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THE SECRET BOX MYSTERY by Joan Lowery Nixon

THE SECRET BOX MYSTERY

By

Pub Date: June 1st, 1974
Publisher: Putnam

Michael John walks carefully to school with his secret in a shoe box, but when it's time to show his science project, the secret has disappeared. Wilma, who has brought in her grandfather's false teeth for her science project, pushes past the others to look at the box (""Wilma was like that"" we're told not once but four times in the 1000 word story) but it is Paul, the new boy from Arizona without a project of his own, who helps Michael John retrieve his secret. For Paul has guessed that Michael John's project is a desert elf owl who can be lured by meat from Wilma's sandwich, and as ""Paul knows more about owls than I do,"" Michael John suggests that the two boys share the science project. Innocuous -- but then first readers tend to be like that.