Once again, Room 11 exploded in talk.

“That’s the third missing jar!” cried Siggie.

“It is!” wailed Willette. “Why is all our goop going missing?”

“It certainly is strange,” said Ms. Early, frowning a bit.

“Everything in our room goes missing!” cried Tatiana. “First our hamster, now our goop!”

“We can’t do our Hair Extravaganza and Musicale without our special hair!” cried Joyce. “We’re going to have to cancel!”

John stared at her, his gaze torn somewhere between disappointment and hope. Charlene’s eyes were like saucers.

“Pool our resources!” Smashie shouted, one fist raised. “Everybody has to bring in what smells good from their house! Like vanilla and fancy soaps you use only for guests! Charlene can help us invent hair goop for ourselves in science class!”

“Now, don’t everybody get all worked up,” said Ms. Early. “Smashie, especially you.”

“What do you mean?” cried Smashie, stung. But she knew. She rather liked to get worked up, and Ms. Early often had to calm her down. Especially during the hamster episode.

“Wait a minute,” said Dontel. “I smell lavender. Do you?”

The class lifted its collective noses skyward, sniffing.

“I do,” said John, “but why wouldn’t we? Joyce is covered in the stuff.”

“It’s on my hands, too,” Charlene pointed out.

“But I could swear . . .” Dontel’s voice trailed off.

“Class.” Ms. Early was firm. “We are not going to make more of this than is rational.” She glanced at the clock above the open door to the classroom. “I think that does it for math. We certainly didn’t get very far. Put your things away, children, and get ready for recess.”

The rumble of Mr. Bloom’s cleaning cart passed by their door. Smashie stared. For behind the cart was Mr. Bloom.

His hair was lengthened. And molded. Into something of a shape.

“He looked like Ben Franklin!” Smashie told Dontel on the blacktop once the class arrived out of doors for morning recess. “Mr. Bloom usually just has a rim of hair around his bald spot. But today he has LENGTHENED AND MOLDED locks flowing around his bald spot, just like our country’s famous forefather!”

“Mr. Bloom?” Dontel was incredulous. “But that makes no sense!” He whipped out his Investigation Notebook and turned to the Opportunity List. “Wait a minute. Maybe it does.”

“What do you mean?” asked Smashie.

“Well, he came in our room after the second jar went missing. With the recycling bins, remember?”

Smashie shuddered. Of course she remembered, what with Mrs. Armstrong coming to shout at her at the same time. “But he wasn’t in our room at all during math today. And that’s when the jar of goop Joyce brought in went missing. Do you think maybe he is getting one of the kids to steal it for him?” said Smashie.

“Smashie!” said Dontel. “I can’t imagine that Mr. Bloom — one of our favorite adults — would ask one of us kids to steal! That’s just nuts!”

“I don’t know, Dontel! All I know is that he is the only person with lengthened and molded hair that didn’t get it done by Charlene in our class!”

“It does explain why I smelled that lavender and lilac even more,” said Dontel reluctantly. “If he was passing by our door.”

“Yes,” said Smashie. “And since he was in the hallway earlier, too. That’s a clue! We should add that to the list.”

And, very hastily, she took out her Investigation Notebook from her tool belt and wrote:

“Maybe it’s a conspiracy of all the baldish teachers!” Smashie cried. “Maybe Mr. Flange will be next!” While Mr. Flange, the art teacher, had a luxurious mustache, it was true that he had barely a spear of hair left on his head. “If Mr. Flange shows up tomorrow with hair in a wild hairdo, then we’ll know! We can tax all the unhairy teachers! We can —”

“Smashie,” said Dontel, “I think we have to calm down. We need a plan.”

“Well, I know what our next plan is,” said Smashie firmly. “Tax Mr. Bloom.”

“It just feels wrong to me,” said Dontel. “I can’t help it. He’s so nice about talking to me about space. I don’t want to disrespect him!”

“I know.” Smashie’s hectic thoughts slowed. “I really like him, too. But you are the one who said we couldn’t let personal feelings get in the way. If Mr. Bloom is a thief, he must be brought to justice. We are good at that. Better than at taxing people, even.”

“True,” said Dontel. He thought for a moment. Then he sighed. “All right. Fine. Ms. Early said our room is low on paper. We could ask Miss Martone, the yard lady, if we could go to Mr. Bloom’s trailer to get paper and then talk to him while we’re there.”

“All right,” Smashie agreed, “but I don’t think that lady likes me much still. After yesterday and the Jerk and all.”

“Let me do the talking,” said Dontel.

They made their way toward the yard lady, passing Jacinda and Charlene, who were, as yesterday, watching Carlos from Room 12 across the blacktop. Carlos’s shoulders looked hunchy, like he knew Charlene’s eyes were upon him.

“This whole like-like thing is weird,” said Smashie.

“Tell me about it,” said Dontel.

“What do you two want?” asked Miss Martone as they reached her. “Here to call me a jerk again?”

“We’re real sorry you thought that, ma’am,” said Dontel. “Smashie here feels terrible.”

Smashie nodded.

“The dance isn’t called the Jerk like an insult,” Dontel explained. “It means jerk like jerk your arms around. Smashie here was just teaching the kids. For our musicale.”

“Oh,” said the yard lady. “Well! That does make more sense.” And she smiled at Smashie and Dontel. “I get it now. No hard feelings.” And she rumpled Smashie’s hair. Smashie didn’t mind. Now that her hair music note had been washed out, it was already pretty sticky-outy again.

“We were just going to ask you if we can go get some more paper for our room from Mr. Bloom,” said Dontel. “We’re low.”

“Sure thing,” said Miss Martone. “Just don’t miss the whistle at the end of recess.”

“We won’t,” said Dontel, and off they went.