Vanished!

by James Ponti

  “Okay, that’s interesting,” he said. “But what does it have to do with a fire alarm or computer hacking?”

  “A key tradition of the club was that in order to become a full member, pledges had to pull off a prank,” I explained. “The bigger the better.”

  “Like the time a guy hid a mummy in a closet and almost gave a woman a heart attack,” added Margaret. “That was the prank that got the club disbanded.”

  “At least that’s the official story,” I said. “But what if it didn’t get disbanded? We know that John Rees Chatham was a member. We know that he founded the school and wrote the song. What if he just moved the club from the Smithsonian to the school and it’s still going strong?”

  “And now you think some recently added members are trying to outprank each other.”

  “That would explain a lot,” I replied. “The headmaster said pranks used to be common at the school. Maybe those were all the handiwork of Megatheriums. They’ve been dormant for a while but now they’re coming back.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “We don’t know,” I answered. “But for the first time since we’ve started, we have a motive and explanation that at least makes sense.”

  “Ha,” exclaimed Margaret, interrupting us. “I just found another connection.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  She pointed at a plaque on the Megatherium display. “It says this exhibit was made possible through a generous gift from none other than . . . Moncrieff Tate.”

  We shared a look.

  “The chairman of the board of trustees at the school?” said Marcus. “Okay, I’m convinced there’s a connection.”

  “And we know he’s a member of the club because of the stripes on his tie,” I said.

  “You just lost me again,” said Marcus. “What stripes?”

  “There are two symbols of membership that we’re aware of,” I said. “One is their secret greeting, which is the phrase ‘How How.’ The other is the use of a purple/green/purple triple stripe.”

  “Like this.” Margaret handed him her phone to show him the picture she’d found of Moncrieff Tate wearing the tie.

  “We found the same stripes and phrase painted in Victoria Tate’s locker,” I said. “Which probably means she’s a member too.”

  “Actually, we don’t know that it was Victoria’s locker,” corrected Margaret. “We just know that it was one of the two that were side by side. It could have been Lucy’s.”

  “True,” I said. “But doesn’t it make more sense that it would be Victoria? After all, she is Moncrieff’s granddaughter.”

  “There were secret societies like this when I was at Harvard,” said Marcus. “They’re usually made up of the most elite students. Especially ones who come from powerful families.”

  “That describes half the school,” said Margaret. “But when it comes to powerful families, it’s hard to top the daughter of the president.”

  “You know, that’s absolutely right,” I admitted. “It could be her. Tomorrow we have to figure out whose locker was whose.”

  “I can find out from Tori.”

  “We’ve been operating off the theory that it’s one person pulling off three different pranks,” said Marcus. “But it could very well be three different people who are part of the same group. Is there any connection between the Megatherium Club and the name Loki?”

  “None that we’ve been able to find,” I said. “But we haven’t had much time to look for one.”

  “Try to find it,” he said. “You guys are doing great, but if we can find out why the name Loki was selected, we may be able to pull everything together. Anything else you want to pass along?”

  We filled him in on some other details as we left the Fossil Hall and walked upstairs to the Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt exhibit because Margaret wanted to check out the mummies. We told him about Yin, Becca, and the discovery of the crawl space in the performing arts center. We also explained that Lucy made a hasty exit right after the fire alarm incident.

  “Actually, during the incident,” corrected Margaret. “The bell was still ringing while her SUV was speeding off of the campus.”

  There was an interesting dynamic that I couldn’t ignore. It seemed like I kept trying to find reasons to clear Lucy, while Margaret kept pointing out clues that suggested she was guilty. I don’t know why, but it’s part of what works so well with our partnership. We keep each other honest.

  We reached the mummies and Margaret shuddered as she said, “Imagine opening your closet and seeing that fall out. I’d scream for days.”

  “Have you had any luck getting us access to the Chat Chat message board while it’s still off-line?” I asked Marcus. “That might help us locate Loki or identify other members of the Megatherium Club.”

  “Putney keeps stalling me on that one,” he replied. “I’m thinking of asking the admiral to twist his arm.”

  Margaret and I shared a look and a smile.

  “That’ll get it done,” she said.

  We said our good-byes and separated from Marcus so no one outside would see us leave together. We exited out the back of the building and crossed Constitution Avenue to get to the Federal Triangle Metro station.

  The subway was packed with commuters headed home for the day so we stood in the back of a car holding on to a pair of straps.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?” asked Margaret as the train rattled to life and we pulled out of the station.

  “Why didn’t I tell him what?”

  She gave me a look. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  I sighed. “If I told him that some bully was after me then he might have taken me off the case. And I don’t want that to happen. Besides, you think I’m exaggerating.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You didn’t have to,” I said. “I can tell. Just like I can tell you think that Lucy Mays is Loki.”

  She didn’t deny it. “It’s not that I think she’s guilty,” she said. “It’s just that evidence keeps pointing that way.”

  As the subway car rattled through the darkened tunnel, I had to admit that she was right.

  13.

  The Question Marks

  “WHY ARE WE GOING TO the Founder’s Room?” Margaret asked after I had my mom drive past the front of the school and drop us off in back.

  “I had an idea last night and I want to check it out before school starts.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said skeptically. “And was this idea a way to avoid Tanner by hiding out in the rear of the school until the bell rings?”

  “No, but if that’s a by-product I’m okay with it.”

  “You can’t just hide from him.”

  “I know that and I don’t plan to,” I declared.

  “Then you want to explain this?” She poked me in the shoulder. “Either you became extra lumpy last night or you’re wearing your gym clothes beneath your school clothes so you don’t have to go in the locker room.”

  Sometimes I forget how observant she is.

  “I have to get all the way from French class, which is in the upper school, to the gym,” I explained. “That doesn’t leave much time to change. I’m just trying to be efficient.”

  “Very convincing,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  We reached the Founder’s Room and flipped on the lights. Luckily, no one had started the welcome video, so we didn’t have to listen to it over and over while we worked.

  “So what’s your idea?” asked Margaret.

  “Yearbooks,” I answered. “We know that Moncrieff Tate was a member of the Megatherium Club, so I want to look for him in these old yearbooks to see if we can figure out who he hung out with back when he was a student. Maybe find some more members.”

  “Actually,” she said, “that’s a pretty good idea.”

  “I told you we weren’t just hiding out.” We walked over to the bookcases, which were filled with yearbooks going back for decades, and I pulled out a pair of slender volum
es. “These are from Moncrieff’s junior and senior years. Let’s start there.”

  We looked at the index in the senior one and it directed us to five pictures:

  A senior class photo in a cap and gown

  An action shot of him playing basketball

  A group photo of him as a member of the varsity club

  A group photo of the French club that identified him as president

  A shot of him onstage singing with an a cappella group

  The picture of the a cappella group featured five boys, all with crew cuts and blazers. Margaret read the caption aloud: “The Maxillaires dazzle the crowd with their harmonies.”

  “The what?” I asked as I took the yearbook from her to double-check. “The name of their group is the Maxillaires?”

  “Those groups always have names like that that don’t really mean anything,” she replied. “My dad sang with one called the Whiffenpoofs.”

  “Except Maxillaires does mean something,” I answered. “It’s French. It means ‘the jawbones.’ As in . . .” I pointed at the Megatherium jawbone in the display case on the next table.

  “You know that,” she said. “But do you think they knew it?”

  “He was president of the French club,” I replied. “He had to know. He picked that name on purpose. Like an inside joke.”

  “But isn’t that risky?” she asked. “Maybe someone in the crowd could figure it out.”

  I gave her a look. “You do realize that you’re an undercover FBI consultant who wants to sing a song about solving mysteries at a middle school talent show?”

  She laughed. “Well, if you put it that way . . .”

  “Besides, I’m sure most people just thought it was a silly name. It only makes sense if you know all about the secret group, and nobody knows about the group except the members.”

  She looked up at me and grinned. “And us. We know. And now we know four other members.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Let’s look in this one.”

  We flipped through the other yearbook and found a picture of a group called the Question Marks. They were dressed like old-fashioned newspaper reporters, wearing trench coats and fedoras, posed as if they were at a crowded press conference shouting out questions. The caption read:

  The Question Marks proved to be a valuable addition to the school newspaper as they were always more than ready and willing to ask the hard questions like, Who? What? When? Where? And most importantly: How How?

  “How How,” I said, eyebrows raised. “That’s definitely Megatherium.”

  “And those are some familiar faces.”

  There were seven students in the picture, five boys and two girls. Four of the boys were also members of the Maxillaires. Margaret pulled a yellow legal pad out of her backpack and started writing down all of their names.

  “I’m not sure how much good that will do for us now,” I said. “Considering they were members nearly fifty years ago.”

  “You know how it is with TOAST,” she replied with a sly smile. “Crumbs lead to little pieces. Little pieces lead to big pieces. Big pieces lead to culprits.”

  We started to look for the other members in different yearbooks, but before we could get very far the bell rang and it was time to go to class.

  “I think this is a good lead,” she said. “I’m going to come back here during lunch and keep looking.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll join you.”

  She gave me a look. “And that’s because you want to help or because you want to hide out?”

  “Help,” I said with mock indignation as I started for the door.

  “Good,” she replied. “Oh, and make sure to find out if Becca is actually a Megatherium or if she just happens to have a hair ribbon with the wrong stripes.”

  “I will,” I replied.

  “And when you see Tanner . . .”

  “I’ll scream like Harriet Joseph when she found that mummy in her closet.”

  She gave me a look.

  “Just kidding,” I said. “I’ll be smart.”

  “Which means being safe.”

  I nodded.

  Luckily, I made it to my first two classes without any sign of him and I began to wonder if I’d been overreacting. So far there was no indication he was looking for me.

  Even though Becca regularly ignored Lucy, they were seated next to each other in French. This let me take a seat behind Lucy and study them both at the same time. It took half the period to figure out a way to check if either was a Megatherium. The class was reading, so everything was quiet and I thought about the Question Marks. It gave me the idea to whisper two words just loud enough for both of them to hear:

  “How How.”

  Lucy didn’t react, but Becca snapped her head around and looked right at me.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  I shrugged like I didn’t know what she was talking about and muttered, “Nothing.”

  “What did you say?” she asked pointedly, this time attracting the attention of the teacher.

  “Shhh,” scolded Madame Thibault.

  I just kept looking at my book and let her stew. At this point I had no doubt she was in the club. But I wasn’t sure about Lucy. She didn’t react at all and I wondered if that meant she wasn’t a member or just that she was much less easily rattled.

  The instant the bell rang, I switched my focus to making it to gym class in one piece. My plan required expert timing, so it didn’t help that when I rushed the door Becca stepped in front of me and blocked my way.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Florian Bates,” I answered. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” she replied cryptically.

  She was being confrontational, so I thought I’d tweak her back just a little bit. “Where’d you get your hair ribbon?” Her eyes opened wide and before she could say anything I added, “Just curious.”

  I ducked past her and out into the hallway. Margaret had totally busted me when she guessed that I was wearing my gym clothes underneath my school outfit. I didn’t care. There was no way I was going into that locker room. Instead I ran into the bathroom down the hall from French. Because I was still in the upper school building, I knew Tanner wouldn’t be there. I stripped off my outer layer in one of the stalls and stuffed the clothes into my backpack.

  When I came back out into the hallway, Becca was standing right there waiting for me. This was so my life. If I wanted to see her there’d be no sign of her, but now that I was in a hurry, she kept cropping up. I couldn’t be bothered at the moment, so I turned the other way and hurried. People gawked, although I don’t know if it was because I was running down the hall in an Alice Deal gym uniform or because Becca was pursuing me.

  “Florian!” she called to me. “Florian!”

  Finally I stopped and turned to her.

  “What?”

  “You better be careful,” she warned. “If you keep talking about things you shouldn’t talk about you’re going to make some enemies.”

  “Fine with me,” I said emphatically. “They can get in line behind the ones I’ve already got.”

  I spun around, popped open the exit door, and left without looking back. Our class was scheduled for another running day, so I skipped the gym and locker room altogether and went straight to the track, where I started running laps.

  All of it was starting to build up inside of me and I burned off my frustration by going out at a quick pace. I’d been undercover at the school for only two and a half days and I’d already made enemies of Tanner and Becca, not to mention Victoria and her minions. By the end of the week, who knows how many people would be chasing me down the hall.

  I just ran and thought about the case, which was dangerous because whenever I do that I get tunnel vision and tend to block out everything else. I was snapped out of my own little world when I heard footsteps catching up from behind.

  Startled, I turned to look back and almost tripped over myself in the process. I ev
en had to put a hand down on the track to keep from falling.

  “It’s only me,” said Lucy as she continued running. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” I lied, trying to recover as I quickly matched her pace. “You just caught me off guard.”

  We ran side by side and when we turned the corner I could see the other kids as they trickled out from the locker room to the track. I scanned their faces looking for trouble.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Tanner,” she replied. “He’s not here. He’s been suspended for three days.”

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Is that true?”

  “Violation of the honor code,” she said. “He won’t be back until Monday.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and said a silent prayer as my mood instantly lightened and my pace slowed to something more manageable. Even better, I realized that if Margaret and I could solve the case by the weekend, I’d never have to see him again.

  “I tried to tell you after French,” she said. “But you left in a hurry.”

  Yeah, I thought. A hurry to hide in a bathroom and change clothes.

  “I just wanted to get out here and start running,” I told her, although I knew she was onto me.

  We jogged for a bit and she said, “Can I ask you an awkward question?”

  “Sure. Awkward questions are kind of a specialty of mine.”

  “Did you do it because of me?”

  I turned to look at her as we ran. “Did I do what because of you?”

  “Let Tanner cheat off of you knowing he’d flunk the test and get in trouble. Were you trying to impress me?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense. What does Tanner have to do with you?”

  She slowed down for a moment. “Tanner Caldwell? You really don’t know?”

  “I really don’t.”

  “His dad’s Pete Caldwell,” she answered as if that should mean something. “The senator from California who ran against my father for president.”

  “I thought he ran against the governor of Michigan,” I said. “Tom Prescott.”

  “In the general election, yes,” she replied. “But in the primaries he ran against Caldwell, who was heavily favored. That’s why Tanner hates me so much. He thought his dad was going to be president instead of mine. He’s been horrible to me since the first day I set foot on campus.”