Max and the Sock Detective, Part 1: The Mystery of the Right Sock

Max and the Sock Detective, Part 1: The Mystery of the Right Sock

The Story Begins

That morning, Max felt as if the alarm clock had not rung. It had exploded.

He jumped out of bed, his messy blond hair sticking out in every direction, and pulled on his red T-shirt with the little rocket so quickly that the rocket ended up on his back for a moment. Then he turned it the right way round and ran to the bathroom.

“I’m on time, I’m on time, I’m definitely on time,” he muttered.

Nina’s calm voice came from the hallway:

“When someone says ‘I’m on time’ three times in a row, it usually means they’re already late.”

Max decided not to hear that comment. He opened the bathroom drawer, took out the left sock with green stripes, and pulled it onto his foot. Then he reached for the right one.

Nothing.

He reached deeper.

Still nothing.

He looked under the towel. Then behind the sink. Then behind the laundry basket. He found a hairpin, a blue building block, and a candy wrapper that he was sure must have come from ancient times. But he did not find the right sock.

“This is impossible,” Max said. “Socks live in pairs.”

Nina peeked into the bathroom. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, she wore a purple hoodie, and she had the look of someone who had already seen many of Max’s morning surprises.

“Some pairs must have had a fight,” she said. “Your left sock looks rather lonely.”

Max opened another drawer and pulled out a yellow sock with blue dots.

“Solved. I’ll wear one green sock and one yellow one.”

Nina looked at his feet.

“Wonderful. Today your feet will look like two different traffic signs.”

“People won’t notice.”

“Max, the teacher noticed last week when you had a bread roll in your pencil case instead of an eraser.”

Max sighed. At that very moment, the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be Grandpa Fero,” Nina said.

A moment later, Grandpa Fero appeared in the bathroom doorway. He wore a detective hat, a beige vest, round glasses, and a grey moustache, and he held a large magnifying glass in his hand. He looked as if he had come to uncover the mystery of a royal treasure, not to drink tea.

“Good morning, family,” he said grandly. “I only came for a short visit, but I can feel a case in the air.”

Max pointed to his one sock-covered foot.

“My right sock has disappeared. But I need to go to school. I’ll wear another one.”

Grandpa Fero froze. Then he slowly raised his magnifying glass.

“A right sock? Gone without saying goodbye?”

“Maybe it evaporated,” Max suggested.

“Young man,” Grandpa Fero said seriously, “no sock evaporates for no reason. Especially not a right one.”

Nina folded her arms.

“This is going to be a difficult morning.”

Grandpa Fero stepped into the bathroom and looked at the tiles as if he were reading a secret message.

“I declare this bathroom a crime scene. Nobody touch anything!”

Max was holding a toothbrush.

“Not even our teeth?”

Grandpa Fero thought for a moment.

“Teeth are an exception. Hygiene has an alibi.”

The investigation began at the laundry basket. Grandpa Fero knelt down and held the magnifying glass so close to the clothes that he nearly magnified his own nose.

“The laundry basket,” he whispered. “A dark cave of cotton.”

“It’s only a basket,” Nina remarked.

“Every cave begins as a basket when nobody looks into it seriously enough.”

Grandpa Fero carefully pulled out a lonely left sock. It was grey and looked the way socks look: not at all.

When Things Start to Change

“Another left one,” Grandpa Fero said. “Interesting.”

Then he pulled out pyjama trousers, a T-shirt, and a school notebook.

Nina raised her eyebrows.

“Max, why is your science notebook in the laundry basket?”

Max thought for a moment.

“Maybe it wanted to be washed. It had a yoghurt stain on it.”

“Notebooks aren’t washed,” Nina said.

“That’s what I thought, so I probably only put it there temporarily.”

“Temporarily since last night?”

Max looked at the ceiling.

“Time is a very complicated thing.”

Grandpa Fero wrote in his little notebook: notebook in basket, suspiciously educated. Then he turned to Max.

“What happened last night?”

“Nothing special. I was looking for a pencil. Then I was looking for a ruler. Then I forgot I was looking for a pencil, and I found a little plastic helmet for a dinosaur. But it was too small for him.”

Nina nodded.

“And while you were doing that, you turned half the bathroom upside down.”

“Not half,” Max protested. “Maybe a third. A bigger third.”

But the right sock was nowhere to be found.

The three of them moved into the hallway. Max hopped about with one green sock on, holding the yellow sock in his other hand in case of emergency. Grandpa Fero stopped beside Max’s slippers.

“Hm. Slippers.”

“What about them?” Max asked.

“They’re standing far too quietly. That’s always suspicious.”

Nina sighed, but she was smiling.

Grandpa Fero lifted one slipper with his magnifying glass, as if it might bite. Inside was only a tiny ball of dust.

“Dust has an alibi,” he announced. “It has been here for a long time.”

Then he spotted a rolled-up towel on the bench.

“Stop! A sock burrito!”

Max’s eyes lit up.

“That sounds delicious.”

“A sock burrito is not for eating,” Nina said. “I hope.”

She unrolled the towel. A hair tie and a small plastic block fell out.

“My block!” Max cried. “I was looking for that last Friday.”

“See?” Nina said. “Your things don’t disappear. They just travel without a map.”

Max thought for a moment and looked towards the window.

“Maybe aliens kidnapped the sock. It has green stripes. Maybe they thought it was a signal.”

Nina replied calmly:

“Aliens would surely take a pair. They wouldn’t fly through space with only one right sock.”

Grandpa Fero looked even more serious.

“We can rule out aliens. For now.”

Max glanced at the clock.

“I really have to go to school.”

“The bedroom first,” Nina said.

Max went pale.

“My room? The sock definitely isn’t there.”

“That is exactly why it will be there,” Nina said.

Max’s room was cheerful and cosy, but it also looked as if school supplies, toys, and building blocks had held a convention there during the night. Books, notebooks, blocks, a toy car missing one wheel, and a paper spaceship lay on the floor. A stuffed dinosaur sat on the bed with a little pillow.

Grandpa Fero stopped in the middle of the room.

“This is not a room. This is a map of a sock maze.”

“I know exactly where my things are,” Max said.

He took one step and stepped on a pencil. It rolled under the chair.

“Aha, the pencil! I was looking for that yesterday.”

Nina looked at Grandpa Fero.

“The case of the pencil: solved by accidental stepping.”

Grandpa Fero wrote another note.

“A painfully effective method, but not recommended.”

Nina did not walk through the room like a detective. She walked through it like someone who knew that the answer often did not lie in the biggest pile, but beside it. She noticed an open drawer. Then a bathrobe thrown over a chair. Then the stuffed dinosaur.

An Important Moment

“Max,” she said slowly, “why does your dinosaur have a little pillow?”

“Because he sleeps,” Max answered.

“And why doesn’t he have a hat? Yesterday you said a dinosaur couldn’t sleep with a bare head because his thoughts would catch cold.”

Max opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he rubbed his forehead.

“Wait. I wanted to make him a sleeping cap.”

Grandpa Fero raised one finger dramatically.

“The motive is revealed! Protecting the dinosaur’s head.”

“I was looking for something soft,” Max continued. “Something green. Because the dinosaur likes green.”

Nina pointed to the bathrobe on the chair.

“And perhaps you put something in there?”

Max walked over to the bathrobe. It was soft, blue, and had large pockets. He put his hand into the right pocket and rummaged around for a moment.

His expression changed from tense to surprised, then victorious.

“I’ve got it!”

He pulled out the right sock with green stripes. It was clean, a little wrinkled, and completely innocent.

Grandpa Fero put a hand over his heart.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the sock was not kidnapped. It did not evaporate. It was not eaten by a slipper. It was staying in the pocket of the bathrobe.”

Nina smiled.

“And who put it there?”

Max looked at the sock.

“I did. Last night, I told myself I would find it in the morning and finish the dinosaur’s hat. But then I forgot I had told myself that.”

“That happens,” Grandpa Fero said kindly. “Especially to people who keep a notebook in the bathroom basket.”

Max laughed and quickly pulled on the right sock. The green stripes were together again. The left and right socks looked happy, if socks can look happy.

“I still have two minutes!” Max cried.

He began tidying up quickly but carefully. He put the pencil in his pencil case. He took the science notebook out of the laundry basket and put it in his school bag. He hung the bathrobe on its hook. He returned the yellow sock to the drawer.

Nina leaned against the doorframe.

“This is your fastest tidying-up ever.”

Max slung his bag over his shoulder.

“If I had put my things away properly last night, I wouldn’t have had to investigate my own pocket this morning.”

Grandpa Fero nodded with satisfaction.

“An excellent conclusion. Tidiness saves time, nerves, and detective hats.”

“Detective hats?” Nina asked.

“When a case is long, the hat gets tired,” Grandpa Fero explained.

Max ran towards the door.

“Bye! Grandpa, thank you for the investigation. Nina, thank you for noticing the dinosaur.”

“You’re welcome,” Nina said. “And next time, try not to use socks as building material.”

Max turned back once more.

“But the dinosaur still needs that hat.”

“School first,” Nina said.

The door closed behind Max. The flat became quiet: the sort of morning quiet that was a little sock-like.

Grandpa Fero cleared his throat.

“Just to be safe, I’ll check the crime scene one more time.”

Nina followed him into the bathroom. Grandpa Fero peered into the laundry basket. He rummaged through the clothes for a moment, then slowly pulled out another sock.

It was lonely.

And it was a left one.

Grandpa Fero held it before his eyes like the most important piece of evidence in the world. His grey moustache twitched.

“Nina,” he said in a quiet, dramatic voice, “this particular mystery is solved. But the case of the right socks is only just beginning.”

Nina looked at the sock, then at Grandpa Fero.

“Or someone in this flat needs to learn how to sort the laundry.”

What Comes Next

Grandpa Fero pulled his hat a little lower.

“That is also possible. And that is exactly why we must investigate it very, very carefully.”