Ben Winters - The Mystery of the Missing Everything

“Oh, and bonfires,” Victor went on. “I really don’t like bonfires. One stray twig flies off, and poof, the whole forest is toast.”

“Hey, Victor, you know what?” said Bethesda. “It’s okay.” As annoying as Victor’s underhanded efforts had been, this morning she had bigger fish to fry. Bethesda resumed her trudge to school, with a remorseful Victor Glebe now trailing along beside her. Soon they reached the horseshoe driveway, just a few feet from the front doors. In the cool early-morning sun, Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School loomed massive and stark as a jail.

“Ah!” Suddenly, Victor tossed his hands up in front of his face and stumbled backward.

“What’s the matter?”

“That bird! It’ll peck our eyes out!”

It was the blue-green swallow, Natasha’s little buddy, chirping merrily in the arm of the fat oak. Bethesda sighed and patted Victor on the arm. This was one kid who did not need a week in the woods.

“I have a confession to make.”

Okay, Bethesda thought. Now this is getting ridiculous.

This time it was Reenie Maslow, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. She had stopped Bethesda right outside the Main Office, right where Bethesda had stopped Chester, four weeks and a lifetime ago.

Reenie stared uneasily at Bethesda, hands hanging nervously at her sides.

I was right! thought Bethesda with astonishment, turning away from the door. I was right all along!

“Don’t get all excited,” Reenie said pointedly. “I still didn’t steal Pamela’s stupid trophy.”

“Oh.”

Argle bargle. Again.

“But I do have a confession to make. Bethesda, I—”

“Ha! Ha!”

The booming laugh, echoing like cannon fire from the far end of the Front Hall, belonged to Coach Vasouvian, no doubt cracking up over some deeply sarcastic comment from Mr. Melville, who walked beside him. At the sound of it, Reenie jumped a little, and Bethesda instinctively reached out and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. Suddenly Reenie seemed very small and helpless, a baby bird lost in the vast hallway. Bethesda pictured the school as it would be in a few minutes, overflowing with rambunctious students and scowling teachers, kids banging against each other and trading insults, flitting in and out of their various cliques and clans, flicking rubber bands, shouting and teasing and flirting. Such an environment must be difficult for someone new, especially someone as inward and reserved as Reenie Maslow.

“Here. This way,” said Bethesda, grasping Reenie by the arms and pulling her into the safe harbor of the Achievement Alcove. They squatted together with their backs to the wall, in the rear left corner, right beneath Marisol Pierce’s prize-winning charcoal drawing.

“So, what’s going on, Reenie?”

Reenie stared at the floor of the Achievement Alcove and spoke very quickly, her words emerging in a mumbly rush. “You were right at lunch yesterday. I did dislike you. I’ve disliked you since we met.”

“Okay.” Bethesda leaned away from Reenie, pushing farther back against the wall of the alcove. “Why?”

“Because you’re smart. And people like you.”

“Are you kidding? Everyone hates me! I’m a walking disaster! I ruined the Taproot Valley trip, remember?”

“Yeah, but that’s just right this second. I’m talking all the time. You’re always running around, making jokes, trading lunches with people, raising your hand in class. You do every single extracurricular activity.”

“No I don’t. Just debate, yearbook, newspaper, math team, and peer tutoring.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Oh, and computer club. And swim.”

“I guess it’s like… you know.” Reenie shrugged. “I’m always scared that smart people are going to make me feel stupid.”

Bethesda groaned. “And then yesterday, that’s exactly what I did.” Her heart flooded with empathy for Reenie Maslow. This girl was so not her nefarious adversary.

“Well, you didn’t mean to, I don’t think.”

“No!” Bethesda said earnestly. “I really didn’t.”

Bethesda inched closer to Reenie on the grimy floor of the Achievement Alcove. They were making up! They could turn from bitterest enemies to friends! Maybe she could tutor Reenie after school, just like she had tutored Tenny last year. Hey, actually, maybe the three of them could form a band!

Bethesda reached forward with arms extended, and Reenie pulled away.

“Were you going to hug me?”

“What? No.” Bethesda’s face flared red. “I have this weird arm condition.”

“Oh. Well, anyway. I’m sorry I disliked you for no reason.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

Reenie heaved herself up from the floor of the Alcove, and offered a hand to Bethesda to pull her up, too. “There’s this thing my mom always says, about how life is a ladder, and other people are the rungs. If you don’t have other people, you’ll fall right back down. Cheesy, right?”

“Oh, please,” replied Bethesda, shaking her head, as the two girls emerged from the Achievement Alcove. “If you want cheesy, you should hear my dad. He…”

Bethesda stopped, her mouth hanging open.

“Bethesda?” said Reenie. “Uh, Bethesda?”

Life is a ladder , Reenie had said. “A ladder!”

Somewhere inside the mind of Bethesda Fielding, Master Detective, wheels were turning, slowly at first, and then faster and faster and faster. Gears were catching on gears, thoughts zinging to and fro, ideas blinking furiously like the lights on a pinball table.

“Our trophy thief would need something a lot harder than a fist to break the glass…” That was Tenny Observation #1. Something like the heavy foot of a custodian’s ladder.

But… why a ladder? Who needed a ladder? You need ladders to reach… to reach…

Bethesda cried out. “Up! Look up, Reenie! Help me find it.”

“Find what? Bethesda, are you okay?”

“The vent! There!”

Reenie craned her neck and saw what Bethesda saw. On the wall above the Achievement Alcove, a slotted metal plate, just a simple air-conditioner vent, but hanging slightly loose, with one tiny screw missing.

“Okay,” said Reenie. “So…”

“Hold on one sec.” Bethesda’s mind spun furiously. Why would someone open that vent? Who… who had been obsessed with the vents?

Janitor Steve! He had tapped his broom handle, tap-tap-tap, against the air ducts; he’d insisted to Tenny that a noisy spirit was in there, or had been until just before the trophy disappeared. But there was no such thing as ghosts, so what was really trapped up there? What really needed to be set free ?

“Holy smoke,” Bethesda whispered.

“What?” Reenie said. “ What?”

Into Bethesda’s mind flew the bird. The bird that had terrified poor Victor Glebe that morning. That bird she’d seen hopping along with a scrap of Ding Dong dangling from its beak. The sweet bird, tilting its little head and chittering politely, the morning of her seventh interrogation, as if to say… to say thank you.

The bird!

“Reenie. I know what happened to that trophy!”

After Bethesda gave her explanation to Reenie, they raced together to the Band and Chorus room. There they found both Ms. Finkleman and Tenny, as Bethesda had suspected they might.

“Whoa,” said Tenny, when Bethesda revealed who did it, and how. And then, although he was still mad at her about yesterday, Tenny helped her piece together the few details she was still missing—like the exact timing of the scrape, bang, and crash, and where the little red dots came from.