Gooney Bird and All Her Charms (8 page)

BOOK: Gooney Bird and All Her Charms
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Barry nodded. “Bruno has a witness,” he said, “and an alibi.”

“Good,” Gooney Bird said. “I didn't want Bruno to be guilty.”

The children and Mrs. Pidgeon all agreed. Bruno was a much-loved dog.

“But I really wish we could solve the crime.” Gooney Bird sighed. She looked out over the playground. Nothing had changed. Out in the street, for the third time, the same blue car passed slowly again.

“Barry!” Gooney Bird said suddenly. “Write down that car's license number! It keeps driving past. That's suspicious!”

Barry always had a Magic Marker in his pocket. Quickly he pulled it out, peered toward the car, and wrote the numbers on the back of his hand. “What should we do with the number?” he asked.

“I'm not sure. But on TV they always try to get the license number. Could you see who was driving?”

The children shook their heads.

“A woman, I think,” Mrs. Pidgeon said.

“Was she wearing my blue hat?” Nicholas asked.

“I don't think so, Nicholas. Sorry.” Mrs. Pidgeon put her arm around Malcolm.

“Kids,” she said, “we'd better go back inside. We've done everything we can out here. Isn't that so, Gooney Bird?”

Gooney Bird frowned. She nodded. “I guess so. Here: I'll throw the useless clues away.” She gathered the broken toys, the soggy mitten, and the scraps of paper that the children had collected. Then, while her classmates climbed the stairs to return to the building, she took the little pile of things to the trash can by the corner of the building. They all stood by the door and watched her. She looked dejected.

But when Gooney Bird lifted the lid of the large can, the look on her face changed. The bells on her jester's hat jingled as she looked up at the class. “Here's your hat, Nicholas!” she called. She leaned forward, reached into the can, and held up the knitted hat.

“And the scarf! Whose scarf was this?” Gooney Bird held up the plaid scarf that had been tied around Napoleon's neck.

“Mine!” Chelsea called. “Yay!”

“Is Napoleon in there, all folded up?” Barry asked.

“Nope. But wait—” Gooney Bird leaned forward, reaching into the big can. “Look!” she called, and held up the two balloons. They had lost some air and begun to deflate.

Standing there while the class watched her, Gooney Bird examined the hat, the scarf, and the two limp balloons. She held them each close to her face with a puzzled look.

Suddenly she grinned and looked up.

“I've solved the crime!” she announced loudly. “Now we just have to get Napoleon back!”

10

Back in the classroom, Gooney Bird passed around the hat, the scarf, and the two limp balloons. The objects went from desk to desk. Each child sniffed them. Some of the children made a face. “Yuck,” Malcolm said loudly.

Tricia said, after she sniffed, “Yikes! I might need my inhaler!”

“Are we all in agreement about who stole Napoleon?” Gooney Bird asked.

Everyone nodded.

Mrs. Pidgeon frowned. “It certainly smells like Mrs. Gooch's perfume, that's true. Over-the-top gardenia.”

“And she's the one who hates Napoleon,” Beanie pointed out.

“But we don't really, truly have
proof
,” Barry said, with a worried look. He stared down at the numbers written on the back of his hand.
7508J
.

“I have an idea,” Gooney Bird said. “Veronica Gooch is in third grade, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“Well,” Gooney Bird said, “we could try this. She described her plan.

“I think perhaps we should talk to Mr. Leroy,” Mrs. Pidgeon said, after a moment.

“I'll put on my formal meeting hat,” Gooney Bird said. Carefully she arranged her flowered hat over her red hair. Then she put on her white gloves and set out, with Mrs. Pidgeon's permission, for the principal's office. She was carrying the clues.

Seated behind his big desk, Mr. Leroy listened carefully to Gooney Bird's description of the kidnapping of Napoleon. He looked very concerned.

Carefully he sniffed the hat, gloves, and balloons.

“I agree,” he said. “That's Mrs. Gooch's perfume. She's been in this office several times in the past few weeks, complaining about the skeleton. Her scent is very distinctive. I've had to spray air freshener in here again and again. My secretary always says, ‘We've been Gooched.'”

“And we think it was Mrs. Gooch driving past in a blue car, watching us, when we discovered Napoleon was missing. We got the license number. Barry has it written on his hand.
7508J
. She kept going around the block really slowly,” Gooney Bird explained. “She was probably even
laughing
,” she added angrily.

Mr. Leroy stroked his necktie while he thought about the situation. Today he was wearing a tie with Jack-in-the-boxes on it. Jack had a silly smile on his face. But Mr. Leroy didn't. He looked very serious.

“And you said you have a suggestion?” he asked.

“Well, I'm the head detective. And we need proof that she is the thief. We have her perfume, of course.” Gooney Bird wrinkled her nose and gestured to the little pile of objects on Mr. Leroy's desk. “But now we need to find out if that was her car driving sneakily past, watching us.

“So here is my idea. You get on the intercom and announce that you are holding a contest.”

“A contest?” Mr. Leroy said.

“Yes. You tell everybody you're wondering how many children in the school know their parents' car license plate numbers. You can say it's a test of observation and memory. Tell all the children to write down the numbers. With their names, of course.

“Then you collect all of those from all the classes and we look through the third grade ones to see if Veronica Gooch wrote down 7508J. And if she did? Ta da! We know it was her mom driving past.”

Mr. Leroy was silent for a moment. Then he opened a drawer of his desk and removed a folder with a blue cover.

“You know what, Gooney Bird?” he said. “You are a wonderful detective. And I always enjoy your hats.”

“Thank you,” Gooney Bird said, arranging her flowered hat more tidily on her head. “I should be wearing my Sherlock Holmes hat. But I didn't know we'd have a mystery to solve today. So I am wearing my important meeting hat.”

“Well, this is certainly an important meeting,” the principal told her. “And you came up with quite a complex and effective way of identifying our suspect.”

“Thank you.”

“But the contest you describe would be quite time-consuming. And I think I can accomplish the same thing in about two minutes.”

“You can?” Gooney Bird looked very interested. “How?”

Mr. Leroy opened his folder, turned a couple of pages, and ran his finger down a list until he found what he was looking for. Then he reached for his telephone and dialed the number he had located.

“Hello?” he said pleasantly, after a moment. “Mrs. Gooch? This is John Leroy.”

 

Back in the second grade classroom, Gooney Bird removed her hat and gloves and returned them to her cubby. She smoothed her hair. Mrs. Pidgeon and the students were waiting.

“She has confessed,” Gooney Bird announced.

The children clapped their hands.

“Mr. Leroy told her that if she didn't return Napoleon immediately, he would have to notify the authorities.”

“But is he okay?” asked Barry in a worried voice.

Gooney Bird nodded. “He's in her car trunk. The blue car. 7508J. Mr. Leroy told her that if he was broken, she might have to pay for him. So she got all flustered and said that she had bent his legs and arms pretty carefully. So he's not damaged.”

“Thank goodness,” said Mrs. Pidgeon.

“She
also
said,” Gooney Bird told the class, “that he is disgusting, and after she returns him this afternoon, she hopes never to see him again in this school. And she would like all books about the human body removed from the school library.”

The children gasped. They began to mutter. “That's not fair!” “He's not disgusting!” “She can't take books out of our library!” “What did Mr. Leroy say?”

“Mr. Leroy said we shouldn't worry. He said first of all, let's make sure we get Napoleon back and that he isn't damaged. Then he and Mrs. Clancy will talk to Mrs. Gooch and explain about how a library works and how important it is to have books about
everything
, and how it isn't her job to decide what other people can read.”

Mrs. Pidgeon, who had been sitting at her desk, stood up and turned to the chalkboard. “Thank you, Gooney Bird,” she said. “And now we have to get busy on our spelling. Our detective work took a lot of time, and we don't want to fall behind.” She wrote the letter
H
on the board.

“But, Mrs. Pidgeon!” Chelsea called out. “We hadn't finished with all the lessons we were teaching the other kids about the human body! We still have more to do, when we get Napoleon back!”

Mrs. Pidgeon nodded. She wrote the letter
E
beside the
H
.

“We haven't done the liver, or the pancreas, or the spleen—” Ben said. He pointed to the poster with the outlined body and all its organs.

Gooney Bird interrupted him. “And I have bad news,” she said. “Look at the calendar. Uncle Walter needs Napoleon back on Monday. We're not going to have time to do every single organ.”

Mrs. Pidgeon wrote the letter
A
. She turned to the class. “You're right,” she said. “We only have a limited time left with Napoleon. We'll do just one more very important exhibition with him for the school.”

“Liver?” asked Ben. “Spleen?”

“Pancreas?” asked Beanie. “Or kidneys?”

“Skin!” Tricia called out. “My mom said our skin is our biggest organ. And she should know because she's a dermatologist! That's a skin doctor.”

“How about appendix?” Malcolm asked. “When I had a stomachache last summer, my dad thought it might be my appendix. But it wasn't. It was just that I sneaked a whole entire bag of cheese puffs at a picnic and ate every single one, and then had ice cream. After I threw up, my stomachache disappeared.”

Mrs. Pidgeon chuckled. “Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm,” she said.

“Appendix isn't an
organ
,” muttered Berry.

Gooney Bird raised her hand politely. “If we're only doing one more part of Napoleon, it should be a really important part.”

“I agree,” said Mrs. Pidgeon. “Of course all the parts of the body are important. They all do their work together. And while you children have been thinking about which part of Napoleon we'll use for our final exhibition, none of you noticed that I was about to use the most important part for one of our spelling words.” She reached for the chalk. The children looked carefully at what she had written on the board.

H E A

“Head!” Barry called.

“Head?” said Tricia. “But we already did the brain!”

“We could put a big hat on him, though, or maybe a wig,” Chelsea suggested, “and then we could maybe talk about his hair, and—and—?”

Felicia Ann said, in her small voice, “I don't think
head
will be very interesting.”

Mrs. Pidgeon smiled and added another letter to the board. Now it said
H E A R

“Hearing?” asked Keiko. “But we already talked about how we hear when we did the brain.”

Gooney Bird was grinning. “Everybody!” she called. “Close your eyes and listen to this!”

All of the children closed their eyes and sat quietly.

In a soft, mysterious voice, Gooney Bird said, “Thu-dump, thu-dump, thu-dump. Put your hands on your chests.”

The second-graders, with their eyes tightly closed, put their hands on their chests as if they were saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

 

 

“Thu-dump, thu-dump.”

The children, with their hands still on their chests, all opened their eyes. They were smiling.

“Heart!”
they said, and Mrs. Pidgeon added the final letter to the word.

11

“March is finally like a lamb, not a lion!” Mrs. Pidgeon pointed out as the children streamed onto the playground wearing only sweaters: no hats, mittens, earmuffs, or parkas. Spring was here at last. The sun was shining and the willow tree at the corner of the playground had turned pale green.

Napoleon had been returned to them safely, and now they edged the skeleton, dangling from his stand, down the front steps. It was his final day at Watertower Elementary School.

“We didn't even need to dress Napoleon,” Malcolm pointed out. “Napoleon is
naked!

Keiko squealed and put her hands over her ears. “Don't say ‘naked,'” she said.

“He's not wearing clothes, but he's wearing gardenia perfume,” Chelsea pointed out, wrinkling her nose.

BOOK: Gooney Bird and All Her Charms
3.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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