After I sat, Principal Rooster shut the door and pulled down the blinds, so that it got murky in his office. He reached over me and turned on a lamp. It lit up the room in a way that felt weird—like I was in his living room instead of his office. He took his time walking around his desk and sitting down in his big, cushiony chair, then he leaned forward and laced his hands together. He wasn’t wearing his usual good-natured grin. His eyes weren’t sparkling. His cheeks weren’t pushing up toward his eyes. I didn’t think it was possible, but he looked … mad.
I gulped. “Is something wrong?” I asked in a teeny-tiny voice that Erma would have loved to have heard come out of my mouth.
Principal Rooster stared at his fingers. “Well, yes, of course something is wrong, Mr. Fallgrout. Something is very wrong.” He looked up at me with his not-Principal-Rooster eyes, and I shrank back.
“Y-you mean the statue?” I asked.
“Yes, of course I mean the statue. I think it’s time we talked.” His voice was still very measured. Icy. He picked up a paperclip and turned it in his fingers. “Do you know who Helen Heirmauser was, Thomas?”
“A math teacher?” I ventured.
He nodded. “Yes, she was a math teacher, but she was more than that, Thomas. You see, Helen Heirmauser was a math genius. She could remember what day of the week it was on any given date in her lifetime. She could multiply ten-digit numbers in her head if she wanted. Have you ever heard of pi, Thomas?”
I licked my lips nervously. “Like … the food?”
“No, like the number. Do you know how many digits are in pi, Thomas?”
“No.”
“Trillions. More than trillions. It’s infinite, Thomas, and it’s also not a rational number, so the digits don’t repeat.”
“Okay,” I said uncertainly.
He stood and paced to a bookshelf, then picked up a globe paperweight and held it in his hand. “Helen Heirmauser had pi memorized to more than eighty thousand digits. Eighty thousand, Thomas! Until 2006, she was the world record holder. Right here in our very school. That’s more than just a math teacher, wouldn’t you agree?” He tossed the paperweight in his hand a few times.
I nodded, just in case he had plans to chuck it at me. Weirder things had happened lately.
“But there was more to it. Helen Heirmauser was the first truly uniquely gifted individual at Pennybaker School, after Louis Pennybaker himself. And she embraced it. Do you know what happens to most kids who are uniquely gifted, Thomas?”
“No, sir.”
“They aren’t accepted. They’re thought of as weird. Unusual. Dorky.”
I thought about my magic and how I didn’t talk about it at my old school. How I kept the trunk in my room, most of the time under my bed, and still considered it something just between me and Grandpa Rudy. I thought about how embarrassed I was to admit that I was good at magic to pretty much anyone. It was sort of like having a dirty little secret. Even though there was nothing wrong with it, and, in fact, being really good at something unique was actually pretty cool.
Principal Rooster put the paperweight back on the shelf, then came over and sat on the edge of his desk, towering over me. “Helen Heirmauser accepted everyone’s gifts. It was her passion. It was her calling. It is the reason our students, and the students before them and the students all the way back to your grandparents’ generation and maybe even beyond, hold her in such high regard. She earned it, one accepting hug at a time. Do you understand what I’m getting at, Thomas?”
“That’s why everyone’s so upset that the statue is missing?”
“Stolen. Not missing—stolen.” He got up and went back to his chair. “And maybe it was stolen by someone who didn’t quite understand its importance. Someone who maybe went to a different school before this year. Someone who maybe understands things now and might want to return it?”
He stared at me so intently that I started to feel myself squirm. “But I didn’t take it, sir.”
He closed his eyes, as if the words physically hurt him.
“We both know that isn’t true, Mr. Fallgrout.”
“But it is true. I had nothing to do with it. I’m trying to find it, too. I want it to come back so people will talk to me again.”
“The longer you keep it, the less likely that is to happen, you know.”
“But I don’t have it!”
He stared at me a few moments longer, as if he could stare a confession out of me. Then he took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. He picked up his phone and said, “Miss Munch? Would you mind getting Thomas Fallgrout’s parents on the phone?” He hung up. “I didn’t want to do this, but I’m afraid you leave me no choice. Your straw, please.” He stretched a hand, palm-up, across his desk.
At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. And then I realized he meant my special team captain straw. My secret special team captain straw for the secret spitwad war that nobody was supposed to know about. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”
He wiggled his fingers. “Hand it over, please.”
With shaky hands, I dug it out of my pocket and placed it in his palm. Now I was unarmed. A terrifying feeling, given what Patrice had told me. “But there’s an ambush coming,” I said softly.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be suspended for instigating a schoolwide spitball fight, Mr. Fallgrout. Yes, we know all about the spitwad fight. Nurse Hale is preparing a lecture on the dangers of germ-soaked weaponry as we speak.”
“But I didn’t instigate it.”
“Wesley tells us you’re the leader of the boys’ team.”
That stinkball Wesley. He double-crossed me. First he kicked me out of the leader position, and then he turned me in for being the leader. “I’m not anymore. Nobody will even talk to me. They spitwadded my window. At my house.”
“Nobody reported anything,” Principal Rooster said. He slid open a drawer and dropped my straw into it. Then he laced his hands together. “Hopefully the time off will give you a chance to think, Mr. Fallgrout. Some time to reflect about things.”
I was so mad I was shaking. Worse, there were tears bubbling up in my eyes. I couldn’t say anything. It seemed pointless to even try.
Principal Rooster stood and went to the door. He opened it and stood to one side. “You can wait outside for your mother to get here.”
Great.
TRICK #28
FLOATING TO CATHY’S COW BARN
“You ready to go?” Chip said that evening, showing up at my window again. I wondered if Chip knew doors existed. He was already wearing his pads and helmet. And a very long pair of gray socks that went all the way up to where his shorts ended. He saw me staring. “My sneaking socks,” he said. “I’m quiet as a mouse in these.”
I had a hard time imagining Chip being as quiet as an anything, ever.
“So, you ready?” he asked again. “The sun’s going down soon.”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think I might be grounded.”
Not true. Mom didn’t even yell when she picked me up from school. Her face wasn’t a straight line, either. Instead it kind of drooped down into a whole-face frown. Her voice sounded kind of strange and watery when she talked to Miss Munch, and when she came out of Principal Rooster’s office, her eyes looked red, too.
I had made my mom cry. I was the worst son ever.
But then I reminded myself that I didn’t actually do anything wrong.
When we got home, I went straight to my room and was afraid to come out again. Maybe not ever again. Maybe they would slip my food in through the crack under the door and I would make my own clothes out of my bedspread and wouldn’t shave and would turn wild. Maybe I would forget how to talk to humans, and when they finally came to get me out, I would swat at them with my animal claws, lice and rats and stuff flinging out of my matted hair.
“Wouldn’t you know if you’re grounded?” Chip asked. A reasonable question.
“They’re kind of not talking to me. But I
got suspended today, so I’m guessing Mom wouldn’t be too excited to let me go out tonight.”
“But we have plans,” Chip said. “I’m wearing my sneaking socks and everything.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay.” He turned and moped away from the window. But before I could close it, he came back. He held one finger up in the air—a pose I knew meant he had an idea. “But, you see, if we’re successful tonight—and I’ve run the algorithms; our prospects are good—we will have the proof that you are wrongly accused. Your innocence will be irrefutable. They’ll have no choice but to apologize to you. Maybe even make a bust out of your head and put it right next to hers. Parades, Thomas—they might have parades for you. A hero’s welcome.” He lowered his chin and looked at me, all serious. “Thomas, you can’t stay suspended forever. You can’t stay the school pariah forever. And you can’t just sit around and wait for the police to come ransack your room.”
I didn’t know what a pariah was, and I doubted all that about the parades, but he was right about one thing. If I managed to return the statue, I would be out of trouble and my life could go back to normal. Well, to what normal had become, anyway.
“You’re right,” I said. “Give me five minutes.”
I lucked out. Mom was too busy trying to figure out where Grandma Jo had gone to worry about whether or not I should be allowed out of the house for the rest of my natural-born life. When I told her I was going on a bike ride with Chip, and that we would be home a little after dark, she gave me a distracted wave and continued trying to reach Grandma on her cell phone.
“Goodness only knows, the woman is cliff diving or snowboarding or … or … or testing explosives,” she muttered to Dad.
“Hey, pal, we need to have a discussion, don’t you think?” he called as I raced to the garage.
“We will, Dad, I promise.” He started to say something else, but I interrupted. “This bike ride is important, Dad. You have to trust me on this.”
He considered it, examining me, and then nodded. “Go ahead. We’ll talk later.”
I could hear Erma start to protest how “unfaaair” it was that I got to go outside and “plaaay” when I was so “baaad,” but I shut her out with a slam of the garage door.
Chip was mounted and waiting for me on the street, bent over and fussing with his socks. Sneaking socks. How could he believe in such thing? Also, I hoped they worked.
As we rode, Chip told me the plan.
“We’re going to hide our bikes behind Cathy’s Cow Barn and walk,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And then we’re going to hide behind the pallets like we did last time, and wait for Harvey to get there.”
“Okay.”
“And we’ll wait for him to go inside, and then grab the door and slip in behind him.”
“Yeah?”
“And that’s all I have.”
I coasted so he could catch up. “That’s it?”
“I had a geometry test,” he said. “And Grandpa Huck was doing really bad today.”
“Oh.” I started pedaling again, so he didn’t have to have me looking at him, just in case he wanted to start crying about his grandpa or something.
“Anyway, so I was thinking, once we have the head, we’re probably going to have to call someone to help us out. It’s forty-point-two pounds and one foot three inches by two feet exactly, and other than a small indentation where her mouth is, there really isn’t anywhere to hang on to, especially if you take into consideration her slippery forehead. It would be very difficult to navigate our bikes while holding her. Plus, we wouldn’t want to risk dropping her and damaging her.”
“We could stop by Cathy’s when we get our bikes and ask to use their phone. I’m sure my dad would come pick us up once he heard what we had.” I got lost in a daydream about Dad patting me on the back and telling me I’d made him prouder than Erma ever could. And that they were wrong—my unique gift was actually solving crimes instead of magic.
Neither one of us had any money, which was too bad, because Cathy’s vanilla cones were excellent. But my stomach was all knotty anyway, and I was sweating and panting from riding so fast. Also, a bug had flown in my mouth about a block earlier, and my gagger was still feeling kind of sensitive about it. What if the bug was still alive and ate the ice cream and got bigger and kept eating and getting bigger and eating and getting bigger while I was starving and getting smaller and smaller until one day all that was left was a giant talking bug pulling rabbits out of hats?
Louis XIV: Stuffed in a hat for all eternity by human-beetle hybrid magician.
We parked our bikes behind Cathy’s and walked to the pallets and waited for Harvey Hinkle. I wished I’d gotten to see him at school that day. I wished I’d been able to tail him and report to Chip his every move, even down to what he had for lunch and how he held his fork.
Still, I knew the form I saw coming down the road was Harvey Hinkle even without tailing him. I could tell by the way the hoodie drooped over his head and the way his shoulders sagged from the weight of his backpack.
“There he is,” I whispered.
“Wait,” Chip said. “Just wait.”
We watched as Harvey approached the door. I started to get up, but Chip pulled me back down by my sleeve.
“Wait for it, Thomas.”
Harvey pulled open the door.
“Wait for what? He’s getting away.”
“Wait … wait …”
Harvey stepped through the door. I tried to tear Chip’s fingers away from my clothes.
“Just a little … bit … longer …”
“It’s going to be too late,” I said. “Let go.”
The door started to close behind Harvey.
“Now!” Chip yelled, and he was halfway to the door before I’d even gotten all the way out from behind the pallets.
Chip grabbed the door with only an inch to spare, ripped it open, scrambled through, and yelled, “Stop right there, Harvey Hinkle, you thief! We’ve caught you red—”
I practically bowled him over—I was running full tilt, and he’d stopped in his tracks. It took me a second to understand why. I gazed into the room beyond the door.
“What the …?”
Harvey Hinkle dropped his backpack.
TRICK #29
IMPALED IN A BARREL
The first thing I noticed was the smell. Cow. To be precise, the stuff that comes out of a cow. And dirt, lots of dirt. We were standing on a dirt floor, which was lit up with lots of overhead lights and led to a walled-off ring. In the center of the ring was a brightly painted barrel. I heard a moo.
Harvey Hinkle was standing in front of us, his backpack on the ground between his feet, his hands in the air, surrender-style.
“What is this?” I asked. “Where are the mobsters?”
“Thomas Fallgrout?” Harvey said. “What are you doing here? What mobsters?”
“We’re here to get back what’s rightfully ours,” Chip sneered. He reached down to grab the backpack.
I leaned toward him. “Technically, it’s not ours. It belongs to the school, but yeah.”
Chip had whipped the backpack off the ground so easily that there was no way it weighed forty-point-two pounds. Still, he reached inside triumphantly. “Harvey Hinkle,” he intoned in an important voice, “we are charging you with burglary.”
“Who’s charging me?” Harvey asked. He’d let his hands down, and made a feeble swipe for the bag. “And what did I steal?”
I shrugged. “Never mind what he says. Just, we’re here to get the head back so everyone will stop hating me.”
“Why would you want the head?” Harvey Hinkle asked in a very confused voice.
“Because Helen Heirmauser was a genius and blah-blah-blah. I mean, I don’t want the creepy thing. I just want to clear my name, okay?”
“Uh, Thomas?” Chip said. His arm was in the bag up to his elbow, and he had a funny look on his face.
“Quit with the
theatrics, Chip. Let’s just take the head and go.”
“But that’s the thing,” Chip said.
“What does the head have to do with Helen Heirmauser?” Harvey Hinkle asked. He made another grab for the bag. “Give that to me. You’ll tangle it.”
Tangle it?
Tangle it?
How could someone tangle a bronze bust?
“Chip,” I said warily. “What’s in the bag?” Although I knew the answer wasn’t going to be good from the look on his face.
“It’s a head,” Chip said, slowly pulling something bright red and curly out of the bag. It was a wig, attached to a Styrofoam head.
“That’s not—” I started, but I couldn’t finish due to the foghorn that was coming at me from the side.
“You two must be new students,” the foghorn said, only it sounded like “YOU TWO MUST BE NEW STUDENTS!” with a thousand exclamation points after it.
The foghorn was coming out of a clown. A real, bona fide, rainbow-wig-wearing, white-makeup-with-big-red-lips-wearing, poofy-green-polka-dotted-suit-wearing clown.
Suddenly the head in Chip’s hand made sense. Harvey Hinkle didn’t steal the Heirmauser statue; he was carrying around a clown wig.
“No, we’re—” Chip started, but the foghorn had engulfed him, clasping arms around each of our shoulders and leading us across the dirt floor to a makeup and dressing area on one end of the building.
“We’re always so glad to have new students. Not enough young ones these days, you know? I mean, Harvey here is a real treat. A real treat, aren’t you, Harvey? But he’s my only young clown. My balloon-animal clown. We need more shapes and sizes. And you two are perfect. I have just the outfits for you. Come with me, come with me. Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Dottie. Get it? Dottie?” She waggled her dotted suit at us. “But my real name is Dottie.” She let out a huge laugh and pushed us, one hand on each shoulder, into seats in front of a mirror. “Now, don’t be afraid of a little makeup,” she said, taking out a sponge and smearing white down my forehead and across my cheek. “It washes right off. Yes, it does.” Swipe. Swipe-swipe. She was fast at putting on makeup. So fast that my face was finished before my brain had even caught up that she’d started. She turned and began smearing Chip’s face. “Do you want to be a happy clown or a sad one? You know, never mind, you look like a clown with a teeny-tiny mouth. Here, let me get some white on those lips.”