“How much did she tell you?” I asked meekly. I remembered that Ms. Holland and I had made a deal that she would not tell Ms. Colman that I had swiped the Genius out of Ms. Colman’s desk. But since Ms. Holland suspected that I had done it again, maybe the deal was off.
“She did not go into specifics,” said Ms. Colman. “She merely said that you and she had some run-ins early in the week. And that later in the week someone took your yo-yo, which she had taken from you, out of my desk. Is this true?”
“Yes,” I said. “And I was not the one who took the yo-yo on Thursday.” (That was true. I had taken the yo-yo on Tuesday.) “I do not know who has my yo-yo. I am trying to catch the thief.”
“Okay, Karen, I believe you,” said Ms. Colman. “Now I think we should go back inside.”
When I returned to my seat, Ms. Colman spoke to the class.
“Your substitute teacher, Ms. Holland, told me that you were all a joy to work with last week,” said Ms. Colman. “However, we had one unpleasant incident, which I hope will be set right. I am asking whoever took Karen’s yo-yo out of my desk last Thursday to please return it now. There will be no questions asked, and no punishments.”
Ms. Colman waited. Nobody moved.
“Okay,” said Ms. Colman. “Perhaps the person would prefer to return it when no one is around. Fine. But I expect to see the yo-yo on my desk before the end of the day.”
Everyone started whispering about who the yo-yo thief might be. Several people looked at me.
“Moving on,” said Ms. Colman loudly, to regain our attention. “I would like to tell you a little about the conference I attended last week. It was a conference for teachers. We learned about new and exciting ideas for making field trips more fun, planning long-term projects, and arranging for special speakers to come and help us with things we do in the classroom. We teachers learned a lot and exchanged ideas. I wish you all could have been there, as I am sure you also would have learned a lot. And you would have had many good ideas too.”
Just then a good idea came to me. Ms. Colman was talking about special speakers, and how they relate to things we do in the classroom. Special speakers like … the yo-yo professionals from Team Yo!, for instance, who demonstrate science ideas with yo-yos.
I was just starting to raise my hand when Ms. Colman called on Pamela.
“I was thinking,” said Pamela.
Do not hurt yourself, I said silently.
“There is a professional yo-yo troupe called Team Yo! that teaches science with yo-yos,” Pamela continued. “Maybe they could come to Stoneybrook Academy, as special speakers, and teach our class.”
Hey! Pamela was stealing my good idea!
“That is an excellent suggestion, Pamela,” said Ms. Colman. “I will consider it.”
Grrr. Pamela is such a meanie-mo. And it occurred to me — anyone who was willing to steal one of my ideas might be willing to steal my yo-yo too. I smelled a rat, and her name was Pamela.
Den of Thieves
“Who took my crayons?” Natalie Springer asked, pulling up her socks. We were returning to our classroom after lunch. “I left my crayons in my desk, and now they are gone. The yo-yo thief has struck again!”
Natalie looked at me, as if she thought that I had taken her crayons.
Boo and bullfrogs. Now even Natalie thought I was the yo-yo thief, and Natalie was about the least suspicious person in my whole class.
It had been a long morning for me. First, Hank Reubens lost a special cool rock that he had found on the playground.
“I left it right here!” he had yelled, pointing at a bare patch in the middle of the soccer field. “It was a shiny white rock with a green line through it. Where did it go?”
“Who knows?” I said. “We have been running through here all recess. Maybe someone kicked it accidentally. You should look around in the grass for it.”
“Maybe it was not an accident,” Hank said. “Maybe someone took it. Maybe it was the same person who took your yo-yo out of Ms. Colman’s desk, Karen.”
“I do not know what you are talking about,” I said, and walked away.
Next Audrey Green could not find her lunch money.
“I am sure I put it in my pocket,” she said. “Now I cannot find it. The yo-yo thief must have stolen it.”
Audrey glared at me.
“What, right out of your pocket?” I asked. “How would someone do that?”
“I do not know,” said Audrey. “You tell me, Karen.”
“Maybe now that Karen cannot play with her yo-yo at school,” said Pamela, “she has taken up another skill. Pickpocketing!”
“Oh, be quiet, Pamela,” I said. “You are too silly for words.”
It was ridiculous to think that I — or anyone else — would have picked Audrey’s pocket for her lunch money. But I could see some of the other kids did not believe that. They thought I was the yo-yo thief.
And now even Natalie was accusing me.
It was not fair. I was not the yo-yo thief! In fact, I was the only one who had been a real victim of the thief, whoever he or she was. Hank had lost a rock that he had found fifteen minutes before. Audrey had probably not even lost her lunch money — it was most likely in her desk or her schoolbag or something. I was sure it would turn up. The same with Natalie’s crayons. People borrow one another’s crayons all the time. And anyway, lunch money and crayons were not nearly as valuable as a top-of-the-line yo-yo like the Genius.
“Class,” said Ms. Colman, “I have been hearing a lot of talk of stealing. I do not like to think that one of us is a thief. I wonder whether some mistake was made about Karen’s yo-yo — that it was not taken from my desk, but somehow lost or misplaced. Ms. Holland would not be the first substitute teacher who made a simple mistake while teaching in an unfamiliar classroom.”
My classmates and I nodded doubtfully. Maybe it was true. Maybe there really was no yo-yo thief. But maybe not!
“I am still hoping that if someone did take the yo-yo, that someone will return it to me voluntarily,” Ms. Colman went on. “But in the meantime, I have an idea for how we can locate the yo-yo if it is just lost.”
Ms. Colman’s Plan
On Wednesday morning we put Ms. Colman’s plan into action. Her idea was to recreate the morning of the crime. All the kids in my class would do exactly what they had done the morning my yo-yo disappeared from Ms. Colman’s desk.
“By reenacting last Thursday morning, we might be able to figure out how the yo-yo was lost, if it was lost,” said Ms. Colman. “And if the yo-yo was not lost, maybe the reenactment will convince the person who took the yo-yo to return it to me in private.”
All the kids in my class went out to the playground and tried to remember what they had been doing that Thursday morning before school started.
It was easy for me. I had missed the school bus that morning and Nannie had driven me to school. (It was not my fault I missed the bus. Shannon had run off with my gym sneakers, and it had taken awhile to find them.) So during the reenactment, I stood at the edge of the playground and watched the other kids.
Pamela, Leslie, and Jannie gathered near the swing set and practiced yo-yo tricks.
Terri and Tammy Barkan sat on a bench and did their spelling homework from last week. (Terri still could not remember how to spell believe.)
Ricky, Hank, Bobby, and Ian Johnson played foursquare, and then went to the water fountain near the school entrance to get a drink of water.
Addie, Sara Ford, and Audrey played freeze tag. (It looked like fun. I wanted to join in, but I remembered that I was not supposed to be at school yet.)
Hannie and Nancy looked at their watches and started to walk into the school.
“Hannie! Nancy!” I called. “Why are you going inside?”
They stopped. “Because, um, this is what we did last Thursday,” said Nancy.
“But why?” I asked. All the other kids in my class were playing outside. Only Hannie and Nancy were going in early.
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They looked at each other.
“We, um … we had to ask the principal a question,” said Hannie. “Yes, that is it. I mean, actually, we asked one of the secretaries in the office a question. I forget which one. Which secretary, I mean. So you cannot check. The question was, um, about lunch money. Or something. I forget.”
“Right,” said Nancy. “That was it exactly. That is what we were doing. ’Bye, Karen!” And she and Hannie rushed inside.
Well, that was pretty strange, I thought. But wait — if they were inside the school at that time, maybe they had seen something. Maybe, without realizing it, they had seen someone coming out of Ms. Colman’s class — someone who could have stolen the Genius!
Caught Red-handed!
The reenactment did not work. Everyone did everything they had done before, and nothing turned up. I asked Hannie and Nancy if they had seen anyone in Ms. Colman’s room, and Hannie said, “We were not anywhere near Ms. Colman’s room!”
“Yeah!” Nancy said. “How could we have seen anyone if we were not anywhere near Ms. Colman’s room at all?”
“I was just asking,” I said.
In the meantime, I was still going crazy without the Genius. On the bright side, my classmates were no longer quite so suspicious of me. Ms. Colman’s plan had convinced them my yo-yo was plain old lost, not stolen. Plus, Natalie found her crayons in her cubby, where she had left them. Hank found a rock on the playground that was even cooler than the one he had lost. And Audrey realized she had left her lunch money on the kitchen counter at home. (Audrey apologized to me for thinking I was a pickpocket.)
So my classmates did not think I was a thief. But I still had no yo-yo.
At recess on Thursday, the day after Ms. Colman’s reenactment, I was helping Bobby and Sara learn a new trick with their yo-yos. (Even though I did not have the Genius anymore, I was still trying to keep up with my yo-yoing. I had watched Mastering the Art of the Yo-Yo seven more times.) Hannie and Nancy were there too.
“Will you be showing Bobby and Sara this trick for awhile, Karen?” Hannie asked.
“Yes, I guess so,” I said. “Why?”
“Oh, no reason,” said Nancy. “We have to go now. You stay here. ’Bye.”
They ran off. I shook my head. Sometimes I could not figure them out, even though we are the Three Musketeers.
A few minutes later the bell rang, signaling the end of recess. I wondered where the other two Musketeers had gone. I did not see them anywhere on the playground.
Oh well, I said to myself. I guessed I would see Hannie and Nancy in Ms. Colman’s room. I filed into the school building with the rest of my class.
When we got to our classroom, I saw something strange.
Ms. Colman was sitting at her desk. And Hannie and Nancy were at the front of the room, their heads hanging, their faces red. They looked totally embarrassed and ashamed. Hannie was holding something in her hands. I could not tell what it was, and I had no idea what was going on.
“Hannie, Nancy,” said Ms. Colman in a stern voice. “I think you two have something to say to Karen.”
“To me?” I said.
“Karen … ” said Hannie.
Nancy sniffled a little.
“This belongs to you,” Hannie finished. She opened her hands. And inside them was … the Genius!
“We are so sorry!” Nancy wailed, and she and Hannie burst into tears.
A Big Mistake
“It all started,” said Hannie that afternoon after school, “when Ms. Holland took your yo-yo from you the second time.”
Hannie, Nancy, and I were at the big house. (Nancy’s mother had said she could come over.)
“But she took it from me the second time because I had swiped it out of Ms. Colman’s desk,” I reminded them.
“We know that now,” said Nancy. “But at the time, we thought Ms. Holland was just being mean and unfair.”
I remembered that I had not told Hannie and Nancy about taking the yo-yo from Ms. Colman’s desk because I was embarrassed. Maybe I should have trusted my friends and told them. I promised myself that the next time I did something naughty, I would tell them. (I am bound to do something naughty sometime.)
“We decided to take the Genius back and give it to you,” said Hannie. “So on Thursday morning, when you missed the bus, we sneaked into class and took it.”
“We did not know that you had already been caught taking the Genius out of Ms. Colman’s desk once before,” said Nancy. “So we did not know that Ms. Holland would think that you had taken it again.”
“If we had known that,” said Hannie, “we never would have taken the Genius. We were not trying to get you into trouble. We just wanted to get your yo-yo back for you.”
“But once Ms. Holland suspected you,” Nancy went on, “we could not give you the yo-yo. That would only have made you look guilty.”
“We could not even tell you we had taken it,” said Hannie. “We did not want you to have to lie about not knowing who had taken it. Since you were so close to being in big trouble, we figured we had to keep you completely innocent.”
“But you felt guilty,” I said. “And that is why you came to my house with cookies and bookmarks last weekend, right?”
Hannie and Nancy nodded.
“I hid the Genius under my bed all weekend,” said Nancy. “I felt terrible about getting you in trouble. I could hardly sleep.”
“But we did not want to get in trouble either, by admitting we took it,” said Hannie. “So we waited until Ms. Colman was out of the classroom today, and we sneaked in. We were just opening her desk drawer and putting the yo-yo back when —”
“Ms. Colman walked in,” I finished for her. “And caught you red-handed.”
Hannie and Nancy nodded again.
“And then the whole class walked in,” said Hannie. “Now everyone knows we were the yo-yo thieves.”
“I do not think I have ever been so ashamed in all my life,” said Nancy. She flushed red just thinking about it.
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I have been in trouble like that before. It is so embarrassing.”
“It is true, you have,” said Nancy at last. And she smiled a little bit.
“Remember when I got in trouble with the phone and could not make calls for a long time?” I said.
Hannie and Nancy nodded. They both smiled. Then all Three Musketeers were giggling together.
Stoneybrook Yo-cademy
I could not be mad at my friends. After all, they were only trying to help me when they swiped the Genius out of Ms. Colman’s desk. And Ms. Colman punished them. They would have to stay after school every day for a whole week to help Ms. Colman clean the classroom.
By Friday morning things were pretty much back to normal. I practiced yo-yo tricks all the time — except in the classroom! I had almost caught up to most of my friends. On Friday before school, I did a new trick called Thread the Needle, which I had learned from Mastering the Art of the Yo-Yo. No one else could Thread the Needle. I started to teach Hannie and Nancy how to do it.
When class began, Ms. Colman clapped her hands and said she had a special announcement.
I wiggled in my seat. I love Ms. Colman’s Surprising Announcements.
“Last week, while I was away at the conference, I learned about exciting ways to connect what we learn in the classroom to what we do outside,” said Ms. Colman. “As you know, we have been studying pendulums in the classroom. And many of us have been playing with yo-yos lately. Now, one of our students” — Ms. Colman looked at me and smiled — “noticed that a yo-yo swinging back and forth on the end of its string is, in fact, a pendulum. Then Pamela had an interesting suggestion. And so I decided to invite a very special group to come to our class to demonstrate some basic science concepts.”
All the kids started whispering. Who could Ms. Colman be talking about? I held my breath. Could it be —?
Ms. Colman walked to the classroom door, opened it, and said, “Please giv
e a big Stoneybrook Academy welcome to Team Yo!”
I gasped. In rushed the four yo-yo experts I had seen in downtown Stoneybrook! They were flipping their yo-yos around and doing fancy tricks. One of them even had a yo-yo in each hand! My classmates and I were so excited, we could not believe it. It was like a dream come true.
Team Yo! stayed almost the whole morning, doing tricks and showing how yo-yos can be used as pendulums. They also talked about gravity and centrifugal force. It was interesting — and educational too!
The last part of Team Yo!’s presentation was the best of all. They held a yo-yo contest for the kids in my class. We brought out our yo-yos and started flipping furiously. Our school had become Stoneybrook Yo-cademy!
After we had all demonstrated the tricks we could do, the Team Yo! members said they could not decide who was best. So they awarded everyone patches. Mine said TEAM YO! JUNIOR MEMBER. It was so cool! And it would look perfect sewed onto my new jacket. Right then and there, I made up a new yo-yo trick. I called it the Flip Kiss. I spun the Genius down into a sleeper, then pulled it up, and when it came up to my shoulder, I quickly leaned over and kissed it. Then I spun it down and zipped it back up. I was on my way to being a yo-yo champion — now that I had the Genius back.
About the Author
ANN M. MARTIN is the acclaimed and bestselling author of a number of novels and series, including Belle Teal, A Corner of the Universe (a Newbery Honor book), A Dog’s Life, Here Today, P.S. Longer Letter Later (written with Paula Danziger), the Family Tree series, the Doll People series (written with Laura Godwin), the Main Street series, and the generation-defining series The Baby-sitters Club. She lives in New York.
Copyright © 2000 by Ann M. Martin
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