“Okay, who else? Toni?”
Toni sat up and said, “Fine, but don’t laugh at my drawing!”
We all promised we wouldn’t laugh.
Before Toni showed her picture, she said, “I drew a picture of the stupid ‘secret’ symbol the football players write on everything. It’s always been my dream to kick for the football team, so that’s why I drew it. It’s supposed to look like the open mouth of a shark. See?”
When she held up her picture, I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I was practically screaming. “That’s it! That’s the symbol thingy I saw on the guy’s shoe! I’m almost positive!”
“What? This?” asked Toni.
On her paper, she had drawn a circle. All along the inside edge, there were little spikes pointing toward the center of the circle. It sort of looked like a reverse sun.
Kate looked at me. “Are you sure it’s what you saw, Yuzi?”
“Could you draw it again with a white pencil on black paper?” I asked Toni.
Kate grabbed a white pencil, and Mrs. V got some black paper. As Toni started drawing again, we watched closely.
When she finished, she held up the paper. I backed up to the opposite end of the art room so I could see the symbol from a distance.
“I’m pretty sure that’s it,” I said to the girls.
“That narrows it down to the football team,” Toni said.
“Well, at least now I have a better idea whose shoes to look at,” I said.
“Yuzi!” Toni said. “You might actually have a chance to find this guy!”
I immediately came up with a brilliant plan.
“I’ve got it!” I squealed.
Our school was having a massive roller-skating party tonight, and they needed volunteers for a whole list of things. I remembered seeing a sign-up list earlier in the day. It was on the bulletin board right outside of Mrs. V’s room.
I dashed out the door followed by Toni, Kate, and Mrs. V. I searched for the words “Shoe check counter” on the list. Since they needed two students to help, Toni could do it with me. I giggled at the thought of having hundreds of shoes pass through our hands for our inspection. Oh, the power!
“Isn’t it so deliciously perfect!?” I asked Toni. “All the kids in the school will be handing us their shoes and we’ll give them their roller skates!”
“I’ll finally be able to pick out my own skates,” Toni said with a sound of relief.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Whenever I get skates from a rink, I have to yell out my size over and over, partly because it’s so loud at rinks, and partly because they can’t believe what size I’m asking for. It’s really annoying. This time, I won’t have to deal with that,” Toni explained.
I looked down at Toni’s long feet and smiled. “I’m happy for you. And I’m glad you got that off your chest. There won’t be anything distracting you from our important mission,” I said with pretend seriousness.
She swatted at me. I ducked but she hit me on the side of my head anyway.
“Well, Yuzi, let’s get ’rolling! Get it? We’re going roller-skating …” Toni said, making herself laugh.
I laughed, too. “Sure, Toni. Let’s get ‘rolling!”
I’d for gotten everything Mrs. V had just said moments ago. I was ready to confront the guy who’d ruined my life at the ZoomAround Skating Rink that night.
CHAPTER 8
Sole Searching
“Anything yet?” I yelled to Toni. We were taking shoes and handing back skates as fast as we could.
Toni and I were at opposite ends of the counter. Two parent chaperones worked with us, but they were more interested in gossiping about the Popcorn Festival.
Toni shook her head. “Nope. Nada!”
We’d been flipping every black-soled sneaker for the last thirty minutes, checking for the symbol. Flip and check, flip and check. We only had ten minutes left before we switched with the other people who had counter duty.
The skating rink was packed. Everywhere you looked, there were parents and chaperones and students eating, drinking, skating, or falling. The music was so loud, you could almost feel your eyeballs quiver in their sockets. Colored lights danced across the roller-skating floor.
The rush began to die down and I walked over to Toni.
“What if he isn’t here?” I moaned, sipping on a soda.
“There are still a lot of kids who haven’t gotten skates yet,” she said.
“I know, but we’re off in less than five minutes.”
“Yeah, but we’ll be on again at the end of the night, when everyone’ll be getting their shoes back,” Toni said. “We can keep checking then and see if we missed anything while we were gone.”
Toni and I put on skates as the next group of volunteers arrived. We clomped our way along the rubber-floored outer rink in search of Kate and Danika. We found Kate eating potato chips.
“Danika’s skating,” she told us.
“I want to skate,” I said. “But not till I use the bathroom first.”
“I’m trying to finish this bag of chips before I go out there. I’ll come with you,” Kate said.
Toni said, “I’ll be out on the floor when you guys get back.”
“Okay,” Kate and I said together.
On the way to the bathroom, I saw Trevor. It’s hard to miss that red hair, even in dim lighting. The skates he was wearing made him look so much taller and thinner. He was too far away to talk to, so I waved. He kind of half-waved back. I was glad Toni wasn’t with me.
Kate shook her head. “That’s funny how Toni can’t stand Trevor, but you think he’s fine,” she said. “He’s okay,” I said.
When it was our turn behind the counter again, there was almost no one getting skates.
“I can’t give up now! I’m so close!” I said desperately. “I’m going to check for any sneakers that might have come in while we were out.” I began going through all the shelves of shoes again.
Toni shrugged. “Guess I’ll help. We don’t have anything else to do. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be that many black-soled shoes.”
We started looking, and in only a few minutes, I found the symbol.
“Here they are! Here they are!” I shouted, nearly falling off the chair I was standing on.
Toni ran over to see.
The sneakers were black and white basketball shoes with a thin striping of blue up the sides. I couldn’t believe I’d found them!
“That’s a pretty sad-looking symbol,” she said as we both looked at a pathetic version of the football players’ secret sign.
“Yeah. And these shoes reek like … nachos!” I said, holding my nose.
“What on earth has you girls so involved over there?” said a familiar voice.
Mrs. Chickory! She must have switched with one of the chaperones while we were looking at shoes. I swallowed hard.
Looking more ostrich-like than ever in the narrow space behind the counter, she came over to see what we were looking at. She was not impressed.
“Why don’t you girls go out there and skate? There’s nothing to do here, and we have a little while before the closing rush,” she said.
“No thanks,” I said.
“We’re fine,” said Toni.
“Well, fine then,” Mrs. Chickory continued. “How about this? Why don’t you girls go get us all some nachos?” Still holding the shoes, nachos did not sound like a tasty suggestion to me. But she was trying hard to be pleasant.
Toni and I looked at each other as Mrs. Chickory dug her wallet out of her purse so she could hand us some money.
“Well, I’m in the mood for nachos,” she said. “Here’s some money. I’ll even treat you girls. Well, how about it?” She stood there on her tiny feet and held out the cash. Was it possible the angry ostrich was being generous?
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Uhhh … okay, Mrs. Chickory,” I said, and slowly took the money from her hand. “We
’ll go get the nachos. But it’s super, super important that we know whose shoes these are,” I pleaded. “Could you maybe make sure that you get a good look at whoever picks them up, if they come before we get back? Maybe even get their name?”
“Tracking down a particular gentleman, are we?” Mrs. Chickory asked in a disapproving tone. Then she smiled.
I tried very hard not to roll my eyes.
“Actually, no,” Toni said. “But it really is important.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do, girls,” Mrs. Chickory said with a laugh. “Now, skedaddle! Get those nachos!”
The nacho line was crazy long. I kept staring at the roller skate shaped clock. We were gone for almost fifteen minutes! When we got back to the shoe check counter, my worst fear had come true. The shoes were gone! And so was Mrs. Chickory.
“Where are the shoes?” I wailed. “And where’s Mrs. Chickory?”
“What shoes?” asked Bobby. He’s the actual shoe check guy who works for the rink, and he was wearing a ridiculously bright yellow ZoomAround T-shirt.
“Where’s Mrs. Chickory?” I asked again.
Bobby was annoyed. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffed, then glared at me. “Some kid fell and she went to get some bandages or something.
What’s it to you?”
“Did you return some shoes?” I asked him, trying not to freak out.
He looked at me like he’d never heard a more stupid question in all of his life.
“Ah … yeah!” he answered, his voice rising.
“Did you happen to notice who you gave them to?” I asked.
Bobby put down the can of deodorant he’d been spraying into skates.
Looking at us, he said, “Listen, little junior higher and really tall junior higher, go away!” He put on his headphones and went back to spraying the skates.
He was a little cranky, so I stopped asking questions.
But I thought I might cry. I was surprised to see that Toni was grinning mischievously. She held up something in her hand, waggling it. It was a bright pink marker.
“Wha—?” I started.
“Danika and Kate called a super-secret Secret Keeper Girl meeting right before the skating party. We devised a plan to mark the shoe if we found it without its owner,” she said smugly, raising an eyebrow. “So, I marked it right before we left for nachos. Just in case we didn’t get back in time.”
“You marked the shoe?” I asked in shock.
“Yep,” she said. “A teeny weeny pink heart on the white part of the back of the shoe. So now we don’t need to see the bottom of it!”
“You so rock!” I said, extremely relieved. Then I shouted, “Why didn’t you say anything?” and swatted her arm.
“You were too busy falling apart,” Toni said with a laugh.
I yanked a green flip-flop off the shelf and threw it at her. I missed but I didn’t care.
I was starting to feel like a regular Sherlock Holmes. Nancy Drew, maybe! The Secret Keeper Girls were one step closer to exposing the true fire-alarm puller.
CHAPTER 9
Truth and Oatmeal Brains
“Fire alarms are red. You don’t have a clue. You’d better run or I’ll flatten you!”
Danika, Kate, and Toni laughed and rolled their eyes. Kate said, “No offense, Yuzi, but you can’t say something that rhymes when you catch the guy. He’ll just laugh in your face!” Everyone else agreed.
“Yeah,” said Danika. “Why don’t you try something more witty like, ‘You alarmed me. Now I’ll alarm you!’”
A moment of silence, and then total laughter.
Toni interrupted. “You guys are all thinking like wimps. Yuzi, you need to say something with authority and demand! You’ve won the battle! Victory is yours for the taking!”
“Okay,” I said. “What if I go up to him from behind, poke him in the back and say, ‘Reeeeach for the skiiiiies!’”
Toni looked shocked. “Are you kidding? Have you looked at yourself? You are no cowgirl!”
“I think I’ll know exactly what to say or do as soon as I lay eyes on that snake,” I said with confidence. “All I want is to see his face and prove to everyone that I’m not crazy or a liar, and I want to tell him what I think of him for letting me take the punishment for something I didn’t do.”
“I totally get that you need to know who it was so you’re not blamed,” said Danika. “But, let’s be real. It’s not like all the scenes you see in movies about someone telling off the bad guy really happen in real life.”
We sat in silence and for the first time I wondered if this thing would end with a quick exchange of wit like I’d imagined.
“You could always just forgive him,” piped up Kate.
I could feel my face drop. I felt a little twinge of anger flare up inside of me. It was the same feeling I had every time I thought of meeting this mystery boy. I was hoping that it would stop once I knew who it was and told him what I thought.
But I wasn’t sure.
“It’s just an idea,” Kate said and shrugged her shoulders.
On my way to science, I tried to come up with some more creative things I could say when I find him.
Suddenly, my mom’s voice crept into my head saying, “I’m sure whoever did it knows they did the wrong thing. It’s quite possible that they feel bad but are too frightened to confess.”
I pushed the thought out of my head and kept working on lines.
“Hey, you’re not just on the shark team. You are a shark!”
Somehow, I didn’t feel much better saying that. That’s when it occurred to me. Not just my mom, but everyone I knew in Marion, Ohio—granted I didn’t know many—had said I should just let the poor guy off the hook. Mrs. V had said it. Toni had mentioned it before we threw candy. Even Danika and Kate had mentioned it today.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe it’d feel better if I just forgave the guy.
Mr. Picadilly was a few minutes late—again. It only takes a few seconds for a teacherless class to go wild, especially when it happens over and over. Already, someone was up front doing a bad impression of Mr. Picadilly. Everybody else was talking, or standing, or both.
I turned to my left and said, “Hey, Trev.”
“Hey,” he said.
Sometimes he acts a little grumpy and hardly looks at me, and then I can see why he and Toni don’t get along. But most of the time, he’s pretty nice. To me, anyway.
“Awww, c’mon!” he suddenly wailed, looking down.
“What?” I asked, startled.
“Stupid!” Trevor said, and he angrily sat back hard in his chair and sort of started pouting.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. What is his problem? This must be the Trevor Toni knows.
He looked at the classroom door, then quickly got up and went to Mr. Picadilly’s desk. It only took him a second to grab the white-out and sit back down.
“Some idiot must have …” He was mumbling, so I didn’t hear the rest. He shook the bottle hard as he popped off a shoe. My mouth went dry.
“Why would some dumb person do this?” he asked, half-whining. He unscrewed the little white cap. “It was probably a stupid girl!”
“Do what?” I barely squeaked, heart pounding.
He picked up his shoe and jabbed the heel at my face. “That!” he said.
I was nose-to-nose with a little pink heart. My brains turned to oatmeal.
As Trevor began to carefully paint white-out over the heart, I could see the bottom of the shoe—and the unavoidable truth: the Shark symbol—faded and lopsided, but oh so clear. It hit me like a brick in the head, and all my clever smack-talk evaporated. Trevor Kenworth pulled the fire alarm!
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked.
My breath was coming in short gasps. I turned to look at him and opened my mouth to say something. But my tongue had gone numb.
“What do you mean, your tongue went numb?! How could you not say anything?” bel
lowed Toni. “I mean, it was Trevor Kenworth!”
I’d met her, Danika, and Kate in the library later and filled them in on what happened with Trevor. Toni was practically yelling, so the librarian gave a firm “Ssshhhhh!” from her desk.
“I should have known it was him!” Toni continued more quietly. “That reptile!”
“I can’t believe he’s been talking to you and stuff, knowing you’re the one who got in trouble instead of him,” Danika whispered.
“All this time I thought it was really nice of him to not talk about the fire alarm. Now I know it was just because he felt guilty,” I said in a barely-there voice. “I’m so mad!” Although it’s hard to sound mad when you’re whispering.
“What are you going to do?” asked Danika.
“I’m not really sure yet,” I said.
“You have to tell Principal Butter, Yuzi,” Toni said.
I nodded my head. “I know, but I want to talk to Trevor first and tell him that I know he pulled that alarm.”
“When are you going to do it?” Kate whispered.
“I don’t know. Tomorrow, maybe?” I said. “I won’t really see him again today.”
“Well, as your Secret Keeper Girl sisters, we expect a full report,” Danika said.
“When I didn’t know who did it, it was a lot easier to think about revenge. But it’s totally different now that I know it was Trevor. I mean, we’re kind of like almost friends and his mom’s super-nice,” I said in his defense.
“There’s a football scrimmage today after school,” Toni said suddenly. “Do you want us to pelt him with rotten fruit?”
“Ooooh! We totally should!” said Kate, bouncing in her seat.
“Great idea,” I joked. “Got any watermelons?”
I pictured Trevor covered in smelly fruit guts, running for his life. Even though I knew it would never happen, it made me smile.
CHAPTER 10
A Wesely Chicken
After a good night’s sleep, I woke up ready to face Trevor in science class. Only one problem—he wasn’t there.
Maybe he knows I know and is scared to come to class, I thought. I was glad he wasn’t there. I still wasn’t sure what to say to him.
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