Vanished!

by James Ponti

  As we headed back into school Margaret said, “You’re not going to like this but I have a theory.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Lucy is Loki.”

  I gave her a look. “I figured that’s what you were going to say. What’s your logic?”

  “TOAST,” she replied. “Look at all the little things. The server was hacked by someone in orchestra. She’s in orchestra. The fire alarm was pulled in the performing arts center. She was in the performing arts center.”

  “That’s not much to go on.”

  “It’s just a theory, but think about this,” she said. “Forty-five minutes ago she told you she was going to meet you outside the cafeteria before algebra. But then she left campus in a hurry. What happened in between? You think she had a cello emergency? No. The fire alarm was pulled. That’s what happened. And what did Marcus say was the Secret Service’s only objective?”

  “To protect her,” I said.

  “That’s right,” she replied. “Maybe they know she pulled it and they whisked her off campus to keep it from blowing up into something big. Maybe they’re protecting her from getting in trouble.”

  I’ll admit that I didn’t want it to be Lucy, but I still thought Margaret was making some major leaps in her thinking.

  “We’re not even sure she was in the SUV,” I said. “There are a lot of important kids who go to school here. It could have been any of them.”

  “Let’s just see if she shows up for class,” Margaret said knowingly.

  “Let’s,” I replied, trying to sound more confident than I actually was.

  Margaret and I sat next to each other in sixth-period algebra, and when Lucy didn’t answer roll call, she turned toward me with an exaggerated look of surprise and whispered, “Oh no, I did not see that coming.”

  A few minutes later when we found out the test had been postponed because of the time lost to the fire alarm, I returned the favor. “What?” I whispered with equal exaggeration. “You mean pulling the fire alarm actually succeeded in stopping the test?”

  The teacher gave us a dirty look and we stayed quiet the rest of the period. After school Margaret and I decided to check out the scene of the crime where the fire alarm was pulled. It happened in the performing arts center, and since she’d had her music class there, she led the way.

  “Nice building,” I said as we entered.

  “Really nice,” she agreed. “Just like everything else around here.”

  The PAC, which is what they called the building, had an auditorium, a smaller stage called the black box, and practice rooms for chorus, band, and orchestra.

  “The alarm was pulled in the rear hallway,” Margaret said. “That’s back here.”

  She opened a door and we entered a long corridor that bent in a semicircle behind the rehearsal rooms, connecting them with the backstage area of the auditorium. It was designed to move people and instruments in for a performance.

  The fire alarm was located midway along the hall, tucked inside a little alcove where there was a water fountain and a door marked ELECTRICAL SUPPLY PAC-1. We were startled to see a boy drinking from the fountain. The alcove had hidden him from view as we approached.

  He was Asian, about my height, his dark brown eyes framed with wire-rimmed glasses. In addition to his school uniform he wore a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hi,” we both responded.

  There was an awkward moment as all three of us stood there. We wanted to examine the crime scene, but even though he was done drinking, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to go anywhere.

  “I’m Yin,” he finally said.

  “Hi, Yin. My name’s Florian.”

  “Margaret,” she said, extending a hand to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he replied.

  We all just stood there for a moment more. I looked over and saw that someone had used marker to scrawl “Loki” under the fire alarm. Margaret and I shared a look, but Yin leaned back against the wall and started to look at his phone. He wasn’t going anywhere, so eventually we continued on.

  “What’s he doing?” whispered Margaret.

  “I have no idea,” I replied.

  “Did you read the name under the alarm?”

  I nodded. “Loki strikes again!”

  When we got back to the main hall Margaret said, “Did Lucy tell you she was going into a practice room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those are in here.” She motioned toward a pair of double doors with a sign that said ORCHESTRA. “Let’s take a look.”

  We entered a massive room with chairs and music stands set up in a semicircle. There were smaller rooms and offices off to the sides. Black instrument cases were neatly stacked on shelves across two walls. Larger instruments such as a bass drum, harp, and piano were arranged in the back. On the far wall were four doors in a row marked PRACTICE ROOMS 1–4.

  “Hi, Ms. Allo,” Margaret said to the teacher who was straightening the music stands.

  “If it isn’t our new piano player,” she replied.

  “This is my friend Florian,” Margaret said. “He’s the other exchange student from Deal, and I was just showing him around.” She turned to me. “Ms. Allo is the music director for the school.”

  “Welcome to Chatham,” she said. “Do you play an instrument?”

  “No,” I said, slightly embarrassed. “I sang in the chorus at my old school but instruments have always eluded me.”

  “It’s never too late to start,” she replied. “We’ve got beginners’ classes.”

  “Well, the facilities certainly are nice,” I told her.

  “Thank you. We remodeled last year and are quite happy with how it turned out.”

  The sound of beautiful cello music came from one of the practice rooms.

  “Wow,” I said. “Someone’s pretty good.”

  “Actually,” she answered, “someone’s amazing and has been in there practicing for hours getting ready for a big performance next week.”

  A smile began to form as I wondered if this was the explanation for Lucy’s disappearance. Maybe she’d been in here practicing the whole time.

  I stepped closer to listen and for the first time noticed there was another person in the room. A woman sat at a table silently grading papers. She didn’t look up at us. She just kept grading.

  I was just about to say something to her when the music stopped and the door to the practice room opened. Margaret and I both shared a stunned look when we saw who had been practicing.

  It wasn’t Lucy.

  It was Yin.

  Which seemed to defy all logic. How had he been inside that little room practicing for hours when we just saw him in the rear hallway a few minutes earlier?

  8.

  Yin

  IT WAS BETTER THAN ANY magic trick I’d ever seen.

  From the moment we’d set foot in the orchestra room, we’d heard Yin playing his cello in one of the adjoining practice rooms. But this was impossible because we’d also seen him down the hall just minutes earlier. There was no way he could have entered without us seeing him. And even if there was, he couldn’t already have been playing when we arrived. Add to this the fact that Ms. Allo, the music teacher, said he’d been practicing for hours, and you can understand the giant knot in my brain.

  Yin understood it too. Which is why before I could ask him a question, he cut me off and said, “Hello, my name is Yin. It’s nice to meet you.” (This, despite the fact that we’d just met and introduced ourselves.)

  “I know who you are,” I said, even more confused. “Don’t you re . . .”

  That’s when I recognized the desperate look in his eyes and noticed that the other teacher in the room was suddenly interested in us. She was also Asian, possibly Yin’s mother, and it occurred to me that she might be the one he was trying to deceive.

  I changed midsentence and instead of saying, “Don’t you re-member,”
I stammered for a second and turned it into “Don’t you re-alize . . . that . . . everybody knows Yin . . . the amazing cellist? It’s nice to meet you in person. I’m Florian.”

  I shot Margaret a look, but she’d already reached the same conclusion. She wasn’t going to blow his cover either. At least not yet.

  “Hi, Yin. My name’s Margaret. You play beautifully.”

  “Thank you very much,” he replied, a look of total relief on his face. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

  The woman started speaking to him in Chinese, so I have no idea what they were saying. But after a brief conversation he turned back to us and said, “Sorry, I have to leave. We’re late for an appointment.”

  Even though the woman seemed to be in a hurry, Yin was careful and methodical as he put away his instrument. First he loosened the strings on the bow and placed it in the case. Next he lifted the cello, pushed in the end pin that stuck out from the bottom, and gently laid it in its case. Finally he pulled out a soft cloth and wiped the surface.

  “Rosin dust,” he explained when he noticed how intently I was watching. “You should clean it off every time you put the cello away.”

  “You take good care of it,” I said.

  He smiled. “It takes good care of me.”

  He shut the case and snapped the latches. As he carried it over to the storage area, I wandered to the practice room he’d been using and peeked inside. It was small, about three times the size of a closet. There was a piano with a bench against the wall, a chair, a mirror, and a music stand. There was no other door or window.

  “How’d you do it, Yin?” I whispered to myself.

  A sign-up sheet on a clipboard hung by the door and I saw that three practice rooms had been reserved during lunch, when the fire alarm was pulled. One by Lucy. Another by Yin. And a third by someone whose initials were RIB.

  “Thank you for the practice time,” Yin said to Ms. Allo as they exited. “See you tomorrow.”

  “See you both,” she responded.

  “Good-bye,” said the woman I now assumed was his mother.

  “Bye,” Margaret and I called out to them.

  They left in a hurry, but that wasn’t necessarily suspicious. Especially if they were late for an appointment.

  Once the door closed behind them Margaret turned to the music teacher and said, “Wow! He’s amazing.”

  “A genuine prodigy,” she replied. “I’ve never seen—or heard—anyone like him. Not at such a young age.”

  “You must be really proud,” I said. “How long has he been your student?”

  She laughed. “I can’t take credit for teaching Yin. I’m just lucky that I get to have him in my class. He arrived just after the start of last school year and has played and studied with the National Symphony Orchestra ever since.”

  “You’re telling me he’s in middle school and the NSO?” said Margaret amazed. “Okay, now I’m officially impressed.”

  She wasn’t the only one.

  That evening we went online and found dozens of articles praising Yin’s amazing musical accomplishments. Each told a variation of his biography: He grew up in the city of Nanjing, China, where he began playing cello at age four and started composing music by the time he was six. And each was sprinkled with high praise such as when the musical director of the NSO declared him a “once-in-a-generation talent” or the Chinese ambassador said his loan to the National Symphony was “a gift from China to the people of America.”

  But none of the articles mentioned the skill that most caught our attention—his ability to seemingly be in two places at one time.

  “We’re not crazy, are we?” Margaret asked. “We did see him in the hall right before we walked into the orchestra room?”

  “Yes, we did,” I said emphatically.

  “And we saw him come out of the practice room right after that?”

  “Absolutely. So do you know what that makes him?”

  “A shape-shifter?”

  “No,” I said. “It makes him our prime suspect.”

  I accentuated the statement by taping his picture to the middle of the wall where we were starting our caseboard.

  “I still have him second,” Margaret said. “I’m not ready to knock Lucy Mays out of the top spot.”

  We may not have agreed on the order, but I definitely considered Lucy a suspect too. I taped a photo of her next to the one of Yin. I also put up a stick figure drawing I made of Tanner (with a particularly dopey expression) and a picture of barbecue ribs.

  “Okay, how are ribs involved?” asked Margaret.

  “The other person who reserved a practice room during lunch has the initials RIB,” I replied as I smiled at my own cleverness. “I was being waggish.”

  “Waggish?”

  “It’s a British term,” I said with a London accent. “It means funny or witty.”

  “I know what it means,” she said. “I just don’t know why you’re using it. Just like I don’t know why you’re speaking like that.”

  “What’s the matter?” I said, keeping the accent. “I thought everybody loved the way the Brits talked.”

  “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  I sighed and returned to my normal voice.

  “I was just trying out new material,” I said. “You know, trying to stand out a little bit more.”

  “Material for what? You’re a seventh grader, not a stand-up comedian.”

  “No, but it’s hard to compete with musical prodigies and presidential family members,” I countered. “Or big jocks who play lacrosse and have long flowing hair.”

  She took a deep breath and thought for a second before speaking.

  “I want to give you some advice,” she said. “Don’t be that guy.”

  “What guy?” I asked.

  “The funny guy. Or the wild-and-crazy guy. Or the British-accent guy. Be yourself. Be Florian. You’re going to have to trust me on this. Florian is more than enough. Florian is awesome.”

  “I was being myself today at lunch when Tanner walked all over me,” I said. “You were there. You saw that. It’s not fun.”

  “I know. But do you understand how Yin being in middle school and the National Symphony at the same time is impressive?”

  “Of course I do. It’s absolutely amazing.”

  “Yes, but it’s no more amazing than you being in middle school and the FBI at the same time. And I know, it’s a secret, but it’s still amazing.”

  “Tell that to Tanner and Tori.”

  “You have a gift just like Yin does. Use it. The first time you met me you used TOAST to read me. Are you saying you can’t read Tanner? You can’t study him for ten seconds and figure out how to outsmart him? ’Cause if I’m being honest, he doesn’t seem all that smart.”

  “I guess that might work,” I said.

  “Great,” she replied. “So tomorrow you’ll use your skills to outwit Tanner?”

  “Right.”

  “Does that mean now we can use them to try to find Loki?”

  “Of course.”

  Over the next hour we built our caseboard. We had the pictures of our suspects in the middle and around the edges put information about each of the incidents.

  “Here are the names of the girls whose lockers were vandalized,” Margaret said as she put up an index card with five names on it.

  “And this is everyone who had access to the orchestra’s group page on Chat Chat,” I said, taping up a list that Marcus had e-mailed to us.

  “I know Chat Chat is off-line,” said Margaret. “But it would be helpful if they could let us access it just to read what was on it. There might be a clue there.”

  “Let’s make up a list of requests for Marcus to give to Dr. Putney,” I said as I pulled out a notepad and started writing.

  We made notations under the pictures to signify connections to each incident. Underneath Yin’s photo Margaret wrote “FA” for fire alarm because we’d seen him there and knew
that he was in the vicinity and “CC” for Chat Chat because as a member of the orchestra he had access to the group page.

  “Put the same notations under the barbecue ribs,” I said.

  “We don’t even know who RIB is,” she replied.

  “True, but we know he or she was near the alarm when it got pulled,” I reasoned. “And if you use the practice room then you’re probably in orchestra. So RIB had access to the Chat Chat page.”

  “Good point,” she said as she wrote beneath it.

  “There’s no connection between Tanner and the lockers or the orchestra,” said Margaret. “I’ll put an ‘FA’ down, although we don’t really know that he was near the fire alarm.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I still think he’s a candidate.”

  “But Lucy’s the only one who’s three for three. We can connect her to the lockers, Chat Chat, and the fire alarm. I’m also going to put a little red sticker on her picture.”

  “What’s the red sticker mean?” I asked.

  “Suspicious behavior,” she said. “Her sudden departure from campus during the fire alarm.”

  “Then put one on Yin’s too,” I retorted. “We know he’s hiding something.”

  She put a sticker on his picture.

  The value of the caseboard is that it’s a visual representation of your mind. In that way it lets you look inward by looking outward. We both stood there and stared for a moment and then Margaret just blurted out two unexpected words.

  “Moncrieff Tate!”

  “What?” I asked, beyond confused.

  “Victoria’s grandfather,” she said. “The director of the board of trustees. He was in the video.”

  “Okay, I should have been more specific,” I replied. “I remember who he is. I was asking why you just shouted out his name for no particular reason.”

  She smiled at me. “I like it when I have these moments when I know something and you don’t.”

  She sat at the computer and searched for Moncrieff Tate. He was a big-time businessman, so there were plenty of pictures. She began moving through them until she found what she was looking for.

  “He was wearing this same tie in the video,” she said, pointing.