Usually the basement was where Tenny went when he felt like a jerk after getting in trouble at school—so he’d spent a lot of time down there over the years. Like in fourth grade, he’d forgotten to get off the school bus, and his dad had to go pick him up at the big parking lot where the buses go for the night. Or in sixth grade, when he’d spaced out and dropped a guitar pick in the turtle habitat in Ms. Kuramaswamy’s room, and apparently eating guitar picks is really bad for turtles. And of course there was last year, when he and Bethesda Fielding had cheated on Mr. Melville’s midterm. Now that was some serious trouble.
“. . . a girl could feel special on . . . a girl could feel special . . . shoot.” His fingers stumbled on the complex arpeggiation and he started over. Tenny wasn’t in trouble this afternoon. Today he was basically hiding, holed up in the basement with his guitar, trying to avoid hearing any more news. Lately, Tenny’s parents had had a lot of news.
“Hey. Tenny. I have some news for you,” his father had said the first time, about three weeks ago, right after the start of the school year.
A couple days later, it was his mother, calling from the kitchen, sounding anxious and upset: “Tennyson? I’m afraid I have some news I need to share with you.”
Stupid news.
“Says Red Molly to James, that’s a fine motor bike . . . ,” he sang, and then bungled the pattern again, and was starting over when a voice bellowed from the top of the stairs.
“Tenny!”
“Uh . . . what?”
“I’ve been calling for ten minutes.”
“What? Oh, sorry, Dad. I was playing guitar.”
“No kidding. Wrap it up.”
Tenny ran his hands through his unkempt mass of thick brown hair, wishing he could just stay down here forever. Was that so much to ask?
“One sec, Dad. Lemme just—”
“No. Get up here, Ten. We’ve got some news for you.”
Like Tenny, Pamela Preston was indoors on this beautiful autumn day. Unlike him, however, she was enjoying an extraordinarily pleasant afternoon.
“You just order anything you like, now, children. Anything on the menu.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Pamela, and smiled at her mother, who smiled back.
They were at Pirate Sam’s, a family restaurant at the mall, where her parents had insisted on taking her and her favorite fellow gymnast, Lisa Deckter, after that morning’s practice. After the difficult week Pamela had suffered, her parents had declared that she deserved a treat—or, rather, multiple treats. First, lunch with her teammate; then a special trip with her mom to go outlet shopping; then to the movies.
All week long, her parents had been extra-nice, and so had her teachers. Dr. Capshaw even excused her for not reading chapters five through eight of Animal Farm.
“After what you’ve been through,” he said. “It’s perfectly understandable.” (Actually, she’d foregone the reading to watch a marathon of You’re Going to Wear That?, a TV show where celebrities made fun of regular people’s clothes.)
Her father reached over and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Don’t forget to leave room for dessert, kids.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Lisa.
A girl could get used to this, Pamela thought, as their waiter hobbled over in an eye patch and fake peg leg. I should be a theft victim more often.
“Arrgh! I’m Cap’n Shark Breath. What can I be gettin’ ye lassies to drink?”
Pamela smiled and ordered a Shirley Temple. “Please don’t forget the little umbrella,” she told Cap’n Shark Breath. Pamela loved little umbrellas.
Lisa ordered a water. If Pamela had been in any mood to notice other people, she might have wondered why the usually talkative Lisa was being so quiet today. She would have been quite interested, indeed, to hear what was going on in Lisa’s head as she scanned the list of entrees, from X Marks the Spot Roast to Yo, Ho, Ho and a Basket of Chicken Fingers.
She’ll kill me, thought Lisa. If she ever finds out, she’ll kill me.
Chapter 13
Boney Bones
“Hey, Mr. Darlington? I’m really sorry.”
“Well, I’ll always accept an apology,” Bethesda’s science teacher replied amiably, smiling down at Bethesda from atop a little step stool. “Though I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re apologizing for.”
Bethesda had found Mr. Darlington in his room on Monday morning before school, hanging up student projects. In his right hand he held a styrofoam ball, spray-painted red, while his left hand was splay-palmed against the wall, to keep the rest of him from tumbling to the ground.
“Remember? Friday?” Bethesda explained. “I kind of raced out of your class, and never came back.”
He chuckled. “Ah, right, right. Well, it’s been a crazy time around here. All is forgiven, Bethesda. Erf!”
Mr. Darlington slipped on the step stool, did a jerky heel-pivot, and just barely managed to maintain his balance.
“Hand me the tape, would you, Bethesda?”
Bethesda grabbed a roll of duct tape from where it sat on Mr. Darlington’s desk alongside eight more colored globes of styrofoam; this year’s seventh graders must be doing the solar system unit. Mr. Darlington’s teaching philosophy was all about “bringing science to life,” which he did via elaborate three-dimensional projects. His students were always making intestinal-tract reproductions out of cooked spaghetti and party balloons, or crafting elaborate construction paper terrains in old shoeboxes. The finished products went up for display in his room, although none of them ever seemed to come down—with the result that every available inch of wall space was crammed with a diorama or model of some kind or another. Reigning over this cluttered museum of a classroom was Boney Bones, an ancient plastic anatomy skeleton just inside the door of the room, little pieces of duct tape marking where bits had fallen off and been repaired.
With an unpleasant scritch, Mr. Darlington pulled out a length of tape and stuck the red model planet in place. “There we are!” he cried happily, and climbed carefully down from the step stool, where he seemed surprised to find Bethesda still standing there.
“Oh. Did you need something else?”
“Actually, yeah. Kind of a random question for you. Were you by any chance hanging around after school last Monday?”
Actually, the question wasn’t random at all. Mr. Darlington’s classroom was at the mouth of Hallway A, close to the big front doors of the school. Bethesda was hoping he had seen or heard something—maybe someone coming in or out—that could be added to her slowly growing list of clues.
“Last Monday? After school? Oh, you mean, because of the . . . because of this whole trophy situation.”
“Exactly.”
“Right.”
Mr. Darlington climbed back up on his step stool, measuring with his hands whether Neptune was going to fit where it was supposed to.
“So, were you here?”
“Um . . . hmm. Was I? Yes. I was.”
A grin danced across Bethesda’s face, and she forced herself to recompose her Serious Mystery Solver Expression. “So, did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary? Maybe around five forty-five?” That was the time Ms. Pinn-Darvish was out walking her dog . . . pig . . . whatever.
For a full thirty seconds, Mr. Darlington said nothing. First he stared out the window. Then he took his glasses off and put them on again, and then he climbed off the step stool and settled behind his desk.
“Mr. Darlington?”
Finally, the science teacher cleared his throat and spoke very quickly.
“Sorry, Bethesda. I was only here till four.”
“Four?” Bethesda’s heart sank.
“Yes, four at the latest. I stayed after school to pack up my robot, which took about an hour. So, yes, I’d say I was gone by four. And since I don’t have a key, of course, once I was gone, I couldn’t come back in.”
Shoot. If Mr. Darlington was gone by four, he couldn�
�t have seen anyone smashing any trophy cases at five forty-five.
“Your robot?” Bethesda asked anyway; if someone says they have a robot, you sort of have to follow up. But Bethesda only half-listened to Mr. Darlington’s explanation, taking a few perfunctory notes in the Sock-Snow. He and his sixth graders had been constructing a mechanical person named Mary Bot Lincoln: “the world’s first pencil-sharpening, can-opening, weather-predicting person-shaped classroom companion,” as he proudly described her. Last week, Principal Van Vreeland had granted Mr. Darlington’s request that Mary Bot, once finished, could be displayed in the Achievement Alcove.
“But last Monday morning, Principal Van Vreeland changed her mind.” Mr. Darlington sighed. “She told me that now that space would be used to display Pamela’s trophy. So I was here after school, taking the old girl apart.”
For one confused moment, Bethesda looked up sharply, thinking Mr. Darlington had been taking Principal Van Vreeland apart. Now that would have been a mystery.
“Señoritas? Por favor?”
Third period on Mondays meant Spanish with Señorita Tutwiler; she was slowly circulating through the room, trying to keep her estudiantes focused on their two-paragraph translations. But, as was par for the course these days, people had other things on their minds.
“So,” said a girl named Lindsey Deming, inching forward and whispering to Bethesda in this kind of not-nice-but-pretending-to-be-nice voice she had, “How’s the mystery-solving going, Nancy Drew?” Bethesda whispered back, “Har-dee-har,” but the kids sitting around them totally cracked up—including, Bethesda noticed with irritation, Reenie Maslow.
“Come on, guys. She’s just trying to help. Right, Sherlock?” said Pamela innocently, with a sly little grin. “I mean, Bethesda.”
“I—”
“Bethesda! Pamela! Please!” clucked Señorita Tutwiler, hands planted on her hips. Bethesda mumbled, “Sorry,” but Pamela looked right at the teacher, tilted her head, and as if by magic, summoned tears to tremble in her eyes.
“I’m really, really sorry,” she said in a quavering voice. “It’s just that I’m still so upset about my trophy. . . .”
Señorita Tutwiler half-closed her eyes and raised a hand to her heart, the very picture of sympathy. “No te preocupes,” she said soothingly, patting Pamela gently on the cheek. “Never mind.”
Oh, come on! thought Bethesda.
Bethesda’s mood brightened considerably halfway through fourth period. Mr. Darlington was in front of the class, reading from page three of his ridiculously overcomplicated, seven-page instruction sheet for the weather-system project, when it hit her. Bethesda’s interview with Mr. Darlington hadn’t been a waste of time . . . far from it! She’d gleaned a crucial clue. On Monday morning, Principal Van Vreeland told Mr. Darlington there was no longer any room to display his beloved robot. And why not? Because of the giant trophy that would be taking its place in the Achievement Alcove.
By Monday night, that trophy was gone.
Why, Dr. Watson, don’t you see it? Bethesda asked herself in the haughty English accent of Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Darlington has a motive.
After science ended, Bethesda decided to stop by the Main Office before lunch to share her intriguing insight with her Man on the Inside. But she forgot about Mr. Darlington, forgot about Jasper, forgot about the robot and the whole thing the moment she opened the office door—because, right beside Mrs. Gingertee’s desk, she ran smack-dab into Tenny Boyer.
Chapter 14
. . . And Better Than Ever
“Hey, dude,” said Tenny.
Bethesda never thought she’d be so happy to hear two words, especially when one of them was “dude.”
“Tenny!?” she yelped, delightedly pronouncing his name as half exclamation and half question. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, you know.” Tenny smiled a lopsided smile. “I’m back.”
“And better than ever!” Bethesda immediately replied. In Bethesda’s family, that’s what you said whenever anyone came back from anywhere, whether it was a weeklong business trip, or a trip to the mall. Tenny laughed. “I don’t know about that.”
“But, I mean—what are you doing here?” she said again.
“Well, it’s kind of . . . I mean . . . ,” he said, and trailed off in a shrug, running a hand through his mess of brown curls. Bethesda spied his iPod earbuds emerging in an ungainly tangle from the blue-hooded sweatshirt he always wore. “It’s kind of a long story.”
Bethesda beamed at him. Good ol’ Tenny Boyer! She had really only gotten to know him halfway through last school year, when they were thrown together by the strange deal Ms. Finkleman had invented to save both the Choral Corral and Tenny’s Social Studies grade. That effort had not gone so great, which was how Tenny ended up at St. Francis Xavier Young Men’s Education and Socialization Academy.
Except here he was before her very eyes, smiling awkwardly, lifting one foot to scratch the calf of the other with his toe.
Bethesda chucked him on the shoulder. “Well, anyway, who cares why. You’re back!”
“Ahem,” said Mrs. Gingertee. She didn’t clear her throat, she actually said the word “ahem,” two sharp syllables suggesting that she had more dignity than to go around pretending to clear her throat. “He’s not back yet.”
She tapped one formidable fingertip on the thick manila folder, overstuffed with papers, that sat heavily on her desk. “This paperwork is a disaster, young man, and until we’ve got it straightened out you’re no more a student here than my uncle Roger.”
“Huh?” said Tenny.
Mrs. Gingertee sighed and pulled out the first of the sheets. “This is the transfer document from St. Francis. Section C is blank, for some reason, and we’re missing a signature here, here, and here. . . .”
Bethesda could hardly believe her luck. Tenny was back! The fates had sent her the perfect assistant! This mystery was toast! While Mrs. Gingertee grumbled her way through the paperwork, Bethesda shifted back and forth on her feet, anxious to fill Tenny in on the investigation so far.
“This form is in blue ink. Black is preferable.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“And this one is in . . . please tell me this isn’t colored pencil.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
Bethesda discreetly eyeballed Mrs. Gingertee’s giant metal desk, which was something of an institution at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School, much like Mrs. Gingertee herself. The desk was a big, battered monolith, half as long as the whole Main Office, of the same rusted-iron color and solidity as a battleship. Only rarely was Mrs. Gingertee spotted anywhere but seated behind it, rolling around in a three-foot radius upon her gun-gray, orthopedically optimized chair. On the desk at present, beside a humongous jar of jellybeans, was a dull green Swingline stapler; a photograph of seven unsmiling grandchildren in matching hideous denim overalls; and papers—lots and lots of papers. Neatly printed sheets, various manila files, tardy slips and excuse letters, beat-up orange interoffice envelopes, and folders of all kinds.
The folder currently open was marked boyer, tennyson isaac. Peeking out from beneath it was a second folder, the tab of which Bethesda glimpsed fleetingly as Mrs. Gingertee reached into the Boyer folder for the next form. The name that Bethesda read, upside-down, off the tab, was maslow, irene olivia.
Bethesda squinched up her face, thinking. Irene? Who was Irene?
Oh. Right. Reenie Maslow.
Irene, Reenie.
Holy Guacamole! Bethesda thought, and then said it—“Holy Guacamole!”—louder than she’d intended, causing Mrs. Gingertee to look up with a sour expression. “Young lady?”
“Sorry, sorry.” She exhaled. “But is Tenny almost done?”
Mrs. Gingertee wearily inspected the paper in front of her, flaking crusted pizza sauce off one corner with her fingernail. “I suppose so. For now. Tenny, I need you to get this sorted out with your mom or dad for tomorrow, okay? Otherwise we can’t—hey!”
Be
thesda grabbed Tenny by the arm, so forcefully that she nearly toppled him, and together they dashed from the room.
“Come on!” she hollered. “You’re never going to believe this!”
Mrs. Gingertee watched the wooden door of the Main Office swing shut, and then produced a bottle of Pepto-Bismol from the top drawer of her enormous desk. “Welcome back, kid,” she muttered, and took a long swig.
“Bethesda, what the heck?” said Tenny, just outside the office door.
In one long exhale of a run-on sentence, Bethesda brought Tenny up to speed. She told him about the trophy theft, about the cancellation of the Taproot Valley trip, the tiny screw and the dots of red, the bang and the crash . . . and the other clue. Three little letters, inscribed like an artist’s signature in one small corner of the crime scene.
“IOM,” she concluded, leading him the five feet from the door of the Main Office to the Achievement Alcove. “Right there!” She pointed vigorously—and then froze, her face a mask of confusion.
“Um . . . Bethesda?”
She stared in horror at the Achievement Alcove. “It’s gone!”
Everything else was just as it had been. The cordon of duct tape and typewriter ribbon; the rickety wooden stand and the shattered glass case; the strange, bloodred splotches. All as it had been when Bethesda examined it last Wednesday . . . except for the letters. The letters were gone.
“Huh,” said Tenny.
Bethesda slipped under the typewriter ribbon and traced the back wall of the Alcove with her fingers. Maybe it was over here—maybe—wait . . .
“Bethesda? Would you mind joining me in my room for a quick chat?”
Bethesda turned to see Ms. Finkleman, dressed as always in a brown sweater and simple brown shoes, smiling pleasantly. But something in her tone of voice and the slight forward thrust of her chin suggested to Bethesda that this “quick chat” was not a casual invitation from a friend, but a direct order from a teacher.
Bethesda nodded mutely, her mind going a thousand miles an hour. What was going on here?
“Hello, Tennyson,” Ms. Finkleman added. “You may as well join us.”
The Mystery of the Missing Everything Page 5