The Mystery of the Missing Everything

by Ben H. Winters

  Chapter 15

  Another Day, Another Awkward Conversation

  Here we go again, Ms. Finkleman thought, as she pulled the door of the music room closed behind her. Another day, another awkward conversation.

  “Have you children had a chance to eat lunch yet?”

  They had not, nor had Tenny brought his lunch, so they pulled up chairs around Ms. Finkleman’s desk and Bethesda gave him half of her pasta primavera, the latest of her father’s elaborate lunchtime concoctions. Ms. Finkleman additionally offered him a small container of seaweed salad, which Tenny politely but unambiguously declined.

  “Dude, it’s just like old times. Like a reunion,” Tenny announced through a big messy bite of pasta. “Like when the Beatles played on that rooftop.”

  Ms. Finkleman smiled. She knew exactly what he meant. Here was Tenny Boyer, his cheeks chipmunk-stuffed with pasta, slapping the flats of his hands on his thighs, air-drumming to music only he could hear; and here was Bethesda Fielding, uncapping a Snapple and peering around the Band and Chorus room with that unremitting, intense curiosity of hers.

  It was kind of nice to be reunited with this particular pair of goofballs.

  Enjoy the camaraderie while you can, Ida.

  Ms. Finkleman swallowed her first bite of sushi and gave Bethesda the bad news.

  “You did it?”

  “Let me be clear. I did not steal Pamela Preston’s gymnastics trophy.”

  “But you erased the initials?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  Bethesda was flabbergasted. “Why would you do that?”

  Ms. Finkleman ignored the question. “Furthermore, Bethesda, I need you to keep the information about the initials to yourself.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be.”

  Bethesda pushed back a lock of red-brown hair that had fallen over her eyes. “I seriously don’t understand,” she protested. “I’m trying to solve a mystery here!”

  “I know. And all I ask is that you proceed in your investigation as if those initials never existed. The same goes for you, Tennyson.”

  “Huh? Sure,” he said. “I mean, I barely know what you guys are talking about.”

  Bethesda’s confusion, meanwhile, was quickly turning to outrage. This was her investigation! What right did Ms. Finkleman have to order her around? “Hold on a sec. Wait, wait. This is an extremely significant clue.” She leaned forward, whispering urgently, trying to make her music teacher see the injustice of her request. “There is only one person in this school with the initials IOM.”

  “I am aware,” Ms. Finkleman replied quietly, rolling slightly forward on the little wheels of her desk chair. “And that’s exactly why you’re going to ignore them. Reenie Maslow had nothing to do with this crime.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Ms. Finkleman sighed. “I’m sorry, Bethesda. You’ll just have to trust me on this.”

  The music teacher put a piece of California roll in her mouth and looked away. Bethesda huffed and crossed her arms, shooting Tenny a scowling, “can you believe this?” look. But Tenny sat chewing a piece of garlic bread, gazing out the window with a glazed expression that Bethesda knew well; her friend was off in space somewhere, playing a guitar solo at Madison Square Garden or writing lyrics in his head.

  Except, when Tenny swallowed his bite and broke his silence, it turned out he was paying attention after all—although what he said irritated Bethesda even further. “Huh. You know, Ms. Finkleman’s probably right.”

  “What?”

  “Wait. Just like, think about it. Why would somebody steal something and then sign their name to the crime scene? Don’t people who do bad stuff try not to get caught?”

  “Well yeah, but . . .” But what?

  “And, I mean, I don’t know this Reenie girl,” Tenny continued. “But why would she steal someone else’s trophy in the first place?”

  “Excellent point,” said Ms. Finkleman. Bethesda felt outnumbered and a little betrayed. Tenny was supposed to be her mystery-solving right-hand man, not Ms. Finkleman’s!

  “Here’s the thing, Bethesda,” Ms. Finkleman said softly, laying down her chopsticks in the empty plastic container. “Reenie is new at this school, and my impression is she’s not having such an easy time of it.”

  Bethesda thought of Reenie by herself at lunch with a book propped in her lap; of Reenie sitting perfectly still when Dr. Capshaw announced a group project, while the other kids formed themselves into chatty little teams; of Reenie at the library on Friday, flushed and uncomfortable, overreacting and upset.

  “The last thing such a student needs is to be made the subject of a potentially devastating rumor.” Ms. Finkleman laid a small but unmistakable emphasis on the word “rumor,” and Bethesda blushed. That was one road they’d been down together. “She doesn’t need people imagining she’s a thief, or the person who single-handedly ruined the eighth-grade class trip.”

  For all her outrage, Bethesda recognized the soundness of Ms. Finkleman’s reasoning. If Reenie didn’t do it, accusing her would be disastrous. But . . . but . . .

  “But Ms. Finkleman. How can you be so sure Reenie Maslow is innocent?”

  The Band and Chorus teacher looked Bethesda right in the eye, and for the first time in this whole annoying conversation, Bethesda felt like she was sitting across from the Ms. Finkleman she knew and loved, the sort-of-rock-star Ms. Finkleman, the one who was a human being and treated her students like they were human beings, too.

  “Because she told me, Bethesda. And I believe her.”

  “Well, that was weird,” Bethesda said, casting a look back at the music room as she and Tenny headed down Hallway C. Tenny didn’t answer. He surveyed the halls, a little uncertainly, like an astronaut who’d just arrived on an alien planet.

  “This way, Tenny.”

  “Huh?”

  “Our lockers are upstairs this year.”

  “Oh. Cool.”

  As they went up Stairway Four, he trailed his fingers on the banister, whistling softly to himself.

  “So, it must be kind of fun to be back, huh?” Bethesda asked.

  “What? Uh, yeah. I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Speaking of which, I still want to know the story with that,” Bethesda said, guiding him to the eighth-grade locker bank. “I mean, what happened at St. Francis Xavier?”

  “Well, you know . . . ,” Tenny began. “Oh, wait. Here.” He glanced at the locker number Mrs. Gingertee had written for him on a note card. “Twenty-one twelve. Just like the Rush album. Sweet.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Bethesda. She left him wrestling with his combination and sailed off down the hallway toward her own locker.

  It was only later, as Bethesda was pulling up her stool at Table Six in the art room for Slide Day, that she realized something: When she came upon them in the Achievement Alcove, Ms. Finkleman had not seemed surprised to see Tenny Boyer. Bethesda hadn’t known Tenny was returning to Mary Todd Lincoln, but it sure seemed like Ms. Finkleman had.

  Boy, she said to herself, as Ms. Pinn-Darvish lit her ginger candles and cued up the first slide. This place is just full of mysteries lately.

  Chapter 16

  The Big Warm Fuzzy Mass of Good Idea

  “Colors . . . so many colors . . . feel the colors . . . experience the colors . . .”

  Chester Hu sank down in his seat and stared at the ceiling. Slide Day wasn’t even half over yet. Ms. Pinn-Darvish floated through the room, murmuring about the sublime beauty in the mishmash swirl of colors and shapes currently on display, and occasionally poking kids on the back of the neck to keep them awake.

  Chester tugged the collar of his shirt up over his nose to dampen the ginger smell of the candles. He was not a happy camper lately.

  First, he’d had the stupidest idea of all time, to march into the principal’s office and pretend like he was the one who’d stolen Pamela’s trophy. If he’d gone through
with it, he probably would have ended up in detention, or expelled, or locked in the basement undergoing some horrible punishment invented by the principal just for him.

  But his own stupidity wasn’t even what bummed Chester out the most. What really made him mad was how not-mad at him everybody was. He had almost saved the Taproot Valley trip, and then, by abruptly changing his mind, he had lost it all over again. But instead of being annoyed at him, they were annoyed at Bethesda for making him do it. It’s like they thought Chester was too much of a doofus to be responsible for his own actions. Of course he would do something crazy like pretend to be the criminal, and of course he changed his mind when Bethesda told him to. Blaming Chester would be like blaming a dog for chasing a cat, or a koala for—what did koalas do, again? Eat leaves or something? Chester couldn’t remember.

  Ms. Pinn-Darvish pressed a button on her computer, and the slide clicked over, from the mushy blur of colors to a field of flowers, waving yellow in the sun.

  “See the sunflowers,” the art teacher intoned, swaying back and forth with her head tilted toward the slide. “Be the sunflowers . . .”

  And now, Slide Day—the worst way to spend an hour that Chester could imagine, unless it was Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents’ house, watching Grandma Phillis’s dentures do battle with a piece of dry turkey breast.

  “And now . . . Picasso!” announced Ms. Pinn-Darvish breathlessly, and the sunflower slide gave way to a picture of a hunched, sick-looking dude slumped over a guitar, painted in shades of deep blue and dirty gray.

  “Whoa,” called out Braxton Lashey, earning a caustic glare from Ms. Pinn-Darvish. “What’s wrong with that guy?”

  Everyone laughed, except for Chester. He sat up straight and stared deeply, losing himself in the painting, until he felt like he was sitting there beside the wretched figure in that dusty, darkened street. Looking deep into the sad eyes of the guitar man, Chester felt like he knew the guy. This poor sap had probably wanted to be a hero, too, and had probably failed, just like Chester.

  “Nobody takes you seriously, either, do they, Mr. Guitar Man?” Chester whispered.

  The guitar man turned his head ever so slightly, looked right back at Chester, and winked. Later, when he thought about it, Chester was at least half sure he had imagined the wink. But in that moment there was not a doubt in his mind: the shabby blue guitar man had peered from the painting, looked him right in the eyes, and winked.

  And just like that, Chester stopped feeling sorry for himself and had the best idea of his life. “Funding for all extracurriculars is being revoked,” Principal Van Vreeland had pronounced, pounding on the top of her lectern.

  But “funding revoked” is not the same thing as “canceled!” Not the same thing at all!

  The good idea sprang into Chester’s head with no details, with all the fine points still to be worked out. It was really just a big warm fuzzy mass of good idea. But for Chester, who a minute ago was ready to run home and hide under his bed for a month, that was more than enough. He sat up straight, pointed a finger at the slide, and grinned.

  “Nice work, Mr. Guitar Man,” he said, and everyone in the room looked at him like he was some sort of lunatic.

  Except Ms. Pinn-Darvish. As she clicked the slide from the Blue Period Picasso to a lovely pink-washed Degas ballerina, the black-haired art teacher contemplated Chester Hu with open admiration.

  Clearly, Chester was communing with the art.

  Chapter 17

  Spleen

  On Tuesday morning, Bethesda woke up crazy early and couldn’t fall back asleep. She lay in bed squeezing her favorite teddy bear, Ted-Wo (short for the Teddy Bear Who Replaced the One Whose Head Fell Off in the Washing Machine). Every birthday for the last six birthdays, she had declared herself to be too old for Ted-Wo, given him one last kiss, and stashed him in the bottom drawer of her dresser. But somehow or other, he always made it out of the dresser and back into her bed.

  “Well, Ted-Wo,” Bethesda said in a hushed, early-morning voice. “Who do you think stole that trophy?” Ted-Wo was silent on the subject, looking back at her blankly through his one remaining eye. She patted his scraggly fur. “Thanks anyway, pal.”

  Bethesda gave up on sleep and headed downstairs to make a waffle. Waiting for the toaster oven to bing, she thought about Tenny’s sudden reappearance, thought about Pamela’s little performance in Spanish class, thought about Reenie Maslow and the friendship between them that should have been, but wasn’t.

  And then she started thinking, for some reason, about Assistant Principal Jasper Ferrars. “One person has the key, and one person grants access to this building after four o’clock,” Principal Van Vreeland had said at the assembly. “And that’s this person right here.” Mr. Ferrars had gulped and looked nervous, staring down at those overly shined black shoes of his.

  Clearly he was scared of Principal Van Vreeland—but was he just scared of her like always, or was he extra-scared for some reason? Bethesda buttered her waffle thoughtfully, staring out the window as the sun daubed the backyard in gold and green.

  “Tenny? You getting ready up there?”

  “Uh—yeah. Totally.”

  Tenny Boyer was thinking about how to get out of school today. He lay perfectly still, staring at his ceiling, at the spot where three years ago he had written the words zeppelin rules with a glow-in-the-dark highlighter pen.

  Yeah, it was cool to see Bethesda again, and even a couple of the other kids. And sure, this mystery thing was kind of a trip. But overall?

  “Tenny! Five minutes!”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  Tenny got out of bed slowly, one foot at a time, and began to dig for something wearable in the crumpled heap of semiclean clothes in the corner of the room.

  It wasn’t like St. Francis Xavier Young Men’s Education and Socialization Academy had been some kind of DisneyWorld. The hallways were always perfectly, scarily clean. The other boys did nothing but work, and half of them had crew cuts. There was this insanely mean math teacher named Father Josef, who in the first week of school gave a kid detention for sneezing. And yet now, as he tugged an R.E.M. concert T-shirt over his unbrushed hair, Tenny would have given anything to go back in time, to three weeks ago; to be, at this very moment, struggling into his St. Francis–mandated striped tie and navy blazer.

  Tenny stood at his door and tried to make his voice as thick and wheezy as possible. “Hey, uh, Dad? I’m not feeling—ahem—not feeling so hot.”

  His father didn’t even bother coming up, just yelled from the foot of the stairs. “Oh, yeah? What’s the problem?”

  “Uh . . .” What was a body part that might get messed up in a serious, but impossible-to-detect way? “I think it’s my spleen.”

  There was a split-second pause, and then he heard his father walking from the foot of the stairs back to the kitchen.

  “Get dressed, Tenny.”

  In Mr. Darlington’s class that day, the eighth graders were divided into small groups to start their weather-event projects. Usually Bethesda had no trouble finding partners for group work. Just two weeks ago, everyone had wanted to team up with her for the grammar game-show project in Dr. Capshaw’s class (“Who Wants to Be an Adverb?”). But today, Suzie and Hayley formed a group with Bessie; Pamela and Natasha offered their last spot to Reenie Maslow, of all people, and Bethesda ended up being one of the only two not picked, paired up by default with the hardworking, studious Victor Glebe.

  While they moved their desks around to start working on the project, Bethesda talked to herself.

  “He said, ‘I don’t have a key, of course.’”

  “Who?” said Victor.

  “But why? Why did he say ‘of course’? Why would I think he does have a key?” she muttered, glancing at Mr. Darlington as he wandered about the room.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Victor buried his face in their Earth Sciences textbook, carefully copying out relevant statistics. “‘Flash floods occ
ur in a timescale of less than six hours.’ ‘A flash flood is defined as twenty or more inches of rain falling in under an hour.’”

  Bethesda nodded, not really listening. And then, somewhere between “worst in areas of arid soil” and “leading cause of deaths associated with thunderstorms,” she cracked Mr. Ferrars’s secret.

  The flyer had said he was appearing in The Mikado all next week. With performances at four and seven. Which meant . . .

  “Of course! That’s it! Perfect!”

  Victor Glebe stopped reading and looked at her expressionlessly. “Why would you characterize the deaths of four hundred and sixty-four people in Lisbon, Portugal, in the year 1967 as ‘perfect’?”

  “Um . . . it’s sort of hard to explain.”

  Victor frowned and lowered his textbook. “Bethesda . . .”

  “Sorry, sorry,” she said. The last thing Bethesda ever wanted to be was the weak link on a group project! “It’s just—”

  “I know. The mystery. Which I am sure you will solve,” Victor gestured impatiently around the class, at the roomful of people all kind-of-mad at Bethesda. “And save the day for us all.”

  “Aw. Thanks, Victor.”

  He nodded, once. “Now let’s talk floods.”

  “Everyone? Today we’re welcoming a new student—oh, no, sorry, an old student, back again. Heya, Tenny.”

  According to his new schedule, fourth period on Tuesdays Tenny had Advanced Technology with Mr. Muhammed. (Last year, in Basic Technology, Tenny had earned himself a week of after-school detention for using up a whole toner cartridge printing the guitar tab to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”) He took the laptop that Mr. Muhammed handed him, gave the class a quick smile, and slouched down into a seat, drawing up the hood of his sweatshirt.

  As soon as class was over, Tenny turned on his iPod and popped in the earbuds. He’d created a special playlist last night, full of loud and raucous songs—“Fiesta” by the Pogues, Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” a whole bunch of Red Hot Chili Peppers—so he could just totally zone out as he made his way through the halls.