The Mystery of the Strange Bundle

Enid Blyton's The Mystery of the Strange Bundle is a Find-Outers mystery for 9 year olds where Fatty has a brand new trick up his sleeve.

What happens

The Christmas holidays have been a washout. Bets caught flu first and passed it to everyone else (she feels terrible about it). Now there are only about ten days left and the gang are desperate for some fun.

Bets pops round to see Fatty, who's supposed to be in bed. Instead there's a plump visitor in a pudding-shaped hat sitting by him, smelling very strongly of scent. And Fatty won't wake up when Bets pokes him.

That's because the "Fatty" in the bed is a wig on a pudding basin! His mother lets out a little scream, and the visitor collapses into a chair, exploding with laughter. It's Fatty, of course.

Then he tells Bets about the Voices. A china duck that quacks, a hen clucking, a little old man in the wardrobe who keeps asking for a cigarette. Bets doesn't believe a word until she wakes up from a nap in the dark and hears them all herself. It's actually quite spooky!

It turns out Fatty has been learning to be a ventriloquist. And of course it isn't long before he tries it out on Mr Goon.

The scene in the dairy is the funniest bit. Fatty makes a nodding model cow moo in time with its head while the others carefully don't notice. Then a stuffed duck in a glass case starts quacking. Poor Goon runs out of the shop!

Which leaves the real mystery. A house two doors from Larry's is broken into and turned upside down overnight. The man who rents it has disappeared. Who was looking for something so badly?

This is the tenth book in the series. Each book is a new case, but the first one is The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage if you'd like the whole story of how the five met.

It's worth knowing that one bit is very much of its time. Fatty says the best ventriloquist at his school is "a black boy" and "a Zulu Prince, or something". He calls throwing your voice "an old talent with Zulus" and quotes the boy in broken English. It's short but it's a stereotype, and some families might want to talk it through. Bets gets frightened to tears by the Voices too, though Fatty is sorry straight away.

What to read next

If they enjoy watching Goon get spoofed, Fatty does it in disguise the case before. In The Mystery of the Vanished Prince the gang dress up in robes and Goon swallows the whole thing.