Edgar Allan's Official Crime Investigation Notebook

by Mary Amato

  Even though Edgar and Destiny had gone to school together since kindergarten, they had never walked down the hall like this, side by side, until today. It felt a little odd. But in a good way, Edgar thought.

  When they arrived at the classroom door, all the kids were standing outside it.

  “It’s locked!” Patrick said.

  “I was the first one here,” Kip said.

  Just then Ms. Herschel walked up with a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of books in the other.

  Mr. Crew stepped out of his room at the same time. “Ah, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free have arrived!”

  “I locked my door, Mr. Crew,” Ms. Herschel said. “There’s a thief running around.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Mr. Crew said. “We’ve been studying the thief’s poetry. Any break in the case?”

  “Well, this locked door should keep everything safe.” Ms. Herschel shifted the books in her hand. “Mr. Crew, can you do me a favor and open up for me?”

  Mr. Crew unlocked her door and held it open.

  Patrick squeezed in ahead of everyone else. “Another note!” he squealed.

  “No way!” Ms. Herschel exclaimed.

  Edgar and Destiny ran to the board, looked at the note, and then exchanged excited glances. The students crowded around with Ms. Herschel and Mr. Crew.

  Patrick read the note out loud.

  “My fan?” Ms. Herschel looked at the empty spot on the top of her bookshelf where a beautiful red and black lace fan was usually displayed along with other gifts she had received from past students.

  “Not your Spanish fan!” Mr. Crew exclaimed. “Didn’t a student give that to you?”

  “Yes! It was right here—do you all remember it?”

  Edgar did. He enjoyed looking at all the knickknacks Ms. Herschel kept on her shelf.

  “This is getting serious!” Mr. Crew said. “I’d better go back and check my room.”

  “I could skateboard around the neighborhood,” Kip offered. “And if I see somebody with a fan I could chase him down.”

  “I think you’d better stay in the classroom, Kip,” Ms. Herschel said. “Patrick, did your fingerprint test on the last note turn up anything?”

  “No,” Patrick said. “My dad said it was contaminated with too many prints. Nobody touch this one!”

  “He’s right,” Ms. Herschel said.

  She handed him an envelope for him to put it in. With a great flourish he pulled a tissue out of her box and used it to keep his own fingerprints off the message as he tucked it into the envelope.

  “Everyone have a seat,” Ms. Herschel said.

  “Maybe you should call the police,” Maia suggested.

  Ms. Herschel sighed. “I was hoping that one of you would solve this mystery so that we wouldn’t have to bring in the police, but maybe you’re right.”

  Edgar and Destiny exchanged glances again.

  Destiny is excited that something else got stolen, too. She wants to solve this mystery with me!

  Taz walked in and handed Ms. Herschel a note from his mom and noticed that something was going on. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “My fan from Spain was stolen,” Ms. Herschel said. “Have a seat.”

  As Taz walked to his seat, he looked first at Edgar and then at Destiny.

  He got the note and knows we wrote it! I can tell! And he’s excited there was another crime, too! Isn’t it amazing how much eyeballs can say?

  “Where have you been?” Patrick whispered to Taz.

  “None of your business,” Taz said.

  Edgar was dying to ask Taz the same thing and to find out if Bandit was feeling better. He also thought that maybe Taz and Destiny would be interested in his theory about Ms. Herschel being a coffee hog and the thief being another teacher who was taking revenge, but Ms. Herschel interrupted his thoughts by beginning the day’s lesson.

  I could get a lot more done in school if there wasn’t so much school work to do.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “So where were you between 8:20 and 9:00, Taz?” Patrick glued himself to Taz’s side as the class walked from math to language arts.

  “At the dentist,” Taz said.

  Edgar chimed in. “So that means Taz couldn’t have committed the crime, Patrick. Your theory is blown.”

  Patrick threw him a look. “He says he was at the dentist.”

  “Smell my strawberry-flavored fluoride!” Taz breathed on Patrick.

  Edgar laughed.

  Mr. Crew was waiting at his door. “Any more clues or evidence?”

  “I’m working on it,” Patrick said.

  “I guess you need a new theory,” Edgar said, enjoying Patrick’s look of annoyance.

  As they took their seats, Destiny said, “Mr. Crew, I was thinking about the poem that the thief left this time. I think maybe the thief wants to get caught.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s like the poet wants to tell us in the poem that he or she is the thief.”

  “I agree,” the teacher said. “It almost sounds like a confession. Sometimes it’s easier to write down things that you can’t say out loud. How many of you agree?”

  Many hands went up.

  Mr. Crew smiled. “A poem is a way to express yourself. Some poetry is called ‘confessional poetry’ because the poet is really confessing a deep emotion in the poem. You can use poetry to get something off your chest.”

  Like when a teacher writes a love poem for a custodian, Edgar thought.

  “Today we’re going to work completely independently,” Mr. Crew continued. “What I want you to do first is spend a little time reading some poems by other poets, . . .” he pointed to his bookshelves filled with poetry books in the back of the room, “and see if you can find any poems that seem to express some kind of deep emotion or say something that the poet may have had a hard time saying out loud. Then I want you to experiment. Write something of your own. And here’s what’s different: You don’t have to turn this one in. You may share it if you want, but you don’t have to.”

  “Can it be deep and funny at the same time?” Taz asked.

  “There’s always a place for humor.”

  “If we don’t have to turn it in, we could just sit here all period and scribble,” Sammy said with a grin.

  Mr. Crew shrugged. “I’ll take that risk. I want you to experience the idea that poetry can be helpful to you, a way to express yourself even if nobody reads it but you. Go back and pick out a book to give you some inspiration.”

  The students picked out books and brought them back to their desks and began reading quietly. Edgar looked around the room. He was dying to know what was on each person’s mind.

  The room was hushed. The idea of taking time in school to write something that didn’t even have to be turned in had a different feel to it. It somehow seemed less like work and more like . . . real life.

  When Edgar was in the middle of his second draft, Taz walked by to sharpen his pencil. He dropped off a note.

  To Edgar and Destiny:

  Thanks for the poem

  That you slipped

  through the slot

  I liked the spit and

  slobber

  I’m glad you didn’t

  send snot!

  P.S. I recognized your

  handwriting.

  Edgar grinned. He was just about to pass the note to Destiny when she passed a note to him.

  At recess will you meet with me?

  Underneath the willow tree?

  Two notes in one period. And a meeting with Destiny! He couldn’t wait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The closer Edgar got to the willow tree, the more nervous he felt. Could he really tell Destiny his theory about Ms. Herschel being a coffee hog? Would she think it was stupid?

  Destiny smiled up at him when he arrived. She was sitting on her coat. “The grass is still damp.”

  “That’s okay,” Edgar said, sitting down. Investi
gators didn’t worry about such things.

  Taz ran over. “Are you guys talking about the crimes? Can I be in?”

  “Okay with me,” Edgar said, and Destiny agreed.

  “Who do you think is the prime suspect?” Taz asked, crouching down.

  Not quite ready to reveal his idea, Edgar suggested making a list of all possible suspects.

  “Should we start with just the people in our class first?” Destiny asked.

  “Okay,” Edgar said, pulling out his notebook. “We need to look at all the walkers. Nobody who rides the bus could do it because the crimes have all happened before the bus arrives.” Edgar thumbed back to an earlier page and read the names of the walkers. “We can cross out you guys, so that leaves Kip, Patrick, Maia, and Gabriela as the top four suspects from our class.”

  “Maia loves poetry almost as much as I do,” Destiny said. “But why would she steal her own fish? What about Kip?”

  “Kip is fast,” Taz said. “He loves candy, so maybe he is selling the stuff he steals so he can buy candy.”

  “I have been keeping an eye on him,” Edgar admitted, and he told them his idea about the skateboard.

  “What about Gabriela?” Destiny said. “She collects things, like those wooden animals. Maybe she is stealing to start new collections. The crimes started happening right after she came here!”

  “That’s true,” Taz said. “Very fishy! Ha ha. But her English isn’t very good yet. Could she have written those poems? What about Patrick! Maybe he’s plotting the whole thing just so he can look good solving it!”

  “Interesting,” Edgar said.

  “I have an idea!” Destiny exclaimed. “Let’s put on a play for everybody in our class about a robbery and watch the audience. If the guilty person is in our class, he or she will probably look very nervous.”

  “Eyeballs never lie,” Edgar said.

  “Yeah, but wait a minute. I don’t see how it can be one of us. We don’t have a key to Ms. Herschel’s room,” Taz said. “Last time something was stolen, the door was locked.”

  Edgar nodded. “Good point.”

  “It has to be somebody with keys!” Destiny said.

  Edgar took a breath. “I think it’s time to tell you another possible theory I’ve been working on.”

  They leaned closer.

  “Who has all the keys and could easily use the school computers because he arrives here first? Mr. Browning! He is tall. He could mop away his own footprints and fingerprints! And he loves poetry! And coffee!”

  “What does coffee have to do with it?” Taz asked.

  Edgar told them about the coffee revenge theory. Even though it wasn’t relevant to the crimes, he couldn’t help adding the part about Ms. Barrett writing Mr. Browning a love poem.

  “Ms. Barrett is in love with Mr. Browning?” Destiny gasped. “I hope he’s not a criminal.”

  “I think we should keep our eyes on him,” Edgar said. “Maybe we should search that closet where he keeps his supplies.”

  “Uh-oh!” Taz said. “Patrick is spying on us.”

  Edgar and Destiny looked. Patrick was standing on the blacktop, staring at them with a pair of binoculars.

  “Don’t let him find out who our new suspect is,” Edgar said. “He’ll steal our information and beat us to him.”

  “I have an idea.” Taz whispered a plan.

  They listened. Then, Destiny pulled out a piece of paper and wrote:

  Edgar,

  We found chocolate smudges on the doorknob of Ms. Herschel’s classroom. We inspected these and found them to be fingerprints. We believe the fingerprints belong to Kip, who is now our main suspect. We also found tracks on the floor. We think he rolled in on his skateboard so that he wouldn’t leave shoe prints! Let’s focus on Kip!—Destiny and Taz.

  She slipped the note to Edgar just as the bell rang announcing the end of recess.

  As they walked in, Edgar made sure to pass in front of Patrick and “accidentally” let the note slip to the ground.

  Patrick saw it and snatched it up. After he read it, he stuffed it in his notebook, and then he went running after Kip.

  The three new friends gave each other the thumbs up and rushed into the building, whispering the details of the next thrilling phase of their plan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Patrick! What are you doing?” Mr. Crew stopped the lesson.

  Patrick was on the floor, pulling a pencil out of the spiral binding of Kip’s notebook, which was under Kip’s desk.

  “I was just . . . borrowing a pencil,” Patrick said.

  “I see a pencil on your desk, Patrick,” Mr. Crew said.

  Patrick wanted Kip’s pencil for fingerprints, Edgar guessed. Their plan was working!

  Four times, Kip had to turn around and tell Patrick to stop peering over his shoulder. Finally, Mr. Crew dismissed everyone for the last class, which on Fridays was music. Kip was out the door, followed closely by his new shadow.

  “Leave me alone, Patrick!” Kip yelled.

  Destiny, Taz, and Edgar walked separately, so that they wouldn’t call attention to themselves.

  As soon as they arrived in the music room, the team went to work.

  First, Taz asked if he could use the bathroom quickly before class. Ms. Schubert said yes, and he hurried out. Then, while Destiny asked the teacher a question, Edgar “accidentally” knocked her coffee cup off her desk. Black coffee spilled all over the floor.

  “Sorry!” Edgar said and offered to get some paper towels from the bathroom.

  After he left, Destiny carried out part three of the plan. “Ms. Schubert, Edgar might not bring enough towels. Maybe I should get Mr. Browning and ask him to bring his mop.”

  “Good idea,” Ms. Schubert said.

  Destiny hurried out the door. At the end of the hallway, Edgar was waiting.

  “Where’s Taz?”

  “I don’t know. He was supposed to meet us here.”

  “Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

  They hurried down the hallway to the closet marked “Custodial Supplies.” Edgar opened the door. At the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, Destiny pulled him into the closet with her and shut the door.

  Not again! Edgar thought.

  “Maybe there’s a light switch on the wall by the door,” Destiny whispered.

  Edgar reached out.

  “Ouch!” she exclaimed.

  “What was that?”

  “My nose!”

  “Sorry!” Edgar found a switch and turned it on.

  The closet was large, filled on all sides with shelves of cleaning supplies.

  “It smells clean!” Destiny said. “Like my Aunt Mildred’s apartment.”

  “Look!” Edgar pointed out a shelf of poetry books.

  “That’s interesting!” Destiny said.

  “Do you see Slurpy? Or Ms. Herschel’s iris? Or her fan?”

  Destiny looked on the high shelves. Edgar got down on his knees and checked the low shelves. Underneath the bottom shelf on the right he saw something white. He pulled it out. A card.

  From: Liz Barrett

  To: Rob Browning

  “It’s the card!” Edgar whispered.

  “What card?” Destiny asked.

  “Ms. Barrett wrote Mr. Browning a poem and slipped it under the door. The door must have pushed it under the shelf. He never saw it.” Edgar turned it over. “What should we do with it?”

  “If Mr. Browning is a thief, then Ms. Barrett is better off without him,” Destiny reasoned. “But if he isn’t the thief and if he’s in love with Ms. Barrett, wouldn’t he want to know that she loves him, too?”

  Edgar put the card, facing out, on the shelf with all the poetry books.

  They both heard footsteps coming down the hall.

  “What if it’s Mr. Browning?” Destiny whispered, eyes widening.

  “If he knows we’re on to him, he might try to get rid of us!” Edgar whispered back.

  “Shh! I think
I hear his broom!”

  The door flung open and Taz laughed. “Gotcha!”

  Edgar pulled him inside. “Where were you?”

  “I was doing my job, finding the whereabouts of Mr. Browning. He is in the kindergarten hallway, sweeping. What did you find?” Taz looked around.

  “Poetry books. And a love poem from Ms. Barrett. No stolen merchandise.”

  Destiny grabbed some paper towels. “Come on, let’s go before we get caught.”

  Taz went into the music room first, followed by Edgar with the paper towels. Destiny went to the kindergarten hallway and asked Mr. Browning to bring his mop.

  By the time they returned, the class was singing their warm-up scales, “Moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo.”

  “Were you investigating?” Patrick whispered.

  Edgar pretended his ears were full of wax and sang, “Moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo.”

  “I know who your prime suspect is,” Patrick whispered. “I’m going to run a fingerprint test on the thief’s message tonight. I’ll bet on Monday, I come in with the proof.”

  “Moo, moo, moo, moo, moo,” Edgar sang.

  On the bus, Edgar finally found a moment to write in his notebook.

  We didn’t find any of the stolen objects, but I’ll never forget this afternoon. The whispering! The sneaking! The hiding in dark closets! The footsteps! The opening of the door! The paper towels!

  THIS IS THE LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  That night, just as Edgar’s family was sitting down to their Friday night dinner, the phone rang.

  “It’s probably Stephen calling for me,” Henri said and hopped up from the table.

  “No calls during dinner,” his dad said.

  “I’ll just tell him I’ll call back.” Henri walked in a moment later with a puzzled look on his face, holding the phone. “It’s for you,” he said, handing it over to Edgar. Then he turned to his parents. “Since when does he get calls?”

  “Hello?” Edgar answered.