Chester coasted at the front of the pack of cyclists, weaving back and forth, feeling the gentle breeze on his legs. “Oh, hey,” Rory said suddenly as they turned off Friedman to head toward the reservoir. “I keep meaning to tell you. I asked a couple people to help out. That cool?”
It took Chester a second to realize that Rory was talking to him—he kept forgetting that he was in charge. “Sure,” he said. “Of course.”
“Yeah, actually, I invited a couple people, too,” said Natasha.
“Me, too,” Marisol added quietly.
Chester shrugged. “That’s cool.”
What Chester didn’t yet know was that the couple people Rory had called had each called a couple people, and each of those people had called a couple of their own. The same was true for Natasha’s couple people, and Marisol’s, and Braxton’s . . . and though Ms. Fischler wasn’t on hand to explain how the total number of people had grown through exponential multiplication, the result was clear when they crested the final hill and kickstanded their bikes at the edge of Tamarkin Reservoir. In the low, green gully, dozens and dozens and dozens of kids were milling around. It was practically the entire eighth grade, along with tons of sixth and seventh graders, plus kids Chester didn’t even recognize, kids from other schools or something. Scanning the crowd, amazed, Chester spotted Kelly Deal and Peter Holsapple, both of whom had graduated last year and were at Pilverton High now.
And then, as Chester and his posse got off their bikes, the whole huge crowd burst into applause.
“Let’s do it!” shouted Ellis Walters, yelling through cupped hands from the back of the crowd. “Let’s save Taproot Valley!”
Chester couldn’t help but notice the one person who was not a part of this giant crowd—his best friend, Victor Glebe. Well, no time to worry about it now. Chester turned his mind to making fresh plans: Natasha would need to build more people into her choreography; Kevin could add more harmony parts to the song. . . .
Chester turned to Todd Spolin, who happened to be standing beside him, and said, “We’re going to need more snacks.”
What Ida Finkleman should have been doing, at that moment, was writing quiz questions. Like every teacher in school, she had two weeks to prepare an entire week’s worth of questions, a massively time-consuming proposition. But here she was instead, watching thoughtfully through the chain-link fence that separated Patterson Lane from Tamarkin Reservoir. She watched as the kids unrolled the long, beautiful murals that Marisol and Lisa had painted and strung them carefully from the trees. She watched Braxton put on his grizzly bear costume, backward, then watched him take it off and put it on again correctly. She watched Tenny coach Todd on how to place his fingers on the guitar, to pretend to play the solo he’d recorded. She watched Chester set up the shots and cry “Action!” When the Save Taproot Valley song came blaring out of Shelly’s laptop, Ms. Finkleman noted the compositional virtuosity that Kevin had brought to the project and chuckled at Rory’s strained but charming rhyme of the words “bonfire” and “quagmire.”
Surely this video would be, if not brilliant, at least utterly unique. But whether it would raise enough money to send the kids on their outdoor education trip was a very different question. Four thousand, seven hundred and thirty-six dollars was a lot of money, and the scheduled departure date was less than two weeks away.
Ms. Finkleman turned from the fence and walked back down Patterson Lane, toward the school, to get her car and drive home.
If only there was something she could do to help.
While all the other kids were at Tamarkin Reservoir, no doubt having the time of their lives, Bethesda Fielding biked home alone. No one besides Tenny had even told her about the Save Taproot Valley project, let alone invited her, and she was trying very hard not to be bummed about it. Bethesda loved fund-raising projects! When she was nine, she’d made almost a hundred dollars in four hours of selling lemonade, by having kids pay an extra dollar to squeeze the lemons themselves, using a shiny silver handheld juicer. Less work, more money!
Bethesda chastised herself sternly: Does Sherlock Holmes get jealous? What about Charlie Chan? Does Wellington Wolf, Jungle P.I., get all mopey because he can’t play with the other animals! Of course not! Why do you think they call them lone wolves?
Chortling at her own joke, Bethesda didn’t notice until the last second a garbage can that had tipped over and rolled out onto the sidewalk. She jerked the handlebars of her blue Schwinn, lurched hard, and almost hit another cyclist who was passing her on the right.
“Hey! Watch it!” said the other girl, glaring backward over her shoulder.
It was Reenie Maslow. Of course.
“Shoot. Sorry, Reenie.”
Bethesda pumped her legs a few times, giving herself a burst of speed to catch up. Her self–pep talk notwithstanding, Bethesda was psyched to have someone else to talk to. “So,” she said, pulling up to keep pace with Reenie, “you weren’t invited to do this video thing either, huh?”
“Of course I was. Everyone was. I just didn’t have time.”
Well, gee, Bethesda thought. Thanks for making me feel better.
They biked in silence for a couple minutes, Bethesda struggling the whole time to think of something else to say, Reenie just staring straight ahead, the sun gleaming off her silver helmet. When Bethesda turned off Friedman Street onto Dunwiddie, Reenie did too. Whoa, thought Bethesda. Two short, book-loving, glasses-wearing girls with reddish-tannish hair who live in the same neighborhood! And yet . . .
“So, what, are you, like, following me?” Reenie asked abruptly, shooting Bethesda an annoyed look.
“No! Reenie, I . . . I . . .”
Reenie stood up on her pedals, knapsack balanced high on her back like a soldier’s duffel, cranked her legs, and zoomed away. Bethesda rolled to a stop and watched her disappear over the horizon.
At home, Bethesda took a Snapple and a bowlful of graham crackers from the kitchen and went upstairs to do homework. Mr. Galloway was giving extra credit to anyone who memorized the Gettysburg Address. But try as she might, Bethesda couldn’t get past the “conceived in liberty” part.
Three little letters kept dancing through her mind: IOM.
Chapter 27
“My Favorite Things”
To the student body, Principal Van Vreeland’s proposed Week of a Thousand Quizzes was a grossly unfair punishment; to most of the teachers, it was a huge and unwelcome task. But to Harry Melville, who taught sixth- and seventh-grade Social Studies, it was a dream come true. Some people were good at dancing, while others drove race cars or wrote poems or performed complicated surgeries. Mr. Melville’s gift was for writing difficult test questions, and this was his moment to shine.
Since the principal’s announcement, he had spent every evening here in his small, comfortable home, settled in a wingback chair behind his rolltop desk, carefully crafting the most delightfully difficult Social Studies questions he could. Which states voted to ratify the United States Constitution, and which did not? Who was President Washington’s secretary of the treasury? Who was his deputy secretary of the treasury? In 250 words, describe General Benedict Arnold’s motivation for betraying the Continental Army. Now do it in 500 words.
Stopping to think between questions, Mr. Melville stroked his bushy white beard, singing happily to himself. “Raindrops on something and something on kittens . . . something some something . . .”
“Harry? You have a visitor.”
Easing nervously into the room, Ida Finkleman nodded a polite thank-you to Sally Ann Melville while the hardest teacher in school waved her into a chair.
“Why, Ms. Finkleman!” Mr. Melville bellowed affably. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She looked a bit taken aback by his good spirits. “Um, well . . . you’ve been at the school a long time, and I thought you could help me. You see, I’d like to help out some students of mine.”
Mr. Melville’s famous eyebrows, white and thick as an arctic forest, a
rranged themselves into two skeptical arches. “Now why,” he asked, “would you want to do that?”
But as it turned out, Mr. Melville did know a way to help. Exactly as Ms. Finkleman had suspected, the gruff old social studies teacher, at some point in his many years of teaching, had heard of a certain program. “Well, not really a program,” said Mr. Melville, digging an old, yellowed pamphlet from a drawer of the rolltop desk. “It’s just this man from St. Louis. A man with a lot of money.”
Mr. Melville cautioned her that the Piccolini-Provokovsky grant had no formal application process, and that he had never heard of anyone actually winning it. In other words, he said, the whole thing was silly. “But as a wise man once said,” he concluded, referring to himself, “your days on this earth belong to you, and are yours to waste.”
And so, at 10:30 p.m., Ms. Finkleman was in her brown bathrobe, in her cozy recliner with her computer open on her lap, sipping a cup of Sleepytime tea and composing an email to a very rich man from St. Louis named Ivan Piccolini-Provokovsky. She labored over this email, writing and rewriting, trying to get it perfect.
Dear Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky,
went the email so far.
My name is Ida Finkleman, and I serve as Band and Chorus instructor at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School. Certain of my students are engaged in a project that I feel you will find most intriguing. It involves
Involves? For heaven’s sake, Ida. She tapped Delete a bunch of times, and wrote the sentence again.
It showcases an impressive display of talent, an impassioned plea, and a mighty animal of the forest tumbling down a flight of stairs.
That seemed about right.
The rest of the email gave a precise and detailed description of the “Save Taproot Valley” video project; a bit of background on Chester and his academic career thus far; and, of course, the most important part of all. The request.
Satisfied at last, Ms. Finkleman crossed her fingers and hit Send.
Chapter 28
Possibilities
Suspect #3: Janitor Steve
“Excuse me? Hey, sorry . . .” Tenny cracked open the door and peered into the janitor’s closet in the basement. “Um . . .”
“Eh? Who’s that?”
Janitor Steve, in black work pants and a thick denim shirt, was seated on an upside-down mop bucket, combing out the bristles of a double-wide broom. “Just keeping the old broom clean,” he said, gesturing for Tenny to enter. “Clean broom, clean floor. Clean floor, clean mind. Clean mind . . .” He paused. “Clean pants? I don’t know. What do you want, kid?”
“Huh? Oh . . . right. Okay . . .”
Tenny hadn’t thought about how to start this interrogation. He was just glad to be down here, and not to be spending another lunch period fielding the same annoying questions over and over, from Tucker and Ezra and all the rest of ’em.
“So, what’re you doing back, man?”
“Oh, you know, long story . . .”
Tenny was so sick of the conversations, and the whispers, and the rumors . . . oh, man, the stupid rumors. He’d been expelled for fighting. He’d been expelled for stealing. He’d given everyone at St. Francis Xavier—kids, teachers, maintenance staff, everyone—the chicken pox . . . on purpose.
“This might sound kind of weird,” he said to Janitor Steve. “It’s about the trophy.”
“Oh?” Janitor Steve stopped cleaning and cocked an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Do you know something about it?”
“I sure do,” said Janitor Steve, heaving himself up from the bucket and carefully hanging his broom back on the wall.
“You do?”
“Yup.” He turned and looked right at Tenny. “I know who stole it, and why.”
Suspect #4: Lisa Deckter
As Janitor Steve told Tenny Boyer what he had to say, Bethesda was cornering her own next suspect at the top of Stairwell #1. She extended her arm to the banister, blocking Lisa Deckter from going down. It was just the two of them in the empty stairwell; everyone else had already gotten their lunches and gone outside.
“Hey,” said Bethesda. “We need to talk.”
“Okay,” Lisa replied warily, tearing the wrapper off a gluten-free health and energy bar. Bethesda, in her mind, pulled down the brim of her battered detective’s fedora, readying herself for a daring gambit. Lisa had no alibi that Bethesda knew of, plus a compelling motive, having placed second behind Pamela in the gymnastics tournament. It was time for a classic tactic from the private investigator’s tool kit: the big bluff.
“I know, Lisa,” Bethesda said coolly. “I know what you did.”
Lisa’s mouth dropped open, and she lowered the health bar slowly from her lips.
“H-how. . . ,” she stammered. “How did you know?”
Whoa, Bethesda thought, startled. That worked great.
“Wait. What?”
“I’m telling you, kid.” Janitor Steve deepened his voice, like a camp counselor at a bonfire. “The person who stole that trophy wasn’t a person at all.”
“So—you mean—it was . . .” Tenny scratched his head, confused. “A robot?”
“No.”
“A shark?”
“No!”
“Um . . .”
“Why don’t I just tell you. It was the vengeful spirit of Little Ronnie Farnsworth.”
“Wait. What?”
Janitor Steve nodded gravely. “Ronnie Farnsworth was a boy who went here when I did. Everybody picked on him a lot, because he talked to himself and smelled kind of weird. Ronnie always swore he’d have his revenge.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. And now, starting at the beginning of the semester, I’ve been hearing him, banging on things, making all sortsa eerie noises in the pipes. Also, I think he moved my ladder.”
Tenny didn’t really believe in ghosts, but Janitor Steve was giving him the heebie-jeebies. “So, this Ronnie guy. When did he die?”
“Die? Oh no, he’s fine. He drives a bus, over in Bellville. He’s actually in my book club. It’s his spirit, kid. It’s his vengeful spirit that haunts us. Or, haunted us. I actually haven’t heard a peep from that old ghost since he got the trophy. Not a peep.”
“Huh. Well, uh—thanks, man. Thanks a lot.”
“Sure thing. Hey, leave the door open a crack, will ya? Fumes.”
“I mean, of course I wanted that gymnastics trophy. I wanted it bad.”
Bethesda held her breath and leaned against the stair rail, tense with anticipation as Lisa’s confession unspooled. “It’s so big and beautiful. Plus, you know what the runner-up got? A gift certificate to Pirate Sam’s.” She looked ruefully at her gluten-free, nut-free, egg-free soy bar. “I can eat literally nothing there.”
“And thus you made your fateful decision,” Bethesda proclaimed, thrusting one finger into the air. “You had to have the trophy for your own!”
“Wait. You think I stole it?”
Not only did Lisa use the same words Kevin McKelvey had, she stared at Bethesda with the same expression—an open-mouthed mixture of confusion, shock, and pain.
“Of course I didn’t steal it! Why would I steal something I let Pamela win in the first place?”
“What?” Now it was Bethesda’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean, you let her win?”
“That’s what I was just telling you. It’s so important to Pamela to be the best at everything. So I purposely messed up my back handspring, so she could win the trophy.
“Oh. Well, that’s . . .” Bethesda smiled weakly. “That was really nice.”
“Seriously, Bethesda? You think I stole it?”
“No. No . . . I just.” Don’t say it, Bethesda. Don’t say it. “You know. You’re one of a number of possible suspects.”
Lisa made a disgusted, huffing noise, said, “Excuse me,” and pushed past Bethesda. “Good luck with your mystery,” Lisa called back over her shoulder, the cold words echoing in the stairwell.
School ended at three p.m.
, and Bethesda had arranged to meet with Tenny by the picnic tables at precisely 3:02 to carefully review everything they’d learned so far. By 3:07, she was glancing nervously at the door, bracing herself for the possibility that he wouldn’t show, or—considering how weird he was being lately—that he would show, but act so distant and unhelpful that she’d wish he hadn’t. But at 3:09 Tenny shuffled out, gave a warm little wave, and sat down.
“All right,” said Bethesda, laying out her index cards in a neat square in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
“Okay . . . let’s see . . .”
Carefully, point by point, they went over their interrogations of the last three days. Tenny described his game of Horse with Guy Ficker, skipping over his sorry lack of basketball skills. He explained about Guy’s monthly dinner with Natasha’s family at Pirate Sam’s, and said how Todd Spolin had appeared on the playground, somewhat oddly, out of nowhere. Bethesda said “hmm,” but reminded him that Todd wasn’t even on their suspect list—he never had a key.
They laughed about Janitor Steve and the vengeful spirit of Little Ronnie Farnsworth, until something occurred to Bethesda. What if the custodian was making the whole thing up? Maybe to deflect suspicion, because he was the one who did it?
“Totally possible,” said Tenny. “I gotta tell you, that guy is a whole mystery just himself.”
Then Bethesda told Tenny about Lisa Deckter’s confession, about her interview with Kevin and what the Piano Kid had overheard—the mysterious pair in the chorus room, singing their strange, silly, catchy song.
“Yeah,” Tenny said. “But how do you know Kevin is telling the truth?”
“What, you think he made it up? Could he even do that?”
“Dude,” said Tenny, shrugging. “Of course he could! He’s Kevin McKelvey. He could make up a whole opera if he wanted to.”
And that was that. It was 3:47, and they’d gone over everything there was to go over. Tenny snapped a twig off the big oak tree and fiddled it around in his palms. Bethesda took a deep sip of her Lime-Orange Snapple and slipped a rubber band around their heavily annotated stack of index cards. She snuck a glance at her friend, and her mind jumped to the other mystery: Why had Tenny returned from St. Francis Xavier?
The Mystery of the Missing Everything Page 10
