Smashie McPerter and the Mystery of Room 11 Page 10

  Smashie hung her head. Her heart was full of despair.

  Smashie trailed behind the rest of her class as they filed back into Room 11 after lunch. Ms. Early and Miss Dismont were at the front of the room, struggling to lift an enormous framed map of the world off the wall.

  “Take your seats right away, class,” Ms. Early said, puffing.

  “What are you doing, Ms. Early?” asked Jacinda.

  Ms. Early eased her side of the map down. “I’m lending our map to Miss Dismont for her room’s unit on cartography,” she explained. “She needs a good big one.”

  “It looks awfully heavy,” said Alonso.

  “It is,” wheezed Miss Dismont.

  “How could you — ?” Dontel started to say as Smashie sagged into her seat, but Ms. Early’s voice interrupted him.

  “Class, we are going to get right to work this afternoon.” Ms. Early’s voice was firm.

  Smashie opened her mouth. Ms. Early gave her a speaking look.

  Smashie closed her mouth.

  Ms. Early nodded. “I am going to help Miss Dismont carry this map into her room,” she said, “and I will be right back. In the meantime, I want all of you to take out your independent-reading books and start reading. Silently. To yourselves. With no conversation.” She paused at the door and looked at Smashie. “At all.”

  Grr, thought Smashie.

  “Can’t I help carry the map?” Alonso begged.

  “No, Alonso,” said Ms. Early. “This a job for grown-ups.”

  “The thing is as heavy as a house,” Miss Dismont agreed. “But thank you for offering.”

  “Rats,” said Alonso, and the two women left the room.

  Smashie’s heart began to beat. Was this a chance? But Ms. Early said to read silently!

  What about justice, though? What was more important? Books? Or justice?

  Both! thought Smashie in desperation. But maybe right now justice is just the tiniest bit more important —

  She leaped up and made a beeline for the reading area.

  “Smashie!” shouted Dontel as she sped past.

  But Smashie paid him no heed. She flung off her Investigator visor and dug desperately through the pillows in the reading area.

  “What are you doing?” cried Cyrus.

  “Where is the white pillow?” Smashie shouted.

  “Smashie,” said Charlene, “we are supposed to be reading.”

  Dontel hurried back to the reading corner. Smashie looked at him with wild eyes. “Do you think this green pillow will do?”

  “For what?” Dontel asked incredulously. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “To sock Billy with?”

  Smashie stared at him. “No! For my Lawyer Suit! I can’t be a lawyer without a poufy wig!”

  “What are you two fighting about back there?” asked Jacinda.

  “Yeah,” said John. “What gives?”

  Smashie whirled around to face Room 11. “An emergency is what gives!” she said. “I am about to conduct a trial!”

  “A trial?” cried Alonso.

  “What for?” John was suspicious.

  Room 11 was all abuzz. From next door came the thumps and bumps of the heavy map being levered onto a wall.

  There wasn’t much time to lose.

  Smashie mashed the green pillow down on either side of her head. From the English crime dramas her grandmother and Dontel’s watched together from the collection at the public library, Smashie had gotten the idea that all lawyers wore enormous wigs that made them look just like Bon Jovi, Smashie’s mother’s favorite Handel-haired rocker. But those wigs were always white.

  “Green will have to do,” she said to Dontel. “People will have to pretend it’s white. I’ll have to hold it on with one hand, though. Now I need a cloak!”

  “Smashie,” said Dontel, “are you sure about all this?”

  “No,” said Smashie. “I think green hair is all wrong. But I have no choice!”

  “I mean about this court idea!”

  “Of course I am! Aren’t you? You need to put on a wig, too! We have to get started!”

  “No,” said Dontel. “I’m not putting on a wig.”

  Smashie stared at him.

  The chattering of their classmates grew louder.

  “Why is Smashie putting things on her head?”

  “I think she knows something about Patches!”

  “Where are my cupcakes?”

  “Smashie, please!” Dontel’s eyes were full of worry. “I know you don’t like Patches, and Mr. Carper is awful, but Billy —”

  “Dontel,” said Smashie, her eyes wide, “this is about justice. Don’t you agree?”

  “Is it really about justice, Smash? Are you sure you are not just doing this so that the kids aren’t mad at you anymore?”

  Smashie looked at him, aghast.

  Dontel shook his head. “I’m going to sit down.”

  Smashie watched him go. Her heart sank.

  Dontel did not agree with her. This was worse than when he didn’t agree with her about hamsters. He was not going to run this trial with her. Smashie was all on her own.

  Be strong, she told herself, blinking. Stand up for what you know is right.

  Smashie drew herself up. Her hoodie on backward because she hoped it looked more like a robe that way and her left hand holding the pillow in place on her head, Smashie stood before her classmates, looking, she hoped, every inch an English barrister.

  “Let the trial begin!” she cried. The whole of Room 11 stared at her. “I’ve convened this court of law in order to reveal the identity of”— she broke off and looked meaningly around the room —“a criminal!”

  Room 11 gasped. Dontel shook his head bleakly. More thumps and bashes came through the wall.

  “Right here?”

  “In Room 11?”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “In our very midst.”

  “Is this to do with Patches, Smashie?” asked Charlene.

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “It is.”

  Room 11 gasped again.

  “Don’t get too excited, everybody,” Willette warned.

  “Yes, get excited! We said we were sorry, Willette,” said Smashie. “Besides, this time I am completely positive — without a shadow of a doubt — about the identity of a criminal mastermind who has been plaguing our school!”

  “SMASHIE MCPERTER!”

  Smashie started. The thumps and bumps from next door had ceased, and the slightly mussed figures of Ms. Early and Miss Dismont stood once more at the front of the room.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Ms. Early sharply.

  “Is that a pillow on your head, Smashie?” Miss Dismont asked, puzzled.

  “You are all supposed to be reading!” said Ms. Early. “I stepped out of the room for one minute to help my colleague and —”

  “Smashie says she is doing a trial,” Joyce interrupted her.

  “What?” said Miss Dismont.

  “Oh, no, she is not!” said Ms. Early. “Smashie McPerter! I am ashamed of you!”

  “No, Ms. Early!” Cyrus’s voice rose above the hubbub. “Let her! Please!”

  “We want her to!”

  “Let her do it, Ms. Early!”

  The class was fervent.

  “We need to get to the bottom of things around here,” said Alonso.

  “Yes,” said Joyce. “Room 11 is a mess. Maybe this can help.”

  “And if Smashie’s wrong again, you can just punish her some more,” Jacinda pointed out.

  “Hey,” said Smashie.

  “I’ve a mind to do that anyway,” said Ms. Early.

  “Let her do it, Ms. Early,” John cajoled. “Please. It’s her own neck on the line, isn’t it?”

  Ms. Early’s eyes met Miss Dismont’s. Then she sighed.

  “I don’t know what things have come to in our room,” she said, “but I can see that none of you will be able to pay a bit of mind to your work if we don’t get this sorted out. All right. I will let you proc
eed, Smashie. Against my better judgment, mind you, and with the caveat —”

  Smashie made a mental note to add caveat to her list of Investigator Language.

  “That if more harm than good comes of this, you will suffer the consequences.”

  “All right,” said Smashie. “That’s fair.” But I won’t have to suffer any consequences, she thought. Because I know I am right this time!

  “May I watch, too?” asked Miss Dismont. “My children are in charge of cleaning the lunch tables, so I have a few minutes. This all sounds very intriguing.”

  “Why not,” said Ms. Early.

  “I’d be very glad to have you, Miss Dismont,” said Smashie earnestly. She turned back to the class. “Where was I?”

  “‘Criminal mastermind,’” said Charlene.

  “Right,” said Smashie. But before she could pick up the thread of her thoughts, the door to Room 11 was flung open yet again, and Mr. Carper poked his head round. “Ugh!” Smashie cried.

  “Ms. Early?” Once again, Mr. Carper froze when he saw the class. “Why are you kids always in here?” he asked.

  “What can we do for you, Mr. Carper?” asked Ms. Early wearily. Miss Dismont grinned.

  “I just unloaded those kindergartners,” Mr. Carper told her, flashing a smile, “and I thought I’d come here and, um, wait for you. I thought maybe we could, oh, I don’t know, head down to the nutrition assembly together?”

  “The assembly doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes,” said Alonso.

  “That’s so,” said Miss Dismont. “But why don’t you join us in the meantime, Mr. Carper?” And she beamed at Ms. Early.

  Ms. Early gave her a long, level look. “Yes,” she said. “Why don’t you?”

  “Really?” said Mr. Carper, moving quickly to an empty chair beside Siggie. “Because that’d be great. I suppose you’ll go a little early, get good seats and whatnot?”

  “It’s only about vegetables, Mr. Carper,” said Jacinda.

  “And the chance of a lifetime, Girl with the Hair.”

  “What?”

  “What did you call my student?”

  “Never mind. What’s going on in here, anyway?”

  “What’s going on here,” said Smashie, “is me.”

  “Smash!” Dontel’s voice was urgent. He glanced toward Billy, who was blinking very rapidly.

  “Smashie,” said Ms. Early, “please just get on with it.”

  “Okay,” said Smashie, and readjusted her pillow. “Pretend this cushion is white, you guys.”

  Then, pacing before her classmates, she began. “Yesterday was a very dark day in Room 11. It was a day of terrible events.”

  “I’ll say,” said Alonso.

  “And one of them,” Smashie continued, “was that our room lost a valuable friend.”

  “Patches?” asked Cyrus.

  “Patches,” said Smashie. “Everybody was upset.”

  “Not you —” said Joyce.

  “Yes, me!” said Smashie. “I keep telling you! And that is why Dontel and I decided to investigate.”

  “Oh!” said Charlene. “So is that an Investigation Suit that you have on? Underneath whatever this new suit with the pillow is?”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “It is.”

  The class nodded.

  “Go on,” said John.

  “We didn’t do so well with our investigating at first,” Smashie admitted. “Until this morning, when we got to go on an errand to Mr. Bloom’s office.” She stopped her pacing and faced her classmates. “While we were at Mr. Bloom’s, we found important evidence about Patches’s disappearance.”

  “Don’t I know it,” said Willette. “I’m still waiting on those cupcakes, Smashie.”

  Smashie whirled round. It was hard to do one-handed, but she did it.

  “They are in my lunch box. I will get them for you as soon as I am done, Willette! What you don’t know,” she said, addressing the whole group once more, “is what the evidence was. We saw shavings. And food. Lots of it, for hamsters. I saved some in my Investigator Suit hat and Dontel put some in his pockets. Room 11, every bit of the evidence Dontel and I found” — she held her classmates in her gaze — “showed us how extra nice Patches had been treated by the person who took him.”

  “What?”

  “Huh?”

  The class was humming with questions.

  “Dontel,” said Smashie. “Isn’t that so?”

  Dontel nodded and began to smile. Smashie’s heart lifted. See? she thought. I told you it was about justice! Billy stared at his knees as if not daring to hope.

  “Yes,” said Dontel. “I can vouch for that completely. The person made very sure that Patches was happy.”

  “Exactly,” said Smashie. “So that let us know that Patches was taken by a very kind person.”

  Billy looked up.

  “A person who loved him,” Smashie continued.

  Billy swallowed.

  “A person who wanted only the best for him. Who was only worried about Patches not being cared for properly yesterday.”

  “But whyever would someone worry about that, Smashie?” asked Ms. Early.

  “Yes,” said Miss Dismont. “Don’t you take turns in Room 11 being Hamster Monitor?”

  “We do, Miss Dismont,” said Smashie. “But the truth is, our whole class was forbidden to go near Patches’s cage yesterday. Even the Hamster Monitor.”

  “That’s true,” muttered Siggie, glaring balefully at Mr. Carper sitting beside him.

  “Forbidden, Smashie?” Now it was Ms. Early’s turn to look puzzled.

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “Forbidden!”

  Ms. Early turned to Mr. Carper. “Did you tell these children they couldn’t go near their hamster?” she asked.

  Mr. Carper drew back and looked a bit hunted. “They carry germs,” he said defensively.

  “No, they don’t,” said Jacinda. “I asked my dad last night and he said no. He said maybe Patches would carry disease if we lived in medieval Europe and Patches was a creature of the wild, but a hamster wouldn’t give us a modern stomach flu like we’ve had here at school. My dad said our hamster was perfectly hygienic, as long as everything was kept clean.”

  “I knew it!” said Charlene.

  “Children,” said Ms. Early, “don’t be rude.” Still, she fixed Mr. Carper with a look.

  He swallowed. “Shouldn’t you all be heading down to the assembly?” he asked.

  “No,” said Ms. Early. “Not yet. Go on, please, Smashie.”

  “The person,” Smashie continued, “this kind, hamster-loving person, didn’t trust that Patches had been fed properly, even though someone had said they had done it.”

  She glanced at Dontel. He was smiling at her. She smiled back.

  “So this person — this good, true friend to Patches — decided that the only thing to do would be to take Patches home overnight, feed him, and bring him back when things were back to normal.”

  “You mean when Ms. Early came back,” said Cyrus.

  “Yes,” said Smashie.

  “That makes sense,” said John.

  Mr. Carper made as if to stand. “I should just —” he began.

  “Please stay, Mr. Carper,” said Ms. Early. “I’m interested to hear more about your day with my students.”

  Mr. Carper sank creakily back down. The children glared at him even as they began to buzz with questions.

  “But who was it, Smashie?”

  “Yeah, who took Patches?”

  “Who, you ask?” Smashie flung her non-pillow-holding hand into the air. “Who was our knight in shining cargo pants? Room 11, it was none other than our own beloved Billy!”

  She flung both hands toward Billy. The pillow fell off her head.

  “Billy?” cried Alonso.

  “Billy?” cried Charlene.

  Billy stood, wan but brave.

  “It was me,” he said. “I’m sorry, everybody. I just thought —”

  Willette s
tood up and picked her way across the room to Billy.

  “Billy,” she said, “Smashie is right. You are a hero.” She flung her arms around him. “Thank you for stealing Patches!”

  Billy burst into tears.

  John reached over and patted his shoulder. “That’s right, man,” he said. “Let it all out.”

  Dontel beamed at Smashie. She beamed back.

  The room filled with thankful murmurs, except, of course, from Mr. Carper, who muttered, “He’s not bringing that animal back in here now, is he?”

  “Billy,” said Ms. Early, “you must have been very worried.”

  Billy nodded.

  “I am so sorry you had to spend a day like that,” Ms. Early continued. “Your heart was in the right place. But couldn’t you have found another solution? One that didn’t make you resort to theft?”

  “But how, Ms. Early?” asked Smashie. “You weren’t here. Even Miss Dismont wasn’t here! And everybody was already mad because —” She stopped. She certainly did not want to rekindle the flames of Room 11’s glue-anger. “What I mean is that he kind of had to do it, Ms. Early.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that one,” said Ms. Early.

  But Smashie was already gearing herself back up.

  “But Billy is not the criminal mastermind I was talking about earlier, Room 11!” she cried. “The theft of Patches is nothing compared to the other crime that took place yesterday!”

  “You mean the glue, Smashie?” asked Joyce.

  “No!” Smashie cried, pacing up and down once more. “I mean something far, far worse!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Another crime?”

  “Worse?”

  The class was beside itself once more. Dontel looked at Smashie, puzzled.

  She felt the top of her head. “I need my wig before I can go on, Ms. Early,” said Smashie.

  “Never mind,” said Ms. Early. “Your normal hair will do.”

  “But it is only brown!”

  “I think maybe that’s better than green. Get on with it, please, Smashie. What is this second terrible crime?”

  Smashie resumed her pacing. “No, Ms. Early,” she said. “Not the second crime. The third.”

  “The third?” asked Charlene. “There was another one besides the glue and Patches getting stolen?”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “And the third”— she wheeled around to face her class —“also involved Patches.”