Brain Teasers

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The Intruder

Category:	Mystery
Submitted By:	Psychic_Master
Fun:	(3.34)
Difficulty:	(2.69)

Emily was sitting at her study table, home alone, on a cold and stormy night. Her parents had taken a flight earlier in the morning to Australia as her grandmother had passed away. She had wanted to follow her parents but she had an important English examination the next day which she could not miss.

The storm was getting heavier by the minute and the wind was howling outside. All this noise made it very hard for her to concentrate. She was on the verge of dozing off when she was shaken alert by a sudden "THUD!" She dismissed it as a window which had been slammed shut by the wind.

She tried to concentrate on her books when she heard faint footsteps. Emily got out of her room and looked around when suddenly, without warning, she was grabbed by the neck. She tried to scream but it came out as a mere whimper as the intruder was pressing hard against her throat with his arm. She tried to free herself from his grip but to no avail.

"Give me all your money!" growled the man who had grabbed her from behind.

"Th-there is none h-here! Please ll-let me go!" cried Emily.

"Don't LIE TO ME!" screamed the increasingly agitated man. She felt the man strengthen his grip around her neck. She said nothing and a few seconds passed by in silence. Suddenly the phone rang which alerted both of them.

"People will get suspicious if I don't answer the phone," said Emily, with a controlled voice. The intruder let her go.

"Alright, but NO funny business, or ELSE!" said the nervous intruder. Emily walked toward the phone. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. She picked up the phone.

"Hey Em! How's the revision going?" said the caller.

"Hey Anna. Thanks for the call. Hey you know those Science notes I lent you last week? Well I really need them back. It would be a great help to me. It's an emergency, so if you could give me them tomorrow it would be great. Please hurry in finding the notes. I need to get back to my books now. Bye," Emily said. She hung up the phone.

"It was wise of you not to say anything," said the intruder, although he was more than a bit confused by her conversation.

"Now TELL ME WHERE THE MONEY IS KEPT!" screamed the thief.

"It...it's...in my dad's room. The first room on the right. Third drawer," said Emily.

"SHOW me!" said the man, and removed his grip around her neck. She took a big gulp of air and nearly fell. She swallowed hard and said a silent prayer. She walked slowly, in silence, toward her father's room. All of a sudden, they heard police sirens. The intruder froze in his footsteps. He ran to the nearest window and jumped out of it.

Emily ran outside in time to see the intruder being escorted into the car. She saw Anna and she ran toward her and hugged her.

"Smart kids," said the policeman.

What had happened?

Hint:

Read the conversation carefully and think outside the box.

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Comments on this teaser


Posted by oxana007	01/06/09
easy but good :D

Posted by Psychic_Master	01/06/09
Thanks. It's my first attempt in this category and I made it up myself. :D

Posted by markmonnin	01/07/09
Fun story and good answer. :) I thought maybe they had a safety system where if you say emergency and hang up without saying you aren't in an emergency, the other person must call for help.

Posted by Psychic_Master	01/07/09
Yeah I thought of that possibility too. It could have worked as well, I guess. :D

Posted by luckythirteen	01/09/09
Very interesting teaser. Of course, if that had been me, I wouldn't have even thought about that! :laugh: It was fun! :D

Posted by al111	01/10/09
great teaser :)

Posted by Shadows	01/11/09
Awesome! I didn't even come close to getting it. Good job!

Posted by melzerh	01/11/09
She is wise

Posted by dowinka	01/15/09
very good! I thought it might've had something to do with her saying emergency in the call. :)

Posted by yangjun	01/29/09
This is very easy:) and it is nice:)

Posted by rt1819	02/15/09
I thought that she may have used a different inflection of her voice-like thanks for the CALL, the notes would be a great HELP...something like that. But I liked your answer too. Our stupid phone hangs up if you press mute. I have hung up on many of my friends doing that! :D 8)

Posted by Ladyluck129	02/18/09
Great answer! I never would have thought of it. I thought that, since she was doing an ENGLISH paper, maybe the "science" note "emergency" was a code word, or something like that. Great teaser!

Posted by perrygf	02/18/09
Great puzzle, but I dismissed that answer as too obvious, because Agatha Christie used it in one of her stories.

Posted by precious1026	02/28/09
:evil: Excellent Teaser :evil:

Posted by EienNiKirei	03/14/09
smart!!! thats a good thing to teach kids to do! Excellent Teaser.

Posted by JrWriter	03/21/09
Loved this; neat trick. Kicked myself when I didn't get it. Super funny. :lol:

Posted by Dustomatic	04/14/09
I really liked this one. Furthermore, it was excellently written. Kudos.

Posted by Psychic_Master	04/14/09
Thanks for all the positive feedback guys. :D I was hesitant to submit this teaser in the first place...I was reading it and thought to myself - is this even any good? It was my first venture into the Mystery genre so I wasn't sure but I took a chance and submitted it. Didn't realise it would be so popular. I might try to think up another mystery teaser one of these days. So be on the look-out. :wink:

Posted by mcFuzzy	04/29/09
That was a great teaser! I had a felling that it was something to do with the word "emergency," but I had NO idea that she had hit the mute button :D

Posted by Daniyal	04/30/09
A really difficult teaser! i knew it had something to do with the word "emergency". :o

Posted by brain23	06/10/09
I figured something was up when Emily said "emergency." But why would Emily have been so nervous if she had a plan?

Posted by playagurl	06/17/09
Without looking at your answer, this is my guess................She has an English Examination and when the caller called, she asked that person for science notes and said its an emergency......So mayb thts how the caller came to know sumthin was wrong and sent the police i guess.............is it right???????? i havent seen the answer yet..........i swear ta god

Posted by shabz4lyf	07/15/09
wow nice one!!

Posted by mathisnice	07/20/09
I thought that they had a special code. :oops: Great teaser.

Posted by akai1412	08/05/09
how fast is she talking? Can she press the mute button that fast without making any interruption in her pace or moving her hand? that's awesome skill to have

Posted by scallio	01/06/10
Good one! :D I didn't really get it other than it seemed to me that the friends probably didn't have science together and the word "emergency" would alert the friend, but I sure enjoyed the read.

Posted by Marple	04/11/10
Brilliant - I didn't get it! i thought maybe she said 'science' knowing that she was supposed to be doing english. Great stuff :D :wink:

Posted by WiseWolf	05/28/10
Aw, darn! That was really smart of her! I was on the right track, but gave up. I knew it was something like that.

Posted by cutieluck	06/03/10
that was nice i liked it at first i was confused but when i read the hint, i kind of thought about the phone and about maybe the mute button

Posted by Island_girl808	06/22/10
WOW . I lvoe these kine stoories :D

Posted by Marple	06/27/10
WOW! That was really hard - great stuff! :o :)

Posted by suchageek	07/31/10
I thought it was the fact that she was studying for an English exam & mentioned Science in the conversation. Plus her exam was tomorrow. So, why would she need the notes tomorrow? But, that's a good tip.

Posted by JQPublic	09/12/10
Wicked! Like, I thought it's something to do with science notes and banknotes. :)

Posted by wickywoo	11/29/10
really clever

Posted by Radd_stuff	11/30/10
This is such a good teaser!!! 8)

Posted by thebrain789	12/28/10
I love it! I wish I was that smart :D

Posted by jordy56	12/31/10
Great Teaser! I got it even though I thought I was wrong. Good Job!!! :D :D :D :D

Posted by awsomethy	04/08/11
WONDERFUL! That can actually come in handy in you ever find yourself in a situation like that. :D

Posted by bubbubfilt	06/15/11
I thought. . . ENGLISH exam. SCIENCE notes. Good teaser. :D

Posted by Bajanator	08/11/11
bubbubfilt, I got the same as you, ahaha. Still works, but good job on the teaser! :wink:

Posted by KillerQueen	08/12/12
I thought it was because she asked for the notes the next day, but the test would be the next day. Awesome!

Posted by BrainyGarrett	08/13/12
This is pretty clever i thought it had to do with the fact that she was talking about science notes when seh had a english exam and because the exam was the next day and she wanted them the next day. Also I thought that saying "emergency" had something to do with it. It's a really good brainteaser though and your answer does make sense although it would take a lot of skill to make that sound just right.