Smashie McPerter and the Mystery of Room 11 Read online

  He peered at them over his spectacles.

  “I guess you heard about the glue,” said Smashie.

  “Yuss,” said Mr. Bloom. “I did. What’s the matter with you kids? Don’t you know you ain’t supposed to glue folks to things?”

  “Me and Smashie do,” said Dontel. “It’s just one person in our class that doesn’t.”

  “Hrrmm,” said Mr. Bloom. “Well, pile those things over there on the table by the winda. But don’t get none of that sticky stuff on my telescope.”

  “We’ll be careful, Mr. Bloom.”

  “Heard you kids lost that hamster, too,” Mr. Bloom said. “Now, that’s too bad. Nice little fellas, hamsters. One at a time, that is. Put two of them together, now, and that’s a whole different ball of wax. Some fight to see.”

  “Mr. Bloom,” said Smashie, “you didn’t see anybody in our room at lunchtime, did you?”

  “No, sirree,” said the head custodian. “But I waren’t over by your room during your lunch, Miss McP. I was over to the fifth grade, remember? They have science when you all are having lunch, and I was special guest lecturer for their science class. Astronomy.”

  “Oh,” said Smashie. “That’s right.”

  “We forgot,” said Dontel.

  They were crestfallen.

  “Mighty smart group of youngsters in there,” said Mr. Bloom.

  “Did the lecture go well, Mr. Bloom?” Smashie asked politely.

  “It surely did. I simulated a spaceflight for them. Got all the way through Mach Three!”

  “Man!” said Dontel. “I wish I could have been there!”

  “Well, next time, I’ll send someone over to you with an invite.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bloom!”

  “Me too, Mr. Bloom?” asked Smashie.

  “Sure thing. Now, kids, I been saving my back issues of Sky and Telescope for your class. Don’t have no more use for them. Would you all like to take them to Room 11 to peruse?”

  “Gosh, Mr. Bloom,” said Dontel. “That would be great.”

  “Swell,” said Mr. Bloom. “Let me load you up. Twenty apiece,” he said, placing the magazines across their outstretched arms. “There. That ought to last you.”

  Smashie and Dontel staggered back out the door and onto the path.

  “Too bad Mr. Bloom didn’t have any useful information for our investigation,” said Dontel.

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “But it is very nice that he gave us all these magazines.”

  “It sure is,” Dontel agreed. “But it would be even nicer if we could narrow the field of suspects a little bit. Or find some kind of clue.”

  “We could start a new list in our Investigation Notebooks,” said Smashie. “People Who Could Have Helped Us by Seeing a Suspect Enter the Room but Were Somewhere Else Instead so They Didn’t See Anyone. Then we could put, Number 1: Mr. Bloom.”

  “I don’t have my Investigation Notebook with me,” Dontel admitted. “Too big for my pocket. Otherwise we could both write that down right now. Only maybe a little bit more concisely.”

  “I have my notebook right here, in one of my macramé pouches,” said Smashie smugly. “You should have worn the sash I made you, Dontel. It would be so handy. I don’t understand why Mr. Carper won’t put things in his pockets, do you? The more pockets the better is what I say!”

  She emphasized her words with a proud gesture toward her sash, which turned out to be a mistake, because she lost her grip on her magazines and all twenty of them tumbled to the ground.

  “Yeeps!” cried Smashie as the magazines flipped and slipped down the path.

  “Yeeps!” Dontel agreed. He laid down his own armful of magazines and helped Smashie gather the ones that had skittered away.

  “Ugh,” Smashie said. “I’ve only got nineteen. One is still missing.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Dontel reassuringly. “We’ll find it.”

  “I hope so,” said Smashie. Then, stooping over, she peered and poked and gathered her way along the path until she found herself at the back of Mr. Bloom’s trailer.

  What she saw there made her gasp.

  “Dontel!” she shouted.

  “What is it, Smash? Did you find the last one?”

  “No!” Smashie cried. “But come quick! I think I have found an Important Clue!”

  “What did you find, Smash?”

  “This!” Smashie pointed at the edge of ground abutting Mr. Bloom’s trailer. Dontel squatted down beside her.

  Pressed into the soft muddy dirt were two shallow depressions. The first was a cylindrical imprint, some four inches across its circular base and about one inch deep. The second was about twice as long as the first, nearly rectangular in outline, but curving softly into the soil. The ground beside these imprints was littered with little green pellets.

  “I don’t know what those dents are,” said Dontel, “but that green stuff is hamster food!”

  “Exactly!” said Smashie. “And look — wood shavings, too!”

  It was true. Shavings were scattered all over the dirt nearby.

  “And that means Patches!” cried Dontel.

  “Yes!” cried Smashie. “Patches was here!”

  “Smashie,” said Dontel, “you have got a really good eye.”

  “Thank you,” said Smashie. “It is because I finally feel like an Investigator, I think. My suit is helping.”

  “But —” Dontel swallowed. “Smashie, you don’t think it was Mr. Bloom who took Patches, do you?”

  “No,” said Smashie. “I don’t.”

  Dontel sighed with relief. “Phew,” he said. “Because I really like Mr. Bloom.”

  “Me too,” said Smashie. “But it wasn’t him. In fact, I am positive that the thief is a member of our own class!”

  “You are? How come? Any old body could have gotten Patches some shavings and some food.”

  “That is true,” said Smashie. “But not everybody would have had ready access to an oatmeal container to smuggle him away in!”

  “An oatmeal container!”

  “Yes!” cried Smashie. “I am sure of it! Just look at these dents in the dirt! They are exactly the right size. This one with the circular base is where the thief stood the carton up at first, with Patches inside. Then he or she must have changed his or her mind and laid the carton down sideways so Patches would have more room to move around. That’s what made this longer dent!”

  “Smashie,” said Dontel, “I think you are kind of a genius.”

  “Well,” said Smashie fairly, “we have spent a lot of time with those oatmeal cartons.”

  “So the thief smuggled Patches away at lunchtime and brought him here?”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “I hope he or she made airholes in the container.”

  “I’ll bet he or she did,” said Dontel. “If the thief took the trouble to bring shavings and food for him, it only makes sense that he or she would have made airholes for him, too.”

  “That is true,” said Smashie. “Dontel, this was a very well-thought-out plan. Hiding Patches here was very smart of the thief.”

  “I guess,” said Dontel. “In a bad, robber sort of way.”

  “That is what I mean. It was thief-smart. The person knew that Mr. Bloom wouldn’t be here at lunchtime because of his lecture. Mr. Carper read about it to us in the morning announcements.”

  “So the thief was sure that no one would be here to find Patches.”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “And everybody knows that Mr. Bloom plays his music extra loud whenever he is in here, so he wouldn’t have heard Patches go scrabble, scrabble, scrabble even when he was back in his trailer!”

  “And plus it would have been easy for the thief to come grab Patches in his container at the end of the day and sneak him away in his or her backpack.”

  “Yes,” Smashie agreed. “Now all we have to do is ask people about where they were at the end of the day yesterday. We need to find out if anybody slipped out of the line when Mr. Carper brought us ou
t to the buses. You could pretend you are strengthening your memory again, Dontel —”

  But Dontel was shaking his head.

  “We don’t have to do that, Smashie,” he said. “I know who the thief is!”

  “Willette Williams,” said Dontel.

  “Willette?”

  “Willette. Think about it. Who was missing her oatmeal carton this morning?”

  “Willette!”

  “Right! And she didn’t seem any too upset about it.”

  “Well, she doesn’t really like making things.”

  “But that just proves it! She extra wouldn’t mind using up her oatmeal carton to steal Patches because she wouldn’t care if she wasn’t able to make her camera!”

  “You are the genius, Dontel!” cried Smashie. “Plus Willette gets picked up after school by her babysitter —”

  “So it would be easy for her to steal away to fetch Patches at the end of the day. That’s it, Smashie! I am sure we are right this time!”

  “Dontel,” said Smashie, “we are getting very excellent at being investigators.”

  “We sort of are, aren’t we?”

  They beamed proudly at each other.

  Then Smashie’s eyes widened. “Does this mean,” she asked, “that Willette is a mad scientist who wants to switch brains with Patches?”

  “Heck, no,” said Dontel. “Only, I can’t think of a reason why she would steal him, either. The other motives we thought of don’t really fit.”

  “That is true,” said Smashie. “Willette is not the joke-playing type, and she is also not mean. Unless she is mad at a person for something,” she added, remembering Willette’s stony glares at her during the class pet discussions.

  “And she also sure doesn’t hate Patches,” said Dontel.

  “Wait!” cried Smashie. “That’s it!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dontel,” said Smashie, “who would be happy that Patches was missing?”

  “You,” said Dontel. “And Mr. Carper.”

  “Grr,” said Smashie. “You are just like the rest of them. What I mean is, who would be very glad if Patches were to be gone from Room 11?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dontel. “Who?”

  “A person who had stolen him to be her very own hamster!”

  “Smashie!”

  “To live in her very own house forever! To cuddle whenever she wanted!”

  “That’s it, Smashie!” Dontel’s eyes were flashing. “That makes perfect sense! All of us in Room 11 love Patches —”

  “Except for me —”

  “Except for you. But Willette —”

  Their eyes met. Smashie nodded. They finished the sentence together: “Loves him almost Too Much!”

  “I can’t believe I fell for her old ‘reading to the first grade’ alibi!” said Smashie. “Why, it would have been simple for her to sneak out a few minutes early, steal Patches, hide him here, and then run back to the first-grade area in time to meet Cyrus and go out to the blacktop!”

  “That is exactly what must have happened,” Dontel agreed. “Let’s draw a picture of the crime scene in your Investigation Notebook. Just so we can spell it out for everybody.”

  “Yes,” said Smashie. “And I will put some of the feed and shavings into two of the clue-collecting spots in my hat.”

  “I’ll take some, too, for my pockets,” said Dontel. “I’m sure you’re right, but I want to compare it to what we have in Room 11. Just to make sure. That’s the scientific method.”

  Smashie lowered her eyebrows and her voice grew grim. “That’s fine. But first we go in and tax Willette with her crimes.” But her serious manner broke as she spoke. “That’s a good phrase. I’m putting that on the Investigator Language page, too.” And flipping to the back of her notebook, she added it to the list:

  “Good,” said Dontel. “And now we draw.” They huddled over Smashie’s notebook and began to sketch the scene of the crime.

  Smashie and Dontel marched purposefully forth, arms full of magazines and hearts focused on justice. Their knees spiked in tandem down the hallway to Room 11.

  They burst into the room.

  “Willette Williams!” Smashie cried. “Where were you yesterday at lunch?”

  “Don’t even bother to answer, Willette, because we already know!” Dontel joined in. “Look at this sketch!”

  “Dontel and Smashie.” Ms. Early’s voice was incredulous. “What is the matter with you? Is that how we enter a room?”

  “What is the matter with us is Patches, Ms. Early!” Smashie cried. She turned to face her classmates. “We accuse Willette Williams of the theft of Patches!”

  “What!” shouted Willette.

  “What are you talking about?” exclaimed Jacinda.

  “Willette?” said Siggie. “Never!”

  The class was aghast. So was Ms. Early. “Smashie McPerter,” she began warningly, but Smashie was on a roll.

  “Were you really reading to the first grade, Willette?” she asked. “Or were you stealing into the classroom to take Patches home to be your very own?”

  Willette burst into tears.

  “I would never steal Patches! I love him too much to frighten him like that! I’d never take him away from the only home he’s ever known,” she sobbed. “Waah-aah-aaaah!”

  “A likely story,” said Dontel over Willette’s wails.

  Ms. Early put her arm around Willette. “Smashie and Dontel, I don’t know what you are up to,” she said. “But in this class, we do not accuse our friends of something unless we have proof! Didn’t you listen to a word I said this morning?”

  “But we do have proof!” cried Smashie.

  “Well, it would have to be proof that Willette is magic,” said Charlene unexpectedly. “Or that she has a secret twin. Because my sister is in first grade and all she talked about after school was how great Willette was when she read to them. In fact, my sister was allowed to walk with Willette over to the other first grade to pick up Cyrus when the reading time was over. So, unless you’re saying that Cyrus was in on it, too —”

  Cyrus scowled. “Yeah, just try saying that —”

  “Then the two of you owe Willette an apology!”

  And Charlene, too, put an arm around her crying friend.

  “Just ask Mr. Chu in the first grade.” Willette gulped. “I was never out of his room for an instant.” She flung her head back and redoubled her sobs. “Waaaahhhhh! WAAHHHHH!”

  Her mouth was a trapezoid. The class could see right down it to her epiglottis. They turned accusing, angry eyes on Smashie and Dontel.

  Smashie and Dontel swallowed.

  “I guess we were wrong,” said Smashie.

  “We’re awfully sorry, Willette,” said Dontel.

  “This is exactly what I mean by the consequences of getting carried away,” said Ms. Early.

  “You’re right,” said Dontel sadly. “I knew the proper scientific method would be to wait and compare the feed samples we found to the ones we have in here and then check to see if Willette had any on her person, but I was too excited.”

  “It’s my fault,” said Smashie. “I infected you with my hecticness.”

  Ms. Early held up her hand to hush them. “It’s both of your faults. I know you are sad about Patches —”

  “Smashie’s not,” said John.

  Smashie grimaced.

  “But you have to think before you speak. Smashie, we’ve been working on that all year. And Dontel”— Ms. Early shook her head —“you’re usually one of the most levelheaded children in the class. I don’t know what has gotten into you.”

  Smashie’s and Dontel’s faces burned like fire. They blinked and looked shamefacedly at their shoes.

  “We owe the whole class an apology,” said Dontel. “We’re sorry, everybody.”

  “Truly,” said Smashie. “Willette, I’ve got a cupcake in my lunch. You can have it.”

  “Smashie has one for me, too, Willette, and it’s all you
rs as well,” said Dontel.

  Willette sniffed and gulped. “What kind are they?” she asked.

  “Chocolate,” said Smashie. “With frosting robots on top.”

  “Cupcakes are a start,” said Ms. Early. “In addition, you two will do Willette’s end-of-the-day classroom cleanup job for the rest of the week, as well as your own.”

  Smashie and Dontel nodded. “We will,” said Dontel.

  “We’ll do it even longer if you want, Willette,” said Smashie. It was no less than they deserved. Willette looked satisfied, though her eyes were still red.

  “My job is sweeping,” she snuffled. “And this floor gets good and dirty, too.”

  “Charlene, why don’t you take Willette to get a drink of water,” Ms. Early continued. “The rest of you, take your seats. It’s time for our silent morning break. I hope all of you use the time to reflect on all this and what it will take for us to become a happy, productive class once more.”

  “I’ll reflect, all right,” John muttered. “I’d like to reflect someone right in the nose.”

  “John,” said Ms. Early.

  “Sorry,” said John.

  But it wasn’t just John who was still angry. Room 11 watched coldly as Smashie and Dontel set their piles of magazines down in the science area and made their way to their table.

  “Now you know how it feels,” Billy muttered to them as they passed. He was still pale this morning, exhausted looking, with purple circles under his eyes.

  “Poor guy,” murmured Dontel.

  But it was true, what Billy said. The class’s anger had risen to new heights. Smashie and Dontel were now reviled every bit as much as Billy.

  The collar of Smashie’s repurposed hot-suit began to itch unbearably.

  Ms. Early looked through some of Room 11’s mathematics papers at her desk while the children sat for morning break, hands folded and silent. Many of them flung occasional glares at Billy, Smashie, or Dontel.

  This is the worst, thought Smashie. Dontel sat bleak-eyed beside her.

  Knock, knock!