WE found Alyssa on the other side of the dance studio. She was sitting on the floor hugging her knees. She looked really upset.

The four of us approached Alyssa. Sophia was holding the camera. I let Shakira hold the Emma microphone because she never got to before. And Javier was standing next to us taking notes. Well, he was taking notes in his head. He says he doesn’t like to write stuff down. So I pulled out my purple reporter pad and shiny feather pencil. I figured someone should write everything down!

“Hi, Alyssa,” I said to her in a gentle voice. “I know you’re really upset. But don’t worry, we’re gonna find the drum. I’m going to help Rachel the reporter with the news story. Can I ask you some questions?”

“Sure. I guess. But, Emma, the drum is gone. There’s no way we’ll be able to get it back,” Alyssa replied.

“We can at least try,” I said. “You said you didn’t lock the drum in our closet here in the downstairs studio, right? You locked it in the closet in the upstairs studio?”

“Um … yeah.” Alyssa took a deep breath. “I usually lock it in our studio closet downstairs, but it was full yesterday. There were too many costumes in there. So I took it upstairs. I found a closet that had enough space. I put the drum inside and locked the door. When I went back today to find it, the drum wasn’t there.”

“So the upstairs closet was empty?” Javier chimed in. He was holding one finger to his forehead as if he was taking notes in his brain.

“Well, it wasn’t empty. It still had other stuff inside,” Alyssa said.

“What stuff?” asked Sophia from behind the camera.

“Um, I think there was a pair of dance shoes, a couple CDs, and a duffel bag,” Alyssa replied.

“Hmm. Okay, thanks,” I said.

Javier, Shakira, Sophia, and I walked back over to the side of the dance studio where we left our coats and bags.

“I know it’s time to go home, guys, but before we go, we just have to go to the—”

“Upstairs closet?” Shakira said, cutting me off. She was getting the hang of this.

“That’s right!” I said, smiling at her. “Come on, let’s go.”

We all headed to the upstairs dance studio to inspect the closet. We found it in the far left corner. It was small and looked more like a locker. An old wooden locker. I pulled on the closet door—and it was open. The lock looked broken. That seemed strange.

“Look,” said Shakira. “There are the dance shoes, CDs, and the duffel bag. They’re crammed inside. Just like Alyssa said.”

“But there’s definitely no drum here,” added Javier, who had stuck his head inside the closet. He was right: The drum wasn’t there. It couldn’t be in the duffel bag. It was way too small for the tambora to fit inside.

“This seems funny, though,” said Sophia. “It looks like the lock is broken. How could Alyssa have locked the drum here if the lock didn’t work?”

“Good question, Sophia,” I said.

One of my chocolate pudding Slinky curls had fallen from behind my headband and into my face again. I started playing with it as I always do. I twirled that one loose curl around my finger, and then I pulled it all the way down past my waist. I let go and it sprang back up. Just like a Slinky. But this time, something funny happened. As soon as my curl sprang back up to my head, an idea popped right into my brain!

“Hey, guys, I think we need to check inside the duffel bag,” I told them.

“Okay, but why?” asked Sophia.

“Yeah, why?” add Javier. “The drum is obviously not in there. That bag is way too small.”

“I know,” I replied, “I just want to be sure we’re not missing anything.”

Javier unzipped the bag. It was silver and shiny. We looked inside and saw two dozen paper fans with all kinds of flowers painted on them. It looked like they were used in an old dance routine.

“Aha!” I said.

“What??” Shakira and Javier and Sophia all wanted to know.

“Look at these fans. They’re made of paper. But do they look damaged to you?”

“No,” said Javier.

“Then we know the drum couldn’t have been here,” I told them.

“How do we know that?” asked Shakira.

“Look how small the closet is,” I answered. “In order to fit a drum in here, you’d have to place it on top of the duffel bag and crush the fans. These fans look just fine to me.”

“Oh, wow! You’re right!” Sophia said, excited. “These fans are in good condition. There’s no way the drum was here.” She pressed record on the camera phone and started shooting video of the closet and the un-crushed fans. Just then, a girl from the upstairs ballet class walked in the studio. It looked like she had come back inside to grab her sweatshirt. I thought I knew her from school. A fifth grader.

“Hi!” I said to her.

“Hi,” she said back.

“You’re Gabriella, right? Do you take ballet up here after school?” I asked.

“Um … yeah?” She sounded confused why I was asking.

“I’m Emma. I just wanted to ask you something really quick for my news show. It’s called an interview.”

“Oh! I know about your show!” she said. “Sure, what’s up?”

Sophia pointed the camera in her direction and Shakira held the mic just under her mouth.

“Did you leave right after ballet class yesterday?” I asked Gabriella.

“Actually, I did. But then I had to come back right away because I forgot my sweatshirt,” she explained, pointing at a sweatshirt draped over a nearby chair. She grabbed it and looked down at her shoes. “I forget things a lot,” Gabriella added, looking embarrassed.

“That’s great!” I said.

“My mom doesn’t think it’s great …” she muttered.

“No, no,” I said quickly. “I meant it’s great for me! You might be able to help with my investigation. What I need to know is, did you see our dance assistant, Alyssa, up here yesterday? She said she was here putting our drum in that closet over there.”

“Hmm. I didn’t see her,” answered Gabriella. “I don’t think she came upstairs. I was here for a while, looking for my sweatshirt. Then my mom came up to help me. We didn’t see anyone.”

“That’s what I suspected,” I said.

“Oh, and that closet is broken,” said Gabriella. “The lock doesn’t work. No one uses it. The stuff in there has been sitting there like that for months.”

“That’s what we thought!” Shakira shouted suddenly. We all giggled a little. “Oops. Sorry, Emma. Keep going.”

“Shakira’s right. It looked like the lock was broken. Thanks, Gabriella! Nice meeting you.”

“No problem. Can’t wait to see your news show, Emma. I’m a fan!”

Wow! A fifth grader was a fan of my show! I wanted to smile and laugh, but instead I pretended like it was no big deal. It was more professional that way.

“Thanks, Gabriella. See you at school.”

I pulled out my purple reporter pad and my shiny feather pencil. I found the first empty page and wrote The Case of the Missing Tambora. Then underneath I wrote,

Clue #1: The closet in the upstairs studio has a broken lock.

Clue #2: The paper fans were not crushed.

Clue #3: Gabriella says Alyssa wasn’t in the upstairs studio after dance class. The drum couldn’t have been in the upstairs studio closet.

“But, Emma, what does it all mean?” asked Javier. “Was Alyssa lying?”

“Why would Alyssa lie?” asked Shakira.

“I don’t know if she was lying or not,” I said. “But I do know that her story doesn’t make sense. That tambora drum was never here.”