Millie and the Trail of Peels

Sunshine still sparkled over Jellybean Town, but now it was mixed with glops and splatters of runaway fruit. Millie planted herself at the foot of the bandstand, notebook ready. Pip adjusted his sardine cap, peering up at her with detective-like squint. Around them, the parade slithered along—hats lopsided, fruit everywhere, laughter echoing—but Millie’s mind was sharp as a lemon wedge.

Pip shivered his feathers. “Where do we start?”

“Clues!” Millie declared. “Where there’s a mess, there’s a mystery muncher.”

She tiptoed carefully between squashed berries and puddles of peach juice. On the cobblestones near Mayor Plum’s platform, she spied something out of place: a squiggle of yellow, soft and slightly squashed.

“Banana peel!” Millie knelt, poking it carefully.

Pip waggled his wings. “Not yours?”

“I still have all my peel,” Millie said, and stuck out her tongue at her bedraggled banana hat.

A few feet away: a cherry stem, stripped bare. Down the lane: a cluster of purple grape seeds.

Her eyes widened. Was it… a trail?

“Look, Pip! Banana, cherry, grape… and there’s an apricot pit over there!”

They hurried from clue to clue, tracing the edible evidence away from the chaos of the parade. The townsfolk were busy splatting each other with hat-repairs and fruity giggles, so Millie and Pip’s departure went unseen.

Down Jellybean Lane, the trail continued—a dropped rind here, a lemon twist there, even a half-eaten kiwi slice balanced on a fence post (with a tiny bite-sized chunk chewed out). Pip sniffed. “Detective business is hungry business.”

Millie giggled but pressed on. At the corner, they found a heap of peels so big they looked like a lumpy yellow nest. “Watch it!” Millie called as Pip slipped and thudded to his tummy, flipping him over like a pancake.

“Banana peels: 1, Detective Penguin: 0,” Pip groaned, wriggling back upright.

The fruity trail twisted past Sweetie Pie’s Bakery (where a crowd cheered as Mrs. Sweetie tried patching hats with cupcake frosting—delicious, but very drippy). It led straight through a flock of giggling ducklings who darted in and out, their tiny feet sticky with fruit juice.

“Excuse us!” Millie said, carefully scuffing past. But Pip, ever polite, bowed—only to get his sardine hat nibbled by a bold duckling. “That’s not for you!”

The fruity evidence led to the old Lemonade Stand, where a huge puddle of spilled pink lemonade stretched across the sidewalk, glistening and sticky. Millie, quick on her toes, hopped from jellybean stone to jellybean stone. Pip took a running start—SPLASH!—and slid across, landing among the spilled fruit cups.

“Nice move, Inspector!” Millie grinned.

Past Mrs. Butterscotch’s garden the trail zigged and zagged, with each step bright with color. It looped around the bounceberry bush, swung through the playground (where children now wore hats made from mismatched napkins and whipped cream), and doubled back behind the Melon Market.

There, a wild fruit cart thundered by, pelted by a squirrel in a blueberry helmet. The cart zoomed straight at Millie and Pip! “Duck!” Millie yelped. They pressed against a stack of pumpkins as the cart whizzed past, leaving a comet-tail of apple cores and rolling plums.

The fruit trail still pressed on, now thinner, more mysterious. At the very edge of town, near the old Jellybean arch, Millie stopped. She counted: four banana peels, five cherry stems, six grape seeds, one half-sucked orange segment. “Whoever this is,” she murmured, “they’re a fruit-eating tornado!”

Pip frowned. “Where does it go?”

There, under the archway, were faint, funny tracks. Not shoe prints—something more like… little ovals? A blur of toe-marks. And, there, a single long brown hair, curled around a sticky banana peel.

Millie’s eyes narrowed. “Suspicious footprints… could those belong to a monkey?”

Pip trilled. “Maybe Bingo just got hungry. Or maybe… someone is framing Bingo!”

Mystery tumbled like marbles in Millie’s mind. But there was no time to puzzle—they had to follow the clues before juice dried or peels disappeared.

The trail led out of town, toward the edge of the Zippy Zappy Woods, its treetops wobbling green in the gentle breeze. Millie took a steady breath. “You ready, Pip?”

Pip saluted. “To the ends of the peels!”

Together, Millie grasped her magnifying glass and led Pip over the town limits, hearts racing, leaving behind the silly chaos of fruity hats and parading neighbors. Every step squished, wobbled, or slid, and every turn brought more clues (and giggles).

But beyond the woods, something moved. A shadow… a giggle… the mystery deepened.

On they marched, ready for whatever (or whoever) might come next—braver together, following the silliest, juiciest trail Jellybean Town had ever seen.