They biked in silence for a couple minutes, Bethesda struggling the whole time to think of something else to say, Reenie just staring straight ahead, the sun gleaming off her silver helmet. When Bethesda turned off Friedman Street onto Dunwiddie, Reenie did too. Whoa, thought Bethesda. Two short, book-loving, glasses-wearing girls with reddish-tannish hair who live in the same neighborhood! And yet…
“So, what, are you, like, following me?” Reenie asked abruptly, shooting Bethesda an annoyed look.
“No! Reenie, I… I…”
Reenie stood up on her pedals, knapsack balanced high on her back like a soldier’s duffel, cranked her legs, and zoomed away. Bethesda rolled to a stop and watched her disappear over the horizon.
At home, Bethesda took a Snapple and a bowlful of graham crackers from the kitchen and went upstairs to do homework. Mr. Galloway was giving extra credit to anyone who memorized the Gettysburg Address. But try as she might, Bethesda couldn’t get past the “conceived in liberty” part.
Three little letters kept dancing through her mind: IOM.
Chapter 27
“My Favorite Things”
To the student body, Principal Van Vreeland’s proposed Week of a Thousand Quizzes was a grossly unfair punishment; to most of the teachers, it was a huge and unwelcome task. But to Harry Melville, who taught sixth- and seventh-grade Social Studies, it was a dream come true. Some people were good at dancing, while others drove race cars or wrote poems or performed complicated surgeries. Mr. Melville’s gift was for writing difficult test questions, and this was his moment to shine.
Since the principal’s announcement, he had spent every evening here in his small, comfortable home, settled in a wingback chair behind his rolltop desk, carefully crafting the most delightfully difficult Social Studies questions he could. Which states voted to ratify the United States Constitution, and which did not? Who was President Washington’s secretary of the treasury? Who was his deputy secretary of the treasury? In 250 words, describe General Benedict Arnold’s motivation for betraying the Continental Army. Now do it in 500 words.
Stopping to think between questions, Mr. Melville stroked his bushy white beard, singing happily to himself. “Raindrops on something and something on kittens… something some something…”
“Harry? You have a visitor.”
Easing nervously into the room, Ida Finkleman nodded a polite thank-you to Sally Ann Melville while the hardest teacher in school waved her into a chair.
“Why, Ms. Finkleman!” Mr. Melville bellowed affably. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She looked a bit taken aback by his good spirits. “Um, well… you’ve been at the school a long time, and I thought you could help me. You see, I’d like to help out some students of mine.”
Mr. Melville’s famous eyebrows, white and thick as an arctic forest, arranged themselves into two skeptical arches. “Now why,” he asked, “would you want to do that?”
But as it turned out, Mr. Melville did know a way to help. Exactly as Ms. Finkleman had suspected, the gruff old social studies teacher, at some point in his many years of teaching, had heard of a certain program. “Well, not really a program,” said Mr. Melville, digging an old, yellowed pamphlet from a drawer of the rolltop desk. “It’s just this man from St. Louis. A man with a lot of money.”
Mr. Melville cautioned her that the Piccolini-Provokovsky grant had no formal application process, and that he had never heard of anyone actually winning it. In other words, he said, the whole thing was silly. “But as a wise man once said,” he concluded, referring to himself, “your days on this earth belong to you, and are yours to waste.”
And so, at 10:30 p.m., Ms. Finkleman was in her brown bathrobe, in her cozy recliner with her computer open on her lap, sipping a cup of Sleepytime tea and composing an email to a very rich man from St. Louis named Ivan Piccolini-Provokovsky. She labored over this email, writing and rewriting, trying to get it perfect.
Dear Mr. Piccolini-Provokovsky,
went the email so far.
My name is Ida Finkleman, and I serve as Band and Chorus instructor at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School. Certain of my students are engaged in a project that I feel you will find most intriguing. It involves
Involves? For heaven’s sake, Ida. She tapped Delete a bunch of times, and wrote the sentence again.
It showcases an impressive display of talent, an impassioned plea, and a mighty animal of the forest tumbling down a flight of stairs.
That seemed about right.
The rest of the email gave a precise and detailed description of the “Save Taproot Valley” video project; a bit of background on Chester and his academic career thus far; and, of course, the most important part of all. The request.
Satisfied at last, Ms. Finkleman crossed her fingers and hit Send.
Chapter 28
Possibilities
“Excuse me? Hey, sorry…” Tenny cracked open the door and peered into the janitor’s closet in the basement. “Um…”
“Eh? Who’s that?”
Janitor Steve, in black work pants and a thick denim shirt, was seated on an upside-down mop bucket, combing out the bristles of a double-wide broom. “Just keeping the old broom clean,” he said, gesturing for Tenny to enter. “Clean broom, clean floor. Clean floor, clean mind. Clean mind…” He paused. “Clean pants? I don’t know. What do you want, kid?”
“Huh? Oh… right. Okay…”
Tenny hadn’t thought about how to start this interrogation. He was just glad to be down here, and not to be spending another lunch period fielding the same annoying questions over and over, from Tucker and Ezra and all the rest of ’em.
“So, what’re you doing back, man?”
“Oh, you know, long story…”
Tenny was so sick of the conversations, and the whispers, and the rumors… oh, man, the stupid rumors. He’d been expelled for fighting. He’d been expelled for stealing. He’d given everyone at St. Francis Xavier—kids, teachers, maintenance staff, everyone—the chicken pox… on purpose.
“This might sound kind of weird,” he said to Janitor Steve. “It’s about the trophy.”
“Oh?” Janitor Steve stopped cleaning and cocked an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Do you know something about it?”
“I sure do,” said Janitor Steve, heaving himself up from the bucket and carefully hanging his broom back on the wall.
“You do?”
“Yup.” He turned and looked right at Tenny. “I know who stole it, and why.”
As Janitor Steve told Tenny Boyer what he had to say, Bethesda was cornering her own next suspect at the top of Stairwell #1. She extended her arm to the banister, blocking Lisa Deckter from going down. It was just the two of them in the empty stairwell; everyone else had already gotten their lunches and gone outside.
“Hey,” said Bethesda. “We need to talk.”
“Okay,” Lisa replied warily, tearing the wrapper off a gluten-free health and energy bar. Bethesda, in her mind, pulled down the brim of her battered detective’s fedora, readying herself for a daring gambit. Lisa had no alibi that Bethesda knew of, plus a compelling motive, having placed second behind Pamela in the gymnastics tournament. It was time for a classic tactic from the private investigator’s tool kit: the big bluff.
“I know, Lisa,” Bethesda said coolly. “I know what you did.”