Izzy Newton and the S.M.A.R.T. Squad

by Valerie Tripp

“What are the chances?” asked Charlie. “Nine hundred students in this school, and the ONE kid who for some mysterious reason has a grudge against us catches Izzy in the act. That is bad luck.”

  “Come on,” said Izzy. “We’ve got to go to the lab and try to talk to her.”

  “If she tells on us, we’re toast,” said Allie.

  “Don’t mention toast,” said Charlie. “You’re making my stomach growl.”

  They hurried to the science lab. But when they got there, Marie was gone. The room was cold and deserted.

  “Do you think she’ll rat us out?” asked Izzy. “She never used to be a tattler.”

  “Who knows?” said Charlie matter-of-factly. “Who knows what Marie is or is not these days?”

  “Oh, I think we know perfectly well what she is not,” said Allie. “She is NOT our friend.”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see what she’ll do,” said Izzy, sounding resigned.

  “Arrgghh,” moaned Allie dramatically. “Agony! I HATE to wait and see!”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, the girls walked to Allie’s apartment to do their homework together. Also, they were still shaken up and needed to talk.

  “I need a big, whopping dose of chocolate, stat,” said Charlie, “like some of those giant chocolate chip cookies that your grandmother makes, Allie. The ones that are more chocolate chip than cookie.”

  “Really, Miss Organic?” teased Allie. “You know Bubbie’s cookies have all kinds of ingredients in them that don’t grow in gardens.”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Charlie.

  “Or in this case, desperate pleasures,” joked Izzy. “And me too, by the way. I could really use a chocolate chip cookie, or maybe twenty. Bubbie’s are—”

  “The Best,” Charlie chimed in with Izzy.

  “Don’t worry,” said Allie. “Bubbie keeps a stash on hand at all times, in case of emergencies—like right now.”

  Allie lived with her grandmother Bubbie and her younger sister, Maja. Bubbie had been a world traveler and spoke lots of different languages and had friends all over the globe. But now she mostly took care of Allie and Maja, whom she called “the Grandgirls,” because their mom was an archaeologist who was seldom home. Allie’s mom Skyped and FaceTimed a lot, and she sent Allie and Maya cool stuff from wherever she was on a dig. But it was Bubbie who showered Allie and her friends with attention—and great snacks.

  As the girls walked into Bubbie’s painting studio, she said, “I have never seen three glummer faces in my life.” She peered at the girls around the edge of her easel. “You look more sour than these lemons in the still life I’m painting. I’m not even going to speak to you until you’ve had a snack. Go to the kitchen and get some cookies.”

  “Thanks, Bubbie!” said all three girls. They dashed to the kitchen, grabbed as many cookies as they could hold, and returned to Bubbie.

  As they chowed down, Bubbie asked, “Now, spill. What’s the matter with you three?”

  “We think we’re in trouble,” said Allie, straight out.

  “What kind of trouble?” asked Bubbie.

  “We’re doing a science experiment, trying to fix something that’s really important,” said Izzy, “and we—I—did something kind of dangerous and somebody saw me.”

  “Any broken bones or ruined property?” asked Bubbie.

  “Well, no,” said Izzy. “But maybe a broken rule or two.”

  “What did you do?” asked Bubbie.

  “I slid down a hose,” said Izzy, “from the roof of the school to the ground.”

  Bubbie grimaced. “Promise me you won’t do that again,” she said.

  “I promise,” said Izzy.

  “Well,” sighed Bubbie, “as long as no one and nothing was hurt and you promise you won’t do any more death-defying stunts, I wouldn’t worry too much. Sometimes rules have to be broken. You know what they say: ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history.’ You girls go ahead and be subversive. Just be careful, too.” She went back behind her easel. “Now go to the kitchen and get yourselves more cookies, and maybe some juice this time. I’ve got to get back to work.”

  * * *

  The evening was agonizingly long and full of anxiety for Izzy. When the girls rode their bikes to school on Wednesday morning, the wind was still cold and strong. It pushed against their backs, and Izzy had to fight the gnawing feeling that the wind was whisking her straight into trouble—or at the very least, into some sharp words from Mr. Delmonico. Would she be called to his office that day, after Marie had had a chance to squeal on her?

  “Don’t worry, Izzy,” said Charlie kindly as they opened their lockers. They didn’t take off their jackets because the school was still freezing. “Allie and I won’t let you take all the blame. If Marie tells Mr. Delmonico that she saw you dangling outside the chemistry lab window, Allie and I will tell him we were on the roof, holding the other end of the hose.”

  “Of course!” agreed Allie. “We’ve got your back. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks,” said Izzy. She wasn’t completely reassured, but she was grateful to her loyal friends. She knew that conscientious Charlie didn’t like to break rules or do anything that might seem unsportsmanlike. Even Allie, who usually didn’t blink an eye at pushing limits, was nervous this morning.

  Oh, if only I could talk to Marie! Izzy thought. But Izzy’s only glimpse of Marie that morning was from afar; she was at the top of the Up staircase when Izzy was at the bottom. Marie wore a sparkly knit cap, and Izzy saw it glitter as the flecks caught the glow from the icicle lights in the stairwell.

  The morning dragged by in slo-mo; it was as if time itself was as cold and sluggish as the students at Atom Middle School. The cold made some kids sleepy, and everyone’s heavy jackets weighed them down so that they plodded like elephants from class to class.

  When Mr. Delmonico hadn’t summoned her by lunchtime, Izzy said to Allie and Charlie, “It looks like Marie didn’t tell on us.”

  “Yet,” added Allie ominously.

  “Listen,” said Izzy, her voice tight with tension. “Sitting around waiting is driving me crazy with worry. Let’s do something. I really want to solve the mystery of why the school is so cold. The technicians clearly haven’t fixed the problem, and I’m tired of shivering.”

  “Me too!” agreed Allie. “Also, I’ve worn all my best winter outfits already, about eight times each! And there’s no way Bubbie will let me buy any new clothes, after I dyed all my back-to-school clothes blue.”

  Izzy and Charlie laughed sympathetically, which helped Izzy relax. She stood up. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s use the rest of lunchtime to go back up onto the roof and inspect the air-conditioner condenser and fan, like we were supposed to do yesterday.”

  “Okay,” Charlie said, taking a last bite of tofu. “But this time, I’m going to prop the door open so we don’t get stuck out there.”

  Hoping that no one was watching them, the girls followed the shadowy, serpentine path to the little room. When they came to the door that led outside, Charlie not only propped it open with a cement block, but she also tied a scarf around the handle so it couldn’t automatically lock behind them. It turned out that all their trouble was for nothing anyway: They inspected the air-conditioner condensers and fans as well as they could without dismantling them, but it was clear that the machinery was working all too well. It hummed and whirred merrily.

  “This is not where the problem is,” said Izzy.

  “We’ll have to shoot THAT hypothesis down, too,” said Allie, sounding frustrated.

  As Izzy, Allie, and Charlie walked past the dressing rooms backstage on their way out, they heard a sound coming from the last door. Someone was crying.

  Silently, Izzy pushed open the door to the dressing room and there was Marie, sobbing. She was all by herself, but her image was nightmarishly multiplied by the mirrors on the walls.

  The girls stared at one another for a second, stunned w
ordless. Izzy saw that Marie’s face was so dissolved in misery that at last it didn’t have the pinched look it had had every time they’d seen her lately. Izzy’s heart melted. She rushed to Marie and stood beside her, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the matter?” Izzy asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “No!” Marie choked over her tears, but Izzy noticed that she didn’t shrug off Izzy’s comforting hand.

  Izzy gave her a gentle squeeze. “Come on,” she said. “It’s me, Izzy. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I’m…fine…go away…leave me alone…all of you,” Marie blurted out in between tearful hiccups.

  “Marie, we’re just trying to help,” Izzy said.

  “Help?” wailed Marie. “Nothing can help!”

  “Blow your nose,” said Charlie. “That’ll help.” She handed Marie a tissue, and Marie blew her nose really hard.

  “Okay,” said Izzy. “Now talk to us.”

  Marie gulped. “It’s so stupid,” she said. “Yesterday, Gina and I were babysitting my nephew, and we made slime. After, I thought we’d cleaned it all up. But he must have found some. Because this morning, I…” Marie’s chin quivered, but she went on, “I pulled on this hat, and it was so cold in the building that I left it on all morning. And just now, when I tried to take it off, I couldn’t. It’s stuck on my hair! My nephew must have put a glob of slime in my hat, and…” Marie lifted the hat, and the girls saw that clumps of her hair were stuck together—and stuck to her knit hat—with globs of dried-up green slime. “Now I can’t get the hat off. And how will I ever get the dried slime out of my hair?”

  Izzy, Allie, and Charlie all talked at once:

  Izzy said, “You have a nephew? And you and Gina made slime? Just like we used to?”

  Allie said, “So that explains the hat! You weren’t just trying to look French?”

  And Charlie said, “Your hair looks bad now, but the slime will grow out eventually.”

  Marie nodded yes to Izzy’s questions, shook her head no to Allie’s, and said to Charlie, “But I’m supposed to have my school photo taken today. For the yearbook! For my ID! For everyone to see forever!”

  “Wear your sparkly hat in the photo,” suggested Allie.

  “I don’t even like this hat,” said Marie. “I grabbed it in desperation when I left the house.”

  “Well then, I’ll get scissors,” said Allie. “We’ll cut the hat off and then cut the slime out of your hair.”

  “Or we could cut all your hair as short as a crew cut,” said Charlie, “so it looks like you want it that way.”

  “Nooo,” moaned Marie. “I’ll be bald!”

  “Not for long,” soothed Charlie. “Hair grows at the rate of half an inch a month.”

  “So in a year, your hair will be six inches long,” Allie calculated cheerfully. “In two years, it’ll be a foot long.”

  “Or maybe you could ask the photographer to Photoshop some hair onto your head,” suggested Charlie.

  “Stop,” said Izzy, putting up her right palm. “Granddad and I are always getting stuff we’re experimenting with stuck on our clothes or in our hair. We don’t have to cut the slime out of Marie’s hair. We’ll freeze it, and then we’ll be able to break it off in chunks. We’ll need ice cubes, and then some lotion to get the dusty bits off her hair.”

  “Oh, thank you, Izzy!” said Marie. “I really didn’t want to be bald. You’re a genius!”

  Izzy shrugged off Marie’s compliment, but she was very pleased.

  Charlie sprinted off to the cafeteria and was back in a jiffy with ice cubes—and olive oil.

  “Really? Olive oil? Marie is going to smell like a salad,” said Allie.

  “It was either olive oil or peanut butter,” said Charlie.

  “Eww!” squealed all the girls at once at the idea of peanut-butter-scented hair. “Gross!”

  “Yeah,” agreed Charlie, “as much as I love peanut butter, the idea of Marie smelling like a sandwich seemed like a nonstarter.”

  “I’d say olive oil’s better than peanut butter any day,” joked Marie, “right off the top of my head.”

  The girls laughed. Izzy was so happy to hear Marie joking like the old days, she could have hugged her! Instead, she went to work on Marie’s head. First, very gingerly, she lifted the sides of Marie’s hat until the hat was inside out. Then, where it was still stuck, she cut the hat off Marie’s hair. It was ruined, but Marie said, “I never want to see that hat again in my life!” Then Izzy held the ice against Marie’s hair to freeze the slime.

  While they waited for the slime to freeze, Izzy asked, “So, Marie, you said you were babysitting your nephew?”

  “Yes, I babysit almost every afternoon,” said Marie. “That’s why I can’t come to any of your houses after school. Crosby’s a perpetual motion machine, and I have to watch him like a hawk. I promised that I wouldn’t have anybody over because my mom and my sister think that I would be distracted if I did.”

  “But you invited that new girl Gina over,” said Allie.

  “Gina’s Crosby’s aunt, too, just like me,” said Marie. “Gina’s brother is married to my sister. So my mom doesn’t mind if she comes over, just not anyone else who might be noisy or messy or anything.”

  “Oh, that sounds like she means us!” said Izzy. “I knew your mom never forgave us for that kitchen explosion!”

  “But why didn’t you tell us all this?” asked Charlie. “We would have understood.”

  “Yes,” said Allie. “We thought you didn’t want to be our friend anymore. We thought you thought we were absolute zeros.”

  “Well,” Marie admitted, “I was mad at you! On the first day of school, all three of you rushed toward me acting like nothing had changed. You were all ‘swish cheese sandwiches’ and ‘See you later, alligator.’ It felt so fake! I was awfully lonely at first in France, and you kept sending photos of all the fun you were having without me. Talk about feeling like a zero! I sure did.”

  “Oh, we didn’t mean to make you feel left out!” said Izzy, stricken. “We wanted to show you how much we missed you.”

  “Then how come later on, when I sent you photos, you stopped sending any to me?” demanded Marie.

  “You looked so different and sophisticated in the photos that we hardly recognized you,” said Charlie. “Like, in the photos you sent after you got those haircuts, you looked so, I don’t know, edgy and cool, like a rock star or something.”

  “And the photos that we sent you bounced back,” explained Izzy.

  “They did?” asked Marie. “But—”

  “Hey!” said Allie. “By any chance, did you change your email address and forget to tell us, Marie?”

  “Oh no! Maybe I did forget to tell you!” said Marie. “So that’s what happened. But we could have cleared that up if you’d answered my phone call. I told you I’d call October 12.”

  “No, you wrote that you’d call on December 10,” said Charlie. “I remember because that’s my dog’s birthday, so we had cake. When you didn’t call us, we tried to call you that day, but there was no answer.”

  Marie shook her head. “Oh,” she sighed. She sounded embarrassed. “I bet I know what happened there, too, now that I think of it. In France, you write a date with the number of the day first, and then the month. So I wrote ‘12/10’ and you thought I meant December 10, but I meant October 12.”

  The date mistake struck all the girls as hilariously silly, and they giggled hard. “I’m so glad the truth is revealed at last,” said Izzy.

  “Thanks for clearing things up, Marie,” said Charlie.

  “Yes,” said Izzy. “And also, thank you for not telling on me when you saw me climbing down the hose. Why were you in the chemistry lab that afternoon after school?”

  “I left my backpack in there by mistake,” said Marie. She sighed. “I can NOT remember my locker combination, so I have to carry my backpack everywhere. It’s a drag.”

  “I can help you remember your combination,” said A
llie. “What is it?”

  “26-13-3,” said Marie.

  “Twenty-six letters in the alphabet,” said Allie immediately. “The thirteenth is M, your first initial, and the third is C, your last initial.”

  “Allie, you are brilliant!” said Marie. “I’ll never forget my locker combination again.” She turned to Izzy. “Now it’s my turn to ask you,” she said. “Where were you coming from when I saw you shimmying down the hose?”

  “We were all up on the roof,” said Izzy.

  “And the door slammed shut and we got stuck up there!” exclaimed Allie, shuddering at the memory of being marooned.

  “We just about died of starvation,” added Charlie.

  “What were you doing on the roof?” asked Marie.

  “We were supposed to be looking at the air-conditioner condenser and fan,” said Charlie. “We want to figure out why the building is so cold.”

  “But we got kind of distracted by the view, and how nice it is on the roof, and then, boom. The door closed, and we freaked out,” said Allie.

  “Anyway, we were up there again just now,” said Izzy, “and we did look at the machinery. Unfortunately, the condenser and fan do not seem to be the problem.” She took out the composition book. “I’m keeping a written record of our hypotheses.”

  Izzy wrote:

  Make an Observation: The school is too cold.

  Form a Question: Why is the air-conditioning/heating system malfunctioning?

  Form a Hypothesis: The air-conditioner condenser and fan are malfunctioning.

  Conduct an Experiment: Observe the air-conditioner condenser and fan.

  Analyze the Data and Draw a Conclusion: Air-conditioner condensers and fans are working just fine. They are NOT the problem.

  Allie threw up her hands, exasperated. “Arrggh! So now we’re back to square one,” she said.