The Mystery of the Missing Everything

by Ben H. Winters

  Who are the prime suspects?

  Who had a motive to steal the trophy?

  Who had an opportunity to take it?

  Who doesn’t have an alibi for yesterday after school?

  She looked up in time to see Dr. Capshaw toss his book down on his desk. “Okay, so we’re not in the mood to talk structure,” he said. “Let’s try theme. How does the idea of societal injustice play out in this gripping little drama?”

  “Injustice?” said Todd Spolin from under the brim of his beat-up blue baseball cap. “This Taproot Valley thing is injustice!”

  “That may be so,” said Dr. Capshaw, snatching off Todd’s (not-permitted-in-school) ball cap and tossing it on his desk. “Who can elaborate?”

  “Well, it’s just lame that everyone has to suffer,” Bessie answered, “because one kid did something stupid!”

  “Maybe it was more than one kid,” added Rory.

  “Totally,” agreed Ezra McClellan, who always agreed with Rory.

  “Or maybe it was a teacher,” said Bessie. “Maybe it was you, Dr. Capshaw!”

  “It wasn’t.” Dr. Capshaw shot a quick look at the clock. “But we digress. Let’s get back to Napoleon and Snowball.”

  “Wait. Who are they?” asked Natasha.

  “Maybe they stole the trophy!” shouted Rory.

  Dr. Capshaw winced and tugged on his beard. “Let’s start over.”

  “So, okay, so today, today we’re . . . moving forward with weather systems!”

  Mr. Darlington said “moving forward with weather systems” like he was saying “making cotton candy and riding ponies,” but nobody was buying it. The longer the day went on, the more the eighth graders had time to wallow in their collective misery, and by fourth period, they had zero interest in things like weather systems.

  “Okay, so if I could—everyone? If I could . . . hello?”

  It was useless. Lisa Deckter, who was on the gymnastics team with Pamela, sat with her head buried in her forearms. Bessie was back to naming kinds of animals they wouldn’t get to see. (“And egrets. And foxes. And . . .”) In the back of the room, Rory and Ezra were arguing over the wording of their Taproot Valley petition, and whether to send it to the school superintendent, or directly to the president.

  Mr. Darlington finally requested they open their Earth Sciences workbooks and brainstorm what kind of weather event to research for their upcoming diorama project. Bethesda slid her workbook out onto her desk, but kept her full attention on her fellow students. One very promising suspect, she realized, was sitting right beside her: Guy Ficker leaned forward and directed a harsh whisper at Pamela Preston as soon as Mr. Darlington turned his back.

  “This never would have happened if I had had the gym last week,” Guy said. Pamela twisted around and stared at him. “Oh, please,” she said.

  “Um, children?” Mr. Darlington said, raising a long forefinger and placing it over his lips.

  Bethesda knew exactly why Guy was so upset. Pamela and the rest of the gymnastics team had been given exclusive after-school use of the gym last week, to practice for their meet. Which meant that Guy hadn’t had anywhere to practice his archery, even though he was also preparing for a weekend competition.

  “It’s not my fault gymnastics is a real, official sport,” Pamela whispered icily, “and that you’re the only person who does arching.”

  “Children?” said Mr. Darlington. “We’re brainstorming? Yes?”

  “It’s not ‘arching,’” said Guy. “It’s archery.”

  “Children?”

  “So, what’s the big deal?” Pamela said. “So you couldn’t practice your stupid bow and arrow?”

  “What’s the big deal?” Guy was no longer even pretending to whisper. “I shot one of the judges in the leg!”

  Bethesda stopped at her locker after Mr. Darlington’s class to drop off her science and English books, grab her lunch, and generally get organized for the afternoon. As she bent to tie her shoelace, Bethesda’s attention was distracted by sweet, shy Marisol Pierce, a few lockers down.

  “It’s just so unfair,” Marisol said quietly to Chester, whose locker was next to hers. Marisol, who was kind of an art prodigy, had been looking forward to the beautiful sunsets and lush green landscapes of Taproot Valley, all of which she really wanted to paint.

  Bethesda lingered, crouching down and fussing with the long laces of her Chuck Taylors. As she watched, Marisol shook her head and sniffled a little; Chester, in a touching if somewhat futile gesture, handed her a wadded-up piece of loose-leaf paper to blow her nose.

  “Thanks,” Marisol whispered tearily, and honked into the crinkly mess.

  Wow, thought Bethesda, straightening up. She’s really bummed.

  Or . . . maybe she’s racked with guilt over what she’s done!

  Bethesda whistled a snippet of ominous music and headed to lunch. Being a detective was awesome.

  “You know what’ll take your mind off your troubles?” Coach Vasouvian bellowed as they filed into seventh-period gym, dropping the mesh bag of volleyballs he was lugging behind him. “Running laps!”

  This was met with a chorus of groans, though it was hardly a shocking development: any time Coach Vasouvian asked a seemingly rhetorical question, you could be pretty sure that the answer would be “running laps.” Once, Ms. Zmuda had popped into the gym to ask if she could borrow a stopwatch and ended up running a quarter mile before Coach Vasouvian let her go.

  As she proceeded at a decent clip around the track, her sneakers squeaking on the smudgy gym floor, Bethesda thought, It could have been anyone. It really could have been anyone.

  Meanwhile Pamela Preston, her blond curls bobbling on her head, thought, Poor me . . . oh, poor, poor me . . .

  . . . while Natasha Belinsky, huffing along beside Pamela, thought, Poor Pamela . . . oh, poor, poor Pamela . . .

  . . . and Guy Ficker, way out at the front of the pack, running briskly and with perfect form, thought, Stupid gymnastics trophy . . . serves her right . . .

  But it was Lisa Deckter, whose thoughts, if she could hear them, Bethesda the detective might have found most intriguing.

  This is all my fault, Lisa thought fretfully. It’s all my fault . . .

  Chapter 3

  Wellington Wolf

  Usually Tuesdays after school meant book club with Mrs. Howell until 3:45, followed by math-team practice in Ms. Zmuda’s room. Today, of course, extracurricular activities were canceled, so Bethesda biked straight home, pedaling hard despite the dull ache in her legs from Coach Vasouvian’s laps.

  “Hey, Dad,” Bethesda shouted as she tossed her fall jacket on the sofa and opened the hall closet where she kept school supplies. She’d been thinking about it all day as she jotted random observations on spare scraps of paper and the backs of old assignment sheets: If she was going to solve this case, she needed a good notebook in which to get herself organized. She selected a weighty, three-subject orange spiral and settled at the dining-room table. Twisting the cap off a fat Sharpie, Bethesda carefully wrote across the top of the front cover in neat black letters, officially dubbing this the semi-official crime-solving notebook, or s.-o.c-s.no., or Sock-Snow for short.

  “Love it,” Bethesda said, holding the notebook up and grinning. Now she could do some serious mystery solving.

  “All right!” said Bethesda’s father, suddenly appearing at her elbow in an apron, bearing a spoon laden with burbling chili. “My taste tester is here!”

  “Dad, I’m kind of—”

  “Don’t even start,” he said. “One taste is not going to kill you. Or if it does, there is something seriously wrong with my recipe.”

  Bethesda’s father had been making batches of chili every night for the last two weeks, all in preparation for a charity dinner in mid-October being hosted by the big fancy downtown law firm where Bethesda’s mother worked. Bethesda relented, slurping a small mouthful from the big wooden spoon. “It’s good, Dad.”

  “How would you rank i
t, on a scale of one to ten—one being terrible, ten being the best chili anyone has ever eaten in the history of the universe?”

  “It’s really, really good.”

  Bethesda’s father frowned. “Would you mind using my scale?”

  “Dad! I’m kind of working on a project here.”

  “Oh?” he said, plopping down next to her and waggling his eyebrows. Bethesda immediately recognized her mistake—you never said the word “project” around Bethesda’s father, unless you wanted a helper. “What are we working on?”

  “I’m trying to solve this mystery. And—”

  “A mystery!”

  “Dad. Don’t say it . . .”

  “Sounds like a job for Wellington Wolf!”

  She knew he was going to say it. Wellington Wolf, Jungle P.I., was the title character of this incredibly cheesy cartoon her dad had loved as a kid. Wellington was a gruff, tough-as-nails detective with a Sherlock Holmes cap, a magnifying glass, and a streak of silver in his bristly gray fur. For the last six months, whenever Bethesda mentioned her newfound obsession with mysteries and detectives, her father insisted that Wellington Wolf was the best of them all. Her dad loved the show primarily for the god-awful puns (“Stop badgering the witness!” “But, your honor, I’m a badger!”), and Bethesda occasionally, grudgingly enjoyed watching Wellington put his big, black sniffer to the ground and crack a case.

  “This is serious business, Dad.”

  “And what is so un-serious about Wellington Wolf?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s a cartoon wolf! His partner is a moose named Sergeant Moose!”

  Bethesda’s father waved his wooden spoon animatedly, and Bethesda laid a hand over her notebook to protect it from flying chili particles. “Say what you will about Wellington Wolf, he always gets his man. Or marmoset, or elephant, as the case may be.”

  “Okay, Dad. I should really get to work.”

  But it was too late. Her dad set down the chili spoon, leaned back in the dining-room chair, and began to recount every detail of his current favorite case, from Episode 49, “A Mole in the Hole!”

  Bethesda only half listened, tapping her pen impatiently on the table. Until . . .

  “Wait. Say that part again?”

  “What, with the big cats? They’re puns, see? You’re lyin’, lion! You’re a cheater, chee—”

  “No. The part about the man on the inside.”

  So her dad repeated it—how Wellington had gotten help from a most unlikely source. Someone with special knowledge of the case. Someone with access to the crime scene.

  Bethesda grinned and gave her dad an entirely unexpected kiss on the nose. That was just what Bethesda needed—she needed a man on the inside. She needed Jasper Ferrars.

  Chapter 4

  Just One of the Reasons Principal Van Vreeland Has Always Hated Christmas

  One magnificent trophy. Just one, and that’s all.” Principal Isabel Van Vreeland stood brooding at the window of her office, staring off past the parking lot into busy Friedman Street. “It’s my greatest dream in life, you know.”

  “I know, ma’am.”

  Assistant Principal Jasper Ferrars stood way over by the door, as far away from his boss as he could get while technically remaining in the room. He could have reminded her that, just last week, she had said that all she ever wanted was for Mary Todd Lincoln to achieve the highest standardized math scores in the county. He also could have mentioned that, two weeks ago, she swore that her greatest dream in life was to be the first woman to solo-kayak across the Bering Strait. But he decided, given her current state of mind, to hold his tongue.

  “A golden, gleaming trophy. When I was six, I asked Santa for one, but he brought me a box of plastic pencil sharpeners instead.”

  “Really?”

  “Just one of the reasons I’ve always hated Christmas.”

  Principal Van Vreeland sighed and settled into her big black office chair to eat her lunch of pork chops and applesauce. Jasper lingered, shifting nervously from foot to foot on the plush carpet, until—abruptly and a little too loudly—he said, “Ma’am, I have to tell you something.”

  “Yes?” She looked up sharply, smoothing the scarlet bib tucked into her blazer. “What is it?”

  “Uh . . .” Jasper flashed a sickly smile. “Never mind, ma’am. It’s nothing.”

  It was not, in fact, nothing. Jasper had a secret to tell the principal, a secret sure to bring the full weight of her anger down upon his head. Once in the safety of the outer office, Jasper loosened his tie and gasped for air. When was he going to tell Principal Van Vreeland the truth? When . . . and how? Maybe he could just write her a note. And then move to Borneo and live in the jungle, with the parrots. Jasper had always loved parrots.

  “Excuse me? Mr. Assistant Principal?”

  Standing politely beside Mrs. Gingertee’s desk, wearing a determined and eager expression, was a plucky eighth grader in round glasses and butterfly barrettes.

  “Good news, Mr. Ferrars,” Bethesda Fielding announced confidently. “I am going to find that trophy!”

  For the first time that day—for the first time in what felt like years—Jasper smiled.

  “Well, then. How can I help?”

  Chapter 5

  Three Little Letters

  Exactly six and a half minutes later, Bethesda stood at the Achievement Alcove, her Semi-Official Crime-Solving Notebook clutched to her chest, while Janitor Steve read the note from Mr. Ferrars.

  “All right,” he said at last, shrugging. “Looks good to me.”

  And just like that, the guardian of the crime scene stepped aside and gestured Bethesda Fielding in. Having the assistant principal as her man on the inside was already working its magic.

  Bethesda had been in the Achievement Alcove plenty of times before, of course. It was a nook, five feet by five feet square, recessed off the Front Hall just a few steps from the door to the Main Office. The Achievement Alcove was where the triumphs and successes of the student body, no matter how small, were proudly displayed. The walls of the alcove, as always, were decorated with all sorts of congratulatory posters: there was Marisol’s charcoal drawing of a fruit bowl, which Ms. Pinn-Darvish had given a prize, calling it the best student work she’d ever seen; there was a perfect-attendance citation for a seventh grader named Milo Feldberg; there was a congratulatory note to Coach Vasouvian, for three years and counting of no one getting concussions in gym class.

  And there, standing in the center of the alcove, was Mary Todd Lincoln’s first-ever trophy-display case, which had been hastily constructed by Mr. Wolcott’s Industrial Arts class on Monday morning, specifically to house Pamela’s trophy. It was a wobbly wooden stand, topped by a tall, rectangular glass cabinet. The glass case bore a jagged hole where the trophy thief had smashed it.

  Bethesda examined the case and narrowed her eyes. Something was wrong.

  “Wait. What happened to the glass?” she asked.

  “All swept up, kiddo,” answered Janitor Steve. He was leaning against the wall just outside the alcove, for some reason tapping his broom handle insistently against the air duct that ran along the ceiling of the Front Hall. “Principal told me to leave everything how it was, and I did, to a point. Maybe Janitor Mike, over at Grover Cleveland Middle School, would stand for a bunch of glass all over the floor, but not me.”

  “Gotcha.” She turned to the Alcove, but Janitor Steve stopped her.

  “Hey. Kid. You hear anything weird in this duct?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Anything kinda unusual?” He peered up at the air duct, scratching his neck. “Like little noises or something?”

  “No,” said Bethesda, impatiently, ready to get to work. “No, I don’t hear anything.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me neither. Forget it.”

  The custodian lowered his broom and leaned against the wall, and Bethesda at last got going. On her hands and knees she crawled methodically through the Achievement Alcove, inch
by inch, hunting for clues. After what felt like an eternity of careful searching, across the floor of the alcove and up and down and inside the broken trophy case, Bethesda’s jeans were covered with bits of fuzz and dirt, her back ached, and her eyes felt all pinchy from squinting.

  She looked at her watch, a gift from Tenny Boyer; like Tenny’s bedroom clock, it featured a picture of Pete Townshend, the legendary guitarist from The Who, executing his signature windmill guitar maneuver. Sadly, Pete’s hands told her that time was almost up; even more sadly, the Sock-Snow notebook contained a pathetic two clues.

  Clue #1. The drops of blood

  Bethesda couldn’t say for sure they were drops of blood. But they were definitely bloodred, the eleven little red blotches she had discovered staining the glass of the case, all around the hole where it had been smashed. These minute drips, red and long dry, actually looked like they could have been left by cherry cough syrup, or a strawberry lollipop. But somehow “cough syrup stain” or “lollipop residue” wouldn’t look as cool in a semi-official crime-solving notebook as “drops of blood.”

  Clue #2. The teeny tiny screw

  Bethesda had a strong suspicion that this wasn’t really a clue at all. The little screw probably had tumbled from somebody’s overstuffed pocket, or taken a ride to school in the treads of a sneaker. But it was way too early in her investigation to discount any possible clue too hastily. So the teeny screw went into her eyeglasses case for safekeeping, and was duly recorded in the Semi-Official Crime-Solving Notebook.

  Two clues. Not the most promising start to her investigation. Bethesda shouldered her backpack, nodded to Janitor Steve, and then turned to take one last look at the crime scene.

  Her jaw dropped.

  The bell rang.

  The hallway filled with the bustle and yelp of the post-lunch rush, and suddenly Bethesda had less than five minutes to get to her locker, ditch the Sock-Snow, and grab The Last Full Measure, her book of Civil War primary sources, which she would need for Mr. Galloway’s sixth period. But she just stood there staring past the shattered trophy case at the three little letters, written in tiny black print on the back wall of the Alcove itself.