About this episode
Who took Milo's sledge on the very first snow of the year — and how do you catch a thief when the ground is too bare to hold a single footprint? Join Bobo & Pim, the woodland detective duo, as they solve their first WINTER mystery in this fun animated mystery for kids!
It's the first snow of the year, and Milo's sledge has vanished from the big tree in the park. There are no tracks to follow — the ground is still bare grass, and grass keeps no secrets. So the detectives try something they have never done before: they WAIT for the snow to settle, because a white meadow writes down every single step. When they come back, eight fresh footprints are crossing the snow towards the hill... and they are filling in fast. Can Bobo & Pim read the trail before it disappears?
In this episode
- Bobo
- Pim
- Milo
- Ollie
- Fern
- Poppy
Read along with the story (this gives away the ending)
- Milo It's GONE! My sledge is GONE!
- Bobo Gone from WHERE?
- Milo The big tree. I was away two minutes.
- Milo There isn't one mark on this whole meadow. So who takes a sledge and leaves nothing behind?
- Bobo Right. Show me where it stood.
- Bobo Not a scuff. Not a scrape. Not one mark.
- Pim There's nothing to make a mark IN, Bobo. Look down. That's grass.
- Narrator Bobo liked the ground to tell him things. This ground was saying nothing at all.
- Milo It was leaning right here. On this crate.
- Bobo And whoever took it walked off over dry grass and left us not one thing.
- Pim Bobo. Fern's big one is still standing there.
- Bobo Still there?
- Milo Big one. Good one. Not a scratch on it.
- Bobo So our thief walked straight past a BIG sledge and took the little one.
- Milo Mine is small. Mine is exactly my size.
- Bobo Then this wasn't any old thief. This one wanted YOURS.
- Pim Or wanted one they could pull.
- Ollie You are all very loud for a snowy afternoon.
- Bobo Ollie! You sit in that tree all day. Who came to it?
- Ollie Somebody stood under it. A long while. Standing still, doing nothing at all.
- Bobo Doing nothing? For how long?
- Ollie Long enough that I fell asleep watching them.
- Bobo WHO, Ollie?
- Ollie I am an owl, Bobo. I am very good at seeing and very bad at staying awake.
- Milo So nobody knows anything, and now it's snowing on top of it.
- Pim No. Look at the grass, Milo. In an hour there won't be any.
- Bobo Meaning?
- Pim Meaning nothing out here can hold a mark yet. Give it an hour and it'll hold every single one.
- Bobo We WAIT?
- Pim We wait. Anybody who goes back to that tree will sign their name for us.
- Milo Wait? While somebody's out there on MY sledge?
- Bobo Nobody goes near that tree. Not one of us. That is an order.
- Pim It's a good order.
- Narrator It was a good order. Remember that.
- Fern In. All of you. Boots off — or don't, I've stopped hoping.
- Fern Eat that.
- Milo Somebody took my sledge, Fern.
- Fern I heard. Eat it anyway.
- Pim Bobo. That meadow was green an hour ago.
- Pim Look at it now.
- Bobo It's going white.
- Pim It's going BLANK. Everything from before is gone. Everything from now on is written down.
- Narrator The whole park was turning into one enormous clean white page.
- Bobo I hate this.
- Pim I know you do.
- Fern Sit down, Bobo.
- Bobo I can't sit down. There's a thief out there with an hour's head start and I'm eating biscuits.
- Bobo Theory. He's waiting for the snow to cover him up.
- Pim Then he's picked the one weather that can't cover anybody up.
- Bobo Theory two. He isn't coming back at all.
- Pim Then we've lost. So let's hope he wants something else as well.
- Milo Wants what? He's already got it.
- Pim He's got a sledge. He hasn't got the hill.
- Bobo The hill.
- Pim Everybody wants the hill on the first snow.
- Bobo Milo. Nip out and see how deep it is. Just look. Don't touch anything.
- Pim Bobo —
- Bobo ONE look.
- Milo It's SO deep out there!
- Pim Milo. Where did you go?
- Milo To the tree and back! I ran the whole way! You sink right in —
- Pim To the tree.
- Milo And back.
- Bobo Ah.
- Narrator The first thing they were going to find at the scene of the crime was Milo.
- Fern Coats.
- Pim Now, Bobo. Before it fills in.
- Bobo To the PARK!
- Milo Everything's WHITE!
- Bobo PRINTS! Look at them. Look at them ALL!
- Bobo One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. EIGHT prints!
- Pim Six.
- Bobo Eight!
- Pim Six. Those two by the tree are a small squirrel who went there and came back.
- Milo Sorry.
- Bobo Six, then. Six is plenty.
- Pim Six is what we've got. There won't be any more.
- Pim Every one of them points the same way. Away from the tree, off towards the hill.
- Bobo And coming TO the tree?
- Pim Nothing. Not one.
- Bobo Then he was here before the snow.
- Pim He was already standing there when it started.
- Ollie I did say that. Somebody standing. Doing nothing.
- Pim You did say that, Ollie.
- Pim And look at the gaps. Long. Long. Shorter. Shorter.
- Milo He was getting tired?
- Pim He was going uphill. And he was carrying something heavy.
- Fern Oh. One just went.
- Pim Five.
- Bobo Right! Nobody lose another one! Everybody — STAND on one! Cover it up!
- Pim Bobo. You can't save a footprint by standing in it.
- Bobo No. You can't.
- Pim Three.
- Bobo Then we stop measuring and we FOLLOW him. After him! RUN!
- Milo Bobo.
- Bobo What?
- Pim You're standing on the last one.
- Bobo Ah.
- Milo So now there's nothing at all.
- Bobo There's nothing at all, and I did most of it myself.
- Bobo Here. Do the thing. Find something.
- Pim There's nothing left to look at, detective.
- Pim So we'll have to think instead. Three things, and we saw all three before we trod on them.
- Pim One. Every print went AWAY from that tree. Not one came to it. So whoever it was, they were already standing there before the snow started.
- Pim Two. Ollie watched somebody stand under that tree for an hour, doing nothing at all.
- Pim Three. The steps got shorter and shorter, going UP the hill. Short steps mean climbing, and heavy.
- Pim So who stands in the cold for an hour, and then goes UP a hill carrying something?
- Bobo Up. It went UP. Nobody takes a sledge UP a hill.
- Pim Somebody who didn't want it for the hill.
- Milo Then what did they want it for?
- Pim Come and see.
- Poppy It's Milo's. I know it's Milo's.
- Bobo POPPY!
- Milo That's MINE!
- Poppy It is. I'm very sorry, and I was bringing it back.
- Bobo You're bringing it back with your whole house on it.
- Poppy That's my winter store. All of it. It has to be in before the path fills in, and the path is filling in.
- Pim And you couldn't carry it.
- Poppy I could carry it four times. Four times up that hill. I had one afternoon.
- Milo You could have ASKED me.
- Poppy I stood under that tree for an hour, Milo. I stood there working up to it.
- Poppy And then everybody went home, and it started snowing, and I still had all of it to move.
- Milo Why didn't you just say it out loud?
- Poppy Because I'm new here. And saying it out loud is the hard part.
- Narrator Poppy had learned the rule. Nobody had ever told her the hard part.
- Bobo And I stood on every mark she left.
- Pim You did.
- Bobo Six good prints. I ruined three of them personally.
- Pim Five. But who's counting.
- Bobo You are.
- Bobo Next time we wait for the ground. The ground is better at this than I am.
- Fern Poppy. Next time you're standing under a tree working up to something, come and stand in my kitchen instead.
- Poppy Can I?
- Fern You can have the warm corner and the first biscuit.
- Milo Poppy. Do you know what this is actually FOR?
- Poppy Carrying?
- Milo Going DOWN.
- Poppy Down THERE?
- Milo All the way to the bottom. Get on. You first.
- Fern Hold on to something!
- Ollie I shall watch from right here. An owl has his own way down.
- Bobo Case closed. The thief has been found, forgiven, and sat on her own sledge.
- Pim And her winter carried up the hill.
