Pennybaker School Is Headed for Disaster

by Jennifer Brown

  “You know,” Mom finally said as she pulled into the driveway, “it’s never too late to make things right. You realize that, don’t you, Thomas?” She turned off the car and gazed at me, her hand still on the keys, which were dangling from the ignition.

  “I guess,” I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure what she was getting at.

  “You can always apologize if you’ve hurt someone’s feelings or ask for forgiveness if you’ve made a mistake. Or, you know … return something that you might have accidentally taken.” Her voice got quieter and quieter as her sentence went on, probably because she could see my face getting frownier and frownier with every word.

  I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings or make any mistakes, and I haven’t stolen anything! I wanted to yell. But it seemed pretty pointless to say anything at all, so instead I just opened my door. “I’m going to see if Chip can hang out,” I said.

  I know. I couldn’t believe it, either.

  It was just that Chip was the only person who didn’t seem to be accusing me of anything these days.

  As usual, Chip was outside when I got there. Only he wasn’t outside outside. He was more like hanging outside. From his bedroom window. On the second floor.

  He was sitting on the window ledge so that one leg was dangling down the side of the house, his back against the window frame. He was holding a pizza slice. And using it as a microphone. For an opera song.

  I tried to wait until he was done, but opera songs are apparently really long. And horrible. Like the-sound-of-something-dying-under-the-sea horrible. Louis XIV: Operatic octopus obliteration. I ended up having to interrupt him.

  “Oh, hey, Thomas!” he said, waving with his whole arm—the one not holding the pizza. He wavered a little from the motion, and I half expected him to fall all the way out and land in the bushes below. Something else for the whole world to blame me for. “I’ll be right down.”

  He disappeared inside his bedroom, and a few minutes later popped through the front door, the pizza half-eaten now, a slick of orange grease trailing down his chin.

  “You’re just in time for act two. It’s very exciting. The whole thing is a telling of the infamous Tomato Revolution of 1616. Act one sets up the romantic interest between Sir Pepper Roni and his fair maiden, Mozzarella. It’s lovely, but theirs is a forbidden love, and soon the evil temptress Mary Nara sweeps in and causes all kinds of problems. In act two, Mary almost gets away but is captured by Lieutenant Incisor in a rousing duet—note I said duet, not diet.” He laughed the stuffy kind of man laugh Dad uses when we run into someone from his work at the grocery store. “The Molar Prison aria is quite beautiful. Would you mind taking the harmony?” He opened his mouth wide to begin singing.

  “Chip,” I said. “Just eat your pizza.”

  His mouth clopped shut, and then he shrugged and took a bite. “Okay. But you’ll be sorry to miss the finale. A four-part harmony led by the olives. I suppose you’ll have to wait until the show comes back on tour next pizza day.”

  “I think I can do that,” I said. I plopped down on his front porch and rested my chin on my hands glumly. “I have nothing better to do but wait.”

  He sat, gazing at me thoughtfully and stroking an invisible beard. “I’m not wearing my psychology socks,” he said, “but nevertheless I’m beginning to pick up on a mood change with you today.”

  “What?”

  He took another bite of his pizza. A hunk of pepperoni was now stuck in the grease on his chin. “You seem sad,” he said.

  “Oh. That. Yeah.”

  “Might I inquire what has your normally balanced brain chemicals in an unstable predicament?”

  “Are you asking what’s wrong?”

  He nodded. “To put it colloquially, yes.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Why I was sitting here on Chip Mason’s front porch, getting ready to spill my guts, I had no idea. But even before my mouth opened and stuff started coming out of it, I knew I was going to do it. Because even though Chip was weird and I never understood anything he had to say, he was willing to listen. And right now I really needed a friend who would listen.

  “Someone stole this bust from my school,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. I heard about that,” Chip said. He nibbled on his crust before tossing it into the yard. Two birds immediately went after it. “The head of the late, great Helen Heirmauser, correct?”

  “Yeah. Some bronze sculpture of her screaming.”

  He held up a finger. “Actually, it was most likely a copper and tin alloy.”

  I paused. “Anyway—”

  “Although I suppose it could be any mixture of metals. Could include nickel, lead, iron, or even zinc, perhaps. Though it’s most likely copper and ti—”

  “Do you want to hear the story or not?” I interrupted.

  He tucked his hands under his thighs and lowered his head. “Go on.”

  “So someone stole the head, and for some reason, everyone thinks it was me. Well, not just for some reason. They think it was me because I called it a ‘head of horror’ a few times. And I said it was creepy. And I might have hit it with a spitwad once.”

  Chip, who’d begun to look increasingly concerned with every word that came out of my mouth, suddenly gasped. “That’s bad,” he said.

  “I know. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. I just didn’t realize everyone was so in love with the thing. And I still don’t get why. But because I can do magic, everyone thinks I made it disappear. Like I can just tuck a giant head into my pocket without anyone noticing.”

  “Is that really how you make things disappear? You tuck them into your pocket?”

  “Well, there’s more to it than … you’re missing the point, Chip. Even my parents and my Grandma Jo think I stole it. They won’t let me go to Erma’s recitals, nobody at school talks to me, and Mom’s telling me to return it. But I don’t have it. I don’t even know who would!”

  “Sounds like a real mystery,” he said. He scuffed his shoes against each other. “Granted, I’m not wearing my sleuth socks, but it still has all the hallmarks of a mystery, so I feel confident in calling it that regardless.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I wish I could solve it so everything could go back to normal. Or to whatever normal is at Pennybaker School.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the squeak of Chip’s shoe soles rubbing together.

  Suddenly, he turned to me, his face all lit up like it was Christmas morning. “Hey! I know!”

  “What?”

  “It’s a whodunit, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And, while I may not be wearing them now, I do have mystery socks. I might even have a spare pair that you can borrow. And I’m pretty good at reasoning and problem solving and consider myself quite rational. Plus I’ve watched a lot of Scooby-Doo.” He beamed. “What do you say?”

  “What do I say about what?”

  He started flapping his hands between us madly. “We could solve the mystery together.”

  “What mystery are you talking about? And if I have to wear funny socks, I’m out.”

  “The mystery of who stole the Heirmauser head. No socks required.”

  I chewed my lip. “I don’t know …”

  “Oh, come on, Thomas! It will be fun. We’ll walk about the city peering at things through magnifying glasses, wearing disguises, having thoughtful yet charming powwows about clues that we’ve gathered.”

  I stood up. “I’m not having a charming anything with anyone.”

  He popped up next to me. He still had a lump of pepperoni stuck to his chin. “We’ll find out who stole the head and return it to Pennybaker School. And when we reveal our evidence, people will have no choice but to believe that you didn’t do it.”

  “I don’t know …,” I said again, but honestly I wasn’t sure what I was so hesitant about. As much as I hated to admit it, Chip Mason had a good idea. And he was right—when I brought the real thief to justice, everyone would h
ave to admit that I was innocent all along. They would have to apologize. And maybe even throw a We, the Entire Town of Boone, Are Sorry, Thomas Fallgrout, for Ever Disbelieving You and Calling You a Liary Stealer, Because You Are Awesome and We Should Have Seen All Along That You Couldn’t Possibly Have Been the One to Steal Anything Party.

  Okay, so the party title could use a little refining, but the point was …

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  Chip jumped up and down with glee, seemed to catch himself, and instead held out one hand very solemnly. After a few seconds, I realized he wanted to shake on it. I took his hand in mine.

  And I was officially solving a mystery with the weirdest kid in Boone County.

  TRICK #17

  IT’S ALL IN THE HANDS

  The next morning, there was a snowstorm.

  Which was weird in September. But, then again, everything was weird lately.

  But, still a possible snow day is a possible snow day, and what better time for a snow day than when all that awaited you at school was silence, mean glares, and the short-leg desk? I raced to my window, threw open the curtains, and …

  Never mind. It wasn’t snow.

  It was paper. A whole lot of saliva-coated little balls of paper. Spitwads. And my window was covered with them. Sometime during the night, or maybe early in the morning, someone had used my window for target practice. A clear message that I was now the target.

  “So this is how it is now, huh?” I said out loud, but nobody was listening, because I was all alone in my bedroom.

  Quickly, I dressed in my uniform, making sure to slide my special team captain straw into my shirt pocket, just in case the message was that everyone had forgiven me, they all knew they were wrong to suspect me in the first place, and the boys versus girls war was on after all.

  That wasn’t the case.

  I followed Owen and Flea around all morning, trying to figure out what was going on. They went about their day pretty much normally, except that every so often, they would pass each other in the hallway and make strange hand signals to each other, as if they were talking with sign language. Everyone else seemed to be watching me carefully, and I could have sworn I saw a few spitwad straws poking out of pockets, but I was too afraid to make eye contact with anyone long enough to find out for sure. I didn’t want my face to be the next snowstorm scene.

  I finally got my chance to really check things out during Four Square class. We were outside and were supposed to be running the trail that circled the soccer field, but most kids were standing around talking while Coach Abel chatted with Principal Rooster, who was still wearing his Heirmauser wig. Owen was wearing a soup pot on his head, the handle poking straight out behind him, and he and Flea were bent over one of Owen’s computers, which was set up on a picnic table by the gym door. I snuck up behind them, pretending I had a cramp, and peered over Owen’s shoulder.

  Looked like plans to me. A map, maybe. Strategy. A square box labeled “Foxhole.”

  And beneath that a chart of hand signals and what they meant. Two thumbs up, “Fire at will.” Two thumbs down, “We’ve been spotted.” A strange forefinger/middle finger crossing thing, “Sniper.” A single pinky in the air, “Bathroom break.” Other hand signals meant things like, “Girl unprotected at two o’clock,” “Medic,” and, “Nurse Hale is coming. Abort mission! Abort mission!”

  It took all I had not to gasp. They were having the spitwad war after all.

  But they were having it without me. The captain.

  Well, now I was just plain mad.

  I caught up with Wesley in the greenroom after fourth period. He was wiping stage makeup off his face and only had one side done, making half of him look intensely surprised. He jumped when I came in, and held a tissue between us like a shield. He looked around the room, panicked.

  “Where are your henchmen?” I asked. I could have said “Buckley and Colton,” but “henchmen” sounded much more like something someone should say when face-to-face with his betrayer.

  “Henchmen?” Wesley said, his lip twisting in confusion. “You mean Buckley and Colton? Dude, they’re not henchmen. Buckley still sleeps with a night-light.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to know that information, but I decided it could be helpful knowledge somewhere down the line.

  “Listen,” he said, holding out his hands, stop sign–style. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m just taking off my Nicely Nicely face and then going to lunch.”

  “Lunch?” I said, moving in on him despite his outstretched arms. Not that I was going to do anything, but there was something kind of satisfying about making him worry that I would. “Or target practice?”

  Now both sides of Wesley’s face looked surprised.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I know all about it. How you’ve decided to have the spitwad war without me. The hand signals you’ve created. Do you know what this symbol is?” I turned my thumbs down right in front of his face.

  “We’ve been spotted?” he said in a quavering voice.

  “No, it means traitor!” Although he was right. According to Owen’s computer notes, it did mean “We’ve been spotted.” “It means turncoat! Double-crosser! Back stabber! Benjamin Franklin!”

  He lifted a finger hesitantly. “I think you mean Benedict Arnold.”

  “I know what I mean,” I yelled, because sometimes yelling could cover up getting embarrassing things wrong. “I’m going to give you another signal. Are you ready for it?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his hands grabbing his shoulders, and leaned backward as far as he could over the makeup table. I made a bunch of ridiculous—and something I would never remember again—motions with my hands. A lot of fluttering and snapping and possibly the sign-language gesture for “kangaroo.” I ended, strangely, by kissing the tips of my fingers, one by one, which I didn’t want to be doing but which was one of those things where once you start, you’ve got to commit and keep going.

  “I don’t think I learned that one yet,” Wesley said.

  “Of course you didn’t. I just came up with it.” I slowly backed away from him, all sinister-like, toward the door. “But I’ll tell you what it means. It means you have an enemy on that battlefield. A spitwad ninja. Someone who isn’t playing for either side. It means you should be very careful out there, Wesley, because I’m going to be a team of one. And I’m coming for you.” I almost paused to repeat that in my head. I didn’t want to forget it, because it sounded like something someone would say in one of Dad’s action movies, and I wanted to remember it forever, in the likely event that I would never get to make an awesome good-guy-going-rogue speech again. I started out the door, then had a thought and turned back. “Oh. It also means I’m not sitting in the uneven desk anymore. So … there.”

  I plunged out into the hallway, a weird lump forming in the back of my throat. I supposed I had realized it as soon as I saw the blizzard on my window. But after everything I’d just said, it was officially sinking in.

  I wasn’t just Wesley’s enemy.

  I was everybody’s enemy.

  Everybody, that was, except Chip Mason.

  TRICK #18

  THERE’S A PLAN BEHIND YOUR EAR

  It took me an hour to scrape all the dried spitwads off my bedroom window. Now the bushes looked kind of Christmassy, but the window itself just looked … spitty. With each scrunch of my mom’s ice scraper against the window, I silently vowed to sit up all night, if that was what it took, my special straw in hand and my window open just enough …

  “Hey, Thomas,” I heard, and almost fell off the stepladder I was standing on.

  “Jeez, Chip, you scared me,” I breathed. “You shouldn’t sneak up on a guy like that.”

  “Sorry. But technically, I wasn’t sneaking. Sneaking would require an intent to be silent for the purpose of not being detected. I just happened to be walking silently. And I said your name. Which means I was definitely not interested in not being detected.” He held out a hand and
bowed his head. “I know. Two negatives in one sentence. I’ll write an extra paragraph in tonight’s grammar reflection.”

  “That sounds like really boring homework.”

  “Oh, it’s not homework. I just like to do it.”

  I turned back to my scraping. “What do you want, Chip?”

  “I’ve been thinking.” He sat on the bottom step of my stepladder, making me sway. I held on to the window sash. “The other day, when you were giving me the details of the pate peculation …”

  “The what what?”

  “The pate peculation.” Chip looked testy. It was the first time I’d ever seen that look on him. “The head theft? ‘Pate,’ head. ‘Peculation,’ theft. I was trying to be creative.”

  I came down off the stepladder, forcing him to move over so I didn’t step on him. “Look,” I said. “If we’re going to be hanging out together for this thing, you’re going to have to start speaking English.”

  “That was English.”

  “Then you need to start speaking normal English.”

  He sighed. “Okay, okay, but that’s not the point of what I was trying to say anyway. Can I finish?”

  I dropped the ice scraper in the yard and sank down in the grass next to it. “Go ahead.”

  He took a deep breath. “When you were giving me details of how it all happened, you mentioned some curious things.” He poked a finger in the air. “One, you said one of the custodians fainted.”

  “Crumbs, yeah.”

  “And you said another one caught him. You used a name that I very much doubt was her given name, as most people don’t name their children after housecleaning devices.”

  “Zelda the Mop. Get to the point, Chip.”

  “And you said a third custodian was out for the day.”

  I found a spitwad in the grass and flicked it with my forefinger. It ricocheted off the house and landed in the bush with the others. “So?”

  Chip stood and started pacing. “So,” he said. “You later mentioned that the principal was trying to re-create the statue, but before that, you said there was someone else messing with the pedestal it had previously been resting on, and his chin was right on the darker spot where the head had hidden the sunlight from the wood.”