The Mystery of the Missing Everything

^{Chapter 13} Boney Bones

“Hey, Mr. Darlington? I’m really sorry.”

“Well, I’ll always accept an apology,” Bethesda’s science teacher replied amiably, smiling down at Bethesda from atop a little step stool. “Though I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re apologizing for.”

Bethesda had found Mr. Darlington in his room on Monday morning before school, hanging up student projects. In his right hand he held a styrofoam ball, spray-painted red, while his left hand was splay-palmed against the wall, to keep the rest of him from tumbling to the ground.

“Remember? Friday?” Bethesda explained. “I kind of raced out of your class, and never came back.”

He chuckled. “Ah, right, right. Well, it’s been a crazy time around here. All is forgiven, Bethesda. Erf!”

Mr. Darlington slipped on the step stool, did a jerky heel-pivot, and just barely managed to maintain his balance.

“Hand me the tape, would you, Bethesda?”

Bethesda grabbed a roll of duct tape from where it sat on Mr. Darlington’s desk alongside eight more colored globes of styrofoam; this year’s seventh graders must be doing the solar system unit. Mr. Darlington’s teaching philosophy was all about “bringing science to life,” which he did via elaborate three-dimensional projects. His students were always making intestinal-tract reproductions out of cooked spaghetti and party balloons, or crafting elaborate construction paper terrains in old shoeboxes. The finished products went up for display in his room, although none of them ever seemed to come down—with the result that every available inch of wall space was crammed with a diorama or model of some kind or another. Reigning over this cluttered museum of a classroom was Boney Bones, an ancient plastic anatomy skeleton just inside the door of the room, little pieces of duct tape marking where bits had fallen off and been repaired.

With an unpleasant scritch, Mr. Darlington pulled out a length of tape and stuck the red model planet in place. “There we are!” he cried happily, and climbed carefully down from the step stool, where he seemed surprised to find Bethesda still standing there.

“Oh. Did you need something else?”

“Actually, yeah. Kind of a random question for you. Were you by any chance hanging around after school last Monday?”

Actually, the question wasn’t random at all. Mr. Darlington’s classroom was at the mouth of Hallway A, close to the big front doors of the school. Bethesda was hoping he had seen or heard something—maybe someone coming in or out—that could be added to her slowly growing list of clues.

“Last Monday? After school? Oh, you mean, because of the… because of this whole trophy situation.”

“Exactly.”

“Right.”

Mr. Darlington climbed back up on his step stool, measuring with his hands whether Neptune was going to fit where it was supposed to.

“So, were you here?”

“Um… hmm. Was I? Yes. I was.”

A grin danced across Bethesda’s face, and she forced herself to recompose her Serious Mystery Solver Expression. “So, did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary? Maybe around five forty-five?” That was the time Ms. Pinn-Darvish was out walking her dog… pig… whatever.

For a full thirty seconds, Mr. Darlington said nothing. First he stared out the window. Then he took his glasses off and put them on again, and then he climbed off the step stool and settled behind his desk.

“Mr. Darlington?”

Finally, the science teacher cleared his throat and spoke very quickly.

“Sorry, Bethesda. I was only here till four.”

“Four?” Bethesda’s heart sank.

“Yes, four at the latest. I stayed after school to pack up my robot, which took about an hour. So, yes, I’d say I was gone by four. And since I don’t have a key, of course, once I was gone, I couldn’t come back in.”

Shoot. If Mr. Darlington was gone by four, he couldn’t have seen anyone smashing any trophy cases at five forty-five.

“Your robot?” Bethesda asked anyway; if someone says they have a robot, you sort of have to follow up. But Bethesda only half-listened to Mr. Darlington’s explanation, taking a few perfunctory notes in the Sock-Snow. He and his sixth graders had been constructing a mechanical person named Mary Bot Lincoln: “the world’s first pencil-sharpening, can-opening, weather-predicting person-shaped classroom companion,” as he proudly described her. Last week, Principal Van Vreeland had granted Mr. Darlington’s request that Mary Bot, once finished, could be displayed in the Achievement Alcove.

“But last Monday morning, Principal Van Vreeland changed her mind.” Mr. Darlington sighed. “She told me that now that space would be used to display Pamela’s trophy. So I was here after school, taking the old girl apart.”

For one confused moment, Bethesda looked up sharply, thinking Mr. Darlington had been taking Principal Van Vreeland apart. Now that would have been a mystery.

“Señoritas? Por favor?”

Third period on Mondays meant Spanish with Señorita Tutwiler; she was slowly circulating through the room, trying to keep her estudiantes focused on their two-paragraph translations. But, as was par for the course these days, people had other things on their minds.

“So,” said a girl named Lindsey Deming, inching forward and whispering to Bethesda in this kind of not-nice-but-pretending-to-be-nice voice she had, “How’s the mystery-solving going, Nancy Drew?” Bethesda whispered back, “Har-dee-har,” but the kids sitting around them totally cracked up—including, Bethesda noticed with irritation, Reenie Maslow.

“Come on, guys. She’s just trying to help. Right, Sherlock?” said Pamela innocently, with a sly little grin. “I mean, Bethesda.”

“I—”

“Bethesda! Pamela! Please!” clucked Señorita Tutwiler, hands planted on her hips. Bethesda mumbled, “Sorry,” but Pamela looked right at the teacher, tilted her head, and as if by magic, summoned tears to tremble in her eyes.

“I’m really, really sorry,” she said in a quavering voice. “It’s just that I’m still so upset about my trophy….”

Señorita Tutwiler half-closed her eyes and raised a hand to her heart, the very picture of sympathy. “No te preocupes,” she said soothingly, patting Pamela gently on the cheek. “Never mind.”

Oh, come on! thought Bethesda.

Bethesda’s mood brightened considerably halfway through fourth period. Mr. Darlington was in front of the class, reading from page three of his ridiculously overcomplicated, seven-page instruction sheet for the weather-system project, when it hit her. Bethesda’s interview with Mr. Darlington hadn’t been a waste of time… far from it! She’d gleaned a crucial clue. On Monday morning, Principal Van Vreeland told Mr. Darlington there was no longer any room to display his beloved robot. And why not? Because of the giant trophy that would be taking its place in the Achievement Alcove.

By Monday night, that trophy was gone.

Why, Dr. Watson, don’t you see it? Bethesda asked herself in the haughty English accent of Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Darlington has a motive.

After science ended, Bethesda decided to stop by the Main Office before lunch to share her intriguing insight with her Man on the Inside. But she forgot about Mr. Darlington, forgot about Jasper, forgot about the robot and the whole thing the moment she opened the office door—because, right beside Mrs. Gingertee’s desk, she ran smack-dab into Tenny Boyer.