Smashie McPerter and the Mystery of Room 11

by N. Griffin

  “But why?” cried Charlene.

  “And how?” cried Siggie.

  “Hey!” Alonso cried plaintively over the din. “Couldn’t someone unglue me while we talk about all this?”

  “I can.” Dontel went to the sink, where he moistened some paper towels and headed toward Alonso. Smashie joined him at the intersection of boy and balaclava helmet, and they started trying to loosen the glue’s grasp.

  “Nice thinking, Smashie,” Dontel said as the other children buzzed with excited conversation all around them.

  “Thank you, Dontel,” said Smashie.

  “ROOM 11!” Mrs. Armstrong was beside herself. “Things have gone beyond the pale. What has gotten into all of you? Imagine behaving like this while your teacher is out! People gluing people! Hamsters getting stolen! Ms. Early will be as ill about it all as I am — ILL IN BED WITH AN IV DRIP at the way Room 11 has conducted itself in her absence!”

  “Alonso,” said Dontel beneath Mrs. Armstrong’s shouting, “you are pretty stuck. Water isn’t going to do the trick. I am going to have to use my mayonnaise.” He reached into his pocket.

  “Mayonnaise?” Alonso asked, startled.

  “Mayonnaise has vinegar in it. And vinegar is a solvent,” Dontel explained. “It will loosen the glue’s hold on you.”

  “Dontel is always right about things like that,” Smashie assured Alonso. “You can trust him.”

  “I know.” Alonso nodded. “Do what you have to, Dontel.”

  Dontel squeezed the packet, and he and Smashie began to scrub once more.

  “I feel like a salad,” said Alonso.

  At the front of the room, Mrs. Armstrong wrung her hands.

  “I knew that hamster would be nothing but trouble,” said Mr. Carper.

  Mrs. Armstrong glanced at him, then drew herself up. “We will stop this discussion for now, Room 11,” she said. “But tomorrow, I shall confer with Ms. Early and together we will devise your further punishment.”

  “What’s happened to our room?” cried Joyce. “First we had a gluer and now we have a hamster swiper! I never want to come back here again!”

  “Me, either!”

  The feeling was palpable. Room 11 was a troubled room indeed.

  “Don’t worry, Room 11!” cried Smashie. “I am sure Patches will be okay!”

  There were snorts from all corners of Room 11.

  “Sure,” said Joyce. “Because you’re real cut up about him, Smash.”

  “Stop,” said Smashie, “I am! Didn’t I just figure out about him being stolen?”

  “What do you care if he was?” cried Willette. “You’re just glad you don’t have to see his feet anymore!”

  A lump rose in Smashie’s throat. She met Dontel’s concerned eyes over Alonso’s balaclava’d hand.

  What if people stayed mad at her for the whole rest of the year? Lunches alone and no playdates except with Dontel, nobody else believing that Smashie was kind — Smashie’s very acceptance as a member of Room 11 was on the line.

  She blinked hard and swallowed. What could she do?

  Plenty, that’s what.

  Smashie squared her shoulders. Dontel nodded at her and thrust out his own chest. Their minds were as one.

  “We are going to have to investigate,” said Smashie.

  “Yes,” Dontel agreed. “And bring the thief to justice.”

  Mrs. Armstrong left and Alonso was at last free from his hat, although he smelled something like a sandwich. Smashie’s mind was working like sixty, planning the upcoming investigation.

  “We’ll have to muster every bit of our thinking power,” she whispered to Dontel. “We will have to have special Investigation Suits! With a lot of places for storing clues and pencils.”

  “I think I’ll just wear my regular clothes,” Dontel whispered back. “I can put clues and my pencil in my pockets.”

  “Clues are different from the stuff you normally collect in your pockets, Dontel.”

  “Not really,” said Dontel. “Clues are things you analyze to see what you can learn from them, right? That is exactly what I do with my pocket stuff!”

  “That’s true,” said Smashie, considering. “Then you’ve spent your whole life gathering clues, Dontel! You are already an investigator!”

  Mr. Carper sat at Ms. Early’s desk and stared at the ceiling.

  “I’m not kidding, kids,” he said to the light fixture. “One word from one person in this class and I will pop. Just get to work, all of you. Eventually, this godforsaken day must end.”

  “I think we’ll have to do our investigating kind of quietly,” said Dontel. “Discreetly. Otherwise, whoever stole Patches will be on their guard around us and we won’t be able to get at the truth.”

  “That’s a good point.” Sadly, Smashie gave up her imaginings about dazzling her classmates with a sweeping entrance into Room 11 tomorrow in her Investigation Suit. “I guess I will have to tell people that my Investigation Suit is just a regular Thinking Suit.”

  “Yes,” said Dontel. “I think you will.”

  At the next table, John gave a low, careful cough. “One, two, three,” he muttered.

  Immediately, John and his cohorts turned and stared again at Billy, who bowed his head and looked miserably at his paper.

  “Poor guy,” said Dontel.

  “Tchah,” said Smashie.

  At the table beside Smashie and Dontel’s, Jacinda was sniffling. “Who would take such a precious little angel?” she gulped.

  John and Cyrus shook their heads.

  “Someone down-deep mean,” said Cyrus.

  “You said it,” said John.

  “You think it was Billy?” asked Cyrus.

  John looked thoughtful. “Nah,” he said at last. “Billy’s a trick player, not a thief.”

  Cyrus looked at Billy’s ashen, miserable face. “That’s true. Plus,” he said, “the kid looks like he’s about to barf.”

  “You should quit staring at him, then,” said Smashie.

  John rolled his eyes at her.

  “Cut the chat,” Mr. Carper said, his head snapping down to glare at them. He got up.

  Sighing, Smashie began to sketch ideas for her Investigation Suit in the margins of her completed packet.

  Granny’s wide hat, she planned. That green one with the plaid band. I can modify the brim to hold clues. And I’ll need some kind of sash.

  She could talk it over with her mother. Smashie’s mother had a pretty good eye when it came to suits.

  “What’s this?”

  Whoosh! Smashie’s paper was snatched from the table and flew up over her head.

  Mr. Carper was beside her. “Drawing all over your packet?”

  “I finished is why, Mr. Carper,” said Smashie. “I was drawing quietly.”

  “You finished? For real?” Mr. Carper glanced down the page. “It’s messy, Ears. Go back and make it look good.” He slapped her paper back down. “Being quick is overrated, kids,” he said. “Believe me, sometimes you can be too smart for your own good.”

  The class gasped.

  “That’s not what Ms. Early says, Mr. Carper,” said Dontel. “She says that in order to be good people and good citizens, we have to be as smart as we can. She says it is wrong not to use and develop the brains you were born with, and she’s never more proud of us than when we’re smart.”

  “Or kind,” Jacinda added.

  “Or kind,” Dontel agreed. “She says —”

  “Blah and blah, of course, how true,” said Mr. Carper. “Let’s just get through the rest of the day, okay, Boy with the Elbows?”

  All of the boys in the class looked puzzledly at their arms.

  “He means me,” said Dontel.

  Smashie drew in an outraged breath. “Mr. Carper,” she began.

  This time it was John who shook his head. “Pick your battles, Smashie,” he said. “The day’s almost done.”

  Dontel was pretending to still be working on his own completed packet as Mr. Ca
rper continued his stroll around the class. “Want to meet at my house after school?” Dontel asked Smashie. My grandma won’t mind, and we have a lot to talk about.”

  “Check,” said Smashie.

  Dontel looked at her.

  “That was me using Investigator Language.”

  “Oh,” said Dontel. They grinned at each other.

  Mr. Carper passed by Patches’s cage. “Horrifying,” he muttered.

  “Does he mean us or hamsters?” whispered Willette.

  “Sweet heaven,” said Mr. Carper, reaching the front of the room and taking a look at his reflection in the top of a tin of mints, “this day has aged me.” He passed his hand faintly through his hair.

  “This was a terrible day of school,” Smashie said to Dontel as they packed up their things to go home. “All this glue plus everybody upset about Patches!”

  “Almost everybody,” Dontel said, waggling his brows knowingly at Smashie.

  “Hey!” she cried, wounded.

  “Sorry, Smash.” Dontel was contrite. “I was just playing.”

  Mrs. Armstrong appeared firmly in the doorway. “Everybody out and to the buses this minute. I’m locking Room 11!”

  “Locking Room 11?” Mr. Carper asked, his eyebrows skating to the top of his head.

  “Indeed. I am not having any more pranks. I am sorry to give you the bum’s rush as well, Mr. Carper, but I have a meeting directly after school and would like this taken care of forthwith.”

  “But . . .” Mr. Carper gestured at Ms. Early’s desk. “I’ve got a lot of things to get together. The kids’ packets and whatnot.”

  “I already made them into a pile for you, Mr. Carper,” said Charlene.

  Mr. Carper ignored her. “And I’d hate to leave the place untidy,” he said.

  “We’ve done our end-of-the-day jobs, Mr. Carper,” said Alonso.

  “I’d be glad to lock up for you when I leave, Mrs. Armstrong,” said Mr. Carper. “You could just leave me the key.”

  “No, actually, I could not,” said Mrs. Armstrong briskly. “I’m afraid it’s everybody out. All right, Room 11! File!”

  Dripping papers and his jacket and several combs, an irritated Mr. Carper led the students out to the sidewalk, where walkers and children who were picked up from school turned right, and Smashie and Dontel and the rest of the bus children turned left.

  “I’m cold,” said Smashie in the bus line.

  Dontel sighed. “Hoodie.”

  “Ugh!” Smashie smacked her forehead. “Again! I was too busy planning about my suit!”

  “Go on,” said Dontel. “I’ll make sure the bus doesn’t leave without you.”

  Smashie raced back to the room and ran into Mrs. Armstrong, who was standing at the door with Smashie’s hoodie in her hand.

  Smashie gulped. “Thanks, Mrs. Armstrong.”

  “Hrmm,” said the principal, one eyebrow raised.

  Smashie took her hoodie.

  Mr. Potter, the bus driver, was looking irritated as Smashie boarded the waiting bus at last, thrusting her arms into the soft sleeves of her hoodie.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter!” cried Smashie. “I am really going to work on not forgetting things.”

  “So your friend said,” said Mr. Potter.

  “Thank you very much for waiting for me.”

  “Sit down, Smashie.”

  Smashie sat down.

  Mr. Potter threw the bus into gear. “Someday,” he said, pulling out, “this is all going to catch up with you, Smashie McPerter.”

  “That’s what my grammy says, too, Mr. Potter.”

  “Hmmm,” said Mr. Potter, and drove on.

  “Grammy!”

  “I’m in here! By the washer!”

  Still breathing hard from her dash home from the bus stop, Smashie raced toward her grandmother’s voice.

  Grammy was crouched beside the washing machine, a screwdriver in one hand and a library book called Fixing Your Fix-Its! open in the other.

  Smashie stopped short. “I thought you fixed the washer yesterday, Grammy,” she said.

  “I did.” Grammy sighed. “Now I have to fix what I fixed.”

  “Don’t worry, Grammy,” said Smashie. “I always wind up having to fix things I fixed.”

  “It is this family’s fatal flaw,” her grandmother agreed, and sat up. “Hello, Smashie.”

  “Hello, Grammy.”

  “How was your day?”

  Smashie threw up her arms. “Awful! So awful I have to go to Dontel’s right now! May I, please?”

  Her grandmother looked at Smashie over the top of her glasses. “I don’t like the sound of that,” she said.

  Smashie jigged up and down. “I wasn’t bad, Grammy. It’s only that a lot of terrible things happened at once. Dontel and I have to figure things out! Please, can I go?”

  Her grandmother pulled herself up to her feet. “I suppose.” She exhaled, closing her book over her thumb to hold her place. “If you behave yourself. You’re a handful, Smashie McPerter, and I don’t want you going over there and tiring Lorraine Marquise out.”

  Lorraine Marquise was Dontel’s grandmother.

  “I am not a handful!” Smashie cried. “Mostly all what I do is thinking!”

  “It’s when the thinking is over,” her grandmother said darkly, “and you get to the doing part that things get a little shaky.”

  Smashie had to admit that this was, perhaps, a little bit true.

  Nonetheless, permission was permission. “Thank you, Grammy!” she said and raced to the door.

  She raced back.

  “Did you have a nice day?” she asked.

  “I did,” said her grandmother, already back on the floor by the washer. “Lorraine and I put in a full morning reading to people at the library and then we had the girls over for whist. And now I’m tackling this washer. I call that a good, productive day.”

  “Me too,” said Smashie. “I’m glad you had a good day, Grammy.”

  And she bounded across the street to Dontel’s.

  “I’ve got crackers and cheese all ready for us,” said Dontel as he opened the door for Smashie.

  “That is very good,” said Smashie. “We need to fortify ourselves for our investigation.” And they tucked into their salty snack with gusto.

  “You kids clean up your crumbs when you’re done,” said Dontel’s grandmother, who was sitting by the window with a mystery story. She had been a nurse practitioner for many years and now that she was retired, she was reading her way through the library’s mystery section, author by author. “Mice might appreciate them, but I surely don’t.”

  “We will, Grandma,” Dontel promised.

  “We will, Mrs. Marquise,” said Smashie. “Thank you for having me.”

  “My pleasure, Smashie. Speaking of mice,” said Mrs. Marquise, “didn’t you all just get a little mouse for your class pet? How’s the little mister doing? He must be as cute as pie.”

  “Patches is a hamster, Grandma, not a mouse,” said Dontel. “And he was cute.”

  “Was?”

  Dontel swallowed a bite of cracker. “He’s missing. Today. Gone right out of his cage. We don’t know where he is.”

  Grandma tutted. “That’s a shame,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Dontel. “But me and Smashie are going to find him.”

  “Good,” said Mrs. Marquise. “Why don’t you take some of that cheese to school and lay it out for him in his cage? He’ll sneak right back in to get it.”

  “We are a little worried he might not be in our room anymore, though, Grandma.”

  “It’s a real mystery, Mrs. Marquise,” said Smashie. “Dontel and I have to investigate.”

  “That’s the right thing to do,” said Mrs. Marquise. “Seeing’s how you all are so fond of him.”

  Dontel said nothing, but his eyes grinned at Smashie over his cracker.

  Smashie was aggrieved. “I am about to work very hard for Patches’s safe return, Dontel!”


  Mrs. Marquise frowned at her book. “I hope you two use your brains more than the detective in this story,” she said. “He drives me wild! In every one of the books he’s in, he runs all over the place looking for clues but he never makes any kind of plan. And the only way he ever solves a mystery is by chance — he just happens to overhear the culprit boasting about his crime, or he stumbles on him and catches him in the act.” She shook her head. “I prefer a real, thinking detective. Not one that just relies on luck.”

  “I agree with you, Mrs. Marquise,” said Smashie.

  “Me too,” said Dontel. “Why do you read those, Grandma? If the detective is so bad?”

  “I have a little crush on his sidekick,” Grandma admitted. “He’s a wonderful young man.”

  “Ugh,” said Dontel. “Well, don’t worry, Grandma. We’re going to use our heads.”

  “Good,” said Mrs. Marquise. “That’s what I like to hear.” Then she was lost in her novel again, tutting away at the latest example of the detective’s shoddy methods.

  “All right!”

  Crackers eaten, Smashie and Dontel settled in the living room. Smashie loved the Marquises’ living room, which smelled sweetly of the fresh flowers Dontel’s father arranged in vases each week. She was excited to begin. “Let’s start having ideas!”

  “Yes,” said Dontel. “Only let’s be methodical about it.”

  Despite the recent conversation with Mrs. Marquise, Smashie waved methodicalness away with an airy hand. “Let’s just use our imaginations! I have got lots of thoughts. First we can find out if anybody was wearing a sneaky, all-black Thief Suit today. Then we can investigate to see if anybody keeps a mask in their cubby to disguise themselves! Or if there was a trail of hamster food on the floor, luring Patches to freedom. Or —”

  “That is a lot of ideas to keep track of, Smashie. I think my grandma is right. We have to be smart about this.” Dontel reached into one of the desk drawers and took out two small spiral notebooks. “We need notebooks. Investigation Notebooks.”

  “Oooh,” said Smashie pleasurably. “Notebooks!”