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  Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Macintosh, Cameron. | Atze, Dave, illustrator.

  Title: Stamp safari / Cameron Macintosh, illustrated by Dave Atze. Description: New York : West 44, 2020. | Series: Max Booth: future sleuth Identifiers: ISBN 9781538384688 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781538384671 (library bound) | ISBN 9781538384695 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Detective and mystery stories. | Street children—Juvenile fiction. | Postage stamps—Juvenile fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M335 St 2020 | DDC [P]~dc23

  Published in 2020 by Enslow Publishing LLC 101 West 23rd Street, Suite #240 New York, NY 10011

  Copyright © 2020 Cameron Macintosh. Original editon published in 2017 by Big Sky Publishing.

  Cover design and Illustrations: Dave Atze Typesetting: Think Productions

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

  Printed in the United States of America

  CPSIA compliance information: Batch #CS19W44: For further information contact Enslow Publishing LLC, New York, New York at 1 -800-542-2595.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 A Sticky Situation

  Chapter 2 Flying to Neptune

  Chapter 3 Bluggsville South-West-West

  Chapter 4 Sneaky Spike and Selby

  Chapter 5 Oscar Goes Home

  Chapter 6 Our Buddy, Brandon

  Chapter 7 Robo-rescue!

  Chapter 8 A Stamp of Approval

  CHAPTER 1

  A Sticky Situation

  February 5, 2424. It’s a perfect day for walking a beagle-bot around Skyburb 6. Days like this make me glad to live up here. Looking down, all I can see is the smog covering Bluggsville, like a big orange coating of fairy floss. Up here, the sun is shining and the sky is blue - well, almost! Those rich people down on the ground don’t know what they’re missing... except, of course, for the swarms of robo-rats, rusty buildings, and crowded streets.

  We’re walking down Wagg Street when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and see my old friend Jessie.

  “There you are, Max,” she says with a sigh. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I tried to call you, but all I got was an earful of buzz!”

  “Sorry, Jessie. Oscar’s phone goggles aren’t working at the moment. I’ll try to fix them when we get back to the storeroom.”

  “Can you come back now? I’ve got something I really need you to look at.”

  “Okay,” I say, “as long as it isn’t another 20 th century ear-hair trimmer. That thing was gross!” “Don’t worry,” laughs Jessie. “It’s definitely not one of those.”

  A few minutes later, we’re all in Jessie’s workshop at the back of the Bluggsville City Museum storeroom.

  I can’t tell you how lucky we are to be friends with Jessie. Without her, we’d probably be sleeping on the streets. Thanks to Jessie, we have a cozy packing case to sleep in, here in the Bluggsville City Museum storeroom. Even better, Jessie helps us earn a few dollars too.

  When she can’t recognize an object that arrives in the storeroom, she passes it on to me and Oscar. If we can identify it for her, Jessie hands us her Object Identification Bonus. It’s only a few dollars, but it means I can eat, and that I can keep Oscar in good condition. The only problem is, if the museum knew she was looking after us like this, we’d all be in very big trouble - especially Jessie.

  “Come and have a look at this, boys,” she says.

  Jessie opens her filing cabinet and pulls out a see-through plastic pouch. Inside it, there’s a long piece of green plastic with a set of white bristles at one end.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of toilet brush,” she says, “but it does look a bit small.”

  Without meaning to, I start laughing. I’ve seen this kind of object before, and I’m certain that it’s not a toilet brush.

  “What’s so funny?” asks Jessie.

  “You’re right, it is an ancient cleaning tool, but it’s for teeth, not toilets!”

  Suddenly there’s a smile on Jessie’s face. “I’m glad you were able to clear that up for me,” she says with a laugh. “But I still don’t think I’ll put it anywhere near my teeth!”

  I agree - now that we’ve got Bright-Bite Gum to chew after meals, brushing seems like a pretty boring way to keep our teeth clean.

  “I’ll just grab your Object Identification Bonus,” says Jessie.

  She reaches into a drawer and hands me a crisp $500 note.

  “Thanks, Jessie, that was an easy morning’s work!”

  “I’m lucky you’re such an expert about mouthcleaning devices! I’ll polish it up straightaway and take it to the Dental Health display at the museum. Now, how about you and Oscar go and fix those faulty phone goggles?”

  “Good idea, Jessie. We’ll do that right now.”

  Oscar and I go back into the storeroom and sit down inside our packing case. I ask Oscar to open up his back panel and pop out his phone goggles. Right away, I can see the wire that’s causing the problem. It’s broken in half, but it should be easy enough to fix. I’ve reattached plenty of broken wires before.

  “Hey, Oscar,” I say. “Can you go and fetch a heat-pen for me, please?”

  Oscar looks very happy to have a special task to do. He leaps out of the packing case and buries his nose in a pile of gadgets on the floor, just a few meters away. He sniffs and rummages through the pile, spreading it across the floor until it looks like a big rug of rusty rubble. After a few minutes, he turns and looks at me with a glum expression on his face.

  “Don’t worry, pup,” I say. “I’m sure Jessie can lend us one.”

  As Oscar mopes back toward the packing case, I see that he’s covered in dust... but that’s not what catches my eye. There’s something strange stuck to the side of his nose. It seems to be a small, rectangular piece of paper. He tries to rub it off on the concrete floor.

  “No, Oscar!” I yell. “That could be something valuable! Sit still for a second.”

  Oscar freezes on the spot, and I crawl across the floor until my nose is almost touching his. From here, I can see the thing on his nose quite clearly. It’s a rectangular piece of paper, with a strange pattern cut into its edges. One of its corners seems to have been torn off.

  Apart from its white border, it’s filled with a photo of a young woman playing tennis - a prehistoric sport that hasn’t been played since the year 2230. That was when float-tennis took over. Before then, people actually had to run across the ground to hit the ball to each other. That sounds like very hard work to me!

  Very slowly, I peel the piece of paper from Oscar’s nose. I know I need to be gentle with it. Paper hasn’t been produced since 2121, so it has to be at least 300 years old! Although it’s covered in dust on both sides, the blank side that was stuck to Oscar’s nose is still sticky.

  “It seems to have some kind of glue on the back,” I say to Oscar. “Do you think you could find out what it is?”

  Oscar shakes his head, and it’s fairly obvious why. Paper hasn’t been used for 300 years, so this type of glue probably hasn’t been used for 300 years either. Oscar’s sensors aren’t designed to analyze such ancient substances.

  Knowing how rare and fragile it probably is, I slide the tiny piece of paper into a little plastic pouch and take it into Jessie’s workshop. When I wave the pouch in front of her face, she stares through the plastic with a puzzled look on her face. “Where did you find that?” she asks.

  “Well, Oscar kind of found it while he was looking for a h
eat-pen.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I’d say it’s some kind of collectible sticker. Kids used to stick things like these in special books, back in the 20th century. Maybe it’s from one of those?” “That’s possible, but we’d better do some tests on it. If we can work out what kind of glue’s on the back, we might be able to narrow it down.”

  “How do we do that?”

  Jessie goes to the other side of the workshop and opens a drawer. She takes a big blue box out of it, and brings it to the table. It’s full of small glass tubes with colorful liquids inside them.

  “This is my Identify-a-Substance test kit,” she says. “I just need to wipe this cotton bud against the paper. Then, we’ll run a test with these chemicals to see what it picks up.”

  Oscar and I watch closely as Jessie opens a tube and dips a cotton bud into a strange green liquid. She gently rubs the bud against the back of the sticker. Then, she rubs the bud against a shiny metal surface inside the blue box.

  Suddenly her face goes pale. “This can’t be possible,” she gasps.

  “What can’t be possible?”

  “The test says... the test says the mystery sticky thing has tested positive for traces of human saliva!”

  “You mean, someone.”

  “Yes, someone must have licked it.”

  “That’s disgusting!”

  “And very odd. Why would anyone need to lick something like this?”

  “Perhaps it tasted good?”

  “Or perhaps,” says Jessie, “that’s what activated the stickiness?”

  “No way - they weren’t that primitive back in the 21st century, were they?”

  Before we go any further, I ask Oscar to take a photo of the sticky thing and upload it to the Splinternet. I really hope it was made after 2037. That was the year the Great Solar Flare destroyed the old Internet and wiped out all the information on it. If the sticky thing was made before then, the Splinternet won’t know anything about it.

  Oscar projects a big green box into the air above his back and we wait for a search result. A pair of beady eyes swing from side to side in the box as the Splinternet tries to recognze our peculiar piece of paper. A few seconds later, the box changes into the shape of a frowning monkey. That’s the Splinternet’s way of telling us the object’s too old to identify.

  “Well,” I say, “at least we know that it’s at least 387 years old - which means it’s probably quite rare.” “I agree,” says Jessie. “We need to do some serious sleuthing to find out who that tennis player is. Then, maybe we can find out what this thing is - and what it’s really worth.”

  “On the job!” I say. “Are you with me, Oscar?” Oscar stands up on his hind legs and salutes like a soldier.

  “Great!” laughs Jessie. “Good luck, you two. Let me know how you go!”

  CHAPTER 2

  Flying to Neptune

  At 8:15 the next morning, I’m waiting in the cold with Oscar at the Skyburb Down-station. We sit there shivering until our home — Skyburb 6 — docks and sends its zoom tube down to ground level. We step into the first available aircell and zip down toward the ground.

  Just a few seconds later, we leap over the barrier and start walking down Vigg Street, as the first rays of sunlight peep through the skyscrapers.

  “Okay, Oscar,” I say. “We’re looking for a shop called Spike’s Sporting Memorabilia.

  Hopefully someone there can tell us something about the mystery tennis player on the mystery sticky thing.”

  Oscar projects a map into the air and shows me how far we are from Spike’s shop. It’s only a 15-minute walk from here, so we decide we may as well go on foot.

  We arrive at Spike’s shop at 8:55 a.m. It isn’t open yet, but at 8:57 a man arrives and unlocks the front door. I guess it must be Spike. We give him a few minutes to switch on the lights and turn off his security beams before we follow him in.

  I look up at the walls - they’re covered in framed photos of sportspeople from the last few centuries. I recognize a few of them, but most are too ancient for me to know about. Along the back wall, there’s a picture of Usain Jolt, an Olympic sprinter from the 21st century, and Tiger Goodes, a champion golfer from the same era. There’s also a statue of one of my favorites — Lily Zhang, Zogball Player of the Year, 2423.

  “Can I help you?” asks a voice behind me. I jump in shock, and then I swing round and come face-to-face with Spike. He’s tall and thin, and he’s wearing a Bluggsville Beaver-bots T-shirt.

  I take the plastic pouch out of my pocket and gently lay the piece of paper onto my palm. “Well,” I say, as officially as possible, “we were wondering if you might be able to help us identify this young woman.”

  As I hold the piece of paper in front of Spike’s face, his eyes nearly leap out of his head. “Where did you find that?” he asks.

  “It’s from the museum,” I say, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.

  “From the museum? You removed this from the museum?”

  “No, it’s not what you think.”

  “Then where did you get it?”

  This isn’t going well. Suddenly, I figure it’s time to say goodbye to surly Spike. “It was nice meeting you,” I say, “but we really need to get back to work.” On our way to the door, I notice a colorful poster above the counter. My eyes nearly leap out of my head and across the room! The person on the poster looks an awful lot like the person on our little piece of paper. I can just read the name at the top of the poster: Neptune Williams.

  “Remember that name, Oscar,” I say. “I think we’ll be getting to know Neptune Williams quite well this week!”

  Just as we push our way through the door, I hear Spike’s voice again.

  “Don’t you shadies bother coming back here. I’ll be checking my cameras to make sure you didn’t swipe anything from my store, either.”

  “Well, buddy,” I say, “here’s something to watch on your cameras.”

  I pick Oscar up from the floor and turn both of our faces toward the nearest security camera. Oscar knows what to do. On the count of three, we stick our tongues out and blow raspberries at it. That’s what you get for calling us “shadies”!

  It’s not fair — we can’t help coming from the Skyburbs. It’s not our fault that our floating home casts shadows on the people down here.

  An hour later, we’re back up at the storeroom, telling Jessie about Neptune Williams, and Spike’s strange reaction to our sticky discovery.

  “I think we’d better do some more tests on that thing,” says Jessie. “Maybe there’s more it can tell us.

  We follow Jessie into her workshop, and watch her take her microscope out of its case. Then, I hand her the mystery patch of paper. She takes it out of its pouch and slides it onto the microscope’s scanning plate. Just before she looks through the eyepiece, she stands up and points at her chair.

  “It’s your discovery,” she says. “I think you should do the honors, Max.”

  “Wow, thanks Jessie!”

  As I slide into Jessie’s chair, I feel a cold nose nuzzling my feet.

  “Sorry, Oscar - it was really your discovery. I shouldn’t take credit for it!”

  That seems to cheer Oscar up a bit. He jumps onto my lap and watches as I turn the dial on the side of the microscope. I focus on Neptune’s face, and hit the “Increase Magnification” button.

  Suddenly it feels like I’m taking a journey into Neptune’s left nostril. It’s a bit much, so I zoom out again and scan the sticky specimen slowly, from side to side. This time, I notice something about the paper that we couldn’t have noticed at life size. There seem to be some letters and numbers stamped on it, in very faint red ink.

  I’m fairly sure I can see the letters B, R, U, A, R and Y, and the numbers 2, 0, 1, and 9. That can only mean something about February, of the year 2019. Just below the date, I can make out the letters of a word: I think it says “Budgewick,” followed by the words “Post Office.”

  I loo
k up at Jessie. “Have you ever been to a place called Budgewick?”

  “Budgewick? Never heard of it.”

  I look down at Oscar. “What about you, pup?” Another blank face.

  “And do either of you know what Post Office means?”

  Now, I’m looking at two blank faces at the same

  time.

  “Well, we all know what an office is,” says Jessie, “but post office? That makes no sense at all.”

  Oscar gives me a wink and fires up his projector again. He sends the word “Budgewick” into the air, and scans the Splinternet for any information it can tell us about it. Finally, we have some luck.