“Oh,” said Marie eagerly, “I’d like to help you solve that mystery. In fact, when I went back to the lab to get my backpack, I also was looking up Freon, the gas that’s used in air-conditioning. But I guess you’ve proven that’s not where the problem is.”
“You’re right,” said Izzy.
“You know,” said Marie, “I’ll tell you who could be a big help to us: Gina. She’s really smart. I bet she could make a sketch of the whole heating and air-conditioning system. She helped me when—” Marie stopped.
“Marie, your phosphorescent shoes gave you away!” said Izzy. “We know you’re the one who came up with the great solution of the lights on the staircases. That was The Best. And it’s great how you kept it a secret that you did it.”
“Well, it was Gina’s idea to use the lights AND the phosphorescent paint on the posters,” said Marie. “Really, we’d BOTH like to help with the temperature problem.”
Izzy, Allie, and Charlie exchanged glances, thinking of the conversation that Izzy had overheard in the Girls’ Room between Marie and Gina.
“What’s wrong?” asked Marie as she saw the looks on their faces.
Izzy spoke reluctantly. “I heard Gina say that she thought I was ‘out there.’ ”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Marie. “She thinks you are awesome.”
Izzy shook her head. “No, I heard her say I was ‘toxic.’”
“Yes, exactly. ‘Toxic’ is a high compliment in Gina-talk,” said Marie. “She likes to flip words. You know, like when people say ‘sick’ when they mean ‘great.’ Gina thinks it’s supercool how you like ice hockey and physics.”
Izzy gave Marie a skeptical look.
“I’m serious, Izzy,” said Marie. “You completely misunderstood Gina. Just wait until you meet her, you’ll see. She’s not mean.”
“So then why does she keep giving Charlie and me serious side-eye every time we see her?” asked Allie.
“Gina’s not used to losing,” Marie explained. “She was mad at herself about that race. Every time she saw you, Charlie, it reminded her of her defeat. And she thinks you tripped her on purpose, Allie. But I told her that Charlie just is that fast and she’d better get used to it. And I told her that you’d never trip anybody, Allie, except maybe yourself over your own feet to get a laugh.” Marie looked serious. “I think she would have changed her mind about you two, but all three of you shunned us.”
“We thought you were shunning us!” squeaked Allie in protest.
“But we were wrong about you, too, Marie,” said Charlie. “We thought that because you look different now, you must be different, too.”
“But you’re not,” said Izzy happily. “You’re still Marie. And thanks to the ice and oil, you’re a slime-free Marie. Ta-da!”
“Thank you,” said Marie. She smiled as she patted her hair and looked at herself in the mirror, saying, “Nice.” Then she turned and hugged Izzy. “You’ve all got to hurry off to your afternoon classes right now. And I am going to have my school photo taken. I look okay, thanks to you guys. But Gina and I don’t have to babysit for Crosby the Slime Baby today, so let’s meet after your clubs end, okay?”
“Great!” said Izzy. “Let’s meet here in the dressing room. We’ll show you our secret hideout.”
“Secret hideout?” repeated Marie. “Fantastique! Gina and I will meet up with you. Together maybe we can crack this case and turn up the heat in the school. Deal?”
“Deal!” said Izzy. She was so happy she felt as though she could fly.
Izzy had Marching Band practice after school that day. She knew she was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” a beat ahead of everyone else; her flute sounded like audio on fast-forward. But she was so eager to meet up with Marie, Gina, Allie, and Charlie that she couldn’t slow herself down.
Marie must have been excited, too, because she was already in the dressing room combing her hair when Izzy got there after band practice. Charlie and Gina arrived together after track practice. Gina seemed to have forgotten about losing the race. She and Charlie chatted animatedly about being on the relay team together while they shared a bag of carrots. Gina’s brown eyes were magnified behind her thick-rimmed big glasses, and instead of a kilt pin, her plaid skirt was held shut with a pin that said “VOTE.”
Allie flew in late. “Here I am, here I am!” she said breathlessly.
Marie introduced Gina to Izzy and Allie, and then Allie said, “Sorry I’m late. I skipped out of Chess Club and the Homecoming Float Planning Committee meeting, but I was just elected president of the Math Club. I’m the first sixth grader ever elected president! So I couldn’t leave that meeting early.” Allie spoke to Charlie, Gina, and Marie. “By the way, have you guys met this kid named Trevor Gawande? He showed up at Math Club, and I just kept staring at him because, whoa!”
“Oh, I know,” said Marie. “You’d love him, Izzy, because he’s all about physics.”
“Oh, ho, ho, step back! Izzy knows Trevor already,” said Allie, bringing Marie up to speed. “He’s in Math class with us. Anyway, I don’t know about physics, but he’s pretty sharp at math. Not scary smart, like Izzy and me, but close. And he’s so cute! Don’t you feel like you should observe a moment of silence in his honor when you see him?”
“Yes!” said Gina. “That boy is so cool, he’s ice.”
The girls laughed, and then Allie said, “Trevor asked me where you were, Izzy, and how come you’re not in Math Club. I told you he has a crush on you.”
“Oooo-ooo,” cooed Marie, Gina, and Charlie.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Izzy briskly. She changed the subject ASAP. “Come on, Allie. We were just about to show Marie and Gina the roof.”
Izzy led the single-file parade of Charlie, Gina, Marie, and Allie up the now familiar dark, winding staircase, along the narrow catwalks high above the stage, up the steep wooden ladder, and into the small room with the door that led out onto the roof. “This is the secret room we were telling you about,” she said to Marie.
“I love it,” said Marie.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Charlie. “We are going to keep a cooler up here, for snacks.”
“The room is nice,” said Izzy. “But here’s what I think is The Best.” She leaned against the door to the roof and pushed it open. A gust of cold air rushed at the girls. Charlie very carefully propped the door open with the cement block and tied her scarf around the handle again so it couldn’t lock them out.
“Oh, man!” said Gina. “This roof is awesome. You can see everywhere! Sky all around, like you’re IN the sky.”
Izzy said, “I was thinking that we should have a telescope up here and come look at the stars some night.”
“Solid!” said Gina. “That would be sick!”
Marie raised her eyebrows and shared a grin with Izzy. “I love it up here,” said Marie, “but the wind’s wrecking my hair. Can we go back inside?”
Even indoors they felt windblown and chilled. Charlie shivered. “It feels like my core body temperature is dropping fast. We better solve this cold problem before hypothermia kicks in.”
“Right,” said Izzy. “And the more of us working on the problem, the merrier.” She wanted to be very sure that Gina and Marie felt like they were part of the team, so she asked them, “What do you two think we should do?”
“Well, what have you guys done so far?” Gina asked, sounding very no-nonsense. “Give us a recap.”
“Oh, before we talk about that I’ve just got to say, look at your cardigan! It’s too cute!” gushed Allie.
“Thanks,” said Gina. She wore a vintage cardigan decorated with tiny beads. “I think I’ve got a flyer about the secondhand store where I bought it.” She dug down into her backpack, pulling out chopsticks, a hole punch, two LED light bulbs, paint chips, and a yo-yo.
“Gina, your bag is a disaster,” teased Marie. “It’s a mini version of your locker, which is a total nightmare.”
“Well, I need stuff for my proj
ects,” said Gina. She handed Allie the flyer about the secondhand clothing store and then pulled a rhinestone tiara out of her pack. “You never know when you might need a tiara, for instance,” she joked.
“Right!” everyone laughed.
“Gina, it’ll be fun having you and Marie on our team,” said Allie. Her face lit up. “Oh, oh, OH!” she exploded, flapping her hands in excitement. “I have a great idea! What if we NEVER tell anyone we’re the ones who solved the mystery even after we solve it? What if we’re a secret, stealth, mystery-solving super team, and only WE know that we are? Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Yes!” agreed the other girls.
“I like the way you think, Allie,” said Gina, holding her hand up for a high five. “Kind of nice and unusual.”
“So, okay, I’ve been thinking,” said Izzy, “maybe a heat duct is blocked and it’s throwing the system off.”
“I found blueprints online that show the whole heating and air-conditioning system,” said Allie. She opened her tablet. “See? The ducts are overhead. Heat runs through them and then comes out through vents. We’ll want to start here.” She pointed to a spot outside the auditorium.
“Come on,” said Izzy. “Let’s go check it out.” The girls hurried to follow Izzy. The school seemed echoey and quiet because most students had left for the day. They reached the spot on Allie’s map and looked up. They could see that branches spread out from the central duct and then ran down the halls and into the classrooms.
“The duct system is sort of like a tree,” said Charlie. “It’s cool!”
“It may be cool,” said Marie, “but I don’t understand how we’re going to see if one of the ducts is blocked inside.”
“I guess we can look into the vents,” said Allie. “But we won’t be able to see past the first bend in the duct. And it’ll be dark, too.”
“I wish we could wiggle our way through the ducts to explore them,” said Gina.
“We can’t,” said Charlie. “We’re too big to fit in the ducts.”
“Thank goodness!” said Marie. “I don’t want to go slithering through any heat ducts. I’m sure they’re filthy inside!”
“I guess we’re stumped,” said Izzy.
“Maybe not,” said Gina.
Everyone looked at her expectantly.
“I’m building a robot,” Gina explained. “And—”
“Hold up! You’re building a robot?” Allie interrupted, enchanted. “Like R2-D2?”
“Much, much simpler,” said Gina. “Nothing too sci-fi, just your basic little remote-controlled vehicle.”
“Could we send it through the vents?” asked Izzy.
Gina nodded. “I think so. We’d have to attach a light and a camera,” she said, thinking out loud. “I know! Why don’t you guys all come over to my house? I’ll show you the robot I have, and we can figure out together how to adapt it. Then if we stay after school tomorrow, we can send it through the ducts.”
“Um, Gina?” said Marie. “Back up a sec. If we’re mucking around with the dirty vents and ducts, our clothes will get dirty.”
“And your point is?” teased Charlie.
“I’ll look like a mudslide!” said Marie.
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing,” teased Izzy.
“I was going to wear new white leggings tomorrow,” moaned Marie, who always planned her week’s outfits in advance. “They’ll be ruined!”
Gina rolled her eyes at Marie’s fussiness. “I have coveralls we can use,” she said. “Don’t worry. Come on.”
* * *
Gina’s room blew them away. It was the whole top floor of the house. The room was long and narrow, and the ceiling was low, but there were big windows at either end and smaller windows that stuck out of the roof all along the sides, so there was plenty of light. There were lots of quirky nooks and crannies, too, which was a good thing, because every inch of the space was packed. Izzy almost tripped over a box of keyboards and random wires, which looked like they had come from every ancient computer in the neighborhood.
“I have a lot of projects,” Gina said sort of sheepishly. She waved her hand at the stuff scattered around her room. “All this will come in handy sometime.”
“Sure it will!” agreed Izzy, though she wasn’t quite sure how any one person could have so much stuff. Gina’s room looked like a mad scientist’s lab.
A big, tattered poster of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson smiled down on empty boxes of all sizes that held tools, tubes, and old computer screens. Pedals and the handlebars of a tricycle, cardboard toilet paper tubes, a stack of ancient Popular Mechanics magazines, a tangle of bungee cords, a jar of old buttons, two broken manual typewriters, a music box, and four old landline telephones were crammed into various corners. Gina’s bed was buried under a pile of yarn balls with knitting needles stuck in them, and a bunch of tap shoes that crowded her pillow.
“Mess drives my mom crazy,” said Gina. “She insists on keeping the rest of the house neat. But as long as I ‘control the chaos’ as Mom says, and keep it contained up here in my room, she puts up with it.”
“Where is the robot you told us about?” asked Allie.
Gina patted the head of a scruffy teddy bear encased in batteries. The bear was attached to a roller skate. “Everyone meet Teddy,” Gina said. “Teddy, meet the team.”
“Aww, he’s so cute, Gina!” gushed Charlie.
“Well, right now he’s a work in progress,” said Gina, “but I can make him move with this remote control.” She held up a small black box. “So if we attach a camera and lights to him, I think—”
“Whoa! Not so fast, Gina,” interrupted Marie. “Where are those coveralls you said we could wear so we won’t get our clothes all gunky when we work on the ducts? I’d like to put mine on now. I’m afraid if I sit down in here, I’ll be covered with dust and fuzz.”
“Oh,” said Gina, unoffended. She scanned the room, tapping the bridge of her thick eyeglasses. “Let’s see. It’s kind of hard to find stuff in here.”
“No kidding,” said Marie.
Gina rummaged around in a box so big she nearly fell into it headfirst. Finally, she pulled out five matching coveralls with “Bob’s Auto Repair” embroidered in gold thread across the back. She handed one pair of coveralls to each girl.
Charlie zipped up her coveralls. “Mine fit perfectly.”
Izzy had to roll up the sleeves and pant legs, and tie a rope around her middle, but she liked her coveralls, too.
Marie did not. “I hope no one sees me in this getup,” she fussed as she pulled hers on. “Even if I cinch them with a belt, I look like a snowman.”
“The perfect new mascot for Freezing-Cold Atom Middle School,” said Izzy. “Home of the Blocked Air Ducts.”
“If the ducts are blocked, that means that there’s lots of dirt in them that’ll fall out on us when we take the vent covers off and poke around inside,” said Marie, frowning. “So I think we need goggles and some sort of headgear, too, to protect our eyes and heads and hair.”
Gina dug to the back of her closet and found swimming goggles for everyone. Then she found a bathing cap, a construction helmet, a ski cap, a wool cap with earflaps, and a Sou’wester rain hat. The girls strapped the goggles and headgear on, and then all of them, even Marie, fell down weak with laughter when they saw in the mirror how ridiculous they looked.
“Verrrry chic,” joked Izzy.
“We look like mutant creatures in a horror movie,” said Charlie.
“If those guys who made your French sparkly hat got a load of these lids, they’d be green with envy,” said Allie.
“Mais OUI!” agreed Marie in her best French accent. “Absolument!”
“Now can we get to work on the robot?” Izzy asked eagerly, pulling off her goggles and headgear.
Gina showed the girls how she could make the teddy bear robot roll forward on its roller skate—slowly but steadily—by directing its movement with a remote. It was easy enough to a
ttach a mini camera and small, bright lights to Teddy, but those had to be turned on and off with a separate remote. The lights had to be placed and attached strategically so that they would illuminate the ducts but not produce so much glare that the camera’s livestream would be bleached out. Meanwhile, Allie measured the robot and then clicked away on her tablet to be sure it would fit through the ducts. The girls tested the robot over and over again until Gina said they’d better stop or they’d use up the batteries.
“Well, he’s not winning any robot beauty pageants, but I hope he can do the job,” said Gina.
“Shh,” teased Charlie. She covered Teddy’s ears with her hands. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”
Izzy put the robot on a chair. She held her fist up to Teddy’s mouth, pretending that it was a microphone. “How do you feel about your journey tomorrow, Teddy? You’ll be going solo, exploring the dark ducts where no one has gone before, alone in the nearly empty school. Are you ready, Teddy?”
“YES!” Marie, Gina, and Allie answered for the bear.
Charlie asked, “Where exactly are we going to have Teddy enter the duct system?”
“Good news,” said Gina. “There’s a safe place to take the ducts apart and send Teddy into them in our secret room near the roof. No one will see us there, and Teddy’s roll-through will be all downhill since it’ll start at the top of the building.”
“And all uphill on the way back,” sensible Charlie reminded her.
“Think Teddy’s up to it?” asked Marie.
Gina shrugged. “We’ll see.”
So the next day, Thursday, after their after-school activities, the girls went up to their secret room to begin their experiment. They took off their backpacks and put on their Bob’s Auto Repair coveralls over their school clothes. Then they strapped on their protective goggles and headgear.
Carefully, Gina unscrewed the bolts on either side of the thin metal band that held the ducts in place up against the ceiling. Even more carefully, she jiggled one section of the duct free and disconnected it from the rest. Less dirt and gunk shook down from the duct than Izzy had expected, but still Marie stepped back to avoid the gentle shower of dust that was dislodged.
Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad Page 8
