Mystery at School Read online

  When the children were assembled in the room, the teacher told them that Bert had an announcement to make. He stood up.

  “You know Mr. Tetlow said he hoped all of us could bring something to exhibit in the museum,” he began. “Nellie, Charlie, and I would like to know what you have. So will each of you write down anything you can contribute?”

  There was much scurrying for paper and pencils, and the scribbling began. When all had finished, Charlie collected the papers and gave them to Bert.

  “Thank you,” Bert said. “The committee will look at them and let you know what we think we can use.”

  At recess time Nan joined the three committee members in a corner of the room where they were sorting out the pieces of paper. There were all sorts of suggestions.

  “Say!” Charlie exclaimed. “Ned Brown has a rattlesnake skin! That would be great!”

  “And one of the girls has an embroidered shawl from Spain!” Nellie held up one of the notes.

  “But where is Danny’s paper?” Nan asked.

  “Here it is!” Nellie exclaimed, holding up a piece of lined tablet paper. A large NOTHING was scrawled across it!

  Nan took the paper while Bert pulled the mysterious letter from his pocket. They laid them on a desk side by side. The paper and the writing matched perfectly!

  “So it was Danny!” Nan said.

  “You Bobbseys should do something to teach Danny a lesson!” Nellie remarked. “He’s always getting away with mean tricks like this!”

  “Yes,” Charlie agreed. “We’ll help you get even with him. Let’s think of something!”

  But before anyone could make a suggestion, the bell signaling the end of the recess period rang. The other children came in and took their seats. Danny was the last to arrive, and he looked flustered.

  “Something’s happened!” Nan whispered to Bert. Her twin shrugged and slipped into his seat.

  During recess Freddie and Flossie had met the bully in the hall.

  “Hi!” Danny had hailed them in a friendly fashion. “How’s the little hose squirter?” he said to Freddie. “That was a good trick you played on me yesterday!”

  Freddie looked a little shamefaced but said nothing.

  “I’ll show you another good trick,” Danny offered.

  “What is it?” Freddie asked uncertainly. He was suspicious of Danny but also curious about the trick.

  Danny led the small twins to a drinking fountain which stood against the wall of the corridor.

  “See this?” he asked, pointing to the spout where the water came out.

  Freddie nodded.

  “Well, you step on the pedal to start the water,” Danny explained, “while you put your finger over the hole. Go on! Do it and see what happens!”

  Freddie looked doubtful, but he put his finger over the spout and stepped on the pedal. The water spurted in all directions!

  Mr. Tetlow had just come from his office and started down the hall. A long stream of cold water caught him in the eye! With a gasp Danny fled down the hall and disappeared into his home room.

  “Freddie Bobbsey!” Mr. Tetlow said in a stern voice. “Come into my office!”

  Followed by Flossie, Freddie walked slowly into the principal’s office. Mr. Tetlow sat down behind his desk and looked sternly at the little boy.

  “Don’t you know that it is against the rules of this school to play with the water fountain?”

  Freddie hung his head. “Y-y-yes,” he confessed, “but I didn’t know it was going to act like that!”

  Flossie spoke up. “It wasn’t Freddie’s fault, Mr. Tetlow! Danny Rugg said he’d show him a good trick. Freddie didn’t know what it was.”

  Mr. Tetlow sighed. “Danny Rugg again! Why is he always getting you Bobbseys into trouble?”

  “Because he’s a meanie!” Flossie declared.

  “Then stay away from him,” Mr. Tetlow advised. “All right, Freddie,” he continued, “I’ll let it go this time. But if I ever see you playing with that drinking fountain again, you will be punished!”

  Freddie gulped. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I promise never to do it again.”

  “All right. You and Flossie go back to your room. I’ll see Danny Rugg later.”

  The small twins ran down the hall and managed to slip into their room just before the teacher closed the door. On the way home for lunch Flossie told Bert about Danny’s trick.

  “We’re going to have to do something about Mr. Danny Rugg!” Bert declared. “But you and Freddie stay as far away from him as you can!”

  Flossie promised to do this. Freddie was silent

  After lunch Bert met Mr. Tetlow in the hall. “Have you heard anything about the statue?” the boy asked seriously.

  “Not a word,” the principal replied.

  “May I call the police?” Bert asked. “Maybe they’ve found something and haven’t told us.”

  “Go ahead,” Mr. Tetlow agreed. “In fact, come into my office and do it now!”

  Bert put in the call and in a few minutes was connected with Chief Mahoney. He asked what progress had been made in finding the thief who had taken the little goddess statue. The officer told him that they had found no clue.

  “But we had a report from the police over in Sanderville that they’ve had thefts from the museum there too,” the man continued. “Sounds as if the same man did both jobs.”

  “Why do you think that?” Bert asked.

  “Well, in both cases only the most valuable exhibits have been taken,” the chief said. “The thief is evidently a man who knows something about art.”

  Bert thanked the chief and hung up. When he told Mr. Tetlow the details of the conversation, the principal sighed. “I hope they catch the thief before Mr. Nelson comes back from Europe. I wouldn’t like to have to tell him his snake goddess is gone!”

  Bert got back to his home room just before the bell rang. Danny was bragging about being a great ball player.

  With a wink at Bert, Charlie Mason spoke up, “Okay, Danny, how about all the kids in this room having a game at recess?”

  Everyone agreed to this, and when the bell rang for the play period, sides were hurriedly chosen. Danny and Bert were on one team with Nellie, while Nan and Charlie were picked for the opposing team.

  The time was almost up, and the sides were even when Nan came to bat. Bert was the pitcher.

  “At’ta girl!” Charlie yelled. “Here’s your chance to win the game!”

  On Bert’s first pitch Nan pulled back the bat, then swung with all her might. Wham! The bat hit the ball with a crack and Nan rounded the bases. A home run!

  “Still think you’re so good, Danny?” Charlie asked teasingly as they went into the school building. “A girl won the game!”

  Danny scowled and slid into his seat.

  When classes were over, the older Bobbseys, Charlie, and Nellie met in a room assigned to them to use for putting together their show. Bert and Nan had brought the puppets to school so they might rehearse with their two friends.

  Freddie and Flossie stood outside the building until all the children had left. “Bert’s awful upset about the man’s stealing that statue!” Flossie said sadly. “I wish we could help him.”

  “Maybe we can!” Freddie observed. “We know how to look for clues!”

  “All right,” Flossie agreed. “Let’s do it!”

  The two children went back into the school and down the hall to the museum room. “We need a magnifying glass!” Freddie said importantly. “Detectives always have those when they look for clues!”

  “Daddy has one,” Flossie reminded her twin. “Maybe he’ll let us bring it to school tomorrow.”

  Freddie and Flossie walked slowly around the room, peering at all the shelves and examining the floor.

  “Here’s a hankie!” Flossie called out, picking up a small white square. “And there’s a name on it!”

  “I’ll bet the thief dropped it!” Freddie said excitedly. “What’s the name?”


  Flossie looked at the handkerchief in her hand and began to giggle. “It says Flossie! It’s mine!”

  Freddie looked disgusted. “That’s no clue!” he protested. Then he stooped to pick up a bit of paper which lay behind the door at the edge of the floor. It was a chewing gum wrapper.

  “Here’s something ! I’ll bet the thief dropped this!”

  His twin ran to look. “Oh, Freddie! Anyone could have dropped that! It’s only a gum wrapper!”

  “But we’re not allowed to have gum in school,” Freddie reminded her. “And, anyway, I never saw any of our friends chewing this kind. Let’s see if we can find anything else.”

  The twins walked into all the classrooms and the auditorium. They found school books, notebooks, old gloves and scarves, and all sorts of misplaced articles, but nothing else which looked as if it might have been dropped by the thief.

  “We should look outside under the museum window,” Freddie suggested finally. “The thief might have left some footprints.”

  The children ran out of the building and around to the side. The ground under the window showed no sign of footprints, and the planting around it was undisturbed.

  “I guess he didn’t go in the window,” Flossie remarked.

  They started toward the rear door. As they reached it Flossie’s eyes were caught by something in the shrubbery. She reached into the prickly bushes and picked it up.

  “What’s this?” she said in bewilderment.

  CHAPTER IX

  FLOSSIE’S DISCOVERY

  FLOSSIE picked up a torn piece of flesh-colored rubber. Around the edge was what appeared to be human hair.

  “Ugh!” the little girl cried as she held the strange find at arm’s length. “What is it?”

  Freddie took it from her. “Maybe you’ve found a clue!” he said excitedly. “Let’s see what Bert thinks it is!”

  The small twins dashed into the school building and along the hall until they came to the room where Bert and Nan were rehearsing.

  “Look what Flossie found!” Freddie cried, bursting through the doorway.

  Nan put down the ostrich puppet. “You’re a regular cyclone! What’s the matter?”

  Quieting down a little, Freddie explained that he and Flossie had been hunting for clues to the thief who took the snake goddess. “And Flossie saw this in the shrubbery by the back door!” he ended.

  Bert took the object from his brother and turned it over in his hands. “I think it’s from a wig,” he said.

  “But it has only a little hair,” Nan objected as the younger children gathered around Bert.

  “It’s a bald wig!” he explained. “You know, one a man would wear to make himself look bald.”

  “Bert!” Nan cried. “Didn’t Mr. Carter say that the phony electrician who was here the day the statue was stolen was bald?”

  “Why, yes.” Bert’s eyes gleamed. “You mean he might have been wearing a wig and this is part of it?”

  Nan nodded excitedly. “If the man wasn’t really bald, he could even have been that ice-cream man!”

  “The ice-cream man!” Nellie repeated.

  “That’s right The statue was taken the day he was here And I remember when he came back to the truck he was carrying a package! And he hasn’t been back since!”

  “But he said he was going to the grocery on the next block to buy some food for his wife,” Nellie reminded her.

  “And Mr. Carter said the electrician’s coveralls were blue while the ice-cream man’s were white,” Bert added. “So how could he have been the same man?”

  “We could check at the grocery and see if he did go there,” Nan suggested.

  Freddie and Flossie had been listening wide-eyed. Now they ran to the door.

  “Come on!” Freddie called. “Let’s go to the store!”

  “No use in all of us going,” said Nan. “Why don’t Flossie and I talk to the grocer?”

  “Okay,” the others agreed.

  Nan and Flossie walked down the street to the grocery. It was a fairly small one which had recently been made into a self-service market. When Nan and Flossie entered, the place was empty except for the cashier, who seemed to be very busy adding a column of figures. She did not look up.

  “I wonder where the manager is?” Flossie whispered.

  “He’ll probably be here in a few minutes,” Nan replied. “We’ll have to wait.”

  The store was divided into two parts by a long partition of shelves. These were filled with cans and bottles of food. At the far end of the partition stood a pyramid of cans with a sign: SPECIAL TODAY.

  Flossie wandered over to the other side of the store. Here she could see a large woman pushing a cart filled with groceries. The woman seemed to be having trouble with the metal cart. Its wheels were worn, and the cart did not move in a straight line.

  Flossie giggled to herself as she saw the woman give the handle a sharp tug to set it going forward again. “Maybe I can make it go straight,” she told herself.

  “I’ll push the cart for you,” Flossie offered, running up to the annoyed woman.

  “Thank you, little girl,” the customer said. “It doesn’t work very well.”

  She stepped aside, and Flossie grasped the metal handle. She pushed forward, but the cart turned to the left. With a quick jerk Flossie tried to set it straight. But the cart’s wheels turned suddenly to the right, and it hurtled into the pyramid of cans!

  Crash! The pile collapsed, and cans rolled in all directions. Nan raced up to Flossie and began to pick up the cans with her small sister.

  “What’s going on here?” A man in a long white grocer’s apron ran into the store through a rear door.

  “I’m sorry,” Flossie cried, tears in her eyes. “The cart went off the track.”

  “It wasn’t her fault,” the woman customer explained. “She was only trying to help me!”

  “All right! All right!” The manager helped gather up the fallen cans. “No harm done!”

  When they had been built into a pyramid again, and the woman had left, the grocer looked at Nan. “Can I do anything for you?” he asked.

  Nan explained about the ice-cream man who had said he was going to pick up some frozen food on Monday. “It was just before one o’clock. Do you remember him?”

  “Wore white coveralls, you say?” the grocer repeated. “I’m sure he didn’t come in here. I was alone then and would have noticed anyone like that.”

  Nan thanked the man for the information and Flossie apologized again for the commotion she had caused. Then the two hurried back to school.

  Nan reported what they had found out. “It sure looks as if that ice-cream man is the thief!” Bert observed. “I’m going to call Chief Mahoney from the principal’s office and tell him!”

  The chief himself answered. “No wonder we haven’t been able to find that phony electrician if he was wearing a bald wig!” he exclaimed after Bert had told him what the twins had discovered. “Your hunch that it was the ice-cream salesman sounds pretty good.”

  Before he hung up, the chief added, “I’ll send Officer Murphy out to get the piece of wig. We’d better keep it here as evidence.”

  The children were too excited to continue the puppet rehearsal. They talked to Mr. Tetlow a few minutes, then went outside and sat on the front steps to await Officer Murphy.

  Within a short time a police car drove up and the patrolman got out. He came up to the group of children.

  “The chief tells me you’ve found a good clue to the theft of that statuette,” he said to Bert.

  “Yes,” said Bert. “We think the thief was a man who was selling ice cream here Monday noon He put on a bald wig to disguise himself and then said he was sent to check the lights. But we can’t figure out why he wore different colored coveralls.”

  “Maybe he had on two pairs,” the officer suggested. “Anyway, you kids are pretty smart to have figured this out. Now all we have to do is find this ice-cream salesman!”

  Suddenly Be
rt snapped his fingers. “Say! I wrote down the license number of the truck! It’s not really his. He rented it for a week.”

  “We’ll find him,” the policeman said, and he took out his notebook. “What’s the license numbe?”

  Bert put his hand in his pocket. Then he felt hurriedly in all his other pockets. He looked embarrassed. “I don’t have the book I wrote it in. It must be at home. I’ll get it and call you.”

  “Okay! I’ll take this piece of the wig to headquarters. Keep up the good work!” Officer Murphy grinned at the children and drove off.

  Bert was eager to look for his notebook, so the Bobbseys said good-by to Nellie and Charlie and hurried home. When they arrived Flossie whispered something to Freddie, and the small twins ran off to the kitchen.

  “You smelled my cookies?” Dinah looked up from her work with a big smile. “I declare to goodness, you children have the sharpest noses in town!”

  Flossie giggled. “We really didn’t smell them, but we’ll eat some Freddie and I want to ask you something.”

  Dinah passed the cookies, then motioned to the table. “Sit down and tell me what’s on your mind!” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “I can tell you’re up to something!”

  Freddie and Flossie perched on two stools and took turns telling Dinah about the pet show which they had planned for school. “We need a lot of things. Will you help us, Dinah?” Freddie pleaded.

  “I sure will!” the jolly cook replied with a chuckle. “You all just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it together for you!”

  At that moment Bert came into the kitchen.

  “Go away, Bert!” Flossie cried. “Freddie and Dinah and I have a special secret!”

  “I’m sorry, but I want to ask Dinah two questions. First, did anyone phone about being Snap’s owner?”

  “No, Bert,” Dinah replied.

  “Goody I” cried Flossie.

  “Also, Dinah,” Bert added anxiously, “have you seen that little brown notebook I had? I’ve looked all over and can’t find it.”

  “I haven’t seen it in the kitchen,” Dinah said, “but look out in the garage on the shelf. Maybe you left it there when you cleaned the car yesterday.”

  “Thanks!” Bert hurried out the back door and into the garage.