The Mystery of the Missing Everything

^{Chapter 14} …And Better Than Ever

“Hey, dude,” said Tenny.

Bethesda never thought she’d be so happy to hear two words, especially when one of them was “dude.”

“Tenny!?” she yelped, delightedly pronouncing his name as half exclamation and half question. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, you know.” Tenny smiled a lopsided smile. “I’m back.”

“And better than ever!” Bethesda immediately replied. In Bethesda’s family, that’s what you said whenever anyone came back from anywhere, whether it was a weeklong business trip, or a trip to the mall. Tenny laughed. “I don’t know about that.”

“But, I mean—what are you doing here?” she said again.

“Well, it’s kind of… I mean…,” he said, and trailed off in a shrug, running a hand through his mess of brown curls. Bethesda spied his iPod earbuds emerging in an ungainly tangle from the blue-hooded sweatshirt he always wore. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Bethesda beamed at him. Good ol’ Tenny Boyer! She had really only gotten to know him halfway through last school year, when they were thrown together by the strange deal Ms. Finkleman had invented to save both the Choral Corral and Tenny’s Social Studies grade. That effort had not gone so great, which was how Tenny ended up at St. Francis Xavier Young Men’s Education and Socialization Academy.

Except here he was before her very eyes, smiling awkwardly, lifting one foot to scratch the calf of the other with his toe.

Bethesda chucked him on the shoulder. “Well, anyway, who cares why. You’re back!”

“Ahem,” said Mrs. Gingertee. She didn’t clear her throat, she actually said the word “ahem,” two sharp syllables suggesting that she had more dignity than to go around pretending to clear her throat. “He’s not back yet.”

She tapped one formidable fingertip on the thick manila folder, overstuffed with papers, that sat heavily on her desk. “This paperwork is a disaster, young man, and until we’ve got it straightened out you’re no more a student here than my uncle Roger.”

“Huh?” said Tenny.

Mrs. Gingertee sighed and pulled out the first of the sheets. “This is the transfer document from St. Francis. Section C is blank, for some reason, and we’re missing a signature here, here, and here….”

Bethesda could hardly believe her luck. Tenny was back! The fates had sent her the perfect assistant! This mystery was toast! While Mrs. Gingertee grumbled her way through the paperwork, Bethesda shifted back and forth on her feet, anxious to fill Tenny in on the investigation so far.

“This form is in blue ink. Black is preferable.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And this one is in… please tell me this isn’t colored pencil.”

“Oh. Whoops.”

Bethesda discreetly eyeballed Mrs. Gingertee’s giant metal desk, which was something of an institution at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School, much like Mrs. Gingertee herself. The desk was a big, battered monolith, half as long as the whole Main Office, of the same rusted-iron color and solidity as a battleship. Only rarely was Mrs. Gingertee spotted anywhere but seated behind it, rolling around in a three-foot radius upon her gun-gray, orthopedically optimized chair. On the desk at present, beside a humongous jar of jellybeans, was a dull green Swingline stapler; a photograph of seven unsmiling grandchildren in matching hideous denim overalls; and papers—lots and lots of papers. Neatly printed sheets, various manila files, tardy slips and excuse letters, beat-up orange interoffice envelopes, and folders of all kinds.

The folder currently open was marked boyer, tennyson isaac. Peeking out from beneath it was a second folder, the tab of which Bethesda glimpsed fleetingly as Mrs. Gingertee reached into the Boyer folder for the next form. The name that Bethesda read, upside-down, off the tab, was maslow, irene olivia.

Bethesda squinched up her face, thinking. Irene? Who was Irene?

Oh. Right. Reenie Maslow.

Irene, Reenie.

Holy Guacamole! Bethesda thought, and then said it—“Holy Guacamole!”—louder than she’d intended, causing Mrs. Gingertee to look up with a sour expression. “Young lady?”

“Sorry, sorry.” She exhaled. “But is Tenny almost done?”

Mrs. Gingertee wearily inspected the paper in front of her, flaking crusted pizza sauce off one corner with her fingernail. “I suppose so. For now. Tenny, I need you to get this sorted out with your mom or dad for tomorrow, okay? Otherwise we can’t—hey!”

Bethesda grabbed Tenny by the arm, so forcefully that she nearly toppled him, and together they dashed from the room.

“Come on!” she hollered. “You’re never going to believe this!”

Mrs. Gingertee watched the wooden door of the Main Office swing shut, and then produced a bottle of Pepto-Bismol from the top drawer of her enormous desk. “Welcome back, kid,” she muttered, and took a long swig.

“Bethesda, what the heck?” said Tenny, just outside the office door.

In one long exhale of a run-on sentence, Bethesda brought Tenny up to speed. She told him about the trophy theft, about the cancellation of the Taproot Valley trip, the tiny screw and the dots of red, the bang and the crash… and the other clue. Three little letters, inscribed like an artist’s signature in one small corner of the crime scene.

“IOM,” she concluded, leading him the five feet from the door of the Main Office to the Achievement Alcove. “Right there!” She pointed vigorously—and then froze, her face a mask of confusion.

“Um… Bethesda?”

She stared in horror at the Achievement Alcove. “It’s gone!”

Everything else was just as it had been. The cordon of duct tape and typewriter ribbon; the rickety wooden stand and the shattered glass case; the strange, bloodred splotches. All as it had been when Bethesda examined it last Wednesday… except for the letters. The letters were gone.

“Huh,” said Tenny.

Bethesda slipped under the typewriter ribbon and traced the back wall of the Alcove with her fingers. Maybe it was over here—maybe—wait…

“Bethesda? Would you mind joining me in my room for a quick chat?”

Bethesda turned to see Ms. Finkleman, dressed as always in a brown sweater and simple brown shoes, smiling pleasantly. But something in her tone of voice and the slight forward thrust of her chin suggested to Bethesda that this “quick chat” was not a casual invitation from a friend, but a direct order from a teacher.

Bethesda nodded mutely, her mind going a thousand miles an hour. What was going on here?

“Hello, Tennyson,” Ms. Finkleman added. “You may as well join us.”