Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 002: Where's Mother? Hints and Answer

Puzzle 002 is Where's Mother? (Where's Mum? in the UK version), the lost little girl in the Carnival Arcade. It's a 30-picarat Select puzzle in Chapter 1, and the story won't go on until you solve it. A crying girl named Cookie tells you her mother has red hair and a pink purse with a bear on it. Five women stand nearby, each says one line, and you have to pick the one who is her mother. The hints below open one at a time, and the answer stays hidden until you choose to show it.

Video: Where's Mother? solved. It shows the answer, so skip it if you only want the hints.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask Puzzle 002 Where's Mother: five women marked A to E standing in a night street on the top screen, and the touch screen you use to point at them — Illustration of the five women on the top screen. You point at your choice from the touch screen.

This page covers story Puzzle 002 in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS, using the North American text and screens. The UK English text uses the same five women and the same answer under a different name. If you're after Daily Puzzle 002 or Puzzle 002 from another Layton game, see Wrong Puzzle 002? below.

What Puzzle 002 is

Puzzle 002 at a glance
Name (North America)	Where's Mother?
Name (UK)	Where's Mum?
Type	Select
Picarats	30
Location	Carnival Arcade, Monte d'Or
Chapter	Chapter 1
How you get it	Talk to the crying girl, Cookie, behind the fallen clown float
Can you skip it?	No. The story doesn't continue until it's solved
Hints	Three hints and a Super Hint
Previous / next puzzle	001 Stumble's Balloons (Carnival Square) / 003 Stumble's Banners (Gallery Plaza)

The question is short. Cookie says, "My mommy has red hair and a pink purse with a bear on it!" Then you hear one line from each woman, A to E, and the game asks which one is the girl's mother. To answer, you use the touch screen to point at one of the women on the top screen. Each woman reacts when the pointer is on her.

Close-up of the five women in Puzzle 002: A with green hair and a pink bag with a bear, B with red hair and a blue bag with a star, C with glasses, red hair and a plain pink bag, D with a red bob and a pink bag with a bear, E with red hair and a blue bag with a bear — Illustration of A to E up close. Look at each woman's hair and at the bag she's holding.

Here is what the five women say in the North American version. The UK lines mean the same thing with British words, such as handbag for purse.

What the women say (North America)
Woman	Her line
A	"Look how stylish everyone is today!"
B	"Hold on. This isn't my purse!"
C	"I'm actually a man."
D	"My purse is a blue one."
E	"Hmm. This bag isn't mine. It has the wrong pattern."

Where's Mother?, Where's Mum? and other names

In the UK the puzzle is called Where's Mum?, the girl is called Bonnie instead of Cookie, and the text uses mam, mummy and handbag. C's line, the first hint and the wrong-answer line are worded a little differently too. The women, the bags and the answer are the same in the US and UK English versions.

Puzzle 002 names by language
Version	Puzzle name
English (North America)	Where's Mother?
English (UK)	Where's Mum?
Japanese	迷子のナゾ (Maigo no Nazo, "the lost child puzzle")

Wrong Puzzle 002?

Daily Puzzle 002 in Miracle Mask is a separate puzzle from the daily set: Tile 01 in North America and Tetraton 01 in the UK. It has nothing to do with the lost girl.
Puzzle 002 in another Layton game is a different puzzle. If yours doesn't have five women and a girl looking for her mother, you're in the wrong game.
The other Carnival Arcade puzzle you might be thinking of is Puzzle 007, A Toasty Toast, which you can find later in the same place.

Where you get it, and why you can't skip it

Puzzle 002 comes right at the start of Chapter 1, at night in the Carnival Arcade, the street with the big striped tent. There you find a clown float lying deflated in the street, and the game tells you to check it. Layton thinks it must have deflated during all the commotion. While you look at the float, you hear someone crying, and the goal changes to "Find the Source of the Crying!" The crying comes from behind the float. Look there and you'll find Cookie, a little girl in a green hat. Talk to her, the goal becomes "Help Cookie!", and Luke offers to help her find her mother.

Carnival Arcade at night in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, with a ring around the deflated clown float where Cookie stands and a close-up of Cookie in her green hat and red coat — Illustration of the Carnival Arcade. Cookie is behind the deflated clown float.

It's a story puzzle. If you quit, Cookie keeps crying and stays where she is, so you can talk to her again and retry whenever you like, but the story waits until you solve it. That also means it can't be sent to Nanna Grams (known as Elizabeth in the UK version), who keeps the puzzles you missed.

While you're in the Carnival Arcade, tap around for hint coins. The game hides four here: under the big tent, in the bushes on the left, and in the windows above the shops on the left and right. You don't need any coins for this puzzle, though: every hint is free on this page.

Hints, one at a time

These follow the game's own hints, in the same order, with a little more explanation. Open only the next one you need. In the game, Hints 1 to 3 cost one hint coin each and the Super Hint costs two.

Hint 1: what Cookie said

Go back to Cookie's words. Her mother has red hair, so A, the woman with green hair, is out. Don't let A's pink bag with a bear fool you.

And C tells you straight out that he's a man, so he can't be anyone's mother. That leaves three women. Which of them is holding a bag that matches Cookie's description?

Hint 2: the bags are mixed up

B, D and E are left. Only D is holding a pink purse with a bear on it, but D says her own purse is blue, so the bag she's holding isn't hers.

B and E also say they have the wrong bag. These three have swapped their purses. Can you work out whose bag each one is holding?

Hint 3: the patterns

E says the bag she's holding has the wrong pattern. Hers has a bear, so her own bag must have the only other pattern: the star on the bag B is holding.

D says her purse is blue. With the blue star bag taken, which blue bag is left for D?

Super Hint: whose bag is whose

E's own purse is the blue one with the star. D's own purse is the blue one with the bear, the one E is holding.

So only one bag is still without an owner: the pink one with the bear. Whoever is left must own it, and she is the girl's mother.

Answer and full solution

The answer below covers every step, with pictures of the bag swap and the finished puzzle. Open it when you're ready.

Show the answer

The answer is B. The woman with red hair and the blue star purse is Cookie's mother. She's holding the wrong purse: her pink purse with the bear is the one D is holding.

Where's Mother? bag swap
Woman	Bag she's holding	Whose bag it is
B	Blue, star	E's
D	Pink, bear	B's
E	Blue, bear	D's

Where's Mother bag swap: B holds the blue star bag, which is E's; D holds the pink bear bag, which is B's; E holds the blue bear bag, which is D's — Illustration of the bag swap: each of the three is holding someone else's bag. The pink one with the bear is B's.

Step by step:

A is out. She has green hair, and Cookie's mother has red hair. Her pink bear bag is a decoy.
C is out. He says he's a man.
B, D and E have swapped bags. D holds the pink bear purse but says hers is blue, B says the purse she holds isn't hers, and E says hers has the wrong pattern.
E's bag is the star one. E holds a bear bag with the wrong pattern, and the only other pattern is the star on the blue bag B is holding.
D's bag is the blue bear one. D's purse is blue, the blue star bag is E's, so D's must be the blue bear bag E is holding.
B owns the pink bear purse. It's the only bag left, and B is the only woman left, so B is the mother.

Pick B. The game answers "It's in the bag! The correct answer is B," and Cookie runs over to her mother.

Where's Mother solved: woman B picked on the top screen, then Cookie standing next to her mother, who now holds the pink bag with the bear — Illustration of the answer: pick B, and Cookie is back with her mother, pink bear purse and all.

If your answer keeps failing:

You picked the woman holding the pink bear bag. D is holding it, but she says her purse is blue. The bag isn't hers.
You picked A. Her bag fits, but her hair is green, not red.
You picked E. She's holding a bear bag, but it's blue, and she says the pattern is wrong.
The game picked the wrong woman. Women stand close together. Move the pointer until B herself reacts, then pick her.

Picarats, hints and hint coins

Where's Mother? is worth 30 picarats if you get it right the first time. Wrong answers may reduce the picarat value. A wrong answer gets "Too bad. Try again! Find the girl's mother!" and you can retry straight away. Hints cost hint coins, not picarats: each of the first three hints costs one coin to unlock, and the Super Hint costs two, so opening all four costs five coins.

This is only the second puzzle in the game, so you may not have many coins yet. The four coins in the Carnival Arcade are a good start, and the free hints on this page cost nothing.

Versions and systems

Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL, 2DS and New 3DS: no difference. It's a touch-screen puzzle with no motion controls.
North American and UK English versions: same women, same bags, same answer. The puzzle name, the girl's name (Cookie or Bonnie) and some words of the text change.
Japanese Miracle Mask Plus: the 2013 Japan-only re-release added extra help and content, but this puzzle appears to be unchanged.
Other systems: Miracle Mask is a 3DS game. There's no Switch, mobile or PC version of it.

After the puzzle (story spoiler)

Spoiler warning: this section covers what happens in the scene around the puzzle. Cookie's mother, Tanya, hurries over: "There you are, Cookie! You had me worried sick." She thanks Luke, who says he was just doing his duty as a gentleman. Cookie calls him her hero, and Emmy teases Luke that the girl likes him. Layton then says it's time to head for the Ledore estate, and the Gallery Plaza opens up on the map. Puzzle 003, Stumble's Banners, is waiting there.

FAQ

Where is the answer to Puzzle 002?

It's in the Answer and full solution section above, hidden until you open it. If you only want a push, open the hints one at a time first.

What is Puzzle 002 called?

Where's Mother? in North America and Where's Mum? in the UK. The Japanese title is 迷子のナゾ (Maigo no Nazo).

Where is Puzzle 002, and can you skip it?

It's in the Carnival Arcade in Chapter 1. Talk to Cookie, the crying girl behind the fallen clown float. You can quit and come back, but the story won't go on until it's solved, so it can't be skipped.

Who is the little girl?

She's Cookie in the North American version and Bonnie in the UK version. She's lost her mother in the crowd at the carnival.

How many picarats is Puzzle 002 worth?

30 picarats.

What if I have no hint coins left?

You don't need any. The hints on this page are free, and they follow the game's own hints. In the game, hints cost one coin each and the Super Hint costs two.

Is Daily Puzzle 002 the same as Puzzle 002?

No. Daily Puzzle 002 is Tile 01 (Tetraton 01 in the UK). Story Puzzle 002 is the lost girl in the Carnival Arcade.

More Miracle Mask puzzles

For the rest of the game's puzzles, see the Miracle Mask puzzle index.