“Tanner, this is Margaret and Florian,” Tori said, introducing us. “Margaret is an absolutely amazing soccer player, and Florian . . .”
She paused, unsure what to say about me, and Tanner happily filled in the gap.
“Follows Lucy Loser around like a puppy,” he sneered. “You training to be the new White House dog?”
“Tanner?” she scolded, although her expression indicated she thought it was funny. “They’re guests.”
“I didn’t invite them. Besides, he can take a joke.” He turned to me. “You can take a joke, can’t you?”
I’ll be honest. At this point, I officially hated him. He was just a bully. But I worried Margaret was going to get in his face and I didn’t want that. We were undercover and didn’t need to attract any extra attention.
“Sure,” I said as I tried to force a laugh. “I always like a good joke.”
Over the next ten minutes, I quietly studied the group at the table. I would’ve been hard-pressed to believe that Mallory, Lauren, or Gunther was a criminal mastermind, although if Victoria was one I had no doubt they’d do whatever she told them.
If she was the queen of the middle school, then Tanner was definitely the king. He was good-looking, was bigger than most kids our age, and had perfectly shaggy hair. I noticed cuts on the knuckles of his left hand and wondered if he’d gotten them by pounding undersized seventh graders such as me.
He obviously hated Lucy, always referring to her by the oh-so-clever “Lucy Loser” nickname. Mostly he talked about lacrosse. There was nothing particularly interesting during the conversation until Victoria asked, “You ready for the algebra test?”
“What algebra test?”
“Next period. We have a unit exam.”
“No we don’t.” He checked his phone. “Ms. Curtis always sends a reminder on Chat Chat.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. Unfortunately I laughed loud enough for him to hear.
“What’s so funny?” he said, his anger suddenly focused on me.
“Chat Chat’s closed down because of the e-mail hack,” I said. “I know that and I don’t even go here.”
Now he was mad and embarrassed.
“He’s right,” said Tori. “It’s been closed down for days. We have a test in twenty-five minutes.”
Mr. Cool suddenly looked panic-stricken. “I can’t bomb a test,” he said. “I’m already on academic probation. If my grades drop I won’t be able to play lacrosse.”
Apparently this was devastating news because Lauren and Mallory both gasped audibly. It may have been impolite, but I just happily chomped away on my pizza while he had his panic attack. He glared at me like he wanted to say something, but he had a more pressing issue on his hands. He had virtually no time to study for a test he needed to pass. He got up and hurried out of the cafeteria without saying anything else.
There were a few more comments about how terrible it would be if he couldn’t play lacrosse, as if his playing were a gift to humanity, but soon the conversation returned to convincing Margaret to transfer schools. (No surprise that no one tried to convince me to do likewise.)
I scanned the cafeteria, looking for anyone or anything noteworthy as I finished my pizza. When I was done, I got up to leave.
“Where are you going?” asked Margaret.
“I think I’m going to go look for some TOAST,” I said with a sly smile.
“That sounds really interesting,” mocked Victoria, happy to see me go.
“Wait up,” said Margaret.
The others were stunned. They couldn’t believe she would pick me over them. “But we were going to tell you some more about Chatham,” Victoria whined.
“You can tell me some other time,” Margaret said as she stood and followed me toward the patio.
She waited until we were far enough away so that they couldn’t hear us before asking, “Are we really looking for TOAST? Or were you just doing that to mess with them?”
“Can’t it be both?”
We laughed and once again I was reminded how lucky I was to have Margaret as my best friend. We got library passes from a teacher on cafeteria duty and headed for the main academic building.
“Why are we going to the library?”
“I want to see if we can find the five lockers that were ruined,” I replied. “Dr. Putney said they were in the hall near there.”
“I know exactly where they are,” she said. “Tori told me all about it.”
Margaret led me to a bank of yellow lockers stacked two high. We could tell which ones had been superglued because they had new silver latches that were brighter than the others. None of the five had locks.
“Tori said they had to drill the doors to get out their stuff, and all the girls were given new lockers down in the ninth-grade hall.”
“Do you know whose locker was whose?” I asked.
“No,” she answered. “But I do know that Tori and Lucy picked ones that were side by side, so these must be them.”
She pointed at the only pair of adjoining lockers with new handles. There was no lock on either so I opened them to look inside. Both were empty.
“They’ve been fixed,” I said. “So why haven’t the girls moved back?”
“Because they don’t want to,” she answered. “Their new lockers are twice the size. Besides, they think it’s cool to be in with the older kids.”
“Any idea if the other girls who were affected are friends with Lucy and Victoria?”
“Actually, I don’t think the two of them are really friends with each other. You heard how many times Tanner called her Lucy Loser and Tori never defended her.”
“But you just said they picked out lockers side by side,” I reminded her. “Doesn’t that mean they’re friends?”
“I think they want to appear to be friends,” she said. “But I get the feeling that they’re very competitive with each other. Tori mentions her all the time. She’s obsessed. She always says positive things, but her voice is loaded with snark. They’re probably more like frenemies.”
“What are frenemies?”
“You know, friends and enemies at the same time?” she said. “Haven’t you heard that term before?”
“No. It doesn’t make any sense. You’re either friends or you’re enemies. You can’t be both.”
She shook her head. “You’re such a boy. Girls are far more complex than that. Lucy and Tori are the two most important girls in the seventh grade, so they have to have some sort of relationship. They’re like global superpowers, but on a middle school level. They work together but they’re competitive. Friends. Enemies. Frenemies.”
“Okay, sometimes you and I are competitive,” I said, thinking about the intensity of our board games. “Does that mean we’re frenemies?”
“No way!” she exclaimed. “We’re besties. That’s completely different.”
I considered this for a moment. “How is it possible that I can speak three languages yet barely comprehend the vocabulary of girls?”
“It’s a mystery, but luckily you’ve got me to help figure things out.”
Something inside the left locker caught my attention. “What’s this?” I pointed to a spot on the back of it where three stripes had been painted. Each was about four inches long. There were two purple stripes with a green stripe in the middle. Underneath that was written “How How.”
“I don’t know,” said Margaret. “Decoration of some sort?”
“Seems like an odd way to decorate your locker,” I said. “Normally you’d put up pictures or something. And ‘How How’? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I feel like I saw those colors somewhere else today,” she said.
I looked at them for a moment and replied, “So do I.”
We thought about it but couldn’t remember where.
“So do we have any suspects?” she asked.
“I don’t know, how does Victoria look? Could she be the one?”
“Why would she bother?” answered Margaret. ??
?She practically owns the school. She’s got minions waiting on her hand and foot. Why mess with that? I can’t imagine what she’d gain by being Loki. Besides, why would she damage her own locker? She couldn’t know that she’d get a better one as a result.”
“Classic misdirection,” I reasoned. “Make yourself a victim and no one suspects you. It’s the perfect cover.”
“So maybe that’s what Lucy did,” she suggested. “You followed her most of the day. Any signs that she’s Loki?”
“None,” I replied. “Like I said, she’s just quiet.”
“There wasn’t anything even the slightest bit suspicious?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it suspicious,” I said reluctantly.
“Aha,” said Margaret. “You’ve been holding out a piece of TOAST.”
“I wasn’t holding out,” I said. “I just noticed something over by the library that didn’t seem important but might be worth looking into.”
“What is it?” asked Margaret.
“Lucy was always in a hurry,” I explained. “She never stopped in the hall. She never went to her locker. And she always made it to class well before the bell rang.”
“Okay, so she’s punctual,” said Margaret.
“Exactly,” I said. “But on three separate occasions she made a point of walking past the library even though it wasn’t the most direct path.”
Margaret seemed underwhelmed by this observation.
“You know, Florian, not everyone shares your obsession with shortcuts and route efficiency.”
We reached the library entrance and I studied it.
“You’re right,” I said. “But I think she does. So why did she make a point of coming this way? What was she looking for? She never stopped. She just walked along here and kept her eyes focused to the left.”
Margaret tried to run with the idea. “So it could be something on this bulletin board. She could have been looking through the window into the library. Or maybe it has to do with the trophy case.”
The bulletin board featured flyers for upcoming school events. There were notices about the science fair, auditions for a school musical, and an upcoming field trip to the Kennedy Center. But nothing looked even the slightest bit out of place or interesting.
“How ridiculous is this?” Margaret said. “Everything’s perfect. Even the flyers on the bulletin board are completely straight. It’s not a school; it’s a movie set.”
“The trophy case is worse,” I said. “I think they’ve won every championship in the history of Washington.”
We looked at it and shook our heads. There were cups, plaques, awards, and ribbons for all sports from football to cross country to volleyball. Margaret zeroed in on one in particular.
“This is for last year’s district soccer tournament,” she said with a sour face. “We lost in the semis to Sidwell Friends.”
“How long did it take you to get over that?” I asked.
She gave me a raised eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m over it?”
I looked down at the trophies. Not only were there tons of them but each one was perfectly aligned and shiny like new. Which is why I noticed the smear. It was tiny, but it was real.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing at it.
“OMG, is there dirt on the trophy case?” she said with an exaggerated voice. “How did the maids miss it?”
“You’re joking, but you’re right. Everything else is spotless. And then there’s this.” I tapped the substance with the tip of my finger. “It’s sticky.”
“Okay, eeewwww,” said Margaret.
I scraped some off and sniffed it.
“If you taste that I’m going to have to get a new bestie.”
I jokingly moved it toward my mouth and then smiled. “I’m crazy but I’m not that crazy.”
Before we could examine it any further, our sleuthing came to a sudden stop. The sound of a bell echoed through the hallway. At first I thought it was end of the class period, but then I realized it was something different.
Somebody had pulled the fire alarm.
7.
Just Like Magic
THE FIRE ALARM WAS STILL ringing as we assembled alongside the soccer field a safe distance from the school. While most students congregated in little groups or checked their phones, Margaret stood practically mesmerized by the dark green turf with the Chatham Cougars logo in the center.
“It’s a nice pitch, isn’t it?” I asked.
“The nicest,” she replied, her eyes glued to the field. “I played on it once before. It’s a special blend of recycled plastic that always feels like freshly cut grass. Even in the middle of winter. It holds firm when you make a cut, but doesn’t scratch up your leg when you slide. It’s pretty much perfect.”
I gave her an uneasy look and asked, “Should I be worried that you’re actually tempted to transfer here?”
“Never,” she said defiantly. “I’m a Deal Viking and in high school I’ll be a Wilson Tiger. Just like you.”
“Are you sure about that? You could join Queen Victoria and become Chatham royalty.”
“You know how I roll,” she said. “It’s always loyalty before royalty.”
I laughed because it was funny but also because it was true. It was something Victoria could never understand. In her world, whatever was most expensive was best and people were valuable only because of what they could do for her. But Margaret was the exact opposite. Her sense of loyalty was absolute, which is why I felt so bad moments later when the fire truck pulled into the parking lot.
“Check it out,” she said, excited as she read the number off the side. “Engine Four.”
Margaret’s loyalty extended to the DC Fire Department, especially Engine House 4. As a newborn she’d been abandoned at the firehouse, and the six firefighters on duty watched over her through the night. She thought of them as her long-lost uncles, and even though only one of them was still there, whenever she saw their truck, or any fire truck for that matter, she always felt a connection.
She also felt a bit empty.
“As soon as we’re done with this case, we’ve got to follow up some more,” she said. “We’ve got to keep looking.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to force a smile. “Definitely.”
And that’s why I felt bad. She wanted to keep looking for her birth parents, and what I could never tell her was that I had already found them. Or at least her father. He was a notorious criminal known as Nic the Knife. She’d been left in order to protect her from that life, and when I came face-to-face with him, he warned me that if she knew the truth it would endanger her.
So rather than a loyal friend, I felt like a conspirator.
“Tom Munson’s out there somewhere,” she said. “I know we can find him.”
Tom Munson was the one firefighter from that night who we hadn’t been able to track down. He also was the one who’d answered the door and taken the baby. She thought that if we could locate him, she could get some answers.
“Of course we can,” I said, trying to sound like I believed it.
She smiled and I felt like the world’s worst friend. There was an awkward silence as I tried to figure out what to say next when we saw a black SUV with heavily tinted windows race along the driveway on the opposite side of the field. The vehicle was definitely government issued and very much in a hurry to get off campus.
“Check it out,” Margaret said as it passed the security gate and zipped out onto the street. “Think it’s the Secret Service taking your girl somewhere?”
“First of all, she’s not my girl,” I said. “But I doubt it’s her. She told me she was going to meet me before algebra. Why would she say that if she was going to leave?”
“Maybe she didn’t plan to leave,” said Margaret. “Maybe it’s an emergency exit. We can add that to the green and purple stripes and the sticky goo on the trophy case.”
“Not a lot of clues to go on,” I admitted.
“So what about the
fire alarm?” she asked, turning back to the school. “You think it’s Loki’s handiwork?”
“Loki or maybe . . . Tanner?”
She gave me a look. “Why do you say that?”
“He looked pretty worried about taking that algebra test next period.”
“You really think he’d pull a fire alarm just to get out of taking a test?”
“I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility,” I said. “But I admit that I might be prejudiced due to my total distaste for bullies.”
She paused for a moment before she said, “You know I was more than happy to jump in there and put him in his place.”
“I know,” I replied. “And I appreciate it. But you can’t always come to my rescue.”
“True,” she said. “But if you want to stand up for yourself, you’re going to have to actually stand up for yourself. Don’t let guys like that push you around. You’re Florian Bates, secret consultant to the FBI—that’s way cooler than anything he’s ever done.”
“Yeah, but like you said, it’s secret,” I replied. “Nobody knows about it.”
“I know about it, and more important, you know about it,” she said. “Nobody else matters.”
It may have seemed cut-and-dried for Margaret, but I’ve always struggled with bullies. I think it’s because on a basic level I don’t understand them. The clues I see and the mysteries I solve all involve me identifying logical patterns. But people being mean to other people just because they can get away with it doesn’t seem logical at all.
We heard the crackle of voices come over a walkie-talkie that belonged to a nearby assistant principal, so we snaked our way through the social clumps until we were close enough to eavesdrop.
“Have we identified where it was pulled?” asked a voice that sounded like Dr. Putney.
“Performing arts center,” came the reply. “Rear hallway.”
Margaret gave me a look and whispered, “Isn’t that where Lucy went?”
“It’s also near the cafeteria, so it would’ve been easy for Tanner to get there too.”
A minute later we saw Putney walking toward the performing arts center with one of the firefighters. Not long after that, the alarm finally stopped ringing and a call came over the walkie-talkie that everything was clear.