by Bruce Hale
“Tell me,” I said, “are the Newt Brothers still taking karate lessons?”
“I think so,” said Natalie.
“Have them join us, chop-chop. We’ll meet behind the cafeteria at lunchtime. Mrs. Crow will be in the teachers’ lunchroom, and I think I know how to get the principal out of his office.”
“Roger,” she said.
“‘Roger?’ I’m Chet.”
Natalie shrugged. “Hey, that’s what they say in detective movies.”
That Natalie. What a joker.
The bell rang. We headed back to class. With a bit of luck, lunchtime would bring the answer to our question: Had our principal gone plumb crazy, or was he off somewhere taking the Big Nap?
5
Everybody Was Kung-Food Fighting
The lunch bell jangled. I strolled with the other kids to the cafeteria—my favorite place on campus. My steps slowed as I passed the trays of steaming delicacies. But I had no time for Mystery Meat or Chef’s Surprise.
Chet Gecko was on the case.
Natalie and the Newt Brothers were waiting outside. We watched the main office until Mrs. Crow left for lunch, bob-bob-bobbin’ along toward a juicy worm, no doubt. Yuck. A janitor followed her, pushing a cart.
That left only Principal Zero inside.
I turned to Bo and Tony Newt.
“Okay, boys. Make it good. You’ve got to keep him away from the office for at least five minutes.”
“No problem-o, Chet,” said Bo. He grinned from ear to ear, like Peter Pumpkin Eater at a jack-o’-lantern convention.
“Yeah,” said Tony, hooking a thumb toward his brother. “I’m gonna love creaming this creep.”
“Who you calling a creep, you moth-brain?” Bo aimed a kick at his brother’s head.
Tony ducked and karate-chopped back. They burst through the cafeteria doors faster than a vice principal after a sassy eighth grader.
Tony snatched a chunk of mealworm casserole off some kid’s tray.
“Yoohoo, bug-breath!” He tossed the food at his brother’s face. Bo ducked, and the gooey mess splatted onto a fat toad at the next bench.
I sighed. It was a shame to waste chow, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Nice shot, booger-brain,” said Bo. “Take that!”
He flung a lump of Jell-O at Tony. Tony dodged, and the gelatin ploshed into the lap of one of the Rat Sisters. She growled and hefted her soup bowl.
“FOOD FIGHT!” I screamed.
The cafeteria erupted in airborne edibles. Casserole and Jell-O flew through the air with the greatest of cheese. Rolls bounced, doughnuts danced, and salad got undressed. It looked like a family of crosseyed jugglers had gone berserk in a deli.
I wanted to stay and help clean up the leftovers, but lunch would have to wait. Natalie tugged me out the door. “Come on,” she said.
We stopped outside the principal’s office and ducked behind the bushes.
“Watch this mockingbird go to work,” said Natalie. She buzzed like an office intercom.
“Principal Zero, come quick!” said Natalie in Maggie Crow’s voice. “There’s a food fight in the cafeteria!”
Whoever he was, he still acted like a principal. The huge cat staggered out the door, tugging on some loose skin at his neck, waddling off as fast as he could go.
“Oh, the waste!” moaned Principal Zero.
I smirked. “He has quite a waist himself.”
Natalie eyed my belly. “You should talk, Mr. Can’t-Say-No-to-a-Pillbug-Crunch-Bar.”
“Hey, at least I don’t have worm-breath,” I said. I narrowed my eyes. “Now, you want to swap insults or search this joint?”
We searched the joint. Natalie checked the principal’s file cabinets and corkboard. I took his desk.
“What are we looking for, anyway?” she said.
“Anything that can give us the lowdown. Medical records, ransom notes, maps to secret hideouts—anything at all.”
I looked in the wastebasket. It was empty as a vampire’s vanity mirror.
I sifted through the papers on the desk. Report cards overflowed his in-box. When I saw my own, I paused. A C+ in English? Just because I told the teacher that Shakespeare was an old English javelin thrower?
School wasn’t fair.
I moved on. A hefty book, Crime and Punishment in Primary School, sat open on his desk. A half-eaten fish-gut sandwich pinned down a stack of old homework papers and drawings. I noticed my own masterpiece among them.
A “private collection,” eh?
“Hey, Chet, look at this,” said Natalie.
She held up a calendar. On it, Friday’s date was circled in red. PTA meeting was scrawled in the same color.
“Do you think it means something?” she said.
“Yeah. It means he’s going to the PTA meeting. Anything else?”
Natalie shook her head and turned back to the file cabinet. I slid open a desk drawer. A well-worn copy of Advanced Spanking Techniques rested on some rolled-up papers.
I unrolled one batch. It looked like floor plans for buildings. The top of each sheet read, Vocational School.
Since when was Principal Zero an architect?
“Check this out,” I said.
“Yes?” A deep voice answered.
Uh-oh. The principal’s huge body filled the doorway. His tail twitched like a snake doing the jitterbug.
“What are you doing here?” growled Big Fat Zero.
I glanced around the room. “Oh. Uh . . . the sun-lamp. We came here to work on our tans.”
His eyes narrowed. “What sunlamp? This is an office.”
“I was misinformed,” I said.
I stuffed the drawings back into his drawer. Natalie dropped a file folder and joined me by the desk.
“Anything else?” said Principal Zero.
“Yeah,” I said. I pointed to the building plans. “Do you know what vocational means?”
“It means ‘relating to training for a job or career,’” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I was wondering.”
Principal Zero stepped toward us. His lip curled in a snarl. Then . . .
“Thanks for keeping an eye on the office while I was gone,” he said. His sudden smile was as transparent as a good deed on report-card day. “You’re such helpful students. Would you like some dessert?”
He held out a tray of pudding—butterscotch, with big, juicy carpenter ants inside. My mouth watered. I reached for the tray.
“Ow!”
Natalie had stomped on my foot. I glared at her. She smiled.
“Oops,” she said. “Lost my balance. Isn’t it time for us to go, Chet?”
“Huh? Oh . . . yeah,” I grumbled. “Thanks anyway, Mr. Zero. See you around.”
He stepped aside to let us pass. As I looked up at Principal Zero, I noticed an odd line on his neck, almost like a scar. His phony smile stretched wider than a hippo’s hammock.
“Come back anytime, children.” He purred. “My door is always open.”
When we were out of earshot, Natalie spoke.
“What was the big idea, taking pudding from him?”
“Why not?” I said. My taste buds hadn’t forgiven her yet.
“It was a bribe, you dingdong. He was trying to throw you off track. You were right, Chet—there is something fishy going on.”
“You think so?”
“He’s as phony as your book report on The Wonders of Plankton.”
I winced. “Hey, I’ll have you know it took me a long time to make up that book.”
I led the way into the cafeteria. Most of the food was back where it belonged, on trays or in kids’ mouths. Lunchroom monitors were mopping up the rest.
I grabbed a tray.
“Wait a minute,” said Natalie. “Don’t you want to talk about this?”
“After lunch, partner. I do my best thinking on a full stomach.”
I piled on the Mystery Meat.
Something was rotten
at Emerson Hicky Elementary. That fake principal was dealing dirty at my school, and the whole setup stank like a sweat-sock soufflé.
Or maybe that was just the cafeteria casserole.
Either way, Chet Gecko had a full plate of detective work. And it was time to dig in.
6
Hamster Is as Hamster Does
By the time we finished eating, Natalie and I had planned our next moves. She would fake being sick, which wasn’t too hard, given the casserole. While visiting Marge Supial, the nurse, Natalie would listen in on the principal’s office next door.
I decided to track down Principal Zero’s garbage. A man’s garbage can tell you a lot about him. Like what kind of candy bars he eats, or what work he does, or whether he’s been doing a little kidnapping lately.
With luck, I might catch the janitor with Principal Zero’s trash still in his cart. The clock showed ten minutes left in lunch period. Natalie and I split on our separate missions.
“Meet you after school by the flagpole,” I said. “Make sure you’re not followed.”
Natalie winked at me and began staggering toward the lunch monitors.
“Oooh, I don’t feel so good.” She moaned like a movie star in search of an Oscar. “Everything’s getting hazy.”
That Natalie. What an actress.
I hotfooted it for the janitor’s office. I didn’t relish digging through huge bins of spoiled food to find Principal Zero’s trash. I hoped the janitor’s cart was still there.
Luck was with me.
I walked up to the cart and reached into the plastic trash barrel. Garbage from two buildings’ worth of wastebaskets greeted me. This wasn’t going to be easy. I started looking for telltale candy wrappers.
Like me, the principal is a man of big appetites.
I was up to my elbows in English papers when I heard a foot scuff on the pavement. I turned.
“Looking for something?” said a shifty-eyed hamster with a stubbly beard. He was wearing a pair of greasy blue overalls that said guido on the left front pocket.
I pushed my hat back on my head and let my eyes go as dull as a lawn mower in a rock garden.
“Um, yeah. I’m like, y’know, looking for a paper I lost, y’know? Would you find a janitor to help me look?” (Natalie wasn’t the only one who could act.)
“I’m a janitor,” said the hamster.
I gave him the once-over.
The hamster was a big guy. But no wider than a cement mixer and no taller than a stack of sabertooth tigers. A pair of brass knuckles twinkled merrily from the breast pocket of his overalls.
If he was a janitor, I was the Easter Gecko.
“Cool,” I said. “You must be a new janitor, Mr. . . . Guido?”
He scratched at his whiskers with a meaty paw. “Just started this week,” he said.
“Like, can you help me find my report? I think I left it in the principal’s office and he, y’know, tossed it.”
“Ya want me to root through that trash with ya?”
“Like, totally.”
Guido squinted at me for a long moment. I grinned like I didn’t have a thought in my head. It wasn’t too hard.
“Okay, I’ll show ya where to look,” he said. “But make it snappy.” Guido pointed to a corner of the trash barrel with a finger like a spear. “I dumped the boss—er, the principal’s stuff over there.”
“Like, thanks, dude. For sure.”
I rummaged through the trash in a hurry. I couldn’t talk this way much longer without losing a few IQ points.
Guido leaned on a nearby box, picking his buckteeth with a file and watching me. I didn’t find the candy wrappers I’d expected. I did find dull reports, equipment lists, soggy dynamite, escape routes for getaway cars. . . .
Wait a minute.
It was pretty odd stuff to find in Principal Zero’s trash. But then, he was a pretty odd principal. I shook my head.
“Come on, kid,” said Guido. “Hurry it up.”
The hamster stood and started pacing. He bounced the file lightly against his thick paw.
My time was running short. I dug deeper. And then I saw something.
A list scribbled in dark pen strokes:
Pocket picking
Robbery
Grand theft auto
Spelling
Advanced lying
Assault and battery
“Whatcha got there, kid?” said the fake janitor. He leaned over the trash barrel and reached for the list.
I snatched the paper and jammed it into my pocket.
“Totally radical!” I said. “I found it, dude. Like, thanks so much.”
His heavy paw fell on my shoulder. “Let’s see it, bright boy. Gotta make sure it’s yours. Can’t have someone taking trash what don’t belong to ’em.”
I searched my mind for ideas. But it was as empty as a school locker in summertime. My tail curled.
He stuck out his other paw, demanding.
Rrrring!
I was never so glad to hear a phone ring. The hamster’s eyes shifted toward a black telephone on the desk.
“Don’t move,” he said. He went to answer the ringing phone. I scooted out the door as I heard him say, “Yeah? Oh, yes, sir!”
I trotted off to class as the school bell sounded. If that janitor had been any more attached to his garbage, there’d be a trash-can wedding on the way. Strange.
I dropped into my seat, then pulled out the list and scanned it again.
What did it mean? It didn’t look like any shopping list I’d ever seen. If the fake principal was up to something, I’d have bet my allowance that this new janitor was in on it, too.
That made me wonder: Who else at Emerson Hicky was cooking up fiendish plans?
“Chet Gecko, come up here and answer the questions from last night’s math homework.”
Who else besides my teacher, I meant.
7
Talking Trash with Ms. DeBree
Math class limped by. English class crawled. If my classes got any slower, they’d roll over and croak like a toad.
I started to wonder why I was so eager to solve the mystery of Principal Zero. I mean, even if he was an impostor, could school possibly get any worse?
I shuddered. I didn’t want to know the answer to that question. I would solve the mystery because I was a detective, and that’s what detectives do.
“Hey, Chet,” Bo Newt whispered.
“Yo, Bo,” I whispered back.
“Lunchtime was fun,” he said. “When can I do more detective work?”
“Stay tuned. If things start cracking, I’ll let you know.”
“Cool,” he said.
You know times are tough when your best backup is a newt.
When the school bell rang, we all blasted out the door like milk spray after a bad joke. I approached the bushes where I stash my skateboard.
A chill of suspicion tickled my spine. I paused and eyeballed everyone passing by. How many of these smiling faces were in on the principal’s plot? How many students, and how many teachers?
I fished out my skateboard and went rolling into the great unknown.
Ouch!
It turned out to be a slow second grader. After brushing myself off and muttering a quick apology, I headed for the flagpole and my meeting with Natalie.
Then it hit me: I knew what we had to do. But we’d have to hurry.
Natalie was waiting. “Hiya, Chet. You’ll never guess what I found out.”
“Save it, birdie. We’ve got business that can’t wait.” I crooked my finger at her. “Come on.”
I rolled back down the halls to the janitor’s office, with Natalie floating close behind. I told her about my meeting with Guido.
She flapped her wings lazily. “Sounds like a tough customer. So, why do you want to talk to him again?”
“Not him, his supervisor.”
Ms. Maureen DeBree was the head custodian. Not a banana peel fell at Emerson Hicky that she didn’t know abou
t. She’d have the lowdown on the new janitor, and maybe even know a thing or two about the fake Mr. Zero.
I rapped on her door. “Ms. DeBree? It’s Chet Gecko. Are you there?”
The door swung open. Standing tall like a totem pole of ugliness was Guido the Hamster. His buckteeth gleamed in a mean grin.
“Well, if it ain’t the snoopy gecko,” he said. “What brings ya back, sniffin’ around here?”
“We’re looking for Ms. DeBree,” said Natalie.
Guido made a sound like a salamander swallowing a shoehorn. I guess he was laughing.
“Well, yer lookin’ in the wrong place, ya Nosy Nellies,” said Guido. “She’s home sick all week. I’m in charge here.” He stabbed his chest with a thick thumb. Even his knuckles had muscles on them.
I looked up at him. Guido wasn’t the brightest bulb on the marquee. Maybe we could draw a little information out of him on the sly.
“So, tell me, Mr. Guido,” I said, “where do you know Mr. Zero from?”
“From upstate,” said Guido. He scratched his belly. “Me and him did time—uh, spent time together awhile back.”
Natalie picked up the ball. “Oh, you worked together?”
“Yeah, we done plenty of jobs together,” he said. Guido scratched behind his ear. It was either fleas or soap rash. I was betting on fleas.
“I see,” I said. “And when was this—last year, the year before?”
“Yeah, last ye—” His eyes narrowed. “Hey, what’s with the third degree here?”
“Just curious,” I said. “I was wondering how Principal Zero could have worked with you last year when he’s been here at Emerson Hicky since I was in kindergarten.”
At last somebody hit the On switch in his brain. Guido clenched his fists and snarled.
“Scram, ya nosy little brats! Or I’ll moidlerize ya!”
We scrammed. You didn’t need a Criminal-English dictionary to guess that moidlerizing would be bad for your health.
As Natalie and I reached the school gate, she saluted me with a wing feather.
“Nice work, private eye,” she said. “Looks like they’re in it together. Let’s meet at your place in an hour, and I’ll tell you what I heard in the nurse’s office.”