ShortGarden Detectives · Case 28
The Missing Picnic List
Short I · Level 6
Short I review with print evidence and distinguishing fact from assumption
Before reading
Open the case file
Hear the focus words
Read and investigate
The Missing Picnic List
Read one sentence at a time, then reread for smooth phrasing.
The Garden Detectives made a picnic list in thick black print. Pip clipped it to a board beside the kitchen window. Before lunch, the list was missing. A bit of the top edge remained in the clip.
Pip found no rip below the board. Inside the kitchen, a clean dish towel had black marks on one corner. The marks matched three letters from the list. A fan in the window had pulled the loose bottom of the page inward.
The turning fan pressed the paper against the damp towel. Most of the print transferred to the cloth. The paper then slipped behind a tall mixing bin. Pip found it there, blank in several spots but still readable.
The team copied the list and moved the fan. They used the marked towel as evidence, not as a new picnic plan.
Check the evidence
Can you solve the case?
Choose the answer that is supported by the story.
What really happened?
The window fan pulled the list inside, pressed its print onto a damp towel, and dropped the faded page behind a bin.
For adults
Use evidence, not guesses
Ask the learner to point to the sentence that proves each answer. If decoding is effortful, reread one paragraph at a time. A fluent second reading is more valuable than rushing to the next story.