Gertrude McCluck here investigating the robbery of Mrs. Sully, a Barred Rock chicken. Here she comes now.

"Gertrude McCluck," she said frantically, "I saw Samantha the Rhode Island Red Girl take my precious egg."

"Are you sure it was her?" I asked, taking everything down in my handy notebook.

"I am sure it was her because she was always mad about how pretty my eggs were compared to hers!" she exclaimed aloud, "And she was mad about the way everyone voted my egg the prettiest." Then she waddled away.

Moving along now I take out my lucky, trusty spyglass and start looking for clues. I see there are Rhode Island Red feathers, Mrs. Sully's feathers. I write this all down in my notebook. Then I hear someone calling me.

"Gertrude, I know Mrs. Sully was blaming it on me, but you know there are lots of Rhode Island Reds in here, lots, in fact," says Samantha, one suspect.

I turn around to face her and ask her, "I know, Sam, and I am going to question them all, starting with you, if that's okay."

"Fine! Then I need to find Arthur, you know, our Rhode Island rooster. I've been looking all over for him," she snaps.

I ask her some normal, routine questions and then she stomps away. I get ready to go away but not before I notice big footprints running away from the crime scene.

"The foot prints are all smeared," I say to myself.

"Indeed, they are all smeared," comments Arthur.

I ask him, "Where were you? Sam has been looking all around for you."

"Oh, around, with Beads, my girl," he replies.

"By the way, where is she?" I ask Arthur.

"Over by the door talking," with that said, he waddled away.

I waddled over and asked Beads some questions like where were you, and were you with anyone? She answered with a yes to the first question, and a no to the second question.

But the one thing that bothered me was when I said that Mrs. Sully was not happy about how her eggs were chosen the prettiest and not hers. I wrote this down, "I think I know who stole the eggs," and I whispered to myself, " and I am going to set a trap tonight."

I sat behind some hay and watched that night, and just as I expected, here came Arthur with the egg. I jumped out and yelled, "Aha, I knew it was you." All the other birds woke up and found out too.

"How did you know it was me?" asked Arthur.

"I knew by the size of the feet and how much you liked Beads and she always wanted to have the best eggs so she was jealous of Mrs. Sully's eggs. One question, though. Where did you keep the egg?"

"Behind the coop until I could give it to Beads. I was missing because I kept checking on it," admitted Arthur.

Well, folks, another mystery solved.