Then Mara snatched up the cheese from the floor. She studied it through her big green glasses. “This cheese has marks on it,” she mouthed. “Not teeth marks. These marks were made by … a cheese grater. It all makes sense!”
“Yes!” said Brian. “Wait. It does? How?”
“Don’t you get it?” Mara mouthed. “It’s what’s on Kelly’s torn paper. HEES GRATE. Add a C , an E , and an R , and you get CHEESE GRATER .”
“Brilliant!” I said.
Kelly pointed at the desk. “The big orange book is gone. The thieves stole that, too!”
“Also brilliant,” Mara mouthed.
“Mara,” said Brian, “you can say your words out loud now. The thieves are gone.”
“But this is so much fun!” she mouthed.
Kicking the Bucket
When we left Principal Higgins’s office, the hall outside was empty and wetter than ever.
“Brian, your leak has spread,” said Kelly.
“When did it become my leak?” he asked.
“When you broke the faucet,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “Did I say it was dark in that closet?”
All of a sudden, footsteps splashed down the hall behind us. We heard heavy breathing.
“They’re after us!” cried Mara. “Run!”
Kelly and Mara went flying down one hall. Brian and I raced down another hall. The footsteps followed us. They were getting closer, closer. Then our pursuer cried out.
“Goof!”
We looked around. “It’s Sparky!” I said.
But we weren’t watching where we were going. A dry patch sent Brian and me skidding right through the doors of the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium. And into a bucket of golf balls.
CRASH!
We hit the floor like a couple of sandbags.
“It worked!” said Brian. “My trap worked!”
“It wasn’t supposed to work on us,” I said.
Then Sparky leaped out of the darkness.
I heard something rip, and he raced away.
Brian jumped up and glanced down. “My pants are gone again. Will you look at that?”
“I don’t want to,” I said. “Let’s hurry and find a locker room to get you a new pair.”
Brian nodded. “That’s always been my plan.”
We made our way quickly to the first locker room we passed. Brian dashed in, and I paced the hall. I thought and thought, trying to solve the mystery, but Brian distracted me.
He came out of the locker room wearing a pink T-shirt around his middle, with his legs poking out of the sleeves.
“That looks like a diaper,” I said.
Brian tied the climbing rope around his waist. “I prefer to think of them as T-pants.”
“They’re not even your size,” I said. “I don’t care for the color, either,” he said.
Then I saw the sign over the door. “That’s because you went into the girls’ locker room.”
Brian frowned. “That explains so much.”
Three minutes later, we found the girls. They were completely soaked with water.
“We stopped the leak,” said Kelly. Then she gasped. “Brian, are you wearing a diaper?”
Mara stared through her big green glasses. “That’s my diaper! I mean, my T-shirt!”
Brian hung his head. “You want it back?”
“No, thank you!” said Mara.
“Listen, Goofballs,” I said.
“Remember what the grandpa said? The last piece of the puzzle. What if we have all the pieces, but they aren’t fitting together? Why a cheese grater? What was in the orange book? To solve this mystery, we need to add up our clues.”
“Please, no math,” Brian said. “I’m upset.”
“Because you have no pants?” asked Kelly.
“Because we’re not solving this mystery,” Brian said. “Because time is running out. Because we’re detectives, but we have no thief, no statue, no solution, no pants, no nothing. We need to solve this!”
Which proved to me that Brian was a Goofball through and through. So I quickly reread my cluebook, and two clues popped out.
Student leaving school early
Mrs. Bookman brings a book
My brain turned over like a kid who can’t sleep the night before a big test. Then it came to me. “I need to use the phone. Come on!”
We made our way quickly to the school phone. I dialed a number I knew by heart.
“Hello,” said a voice at the other end. “Children’s library, Mrs. Bookman speaking.”
“Jeff Bunter here,” I said. “The Goofballs are on a case, and we need your help.”
“How exciting,” she said. “Ask away!”
“You delivered a book to Principal Higgins this afternoon. Can you tell me what it was?”
“I can, and it’s not a library book but one of my own,” Mrs. Bookman said. “It’s called The History of Badger Point School.”
My heart pounded. “And did you happen to see a student asking to leave early?”
“I did!” Mrs. Bookman said. She told me the student’s name, then I thanked her and hung up.
“It’s time to unite the Goofball team,” I said. “Cover your ears.” They did, and at the top of my lungs, I yelled, “SPARKY!”
A minute later, Sparky galloped down the hall, dragging the shreds of Brian’s pants.
Brian tied what was left of them on, using the climbing rope as an emergency belt.
“Sparky,” I said, “you’ve been running loose all over the school, haven’t you?”
Sparky lowered both ears.
“Did you see the thieves?” Kelly asked.
One of his ears sprang straight up.
“Did you see the statue?” Mara asked.
Sparky’s other ear sprang up.
I laughed. “That’s it! Sparky, take us to the thieves! And Goofballs, let’s find that statue!”
Sparky raced off, and we charged after him, slipping through nearly every corner in the school until we were back at the very scene of the crime. The Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium!
The curtain was down. The stage was dark. But we saw two figures lurking backstage.
Then Kelly clicked on the lights!
“The statue stealers!” I cried. “I knew it!”
A cheese grater fell to the floor. An orange book, too. Two faces gaped at us.
“Please, we can explain!” said one thief.
And when they did, the whole puzzle fell into place. A moment later, the bell rang. The school opened. Crowds squished through the wet halls to the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium.
The celebration was about to begin!
The Case Is Solved!
Mara and Kelly stayed behind the curtain. Brian and I stood on the stage, facing a room jammed with students, parents, teachers, and practically the whole town.
Principal Higgins walked to the podium.
“Thank you for coming to celebrate a century of Badger Point School,” he said. “But I regret to inform you that there will be no—”
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, walking up to the podium. “May the Goofballs take over?”
“Well … I …”
“Brian, the curtain, please,” I said.
Brian pulled the rope, and the curtain went up, revealing Kelly and Mara next to a big cloth-covered thing. It looked the same as it had when Principal Higgins showed it to us.
“Goofballs, the cloth, please,” I said. Principal Higgins gasped. “Noooo —” With a flourish, Mara and Kelly yanked off the cloth. But instead of the pile of chairs, there stood … the statue of Simon Plunkett!
Principal Higgins stared and stared.
The audience cheered and cheered.
“It’s beautiful!” they cried.
“A treasure!”
“A monument to our school!”
“Yayyyy!”
“But … the statue was … gone!” Principal Higgins said. “How in the world … ?”
“I stole the statue!” said a th
in, bearded man who walked out from the side of the stage.
“Mr. Wick?” the principal said. “You?”
The entire audience held its breath. “Mr. Wick stole the statue with my help!” And Billy Carlson joined Mr. Wick onstage. “He’s my grandpa on my mom’s side.”
“You see,” said Mr. Wick, “Simon Plunkett was my granddaddy on my mother’s side. Notice the resemblance?” He leaned close to the statue. The two really did look alike.
“I was happy that Granddad was getting a statue,” Mr. Wick said. “But when I saw it, I saw something I had to fix. So I took it.”
“If I may,” I said. “Goofballs, the clues.”
Mara held up the skateboard. Kelly held up the slip of ripped paper. I held up the pencil. And Brian held up the climbing rope, but that made his pants slip, so he looped the curtain rope around his waist.
“These little detectives figured it all out,” said the custodian. “We used that rope to pull this statue. We rolled it away on that skateboard. We stacked up the chairs and draped this cloth over them. I thought I could fix the statue before anyone missed it.”
“What needed fixing?” asked the principal.
“The statue had bushy eyebrows,” Mr. Wick said. “But Granddad didn’t have any eyebrows at all. See?” He held up the orange book. It was open to a picture of Simon Plunkett. His whole head was bald.
“How did that happen?” asked Brian.
Mr. Wick chuckled. “When Simon was a boy, there was a fire in his log cabin. He saved his pet badger, Barney, but lost his eyebrows in the fire. I had to make the statue right.”
“That’s why Gramps asked me for help,” Billy said. “So I asked Principal Higgins if I could leave early. He gave me a cool pencil, which we used to keep the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium door open. Gramps gave me a list of stuff to do. But I dropped the list in the pool when I went to get a mop to clean our mess. The list got wet and it tore when I tried to get it out of the pool. Then, I went to the Cafeteri—”
“Caf!” we all yelled.
“To the Caf and tried to remember the list,” Billy continued. “When I heard Principal Higgins coming, I got scared and dropped the rest of the list in the hall.”
“Where we saw you,” I said.
“I told you it wasn’t me because I was supposed to be gone,” he said. “I guess you didn’t believe me. Later, I went back to the pool to get more mops. I even used one to get the rest of the list up from the bottom of the pool. Everything got pretty wet.”
“We heard you splashing,” said Kelly.
Billy nodded. “And I heard you coming, so I ran away. I guess that’s when I lost the other half of the pencil.”
“After that, we went to the kitchen and got the cheese grater to file off the eyebrows,” Mr. Wick said.
“And because the grater was right next to the cheese, I took some,” said Billy. “I was hungry.”
“I needed a picture to get the statue just right,” Mr. Wick went on. “When Billy remembered the book in Principal Higgins’s office, we went there.”
“We were under the desk the whole time,” Mara mouthed silently.
“It was finally Sparky who sniffed you out,” said Brian, clutching his pants.
Principal Higgins laughed as he went to the podium again. “I think if Simon Plunkett was good enough to start up Badger Point School, he’s good enough for us to see him the way he really looked! Thank you, Mr. Wick and Billy!”
The whole crowd cheered.
Principal Higgins then gave his speech. It was long. But it was great.
Everyone clapped. Then he handed out the gold pencils. People loved them. Finally, he turned to us.
“And now, Goofballs,” he said, “there’s a matter of some water to clean up before we get to the refreshments. But if we all work together, we can mop it up in no time!”
The audience clapped again as Mr. Wick and Billy handed out mops and buckets.
Finally, the curtain went down.
And because Brian had tied himself to the curtain rope, when the rope went up, so did he. And when the curtain came down, so did his pants. Sparky grabbed them. Then he rolled away on Billy’s skateboard.
“Wow!” said Brian. “Losing my pants three times in one day. Who would have guessed?”
“Me!” said Kelly.
“Me!” mouthed Mara.
“Me!” I said.
“Us!” said the entire crowd.
Then they said something else.“Goofballs forever!”
Which is probably how long it will take Brian to get his pants back.
Tony Abbott, The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue
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