When Mason and I show up for day two of forensics camp, Samantha and Lloyd are in the lobby, looking at a poster by the elevator. Another dog has gone missing. This one is a white standard poodle named Ringo.
I want to tell Samantha and Lloyd about the missing Chihuahua, and also that we might be getting a dog, but then the other kids turn up and there isn’t time.
“Before we get started today, we thought we’d show you where the university cafeteria is,” Lloyd tells us. “Because it’s summer and there are fewer students in the building, the cafeteria is on summer hours through August. If you want to buy something to eat, it’s only open in the morning from seven to nine and for lunch between twelve and one thirty. It’s just down this hallway.”
“I figured that out already,” Stacey says, sniffing the air as we follow the counselors down the hall. When I look at her, she explains, “I smell toast. My mom says I must’ve been a dog in my last life.”
That is another opening for me to tell everyone we might be getting a dog, but Samantha is explaining stuff again. I hope I get a chance soon to tell the others my news. “A forensic scientist needs a good nose,” Samantha is saying.
Nathaniel crinkles his nose. “Not if there are corpses around.” He is wearing another skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. I wonder if he has a collection.
Thinking about collections makes me twirl my bracelet. The one I am wearing today has a tiny magnifying glass dangling from it.
“How come you’re so obsessed with corpses?” I ask Nathaniel.
“No reason.” Nathaniel does not make eye contact when he says that. Which is why I decide there must be a reason.
“Quit bumping into me like that!” Muriel tells Nico. I thought twins were supposed to get along. After all, they shared tight quarters for nine months. But Nico and Muriel never stop squabbling.
Nico jabs Muriel with his elbow. “You’re the one who keeps bumping into me.”
Muriel jabs him back—a little harder than she has to.
Lloyd slows down so he can walk between them. “So what do you guys think of Montreal?” he asks.
“We miss seeing mountains,” Muriel says.
“We don’t miss the rain,” Nico adds.
I would not expect two kids who fight so much to use the word we like that.
Mason is walking behind Nathaniel and me. “Most cafeteria food sucks,” Mason says to no one in particular. It does not seem to bother him when no one responds. Mason is low-maintenance that way. If it was me, I’d feel ignored.
“I don’t know why they think we need to see the cafeteria,” Nathaniel grumbles. “We’re supposed to bring our own snacks and lunches. Besides, I checked the schedule online. This morning we’re supposed to learn about the case we’re solving this week. The schedule doesn’t mention anything about a cafeteria tour.”
Mason has a one-track mind. “Now that I think about it, I have tasted some decent cafeteria food. Our school cafeteria has amazing oatmeal cookies. They’ve got raisins—and chocolate chips. Raisins and chocolate chips go really well together.”
Samantha comes to walk beside Mason. “The pizza is pretty good at this cafeteria,” she tells him. Then she taps Nathaniel’s shoulder. “Just so you know, we’ll be assigning you your case soon enough. We just figured this is a big campus and you’d want to know your way around.”
Am I the only one who gets tingles on the insides of my elbows when Samantha says assigning you your case?
Everything about the Life Sciences Building is shiny and new and either chrome or white, so I am expecting more of that when Lloyd opens the double doors to the cafeteria.
What I do not expect is for Nico to slip on the tile floor. When he does, he grabs on to Muriel, and she goes flying to the floor too. Why is the floor so slippery?
What I also do not expect is the stench. Before, Stacey said she could smell toast. But there is no toast smell now. Instead, the air smells like rotten eggs.
Nathaniel gags. “Did somebody croak in here?” he manages to say. For once, I do not think he is being morbid. Not that I have ever smelled a corpse, but if I did, I would not be surprised if it smelled like this.
Mason pinches his nose. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to buy food from here,” he says in a nasal, disappointed voice.
Stacey bends down and slides one fingertip along the tile floor, which is covered in something slick and yellow. She sniffs her finger once, twice. I can almost see her dog brain trying to identify the smell. “French-fry grease,” she says, looking up at the rest of us. “Someone must have dumped a grease trap on the floor.”
“A what?” Nico asks.
“A grease trap. It catches grease so the pipes don’t get clogged,” Stacey says. “My dad manages a fast-food restaurant. I’ve helped him clean out the grease trap loads of times.”
“Now why would anyone go and dump a grease trap on the floor?” Samantha wonders out loud.
An Asian woman wearing a white apron and a hairnet comes running out of the kitchen at the back of the cafeteria. “Someone has made terrible, terrible mess in my kitchen!” she shouts.
Samantha grabs hold of the woman’s elbow. “Be careful, Mrs. Lu! You could slip on the floor!”
Mrs. Lu just keeps saying, “Terrible mess,” over and over again.
It’s Lloyd who notices that Mrs. Lu is carrying a blackened metal pan. “Where’d you get that?” he asks her.
“I found it over there,” she says, pointing to the slippery floor. “When I came into the cafeteria.”
Lloyd groans. “It’s the grease trap,” he says to Samantha in a low voice. “I think she washed it.”
“Of course I washed it,” Mrs. Lu says. “The grease trap was covered in oil and greasy fingerprints. I used bleach,” she adds proudly.
Lloyd shakes his head when Mrs. Lu mentions the greasy fingerprints. I don’t know why he cares so much about a grease trap. “All right then, let’s have a look in the kitchen,” he says to us, “and see what Mrs. Lu is so upset about.”
The closer we come to the kitchen, the worse the smell gets. Now even Stacey is pinching her nose.
When we swing open the metal doors, we figure out where the stench is coming from.
The giant freezer doors are wide-open, and someone has dumped food all over the counters and on the floor.
A slab of shrink-wrapped beef and several packages of fish fillets are defrosting in gooey puddles. Someone has used mustard to write out the words Beets not Meets on the long counter. I assume whoever wrote it meant Meats. Either the person who left the message is a bad speller or writing with mustard is hard to do. Or both.
Stacey puts her hands on her hips. “It’s too bad we can’t compost any of this,” she says. “If you compost meat and fish, you risk attracting rats.” Stacey turns to Mrs. Lu, who has followed us back into the kitchen. “Where do you keep the garbage bags?”
“Whoa!” Lloyd extends his arm traffic-cop style again. “Not so fast!”
“What do you mean?” Stacey says. “This place is a disaster. We should help Mrs. Lu clean up. It won’t take long if we all pitch in.”
“I’m afraid that would be tampering with the evidence.” I can see Lloyd is trying not to smile.
“Tampering with the evidence?” Mason’s forehead crinkles up the way it does when he is trying to figure something out.
“That’s right,” Lloyd says, “the evidence.” Now he’s definitely smiling.
As usual, Samantha’s face is perfectly serious. “You know that case you guys are going to try to solve this week?” she asks us. “You just walked in on it.”
So that’s why Lloyd got upset when Mrs. Lu told him she’d scrubbed the grease trap.
“I really wish you hadn’t done that,” I overhear Samantha tell Mrs. Lu a few minutes later.
Mrs. Lu hangs her head. “I’m very sorry. But when I saw how dirty that grease trap was, I forgot about the plan.”
I understand how Mrs. Lu feels. If my dad was around, he’d have scrubbed that grease trap too.