Normally, Smashie and Dontel loved to go visit Mr. Bloom in his little trailer just outside the main building. All of the children at the Rebecca Lee Crumpler Elementary School did. Besides being filled with supplies for the classrooms and for cleaning, it was full of Mr. Bloom’s hobbies as well: tiny bonsai trees he had pruned into beautiful shapes and lots of reading material about alien life-forms. And his music player bellowed opera songs through the open windows and doors of the trailer all day long. But Smashie and Dontel were not happy at all as they made their way to the trailer with their dark, sad suspicions about the man who had always been one of their favorite adults in the school.

“This is our worst case ever,” said Smashie. “Why do we have to keep suspecting our friends?”

“It is only our second case, Smashie,” Dontel pointed out. “But you are right about the part about our friends.”

“Mi chiamano Mimì, ma il mio nome è Lucia . . .” A lady sang Italianly from the trailer as they approached.

Through the open door, Mr. Bloom was working his hands over his hair. And before their very eyes, his hair transformed from the Ben Franklin hanks Smashie had described to Dontel to something more like the aging rock stars on the albums Smashie’s mother loved to play.

Mr. Bloom heard them and turned around. “Why, hello there, Miss McP. and Mr. M.! Nice to see you! What can I do you for?”

The scent of lavender was overpowering.

“We need . . . paper,” said Dontel faintly.

“Coming right up. Let me just wash this goop off my hands. Wonderful stuff. ’Course you two are too young to worry about hair loss, but, my stars, this is doing the trick! Until I wash it, I guess. Herr Goop, it’s called. Heh, heh! Pretty clever, that. It says right on the jar that it lengthens and molds the hair, and darned if it doesn’t! Check me out!”

“It looks super,” Smashie said uncomfortably. She and Dontel looked at each other in shock. Was Mr. Bloom confessing to stealing right before their eyes? But why didn’t he seem sorry? Or ashamed? Or ready to turn himself in to the authorities? Maybe Mr. Bloom was such a hardened criminal that he didn’t even care if he was discovered! Maybe he rejoiced in the revelation of his crimes!

Be brave, Smashie, Smashie said to herself. Start taxing him!

“Mr. Bloom,” she said in a strangled voice, “when did you get that goop?”

Mr. Bloom finished washing his hands and moved to the large boxes of ruled paper he kept near his bonsai trees. “Oh, just a couple of days ago. I believe it was the day you folks planned your big musicale. Which I’m very much looking forward to, by the by. I love a good musical number.”

And he whistled along to the Italian lady as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“May I see the jar?” asked Dontel.

“Sure.” Mr. Bloom tossed it to him and, still whistling, headed over to extract several reams of paper from a box. Exactly like a proud stealie-pants would!

“This jar is the one, all right,” whispered Dontel to Smashie. “The first one Charlene used on you.”

Smashie looked at it and agreed. There hadn’t been serial numbers on that first jar, and there were none on this one, either. Clearly this was made before Charlene’s mom got the idea to use those numbers to label their product.

Dontel handed the jar back to Mr. Bloom as the custodian placed the paper carefully into their befuddled, suspicious arms.

“Mr. Bloom,” said Smashie, gulping, “what about the other jars? When did you take those?”

Mr. Bloom looked puzzled. “Well, I’d say I ‘found’ that jar, rather than ‘took’ it, Miss McP.”

“Found?” said Dontel.

“It was in the hallway right outside Room 11 — your room.”

“But what about the other jars?”

“Other jars?” said Mr. Bloom. “What other jars? This is the only jar I found. I didn’t take other jars. Heck, all I did was find this one, and it gave me real hope.”

“But two more went missing from our room, too!” said Smashie, studying Mr. Bloom’s face for signs of pride in his thievery.

“And you came in with the recycling bins when one of them —” Dontel began bravely.

“What?” Mr. Bloom cut him off. “You kids came in here thinking I stole the goop from your class?” His feelings were clearly hurt.

Dontel swallowed. “It’s just that the jars keep going missing.”

Mr. Bloom’s eyes widened. “Well, I only found the one, and here” — he handed it to Smashie — “you take it back right now. I’ve used a lot of it, but I sure didn’t mean to take your supply. I thought it was just something that had been tossed away. And I certainly didn’t take any others.” His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “Never thought I’d see the day when two decent kids like yourselves would accuse me of thieving. I surely did not.”

Smashie felt terrible. Of course Mr. Bloom was not a stealie-pants! Why had she ever even thought it?

“We’re sorry, Mr. Bloom!” cried Smashie.

“It must have rolled out the door like Ms. Early said,” said Dontel, bowing his head in shame.

“You keep that goop,” said Smashie. “Please! Your hair looks great!”

“I can’t do that,” said Mr. Bloom. “Not with you kids thinking so poorly of me. Not if it’s going to make everybody in Room 11 think I’m a thief.” He sighed. “It’s too bad. I did promise Mr. Flange he could have a go.”

Smashie’s mind filled with the image of their taciturn art teacher sporting a lengthened and molded mustache.

“Please keep it,” Dontel begged the custodian. “Please. We’re sorry we taxed you. We know you’d never do anything dishonest. And our class doesn’t even know about what we thought.”

Mr. Bloom hesitated, then took the jar from Smashie. “Well, if you say so. I sure hope you find your missing goop.”

“We do, too,” said Smashie.

But Mr. Bloom’s shoulders were still sagging as Smashie and Dontel left the trailer, their arms full of paper and hearts full of guilt.

“We are awful, awful children,” said Smashie as they made their way back to the blacktop. Recess was almost over, and the rest of the third-graders were already lining up to go in.

“I know,” said Dontel miserably. “And terrible investigators, too. We haven’t picked a single suspect that has even turned out to be for-real suspicious!”

“And we are still goopless because we gave Mr. Bloom back the goop he had. You know what this means, Dontel?”

“Kids will drop out of the Hair Extravaganza and Musicale because of no cool hair,” said Dontel unhappily. “And our teacher will be very sad.”

Hrmm, thought Smashie. “Well, I have to admit I do think it would help if you would at least wear an Investigator Suit, too, while we work on this case.”

“I don’t need an old suit,” said Dontel. “I keep what I need in my pockets.” This was true. Dontel’s pockets were always a treasure trove of things he found that might come in handy. Right now, his front pockets contained six pistachios, two springs that had sprung out of a ballpoint pen, and a tiny two-by-one-inch pocket dictionary. In his back pocket was his Investigation Notebook.

“What do you mean, an old suit?” Smashie cried. “I thought you understood about suits!”

“I do,” said Dontel. “I’m sorry, Smash. Let’s not fight. What we need to do,” he said, “is more investigating.”

“Yes,” said Smashie. “And find a way to apologize to Mr. Bloom.” She drooped under the weight of the paper and her troubles. No sooner had Smashie straightened things out with the yard lady than she had messed things up with another adult. And they were no closer to finding out who had taken the missing hair goop and why.

Overhead the sun disappeared behind the clouds. A rumble of thunder rolled across the play yard as the whistle blew.

The rumble of thunder turned to rain almost as soon as Room 11 came indoors, and Smashie and Dontel handed the heavy reams of paper to Ms. Early.

“Why, thank you!” Ms. Early was delighted. “You’ve saved me an errand.”

“You’re welcome,” said Dontel, but Smashie could tell he was still feeling as down as she was.

“Saved Ms. Early an errand,” whispered Smashie, “but now Mr. Bloom will never be our friend again.” She squirmed under the weight of her suit’s tool belt. “And forget about me humming around Ms. Early again. Once she finds out we accused Mr. Bloom, she’ll never let me sing!”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Dontel sadly. “And Mr. Bloom and I were going to talk about rockets next week. But I bet we won’t, now.”