The Funny Face Fight

  “Somebody’s trying to ruin Vicki’s campaign,” she said. “And I know who.” She put her hands on her hips and looked right at Bess.

  “George is my cousin and my best friend,” Bess said. “I would never do anything like that to her. Right, George?”

  George didn’t answer. She was busy trying to remove the funny face from her button. She didn’t want to tear the paper.

  Then Lizzie turned to Brenda. Brenda was writing in her reporter’s notebook. She was standing right next to Lizzie.

  “Brenda, I want to talk to you about Bess and her dirty tricks,” Lizzie said. “Meet me after school.”

  Bess was still staring at George. She waited a moment. Then she whirled around and stomped away.

  Nancy started to go after Bess. But just then George got the funny face off. Her button was okay.

  “Can I have the drawing, George?” Nancy asked. George gave it to her.

  Nancy looked at the drawing. It was done on tracing paper. It had a lot of sticky tape on the back. George was lucky she didn’t ruin her button when she peeled the drawing off, Nancy thought.

  “Are you going to find out who did this?” George asked.

  “Maybe,” Nancy answered. “But I have to ask you a question first.” Nancy took a deep breath. “Are you mad at Bess and me?”

  “Well,” George said. She looked at her feet. Then she looked at Nancy. “I was mad at you for choosing Jessie. But not anymore. That wasn’t fair.”

  George looked away from Nancy. “But I’m still mad at Bess,” she said. “I know you’re not going to believe this, but I think Bess—”

  “Nancy? George? Will you take your seats please?” Mrs. Reynolds said from the front of the room.

  George didn’t have time to finish her sentence. She went to her desk.

  What was George going to say? Nancy wondered. Did she really think that Bess was pulling mean tricks on Vicki?

  Nancy walked back to her seat. She looked at the funny face. Yesterday Jason had said George’s button needed a beard and glasses. He even said that their paint fight wasn’t over. Could this be what he meant?

  Nancy decided that Jason was her first suspect in this mystery. Now she needed proof. Whoever made the face had to have tracing paper, she thought. This was a big clue.

  As Nancy passed Jason’s desk, she looked over his shoulder. He had just taken everything out of his backpack. Nancy saw a notebook, a library book, and a pad of yellow paper—but no tracing paper. Maybe he had it at home, Nancy thought.

  Nancy sat down at her desk. She took out her special notebook. It had a shiny blue cover and a pocket on the inside. Nancy’s father had given it to her to help her solve mysteries.

  Nancy put the funny face drawing in the pocket. Then she turned to a new page and wrote, “The Funny Face Mystery.” She drew two lines under the words. Under them she wrote:

  Nancy thought and thought. Then she remembered Brenda talking about an Election Day story for her paper. Could Brenda have done the funny face for her story? She was always doing mean things. Nancy wrote down Brenda’s name.

  Nancy couldn’t think of anyone else. Two suspects and no proof. This was going to be a tough case.

  • • •

  Later, in the lunchroom, Nancy saw George sitting next to Vicki. They were eating and laughing. Lizzie sat across from them.

  Bess and Jessie were at a different table. Bess looked upset. Nancy took her tray and sat down next to her.

  “Why is Lizzie saying all these mean things about me?” Bess asked. “I wouldn’t be mean to Vicki, and I wouldn’t do anything to George’s button.”

  “I know,” Nancy said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “And why is George sitting over there?” Bess continued. “What did we ever do to her?” A few tears rolled down Bess’s cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, Bess,” Jessie said.

  Nancy didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to tell Bess the truth—that George really was mad at Bess, that George thought Bess had taped the funny face onto her button.

  “Well, if George is mad at us, then I’m mad at her, too.” Bess wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “She’s not my cousin anymore either. I never want to see her again!”

  Nancy felt awful. What if her two best friends never talked to each other again? She had to solve this case fast.

  • • •

  After lunch it was time for math. Nancy loved to do math problems. She thought they were just like solving puzzles, kind of like mysteries.

  Nancy glanced over at Bess. Bess was taking everything out of her desk. She was looking for her math book. Then Nancy saw something that made her heart sink. Underneath Bess’s language arts book was a pad of tracing paper.

  Nancy couldn’t believe it. Bess was now her number one suspect.

  4

  A Poster Prank

  I’m going to make a great election poster,” Bess said to Nancy.

  Mrs. Reynolds was giving the class time to finish their buttons. The kids who were finished with their buttons were allowed to make posters.

  Mrs. Reynolds would hang up the posters after school. On Thursday Jessie, Vicki, and Mike would give their speeches.

  Nancy worked on her button. She saw Bess take out a pair of scissors, some glue, markers, a magazine, and the pad of tracing paper Nancy had seen earlier.

  “I’m going to use this picture,” Bess said, cutting it out of the magazine. “It sort of looks like Jessie,” Bess said.

  Nancy looked at the picture. “Wow, it does,” she agreed. But Nancy couldn’t stop thinking of the tracing paper. She had to know why Bess had it.

  “Um, what’s the tracing paper for?” Nancy asked. She tried to sound as if nothing was wrong.

  Bess picked up the pad. “To trace a picture of a rainbow and a butterfly. I’m going to color them and paste them on the girl’s face. It’s supposed to look like face painting. That’s one of Jessie’s ideas for the Fall Festival.”

  Nancy looked at the tracing paper. It looked just like the paper used for the funny face. But Nancy wasn’t sure. She needed to get a closer look.

  “Could I have a sheet of it, too?” she asked Bess.

  “Sure,” Bess said. She ripped out a piece and gave it to Nancy.

  Nancy took the paper. When Bess wasn’t looking, she tucked it into her blue notebook. She would look at it later.

  Bess finished her poster. Nancy finished her button. She had drawn some squares and written:

  The letters were painted in bright colors.

  “Oh, excellent!” Bess said when she saw Nancy’s button. “It’s a crossword!”

  Jessie came over to look, too. “That is so cool,” she said.

  Jason came over and looked at Bess’s poster. He was wearing his button. “Hey, how about painting a bird on her nose?” he said. “A buzzard!”

  “I think Bess’s poster is very artistic,” Jessie said. “Not like what you did.” She stared at Jason’s button. It just said “Mike” in big red letters.

  Jason grinned. “At least people know what my button means.”

  Nancy looked at Bess and Jessie and rolled her eyes. “What does he know?”

  • • •

  The last bell rang. It was time to go home. All the kids went to their cubbies—except for Phoebe Archer and Nancy. Today Mrs. Reynolds said Phoebe could wash the chalkboard. Nancy wanted to look at Bess’s tracing paper.

  She took it out from the pocket of her blue notebook. Then she took out the piece of paper with the funny face on it.

  Nancy studied them both. Bess’s paper was a little lighter. It felt smoother, too. Nancy held it up to the light. She could see the faint words Heron Papers. She knew that was called a watermark.

  On the other paper, Nancy saw the faint letters He and part of the letter w. The watermark must have been cut off, Nancy thought. But that didn’t matter. There was no w in Heron.

  Nancy felt like cheering. The two papers were not t
he same. Bess was innocent after all!

  Now Nancy had to get Bess and George to make up. She ran out to the cubbies.

  “Do you guys want to come over to my house?” Nancy asked them.

  “Sure,” Bess said.

  “I can’t,” George said at the same time. “Vicki and I are doing something.”

  Bess frowned. She squinted her eyes and looked at George. “Another election meeting?” she asked.

  George looked away. “Uh, no,” George said. “We’re just going to kick a soccer ball around. See you tomorrow.”

  Bess was silent on the walk to Nancy’s house. Nancy was disappointed. She had wanted to tell George her news.

  Bess and Nancy were just going inside Nancy’s house when George came running up.

  “Nancy, Bess,” George called. “Can I still come over?”

  “Sure,” Nancy said. “But what about Vicki?”

  “Lizzie came over and asked Vicki to the mall. She said there wasn’t room for me in her mom’s car.”

  “That’s too bad,” Nancy said.

  “That’s okay,” George said. “I didn’t want to go with them anyway. Vicki’s nice, but Lizzie said some really mean things about Bess.” Then she looked at Bess. “I told Lizzie she was wrong.”

  “You did?” Bess said quietly.

  George nodded. “Of course I did, Bess.” George put one arm around Bess. She put the other arm around Nancy. “You and Nancy are my best friends. But, um, Bess?” George said. She stared down at her shoes. “You’re not still mad at me. Are you?”

  “No,” Bess said. “I was only mad at you because you were mad at me.”

  George giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” Bess asked.

  “I was only mad at you,” George said, “because I thought you were mad at me!”

  The three girls laughed. George, Bess, and Nancy squeezed into a huge hug.

  No one was happier than Nancy. She had made a mistake. George didn’t think Bess had taped the funny face to her button after all. Now they were all friends again.

  “Let’s go inside,” Nancy said as she opened the front door and led her friends into the house. Chocolate Chip greeted them with her leash in her mouth.

  Nancy smiled. “I think she’s trying to tell us something.”

  Bess and George called their moms to tell them where they were. Then the girls took Chip out for her walk. They were heading for the park when they saw Jason coming down the street. He was holding a paper bag.

  Jason waved and walked over. Then he bent down to pet Chip. The paper bag he was holding slipped out of his hand. A new package of black construction paper spilled onto the sidewalk.

  “Oops,” Jason said. He gave Chip one last scratch under her chin. Then he picked up the paper and put it back in the bag. “So, have you decided to vote for Mike yet?” he asked the girls.

  “Vote for Mike?” Bess scrunched up her face. “Not in a zillion years!”

  • • •

  The next morning Nancy, Bess, and George met outside school. They couldn’t wait to see all the election posters in their classroom. The day before, Mrs. Reynolds had promised to hang them up after school.

  As the girls walked down the hallway, Nancy could hear some of the kids from their classroom talking.

  When Nancy, Bess, and George walked into the room, it got silent. Then they saw it.

  The poster that Bess had worked so hard on the day before was hanging on the wall. The picture still looked like Jessie. But someone had taken off the rainbow and the butterfly that Bess had traced and colored so carefully.

  Now something else was on the poster. A thin, squiggly black mustache.

  5

  Who Was Where?

  Which one of you ruined my poster?” Bess asked loudly. She walked right over to Vicki and Lizzie. Vicki was sitting at her desk. Lizzie was leaning over Vicki’s desk, talking to her.

  “Bess,” Vicki said. “I didn’t—”

  “She’s crazy!” Lizzie interrupted. “Bess probably did it herself.”

  Nancy and George went over to them. Some other kids gathered around Vicki’s desk, too.

  “Why would she do a thing like that?” Nancy said.

  “To make people feel sorry for Jessie,” Lizzie said. “So they would vote for her.”

  “That’s dumb,” Nancy told her. She looked around at the other kids. “Anyway, I know Bess didn’t do it.”

  “How, Nancy?” Molly asked.

  “Because yesterday we left school together. The poster was all right then. We were together all afternoon.”

  “Maybe she did it this morning,” Jenny said.

  Nancy shook her head. “We got to school at the same time. And that stupid mustache was already there.”

  “It’s not such a bad mustache,” Jason said thoughtfully. “It’s very artistic.”

  Bess’s face got red. “Jason, you—” she started to say.

  Mrs. Reynolds came over. “What’s the matter here?” she asked.

  Several kids laughed and pointed at the mustache on Bess’s poster.

  Mrs. Reynolds frowned. “I don’t think that’s funny,” she said. “In our classroom, we respect one another’s work. Please go to your seats.”

  “May I take down my poster first?” Bess asked. “I want to fix it and put a new rainbow and butterfly on it.”

  “Of course you can, Bess,” Mrs. Reynolds said.

  “I’ll help you,” Nancy said.

  Nancy and Bess stepped closer to the poster. They looked at the mustache. It was made out of black construction paper.

  Bess grabbed Nancy’s arm. “Nancy,” she whispered, “remember Jason bought black construction paper yesterday?”

  Nancy nodded as she took down Bess’s poster. “Let’s watch him.”

  Nancy and Bess took their seats.

  It was time for the three candidates to make their speeches. Mrs. Reynolds wrote their names on slips of paper. She shook them in a bag, then pulled one out.

  Jessie Shapiro was first. She stood up and walked to the front of the room. Nancy thought she looked a little nervous.

  “I think we ought to go on lots of class trips—like to Water World,” she said. “And for Fall Festival we should do really cool face painting. We could have fun and make money for charity, too. That’s all.”

  Lots of kids clapped. Bess nudged Nancy. “All right!” she whispered.

  Vicki was next. She had her stack of index cards in her hand. “I want team sports during recess. Right now all we do is run around,” she said. “And on field trips, we could go watch the Tigers play soccer. Everybody cheering for us would help us win more games.”

  Vicki glanced down at her cards. Some of them slipped out of her hand. Vicki’s face turned red. She bent down and picked them up.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, straightening up. “Fall Festival. I’d like a booth where people toss balls at targets. That’s fun.”

  Vicki sat down. People clapped for her, too.

  It was Mike’s turn. He ran to the front of the room chanting, “Down with macaroni! Down with macaroni!” When he reached the chalkboard, he stuck both hands up in the air and added, “And cheese!”

  Everybody laughed. When they quieted down, he said, “I want to change our class pet to a frog. Or maybe a snake. A big one. We could take turns feeding it mice.”

  “Yuck!” someone shouted. “Gross!”

  Mike’s grin widened. “And for Fall Festival we could sell lemonade—with lots of hot sauce in it. People would have to pay extra for water. We’d make a fortune.”

  Jason jumped up and called out, “Boo! Sit down!”

  Mike looked confused. “But, Jason, you’re on my side,” he said.

  Jason grinned. “Sure I am. But if you keep talking, nobody will vote for you!”

  Mike sat down. Everybody cheered.

  After the speeches, the class headed outside for gym class. On the way, Nancy thought about the case. She was pretty sure Jaso
n had done the funny faces. But she knew that anyone could have construction paper. There was even some in the art room. What she needed was a witness.

  Nancy saw Phoebe Archer walking ahead of her. Maybe she saw someone, Nancy thought.

  “Phoebe,” Nancy called. She ran to catch up to her. “You stayed after school yesterday to clean the chalkboard, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” Phoebe said.

  “Did anyone else come back into the room?” Nancy asked.

  Phoebe thought for a minute. “Um—only Brenda. She came in when Mrs. Reynolds and I were leaving. She said she forgot something. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Nancy said. “Did you notice Bess’s poster?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Reynolds hung it up,” Phoebe said. “And it didn’t have a mustache when I left.”

  Hmmm, Nancy thought. Brenda was in the classroom alone. Maybe Jason didn’t do it. Brenda could have done it, too.

  The gym teacher chose Molly and Peter to be team captains for kickball. Molly picked Jessie to be on her team. Peter picked Mike. Then Molly chose Nancy.

  Nancy walked over to where Jessie was standing while Molly and Peter finished choosing their teams.

  “I hope you solve the mystery soon, Nancy,” Jessie said. “Some of the kids are saying they won’t vote for me. They think Bess ruined her own poster to help me win.”

  “Maybe you can help me,” Nancy told her. “Was that mustache on Bess’s poster when you got to class this morning?”

  Jessie nodded. “I left it there because I wanted you to see it—for evidence.”

  “That was smart, Jessie,” Nancy said. “Was anyone else in the room?”

  “Jason, Lizzie, and Peter were there before me. Does that help?”

  Nancy smiled. “I think so.”

  Only three kids had been in the classroom before Jessie. And one of them was one of her suspects—Jason. Nancy wanted to talk to him. And she was in luck. Molly had chosen Jason for their team.

  Jason was with three other boys. They were practicing kicking a ball as hard as they could. Nancy waited until they stopped. Then she went over to Jason.