Karen's School Mystery

  At first we did not see much. But we learned the girls’ names. They were Kathy Crawford and Nicole Seegal. Linny Papadakis knew them. (He sounded as if he did not like them very much.)

  Then one afternoon, just as patrol duty was about to end, Addie came flying around a corner in her wheelchair. “Karen! Karen!” she cried. “Kathy and Nicole just snuck into another classroom. Come back there with me now. We can catch them in the act!”

  I looked up and down the halls. They were just about empty. Most of the kids had left school already. “Well … okay,” I said.

  “Hurry up!” Addie whipped back around the corner. She can go fast in that chair.

  I ran after her.

  Addie came to a sudden stop outside of a third-grade room. I crashed into the back of her chair.

  “Shhh!” hissed Addie.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But you should warn me when you are going to stop.”

  Addie waved her hand at me to be quiet. Then she pointed into the room. I peeked inside. I saw Kathy and Nicole. They were pawing through the desks in the classroom.

  I glanced at Addie. She glanced at me. Then we looked into the room again. And we both saw Nicole reach into some kid’s desk, pull out a quarter, and slip it into her pocket.

  I sprang into the room.

  “Gotcha!” I cried.

  I had caught the thieves.

  Kathy and Nicole looked up in surprise. Addie wheeled into the classroom behind me. “We know who you are,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah? Who are we?” replied Nicole. She narrowed her eyes.

  “You are Nicole Seegal and Kathy Crawford. You have been stealing stuff from kids’ desks and cubbies. The teachers are going to be really glad we found out who you are. You are the Stoneybrook Academy crooks.”

  “Want to make something of it?” said Nicole.

  “We can beat you up,” added Kathy.

  “Oh, yeah?” replied Addie. But she looked scared.

  “Anyway, you do not have any proof that we took things,” said Kathy.

  “That’s right,” said Nicole. “If you told the teachers about us, we would just say we did not take anything. We would say you made a mistake. That someone else is the thief. It would be your word against ours.”

  “Besides,” Kathy went on, “if you do say anything, Mrs. Noonan will know you were spying instead of doing your jobs. Won’t she? Nicole and I heard all about that. And if she thinks you were spying she will take away your badges.”

  “So you better keep your mouths shut,” said Nicole.

  “Okay,” said Addie and I in small voices.

  The 2AT

  When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I rolled over and groaned. I did not want to go to school. This was not because of Nicole and Kathy. It was because of the 2AT. We were going to begin the test that day.

  “Mommy? I do not feel very well,” I said when I sat down to breakfast.

  Mommy was busy fixing coffee. She did not even turn around. “I know about the 2AT, Karen,” she replied.

  “Oh.” I poked at my toast. “So I guess I have to go to school.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Boo and bullfrogs,” I replied.

  * * *

  Ms. Colman passed around the test papers as soon as she had taken roll. “The first part of the test is vocabulary,” she said. “And reading comprehension. It is not very different from the exercises in your workbooks. So listen closely to my directions, and then you may begin. Remember to keep your eyes on your own paper.” (Ms. Colman glanced at me then.) “And just raise your hand if you are having trouble. I will come to your desk and answer your question.”

  A few minutes later, Ms. Colman said, “Three, two, one, go.” And the test began. I read each question carefully. I read the fill-in-the-blank sentences carefully. I thought before I wrote down any answers. You know what? The butterflies in my tummy went away. The test was not too bad after all. I did not even think about looking at Ricky’s paper. I was doing fine by myself. Even Ms. Colman thought so. She smiled at me when she collected our test papers.

  My classmates and I were very glad when lunchtime came. We hurried to the cafeteria. We needed a break. We ate our lunches. Then we ran onto the playground. Hannie and Nancy and I played hopscotch. We had a lot of energy to get rid of.

  When recess was over, we returned to our classroom. We had been there for about one second when I heard Tammy scream.

  “Aughh! My Troll is gone!” she cried. “My brand new Troll.” Tammy looked as if she were going to cry.

  “Are you sure it is gone?” asked Terri.

  Tammy nodded. “It was right here in my desk before lunch.”

  Ms. Colman shook her head. “Not again,” she said.

  “You should not leave things in your desk anymore,” spoke up Natalie. “It is not safe.”

  “I guess not,” replied Tammy. She sniffled.

  I glanced at Ms. Colman. She had turned to the blackboard. Her back was facing us. She had not told us to sit down yet.

  “Addie,” I whispered. “We have to talk.”

  Addie and I moved to a corner of the room.

  “You know who took Tammy’s Troll, don’t you?” I said.

  “Yup. Nicole and Kathy.”

  I nodded. “I bet they sneak into empty classrooms any time they feel like it. Not just after school, but when kids are at lunch or recess, too. They probably say they have to go to the girls’ room. Then they look for empty classrooms instead.”

  “They are so sneaky,” said Addie.

  “I wonder how long they will do this,” I went on. “They could do it forever. None of our stuff would be safe. The teachers are not very good at catching them.”

  “But what can we do?” asked Addie.

  “Tell Mrs. Noonan?” I suggested.

  “But then we will lose our badges.”

  I sighed. “Okay. I guess we have to keep quiet.”

  Watch Out!

  The next day was the second day of the 2AT. I felt just a little nervous at first. Then I relaxed. This time, we had to read paragraphs and stories, then answer questions about them. I am pretty good at that. I decided I would not even worry about the last day of the 2AT, even though the last day was going to be math day.

  You will never guess what happened when my classmates and I returned to our room after recess that afternoon. Pamela shrieked, “Oh, no! Someone stole my money! I had a whole dollar.”

  “Pamela, did you leave money in your desk?” asked Ms. Colman.

  “We-ell …” Pamela sounded as if she felt a little foolish.

  “That was not very smart,” said Natalie.

  “Unfortunately, we all need to be a bit more careful right now,” added Ms. Colman.

  Pamela stuck her tongue out at Natalie. Then she turned to Leslie and Jannie. “Darn. I was going to buy a comic book.”

  Once again I grabbed Addie.

  “This is not fair,” I whispered loudly to her. “You know I do not like Pamela very much. But still — we should be able to leave things in our desks. We should not have to worry.”

  “I know,” replied Addie. She looked at me warily. “Karen, what are you going to do?” she asked. “I can tell you are going to do something.”

  “I am going to talk to Kathy and Nicole, that’s what. I will talk to them after school today. I am going to say that I will tell the teachers I know who the crooks are. Enough is enough.”

  That afternoon while Addie and I were on patrol duty, I watched for Kathy and Nicole. When I saw them, I said to Addie, “Okay, you are in charge. I will be right back.”

  Kathy and Nicole were leaving their classroom. I marched up to them. “Halt,” I said sternly.

  “Make us,” replied Kathy.

  I pointed to my badge. “I am a patrol.”

  Kathy and Nicole halted. “What do you want?” asked Nicole.

  “I want to talk to you. In private.”

  The girls rolled their eyes. Kathy let out an enor
mous sigh. “Oh, all right,” she said. “Let’s go back to our room. No one is in there now.” She spun around.

  Nicole and I followed her. The three of us stood just inside the doorway. “So talk,” said Nicole.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, all right. Yesterday someone stole a Troll out of Tammy Barkan’s desk. And today someone stole a dollar out of Pamela Harding’s desk.”

  “So?” said Kathy.

  “So I think you did it.”

  “Did you see us?” asked Nicole.

  “Can you prove it?” asked Kathy.

  I squirmed. “No…. But I know you did it anyway. I am going to tell the teachers.”

  “We will say we did not do it,” said Kathy.

  “And I have a suggestion for you,” added Nicole.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “How about if you leave us alone?”

  “But — ” I started to say.

  “Or we will beat you up,” Nicole went on. “Understand? The two of us. We will beat you up. So do not open your mouth.”

  I looked at the girls. They were bigger than me. They were taller than me. They were tougher than me. “Okay,” I replied. I backed out of the classroom.

  Nancy’s Mistake

  Friday.

  I was happy when I woke up on Friday morning. I was looking forward to the weekend. Mommy and Seth were going out on Saturday night, and Kristy was going to baby-sit for Andrew and me. On Sunday, Hannie and Nancy and I were planning to roller-skate.

  Another good thing about Friday was that it was the last day of the 2AT. I was not even nervous about it anymore.

  Nancy was even more excited about Friday than I was. In the morning she ran out of her house with a big smile on her face.

  “Notice anything new?” she asked me.

  “Not your hair,” I said. Nancy’s haircut was a week and a half old.

  “Oh, no. Much newer than that.”

  I looked at Nancy from the top of her head all the way down to … her feet. “New shoes!” I exclaimed. “You got new shoes!”

  “And I picked them out myself. Mommy did not see them first and say ‘How do you like these, Nancy?’ I saw them and said, ‘How do you like these, Mommy?’ And she said, ‘They are fine.’ So we bought them.”

  Nancy’s new shoes were very cool and very grown-up.

  We walked toward the bus stop. Nancy was still smiling.

  “Now what?” I asked her.

  “Notice anything else?”

  Something else? I looked at Nancy again. This time I could not see another new thing. “Well, no,” I had to say.

  Nancy held out her hand. On her thumb was her great-grandmother’s ring. “Awesome! Your parents let you wear it to school?” I exclaimed.

  “Yup. They said they trust me. They said I really am growing up.”

  This was very important news.

  And Nancy certainly felt important. She showed her ring and her new shoes to everybody at school that morning.

  When lunchtime came, I let out a yelp. The 2AT was over! I had finished it, and it had not scared me, and I had not copied. My classmates and I rushed through lunch so we could play outside. On the playground, Nancy and Hannie and I built a snowman. We invented a game called Slush Race. We were out of breath when we returned to our classroom.

  Hannie and Nancy headed for their desks in the back of the room. I sat down at my desk in the front of the room.

  “Oh, no!” I heard someone cry.

  I turned around. It was Nancy.

  “What’s wrong?” Hannie was asking her.

  “My ring! My ring is gone!”

  I ran to my friends. “Your ring? How did you lose it?” I asked.

  Nancy shook her head. “I didn’t lose it. Exactly. I left it right here in my desk. I took it off before we went to the cafeteria, because I was afraid I would lose it on the playground when we were running around. I was trying to be responsible.” Nancy began to cry.

  I did not say to Nancy, “But you know someone has been stealing stuff out of desks.” I could see that Nancy felt bad enough already. Instead, I told Nancy to tell Ms. Colman. Then I found Addie. “We have to talk,” I said to her. “We have to do something about Kathy and Nicole. They stole Nancy’s ring. We have to find a way to make the teachers believe us.”

  “Okay,” Addie replied. “How about — ”

  But just then Mrs. Colman stood up from her desk. She clapped her hands. “Back to your seats, girls and boys,” she said.

  “Darn it,” said Addie.

  “I will talk to you when we have our break,” I whispered to Addie. Then I scurried to my desk.

  The Sneaky Plan

  Addie and I had a lot to do on our break. We needed to make an important plan, and we did not have much time. As soon as our break began, I ran to Addie. She scooted into a corner, and we talked there.

  “We have to catch them,” I said to Addie. “We have to catch Kathy and Nicole. And we have to do it today.”

  “Why do we have to do it today?” asked Addie.

  “Because we cannot let them keep stealing things anymore. Nancy is going to be in big trouble over her ring. And she did not do a thing wrong. Nicole and Kathy are the ones who should be in trouble.”

  “But if we catch them, Mrs. Noonan will know we were spying. She will know we were not doing our jobs. We will lose our badges.”

  I sighed. “I know. But … but maybe that is not as important as stopping the crooks.” I turned toward the back of the classroom. I looked at Nancy. She was sitting at her desk crying.

  Addie looked back at her, too. “I guess you are right,” she said.

  “The hard part,” I went on, “is that we have to have proof that Kathy and Nicole are stealing. How will we get proof?”

  “What if a teacher saw them stealing?” suggested Addie.

  “Hey! That is a great idea!” I cried. I thought for a moment. Then I said slowly, “What if Kathy and Nicole thought they would find something great somewhere — like here in our classroom?” I paused. I was thinking of a very good plan. Addie looked at me impatiently. Finally, I said, “Okay, how about this? How about if we let Kathy and Nicole think that Bobby or someone is keeping a Walkman in his desk. We can have a really loud conversation about it so they will be sure to hear us. Then we will say that Ms. Colman will leave school at three-thirty this afternoon. So Kathy and Nicole will be sure to sneak into our room right after Ms. Colman leaves.”

  “But if Ms. Colman leaves, how will she catch them?”

  “Okay. You and I will be waiting for Ms. Colman outside the front door. We will tell her to go back to our room. When she does, she will find Kathy and Nicole looking through our desks.”

  Addie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, cool! I get it!” she said. “That is a super plan, Karen. There is just one problem. If we stay after school until three-thirty, we will miss our buses.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Let me see. All right, I will ask Nancy to tell my mom I went home with you on your bus. Then Mommy will not worry. At least not too much. And Addie, you tell — ”

  “Wait,” Addie interrupted me. “I cannot say I am going home on your bus. My wheelchair could not go on your bus. That is why I ride the special bus. It is just for kids in wheelchairs.”

  Now that was a problem. But after a few moments, Addie said, “I know. My mom will not be home this afternoon until my bus drops me off. So while we are on patrol duty, I will call my house. I will leave a message on the answering machine saying we have a special Red Brigade meeting this afternoon, and I have to stay for it. I will ask my mom to pick me up at school at four o’clock. Then she will not worry, either.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Now we have to make sure we see Kathy and Nicole while we are on duty. And they believe our story.”

  “Boy, I hope our plan works,” said Addie.

  “Me too. But what could go wrong?”

  “Everything,” replied Addie.

  Trouble

  Right off
the bat, things did not go the way we had planned.

  I said to Nancy, “Addie and I have thought of a way to catch the crooks. But we will have to stay after school to do it. We will have to miss our buses. I do not want Mommy to worry when I do not get off the bus. So can you please tell her I went home with Addie?”

  Nancy looked uncomfortable. “That would be lying,” she said.

  “But I am trying to catch the crooks.”

  “But I am trying to be more grown-up. I do not think I should lie.”

  “Please, Nancy? Just this once. It is not a huge lie.”

  “Maybe,” said Nancy.

  I would have to live with that. I could not worry about what Nancy was going to do. I had too many other things to think about.

  As soon as Addie and I left our classroom for patrol duty, Addie wheeled herself to the pay phone in the hallway. She called her house and left the message for her mother. Then she told one of the other kids who rides her bus to tell the driver not to wait for her.

  “Great,” I said. “That was Part One of our plan. Now for Part Two.”

  Part Two was to find Nicole and Kathy and let them know that a Walkman was in Bobby Gianelli’s desk. (This was not true, but it didn’t matter. We just wanted to make sure Kathy and Nicole would have a reason to root through the desks in our classroom.)

  Addie kept her eye out for the thieves. She spotted them just as patrol duty was ending. We hurried to the classroom they had snuck into. We stopped just outside the door. Then I said to Addie in a very loud voice, “Can you believe Bobby brought his new Walkman to school?”

  “No. That was so silly,” Addie replied, just as loudly. “It will be stolen for sure.”

  “He left it right in his desk!” I added. “Over the weekend.”

  “Well, at least it will be safe until three-thirty.”

  “Yeah. Ms. Colman has to stay until three-thirty to grade the 2AT tests. But then she has to leave.”

  “Well, come on,” said Addie. “We better go or we will miss our buses.”