Written & storyboarded by Carmen Liang & Charmaine Verhagen
Kelsey reaches the last book in a long-running series, and decides to hunt down the library's one overdue copy.
Tropes:
- All Girls Like Ponies: Exaggerated with a group of girls Craig encounters in the field, who actually pretend that they’re horses.
- Boy Meets Girl: Maney and J.P. meet each other for the first time, and the former falls in love with him.
- Crush Blush: Maney gets this when she sees J.P.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Stacks hid the book Kelsey was looking for because she was afraid that Kelsey wouldn't want to hang out with her after finishing the Ythrith of Scriggth series.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Bernard sees Craig reading The Smarty Boys, he points out that the culprits in the series are always the first person they meet. This makes Craig figure out that Stacks was the one who took the last book after remembering some of the comments from the suspects that matches the description of Stacks, who was the first person they met.
- Foreshadowing: J.P. comments that he thinks Kelsey and Stacks are the only two kids who read the same book series and Stacks tugs her hair nervously when Kelsey tells her the final book she needs to read is missing. It was Stacks who hid the last book from Kelsey.
- Gilligan Cut: Bernard tells Craig that the culprit in the Smarty Boys books are always the first person they meet. Craig protests that it's not true, but then we cut to him finishing the book and realizing that it was the first person they met.
- Love at First Sight: When Maney spots J.P., she immediately falls in love with him.
- Meet Cute:
- Maney and J.P. meet for the first time, after Craig breaks the Horse Girls' jump.
- As a meta example, since Kelsey and Stacks know each other already, their relationship is introduced to the viewer as a close friendship prone to tension on Stacks's part, where she takes excessive actions out of fear that Kelsey might not hang out with her in the future.
- Occidental Otaku: The Ninja Kids, who reject all Western pop culture and only read manga. They become distraught when their leader is caught with a Western comic book in her backpack.
- Red Herring: Stacks tells Kelsey that a kid with a red turtle-shell backpack may have taken the book, but she turns out to be a distraction. Stacks turns out to be the real culprit, hiding the last book because she was afraid that once Kelsey read it, she would stop coming to see her.
- Shout-Out:
- The Smarty Boys book series that Craig gets into is based on The Hardy Boys.
- The red turtle-shell backpack resembles a red Koopa from Super Mario Bros.
- Also, the red turtle-shell that one of the kids of the ninja garden is wearing (the one that is said to be a replica of the shell of a Kaiju named Bekkomon) is similar to a spike top shell.
- The book report in the backpack is for a book about kids who live on a train.
- The manga that the ninja kids are showing to Craig and his friends during a flashback is called Two Piece.
- Bekkomon seems to be a combination of Gamera (implied to be a turtle kaiju) and Godzilla (having the title "King of the Kaiju").
- Strictly Formula: In-Universe, according to Bernard, The Smarty Boys books always end with the first person the characters meet being the culprit.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While trying to flee from Kelsey, Yustice attempts to do a Wall Run up a tree... and promptly falls down.
