00010625

Kerby stops to help an eccentric old woman with her heel stuck in a drainage grating. Her name is Mrs. Graymalkin, and she is so grateful to Kerby for saving her shoe that she later rewards him with a mysterious old chemistry set that belonged to her son when he was a boy. But this is no ordinary chemistry set- when the mysterious chemicals are mixed to Mrs. Graymalkin’s instructions, they have the powers to create many wonderful, exciting effects!
Trouble hitting a home run at the game? A drop of a special mixture onto the ball will solve that! Your dog run away? A special concoction will make his whereabouts appear in the beaker! And so on and on. For every problem, there’s a potion to fix it!
Mrs. Graymalkin’s potions create such magical results, Kerby believes she is a witch, whereas levelheaded Fenton believes she is a genius scientist who happens to be extremely eccentric!
And who knows…? Maybe they’re BOTH right!

This is the one book in the series that sticks out. It is THE MAILBOX TRICK, and there’s no trick in it. In fact, Mrs. Graymalkin isn’t involved with the story at all. Which is kind of weird when each dust jacket writes on the inside “Mrs. Graymalkin! No TRICK book is complete without her!” They should have taken their own advice!
In this story Kerby’s cousin Gaye mails out letters he wrote only to blow off steam and never meant to send out. So the whole book he’s trying to get the letters back before the recipient can read it. I remember reading it and WONDERING when the heck he was going to call Mrs. Graymalkin for help, and was pretty disappointed when the story ended with nary an appearance of her! ( )