Bethesda stepped backward and crossed her arms: Case closed.
The problem was, no one looked all that convinced.
“Wait—IOM?” asked Pamela, wrinkling her nose with confusion. “Wouldn’t she have signed it ROM? Everyone calls her Reenie.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” added Suzie, and Shelly nodded in agreement.
“Actually,” Bessie Stringer threw in, “Why would she sign it at all?”
“Good point,” said Ezra.
“Well… I don’t know!” Bethesda sputtered. “Ask her!”
But Reenie said nothing. She just sat there and looked at Bethesda, her face blank.
“Also, IOM could stand for a lot of stuff,” put in Rory, smoothing his long black hair with one hand. “Like Ireland’s only mountain. Or interesting oily monkeys.”
Bethesda sighed in frustration. “You guys, come on! Reenie did it! It’s so obvious.”
Marisol Pierce looked at Bethesda. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really seem all that obvious.”
“Yeah,” Pamela agreed. She made a sour, skeptical face. “Why would Reenie steal my trophy?”
“Because…,” Bethesda started, and then stopped and glanced quickly at Reenie, who sat still and cold as a statue.
“Well, for a lot of reasons.”
“Name one.”
“Well… to… um…”
“Iggy oinked merrily!” Rory shouted suddenly.
“Good one,” said Ezra, and slapped him five.
Suzie started the video again, and everyone turned back to Braxton’s classic pratfall, already in progress. Bethesda stood helplessly, her hands flapping at her sides. Just like that, her big dramatic moment had passed.
Except that, suddenly, Reenie turned and addressed her with a voice coiled tightly as a striking snake. “Bethesda, I am very sorry that your little investigation didn’t work out as you planned it,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you should go around blaming people just because you happen to dislike them.”
“Dislike you?” Bethesda was stunned. “I don’t dislike you! You dislike me!”
“I don’t dislike you. I barely know you.” Reenie stepped carefully around Bethesda, chucked her empty lunch bag in the garbage, and walked toward the door of the school.
“Wait!” Bethesda shouted. She knew she was right and she knew she could prove it. “Wait!”
Suzie paused the movie again, this time on one of the innumerable Pamela Preston close-ups. Reenie stopped at the door, shaking her head sadly, like she was the mature one, tolerating Bethesda’s childish behavior out of sheer pity.
“Pamela’s trophy was stolen from the Achievement Alcove at approximately five forty-five on Monday the twentieth,” Bethesda announced, then pointed dramatically at Reenie. “What were you doing at five forty-five that day?”
“I… well… Mondays…” Reenie thought for a moment, and then her cool-as-a-cucumber attitude abruptly disappeared. Her face got red and she stared at Bethesda with open hostility. “That’s none of your business!”
“Aha!” said Bethesda. All the eighth graders leaned in closer, except Pamela, who snuck a quick admiring glance at her freeze-framed face on the screen. “If Reenie wasn’t stealing the trophy, she’d tell us where she was!”
“Bethesda, no offense, but I’m, like, totally sure you’re wrong,” said Natasha, speaking up for the first time. “Reenie, why don’t you just tell us what you were doing. Then Bethesda will know she made a mistake.”
“Fine. I was… I…,” Reenie began, and then stopped and cleared her throat. She looked caught and helpless, like a mouse in the jaws of a trap. Bethesda felt a fleeting rush of sympathy, quickly drowned in a wave of anticipation. Her moment of triumph was at hand! Bethesda Fielding, Master Detective, would be the hero after all!
“I was at home, with my tutor.”
“Tutor? Why would you need a tutor?”
Reenie looked straight up in the air, took a deep breath, and returned her gaze to Bethesda. “Because I’m way, way behind.”
Bethesda scrunched up her face. “Behind? In what subject?”
“All of them.”
Bethesda’s heart lurched in her chest. Oh, no.
“But… but you’re so smart. You’re always reading. Trying to get ahead.”
Reenie let out a small, rueful laugh. “Get ahead? Hardly. I’m just trying to keep up.”
“But why didn’t you just tell everyone that?”
“Why didn’t I tell everyone?” Reenie laughed again, shaking her head. “If everyone thought you were some sort of genius, and actually they were completely wrong, would you tell them?”
Bethesda opened her mouth and then shut it again. The crowd at the picnic tables was hushed and still. Suzie’s computer went dark and the school’s official screen saver came up, an image of Mary Todd Lincoln wearing a Bluetooth headset. Looking helplessly around the picnic benches, Bethesda’s eyes landed on Tenny, who wore an expression of total disgust—an expression, she knew, that had nothing to do with fish sticks.
Chapter 36
I Know What I’ve Got to Do
“Hey, Bethesda? Someone named Old Filthy Beard called for you.”
“Oh. Okay.”
School was over. Bethesda was sprawled lengthwise on the couch with her face squashed into the pillows, staring into the rumpled green fabric. Her dad was shuttling back and forth to the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on his chili, preparing to knock the socks off everyone at the law firm charity dinner that night. He paused, leaning into the living room from the kitchen door, his chef’s hat at a rakish angle.
“He said… hold on, let me get this right.” Bethesda’s father put on a respectable pirate voice to deliver the message. “‘Aye, those fam’lies were here on that Monday evenin’, at six bells, and no doubtin’ it, matey. Every one of ’em, just as always, tho’ the wee lassie arrived late as usual.’”
“Okay, Dad. Thanks.”
So Natasha and Guy’s alibis held up. Big whoop. Bethesda wasn’t in the mood to think about the mystery. She wasn’t in the mood, in fact, to think about anything at all. She basically spent the next four hours on the couch, eating but not really tasting the pizza she ordered for dinner. She did a little studying for the upcoming blizzard of quizzes, flipping through her math notes, scanning a couple chapters of The Last Full Measure. She turned on music but turned it off right away. All the songs she liked reminded her of Tenny, and of all the things she didn’t feel like thinking about, she felt like thinking about Tenny least of all.
When her parents got home, she was still on the sofa. “Well?” she said, muting the episode of You’re Going to Wear That? she was sort of watching. Her father didn’t answer, and her mother shook her head sadly as she plopped down next to Bethesda on the sofa. “What happened?”
“Everybody went crazy for Marilyn Sokal’s spare ribs, is what happened,” said Bethesda’s father glumly. “They were the big hit of the night.”
“Only because she’s a partner, honey,” said Bethesda’s mom.
“Really?”
“Of course, sweetheart. Yours was the best. No question.”
After Bethesda’s father went upstairs, they sat quietly for a moment or two, Bethesda’s mom easing out of her pinchy black work shoes, Bethesda turning something over in her head.
“Mom? Was Dad’s really the best?”
Her mom shot a quick look at the stairs. “Well… let’s just say sometimes you have to bend the truth a little bit, if that’s what doing the right thing requires. Know what I mean, baby doll?”