Why is the Hole below a Lock?

I am a seven-letter word but if you remove four of my letters I will have one left. What word am I?

John left on a horse on Thursday , was gone for two days, and came back on Thursday after completing his work. How did that happen?

It spends most of its day eating white, but when it’s quick enough, it gets to eat fruit and sometimes some blue things. It’s in a dark room, where the walls are blue, it runs from a ghost that roams the halls and haunts it all the time. What is it?

John drives to his office at 20km/hr. After reaching the office, he realizes that today is a holiday. He went back at an average speed of 30km/hr. Discounting the time spent in the stoppage what was the average speed of his journey?

Solve this riddle by finding the odd one out from the rest.

In a kingdom, King George did not allow any citizen to visit the world outside. Also, only a person with proper paperwork was allowed to enter or he was sent back. A wooden bridge was what connected the kingdom to the world. The king had appointed a sharpshooter who would check the every five minutes on the bridge to check. After checking, he would go back to his hut and return exactly after five minutes again. The bridge took 9 minutes to cross.

A merchant was able to escape the kingdom without harming the shooter. How?

Rose, Lily and Jasmine decided to buy flowers for their moms on Mother's Day. One of them bought lilies, the other roses, and the third one jasmines.
'It's funny!' said the girl with roses, 'we bought roses, jasmines and lilies, but none of us bought the flowers matching her name'.
'You're right!', said Lily.
What kind of flowers did each of the girls buy?

Can you decipher the following common phrase?

T M C
A U O
H S M
W T E

There are 3 apples in the basket and you take away 2. How many apples do you have now?