“Fifth grade! What is going on?” Startled, I slid from the windowsill, knocking two more books and a couple of cranes to the floor.
“Somebody stole your banks,” Benny shouted. “The thief went out the window!”
By then a dozen pointing fingers had directed Mrs. Herzog’s attention to the project table. She stood completely still, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes staring at the empty space where there had been six mechanical banks.
“They didn’t get them all, Mrs. Herzog,” said Kasey in a soft, soothing tone. “They dropped the firefighter bank outside. I’m sure the police can get the others back, too.”
I wanted to tell her about everything I’d seen from the window, but Kasey shushed me and whispered, “Wait!”
Mrs. Herzog spun around from the table, and with a slight tremble in her voice, said, “Fifth grade! Take your seats, please.” Then she picked up the phone to the school office.
Every kid sat down, but every head was turned to the back of the room, toward the open window.
“I bet Mr. Diallo gets the cops in here,” whispered Benny from behind me. “Maybe they’ll take all our fingerprints. Maybe they’ll bring in the K-9 dogs!”
“They won’t be arresting anybody in here,” I said. “Nobody in class could have taken the banks. We were all together after the fire alarm. None of the students could have done it, or any of the classroom teachers either. We were all out in the parking lot where we could see each other.”
“Then who—?” Kasey broke off at a knock on the door. Mrs. Herzog opened the door to admit the principal.
“Good morning, Mr. Diallo,” we all said, the way we were supposed to when any adult came into our class.
“Good morning, boys and girls,” he replied in his soft Caribbean accent. “Mrs. Ling will be taking you to the library for the rest of the morning and then down to lunch. After recess, she will supervise your class as you work quietly in the library.”
Behind me, Benny whistled between his teeth. “I bet the cops are coming! I wish we could watch!”
“Class,” said Mrs. Herzog, “please clear off your desks and take everything that you will need this afternoon and at home tonight.” Our teacher’s voice lacked its usual cheerful note, and she barely looked at us as she stacked notebooks on her desk and packed pens and a stapler away in her drawer.
“They’re clearing the crime scene!” said Benny in his creepy whisper. “Told you!”
We gathered our books and followed Mrs. Ling, the assistant principal, upstairs to the library. We barely had time to drop off our things before it was time for lunch. As soon as we were through the cafeteria door and free to speak, the guessing started. Everyone had ideas about who might have taken Mrs. Herzog’s banks and how to catch them.
“I want to know how the thief carried them away,” said Benny. “Even without the heaviest, the firefighter bank, he—”
“Or she!” Kasey corrected.
“They,” said Benny, sticking out his tongue, “had to carry fifteen to twenty pounds of cast iron.”
“They’d clank a lot, too.” Kasey wrinkled her nose. “The thief had to be really sneaky.”
“Let’s try to figure this out over lunch and recess,” I suggested. Kasey and I both like mystery books and puzzle games, but we’d never had a chance to work on one in real life.
“I have some ideas—and a notebook to write everything down,” said Benny, flipping open the notebook he keeps in his pocket for drawing monsters and aliens (usually when he’s supposed to be working in class). “You can’t work on the case without me.”
Kasey raised her eyebrows at me. I replied with a tiny nod. “Okay, you’re in,” I said.
“Great! I totally want to nab this perp!”
I plunked my lunch tray down in our usual spot—mine and Kasey’s—and unpacked my sandwich of the day, ham and sweet pickle relish on pumpernickel. I automatically traded my apple for Kasey’s cherry yogurt. (I like apples, but not how the peel gets stuck in my teeth.) Benny slid in next to Kasey and pulled one of those packs of pepperoni, cheese, and crackers and a cup of chocolate pudding from his lunch bag. Kasey nibbled on a pita pocket stuffed with olives and goat cheese salad.
Benny opened his notebook on the table, took a pen in one hand and a cracker sandwich in the other. “SUSPECTS,” he wrote. “Okay, who could have done it? Who wasn’t outside after the fire alarm went off?”
“Who could have set off the fire alarm in the first place?” I added. “Who could have pulled the fire alarm to get everyone else outside? Especially at a time when the classroom doors were unlocked?”
“Good point, Jill!” Kasey took a crunchy bite of apple that made me shudder. “The classroom is always locked when we go to lunch or any other time there’s no one in the room. Except for fire drills!”
“Or false alarms.” I pictured the red handles on the wall of each hallway. “They wouldn’t want anyone to see them, so they had to have a reason for being in the hall alone. Not a visitor either. They’d have to be buzzed in through the security door and sign in at the office. It’s someone who belongs in the school.”
“Mr. Diallo! He can go anywhere anytime,” suggested Benny. “So could Mrs. Ling or any of the office staff.” He wrote all their names in the notebook.
“The custodians,” said Kasey. “Not nice Mr. Mott, but that grumpy new guy. And maybe the lunchroom staff.”
“And the teachers who don’t have regular classrooms,” I added. “Señora Biddle”—Benny snorted. It was hilarious that our Spanish teacher had such an un-Spanish name—“that remedial math teacher, Mr. Yancy . . .”
“The cute new PE teacher, Mr. DiNardo,” said Kasey. “I hope it’s not him.”
“But it could be. Put him down, Benny,” I said. “Then there’s Ms. Ruiz, the music teacher, and the speech therapist—”
“Naw, he doesn’t come in on Fridays,” said Benny. He continued to add names of other school staff, until we’d thought of nearly twenty adults who could have entered or remained in the school building during the fire alarm.
“We’ve got to narrow this list,” I said. “What else can we look at?”
Benny snapped his fingers. “Who knew the banks would be there?”
“Or who was most likely to know, since we can’t tell for sure?” Kasey said. “The lunchroom staff probably wouldn’t know about them, would they? Who else?”
After some arguing, we decided to cross off the custodians, who could open classrooms anytime with their master keys, and the office staff who monitored doors during fire alarms.
“And the teachers would notice if Mr. Diallo and Mrs. Ling weren’t on duty,” said Benny. “It would take longer than a quick minute to carry away those heavy banks, so we can strike them from the list.”
“And Ms. Ruiz is so frail,” said Kasey. “Besides, I like her.”
“Liking doesn’t count,” I protested. “But she is kind of delicate and wears those skinny high heels, so strike her for now.”
We went through the names, discussing each one, through the rest of lunch and recess. When it was time for afternoon classes—or, in our case, library study—we had narrowed the list to our three most likely suspects: Señora Biddle, Mr. Yancy, and Mr. DiNardo.
“They were all in the school building at the time of the fire alarm, but none of them had a class scheduled for that period.” I ticked off the points on my fingers. “They could all have seen the banks this morning in the teachers’ lounge, and I bet Mrs. Herzog talked about the collection and maybe even showed them the catalogs.”
“All three are strong enough to carry fifteen to twenty pounds of weight, and limber enough to climb out a window,” Kasey continued. “None of us remember when they appeared in the parking lot after the fire alarm.”
As we entered the library, I suggested to the others, “We should ask Mrs. Ling if we can work together as a study group. If you ask, Kasey, I’ll bet she says yes. All the teachers like you. Then we can continue
our investigation.”
Kasey talked to Mrs. Ling and got permission. Actually, we’re all pretty solid students—even Benny—so it wouldn’t seem too strange we wanted to study together. We picked a corner table and propped open our math books. Benny started a fresh page in his notebook and wrote “MOTIVE?”
“That’s easy: money,” I said. “We heard Mrs. Herzog talking about how collectible those banks are. And her clown was wearing yellow! That’s a rare one.”
“Wouldn’t they be easy to trace?” Benny tapped his pen, not writing anything down.
“Not on eBay or Craigslist or some other online market. You can be anonymous on most of them,” I argued. “And Mrs. Herzog did say there are still a lot of these banks in collections, so they’re not that easy to trace.”
“It’s the most likely motive, unless someone just wants the banks to keep,” Kasey agreed. “Write it down and let’s move on. I want to know where the banks are now. That’s what matters most to Mrs. Herzog—getting them back.”
“Good luck with that,” grumbled Benny. “By now, they could be anywhere.”
“I don’t think so,” I argued. “They couldn’t be tossed over the wall without breaking them, and there are no bushes or other hiding places between our windows and the front parking lot.” I closed my eyes and tried to picture the groups gathered outside during the fire alarm. “I don’t remember anyone carrying a gym bag or anything large enough to hold the banks, do you?”
“No, and they couldn’t be carried out the front door after the theft was discovered,” said Benny. “Somebody would notice, right?”
“Clank-clank! For sure,” Kasey agreed.
“What if . . .” I took a deep breath, blew it out. “What if the banks never left the school? What if they’re hidden until the thief can collect them without being caught?”
“They wouldn’t be in the school, because the thief went out the window, remember?” Kasey said. “They even dropped the heaviest one on the way out.”
“Wait a minute! Let’s turn that around.” My heart raced with rising excitement. “Why would the thief go out the window except to hide the banks? And we just decided there isn’t any place to hide them outside before the theft was discovered!”
“Sooooo? The window is what? A false clue?” Kasey was getting it, too.
“Misdirection!” I thumped my fist on the table. “Just like magicians make you look over there, so you don’t notice what they’re doing right here!”
Benny tapped his pencil against the notebook page. “So you’re saying that whole scene with the chair and the open window, all the books knocked over and even the firefighter bank dropped outside was a trick?”
“What about the paper cranes?” Kasey objected. “The thief had to climb on the windowsill to pull them down, and for no reason. The knocked-over books and the bank were enough if it was a trick.”
“Let me think.” I tipped my head back, closed my eyes, and tried to picture all we’d seen earlier, particularly the origami cranes lying on the floor, the windowsill, and the grass outside.
“What are you—” Benny broke off when Kasey poked him in the side. “Shh!”
I opened my eyes to the blank white ceiling tiles and the conviction that we’d been looking at things all wrong. “I’m not sure who the thief is,” I said, “but I think I know where the missing banks are and how to catch the thief red-handed.” I told the others my plan.
For the solution to this story, please turn here.
The Scary Place
by Alane Ferguson
Unbelievable. Brian texted us again!” Min Shishi sighed, rolling her dark eyes at her two best friends and fellow members of their club, Geeks 4 Science.
The three “Geekers” met almost every other day to figure out science riddles, just to keep their thinking sharp during the hot summer months. Today they had landed at Min’s, a white-and-gray modern home with lots of large, shiny windows and square furniture that looked like boxes. Since it was a hundred degrees with 87 percent humidity outside (Min knew it precisely, because at the moment she was studying meteorology), the Geekers were sprawled out in the family room, which was air-conditioned to a crisp seventy-two degrees.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What does Crazy Brian want this time?” Derrick Klar asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Tall and lanky, Derrick hunched whenever he read a book, which was all the time. In fact, he read so much Min thought he smelled like paper. “No, wait, let me guess,” Derrick said with a crooked grin. “Did he catch the Indiana Bigfoot? Or was it a bug-eyed alien in a cornfield?”
“Nope,” Min replied. “Today Crazy Brian swears he’s caught a ghost on his cell phone. A real oooooooohhhhh kind of spirit.” She waggled her fingers. “He says that he wants us to investigate this case, Ghostbuster style.”
“Lame.” Jayid Kafir yawned, not even looking up from a map of glowing stars. He was stocky, with ears that stood out from his head like large seashells. Jayid was the one who geeked out over everything in the night sky. He always wore tee shirts with a different planet on the front. Today it was Mars.
“Ghosts are scientifically impossible to prove,” Derrick added, his back curled into a question mark. He flipped through a book called The Ocean Deep. “I’d rather search for a vampire squid.”
“Squids can be vampires?” Jayid gave a loud snort. “Sounds like we should start calling you Crazy Derrick!”
“Don’t be stupid, vampire squids are real!” Derrick shot back. “Want to see a picture?” He thrust his book right under Jayid’s nose.
Jayid held his hands up. “Okay, okay, as long as you’ve got proof.”
“Brian says he’s got proof, too!” Min broke in, trying to get them back on track.
“Come on, it’s gotta be fake. Dump it,” Derrick jeered.
“I don’t know—a vampire squid sounded bizarro, too, but pictures don’t lie,” said Jayid. “Your call, Min.”
Min’s thumb hovered over her cell’s Delete tab, but something inside her squirmed. Maybe it was the memory of her grandmother, whom she called Nai Nai, preparing an altar for the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. Every year Nai Nai lit spicy incense and burned paper money to keep the spirits of her ancestors happy. And her grandmother was one of the smartest people Min knew. What if . . . what if? Min bit her lip, thinking. Finally, she said, “Do you suppose, as future scientists, we should watch the clip?” Min pushed her red glasses to the top of her small nose. “Just to be sure.”
“Yeah. I kinda love to tell Crazy Brian why he’s wrong,” Jayid said as he rolled to his feet. Derrick slouched over, too, but he kept a finger crammed into his book to keep his place. All their heads practically touched as they hovered over Min’s phone.
The link took them straight to YouTube.
“Science geeks, this one’s for you!” Crazy Brian called out from a room glowing with green light. Crazy Brian (adding the Crazy to his name was Derrick’s idea) had once wanted to be a Geeker, too, but they just couldn’t let him join. The problem was that everything he wanted to investigate was, well, crazy! In the end, Crazy Brian had formed his own group called Ghosts Were People 2. The Geekers told him to call if he ever turned up real evidence of the afterlife. Today, the text had come.
“Do you see it?” Min asked anxiously as a blurry image filled her cell phone screen.
“That isn’t proof,” Jayid snickered. “Crazy Brian’s just got his thumb over the lens.”
“I don’t know . . .” Min answered, squinting. “It does look like . . . something weird.”
Frowning in concentration, the three of them looked closer. Suddenly, the image came into much sharper focus. Brian stood in an old-fashioned basement, one with a high-bricked ceiling and an earthen floor. In an instant Min knew exactly where he was filming, because everybody knew about the most haunted house in Indiana, especially Min, who lived two short blocks away. She’d grown up hearing the stories: ghost children who ran through hallways, throwing pebbles—three at
a time—at anyone who dared to come inside. Whispers of a man who haunted its empty windows, his withered skin as white as bone. Tattered curtains moved by the curl of a skeletal finger. Everyone called that house the Scary Place.
Min felt her own grip tighten on her phone.
“Whoa,” she gasped. She watched as a thickening swirl of white spun into the room’s center. Min could hear the excitement in Brian’s voice, could tell that he was breathing hard. “Spirit, ghost—whatever—we see you!” he cried. Then another voice shouted, “O-M-G!” Brian’s phone zoomed onto some kind of meter. “The temperature just dropped eleven degrees! It was sixty-one degrees and now it’s only fifty! Ghosts make rooms go cold— Geeks,” he said breathlessly, “this is as real as it gets!”
Min, her mouth slightly open, kept watching as the mist rose behind Brian’s head. It spread out and lapped against the wall like a wave.
Brian flipped his cell phone back onto himself. His white-blond hair was so pale it seemed to glow. “Min, Jayid, Derrick, come tomorrow to the Scary Place at two sharp. And don’t worry, I have a way in, ’cause my parents just bought this house.” He held up a brass key. “It’s the ultimate test—science vs. ghosts. Be there. The spirits are waiting.”
And just like that, the clip ended. The screen went completely dark. For a moment no one spoke.
“That was freaky. Which means I can’t explain it. So I’m out!” Derrick announced, jerking away from the phone as if the ghost would blow right through the screen.
Min shook her head hard. “No way—we’re scientists. We can’t not do this!”
Jayid’s eyes were so wide it made his seashell ears stick out even more. He swallowed, then squared his shoulders. “We gotta go, or we’ll look like cowards.” He blew a puff of air between his teeth. “And no matter what we find, one thing’s for sure—we can’t call Crazy Brian Crazy ever again. Go Geeks hand stack!”
Super Puzzletastic Mysteries Page 19
