In our town—our town of shadows, our town of mystery—it seems our buildings have, without reason, begun to disappear completely. Still full of their loyal inhabitants, the buildings and the people all disintegrate soundlessly. The air has been hard to breathe, full of regret and the glassy voices of the unsurprised dead. Our commuters have begun carrying photographs of their loved ones with them to work. On the bus, we look at each other, pictures of our sad wives and doubtful children huddled close to our chests, quietly imagining the silent elaborations of our own deaths. We are disappointed coming home that evening because the many photos betray our cowardice: We live in a town that is disappearing, and worse, like the buildings, our hope is gone and we are no longer surprised by anything.

Only look now: past the remaining silver skyscrapers, glinting high along the horizon; look past along the shadowy green river; look over the small city park dedicated to some founding father whose name has long been lost; past the statue of an armless man astride a bronze horse; look past the small white houses and narrow gray streets to the end of a gruesome cul-de-sac, the lane hidden among the smokestacks of the town’s remaining factories, and there we see the Shady Glens Facility for Mental Competence.

Look closer still and we will discover a small figure standing there on the sidewalk staring up sadly at the square-shaped building. It is the boy detective, now aged thirty, who has finally been released: hooray. For many reasons, he is still unhappy. He stands before the strangely modern building, Shady Glens Facility for Mental Competence, yellow suitcase in hand, and is very disappointed. The boy detective thinks: Oh, dear. The boy detective thinks: I do not quite like the looks of this place. He feels a sob coming on but fights it with his teeth. He looks up, pushing his black bifocals against his face, and blinks.

As noted, the facility is modern, very rectangular, white with dull brick and thick black bars that give the windows—certainly the eyes of the place—a feeling that it is also clinically unhappy. There is no mistake: The weak, gray numbers beside the glass security doors exactly match the sloppy handwritten numbers on the slip of white paper in Billy’s trembling palm, reminding him of a conversation with Dr. Kolberg that went exactly like this:

—Are you ready to return to the outside world, Billy?
—No, definitely not, sir.
—Well, you can’t stay here forever now, can you?
—Why not? I’m not bothering anybody, sir.
—Because it’s not healthy. You’re a very special young man, Billy. It’s time you found that out on your own, out there. The world may not be as terrible as you think.
—I would like to stay here one more month, if I may, sir.
—One more month? Why?
—Summer will be over, sir. I can’t go out there if it’s going to be summertime. —And why not?
—I wouldn’t want to see any young girls playing. I would not want to see any flowers outside.
—Why?
—Because everything happy right now is going to die.
—But Billy . . .
—I would not like to be reminded of anything pretty.
—But Billy, of course, anything might . . .
—I would not like to be reminded.
—OK, OK. We will see what we can do, Billy.

Doctor Kolberg did all he could so that Billy was finally released after the school year had begun and the flowers had already started wilting.

The boy detective looks up suddenly. A pale blond girl is shouting at him from her front lawn, across the street. Beside her, her small younger brother is silently frowning.

“Do you see my bunny’s head over there?” the girl shouts.

It is none other than Effie Mumford, age eleven, an adolescent, female, and very awkward-looking. What you must know about Effie is that she has won the local, state, and national science fair for the past three years. Also, she is hopelessly in love with amateur rocketry. Additionally, she is an interminable social pariah, a long-suffering possessor of many, many unstoppable runny noses, a silent victim of reoccurring eye infections, and a future prize-winning neurobiologist. One last important fact about Effie Mumford: She does not like to be touched. Not by anyone, not ever.

As per her usual routine, Effie is dressed wildly inappropriately, in her white and lavender winter jacket, which she wears year round, well into the hottest months of summer, white scarf around her neck, fur-lined hood pulled up, entirely covering her small head.

Beside her is her younger brother, Gus Mumford, age nine, a square-headed dark boy who is smarter than all of his teachers in the third grade, and yet who is known for being a bully. Only that morning, Gus raised his hand to answer a puzzling question about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and noticed that his teacher, Miss Gale, rolled her eyes at him and called upon Missy Blackworth instead. Is it the boy’s fault that his hands are so large and square-shaped? Is it his fault that he was born loving the sound of muted flesh against muted flesh? He does not want to be the third grade bully, and yet he is. He does not want to hit Lucy Willis in the ankle with a stone at recess, but for some reason, he does. The boy, Gus, stands silently gazing downward, as he does not ever speak to anyone—horrified by the bloody shambles so near his feet.

Billy looks at them both, squinting, pointing at himself questioningly.
“Are you shouting at me?” Billy asks.
“Yes.”

The boy detective pushes his black bifocals up his face.

The girl may be blond. There are a few strands of her hair waving over her forehead and she is wearing thick lavender-framed glasses. Billy can see one of her eyes has a white patch over it.

“Do you see my bunny’s head over there?” the girl asks again.
The boy detective turns and looks around, then shakes his head.
No is what his head is saying, but it takes a few moments for his mouth to say it. “No.”
“Oh, OK. It’s definitely missing then.”
The boy detective thinks this: ?

Like a quiet explosion—with the introduction of this, a new puzzle, the nearly knowable answers to the strange question lying somewhere before him—Billy finds his feet are moving. His tiny black and white notebook is out of his pocket and already he is writing. He hurries across the street and stands beside the girl, staring down at where she is looking. There, exactly as the girl has claimed, is a small, fawn-colored rabbit—but headless—the animal’s neck a disastrous flood of blood and tendons, its great wound decorated with silver specks of small buzzing flies, two pairs of small ballerina slippers still on its feet.

“What is the meaning of this?” Billy asks.
“Its head isn’t on its body.”
“Yes. Or so it would seem.”

The boy detective is already investigating: measuring, tabulating, a black and white blueprint, a detailed diagram of the missing bunny head is already magically appearing at the end of his pencil. He introduces himself like this: “My name is Billy Argo. I am a detective.”

“A detective?”
“Yes. What is your name?”
“Effie Mumford.” With that, she wipes her runny nose. Beside her, Gus, her brother, only squints suspiciously.
“And what is his name?” Billy asks.
“Gus Mumford. But he doesn’t speak.” “I see. And why not?”
“His teacher won’t call on him in class. He writes notes, though.”
The boy detective stares at the strange little dark-eyed boy, who passes him a small piece of white paper. It says: Hello stranger
The boy detective nods at the note then asks: “When did you see this bunny last?”
“I don’t know. Last night. Before I went to sleep,” Effie replies.
“Is this a random occurrence or has anything like this ever happened to you before?”
“Nope. No way. It’s a total surprise. It’s very surprising to me.”
“As it should be.”
“It’s pretty gross.”
“Yes. Very gross, indeed.” The boy detective makes a note of this in his notepad: Very gross.
The girl says: “I don’t think its head is up here. We’ve looked around the front of the house pretty good.”

Gus Mumford hands the detective another note: Will you help us look?

Billy nods, staring at the strange boy again.

The three of them walk around the side of the white and brown brick building, searching in the dark green bushes, beneath the sturdy white porch, in the small gray alley. “Mr. Buttons!” the girl calls, slapping her leg. “Mr. Buttons!”

“It is very unlikely that it will come when called now.”
The boy detective and the girl stare at each other for a moment.

They look behind two silver garbage cans, but to no avail. All they uncover is a sprung mousetrap and a withered corsage.

In a moment, Mrs. Mumford comes to the door. She has short dark hair, blue eyes, and looks quite lovely in a navy dress with ruffles. She stares at the strange man on her front lawn. “May I help you?” she asks.

“I’m a detective. I’m here to find out what happened to the bunny.”
“Effie, I told you to please put Mr. Buttons in the trash.”
“We are figuring out what happened to him, Mom,” Effie argues.
“Well, don’t make a mess. We’re eating in a half hour.”
“OK.”
“That goes for you, too, Gus, dear.”
Gus Mumford nods, hating to be reminded of anything he already knows. He holds up a note: Fine!
“And no playing with chemicals, you two. I don’t want you playing around with chemicals again.”
With that, Mrs. Mumford disappears, going back to her cleaning. The boy detective and the Mumford children stare down at the bunny’s headless body once more. “Now then, I will ask you this important question, Effie and Gus Mumford: Do you know anyone who would want to do this?”
“Yes. Everybody, practically, of course.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re hateful. I get first place in everything at school and people hate me for it.”
“Who hates you for it?”
“Hateful people. The girls especially.”
“They hate you for winning at school?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” The boy detective makes another note. “What grade are you in?”
“I was double-promoted. I am in the eighth grade.”
“The eighth grade? How old are you?”
“Eleven.”
“Oh, I see.”
The boy detective and the two Mumford children stand staring down at the small brown body.
“So,” the girl says.
“Yes?”
“So, are you going to find its head or not?” the girl asks.
“No. It does not look like it.”
“No?” the girl asks.
“No. I don’t think it’s very likely.”
“You’re not a very good detective, are you?”
“No. I am afraid I am not.”

They stare down at the rabbit’s body then, in awkward silence, no one quite sure what should be said next.

"The Boy Detective Fails," (excerpt) from The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno. Copyright 2006 by Joe Meno. Reprinted by permission of the author.