Three Times Lucky -Mehedi Hasan

The first time I got lucky, I found a missing diamond ring inside a vending machine.

The second time, I avoided getting hit by a runaway horse cart in the old part of town.

The third time, I was accused of theft—and that was the luckiest of all.

But I’ll get to that.

My name is Mohammad Shihab. I live in a sleepy little village called Cypress Run, which has more cats than cars and more secrets than stop signs.

The day it all began, I was running late to school and had jelly toast in my mouth and one sock on. My best friend Minzul, who’s basically a walking, talking detective kit, was already at the gate, scribbling something in his notebook. Minzul never just waited—he investigated, theorized, and overanalyzed.

“Did you hear?” he said, eyes wide behind her square glasses.

“The Colonel’s coin collection is missing.”

The Colonel—real name Shiblu Sheikh—was a retired war hero and the richest person in town. His coin collection was said to be worth over two million dollars.

“And,” Minzul added, “the police think it was stolen last night.”

I stopped mid-chew. “Who’d be dumb enough to rob the Colonel? He has three Dobermans and a laser security system.”

“Exactly,” Minzul said, lowering his voice. “Which means it was an inside job.”

That night, Minzul and I snuck into the Colonel’s backyard using a tunnel she found behind the overgrown hedges.

He had a torch. I had nerves.

We peered through the basement window. There were glass shards on the floor. But more importantly, someone had left muddy footprints—size ten—leading from the coin cabinet to the window. Odd, since the security alarm hadn’t gone off.

Minzul pulled out a notebook and muttered, “Suspect number one: Peter, the new gardener. Large boots. New to town. Background: unknown.”

“But why would Peter risk stealing something he couldn’t even sell around here?” I asked.

Minzul didn’t answer. Instead, he pointed to the garden shed. A light flickered inside.

We crept toward the shed. Inside, Shiblu Sheikh was asleep in a lawn chair with a half-eaten tuna sandwich on his chest. But something else caught Minzul’s eye: a series of blinking red lights on the wall. Not security lights—these were arranged in dots and dashes.

“Morse code,” Minzul whispered. “It says ‘Behind the clock. Midnight. Three.’”

We exchanged glances.

“Behind the clock,” I repeated. “Whose clock?”

Minzul looked serious. “The old Grandfather Clock at the town hall.”

At exactly midnight, we snuck out with our flashlights and met outside the town hall. We didn’t have a key, but Hazel had studied enough YouTube videos to unlock the door with a bobby pin.

Inside, the Grandfather Clock stood tall and imposing, ticking like a heartbeat.

“Ready?” he said.

We opened the wooden back of the clock—and gasped.

Inside was a brown envelope marked “TOP SECRET”. We opened it carefully. Inside was a sketch of the Colonel’s house with red arrows pointing to the basement, a security map, and a list of coin names.

“This is a heist plan,” I said. “But who left it here?”

Suddenly, a loud noise echoed from the hallway.

We scrambled up the stairs, clutching the envelope.

Someone was following us.

Minzul yanked open a side door and we slipped into the records room, hiding behind a stack of old tax documents.

Footsteps came closer. Heavy ones. Male.

Minzul mouthed, “Three… two… one.”

The door creaked open. A flashlight beam swept the room.

Then the power went out.

In the pitch black, we heard a click—like a gun being cocked—and the footsteps retreated.

Minzul pulled out a tiny UV penlight and said, “We need to tell the Colonel.”

But by morning, things had taken a turn.

The police were waiting for us outside my house.

Apparently, the Colonel had been given an anonymous tip that I had stolen the coins and hidden the plans in the town hall. They found my fingerprints on the envelope and a pair of muddy sneakers—my size—outside the basement.

I was taken in for questioning.

“I didn’t do it!” I cried.

But no one listened. Not even the Colonel.

Except Minzul.

Minzul visited me that evening.

“I figured it out,” he whispered. “The real thief is the Colonel’s nephew—Reed. He planted the envelope and the shoes. And get this—he used your old science project to disable the lasers in the basement.”

“My science project?”

“Yeah. Remember the ultrasonic pulse generator you built for the science fair? He copied the design from your blog.”

That’s when I realized: my luck hadn’t run out—it had just taken a detour.

That night, Minzul and I set a trap. We leaked false info through a fake online chat log—pretending to be selling the coins from an “undisclosed location.”

Sure enough, Reed showed up at the abandoned train station with a suitcase full of cash.

But what he didn’t know was that Hazel had hacked a drone to hover above and record the entire scene—voice, video, and all.

The police arrested Rasha on the spot.

Turned out he’d been planning the heist for months and needed someone to take the fall. I was just the unlucky pick.

Or was I?

In the end, the Colonel apologized. Publicly.

Minzul and I were given the Junior Citizen Award for Bravery. My parents grounded me for two weeks anyway—but let me have an extra hour of screen time.

And Shiblu Sheikh? Turns out he used to be a codebreaker in the Navy. The Morse code was his way of trying to warn someone without drawing suspicion.

Now, we all meet every weekend to play chess and talk mysteries.

Minzul’s already onto the next case.

Me?

Well, I’m just glad I was three times lucky.

Because sometimes, getting into trouble is the only way to find the truth.