Now I was worried. Losing a reading tree was one thing. But losing a student? There were probably rules against that.
I immediately checked the room chart. Only one person wasn’t there.
“Scarlet Boggs? We lost Scarlet Boggs? Where did she go? And how?”
No one raised a hand. Every student looked down at his or her lunch and ate quietly.
Mara clacked her heels again. “Everyone, stop eating and look up at me this instant.”
They did.
“You know that lying is wrong, don’t you?” she asked.
Regina raised her hand. “No, it’s not. Mommy says I have to lie once evwy day.”
“She does?” I asked.
“She says, ‘Lie on your bed and go to sleep!’ I’ll do it wight now, see?”
Regina put her head down and started snoring. Everyone giggled and kept eating.
“Goofballs!” I whispered, not taking my eyes off the class. “We’re getting nowhere!”
“Meanwhile, Scarlet Boggs is getting everywhere,” said Kelly. “This is bad.”
Suddenly, the knob on the classroom door squeaked. We swung around. When the door opened, Scarlet Boggs walked in. Her thumb was in her mouth. Her other hand was clutching her lunch bag.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?” she said around her thumb.
“How did you just appear there?” I asked.
She pulled her thumb out and wiped it on her green shirt. “I appear wherever I am,” she said. “And look. Snow!” She lowered her head and brushed her hair and white dust came flaking off like snow. “Spelled W-O-N-S!”
“Aha!” Kelly gasped. “Worker dust! You left this classroom!”
“I do every day,” Scarlet said. “It’s how I get home when school’s over.”
Kelly strode right up to her and set her hands on her hips. “Scarlet, where exactly have you been?”
She looked up at Kelly with her big eyes. “Canada, once. New York City, three times. And Florida, where Grammy lives,” she said. “But I love Badger Point the best!”
“Yay, Badger Point!” the kids cheered.
“Now I have to eat,” said Scarlet.
“Sit! Eat!” Brian said. He swept the snow dust into an evidence bag and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he took out a cardboard tube covered with foil. With an elastic band attached to it, he put it over his head and onto his nose.
“Professor Shmartz will sniff out more evidence. Behold how he moves!” He took slow giant steps from table to table.
I couldn’t figure out how Scarlet had gone from the back of the classroom to the hallway outside the room while we were all watching.
It was impossible.
Except that she had just done it!
“Professor Shmartz, stop!” Brian yelled out to himself. He stopped. “Something’s very fishy in this classroom,” he said.
“Not Sprinkle. He’s gone,” said Langston. “But never mind.”
“It’s my tuna melt,” said Scarlet. “I have to wait for it to cool.”
Brian jumped. “Aha and aha! Scarlet, if your lunch has been in the cubby all morning, why is your sandwich so hot?”
“So the cheese can melt, silly!” she said.
“Yay, cheese!” everyone yelled.
Kelly dragged us back to the front of the room. “Goofballs,” she whispered, “these kids are up to something, but they’re in it together.”
“You’re right!” I said.
“I say we forget trying to make them spill the beans,” Kelly continued. “Let’s concentrate on the missing stuff.”
“Meaning,” said Kelly, “that there are two parts to every disappearance. Part one, something leaves where it is. Part two, it goes somewhere else.”
“That makes sense,” said Brian.
“Good work, Kelly,” I said. “Since we can’t seem to stop things from leaving this classroom, we should search for where they’ve ended up.”
Mara grinned. “That’s a great detective bit. Write it in your cluebook, Jeff.”
I did.
The bell rang again.
“Naptime!” shouted Truman.
Leonardo tapped Regina on the head with a pencil. “Regina, wake up. It’s naptime.”
I nodded slowly. “Naptime for them is detective time for us.”
“Leave Sparky with me,” whispered Brian. “We’ll check every inch of the classroom while they’re napping. You guys search the rest of the school.”
“Let’s snoop!” said Mara.
As soon as the kids put their heads down, Mara, Kelly, and I left the classroom and crept through the halls.
“First things first,” I said. “Scarlet’s snowy head. I don’t know how she got upstairs, but she did. Come on!”
We followed the work noises.
We saw workmen everywhere.
We saw white dust everywhere.
But we saw fish tanks, easels, puppet theaters, and reading trees nowhere.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Again,” said Mara.
“Nothing plus nothing is an even bigger nothing,” said Kelly. “Unless Brian’s right that those kids are beaming stuff to a spaceship, the clues must be in that classroom.”
I nodded.
Mara nodded.
“That’s where we’ll solve this mystery,” I said.
Now, you might think that while Brian watched the kids nap, nothing could happen.
You would be wrong.
By the time Mara, Kelly, and I returned to the classroom, we found the kids wide awake, Brian fast asleep, and Miss Becker’s rocking chair and globe nowhere to be found.
“Brian, how could you?” said Mara.
He blinked his eyes open. “I told you Miss Becker’s carpet is as comfy as a dog bed. You can’t resist it.”
“How do you know what a dog bed is like?” Kelly asked.
Brian beamed. “A Goofball knows everything!”
Kelly growled under her breath. “Except where Miss Becker’s chair and globe went to.”
Brian nodded. “Right. Except that. Maybe Sparky saw something. Sparky?”
Sparky rolled over on the carpet. “Goof … z-z-z-z!”
“Great,” I said. “We’re letting a class of tiny kindergartners ruin the Goofballs!”
We managed to make it to the end of the day without losing either ourselves or anyone else. But when school finally ended, I added up my list of all the stuff we had lost.
It was not a pretty picture.
“Guys,” said Kelly. “Miss Becker’s going to come back to an empty classroom. The Goofballs have totally failed!”
“F-f-f …,” Brian stuttered. “I can’t seem to spell that word.”
Which proved to me that, even though he might fall asleep on the job, Brian was a Goofball from his toes to his nose.
“That’s because Goofballs don’t fail,” I said. “Goofballs can’t fail. Goofballs never fail!”
“We’re getting pretty close to it,” said Mara.
I shook my head. “Our detective careers started in this room. This room will be the scene of our greatest triumph!”
“But how?” Kelly asked. “And when?”
I began to smile. “What happens between today and tomorrow?”
“The stars come out?” said Mara.
“Skunks wake up?” said Brian.
“Daddy snores?” said Kelly.
“Yes, yes, and I don’t know,” I said. “Goofballs, the thing that happens between today and tomorrow is … tonight. And tonight is when we come back to school and solve this mystery!”