“Why doesn’t she have to finish her dinner?” I asked.
“We told her she could go practice for tomorrow night,” Dad said. Amanda sang
while walking away, as if on cue.
“And your project, Andrea?” Mom asked.
“Elvin helped me get Mothy back from Peter Zorber, that creep. He wants to give him a wedgie. He’s basically done it to every boy in fifth grade.”
“Who would do that? That’s bullying,” my mom said.
“Peter Zorber would,” replied Andrea.
“Bullies did that a lot when your mom and I were kids,” my dad said calmly. “You’ve got better things to worry about this week than him, Elvin. You just need to finish out the year in a positive way.”
“It would be positive if I could do this to him,” I said, forking a sprout and drowning it in a pile of sriracha sauce.
“The best thing you can do about bullies is ignore them,” my dad said.
“Or report them,” said mom.
They both had a point. But I wanted to figure this out on my own.
CHAPTER 18
“Did you invite Peter Zorber to the recital tomorrow night?” I asked Amanda as soon as I went upstairs.
“I didn’t need to,” she answered, seeming annoyed that I would ask. “He wants to be there.”
“He likes to hear you sing show tunes about as much as you like Mothy,” said Andrea, suddenly appearing with her papier-mâché pet.
“Mothy freaks me out.”
“Exactly,” said Andrea. “And Zorber’s a creep.”
“Maybe, but he’s a cute creep.”
Somehow we all looked at Mothy as if he was going to actually talk.
“Anyway, Elvin, you can just write ‘LOSER’ on his locker. If he’s that big of a creep, you don’t have to put up with him,” Amanda said.
My sisters weren’t in my shoes. I don’t think they fully understood what would happen if I wrote on a locker again.
“Mothy has ideas,” Andrea said to me as I left the room.
I couldn’t sleep that night. Zorber, Zorber, Zorber: the name was haunting me. When I thought about the letter Z, I thought it looked like two arrows or two knives thrusting at each other. It was not a fun place to be.
CHAPTER 19
Some days my sisters want to look like twins, other days they don’t. Individually, their styles are very different. Andrea is actually the more fashionable dresser of the two; she likes bold prints and bright shoes, whereas Amanda is purely denim and black.
But on Tuesday morning, it looked like their outfits had been coordinated by Amanda.
It wasn’t an accident.
“What do you think of this, Baby Bro?” Andrea asked me while Amanda was making her breakfast.
She showed me a note she had written:
“For Peter Zorber?” I asked.
“Duh,” she replied. “I don’t think he can tell us apart anyway. I just don’t know when to put it in his locker.”
I thought about it for a second. “It would have to be at the end of the day, right? Or, hand it to him as you’re walking away, and don’t say anything. He’ll see the back of your head and assume you’re Amanda.”
“Right!”
“What if he tries to talk to you?”
“I won’t answer,” Andrea said, imitating Amanda’s hair flip. “Ms. Godwin told Amanda to limit her chatting today, so she’ll be quiet.”
“Wow, perfect,” I said. Even if this didn’t work, I felt a little better knowing that my sister would try to use her twin power to help me out.
“Elvin, this was Mothy’s idea.”
Right.
* * *
Even if Andrea was able to keep Peter Zorber away from the recital, there was still the matter of school. The crowded morning hallway was an environment he used to his advantage, so Carlos and Clay and I hung out in a different area of the school, only running to my locker as the bell rang. Who knew if he’d catch on and set another kind of trap for me?
“Hello, Elvin,” Principal Weeks said matter-of-factly as I walked in. Carlos had arrived before me. “I don’t suppose you know why I’ve called you both here today.”
She didn’t even wait for our answer. “The Field Day shirts are missing from the teachers’ lounge.”
“Missing?” we replied in unison.
“Come with me.” She motioned to both of us and then led us across the hall to the lounge.
“The shirts were here in the lounge yesterday. You might have seen them. They were in a big box that had the Zorber’s logo on the side. Zorber’s donated the shirts to the school.”
Carlos and I looked at each other. Everybody knew that Peter Zorber’s father owned a sporting goods store.
Did the Wedgiemaster have something to do with this?
“The shirts were missing this morning. We asked all the teachers as they came in, and none of them said they moved the box. Any idea what might have happened?”
Carlos and I looked at each other and shrugged.
“Mr. Trinkle came to me this morning,” Principal Weeks continued. “He told me that he overheard Carlos bragging to classmates yesterday that he’d taken something from the lounge but that he couldn’t say what it was.”
I turned to look at Carlos. No response.
“When I asked Carlos if this was true, he said yes, but he told me Mr. Trinkle had gotten it wrong. Carlos had actually bragged that it was both of you.”
That made me angry.
“The only thing we took was candy out of the machine,” I protested, “that we bought with the money you gave us.”
“That’s what I said!” Carlos interjected.
“Did one of the teachers take the shirts by mistake?” I asked.
“Not to my knowledge. I’m not accusing you boys of stealing the shirts. It just seems odd that they are missing.”
The lunch bell rang.
“I hope you’re telling me everything, boys. If you don’t know anything about this, you may go.”
I started to leave, but Carlos wasn’t moving toward the door. “Since we’re here already…?” he asked Principal Weeks, and pointed at the vending machine.
She lowered her chin with that look that said, Are you kidding? “Don’t push it, Carlos,” she warned.
I didn’t need to spend one second more in the principal’s office. However, I did look at the vending machine and noticed that the Caramel Whale Eggs were restocked. They hadn’t been there yesterday.
That meant someone had refilled the machine.
“Who refills the vending machine?” I asked cautiously. “There’s different candy in there since yesterday.”
Principal Weeks walked closer to the machine. She took a deep breath of relief while nodding ever so slightly.
“You’re right, Elvin. The person who refills the machine usually comes in after school. She might have been in here when nobody else was around.”
“She took the shirts!” Carlos blurted.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Carlos. Let me look into it. You can go now, boys.”
CHAPTER 20
As soon as we left Principal Weeks’s office, I saw Carlos turn to me with his hand raised, waiting for me to complete my half of a high five. “That was clutch!” he said.
I didn’t think there was anything special about noticing candy. Doesn’t everybody do that?
“Why are you looking at me like I took the shirts?” Carlos said, suddenly annoyed.
“Why did you have to go blab about the candy?”
“Because it was good!”
“I know, but…”
“We didn’t do anything this time, right?”
“No, but it looks like we could have stolen the Field Day shirts. The Zorber’s Field Day shirts,” I said.
“The vending-machine person did it!”
“How do you know that? At least you didn’t volunteer us for something, like you did yesterday,” I said, referring to his scrub-the-wall
suggestion.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if we could figure out who took the shirts? We could be crime fighters, like your dad. We’d be the heroes of the school. Nobody would give us a hard time anymore!”
Principal Weeks poked her head outside the office with that shouldn’t you be getting to class? look.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Flipdisc?” Carlos said. “After school.”
“Definitely.”
CHAPTER 21
After staying clear of Peter Zorber for a full school day, I met up with Carlos in his front yard. “So the vending-machine person is probably the one who took the shirts, right?” Carlos said. “Disease that makes your pinkie triple in size!”
“Why? We don’t know anything about her. Or if it even is a her. We should make a list of other options. A cloud that rains down good grades!”
“Then it’s probably Principal Weeks, right? In those crime shows, it’s always the person you least suspect. Especially if they have power. Dentist with a turbo-drill!”
“But they have to have a motive. Why would she want the shirts?”
“Maybe she’s trying to frame us,” Carlos answered.
“If anyone’s trying to frame us, it would be Peter Zorber. Maybe he got someone in his family to do it. Giant radioactive catfish!”
“Why would they steal their own shirts that they had just donated? That doesn’t make sense. I mean, Zorber is an idiot, but not a thief. Invisibility potion!”
“What about one of the teachers? Can’t you see Mr. Trinkle trying to look like a cool kid? Mile-long water slide into a pool of lemonade!”
“Or Mr. Vamos,” Carlos said, sliding to catch the disc. “Maybe he’s got another sports team or something. Pocket-size laser gun!”
“Maybe Mr. Torres took them so he can have an unlimited supply of rags to make us clean stuff with,” I said, whipping the Frisbee with a purpose. “Bed full of cockroaches!”
“Oh! I know who it is!” Carlos said, completely ignoring the majestic arc. “It’s Walker Bundt. He knows I can beat him in the beanbag toss, and he’s trying to sabotage Field Day! Fireworks that rain kittens!”
“I still say it’s Peter Zorber trying to sabotage my life. Double cheeseburger with its own escalator!”
“What about aliens? They’re always trying to take over Earth, right? So they take away the shirts so that Field Day isn’t fun anymore. Then they take away pizza and candy and they steal all the computers,” Carlos said while unleashing the Frisbee, “so that everything is boring, and we’re just sitting around being lazy. Then they reveal themselves and easily come and conquer us! And they start with Villadale!”
“Did you name a flip?” I said. “Or was that it?”
“I guess I forgot.”
“I have to get home. Going with my family to Amanda’s recital.”
“Uh-oh,” Carlos said. “Good luck!”
CHAPTER 22
My dad had to work that night, so he dropped me off at the recital hall, where I immediately fired up my Peter Zorber radar.
I couldn’t see him, but perhaps he was waiting until the lights went down to make his move. Then I spotted Mom giving a nervous Amanda a last-minute pep talk, with Andrea standing by.
“I think you’re good, Baby Bro,” Andrea whispered.
“What happened?”
“I came up from behind and handed the note to him in the hallway after the last bell. I waited until I was down the hall a ways, and then I turned around. He was kind of making this face:”
“And then he did this:”
“So I think he bought it.”
“You mean you think he’ll go to Scooperman?”
“Who cares? If he’s really interested in Amanda, maybe he will. But I don’t think he’ll be here.”
I felt a momentary sense of relief. I could actually enjoy the music program, even if I didn’t really like hearing girls sing twenty-year-old Broadway songs.
“So he had no idea it was you, not Amanda?”
“No idea,” Andrea said.
“No kidding.”
With Peter Zorber out of the picture, I could relax. What I enjoyed even more was drawing on some sheet music I found by the piano.
CHAPTER 23
Wednesday morning. I had three more days to keep my guard up against Peter Zorber.
“I’ve got your back if I see him coming,” Carlos said as soon as I met him in the school lobby. “Also, I made this list after what we talked about yesterday. I was thinking: it wouldn’t surprise you if Mr. Trinkle was an actual alien, right?”
Before I could respond, Principal Weeks appeared.
“Just the young man I need to see,” she said. “Can you come to my office?”
For once she was smiling, which was a welcome sight. No sooner had I started to follow her than I caught the death stare of Peter Zorber, who was watching me across the crowded lobby. I felt like Otto if there was a hungry cat licking its chops outside the glass.
Ironically, I was safe in the principal’s office. But then Peter turned and started following Carlos down the hall.
That looked like it was going to be trouble.
“I got hold of the woman who fills the vending machines,” Principal Weeks said as she motioned for me to settle into a chair opposite her desk. “She claims she saw someone carrying away the box of shirts, and she’s willing to come here and describe the person to us. You’ve got the drawing skills that we need for this, Elvin. Would you be up for doing some detective work today?”
More detective work? Yes, please. Elvin Link, Detective had a much better ring to it than Elvin Link—Detention.
Even if it meant more time in the principal’s office.
CHAPTER 24
After seeing Carlos get followed by the Wedgiemaster, I was eager for lunchtime. Carlos and I usually sit together.
Today, though, he was nowhere to be found. I knew that couldn’t be good. Felipe and Clay had no idea where Carlos was, either. But they did a good job of being my lookouts for any Peter Zorber surprise attacks.
As soon as I arrived in my afternoon class, Mrs. English came over to me. “Principal Weeks needs you down in her office,” she said quietly. “I’m glad you’re doing this, Elvin.”
A few minutes later I was back in the principal’s office, making another composite sketch. This time I was sitting across from the vending-machine supplier, Ms. Ortiz, who was describing the person who had carried away the box of Field Day shirts.
“Because he was wearing a hat and carrying the box,” she explained, “I didn’t get a good look at his face.”
I lifted my pencil from the page without making a mark. My drawing was only as good as the witnesses’ observations, so this was disappointing.
“If you didn’t see the person’s face clearly, how do you know it was a man?” Principal Weeks asked.
A good question.
Ms. Ortiz thought for a second. “I suppose I don’t, but…”
“Why don’t you tell me what you did see,” I said. The only way out of this problem was putting pencil to paper.
“The person was pretty tall, maybe six foot two,” she said. “A big, burly person, someone who would have no problem picking up a huge box of shirts. Wearing jeans and big black boots. The tall rubber kind that you wear in mud or rain.”
It had been raining on Monday. A lot of people would have been wearing boots. This didn’t get us anywhere.
“The person also had on a brown canvas jacket, pretty beat-up-looking.”
Mr. Trinkle was there in the office, nodding a lot and saying “Mmm.” I noticed that he was standing in the exact same pose as a basketball trophy on the principal’s desk. Was he doing this on purpose? Maybe he was an alien, like Carlos joked.
Ms. Ortiz continued. “The box was about three feet by three feet, large, and brown like a paper bag.”
“We know what the box looked like,” Principal Weeks said impatiently. “What about the person’s face?”
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“Like I said, the person was wearing a hat, so their face was in shadow. I could see that they had glasses on, but not what kind. Maybe sunglasses. The person did have longish hair coming out from under the hat, down to about here.” Ms. Ortiz motioned with her hand around her collarbone.
I had drawn the suspect standing up, but as I thought about how he would have looked carrying the box, I realized that there was one potentially important thing missing.
“Did you see the person’s hands?” I asked.
“Yes. Huge hands,” she replied with certainty. “They fit around that giant box. Big, sturdy hands, and I don’t think he had on any rings or jewelry or anything that I can remember.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I said ‘he.’ Can we just assume this was a guy?”
“That seems logical now,” Principal Weeks said. “And what time were you here?”
“Around four o’clock.”
“Steve, let’s ask around again. None of the teachers said they were in the lounge at that time, but maybe there’s something we’re missing.”
I visualized all the places around the school and what they would have looked like at 4:00 p.m. I thought about the kids who would have been around the school then.
Then I thought about the person who I see when I leave school every day, whether I walk or ride the bus. “Is the crossing guard still working at that time?” I asked. “Maybe she would remember seeing someone carrying out a large box.”
Elvin Link, Please Report to the Principal's Office! Page 4
