Suddenly there was a bright flash of light and an alarming-

(Finish that sentence and I'll know I can tell you about the next part! )

Best Served Cold page: Hint 1

Mr. Hincks has underlined quite a few words on this page. If you read them in a certain order, you’ll find a message from him.

Best Served Cold page: Hint 2

When you read the underlined words from top to bottom, left to right, this message is revealed (punctuation added for easier reading): “Hello, neighbor. My taped notes give extra details about the book, but it’s my puzzling markups written right on the page that will lead you to answers.”

A Day at the Market page: Hint 1

Mr. Hincks tells you that Luna traded with everyone at the market exactly once, but it’s up to you to find the order that she made those trades in.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 2

Everyone at the market wants a certain type of item. If Luna doesn’t have that type of item, she’ll have to trade her current item to get a more suitable item.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 3

Start by figuring out who Luna can trade with immediately. She starts with a blue ribbon and there’s only one vendor at the market that wants that item.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 4

Luna starts by trading her blue ribbon to Francisco. Francisco has two items that you can choose between (pink erasers or canary yellow scarves). You should pick an item that you will be able to trade to one of the other vendors.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 5

It turns out that none of the other vendors are interested in pink erasers, so you should take the canary yellow scarf and trade it to Mumford who wants something yellow.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 6

When you trade the canary yellow scarf to Mumford, both of his items could be traded to another vendor. At this point, it would be helpful to figure out if there are chains of vendors that require trades in certain orders. You can do that by looking for vendors that want something that can only be supplied by one other vendor.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 7

Matthew wants a game and the only one available is Mumford’s chess set, so Mumford must come directly before Matthew.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 8

Randolf wants something to read and the only item that satisfies that request is the newspaper from Gabrielle, so Gabrielle must come directly before Randolf.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 9

The entire sequence of trades is:
-Trade the blue ribbon to Francisco for a canary yellow scarf
-Trade the scarf to Mumford for a wooden chess set
-Trade the chess set to Matthew for black charcoal pencils
-Trade the pencils to Belle for fresh butter
-Trade the butter to Anastasia for fresh blueberries
-Trade the blueberries to Gabrielle for today’s newspaper
-Trade the newspaper to Randolf for tangy limes
-Trade the limes to Marlando for excellent cookies

A Day at the Market page: Hint 10

Now that you have the sequence of trades, Mr. Hincks has written an example that shows how to extract two letters from every vendor that you trade with.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 11

Start by collecting two letters from the first merchant. Since the first trade was with Francisco, you need to collect the first letter and the last letter from their name, which gives you F and O. For the next vendor, Mumford, you need to collect the second letter and the second to last letter of their name, which gives you U and R. Continue collecting letters from the rest of the merchants to spell a phrase.

A Day at the Market page: Hint 12

After you collect two letters from each vendor in the order that Luna traded with them, you will have FOURTHLETTERFROM, but you can fill in the blanks that Mr. Hincks has drawn at the bottom of the page to see FOURTH LETTER FROM…

A Day at the Market page: Hint 13

Once you’ve filled in the blanks at the bottom of the page, you’ll need to use another puzzle material in this envelope to complete that phrase.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 1

Mr. Hincks has listed qualities that identify his six favorite cats. You need to use the family tree to determine which cats he is talking about.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 2

Once you find out which cat Mr. Hincks is talking about in a particular description, you can fill in the blanks next to the description with that cat’s nickname. For example, Purrman “Melon” Coco is the only cat with a nickname that’s a fruit, so you can fill in the first set of blanks with MELON.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 3

The second cat is GILES, because the CEO of the previous generation (Bubba) retired without any offspring.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 4

The third cat is TINNY, because they are the only editor that is not based in Mew York City (where the first CEO, Nanna, was based).

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 5

The fourth cat is TEACH, because they didn’t work for the company, but their partner Tinny was an editor.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 6

The fifth cat is BUBBA, because they are the only cat with a surname of Fluff and a journalism degree.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 7

The sixth cat is BLAKE, because they share the same name and job as Boots from the previous generation.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 8

Now that you’ve filled in all the blanks, you can use the logo of the The Daily Mews to extract letters from each nickname.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 9

When you overlay the Daily Mews logo on the nicknames of Mr. Hincks’s favorite cats, you should collect the letters that line up with the rectangles. For example, the rectangles in the top row of the logo line up with the last three letters of the first cat, MELON, so the first letters you collect are LON.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 10

When you collect the correct letters from the nicknames of the six cats you end up with LONGESTINEACHBUBBLE. You can fill in the blanks that Mr. Hincks has drawn at the bottom left of the page to see the phrase …LONGEST IN EACH BUBBLE.

A Fictitious History of Cats page: Hint 11

Once you’ve filled in the blanks at the bottom of the page, you’ll need to use another puzzle material in this envelope to complete that phrase.

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 1

You need to fill in the blanks with the correct cat noises that make these speech bubbles make sense.

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 2

Mr. Hincks has provided a few cat words (and their human translations) at the bottom of the page. Use those human words to build a sentence that makes sense, and then you can write out the corresponding cat sounds.

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 3

The number after each blank in the speech bubbles tells you how many letters are in the missing cat sound. For example, Mr. Hincks has already filled in the first blank for you. The blank was 7 letters, which means that only the cat sounds for “door” or “money” could fit there. Since the cat is sleeping on a pile of money in the first image, “money” is likely to be the correct word.

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 4

The first picture is a cat sleeping on money, so the sentence that makes the most sense is “Money is comfy.”

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 5

The second picture shows a cat using a crystal ball to search for money so the phrase is “Find me money.”

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 6

The third picture shows a cat casting a spell (the results are in the next picture), so the phrase is “Make magic portal.”

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 7

The fourth picture shows a cat standing at the portal, so the phrase is “Door is portal?”

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 8

The fifth picture shows two cats. The cat on the left is casting another spell so that phrase is “Change soup into money.” The cat on the right is confused about the spell so they ask “Me is soup?”

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 9

The final picture shows the magic cat enjoying a pile of money, so the phrase is “Me rolling in it!”

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 10

After you’ve filled in all the blanks with the correct cat noises, you’ll need to use information from some of the other materials in this envelope to make sense of those cat sounds.

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 11

You can combine the answers from the A Day at the Market page and the A Fictitious History of Cats page to get “Fourth letter from longest in each bubble.” Apply that to all the speech bubbles on this page to reveal an answer.

Short Stories About Magic, Soup, and Money page: Hint 12

Mr. Hincks filled in the first blank of the first bubble with a cat sound, so all the rest of the blanks should also be cat sounds. In order from top to bottom, the longest cat sounds in each bubble are:
-HISSSSSSHHH
-MEEIIOOW
-YOWLLLSSS
-MEEEWWW
-MNMNOOOWWWW
-RRRCCYOW
-MMEEWMEW

When you string together the fourth letter from each of those cat sounds, you reveal the answer of SILENCE which can be entered into the solution box on the website.