by Bruce Hale
I sneered back, but it got old fast. Stuffing my hands into my pockets, I discovered the school newspaper Natalie had given me (plus a few gooey crickets from the potpie, which I ate). To kill time, I skimmed Kitten’s story, CHEATING RING ROCKS SCHOOL-DETECTIVE SUSPECTED.
“‘It’s a sad, sad tale. My life is ruined,’ cried Private Eye Chet Gecko.”
Her quote was a little off. Big surprise. What I’d actually told her yesterday was, “Bug off or I’ll tie your tail into a knot.”
But she was right. I had said the word tail.
I read on. Her story was surprisingly detailed. Kitten mentioned that we’d interviewed Noah and Lacey, and that we’d consulted Cool Beans.
She even included our encounter with Johnny Ringo, complete with the wolverines’ threat to “bloop” Natalie and me. Did this reporter have radar ears?
Bzzzt!
The buzzer derailed my train of thought.
“Yes, sir?” said Mrs. Crow to her intercom. Principal Zero’s tinny voice snarled something. “Yes, sir!” she responded.
The crow sauntered over and opened his office door. “Time to face the music,” she said. “Chester Gecko, you first.”
I hate it when they use my full name.
Padding across the worn carpet, past the spanking machine, I went and stood before the principal’s broad black desk. If I didn’t handle this just right, I wouldn’t be sitting down for weeks.
“Shut the door,” he said.
I shut it. “I know this looks bad . . .”
“Bad?” he rumbled. “No. World hunger is bad. This is just annoying.”
I started to breathe again.
“Deeply annoying,” he said. “You’ve got ten seconds to explain how this happened. And if I don’t like your answer, I’m taking away your private-eye badge and giving you another week of detention.”
Dang. That badge cost me three comic books and seven cereal box tops.
“All right,” I said. “The truth. I staged that fight.”
“You what?”
“I did it to get everyone into your office.”
Principal Zero’s eyes narrowed. “That’s your explanation?”
“There’s more. One of those students is running a cheating ring. And one of them—maybe the same student—framed Shirley Chameleon to cover his tracks.”
Mr. Zero studied me. His long tail twitched twice. He leaned onto his elbows.
“A bold claim,” he said, “coming from someone who steals test answers.”
“Ah, that. Actually, I was staking out the classroom to catch the cheater.”
“I suppose you can prove all this?”
“With your help,” I said.
Another long moment passed like a garden slug in steel boots. Then Principal Zero reached for his intercom button. “Mrs. Crow? Send them in.”
I took a moment to lick some cheese off my hat brim. Mr. Zero frowned.
The other kids slouched into the office like death row inmates wearing their last meals. They stood in a rough line beside me.
Kitten raised her hand.
“Yes, Miss Caboodle?” said the principal.
“I don’t belong here; I’m just a reporter.”
“Then report this,” said Principal Zero, slamming his fist onto the desktop. “Nobody leaves here until this question is answered: Who’s behind all the cheating at Emerson Hicky?”
Nine pairs of eyes looked anywhere but at Principal Zero. Nine mouths kept quieter than King Tut’s grandmummy.
I got the ball rolling. “Jackdaw Ripper,” I said.
“Wasn’t me,” he rasped.
“When I was hiding in the supply closet of our classroom, I saw you break into Mr. Ratnose’s desk and take something. Do you deny you were stealing the test key?”
Principal Zero cut in. “Remember, Ripper, I can smell a lie.” He wasn’t kidding; cats have a heckuva sniffer.
“I didn’t steal no test key,” said Jack.
“Come on. I saw—”
“He didn’t,” said Principal Zero. “But I’ll want to know what he did steal—in a moment.”
I paced past the magpie. “Then . . . his partner in crime stole the answers.”
Jack frowned. “My ‘partner in crime’?”
“Lacey Vail.” I stopped in front of her. “You came in right after Jack, didn’t you? You went through Mr. Ratnose’s desk, then your brother’s.”
“Hey!” said Noah Vail. “You searched my desk?”
I waved a finger in Lacey’s face. “You hid the test answers in Noah’s desk, didn’t you? Bad birdie. Were you trying to frame him like you did Shirley?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Lacey in a voice like distant bells pealing. “I would never harm my brother, or Miss Chameleon.”
Mr. Zero growled, “Answer the question.”
Her eyes teared up. “I did break in, I admit. It was wrong. But I was afraid my brother was cheating, so I read the teacher’s file on him and searched Noah’s desk for the answer key.”
“Oh,” I said. “So . . . if it wasn’t you . . . it was . . . you!” I turned and pointed a finger at Lacey’s brother, Noah.
The dove ducked his head. “Yeah,” he said softly, “I cheated.”
Lacey cooed, a small sad sound.
“Sorry, sis,” said Noah. “But you didn’t find a test key in my desk, ’cause I used this instead.” He fished a wristwatch from his T-shirt pocket.
A wristwatch? Rimshot Binkley had used a watch to cheat, too.
I tweaked Noah’s beak. “So you framed Shirley, eh? You sorry little sneak.”
“What are you, mental?” said Noah. “I just told you, I didn’t use an answer key, so how could I frame Shirley with one?”
Duh. He was right, of course. I was missing something obvious. But what?
“Gecko,” growled Principal Zero. “I’m losing patience. Either prove your case or prepare for the spanking machine.”
A hubbub at the door interrupted us. “No. You can’t—” Maggie Crow was saying as Natalie slipped under her outstretched wing and into the room.
“Hold everything, ladies and gerbils,” said my partner. “Give me a moment, and I think I can clear up this whole mess.”
19
Grime and Punishment
Once the room settled down, Natalie Attired stepped up beside me. “Didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun, did you?” she muttered.
At a nod from Mr. Zero, my partner faced the group. “So, what do we know?” she said. “We know the world is round. We know cheaters never prosper. We know if you laugh while drinking a milk shake, it spurts out your—”
“Miss Attired,” rumbled Principal Zero, “do you have a point?”
“Aside from the one at the end of my beak?”
“Natalie . . . ,” I hissed.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “Here’s my point. We’ve got the evidence we need to reveal the culprit. All we have to do is put it together.”
The students exchanged looks and shifted nervously.
“For example,” said Natalie, “we know that Jackdaw Ripper broke into Mr. Ratnose’s desk and stole something. If it wasn’t a test, what did he take?”
All eyes went to the magpie.
Jack hung his head. “I, uh, was ripping off school supplies. To sell.”
Johnny Ringo and the wolverines glared at him. If looks were mail, theirs would’ve come from the dead-letter office.
A thought struck me. “Who were you selling to?” I asked.
Jack nodded at Johnny. “Him. That raccoon’s been pushing hot goods all over campus.”
“You lie!” shouted Johnny Ringo.
Mr. Zero sat up straighter. His claws sank into the scarred desktop. “Is this true, Ringo?” he growled.
The raccoon backed down. “Uh, yeah,” he mumbled.
“And you,” said Natalie, pointing at Rimshot Binkley. “We know that you cheated, too.”
“Did n-no—” the rabbit began, un
til he saw the principal’s face. “Um, okay, yeah.”
Then I remembered something.
“Binkley,” I said, “you used a watch to cheat.” He nodded. “And you said you couldn’t tell me who you bought it from, because ‘Stripes’ would kill you.”
Rimshot Binkley gulped and nodded again.
I turned to the principal and opened my hands. “Then it’s obvious who’s behind the cheating ring. None other than that stripy character . . .” Natalie joined me in saying, “Johnny Ringo!”
Outrage flashed across the raccoon’s face. “You gink-faced cheese-heads!” he said, clenching a fist.
Wolverine One muttered, “I shoulda blooped ’em yesterday.”
“Sure, maybe I sold a few hot goods—” Johnny Ringo said.
Principal Zero stood.
“Okay,” said Johnny, “a lot of hot goods. But I don’t run a cheating ring.”
The principal walked right up, eyeball-to-eyeball with him, and sniffed. “He’s . . . telling the truth,” said Mr. Zero.
I turned to Natalie. She shrugged, as confused as I was.
Then the wolverine’s words sank in.
“Hang on,” I said, walking over to Ringo’s goons as I pieced it together. “You tried to bloop us yesterday, and the school paper reported it today.”
“So what?” sneered Wolverine Two.
“If Kitten Caboodle quoted me wrong when I was right in front of her, how in the world did she quote you correctly when she wasn’t even there?”
All faces turned to Kitten Caboodle. Mr. Zero crossed his thick arms.
“You know, I never noticed before,” said Natalie, “but she’s got stripes.”
“Well, Miss Caboodle?” growled the principal.
Kitten looked around with her mismatched eyes and shrugged. “Hey, you gotta admit,” she said, “it makes a great story.”
20
That’s Olive She Wrote
“A story?” Principal Zero rumbled. “You started a cheating ring on my campus just to have something to write about?”
Kitten Caboodle had the grace to look ashamed. “’Fraid so,” she said.
“And you sent me those e-mails, just to keep me on the case,” I said.
“Yup. Boy, you sure needed some big hints.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Wait a minute, I don’t get something. So what’s the link between you and Mr. Racketycoon, here?”
Natalie stepped forward. “Don’t you see, Chet? Johnny Ringo sold the watches, and Kitten’s customers used ’em to store the test answers. They were in cahoots.”
“Well, maybe just a half cahoot,” said Kitten. “I got him the watches to sell, but I didn’t tell him why.”
“And then you sold your customers the password to your Web site so they could download test answers onto their watches,” said Natalie. “Ingenious.”
“Really?” I said.
Kitten smoothed her whiskers. “Thanks,” she said. “It takes a computer nerd to appreciate a computer nerd.”
Mr. Zero gripped her arm tightly. “Appreciate this. You are in very serious trouble, missy. I’m giving you double-Dutch detention, taking you off the school newspaper—”
“Nooo!” she wailed.
“—and having a talk with your parents about how to make sure you never even consider this kind of behavior again.”
Kitten trembled. The other kids gave her a wide berth, as if her punishment might be catching.
“Chet and Natalie,” said Principal Zero, “well done. For all your hard work, I’m giving you . . .”
“Free lunches?” I asked.
“Two days’ detention—along with the rest of these troublemakers.”
“But—”
“You wasted food; you littered school property,” he said. “I’m letting you off easy. Don’t push it.”
I bit my lip. It didn’t pay to argue with the grandmaster of detention.
Most of us trooped out of the office, leaving Kitten and my two dishonest classmates to their fate. I mused on the case. Breaking the cheating ring gave me a warm glow, but something was missing.
“Hey, Chet,” said Natalie, as we headed down the hall with the others. “You okay?”
“It’s just . . . I mean, we still don’t know who framed Shirley.”
A monotonous chuckle came from behind us. We turned.
“Um, that would be yours truly, don’t ya know,” said Olive.
“You?” I said.
“But why?” asked Natalie.
Olive Drabb scratched a pink ear. “Kitten’s my very best friend,” she droned. “And ya know that a friend in need is a friend indeed, or so they say.”
I yawned and slapped myself, determined to hear her out. “Cut to the chase, Cheez Whiz. Why frame Shirley?”
“Kitten wanted a really dramatic story, with detectives and everything, ya know?”
Natalie’s eyes were drooping, too. She said, “Mm?”
Olive blabbed on. “So I told her, ‘Hey, Kitty-cat, if you wanna get the detective mixed up in it, just frame his girlfriend for cheating. She’ll cry on his shoulder, and he’ll . . .’”
But I didn’t hear the rest of her story. Olive’s hypnotic voice had lulled me off to dreamland.
A few minutes later, Natalie and I awoke on the concrete, refreshed, but with grooves worn into our cheeks. Everyone had returned to class, leaving us to nap in the hallway.
“That girl is some kind of boring,” said Natalie.
“You can say that again.” She started to open her mouth. “But don’t.”
We stood. I brushed potpie crumbs off my clothes. “Well . . .”
“Yeah . . . ,” she said.
“Guess I should get back to class and take that test.”
Natalie groomed her wing. “I guess you should.”
I stood there a moment longer.
“Tell me, Natalie. If you had one of those fancy watches and could get away with it, would you cheat on a test?”
Natalie raised an eyebrow. “Would you?”
We both chuckled and headed back to class. Some say that if a thing is worth having, it’s worth a little cheating. But I say, for most things—a good friend, a satisfying case, a stack of Katydid Chunk bars—it’s better to be true.
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.