Ben Winters - The Mystery of the Missing Everything

But it was Reenie who came up with the plan, and who convinced an extremely reluctant Band and Chorus teacher to play her part. By the time the first-period bell rang, and Ms. Finkleman’s sixth graders filed in, everyone knew what they had to do. By the end of the day, the mystery of the missing trophy would be all wrapped up—unless, of course, the whole thing fell to pieces.

Which , Bethesda warned herself as she trotted off toward Ms. Fischler’s room, there’s every chance it might.

“Silence!” proclaimed Principal Van Vreeland, raising her hands imperiously above her head as she took her place at the lectern.

The command was completely unnecessary. The auditorium was pin-drop silent, especially in the back, where the eighth graders sat, wide-eyed and frozen with tense anticipation. The word had been going around all day that the culprit had been found, and the all-school punishment was—potentially, possibly, hopefully—over. The eighth graders could practically feel the lumpy vinyl seats of the special field-trip bus beneath their butts; they could practically smell the scents of grass and skunk and pine awaiting them at Taproot Valley.

Please , thought Tucker and Ezra and Bessie. Please , thought Rory and Lindsey and Lisa. Please let it be true!

“Ms. Finkleman, if you would join me on the stage?”

The mousy Band and Chorus teacher walked swiftly up the short steps to the lectern, while a ripple of confused looks passed through the auditorium. What did Ms. Finkleman have to do with all this? Principal Van Vreeland stepped aside and surveyed the audience, literally licking her lips with anticipation of finding out who stole her trophy. Bethesda pushed back a lock of reddish-tannish hair and exchanged nervous glances with Tenny Boyer, slumped a few seats over, and with Reenie Maslow, who flashed her a quick, furtive thumbs-up. All right, Ms. Finkleman , Bethesda thought, turning her eyes to the stage. You can do it.

“Ah, yes. Good afternoon. Principal Van Vreeland, everyone, I am—uh—I am very disappointed to report that the person who stole the gymnastics trophy is…”

Ms. Finkleman paused dramatically. A loud ker-clunk reverberated through the room; it was Coach Vasouvian, swinging closed the heavy auditorium door in case the criminal, once unmasked, decided to make a run for it. And then Ms. Finkleman finished her sentence, leveling a finger toward the back of the room:

“…Tennyson Boyer.”

The silence broke: everyone talking at once, everyone gasping and whispering, everyone straining and jostling to get a peek at the thief.

“Wait—Tenny?”

“That spacey kid?”

“Does he even go here anymore?”

“Tenny Boyer ?”

Teachers shushed the kids, even as they themselves muttered and looked around for Tenny and mouthed “wow” at one another. Pamela Preston, who happened to be sitting right in front of Tenny, whipped around in her seat to glare at him, but Pamela’s fury was nothing compared with that of Principal Van Vreeland. Her lips curled as she spat out one short, sharp sentence. “Is that so?”

As for Tenny, Bethesda thought he did an admirable job of looking shocked by the accusation. He shot upright in his seat, blinking furiously, whipping his head this way and that, jabbing a finger into his chest. All in all, an Oscar-worthy pantomime of “Who, me ?”

“That’s right,” Ms. Finkleman continued. “Though I wish it weren’t so, for young Tennyson is a student I have personally worked closely with, and have always liked. But facts are facts.” Ms. Finkleman paused here to shake her head sadly. “It seems he was kicked out of St. Francis Xavier for extreme misbehavior—”

“I told you guys!” shouted Tucker Wilson. “I told you it was true about the car in the lake!”

“—which he apparently continued at our school, even before being officially reenrolled.”

Here Ms. Finkleman paused and looked directly at Tenny, letting a note of grievous disappointment creep into her voice. “Oh, Tenny, how could you?”

From his seat, Tenny pretended to protest, and Ms. Finkleman pretended to cut him off.

“Don’t make it worse by lying, Tenny. Please. ”

Bethesda found she was getting a little choked up, then had to remind herself the whole thing was a ruse. Bethesda and Reenie had told Ms. Finkleman what to say, and instructed Tenny on how to react, designed the whole thing to be as powerful and emotionally affecting as possible. That way the real guilty parties would feel so bad for Tenny, unjustly accused of the crime that they had committed, they’d have to confess. Simple human decency would demand it!

Bethesda craned her head toward the back row, where the culprits were sitting, saying nothing, staring at Tenny like everyone else. So far, simple human decency was not coming through.

Tenny, meanwhile, pushed his performance to the next level. He leaped from his seat, his thick mass of brown curls bobbing wildly, and spoke pleadingly to Ms. Finkleman. “But I’m innocent. I swear!”

“That’s quite enough, young man.” Principal Van Vreeland stepped forward slowly, deliberately, as if so enraged that she had to control her movements, lest she get overexcited and burst into flames. “I’ll take it from here.”

A shiver chased itself down Bethesda’s spine. This was where the plan got a little scary, because this is where it was out of their control. Ms. Finkleman was acting; the furious principal was not . Bethesda risked another glance at the culprits. Nothing. Hello? Simple human decency? Where are you?

“Look, ma’am, I didn’t do it,” Tenny protested, sounding increasingly desperate. “I really didn’t.” But Principal Van Vreeland scoffed at his denials, her voice rising with every word. “You will be expelled from this school. From this district ! No public school in this county will have you!”

Tenny looked wildly around the auditorium, and Bethesda was pretty sure she saw the moment that his pretend fear had transformed into real, serious fear. She and Reenie exchanged panicky glances. Ms. Finkleman stood on the stage, one hand clapped over her mouth. There was no backup plan. Principal Van Vreeland was going to throw Tenny out of school! What had they done?

“Now where is my trophy, child?” The principal burst into motion, charging down the three little steps at the lip of the stage toward Tenny. Jasper chased her down the aisle, grabbing feebly at her shoulders, but the principal shook him off like a charging horse shakes off a fly.

“I don’t know where the trophy is!” Tenny cringed backward, holding up his hands, as Principal Van Vreeland bore down on him. “I swear I don’t know!”

Bethesda sent urgent telepathic entreaties to the two culprits, but they were still just sitting there, slack-jawed, eyes glued to the spectacle. Come on, simple human decency , Bethesda pleaded. Come on!

And then, miraculously…

“Stop!” shouted Todd Spolin, jumping out of his seat along the back wall of the auditorium, just as Principal Van Vreeland brought her trembling hands down on Tenny’s shoulders.

“Tenny Boyer didn’t take that stupid trophy. I did.”

“Yeah,” said Natasha Belinsky, rising from her own seat. “And I helped.”

“You?!”

Principal Van Vreeland released her grip on Tenny Boyer and swiveled her whole body like a satellite dish toward the back of the auditorium. Todd stood at one end of the very last row, Natasha at the other, neither looking at the other. Ms. Finkleman, with obvious relief, retreated from the lectern, stumbled off the stage, and sat heavily in a seat in the front row. “It worked,” Bethesda mouthed to Reenie. “It actually worked!” Reenie drew the back of her hand across her forehead: phew.