HEY, Molly … how’d you get the idea to sew a felt oval patch on the front to make the belly?” I asked her.

“Oh … um. I just thought of it,” Molly said.

“Because it looks a lot like the oval patch on my Lion costume …” Sophia realized.

“Yeah, um, I got the idea from you, Sophia.”

“Charlie the custodian said he saw you holding Sophia’s Lion costume the other day,” Javier added. They figured out what I was thinking.

“Molly, did you take Sophia’s costume?” I asked her.

Molly didn’t say anything. She just stood there. And then she started to cry. I felt pretty bad. I didn’t mean to make her cry.

“Molly, don’t cry,” I said.

“Yeah, don’t cry,” Sophia added. “I have the costume back now, so it’s okay. I just want to know what happened.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you,” Molly said as she tried to dry her tears with her hands. “I really wanted to be Roo for Halloween. But Melissa G. thought it was a baby costume. I didn’t want her to know that I was gonna be Roo no matter what she said. But I needed help making my costume. Sophia, I saw your costume fall on the floor, so I picked it up. I was going to put it back on the art table, but then I decided to inspect it for a little while and see if I could figure out how you made it. It was just so good. I was going to put it back a couple minutes later, but then you screamed. You said it was missing and the whole class started looking for it. I didn’t want everyone to know that I had taken it to learn how to make a Roo costume. Melissa might make fun of me. So I panicked. I stuffed your Lion costume in my backpack. Then after school that day I put it back on your desk. Honest. I thought you’d find it there the next day. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your Halloween.”

Sophia took a deep breath and said, “That’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it. I wish you would’ve just told me, though. I never would’ve made fun of you.”

“I know. You’re right,” Molly said. “I just got scared. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so awful about it. I didn’t even want to come to the festival because I felt so guilty. But then I saw you finally found it and I thought maybe everything would be okay after all.”

“Is that why you wrote me an anonymous note?” I asked. I figured the note must have come from Molly. Who else knew where the costume was?

“What note?” Molly asked.

“The anonymous tip. It was written with pink ink. Do you have a pink pen?” I asked.

“No, I have blue and purple. I don’t have pink. I don’t know who wrote that note.”

All of a sudden, we heard Principal Lee on the microphone.

“Boys and girls, we have the results of our costume contest.”

“Okay, never mind, Molly.” I let it go. We didn’t have time to worry about that now anyway. The contest results were in. Everybody hurried to the dance floor to hear who won. Principal Lee started going through the categories one at a time. Lots of people won prizes. Javier won most original costume. I won most creative witch! Sophia won most artistic costume. Even Melissa G. won most beautiful princess costume. And Molly won best animal costume.

“Okay. Time to figure out which class won the most categories,” announced Principal Lee. “Well, it looks like the kids from Mrs. Garcia’s class from P.S. 525 have done extremely well. You won seven categories.”

The kids from that class all screamed with applause.

“But look here. Miss Thompson’s class right here at P.S. 387 has also done well. You won eight categories! You are the winners of the pizza party!”

We all started jumping and screaming so loudly, the grown-ups near us covered their ears.

“Congratulations, Miss Thompson’s class. Settle down now. It’s time to announce who won the overall award and the grand prize—a gift certificate at Mr. Magee’s Toy Store.”

This was it. This was the prize we really needed to win in order to get Javier his spy kit. Sophia, Javier, and I nervously held one another’s hands.

“And the winner is …” said Principal Lee, “Justine Singer from P.S. 525. Come on up, Justine, and show everyone your costume again. Justine is Hedwig the owl from Harry Potter! Everyone give Justine a round of applause.”

“Oh, no. We lost,” I said.

“Well, we did win the pizza party,” said Sophia.

“I know—and that’s great—but now we can’t buy Javier’s spy kit.” I was already making plans to go to Magee’s. Now everything was ruined. I couldn’t believe it.

“Emma, I don’t think Javier’s all that upset about it …” Sophia said with a giggle.

“What do you mean?”

“Look.” Sophia pointed to the dance floor. And there was Javier in the middle, doing the robot dance from inside his wardrobe box. He looked so silly. But everyone started dancing around him.

“Come on …” said Sophia as she pulled my arm. And we went out there and started dancing, too.

I guess it wasn’t so bad. We found Sophia’s costume, we figured out who took it, and why … and we won a pizza party. I still didn’t know who sent that anonymous note. But I was sure I’d figure that out some day. In the meantime—I was still famous! And I started doing the famous jumpy dance in the middle of the dance floor.

“Woo-hoo!” said Javier. “Best Halloween ever.”

And we danced all night long.