Welcome, super sleuth!
This is the hardest case yet. Every suspect had a reason to tell. Some will fib. To find the tattletale, you'll need to crack a secret code and solve two logic grids, and the second one is tricky!
How to crack the case
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Detective notebook
Chapter 1: Pigwarts
A school of jokes, a funny teacher, and a very strange rumor.
High on a hill stands Pigwarts School of Jokes, the silliest school in the world. Students at Pigwarts don't just learn reading and math. They learn knock-knock jokes, puns, riddles, and how to tell a story so funny that milk comes out of your nose.
Every student agrees on one thing: the nicest, funniest teacher at Pigwarts is Mr. Lehmkuhl.
Mr. Lehmkuhl
Teaches Advanced Giggling in the Giggle Tower. Tells a joke to start every class. Always has a jar of peanuts on his desk.
But lately, there's been a rumor. Some students say that Mr. Lehmkuhl turns into an elephant at night.
The clues seem to be everywhere. Students have heard a loud trumpeting sound coming from the Giggle Tower after dark. There are always peanut shells on the tower stairs in the morning. And once, the janitor found giant round footprints in the tower hallway.
Six friends decided to find out the truth once and for all. They made a plan to sneak out on Friday night and peek into the Giggle Tower window.
The six friends
Ruby planned the whole adventure. The other five are your suspects. Read their quotes carefully. Each one had a reason to tell on the others!
Check your reading
Chapter 2: Caught!
The plan goes wrong in the worst way.
At dinner on Friday, the six friends huddled together over their spaghetti. "We sneak out at midnight," Ruby whispered. "We meet at the big front door." Everyone nodded.
But after dinner, Ruby overheard two teachers talking. The headmistress, Professor Snortington, walks through the halls at exactly midnight every night! Midnight was a terrible time to sneak out.
So Ruby changed the plan. The new time would be 11:30. She didn't want anyone to overhear, so she told each friend the new time secretly, one at a time, in a different sneaky way.
At 11:30 that night, six friends in pajamas tiptoed down the dark stairs to the big front door. Ruby reached for the handle...
Click. A lamp turned on. There stood Professor Snortington in her fuzzy purple robe, holding a folded piece of paper.
"Going somewhere?" she asked. "Perhaps to see an elephant?"
The friends froze. Their hearts pounded. Professor Snortington held up the paper. "Somebody slid this note under my door at 9:40 tonight. I heard it while I was brushing my teeth. It's written in some silly secret code, but I figured it out. Back to bed, all of you! Saturday detention: you'll each write one hundred knock-knock jokes."
As they trudged up the stairs, Ruby clenched her fists. "Somebody told on us," she whispered to you. "One of our own friends is a tattletale. And you're going to help me find out who."
Professor Snortington's office is at the top of the Teachers' Tower, right next to the Giggle Tower.
Timeline so far
Check your reading
The Alibis
Where was everyone at 9:40, when the note was delivered?
The next morning at breakfast, Ruby asked each friend the same question: "Where were you at 9:40 last night?"
Game: Proven or not proven?
An alibi is proven only if another person saw the suspect somewhere else for the whole time. Otherwise, it's not proven yet.
Think like a detective
Puzzle 1: The Secret Code
Crack the tattletale's note.
Ruby borrowed the note from Professor Snortington's desk (with permission!). It was written in a shift code: every letter was moved forward the same number of spots in the alphabet. But how many spots?
Priya recognized it right away. "That's my Giggle Shift code," she said, surprised. "But I taught it to all five of us at Joke Club last week! Theo, Marcus, Lily, Ben... everyone knows it."
Crack it!
Move the slider to try different shift numbers. When the note turns into real words, you've found it!
Top: letter in the code. Bottom: what it really means.
Puzzle 2: The Secret Messages
When did each friend learn the new time?
Use the bottom part of the grid for clues that connect times and ways, without a name. Stuck? Press Hint.
Ruby remembers sending four secret messages (Ben was in the nurse's office, so she skipped him). But she can't remember who got which one! Use her memory clues to figure out what time each friend got the new time and how.
Puzzle 3: Where Was Everyone at 9:40?
The hardest grid. Read every clue twice!
Ruby asked the teachers and staff what they saw at 9:40. Their answers are tricky. Some clues tell you what's NOT true. Figure out where each friend really was, and what they were doing.
The Evidence
One last clue was waiting right outside the headmistress's door.
The peanut shell
Professor Snortington found something on the floor outside her door the next morning: a peanut shell. "Aha! The elephant!" some kids said. But Ruby looked closer. The shell was sticky, and it smelled sweet like honey.
One sticky, sweet-smelling peanut shell.
Ruby checked everyone's favorite bedtime snack. Which snack matches the shell?
Put it all together
Name the Tattletale
Who told, how do you know, and why did they do it?
Suspect board
Suspects get crossed off as you earn clues.
Detective notebook
Make your accusation
You need all three parts right. If anything is wrong, the case file locks for 5 minutes.