by Nancy Krulik
Okay, that was weird. Leo hated when Elizabeth and I solved mysteries. He was always jealous.
“You want us to work on this mystery?” I asked him.
Leo nodded. “You two have experience,” he said. “We need people who can solve a mystery working on this case.”
Leo was right. Elizabeth and I had already solved some major mysteries. We’d found Leo’s science fair plans after they’d been stolen. And we’d rescued my sister’s tortoise, Tut, after he had been kidnapped. We were practically professional detectives.
Just then, Trevor sat down behind me. “I gotta agree with Cubby,” he said. “You have got to stop this guy before he ruins everything.”
Leo turned red when Trevor called him Cubby. He hates that nickname. His mom has been calling him Cubby since he was a baby because Leo is a lion name, and lion babies are called cubs. Trevor heard her say it one time and he started calling Leo “Cubby,” too.
But Leo didn’t argue with Trevor. For once, he and Trevor were agreeing on something. In fact, everyone in the class was on their side.
“You two have to do something,” our classmate Sasha told us. “The whole school is depending on you. Well, not the whole school. Just the upper school. But there are a lot of kids in the upper school, and —”
“We get it,” I said, interrupting Sasha. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but sometimes you just have to stop Sasha in the middle of a sentence. Otherwise she’ll keep talking forever.
“If everyone wants us to solve this mystery, that’s what we’ll have to do,” Elizabeth said proudly.
“Great,” Sasha said. “If you need any help, let me know.”
I gulped. The last thing I needed was help from the other kids. Because if they found out that I talked to animals to get clues, they’d never let me live it down.
Elizabeth shot me a look. She’s the only person who knows my secret. I haven’t even told Leo because I’m afraid he’ll think I’m really weird. I actually never told Elizabeth about it, either — she’s just such a Brainiac she figured it out on her own.
“No, we can handle it,” Elizabeth told Sasha. “Jack and I work as a team — a team of two.”
“Well, your team better win,” Trevor told her. “My cousin Bo is in fifth grade, and he’s been on the apple-picking trip twice. All he ever talks about is how I haven’t gotten to go yet. If this trip is canceled, I’m going to be really mad.”
My palms got sweaty just looking at Trevor.
“Aachoooo!” Charlie sneezed suddenly.
“Gesundheit,” I said.
“Thanks,” Charlie mumbled. “I hate hay fever season.”
“Get a tissue, will ya?” Trevor told him. “Your nose is running again.”
“Sorry,” Charlie said. He wiped his nose with his sleeve and then walked over to Mrs. Sloane’s desk to get more tissues.
“How soon can you start?” Leo asked Elizabeth and me.
“As soon as we have free time,” Elizabeth told him. “So probably right after the social studies quiz.”
I hoped the quiz was short. The sooner we solved this mystery, the better. I really didn’t want to miss my first upper-school field trip. And I definitely didn’t want to be on Trevor’s bad side, either.
Chapter 5
“Okay, Jack, let me get out my detective notebook,” Elizabeth said. She and I were sitting on a bench in the playground during our class break. Mrs. Sloane always lets us run around in the schoolyard after a quiz. I guess she figures we need it.
Elizabeth had brought her backpack outside with her. That didn’t surprise me, since Elizabeth brought her backpack everywhere. She probably even brought it with her to the bathroom, although I didn’t know that for sure. She reached into it and handed me a plastic human skull, a bag of unpopped popcorn, and a tube of toothpaste. Finally, she pulled out the notebook.
I looked at the pile of junk. “What’s all this stuff for?”
“If we get stuck somewhere for a long time, you’ll be glad I have food,” she said.
I frowned. Unpopped popcorn didn’t sound too yummy.
“And toothpaste gives you fresh breath,” Elizabeth added. “I hate bad breath.”
“What about the skull?” I asked.
Elizabeth shrugged. “You never know when you’ll need a good Halloween decoration.” She picked up her pen and began to write.
THE MYSTERY OF THE PRACTICAL JOKER
“Okay, so what clues do we have so far?” Elizabeth asked me.
“Well, there’s the toilet-papered principal’s office, and the confetti over the nurse’s door,” I answered.
Elizabeth wrote all that down, and then studied the clues. “So we have to figure that the culprit was able to get into the school before school started,” she said slowly. “And that he or she has access to lots of toilet paper.”
Just then, Trevor came over to where we were sitting. “Tell me you’ve solved this mystery,” he said.
I wished I could, but that was impossible. “We just got started,” I said.
“I knew it,” Trevor said. “You guys have nothing. Not even a suspect.”
Now I was mad. Really mad. I don’t know what came over me, but I picked up Elizabeth’s plastic skull and shook it at Trevor!
“How’s this for a suspect!” I shouted.
Trevor jumped and screamed really loud. Then he realized that the skull was fake. His face turned red.
“Not funny,” Trevor told me. “Stop kidding around, and start solving mysteries.” He stormed away.
Wow! I’d scared off Trevor the Terrible using nothing but a Halloween decoration! Amazing.
“See?” Elizabeth smiled. “You never know when something will come in handy.”
Once again, the Brainiac was right. Now, if she and I could only find the right culprit, this would be the best day ever!
“Please take out your science homework,” Mrs. Sloane said a few minutes later. We were back in the classroom and in our seats.
We all pulled out our worksheets on the parts of a flower. Well, all of us except Jada. She just sat there, staring at the board.
“Jada, where’s your homework?” Mrs. Sloane asked.
“I … um … I forgot it.” Jada pulled nervously on her short brown hair.
Mrs. Sloane nodded slowly. “We’re going to be discussing the homework now. Since you don’t have yours, you can go to the library and research how flowers get their water.”
Jada picked up her notebook and a pen and walked out of the classroom. The rest of us watched as Mrs. Sloane drew a flower on the board and began asking us to name the different parts of the plant.
We had only named the roots and the stem when suddenly Jada came racing back.
“Finished already?” Mrs. Sloane asked her.
Jada shook her head. “Someone went into the library and took all the books off the shelves,” Jada said. “They used them to build a huge pyramid.”
“But that’s impossible,” Mrs. Sloane said. “The library was closed all morning while Mrs. Page was in a meeting. No one would have been allowed in there until now.”
Jada shrugged. “Someone was definitely in there. And Mrs. Page is plenty mad. When I left she was going to find Mr. Broomfield to help her put the books back.”
“Aachoo!” Charlie sneezed and reached into his desk for another tissue.
“Gesundheit,” Mrs. Sloane said. She shook her head. “These pranks are getting to be a real problem.”
“You have to talk to someone who was in the library at the same time as the prankster,” Elizabeth whispered to me.
“You heard Mrs. Sloane,” I whispered back. “No one was allowed in there all morning.”
“Except the two goldfish in the bowl on Mrs. Page’s desk,” Elizabeth said. “They’re always in the library.”
“You want me to interview fish?” I asked her.
Elizabeth nodded. “It’s no different than interrogating a dog, or a goat, or a horse, is it?”
She had a point. I had talked to all of those animals on our previous cases.
“Go now,” Elizabeth said. “Before Mrs. Page finds Mr. Broomfield and brings him back there to help her with the books. If they’re there, you can’t interrogate
the fish.”
Interrogate was one of those detective words Elizabeth liked to use. It was just a fancy way of saying I had to ask the fish a bunch of questions.
“How am I going to get out of here?” I whispered.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” Elizabeth asked, wiggling her eyebrows. Why was she doing that?
“No,” I said. “I went before I left the house this morning and —” I stopped as I realized what Elizabeth was saying. I didn’t really have to go to the bathroom. I just had to use it as an excuse to get out of the classroom.
I raised my hand and asked Mrs. Sloane if I could use the hall pass. A minute later I was on my way to the library to talk to the goldfish. If anyone could explain what kind of fishy things had been happening in the library, they could!
Chapter 6
“We’ll never get there at this rate.”
“Get where? You never tell me where we we’re going.”
Uh-oh. As I opened the door to the library I heard two people arguing. That wasn’t good. There was no way I could interview the fish if there were other people around.
I peeked my head in to see who was talking. But I didn’t see anyone else in there. It was just me and the fish.
And that’s when it hit me. It wasn’t people who were arguing. It was the fish, Goldie and Fin.
“I think we passed that castle before,” Goldie told Fin as she swam around the plastic castle that was stuck right in the middle of their fishbowl. “We’re just going around in circles.”
I had to get their attention. So I knocked on the bowl.
“Seaquake!” Goldie shouted. “Swim for cover!”
“Cover? Where?” Fin asked. “Those castle doors don’t even open.”
“It isn’t a seaquake,” I told the fish. “It’s me. I wanted to get your attention.”
“You couldn’t come up with something better than a seaquake?” Fin asked me.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “I was wondering if you guys could answer a few questions for me.”
“We can try,” Goldie said.
“Did you notice anybody in the library this morning?” I asked.
“You mean out of the water?” Fin asked. I nodded. “Yeah. Someone with legs instead of fins,” I told him.
“There was this one two-legged air breather,” Goldie said. “That one started a major tsunami in the bowl.”
“A tsunami?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said. “Don’t you know what that is?”
I figured it had to be some fish word I didn’t know. I shook my head.
“It’s a giant wave,” Fin said. “It’s usually caused by an underwater seaquake.”
“Whoever the two-legged was, he hit the side of our bowl when he was moving some books,” Goldie explained. “Water splashed right out.”
I looked down at the desk. There wasn’t a drop of water on it. “Are you sure?” I asked.
“Are you calling us liars?” Fin asked.
“No,” I said. “I just was asking. Did you get a look at this two-legged person?”
“Nope,” Fin said. “My eyesight’s not so good.” “Mine, either,” Goldie admitted. “I think it’s a fish thing.”
I frowned. Goldie and Fin hadn’t given me a whole lot to go on. But I didn’t have time to ask them any more questions. Mrs. Page and Mr. Broomfield would be back any minute. And Mrs. Sloane would probably be wondering why it was taking me so long to go to the bathroom.
I didn’t want to have to explain that to anyone.
Elizabeth —
Whoever was in the library was in a bad mood and slammed into the fish bowl. Goldie and Fin said water splashed all over the place. But the desk was dry when I got there. That’s all I could get out of the fish.
— Jack
I slipped the note into Elizabeth’s hand while Mrs. Sloane was writing on the board. I expected Elizabeth to look disappointed after she read it. I hadn’t gotten a whole lot of information out of Fin and Goldie.
But Elizabeth didn’t look upset at all. In fact, she looked excited. I saw her pull out her detective notebook and scribble something down.
As we lined up to go to the art room, Elizabeth pulled me aside. “I think you may have just solved this case,” she told me.
I looked at her. “How?”
“You said water was spilled, but by the time you got to the library it wasn’t there anymore,” Elizabeth told me.
“Yeah.” I was completely confused. “So what?” “So someone had to have cleaned up the mess,” Elizabeth repeated.
“I repeat: so what?” I said.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Who cleans up the messes in this school?” she asked me.
That didn’t take any thought at all. “Mr. Broomfield,” I said. “He’s been cleaning up messes all day long.”
“Exactly,” Elizabeth said. “Except he didn’t clean up this mess completely. And he’s going to be really sorry about that. He left us a big clue. One that’s going to prove without a doubt that he’s the school prankster!”
Chapter 7
“Tell me again why Mr. Broomfield would have pulled all the pranks,” I asked Elizabeth as she and I snuck off in search of the janitor during our lunch period. “Why would he make more work for himself?”
“Cleaning up definitely makes Mr. Broomfield mad,” Elizabeth agreed. “But I think that’s because he never gets to do anything fun. We go on field trips, have carnivals, and go to parties. Have you ever seen Mr. Broomfield at a party?”
“Only at the end, when it’s time to clean up the mess,” I said.
“Exactly,” Elizabeth said. “I think he’s tired of being the only one in school who doesn’t have fun. So he’s making sure no one has any fun.”
Once again, the Brainiac had a good point. And a lot of things did point to Mr. Broomfield. After all, he was the one who put toilet paper in the bathrooms, so he could have easily toilet-papered Principal Bumble’s office.
But that didn’t mean Elizabeth was right. We wouldn’t know for sure until we talked to Mr. Broomfield.
I wasn’t looking forward to that. Mr. Broomfield isn’t the nicest guy in the world. He doesn’t even like kids. Which is kind of weird, considering he works in a school.
“What are you doing here?” Mr. Broomfield asked grumpily as we entered the boiler room. “I’m on my break. You kids will just have to clean up your messes on your own.”
I tried to walk away before we made Mr. Broomfield angrier. But Elizabeth grabbed my shirtsleeve and made me stay.
“There’s something only you can straighten out for us,” Elizabeth said. “What were you doing in the library this morning?”
“Helping Mrs. Page fix the bookshelves,” Mr. Broomfield said. “The school prankster was at it again.”
“No, I mean before that,” Elizabeth said.
“I was cleaning up the toilet paper in Principal Bumble’s office, and the confetti in the nurse’s office,” Mr. Broomfield told her. “Why do you need to know?”
“Because somebody cleaned up the water that spilled out of the fishbowl. And they did it before the library was open,” I said, trying to sound as brave as Elizabeth.
Mr. Broomfield stared at me. “If it was already cleaned up, how do you know about it?” he asked.
Oops. “Um … I heard about it … um … somewhere,” I said. I looked down at my feet. Oh brother. That hadn’t sounded very detectivelike.
“If there was any water spilled, I didn’t see it,” Mr. Broomfield said. “The fish looked happy when I got there. They were swimming around in circles as always.”
“So who cleaned up the water?” I asked. “Who knows?” Mr. Broomfield said. “Maybe it cleaned itself up.�
�� “Huh?” I asked.
“Actually, Jack —” Elizabeth said slowly.
I didn’t like the sound of that. It seemed like Elizabeth wasn’t so sure Mr. Broomfield was a suspect anymore. Which meant she had dragged me down to the boiler room for nothing.
“Hee hee hee!”
Suddenly, I heard a squeaky voice buzzing in my ear. I turned to see who it was, but Mr. Broomfield stopped me.
“Don’t move, kid!” Mr. Broomfield shouted.
Uh-oh. What now?
Mr. Broomfield picked up a broom and swung. Crack! The broom hit the wall.
“Missed me!” the squeaky voice in my ear hummed.
“Darn wasps!” Mr. Broomfield grumbled. “They follow me wherever I go.” “Really?” I said aloud.
“It’s a game we play,” the wasp buzzed happily to me. “Bug the janitor. You should try it sometime.”
I frowned. From the look on Mr. Broomfield’s face, Elizabeth and I were already playing bug the janitor.
“I’ve been following him all morning — to the principal’s office and the first-aid room,” the wasp said. “I was really driving him crazy until the book lady came and got him because of a problem in the library. I don’t like the library. It’s too cold in there. So I flew down here to wait for him.”
I thought about that. If Mr. Broomfield hadn’t gone to the library until Mrs. Page got him, then he probably wasn’t the one who spilled the fish’s water.
Mr. Broomfield swung his broom again. Clang! This time he hit the metal boiler. “Darn wasps!”
“Let’s get out of here,” Elizabeth said as Mr. Broomfield lifted his broom again.
I followed her out of the boiler room. I didn’t want to find out what Mr. Broomfield would do if the wasp landed on my shoulder!
“He’s not the prankster,” Elizabeth said as soon as we were out of the boiler room.
“I figured that out from what the wasp told me,” I agreed. “But it still doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe that whole thing about the water cleaning itself up. Someone had to do it.”
