The Maple Syrup Mystery

Emile's family has a small maple farm in Quebec, about an hour from the city. Every spring, they collect sap from the trees and boil it for hours in a wooden building called the sugar shack until it becomes thick, golden maple syrup. This spring, Emile's cousin Valeria had come from Guadalajara, in Mexico, to help for two weeks.

One cold morning, Emile's father came into the kitchen looking pale. "Three barrels have gone," he said. "The ones we filled yesterday." Each barrel held almost two hundred liters of syrup. It was the best syrup of the season, and it was worth a lot of money.

Emile's father was sure that someone must have stolen them during the night. "It might have been those men in the white truck," he said. "They were asking questions about the price of syrup last week." He went to call the police, while Emile and Valeria put on their boots and went to look at the sugar shack.

The door was open, but the lock wasn't broken. "Dad can't have locked it last night," said Emile. "He was very tired." Inside, the place where the barrels had been was empty, and the floor was covered in syrup. Valeria pointed at the ground outside. In the mud there was a line of big, sticky footprints going toward the forest.

"Those can't have been made by a man," Valeria said. "Look, they're too wide, and there are marks of long claws." Emile bent down. She was right. Next to the shack, they found one of the barrels lying on its side. It was completely empty, and the metal had deep scratches on it. A few meters away there was a second barrel, also empty, and some dark hair caught on a branch.

They followed the sticky footprints into the trees. After ten minutes, Valeria stopped and put her hand on Emile's arm. In a small clearing, a huge black bear was lying on its back next to the third barrel. Its face and paws were covered in syrup, and it looked extremely happy.

The two cousins walked backward very slowly and then ran all the way home. "Dad!" Emile shouted. "You can call the police back and tell them to stop looking. The thief must have been very hungry. It was a bear!" His father didn't believe it until they showed him the photo that Valeria had taken on her phone.

The bear must have woken up early from its winter sleep and smelled the syrup from far away. Since then, Emile's father has put a strong metal door on the sugar shack. Valeria went back to Mexico with a bottle of syrup and the best story of her trip. In her photo, the bear looks as if it is smiling.