“Do any of you need help figuring out what to wear for your numbers in the musicale?” Ms. Early asked her class at the start of morning meeting. “Only two days until our performance!”

“You know I’m wearing real roller skates for my song, right?” asked Tatiana.

“I certainly do,” said Ms. Early, making a check mark on her clipboard. “Smashie and Dontel, do you need people to wear —” She broke off. “Smashie. Hat.”

Smashie wilted.

“Do I have to?”

“You do.”

Smashie tugged off her hat.

“Thank you,” said Ms. Early. “As I was saying, do you and Dontel need the kids to wear anything in particular for the dances?”

Smashie’s jaw hung open. Ms. Early must be being tactful. But as she looked around the class, no one looked shocked. Or mean. Or any of the ways she had worried about this morning coming to school with Stott-cut hair.

She turned to Dontel.

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “It doesn’t look that different.”

“What?” Smashie squawked. “You guys,” she addressed Room 11, “don’t you see how my hair is? I got one of Mrs. Stott’s haircuts! I look nuts!”

“Hey!” said Charlene.

“No more nuts than that time you cut your own bangs when we were in preschool,” said Dontel.

Smashie felt betrayed.

“Dontel!”

“Calm down, everyone,” said Ms. Early. “Smashie, I am sorry we didn’t notice your hairdo.” She hesitated. “But under the circumstances, I think that is a positive thing.”

“It looks great!” said Charlene. “See, you guys? I told you my mom can cut hair!”

“Well, Smashie’s hair is always pretty messy,” said Siggie.

“Hey!” Now Smashie’s feelings were the ones that were hurt. “I comb it every day! I just have sticky-outy hair!”

“Siggie Higgins,” said Ms. Early, “we do not make personal comments about others.”

“Siggie does,” Smashie muttered.

“Smashie,” said Ms. Early.

“Sorry,” said Smashie.

“Smashie, my mom said she gave you a jar of goop to bring to school. Do you have it?” asked Charlene.

“Yes, I do,” said Smashie. And she passed the little bag over to Charlene.

“Yay!” cried Room 11.

“That brings us back up to two jars!”

“Will that be enough, Charlene?” asked Ms. Early.

“I’ll have to use it very sparingly. And it might not last. But we might just squeak by.”

“Ms. Early, can Charlene help Smashie style her hair now?” asked Dontel. “I know we don’t want to waste any goop, but Smashie has . . . a complicated head of hair. And after all, we are talking about what we are wearing for the musicale.”

“All right.” Ms. Early gave her permission. Dontel and Smashie exchanged looks.

“Great!” said Charlene, and the two girls went to the back of the classroom. Smashie’s heart pounded. Alone with one of the perps!

“I’ll make it look super, Smashie. Remember, it lengthens as well as molds,” Charlene promised. “Even if I have to use it sparingly.”

Tchah! thought Smashie. We could be crawling with plenty of goop if you were honest and quit giving the jars to Carlos!

But “Thanks” was all she said. She watched carefully to see if Charlene looked at the code, but Charlene barely glanced at the jar before she swiveled off its lid and scooped up a bit of the lovely lavender-and-lilac-scented goop and went to work.

“Check you out!” said Charlene, giving her one of the symmetry mirrors.

Looking in the mirror, Smashie saw that this time her hair had been turned into rippling ocean waves, perfect for the Swim dance.

Charlene beamed. “You love it, don’t you? Our goop is the best!”

Smashie couldn’t help but beam back. She did look terrific. And Charlene was so happy. Could anyone be that happy when they were involved in code-based intrigue?

But she only said, “Thank you, Charlene! Your styling is as good as the goop. I’ll just stick the jar here in my backpack so we have it ready when we need it.”

She looked hard at Charlene. But Charlene only said, “Great,” and went to the sink next to Patches’s cage to wash the goop off her hands.

Sure enough, though, by the time lunch rolled around, the jar was gone.

“We’re onto something,” Smashie said to Dontel. “But I’m not going to make a big fuss about the jar being missing. I don’t want anyone else investigating or for our class to be even more on edge.”

“It’s terrible when our class is on edge,” agreed Dontel. “Fine. We’ll proceed as if nothing has happened.”