The Mystery of the Missing Everything

^{Chapter 20} World’s #1 Principal

The next morning, Principal Isabel Van Vreeland did the same thing she had done every morning since the trophy’s disappearance. She stopped on her way to her office to stare, with a mixture of melancholy and horror, into the Achievement Alcove. There it was, the broken glass case atop the rickety wooden stand, where her beloved trophy had ever-so-briefly stood. The longer she stared, the tighter became her grip on her World’s #1 Principal travel mug, the one she had bought herself off eBay last year for her birthday.

“Stop right there.”

“Oh. Good morning, ma’am.”

She turned on Assistant Principal Ferrars, who had literally been tiptoeing past her, clearly hoping she wouldn’t ask him what she was about to ask.

“So. How is the mystery solving going?”

His eyes flickered and darted up and down the hall as he stammered a reply. “Oh, you know… getting there.”

“Getting there?” Principal Van Vreeland squeezed her mug so hard that coffee trembled and spluttered out the top.

He flinched and nodded.

“There’s a student helping me. Bethesda Fielding? In the eighth grade? She’s quite enterprising, really. She has this, um, special notebook…”

“Well, that’s fantastic, Jasper,” Principal Van Vreeland said, her voice curdling with sarcasm. “Just so long as you’ve got a twelve-year-old working the case.”

As Jasper scurried off, Principal Van Vreeland turned her gaze back into the Achievement Alcove and took a slow, bitter sip from her World’s #1 Principal mug. She had a sneaking suspicion that Jasper knew something he wasn’t telling her. In fact, she had a sneaking suspicion that a lot of people knew a lot of things they weren’t telling her. Instead of helping her get to the bottom of this, and get her precious trophy back, all everyone did was moan and groan about their precious extracurricular activities. Children looked at her all day long with those nauseating puppy-dog eyes of theirs. The teachers had sent that pesty Ms. Finkleman again to ask her to change her mind.

Well, guess what, folks. You want me to make things better around here? Too bad. They’re about to get a lot worse.