Chapter 5

The rest of the morning my brain was stuck on my first suspect: Glitch.

Even if the stories about her were true, it didn’t mean she took the morning snacks. I planned on talking to her, but Mr. Harpel kept us pretty busy all morning with activities.

Glitch didn’t join us for any of them. She sat in her corner of the room, poking at a little metal box with a screwdriver. She didn’t say a word to anyone.

Mr. Harpel said we all needed our own space sometimes. That’s why we each had our own area in room 15.

Hajrah had a big ball to sit on and a bunch of toys she could squeeze when she got too “bouncy.” Jordan’s corner had a regular desk, but Mr. Harpel also gave him a bunch of cool markers and colored pens so he could draw cars and sports and all the other stuff that he liked. Glitch’s space had a wide table instead of a desk. On the table were little drawers filled with wires, plugs, and other bits of electronics. My area of the room had a small desk with shelves for my mystery books and schoolbooks. There were already a few mystery stories on the shelves. Mr. Harpel had taken them from the library for me.

I was reading about a detective called Encyclopedia Brown. An encyclopedia is a book filled with information. This detective got his nickname because he was smart and knew so much. I was on my second mystery when the lunch bell rang.

“That’s it for today, folks!” Mr. Harpel said. “After lunch, you’ll go to your regular classes.”

Hajrah groaned. “Not Ms. Chu! The chairs in her class are so hard. And she makes me sit still for a million hours!”

“Hajrah, that’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Mr. Harpel said. “Ms. Chu is a nice teacher. And Myron is in your class. I’m sure she’ll let you work together. I teach the older students upstairs in the afternoon, so I’ll still be in the school. Maybe you will see me in the hall. If not, I will see you here in room 15 tomorrow morning.”

The lunchroom was crowded and loud. I do not like crowded and loud. But I do like lunch. My dad says that sometimes you have to take a bit of what you don’t like to get a bit of what you do like. He calls it a compromise. I don’t like compromise.

Hajrah had been through all this before. She led me to the far corner of the room, where it wasn’t so busy. A few kids sat quietly eating their lunches.

“Nobody likes eating this far from the exit,” she said. “They like to sit close to the doors. Anything to cut down on the time it takes to get outside for recess.”

Hajrah started eating her lunch. I pulled out mine, too. It was Monday, so it was a raspberry jam sandwich. I chewed my sandwich and thought about the mystery of the Snack Snatcher.

“Okay, so Glitch is totally the snack thief,” Hajrah said.

“We don’t know that,” I said.

“Who else could it be? Glitch has taken stuff before, and Principal Rainer thinks it was her.”

“You were hiding in the cupboard,” I pointed out. I had met my detective partner only a few hours ago. For all I knew, she could be the Snack Snatcher.

“I always hide in the cupboard,” she said with a shrug. “I got there before Mrs. Peterson arrived. I was supposed to be at the daycare. You know, the one down the hall from the school kitchen? My mom starts work early in the morning, so she drops me off there before school. But the daycare doesn’t have cupboards. Cupboards are dark, cozy, and private. They’re perfect for eating licorice.”

“Then you were there when the Snack Snatcher struck,” I said. “Did you see anything?”

“Nope. I was too busy enjoying my delicious candy. But I did hear a whole bunch of crashing and banging.”

“And you didn’t open the door to look?”

“No way,” Hajrah said. “I thought it was Lindsay looking for me. She works in the daycare and doesn’t like it when I sneak off.”

“So you hid in the closet the whole time?”

“I was eating licorice. Nothing disturbs me when I’m eating licorice. Remember that, Myron.”

I didn’t see why I had to remember the eating habits of my detective partner. At that moment, I was more worried about the person staring at me from across the lunchroom.

“Oh no,” I said through a mouthful of sandwich.

“Oh no, what?” Hajrah said.

A red-haired girl walked straight up to us and stopped.

“Myron Matthews,” the red-haired girl said. “It is you! I heard there was some little kid snooping around the lunchroom.”

I tried to speak, but no words came out. The raspberry jam in my mouth had turned to glue.

Sarah “Smasher” McGintley stood in front of me.

“Why are you snooping around West Meadows Elementary?” Smasher stepped close to our lunch table. She towered over me. “You’re far from your detective hero, Max Finder.”

Smasher McGintley was cousin to Basher McGintley, the biggest bully back at Central Meadows. The McGintleys liked doing one thing and one thing only: punching. The goal when dealing with bullies, especially the McGintleys, was to avoid the punching.

“Are you snooping around where you shouldn’t be snooping?” Smasher asked.

“Four,” I said. “You said the word ‘snooping’ four times.”

Smasher looked like someone had smashed her. “I’ll say it four million times if I want to!”

Two kids behind Smasher laughed. They were twins with big ears, flat noses, and small eyes. In detective stories, those are called shifty eyes. Characters with shifty eyes cannot be trusted. Ever.

Smasher smacked her fist on our lunch table. “I’ll say this, too, Myron Matthews, kid detective: keep your snooping away from me. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” I said. “You are standing very close and you spoke very loudly. How could I not hear you?”

Smasher growled.

“No problem, Smasher.” Hajrah stuffed the rest of her lunch into her bag. “We were just talking about dropping the whole case.”

“No, we weren’t,” I said, watching her stuff my lunch into my bag. “I said that we—”

“You said we have better things to do, like go outside and play!” said Hajrah, even though I was speaking. She hopped up from the table and yanked me by my collar. I got up and followed her out of the lunchroom.

She didn’t slow down until we were outside.

“Why did you lie to Smasher?” I said. “I’m not stopping the investigation!”

“I know that. And you know that,” Hajrah said. “But we don’t want Smasher to know that. She seemed pretty upset you were investigating the mystery of the stolen snacks.”

“You think she’s involved?”

Hajrah tugged on a loose strand of hair. “If there’s sneaky stuff happening at school, you can bet Smasher McGintley is behind it.”

“I know,” I said. “I met Smasher in my old neighborhood. Her cousin is Basher. He’s a bully.”

“Yep, stay clear of the McGintleys! That’s my rule.”

“Is that why you told her we were dropping the case? Just so we could investigate the case?”

“Exactly!” Hajrah said. “Speaking of investigating, what is Mr. V. doing by that tree?”

Hajrah jogged to the far side of the schoolyard. A large tree lay on its side on the muddy ground, with broken branches scattered about.

A man with a bushy mustache popped up from behind the tree’s thick trunk.

“Watch yourself, kids!” he said. “Go play somewhere else.”

“We’re not playing, Mr. V.,” Hajrah said. “We’re investigating.”

Mr. V. is the school caretaker. I met him last Tuesday, when I visited the school for the first time. He wore a thick blue jacket with the crest of the school on the front. He held a small saw in his hand and had flecks of wood stuck in his mustache.

“Why are you cutting the tree?” I said.

Mr. V. chuckled. “Is that what you’re investigating? It’s Myron, isn’t it?”

“We’re actually investigating the stolen snacks, Mr. V.,” said Hajrah.

Mr. V. shook his head at the mention of the crime.

“A real shame. And on the first day of school. Who would do such a thing?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” I said.

“Hey!” Hajrah suddenly sounded very worried. “This is Smoky’s tree!”

“Who’s Smoky?”

“She’s a raccoon who lives in this tree,” Hajrah said. “When the weather is nice, my dad and I come here to play soccer after dinner. Sometimes we see Smoky coming down from her tree to look for food.”

“And now someone has cut down her tree,” I said.

“It wasn’t cut down,” Mr. V. said. “It fell in last night’s storm.”

A big thunderstorm started just as I was going to bed last night. Alicia said she hoped the storm would blow away the school. That way, we wouldn’t have to go in the morning. I told her it was impossible for a school to blow away. A building like a school can be blown down if the winds are strong enough, but it will never blow away. A building is not like a leaf on a breeze.

I tried to explain this to Alicia, but she just closed her bedroom door. That’s sisters for you.

“Poor thing,” Hajrah said. “I hope Smoky is okay.”

“The storm took down this tree and ripped a big hole in the roof of the school.” Mr. V. pointed to a part of the school covered with a large plastic sheet.

“That’s near room 15,” I said.

“You got that right, Myron,” Mr. V. said. “The wind pulled away some of the roof over the kitchen. I just got it covered this morning before school started.”

The recess bell rang.

Hajrah ran toward the school. She stopped when she saw that I wasn’t following her.

“Come on, Myron,” she said. “Recess is over. Time for our afternoon class in our new room!”

A new new classroom with a new new teacher and new new students.

I still did not like new things.