Mystery #9 — The Mystery of the Wet Boots

Little Sam's scream cracked the misty morning quiet. Boys all over camp sat straight up in their sleeping bags.

"MY BOOTS!" Sam came hopping out of the tent on one foot. "My boot is WET! My SOCK is wet! GROSS GROSS GROSS!"

Mr. Bradley took the boot, looked inside, and tipped it upside down. A little more water trickled out.

"Both of them. Alright, detective work. Sam, where were these boots last night?"

"Gentlemen!" Mr. Bradley called. "Tent four! Front and center! We have a mystery."

Ben, Tyler, and Max shuffled out of the tent and lined up beside Sam. Mr. Bradley looked them over.

He started with Tyler. Tyler was holding a big canvas bag of filled water bottles—six of them, dripping cold from the spigot.

"Filling everyone's bottles, sir. Started at 6:30. Took me fifteen minutes. I have not been back inside our tent this morning—came straight here from the spigot."

Mr. Daniels called over from the picnic table. "I watched Tyler the whole time. Guy filled six bottles. Didn't go near your tent."

"I've been inside the tent reading since I woke up, sir. Psalm 23. Haven't moved."

"I was deep in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, sir. I wasn't paying much attention to the rest of the world."

Ben held it up. A tiny drop of minty water plopped off the end and hit the dirt.

The whole troop gasped. Sam pointed dramatically. "IT'S BEN! BEN DRIPPED IN MY BOOTS!"

Mr. Bradley held up a hand. "Hold on. Hold on. This looks a little too easy, and I don't trust things that look too easy. Ben. When you came back from brushing your teeth, where did you walk?"

"Straight from the water station to here. I never went IN our tent this morning. I was going to change my shirt before I went in."

Mr. Daniels raised his hand again. "Ben came from the water station, walked around the back of the tent, and came over here. He never stepped through the tent door."

Mr. Bradley rubbed his chin. "So Ben's alibi checks out. His toothbrush is dripping, his shirt is wet, his chin is pasty—but he never actually entered the tent."

"It wasn't Ben. Which means we have to think harder." Mr. Bradley crouched down next to Sam's boots and really looked at them this time. Then he crawled into the tent.

Inside the tent, Sam's sleeping bag was all bunched up in the corner, half kicked off. His water bottle was lying on its side next to his sleeping bag, cap loose. A damp trail ran from the water bottle, across the tent floor, straight to the inside of where Sam's boots had been sitting at the door.

He came out of the tent holding the bottle. "Sam. I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me. Where did you rinse your toothbrush last night?"

Sam's eyes got big. "I… I didn't want to walk to the water station in the dark. So I swished a little water in my mouth from my water bottle, and then I spit it back into the bottle to get rid of the toothpaste. I was going to dump it in the morning."

"And last night, when you were rolling around in your sleeping bag like you always do, did you happen to kick your water bottle over?"

The Answer: SAM did it to himself! This is a trick mystery. Ben LOOKED guilty—toothpaste on his chin, wet shirt, dripping toothbrush—but he never actually walked into the tent. His alibi was airtight. The real answer was hiding under everyone's nose:

Sam had been too lazy to walk to the water station at bedtime, so he rinsed his toothbrush in his own water bottle and spit the toothpaste water back into it.
He didn't tighten the cap all the way.
While he was sleeping, Sam kicked his water bottle over (he's a rolly sleeper—his sleeping bag was all bunched up).
The loose cap let the minty water leak out.
The water trickled right across the tent floor into Sam's boots, which were sitting open-top next to the tent door.

The clues that told Mr. Bradley: (1) Sam's water bottle was tipped over inside the tent with a loose cap and a wet trail leading from it to the boots, (2) the inside of the bottle still smelled like peppermint, and (3) Ben's alibi was solid—he never entered the tent.

Sam's whole face turned the color of a sunburn. "I… I 'watered' my own boots?"

"You watered your own boots, Sam."

"And I blamed BEN?!"

"You blamed Ben."

"And he almost got in trouble for it?!"

"Yep."

Sam turned to Ben with his hands clasped together like he was about to pray. "Ben. Ben. I am SO sorry. I really thought it was you. I didn't even consider that I might have done it to myself."

Ben shrugged. He was grinning now that he wasn't in trouble. "It's okay, Sam. It was kind of cool to be a suspect for a minute. Like a real courtroom."

Mr. Bradley stood up and looked at the whole troop. "Alright, boys, lesson time. When something bad happens, the first person we blame is usually whoever LOOKS guilty. But looking guilty and BEING guilty aren't the same thing. Before you accuse a friend, make sure the story actually fits. Sometimes the real answer—" he handed Sam his own leaky water bottle, "—is a lot closer to home than you think."

Ben helped Sam dry his boots by the morning campfire anyway. And Sam made Ben a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch as a proper apology.