by Nancy Krulik
“You guys know it wasn’t me,” George said to Chris, Alex, and Julianna as they sat down at the lunch table.
“I believe you,” Julianna said.
“Me too,” Alex said. “It was just weird that the skeleton in the nurse’s office was wearing the same mask you tried on in the store the other day. Good thing you were kicked out before you could buy the mask. Because if you hadn’t been . . .”
“That would have been another clue that pointed to me,” George finished.
Just then two fifth-graders walked past George and his friends.
“Jerk,” one of them said, coughing into his hand as he passed.
“If Principal McKeon really does cancel the parade, everyone will think it’s my fault,” George groaned.
“I know how to stop that from happening,” Chris said suddenly.
“How?” George asked.
“Easy,” Chris said. “We just have to find out who the real Phantom is, and tell him to stop pranking.”
“How?” George repeated.
Chris shrugged. “I didn’t figure that part out yet.”
There was something else that no one had figured out yet—how to stop the super burp from bursting out of George. That was a solution George could have really used. Right now! Because the bubbles were back.
Bing-bong. Ping-pong. The bubbles bounced on George’s bladder, and leaped onto his lungs. They jumped up to George’s jaw and tickled his tongue.
George shut his mouth tight and tried to trap the burp. But the bubbles were strong. Too strong.
Suddenly George let out a burp. It wasn’t a supersonic super burp. It was more like a mini burp. But that was enough.
His hands grabbed a big slice of salami from his tray and slapped it against his face like a mask. George’s nose poked itself right through the slice of salami.
Aachooo! George’s nose sneezed!
“Gross!” Louie yelled.
“Oh, Georgie!” Sage gasped. “You’re not going to eat that now, are you?”
George wanted to tell Sage he didn’t eat booger-covered salami. But when he opened his mouth, all that came out was, “Not without mustard!”
George’s hand folded itself into a fist and slammed down on one of the mustard packs on his tray.
Squirt! Mustard flew up in the air.
“Cut that out!” Louie shouted from across the table. “I don’t like mustard.”
“Mount Mustard is erupting!” George shouted. He popped three mustard packs with one big blow. “Take cover!”
Sage moved her chair away. “This is my favorite shirt, Georgie,” she told him. “Don’t get mustard on it, please!”
“Whoa!” Chris exclaimed as he watched a big glob of mustard shoot into the air. “I think you just got mustard on the ceiling. Impressive.”
“Dude, you gotta stop,” Alex told him. “Principal McKeon’s on her way over.”
But George couldn’t stop. He wasn’t in charge anymore. The super burp was.
George grabbed two packs of mustard from Chris’s tray. He pulled his fist back, and got ready to pound. And then . . .
Pop! George felt the air rush right out of him. The mini super burp was gone. But George was still there. With salami on his face and mustard on his fist.
“George Brown! What are you doing?” Principal McKeon demanded. “Food is not meant to be played with.”
George opened his mouth to say, “I’m sorry.” And that’s exactly what came out.
“Get some napkins and clean up this mess,” the principal told him.
As the principal walked away, Louie shook his head. “First you pull all your Phantom pranks, and now you’re making mustard explode. You won’t stop until the principal is so mad she cancels the parade!”
By now, half the kids in the cafeteria were staring at George.
George frowned. “Stick a fork in me,” he groaned to Alex, Julianna, and Chris. “I’m done.”
“Don’t worry, dude,” Alex assured him. “We’ll figure something out.”
George knew Alex was trying to be nice. But Alex had been trying for months to solve George’s burp problem. And that thing was still around.
The parade was scheduled for the day after tomorrow. If they didn’t find the true identity of the Phantom soon, George wasn’t going to need a Halloween costume. He could just go as George Brown, world’s most hated fourth-grader.
“I love art class, don’t you, Georgie?” Sage asked George later that afternoon as Mrs. Kelly’s class walked down the hall to the art room.
George shrugged. “Sure,” he told her. “Art’s cool.”
“We’re painting self-portraits today,” Sage continued. “That’s why I wore my favorite shirt. Because I always want to remember how much I loved this shirt. And with a painting . . .”
George kept looking at Sage, even though he really wasn’t listening anymore. He was just watching her mouth move up and down. It was kind of amazing how much Sage could talk once she got going. Blah, blah, blah . . .
Whoops! Bam!
The next thing George knew, he was sitting on the floor.
Well, actually, he was sitting on top of Louie, who was lying on the floor because George had just slammed into him.
“What are you doing?” Louie demanded.
“Walking to art class,” George answered. “At least I was until I bumped into you. Why did you stop?”
“To pick up this quarter,” Louie explained. “But it’s stuck to the floor.”
George reached over and tried to pick up the quarter. Sure enough, it was glued down. George took another look.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” George said with a laugh. “It’s one of the oldest gags in the world.”
“You know it’s a gag?” Louie asked him.
“Well, yeah,” George said. “Look. The coin says, United Snakes of America. Real quarters don’t say that.”
“So you admit this glued quarter was a prank,” Louie continued.
“Of course it is,” George said.
“That proves it,” Louie announced.
“Proves what?” George asked.
“Only the Phantom would know it was a prank,” Louie pointed out proudly—and loudly.
“Anyone would have known it was a fake,” George insisted. “Just look at it. Don’t you see . . .”
But Louie wasn’t listening to George anymore. Louie was too busy listening to Max and Mike, who were telling him how wonderful he was. Again.
“You’re a genius,” Max complimented Louie.
“You definitely proved it,” Mike agreed.
George looked around. Some of the other kids in the hallway were whispering to each other. Even Alex and Julianna were looking at him strangely.
George couldn’t believe it. Was it possible that his best friends doubted him, too? Why? It was obvious Louie hadn’t really proved anything—except that he was a total jerk. And everybody already knew that.
“The Phantom’s note from the quarter was actually pretty creepy,” Alex told Chris at the end of the day. “It said, ‘Paging all kids! Your days are numbered—not much time to find the Phantom.’”
“You remembered the whole note by heart?” Chris asked him.
“It was too creepy to forget.” Alex said.
“Where was it posted?” Chris asked.
“On the wall near the fake quarter Louie tried to pick up,” Julianna said.
“The quarter Louie accused me of gluing to the floor,” George added. “When would I have time to do that? I was with the class the whole day.” George groaned. “Everyone thinks I’m the Phantom. Even you guys doubt me a little bit. Come on, admit it.”
Alex, Julianna, and Chris looked sheepishly at the ground.
“Nah,” Chris said
finally. “Not really.”
“You’d never do something like this,” Julianna added.
“Not on purpose,” Alex said. “And the Phantom is definitely doing this on purpose.”
George smiled. It was nice to know his friends were still in his corner. “But if Principal McKeon cancels that parade, they’re gonna run me out of town.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Alex said.
“Okay, run me out of school,” George corrected himself. “I gotta find a way to stop these pranks. And fast.”
Later that afternoon, George sat at his desk trying to do his homework. But it was impossible to concentrate on multiplying fractions when he knew practically the whole school was blaming him for the pranks.
George had to solve this mystery. Otherwise everyone would hate him. Quickly he picked up his pencil and began writing on a blank page in his notebook.
CLUES
1) The Phantom is strong enough to turn over desks.
That means he can’t be a little kid, George thought to himself.
2) The Phantom uses cutout letters so no one will recognize his handwriting.
3) The Phantom can move around the school without being noticed.
4) The Phantom gets to school early so he can set up some pranks before anyone else gets there.
George looked at that last clue and started to laugh, remembering the rubber nose on the Edith B. Sugarman statue, and the rubber mask over the skeleton’s head. Those two pranks were hilarious.
5) The Phantom is a funny guy.
George crossed out that clue. It pointed straight at him. And that wasn’t a good thing.
George frowned as he looked back at his notes. All he’d figured out was that the Phantom was someone big, someone who didn’t want the kids to recognize his handwriting, and someone who got to school early. That could be any one of a hundred different people.
Grrr . . . things sure looked ba-a-ad for George!
But he wasn’t going to give up. He just had to think harder. There had to be more clues somewhere. Maybe in the notes the Phantom had left.
Still, the more George thought about those notes, the more confused he got. They were just a bunch of creepy gobbledygook about keeping your eyes open for the next chapter, checking the contents of your food, or covering your tracks. And of course there was that really weird one that pointed out the fact that skeletons didn’t have appendixes or stomachs.
If there were any clues there, George sure didn’t see them. This was a bummer, because as the Phantom had warned, the days before the parade were definitely numbered!
It was too bad George wasn’t a detective in one of his mystery books. They were always able to figure out the clues and catch the bad guys. Sometimes they got the guy to admit he was the criminal, and sometimes they caught him red-handed.
But George wasn’t a detective in a book. He was just a kid. And this was real life. There was no way George was going to catch someone red-handed.
But then again, maybe he could. George had just come up with a great idea. And he couldn’t wait to get to school the next day to put it into action!
George was feeling pretty confident as he walked into the school building the next morning. He had a plan to catch the Phantom. All he had to do was wait for . . .
“OKAY!” Coach Trainer shouted as he ran out of the gym. “I’ve had enough! No one messes with my basketballs!”
Yes! That was just what George had been waiting for.
“Coach Trainer, what’s wrong?” Mrs. Kelly asked.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Coach Trainer repeated. He gasped. “Just go look at the gym!”
A whole crowd of kids followed Coach Trainer and Mrs. Kelly to the gym.Principal McKeon was already standing there.
“Oh boy!” Alex said as they walked into the gym. “This one’s bad.”
George looked around. Someone had dumped all the basketballs onto the gym floor. And to make things worse, they’d put Halloween wigs on the balls, and drawn faces on them with something that looked like lipstick.
“There’s another note,” Max said.
“Yeah, right here, on the wall under the basket,” Mike added.
“Let me read that!” Louie said, ripping the note off the door. He started to read. “‘This is my best prank yet. So I’m giving myself a new title: Phantastic Phantom.’
“I think we should call the police,” Louie said. “I bet those basketballs have George’s fingerprints all over them.”
Everyone looked at George. But this time George wasn’t frowning. He wasn’t even shaking his head no. He was smiling.
“You won’t find my fingerprints on those basketballs,” he told Louie. “But you will find a clue on the real Phantom’s fingers.”
“You mean the Phantastic Phantom’s fingers,” Mike corrected him. He shook his head. “That’s hard to say,” he added.
Louie rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about, George?” he demanded.
A murmur went through the crowd. The other kids in school were obviously wondering the same thing.
“I set a trap for the Phantom,” George told the kids. “Right here in the gym.”
“How could you know the Phantom was going to strike in the gym?” Louie demanded. “Unless of course you are the Phantom.”
“I’m not,” George insisted. “I just figured that the Phantom had already pranked the cafeteria, the nurse’s office, the lobby, a classroom, and the hallway. The only places left were the library or the gym. So right before I left school yesterday, I sprinkled a heat-sensitive powder all over the balls in the gym, and some of the books in the library. You can’t see it, but it’s there. The powder is invisible—until it makes contact with the heat of human skin. Then it turns red.”
“He’s lying,” Louie told the kids. “George isn’t smart enough to come up with a powder like that.”
“No, I’m not,” George admitted. “But Alex is. He read about it in a science magazine.”
Everyone turned and stared at Alex. But Alex didn’t say a word. He was too busy staring at George.
“At this very moment, the real Phantom’s fingers should be bright red,” George continued.
Everyone looked around. No one moved.
No one except Principal McKeon and Mrs. Kelly, that is. They turned their hands over, and stared at their fingers.
“It was you two?” George asked, surprised.
“What are you talking about?” Louie demanded. “They’re our principal and our teacher. And their fingers aren’t red.”
“Of course not. I never actually had any heat-sensitive powder,” George said proudly. “I don’t even know if it exists. But I did know the real Phantom would look at his hands to see if they were really red. I just never thought grown-ups would do this kind of thing.”
George paused and thought about the list of clues he had made the night before. “But it makes sense,” he continued. “You guys are big enough to turn over desks, you had to hide your handwriting because we’ve all seen it on our tests and papers, and you get to school before any of us do, so you could move the skeleton to Nurse Cuttaway’s office or put the nose on the statue in the lobby.”
Mrs. Kelly smiled. “Pretending there was a magic powder was a good trick, George. You caught us red-handed.” She looked at her bare hands. “Well, sort of, anyway.”
Principal McKeon laughed. “That was pretty sneaky. And pretty smart.”
“Thanks,” George said. “But there is something I still can’t figure out. What’s your motive? In every book I’ve ever read, the criminal has a motive.”
“You’re right,” Principal McKeon replied.
“And our motive was to get you excited about reading books,” Mrs. Kelly explained. “Mystery books. Because next month is going to be Mystery Book Month at Edith
B. Sugarman Elementary School.”
“Mystery Book Month?” Louie repeated.
“Yes,” Principal McKeon told him. “Every grade in the school will be reading mysteries during the month of November. Solving your own mystery seemed like a fun way to get the mystery excitement started.”
“Books,” George repeated. “I should have known. There were clues in every one of the Phantom’s notes. Words. Chapter. Contents. Cover. Appendix. Paging. Numbered. Title. Those are all things you find in books!”
“Exactly!” Mrs. Kelly said. She gave George a big, gummy grin.
“But how were you able to set up some of the pranks without us knowing?” George asked. “Like the worm in Sage’s lunch?”
“The whole faculty knew about the pranks,” Principal McKeon told him. “The lunch lady put the rubber worm in the food. Mr. Coleman stuck the quarter to the floor.”
“That makes sense,” George said. “No one would think twice about seeing him in the hallway.”
Louie turned to Coach Trainer. “You let them draw on the basketballs?” he asked, surprised.
Coach Trainer nodded. “It washes off. And it was all for a good cause.”
“But why would you say you were going to cancel the parade for something you did?” Julianna asked Principal McKeon.
“I never said I was going to cancel the parade,” Principal McKeon corrected her. “I just said that privileges can be taken away. You kids were the ones who decided that the privilege to be taken away was the parade.”
“Besides, we were pretty sure one of you would figure out the mystery before that would happen,” Mrs. Kelly said. She smiled proudly at George.
“I had to figure it out,” George said. “There was no other way to prove it wasn’t me.”
“That sure was good motivation, George,” Principal McKeon said. Suddenly she sounded very stern. “It was very unfair for you to be accused of a crime without any proof. I was surprised that that even happened. I thought the kids in this school knew better than to make anyone a scapegoat. I think some of your classmates need to apologize. Not now. But privately.”
