by Tony Abbott
“Let’s snoop!” said Mara.
As soon as the kids put their heads down, Mara, Kelly, and I left the classroom and crept through the halls.
“First things first,” I said. “Scarlet’s snowy head. I don’t know how she got upstairs, but she did. Come on!”
We followed the work noises.
We saw workmen everywhere.
We saw white dust everywhere.
But we saw fish tanks, easels, puppet theaters, and reading trees nowhere.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Again,” said Mara.
“Nothing plus nothing is an even bigger nothing,” said Kelly. “Unless Brian’s right that those kids are beaming stuff to a spaceship, the clues must be in that classroom.”
I nodded.
Mara nodded.
“That’s where we’ll solve this mystery,” I said.
Now, you might think that while Brian watched the kids nap, nothing could happen.
You would be wrong.
By the time Mara, Kelly, and I returned to the classroom, we found the kids wide awake, Brian fast asleep, and Miss Becker’s rocking chair and globe nowhere to be found.
“Brian, how could you?” said Mara.
He blinked his eyes open. “I told you Miss Becker’s carpet is as comfy as a dog bed. You can’t resist it.”
“How do you know what a dog bed is like?” Kelly asked.
Brian beamed. “A Goofball knows everything!”
Kelly growled under her breath. “Except where Miss Becker’s chair and globe went to.”
Brian nodded. “Right. Except that. Maybe Sparky saw something. Sparky?”
Sparky rolled over on the carpet. “Goof … z-z-z-z!”
“Great,” I said. “We’re letting a class of tiny kindergartners ruin the Goofballs!”
We managed to make it to the end of the day without losing either ourselves or anyone else. But when school finally ended, I added up my list of all the stuff we had lost.
It was not a pretty picture.
“Guys,” said Kelly. “Miss Becker’s going to come back to an empty classroom. The Goofballs have totally failed!”
“F-f-f …,” Brian stuttered. “I can’t seem to spell that word.”
Which proved to me that, even though he might fall asleep on the job, Brian was a Goofball from his toes to his nose.
“That’s because Goofballs don’t fail,” I said. “Goofballs can’t fail. Goofballs never fail!”
“We’re getting pretty close to it,” said Mara.
I shook my head. “Our detective careers started in this room. This room will be the scene of our greatest triumph!”
“But how?” Kelly asked. “And when?”
I began to smile. “What happens between today and tomorrow?”
“The stars come out?” said Mara.
“Skunks wake up?” said Brian.
“Daddy snores?” said Kelly.
“Yes, yes, and I don’t know,” I said. “Goofballs, the thing that happens between today and tomorrow is … tonight. And tonight is when we come back to school and solve this mystery!”
7
After supper with my parents, I went to my room to change into my snooping clothes. Black shirt, black pants, black sneakers.
I stared in the mirror.
I wasn’t a teacher anymore. I was just me.
A Goofball.
And I was facing a case that did not want to be solved.
“Is this the end?” I asked myself. “Have we finally met a mystery we can’t solve? Are the great Goofball cases a thing of the past?”
Knock-knock. My dad poked his head in. “Are you talking to yourself, Jeff?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes. I mean … Dad, this is a tough mystery. Stuff is disappearing and we have no clues. The kindergartners know something, but they’re outgoofing us at every turn. Miss Becker’s coming back in the morning, and so far we’ve failed.”
Dad listened quietly as I told him everything. Then he said, “When I feel bad about something, you know what I do?”
“What?”
“I think of my family. You, your mom, Sparky. Then I realize I can do anything.”
I thought about that. “The Goofballs are kind of my family,” I said.
“They are,” he said.
“Goof!” said Sparky.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “Sparky, let’s trot!”
Twenty minutes later, we all met in the parking lot outside school.
Before anything else, I hugged my Goofball family. They didn’t even ask why. Then we started looking for clues like the ace detectives we are.
First of all, the parking lot was empty except for Principal Higgins’s blue minivan, a couple of cars that belonged to parents, and one truck that said BOGGS BUILDING COMPANY on it.
The back doors of the truck were open.
“Just tools and buckets of green paint the color of pistachios,” said Mara, peeking in. “And orange the color of oranges.”
“Mmm,” said Brian. “Nuts and fruit.”
“Except,” said Kelly, “our school doesn’t have any orange and green paint.”
“Aha!” said Mara. “I totally have it!”
“You do?” asked Kelly.
“No,” Mara said. “I’m still just practicing.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said. “Now, let’s get into school before anyone sees us.”
Because Principal Higgins was still at work, the school doors were open.
Inside, the halls were dim, but Brian had thoughtfully taped a flashlight to each shoulder. He flicked them on, put his super nose back on, and sniffed.
“I smell orange paint!” he said.
“The workers are finishing up,” Kelly said.
“Which means,” said Mara with a smile, “that we’ll finally see if any of the missing stuff turned up in Miss B.’s new classroom.”
“Great idea,” I said. “I’m amazed that your brain can still think after today.”
“My brain can’t explain it,” Mara said.
“Mine probably could,” said Brian. “But the government would be mad at me. Come on.”
We crept upstairs. Miss Becker’s new classroom stood across the hall from the library. Its lights were on. The room was neat and beautiful.
“It’s a perfect kindergarten classroom,” I said. “But every stick of furniture in it is brand-new.”
“Nothing from the old classroom is here,” said Kelly. “Now I know how Miss B. feels.”
“It’s like the past has been wiped away,” Mara said. “Everything’s been forgotten.”
“If we don’t solve this case, the Goofballs will be forgotten, too,” Brian said. “We will have F-A —”
“Don’t spell it!” I said. “Our first Goofball mystery happened in that classroom downstairs. We can’t let this mystery be our last. We just can’t!”
They all looked at me. Even Sparky.
There was a moment right there in that hallway. I wanted to write it down in my cluebook, but I wasn’t sure how.
Finally, I wrote this.
“What now?” Mara asked.
I looked through my cluebook. “We go back to Miss Becker’s classroom. There’s something we’re missing.”
Two minutes later, we opened her classroom door … and screamed.
“We’re not missing something,” said Kelly. “We’re missing everything!”
The classroom was completely empty!
The only things left were the empty cubbies at the back of the room.
“We’ve failed!” Mara cried, as she fell to her knees. “We promised Miss Becker that we would find her stuff. But we’ve failed!”
Brian hung his head. “F … A … I …”
“Wait!” I said, turning off Brian’s shoulder flashlights. “Look over there.”
A tiny light was shining out from behind the cubbies.
Sparky crouched, which is hard to do for a dog so low to the ground.
Step by slow step, he approached the cubbies. He sniffed all around them.
“Goof?” he whisper-barked.
“What is it, Sparky?” asked Kelly.
“It could be a trap,” said Brian.
He whipped out a ruler, a compass, duct tape, three playing cards, the hook from a wire coat hanger, and a chocolate bar.
With his amazing inventing fingers, Brian invented an invention to measure the angle of the cubby and its distance from the wall.
He measured it twice. “This isn’t right.…”
“I know it isn’t,” said Mara. “What’s the chocolate bar for?”
“Inspiration!” said Brian, and he popped it into his mouth as he measured it a third time. “Now I get it! Everybody, help me push these cubbies out of the way.”
In fact, Brian didn’t really need our help. The cubbies seemed to be on brand-new rollers, and they moved easily and silently aside.
When we slid them away, we saw that where the back of the classroom should be was … no back of the classroom!
“An escape hatch!” whispered Mara.
All at once, I whipped open my cluebook to the first clues from yesterday afternoon.
“Ha!” I announced. “I bet this leads to the secret elevator room that Scarlet told us her father discovered. Sparky, lead the way!”
“W-A-Y!” said Brian.
We followed Sparky into the hole like train cars following an engine into a tunnel.
When we stood up on the other side, we were nearly blinded by bright orange and green walls!
Kelly gasped. “Where in the world are we?”
“Welcome to Wonderland!” said the tiny and unmistakable voice of Scarlet Boggs.
8
Everything was there.
The art easel, the fish tank, the puppet theater, Miss B.’s rocking chair, everything.
All the kids were there, too.
Plus Violet and a couple of parents, who were moving furniture.
We saw Regina and Alison nestled under the reading tree.
They were flipping through a book under its shady leaves. “There’s a the, and there’s a the, and there’s a the,” Alison announced.
We saw Lil Mikey spinning the globe and stopping it with his finger any old place, saying, “This is France. And this is France. And this is France —”
“How did you do all of this?” asked Kelly.
The boy named Henri turned from the art easel. “Miss Becker said she’d miss the old classroom. So we saved it in here.”
“We took one thing,” said Langston. “Then another thing. Pretty soon it was all in here.”
“So goofy, yet so awesome!” Brian said.
Scarlet twirled over to us. “My daddy found this room last week when they took out the old elevator. They were going to close it up, but he saved it for us.”
“I’ll be right down,” said a low voice. Mr. Boggs peeked over from some kind of upper level. He winked at us. “I’m just heating up my coffee in the microwave.”
“Microwave?” said Mara.
Then I got it. “Scarlet’s hot lunch. And the stairs you used to get to the microwave!”
“That’s right, Mr. Jeff,” Scarlet said.
All at once, there was a scream from the classroom behind us. “Ohhhhh! Nooooo!”
“That’s Miss Becker!” Scarlet said, jumping up and down. “She’s seen the empty classroom! Everybody hush!”
Two seconds later, Miss Becker crawled through the opening with Principal Higgins, who was still clutching his papers.
“Surprise!” everyone yelled.
“My classroom!” Miss B. said when she looked around. “How in the world …?”
“France!” said Lil Mikey.
“We saved Wonderland as a surprise for you,” said Scarlet.
Then she gave her teacher a big hug. “It was my idea, and everyone helped, even parents.”
“I don’t understand,” Miss Becker said.
Scarlet took her hand. “You said you would miss the room when we move upstairs. We didn’t want to see you sad. When my daddy found this room, we moved everything in here. So you don’t have to miss it. Ever!”
Miss Becker’s eyes began to water.
Principal Higgins looked ready to explode or faint or both. “I’m flabbergasted!”
“That’s a bad word,” said Truman. “I’m telling Miss Kelly.”
“You told us it was okay, Principal Higgins,” said Scarlet. “You even said Daddy could help.”
“I told you that?” the principal asked.
“When I gave you my note yesterday morning,” she said. “Miss Kelly was there.”
Mr. Boggs climbed down some stairs to us. He sorted through the principal’s papers and found a yellow piece of construction paper.
“This note?” the principal said. “But I couldn’t understand a word of it. Look.”
Miss Becker frowned. “May I?” She took the note, read it over, and burst out laughing. “I can read this, of course.”
“Principal?”
“Miss B. loves our room.”
“Can we keep her furniture”
“and Wonderland in the new room?”
“Daddy can help.”
Principal Higgins frowned a big frown. “And you’re saying I agreed to this?”
Kelly jumped in. “You did! Principal Higgins, I saw you.
“Yesterday morning you were racing through the hall when Scarlet handed you her note. You frowned. You squinted. You turned the page upside down.”
“Well, I couldn’t read it,” he said.
“But do you remember what you said about it?” said Kelly. “Because I do.”
Principal Higgins closed one eye, then the other eye. Then he scratched his chin. Then he shook his head. Then he started to laugh.
“Actually, I do remember! I said, ‘Wonderful. I love it!’ ”
“So you did agree to it,” said Miss Becker. “Well, I love it, too. More than anything!”
“Yay!” the class cheered.
“I’m terribly sorry, Principal Higgins,” said Mr. Boggs. “I know Scarlet’s writing. When you said you loved her note, I thought you could read it and that it was a good idea. It does make sense to empty Miss B.’s old classroom, because we’re starting work on it tomorrow.”
Principal Higgins laughed and laughed and only stopped laughing to say, “This old elevator room is now Badger Point Elementary’s special Wonderland.”
The class cheered even louder.
That’s when Sparky galloped in, dangling a blue sock and a blue mitten from his mouth.
“Goof! Goof!”
Brian jumped. “Our missing stuff!”
“They were behind the cubbies,” said Mr. Boggs.
“The thumb is still switched!” I said.
“So the mystery lives on!” said Brian.
“And so do the Goofballs!” said Mara and Kelly together.
Everyone cheered loudest of all for that.
Proving one thing I always knew.
