Chapter 10

I raced to room 15 right after the end-of-day bell.

Mr. Harpel was still there. He agreed to help us.

Hajrah had helped me finish my poem and then we’d come up with a plan. My job was to talk to Mr. Harpel. Her job was to find Glitch.

“Here we are!” Hajrah ran into the classroom. She was out of breath and smiling.

Glitch followed her into the room. She was smiling, too.

“Hajrah told me about your plan to catch the thief,” Glitch said. “I have just the stuff to get it all set up.”

“I’ll talk to Mr. V. and make sure he’s okay with everything,” Mr. Harpel said. He picked up the phone on the wall and called the office.

Glitch rummaged around the shelves near her table. She pulled out a long black cable, a little box with lights on it, and a fat roll of tape. She put it all on the table, then she pulled her camera from her backpack and turned to us.

“Ready to catch the Snack Snatcher?” she asked.

“More than ready!” Hajrah jumped and clapped her hands. I didn’t understand how she could be “more” than ready. You are either ready or you are not ready.

Twenty minutes later, Glitch’s camera was definitely ready. Mr. V. let us set it all up. He even met us in the kitchen to help.

When it was all done, the camera rested on a high shelf in a corner of the kitchen. It was pointed to the middle of the room. The black cable stuck out from the back of the camera. It was taped to the wall and ran all the way to the door. The cable plugged into the little box with lights. The box was stuck to the top of the doorframe.

“The little box is a sensor,” Glitch said. “When the door is opened, the sensor sends a signal to the camera. The signal tells the camera to start taking pictures.”

“Very smart,” Mr. Harpel said.

“I put a wide-angle lens on the camera,” Glitch said. “That way, the whole kitchen will be in the picture.”

“Including the window?” I asked.

“Do you think that’s how the thief got in?” Mr. Harpel peered at the window.

“Impossible,” said Mr. V. “I make sure all the windows are locked every night. And I know that window was locked when the Snack Snatcher got in here last night.”

“So how did the thief get into the kitchen?” Mr. Harpel said.

Glitch pointed to her camera. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow morning.”

I did not sleep much that night. My mind was buzzing. It was a good buzzing. My brain buzzed with ideas about the Snack Snatcher and Glitch’s camera. If it all worked, I would have this case solved by morning recess.

The next morning, I woke up early and left for school as soon as I could. I had to get there before the other students. Alicia woke up early, too, and came with me. It was still dark outside as we walked to school. She yawned fifteen times on the way there.

“I haven’t been up this early since I was a toddler.” She yawned again. Number sixteen.

Alicia used to help me solve mysteries all the time when we were younger. Now all she wants to do is talk to her friends and listen to music on her headphones. It was chilly this early in the morning, but walking to school with my sister I wasn’t cold at all.

“Thank you for coming with me,” I said. “It’s the only way Mom would let me go to school so early.”

“No worries, little brother,” she said. “It’s been too long since I helped our family detective solve his latest mystery.”

The school was quiet and dark when we got there. Only a few lights were on inside this early in the morning. We walked up the path to the front doors. There was no one else around.

“Looks like we’re the first to arrive,” I said.

“That makes me second!” Glitch appeared at the bottom of the path. She walked up to join us. A minivan pulled into the parking lot. Hajrah jumped out and waved.

“And Hajrah is number three,” I said.

Hajrah’s mom honked the horn, waved to us, and drove away. Hajrah ran up the path to us.

“I told my mom you were looking after us, Alicia,” she said when she reached us.

“She’s taken her babysitting course, so she is qualified,” I said.

“My babysitting doesn’t usually start so early.” Alicia yawned again. Number seventeen.

We were early, and that was the plan. School didn’t start for a while, but we had a lot to see before then.

“Do you think the Snack Snatcher returned?” Glitch said.

“Hopefully your camera will answer that,” Hajrah said.

Mr. V. appeared at the door.

“Come on in! It’s not locked,” he said. “I’ve been here about an hour. Mr. Harpel is here, too.”

Mr. V. went back inside. Alicia went in after him. Glitch followed my sister. I grabbed Hajrah’s sleeve before she should go any farther.

I pointed to Glitch. She walked away from us down the hall. She wore a black jacket. On the back was a red soccer ball that looked like a fireball.

“Meadows Fireballs!” Hajrah hissed.

I tried to go into the school, but my feet wouldn’t move. My brain was too busy trying to figure out what I just saw.

“Glitch is the Snack Snatcher!” Hajrah said under her breath.

But why would Glitch help us catch the Snack Snatcher if she was the Snack Snatcher? Why would she hire us to clear her name if she was really guilty? I was still working on this when we got to the kitchen.

Mr. V. stood outside the door with Glitch and Alicia. Mr. Harpel and Principal Rainer were there, too.

“I wish all our students showed up this early for school,” said Principal Rainer when she saw us.

“We’re here to catch the Snack Snatcher,” I said.

“That’s a good thing,” Mr. Harpel said. “They struck again.”

Inside the kitchen was a mess. Food was scattered across the floor.

“But this time we got the thief on camera, right?” Hajrah said.

Mr. Harpel held up a small box with wires on it. It was Glitch’s door sensor. We’d left it stuck to the doorframe. It was crushed flat and the wires were bent.

“Someone sabotaged our camera trap!” Glitch said.

“I don’t know what happened,” Mr. V. said. “Your equipment was fine when I locked up the school last night.”

“Now we’ll never catch the Snack Snatcher!” Hajrah said.

She was right. The Snack Snatcher was one step ahead of us. It was as if the thief had been in on the plan the whole time.

I looked over at Glitch. She was trying to put the door sensor back together. She did look sad. But all I could really see was the flaming soccer ball on her back.