All eleven of us crammed into the closed fondue restaurant after dark. The place smelled like regret and melted gruyere. Marv unrolled a piece of paper with a big flourish. It was a placemat. "Behold," he said, "the layout of Fromagerie Sublime." Lola squinted at it. "Marv, that's a kids' maze. There's a cartoon mouse in the corner." Marv folded his arms. "The mouse knows where the safe is."

Lola grabbed the placemat anyway. "Fine. If the mouse leads to the safe, we follow the mouse." She traced the crayon path to a doodle of a cheese wheel. "That's the vault. Probably. Marv, you're up front. Everyone else, try not to knock anything over."

We followed the crayon maze down a hallway to a door marked "VAULT" in fancy gold letters. "No way," breathed Lola. "The mouse was right." She pushed it open. Inside sat one enormous cheese wheel on a velvet pillow, glowing under a spotlight.

Dennis stepped up to lift the golden cheese wheel and grunted. It didn't budge. "It's bolted down," he wheezed. "Who bolts down a cheese?" Lola read the tiny plaque on the pillow out loud. "Award-Winning Display Cheese. Made of wax." She looked up. "It's fake. The whole vault is fake."

Marv refused to accept it was wax. He bit the cheese wheel to prove a point and instantly regretted it. "Yep," he mumbled, holding his jaw. "That's a candle." Lola pulled out a notebook. "Adding 'Marv ate a candle' to the report."