A Robber in the Basement

There was once a grumpy old man named Gregg. He owned a house with a basement. One night his dogs Rover and Sparky started barking, so he got up and checked every room. He could not find anything unusual. But the dogs kept barking.

“What did I forget?” he asked in frustration. They jumped up and ran over to the basement door. Then they stopped. He went into the basement. Everything inside of it had been taken, and it was now empty. “Who could have done this?” he said. He started searching for any fingerprints. He could not find anything. Now he was completely puzzled.

He went to sleep and was awakened by a soft rattling. He was careful not to wake the dogs up so the burglar would not leave or hide. He entered the basement and found a masked figure that had stripes. He called 911 and told them that he had caught a bandit red-handed that had escaped from jail.

When they arrived, they said, “Hands up!” but the robber did not even move. The police shined the flashlight on him. It was a raccoon! The police left, chuckling. The next morning Gregg was furious to find that the newspaper had his “hilarious” story. At least he had a pet raccoon that was famous because it can now do tricks!