The Case of the Bug on the Run

by Martha Freeman

  Lily thought so hard her face scrunched up. Finally, she said, “Fluffy.”

  Oh, dear. Fluffy is not a very good name for a cockroach. But we didn’t want to say so and hurt Lily’s feelings.

  Luckily, Mrs. Hedges, the grumpiest maid in the White House, came out of the Treaty Room at that moment. She was carrying a feather duster.

  “Hey, Mrs. Hedges—come and look!” Tessa called. “And don’t worry. The zookeeper said cockroaches are pretty clean, I mean for cockroaches.”

  I had a bright idea. “Lily, would you mind if we gave somebody else a chance to name the cockroach?”

  Lily’s lip quivered like she might cry. Tessa said quickly, “We could name one of the kittens Fluffy.”

  This cheered Lily right up. “The black one! She’s my fa-vo-wit.”

  “Okay,” I said, “and Mrs. Hedges, would you like to name the cockroach?”

  My idea had been that you can’t hate something if you name it. And I was right! Mrs. Hedges peered into the tank. “What kind of cockroach did you say he is, again?”

  “Madagascan,” I said.

  “Then what about Madison?” said Mrs. Hedges.

  “Madison like James Madison!” said Tessa. “He was the fourth president of the United States and lived in the White House two hundred years ago.”

  Mrs. Hedges smiled. “James Madison is a fine name.”

  My family believes children need outdoor recreation no matter how hot and humid Julys are in Washington, DC. That’s why Tessa and I had a full afternoon—tennis lessons, throwing the Frisbee for Hooligan and swimming lessons.

  One good thing about our house: we did all those things without ever leaving our big backyard, which is also known as the White House South Lawn.

  It was nearly five o’clock when we came in to clean up and get dressed for Mr. Amaro’s dinner thing. We knew when we opened our bedroom door we’d find dresses already laid out for us to wear. Anytime we go to an event where we might be photographed, Aunt Jen chooses our clothes. If you think that means she doesn’t trust us to pick out our own clothes . . . you got that right.

  Anyway, what we didn’t know was what else we’d find in our room: a great big mess!

  Our new pet’s tank was lying on its side on the floor with the lid wide open. Leaves and dirt were strewn all over the carpet. As for our big orange-striped cockroach—there was no sign of him at all.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Cammie, what happened?” said Tessa.

  “I don’t know, but we’d better clean it up and find James Madison fast,” I said. “Otherwise, Granny is going to kill us.”

  The two of us cleaned and searched at the same time. We looked under the tank, then put it back on the table. We swept up the dirt and looked under every twig and leaf. We looked under the lid, then set it back on the tank and hooked it closed.

  “It must be the Ks that knocked it over,” said Tessa, “and then James Madison got out and ran away.”

  “I don’t think the Ks are heavy enough,” I said. “And wait a sec—where are the Ks?” I scanned our bedroom without seeing a single one. “Oh, great. I wonder if they left at the same time the bug did. Maybe someone let them out.”

  Tessa smiled. “Know what, Cammie? This seems to me like the start of a mystery.”

  Since we moved into the White House in January, Tessa, Nate and I have helped solve five mysteries. We’ve even been on TV! Granny’s the one who taught us about detecting. Before she was a judge, she was a police officer.

  “I don’t think so, Tessa,” I said. “I mean, where’s the bad guy? No one would steal a cockroach. Come on—James Madison’s got to be around here somewhere. Let’s keep looking.”

  I peered under my bed, then Tessa’s. I looked under our dressers, then under each of the chairs. I looked in the closet and even in my shoes.

  Tessa didn’t look anywhere. She just stared at the tank.

  “Some help you are,” I said.

  “I’m thinking!” said Tessa. “If the Ks didn’t knock it over, who did?”

  I shrugged. “Hooligan, I guess.”

  “Oka-a-ay,” said Tessa. “So say I’m Hooligan.” She put her hands up like doggy paws and let her tongue loll out of her mouth. For a blond seven-year-old girl, she looked surprisingly like our big, furry, too-energetic dog.

  Then she shoved the tank, and it tipped over. Only it didn’t fall onto the floor. It stayed on the table. And the lid didn’t come off, either.

  Now I was interested. “Okay, so that’s not what happened. How about if Hooligan banged into the table and made the whole thing tilt?”

  Tessa made her Hooligan face again, dropped down on all fours and—bam!—bumped her rear end into the table with too much energy. Sure enough, the table tipped and the tank slid to the rug. Then it rolled once and came to rest upside down.

  “Hunh,” I said after a second. “If it happened that way, James Madison couldn’t have escaped. He wouldn’t have had a way out.”

  “And the dirt didn’t spill, either,” Tessa said.

  “Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” I said.

  “Maybe not.” Tessa was excited. “Maybe somebody just wanted it to look like one. And that would be a mystery! You know what I think? The First Kids are back in business!”

  “Not right this minute they’re not.” Charlotte had come in the door behind us. “Because the First Kids are supposed to meet Ms. Major in the State Dining Room for photos.” Charlotte spotted the tank on the floor. “What happened?”

  “James Madison is gone,” I said.

  Charlotte frowned. “What about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington? Are they still around?”

  “Not President James Madison!” Tessa waved her arms. “The bug James Madison!”

  Charlotte pressed a button on her radio. “Hang on while I tell Mr. Ross.”

  “No-o-o!” Tessa whined. “Mr. Ross will get out the bug spray for sure!”

  Charlotte muted the radio. “Girls, be real. The White House can’t host a formal dinner when there’s a foreign cockroach on the loose.”

  Tessa glared at me. “Cammie, you never should have told Charlotte! In the end, she’s just a grown-up, and she’s on the grown-up side.”

  Charlotte protested. “Hey, no fair. I used to be a kid! I even had a pet iguana that one time ran away and scared the neighbors’ dogs.”

  “Did you get it back?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but then Mom sent it to live in a swamp in the country. At least”—Charlotte looked thoughtful—“that’s where she told me it went. All right. I won’t tell Mr. Ross . . . yet.”

  I said, “Thank you,” and Tessa gave Charlotte a great big hug.

  “But hurry and get dressed now!” Charlotte said. “You can look for your pet later. I just hope he doesn’t turn up in a salad.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  My sister used to be the kind of girl who took forever to fix herself up for a party. Now that we’ve gotten so busy solving mysteries, though, she’s changed. When necessary, she can get ready as fast as me—which means basically in no time at all.

  Don’t tell, but that night we didn’t even take showers.

  Instead, we splashed our faces, pulled on our dresses, foofed our hair and ran down the Grand Staircase to the Entrance Hall. There a hundred lunch ladies and a few lunch gentlemen were eating appetizers and listening to a member of the United States Marine Band play the piano. Mom, wearing a dark blue dress, was in the Cross Hall, shaking hands with party guests. We hadn’t seen her all day, and when she saw us, she winked.

  The State Dining Room has white walls, gold light fixtures and pink-and-white carpeting. Over the fireplace is a painting of President Lincoln. He isn’t wearing his hat, and he’s thinking hard about something. The round tables were set for guests, with arrangements of sunflowers in the middle. There was a long table for Mr. Amaro, my mom, Aunt Jen and a few other important people at the front of the room.

  We found Ms. Major in a corner with
one of the White House photographers.

  “I thought we’d have to send out a search party,” Ms. Major said when we walked in.

  Tessa looked at me. “That’s what we need, Cammie—a search party!”

  “What is it you’re searching for?” Ms. Major asked.

  “Nothing!” we both said—even though I was at that moment scanning the rug for any skittering thing that was fat, orange and black. Then Mr. Patel, the cutest White House butler, stuck a tray in front of my face . . . and everything on it was fat, orange and black!

  I couldn’t help it. I shrieked.

  Mr. Patel jumped.

  And the tray might have flipped to the floor, except that Mr. Patel is not only cute, but also he can juggle.

  “I’m sorry, Cameron,” he apologized after he caught his breath. “I didn’t know you were scared of carrots.”

  Tessa looked at the tray. “Those are some funky- looking carrots.”

  “Carrot croquettes with poppy seeds,” Ms. Major explained. “Cammie doesn’t have to eat them. But for the sake of the picture, a smile would be better than a look of sheer terror.”

  I was embarrassed. I actually like carrots. I popped an appetizer into my mouth. It was sweet and crunchy. Again I prepared to smile for the camera—but this time I truly did see something moving on the floor.

  It wasn’t a cockroach.

  It was a kitten paw!

  The tables were set with floor-length white cloths. A wicked little black paw had poked out from beneath one. What was BK—I mean Fluffy—doing here?

  The photographer hadn’t seen what I had. Now she peered over the top of her camera and sighed. “Puzzled surprise is not an improvement.”

  I started to apologize for my face, but then I saw a second paw—this one with tabby stripes—and after that the tip of an orange swishing tail. I elbowed Tessa and pointed. Her eyes widened. “Oh, no—if Granny sees the Ks, we’ll have to give them away for sure. What do we do, Cammie?”

  “Uh . . . be polite, eat our dinner and hope for the best?” I said.

  Tessa waved her arms. “Is that supposed to be a plan? Because if it is, it’s your lamest one yet!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tessa was right. My plan was lame. But for a while, it worked.

  The point of the dinner was to get people thinking about kids and healthy eating. So the menu included lots of fruits and vegetables that kids like. Besides carrots, there was a green salad with orange slices, cold strawberry soup, and whole wheat pizza with fresh tomatoes.

  Tessa and I sat a table with Nate, Lily, Mrs. Verity and four nice lunch ladies from Pennsylvania. Mr. Verity and Mr. Schott couldn’t be there because they had business meetings.

  Between dinner and dessert, Mom introduced Mr. Amaro, and he talked for a few minutes about how to add fruits and vegetables to school lunches.

  “And in conclusion,” he said, “please remember this simple equation: fruits plus vegetables times kids equals awesome!”

  One of the lunch ladies at our table raised her hand to ask a question, but Mr. Amaro wasn’t taking any. Instead, he excused himself and left in a hurry.

  Then it was time for dessert—some kind of white ice cream with green sprinkles served in a crystal goblet. Mrs. Verity tried it first and announced, “I like it. The parsnips add zip.”

  By this time, the event was almost over, and I had stopped worrying about the Ks. Probably, I thought, they had run away when all the people came in. Worst case? They were hidden in out-of-the-way corners, asleep.

  Too bad I was wrong.

  All through dinner, the kittens had been lying in wait for just the right moment to cause complete and utter cat-astrophe!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It’s hard to know what goes on in the mind of a kitten. But considering what happened next, I have a guess.

  Fluffy, formerly known as BK, was catnapping under a table when she woke up and saw a skinny, dangerous reptile threatening to bite the ankle of a poor innocent lunch gentlemen. What could she do? She pounced!

  It wasn’t her fault she was wrong about the reptile, which wasn’t planning to bite any ankle at all because it wasn’t really a reptile. Instead, it was the twisted shape of the gentleman’s untied shoelace. Likewise, it wasn’t Fluffy’s fault that the gentleman never expected a random furball with claws to fasten itself to his foot during a formal White House dinner, so that when it did, he sprang from his chair and kicked like an NFL player—sending Fluffy sailing football-like across the room . . .

  . . . to a crash landing in a bowl of sunflowers at the head table.

  Yellow petals exploded everywhere and Fluffy, dripping wet and embarrassed, leaped from the table to a lunch lady’s lap and then the floor—taking two servings of parsnip ice cream and three water glasses with her.

  By now the other five kittens were awake and wanting to get in on the action. Out from under the tables they shot, leaped onto chairs for a better look, then proceeded to the tabletops, which they used the way a frog uses lily pads, jumping from one to the next. Unlike lily pads, however, the tables were laid with rare, historic and breakable glassware.

  There was a lot of noise, but—to their credit—the kittens left several things unbroken.

  By now the White House staff was mobilizing with mops, brooms and sponges to take back their territory. At the same time, the lunch ladies and gentlemen, used to dealing with food fights worse than this, were assembling to support their allies. In fact, the forces of order probably would have prevailed . . . except that now, from the State Dining Room door, came a truly scary sound, the bugle before the cavalry charge in some classic movie: “Awh-roohr!”

  Hooligan, worried about his little kitten buddies, had come to the rescue!

  Quick as a wink, he did his frenzy thing—lunged forward, thumped his paws, sprang high in the air, then spun so fast he turned blurry.

  There are not really English words to describe the effect of a big, clumsy, too-energetic dog on a room containing lots of healthy food, well-dressed people and fancy china, but imagine a furry, dog-smelling blur of noise and destruction on top of six kittens’ worth of sharp claws, teeth and caterwauling, and you get the idea.

  Lily thought she was watching the circus and kept trying to slip out of her mother’s arms to join the fun.

  “Maybe if we stay out of the way,” Tessa whispered, “no one will remember he’s our dog and they’re our kittens.”

  “Right,” I said, “and maybe if we close our eyes, we’ll disappear.”

  In the end it was Granny who stopped Hooligan in his tracks, using one of her patented laser glares. Once our dog had been corralled, Mr. Ross, the White House staff and the lunch ladies got the jump on the kittens one by one, then began to sweep up the wreckage.

  By eight-thirty, Mom and Aunt Jen had herded the guests into the Entrance Hall so we could say good night. I made sure to apologize to the lunch ladies from Pennsylvania who had sat at our table.

  “Oh, don’t mention it,” said one. “I’ve been working in school cafeterias for thirty years. A few domestic animals run amok are no problem.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The second Granny opened the door to say good night, Tessa and I knew we were in trouble.

  Tessa spoke first. “It wasn’t us that let the Ks out.”

  Granny crossed her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t matter who let them out. They are your pets, and you are responsible. The kittens must go, and the sooner the better.”

  There is never any point arguing with Granny.

  “Yes, ma’am,” we said at the same time.

  Granny had been standing near the door. Now she walked toward the table that held James Madison’s tank. “After what happened this evening,” she said, “it seems funny that this is the pet I was worried about. In fact, he’s the only one that didn’t cause trouble.”

  Oh, no! In about one second, Granny would look into the tank and see that our cockroach was gone. Was it possible for us t
o be in more trouble?

  “Don’t disturb him, Granny!” Tessa said. “He needs his beauty sleep.”

  Granny looked down into the tank and frowned. “No amount of sleep would make him beautiful.”

  “Wait,” said Tessa, “he’s there?”

  Granny looked up. “Where else would he be? Oh, no. Don’t tell me—”

  “Okay, we won’t,” Tessa said.

  I was afraid Granny might ask questions, but instead she checked her watch and announced, “It’s almost time for the news with Jan and Larry. They’re supposed to have a story on your visit to the zoo today, and I want to see it.”

  Angry as she was, Granny still kissed us each good night. The door closed. Then Tessa and I waited for a count of five before bouncing up, running across the room and staring down into the tank.

  James Madison was there, big as life and relaxing on a magnolia leaf.

  Tessa wagged her finger. “You are a bad, bad bug!”

  James Madison did not reply.

  Had he come back on his own? Had someone brought him back? And where had he been, anyway?

  If this really was a mystery, it was getting more mysterious.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tessa and I were too tired to stay up talking, so we turned off our lights. I was dreaming of exploding sunflowers when Mom came in.

  “Oh, so sorry, muffins,” she said. “I didn’t realize how late it was, but—to tell you the truth—I miss you.”

  “That’s okay, Mama.” Tessa yawned and switched on her lamp. “We miss you, too. Are you mad at us like everybody else is?”

  Mom sat down on the edge of Tessa’s bed. “I might be if I had the energy. But running the country has tired me out lately.”

  “Poor Mama. What’s the trouble?” Tessa asked.

  Mom sighed. “There’s more than one, I’m sorry to say. But here’s an example. I don’t know what to do about those miniaturized drones.”

  Tessa said, “I happen to know something about drones. They are airplanes without pilots. Does that help?”