Chapter 2

Mr. Harpel greeted us at the door.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to room 15, Myron!” His voice was loud. He was tall and round. He had a bushy beard and shiny shoes. His shoes had no laces. My shoes don’t have laces, either. Laces come loose and then my shoes slip off my feet. I wondered if Mr. Harpel had the same problem.

Mom squeezed my pinkie. “I’ll pick you up at the end of the day.”

I squeezed back. Mom left.

Mr. Harpel smiled at me.

“Welcome, Myron! Come in.”

“Four,” I said.

“Sorry?” Mr. Harpel said.

“You said ‘welcome’ four times,” I said. When someone says something over and over again, it’s called repeating. People repeat themselves when they are really serious or really nervous. Good detectives always notice when people repeat themselves.

“You’re right.” He laughed. “I guess I want you to feel very welcome. You’re the first one to arrive. You’ve got the place to yourself.”

Everyone called my new classroom room 15. That’s because there was a sign on the door that said “Room 15.”

I had visited room 15 with Mom and Dad last week, before school started. It wasn’t like a regular classroom. There were no desks in rows and no chalkboard at the front. It was like a living room. There was a couch in one corner with cushions. The carpet had red and yellow circles. Against one wall, there was a bookcase packed with books and board games. A round table stood in the center of the room. There were also four desks—one for each student in the class.

Room 15 was not my only classroom. In the afternoon I would go to a different one. It was called my “regular classroom.” I visited that room last week, too. It had desks and a chalkboard. It also had more kids. And it had another teacher—Ms. Chu. She was old. She was probably a grandmother.

I wanted to stay in room 15 all day, but Mom said I needed to be in Ms. Chu’s classroom sometimes. Ms. Chu’s classroom did not have couches. It would have other children. Children I did not know. Thinking about Ms. Chu’s class got my brain itching again.

Mr. Harpel put an orange folder on each of the desks in room 15.

“Today, Myron, we’re just going to get to know each other,” he said. “We’ll play some games and—”

“Aaaaaahh!” A shrill scream outside the classroom made us both jump.

“What was that?” Mr. Harpel said.

I followed him into the hallway.

“The scream sounded like it came from that room down the hall,” I said.

“That’s the kitchen. Good hearing, Myron.”

“My dad says I have better hearing than an owl,” I said. “That’s impossible, but he means I hear very well. Did you know that an owl can use its ears to pinpoint the exact location of a mouse in under a second?”

“I didn’t know that.”

I was going to tell Mr. Harpel more about owls, because I like them and know a lot about them. For instance, they swallow their prey whole and then throw up the bones and fur. These are called owl pellets, and you can find them if you walk in the forest where owls live.

I didn’t tell Mr. Harpel this because he had gone into the kitchen and would not have heard me. I followed him.

The room looked like a kitchen made for twins. There were two of everything. There were two stoves, two fridges, two microwave ovens, and two sinks. Two metal tables stood in the middle of the room. They were covered in food. Uncooked pasta spilled out from ripped-open bags. Shredded cheddar cheese coated the floor. White flour lay in piles on the table and was spread across the floor.

In all that mess stood the school chef. Her apron was stained with red splotches and white flour smears. She wore an earring shaped like a little yellow school bus in each ear. The school bus on her left ear was upside down, so the wheels were pointing to the sky instead of the ground.

“Everything all right, Mrs. Peterson?” Mr. Harpel asked the woman with the school-bus earrings.

I thought that was a strange question. Mrs. Peterson would not have screamed if everything were all right. Clearly something was not right. But sometimes people—even teachers—ask silly questions.

“Everything is most definitely not all right,” Mrs. Peterson replied. “I had the morning snack laid out on the table, ready for the kids. I stepped out of the room for a minute, and when I got back, this is what I found!”

She waved her hand at the food splattered all over the kitchen.

“Whoever did this made a real mess,” Mr. Harpel said.

“That mess was going to be lunch. But I can clean that up,” said Mrs. Peterson. “I’m upset about the morning snacks. They’re gone. We’ve been robbed!”