The Super Secret Mystery

by Stephanie Barden

  “Cinderella and I are going to get a stuffed toucan after school today,” said Erin. “So we’ll be all ready to practice tomorrow when you guys come over.”

  “I’ll bring my gorilla,” said Logan.

  We went back to our desks, and I set my Lots About Ocelots notebook on it. Then I had a very small aha! I turned the notebook over so the plain back was facing up, just in case Rosemary T. happened to look.

  Erin and I checked in with Ms. Pearl during lunch about the missing books. She said she hadn’t found them yet and was very sorry. We told her we were very sorry too.

  The end-of-recess bell rang, but I had a couple burning questions that I just had to ask. “Are they by any chance rare and valuable books?”

  “Yeah,” said Erin. “Would somebody want to steal them?”

  “Maybe for ransom,” I said, “or to sell them on the black market?”

  Ms. Pearl laughed. “No, they weren’t valuable like that.”

  “Why do you think they went missing then?” I asked.

  “I hope it was just an honest mistake,” said Ms. Pearl. “I hope I misplaced them or somebody picked them up by accident. I also hope they reappear in time for you to use them.”

  “Me too,” I said. “But just in case, I’m going to the public library this weekend.”

  “I think that’s a fine plan,” said Ms. Pearl.

  We were the last ones back to class, so we quick sat down. We pulled out a pencil and paper, because Mr. Harrison was starting our weekly spelling test. Even though the spelling bee was behind us, we still had to practice every week.

  “Your first word is law,” said Mr. Harrison. “It is against the law to steal.”

  Erin looked over at me, and we raised our eyebrows at each other.

  “Your next word is washing. My dad was busy washing his car.”

  “My dad makes me and my brother do that,” said Charlie.

  Mr. Harrison smiled. “Caught. Don’t get caught cheating.”

  “Or stealing,” said Jack.

  Most teachers like a classroom to be very, extremely quiet during a test, but Mr. Harrison never seemed to mind a little bit of talking. He gave us twenty more words and finished with a bonus word: daughter.

  “Send your papers up,” said Mr. Harrison.

  I passed my paper across to Christopher to take up front. Just as I did, I noticed that my Lots About Ocelots notebook was right side up. “That’s strange.”

  “What is?” asked Logan.

  “Did any of you turn my notebook over?” I asked my tablemates.

  “What notebook?” asked Trevor.

  “This one.” I tapped my Lots About Ocelots notebook. “I left it upside down before lunch, and now it’s right side up.”

  “No,” said Trevor and Christopher together.

  “Zat ees a leetle suspicious,” Logan said in his French accent. He raised his eyebrows at me and looked over at the Rosemarys.

  I did too.

  I picked up the notebook to put it away in my desk, but a piece of paper sticking out of it caught my eye. I opened to that page. A note was tucked inside that said:

  “What in the world?” I said very loud and surprised.

  “Everything okay, Cinderella?” asked Mr. Harrison.

  “No . . . I don’t know . . .” Then I stopped. I didn’t have any idea what the note was about, but I didn’t want Erin to get in big trouble. “It’s nothing.”

  “Okay, class,” said Mr. Harrison. “How did the spelling test go for you?”

  People started raising their hands and telling what words they thought were hard and what ones they thought were easy. I couldn’t stop thinking about the note, though. I turned around in my seat to look behind me. The only things there were the window and the heater and a bookshelf with encyclopedias on it. Behind the window was the sky. Behind the heater was nothing, because it was stuck to the wall. I Had, Had, Had with a capital H to look behind the bookshelf.

  I raised my hand.

  “Did you have something to add, Cinderella?” asked Mr. Harrison.

  “No,” I said. “I think my pencil rolled under the bookshelf. Can I go look?”

  “Sure.” Mr. Harrison turned and started writing some spelling words on the board.

  I peeked over the top of the bookshelf, but it was pushed up so close to the wall that nothing could fit behind it. I bent down on the floor to look under it. There were a ton of dust bunnies but nothing else.

  “Did you find it, Cinderella?” asked Mr. Harrison.

  “I guess I don’t really know what I’m looking for,” I said.

  “I thought you lost your pencil.” He looked a little confused.

  “Oh yeah. No, I didn’t find it.”

  Rosemary W. raised her hand. “Cinderella shouldn’t be out of her seat. One of her shoes is off.”

  I sighed and went and sat back down.

  I just could not wait for school to finally end. As soon as Erin and I were alone, I practically burst out, “What in the world did that note mean?”

  “What note?” she asked.

  “The one you left in my Lots About Ocelots notebook at lunch recess.”

  “I didn’t leave you a note,” she said. “Plus, I was with you all recess.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “Well, look at this.” I opened up my backpack and pulled the note out. “We have to be a little careful. Whoever wrote it is afraid they’re going to get in trouble.”

  Erin and I bent over the note.

  “‘Don’t tell anyone!’” she read. “‘I’ll get in big trouble! Look behind E.’”

  I put the note back in my backpack to keep it safe, and we walked over to the fence to wait for my mom.

  “That is very strange,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “I looked behind me in class. All there was was the window and heater and the bookshelf. And the only thing behind the bookshelf was dust.”

  “Who else in our class has a letter E name?” she asked.

  We named everyone table by table, but there were no other Es.

  “Maybe it’s someone in the other third-grade class,” I said, “like Emma.”

  “Maybe,” said Erin. “We should call her and ask.”

  My mom pulled up in her car, and Tess waved like mad.

  “This is going to drive me crazy,” I said.

  “Me too,” said Erin.

  We jumped in the car, and I climbed over Tess’s car seat.

  “Mall or the library first?” asked my mom.

  “Mall!” we all yelled.

  Luckily being at the mall with Erin and Tess and my mom somehow made me completely forget about the note, and I didn’t get driven crazy at all.

  11

  Leopard–Print Flat

  When we finally got home from shopping for a stuffed toucan and checking out jungle cat library books, my mom was too tired to even think about making dinner. We ordered a pizza and got to eat it watching Animal Planet. That was a big treat. We never, hardly ever got to eat dinner in front of the TV.

  After we ate, Erin and I decided to get to work on a mural for our book report. The Group in Cahoots had decided we needed to make the classroom look jungle-y. We opened up the closet where we kept all our art supplies and got avalanched on by a whole bunch of shoe boxes.

  “Ahhh!” we yelled.

  “Everything okay?” my dad called.

  “Yep!” I called back.

  “What are you doing with all these shoe boxes?” asked Erin.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said. “We’re going to make something with them, but we don’t know what yet.”

  We piled the boxes back up, but one of them was heavier than the rest and rattled. I opened it up, and there was my missing leopard-print flat!

  “What in the world?” I said.

  “It wasn’t camouflaged,” said Erin. “It was hiding.”

  I only had socks on, so I slipped the flat on my foot, and we went back to the dining-room table with const
ruction paper and colored pens.

  “Speaking of what in the worlds,” I said, “I almost forgot about the note.”

  “Me too,” said Erin.

  I looked at the clock, and it was eight. “My mom will say it’s too late to call Emma. We’ll have to do it tomorrow.”

  “Hopefully she wrote it and can explain what it’s all about,” said Erin.

  “Otherwise,” I said, “it’s just another mystery, like the missing books.”

  We started drawing the biggest trees we could on the paper. When we had a pretty good rain forest, Erin went to get her new toucan. She flew it into the dining room and pretended to land it on one of the trees.

  “This doesn’t look very good,” she said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “We need to make bigger trees.”

  “Do you have bigger paper?” she asked.

  “Let’s go look.” Then I had an AHA! “Wait, I have an idea. What do you think about this?”

  Logan and Zachary came over after lunch on Saturday. Tess sat at the dining-room table with us and set Charlotte Brontosaurus right in the middle. Even though the curtains were closed up tight, we couldn’t be too careful.

  “I had to go all the way to the downtown library yesterday, but I finally found something to check out on Pacific pocket mice.” Zachary pulled two magazines out of his backpack. “I think I’m going to study these guys when I grow up. That way when another kid tries to do a report on them, he’ll have an easier time.”

  “I might want to be a scientist when I grow up too,” said Erin. “I’m not sure what I want to study, though. There’s tons of stuff written about these already.” She pulled the stuffed toucan we’d found at the mall out of a shopping bag.

  “Here’s my stuffed gorilla.” Zachary plopped it in front of him on the table.

  “Tess,” I said. “Would you mind getting my ocelot off my bottom bunk and Tiptoe?”

  “Sure!” She slid off her chair and ran out of the room.

  “We went to the library yesterday too,” I said. “And I got these books.” I tapped a stack on the table. Underneath the books was my Lots About Ocelots notebook. “Oh yeah, look at this.” I pulled the note out and passed it across the table.

  Logan read it first. “This is mysterious.”

  “I know,” I said. “I thought Erin wrote it, but she didn’t.”

  “We called Emma in the other class and asked her,” said Erin. “But she didn’t write it either.”

  “And we can’t think of any other E names,” I said.

  Zachary read it. “You’re telling people,” he said. “Even though it says not to.”

  “I think it’s okay to tell people outside of school,” I said. “You guys wouldn’t get anyone in trouble, right?”

  “Right,” everyone said at once.

  “I looked behind everything behind me in class and couldn’t find a thing,” I said. “And I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”

  “Too bad we don’t know a handwriting expert,” said Logan.

  We all sat looking at the note for a few minutes, but that wasn’t getting us anywhere.

  “Let’s get to work on our play,” I said. “I’ll worry about the note later.”

  Tess ran into the room and handed me my ocelot and Zachary her stuffed mouse, Tiptoe.

  “Let the Group in Cahoots meeting come to order,” said Logan.

  “Erin and I had an idea about the tropical rain forest,” I said. “Instead of drawing a mural, what do you think about using people as trees?”

  “People?” asked Zachary.

  “Yeah,” said Erin. “We know some kids in school who are experts at being trees because of dance class.”

  “Would they mind if Tiptoe crawled on them and maybe tried to dig under their feet?” asked Zachary.

  “As long as you pick the right tree, I think it would be fine,” I said. “The people we’re talking about are Abby and Hannah and the Rosemarys.”

  “Don’t try to crawl on one of the Rosemarys,” said Erin. “They would freak out.”

  “Abby’s probably the best tree for you,” I said.

  “But when she gets chopped down,” said Zachary, “Tiptoe will have to run somewhere else.”

  “Hannah then,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure about her,” said Logan. “Sometimes she’s a little Rosemary-ish.”

  “How about Charlie?” I asked. “We could ask him to volunteer.”

  “And he could wear a shirt with a pocket that Tiptoe could jump into,” said Erin.

  “Are we sure we can trust him?” asked Logan.

  “I think we can,” I said.

  “Who should be the guy cutting down trees?” asked Zachary.

  “Maybe Mr. Harrison,” I said.

  We practiced all afternoon, and my mom and dad and Tess even helped. My mom and Tess were very good trees, and my dad was a vexylent woodcutter. At five o’ clock all the kids got picked up, and my mom and dad and Tess and I sat down at the dining-room table to talk about dinner.

  “Chinese!” said Tess.

  “We ordered in last night,” said my always-wanting-us-to-eat-healthy-food mom.

  “Moo shu pork,” said my dad.

  “Fine, fine.” My mom and Tess went into the kitchen to call and order.

  “What’s this?” My dad picked up the note that was still in the middle of the table. “‘Don’t tell anyone! I’ll get in big trouble! Look behind E.’”

  “That’s . . . ,” I started to say. But the way my dad read it made me hear the note differently. “Could you please read it again the way you just did?”

  “‘Don’t tell anyone!’” read my dad. “‘I’ll get in big trouble! Look behind E.’”

  “‘Look behind E,’” I said. “Not ‘Look behind, signed E.’”

  My dad gave me a funny look. If he had been my mom, his eyebrow would have been way, way, way up.

  “Thanks, Dad!” I jumped out of my chair. “I think I have it figured out a little bit! I have to go call Erin!”

  “Let your mom order the Chinese food first,” called my dad. “I’m starving!”

  12

  Adidas with Red Stripes

  Erin and I spent a ton of time on the phone that night. I read her the note the way my dad read it, and she agreed. We decided that instead of trying to figure out who wrote it, we would both make a list of everything we could think of that started with the letter E.

  “It would make it so much easier if we knew what we were looking for,” she said. “Do you think we need to look behind big things like an elephant or small things like an egg?”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “But whatever we’re looking for must be at school. The note was stuck in my notebook in our classroom. I’m sure I’m not supposed to go to the zoo and look behind an elephant.”

  “Yeah,” said Erin. “I guess you’re right. Should we tell Logan and Zachary and get their help?”

  I thought about that a little. “Help would be good. But I really don’t want to get anyone in big trouble like the note said.”

  “Even someone like the Rosemarys?” asked Erin.

  I thought a little bit more. “Even someone like them. I think we better be supersneaky and not let anyone else know what we’re up to.”

  On Monday morning Erin and I huddled under my umbrella before the bell rang. It was slush-puppying on us, which is like dribbly-spit, only icier.

  “Show me your list,” she said.

  I unfolded it.

  earth – globe

  earthquake supplies – in the closet

  easel – maybe in the kindergarten classrooms?

  electric outlets – all over the place, but can anything fit behind them?

  elm trees – ask Mom if there are any around

  enchilada – when will they serve them for lunch?

  encyclopedias

  entrance and exit – to the classroom and the school equipment

&nbs
p; for sports – in the gym?

  erasers

  espresso – if Mr. Harrison drinks any

  excuses for gym or being late – maybe in the office?

  expelled – has anyone been expelled?

  “How did you come up with so many?” asked Erin.

  “I went through the dictionary,” I said, “and wrote down every possible thing that started with the letter E.”

  “This is what I came up with.” She showed me her list: envelopes, erasers, Elmer’s glue, and earphones.

  “Yours makes a lot more sense,” I said.

  “Yours is full of way more places to look, though,” said Erin.

  The bell rang, and we ran to get in line.

  “Let’s start looking behind things on our lists when we can,” I said. “But don’t look suspicious.”

  By lunchtime I had looked behind the globe and the earthquake supplies in the closet. I’d also asked Mr. Harrison if he ever drank espresso. He said he did every morning and pointed to the coffee cup on his desk. I checked, and there was nothing behind it. Erin had looked behind the erasers and the extra Elmer’s glue at the back of the room. Neither of us had found anything interesting. Alas.

  After we finished eating lunch, we headed out to the gym to look behind some sports equipment.

  “I didn’t want to say anything while we were eating,” said Erin, “because there were so many people around. But I asked the lunch ladies about enchiladas. It turns out they never serve them, only tacos.”

  “I’ll cross that off the list then,” I said.

  When we got to the gym, I tried the door, but it was locked. Erin pulled on it hard too. Just then Mrs. Anderson, the gym teacher, walked up.

  “Do you girls need something?” she asked.

  “We might have lost something in the gym,” said Erin.

  “Was it one of Cinderella’s shoes?” asked Mrs. Anderson. “Like the Adidas with red stripes that you lost last month?”

  Erin looked at me, and I looked back at her.

  “We’re not really sure what it is,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a shoe.”

  “This sounds a little fishy,” said Mrs. Anderson.