The Mystery of the Missing Everything

by Ben H. Winters

  “Don’t make it worse by lying, Tenny. Please.”

  Bethesda found she was getting a little choked up, then had to remind herself the whole thing was a ruse. Bethesda and Reenie had told Ms. Finkleman what to say, and instructed Tenny on how to react, designed the whole thing to be as powerful and emotionally affecting as possible. That way the real guilty parties would feel so bad for Tenny, unjustly accused of the crime that they had committed, they’d have to confess. Simple human decency would demand it!

  Bethesda craned her head toward the back row, where the culprits were sitting, saying nothing, staring at Tenny like everyone else. So far, simple human decency was not coming through.

  Tenny, meanwhile, pushed his performance to the next level. He leaped from his seat, his thick mass of brown curls bobbing wildly, and spoke pleadingly to Ms. Finkleman. “But I’m innocent. I swear!”

  “That’s quite enough, young man.” Principal Van Vreeland stepped forward slowly, deliberately, as if so enraged that she had to control her movements, lest she get overexcited and burst into flames. “I’ll take it from here.”

  A shiver chased itself down Bethesda’s spine. This was where the plan got a little scary, because this is where it was out of their control. Ms. Finkleman was acting; the furious principal was not. Bethesda risked another glance at the culprits. Nothing. Hello? Simple human decency? Where are you?

  “Look, ma’am, I didn’t do it,” Tenny protested, sounding increasingly desperate. “I really didn’t.” But Principal Van Vreeland scoffed at his denials, her voice rising with every word. “You will be expelled from this school. From this district! No public school in this county will have you!”

  Tenny looked wildly around the auditorium, and Bethesda was pretty sure she saw the moment that his pretend fear had transformed into real, serious fear. She and Reenie exchanged panicky glances. Ms. Finkleman stood on the stage, one hand clapped over her mouth. There was no backup plan. Principal Van Vreeland was going to throw Tenny out of school! What had they done?

  “Now where is my trophy, child?” The principal burst into motion, charging down the three little steps at the lip of the stage toward Tenny. Jasper chased her down the aisle, grabbing feebly at her shoulders, but the principal shook him off like a charging horse shakes off a fly.

  “I don’t know where the trophy is!” Tenny cringed backward, holding up his hands, as Principal Van Vreeland bore down on him. “I swear I don’t know!”

  Bethesda sent urgent telepathic entreaties to the two culprits, but they were still just sitting there, slack-jawed, eyes glued to the spectacle. Come on, simple human decency, Bethesda pleaded. Come on!

  And then, miraculously . . .

  “Stop!” shouted Todd Spolin, jumping out of his seat along the back wall of the auditorium, just as Principal Van Vreeland brought her trembling hands down on Tenny’s shoulders.

  “Tenny Boyer didn’t take that stupid trophy. I did.”

  “Yeah,” said Natasha Belinsky, rising from her own seat. “And I helped.”

  Chapter 39

  But Where’s My Trophy?

  “You?!”

  Principal Van Vreeland released her grip on Tenny Boyer and swiveled her whole body like a satellite dish toward the back of the auditorium. Todd stood at one end of the very last row, Natasha at the other, neither looking at the other. Ms. Finkleman, with obvious relief, retreated from the lectern, stumbled off the stage, and sat heavily in a seat in the front row. “It worked,” Bethesda mouthed to Reenie. “It actually worked!” Reenie drew the back of her hand across her forehead: phew.

  Pamela Preston, meanwhile, was staring with horror at Todd and Natasha, her two best friends. “You guys?” she said, and for once the little tears in her eyes looked real. “Why?”

  “Oh, Pam . . .” Natasha murmured.

  “It’s, uh, well,” said Todd. He took off his baseball cap and twisted it between his hands. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “Please,” barked Principal Van Vreeland. “We’d all love to hear it.”

  Bethesda had the details pretty much exactly right, although it took Natasha and Todd a lot longer to tell the story than it had for her to tell it to Reenie and the others that morning. This is very likely because Todd and Natasha weren’t nearly as excited to reveal the truth as Bethesda had been, and also because they were continually bombarded by enraged interjections from the principal.

  The first of these interjections came almost immediately after Todd began.

  “So, it was that Monday night about five ten. I was biking past the school, on my way home from karate, and I saw that the door was propped open.”

  “The door was what?”

  Mr. Darlington was seated all the way at the front of the room with his seventh-period sixth graders, so Bethesda couldn’t nudge him in the ribs or look at him significantly. Turned out she didn’t have to.

  “If these children can, uh—that is, if they can tell the truth, so can I,” said the science teacher, rising to his feet. Looking anywhere but at Principal Van Vreeland, Mr. Darlington explained haltingly how he’d been unloading Mary Bot Lincoln after school, and how he’d made things easier for himself by jamming open the front door. The principal nodded curtly, assuring him that they would discuss the matter in more detail later. “Great,” Mr. Darlington replied, sinking slowly back into his seat. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Okay, so, anyway,” Todd said when the principal gestured for him to continue. “The door was open, and I went inside.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “It’s going to sound crazy. To, uh . . .” He shuffled a little and looked at Natasha, who looked at her feet. “To, uh . . .”

  Bethesda couldn’t take it anymore. “To save a bird that was trapped in the vent!”

  Todd and Natasha looked at each other, astonished, and then at Bethesda.

  “Oh my god,” said Natasha. “How did you know that?”

  She knew because she’d seen the little swallow on the morning after the trophy’s disappearance, and had noted to herself that it was the first time it’d been around in a while. She knew because she’d heard the silly song they made up, about setting free the poor trapped animal. She knew because she’d found the tiny screw on the floor of the Alcove, where Todd had accidentally left it behind after unscrewing the vent cover. She knew because she’d observed both of them, in the weeks since, paying special attention to the sweet blue-and-green bird, now living happy and free in the old oak.

  “Todd and Natasha had noticed that a bird had somehow flown inside and gotten itself trapped in the ventilation pipes,” Bethesda explained. “Janitor Steve noticed it, too, except he thought we had a ghost.”

  Principal Van Vreeland cocked an eyebrow at Janitor Steve, who shrugged, unembarrassed.

  “Maybe we have birds and ghosts,” he said.

  The sad culprits took over their story again. Borrowing Janitor Steve’s ladder from the basement and dragging it awkwardly down the hall (“I might have heard like a, like a scraping noise in the hall,” Mr. Darlington had said), Todd unscrewed the duct cover, coaxed the swallow out, and carried it gently to the front door. But then, as he was folding up the ladder, disaster struck: Startled by a loud sound from down the hall—the bang! as Mr. Darlington kicked shut the front door of the school—Todd whipped around and the heavy foot of the ladder smashed the glass of the case. A scrape, and then a bang, and then a crash.

  “Okay, well, that’s, like, an amazing story, and I’m sure your bird friend is very happy,” said Pamela, her hands on her hips. “But where’s my trophy?”

  “Well, uh—when the glass broke I sort of freaked out. Natasha knew about the bird, so I called her to help me clean up.”

  Natasha, in a low, weary voice, took over the story.

  “I was at the mall when Todd called, getting my nails done before dinner.” (Nobody asked what color, but if they had, Bethesda could have told them: red. Red as strawberry lollipops, red as blo
od.) “I biked over to the school, let myself in, and found Todd at the trophy case.”

  “Wait. Stop. Halt.” Principal Van Vreeland held up one flat palm like a policewoman. “You let yourself in? But the door was now shut. Where did you get the key?”

  Natasha grimaced. “Um . . . you see . . .”

  Assistant Principal Jasper Ferrars, who since Principal Van Vreeland shook him off had been squatting in the aisle, sweating more and more profusely as the story went on, jumped to his feet. Shrieking incomprehensibly about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a bass-baritone, he ran down the long aisle of the auditorium, up the steps of the stage, and out the door. Wordlessly, Principal Van Vreeland watched him go, then sighed, shook her head, and turned back to the children. “Go on.”

  The trophy case was full of glass, so Natasha carefully held the trophy while Todd pushed the shards out onto the floor. But when Natasha went to put the trophy back, they saw that she’d covered it with spots of still-sticky nail polish.

  So now they had glass all over the floor, a broken case, and a gymnastics trophy that looked like it had the measles. The two friends, totally panicked, decided to bolt.

  “I was already late for dinner,” Natasha said. “So the plan was, I’d stick the trophy in my bag and take it to Pirate Sam’s, then clean it later with nail polish remover.”

  “So you dragged the ladder back downstairs and got the heck out of there,” Bethesda concluded. The crooks nodded miserably.

  But of course they weren’t crooks at all, Bethesda reflected, just two well-meaning eighth graders who had made a mistake. And then in trying to make things better they made them immeasurably worse.

  “I knew it,” Victor Glebe whispered glumly to Chester. “I knew she’d solve the mystery.”

  “But . . .” began Principal Van Vreeland, and then she and Pamela finished the sentence in unison: “Where’s my trophy?”

  Natasha blushed a deeper red than her nails had ever been. “Well, that’s the thing. Somewhere between dinner at Pirate Sam’s and my house, I, um . . . I lost it.”

  Pamela threw up her hands. The principal went pale, knees wobbling, and murmured, “Catch me, Jasper.” Unfortunately, Jasper had fled the room, and the stunned principal landed with a dull thud on the thick auditorium carpet.

  It was at that moment that Ivan Piccolini-Provokovsky strode purposefully into the room.

  Chapter 40

  Pluck and Moxie; Gumption and Chutzpah

  Mr. Ivan Piccolini-Provokovsky owed his rather extraordinary wealth to Ping-Pong paddles. Playing the game one afternoon with his niece, Lucy, he had noted with dismay that the paddle left something to be desired, in terms of grip strength; that same evening, in the workshop in his garage, he corrected the problem. If a new and improved Ping-Pong paddle doesn’t sound like a way to become rather extraordinarily wealthy, consider that Ping-Pong happens to be the most popular sport in China—a nation of well over one billion people.

  But long ago, long before he became extraordinarily wealthy, little Ivan Piccolini-Provokovsky was a middle school student prone to creative misbehavior. Like adding chocolate syrup to the cafeteria milk and reselling it at a margin. Or padlocking the teacher’s lounge vending machine and ransoming the combination. Or gluing a construction-paper horn to the class hamster and selling pictures of The Amazing Unicorn Hamster to the local news. Now, reviewing his life from atop his giant Ping-Pong fortune, Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky saw his middle school years with regret. Why had he only been punished? Why not encouraged to channel his imaginative impulses into more meaningful pursuits?

  Now Ivan Piccolini-Provokovsky stood in the center aisle of the auditorium of Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School, one hand resting on the handle of a rolling suitcase, quasi-apologizing to Ida Finkleman for not returning her multiple emails. “I never let people know when I’m coming. Never! Element of surprise, get it?” He snapped his gum, tilted back his large, diamond-studded cowboy hat, and gave her a cheery thumbs-up. “Now! Where’s this Chester character?”

  Chester warily raised his hand.

  “Step up here, fella. C’mon. Nothing to be afraid of. Yes, my boots are made of genuine one-hundred-percent alligator skin, but those gators have been dead a long time.”

  Principal Van Vreeland stirred from her faint, struggled slowly to her feet, and whispered to Ms. Finkleman, “Is that who I think it is?” Ms. Finkleman nodded. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky, grabbing Chester’s shoulders and looking him up and down. “It’s my understanding that you’ve demonstrated certain qualities. Qualities like pluck and moxie. Gumption and chutzpah.”

  “Um . . .” said Chester. He shot a questioning glance at his best friend, Victor, who happened to have a really good vocabulary. Victor gave him a reassuring nod. “Um, thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank this lady over here.” He jerked his thumb at Ms. Finkleman, who beamed. Principal Van Vreeland whispered again. “Is he about to do what I think he’s going to do?”

  “Yes,” said Ms. Finkleman, keeping her eyes on Chester and the fast-talking stranger in the alligator boots. “Yes, he is.”

  “It is an honor and a privilege and all that blah-di-dee-dah,” Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky continued rapidly, “to declare this school, the name of which I’ll find out later, the winner of the Piccolini-Provokovsky Award for the Encouragement of Studential Excellence. And nobody better tell me that studential isn’t a word, because I’ve heard it before.”

  Bethesda and Pamela, both of whom had raised their hands, lowered them again.

  “The award, to be divided between school improve-ments and extracurricular activities, shall be in the sum of fifty thousand dollars.”

  He thrust a check at Chester Hu, whose eyes got as big and round as crash cymbals. The whole room burst into applause, with no one cheering louder than the “Save Taproot Valley” team (except Natasha and Todd, of course). “Woo!” shouted Suzie. “Bravo!” added Kevin. “That’s what I’m talking about!” said Braxton. Marisol Pierce was too shy to shout, but she grinned from ear to ear and clapped till her hands were sore.

  “Well, I gotta ramble,” said Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky suddenly, and pivoted on the heels of his lustrous boots. “Oh, shoot. One more thing. In addition to the money . . .” He bent over and unzipped the rolling suitcase.

  “Is he going to say what I think he is?” said Principal Van Vreeland.

  “Yes,” Ms. Finkleman replied. “I think he is.”

  “. . . the award includes this puppy right here.”

  The trophy was gleaming and massive, easily three times as big as the one that had been lost. Principal Van Vreeland shrieked with girlish glee, like a child for whom Christmas has come at last.

  All through Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky’s rapid-fire presentation, Bethesda kept her eyes on Natasha and Todd. She watched as they settled uneasily back into their seats, and imagined what they were feeling—that awful, gut-wrenching anticipation of big trouble to come, leavened by relief at having finally spilled the beans. That was one thing Bethesda had learned a time or two—as awful as it is to have to tell a painful truth, it sure beats carrying it around.

  Bethesda Fielding, Master Detective, leaned back in her auditorium seat and let her tough-guy private-investigator face relax into a satisfied smile.

  Case closed.

  Epilogue

  So the bus to Taproot Valley left that Monday morning after all, right on time and with just three empty seats.

  The first empty seat was Natasha’s, Principal Van Vreeland having decreed that, since she was the one who had lost the gymnastics trophy, she would be excluded from the trip.

  The second empty seat was Todd Spolin’s. “No way,” he argued vigorously. “If she stays, I stay.”

  The third empty seat was the result of a special favor granted Chester Hu by Principal Van Vreeland, as a reward for bringing Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky and his gigantic trophy to the school
. Told that he could have anything he wanted, Chester had asked for a bazooka that shoots candy. When it was clarified that he could have anything he wanted, within reason, Chester had requested that his best friend, Victor, be allowed to skip out on the trip, no questions asked.

  For the forty-five-minute bus ride to Taproot Valley, Tenny Boyer sat by himself way in the back, gazing absently out the window as the highway rolled by. Sliding into the seat beside him, Bethesda heard the tinny blare of something epic and punky from his earbuds; she guessed it was either Braid or Sunny Day Real Estate.

  Bethesda leaned over and brazenly plucked the little white buds out of his ears.

  “Hey!” Tenny protested.

  “Sorry,” she said, hurriedly replacing the snatched-away earbuds with her own. “But you gotta hear this.”

  Bethesda smiled with embarrassment as she hit play. She had recorded the whole thing on the computer, which she didn’t really know how to do properly. But what the song lacked in quality, it more than made up for in spirit. “Because I was wrong, so very wrong,” she sang, accompanied by energetic strumming on her dad’s old guitar. “I wrote you this terrible song!”

  It was an off-key, off-kilter performance, full of purposefully awful singing and purposefully awful lyrics, like where she rhymed “I stuck my nose in” with “so forgive me, is what I’m proposin’.” After a minute or two, Tenny’s mask of annoyance dissolved and he cracked up, stabbing for the pause button. “Please!” he yelped. “Make it stop!”

  “So you forgive me?”

  He nodded, laughing helplessly. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

  Tenny told Bethesda the whole story that evening, during the half hour of free time the eighth graders were afforded after their daylong “ecological hike” and before that night’s recreational activity. (Which was, as it turned out, a giddy, exhilarating, and exhausting game of capture the flag, organized by Coach Vasouvian, that they’d still be talking about years later. It would emerge as one of the famous facts about the Taproot Valley trip, along with Dr. Capshaw’s nonstop reciting of Robert Frost poems during the apple-cider demonstration, and Braxton Lashey stomping around after lights-out in his bear costume.)