Goofballs 02 – Startling Story of the Stolen Statue

Tony Abbott's Goofballs Startling Story of the Stolen Statue is a silly school mystery for 6 year olds where the clues include a skateboard hidden inside a piano.

What happens

Jeff Bunter tells the story. He's the chief Goofball, and he never goes anywhere without his cluebook. His best friends Brian, Kelly and Mara are the other three. Sparky the corgi is the official Goofdog.

Badger Point School is turning one hundred. There's a big party tonight, and a shiny statue of the school's very first principal is about to be unveiled.

Except the principal pulls the cloth off and finds a pile of chairs.

He wants to cancel the party and call the police. The Goofballs beg for two hours to crack the case. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turns out! Jeff trips on a broken gold pencil. Mara climbs head first into the piano. Kelly sniffs a soggy scrap of paper with two strange words on it. Brian decides the thief must be a rich man with bushy red hair and a pet monkey (his reasoning is magnificent).

Each friend has their own thing, and they're very easy to tell apart. Kelly thinks everybody looks guilty and shouts "He did it!" before she's even turned round. Mara loves a disguise, so they end up creeping into the pool wrapped in towels. Brian is an inventor whose gadgets never work, and he keeps losing his trousers.

The jokes come thick and fast, and lots of them are word jokes. When someone says they'll "go on ahead", Kelly points out that nobody here is a hat. Children who like puns will lap it up.

The mystery is a fair one too. The clues are all there on the page. A sharp reader might just work it out before Jeff does, and there's something very satisfying about that.

It's the second Goofballs book, but it explains who everyone is straight away, so it's fine to start here.

What to read next

If they want to know how the four of them teamed up in the first place, it's in Crazy Case of Missing Thunder, which begins with Jeff getting his nickname and Brian arriving at his house in his underpants.