The Mystery of Mr. Nice (2 page)

I looked up. Across the playground, Rocky Rhode, the horned toad, was holding a first grader upside down until lunch money rained from his pockets. The old shakedown.

I shook my head. That sixth-grade troublemaker was guilty of everything from stealing test answers to writing graffiti on a sleeping teacher. She was bad news with a capital
B.

Hmm.
Maybe I could try the old shakedown on
her.
Rocky spent more time in the principal's office than his secretary did. She might have a clue about why our principal was acting strange.

I strolled across the grass as Rocky dropped the little shrew on his head. He staggered off, whimpering.

"Hey, Rocky," I said.

She squinted up at me as she collected the fallen coins. "Hello, Gecko," she sneered. "Looking for trouble?"

"No, thanks," I said. "I've got plenty. What I need is answers."

"Can you pay?"

"I might."

Rocky looked both ways. No teachers nearby. "Which test did you want the answers to?" she said.

She dug a fistful of papers from her book bag.

I snatched one and scooted back. "No test answers for me," I said. "I want a different kind of answer. And if I don't get it, I'm going straight to the principal with this."

I expected her to take a stab at rearranging my face with her horned fists. I was wrong.

"Hah!" she laughed. "That's a good one! Principal Zero would probably give me a gold star."

My jaw hung open. "So you've noticed that he's ... different?"

Rocky snorted. "Different? He changed like magic."

Magic?

An idea came to me. That happens sometimes.

"Rocky," I said, "do you know if Principal Zero has ever been involved with voodoo?"

"Who do?"

"No, voodoo."

"Zero, voodoo? Sure, I do."

"You do?"

"Yeah," she said. "And the answer is no. But
something's
happened to him."

I sighed and handed back the test sheet. "Here, I don't need this."

Rocky stuffed it back into her book bag, which was jammed with papers, stolen lunch money, and what looked like a very cramped kindergartner. I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned to go.

"Hey, Gecko," said Rocky. "I'll give you one answer for free. You wanna know how different Zero is?"

I turned to face her. "Yeah."

"Yesterday, Teach sent me to the principal's office for swiping lunch money from someone's desk. But all Zero said was, 'Next time, don't get caught.'"

Rocky shrugged a spiky shoulder. "He told me he'd help me practice my technique. Now, that's what I call a nice principal."

Things were worse than I thought. I had to act fast.

"See ya around, Rocky." I turned and started across the playground.

"Hey, answer
me
something," Rocky shouted after me. "Why don't burglars make good actors?... Give up? Because they always try to steal the show!"

I shook my head and walked on.

She should know better. Comedy and crime just don't mix.

I walked across the grass, working things over in my mind. My keen detective instincts told me something was seriously screwy.

A shadow fell across me. I ducked.

"Hey, Chet!"

I looked up. It was only Natalie Attired, my partner. She floated down and made a neat two-point landing on a low branch. Mockingbirds have some serious moves.

"I just heard a great joke," she said. "What's the difference between a teacher and a train?"

"Huh?"

"A teacher says, 'Spit out your gum,' and a train says, 'Chew, chew, chew.'" She cackled. "Pretty good, eh?"

"A riot," I said.

"What's the matter, Chet? Got a bug stuck in your craw?"

"Nope, a mystery."

I told her about my strange meeting with Principal Zero and what Rocky had said.

"Yeah, so?" said Natalie. "Maybe he got a personality transplant—they dumped his, and put in the personality of someone nice."

She laughed.

"You laugh," I said, "but nobody could change that fast. And even if he could, why would he start being nice to
me?
That's not our principal in there."

"So?"

I paced on the grass. "So, bird-brain, the principal is only the most powerful guy in the school. If someone has kidnapped Mr. Zero and substituted an impostor, that's scary. Who knows what they might be planning?"

We both fell silent. Natalie groomed her feathers thoughtfully.

"But you don't know for
sure
that someone switched principals on us," she said. "He could just be in a good mood."

We looked at each other.

"Nah," we said together. Mr. Zero hadn't had a good mood since the
Titanic
was just a dinghy.

"I've got a nose for danger," I said, "and I tell you something's rotten here."

"You've got a nose for sweet snacks and deep-fried termites," she said. "But you have been known to sniff out a mystery now and then ... with my help."

"Hah! You're lucky I
let
you help. Without me, you'd spend your time counting worms, doing homework—"

"And getting better grades," she said. "So, if we're going to unravel the mystery of Mr. Nice, where do we start?"

I munched my Pillbug Crunch bar. We chewed over some ideas.

"We could try following him around," I said. "He might do something to give himself away."

"But how will we get out of class?"

Oh yeah. Class. It sure got in the way of detective work.

"I know!" she said. "Let's search his office. Maybe we can find a clue."

"Now you're talking, tootsie!"

"'Tootsie'?"

"Hey, that's what they say in detective movies," I said.

We needed a plan. After all, Maggie Crow wouldn't just let us waltz in and search her boss's office. And Principal Zero (or whoever he was) probably wouldn't roll out the welcome mat and serve us tea and cookies, either.

We needed something to get them out of the office for a while. A diversion.
Hmmm.

"Tell me," I said, "are the Newt Brothers still taking karate lessons?"

"I think so," said Natalie.

"Have them join us, chop-chop. We'll meet behind the cafeteria at lunchtime. Mrs. Crow will be in the teachers' lunchroom, and I think I know how to get the principal out of his office."

"Roger," she said.

"'Roger?' I'm Chet."

Natalie shrugged. "Hey, that's what they say in detective movies."

That Natalie. What a joker.

The bell rang. We headed back to class. With a bit of luck, lunchtime would bring the answer to our question: Had our principal gone plumb crazy, or was he off somewhere taking the Big Nap?

The lunch bell jangled. I strolled with the other kids to the cafeteria—my favorite place on campus. My steps slowed as I passed the trays of steaming delicacies. But I had no time for Mystery Meat or Chef's Surprise.

Chet Gecko was on the case.

Natalie and the Newt Brothers were waiting outside. We watched the main office until Mrs. Crow left for lunch, bob-bob-bobbin' along toward a juicy worm, no doubt. Yuck. A janitor followed her, pushing a cart.

That left only Principal Zero inside.

I turned to Bo and Tony Newt.

"Okay, boys. Make it good. You've got to keep him away from the office for at least five minutes."

"No problem-o, Chet," said Bo. He grinned from ear to ear, like Peter Pumpkin Eater at a jack-o'-lantern convention.

"Yeah," said Tony, hooking a thumb toward his brother. "I'm gonna love creaming this creep."

"Who you calling a creep, you moth-brain?" Bo aimed a kick at his brother's head.

Tony ducked and karate-chopped back. They burst through the cafeteria doors faster than a vice principal after a sassy eighth grader.

Tony snatched a chunk of mealworm casserole off some kid's tray.

"Yoohoo, bug-breath!" He tossed the food at his brother's face. Bo ducked, and the gooey mess splatted onto a fat toad at the next bench.

I sighed. It was a shame to waste chow, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Nice shot, booger-brain," said Bo. "Take
that!
"

He flung a lump of Jell-O at Tony. Tony dodged, and the gelatin ploshed into the lap of one of the Rat Sisters. She growled and hefted her soup bowl.

"FOOD FIGHT!" I screamed.

The cafeteria erupted in airborne edibles. Casserole and Jell-O flew through the air with the greatest of cheese. Rolls bounced, doughnuts danced, and salad got undressed. It looked like a family of crosseyed jugglers had gone berserk in a deli.

I wanted to stay and help clean up the leftovers, but lunch would have to wait. Natalie tugged me out the door. "Come
on,
" she said.

We stopped outside the principal's office and ducked behind the bushes.

"Watch this mockingbird go to work," said Natalie. She buzzed like an office intercom.

"Principal Zero, come quick!" said Natalie in Maggie Crow's voice. "There's a food fight in the cafeteria!"

Whoever he was, he still acted like a principal. The huge cat staggered out the door, tugging on some loose skin at his neck, waddling off as fast as he could go.

"Oh, the waste!" moaned Principal Zero.

I smirked. "He has quite a waist himself."

Natalie eyed my belly. "You should talk, Mr. Can't-Say-No-to-a-Pillbug-Crunch-Bar."

"Hey, at least I don't have worm-breath," I said. I narrowed my eyes. "Now, you want to swap insults or search this joint?"

We searched the joint. Natalie checked the principal's file cabinets and corkboard. I took his desk.

"What are we looking for, anyway?" she said.

"Anything that can give us the lowdown. Medical records, ransom notes, maps to secret hideouts—anything at all."

I looked in the wastebasket. It was empty as a vampire's vanity mirror.

I sifted through the papers on the desk. Report cards overflowed his in-box. When I saw my own, I paused. A C+ in English? Just because I told the teacher that Shakespeare was an old English javelin thrower?

School wasn't fair.

I moved on. A hefty book,
Crime and Punishment in Primary School,
sat open on his desk. A half-eaten fish-gut sandwich pinned down a stack of old homework papers and drawings. I noticed my own masterpiece among them.

A "private collection," eh?

"Hey, Chet, look at this," said Natalie.

She held up a calendar. On it, Friday's date was circled in red.
PTA meeting
was scrawled in the same color.

"Do you think it means something?" she said.

"Yeah. It means he's going to the PTA meeting. Anything else?"

Natalie shook her head and turned back to the file cabinet. I slid open a desk drawer. A well-worn copy of
Advanced Spanking Techniques
rested on some rolled-up papers.

I unrolled one batch. It looked like floor plans for buildings. The top of each sheet read,
Vocational School.

Since when was Principal Zero an architect?

"Check this out," I said.

"Yes?" A deep voice answered.