The Hamster of the Baskervilles (5 page)

I leaned toward Natalie. "Stick close to them," I muttered.

"Why?" she asked. "Where are you going?"

"I'm off to see a mongoose about a werewolf."

Natalie shook her head. "Sometimes I don't get you."

"Sometimes I don't get me, either," I said. "But I'm all I've got."

So far, this case had thrown me for a loop. After all this time investigating Bosco, my only progress
was in becoming a Stinker. But I knew someone who could help me catch up: Maureen DeBree, neat freak and all-around know-it-all.

I trotted down the hall toward her office.

Bap, bap, bap!
I rapped on the graffiti-proof door. "Ms. DeBree?"

The door swung open. A gray-furred badger in rumpled overalls filled the doorway. My head tilted back.

Calling him large would've been like calling World War II a slight disagreement—it missed the mark by a bit. This guy was big enough to have his own personal zip code.

"I ain't Ms. DeBree," he rumbled.

"I noticed. When will she be back?"

The badger wiped his nose with a greasy rag. "What do I look like, her secretary?"

Actually, he looked like an unmade bed with a bad attitude. But he didn't need to hear that. I asked, "Maybe you can help me? It's about that trashed classroom..."

The badger's beady eyes narrowed. His scowl could have curdled a passing kindergartner's chocolate milk. "You're a nosy one," he said. "Know what happens to nosy kids?"

"They grow up to be Pinocchio?" I said.

He waved a thick paw before my face. His claws looked like a matched set of samurai swords.

"Nosy kids lose their noses," said the badger. "Get the picture?"

I backed up. "In widescreen, with surround sound."

No point in pumping a mug like that for more information. He'd only end up trying to break you in two and spread you on toast.

I nodded. "Nice meeting you, Mr.... ?"

"The name's Luke Busy," he growled. "Now beat it."

I sneered. He sneered back. His sneer was meaner.

I beat it.

Why was a bad-tempered brute like Luke Busy working for Maureen DeBree? That question bounced around my noggin while I searched for the head janitor.

He'd stonewalled me like a professional bricklayer. Was the badger trying to cover up something? Or was it just the effect of my charming personality?

No matter. I had bigger questions to ask Ms. DeBree. And there she was, striding down the hall on trash patrol.

Gzitch! Gzatch!
Her spike lashed out and nailed two gum wrappers. I'd hate to be a piece of litter in her path.

"Ms. DeBree!" I called. "Got a minute?"

"Hah?" She looked around, bright eyes flashing. "Oh, it's the great defective."

"That's
detective,
" I said, walking up to her. "Listen, have you seen any sign of a werewolf on campus?"

She frowned. "No, and I better not, neither. Those things make a rotten mess when they shed. Why you ask?"

"Oh, never mind. Just a wild—"

Ms. DeBree waved her spike. "Hey, I get something for you."

"For me? Aw, you shouldn't have."

"Not a present, you knucklehead. Information."

"I'm all ears." (Actually, this was stretching it; geckos don't have ears.)

Marching along, the janitor speared a soda can, a wrapper, and a paper cup—triple play. "You was asking about the discomboobulated classroom," she said.

I walked beside her. "Yeah?"

"Well, I seen another one."

"What?"

Ms. DeBree slid the trash off her spike into a plastic bag. "Yup. This morning, Ms. Burrower's sixth-grade classroom looked like the morning after Super Bowl Sunday." She shook her head and tramped on. "Hoo, what a mess."

"But..."

I stumbled after her. My head spun as ideas collided. If Bosco had trashed Mr. Ratnose's classroom,
why had he wrecked Ms. Burrower's room, too? If he hadn't, then who had—another Dirty Rotten Stinker?

Maureen DeBree shot me a glance from under her bristly eyebrows. "You okay? Looks like you need some mouth-to-mouth regurgitation." The image made me want to throw up my hands and say, "Pee-yew!"

"I stink so," said another voice, reading my mind. Natalie had just strolled up behind me. You could smell her puns a mile away.

"But who...?" I said.

The janitor led us out across the grassy playground. "'At's what I wanna know. Eh, and check this out: Today I found a—"

Eyes on her, I stepped into thin air.

Oomph!
I landed on hard ground.

"Let me guess," I said. "You found a hole?"

Ms. DeBree covered a smile with her paw.

I brushed myself off and stood up in the crater. "Just wanted a close-up look," I said.

Natalie smirked. "And who says you can't walk and detect at the same time?"

The hole opened into a tunnel. It headed far out under the playground.

"Holy Mole, Batman," said Natalie in an aw-shucks, Boy Wonder voice. "Someone's been burrowing."

"I can dig it," I said. "But who?"

"Ms. Burrower's a mole," said Natalie.

Maureen DeBree shook her head. "Nah, I checked. Her tunnels go between the teachers' lounge and her classroom, that's all."

"Hang on," I said. "We don't even know if this is connected to the classroom vandalism. One case at a time."

Ms. DeBree's tail bristled. "
Hmph!
" she snorted. "Who's asking you to solve a case? I'll figure this bugger out on my own. Just thought you wanted to see the vandalism."

She stomped off in a medium-sized huff, muttering to herself.

Way to go, Chet.

Natalie shook her head. "You are a smooth one with the ladies."

The bell rang. Lunch was over, class was calling.

"Let's pick it up at recess," I said, raising my arms. "C'mon, Natalie, give me a hand."

Natalie clapped slowly. That joke was older than my dad's GI Gecko doll, but she cackled over her own wit.

I scrambled out of the hole all by myself.

As I climbed, I thought,
You can't
buy
a partner like Natalie.
And what's worse, you can't even sell them.

Since I couldn't think of any way out of it, I headed back to my classroom for a double dose of science. With Science Fair happening tomorrow night, we were spending extra time working on our projects.

The excitement was so thick you could cut it with a blunt instrument. I half wished someone would use that blunt instrument on my head, to save me from working on our dumb project.

My group was buzzing. Shirley Chameleon and Tiffany the toad pushed two desks together and started laying out materials. Rynne Tintin hoisted a fresh sack of vegetables.

Only a miracle could save me from death by boredom.

It came.

A sixth-grade hall monitor slouched up to Mr. Ratnose's desk and handed him a note.

"Chet Gecko," said Mr. Ratnose, "report to the principal's office."

Sweeter words were never spoken. Better a quick death by bawling out than the slow torture of trying to get a charge from brain-dead vegetables.

Shirley rolled one eye at me. "What have you done now?"

"Don't ask," I said.

"
'Don't ask,'
you don't know, or
'Don't ask,'
I don't want to know?"

I frowned. "Just
don't ask.
"

Dames.

It was a piece of cake to walk up to Principal Zero's office. Knocking on his door was a banana split with fudge on top.

But walking inside and facing down that massive tomcat was a whole 'nother can of cherries.

"Come in," a voice rumbled.

Principal Zero's office smelled of broken dreams and old report cards, of kitty litter and fear. I opened the heavy oak door and stopped cold.

"You sent for me?" I asked.

A huge white cat sat behind a desk as heavy as a
cheater's conscience. He offered a smile as clear and innocent as a used car salesman's—only, Principal Zero's grin was crusted with flecks of old tuna fish.

"Sit down, Chester."

I hate it when they use my full name.

The guest chair before his broad black desk creaked as I sat. I didn't know what I'd done wrong, but I'd learned never to bring up my misdeeds before he did.

Principal Zero stared down at me. I stared back.

"You're probably wondering why you're here," he said. "It's..."

I broke. "I was nowhere near there at the time."

"...a small matter we need your assistance with," he said. "Um, what did you say?"

"Oh, nothing."

I replayed his words. Wait a minute—Principal Zero asking for
my
help? That sounded screwier than a cage full of waltzing mice.

"Go on," I said.

Mr. Zero smoothed his whiskers. He waved a paw. "Perhaps Ms. LaRue should explain."

From a shadowy corner of the office strolled Heidi LaRue, a sixth-grade teacher all the kids called "Boom-Boom"—but never to her face, and always in whispers.

Ms. LaRue was a hefty hedgehog with a prickly
disposition and a glance sharp enough to cut you down to size and trim the hedges, both. Her classroom ran on iron discipline.

Of all the no-nonsense teachers at Emerson Hicky, she was the no-nonsense-iest—which made her next words even stranger.

"Earlier this morning," she said, "I saw a werewolf on campus."

I blinked. Either Popper's friend wasn't the only one seeing monsters, or the cafeteria was putting something funky into the applesauce.

"Where?" I asked.

"That's right, a
were
wolf," she said.

"No,
where
did you see it?"

"By the, uh, cafeteria, before school," said Ms. LaRue. Her lips shriveled like she'd kissed a moldy prune. "It was ugly and hairy—a great brute."

"Most of them are," I said.

Her mouth drew even tighter. Principal Zero coughed a warning.

"So what was it doing?" I asked.

Ms. LaRue glared. "It was wolfing about, of course!" She turned to the principal. "Honestly, Mr. Zero, I don't see what help this child can be. This is a matter for the authorities."

Principal Zero's tail twitched like a worm on a hot plate. Ms. LaRue's quills stood on end. He matched her glare for glare.

"This is
my
school, Ms. LaRue," he purred menacingly, "and I decide when to call the police."

This was kind of fun. Usually the teachers threatened
me.

Finally, the hedgehog backed down. Her quills lay flat.

"Very well," she said. "But know this: Someone at school brought that creature here. Some so-called scientist is playing with forces they cannot control. And I won't have it."

Stiff and chilly as a grasshopper Popsicle, Heidi LaRue turned and stalked through the open door.

"And why do you think that?" I called after her.

The hedgehog turned up her nose. "Teacher's intuition." Then she spun and left us.

Mr. Zero leaned forward, his broad belly mashing the desk. "I don't have to tell you to keep this under your hat," he said. "Do I?"

I gave him my wide-eyed look. "Do you think there'll be room enough under it for everybody?"

The principal's whiskers bristled. "Gecko, I'm only calling you in on this because you're a low-down snoop. And you've done some successful snooping in the past."

"So what's my pay?"

"The satisfaction of a job well done," said Principal Zero.

"I can't get no ... satisfaction," I said.

He stood. "Find out the lowdown on this werewolf and tell me—only me."

"And what if the story slips out?"

"No slips," he growled, "if you want to stay at this school."

That straight line was too easy. I let it slide and watched the big cat stew.

His eyes narrowed to slits, and his ears went back. "Mrs. Crow," rumbled Principal Zero to his secretary, "would you show Gecko the door?"

"I can find it myself," I said. "I'm a detective."

Strolling back to class, I twirled my hall pass and chewed over what I'd heard. I knew why Principal Zero wanted to keep this werewolf thing quiet.