by N. Griffin
Smashie slapped her forehead. “I should have known that!” she said. “My grammy calls them that sometimes. But ‘diced’? What could that mean?”
“When my dad cooks and the recipe says diced,” said Dontel, “it means he cuts the stuff up into little cubes.”
The two were silent, thinking of potatoes in little cubes.
“What the heck?” said Smashie. “How are we going to find a pile of potatoes in little cubes?”
“Maybe it’s another sign?” Dontel suggested. “Like, breakfast hash browns or something on a sign for a restaurant?”
But neither of them could think of a single sign like that nearby.
“Dontel,” said Smashie, “the note says that Carlos will receive the final note during the SPUDS DICED. How can you receive something during a sign, for heaven’s sake?”
“I surely do not know,” said Dontel. “Smashie, have we come this far only to fail?” He looked at her in despair.
Smashie looked back at him. Then she sat up straight. “Let’s dance it out. Motion sparks the notion, says Ms. Early, and it’s worked for us before!”
“Let’s do it!” They Ponied. They Swam. They Temptation Walked, Skated, and Shimmied. And then Smashie stopped short, forcing Dontel to bump into her as he Shimmied. “Sorry,” he said. “I got distracted and was thinking about my astronomy piece that I’m speaking in the musicale.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Smashie cried.
“Well, it does to me,” said Dontel, stung.
But Smashie shook her head and began to laugh. “I don’t mean your piece, Dontel. I meant it didn’t matter that you bumped into me because I know what SPUDS DICED means! It’s the last dance! It’s the Mashed Potato!”
“Motion does spark the notion!” cried Dontel. “Smashie!”
“Exactly! Charlene’s plan is to give Carlos the last part of the formula during the Mashed Potato. During our very own class musicale!”
“Why couldn’t she just say that plainly?” Dontel asked. “SPUDS DICED is a heck of a way to get the idea across.”
“Well, she is limited by the tens and ones code,” Smashie pointed out. “She can use any letters for the first word, but the second word has to be made up of only the letters A through I, because you can only have up to nine ones in a number in the ones spot.”
“That’s true. Good math thinking, Smash. In that case, it’s pretty clever,” said Dontel. “But still sneaky! We have to stop her! Mrs. Stott is too nice to not be the one to make and sell their goop!”
“Do you think Carlos’s dad put Carlos up to it? Is he the nefarious type?” Smashie wondered.
“I don’t know him,” said Dontel. “I go to a barber.”
“Well, we can figure all that out at the musicale. But for now, we better plot! How are we going to intercept that last note?”
“Motion sparks the notion,” said Dontel again firmly. “We are going to have to tweak the choreography of the Mashed Potato so you and I can make sure that Charlene can’t get to Carlos.”
“And we get the note ourselves and get it back to Charlene’s mom!” Smashie shook her head sadly. “Mrs. Stott’s feelings are going to be terribly hurt,” she said. “Betrayed by her own daughter!”
“I know,” said Dontel soberly. “It would be like me stealing my dad’s dental drill.”
“Ugh,” said Smashie. “I think a lot of people would be glad if you did that, actually.”
“Hrmm,” said Dontel.
And, their crackers eaten and milk drunk, they put their heads together and planned the dance.
The following day, all was chaos for the dress rehearsal. The two third-grade classes were in the auditorium. Ms. Early and Miss Dismont were shouting instructions, and there were some other grown-ups, family members of the performers, milling about as well, helping.
“Let’s just run through all the dances!” shouted Ms. Early. She clapped her hands. “Line up and we’ll go straight through.” And they did. At last it was time to tweak the particulars of the Mashed Potato. Smashie and Dontel exchanged glances.
“We thought this one would look better if we danced it in two rows on the diagonals, Ms. Early,” said Dontel. “With partners.”
“Can we pick our partners?” Charlene asked quickly.
“Ooh, she wants to dance with Carlos,” said Siggie.
“Don’t tease,” said John. “One day it might be you.”
Charlene blushed. “You all leave me alone!”
“No,” said Smashie. “We thought it would look good if we were all in height order.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Miss Dismont. “Come on, kids, line yourselves up by height, smallest to tallest, please.” And after some tussling and arguing and standing back-to-back with witnesses, the third grade was in a perfect ascending line of height.
“Rats,” muttered Charlene. For she was several inches taller than Carlos. Jacinda, clocking in at the same height, was his partner. Charlene cast her an anguished look, and Jacinda looked apologetically back.
But Dontel and Smashie looked at each other with satisfaction. For Dontel matched with Charlene.
Cyrus matched with Smashie. “Boy, am I glad we’re the same height,” said Cyrus to Smashie. “Thank you for helping me again last night.”
Smashie beamed at him. “No problem. I’m glad we’re partners, too. You’ve really improved! We’ll have a good time with this one.” Then, remembering her and Dontel’s plan, she told him, “Just follow my lead.”
“Will do,” said Cyrus.
And the Mashed Potato went off without a hitch.
Sweaty and satisfied with the third-graders’ dancing as she was, Smashie couldn’t help but feel a pang when the musical acts rehearsed. What would it be like to sing in front of everybody, like Tatiana was doing? Oh, well. As Smashie’s mother had said, her job this time was to do her best with the role she was given and just make sure she was prepared the next time an opportunity to sing came around.
Onstage, Dontel was practicing his piece about astronomy and the night sky.
“Great job,” Smashie whispered to him as he came offstage to join her.
“Thanks,” said Dontel.
“We still have the brownies for Mr. Bloom, remember, for when he comes back from his conference.”
“Stale,” said Dontel sadly.
“Yes,” said Smashie. “And we have no more time to bake fresh ones! Not if we are going to stop this crime! We will have to hope he understands the gesture.”
Onstage, John sat at the piano. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch the keys.
“It’s okay,” soothed Miss Dismont. “Just close your eyes and pretend no one is here.”
“If I close my eyes I can’t see the keys,” said John miserably. He hung his head.
“Come with me, John,” said Ms. Early, and she led him away for a heart-to-heart. The children couldn’t hear what she said, but they could see John shaking his head firmly from side to side.
“I don’t think he’ll be able to do it,” said Dontel.
“Poor guy,” said Smashie sympathetically. “He’s usually so fierce and brave.”
“Well, we know performing can be the pits,” said Dontel. “Remember that basketball game where your grammy and my dad made us dance?”
And Smashie shuddered to remember. There had been boos.
She turned to the rest of the third grade. “We can’t tease him,” she said, eyeing Siggie and Billy. A light died in their eyes. “We have to make him feel like he can do it.” She couldn’t help but feel the irony of the situation, though. Here was Smashie, wanting to sing, and there was John, not wanting to. But Smashie couldn’t help but admire the way he was attacking a fear like this. She just hoped he could do it.
“If he can’t,” said Joyce, “let’s cover for his number and pretend it was never supposed to happen.”
“But then we won’t dance the Mashed Potato!” cried Charlene. “That’s the dance that goes with John�
��s piece.”
“Oh, we’ll dance it, all right,” said Dontel grimly, pegging her with a look. “We’ll dance it if it’s the last thing we do.”
“Well, it is the last thing we do,” said Joyce practically. “It’s the end of the Hair Extravaganza and Musicale.”
“Everybody, just hope,” said Smashie. “Alonso, you and John are good friends. Can you help him?”
“I can try,” said Alonso. “I can offer to do the percussion for his song so he’s not all alone onstage.”
“Great idea,” said Dontel. “Let’s hope it works.”
But their worry was interrupted by Tatiana, careening into the gym.
“Look!” she cried. “LOOK! It’s a jar of our missing Herr Goop!”
“What?!”
“Where?!” The class was agog.
“It was on the bookcase in the reading corner!” Tatiana said breathlessly. “I went back to Room 11 to get the lyrics for my song and saw it there. Someone must have just set it down there while we were all doing our work.”
“Someone?” muttered Dontel to Smashie. “Someone named Charlene, is what I think. My bet is that it’s a jar she already took and used for one of the codes to Carlos.”
“Dontel! I bet you’re right!”
“And I bet the jar she said was from a ‘mysterious benefactor’ was a jar she had already used for the codes, too,” said Dontel. “That’s why the label was thicker on that jar — because Charlene put a clean label over the coded one. So it was a double layer! And then, just now, she planted this other jar in the reading corner. I bet that one has a double layer of labels, too.”
Smashie agreed. “I think that’s all correct,” she said. “Mrs. Stott laughed when I mentioned the mysterious benefactor during my haircut. I thought she was just happy about having a mysterious benefactor with a trained monkey, but now I think —”
“Charlene,” finished Dontel. “She made it all up.”
If the final rehearsal had been hectic, the night of the actual performance the next day was energized chaos. Rooms 11 and 12 were filled with students dressed in ways that fit their numbers and with family members trying to put finishing touches on their children before the teachers shooed them into the auditorium to watch the show. Charlene and her mother were racing about like mad things, twisting hair into lengthened and molded shapes for the first number, the Pony.
“Smashie,” Dontel said, “this is it. This is the night we find out what’s going on for real.”
“I know,” said Smashie. “Dontel, you be sure to dance Charlene away from Jacinda and Carlos in the Mashed Potato. I’ve got to be clear to grab that note!”
“I will,” Dontel promised. “But keep your voice down! The place is crawling with family members!”
And sure enough, behind them were adults, addressing each other politely.
“I’m Gloria Morales,” said Jacinda’s mom. “And you are?”
“Manuel Garcia,” said Carlos’s dad. “Nice to meet you. What do you do?”
“I’m a patent lawyer,” said Mrs. Morales. “And you?”
“I own a hair salon.”
From the direction of Charlene and her mother came a snort. A loud one.
But Mr. Garcia and Mrs. Morales didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m out of work at the moment,” said Jacinda’s dad. “You know how it is.”
“I sure do,” said another parent, and he and Jacinda’s dad exchanged head shakes and sighs.
“Do you know Cynthia Hull?” Mrs. Morales asked Mr. Garcia, gesturing to Cyrus’s mom. “She and her husband own Hulls’ Auto Body.”
“I certainly do,” said Mr. Garcia, shaking Mrs. Hull’s hand warmly. “She has fixed my car many times.”
“I’m a phlebotomist,” said Smashie’s mother, who already knew all the others. She gestured to Grammy. “This is my mother, Sue.”
“And I,” said Grammy, “am mercifully retired. Smashie and Dontel, shouldn’t you be doing a last-minute rehearsal with your first group of dancers?”
The two investigators jumped. “Yes!” they said. “Come on, Pony group!”
“We aren’t done with their hair!” wailed Charlene. “There’s still Billy to do!”
“I think Cyrus still needs his hair done, too, Charlene,” said Dontel, picking up the jar of goop Tatiana had found, then picking discreetly at the label. But before Smashie could see if the double-label theory was correct, Mr. Garcia was talking over her head.
“Perhaps I could help,” he offered.
“No, thanks,” said Charlene. “We’ve got it.” But Charlene looked worried as she took the jar from Dontel and began to style the hair of a surprised Cyrus from behind. And when she was done, the pony she created on his head was as magnificent as it had been the other day.
Meanwhile, Billy Kamarski was talking to his mother behind them. “It’s a set of roller-skate wheels, Mom!” he was saying. “And they’re permanent!”
“PERMANENT? Billy Kamarski —”
“Yep,” said Billy cheerfully. “You’ll just have to get used to having a set of roller-skate wheels for a son.”
“All parents except the designated helpers should head to the auditorium, please!” called Ms. Early. “Our show is going to start in just five minutes.”
There was a rush for the door, with cries of “Break a leg!” and “Head up, John! We’re proud of you!” and “A SET OF ROLLER-SKATE WHEELS?!” from the adults as they left the room.
The scent of lavender was overpowering, but the Pony children looked fantastic. They were ready.
Mrs. Armstrong stood at the apron of the stage. “I would like to take this opportunity to welcome our third-grade families and friends to the Room 11 and Room 12 Hair Extravaganza and Musicale.” Mrs. Armstrong cast an eye at the children in the wings. “And I’d like to thank the students for their hard work and their choice of . . . appropriate material. I was quite worried for a moment. Ill, even. But we worked through those kinks, so now, without further ado, here are Ms. Early and Miss Dismont, our third-grade teachers.”
Ms. Early and Miss Dismont swept onto the stage to join her. And, surprise of surprises, their hair was done in shapes as well! Ms. Early’s was in the shape of a dancing shoe, to represent the dancing part of the evening, and Miss Dismont’s loaf of hair was molded into a treble clef, to represent the musical numbers. They looked magnificent, and the audience and third-graders went wild.
“Good evening!” Ms. Early cried as the noise died down. “Tonight we will be hearing songs, some older and some newer, and in between each, you will see some marvelous sixties go-go dancing! Special thanks to Sue Tango and Dr. Martin Marquise for helping our student choreographers, Smashie McPerter and Dontel Marquise, create the dance numbers. And special thanks to Charlene Stott and her mother, Betty Stott, for all their work on the children’s hairstyles as well.”
The audience cheered and clapped. Only a few people heard the plaintive cry of Billy Kamarski’s mother.
“We are so pleased to see so many families and staff members of the Rebecca Lee Crumpler Elementary School here to support our students,” Miss Dismont added. “I’d also like to extend a special thank-you to Mr. Bloom, Miss Martone, and Mr. Flange, all of whom have been great friends to Rooms 11 and 12 during this process. Thank you for coming tonight.”
Smashie gulped. So Mr. Bloom was here in the audience. She hoped he would stay long enough for her to give him the apology brownies that she had brought backstage from her cubby, stale as they were. Maybe our dances will win him back over, she thought, and vowed to do her very best. After all, he said he was a fan of sixties go-go dancing.
“So let’s start the show!” said Miss Dismont. “MUSIC!” she shouted offstage, and Walter from Room 12 pressed play on the sound system.
The music for the Pony started, and the class Ponied across the stage just as Smashie and Dontel had taught them, arms swinging, feet shifting. “Energy!” shouted Smashie under the cover of the music, and
the children picked it up even more, finally Ponying with perfect hoofwork off the stage. The audience went wild.
“Smashie, that was great!” cried Mrs. Stott from the wings.
“Thanks,” said Smashie modestly. Cyrus hugged her.
“Thank you for helping me,” he said. “I felt like I was really dancing that time!”
“You looked it, too,” said Smashie. “I’m proud as heck of you!”
But there was no time for more, for the next act was already up. Siggie was onstage with a table full of objects — an apple, a shoe, a stapler, an orange, and about ten other things.
“Tonight,” he said, “I am going to perform a feat of alphabetization. I will put all of these objects — which I have never seen before now — in alphabetical order by the time my backup singers”— he nodded toward the children ranged behind him, hair done up into sculptures of letters — “can sing the alphabet in English. And then, while they sing the alphabet in Spanish, I’ll alphabetize the same objects but using their Spanish names!”
“Whoo!” called some parents. “Let’s see it!”
“A, B, C, D, E, F, G,” sang the children as Siggie’s hands moved like lightning to order the objects. He didn’t even hesitate to put the shoe before the stapler, and before the singers reached Z, he was done.
“Anchovies, apple, beetle, blender, cheese . . .” he began. The audience applauded when he reached the end, but Siggie held up his hand and the singers began to sing the alphabet in Spanish. Once again, Siggie was done realphabetizing the objects before the singers had finished the song.
“Anchoas, escarabajo, grapadora, licuadora . . .” Siggie went through them all, and once again, he’d made not a single error.
“What skill!” cried Mr. Garcia from the audience.
“You know it!” said Mrs. Higgins from the crowd.
But there was no time for Smashie and Dontel to congratulate Siggie when he came offstage, as they were already organizing the other children to dance the Swim. The dance went beautifully, and before they knew it, Alonso, his hair in the shape of an infinity sign to represent the “Endless” part of the “Endless Amour” song, was already dueting with Lilia, whose hair was molded into a heart to represent the “Amour” part. The backup dancers looked fabulous as well, with their hair in smaller musical notes, infinity signs, and hearts.
