“Victor?” Chester said, but his friend was already walking away.
What’s his problem? Chester wondered. But there was no time to worry about it now: Marisol was busily sketching for the mural, Rory’s notebook was brimming with couplets, and Kevin had already hopped up, ready to head for the old Steinway in the Band and Chorus room.
“All right, folks,” Chester said, flashing everyone a big thumbs-up. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 20
World’s #1 Principal
The next morning, Principal Isabel Van Vreeland did the same thing she had done every morning since the trophy’s disappearance. She stopped on her way to her office to stare, with a mixture of melancholy and horror, into the Achievement Alcove. There it was, the broken glass case atop the rickety wooden stand, where her beloved trophy had ever-so-briefly stood. The longer she stared, the tighter became her grip on her World’s #1 Principal travel mug, the one she had bought herself off eBay last year for her birthday.
“Stop right there.”
“Oh. Good morning, ma’am.”
She turned on Assistant Principal Ferrars, who had literally been tiptoeing past her, clearly hoping she wouldn’t ask him what she was about to ask.
“So. How is the mystery solving going?”
His eyes flickered and darted up and down the hall as he stammered a reply. “Oh, you know… getting there.”
“Getting there?” Principal Van Vreeland squeezed her mug so hard that coffee trembled and spluttered out the top.
He flinched and nodded.
“There’s a student helping me. Bethesda Fielding? In the eighth grade? She’s quite enterprising, really. She has this, um, special notebook…”
“Well, that’s fantastic, Jasper,” Principal Van Vreeland said, her voice curdling with sarcasm. “Just so long as you’ve got a twelve-year-old working the case.”
As Jasper scurried off, Principal Van Vreeland turned her gaze back into the Achievement Alcove and took a slow, bitter sip from her World’s #1 Principal mug. She had a sneaking suspicion that Jasper knew something he wasn’t telling her. In fact, she had a sneaking suspicion that a lot of people knew a lot of things they weren’t telling her. Instead of helping her get to the bottom of this, and get her precious trophy back, all everyone did was moan and groan about their precious extracurricular activities. Children looked at her all day long with those nauseating puppy-dog eyes of theirs. The teachers had sent that pesty Ms. Finkleman again to ask her to change her mind.
Well, guess what, folks. You want me to make things better around here? Too bad. They’re about to get a lot worse.
Chapter 21
“Watching the Detectives”
“So Sergeant Moose says, ‘this trail of banana peels can only mean one thing.’ And Wellington goes, ‘Really, my antlered friend? I think it would behoove you to think again!’”
“Dad?”
Bethesda was itching to get to work, but her father had started telling Tenny stories from Wellington Wolf, and once he started it was nearly impossible to get him to stop.
“Get it? He’s already behooved! He’s a moose!”
“Dad?”
“And it’s not Bubbles the Baboon they find, after all. It’s Wellington’s arch-nemesis, Fiendish Fox, in a baboon costume!”
“Whoa,” said Tenny, wide-eyed. “That’s crazy.”
“Yes. Crazy.” Bethesda had seen the episode in question (Episode 19, “A Barrel Full of Monkey Business!”) and heard her father describe it many times before. Bethesda’s father clapped Tenny on the shoulder, sighing with pleasure. “Wellington was right again!”
“Totally,” said Tenny. “Though it’s sort of like, why would a fox want to rob a bank in the first place?”
“Right,” said Bethesda’s father, although it was clear from his slightly confused expression that he’d never actually thought of that.
“Dad, we really need to get started.”
“I know, pumpkin butter. I’m not bothering you. I’m not even here.” Bethesda’s father turned back to the gigantic pot of chili on the stove, his latest attempt to perfect his recipe for the charity dinner.
Bethesda hated to be rude, but the Taproot Valley trip was a mere sixteen days away, and they didn’t have a moment to waste. For today’s crime-solving session, Bethesda had prepared a good selection of supplies: a box of sharpened #2 pencils, an up-to-date map of the school she’d gotten from Mr. Ferrars; and of course the all-important Semi-Official Crime-Solving Notebook (Sock-Snow), which Tenny was now perusing with intense concentration.
“Huh,” he murmured, then looked up and said it again. “Huh.”
“What?”
“What’s this, here?”
“Just my notes from my conversation with Janitor Steve.”
“Huh,” said Tenny again, reading. “So… wait. He said there was glass ‘all over the floor’?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh,” Tenny said a fourth time. He tilted his head back and thought for a long time. So long, in fact, that for a second Bethesda thought maybe he had fallen asleep.
But then he said, “Excuse me? Sir?”
Bethesda’s father turned from his stockpot in surprise. “‘Sir?’” he repeated, eyes wide with pretended shock. Bethesda was thinking the same thing: Sir?
“Do you mind if I fake-punch your microwave?”
Now Bethesda’s father looked really surprised. “You know, I bet in the whole history of the English language, no one has ever spoken that sentence before.”
Tenny was already out of his chair, pushing up one sleeve of his blue-hooded sweatshirt. Bethesda watched, intrigued. What did the microwave have to do with anything? Bethesda’s father stepped back, ladle in hand, while Tenny approached the counter, drew back one fist, and gently punched the small appliance in its thick plastic door.
“Ow,” he said. But then he punched a second time, slightly harder, and then a third time. Bethesda’s father gave a low whistle and said, “Wow. He really hates that microwave.”
“Okay, Tenny. What’s up?” said Bethesda finally.
“I’m just trying to think logically here, y’know?”
Think logically? Tenny?
What happened to him at St. Francis Xavier? Bethesda marveled. It’s like he’s been replaced by some sort of pod person. But then, the next moment, Tenny absentmindedly picked up a chili-crusted spoon from the counter and scratched his ear with the handle.
Nope, she thought with amused relief. Still Tenny.
“The glass of the trophy case was as hard as this on the microwave, right? Maybe even harder?”
Bethesda thought for a second, remembering the little unveiling ceremony, when Mr. Wolcott had set up the glass case built by his sixth-grade Industrial Arts class. “That right there, that’s double-paned,” Mr. Wolcott had bragged, his thick shop-class goggles dangling around his neck, big sweat stains in full blossom under his arms. “Thickest glass around.”
“Harder,” said Bethesda. “Way harder.”
“Okay, then. So here’s observation number one: Our trophy thief would need something a lot harder than a fist to break the glass.”
“Smart,” Bethesda agreed, and carefully wrote this down on a fresh page of the Sock-Snow, heading it tenny observation #1.
“And here’s observation number two. The glass would go in here.” He opened the door of the microwave and pointed inside. “Not on the floor. Right?”