Ben Winters - The Mystery of the Missing Everything

“The last thing such a student needs is to be made the subject of a potentially devastating rumor.” Ms. Finkleman laid a small but unmistakable emphasis on the word “rumor,” and Bethesda blushed. That was one road they’d been down together. “She doesn’t need people imagining she’s a thief, or the person who single-handedly ruined the eighth-grade class trip.”

For all her outrage, Bethesda recognized the soundness of Ms. Finkleman’s reasoning. If Reenie didn’t do it, accusing her would be disastrous. But … but …

“But Ms. Finkleman. How can you be so sure Reenie Maslow is innocent?”

The Band and Chorus teacher looked Bethesda right in the eye, and for the first time in this whole annoying conversation, Bethesda felt like she was sitting across from the Ms. Finkleman she knew and loved, the sort-of-rock-star Ms. Finkleman, the one who was a human being and treated her students like they were human beings, too.

“Because she told me, Bethesda. And I believe her.”

“Well, that was weird,” Bethesda said, casting a look back at the music room as she and Tenny headed down Hallway C. Tenny didn’t answer. He surveyed the halls, a little uncertainly, like an astronaut who’d just arrived on an alien planet.

“This way, Tenny.”

“Huh?”

“Our lockers are upstairs this year.”

“Oh. Cool.”

As they went up Stairway Four, he trailed his fingers on the banister, whistling softly to himself.

“So, it must be kind of fun to be back, huh?” Bethesda asked.

“What? Uh, yeah. I don’t know. I guess.”

“Speaking of which, I still want to know the story with that,” Bethesda said, guiding him to the eighth-grade locker bank. “I mean, what happened at St. Francis Xavier?”

“Well, you know…,” Tenny began. “Oh, wait. Here.” He glanced at the locker number Mrs. Gingertee had written for him on a note card. “Twenty-one twelve. Just like the Rush album. Sweet.”

“Whatever you say,” said Bethesda. She left him wrestling with his combination and sailed off down the hallway toward her own locker.

It was only later, as Bethesda was pulling up her stool at Table Six in the art room for Slide Day, that she realized something: When she came upon them in the Achievement Alcove, Ms. Finkleman had not seemed surprised to see Tenny Boyer. Bethesda hadn’t known Tenny was returning to Mary Todd Lincoln, but it sure seemed like Ms. Finkleman had.

Boy, she said to herself, as Ms. Pinn-Darvish lit her ginger candles and cued up the first slide. This place is just full of mysteries lately.

“Colors… so many colors… feel the colors… experience the colors…”

Chester Hu sank down in his seat and stared at the ceiling. Slide Day wasn’t even half over yet. Ms. Pinn-Darvish floated through the room, murmuring about the sublime beauty in the mishmash swirl of colors and shapes currently on display, and occasionally poking kids on the back of the neck to keep them awake.

Chester tugged the collar of his shirt up over his nose to dampen the ginger smell of the candles. He was not a happy camper lately.

First, he’d had the stupidest idea of all time, to march into the principal’s office and pretend like he was the one who’d stolen Pamela’s trophy. If he’d gone through with it, he probably would have ended up in detention, or expelled, or locked in the basement undergoing some horrible punishment invented by the principal just for him.

But his own stupidity wasn’t even what bummed Chester out the most. What really made him mad was how not -mad at him everybody was. He had almost saved the Taproot Valley trip, and then, by abruptly changing his mind, he had lost it all over again. But instead of being annoyed at him , they were annoyed at Bethesda for making him do it. It’s like they thought Chester was too much of a doofus to be responsible for his own actions. Of course he would do something crazy like pretend to be the criminal, and of course he changed his mind when Bethesda told him to. Blaming Chester would be like blaming a dog for chasing a cat, or a koala for—what did koalas do, again? Eat leaves or something? Chester couldn’t remember.

Ms. Pinn-Darvish pressed a button on her computer, and the slide clicked over, from the mushy blur of colors to a field of flowers, waving yellow in the sun.

“ See the sunflowers , ” the art teacher intoned, swaying back and forth with her head tilted toward the slide. “ Be the sunflowers…”

And now, Slide Day—the worst way to spend an hour that Chester could imagine, unless it was Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents’ house, watching Grandma Phillis’s dentures do battle with a piece of dry turkey breast.

“And now… Picasso!” announced Ms. Pinn-Darvish breathlessly, and the sunflower slide gave way to a picture of a hunched, sick-looking dude slumped over a guitar, painted in shades of deep blue and dirty gray.

“Whoa,” called out Braxton Lashey, earning a caustic glare from Ms. Pinn-Darvish. “What’s wrong with that guy?”

Everyone laughed, except for Chester. He sat up straight and stared deeply, losing himself in the painting, until he felt like he was sitting there beside the wretched figure in that dusty, darkened street. Looking deep into the sad eyes of the guitar man, Chester felt like he knew the guy. This poor sap had probably wanted to be a hero, too, and had probably failed, just like Chester.

“Nobody takes you seriously, either, do they, Mr. Guitar Man?” Chester whispered.

The guitar man turned his head ever so slightly, looked right back at Chester, and winked. Later, when he thought about it, Chester was at least half sure he had imagined the wink. But in that moment there was not a doubt in his mind: the shabby blue guitar man had peered from the painting, looked him right in the eyes, and winked.

And just like that, Chester stopped feeling sorry for himself and had the best idea of his life. “Funding for all extracurriculars is being revoked,” Principal Van Vreeland had pronounced, pounding on the top of her lectern.

But “funding revoked” is not the same thing as “canceled!” Not the same thing at all!

The good idea sprang into Chester’s head with no details, with all the fine points still to be worked out. It was really just a big warm fuzzy mass of good idea. But for Chester, who a minute ago was ready to run home and hide under his bed for a month, that was more than enough. He sat up straight, pointed a finger at the slide, and grinned.

“Nice work, Mr. Guitar Man,” he said, and everyone in the room looked at him like he was some sort of lunatic.

Except Ms. Pinn-Darvish. As she clicked the slide from the Blue Period Picasso to a lovely pink-washed Degas ballerina, the black-haired art teacher contemplated Chester Hu with open admiration.

Clearly, Chester was communing with the art.

On Tuesday morning, Bethesda woke up crazy early and couldn’t fall back asleep. She lay in bed squeezing her favorite teddy bear, Ted-Wo (short for the Teddy Bear Who Replaced the One Whose Head Fell Off in the Washing Machine). Every birthday for the last six birthdays, she had declared herself to be too old for Ted-Wo, given him one last kiss, and stashed him in the bottom drawer of her dresser. But somehow or other, he always made it out of the dresser and back into her bed.

“Well, Ted-Wo,” Bethesda said in a hushed, early-morning voice. “Who do you think stole that trophy?” Ted-Wo was silent on the subject, looking back at her blankly through his one remaining eye. She patted his scraggly fur. “Thanks anyway, pal.”