by Bruce Hale
"Till then, penguin."
"Sayonara, capybara."
"Uh ... um..." My mind was as blank as an essay on "My Favorite Homework Assignments."
Natalie's laughter trailed off as she flew away. Shoot. I always hate to give a dame the last word.
4. Stainless Steal
Next morning, I met Natalie by the cafeteria. Dawn painted the treetops with pink and gold. But I didn't much care. My eyes were as blurry as an underwater chalk drawing, and my brain felt like fuzz on a lollipop.
Why can't the day start at some civilized time—say, twelve noon?
The bittersweet perfume of stinkbug muffins filled the air. The cafeteria crew was already hard at work.
"Ah, I love mornings," said Natalie. She stretched her wings wide. "Best time of the day."
I shot her a look and rapped on the kitchen door. After a couple of seconds, Mrs. Bagoong opened it. Her expression could have made plastic flowers wilt.
"Oh, it's you," she grumbled. "I thought you were going to catch those thieves."
"What, they struck again?" I asked.
"Yeah. Last night. Some detective you are!" She started to shut the door. I jammed my foot in it.
"What did they—ow!—take?"
Mrs. Bagoong rolled her eyes. "While you were getting your beauty sleep, they stole some more eggs and a tray of cockroach cupcakes."
Natalie leaned forward. "Did they leave any clues behind?" she asked.
"Nope, just crumbs," said Mrs. Bagoong. Her frown could have been a poster for National Bad Mood Day. But uglier.
Then she sighed and opened the door wide. "Come in and see for yourselves. For all the good it will do."
We entered the kitchen, eyes alert and noses a-sniff. She led us back to the storeroom. On the way, I detected a tray of stinkbug muffins cooling on a rack.
A private eye can never have too much breakfast.
"Come on, Chet," said Natalie. "Get your mind off food and onto detective work."
I turned to follow her. "Just checking for clues."
At first glance, the storeroom seemed unchanged. Same giant refrigerator, same tubs of food.
I looked closely at the fridge. No fingerprints. (Of course, I couldn't have analyzed them, anyway; I was still waiting for my mail-order Dr. Fingrito Fingerprint Kit.) The metal surface was smoother than a sixth grader's lie.
I checked the storage racks inside. No clues there, either—unless you counted the locust lasagna.
"The storeroom door was locked?" asked Natalie.
"Tighter than tight," said Mrs. Bagoong. "And my assistant and I have the only keys."
I touched the doorknob. It felt slimy.
"Find something, Chet?" asked Natalie.
"No, not unless someone's picking locks with snot."
"Who nose? Maybe they just sneezed it open." Natalie chuckled.
Natalie's puns are even worse first thing in the morning.
Mrs. Bagoong grunted and flexed her armored neck-plate. "Are you finished in here? I gotta get back to work—while I still have a job."
"Tell me," I said, "what would happen if you left? Who would take over?"
The big iguana frowned. "Minerva Stroney, I guess. But why don't you see if you can't prevent that?"
As we turned to go, an idea struck me. I suddenly squatted down on the cold floor.
"You won't find any mud pies here," said Natalie.
"No, but I might find a clue. Look at this!"
I pointed at a pile of spilled flour.
Mrs. Bagoong squinted. "Ah, it's just our usual mess. Someone got sloppy making the muffins."
She reached down to wipe up the white powder.
"Wait a minute!" I said. "I'm about to be brilliant."
"High time," muttered Natalie.
"Let's set a trap for the thief. At the end of the day, sprinkle flour on the floor. Then, if the thief comes tonight, we'll see his footprints tomorrow morning."
Mrs. Bagoong and Natalie both looked at me. Natalie cocked her head. "Not bad, partner," she said.
"It might work," said Mrs. Bagoong. Her tail twitched in excitement like a monkey doing the mambo. "I'll make sure I'm the last one to leave today. The janitors never come into the kitchen after we're gone."
"But what if the thief doesn't return tonight?" said Natalie.
"We'll just try it again," I said, "until he does."
Mrs. Bagoong frowned. "But what do we do in the meantime?"
"Keep your eye on Rocky, the lunch monitor," I said. "She's a little sneaky."
"She's a little sneaky like Julius Caesar is a little dead," said Mrs. Bagoong. "I'll watch her. What about you two?"
I tugged on my hat. "We'll be nosing around, asking questions. Oh, and that reminds me: I have a question for you."
"Yes?" said Mrs. Bagoong.
I glanced over at the stinkbug muffins. "Most detectives get a retainer when they're on a case. What about mine?"
"A retainer?" said Natalie. "Chet, you don't need to get your teeth straightened. You're a gecko."
"Not that kind of retainer, worm slurper."
Mrs. Bagoong smiled. "He wants something to cover your detective fees. And I think I know what Chet has in mind."
She lifted a couple of stinkbug muffins off the tray and handed them to us. What a princess.
"That's good for me," I said, "but what about Natalie?"
"One each," growled Mrs. Bagoong. "Don't push it."
You don't argue with a hundred-pound iguana. You just say thanks, and get back to work.
5. Messin' with Minnie Stroney
Ms. Minerva Stroney was a cook in the cafeteria, Mrs. Bagoong's second-in-command. As wide as she was tall, Ms. Stroney boasted enough warts to supply the Whangpoo Witches Choir and still have leftovers to rent out on Halloween.
But you learn to expect that from a toad.
Minerva Stroney was a whiz with soup. And her muffins weren't bad, either.
"Hey, Ms. Stroney, nice muffins," I said, around a mouthful of stinkbug muffin.
"Thanks, Chet." She looked up from her pots. "Call me Minnie."
I was hot stuff with cafeteria ladies.
"So, Minnie, we're investigating the missing food. Can you help us out?"
Minnie started slicing carrots. Dreadful vegetable.
"Well, you know I'll do whatever I can to help Mrs. Bagoong," she said, "but I just can't—" She stopped chopping vegetables and frowned. "Hmm..."
"Hmm?" I said. "What does that mean?"
"It means, hmm. I don't know if this'll help, but I saw the head lunch monitor talking to some of her rough friends yesterday."
"They do that every day," I said. "By the bike racks, after school."
"No, this was later. They were in front of the cafeteria when I saw them."
Natalie and I exchanged glances. "Did you hear what they were talking about?" she asked.
Minnie returned to her vegetables. "Not really," she said. "I was too far away. But they mentioned your name and laughed."
"My name?" I said.
Great. Now I was on the hit list for the school bullies.
"Anything else that could help us?" I asked.
Minnie shook her head. "Afraid not."
Natalie leaned closer. "Hey, Minnie, I've got a question for you: How do you cook an alligator?"
"I don't know. I've never tried. How do you cook an alligator?"
"In a Crock-Pot." Natalie squawked.
I grabbed her by a wing and towed her out of the kitchen.
"Get it?" she said. "Crock, as in crocodile?"
"Yeah, I get it," I said. "And you're gonna get it soon, if you don't wise up. This is a serious case."
Natalie sniffed. "Hmph. You're just jealous because you can't think of any puns."
I grunted and turned down the hall. Natalie was right, of course. But I wasn't about to tell her that. A private eye has his pride, after all.
The class bell rang.
"Meet you at recess," I
said. "Let's tail Rocky around and see where that leads us."
"Too keen, jelly bean." Natalie grinned.
"Too absurd, mockingbird."
Detectives are no strangers to torture. Sometimes the bad guys catch you and put bamboo shoots under your fingernails. Or they tie you to a bumper and take you for a scrape around the block to make you talk.
But that's nothing compared to geometry.
I'd rather examine the angles of a case than the angles of a triangle any day. I spent an hour feeling like someone had stuffed an oversize polygon into my brain. Anything would have been a relief.
Anything except my teacher's announcement.
"Attention, class," said Mr. Ratnose, "we'll be presenting Nations of the World with the other fourth-grade classes at next week's open house."
A chorus of groans greeted this news.
"I'm dividing you into groups," said Mr. Ratnose. "Each group will make a special presentation on its country. Now, who will pass out the assignments?"
"Ooo, I'll do it, teacher," said Bitty Chu. Her buckteeth shone in an eager grin. Once a gopher, always a gopher.
I ended up in the India group, with Bitty, Shirley Chameleon, Bo Newt, and this furball we called Waldo.
"I hope we all get to wear the traditional Indian dress," said Shirley. She batted her eyes at me like a slugger swinging for a home run. "I'll help you tie your wrap."
"If you do, you'll be sari," I said.
"Hur, hur, hur! I get it!" said Waldo.
I prayed for recess. The only thing worse than doing a dorky project like Nations of the World was doing it with a team like mine.
I bet detective Sam Spade never had to put up with this stuff.
6. Never Sass a Sixth Grader
Recess came, sweeter than a strawberry-and-honeybee milk shake, and twice as welcome. I trotted down the halls, onto the playground, and slipped through a pack of young rodents. They were playing hopscotch and singing "Three Blind Mice."
I shook my head. No accounting for musical taste.
I found Natalie by the swings, stroking her beak and making like The Thinker with wings.
"I've been thinking," she said.
"Always a dangerous thing," I said.
"We need to figure out why the food is being stolen."
"Why?"
"That's what I said," she said, "'why.'"
"No," I said, shooting her a look. "I mean, why do we need to figure out why the food is being stolen?"
"Oh. Because if we do that, maybe we can guess who's doing it."
"Oh."
We sat down on the swings and dangled our legs. It was as good a place to start as any.
"Okay," I said. "I'll bite. Why is the thief stealing food? He's hungry?"
"Or she's trying to hurt Mrs. Bagoong," said Natalie.
"Or it's throwing a party and can't afford appetizers."
I glanced over at Natalie. She wore the same expression I did—clueless as a troll on a tricycle.
"Hey, are you guys gonna swing or not?" said a scrawny frog.
"What do we look like, swingers?" I said.
He frowned.
"Bug off!" Natalie and I said together.
He bugged.
"So far, Rocky looks like our best suspect," I said. "But she acted pretty innocent yesterday—for a punk."
I stood up. Making deductions this early in a case is harder than Chinese algebra. "Enough chitchat," I said. "Let's take a walk on the wild side."
"You mean...," said Natalie.
"Yup. Time to visit the sixth graders' playground."
We headed across campus. Before long, Natalie and I leaned against a tree at the edge of the sixth-grade playground. We stood out like a chunk of broccoli in a glass of milk. But we played it cool and scanned the scene.
Funny, at first glance their playground looked a lot like ours. Same grass, same trees, same law of the jungle. Nearby, Herman the Gila Monster had a field mouse in a headlock, while Erik Nidd wove a hangman's noose.
Then I saw something that turned my stomach.
Over by the jungle gym, a couple of students twined around each other like snakes on a stick. They were making out, smooching, swapping spit.
Disgusting.
This was sixth grade? Compared to this, fourth grade was a trip to the circus in a brand-new scooter.
"Do you see Rocky?" Natalie said.
"Not yet ... Ah, there!" Near the edge of the concrete, playing dodgeball with a pill bug, was our prime suspect: Rocky Rhode.
We watched her nail another kid with the rolled-up bug. Rocky trundled over to a low wall by the sixth-grade classroom, where Erik Nidd and some of the other roughnecks were sitting around like hood ornaments on an Uglymobile.
I leaned toward Natalie. "We've got to get closer. They could be plotting another cafeteria break-in."
Natalie and I sneaked along the line of trees toward the wall, but before we got there, Rocky's group had begun to break up. Rats! Too late to spy on them.
But wait. One kid stayed behind: A box turtle reading a paperback. Maybe she had heard something. We approached her.
"Hiya, sister," I said. "I'm a private eye on a case, and I sure could use some help."
She didn't even lift her eyes from the page. "Yeah?" she said. "What's it to me?"
"We're trailing a suspect named Rocky," said Natalie. "She was just here with some of her friends. Did you hear what they were saying?"
The turtle kept reading. Her neck shrank back into her shell until only her nose and eyes stuck out. "I don't remember," she said.
I slipped a quarter out of my pocket and dropped it onto the open page of her book. "Does this refresh your memory?"
Her wise eyes flashed up at me. "A quarter? I think I'm getting amnesia."
I dug in my pocket and fished out a coupon for a discount mothburger at Bug-in-the-Box. I dropped it next to the quarter.
The turtle sighed. "Sonny, this would go a lot faster if you'd just made a trip to the candy machine first." She returned to her reading.
I reached into another pocket and produced a Three Mosquitoes candy bar I'd been saving for snack time. I passed it before her eyes.
She moved pretty fast for a turtle. My candy bar disappeared into her mouth, wrapper and all. She smiled and stuck her neck out.
Chocolate works every time.
"It's a miracle," said the turtle as she munched. "My memory's coming back. Rocky was talking about payback time. She seemed pretty steamed at someone, and she said she was going to 'stock up' tonight."
Stock up? Bingo! My eyes met Natalie's. She nodded and grinned. It sounded like Rocky was our culprit. Lady Luck was smiling on us like a buzzard at a carrion festival.
"Anything else?" I asked the turtle.
She spat out the candy wrapper and eyed my coat pocket. "Any more chocolate?"
I shook my head.
"Nope, that's all," said the turtle. Her nose sunk back into the book.
I sighed. A few more informants like this, and I'd be one hungry gecko. But it was worth it.
Natalie and I started down the hall. As we passed a classroom door, the sixth-grade teacher stuck her head out. Her mole eyes squinted behind thick glasses, and she called out.
"Wait!" said Ms. Burrower. "Have either of you seen a monster earthworm?"
Natalie and I shook our heads. "I wish," said Natalie.
"Well, if you do," said the teacher, "tell it to keep out of my tunnels. They're for moles only. No worms!"
I shot Natalie a look. Sixth grade was looking weirder and weirder.
Just then the bell rang. Can't beat that for timing.
"Duty calls," I said. "We're due back on our home planet." We trotted up the hall.
"Do you suppose she meant bookworms, too?" my partner asked.
"Natalie," I said, "That's one can of worms I don't ever want to open."
7. Kitchen Tell
By the time lunch rolled around, I knew just what to do. At least, I hope
d I did. Being a private eye means taking lots of guesses and hoping they come out right.
But then, so does science class.
I shuffled along in the lunch line behind Frenchy LaTrine, a mousy cheerleader with a mouth as big as a blender and twice as fast. So far, she was using it to gossip with her friend, not to bother me. That suited me fine.
Minnie Stroney stood behind the counter, dishing out vegetables. She gave me a tight smile. "Here's some extra cauliflower, Chet. It'll help you grow."
Obviously she hadn't heard about the health secrets of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Diet.
Mrs. Bagoong stood beside Ms. Stroney. She seemed bluer than a frozen fruit fly. The queen of the lunchroom didn't even look up as she dropped a fat, greasy burrito onto my plate.
I leaned toward Mrs. Bagoong and muttered, "Tonight's the night, all right. I'll hide in the kitchen."
Ms. Stroney glanced sharply at me. She didn't say anything.
Frenchy LaTrine was another matter.
Her radar ears caught my comment, and her head swiveled like the handle on a pencil sharpener. "Why, Chet!" she said. "Isn't she a little old for you?" Her eyelashes fluttered. "Try someone your own age!"
"Right after I try cyanide pie, Frenchy," I said.
Her brow furrowed. "But ... what about our relationship?"
"Keep it in your imagination, where it belongs."
She pouted, picked up her tray, and huffed away. What is it with dames? Sometimes they're nuttier than a squirrel's sundae.
I leaned back toward Mrs. Bagoong. "What time do you lock up?"
"Right after school." She sighed. "Chet, this idea of yours better work."
"It will," I said. "I'll meet you after school, and we'll set our trap. Tonight we catch a food thief!"
"Hey, Gecko," said the skink behind me. "Stop flappin' your gums and start movin' your feet. We're starvin' here!"
I collected my tray and headed for a quiet table. I had to plan for the night's adventure. It wasn't enough to capture Rocky's footprints. I needed proof that would convince even Principal Zero.
