by Bruce Hale
Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Frontispiece
A private message from the private eye . . .
Strike up the Bland
Through Thick and Twin
Soccer Puppet
For Better or Rehearse
Chipmunky Business
A Midsummer Lights Scream
No Business Like Crow Business
The Diva Made Me Do It
Actions Spook Louder Than Words
In the Nick of Slime
Badger Late Than Never
Bye-Bye, Banshee
Lets Call the Whole Sing Off
Haunt for Red October
Stress Rehearsal
Hurtin’ for Curtain
Stage Flight
Room and Sword
A Laugh-Baked Idea
Footloose and Phantom-Free
Sample Chapter from MURDER, MY TWEET
Buy the Book
Look for more mysteries from the Tattered Casebook of Chet Gecko
Read More from the Chet Gecko Series
About the Author
Copyright © 2004 by Bruce Hale
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
www.hmhco.com
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt, Inc., 2004.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Hale, Bruce.
Give my regrets to Broadway: from the tattered casebook
of Chet Gecko, private eye/Bruce Hale.
p. cm.
“A Chet Gecko Mystery.”
Summary: Chet and his partner, Natalie Attired, take on a case involving an actor gone missing from the school musical.
[1. Geckos—Fiction. 2. Plays—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Animals—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories. 6. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.H1295Gi 2004
[Fic]—dc22 2003019440
ISBN 978-0-15-216700-4 hardcover
ISBN 978-0-15-216730-1 paperback
eISBN 978-0-547-53990-4
v2.1215
For Glynnis, Miles, Beckett, Bailey, and Rebecca
A private message from the private eye . . .
To snoop or not to snoop. . . .
That’s no question. Whether it’s smarter to let sleeping dogs lie or to plunge in and follow a clue, I always do the same thing: Follow the clue.
Of course, you’d expect no less from Chet Gecko, Emerson Hicky Elementary’s top gecko detective. (Yeah, so I’m the school’s only gecko detective. What of it?)
My investigations have led me into situations scarier than a midnight plunge in a shark’s Jacuzzi. I’ve chuckled at danger, giggled at doom, and snorted (gently) at catastrophe.
But when the fickle finger of fate flicked me into show business, I felt as nervous as a blindfolded brontosaurus on a high wire.
It’s not that I get stage fright—the boards themselves don’t scare me. But I am afraid of making a fool of myself on them.
Truth is, I’d much rather tangle with a criminal mastermind than sing and dance. But did my teacher care? Not a bit. Mr. Ratnose cast me in his dumb musical anyway.
So it was almost a relief when, right from the start, our school play took a jump into jeopardy. Mysteries I can handle, I thought.
But as curtain time neared, I had more close calls than a hippo on a tricycle. Many times, it looked like curtains for this gecko. I wondered whether I would die offstage or on, but then I learned something about acting that bucked me up:
Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
1
Strike up the Bland
It was the first rehearsal for our play, and I wished I was at the dentist. Or staked to an anthill with red fire ants crawling up my nose. Or even on the losing end of a parent-teacher conference.
Anywhere but the auditorium.
Still, there I was—the last one into the building where the entire fourth grade waited. Given the choice, I’d rather pull the whiskers off a werewolf than perform in a dorky play like Omlet, Prince of Denver. But who had a choice?
The auditorium (or cafetorium, as the principal calls it) buzzed like a nest of baby rattlesnakes on Christmas morning. My teacher, Mr. Ratnose, huddled onstage with the other teachers. My fellow students fidgeted on the rows of wooden benches, jabbering amongst themselves.
Something was up.
I scanned the crowd. My partner and friend, Natalie Attired, had saved me a spot in the second-to-last row. Good ol’ Natalie.
With a little luck, I could slip into place before Mr. Ratnose noticed my tardiness. Bending low, I hurried toward my seat. Just a few more steps . . .
I didn’t see the foot in my path, but I sure felt it.
Ba-dump!
“Whoa!” I stumbled and staggered like a Rottweiler on Rollerblades.
Ka-flump! I sprawled in the aisle, flat on my face.
The room fell silent with worry.
“Haw-haw-haw!” burst from a hundred throats.
Or maybe they were just catching their breath.
I got up and brushed myself off, scowling at the guilty foot’s owner—a chubby chipmunk. He smiled back as sweetly as a big brother with a carload of water balloons.
And then my bad luck multiplied.
Mr. Ratnose stepped to the edge of the stage. “Chet Gecko,” he said, “even though you’re tardy, I’m giving you an honor that many students dream of.”
“You’re letting me out of this dumb play?” I asked.
The kids giggled again. Mr. Ratnose glared at them, pricklier than a hedgehog’s hug.
“Wrong,” he huffed. “Our lead actor, Scott Freeh, has disappeared.”
My ears perked up. (As much as two holes in your head can perk.) A missing persons case?
I trotted up the aisle. “You want me to find him, right?”
“Wrong again,” said my teacher. “I’d like you to take on Scott’s role.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’m a private eye, not a hambone.”
Mr. Ratnose crossed his arms. “Be that as it may. You will play the part, or you will write a fifty-four-page report on French classical theater.”
He sure knew how to put the screws to a guy. The only thing I like less than looking foolish onstage is writing fifty-four-page reports (although math class and lima-bean pie are right up there).
I sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it. Out of curiosity, what’s the part?”
His black eyes sparkled, and a smile tweaked his ratty lips. “The lead: Omlet, Prince of Denver. You’ve got a dramatic duet with a ghost . . .”
“Swell,” I said.
“A swashbuckling sword fight . . .”
“Not bad.”
“And a romantic song with Azalea that ends in a kiss.”
“That’s—Wait a minute! A kiss!?”
Mr. Ratnose nodded. “Yes, you fourth graders should be mature enough to handle that by now.”
My stomach churned and tumbled like a dingo in a washing machine. Sweat turned my palms into the Okefenokee Swamp.
“Wh-who plays Azalea?” I choked out.
“Why, Shirley, of course.”
My mind spun. A lip-lock with Shirley Chameleon, Smooch Monster and Cootie Queen of the Known Universe? Yikes! In fact, double yikes.
“Well, what are you w
aiting for?” asked Mr. Ratnose. “Get up here and rehearse.”
Right then, I gave myself a new case. I would find Scott Freeh before our play opened, or my name isn’t Chet “Too Young to Be Smooched” Gecko.
2
Through Thick and Twin
Before you lose your lunch, let me reassure you: I didn’t have to kiss Shirley that morning. We just read the play.
The kids who weren’t acting got stage crew duty. They met in a corner with Ms. Bona Petite, the teacher in charge of scenery and stage props. What a happy bunch—knowing they’d get to play with hammers, saws, and paint.
Too bad I couldn’t join them.
Instead, I sat with the cast and listened to Mr. Ratnose blather on about the meaning of the play, and how he’d improved on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
“You’ll notice,” said Mr. Ratnose, “that not only have I made it a musical, which Shakespeare probably wished he’d thought of . . .”
Ms. Petite sniffed and rolled her eyes.
“But I’ve also given it a happy ending.” Mr. Ratnose beamed at us. “That way, no first graders in the audience will get nightmares.”
Igor Beaver, a championship nerd, raised his paw. “Teacher, will we be wearing tights and doublets, like the actors of Shakespeare’s time?”
Mr. Ratnose’s tail curled happily. I could almost see the brownie points piling onto Igor’s permanent record.
“Yes, Igor,” he said. “We’ll use traditional costumes.”
Great. Now I’d have to wear sissy tights while frolicking around the stage like a doofus. Would the torture never stop?
Miraculously, it did. After we read through the play, the recess bell rang, and our teachers dismissed us. I buttonholed Natalie Attired for some sleuthing.
Did I mention already that Natalie, my mockingbird pal, is as sharp as a pocketful of pins (but without the annoying tendency to stick into your fingers)? She is. But she does have other irritating habits.
“Hey, Chet,” she said, as we watched kids milling about. “Do you know why gorillas have such big nostrils?”
“Why?”
“Because they have such big fingers!” She cackled.
See what I mean?
I took Natalie by the shoulders. “Birdie, this is no time for jokes. We’ve got to find Scott Freeh, and pronto—so he can take back his stupid role.”
“You don’t want to play Omlet?” she asked. “It’s such a great part.”
“I don’t care.” I fumed. “I’d rather gargle with a skunk’s bathwater than kiss Shirley Chameleon. Are you gonna help me or what?”
She held up her wings. “All right, don’t get grouchy. I’ll help.”
“Great. First we need to know what Scott looks like.”
“Easy-peasy,” she said. “He looks just like that.” She pointed to a skinny anole lizard beside Ms. Petite.
“Huh?”
“That’s Scott’s twin, Bjorn.”
I straightened my hat. “Twin, eh? Let’s start with him.”
As we approached, Bjorn Freeh was just finishing up with Ms. Petite, a ground squirrel who put the ooh in ooh-la-la.
Every school has a teacher like this. All the boys love her, and all the girls want to be like her. Ms. Bona Petite had lustrous eyes deep enough to backstroke in, a face cuter than a box of bunnies, and a way of making you believe you were the only one in the world that mattered.
Not that I fell for any of that.
She touched Bjorn’s arm. “Be strong,” she said. Then she patted her jaunty cap and wafted off like expensive perfume on a summer breeze.
“You Bjorn?” I asked the anole.
He tore his gaze away from the ground squirrel and blinked at us. “Uh?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Natalie chimed in. “What were you two discussing?”
“Oh, um, my brother’s disappearance,” he said.
“Funny,” I said. “That’s our favorite subject, too.”
I sized up Bjorn. He had a tail as long as a third grader’s Christmas list, and a head as flat as a frying pan.
Mmm, frying pan . . . termite crisps . . . My eyes glazed over with visions of lunch.
“So?” said Bjorn.
Regretfully, I reined in my appetite. “We need to find your brother,” I said.
“ASAP,” said Natalie. “Before he”—she pointed at me—“has to play Omlet.”
“But it’s such a great part,” said Bjorn.
“Never mind the part,” I said. “Where the heck is your brother?”
“He’s gone,” said the anole. “That’s what disappeared means.”
I clenched my teeth. “Thanks for the vocabulary lesson. But where did he go? Why? For how long?”
Bjorn started out the cafeteria door. We followed him onto a playground where kids swarmed like bees at a honey hoedown.
“Well . . . he didn’t come home yesterday,” said Bjorn. “But it’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” I said. “Aren’t your parents flipping out?”
The lizard idly fiddled with his tail. “Nah. Scott comes and goes all the time.”
I sidestepped a pair of toads playing leapfrog. You get that a lot from toads.
“But I thought twins were supposed to be inseparable,” said Natalie.
Bjorn shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “We’re as inseparable as oil and water.”
“Could some enemy have kidnapped him?” I asked.
“No way,” said Bjorn. “Everybody likes Scott.”
“Did he get stage fright and vamoose?” asked Natalie.
The anole chuckled. “Yeah, right.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
Bjorn contemplated a nearby gnat. But before he could move on it, I shot out my tongue and slurped it up. You snooze, you lose.
The lizard shot me a glance. “Look, my bro’s got ice in his veins. That’s why he’s such a hot soccer player. He’s got stage fright like you’ve got an eating problem.”
“But I don’t have any problems eating,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“Skip it,” said Bjorn.
I sucked in my gut and mulled over his words.
We had reached the rusty tangle of pipes and slides that passes for playground equipment at Emerson Hicky. Bjorn gazed at the jungle gym.
“Can you think of anything to help us find your brother?” I asked.
The anole squinched up his face. “Um . . . nope,” he said. “But he’ll show up.”
And with that, he trotted off to play.
“Hmm,” I said.
“You took the hum right out of my mouth,” said Natalie.
I scratched my chin. “Anything strike you as funny?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Pies in the kisser, knock-knock jokes, and that face you make when you eat broccoli by mistake.”
I looked at her. “Besides all that.”
“Well, Bjorn didn’t seem too worried about Scott’s disappearance.”
“He didn’t, did he?”
Natalie cocked her head. “So, what does that mean?”
“Partner,” I said, “the plot has officially thickened.”
She grinned. “Great! Add some potato bugs and we’ve got a stew.”
3
Soccer Puppet
It was lunchtime before Natalie and I could get back to sleuthing. After savoring the cafeteria’s dwarf-spider stew and blowfly pie, I was ready to roll (but slowly, thanks to seconds on the pie).
As Natalie and I were leaving the building, I glanced at the stage. Someone had already taped up a sign:
COMING SOON:
OMLET, PRINCE OF DENVER!
A finger-lickin’ good musical!
I shuddered.
From a nearby table, Tony Newt saluted me. “Yo, Omlet,” he said. “Are you the kind with mushrooms or green peppers?”
His tablemates guffawed.
“Yo, Tony,” I said. “Did you know
that if brains were dynamite, you couldn’t blow your nose?”
I grabbed Natalie and scooted out the door. “The sooner we find Scott, the better,” I said.
“What, tired of being a hot actor?”
“It ain’t the heat,” I said. “It’s the humility.”
We decided to visit Scott’s teacher and pump her for clues. Turned out she was Bona Petite, school glamour-puss. We found her on yard duty.
Ms. Petite stood, chatting with a couple of girls, in the eye of a hurricane of followers. Around her, show-off boys whirled and cartwheeled and jabbered.
The playground was littered with broken hearts.
Natalie and I slipped through the ring of admirers.
“Ms. Petite,” I said, “can you spare a moment?”
Her gaze, soft and sweet as a chocolate river, poured over me. With a smile meant just for me, Ms. Petite said, “Certainly.”
“It’s about your student Scott Freeh,” said Natalie.
“Yes?” said the chic ground squirrel.
“Well, he is missing,” I said. “We thought you might know something.”
Bona Petite toyed with her fancy hat. “Poor Scottie.” She sighed. “Such a talented boy . . .”
The girls beside her made sad faces and sighed, too.
Natalie cocked her head. “Why would he disappear? Could someone have snatched him?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Ms. Petite. “The office had no explanation; there was no note from home . . .” She shrugged. “It’s a sad, sad mystery.”
Her gal pals shrugged, too.
“Oh, knock it off,” I said.
“What?” said Bona Petite.
“Did Scott have enemies?” asked Natalie. “Was anybody mad at him?”
“No, he—Just a moment,” said Ms. Petite. “I’ve thought of something.”
She put a paw to her cheek. Her little shadows started to follow suit, looked at me, and thought better of it.
“Yes?” said Natalie.
“The soccer players . . .”
“What about them?” I said.