“You’re right,” I said. “It’s really more of a scavenger hunt, I guess. We’re following clues.”
“I see,” she said. “Now it sounds kind of fun.”
“It’s actually a little frustrating,” I said.
“Because we don’t know what we’re looking for,” said Erin.
“Well,” said Mrs. Anderson, “if I ever find anything that doesn’t belong in the gym, I always put it in the Lost and Found. I haven’t found anything in the past few days, though.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That is very, tremendously helpful.”
“So glad to be of service.” Mrs. Anderson unlocked the gym door and went inside.
“Vexylent,” I said. “Another thing to check off the list.”
“Should we go to the office next or the kindergarten rooms?” asked Erin.
But we couldn’t go to either, because the bell rang.
On the way home from school I asked my mom about elm trees. She said she knew there were several in Seattle but wasn’t sure about around my school. I figured if a big plant expert like my mom didn’t know where any elms were, no third grader would either. So that got crossed off the list.
Erin and I talked on the phone after dinner and decided to cross off electric outlets too. Every outlet we saw that day was screwed tight into the wall. There was no way to get anything behind one unless you shoved it into the plug openings. And that seemed a little too dangerous to look into.
At school on Tuesday we always kept our eyes open when we went through every entrance and exit. Erin pretended she needed to send a letter and asked Mr. Harrison if he had an envelope she could borrow. He did, but there wasn’t anything interesting behind the pile of them. She also checked behind the earphones at the back of the room. Alas, nothing.
“I’ve finished my list,” she whispered to me at lunch. “How about you?”
“I tried to look behind the encyclopedias in the classroom,” I said. “But there’s no room for anything. They’re pushed all the way to the back of the bookshelf.”
“What do we have left?” she asked.
“We need to go to the office and ask about excuses and expelled people,” I said. “We also need to go to the kindergarten classrooms.”
So we headed off to see Mrs. Bentley when we finished eating.
“Hello, girls,” she said when she saw us. “What can I do for you?”
“Would you mind answering a few questions?” I asked. “We’re on a sort of scavenger hunt.”
“I’d be happy to.” She got up from her desk and came over to the counter.
“First,” I said, “when kids bring in excuses for having to miss PE or school or something, where do you put them?”
“I log them in one of these notebooks.” She pointed to a shelf behind her. “Then I tell the people who need to know.”
I had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn’t allow us to look behind the notebooks, but I decided to try. “Are kids ever allowed behind this counter?”
“Not unless they need to make a phone call,” said Mrs. Bentley. “There’s a lot of private information back here.”
“Like lice,” said Erin.
“Exactly.” Mrs. Bentley nodded.
“Speaking of private information,” I said. “You don’t have to tell us any names, but could you tell us if anyone has been expelled lately?”
“This sounds more like investigative reporting than a scavenger hunt,” she said.
I thought about that for a minute. “You’re right. We are investigating something.” I walked up closer to the counter and said very quietly, “We don’t want to get anyone in trouble, so we’re being very secretive.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Bentley very quietly back. “Then I will share that no one has been expelled all year.”
“That’s very good news for many reasons,” I said.
Erin nodded.
“Thank you for all your help.” We turned to the door.
“Oh, I just thought of another E thing.” Erin turned back. “Have we had to have an exterminator come this year? At my old school it always seemed like we needed to get rid of something, like ants or mice.”
Mrs. Bentley shuddered. “Luckily we have not.”
“Thanks again,” we said, and headed to the kindergarten end of the hallway.
Both of the classroom doors were locked, but then I had an AHA! Louie could help.
We walked outside to the kindergarten yard and stood by the fence.
“Louie!” I called. “Can you come here a minute?”
He raced over. “Hiya!”
“Hiya right back!” Then I lowered my voice. “We have a favor, but it’s a very, extremely secretive one.”
Louie looked very serious at us.
“We need you to look behind the painting easels in your classroom. And we need you to ask a very trustworthy person to look behind the easels in the other classroom too.”
“We don’t know exactly what you’re looking for,” said Erin. “But if you see anything suspicious, let us know.”
“Like a bomb?” asked Louie.
“No, no,” I said. “It wouldn’t be anything dangerous.”
“I’ll do it,” said Louie. “I’ll report back after school.”
“Perfect,” I said.
We walked over to our favorite bench and on the way passed the Rosemarys and Hannah and Abby playing four-square.
“Hanging out with kindergartners again, Cinderella?” asked Rosemary T.
“Every chance I get.” I walked right by and didn’t even stop.
“Good one,” said Erin.
“It’s true.” I sat down on our bench. “I would much rather hang out with Louie than the Rosemarys any old day.”
“Me too,” said Erin. “Let’s see your list.”
Erin had left hers in the classroom because she’d crossed everything off. I’d started carrying mine around in my pocket, though, to check things off as I went.
Earth – globe – nothing
earthquake supplies – in the closet – nothing
easel – maybe in the kindergarten classrooms? (Louie working on)
electric outlets – all over the place, but can anything fit behind them? – nothing does that we want to see.
elm trees – ask Mom if there are any around – third graders won’t recognize them
enchilada – when will they serve them for lunch? – they don’t, only tacos
encyclopedias – no space behind
entrance and exit – to the classroom and the school – nothing
equipment for sports – in the gym? – nothing that doesn’t belong in the gym for the past few days
erasers – nothing
espresso – if Mr. Harrison drinks any – he does every morning, but nothing’s behind his cup
excuses for gym or being late – maybe in the office? – no kids allowed behind counter
expelled – has anyone been expelled? – luckily no one has
No exterminations either
“We’re almost finished,” said Erin.
“And we haven’t come up with anything,” I said.
Charlie bounced his basketball over and circled the bench with it. “You guys are always over here talking in secret.”
“That’s because we’re always in cahoots,” I said.
The bell rang, and we jumped off the bench and ran with Charlie to get in line.
13
Pelican-Print Rain Boots and a Big, Huge AHA!
Wednesday morning was shivery cold. They said it might snow, so I wore warm socks inside my ladybug boots. When I met Erin on the playground, she was wearing her new pelican-print rain boots.
“I love ’em!” I said.
“Thank you, thank you.”
We danced around the playground and looked for frozen puddles.
“Louie didn’t find anything suspicious behind the easels,” I said. “And he didn’t trust anyone enough to check in the other classroo
m, so he did that one too.”
“So we’re done?” Erin stopped puddle-slipping.
“Yep,” I said. “And we didn’t find a thing.”
“We’ll never know what the note was all about.” Erin looked disappointed.
“I know.” I was disappointed too. “But I can’t think of anything else to do. Except ask the class, but then someone would get in big trouble.”
Erin looked a little hopeful.
“We don’t want to do that,” I said.
“I guess you’re right.”
“It might snow,” I said to cheer her up. “And you have very awesome new boots!”
She smiled, and we danced in our boots over to our line.
“Let’s start our morning with some division,” said Mr. Harrison. “Please pull out your math journals and copy this problem.” He started writing on the board.
I wrote: Sara is putting away books in the library. She can fit fourteen books on each shelf. How many shelves will she need to put away ninety-seven books?
“Show your work,” said Mr. Harrison. “Then draw a picture of the solution.”
Mr. Harrison was very into teaching different ways to do math, so I was ready for this.
First I wrote out the problem the regular way: 97 ÷ 14. I did the division, and the answer was 6 and 13/14ths. Then I wrote: Sara needs seven shelves. Six will be all full, and one will only have thirteen books on it. Next I drew a picture of a bookcase with seven shelves. I drew fourteen books on every shelf but the top one. On that one I drew thirteen.
“How many people are still working?” asked Mr. Harrison.
Lots of people raised their hands, so I decided to make my bookshelves a little more interesting. I wrote a teeny-tiny title on the first book, Ramona the Pest. Then I wrote a teeny-tiny author name, B. Cleary, because I couldn’t fit her whole first name. Looking at all ninety-seven books I had to fill in, I started to worry I might run out of titles. Then I remembered there were a whole bunch of Ramona books. I filled the whole top shelf full of them, all together just like in a real library.
“Are we still working?” asked Mr. Harrison.
“I need some help,” said Olivia.
“Me too,” said a lot of other people.
Mr. Harrison started walking around the classroom giving help, and I started working on my second shelf. I decided to make this a D shelf since the shelf above was all Cs for Cleary. I wrote Dr. Doolittle and pretended that was the author’s name too. Then I made up a book called Daddy Long Legs and another one called Dogs Are the Best. Then I filled the whole rest of that shelf with books about dogs.
Mr. Harrison was still busy, so I started on the next shelf, shelf E. I made up a book called Excellent Elephants, by E. Emory. Then Exciting Eggs, by Eggbert. Then The Truth About Glue, by Elmer; then Excuses and More Excuses, by Ellie. Then I had a big, huge AHA! It was so big and huge that it popped out of my mouth very, extremely loud.
“AHA!”
“Have you had a breakthrough, Cinderella?” asked Mr. Harrison.
“I really think I have!” I said.
The classroom phone rang, and Mr. Harrison went to answer it.
“Erin,” I whispered over to her table. “I think I might have figured it out!”
I think she thought I was talking about the math problem, because at first she didn’t seem very excited. Then her mouth and eyes opened big and wide.
“Class,” said Mr. Harrison. “I have some bad news. The school is going to close today at noon. A snowstorm is on its way.”
“Hurray!” the whole class yelled.
“You don’t seem too upset,” he said.
“We’re not!” yelled Jack.
“We’re the opposite!” yelled Zachary.
“The exact opposite!” yelled Charlie.
I myself was a little bit upset, however. I Needed to get up to the library with a capital N before the school sent us home. I raised my hand. “Mr. Harrison, may I go up to the library really quickly? I have something I need to check on before I go home.”
“Certainly,” he said.
“Can Erin come too?” I asked.
“Certainly again,” said Mr. Harrison.
I stood up.
“Cinderella doesn’t have her shoes on,” tattled Rosemary W.
We race-walked up to the library, and on the way I explained. “I think maybe, just maybe, the E we’re supposed to look behind might be the E section in the library!”
“The E section!” said Erin. “How did you think of that?”
“I was drawing a library shelf for the math problem, and I was drawing the E section where all the E books live, and I had an AHA!”
“I heard that AHA!” said Erin.
“And the books got lost in the library,” I said.
“Wait!” Erin stopped in the middle of the hall. “The books? You think the note was about the missing library books?”
“I think maybe.” We started race-walking again.
“Remember that day?” said Erin. “Remember we were on our way into the library and the Rosemarys almost knocked us over?”
“Yep,” I said.
“And remember it was right then that the books were gone?”
“Yep.”
“I bet you’re right!” she said.
We burst through the library door. A whole class of first graders turned and looked at us. Ms. Pearl stopped reading.
“Sorry,” we whispered.
Ms. Pearl nodded and started reading again.
We tiptoed over to the bookshelves and followed along looking at the authors’ last names—Ahlberg, Anderson, Avi; Barden, Baskin, Birney, Blume; Cleary, Cooper, Cushman; Dahl, Day—until we got to the E section. Eastman, Edwards, Emberley, English, Evans, etc.
I looked at Erin, and she looked at me. She crossed her fingers and arms in front of her. Then she crossed her eyes too. I giggled a little, held my breath, and reached behind E.
“What in the world?” My fingers found a bunch of books attached to each other. I eased them over the regular E books. I was holding five books on jungle cats, rubber banded together with a note that said: reserved for Cinderella Smith.
Erin and I gasped at the same time.
“Everything okay over there, girls?” called Ms. Pearl.
“Yes!” we called back. “We mean yes,” we said quieter. We did not want to give those little kids any bad ideas.
“All right, first graders.” Ms. Pearl stood up. “Time to get you back to class.”
As she walked past with the line of first graders, I waved the books at her. Her mouth popped open. “Can you wait for me? I’ll be right back.”
I nodded.
“Those creepy Rosemarys,” said Erin. “I just know they hid them from you.”
“There’s no way to prove it, though,” I said.
“Quick, put the books down!” said Erin. “Maybe we can get fingerprints!”
I set the books down on Ms. Pearl’s desk just as she walked back in.
“Where did you find them?” she asked.
“Behind the E section,” I said.
“Where?”
“Right here.” I walked over and showed her. “They were hiding behind these books.”
“How did you think to look for them there?” she asked.
I thought for a minute and then decided to tell the truth. I was tired of lying about scavenger hunts and investigations. “I got a note. It said: ‘Don’t tell anyone! I’ll get in big trouble! Look behind E.’ Erin and I looked behind every E we could think of, and then I suddenly thought of the E section in the library.”
“Can I see the note?” asked Ms. Pearl.
“It’s down in my backpack,” I said. “But I really don’t want to get anyone in trouble. Whoever left me the note was trying to help.”
“True.” Ms. Pearl got very quiet. I could tell she was thinking hard about something. “Well, would you like to check these out now that we finally have them back?”
<
br /> “Actually I don’t need to,” I said. “I was able to get some from the public library.”
“Okay then,” said Ms. Pearl. “I guess I’ll shelve these where they really belong before the snow sends us home for the day.”
We all looked out the window. The snow was really coming down now.
“Thank you, girls, for finding these.”
“You’re welcome,” we both said, and race-walked back to class.
14
Animal-Print Ballet Flats, New Blue Ballet Flats, and High-Top Basketball Shoes
We had a no-school snow day on Thursday, but it didn’t really count. There wasn’t any snow on the ground to play in, only dangerous ice on the roads. Dance class ended up being cancelled too, so it turned into a pretty boring day. I talked to Erin on the phone a lot about our report and went next door to ask Charlie if he would volunteer to be a tree. He said he’d be happy to, and he also said he himself was not bored at all. Even though it was too cold outside to practice basketball, he needed the extra day to finish his report.
The next day the ice had melted off the streets, which was a very, extremely good thing. It was Endangered Animal Report day, and I could not wait. We started up right away with Olivia telling about the Eriskay pony. Then Kristy told about the Cleveland Bay horse. Katie brought in a poster on bats and bat-shaped cookies too. Yum! There were dioramas on elephants and bears, and oral reports on monkeys and penguins. Charlie did a PowerPoint on Komodo dragons; and Tom, who sits next to him, told all about bees.
I myself was very shocked and amazed to hear how many different kinds of bees there are and that lots of them are endangered. That was probably my most favorite report so far, although I did like Rosemary T.’s outfit. She was telling us about jaguars right now and had on a skirt dotted with animal spots and a vest that looked like lion fur and tan ballet flats with more black spots all over them.
“And that is the most important reason why jaguars are endangered today.” Rosemary T. did a little bow, and we all clapped.
“Are there any questions or comments for Rosemary T.?” asked Mr. Harrison.
Jack raised his hand. “What amazed you the most about them?”
The Super Secret Mystery Page 6