According to his new schedule, fourth period on Tuesdays Tenny had Advanced Technology with Mr. Muhammed. (Last year, in Basic Technology, Tenny had earned himself a week of after-school detention for using up a whole toner cartridge printing the guitar tab to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”) He took the laptop that Mr. Muhammed handed him, gave the class a quick smile, and slouched down into a seat, drawing up the hood of his sweatshirt.
As soon as class was over, Tenny turned on his iPod and popped in the earbuds. He’d created a special playlist last night, full of loud and raucous songs—“Fiesta” by the Pogues, Fugazi’s “Waiting Room,” a whole bunch of Red Hot Chili Peppers—so he could just totally zone out as he made his way through the halls.
People kept stopping him, anyway.
“Mr. Boyer? Returned to the fold, I see.” Mr. Melville planted himself in Tenny’s path, his thick white eyebrows raised sarcastically. “Will wonders never cease?”
“What?” Reluctantly, Tenny pressed Pause and took out his earbuds. “Oh. Yeah. Totally.”
“Though I suspect I might feel less enthusiastic if I had you in my class.” Mr. Melville chortled. Tenny put his music back on.
“Tenny? What’s up, man!” hollered Ezra McClellan, intercepting him with a hand raised to slap five. “You back?”
“Uh…” Music off. Earbuds out. Five slapped. “Yeah.”
“Sweet! So—”
Earbuds back in. Music cranked back up. Out of the corner of his eye Tenny saw Ezra huddle with Tucker Wilson, both of them pointing over at him. Ordinarily the sight, with Tucker so big and Ezra so small, would be comical. But this was exactly the sort of thing Tenny was afraid of, exactly what had made his spleen hurt this morning. Tucker was the kind of kid who was always saying crazy stuff about people. Once he’d told Tenny, in all seriousness, that Lindsey’s mother was a CIA agent assigned to keep tabs on Violet’s mother, who was an international assassin.
Tenny didn’t want to think what Tucker and Ezra, and everyone else, would be saying about him; he had left school, and now he was back, and that would be a subject of conversation, no doubt. Clutching his lunch in its brown paper bag, Tenny Boyer headed for the one place at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School he knew he’d be totally comfortable: Ms. Finkleman’s room.
“Ah! Bethesda!” chirped Mr. Ferrars.
She had found her Man on the Inside in the Main Office, squatting in front of the little refrigerator next to Mrs. Gingertee’s desk. “Can I offer you some lunch? I make my own cottage cheese, you know.”
“No, thank you,” said Bethesda, gesturing at her lunch bag.
“And how is Mary Todd Lincoln’s very own private detective getting on thus far?” Mr. Ferrars was so happy to see her, Bethesda knew, because he was the one person in school as desperate as she was for a break in the case. And now she knew why.
“Well, I actually have quite an intriguing lead I’m following today,” she said, and he looked up eagerly. “It has to do with you, actually. You and your play.”
The assistant principal’s knuckles went white, and he slowly closed the door of the little fridge.
“Step this way, won’t you?”
Chapter 18
Nine Keys
“First of all, it is not a ‘play.’ The Mikado is an operetta, and there is a world of difference. Do you understand?”
Bethesda did not understand at all, but nodded as if she did, so he would skip ahead to the good part. The assistant principal sat behind his flimsy wooden desk, twisting his thin fingers anxiously. “I had hoped this wouldn’t come up. I really had. Just wishful thinking, really—sheer bootless self-deception. I can’t do it, Bethesda! I can’t tell her the truth! She’ll box me up and ship me off to work somewhere horrible! Like a coal mine! Or an elementary school!”
Bethesda leaned eagerly toward Jasper. “What truth are you talking about, Mr. Ferrars?”
“After-school activities like drama and athletic teams, as you know, have direct access to their respective domains: the auditorium, the gymnasium, or the playing fields. But anyone needing access to the main section of the school is supposed to be let in personally. Principal Van Vreeland leaves every day by three thirty. So who do you think is responsible for letting in all these people?”
“You?”
“Me. But I have a life outside these doors, you know! A community-theater production of The Mikado is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a bass-baritone such as myself! So for the three weeks of rehearsal and performance, beginning two Fridays ago, I—I…”
He paused and took a deep breath. Bethesda remained silent, riveted.
“I took a risk. I made a few copies of the front-door key. Each person given one understood they were to share their key with no one, and to tell no one of its existence.”
Mr. Ferrars shifted in his chair, sighing woefully, while Bethesda formulated her next question. “And, okay, so, keys, and so—” Slow down, she chided herself. Put the words in order. “You said there were a few keys. How many exactly?”
Mr. Ferrars cradled his forehead in his hand and sighed. “Eight.”
“Eight keys?”
“Eight keys, including mine.”
Mr. Ferrars wouldn’t let Bethesda write down the names, but it wasn’t hard to memorize the list. The names tumbled about in her head as she left the main office and made her way to her locker.
Guy Ficker
Natasha Belinsky
Lisa Deckter
Pamela Preston
Kevin McKelvey
Ms. Ida Finkleman
Mr. Hank Darlington
Assistant Principal Jasper Ferrars
And then there was Janitor Steve. Jasper hadn’t made him a key, but as the school custodian, he carried one on his key ring. A total of nine people, then, had the key. Five kids and four adults. Nine names… no! Nine suspects. And some of them were already under suspicion. This was too exciting!
“Tenny! Hey!”
Perfect timing. Just as she turned down Hallway C, Bethesda spotted her assistant detective emerging from the Band and Chorus room. “I have a major breakthrough!”
“Huh?”
Bethesda plucked the earbuds from Tenny’s ears. “A breakthrough? In our mystery?”
“Oh. Right. Totally.”
Bethesda paused, the earbuds dangling limply from her hands, while Tenny looked back at her absently. Had he somehow forgotten they were solving a mystery together? As they walked together up the steps to the eighth-grade lockers, and she explained about the keys, Bethesda observed Tenny. She had this strange, troubled feeling, like her old friend was here, but not really. Like even though he had reenrolled at Mary Todd Lincoln, in some weird way Tenny was just as much missing as Pamela Preston’s gymnastics trophy.
And what—did he have lunch with Ms. Finkleman every day now?
Chapter 19
One Song Can Change the World
“Leadership is about three things. Snacks, eye contact, and positive reinforcement.”
That’s the advice Chester Hu’s cousin, Ilene, had emailed him last night. Chester had printed the email, and now he pulled it out—the single page of printer paper a wrinkled mess from having been read and reread all day long—and read it one more time.
As Chester stood beneath the oak tree overhanging the picnic tables, waiting for the others to arrive, he repeated Ilene’s mantra to himself: “snacks, eye contact, and positive reinforcement.” Ilene was in college, where she was the president of her sorority, vice president of the Association of Premed Students, and the founder of a charity group that fed hungry kittens or something. Chester’s mom was always talking about Ilene, how he should look up to her and ask her questions or whatever. Last night was the first time Chester had actually done so. Ever since he’d had the best idea of his life in Ms. Pinn-Darvish’s class on Monday, he’d been alternately superexcited about it and superscared, because doing it right meant putting together a team of people and convincing them to help.