Sherlock Academy

by F. C. Shaw

  “Rollie, you’re back fast!” Cecily exclaimed, spewing bread crumbs everywhere. “Was it awful?”

  “No, Ms. Yardsly knew it wasn’t all my fault. I had to write a sentence only once.”

  “That’s nice of her. I didn’t think she could be nice.”

  “We misjudged her. Are you ready for our next class?” Rollie pulled out his little notepad. “Someone’s class at ten-thirty in room D. That was the vial of dust.”

  “Right. I guess we’ll know the teacher once we get there.”

  Rollie, Cecily, and Tibby left the rooftop and took the stairs back down to the second floor. They found room D filling up quickly. Apparently they were not the only students who liked to be early. They selected three seats in the second row. When the clock struck ten-thirty, all heads turned to the door in expectation of their teacher. They started with alarm when a woman’s shrill voice exclaimed from the front of the room, “Ah-ha! Very interesting!”

  A round, stout woman popped her head up and crawled out from behind the desk on all fours, a magnifying glass in one chubby hand, and a familiar vial in the other. She scrambled to her feet and puffed. “You can find the most interesting particles to study in the tiniest cracks. Remember that, children! And welcome to . . . .” She trailed off, setting down the magnifying glass and vial on her desk. Her short, curly, faded red hair frizzed at the ends. She wore men’s trousers and a plain white blouse. Groping in her pockets, she foraged out a piece of chalk and turned to the blackboard. “Welcome to Identification of Fingerprint, Footprint, and Ash.” She wrote this on the board in curly but crooked cursive. “I am Miss Amelia S. Hertz.”

  Rollie and Cecily glanced at each other with the same thought. That vial did not contain dust; it contained ash, the initials of Miss Hertz’s name.

  “Are you in the right class?” she asked. “Hmm . . . I’ll bet you’d like to know. Well, I’m not going to tell you. You must figure it out for yourself. I’m going to take a print of your right thumb. Then you have to match the print with one of those on that chart.”

  Everyone turned to a chart next to the door. The chart was divided into squares, each square displaying a black ink thumbprint.

  “If you can match your thumbprint to one on the chart, then you’re in this class. That’s my class roster. I don’t do well with names, but I never forget a fingerprint!” She rummaged around in her desk and found a large inkpad and a stack of white cards. She scurried around to each student and pressed his or her thumb onto the pad then onto the white card. When she came to Cecily, she sized her up with a smile. “You don’t usually wear a dress, do you?”

  “No, Miss Hertz. My mum made me because it’s the first day of school. I usually wear my brother’s trousers.”

  “I thought so. You didn’t look comfortable. Well, there’s no shame here, so you may wear those trousers if you like.” Miss Hertz stopped next to Rollie and took his thumbprint.

  Rollie took his white card to the chart and held it up to each print. He grew worried as he moved down the chart and did not find a match. Once he thought he had matched his, but then he looked more carefully and noticed a difference. Second to the last print, he stopped. He studied the two prints side by side. He was sure they matched. He remembered that on a class roster Wilson would come last. He smiled and resumed his seat.

  “Good, everyone matched! Let’s begin class.”

  Pipes, Pens, and Doubles

  Eleven-thirty came too soon. Just as Rollie relaxed in Miss Hertz’s class and started to get engrossed in fingerprint analysis, he was dismissed to his next class. Rollie felt a little stressed always hoping he had solved the class schedule correctly. So far, he and Cecily had proven their good detecting skills.

  In room F, they selected similar seats as in the other two classrooms. As they sat down, they noticed their teacher sitting primly behind his desk, reading a book and smoking a pipe. He had white hair and a neat, white mustache. He looked very scholarly in his yellow tweed suit and bowtie. He cleared his throat every time he delicately turned a page. At eleven-thirty he checked the time on a gold pocket watch. He cleared his throat, closed his book, and stood. Puffing lightly on his pipe, he studied his students from beneath his bushy white eyebrows.

  The students squirmed in their seats under his stare. A minute ticked by. Finally he took the pipe out of his mouth and cooed in a deep voice, “Etiquette. That’s what this world needs more of. Someone tell me one good form of etiquette.”

  No one stirred.

  “Come now, don’t be bashful. Anyone?” he coaxed in a grandfatherly tone.

  Slowly, Rollie raised his hand.

  “Yes, lad?”

  “Respecting our elders. Like calling them mister and madam.”

  “Very good, lad. That’s positive social etiquette. Did you know that there is a level of etiquette for detectives? I am here to teach you that. This is my class entitled Spy Etiquette and Interrogation. I am Professor Ichabod P. Enches. It is good etiquette to address me as Professor Enches. I am the only faculty here with a doctorate degree, and I have taught at several universities. I am privy to the title Professor, thus I require my students to address me in that way.”

  Rollie raised his hand slowly again.

  “Yes, lad?”

  “I have a note for you, Professor.” Rollie pulled Mr. Crenshaw’s letter from his inner coat pocket. He got to his feet and held it out to his teacher.

  Professor Enches raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise. He reached out and took the letter. “Thank you, lad.” He read his name on the envelope, and stuffed it into his outer coat pocket.

  “It’s from Mr. Creshaw.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Professor Enches smiled as he rested a hand on Rollie’s shoulder. “It’s very good of you to pass this on to me. You may resume your seat.” He coughed quietly. “Now, students, I will call roll, according to good class etiquette.” He picked up a roll sheet from his desk and cleared his throat. “Brighton, Cecily A.”

  “Present!” Cecily called, thinking that was the polite way to respond.

  Professor Enches nodded approvingly. Everyone in the class responded to a name. Much to Rollie’s dismay, he noticed Eliot sitting two seats behind him and made a mental note to stay clear of him.

  After putting the roster away in a desk drawer, Professor Enches clasped his hands behind his back and stared at his students. Again they squirmed in their seats.

  “Can anyone tell me the usual method by which Sherlock Holmes encountered a mystery?”

  Rollie’s ears pricked up at the mention of his hero. He shot up his hand.

  “Yes, Rollin?”

  “Usually a client came to his apartment and told him about the mystery.”

  “Very good, lad. You know your Holmes, don’t you?” Enches smiled, the wrinkles creasing around his kindly eyes.

  Rollie smiled back, and started to relax .

  “The proper term for that activity is ‘house meet,’” the professor informed, pointing at him. “Holmes always displayed a proper degree of etiquette while interviewing his clients. He also displayed etiquette while interrogating a suspect. That is what I will be teaching you in this class. Students, take notes.” He turned his back on them to write on the blackboard. When he stepped away, the word POLITENESS stared back in capital letters.

  The students looked inside their desks and found two pencils and a composition book. They took these out, and scribbled down politeness on the first page. For the rest of the hour, Professor Enches lectured on politeness. By the time lunch break came, the students felt like they had attended a college class.

  * * * *

  Although Rollie grew a little drowsy after lunch, he was eager to attend his next class at one o’clock in room H, represented by the pen. After selecting seats next to each other, Rollie and Cecily leaned their heads together to discuss the day. They
had not chatted at lunch because Headmaster Yardsly had made a welcome speech to the student body.

  “We’re doing great so far—guessing the class schedule and all,” Rollie whispered.

  “I love Miss Hertz!” Cecily squealed

  “Because she wears trousers?”

  “Yes, and because she told me I could wear mine.”

  “How did she get our fingerprints on that chart?”

  Cecily shrugged. “Maybe we left prints when we were here for orientation.”

  “What do you think about Professor Enches?”

  Cecily snored. “Boring.”

  “But he seems really nice,” added Rollie.

  Abruptly, the classroom door flew open. A man carrying an armload of long rolled papers, notebooks, a mug of pencils, and a bulging leather briefcase barged into the room. His thick, frizzy, gray hair stood up on end, as if a mighty wind had swept past him. His green trousers and coat were wrinkled, one shoelace trailed untied, and his plaid tie flapped over one shoulder. He blinked from behind super thick lenses magnifying his eyes. He resembled an owl. Sticking out his foot, the teacher tried to close the door, but leaned too much and spilled the pencils out of the mug. Tibby, who sat nearby, jumped up and gathered the pencils off the floor.

  “Oh, thank you, little girl. Just put them right in this cup,” he said in a high voice. Once he had all the pencils again, he tried once more to close the door with his foot. The mug tipped precariously, ready to spill.

  Tibby quickly closed the door before the pencils could fall from the cup.

  “Thank you again. What’s your name?” He bent down and peered into her face too close for comfort.

  Tibby stepped back and told him her name.

  “Wonderful, wonderful.” He bustled to the front of the classroom, and dropped his armload onto the desk. Not bothering to tidy the desk, he stepped closer to the students. “Welcome, boys and girls. I teach Observation Level One. You must know that it is very—notice how I emphasized that word—very important to observe everything. Observing is different from seeing. Holmes saw everything that everyone else saw, but he trained himself to observe everything and deduce information from what he noticed. You may ask, ‘Mr. Notch, how can I train myself?’” Here his voice rose to imitate a child.

  “Well, I’ll teach you soon enough, but first we must make sure you’re in the right class. I do not take roll like other classes. ‘But Mr. Notch, why do you not take roll?’ you may ask,” he squeaked. “I am counting on you to know if you’re in the right class based on my own observations. I have had plenty of time to observe each of you today. ‘I did not see you anywhere, Mr. Notch’. Ah, then I am a better detective than you probably thought. Now just sit tight, and I will read some of my observations. When you are sure that I am describing you, then call out ‘Here!’ or ‘Present!’ or anything else to let me know you are that person.”

  Rollie and Cecily glanced at each other. Just when they thought they had met the most eccentric teacher who used the most unusual method of checking the roster, they met another one.

  “Nibbles bread, talks with her mouth full, uncomfortable in dresses, left-handed, freckles on nose, auburn—”

  “That’s me!” Cecily beamed.

  “Right you are, Miss Brighton. Welcome to my class.” Mr. Notch pushed his thick glasses up his nose and continued. “Missing a coat button, ink stains on right index finger, trims his crust, hazel eyes, reddish hair . . .”

  Cecily tapped a boy’s shoulder in front of her.

  “Me?” the boy asked with some uncertainty.

  Smiling, Mr. Notch said, “Let’s work on being more observant this year, Charlie B. Dover.”

  “I’ll try, sir,” Charlie mumbled.

  Rollie figured that if Cecily was the first to be described, he had a while to wait until Mr. Notch got to him, since he had been at the end of all the rosters today. He guessed correctly.

  “Hole in coat pocket, picks at food, short sandy-blond hair, excited brown eyes that—”

  Rollie checked his coat pockets and gasped at a tiny hole in the left one. Mr. Notch kept reciting his observations until Rollie called, “Me!”

  “That concludes our class roster. Welcome again, students. I have a little assignment for you all. In your desks you’ll find some pencils and a composition book. Go ahead, take a peek. Those are for all your observation notes. You will take lots of notes. I want you to notice everything. Be sure to write down everything. Even little details that you think insignificant—write them down! Holmes knew the significance of details, for usually they were the key to solving the mystery. First assignment: observe someone in this room for five minutes and write down everything. You may begin.”

  Rollie swept his eyes around the room, and rested on Mr. Notch squirming behind his messy desk. Rollie jotted down a quick description of him, the desk and all the items on it. He put down his pencil, then picked it up again. When he studied the briefcase closer, he noticed Percy E. Notch inscribed on the briefcase.

  “PEN,” he mumbled to himself with a smile.

  Before Rollie knew it, an hour had slipped by and he was hurrying to his last class of the day, at two o’clock in room G. He wondered how the teacher’s name connected to the red ball cap.

  Rollie and Cecily found room G down the hall from their other classrooms on the second floor. They dodged into the room and slipped into seats. Behind them hobbled an extremely old man on shaky knees, bowed over a cane. A patch of snowy white hair encircled his otherwise bald head. He wore a shabby sailor’s pea-jacket, a frayed red scarf, stained white pants, and scuffed black shoes. He inched into the room, wheezing heavily. He took nearly three minutes to reach the front of the classroom. He turned slowly to face them, and smiled wearily. His face creased into a hundred wrinkles, but his blue eyes twinkled beneath bushy, white eyebrows.

  “Good afternoon, dear ones,” he croaked in a faint voice. He wheezed again, and continued. “As ye can tell, I appear to be the oldest faculty member here. But one thing ye’ll learn from me is that appearances can be deceiving.” He paused to catch his breath. “Ye just came from Mr. Notch’s observation class, did ye not? Well then, observe me. Ye need not write anything down.”

  Rollie studied him closely. This teacher had to be older than his Auntie Ei; Rollie always regarded Auntie Ei as the oldest person he knew. As he moved his eyes over the old man, Rollie stopped at the teacher’s hands grasping the cane. They contrasted with the rest of his appearance, for the hands bore no wrinkles, and looked not much older than his brothers’ hands. How strange! Rollie stared at the old sailor, wondering if maybe . . .

  “Close yer eyes, children. Tight. No peeking.”

  Rollie closed his eyes, his curiosity building. He listened to the sounds of rubber peeling, something sticky becoming unstuck, and the cane rattling on the floor.

  “You can look, kids!” a young man’s voice announced in a strong American accent.

  When he opened his eyes, Rollie gaped at the young man standing before him. He had short, black hair and bright blue eyes. His face was pleasant with normal features. He was the type of man that Rollie thought he would see in any crowd anywhere. The young teacher mashed something flesh-colored and sticky in his hands.

  “Like I said, appearances can be deceiving. Just a little stage makeup, fake hair, and some great acting, if I say so myself, and you have an ancient sailor before you. Want to take a guess as to which class I teach? Yes?”

  “Some sort of disguise class?” Cecily piped up.

  “Bingo! I teach The Art of Disguise Level One. Just between you and me, this is the most fun class in the whole school.” He leaned in toward the students and whispered, “But don’t tell any of the other teachers. They might get jealous and fire me.”

  The teacher grinned. “I’m kidding! But seriously, this is a fun class. Want to guess my name?�
��

  “Do your initials spell out CAP?” Rollie guessed.

  The young man’s features grew solemn as he rushed over to Rollie. “How did you know that? Are you a spy?”

  “No, sir, I—”

  “Good guess, kid!” he exclaimed, patting Rollie on the back. “I surely hope you’re in my class. Are you in my class?”

  “I hope so, sir.”

  “In that case,” he whispered into Rollie’s ear, “my name is Chadwick A. Permiter.” He jogged back to the front of the room. “Now, class, there is someone among us at this moment who knows my name.” He paused dramatically and announced like a circus master, “Will that person please stand up and tell the rest of the class my name?”

  Rollie shot to his feet. He already loved this teacher who had more energy than he did. “Chadwick A. Permiter!”

  Mr. Permiter clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Wonderful performance, young man. If you are not in this class, I strongly encourage you to go join the London Theatre Troup. Perhaps you’ll make a very convincing Macbeth. Anyways,” he continued casually, waving his hand as if sweeping away that topic. “Are you ready to see through disguises and catch some bad guys? Are you ready to don a disguise and become a hero? Don’t look so surprised, that’s what this whole detective business is about. Are you ready?”

  The students nodded and fidgeted in their seats with excitement.

  “Great! First we gotta make sure you’re supposed to be here. I’m gonna do this in a quick, painless way—like ripping off a band-aid. Is there anyone here named Herbie Z. Frecklebottom?” He searched earnestly around the room.

  The children stifled giggles.

  “No? Well, that’s the only student who is not supposed to be here. I know that everyone else is in the right place.” He spun around to the blackboard, but then spun back around. “By the way, if anyone does run into Herbie Z. Frecklebottom, please tell him the principal—I mean, headmaster— wants to see him.”

  At the second mention of this ridiculous name, all the students openly giggled.