Encyclopedia summary

Idaville looked like an ordinary town. There were churches, two car washes and three movie theaters. But Idaville wasn’t just a regular city. There was one strange thing, that was that for more than one year, no one had gotten away with a crime. People wanted to know how that could be possible. 

The secret came from the police chiefs home. He lived there with his wife and son. Chief Brown was a very smart man, but he wasn’t the one that kept the city from criminals. The one that kept the city from crimes was the police chiefs 10 year old son, Encyclopedia. The family was the only ones that knew about Encyclopedia’s talent as a crime solver, and they had never told anyone about it. 

One day chief Brown sat at the dinner table. The chief was thinking about a crime that he couldn’t solve. If chief Brown couldn’t solve it he asked encyclopedia and he immediately solved it. Chief Brown told Encyclopedia about the crime. There had been a thief at the aquarium. The person had stole a tiger salamander named Fred.

The special thing about Fred was that he was the only tiger salamander at the aquarium, and he was worth a lot of money. Employees and volunteers were the only ones that had access to the room where Fred was kept. There had been 3 persons working in the morning that day. That had been Mrs King, a volunteer, Sam Maine, the man in charge of cleaning and maintaining the exhibits, and Dr. O’Donnell, an expert on reptiles and amphibians. Non of them said that they were with the salamander by the time it was stolen. Mrs King was very suspected since she was very fascinated with salamanders. They all thought that Mrs King stole the salamander. 

Encyclopedia closed his eyes to think. After a while he opened his eyes again and asked a question.

—Has Sam Maine been working at the aquarium long dad?

—Actually he was hired only two weeks ago, the police chief answered.

Now Encyclopedia knew, he said that the guilty one was Sam Maine. He knew that because Sam Maine had said that he had been taking care of salamanders and lizards for 19 years. But salamanders aren’t classified as lizards. And that is something you should know if you’ve been working with them for 19 years.

Sam was fired from the aquarium and returned the salamander.