by David Lewman
“Right,” Corey said. “But what does that tell us? Does it mean Ricky did it?”
“Why would it mean Ricky did it?” Hannah asked.
“I don’t know,” Corey admitted. “But Dirk said he saw him there. Maybe he put something in the meat loaf after everyone else had already eaten it.”
“I think we need to start analyzing the evidence,” Hannah said.
“I know where we can find a microscope,” Corey replied.
Ben’s room was full of books and science equipment. Besides his microscope, he had dissection kits, a rock collection, and a chemistry set. In fact, his room smelled a little like the science lab at school. On the wall was a poster of Albert Einstein.
“I wish I had an electron microscope,” Ben muttered as he peered through the eyepiece of his microscope. He’d put a tiny bit of the meat loaf on a slide. “With an electron microscope, you can even see viruses. But at least with this microscope, you’re supposed to be able to see bacteria.”
“Why don’t you just run down to the microscope store and pick up an electron microscope?” Corey asked, looking through a magnifying glass.
“Because even the cheapest ones cost, like, sixty thousand dollars.”
“Oh. That’s a whole lot of lawns you’d have to mow,” Corey said. After a moment he asked, “See anything?”
“I’m not sure,” Ben admitted. “I’ve got this on the highest magnification, but I’m not positive I’m seeing anything that could be bacteria.”
Hannah was using Ben’s computer to look up food poisoning on the Internet. “There are a bunch of different bacteria that cause food poisoning,” she said. “I’m not really sure how to say all these, but there’s Staphylococcus, E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, Campylobacter . . .”
“After this investigation, I’m going to be afraid to eat,” Corey said. “Well, maybe.” He pulled a granola bar out of his backpack and then crunched off a bite.
“From what I’m reading, Salmonella seems like the most likely culprit in this case,” Hannah said. “And it seems to like foods that are high in protein.”
“Was there salmon in the meat loaf?” Corey asked.
“No, it was meatless, remember?” Hannah said. “Besides, Salmonella doesn’t have anything to do with salmon. It was named for some veterinarian named Daniel Salmon.”
“He discovered the bacteria?” Ben asked, curious. He wouldn’t mind having a discovery named after himself someday. “Benjaminella? Benjamineria?” he wondered aloud, until Hannah brought him back to reality.
“Let’s see,” Hannah said, typing and then clicking something using the mouse. “Um, no. His coworker discovered it.”
“So the other guy makes the big discovery, but Salmon gets all the glory?” Corey said, outraged. “I guess Salmon deserves to be a fish who turned into a germ. What’s the other guy’s name?”
Hannah scanned the screen of the laptop. “His name was . . . Theobald Smith.”
“So the bacteria really should be called Smithella,” Corey concluded.
“And you could call the sickness Theobalding,” Hannah added, giggling.
“Or going Theobald,” Corey suggested.
Hannah looked slightly annoyed. “That’s the exact same joke.”
“May I see your phone a minute?” Ben asked her.
“Sure,” she said, handing it to him. “But don’t look at the saved text messages. Those are private.”
Ben scrolled through the pictures on Hannah’s phone until he found the photo of the recipe. “I’d say the meat loaf ingredients with the most protein are eggs and tofu.”
“From what I’m reading, either one could be contaminated with Salmonella,” Hannah said. “It also says there are testing strips you can use to see if food is contaminated with bacteria.”
“How do they work?” Ben asked.
Hannah clicked to another screen and then read. “You blend the food with distilled water and a reagent, and then dip in the test strip. The reagent breaks the bacterial wall, releasing enzymes. The enzymes react with the test strips, so they change color, indicating the presence of bacteria.”
“I see,” Ben said, nodding.
“Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense,” Corey said, baffled. Since they didn’t have any of these magical strips, anyway, and had no idea where to get any, he decided to change the subject to something he understood better. “Hey, what about that hair?” he asked.
“What hair?” Ben said.
“The one we found in the kitchen.”
“Oh yeah!”
Ben dug through the pocket of his backpack and found the plastic bag with the hair in it. “Here we are,” he said as he carefully removed the hair from the bag with tweezers. He put the hair on a slide, covered it with another piece of glass to hold it in place, and then clipped the slide into the microscope.
He peered into the eyepiece and turned a dial, bringing the hair into focus. “Miss Hodges said we’re supposed to examine the follicle, the medulla, the cortex, and the cuticle of the hair.”
“Right,” Corey said. “What are you writing?”
“Some notes on the distribution pattern of the medulla, the pigment in the cortex, and the cuticle pattern. I wish I had the equipment to do a neutron activation analysis.”
“Boy, you took the words right out of my mouth,” Corey said. “English, please?”
Ben looked up from the microscope. “I’m taking notes on this hair’s color, texture, shininess, and curliness. Then we can see if it matches any of the suspects’ hair. That won’t positively identify the culprit—you’d need DNA testing for that—but it’d be another useful piece of information.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Corey said. “But wouldn’t we need hairs from the suspects to see if they match this one?”
Ben nodded. “We sure would.”
“But how are we going to get hairs from the suspects?” Corey asked. “I don’t think we can just walk up to them and say, ‘Excuse me, could I please borrow one of these?’ and then yank out a hair.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “Maybe that could be your department.”
“Collecting hair? How is that a department?” Corey asked. “I think I’d rather be in charge of refreshments. Because so far the snacks at this club’s meetings have been pretty pathetic.” He popped the last bite of his granola bar into his mouth.
Hannah chimed in. “There are lots of other sources for a suspect’s hair. You don’t have to pluck it from his or her head. You can collect hairs from a hat. Or a coat. A brush. A comb . . .”
“A bathtub drain,” Corey suggested.
“Yes!” Hannah agreed. “That could be an excellent source!”
“If by ‘excellent’ you mean ‘gross,’” Corey said.
“Since when did you get so squeamish?” Ben asked. “I remember in kindergarten, you ate a worm.”
“Yes, but I got paid a nickel to do that,” Corey said. “We’re doing all this work for free.”
“Maybe Miss Hodges will give us extra credit,” Hannah suggested.
“Especially if our investigation keeps her out of prison,” Corey said.
“You don’t really think Miss Hodges did this, do you?” Hannah asked.
“Hey, I’m just keeping an open mind,” Corey said. “So far the evidence hasn’t eliminated anyone.”
That was true. What had they really learned from their investigation up until now? Ben decided to summarize what they had so far. He wrote these points on the dry-erase board hanging on his wall:
• Miss Hodges gave Mrs. Collins the recipe for meatless meat loaf.
• Mrs. Collins fixed meatless meat loaf for the first time.
• Principal Inverno, the swim team, and Dirk Brown got sick.
• They did not get sick from bacteria in the school pool.
• They ate the meat loaf later, after everyone else had eaten.
• The food poisoning might have been caused by Salmonella.
• Two ingredients that might have carried the Salmonella are the eggs and the tofu.
• There was a hair in the kitchen, but we don’t know whose it is.
Hannah and Corey watched as Ben wrote, nodding in agreement as he added each point. It was a good summary of their investigation so far, but it raised a lot of questions. Whose hair had they found? If the meat loaf had Salmonella on it, where did it come from? Did someone put it there?
Ben said, “I really think we need to talk to someone who was there when the meat loaf was prepared.”
“But the only person we’re sure was there is Mrs. Collins,” Hannah said, frowning.
“That’s right,” Ben said, nodding. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, but this really can’t wait. How about if we pay her a visit at home tomorrow?”
“Oh boy,” Corey said. “This should be fun.”
The following day Corey, Hannah, and Ben nervously approached Mrs. Collins’s house. It didn’t look at all scary. The yard was neat, the bushes were trimmed, and the windows were sparkling clean. It was the person inside the house that made them nervous.
Ben stepped onto the front porch and then rang the doorbell. After a moment Mrs. Collins opened the door. “Yes?” she asked gruffly.
Hannah smiled her friendliest smile. “How are you, Mrs. Collins? We were just wondering if—”
“You three! You’re the kids who were snooping around my kitchen at school! What do you want? Why are you bothering me on the weekend?” she demanded.
Hannah gulped. “We, uh, we wanted to, um, ask—”
“We wanted to help you,” Corey interrupted.
Mrs. Collins looked confused. “Help me? I don’t need any help.” She started to close the door.
“So you’re not worried about getting fired?” Corey asked.
Mrs. Collins paused. “They wouldn’t dare fire me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Ben saw where Corey was going with his question, and chimed in. “But unless the truth comes out, they might fire you by mistake. We just want to figure out exactly what happened so the wrong person doesn’t get blamed.”
“You know how people are,” Corey added. “Always jumping to conclusions. ‘Oh, she made the meat loaf, so she must be the one who made everyone sick! We should definitely fire her!’”
“Please?” Hannah added.
Mrs. Collins stood in the doorway for a moment, thinking. Then she held the door open. “Come on in. I’ll give you three minutes.”
Inside, Mrs. Collins led the club into her living room. It was neat and spotlessly clean. The three investigators sat on the couch, and Mrs. Collins sat in a soft upholstered chair.
“So,” she said, “ask your questions.”
The three friends looked at one another nervously, and then Hannah dove in. “What can you tell us about making the meatless meat loaf?”
Mrs. Collins snorted. “There’s nothing to tell. That snooty Miss Hodges gave me her recipe. I went out and bought the ingredients I didn’t already have. Then I made the meat loaf, and then I served it at lunch.”
That seemed straightforward. Nothing new there. But it seemed as though there had to be more to it than that.
“Were there any unusual ingredients in the recipe?” Corey asked. “Like rare mushrooms?”
Mrs. Collins shook her head. “No. The only unusual ingredient was tofu.”
Ben asked, “Do you cook meat in the cafeteria’s kitchen, Mrs. Collins?”
She looked annoyed. “You know I do. You’ve eaten it plenty of times.”
“Could any of the knives or other utensils that touched the raw meat have touched any of the meat loaf ingredients?” Hannah asked.
“You’re talking about cross-contamination,” Mrs. Collins said.
“That’s right,” Hannah said, surprised. She’d learned about cross-contamination while she was researching food poisoning, but it wasn’t the kind of term she’d ever heard Mrs. Collins use.
“Look,” Mrs. Collins said. “You don’t get to run a school cafeteria for sixteen years without knowing about cross-contamination. I’m extremely careful about that. I even have color-coded cutting boards, so everything’s kept completely separate.”
The kids nodded, remembering the brightly colored cutting boards hanging in the kitchen.
“And I’m certainly aware that you have to be very careful with raw animal products. They can carry all kinds of bacteria,” she said.
“Like Salmonella?” Hannah asked.
Mrs. Collins nodded. “I thoroughly cleaned every utensil and surface in that kitchen before, during, and after the preparation of that ridiculous meat loaf. I’m confident that neither batch was contaminated.”
Hannah looked puzzled. “Neither batch? You made two batches?”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Collins said firmly. “The swim coach asked if his swimmers could come eat a later lunch, so I quickly made a second batch for them.”
“So it was only the second batch that made people sick!” Corey said, excited. At the mention of her food making people sick, Mrs. Collins scowled. “Allegedly,” Corey added hastily.
“Is that everything?” Mrs. Collins asked. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Was the second batch of meat loaf different from the first batch, Mrs. Collins?” Ben asked.
She shook her head. “Same recipe, same meatless stuff. Just a different batch. I prepared it exactly the same way I prepared the first batch.”
Club CSI sat on the couch, stumped. If she prepared both batches the same way, why did the second batch make people sick?
“What are they doing here?” Ricky had entered the living room and was shocked to see his classmates in his house. He glared at them.
Hannah tried to strike a friendly note. “Hi, Ricky. We were just talking to your mom.”
“About what?”
“The meat loaf.”
Ricky looked mad. “Are they bothering you, Mom?”
Mrs. Collins stood up. “It’s all right, Ricky. They were just going.”
“They’d better,” Ricky said menacingly. “Go on.”
The three friends stood up. “We’re just trying to help,” Ben said.
“You think you’re so smart.” Ricky sneered. “Well, you don’t know everything, okay?”
“Was there something you wanted to tell us?” Corey asked.
That was going too far. Ricky looked furious. He stomped over to the front door, holding it open. “Out,” he ordered, his voice low and angry.
“Okay, okay, we’re going,” Corey said as they headed toward the door. “See you at school, Ricky.”
“Not if I see you first.”
“I’ve never understood what people mean when they say that,” Corey said. “Do you mean you’re going to kill me? Or knock me unconscious? Or are you going to hide from me?”
Ricky just stared at Corey, who smiled and waved as he left.
Hannah turned and said, “Thanks, Mrs. Collins,” as she went.
The door slammed closed behind them.
As they walked away from the Collins home, the three friends discussed what they’d learned there.
“Well, for one thing, we learned that Ricky’s a jerk,” Corey said. “Oh, wait. We already knew that.”
“I think we can pretty much rule out cross-contamination,” Hannah said. “Mrs. Collins seems really well-organized and superneat. It’s hard to imagine her getting bacteria from some raw animal product onto the meat loaf through carelessness.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Though anyone can mess up. The really important piece of information was that there were two batches of meat loaf.”
“Why is that important?” Corey asked. “She said she made both batches exactly the same way.”
“Yeah, but at least it explains why only a few people got sick,” Ben said. “Only the second batch was contaminated. But what changed between the first batch and the second batch?”
They walked on, thinking. Then Corey spoke up. “Well,
we did get one other thing at Mrs. Collins’s house.”
“A lot of mean looks from Ricky?” Hannah guessed.
“Nope,” Corey answered. “This.”
He held up his hand, his index finger and his thumb pinched together. When Ben and Hannah looked closer, they could see that he was holding a hair.
“A hair?” Ben said. Corey nodded, proud to have scored another piece of evidence. “Whose is it?”
“Mrs. Collins’s.”
“Did you yank it out of her head?”
“No,” Corey said. “It was on the chair she was sitting in. I snagged it as I left. I figured we could compare it to the one we found in the kitchen. If they’re the same, well, we just found one of Mrs. Collins’s hairs in the kitchen. But if they’re different, we’ll know someone else was in there.”
“Nice work!” Hannah exclaimed, patting Corey on the back. “Come on! Let’s get to Ben’s microscope.”
She took off running. Ben and Corey sprinted after her. Corey held the hair tightly in his hand the whole way.
Ben put the new hair onto a slide and then clipped it into the microscope. “To tell the truth, I’m not even sure I need the microscope. The two hairs look really different, especially the color.”
He peered into the eyepiece. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Definitely different. The hair we found in the kitchen is much darker.”
“Like Ricky’s hair,” Corey said.
“It’d be good to compare it to one of his hairs,” Hannah commented.
“Yeah,” Corey said. “But who’s going to get one of Ricky’s hairs?”
Ben and Hannah both looked at him. Corey sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “I can see I’m going to have an interesting day at school on Monday.”
On Monday, Corey got to school early. He stayed outside, hanging around the main entrance, watching for Ricky Collins to arrive.
It wasn’t easy, keeping a constant lookout for just one person. Lots of kids were walking into school, and Corey kept seeing people he knew. He had to avoid getting distracted by his friends. He wanted to concentrate on spotting Ricky the second he arrived.