Monsters and Mischief (12 page)

Everyone thought about Rosie’s question for several seconds, as if their lives depended on it — a good thing, because that was in fact the case.

“Is it the sound of the running water?” asked Paul shyly.

“Yup,” said Rosie. “If we can find the underground stream that’s making that constant noise, it might just lead us out of here.”

It took the group another few minutes and a few U-turns to find the bubbling brook. The water flowed smoothly through a deep cut in the rock. Rosie led the way, following the stream when possible. Every now and again, she’d lose direction as the water disappeared into a crevice. When that happened, however, she would listen carefully, and pick up the path in another tunnel. The others listened for different kinds of sounds, like the one that had originally sent them running.

They had been walking for what seemed like forever, and though Sylvester was thankful that nothing was pursuing them — he hoped! — he wondered how much farther down they could travel. Shouldn’t they start to head upward eventually? Wasn’t that where light would be?

Seconds later, Rosie cried out, “Listen!” The sound of rushing water was growing louder and louder with every step they took. “I think we’re almost there.”

“Where?” asked Sylvester.

“The Hudson!”

Of course
, Sylvester thought. Purgatory Chasm was so high up in the Moon Hollow Hills that their descent through the caves had brought them down closer to the large river’s edge. They could see light up ahead cascading toward them like a fountain. Soon, the mouth of the cave appeared.

As the group made their way out into the woods by the river, they shouted with relief. The sun hung low in the sky, over the trees across the water. They jumped up and down, spiraling in a circle, like kindergartners playing ring-around-the-rosy at recess. Viola, Rosie, Sylvester, and Woodrow had never felt so happy. Yes, they’d solved the mystery of Tall Ted and the middle school thief. But really … did that even matter anymore? They were alive and they let the woods know it!

“Arroooo!” they howled together.

After the celebration, Thomas spoke up. “How are we supposed to get back up to our bikes?”

“Who the heck cares?” said Rosie, bursting out with a roar of laughter. Her friends soon joined in, reveling in the pure joy of the spring sunlight.

Together, covered in dirt, dust, and grime, they trod along the riverbank, stepping through weeds, dead leaves, and an abundance of mud.
They knew that the water would lead them back to town and civilization before sunset. They also knew they’d have to answer to their parents for what had happened, but even the thought of that was more appealing than getting forever lost in the monstrous caves underneath Purgatory.

When they reached the train station on Oakwood Avenue, the Question Marks split off from the Troop and headed up toward their own neighborhood, chatting the entire way. Just before they reached the comforting familiarity of their block, Sylvester asked a question that he knew would haunt him for a long time if he didn’t learn the answer. “What was it that roared at us in the caves?” he said. “Does anyone have an idea?”

“Oh, that?” said Rosie. “Simple. It was a bear.”

“No way,” said Woodrow, his skin erupting in gooseflesh. “We were almost eaten by a bear?”

“That’s no joke,” said Viola. “We’ve all heard about the animals up in the Moon Hollow Hills. Sure, what Clea’s Troop described sounds like it could have been a bear. Is that what clued you in?” Rosie shook her head.
“
Then how can you be sure what we heard was a bear
?”

“Do you guys remember that stench we smelled when we first entered the cave?” Rosie asked. They nodded. “I knew it wasn’t merely dirt. I watched my step as we went farther along. I noticed some large droppings, and I instantly knew what kind of danger we might have been dealing with.”

“And you didn’t turn us around right then?” asked Woodrow.

“I couldn’t,” said Rosie. “We needed to find Clea, Paul, Thomas, and Shanti. Yes, we had a mystery to solve. But we also had to make sure that our classmates would end up safe at the end of the day. I bet it was all those burger wrappers that lured the poor thing into the Devil’s Armpit. Unfortunately, the bear encountered us instead. We probably scared it as much as it scared us.”

“You just keep telling yourself that,” said Sylvester.

The four stepped onto the lawn that made up each of their backyards. Wandering to the center, Sylvester dropped the satchel he’d carried from the cave. Exhausted, the rest of them plopped down onto the grass at the Four Corners.

A minute later, Sylvester started giggling.

“What’s up?” Woodrow asked.

Trying to control himself, Sylvester answered, “I think that’s the first time bear poop has been a clue in one of our mysteries!”

“Ew!” said Viola. “Hopefully, it will be the last time too!”

22
BULLIES, VILLAINS,
MONSTERS, AND THIEVES

 

A few weeks later,
The Villain’s Web
opened to a standing ovation in the Moon Hollow Middle School auditorium. The entire cast was ecstatic with the reception. They’d worked hard, and afterward Mrs. Glick assured them that they had deserved all of the applause.

Rosie was proud that she’d gotten through the performance without a single stomach cramp. And Viola was happy that after everything that had occurred up in the Moon Hollow Woods, Clea finally allowed her to be the true villain, as she’d been cast.

On the Monday after the Purgatory escape, the Question Marks had turned the loot in to Principal Dzielski. She asked them where they had gotten it, and the group told her the same story they’d told their parents: the truth. Later, Clea, Thomas, Paul, and Shanti were called into the office to give their own version of the tale. Unfortunately for Clea, Thomas cracked, admitting that he’d taken locker combinations from the office files. Principal Dzielski doled out her usual
punishment. The Troop would spend the next week and a half in detention.

Clea begged Mrs. Glick to allow her to stay in the play. The director agreed, but only once Clea promised to keep the drama onstage, where it belonged.

“So, do you think you’ll audition again next year?” Woodrow asked the girls.

The four friends had nabbed the corner booth at the Main Street Diner after the show finished. Their parents had squeezed into the booth behind them and were chatting about how impressed they were with the middle school’s production.

The rest of the diner was crowded, as it usually was after a school function. Woodrow thought he saw Mickey Molynew sitting at a booth near the back with someone who could have been his father. Was it possible that Mickey had waved at him? It was difficult to be sure, but Woodrow thought it was nice to imagine.

Several small children ran up the aisle near the long counter wearing pale, bald monster masks. The party supply store around the corner had recently sold out of what had become known as the Tall Ted Special.

After word spread about what had gone down at Purgatory Chasm, the town had collectively shuddered that some of its own children had
been capable of wreaking such havoc, but they also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Sometimes even grown-ups need reminding that there are no such thing as monsters.

“I’m not sure if I’ll stay in drama club,” said Viola. “I feel like I should try something new.”

“Well, I’m definitely going to do it again,” said Rosie. “Hopefully, next time Mrs. Glick won’t choose a melodrama though. All that villainy was kind of overwhelming. I realized that I don’t like playing a victim.”

“I didn’t think of you that way,” said Sylvester. “You totally put Viola in her place.”

“Don’t you mean
her character
put
my character
in her place?” said Viola, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh. Yeah. Right.”

“Well, it sure felt great to watch the good guys finally win,” said Woodrow. “I think that was my favorite part of the whole thing. The ending.”

“Absolutely,” said Rosie, popping a french fry in her mouth. “But everybody knows that all the fun is in getting there.”

BONUS
THE SCIENCE CLASS SWITCHEROO
(A ???? MYSTERY)

 

While the rest of the Hudson Valley felt the warmth of a late spring heat wave, Moon Hollow was sheltered by the surrounding hills and cooled by wind off the water. The young people in town enjoyed the temperate weather by playing outside. They flew kites, tossed Frisbees, and ate their first ice cream cones of the season, even as their watches ticked off the seconds to their curfews.

The sun was keeping later hours, allowing the Question Marks Mystery Club to gather at the Four Corners after dinner. When they found one another in the center of their yards, it was no surprise to Sylvester, Woodrow, or Viola that Rosie had a new mystery to discuss with them. Over the course of the past year, they had all become expert detectives.

“My older brother Greg told me a good one last night,” said Rosie. “For the past couple weeks up at the high school, Greg’s science teacher has been out sick, so they’ve had a substitute teacher take over. Mrs. Chelzwert.”

“Chelzwert?” said Woodrow. “Is Greg’s sub any relation to Colby Chelzwert?”

“Who’s that?” asked Viola.

“He’s in my art class,” answered Woodrow. “He’s always drawing pictures of really gross stuff. Deep-fried snakes. Dead unicorns. Zombie versions of our classmates.”

Viola wrinkled her nose.

“As a matter of fact, they
are
related,” said Rosie. “Mrs. Chelzwert is his mom. Colby also has an older sister named Faina. She’s in Greg’s class.”

“She made fun of my coat at the town library once,” said Sylvester, as if he expected everyone to reach out and give him a hug. But no one did. “I almost cried,” he added to no avail. He lay down on the grass with a huff.

“Faina’s not very nice to Greg either,” said Rosie. “Once, she lobbed a spitball into his juice from across the cafeteria. Another time, she took the specimen jars off the shelves in the back of their science classroom and put them all over his desk. The jars are filled with all sorts of nasty-looking dead things soaking in preservative. Greg really didn’t want to have to touch the jars, but he also didn’t want to admit that Faina was bullying him. So he took the blame, and the teacher forced him to put them back on the shelf. The whole class watched as he walked back and forth, his arms full of creepy biological
specimens. He said that everyone was so freaked out by what was inside the jars, no one has touched them since.”

“I’ll bet Faina got a kick out of that,” said Sylvester.

“I’ll bet you’re right,” said Rosie. “But when her mom took over their science class, everyone was wondering if Faina would start being nice. And she seemed to be better … for a little while. Then, during an outdoor science experiment, Faina turned all diva and said she needed to use the restroom. After Faina moaned and groaned for fifteen minutes, her mom finally relented.

“Unfortunately, when the rest of the students returned to class, they found that someone had gone through their bags. Some of them were missing valuables. Cash, keys, even some jewelry.”

“So Faina got caught stealing?” asked Sylvester.

“Well … no,” said Rosie. “The students insisted that the school security guards search Faina. Mrs. Chelzwert wasn’t happy about her daughter being searched, but she seemed to understand that her daughter could have been the culprit. She had been inside during the burglary, after all. But the security guards didn’t find anything in Faina’s pockets or her bag or her locker. They also checked the rest of Greg’s classmates’ lockers. But they didn’t locate any of the missing valuables.”

“If it wasn’t Faina, who did it?” asked Viola.

Rosie smiled mischievously. “I think all of our detective work must be rubbing off on my family.”

“What do you mean?” asked Woodrow.

“Greg went into science class the next morning and noticed something was amiss,” said Rosie. “Something was different in the room. And it was something that surprised him.
Do you know what he noticed
?”

“The specimen jars?” asked Viola. Rosie nodded, asking her to continue. “You said earlier that after Greg returned the specimens to the shelves, no one had touched them again. He must have gone into the room and noticed that the jars were out of place or something.”

“Right,” said Rosie. “They
were
out of place. And he would know, considering how much time he’d spent putting them on the shelves.

“Next he took a closer look. There was nothing hidden behind the jars. The specimens were still inside them. But one jar in particular had something … extra.
Can you guess what it was
?”

“It had to have been one of the missing valuables,” said Woodrow.

“Yup,” said Rosie. “It was a quarter, sitting right next to a carefully preserved tapeworm. He opened the jar to fish it out, and a horrific stench blasted his nose. I guess all that preservative is pretty rank.”

“Gross!” said Sylvester, rubbing at his legs as if worms were attacking him.

“But how did the quarter get inside the specimen jar?” asked Woodrow.
“
I mean, I guess the thief put it there, but why
?”

“Let’s think this out,” said Viola. “Suppose the thief knew that if she stole items from her classmates, she’d get searched. She’d need a place to hide the goods until it was safe to collect them again. Faina could have come inside from the science experiment, gone through everyone’s stuff, and then hid whatever she wanted to take in a spot she knew no one would ever look. The specimen jars!”

“Whoa!” said Woodrow. “That girl has got some guts.”

“Later,” Viola continued, “when she thought all eyes were off her again, she’d return to the classroom and take what she’d planted. She must have forgotten to take that one last coin.”

“Very good,” said Rosie. “Except for one big problem. Greg said the teacher locks the door at the end of every day. And Greg was the first one to arrive the next morning. So Faina wouldn’t have had access back into the room. She certainly wouldn’t have had another chance to be there alone.”

“She seems pretty sneaky,” said Sylvester. “Maybe she somehow stole the key from her mom.”

“Good guess,” said Rosie. “Greg was pretty sure that Faina was the one who’d put the items in the specimen jars. And since her mom had the key to the classroom, it might have been possible
for Faina to get her hands on it. But something clued him in that she was not working alone.”

“Not alone?” said Woodrow. “Who else would have been helping her?”

“The answer would be whoever had the key,” said Viola, squinting her eyes.

“You think Mrs. Chelzwert was Faina’s accomplice?” said Sylvester. “No way. A teacher would never do something like that.”

“But Greg had proof that she
did
do something like that,” said Rosie.
“
Do you know what was his final clue
?”