Standing in the middle of street, talking to a woman 

Bronagh had never seen before, was her mother. “Well here 

she is now,” her mom said the woman, motioning at Bronagh.  

Waving towards her daughter, she said “Good morning 

birthday girl, come and meet the new neighbors.” Bronagh 

approached nervously, hoping that the new neighbors were 

better than the mean old lady that had lived across the street 

only months earlier.   “This is Mrs. Silva, and she's moving in 

across the street.”   A little girl poked her head out from behind 

the new woman, clutching her leg in her hands.   “and this is 

her daughter Joanna,” Bronagh's mother informed her. “I've 

invited her to your sleepover party tonight so she can meet 

the girls on our block.”

Annoyed that this new girl had invaded her private party, 

Bronagh slowly walked back inside to play with toys in her 

room.   As she began up the stairs, she heard her mother enter 

the house “Bronagh!” she yelled, “come here, I have a 

surprise for you.”   Instantly forgetting why she was sad, 

Bronagh ran towards her mother, eager to open her new 

present. As she entered her living room, she was met with a 

box bigger than she was covered with wrapping paper.  

Tearing into it, she removed piece after piece, slowly revealing 

what was inside – a set of life size stuffed dinosaurs.   Just like 

every other little girl on her street, Bronagh had been asking 

her parents for these dinosaurs all year.   They were the ones 

that were always on display down at the toy store, and now 

they were finally hers! Overcome with happiness, she hugged 

her mother. “Thanks Mom, I cant wait to play with them!” she 

said quickly as she grabbed one under each arm and hurried 

towards her room.

After playing all day with her new toys, it was finally time for 

the party. As 6 o'clock rolled around, Bronagh sat in her living 

room waiting for her friends to arrive.   The first to show up 

was her best friend, Alice, who she had met in pre-school.  

Being a small neighborhood, they later discovered they lived 

down the street from each other, and quickly became close 

friends. 

 The next to arrive was Peyton, a girl who had moved into the 

house next to hers last year, and that Bronagh went to school 

with.

Finally, the last to show up was Joanna, the new girl. 

The night began with pizza and a movie before the girls moved 

to Bronagh’s room.   While Peyton, Alice and Bronagh painted 

each other's nails, Joanna played with one of Bronagh’s 

dinosaurs, Joaquin, for the majority of the night, since 

“Brontosauruses were her favorite type of dinosaurs.”

Bronagh’s mom came in at 8 o’clock to help clean up the toys, 

and tuck everyone into bed.   As Bronagh fell asleep, she 

thought that it was the best birthday she had ever had. 

When the girls woke up the next morning, Bronagh’s mom 

came in and said “Good morning girls, who wants breakfast?” 

Crawling out from their beds the girls noticed that Alice and 

her things had mysteriously disappeared. “Mom where’s 

Alice?” asked Bronagh. 

“She was feeling a little homesick and went home last night.” 

replied her mom. 

After breakfast, Bronagh said goodbye to Joanna and Peyton, 

and went to go play with her new presents.   When she got to 

her room, she realized that something was missing.  

Joaquin wasn’t there! 

Looking over her room, she wondered where he could be. 

Finding nothing, she turned to the two other dinosaurs in the 

set, Byron and Azalea, for help.   “Did you guys see anything 

last night?” Byron seemed to have a glint in his eye. “You 

wanna help me?” Bronagh asked him. Bronagh and Byron 

searched the entire house from top to bottom, but couldn't 

find Joaquin. 

When they came back to her room though, they kept thinking 

about where he might be. “I think we can rule out that he got 

lost somewhere, because we searched every place he might 

be, and even the ones he wouldn't have been” Bronagh 

thought aloud. She looked at Byron. “You’re right- he didn’t 

run away either. He just came home to his family! I guess the 

only option left is that someone took him, but who could it 

be?” 

Taking out her 64 count box of crayons, Bronagh began to 

make a list in her notebook of everyone who was in her house 

last night and everything that seemed odd this morning after 

realizing Joaquin was gone. Her suspects were Alice, Joanna, 

and Peyton. Alice mysteriously went home in the middle of the 

night. Joanna, the new girl, had a motive, because she liked 

dinosaurs, and they had only met for the first time that day. 

Peyton seemed suspicious because she had been awake in the 

middle of the night, however she claimed it was due to 

Bronagh’s excessive snoring. 

“This isn’t enough evidence!” thought Bronagh. “We need to 

search the house again. This time for clues, not just Joaquin.” 

She looked at her stuffed triceratops. “Byron, it’s time to 

launch this investigation.”

    Bronagh began the search in her room, taking note of where 

each girl slept, and if they had left any clues next to their 

areas. Alice had won the rock, paper, scissors the night before, 

and slept in the extra bed in the corner of Bronagh’s room. On 

her dresser next to the bed, there were bottles of nail polish 

left out from when they had painted eachother's nails the night 

before.    There were streaks of pink nailpolish leading from the 

dresser to the window next to Alice’s bed that looked out onto 

the side of her yard.   “I think we might be on to something 

here” Bronagh said to her toy dinosaur.   She took note of it in 

her pad underneath Alice’s name. 

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