Claudia and the Middle School Mystery

  “Number three, you’re a nerd,” said Adam under his breath.

  Mallory bristled and Jessi could see that she was on the verge of losing her cool completely.

  “Mal,” she said, “how about if you take the younger kids outside to play? I’ll stay inside with the triplets.”

  Mallory gave Jessi a grateful look. “Oh, that would be terrific,” she said. “They’ve been like this for the last few days, and I just can’t take it anymore. They’re like caged beasts or something!” Within minutes, she’d herded Nicky, Vanessa, Margo, and Claire outside.

  Jessi started to tidy up the kitchen, which looked like a tornado had been through it, while the boys played in the living room. She could hear them talking as they looked through their baseball cards for the millionth time.

  “Ave-day Infield-way,” said Jordan. “E’s-hay the oolest-cay.”

  “O-nay ay-way,” cried Adam. “At-whay about-hay Al-cay Ipken-ray Unior-jay?”

  Byron (who isn’t as much into sports as the other two) spoke up. “I-hay ike-lay Agic-may Ohnson-jay.”

  The other two triplets sat in amazed silence for about two seconds. Then Jordan spoke up. “I-hay ike-lay Agic-may, oo-tay, ummy-day. Ut-bay e-hay ays-play asketball-bay!” He and Adam snickered.

  “Orget-fay about-hay ese-thay ards-cay. I’m-hay ick-say of-hay em-thay,” said Adam. “Et’s-lay eak-snay outside-hay!”

  Jessi poked her head into the room. She was getting a little tired of hearing Pig Latin, and she didn’t like the way Jordan had spoken to his brother. Byron is sensitive, and his feelings get hurt easily. Besides, she wasn’t about to let the triplets sneak out of the house.

  “Ordan-jay, at-thay isn’t-hay ery-vay ice-nay. Ell-tay our-yay other-bray ou’re-yay orry-say or-fay alling-cay im-hay ummy-day!”

  All three triplets stared at Jessi, gaping in disbelief. “You know how to speak Pig Latin?” asked Adam.

  “Sure!” said Jessi. “I used to talk that way all the time. Sometimes I get sick of it, though.”

  “We get kind of tired of it, too,” admitted. Adam. “But we’ve got to have a secret language for when we don’t want anybody to understand us.”

  “Pig Latin’s too common, though,” said Jessi. “Lots of people know how to speak Pig Latin. Bop-u-top nop-o-bop-o-dop-yop kop-nop-o-wop-sop hop-o-wop top-o sop-pop-e-a-kop ‘op-talk.’”

  “Whaaaat?” asked the triplets in unison.

  “That’s ‘op-talk,’” said Jessi.

  “Teach us!” demanded Jordan.

  “Yeah! Teach us!” said Adam and Byron.

  “What do you say?” asked Jessi, teasing them.

  “Please?” said the triplets.

  Jessi sat down on the floor with the boys and told them about “op-talk.” “It’s simple,” she said. “You just spell out each word, but you add ‘op’ after every consonant.”

  “What about the vowels?” asked Byron.

  “You leave those alone,” said Jessi. “So if you wanted to say, ‘I want to go home’ in ‘op-talk,’ you’d just say, ‘I wop-a-nop-top top-o gop-o —”

  “Hop-o-mop-e!” yelled Adam. “I get it!”

  Jordan was frowning slightly. “What about ‘y’?” he asked.

  “You treat ‘y’ like a consonant,” said Jessi.

  “O-kop-a-yop!” said Jordan. “Top-hop-i-sop i-sop gop-rop-e-a-top!”

  “Say my name, Jessi!” said Byron. He still wasn’t getting the hang of it.

  “Bop-yop-rop-o-nop!” said Jessi, Adam, and Jordan all together. Then they burst out laughing. Byron’s name really sounded funny.

  “Do mine!” yelled Adam.

  This time Byron joined in, too. “A-dop-a-mop!” they yelled. The triplets dissolved in giggles. “Op-talk” was a big hit.

  Jessi sat back and let the triplets go at it. They were fast learners. After they’d done everybody’s name, they started to plan how to best use “op-talk” to annoy their parents. They decided to speak nothing but “op-talk” at dinner that night, just to see what would happen.

  Jessi was happy to see that the boys had forgotten, at least for awhile, how tired they were of being in the house. They’d dropped their mean-spirited teasing. Now they were just having fun. She thought this might be a good time to bring up the subject of the broken window. Maybe she could get them to tell her which one of them had been responsible.

  “So, wouldn’t you guys like to be able to go outside?” she asked. “All you have to do is tell me which one of you broke that window.”

  The three of them sat there silently.

  “Come on,” said Jessi. “It’s not such a big deal. Do you want to be grounded forever?”

  Silence.

  “Don’t you want your allowances back?” she asked.

  The triplets ignored her.

  Jessi thought for a moment. Maybe she could trick them into exposing the guilty party. She turned to Byron, and said, very casually, “Tell me, Byron. When you threw that ball through the window —”

  “I didn’t!” Byron said, without thinking.

  “Aha!” cried Jessi.

  “I didn’t, either!” said Adam and Jordan at the same time.

  That was it for Jessi. She sighed in frustration and let the triplets go back to practicing “op-talk.” If they were going to be so stubborn about it, she wasn’t going to try to help anymore. It wasn’t her problem if they wanted to be grounded until they were ninety-two years old.

  The next day in school, all my classes seemed to drag on forever. I couldn’t concentrate on what my teachers were saying; I just kept thinking about my problem and how to solve it.

  Then it happened.

  As I was heading for the cafeteria, I saw Shawna Riverson walking in front of me. Susan Taylor was with her, and so was another friend of theirs, this girl with wild red hair. Their heads were together, and they were talking in low voices as they walked. They were giggling, too. I followed them without really knowing why.

  They started to go around the corner toward the cafeteria, but then Shawna stopped and gestured toward the girls’ room. She walked into it, and the other two followed her.

  I stood outside the door for about thirty seconds, trying to figure out what Nancy Drew would do if she were in my shoes. Then I slowly pushed the door open and peeked inside.

  There are four stalls in that bathroom. Three of them were occupied by Shawna and her friends. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I slipped into the fourth.

  The toilet next to mine flushed then, and I heard someone walk over to the sink. The water ran for a minute. Then I heard a girl say, “Shawna, I swear. You are so lucky.” She was chewing gum loudly. That must be the one with the red hair, I thought.

  “I know,” said Shawna, who had just come out of her stall. “I still can’t believe I got away with it.” She giggled. “I just gave Mr. Zorzi this incredibly sincere, honest look — and he let me go!”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Were they talking about what I thought they were talking about? I was suddenly terrified that they would find out I was eavesdropping on them. I held my breath and tried to get my heart to stop beating so loudly. I kept listening. This was exactly what I wanted to hear.

  “And you know the best part?” asked Shawna. “I don’t even have to feel bad about it. It doesn’t even matter to her that she’s getting an F. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, what’s one more bad grade to Claudia Kishi?” asked Susan Taylor.

  Oh, wow. I couldn’t believe she said that! Suddenly, I was furious. How dare they talk about me that way? My face got all hot again, just like it had that day after math class. I felt tears welling up in my eyes.

  I jumped up and started to open the door of my stall. I was going to give them the shock of their lives!

  Then I stopped. I can’t explain why — but I cooled down as quickly as I’d gotten fired up. It was as if I felt Nancy Drew herself tapping me on the shoulder and whispering in my ear. Maybe if I kept quiet
, she was saying, I’d hear some more. And maybe what I heard would help me figure out what to do next. I listened to Nancy’s advice.

  After all, the main thing was to prove my own innocence — not to Shawna, since she obviously already knew I was innocent — but to Mr. Zorzi and to the principal.

  I took a few deep breaths (very quiet deep breaths) and settled down to listen some more. I peeked, carefully, through the crack between the stall and the door. Shawna and her friends were still standing there, looking in the mirror and talking while they brushed their hair and made what they seemed to think were movie star faces. Susan Taylor pulled a tiny can of hairspray out of her purse and touched up her perfect perm.

  “I wouldn’t have done it unless I had to, you know,” said Shawna. “I’ve never done it before.”

  “I know,” said Susan. “But nobody could be expected to do everything you do and also get good grades all the time.”

  “I just had too much going on,” said Shawna. “There was that skit I was directing for Drama Club, and that long paper for English —”

  “Yeah, and then you had to help plan the Pep Rally on top of it all!” said the girl with red hair. “How were you going to find time to study for some dumb math test, too? What are you supposed to be, Supergirl or something?”

  I rolled my eyes. Was I supposed to feel sorry for Shawna? I mean, give me a break. She’s the most popular girl in school! Of course she’s too busy.

  “I just figured it was too, too perfect when I heard Claudia telling mousy Mary Anne Spier that her genius sister, Janine, was helping her study,” said Shawna.

  “Yeah, everybody knows what a brain Janine is,” answered Susan. “But who would ever suspect you of copying off of Claudia Kishi’s paper? It was the perfect crime.” She giggled.

  This was too much. Not only had she copied off of me, but she’d planned the whole thing. And she sounded proud of herself.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, Shawna and her friends packed up their purses and left, letting the door slam shut behind them. I let out a big sigh and walked out of my stall. Looking at myself in the mirror, I shook my head. This was unbelievable.

  I flew to the cafeteria to meet my friends. I couldn’t wait to tell them what I’d heard.

  They were already sitting down and eating by the time I got there. I skipped the line, too excited to eat. I threw myself down at the table and said, “You’ll never guess what I just heard.”

  I looked around the table at my friends. Mary Anne was sitting next to Logan. They had been talking quietly together, but they looked up at me as soon as I started to speak. Dawn put down her sprouts-on-cracked-wheatberry-bread sandwich (it looked disgusting) and turned to me, too. Kristy and Stacey were all ears. (Jessi and Mallory weren’t there — the sixth-graders eat during another period.)

  I turned and checked over my shoulder, just to make sure that Shawna and her friends weren’t standing behind me. Then I told the whole story from beginning to end.

  Kristy got furious. “That … that dirty rotten cheater!” she sputtered.

  Mary Anne felt sorry for me, I could tell. “That must have been horrible, to hear them saying those things about you,” she said. “That’s so mean!”

  Stacey just gave me a sympathetic look. Then she smiled. “But Claud — now you have proof, right?”

  “I wish,” I said. “But even though I know for sure now that Shawna cheated, I still can’t prove it.” I bit my lip and shook my head. “If I tried to tell that to Mr. Zorzi, it would just be my word against Shawna’s — and we know who he’d believe.”

  Logan nodded. “Claudia’s right,” he said. “So what do we do?” I guess Mary Anne had filled him in on the details. It was nice to know that I had one more person on my side.

  Dawn hadn’t said anything yet, but just then she spoke up. “So Claud has solved the mystery of who really cheated — and why. Now we have to figure out how to help Mr. Zorzi and the principal solve the same mystery.” She paused for a minute, then spoke again, in a lower voice. “We could always try what I thought of the other day,” she said. “You know — we could check Shawna’s locker.”

  I noticed that she wasn’t using the term “break into” anymore.

  Mary Anne looked shocked. “Dawn!” she whispered, looking around the cafeteria. “Shhh! Don’t talk about that here. Somebody might hear you and take you seriously.”

  “I am serious,” said Dawn, more quietly. “I think it’s our only chance,”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Mary Anne. “The whole idea is just unthinkable.”

  “I kind of agree with Mary Anne,” said Stacey quietly. “I’d do almost anything to help you prove you’re innocent, Claud.” She looked over at me. “Almost anything. But not that. That’s going too far.”

  I had to admit that Stacey was right, kind of. But what else could we do?

  “Wait a minute,” said Kristy. “Do you guys want Claud to have to quit the club?”

  Stacey put her hand over her mouth. “Oh!” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

  Mary Anne frowned. “Of course we don’t want to lose Claudia. But there must be a better way of keeping her in the club.”

  Kristy sat up straight in her chair and pounded her fist on the table. “You know what Watson would say in a case like this? He’d say, ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures!’”

  I looked at her. What on earth was she talking about?

  She must have seen that I was confused. “It just means that some things are emergencies, and that during an emergency you have to do things you might not otherwise do,” she explained.

  I nodded. I agreed completely. When I looked over at Stacey, she was nodding, too.

  “You’re right, Kristy,” she said. “I think we should do it. And I’ll be glad to help, if it means keeping Claudia in the club.”

  Dawn was grinning now.

  Mary Anne was the only one of us who wasn’t totally convinced. She still looked worried. “I think it’s wrong,” she said. “But if you have to do it, please be careful. Imagine what could happen if you got caught!”

  I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if we got caught “checking” Shawna’s locker — so I just didn’t think about it. Instead, I joined my friends in planning exactly how to go about doing the deed.

  The five of us spent the rest of lunch period talking about it. (Logan had left by then — I don’t think he wanted to be involved in our plan.)

  “I happen to know that the Pep Squad has a meeting after school this afternoon — at three o’clock,” I said. “Susan Taylor mentioned it when they were in the girls’ room. She was worried that it would go past four o’clock and she’d miss the chance to go shopping with her mom.”

  “Is that all she ever does — shop and get perms?” asked Kristy.

  “Seems like it,” said Dawn. “Anyway, this meeting is perfect. By three o’clock, most of the other kids in school will have left — or else they’ll be involved in some activity.”

  “But what about the teachers?” I asked, picturing Mr. Zorzi strolling up behind me as I rummaged through Shawna’s locker. “Won’t they still be around?”

  Dawn wasn’t fazed. “Sure. But they don’t know whose locker is whose.”

  “Mr. Kingbridge knows,” said Mary Anne. “He knows every little thing about this school.” (Mr. Kingbridge is the vice-principal.)

  “Oh, him,” said Dawn. “He’s half-blind.” Mary Anne gasped, then giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “Anyway,” continued Dawn, “he’ll just figure I’m at my locker. All we have to do this afternoon is stand in front of Shawna’s locker as if it were mine, and laugh and talk as we go through it for evidence.”

  Dawn was really into it. I was glad she’d decided that she would be the one to go through Shawna’s locker. I still felt a little uneasy about the whole thing, even if it was my only chance.

  Mary Anne felt uneasy, too. “What if Shawna catches you?” she
asked.

  “She’s going to be at practice, Mary Anne,” said Kristy patiently. Mary Anne can be such a worrier.

  “But what if she forgets something and comes back for it?” said Mary Anne.

  Hmmmm. That made us all stop and think. Mary Anne had a point. We sure didn’t want to be caught in the act by the owner of the locker.

  “No problem,” Stacey said after a minute. “I’ll stand guard where the two hallways meet. If I see her coming, I’ll warn you.”

  “Great!” said Dawn. “And don’t forget to watch out for Susan Taylor and that redhead, too.”

  Just then, the bell rang. Lunch period was over.

  It’s funny about time. Remember how I said that my morning classes seemed to go on forever? Well, that afternoon, when I really wasn’t looking forward to school being over (I was so nervous about what we were going to do), my classes flew by. Before I knew it, the last bell had rung.

  I met my friends by my locker — we’d planned it that way. By then, Mallory and Jessi had heard about our plan. They were as excited as the rest of us.

  “You guys should go on home,” said Dawn to Mal and Jessi. “If we get caught, we don’t want you to be involved.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Mary Anne, you should go, too. We’ll tell you all about it later.”

  Stacey agreed with me. “Good plan,” she said. “Kristy, you’d better leave with them, too. The fewer of us that are involved, the better.”

  Once the four of them had left, it was just a matter of waiting until three o’clock rolled around. That sounds simple but it wasn’t.

  The minutes seemed to stretch on forever. At first, there were a lot of kids in the halls. But after the buses left, the school grew quiet. Kids walked by themselves or in pairs, heading to things like Spanish Club or soccer practice. We didn’t see Shawna and her friends at all.

  First we hung around my locker for awhile. Then Stacey realized she’d forgotten her jacket, so we headed over to her locker. We got the jacket, but it still wasn’t three o’clock.

  The water fountain kept us busy for a couple of minutes — but how much water can you drink? I wasn’t thirsty anyway. I was just a nervous wreck. This phrase kept going through my mind: “Breaking and Entering.” That was what the newspaper called it when somebody got arrested for burglary. Was “Breaking and Entering” what we were planning?