Sherlock Academy

by F. C. Shaw

  Right now Rollie had more mysterious things to draw his attention. He stared at the singular items on the table. Enclosed you will find Rollin’s class schedule. How were these items related to his classes? What did these numbers and letters on each item signify? That flutter of excitement grew in his middle as the mystery grew in his mind.

  Timetables and Such

  “I have never been more relieved in all my life,” Cecily exclaimed.

  Up in Rollie’s watchtower bedroom, she and Rollie sat at his desk under the window. They took turns peeping through the telescope, then through the binoculars, watching Mr. Crenshaw in his garden below. The elderly gentleman lounged in his favorite chair under a willow tree, and sorted through his briefcase. The angle was just right, allowing the two sleuths to read the papers he shuffled through. Periodically he sipped his coffee.

  While he had moved in next door only six months ago, Mr. Crenshaw had wasted no time in being neighborly to the Wilsons. He always exchanged friendly words with Rollie’s father, and sent little gifts of flowers, chocolates, and fruit to the family on special holidays like Valentine’s and Easter. The first time he caught Rollie and Cecily spying on him he chuckled and gave them a wink. Rollie wondered if he sometimes purposely sat in his back garden to give the young detectives some spying practice. He always seemed amused by them. A few times he had invited Rollie and Cecily to his house to discuss detective work over tea, for he shared their same interest in mysteries.

  “I mean, just a few weeks ago I was worried about going to this all-girls boarding school in Newcastle,” Cecily continued. “Now I’m going to this brilliant school where I get to do what I like best. I get to go with my best friend, too. How did my luck change?”

  “I have no idea,” Rollie mumbled. “I was sure your mum wouldn’t let you go. What made her say yes?”

  Cecily focused the binoculars. “A few things. First, I can board there. Also the tuition is way cheaper than the Newcastle school. And I begged a lot.”

  “How much is the tuition?” Rollie heard Mr. Crenshaw ring a little bell. In response, his young, brassy-haired secretary emerged from the house, a notepad and pen in her hands, her high-heels clippety-clopping across the patio.

  “Didn’t you read your letter?”

  “Someone is paying for my tuition,” Rollie told her.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. An anonymous benefactor.”

  Cecily looked at him. “That’s interesting. Sure it’s not your family?”

  “They couldn’t be anonymous, even if they tried. My family can’t keep anything a secret.”

  “Good point. Who else knows about you and the school?”

  “I have no idea,” Rollie shrugged.

  “You know what I wonder about, Rollie?” Cecily put down the binoculars. “How did the Academy know about our skills as detectives?”

  “Do you think Mrs. Simmons had something to do with it?” Rollie wondered.

  He had thought a lot about his past teacher. One day in April she had caught him making notes in his journal about Anthony Green, who he suspected of stealing the class candy jar. Rollie had been afraid that Mrs. Simmons would punish him for those notes, but instead she encouraged him to pursue solving the case, just not during math. After that she had several conversations with him about his love for Sherlock Holmes and his love for solving mysteries. Rollie had mentioned that Cecily also enjoyed the same hobby. On the last day of final exams, Mrs. Simmons had added one more exam not typically given to ten year old students. The exam contained twenty unusual and complicated questions. Although Rollie had felt good about his answers, he never saw the results.

  “I was thinking the same thing!” Cecily gasped. “What were some of the questions on that exam?”

  “If you are looking at a rainbow, where is the sun located?” Rollie cited. “There was something about a chess position, too.”

  “Oh! And there were a bunch of questions where you had to predict the pattern or something.”

  “I wonder if that was a test to find students with certain skills— like what the Academy was looking for.” Rollie squinted through the telescope. “Mr. Crenshaw is looking at blueprints to a building.”

  Cecily picked up the binoculars again. “What building?”

  “I’m looking for an address.”

  Cecily handed Rollie the binoculars and he quickly twisted the knob to focus them. “His fingers are in the way. Don’t you think it’s funny that he always wears gloves? Even in the summer?”

  “Sort of, although I know gentlemen are fond of wearing gloves.” Cecily leaned over the desk to better see out the window.

  “Maybe something’s wrong with his hands.” Rollie set the binoculars down. “I’ve never seen his hands without gloves.”

  “He put the blueprints away and is looking at an invoice.” Cecily pressed her right eye to the telescope.

  “Wait, he’s spotted us.” Rollie watched Mr. Crenshaw glance up at his bedroom window and smile.

  Mr. Crenshaw scribbled on a piece of paper, then held it up for the two sleuths to read: Tea in twenty minutes? Rollie and Cecily nodded back, to which Mr. Crenshaw gave them a wave and went back to sorting through his briefcase.

  “What do you want to work on for twenty minutes?” Cecily stood up from the desk.

  “How about our class schedule,” Rollie intonated these last words with sarcasm. He loved mysteries, but hated ones that stumped him for too long. A week had passed, and those items in the hollow book still baffled him.

  Cecily sighed. “I did figure one thing out: We have the same class schedule.”

  Rollie socked her gently in the shoulder. “Ha, ha. Elementary, my dear Watson.”

  “What information is on a normal class schedule?”

  Rollie grabbed his notepad and pencil stub. “Name of the class. Name of the professor teaching the class. Time of the class. The room the class is in. That’s what are on those college class schedules my dad has. Have you come up with anything?”

  “Maybe each item has something to do with its class.”

  “I thought of that too.” Rollie flipped through his notepad to a list. “The cap could represent P.E.”

  Rollie and Cecily tried to assign the items to classes: the vial of dust for science, and the pen for writing. But when they came to the pipe and the key, they got stumped again. Rollie ventured a bit of creativity, saying the key could be for history according to the metaphorical idea that the past is the key to the future. Cecily laughed that the pipe could be for home economics. In the end, they agreed that their guesses were not concrete enough.

  “Any student could interpret these objects any way,” said Cecily.

  Rollie picked up the key and studied it. “Let’s go after these numbers and letters. They could be the course ID.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “College courses have titles and numbers and letters,” Rollie explained. “My dad teaches math course numbers 102A and 102B.”

  “That makes sense!” Cecily picked up the pipe. “So this class is course number 1130F. It has something to do with pipes. If that’s the case, then we can’t do anything more until we go to school and look up their class courses. How can we know what class is 1130F?”

  Rollie frowned. He remembered the Academy expected him to arrive the first day of school and know his class schedule. Was he missing something else? Were his detective skills not as fine as he had come to believe?

  “I don’t think that’s it either,” he said.

  “I think that’s it,” Cecily countered. She stood up and stretched. “Until we go, we can’t know anything more. Let’s go over to Mr. Crenshaw’s.”

  Rollie followed her out of the bedroom and downstairs. They headed next door and entered the back garden through a side gate they had used before. As they entered the garden
, they spotted Mr. Crenshaw still sitting in his chair under the willow tree. He stood in greeting and smiled at them.

  He might have been a tall man, but his height was hard to tell because he stood with a stoop and shuffled around on slightly bent knees. He was nearly bald, except for tufts of white hair encircling his head. His face was lined with wrinkles and heavy bags drooped beneath his eyes. Rollie guessed he had to be older than Auntie Ei.

  “Good day, detectives,” Mr. Crenshaw greeted, beckoning them to sit in two chairs across from him. A small table next to him was laid with tea and biscuits. “What case are you working on today?”

  “We’re decoding our class schedule,” Rollie told him.

  “For Sherlock Academy,” added Cecily.

  Mr. Crenshaw’s white eyebrows shot up. “You’ve been accepted at Sherlock Academy of Fine Sleuths? Quite an honor!”

  “You know about the school?” asked Rollie in surprise.

  “A little,” said Mr. Crenshaw, as he poured tea into their cups. He passed a teacup to each of them. “My nephew attended there some years ago, and one of my dear friends is on staff there. Speaking of which . . .” He rummaged around in his briefcase and found a long white envelope, which he passed to Rollie. “Would you mind very much delivering this to my friend when you go to the Academy?”

  Rollie took the envelope and read the name on it: Professor Ichabod P. Enches. He thought this was a very odd name, but then he had learned long ago not to judge a name since his own was unusual.

  “Please help yourselves to some biscuits. I also have a little gift for your great-aunt.” Mr. Crenshaw held out a small, pink box with gold ribbon. “I thought she might fancy these chocolates.”

  Rollie set his teacup down on the small table and took the box. “She does love chocolate. What’s the occasion?”

  Mr. Crenshaw shrugged his hunched shoulders. “Just a little gift from one neighbor to the other.”

  At that moment the secretary joined them outside. “Sir, I have the time table here. Did you wish to depart at eleven-thirty or twelve-fifteen?”

  “Eleven-thirty would be best,” Mr. Crenshaw told her, looking slightly annoyed by her interruption.

  “Very good, sir. Will you be needing anything else?”

  “No, thank you.” He shooed her away with one of his gloved hands.

  Clip-clop, her heels receded into the house.

  Rollie stared after her as an idea formed in his brain. “That makes sense!” he suddenly exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

  “What?” Cecily jolted in surprise, nearly spilling her tea.

  “The class schedule! Sorry, Mr. Crenshaw, but we’ve got more work to do.” Rollie pulled Cecily out of her chair.

  “Of course, detectives!” Mr. Crenshaw waved them off. “Don’t forget to deliver my letter!”

  Rollie raced into his house, Cecily close at his heels. He hurried up the stairs, two at a time, gripping the banister for support. He flew into his bedroom and dropped to his knees. He picked up the closest object, the vial of dust, and read the numbers.

  “One, zero, three, zero.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Or you could say ten-thirty,” said Rollie. “Don’t you see? This is the time. Just like the train timetable that the secretary mentioned to Mr. Crenshaw. On a timetable the numbers are written just like this one with no break. But you know it’s a time so you say ten-thirty!” He passed the vial of dust to Cecily.

  Cecily’s green eyes lit up. “I think you’re onto something. You said class schedules had the times on them.”

  Rollie studied the pipe. “This class starts at eleven-thirty. See?”

  “Okay, what about the key?” She passed him the key with a doubtful expression.

  The numbers on the key were 0900. Rollie studied it a moment, and brightened. “Nine o’clock. The timetables put a zero first if it’s a single-digit hour.”

  “Good. Oh, hold it, Holmes, the pen and the cap throw everything off. The pen is 1300 and—”

  “And the cap is 1400.” Rollie’s shoulders slumped a bit. “I thought I had it.”

  Cecily laid out the pipe, the vial of dust, and the key on the floor in a row, and rearranged them.

  “What are you doing?” Rollie wondered.

  “Putting the times in order. Nine o’clock first, then ten-thirty, then eleven-thirty.”

  “I don’t think they’re times. The pen and cap don’t make sense.”

  “Let’s just say they are times and this is part of the schedule,” Cecily continued. “We have a class at nine, then let’s say we have morning recess. Next class, ten-thirty. Next class eleven-thirty. If they’re hour-long classes, we’d get out at twelve-thirty.”

  “Then probably lunch,” Rollie added.

  “Which could be an hour. Our next class would have to be at one o’clock at least.”

  “Then a class at 1300 and 1400? There’s no such—wait! Yes, there is! In military time, 1300 is one o’clock!”

  “You’re right!” Cecily squealed. “So 1400 would be two o’clock?”

  “Yes! We’ve got it!” Rollie slapped a high-five with Cecily. “But we still have these letters,” she reminded him.

  Both of them returned to hunched postures and furrowed brows.

  Cecily spoke up first, breaking the silence of concentration. “Maybe the letters are course IDs.”

  “They could be, but again that doesn’t help us till we get to school,” Rollie objected. “We’re supposed to figure out the class schedule before we go.”

  “What else could these letters mean, then? What information are we missing?”

  “Professor’s name, course name, and location.”

  Sucking on the tip of his pencil, Rollie thought. One letter, not a few letters, so they could not be initials. What could just one letter represent? He thought of things involving one letter. A grid, a set of building directions like what his model planes came with, an address, a—

  “Flats!” he shouted.

  “What?”

  “The letter is the address of a flat! Like 221 b!”

  Cecily smiled. “The school is an apartment building!”

  “I bet the flats are the classrooms,” Rollie said. “So that class—whatever it is—probably is in flat H!”

  “Well, done, Holmes!”

  “Why, thank you.” Rollie grinned and bowed dramatically.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. We know the times and places.”

  “I still want to know what the class is and who’s teaching it.”

  “Should we go back to our first guess?” Cecily ventured, holding up the ballpoint pen. “Writing?”

  Rollie shrugged. “Could be, but what about these other items? What class would need a pipe or a key?”

  “Who knows?” Cecily threw up her hands. “Remember, this school is very out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t rule out any possibility.”

  “Let’s review our class schedule, shall we?” Rollie said in his professor impersonation. Whenever he wanted to sound important, he thickened his British accent and deepened his voice to impersonate his father, whom he thought was the epitome of a professor. This always made Cecily giggle.

  He cleared his throat. “Fact: young lady, at nine o’clock you have a class in room A. From there you have recess, I’m assuming. Fact: you attend a class having to do with vials of dust at ten-thirty in room D.” Here he paused and held up the vial and shook it gently. “Next you must go to room F at eleven-thirty where you will learn to smoke a pipe. Not very ladylike, but I guess that won’t bother you.”

  Cecily rolled with laughter. “Stop it! Let’s write this down on paper.” She scribbled down the class schedule as follows:

  Key9:00amRoom A

  Recess10:00am?

  Vial10:30amRoom D

&nbs
p; Pipe11:30amRoom F

  Lunch 12:30pm?

  Pen1:00pmRoom H

  Cap2:00pmRoom G

  “Looks great,” Rollie commented, glancing at the schedule over her shoulder. “Do you think there’s information in those words? I hadn’t thought about it till you wrote them out. Key, recess, vial, pipe . . .”

  “Maybe. Like a code?”

  Rollie did not answer, but studied the words. He read them backwards. Key became yek. Yuck, that did not work. He inserted the room letter A into the word. He came up with akey, kaey, keay, keya . . . that was too unnerving. He rearranged the letters in key: eky, eyk, yek, yke . . . .nothing sounded remotely like a course or a professor’s name.

  A little light flickered through his brain.

  “Initials?” he and Cecily both chimed at the same time.

  “Rollie, your initials are REW. Mine are CAB. See? Mine spell a word. These words could be the initials of our teachers.”

  Rollie shook his head. “We don’t know any of their names. We only met the headmaster and his sister.”

  “Once we get to school and look at the directory, we’ll know right away.”

  “The sister!” Rollie gasped. “What was her name? Katherine something Yardsly?”

  “I can’t remember her middle initial, but I’m willing to bet my leftover chocolate Easter bunny that her middle initial is E,” Cecily grinned.

  “You still have your Easter bunny? It’s July!”

  Cecily shrugged. “Beside the point. We have a class with KEY: Katherine E. Yardsly.”

  Rollie gasped. “And we have a class with PIPE!” He held up the envelope Mr. Crenshaw had given him to deliver. “Professor Ichabod P. Enches!”

  “We solved the mystery of the class schedule. I’m exhausted.” Cecily fell back dramatically onto the floor, her eyes closed and her arms sprawled out.

  Rollie read over the class schedule again. He had no idea what he was about to learn at Sherlock Academy, but he knew it would be thrilling. For the first time, he couldn’t wait for school to start.