by Bruce Hale
The bird joined them, balancing atop the hanging files as they flipped through the alphabet.
“Huh,” said Sassafras after a minute.
“Find something?” asked Fuzzy.
“Yeah,” said the bird. “Who knew that Mr. Chopra’s kid went to kindergarten here?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” said Vinnie, flipping through folders. “Find the Krumpton.”
“Righty-o.”
In another minute, they had done just that. With a triumphant “a-ha!” Fuzzy plucked a file folder from the pack. He and Vinnie removed the first sheet and held it up to the light.
“Hey,” said Sassafras, peering over their shoulders. “This Krumpton kid’s in your class, Fuzzy.”
“My class?” said Fuzzy.
It was true. Fuzzy hadn’t learned all his students’ last names yet, but there in black and white was Abigail Krumpton, Room 5-B. “Abby?” he said.
“Not the most memorable kid, huh?” said Sassafras.
“And she ain’t much of a student, either,” said the rat. “Check this out: straight C average.”
Fuzzy shook his head. No wonder he didn’t know Abby well enough to know her last name. She’d never been top student of the week, so she’d never taken him home for the weekend.
“Top student …” he mused.
“Right,” said Vinnie. “In a bizzarro universe, maybe.”
But Fuzzy scarcely heard him. He was staring off into space as the wheels of his brain ran round and round.
“I know that look,” said Sassafras. “Fuzzy’s about to have a brainstorm. Either that, or drop a load of piggy pellets—it’s almost the same expression.”
“Well?” said Vinnie. “Care to share?”
Fuzzy’s gaze came down out of the clouds and focused on the rat’s face. “We need to turn an average student into a top student in no time flat. Any ideas?”
* * *
Back in the pets’ clubhouse, the group discussed Fuzzy’s brainstorm with some skepticism.
“You want to turn Ava Average into Barbara Brainiac?” said Igor.
Mistletoe blinked. “I thought her name was Abby.”
“Call her Prunella LaBoof if you like,” said Igor. “Still can’t be done.”
“But she only has to be the best this week,” said Fuzzy.
“And how do you suggest we do that?” said the iguana. “We can’t exactly sit in on her study group.”
Cinnabun batted her big brown eyes. “Dear Brother Fuzzy, it’s a lovely thought, truly. But I don’t see how we can improve this girl’s grades so quickly.”
“Simple,” said Luther. “Cheat.”
Their bunny president put a paw to her chest. Her mouth dropped open. “Why, Brother Luther, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Lean, Long, and Legless has a point.” Vinnie swaggered forward. “Our backs are up against the wall here. If we don’t change this dame’s mind toot sweet, she’s gonna boot us out faster than you can spell Pee Tee Ay.”
“P-T-A,” said Mistletoe.
“That fast,” said the rat. “I say desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Fuzzy’s tummy felt a little queasy. Cheating was wrong. But banning pets from school was even wrong-er.
He glanced around. Marta and Cinnabun looked the most scandalized by the idea, but the others seemed as though they were seriously considering it.
Sassafras spoke up. “Hang on, sports fans! Before we decide to go to the dark side, we need to know if there’s something to cheat on. Does Fuzzy’s class have a test this week?”
All eyes turned to Fuzzy.
“Well?” said Luther.
Fuzzy scratched his neck. “They, uh, do have a big history test tomorrow.”
“There you go,” said Vinnie. “Badda-bim, badda-boom. We give the girl an A-plus, and the Fuzzball goes home with her to spy and charm and change minds.”
“Easy-peasy, baby,” agreed Luther.
Fuzzy shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know …”
“What’s the hang-up?” said Vinnie.
Marta pursed her lips. “His conscience, that’s what.”
Lifting a shoulder, Fuzzy said, “That, plus a few tricky bits.”
“Like what?” asked Sassafras.
Fuzzy ticked off the challenges on his fingers. “Tricky Bit Number One: How do we get the test answers? Tricky Bit Number Two: How do we change Abby’s test without Miss Wills knowing?”
“And Tricky Bit Number Three?” asked Igor.
“How do we live with ourselves afterward?” said Cinnabun.
Fuzzy winced. “I was going to say, if everything else works out and I do go home with Abby, how the heck do I change her mom’s mind?”
Marta sighed. “That, my friend, is the trickiest bit of all.”
The choice was tougher than week-old cafeteria cube steak. But ultimately, the pets voted to cheat and remain at school, rather than be honorable and get kicked out. Cinnabun grumbled, but she went along with the majority.
Sassafras shook out her wings. “Now that that’s settled, where do we find the test answers?”
The pets traded blank looks. None of them had ever had to get their paws on an answer key before.
“You don’t know?” Fuzzy asked the parakeet. “You spent all that time in the office.”
She shrugged. “It never came up.”
“I thought Vinnie would know,” said Mistletoe.
“Me?” said the rat. “Because I give so many tests, or because I’m basically dishonest?”
“Um, neither one?” said Mistletoe. “You just … know stuff.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Thanks, Short Stack. Fact is, I’m just as clueless as the rest of ya.”
Fuzzy scratched his cheek, considering. “Seems to me that the test key would be in one of two places.”
“Do tell,” said Cinnabun.
“Either somewhere in the office, or in Miss Wills’s desk.”
The rabbit mulled this over. “Makes sense to me, y’all. What say we split into two teams and search both spots?”
Vinnie volunteered to lead the larger group into the office, since there was more ground to cover. Fuzzy took Mistletoe and Luther back to his classroom.
“After all, if three of us can’t handle one desk,” said the boa, “maybe we deserve to be kicked out.”
By this time it was full dark, and the school had fallen as silent as a field mouse when a hawk’s in the wind. Not that Fuzzy was afraid of the dark or anything, but he felt comforted by having his friends along. The more the merrier.
Climbing back down into Room 5-B was like descending into a gray whale’s gullet. You couldn’t see your paw in front of your face. Bumbling his way along by feel and smell, Fuzzy located Miss Wills’s desk and turned on its lamp.
The room was bathed in a buttery-yellow glow. From the desktop beside him, Mistletoe surveyed Fuzzy’s home. “Wow, nice place you got here,” she said. “And such a roomy cage.”
Fuzzy felt a bit embarrassed. “Guinea pigs need lots of space,” he explained. “We’re, um, restless.”
“Of course,” said the mouse.
Twining his way up the chair leg and into the seat, Luther scoped out their objective. “Looks like your standard, five-drawer teacher’s desk. Piece of cake.”
“Where?” Mistletoe looked about eagerly.
“Figure of speech, Little Bit,” said the snake.
Fuzzy’s chest felt tight. He couldn’t help thinking how wrong this was. Miss Wills was his human. A pet shouldn’t mess with his human’s stuff or steal things from her.
But if he didn’t do this, he might not be her class’s pet for much longer. Fuzzy ground his teeth together. He hated tough decisions.
“So, what now?” Mistletoe asked, peering down at the boa.
Luther eyed the drawer just above him. “Join me, Fuzzarino?”
Fuzzy clambered down to the seat, with Mistletoe right behind him.
&
nbsp; “Now, tug on that,” the snake said, nodding at the drawer.
Stretching up on tiptoe, Fuzzy tried to pull it open. The drawer didn’t budge. He tried the drawers to their right and left. Same result.
“Oh no,” said Mistletoe.
The boa stayed as cool as a cucumber sandwich on ice. “Just as I suspected,” he said. “Your teacher locks up after herself.”
“And she takes her keys home with her,” said Fuzzy. “Now how do we get into the desk?”
Luther grinned. “Old-fashioned ingenuity, baby,” he said. “Tell me, where might a reptile find a paper clip?” When Fuzzy pointed to the desktop, the boa glided up there, rustled through some papers, and returned with the item in his mouth.
“Mmfa umfo mfss?” he asked.
Fuzzy and Mistletoe exchanged a glance and a shrug. Spitting the paper clip onto the seat, Luther repeated, “Can you unfold thisss?”
The mouse brightened. “Why didn’t you say so? Posi-tutely!” She and Fuzzy gripped the metal clasp, pulling and twisting until one end of the loop had straightened out.
“That’ll do,” said Luther. He wriggled upward until his midsection was resting on the chair arm. Then he put his lips to the lock’s keyhole, hawked up a loogie, and spat.
“Eeww,” said Mistletoe.
“Does snake spit melt locks?” asked Fuzzy.
“Wouldn’t that be cool?” said the boa. “But nah, the mechanism’s gotta be lubricated.” He asked for the paper clip, and Fuzzy passed it up to him. Taking the looped end in his mouth, Luther stuck the straightened end into the keyhole, and, eyes half shut, began jiggering it around.
“This is exciting,” said Mistletoe.
“Yup,” said Fuzzy, eyes on Luther.
“Kind of like a heist movie,” said Mistletoe.
“Uh-huh.”
“When do you think he’ll be done?”
Luther shot them a sidelong glance. “Fmfuh umfo mm ggh.”
“I think he said, ‘Sooner, if you don’t talk,’ ” said Fuzzy.
The mouse flashed an embarrassed smile and pantomimed zipping her lips.
Shuffling from foot to foot, Fuzzy watched as the snake fiddled with the lock. Could Luther really pick it like a master burglar, or had he just watched too many crime movies?
At long last, something went click, and Luther mumbled, “Mmf umg muh.”
“Let me guess,” Mistletoe squeaked. “ ‘Hawk another loogie?’ ”
The snake rolled his eyes.
Fuzzy smothered a smile. “I think maybe he wants us to try tugging.” Stretching as high as he could, Fuzzy pulled back on the underside of the drawer with all his might.
Schoof! It slid out smoothly and quickly—too quickly.
Boof! Fuzzy landed on his bottom.
Helping him up, Mistletoe said, “Do we search the drawer now?”
“Let’s,” said Fuzzy. While Luther picked the other two locks, he and Mistletoe rummaged through the random collection of junk in the center drawer.
The scissors, stapler, pencils, and office supplies held no surprises. Nor did the random toys, games, and other items confiscated from students. All these were expected. But where were the test answers?
As soon as Luther cracked the lock on the left, Fuzzy and Mistletoe moved on to search the top drawer below it.
“This looks more like it,” said the mouse, flipping through file folders. “Check this out: attendance records … field trips … ooh, complaints!”
“We shouldn’t …” Fuzzy began.
But the mouse had already tugged the folder free and was pulling papers from it. “Aren’t you curious? Let’s see if there’re any complaints about you!”
Intrigued despite himself, Fuzzy scanned the top sheet, written in the teacher’s graceful cursive. Luther’s head peeked over his shoulder.
“There you are, Fuzzrod,” he said, reading from the sheet. “Looks like you chirp during test time.”
“Only when I’m excited,” said Fuzzy.
“And you pooped on a student’s hand?” Mistletoe giggled.
“Not my fault,” Fuzzy protested. “He startled me.”
Luther squinted at the paper. “Whoa, baby,” he said. “This is the ssserious stuff.”
Mistletoe read the entry aloud:
“Mrs. Summers complained that guinea pig caused an accident while home for the weekend with Malik. Student was injured. Mother requested that he no longer bring guinea pig home to pet-sit.”
The other two pets stared at Fuzzy.
“Didn’t you say Malik’s mom was a friend of the PTA president?” said Mistletoe.
“Um, yeah,” said Fuzzy, studying the floor.
“And now this Krumpton woman is trying to ban all pets?” said Luther.
“Yeah …”
“Are these things somehow … connected?” asked Luther.
Fuzzy’s ears felt warmer than a car seat in the summer sun. “It was all a, um, misunderstanding,” he squeaked. Fuzzy really didn’t want his friends to know that his goof at Malik’s house had led to their current predicament. “Blown out of proportion.”
“Is that so?” said Luther mildly.
Fuzzy couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, okay, it’s all my fault!” he cried. “I made a kid trip, he hit Malik, and now that lady wants to kick us all out. I’m so, so sorry!”
The other two pets were silent for a beat. Then Mistletoe rested a paw on his shoulder. “It was an accident,” she said. “Everybody has accidents.”
Fuzzy hung his head. “I’m a bad pet.”
“I’ll say.” Luther smirked. “Our Fuzzy’s been a naughty, naughty piggy.”
“But we’re still your friends,” said Mistletoe. “Right, Luther?”
“Sure thing,” said Luther, sliding the sheet back into its folder. “You bad boy, you.”
Despite wanting to melt into the floor, Fuzzy was relieved to have everything out in the open at last. He was truly a lucky rodent to have friends like these.
“Can we, um, get back to searching now?” he asked.
The others agreed, and soon their hunt was rewarded. In the next drawer down, the pets found exactly what they were looking for.
“Jackpot!” squeaked Mistletoe.
The other two crowded close as the mouse worked the history tests folder out from among the other files. “Careful,” said Fuzzy. “Don’t tear it or anything.”
Flipping through the test sheets, they located the one with Tuesday’s date. As he stared at it, Fuzzy shivered involuntarily. He’d never done anything this illegal before.
“We’re in luck,” said Luther. “It’s mostly a multiple-choice test. Just one essssay question.”
Fuzzy made a face. “An essay? Uh-oh. No way can we imitate Abby’s handwriting well enough to fool Miss Wills.”
“Then let’s hope that the multiple-choice part is enough,” said the snake. “So how do you want to work this?”
“What do you mean?” asked Fuzzy, thinking that he’d rather not be working it at all.
“You can’t just steal the sheet, because your teacher would miss it,” said Luther.
“Duh,” said Mistletoe. “Even I know that.”
Fuzzy’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “I guess we write down the answers on a little slip of paper.”
“Yeah, I figured that,” said Luther. “I meant, do we hide the answers in your girl’s desk so she can find it, or do you want to change her answers afterward?”
Fuzzy considered the options. He couldn’t count on Abby discovering the cheat sheet—in fact, the way things were going, Miss Wills would find it first.
“I’ll change them afterward.”
“All righty, then!” said the mouse. She scrambled up to the desktop and lifted a pen from a mug full of writing utensils. “You call ’em out, I’ll write ’em down.”
Taking turns, Luther and Fuzzy read the test answers aloud while Mistletoe scribbled. Afterward, Fuzzy made sure to double-check her cheat sheet agains
t the test key. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; it’s just that she was … Mistletoe. Things happened without her meaning them to.
When the three pets had closed all the drawers and restored everything to how it used to be, Luther and Mistletoe headed home to their own classrooms. The mouse volunteered to tell the other pets to call off their search. After they’d gone, Fuzzy buried his cheat sheet under the pine shavings that lined the floor of his habitat. He tried to sleep.
Lying there in the dark, he could almost feel the stolen test answers, radiating heat like a sore tooth. Fuzzy tossed and turned, trying to ease his conscience.
He didn’t see any other way out of the spot the pets were in. But as he fought for sleep, he had to wonder: Would this desperate move be enough to save them?
As it turned out, a troubled conscience made for just as restful a sleep as napping on a bed of nails. Bleary-eyed, Fuzzy awoke the next morning to the sound of Miss Wills’s key in the lock.
For a moment or two, it felt like any other groggy morning after a sleepless night. And then he remembered.
Wheek! Fuzzy shot bolt upright, banging his head on the ceiling of his igloo. Scurrying outside, he scanned his cage for evidence of last night’s caper. There! A corner of his cheat sheet peeked out from under the pine shavings.
Wiggling whiskers!
He dove across the cage to block it from his teacher’s sight.
“What’s gotten into you, big guy?” asked Miss Wills, heading for her desk. “Did you have jumping beans for breakfast?”
With elaborate casualness, Fuzzy kicked some pine shavings over the slip of paper, hiding it from view. He watched as Miss Wills set down her bag, hung her sweater over the back of her chair, and unlocked her desk.
Would she notice any sign of their tampering?
The teacher frowned slightly as she opened the second lock, the one Luther had had the hardest time re-engaging.
Just then, the classroom phone rang. With a final glance at the desk, Miss Wills set down her key ring and went to answer the call.
“Yes …? Oh, I see,” she said. “And when is—? Okay … okay, I will.”
By the time she’d hung up, Miss Wills’s expression had turned serious. Fortunately, Fuzzy noticed, she seemed to have forgotten all about the locks on her desk.
