by Bruce Hale
My stomach said yes before my brain could object. “Okay,” I said, snatching the treats. “But just one assignment.”
Waldo jumped up and down, showering me with long hairs. “Yippedy skippedy!” he cried. “When do I start?”
“Tomorrow. And Waldo?”
“Yur?”
“Keep it under your hat.”
He glanced both ways, then nodded. “Gotcha, Chet. Top secret.” And with that, Waldo tiptoed away from me.
I rolled my eyes. These junior detectives.
I grabbed the candy and scarfed half of it. With the sugar rush came an idea. It was time to do a little spying on the Stench Bombs. And just my luck, they were rehearsing in the cafeteria.
As I neared the building, the unmistakable strains of a hardworking rock band filled the air. Ah, the harmonies! And, oh, the rhythms! It sounded like a pack of weasels murdering an accordion with a sledgehammer.
Before I reached the door, someone tapped my shoulder. I spun, half expecting T-Bone. Instead I found Maureen DeBree, head custodian—a neat-freak mongoose with a thing for Mr. Clean.
“Hey, private eyeball,” she shouted over the noise, “you got time for one case?”
“Only if it’s a case of cricket pops,” I yelled back. “I’m busy.”
“You’re dizzy?” she said.
I cupped a hand by my mouth. “Busy! I gotta help Natalie.”
“Help batteries?” said the mongoose. “But thass why I like hire you. Someone’s stealing batteries from the storeroom.”
I shook my head. “No can do. Gotta help my partner first.”
Ms. DeBree frowned. “You got the farter’s curse?” she shouted. “Why you never say so? I catch you later.” And with that, she pinched her nose and took off running.
Good custodian, bad hearing.
I wished I could’ve taken her case. My piggy bank was emptier than a skeleton’s lunch box—especially since Anne Gwish fired me.
But I swore I wouldn’t even look at another case until Natalie was back at school with her name cleared.
That’s true friendship for you. Or true stubbornness. Sometimes they’re hard to tell apart.
7
Bomb Before the Storm
Fingers in my ears, I pushed through the wide cafeteria doors. The music slammed against me like a body block from an electric eel.
Onstage, two birds, a kingfisher and a crow, were torturing electric guitars. A burly raccoon thrashed the drums, while a ferret wailed into a microphone:
“No more teachers!
No more books!
That’s for morons,
Feebs, and schnooks!”
Then they all screamed, “School is for fools!” about ninety-seven times.
It wasn’t Mozart, but it got the point across.
A pack of groupies pressed against the stage. The girls squealed and made goo-goo eyes, and the boys ping-ponged into one another.
Ambling closer, I skirted the fans. I hoped the sight of a star detective wouldn’t distract them and alert the Stench Bombs. Fame gets in the way of my sleuthing sometimes.
Just then, several dancers exploded from the pack and banged into me from both sides. Bimmo! Bammo!
Like a pinball possessed, I ricocheted off a rabbit, sideswiped a salamander, and crashed—whonk!— into a big fat cat.
“Oof!” I dropped like a steel-winged bumblebee.
The cat bent down and helped me up. “Say, don’t I know you?” he shouted.
“Yes,” I said modestly, “I’m that private eye you’ve—”
“Nah. You’re the goofy lizard that fell off that wall. Looks like you dance as good as you climb.”
And with that, he rejoined the groupies in their frantic pogo-ing.
At last, the song ground to a halt with a sound like a rhino losing his lunch in a wind tunnel. The crow and raccoon stopped to sneer at their fans. The other two Stench Bombs pulled back by the curtains for a private confab.
I eavesdropped on them from a nearby water fountain.
“No one suspects. Right, Twang?” the kingfisher asked.
“Roger,” said the ferret. She glanced my way.
I slurped water until my cheeks swelled like a bullfrog’s. Something was definitely up with these two punks.
“If ya blow this deal for us,” said the kingfisher, “ya know what’s gonna happen?”
“Roger,” said Twang the ferret.
“Stop calling me Roger!” the bird squawked. “My name’s Lamar.”
The ferret hung her head. “Okay, Lamar.”
My belly was flooding like the lower decks of the Titanic. But I couldn’t budge.
“Now,” said Lamar, “what about the letter?”
My ears perked up. The letter?
The kingfisher ruffled his feathers. “Did you drop it yet?”
“Ro—er, yeah,” said Twang. “I gave it to the girl. She passed it to T-Bo—”
“Shhh!” The kingfisher scanned the room, giving me a stare.
I slurped like a runaway vacuum cleaner. Water cascaded from my mouth like I was an Italian fountain of The Mighty Lizardi. I could foresee some major bathroom breaks during computer class.
Lamar hissed, “No names. Ya never know who’s listening.”
He was right. And this detective had listened enough. Enough to know that the Stench Bombs and T-Bone were cooking up some kind of blackmail scheme.
And it smelled worse than the sweat socks of a thousand angry wolverines. (Trust me on that—I once worked in the laundry at summer camp.)
8
The Hardest Partner
The class bell jangled, sounding positively peaceful after the Stench Bombs’ last number. I eased out the cafeteria door and sauntered down the hall toward my classroom. Things were finally starting to fall my way.
What can you say about lessons? On the Fun-o-Meter, they rank somewhere between Chinese water torture and Grandma’s bingo night. After suffering through enough of them, we escaped Mr. Ratnose’s clutches and headed home.
In the halls, someone tugged at my sleeve. “Oh, Che-et.”
A simpering chameleon walked beside me. Shirley Chameleon, to be exact. She was the cootie queen of the fourth grade, and that’s all you need to know.
“Shirley.”
“Um, the school dance is Friday,” she said. “It’s girls ask boys.”
“I’ll alert the news media.”
“The, uh, Stench Bombs are playing.”
“So?”
She turned the most interesting shade of flaming rose. “So I was wondering,” she said, “if you’d go to the dance with me.”
“Well, I gotta say . . . ,” I said.
“Yes?”
“That all things considered, I’d rather floss with barbed wire.”
I left Shirley and her pout behind. Just outside the school gate, a familiar feathered face waited.
“Natalie!” I cried.
“Heya, Chet.” She tried on a smile. But it was tight around the edges and didn’t fit right. Her fudge-brown eyes looked troubled.
“How’s the easy life?” I asked.
“Pretty darn easy,” she said with a forced chuckle. “I watched five hours of TV today. Wanna hear a new joke?”
“If I have no other choice.”
Natalie joined me for the walk home. “Okay, um . . . knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?” I said.
“Repeat.”
“Repeat who?”
“Okay,” said Natalie. “Who, who, who, who, who . . .”
It was pretty weak, even for Natalie. She tried a cackle, but it came out more like a choke.
I pretended not to notice. “So, uh, sounds like you’re having a peachy time.”
“The peachiest.” Natalie gave me a sidelong glance. “How’s my case?”
“Well, I might get some help from Waldo,” I began.
“Waldo?!” she said. “Chet, stop goofing around and clear my name.”
I s
hrugged. “Well, it hasn’t been as easy—”
Natalie grabbed my shoulders. “I’m gonna go nuts at home! I miss the pop quizzes, the teachers, the cafeteria food, the homework—everything.”
She was already nuts. But she was my friend.
“Cool your jets, partner,” I said. “Let’s park our carcasses in my office, and I’ll fill you in over snacks.”
After ten minutes of chomping and chatting, we’d made a serious dent in the velvet-ant fudge bars. But the case was a little tougher to chew.
I wiped fudge from my cheek and summed it up. “So, it sounds like T-Bone and the Stench Bombs are in cahoots.”
“But why are they blackmailing Ms. Shrewer?” said Natalie. “And why did they frame me? It just doesn’t make sense.”
I wondered whether there was room enough in my gut for another fudge bar. Only one way to find out.
“Maybe they, mmf, thought you were on to T-Bone’s scheme?” I said, chomping into the creamy fudge.
“But then why wouldn’t they frame you, too?”
“Got me, sister.”
Natalie cocked her head. “You know what we need?”
“Some mantis milk to go with the fudge?”
“No, you cockroach muncher, we need a look at those blackmail letters. They could tell us why all this is happening.”
I sat up. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
Natalie paced. “We just have to figure out how we’re gonna get into Vice Principal Shrewer’s office.”
“What do you mean ‘we,’ beak-face? If you set one foot on that campus during school hours, you’re out for good.”
“But I—”
“Nothing doing,” I said. “I’ll tackle this one on my own, and you’ll stay off campus like a good little juvenile delinquent.”
Natalie gave me a long look. “If you say so,” she said at last.
“I do.” Then I leaned forward. “Now you can help me solve something really important.”
“Which is?”
“What’s a better follow-up to fudge: cicada crisps or blister-beetle gum balls?”
9
Fast and Furry-ous
Ah, lunch! It’s the killer-diller, the caterpillar’s kimono, the candied cricket atop the sponge cake of life. Of course, aside from being the high point of my school day, lunch was also the perfect time to case Ms. Shrewer’s office.
I bumped my tray along the cafeteria line, waiting to load up with greasy delights. My keen nose detected blowfly lasagna, spittlebug salad, and—could it be?—maple mosquito scones for dessert.
My turn came. I pushed forward. “Give me two scoops of—”
“Bzzz, may . . . Ihelpyou?” A robot in an apron stood holding a ladle.
“What the—” I stepped back.
“Don’t worry, Chet, honey,” said Mrs. Bagoong, head cafeteria lady. The hefty iguana patted the robot on its square head. “Meet my new assistant Ygor, courtesy of the sixth-grade science class.”
I checked out the robot. It had green lights for eyes, two tubular arms, and a body like an industrial floor waxer built by left-handed chimps.
“Sure, it can cook and serve,” I said, “but can it do my homework?”
Mrs. Bagoong smiled. “Just place your order and watch what happens.”
“Give me four scoops of lasagna, Ygor,” I said, winking.
With a click and a whir, the robot went into action. It neatly lifted two chunks onto my plate. “Bzzz, thank . . . youcomeagain,” it droned.
“Hey, what about my other two scoops?” I said.
“Only . . . two, bzzz, percustomer.”
“Clever little thing, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Bagoong. She turned away. “Next?”
I stuck out my tongue at the robot. Technology is all well and good, but not when it interferes with the nutrition a growing gecko needs.
Three minutes later, I brushed the crumbs off my shirt and dropped my tray on the dirty stack. I noticed that the robots were only handling the easy chores—serving food and collecting trays.
Maybe their union contract saved them from dishwashing. Lucky droids.
I hoofed it out the door. Time for some serious snooping.
Only one problem: I hadn’t yet figured out how to lure Ms. Shrewer from her office. I stopped and stroked my chin. From my earlier peek at Mr. Zero’s calendar, I knew he and Maggie Crow were at a meeting. If I could only—
“Psst, Chet,” said a voice, “I can help.” It was my classmate Waldo the furball, sporting a broad-brimmed hat, black cape, and Groucho glasses.
“Psst, Waldo. You need help.”
“Hur, hur, hur,” he chuckled. “Call me Agent Z.”
“Huh?”
“Reporting for duty.” He saluted.
“Oh, right. Um, hang on.” Turning away, I chewed my lip. Without Waldo’s monkey business, I’d soon think of a way to distract Ms. Shrewer.
Just then, an idea struck me—a ridiculous, hopeless, long shot of an idea. (Not much different from most of my ideas, I grant you.)
I grinned. “Waldo,” I said, “how’d you like to create a diversion?”
A couple minutes later, Waldo stepped into the flow of students leaving the cafeteria. “Ladieees and jelly beans,” he cried, “step right up for the world’s greatest magic show!”
Kids being kids, most of them ignored him. But Waldo was used to being ignored.
He plucked out some firecrackers from his Big Bag o’ Magic. “I call this trick The Exploding Fur-ball. Don’t be surprised if someone gets maimed for life!”
Now he had their attention.
I ambled toward the office, one ear cocked. Thirty seconds later, I heard it:
Ba-ta-KOOM! went the fireworks.
“Aieee!” went the kids.
Distraction, thy name is Waldo.
I raced down the hall and into the office. “Help, help!” I cried. “They’re blowing up the cafeteria! Kids are getting hurt!”
As I suspected, only a parent volunteer and Ms. Shrewer were holding down the fort. The parent, a skinny sparrow mom, gasped.
Fireworks crackled.
Vice Principal Shrewer stuck her head out her office door. “What’s all this fiddle-faddle?” she snapped.
“Fire! Cafeteria!” said the mom, flapping her wings. “Help!”
The shrew’s round face soured like horsefly yogurt that’s been left out overnight. “Call the janitor, you nitwit. I’ll meet her there.”
The vice principal bustled out the door. While the volunteer was on the phone, I nipped down the short hallway and into Ms. Shrewer’s office.
A breeze from the open window billowed the lace curtains. Without Ms. Shrewer in it, the office was tidy, neat, and almost welcoming. But I wasn’t there to report for Office Beautiful magazine.
I had only a minute or two at best. Time to work fast.
Making a beeline for the desk, I tugged on a drawer. Locked.
Dang. I checked the keyhole. Smaller than my tail tip.
“Lookin’ fur somethin’, podnuh?” drawled a voice straight from a two-bit Western on late-night TV.
I whirled. A gray bird in a cap and sunglasses leaned through the window. His frown froze me in my tracks.
“Me? I, uh, was just, uh, getting something for Ms. Shrewer.”
The bird took off the cap and shades. “Need any help?” asked Natalie.
Relief washed through me. Alarm followed it.
“You featherbrain!” I said. “What if she catches you? We’ve only got a minute.”
Natalie climbed through the window. “Then we’d better make it quick, huh?”
Rather than argue, I pointed her toward the desk. I took the filing cabinet. With a soft snick, the drawer slid open. The files were so organized it was scary.
“Got a death wish?” I said, flipping through folders. “’Cause Ms. Shrewer will kill you.”
Natalie looked up from picking the desk drawer lock. “Better to die on a case than to die of boredom o
n the living room sofa,” she said.
I couldn’t argue with that. “Any luck?”
She pulled the drawer open and rummaged.
“Bills, notepads, erasers, an army of sharp pencils, and some pink, lacy garters,” she said. “You?”
I flipped through the files, reading the tabs. “Let’s see . . . Absences . . . Administrative Expenses . . . Bangles and Baubles . . . Bingo!”
“Found something?” asked Natalie.
“Yes, right behind the Bingo file. Blackmail.” I removed the folder and opened it. Natalie crowded closer.
A handful of pages nestled inside. In black type straight from a computer printer, the first sheet read:
Shrewer:
Time for the third payment. Leave the cash in a bag in the scrofulous tree at sunset Thursday. No funny business, or everyone will know your little secret!!!
P.S. Don’t forget the chocolate!!
“Mmm, chocolate,” I said. “A blackmailer after my own heart.”
Natalie pointed at the note. “Thursday?” she said. “But that’s tonight.”
“Say, you’re pretty good. Tell me, what time is it when Mickey’s big hand is on the two and his little hand is—”
I reached for another letter, but just then a sound in the hall made my nerves jangle like the phones at a Save Summer Vacation telethon.
Footsteps!
And they were headed straight for Ms. Shrewer’s office.
10
Shrewed Move
“Cheese it!” I hissed.
Natalie grabbed her disguise and hopped to the windowsill.
I stuffed the file back into the drawer, slammed it, and dived out the window.
Kee-RUNCH!
I landed hard in the skreezitz bushes. As quietly as possible, I tried to free myself from the thorns.
“Chet Gecko!” a voice behind me shrilled. “What are you doing out there?”
The poisonous tones of Vice Principal Shrewer.