Goofballs 4: The Mysterious Talent Show Mystery (5 page)

“Something about this isn’t right,” said Mrs. Rinkle.

Then Billy tried on his Mr. Monkey suit. But it came up only to his waist.

“I think this was made for my little monkey brother. And I don’t
have
a little monkey brother! Or any kind of brother!”

Kelly slipped into her River Fairy outfit. Except that it sort of slipped into her.

“What kind of River Fairy wears baggy pants?” she asked.

“River Fairies are elegant and beautiful. Like me,” she said.

Mara couldn’t get her actual trunk into her tree trunk. “My roots can’t breathe! Help!”

None of our costumes fit.

“Let me see the measurement sheet,” I said, taking it from Tiffany’s costume box. It was a sheet of blue paper. “Wait a second. Weren’t the measurements on a sheet of
yellow
paper? I wonder …” Then something occurred to me. “I have an idea. Kelly, would you try on Tiffany’s zebra suit?”

“I don’t look good in stripes, but okay.” But when Kelly tried on Tiffany’s costume, it fit her perfectly. “I
do
look good in stripes!”

Mrs. Rinkle’s jaw dropped. “What can this possibly mean?”

“It means,” I said, “that someone
deliberately
switched each person’s measurements to the next person on the list,” I said.

“It also means that Tiffany is going to explode when she finds out,” said Brian.

“Finds out what?” said Tiffany, clacking into the room with a box of animal hats and gloves. But the moment she saw the crazy zoo in front of her, she wailed loudly.

“Ohhhhh!”

She dropped the box of hats and gloves and tried on her outfit after Kelly had taken it off.

“Someone switched the measurements!” she cried. “I slaved day and night to make these costumes! All for nothing! Oh, my poor fingers worked to the bone! My fingers are my best feature. Next to my perfect cheeks, long eyelashes, and the way I tap-dance. I’ll never recover by next Friday! Maybe by Saturday …”

“You’d better sit down,” said Mrs. Rinkle.

“I can’t! This costume is too tight!”

Ripppp
!

Her shoulders came through the elbows.

“Tiffany’s right. We should delay the show until Saturday,” said Joey, trying to find where his costume ended and his legs began.

Mrs. Rinkle paced back and forth, shaking her head. “No. No. The high school needs the building on Saturday. Besides, the show must go on.”

“On what?” asked Billy. “A plastic plate?”

“On a bicycle?” asked Tiffany.

“On a vacation?” asked Violet.

“On next Saturday?” asked Joey.

Mrs. Rinkle shook her head. “
On next Friday!
Children, please. Let’s take the weekend to rest up. Then we’ll start again bright and early Monday afternoon.”

Mrs. Rinkle checked her watch. “At the end of the week, Principal Higgins will come with tickets for you for your families,” she said. “Because … the show must go on!”

“Goof! Goof!” said Sparky, whose tiger costume was the only one that fit.

* * *

On the following Monday, the auditorium lights wouldn’t turn on. Until Kelly found tape covering the main light switch.

On Tuesday, the bathrooms were locked, so we all had to run home early.

It rained on Wednesday, so our coach cancelled the game and we had rehearsal.

Or we
would
have had rehearsal if Mrs. Rinkle hadn’t
vanished
before our eyes.

No sooner had Brian, Mara, Kelly, Tiffany, Billy, Violet, Joey, and I entered the high school than a sudden scream rang out.

“Help! Help! Oh, help!”

We raced into the auditorium.

And there was Mrs. Rinkle, slowly disappearing
into
the stage. Her big red dress billowed out around her while her whole self sank into the floor.

“Mrs. Rinkle is melting!” cried Brian. “I saw this in a movie once. She must be a witch!”

“I am not a witch!” shouted Mrs. Rinkle.

But by the time we ran up to the stage, Mrs. Rinkle and her big red hair were gone in a cloud of blue smoke!

We were completely speechless.

Except Brian.

“She said she wasn’t a witch,” he said. “But what do we really know about her?”

Just then, Principal Higgins came into the auditorium with a stack of tickets and a seating chart. “Hello, students. Foggy in here, isn’t it?”

“Mrs. Rinkle melted away!” said Billy. “It was pretty sad. She was such a nice lady.”

Principal Higgins blinked. “Whatever do you mean?”

“That she was kind and liked people,” said Billy.

“Not that!” said the principal. “What do you mean she
melted away
?”

“She disappeared into the stage,” said Joey. “It was awesome. Plus a little scary.”

“The show can’t possibly go on Friday night,” said Tiffany.

“Maybe we should delay it to Saturday night,” said Violet.

“Saturday?” said the principal. “Everyone knows we can’t do that.”

“Oh,” said Violet. “I guess I forgot.”

I suddenly spotted the last wisps of fog vanishing beneath the stage where Mrs. Rinkle had been. While the other kids talked among themselves, I turned to Principal Higgins and my friends.

“Sir?” I whispered. “The Goofballs can get to the bottom of these mysteries. And when I say
get to the bottom
, I mean we need to get
under
the stage, where Mrs. Rinkle went.”

“Under the stage?” said Principal Higgins. “I just happen to know the way there. I was in shows here in high school, you know.”

We didn’t know that.

“Come along, Goofballs,” he said. “And your Goofdog, too. Follow me!”

The principal zipped out the door into the hallway. And we zipped right behind him.

W
e followed Principal Higgins down a short set of steps to a black door.

“We were going to go through this door when we searched for the missing tuba,” said Brian.

“But Violet tried the door and said it was locked,” added Mara.

Except that when we tried the door, it wasn’t locked.

It swung open easily.

“That’s very interesting,” Principal Higgins murmured. “It’s even odd.”

“
Even
can’t be
odd
,” said Kelly. “It’s mathematically impossible.”

“Flashlights aren’t impossible,” said Mara, clicking on a mini-flashlight and pushing her big green glasses up on her nose.

“I’ve sharpened my swords just in case we meet any real bats,” said Brian, drawing his tiny sticks out in front of him.

“Cluebook open and pencil ready,” I said. “Principal Higgins, please lead the way.”

“Oh, dear me,” said the principal, peering into the dark area beneath the stage. “I had forgotten how gloomy this space is. It’s far too creepy for someone in my position. There might be things living down there.”

“Let’s hope Mrs. Rinkle is one of them,” I said.

“I’d better go and see about selling tickets,” the principal said. An instant later—
whoosh!
—he was gone.

“Now
that
was even odd,” said Mara.

“I’d have to agree,” said Kelly.

I took a deep breath and said, “All right, team, let’s … go!”

Together, the four of us and Sparky eased past the black door and tiptoed beneath the stage.

We ducked under the crisscrossing beams that held up the floorboards. We passed cables dangling from the ceiling. We spotted the enormous fog machine.

Sparky sniffed and snorted and sneezed the whole way.

Finally, we spied what looked like a big motor attached to a bunch of pipes attached to the floorboards above our heads.

“A trapdoor machine,” said Brian. “That must be how Mrs. Rinkle vanished like a witch—”

Crunch!

“Bones!” cried Kelly. “I stepped on bones!”

Mara swung her light down. “Not quite.”

There was a crumpled sheet of yellow paper under Kelly’s toe. She picked it up, uncrumpled it, and gasped. “The original measurement sheet! The correct one!”

“Just like I thought,” I said, looking over Kelly’s shoulder, which is easy because she’s so short. “Someone jumbled up the names and the measurements.…”

“Goof!” Sparky was standing still, pointing his nose at a stack of papers.

Brian followed Sparky’s nose. He picked up the papers. “The original scripts! With Billy’s lines still in them!”

“This is too, too weird,” I grumbled.

“Goofball mysteries are,” said Kelly.

All at once, Mara dropped her flashlight and cried out, “I’m being attacked! Help!”

“
Ve
shall come to your defense!” said Brian, jabbing into the dark with his tiny swords.

But when I scooped up the flashlight and shined it on Mara, we saw her feet tangled in Violet’s big pink tuba. It was nestled in its pink blanket. Sparky was nestled in the blanket, too.