Karen's Yo-Yo

  “Wow — so cool,” I said. My fingers were itching to try it.

  Hannie had to show Bobby three or four times where to put his hands, how to grab the string, and so on. But Bobby was getting it, slowly.

  I really, really, really, really wanted to try Rocking the Baby too. I could not stand it.

  I looked around. I did not see Ms. Holland anywhere.

  I took the Genius out of my pocket, slipped the string onto my finger, and flipped it down into a sleeper.

  “Now, where do I grab the string?” I asked Hannie.

  Hannie said, “About halfway —”

  “Karen Brewer!” said a loud voice behind me. “What are you doing with that yo-yo?”

  I turned and felt the blood rush to my face. Ms. Holland was staring at me with her arms crossed.

  “I — I — I —” I tried to say. But no explanation came out. The Genius spun out of control and flopped over on the ground on its side.

  “Hand it over this instant,” said Ms. Holland. “And I will see you after class. We need to have a talk, young lady.”

  I had a feeling it was not going to be a very pleasant talk.

  Talking to Ms. Holland

  Well. You can imagine how awful that afternoon was. Hannie and Nancy gave me sympathetic glances when the last bell rang. Everyone stood up to leave except me.

  Ms. Holland sat at Ms. Colman’s desk, straightening her books.

  “I am afraid I will miss the school bus,” I said in a small voice.

  “I am sure it will wait for you,” said Ms. Holland. “And this will not take long.” She stood up and faced me. “Karen, I am extremely disappointed in you. I was told by Ms. Colman that all of the children in her class were well behaved, hardworking, courteous, and honest. But you played with a toy during class time and then complained after I took it away from you. And now this. Taking it from Ms. Colman’s desk! I do not know what to do or say to you.”

  I hung my head and waited for her to go on. I suspected that, even though she said she did not know what to say to me, she would come up with something.

  Well, I had something to say to her too. I was just waiting for the chance to say it.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” asked Ms. Holland.

  This was my chance, so I took it.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “The Genius is my yo-yo. I paid for it myself with my own money that I saved. I brought it to school and played with it on the playground. We are allowed to play with toys on the playground. I took it out in class to show Hannie and Hank how a pendulum works. I was not playing with it at all. You can ask Hannie and Hank if you do not believe me. But you did not listen to me and took my yo-yo anyway. That was not fair. Then, the next day, when I asked for it back, you did not give it to me even though the class rule said you should. You can ask anyone in the class about that rule. So you took my yo-yo from me for no reason and then broke Ms. Colman’s class rule. I should not be punished for taking something back that should not have been taken from me in the first place and then should have been returned.”

  I took a deep breath and crossed my arms in front of my chest. So there, I added silently to myself.

  I glared at Ms. Holland. She looked back at me. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open a little bit. I braced myself for her to start yelling.

  “Karen,” Ms. Holland said quietly, at long last. “What you said about not playing with your yo-yo in class may be true. And it also may be true that Ms. Colman has a rule about returning toys after one day. The fact remains, however, that I took your yo-yo from you because I thought you were playing with it. And as I told you earlier when you asked that your yo-yo be returned, when I am the teacher, I set the rules for the classroom. You do remember my saying that, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Now, you broke my class rule by returning the yo-yo to yourself,” said Ms. Holland. “But more important, you broke a rule of ethics. Do you know what ethics are?”

  “Is that like the difference between right and wrong?” I asked.

  “Correct,” said Ms. Holland. “You broke a rule of ethics — you did the wrong thing — by going into Ms. Colman’s desk and stealing something out of it. That action was wrong, no matter how strongly you felt the yo-yo should be returned to you. You can see that, I hope?”

  “Well, yes, I guess so,” I said grudgingly.

  “I am glad you see that,” said Ms. Holland. “Now, I can tell that you are a very bright girl who believes in standing up for herself. I believe in standing up for myself too, and maybe that is why we have butted heads about this. What do you say we call a truce? I will not tell the principal or your parents that you took something out of Ms. Colman’s desk, because now I understand a little bit more about why you did it. And you will agree to abide by my class rule, and resign yourself to the idea that you will not get your yo-yo back until next week, when Ms. Colman returns, because now you understand that taking the yo-yo back was wrong. Fair?”

  I thought about it for a few moments. It seemed like we were both saying we had been a little wrong and a little right. I still hated the fact that I would not have the Genius again until next week, but I was glad Ms. Holland would not tell my parents or the principal about this. And I had to admit, I had known deep down that I should not have taken the Genius. It seemed fair enough.

  “Fair,” I said, and we shook on it.

  * * *

  Sigh. I was not a happy second-grader that afternoon. The first thing I saw when I walked through the door at home was Andrew playing with his yo-yo.

  “Look, Karen!” he cried when he saw me. “Watch what I can do.”

  He flipped his yo-yo out in a big circle, did some sort of twist thing with his wrist that made his yo-yo hop in a funny way, and caught it. And he is only four going on five.

  “That is great, Andrew,” I said sadly.

  I went straight to my room without stopping for a snack. I wanted to be alone.

  My four-year-old brother can do yo-yo tricks that I cannot, I said to myself. And since Ms. Holland had the Genius again, I could not practice with it.

  Sigh.

  The phone rang, and I heard Kristy call my name.

  “Coming,” I said.

  I went out to the hall and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Karen,” said Hannie.

  “Hi,” I said sadly.

  “That was so, so mean of Ms. Holland today,” said Hannie. “Taking your yo-yo from you for the second time, when the class rule says she has to give it back to you. Why did she do that?”

  Hannie still did not know that I had stolen the Genius out of Ms. Colman’s desk. And I still did not want to tell her.

  “Oh, I do not know,” I said vaguely. “I am sure she had some reason or other.”

  “Well, I think it is terrible,” said Hannie. “Terrible and unfair. And you are being so brave about it.”

  “Thank you,” I said modestly.

  “Why, someone should do something about this,” Hannie went on. “We cannot let Ms. Holland get away with being so mean to our class.”

  “That is nice of you to say,” I said. “But I do not think there is anything we can do. I will have to wait till Ms. Colman gets back.”

  “Hmm,” said Hannie. “Maybe so. Anyway, I just thought of something. I have to call Nancy. I will talk to you later, okay, Karen?”

  “Okay,” I said. “ ’Bye, Hannie.”

  “ ’Bye.”

  Pop Quiz

  I was hoping that since we had agreed on a truce, all my troubles with Ms. Holland were behind me.

  How wrong I was.

  “Put away your books and take out a clean sheet of paper and a pencil,” Ms. Holland said as we took our seats on Thursday morning. “We are going to have a pop quiz on our spelling homework.”

  “Ugh!” A groan went around the classroom. (I did not groan. First, because I did not want to make Ms. Holland mad at me agai
n. And second, because I am an excellent speller.)

  Ms. Colman never gives pop quizzes. I have heard Kristy talk about having them in middle school. But second-graders just do not have them.

  “Quiet, please,” said Ms. Holland. “The first word is thread.”

  Ms. Holland read out ten words, and we had to spell them. (I was sure I spelled them all correctly. As I said, I am an excellent speller. I was even a spelling-bee champion once.)

  After the pop quiz was over, we handed in our papers. Ms. Holland told us to read at our desks quietly while she graded them.

  I could hear her red pencil go scritch, scritch on the papers as she marked them.

  Suddenly Ms. Holland’s pencil went snap.

  I looked up from my book. (I was reading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary. I had read it before, but when you really love a book, you do not mind reading it twice.)

  Ms. Holland looked at her pencil. The tip was broken. She reached into the desk drawer. I was not sure whether she was reaching for a new pencil or for a sharpener.

  Then a very, very odd thing happened. Ms. Holland gasped and quickly closed the desk drawer. She had neither a new pencil nor a sharpener.

  Ms. Holland looked up. She looked right at me. Her face was turning red fast.

  “Karen, may I see you in the hallway, please?” she asked.

  “Okay,” I said. I wondered if she wanted me to run an errand for her.

  We walked out of the classroom. She closed the door behind us.

  Then Ms. Holland did another odd thing. She knelt down so that her face was level with mine.

  And she said very calmly, “Karen, I want you to tell me the truth. What did you do with your yo-yo?”

  My eyes opened wide. “The Genius is missing?”

  Suspects, Suspects

  Well, if you think Ms. Holland was mad at me the first time the yo-yo disappeared, you should have seen her the second time. She was furious.

  I swore that I had not taken it. She asked me again. I swore again. I could tell that she did not really believe me, but there was nothing she could do. She had no proof.

  I was very upset, not only because Ms. Holland was accusing me unfairly, but because my beloved yo-yo had been stolen! It would take me months to save up enough money to replace it.

  That afternoon Hannie and Nancy came over to the big house to play.

  “We are so, so sorry that you got in trouble today,” said Hannie.

  Ms. Holland had announced to the class that someone had stolen my yo-yo out of Ms. Colman’s desk. She had looked at me the whole time she was talking. It was as if she were holding up a sign that said, I think Karen Brewer stole her own yo-yo out of Ms. Colman’s desk. I had told Hannie and Nancy that Ms. Holland thought I was the thief. And I had finally admitted to them that I had taken it the first time.

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “So sorry. We really are.”

  “It is okay,” I said. “I know I did not do it. And it is not your fault. You do not need to be sorry.”

  Hannie and Nancy looked at each other.

  “We are sorry anyway,” said Hannie. “We did not know you had already swiped it out of Ms. Colman’s desk once before.”

  “It is okay, really,” I said, smiling. “There was nothing you could have done to change what happened.”

  Hannie and Nancy looked at each other again. They really seemed to know how I felt.

  “What great friends I have,” I said, hugging them. “Three cheers for the Three Musketeers!”

  “Hip, hip, hooray!” we cheered. Hannie and Nancy did not cheer as loudly as I did.

  * * *

  At school the next day, I could tell that Ms. Holland was still watching me closely. That was okay. She would find out I was innocent. And in the meantime, I was watching my classmates closely. One of them had the Genius, and I was going to find out who. I wanted my yo-yo back, and I wanted to clear my name.

  On the playground after lunch, Pamela came skipping up to me, flipping her yo-yo up and down.

  “Where is your yo-yo, Karen?” she asked. “Oh, I forgot,” she went on in a fakey voice. “You cannot play with it now, because Ms. Holland would catch you with it. You will just have to wait until later to play with your stolen toy, I guess.”

  Grrr. My eyes narrowed behind my pink glasses.

  “You do not know what you are talking about, Pamela Harding,” I said.

  “I know enough to know that you are a teacher’s-desk-opening yo-yo snatcher,” said Pamela, “and that you are lying about it and trying to get everyone in trouble for what you did.”

  I bunched up my face. “Stop it,” I said. “I did not take it, and I am not lying, and someone else took it, and if that person gets in trouble for it, fine, because they should, and they had better give me back my yo-yo too, or else!”

  “Or else what?” snarled Pamela.

  “Children!” said Ms. Holland, striding toward us. “Break it up. No bickering on the playground.”

  Pamela turned and flounced off in one direction, and I stalked off in the other.

  I sat down on the edge of the blacktop. I was trying not to cry. I almost wished I had never brought the Genius to school in the first place. All of my friends could do tons of cool tricks, and I could not even practice. What an awful week! And now someone had stolen my yo-yo and was probably playing with it in secret.

  Who would steal my yo-yo out of Ms. Colman’s desk? And why? In my head I made a list of possible suspects and their reasons for taking the Genius:

  Pamela Harding — because it is exactly the kind of meanie-mo thing she would do

  Bobby Giannelli — because the Genius is a better yo-yo than his

  Tammy Barkan — because her twin sister, Terri, has a yo-yo and she does not

  Pretty soon just about everyone in my class was on the list of suspects, except Hannie and Nancy. I knew they would never have done such a thing.

  But everyone else could have. It was very confusing.

  Only one thing was clear: I needed my yo-yo back.

  Sadderday and No-funday

  That weekend was terrible. Saturday was Sadderday, and Sunday was No-funday.

  Andrew spent all day Sadderday — I mean, Saturday — practicing with his yo-yo. He learned two new tricks. I could not stand it! My little brother knew way more tricks than I did.

  I was miserable, and there was nothing I could do about it. I did not want my whole big-house family to know about my yo-yo disaster, so I pretended I was practicing in my room.

  About the only nice thing that happened was that on No-funday — I mean, Sunday — afternoon Hannie and Nancy came over for a visit.

  They rang the front doorbell and I ran to answer it.

  Hannie was holding a plateful of cookies.

  “My mom and I made these for you,” said Hannie. She handed me the plate. “Chocolate-peanut-butter chip.”

  “Thank you!” I said, surprised.

  “And I made you some special bookmarks,” said Nancy. She held out four bookmarks. One was red, one was green, one was blue, and one was purple. “They have glitter on them,” she added.

  “I see that,” I said. “They are beautiful. Come inside, and we can eat cookies and look at the bookmarks.”

  We went to the kitchen. For once, we had the kitchen to ourselves. There are a lot of rooms in the big house, but there are also a lot of people. Sometimes it is hard to find privacy.

  “These bookmarks are perfect,” I said, munching on a cookie. “Since I do not have the Genius to play with, I have been reading a lot. Now I will never lose my place again.”

  “We are glad you like your presents,” said Hannie.

  Nancy nodded.

  “You guys are the best,” I said, picking up another cookie. I smiled at them. “I would be lost without the other two Musketeers. Listen — can you help me solve this problem? I have been thinking and thinking about it, but I cannot crack the case. Who could have taken my yo-yo out of Ms. Colman’s desk?
Who had motive and opportunity?” (Motive and opportunity are the things every good detective looks for in a crime. I have solved several mysteries before, and I know all about motive and opportunity. Motive means a good reason. And opportunity means a good chance to commit the crime.)

  “Well … it could have been almost anyone,” said Hannie, tapping her fingers against the table.

  “Maybe someone you least suspect,” added Nancy.

  “Oh, I suspect everyone!” I said.

  “You do?” said Hannie. She and Nancy looked at each other.

  “Of course,” I said. “No one is innocent until proven not guilty, that is my motto. I mean, except you guys, of course. Here, I will show you my list of suspects.”

  I ran to my room, fetched a sheet of paper from my desk, and returned to the kitchen. On the paper were written the names of everyone in Ms. Colman’s class (except for Hannie and Nancy). Hannie and Nancy read the suspect list.

  “This is a good list,” said Hannie. “It could be anyone.”

  “Though it is possible that the person who took your yo-yo is not on that list,” said Nancy.

  “How could that be?” I took the list back and read it carefully. “That is everyone in the class, except you guys. Do you think it could be one of the other teachers? Or one of the cafeteria workers? Or Ms. Holland herself? Hmm,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe so. Even grown-ups could appreciate how great a yo-yo the Genius is.”

  I wrote down the names of some of the school workers.

  “You guys are a huge help,” I said, popping one last cookie into my mouth. “Thanks to you, I am sure I will find the culprit sooner or later.”

  Ms. Colman Returns

  Hooray! On Monday Ms. Colman was back in school. Our class gave a loud cheer when we saw her. (We love Ms. Colman.)

  But before class started, Ms. Colman asked me to go out into the hallway with her. She wanted to speak to me in private. At last, I thought. A chance to set the record straight.

  “Ms. Holland told me what happened last week,” Ms. Colman said.