I folded my arms across my chest. “So Chris can disagree and be cool. But if you disagree with an idea, you’re pushy?”
Sandra looked over her shoulder. “Yeah, something like that,” she murmured. “Let’s face it, guys don’t like girls who act too brainy.”
“Hey, move it, will you?” a beefy eighth-grader said huffily. “The bell’s gonna ring!”
Sandra looped her arm through mine and pulled me toward the cafeteria. “Come on, Mal, you’re making a scene.”
I let Sandra lead me into the lunchroom. Mostly because I was stunned at what I’d just heard. After my progress report, everyone had teased me about my straight A’s. I wondered if people — boys in particular — thought I was too brainy.
I sure didn’t feel that way lately. Especially in Mr. Cobb’s class. I felt like a total idiot. I could barely put two words together.
I grabbed a tray and followed Sandra down the cafeteria line. I watched as she waved and called perky hellos to everyone she saw. She certainly was popular. No one would ever accuse her of acting too brainy.
Justin and Lisa had already staked out our lunch table and were halfway through the daily special: sloppy joes, featuring everybody’s favorite — mystery meat.
Sandra had passed on the sloppy joes — “too messy” — and had settled on a container of yogurt and a diet cola.
“Okay, Mal, tell us what you learned from the old sixth-grade minutes,” Justin said as Sandra and I sat down. “Anything interesting?”
I was glad to have something other than my disastrous class with Mr. Cobb to talk about. I told them everything I knew about the sixth-grade class from five years before.
“They raised one thousand dollars to pay for furniture and supplies for the library’s student lounge,” I explained.
“Wait a minute,” Lisa said, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth. “What student lounge?”
“That’s my point,” I said. “There isn’t one.”
“So where did the money go?” Justin asked.
“Yeah,” Sandra echoed. “What happened to it?”
I pointed my carrot stick at the group. “That is what we need to find out. I think we should do some sleuthing and see where it went.”
Lisa set her milk carton down. “I’m with Mallory. Money doesn’t just disappear. Especially one thousand dollars. Somebody had to have spent it. We should find out who that somebody is.”
Justin nodded his head slowly. “Maybe we should.”
“I don’t know.” Sandra twirled her spoon around and around in her yogurt. “Don’t you think that would just make trouble?”
Justin shrugged. “Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn’t.”
Sandra looked at me. “I don’t like to make a big fuss about things. Why don’t we just think about our fund-raiser and our money, and forget about what happened five years ago.”
“But I can’t forget about it,” I said. “What if this year’s class came up with a cause we really liked and worked hard to earn money for it — and then our money vanished. We’d be upset about it, wouldn’t we?”
Sandra tucked her hair behind her ear. “Well, maybe. But …”
Justin put his hand on Sandra’s arm. “We wouldn’t be making a fuss,” he explained. “We’d just be asking questions. What harm can a few questions do?”
Sandra blinked at Justin several times. “You really think we wouldn’t end up in trouble?”
Justin shook his head. “Of course not.”
The more I watched Sandra act like a wimp around Justin, the more I realized how much I didn’t want to act that way.
“Then it’s settled,” I declared forcefully to the group. “We start our investigation on Monday.”
Justin looked a little taken aback. But then he nodded. “Monday it is.”
Weekends are usually a nice break from school. But not this one. I had a lot to think about. Mr. Cobb’s class was my main worry. If he really was grading based on participation, then my straight-A average was about to be blown. Big time.
But it wasn’t just the grade part that was upsetting. It was also the me part. How could I have turned into such a wimp?
It was almost as if I checked the real Mallory Pike at the door to Mr. Cobb’s classroom and put on a different personality during his class. But why? Because Mr. Cobb was cute? Because I didn’t want people to think I was a brain?
I thought about this all Friday night. And all day Saturday. That morning, Mom had asked me to keep an eye on Margo, Claire, and Nicky while she ran some errands. Vanessa was at a friend’s house and the triplets are old enough to take care of themselves. I sat in the backyard, thinking about Mr. Cobb and watching my brother and sisters rehearse for the Memorial Day parade.
“Here’s my drum.” Claire proudly held up a baby-wipe box with construction paper taped across the top. She thumped on the paper and sang, “Pa-rump-a-pump. Pa-rump-a-pump!”
Nicky’s drum was ten times the size of Claire’s. It was a big box that hung from a belt draped around his neck. “This strap lets me march!” he declared.
Just to prove it, he marched in a circle, beating the box with an old wooden spoon. This was going to be some parade.
“No, that’s not how you do it,” Adam cried as he and the other triplets entered the backyard. They’d been down in the basement, decorating their drums.
Nicky stopped and his shoulders drooped. “What am I doing wrong?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Adam said. “It’s just that you’re supposed to be a band. A band marches together. Margo and Claire, go up there and march with Nicky.”
Margo and Claire followed Adam’s orders and fell in line behind Nicky.
Then Adam turned to Byron and Jordan. “Why don’t you guys lead?”
“Right, Coach!” Byron said with a salute. He trotted in front of Nicky. Jordan was beside him.
“We’ll circle the yard drumming,” Adam explained. “Then, when I blow the whistle, we’ll double-time it.”
“Double time?” Nicky asked, wide-eyed.
Adam grinned. “Yeah. That means we march twice as fast as before.”
“Cool!” Margo cried.
Adam took his place at the front of the Pike Family Band. Then he picked up his whistle and blew it three times. “Ready?” he bellowed. “March!”
I wish I had a video of that practice. Claire and Margo, trying to drum and march at the same time, were adorable.
And Adam looked so confident leading the group.
I thought about me and my total lack of confidence in Mr. Cobb’s class. Why was that? Chris Brooks and Robbie Mara and even Benny Ott were completely confident, shouting out answers at the top of their lungs. But they were all boys.
I wonder, I thought as I watched Adam bark orders and joke around with the rest of the family. Is Adam so sure of himself because he’s a boy?
But why would boys be any more confident than girls?
Maybe, I thought sadly, because boys have it easier than girls.
On Monday morning I began my investigation. I’d called Sandra Hart and asked her to meet me before school started. Way before.
We were standing outside the front doors of SMS when the school secretary arrived to open the building.
“My, you girls are early,” Mrs. Downey said, flipping through her big ring of keys.
Sandra looked at me, and I explained, “We need to do some research.”
Mrs. Downey blinked several times. “Research? Now?”
“For the sixth-grade fund-raising week,” I continued.
“Oh? Is it that time already?” Mrs. Downey shook her head. “The years just whiz by.”
The secretary let us into the school without any further questions. I waited until she’d gone into the front office and had flipped on the hallway lights. Then I led Sandra down a back corridor to a door marked NO ENTRY.
“We can’t go in there,” Sandra whispered.
“We have to,” I whispere
d back. “The class minutes are kept in the library, but this door leads to the basement where the school’s records are kept.”
“But what if someone sees us?” Sandra checked nervously over her shoulder.
“The only person who would see us is Mrs. Downey, and she’s in the front office,” I replied. “Come on, Sandra, don’t chicken out now.”
“I’m not being a chicken.” Sandra grabbed my arm and her nails dug into my skin. “I’m just being cautious.”
I turned the doorknob. Luckily, it was unlocked. I flicked on the light switch to our right, but that didn’t do much good. A dim bulb lit the stairwell.
At the bottom of the stairs was a heavy door. I pushed it opened.
“P.U.,” Sandra said, wrinkling her nose. “What’s that smell?”
“Mildew,” I replied. “All basements smell this way. Now, come on. I think the filing cabinets are over here.”
I’d been in the basement only once before, but I knew this was where SMS kept files from all the previous years.
“I don’t like this at all,” Sandra moaned as we tiptoed across the dusty concrete floor toward a row of green metal file cabinets. “It’s smelly, gross, and probably haunted.”
“If we hurry,” I said, “we can be out of here in ten minutes.” I scanned the typed labels on the cabinet drawers. Each was dated and covered a period of three years.
Sandra was still clinging to my arm. She pointed to the cabinet second from the end. “I think that’s the one we’re looking for.”
“Great,” I said, pulling her to the cabinet. I slid open the drawer and groaned. “Uh-oh. This may take longer than I thought. This drawer is crammed with stuff.”
Sandra peered over my shoulder. “Find the financial records. Don’t worry about the library files or anything else. The financial records will tell you when the money was donated and what was done with it.”
I looked at Sandra in surprise. She was smarter than she let on.
I flipped to the file marked FINANCES. As I pulled it out of the drawer, Sandra said, “Just to be on the safe side, grab the financial reports for the next two years. Maybe the money was spent the following year. Or the year after that.”
“Good thinking,” I said with an approving grin.
Sandra checked over her shoulder. “But hurry, will you? I don’t want a custodian to catch us. Mr. Halprin really doesn’t like it when students ignore his NO ENTRY signs.”
I tucked the files under my arm and slammed the drawer. “Let’s take these to the library. We can look them over there and maybe pump a little information out of Mr. Counts at the same time.” (Mr. Counts is the librarian.)
When we stuck our heads out from behind the basement door, the halls were already filling up. Lights were on in most of the classrooms and the doors were open as we made our way to the library.
Once inside, we worked fast.
Sandra is really good at math. She looked at all of those confusing figures and knew exactly what they meant. “My dad runs an accounting firm,” she explained, scanning the reports. “I grew up with these graphs.”
We were able to figure out that the money had been donated to the school. And the one thousand dollars was earmarked for the library’s student lounge. But the following year’s records revealed that the money had been put into the building maintenance fund.
Sandra tilted her head. “It looks as if that class’s money went to repair the roof and repaint some classrooms.”
“Whoa.” I leaned back in my chair. “That’s not what that class intended at all.”
Sandra nodded. “I think this comes under the heading of misappropriation of funds.”
I sat forward. “Gee, that sounds like some big government crime or something.”
Sandra shrugged. “I don’t know if this really was a crime. I mean, it just looks like the school needed to use the money someplace else.”
I shook my head. “But that’s not right. If that class had wanted to raise money to fix the roof, or paint a wall, they would have said so. It was supposed to be their decision, not the school’s.”
“Oh, Mallory, it all happened a long time ago.” Sandra scooped up the records and put them back in their files. “We should probably just drop it.”
I looked at Sandra in dismay. “How can you say that?”
“Because I told you, I don’t like to make waves,” Sandra replied, standing up and pushing her chair under the table. “It’ll just call attention to us, and people will think we’re dorks.”
“Dorks?” I didn’t like the sound of that. “But don’t you think what the school did was wrong?”
“Of course,” Sandra said. “But the money’s been spent. We’re not going to get it back. So let’s just drop it, okay?” She looked up at the clock on the wall. “I need to fix my hair and go to my locker before class. I’ll catch you later.”
It was weird. As I watched Sandra leave the library, she seemed to alter her personality. She plastered on her big smile and sang out her extra-perky hello to everyone she met.
I looked down at the musty file. Maybe Sandra was right. Maybe it was stupid to try to stir up trouble. Some of the kids in Mr. Cobb’s class already thought I was a dork. I didn’t need to have the whole school agree with them.
That afternoon, I arrived late to the BSC meeting — again. I’d been trying to think of some cool project for Mr. Cobb’s class. So far, I’d drawn a complete blank.
“That’s twice in a little over a week,” Kristy said sharply, as I shuffled to my place next to Jessi. “What’s going on?”
If there was ever a perfect opportunity to tell my friends about my troubles with Mr. Cobb, this was it. I opened my mouth to speak but quickly closed it. What if they thought I was a big baby who worried too much about grades?
I was upset about a lot more than just grades. But how could I make them understand that? Lately, I hadn’t been very good at expressing myself.
“I’m sorry,” I told Kristy. “I’m just having an off week. I won’t let it happen again.”
Mary Anne was watching my face as I spoke. She asked quietly, “Is something the matter, Mal?”
I wanted to shift the focus off me, so I mentioned the sixth-grade fund-raising dilemma. I told my friends about reading the minutes from that other class and checking the school files.
“Those guys raised the most money of any class — one thousand dollars. And the school spent it. Not on the library’s student lounge, as the school promised, but on building repairs.”
“What!” Kristy gasped, leaning forward in her director’s chair.
“That’s terrible!” Jessi cried.
“I can’t believe it,” Claudia said. “That’s … that’s almost criminal.”
“Sandra Hart called it a misappropriation of funds,” I reported.
“And she’s right,” Stacey replied. “I think that’s against the law.”
Abby slammed her fist into her hand. “That sixth-grade class should sue!”
I’d expected a reaction, but not one this big. Every girl in that room was upset. Even quiet Mary Anne.
“Our sixth-grade class gave the school the trampoline,” Mary Anne reminded the group. “We all voted to do that. Can you imagine how upset we’d be if we found out they’d spent the money on fixing the plumbing or carpeting the front office?”
“This is an outrage!” Kristy leaped to her feet and faced me. “You’re not going to let this just slide by, are you?”
All eyes were on me. I didn’t have the nerve to say, “Yes, I am.” Instead, I stammered, “W-well, I’m not really sure what to do about it.”
“Call the principal!” Kristy ordered.
“No,” Stacey cut in. “Call the newspaper.”
“Call the police!” Abby shouted over everyone else. “And then call a lawyer!”
A tight knot formed in my stomach. I could barely speak up in Mr. Cobb’s class. No way would I be able to confront all of those people.
; Jessi spotted the miserable look on my face and patted my knee. “Don’t worry, Mal,” she said. “You won’t have to do this alone. The whole sixth grade will be behind you.”
“And so will the eighth grade,” Kristy declared, raising a clenched fist. “This is a problem for the entire student body.”
The knot in my stomach started to relax. Jessi was right. I wasn’t going to have to fight this battle all by myself. I had friends to support me. I beamed at them all, the best friends a girl could hope to have.
With the BSC rallying behind me, I suddenly knew what I had to do.
“We have to talk to the principal,” I announced Tuesday morning.
I’d called another emergency meeting of the sixth-grade officers to discuss what Sandra and I had discovered. We were huddled in a circle beneath the big sycamore tree in front of SMS. “We need to demand that the funds for the student lounge be returned.”
Justin raised an eyebrow. “Demand is a strong word. I don’t know if Mr. Taylor will like that.”
Normally, Justin’s words would have made me back down, but not today. I kept thinking of my friends in the BSC. “I’m not the only person who feels this way,” I explained. “A lot of kids are upset by this news.”
“Mallory’s right,” Lisa Mannheim said. “Every year the sixth-graders nearly kill themselves trying to raise money for our school. It’s a big deal for all of us, and it should be taken seriously.”
Justin rubbed his chin. “I suppose we could talk to Mr. Taylor. I mean, he does at least owe us an explanation.”
“He owes us more than that,” I said defiantly. “He owes us that student lounge.”
“Do we all have to talk to him?” Sandra asked. “I don’t want Mr. Taylor to think we’re ganging up on him.”
“We’re the class officers,” Justin said firmly. “We were elected to be the voice of the sixth grade. The four of us should present a united front.”
Five minutes later, we trooped into the principal’s office to have a talk with Mr. Taylor.
He sat back in his chair with the tips of his fingers pressed together in front of him, listening. When I finished my report he leaned forward.