Smashie McPerter and the Mystery of the Missing Goop

by N. Griffin

  “I don’t know,” said Dontel. “But now I know we’re onto something. I’ve remembered what made me think so before!”

  But before he could go on, the PHWEET of the yard lady’s whistle sounded and it was time to line up.

  Dontel placed the jar carefully back where he found it.

  “Why are you putting it back?” Smashie was plaintive. “We need to show the kids! We can be heroes! We can do some hairstyles after all! And now maybe the rest of them will forgive us for Mr. Bloom! Take the jar!”

  “No,” said Dontel. “I’ve got good reasons. Trust me, Smash.”

  And although she was full of misgivings, Smashie nodded. Dontel was the finest thinker she knew. She did trust him. But it was certainly hard to control her patience. And it was even harder to join a line of children who were all mad at them. The frostiness toward Smashie and Dontel was palpable.

  “Didn’t see you doing much dancing,” said Cyrus to them as they walked down the hall. “What, were you too busy thinking of other people to accuse?”

  “We said we were sorry,” said Smashie. “We really are.”

  “Mmm-hmmm,” said Willette. “You better think of a way to make it up to Mr. Bloom.”

  “We will,” said Dontel. But the look on his face was determined, not meek. Whatever he had figured out about the jar was giving him confidence.

  The children filed back into Room 11. Ms. Early looked at them. “Why do you all look so unhappy?” she said.

  “We’re not,” said Siggie. “Some of us are mad.”

  “Oh. Well. Let’s see if we can put aside those feelings for now. It’s time for writing. We can talk at the end of the day if you all feel like we need to.”

  “No. It’s fine,” said Jacinda. “Smashie thinks it’s fine, too, don’t you, Smashie?”

  “I think it’s very fine,” said Smashie hastily. She couldn’t bear for Ms. Early to know that she had been rude to Mr. Bloom. What if they talked in the staff lounge? she worried. What if Ms. Early winds up not liking me anymore, either? If only they could solve this case! Then the kids would forgive them and she and Dontel could have a real heart-to-heart with Mr. Bloom.

  Ms. Early furrowed her brow briefly. But all she said was “Fine. Get out your notebooks and use this time to generate thoughts, or if you’re working on a story, keep going. I’ll come around to check in with you as you work.”

  “Come on, Smash.” Dontel grabbed Smashie’s wrist and their notebooks and tugged her into the reading corner.

  “Tell me everything!” Smashie demanded. She couldn’t imagine working on her writing before she knew what Dontel had remembered.

  “Smashie,” said Dontel, his voice deep with mystery, “I don’t think the thief is stealing the jars to sabotage our musicale. I think we have stumbled onto enormous intrigue!”

  “Intrigue!” breathed Smashie. “I love intrigue! But how do you know it’s intrigue?”

  “The jars!” said Dontel. “Remember when Charlene passed around the first one? The one that rolled away and that Mr. Bloom found?”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “Dontel, are you thinking that the second jar rolled all the way from our room to the gym and behind the basketball bin wheel? Because I think that goes along with my idea about Charlene’s mother somehow making them jet-propelled!”

  “Smashie,” said Dontel wearily, “the jars are not jet-propelled. Believe me, I’d be glad if they were. But no. This is something else. There’s something different about this jar. This is definitely the second jar, the one Charlene used to make Joyce’s first hairdo — that hair heart.”

  “How do you know?” asked Smashie.

  “Because” — Dontel paused — “I remember that the first jar, the one Mr. Bloom found that Charlene used to make your music note, only had the words about Herr Goop on it. But the second jar had numbers on it. And so did the third jar — the one Joyce’s mom bought. I remember because I looked at them all.”

  “I noticed that, too,” said Smashie. “Why does that matter? And how do you know this was the second jar and not the third?”

  “Because I remember that one of the numbers on that second jar was 77!” said Dontel. “I didn’t remember the other numbers, but I remembered that one.”

  “Dontel,” said Smashie, “I mean this in a nice way, but — who cares?”

  “Hear me out, Smashie,” cried Dontel. “Because even though I don’t remember the numbers on the third jar — the one that Joyce’s mom bought — I know that there was no 77. Why would the numbers be different?”

  “OK,” said Smashie. “If only we had the rest of the numbers on that jar you found in the gym, we might be able to figure it out!”

  “We do,” said Dontel smugly. “I wrote down all the numbers that were on that jar. I have them right here, in my Investigation Notebook.”

  “Dontel,” said Smashie, “you are a wonderful investigator.”

  “Only sometimes,” said Dontel modestly. And he opened his notebook to the page where he had written down the numbers.

  The two investigators stared at the numbers. Then slowly, they turned to look at one another. Smashie knew their minds were as one.

  She was right.

  “Smashie,” said Dontel, “I think this is a secret code! And that means —”

  “There is not just one thief! Two people must be involved!”

  “Yes! One perp is communicating with another via a code!”

  “A different message on each jar!”

  “Why, though? And how can we crack their code?” Dontel wondered aloud.

  “Smashie and Dontel,” called Ms. Early, “are you two working on your writing?”

  Smashie and Dontel jumped. “We were just brainstorming, Ms. Early!” said Smashie. But she squirmed. Were she and Dontel telling too many lies? Or at least half-truths? Honesty was important to Smashie. But she knew that if she told Ms. Early what they were doing, her teacher would take away their Investigation Notebooks and tell them to stop being silly and to work on their school tasks. But still. Smashie’s shoulders hunched.

  The door to Room 11 opened. But for once it wasn’t Mrs. Armstrong come to shout at them. It was Miss Dismont. She crossed over to Ms. Early.

  “Our Hair Extravaganza and Musicale will suffer if we don’t have the children in those perfect hairstyles,” she said quietly. “Should we spring for those ingredients ourselves?”

  “They cost so much,” Ms. Early said. “I don’t know that we can buy enough for what we need. Or raise enough in a quick bake sale, to be honest with you.”

  The two women sighed. Smashie and Dontel exchanged glances.

  “We better work on our writing quickly and get to investigating right after,” Smashie whispered to Dontel as the door shut behind Miss Dismont. “I have to fix the spelling in my story, anyway. I have a bunch of hard words in there.” Smashie’s story was a long one, full of shoes who wished they lived on other people’s feet. “Can I borrow your tiny dictionary? I can’t remember exactly what that word is for when things act like people.”

  “Sure,” said Dontel, and fished the fat little book out of his pocket. “It’s all yours.”

  Smashie took the dictionary. Then it fell from her fingers.

  “Is it anthropomorphic?” asked Dontel.

  But Smashie wasn’t listening. “Dontel,” she breathed, “I know the secret of the code!”

  “Dontel,” she whispered. “Dontel! I’ve got it!”

  “Tell me!” said Dontel desperately. But Ms. Early was already turning their way with a warning look. The two friends had to get to work on their writing.

  “Oh, why can’t it be bus time?” wailed Smashie, very quietly.

  It was a miserable wait until the final bell signaled the end of the day. But at last it came, and the two friends hurried down the aisle of their bus to find a seat in the very back.

  “You behave back there,” Mr. Potter warned.

  “We will!” cried Smashie. “We’re only going
to be working.”

  “Well, I hope you’re going to work on some kind of apology to Mr. Bloom,” sniffed Willette as they went past her. “Maybe you could think about making him some cupcakes or something.”

  “Good idea, Willette,” said Dontel.

  But Smashie was too excited to think about apology baking, even for Mr. Bloom.

  “Spill it, Smash!” said Dontel as soon as they were seated. Mr. Potter put the bus in gear and they were off.

  “It was your dictionary that gave me the idea,” said Smashie. “Dontel, how many letters are in the alphabet?”

  “Are you kidding me?” asked Dontel.

  “Never mind. I know you know there are twenty-six. But what I mean is, look what happens when I number the letters!”

  In a fresh page of her notebook, Smashie wrote them out.

  “What if each number stands for a letter?” Smashie cried. “Maybe the numbers spell out something amazing!”

  “Like what?” asked Dontel.

  “Maybe secrets to a treasure!” said Smashie, her eyes glowing. “Treasure with enough in it to buy ingredients for Mrs. Stott to make us more goop! Or maybe it’s a plea for help from some kind of magical being! And we will have to storm some kind of lair to save him or her! We’ll need swords and shields! And armor!”

  “Smashie,” said Dontel.

  “Oh, fine,” said Smashie. She knew he was about to tell her that her imagination was running away with her.

  “I like the thinking,” said Dontel. “And the first number in the code is 26. That works; it’s a Z. But the next one is 99. There aren’t 99 letters in the alphabet!”

  But Smashie shook her head. “No, Dontel! Not the whole number. I think we need to take each digit individually! A 2, then a 6. Then 9, then 9. Then the 7, and the 7.”

  “Ah!” Dontel’s eyes flashed. “I like it! Let’s get to work.”

  There was a pause as their pencils flashed bumpily across the page, on account of the bus bouncing about.

  “Well,” said Dontel, looking at his work, “there goes that theory.”

  “Theory is a good Investigator Language word,” said Smashie. “We should add that to the list. But you are right about it not working.”

  For, using Smashie’s method, the would-be code spelled out

  “It makes no sense,” said Dontel. “But that was a good idea, Smash.”

  Smashie was staring at the page.

  “Maybe it stands for something,” Dontel suggested. “Maybe they’re acronyms. You know, like how NASA, our national space program, stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

  But Smashie shook her head.

  “Wait,” she said. “WAIT!” And she rewrote the numbers, but this time, instead of putting them side by side, as they had been on the jar, she wrote them in a vertical list.

  “Now let’s write it out!” she cried. And before Dontel could even catch up with her, Smashie had already written it in her notebook.

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” asked Dontel, puzzled.

  “No!” cried Smashie. “Read it up and down!”

  Dontel’s eyes widened. “Ohhh!” he said. “BIG FIG! Smashie, you were right!”

  “So were you,” said Smashie. “And I think I know what it means!”

  “The TrueYum Grocery Mart,” said Smashie firmly.

  “What? Why the TrueYum? I never noticed they sold super big figs before.”

  “I don’t know if they do, either,” said Smashie. “But, Dontel! Think of the sign just by the entrance!”

  Dontel’s mouth dropped open. “It is a picture of an enormous fig!” He looked at Smashie in admiration. “Smashie,” he said, “I thought you were losing it with the magical-being stuff, but this is excellent. You are something else!”

  And they slapped each other’s hands with their hands.

  “But how will we get there?” Smashie wondered aloud. “It’s way outside the parameters of where we’re allowed to go alone.”

  “My grandma,” said Dontel firmly. “She told me this morning that she needs to go shopping this afternoon. We can just . . . encourage her to take us.”

  “We can offer to help,” said Smashie. “Then we won’t feel guilty about not telling the whole truth.” But she did feel a bit guilty.

  “I think we are doing it for the greater good, don’t you?” said Dontel. “Something is happening, and it’s up to us to catch the perp!”

  “That’s true,” said Smashie, comforted somewhat. “Oh, well. Let me get permission to come over to your house.”

  “You can’t play at Dontel’s today,” said Grammy when Smashie got home. “Mrs. Marquise and I have to go shopping. We’re cooking for both families tonight and we need supplies.”

  Smashie could scarcely believe her luck. She bounced up and down in front of Grammy.

  “That’s great!” she said. “I really want to go!”

  Grammy looked at her strangely.

  “You hate grocery shopping,” she said. “You always say it’s like being trapped in the boringest place in the universe, and you complain and thrash about until we can leave.”

  “Not today,” said Smashie. “Me and Dontel want to make brownies. May we? For tonight’s dessert? We can get the ingredients.”

  “Brownies?” said Grammy doubtfully. “Do you have to make a mess in the kitchen today, of all days? We’re having the families eat together so we can help you and Dontel get ready to lead your first rehearsal tomorrow.”

  “We want to take some brownies to Mr. Bloom as well.”

  “The custodian? Why? Did you make a big mess at school?” Grammy was stern.

  “No,” said Smashie. “At least, not the kind of mess you mean.”

  “Hmm.” Grammy looked at her thoughtfully. “All right. As long as it’s okay with Lorraine.” That was Dontel’s grandma. The cooking for the night’s supper was to happen in the Marquise kitchen.

  “Thank you!” cried Smashie, hugging Grammy around the waist. She ran to the front door and flung it open.

  “She said yes!” she screamed across the street at Dontel in his yard.

  “My grandma did, too!” screamed Dontel back. And they air-high-fived across the street. The two grandmothers, standing in their respective doorways, exchanged looks and sighed. They very much saw eye to eye when it came to Dontel and Smashie.

  “All right,” said Mrs. Marquise as they pulled into the parking lot of the TrueYum. “You two find us a cart with four good wheels while Sue and I go look at the produce.”

  “We’ll investigate things about produce, too!” cried Smashie, looking at Dontel meaningly.

  Dontel elbowed her quiet as the two women made their way into the store. “Quit almost giving us away! Who needs produce for brownies, for Pete’s sake?”

  “Sorry, Dontel,” said Smashie. “I was just enjoying the coincidence.” And the two children sidled casually over to the rows of carts, which stood handily below the TrueYum fig sign.

  “Well,” said Smashie, “that certainly is a big fig. But I don’t see anything suspicious about it, do you?”

  “No,” said Dontel. “I guess I don’t really get what we are supposed to do now. Let’s test some carts and think.” For the TrueYum carts were old, and the grandmothers were very picky about having carts with four working wheels.

  Creak, crark, went Smashie, testing a cart.

  Crark, creak, went Dontel, testing another. “This is no good.” He stopped, hand on the cart handle, and this time, it was his jaw that dropped.

  “You have an idea!” squealed Smashie.

  “Shh!” whispered Dontel fiercely. “There are passersby! And who knows who might be involved?”

  “You are right,” said Smashie. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “What are you thinking?”

  “Look at the top of the sign.”

  Smashie looked at the sign, which lay flush against the wall of the market. “I don’t see anything,” she confessed. “Except hinges.”<
br />
  “Exactly,” Dontel whispered. “And that means . . .” He snaked his fingers under the bottom edge of the sign. “You keep watch.”

  Smashie looked around the parking lot. No one was looking in their direction.

  Dontel lifted the edge of the sign. The hinges creaked. He drew in his breath sharply.

  “What?” cried Smashie, and came around to look.

  But there was nothing there. Nothing, except a piece of tape to which a scrap of paper was still stuck, clearly torn off from a larger sheet that had been fastened there.

  “We’re too late,” said Smashie. “Somebody already got what was taped there!”

  “We are too late,” Dontel agreed. “But we were right, Smashie! These thefts were never about the goop!”

  Smashie nodded. “The jars are clues to something much bigger! It was about secret messages the whole time!”

  “Yes,” said Dontel. “But what are the secret messages? What do they say?”

  “And why use our goop to send clues? Maybe we have another enemy who really does want to wreck our musicale as well as be involved in intrigue!”

  But before Smashie could start up her imagination on the topic, the doors to the TrueYum flew open. “Are you two ever coming in with that cart?” Grammy demanded. “Or do you want Mrs. Marquise to walk around with her arms full of tomatoes for the next half hour while you chitchat?”

  The shopping over, Smashie and Dontel were in the Marquises’ kitchen, working on the brownies.

  Smashie slapped her forehead. “I completely forgot to ask you. Why didn’t you let me take the jar from under the basketball bin? Why did you want to leave it there?”

  “Because,” said Dontel, cracking the first egg into the bowl, “it was placed there so carefully I knew it was meant for someone. It was no accident.”

  “But who could it have been meant for?”

  “The code receiver,” said Dontel.

  “I know that,” said Smashie. “But who could that be?”

  “I have no idea,” Dontel admitted. “But we can watch to see if another one appears there under the indoor basketball bins again. Maybe we’ll even catch who comes to collect it in the act!”