1
Down in Berbice, where the mango tree leans over the paling fence and the kiskadees quarrel all day about nothing, there is a yard.
In the yard there is a girl called Nai.
And wherever Nai goes — Bruno goes too.
2
Bruno is a big dog. A brown dog. A gentle dog with amber eyes and one ear that never quite decides to stand up.
Everyone said he looked just like a dog from TV.
But Bruno was realer than any TV dog.
3
By day, Bruno dozes under the bottom-house and lets the kitchen cats walk right over his paws. He does not mind. He is saving his strength.
Because by night — ah, by night — Bruno guards the yard.
He watches the gate. He watches the fence. He watches the dark between the trees, where the night keeps its secrets.
That is his work. He is very, very good at it.
4
And Nai? Nai is brave. Nai notices things.
She notices which hen is limping, and which mango will fall next, and who took two sweets when Mama said take one.
Nai keeps a little notebook with a pencil tied on with string, because a good detective writes everything down.
She had been waiting her whole life — all eight years of it — for a proper mystery.
5
That night, Mama left a cassava pone cooling in the kitchen safe.
Golden on top. Sticky in the middle. Sweet with coconut and spice, so the whole house smelled like Sunday. And crusty at the corners — the pone ends, the best-best part, everybody knows.
"Nobody touch it till morning," said Mama, and she shut the little wire door, and she looked at Nai, and she looked at Bruno, and she looked hardest of all at the cats.
Nobody planned to touch it.
Well. Almost nobody.
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Nai was under her mosquito net, halfway to a dream, when —
Tip.
Tap.
Shuffle-shuffle.
THUMP.
7
Nai sat up. Bruno's ears went up — well, one of them.
Something was moving in the dark. Something in the kitchen.
Something quiet. Something sneaky.
Something that smelled — sniff, sniff — like pone.
8
"Bruno," whispered Nai, "we have a mystery."
She took her notebook. She took her pencil. She took her magnifying glass and her torchlight with the wobbly button.
Bruno took his nose.
It was the best tool of all.
9
Down the back steps they went, quiet as moonlight.
The lantern by the kitchen door made one small circle of gold. Everything else was blue — deep, deep night blue.
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In the kitchen: the safe door — open!
The muslin cloth — on the floor!
The pone pan — GONE!
Nai wrote in her notebook, careful-careful:
One pone. Missing.
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"Maybe is a jumbie," Nai said, small-voiced.
Bruno leaned his big warm side against her leg, and Nai stood up taller.
"No," she said. "Jumbie 'fraid you, Bruno. This t'ief left clues. And clues we can follow."
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Clue number one: a crumb on the doorstep. A golden crumb. A sticky crumb.
Bruno sniffed it, and his tail went thump-thump-thump on the boards.
That tail-thump meant: Follow me.
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Clue number two: a paw print in a puff of flour.
A small print. Too small for Bruno. Much, much too small for a jumbie.
Nai drew it in her notebook, exactly-so.
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Clue number three: on the window ledge, a whisker-print in a smear of sticky.
"Hmm," said Nai, the way detectives say hmm.
Bruno's nose said: This way.
15
They followed the trail across the yard.
Past the kiskadees asleep in the mango tree, heads tucked under wings.
Past the lady-of-the-night flowers, sweetening the dark with their perfume.
Past the water barrel — and Nai stopped, just for one second, because the whole round moon was floating in it, like the night had put it there for safekeeping.
"The moon is watching too," she whispered. "Good."
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The night was big. The shadows were bigger.
Nai's hand found Bruno's collar. Bruno walked slow-slow, so her legs could keep up.
That is what guardians do.
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Then —
Tip.
Tap.
Shuffle-shuffle.
SCRAPE.
It was coming from under the bottom-house. From the deepest, darkest, spider-webbiest corner of the whole yard.
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Nai's heart went boom-boom.
She looked at Bruno. Bruno looked at her. He was not afraid.
So she decided she wasn't either.
"Ready?" she whispered.
Thump-thump-thump, said the tail.
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Nai clicked her wobbly torchlight.
The gold light jumped into the dark and —
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"EH-EH!"
Three pairs of shining eyes! Three sets of sticky whiskers!
Three kitchen cats, sitting round the pone pan like aunties round a table!
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Roti, the black one, had flour on her nose.
Dhal, the quick one, had crumbs on his chin.
And little Potato — small, grey-and-white Potato — was sitting inside the pan.
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"ROTI! DHAL! POTATO!" said Nai, in her biggest whisper. "Who t'ief the pone?!"
The cats looked at Nai. The cats looked at Bruno. The cats looked at each other.
Nobody confessed.
Cats never do.
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But wait.
Nai shone her light on the pan, because detective eyes see everything.
The middle of the pone — nibbled. The top of the pone — licked. But the corner piece, the crusty end piece, the best-best piece...
...was cut neat, and carried clean away.
"Cats don't cut neat," said Nai slowly. "This mystery has a SECOND t'ief."
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Bruno's nose went up. His tail went round and round like a flag.
He looked at the window above them — and there, in the lamplight, was a face.
A grinning face.
A face with crumbs at the corners.
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"COUSIN RAVI!"
"Is only the end piece I take!" said Cousin Ravi, licking his fingers. "Everybody know the end piece is mine. I was guarding it. From the cats. Very hard work."
26
Well.
The lights came on. Mama came out with her head-tie on and her hands on her hips, and she looked at the cats, and the pan, and the crumbs, and the cousin.
"Eh-eh," said Mama. "One pone. Four t'ief. And the only one in this yard who didn't touch it..."
She looked at Bruno. Bruno looked extremely honest.
"...is the DOG."
And Mama laughed until the kiskadees woke up and complained about it.
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So the mystery was solved, and Nai wrote the ending in her notebook:
The pone was t'iefed by three cats and one cousin. Case closed. Signed, Nai.
And Bruno pressed his paw print beside her name.
Because partners sign together.
28
Then Mama cut the rescued pone for everybody — a piece for Nai, the end piece for Cousin Ravi ("since you guard it so good"), and a saucer of milk each for Roti, Dhal and Potato, who purred like they had planned the whole thing.
Perhaps they had.
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Bruno got the biggest piece of all. He had earned it.
He ate it in one gulp — then checked the whole floor for evidence.
Detectives are thorough.
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Back under the mosquito net went Nai, warm and full and proud.
Her notebook lay on the windowsill, ready for the next mystery. Because in a yard like this, there is always another mystery.
"Good night, Bruno," she whispered through the window. "Good work, partner."
Somewhere below, a tail went thump-thump-thump.
That tail-thump meant: Sleep now. I have the night.
And Bruno lay down on the top step, chin on his paws, amber eyes on the gate, while the moon minded the mango tree and the yard breathed slow.
Sleep sweet, Berbice.
The night has a guardian.
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