The Case of the Vanishing Painting Read online

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  This book is dedicated to Craig Walker, the best friend in publishing I ever had, unforgotten.

  Chapter

  1

  Going Buggy

  Helen Zuckerman waltzed into room 201 like a movie star. No, she wasn’t sporting sunglasses or a mink coat. There were no bodyguards or flashing cameras. Helen had something better. Something that turned her into an instant celebrity.

  She wore a cast on her left arm.

  Even better, she had a black eye.

  The girls in the room quickly gathered around Helen, like bees buzzing around spring’s first flower. Danika Starling grabbed a marker. They all eagerly signed Helen’s bright purple cast.

  Clap, clap.

  Automatically, the class responded to our teacher’s signal. CLAP, CLAP, CLAP. All eyes turned toward Ms. Gleason.

  “Good morning, boys and girls. Happy Monday,” Ms. Gleason chimed. She looked at Helen and frowned. “Helen, dear, what in the world happened to you?”

  Helen beamed. “I broke my arm in two places!”

  The room filled with appreciative murmurs. Anybody can break an arm. But breaking it in two places—that took talent. Helen told us about her accident on the trampoline in her backyard. She did a flop when she meant to flip and went boom when she meant to zoom.

  “Did it hurt very, very much?” asked Geetha Nair in her shy, quiet voice.

  Helen grinned. “Sure, at first. But it doesn’t bother me now.” Helen banged the cast on a desk. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  We all agreed that cool was the best word to describe it. Except for Geetha, who seemed horrified and concerned.

  “Don’t sweat it. I’m fine,” Helen insisted to Geetha. “No biggie.”

  We got started on our schoolwork. We did our morning sentences. That was when Ms. Gleason gave us two sentences that were all messed up. Words were misspelled. The punctuation was wrong. Names didn’t have capital letters. Stuff like that. We fixed them up in a jiffy.

  “Who is our ant monitor this week?” Ms. Gleason asked.

  Stringbean Noonan’s arm shot to the ceiling. I had to look twice to be sure it was still attached to his shoulder. “I am, I am, I am!” he cried.

  You’d think Stringbean had won the lottery.

  But that was Stringbean. He was buggy about ants.

  Not uncles. Not cousins or brothers. And not my Aunt Harriet, either. A-N-T-S. The six-legged kind.

  Go figure.

  Ms. Gleason had sent away for an ant farm at the beginning of the year. It arrived last week. Ever since, we’d been doing lots of ant activities. From science to math, it was all ants, all the time. Ant songs, ant math problems, ant books. It felt like we had ants crawling around inside our heads.

  Ralphie Jordan joked, “If we’re going to be farmers, I’m glad we’re ant farmers. It beats growing cabbage!”

  Ms. Gleason drew a picture of an ant on the chalkboard. “Ants are insects,” she reminded us.

  “And insects are our friends,” Stringbean warmly added. “They live in communities and work together as a team!”

  Ms. Gleason laughed. “Yes, they do, Jasper.” (That’s Stringbean’s real name.)

  Ms. Gleason labeled the ant’s body parts—head, legs, antennae, thorax, and abdomen.

  Ms. Gleason glanced at the wall clock. “Oh my, look at the time. Clear your desks, boys and girls. Line up for art class. Mr. Manus will be out for another week. He’s still on paternity leave. Our visiting artist, Ms. Nicks, will be subbing again this week.”

  I glanced at Mila Yeh. She rolled her eyes and made a funny face. Mila is my best friend. A while back we started a detective business together. We’ve been partners ever since. We’ve dug up buried treasures and tangled with haunted scarecrows.

  But Ms. Nicks was the most unusual case we’d come across yet.

  Chapter

  2

  What’s That Smell?

  Our whole class filed into the art room.

  “Yuck, what’s that smell?” Bobby Solofsky complained.

  Joey Pignattano blushed. “Maybe it’s me,” he admitted. “I might have stepped in something on the way to school.”

  “It’s not you, Joey,” Mila said. “It’s that.”

  Mila pointed to a wisp of smoke rising from a clay dish. The dish was in the palm of our substitute art teacher’s hand.

  “Jasmine incense,” Ms. Nicks warbled. “It soothes the spirit and improves creativity.”

  “I don’t know about that, Ms. Nicks,” Joey replied. “But it sure does smell funny.”

  Ms. Nicks paid no attention. Instead, she glided across the room the way a breeze drifts across the tips of trees. Honest. Ms. Nicks didn’t walk like other people. Instead, she floated. Or it just looked that way because she wore such loose-fitting clothes—robes and shawls and long scarves and flowing skirts. I don’t think I ever saw her feet. She could have worn roller skates for all I knew.

  Nothing that Ms. Nicks did or said was ordinary.

  Bigs Maloney had a word for it: different.

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Mila made sure to say. “It’s good to be different.”

  “It sure would be boring if we were all the same,” Ralphie Jordan agreed.

  “I admire Ms. Nicks,” Mila said. “She is an individual.”

  Ms. Nicks fussed with the computer on her desk. Soon lazy music wafted through the room.

  “I know this music,” Kim Lewis exclaimed. “My dad listens to stuff like this when he does yoga. He says it’s relaxing.”

  “Did someone say yogurt?” Joey asked hopefully. Joey always had his mind on food and cheese in his pocket.

  “Not yogurt, yoga!” Kim said.

  “Yoda?” Joes asked.

  “No, I said yoga,” Kim repeated, shaking her head. “My dad and I take family classes at Fitness 365.”

  “I’m hungry,” Joey grumbled.

  Ms. Nicks pressed her palms together, closed her eyes, and began to hum. “Ommmmm.”

  “Center your energies,” Ms. Nicks whispered.

  “Does that mean ‘sit down’?” Eddie Becker asked.

  “I think so,” I replied.

  We sat on the floor in a semicircle facing Ms. Nicks. It was how she made us start every art lesson. (Hey, I told you she was an individual.)

  Ms. Nicks took a deep breath. “Breathe in,” she whispered. “Breathe out.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” Ralphie joked. “Solofsky was starting to turn blue.”

  Some of us giggled. Ms. Nicks opened one eye. Her lips tightened. She shut her eye again. “Empty your minds of all thought,” she whispered. “Ommmmm.”

  Easy for her. I gave it a shot. But all I could think about was not thinking. I thought about jigsaw puzzles, and ants, and the itch on the tip of my nose.

  “Don’t even scratch,” Ms. Nicks whispered.
She looked at me with one open eyeball again. “Just be… in the moment.”

  We sat in the moment for what seemed like forever. Maybe it was only thirty seconds. But it felt like a long time. Finally, Ms. Nicks took an extra-loud breath, uncrossed her legs, and stood up. “Now we begin,” she said.

  Ralphie raised his hand. “Um, Ms. Nicks?”

  “Yes, Ralphie?”

  “Before we get started,” Ralphie said, “do you have an alarm clock? I think my foot’s asleep.”

  Chapter

  3

  Playing with Ideas

  I’ll admit it. For all her unusual ways, Ms. Nicks knew how to make art fun. She showed us work by lots of famous artists.

  “Making art should be like play,” Ms. Nicks told us. “Art is playing with ideas. Don’t think too hard. Just … feel. And let yourself go!”

  I buzzed in Mila’s ear: “Earth to Ms. Nicks. Earth to Ms. Nicks. This is planet Earth calling. Please come home.”

  Mila giggled. By now we were all in our smocks, making a mess. Working on our projects, chattering and laughing. Having fun.

  Ms. Nicks gave us freedom to create whatever we wanted. She drifted around the room, humming to the music. Mila was making a papier-mâché sculpture, and a mess, but not in that order. Nicole Rodriguez was cutting up pieces of colored construction paper. Ms. Nicks gushed excitedly. She showed Nicole the artwork of Henri Matisse. He liked cutting up paper, too.

  Last week, she had gotten Bigs Maloney excited about some artist’s “paint splatter” approach. Bigs loved that. He set up his paper on the floor and gleefully dripped paint in big, sweeping motions. I think more of it got onto his shoes than on the paper, but Bigs didn’t seem to mind.

  Geetha was probably the best artist in our class. Not that she would ever admit to it. Geetha is one of those quiet kids. Every class has one. Just shy, I guess. Maybe she was an individual, too. Anyway, I once talked her into helping out on a mystery. It was the case of the bicycle bandit. I brought Geetha with us to interview a witness. The witness, Mrs. Flint, described a boy on a skateboard, and Geetha drew a sketch of him. We made posters of the sketch, offering a reward, and hung them around town. In no time at all, we found the culprit, thanks to Geetha.

  Geetha silently worked in the corner at the big easel. She had it turned away from everyone, so I couldn’t see what she was doing. But I’d bet it was pretty good.

  Ralphie, on the other hand, had different ideas. I overheard him talking about his project with Joey.

  “It’s a collage,” Ralphie explained. “A bunch of us are doing them. I’m putting all sorts of things in here that I like.”

  Joey leaned into the collage and frowned. “Is that chewing gum?” he asked.

  “Not anymore,” Ralphie said with a sly grin. “Now it’s art!”

  Joey was horrified. “It’s not art. It’s a waste of good food!” He licked his lips. “Can I eat it?”

  “No, you can’t eat it!” Ralphie exclaimed. “It’s ABC gum, Joey. It’s Already Been Chewed!”

  I was busy working on my own idea. I had drawn a big picture of myself. Then I cut up big jigsaw-shaped pieces of construction paper and glued the pieces all over my self-portrait. Then I started drawing things that I liked, like baseball and pizza and a magnifying glass. It was fun.

  During cleanup, Ms. Nicks told us some big news. “It’s Parents’ Night this Friday. Mr. Rogers, the principal, has asked me to display your work in the main hallway.” She blinked with enthusiasm. “Now everyone will see what wonderful artwork you’ve made!”

  We all cheered. We were going to turn our school into a museum. And we were going to be the stars of the show!

  “Maybe my parents will buy my painting,” Eddie Becker shouted, greedily rubbing his hands together. “I can get rich and retire early!”

  Chapter

  4

  Vanished!

  Two days later, on Wednesday morning, we discovered that Geetha’s painting was gone.

  Vanished. Disappeared. Stolen.

  That’s bad news. But I’m a detective. Bad news is my business. When everybody’s happy, I’m broke. That’s just the way the world works. I don’t make money until someone’s smile turns upside down.

  Wednesday started out the same as any other day. Ms. Gleason reminded us that Parents’ Night was in two days. She said, “I’m really looking forward to meeting your families.”

  I told her there wasn’t much to get excited about. “Don’t expect a lot. It’s just my mom and dad,” I said apologetically.

  “Wait until you meet Bigs Maloney’s dad,” Joey said. “He’s gigantic.”

  Bigs nodded proudly.

  Ms. Gleason’s eyes widened. “Well, Bigs. It will be fun watching your father try to sit in your chair.”

  “They sit in our chairs?” Danika asked.

  “Some do,” Ms. Gleason said. “You kids are welcome to come, too. Everyone’s invited. It’s just a friendly get-together.”

  We were all interested in the Parents’ Night plans, but Stringbean couldn’t stand it any longer. “Can we feed the ants now, PLEASE?”

  Part of our ant project was to study and observe how the ants reacted to different kinds of foods. Every week we were going to experiment with something new, like grapes, salt, honey, bread crumbs, whatever.

  “We’ll feed the ants after lunch,” Ms. Gleason answered Stringbean. “Right now, you’ve got a special class with Ms. Nicks. You don’t usually have two art classes in one week, but we have to get ready for Parents’ Night. I can’t wait to see your work. Ms. Nicks is very impressed. I hope you’ll all be proud to put it on display for everyone to see.”

  “You can buy my painting,” Eddie Becker offered. He waved a price tag in the air. It read: $85—CHEAP!

  “Not on a teacher’s salary,” Ms. Gleason replied, perhaps a little sadly. “OK, boys and girls. Off you go. While you’re gone, I’ll be sprucing up the bulletin board. I want room 201 to look awesome for your parents.”

  Ms. Nicks met us in the hallway. She was rushing to the art room and seemed out of breath. “I almost didn’t get here in time,” she said, huffing and puffing. “My unicycle had a flat tire.”

  The door to the art room was not locked. Ms. Nicks flicked on the lights. Our paintings and sculptures were drying on newspapers and easels. That’s when I heard Helen ask, “Geetha? What’s wrong?”

  Geetha didn’t answer. She stood staring at the corner easel. A few kids rushed over.

  “Where’s your painting?” Nicole asked.

  The next few minutes were, in Ms. Nicks’s words, “very stressful” and “full of negative energy.”

  They were not fun, that’s for sure.

  We looked up, down, and sideways for Geetha’s painting. But we didn’t find a trace of it.

  “It couldn’t have walked away by itself,” Ms. Nicks said. She seemed very upset.

  “Breathe,” Helen reminded Ms. Nicks. “Feel centered. Think about your belly button. Just … BE.”

  Ms. Nicks sat down on the floor, closed her eyes, and hummed. “Ommmmm.”

  It was a mystery, all right. Ms. Nicks had said that Geetha’s painting could not have walked away. Maybe not. But somebody had walked away with it.

  The question was: Who?

  Chapter

  5

  The Gobstopper

  Mila slipped me the secret signal. She slid a finger across her nose. “I’m on it,” she whispered.

  We didn’t have time to sit around. We had to get back to room 201, grab our lunches, and head to the cafeteria.

  That didn’t stop a bunch of kids from telling Ms. Gleason about the missing painting. “I’m sure it will turn up,” Ms. Gleason told Geetha kindly. “It must have been put aside by accident. I can’t imagine that anyone would steal your painting.”

  Geetha looked at her shoes and nodded. If she was upset, I couldn’t tell. I don’t think Geetha liked being the center of attention.

  On the way to
lunch, I slipped her my card:

  Mila placed her hand on Geetha’s. “We’ll help find your painting, Geetha.”

  Geetha’s lower lip trembled. She answered, “No … I … it’s…”

  “Is it money?” Mila asked. “We can work out a trade. You don’t have to pay us right away.”

  That was news to me. I shot Mila the hairy eyeball.

  Mila ignored me. Instead, she smiled at Geetha. “Let’s talk in the cafeteria, OK?”

  Geetha’s eyes remained fixed on the floor. But her chin moved ever so slightly. A little nod. Yes.

  We ate our lunches quickly.

  I took out my detective journal. With a bright red marker, I wrote:

  The Case of the Vanishing Painting

  I liked the sound of that. Vanishing like a ghost. Very mysterious and spooky, too.

  Mila began asking questions. “Tell us about your painting, Geetha.”

  Geetha looked at our faces. It was the first time I noticed the dark chocolate color of her eyes. Large and round. Here was a girl, I thought, who spent too much time looking at the floor.

  “It was nothing,” Geetha said. “Just a collage.”

  “Describe it,” I said.

  “Ms. Nicks said that I should use pieces of my life,” Geetha explained.

  “Huh?” I grunted.

  Mila explained, “Jigsaw, when you make a collage, you’re allowed to glue all sorts of different things onto the painting. It could be old photos, movie ticket stubs, candy wrappers, anything. Then you can go back and paint on top of them if you want to.”

  Geetha seemed relieved to have Mila speak for her.

  “I need to hear it from you,” I told Geetha. “Was there anything in your artwork that was valuable? Was there anything in it that someone else would want?”