The Magician's Bird (17 page)

Misti kissed the Marchetti Bird on the head and carefully placed it on the coffee table, in prime position to be seen from the door. Then she picked up her book bag and helped pull Calliope to her feet. The others had just gathered their things when a creak from the corner of the room made them freeze.

The passageway door in the corner was opening.

“The ghost!” Misti squealed.

“Run!” Bud croaked.

“YOU!” Laurie said as a figure emerged from the secret passageway. Laurie blinked hard. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. It just didn't seem possible.

“Oh, I'm sorry, dear, I thought you had all gone home.” Miss Lucille patted her old-lady hair and tucked her feather duster under her arm. “No hurry, I can come back later.” She turned and started back through the secret passage.

“NO!” Laurie said, rushing forward and clutching Miss Lucille's arm. “Wait!”

Miss Lucille took a step back, like Laurie had suddenly turned into a rabid wolverine. But it was still Miss Lucille, so like a rabid wolverine that needed comforting. “It's okay, I'm right here, dear.” She patted Laurie on the hand with a worried expression on her face.

“You know?” Misti said, her face blank with shock. “You know about the room?”

“You knew about us?” Bud said. And here he thought they'd been so secret. “How did you know?”

“There goes my exclusive,” Calliope muttered, flopping down on the couch.

Miss Lucille gave them a worried smile. “Well, of course I knew. I've known about this room since I was a young girl. Maria Tutweiler shared the secret with me herself. And as for you, Bud,” she said, eyes twinkling, “someone has a bad habit of leaving the lights on when they leave.”

“Oh, man,” Bud groaned. He hadn't even thought about turning out the lights. His dad had always said that his sloppiness would get him into trouble one day. He just hadn't figured on that day being so soon.

“But how did you come in?” Laurie said, looking at the open door. “There's another way in?”

Miss Lucille laughed. “Oh, yes, I prefer to use my private entrance. I assume you've been using the outdoor entrance?”

Laurie nodded. “We kind of messed it up, though.” She hated to think of what Miss Lucille was going to say when she saw that shed floor.

“It was already in quite a state,” Miss Lucille said, waving her hand dismissively. “Until you started using it, I hadn't realized it was still functional.”

“Other entrances? Now you tell us,” Bud grumbled.

“When we were in the library the other day, why didn't you tell us you knew?” Laurie asked. Things would've been so much easier if they'd realized she knew.

Miss Lucille looked at Laurie with a strange expression on her face. “You didn't ask.”

Typical, Bud thought as he sat down on the footstool. “Yeah, well, it doesn't matter now, since we have to tell everybody about the room anyway.”

“Tell who about the room?” Miss Lucille unfurled her feather duster and started dusting. “Why would you tell anyone about it?”

Bud caught himself before he rolled his eyes at Miss Lucille. But really, talk about obvious. “Principal Winkle and the rest of them. If we tell, we can save the school and bring down LeFranco.”

Miss Lucille blinked at Bud but didn't say anything.

He decided to try again. “See, once they see the room and the bird, they'll know the truth. Maria Tutweiler wasn't a murderer. There are papers there that prove it. We found them.”

“So she didn't murder Marchetti the Magician?” Miss Lucille clasped her hands together. “Well, that is good news! I'm sure you're pleased.”

“Uh, yeah,” Laurie said. Pretty much understatement of the year, but yeah. A little disturbing that Miss Lucille wasn't counting herself in the “pleased” group, but whatever.

“I told you Maria Tutweiler would never do a silly thing like leave the Marchetti Bird on a storage shelf. Why, she's been safe and sound here with me this whole time.” She tickled the top of the Marchetti Bird's head with her feather duster.

“Yeah. Well, good job,” Laurie said.

“But you've forgotten something very important about Maria Tutweiler,” Miss Lucille said, carefully putting the feather duster on the desk. “Maria Tutweiler was very fond of secrets.”

“Uh, yeah,” Laurie agreed. Apparently she was going for her Most Inarticulate Student badge.

“I've kept this room secret for decades,” Miss Lucille said, rubbing the edge of the desk. “More than half a century.”

“Yeah, well, we like keeping it secret too, but we don't have a lot of choice,” Bud said helplessly. He looked up at Miss Lucille, and the expression on her face gave him a sudden surge of hope. “Do we?”

Miss Lucille smiled. “The Marchetti Bird isn't the only bit of magic Alphonse Marchetti left in this school. I believe he may have one last trick up his sleeve.”

Note left in Reginald Moore's school mailbox

Note left on Walker LeFranco's car outside his house

“I still think his windshield was a weird place to leave it. Do you really think LeFranco's going to buy that?” Bud said nervously. Now that they were actually putting their plan into action, he was a lot less confident about it. If this blew up, it had the potential to blow up massively. Forging notes to LeFranco and Reginald was one thing, but Calliope had even called the police chief. That sure didn't seem like a great idea now.

“Where else was I supposed to leave it? The only other option was for me to hack into Reginald's and LeFranco's emails, and I'm sorry, but there are just some things I'm not capable of, okay?” Calliope was definitely on edge too.

“Okay, fine! It just doesn't scream Reginald to me, that's all.”

“Can it, you guys,” Laurie interrupted. “We don't need this right now. We've got to meet with Winkle in what, ten minutes? Where's Misti?”

Bud glanced at his watch. “She's late. Shoot. We can't do this without her.”

“She'll be here,” Laurie said, eyeing the door. At least she'd better be. Without Misti, they didn't have a plan at all.

“Sorry, guys, bedazzling accident. You understand,” Misti said as she rushed into the secret room. She just hoped that nobody would notice her complete lack of bedazzled accessories. Laurie gave her a weird look, but thankfully, no one seemed to notice anything was up.

“No problem. Did you bring it?” Laurie looked at the bag in Misti's hand.

“Got it.” Misti held up the bag. “The toy microphone's right here, complete with fresh batteries. I've got it on the echo setting. I think we're all set. Everything in place?”

“Yep.” Bud took a deep breath. “So we all know what to do?”

Laurie and Misti nodded. Calliope shrugged.

“Good,” Bud said. “Laurie? It's showtime.”

“Kids, we need to talk about the scavenger hunt.” Principal Winkle ushered Laurie and Bud inside his office and directed them to the seats in front of his desk. Betty Abernathy was perched on a tall stool next to the desk. He wished she didn't look so smug about the whole thing. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was happy about what he was about to do. “Mrs. Hutchins isn't here yet, but I think we can go ahead and start without her.”

Bud smiled up at Principal Winkle as he sat down. “I think you're really going to like what we've done. See, we've got it all worked out—”

“Kids,” Principal Winkle interrupted. “I'm afraid we're going to shut the scavenger hunt down.” Principal Winkle tried not to make eye contact as he sat down at his desk. He didn't want to see their little crushed faces.
He'd seen Bud and Laurie around the school every day—he knew how hard they'd been working on this.

Bud and Laurie both just stared at him blankly. This was not part of the plan.

“Shut down?” Laurie finally said. “But. No.” She shot a desperate look at Bud. “You can't shut us down!”

“You heard Principal Winkle, Laurie,” Betty Abernathy said, suppressing a smirk. “His word is final.”

“No, you don't understand, you
CAN'T
!” Bud said, glaring at her. He wouldn't be surprised if she was the one behind the whole shutting-down thing. She'd been crabby about the scavenger hunt ever since the first day, when they'd asked about using a jigsaw to make a hole in the cafeteria wall.

“I'm sorry, kids, but this game just isn't appropriate in light of recent media events,” Principal Winkle said slowly. This was turning out to be worse than he'd thought. “I'm not canceling it completely. We're just putting it on hold for the time being.”

“No,” Bud said, jumping to his feet. He shot Laurie a wild-eyed look. “Principal Winkle, you don't understand. You really don't. We've already put the clues out. It's all set up. You just have to look at them, okay? Just once.”

“Bud, I'm sorry—” Principal Winkle started.