Watson's Case (6 page)

The Newsp
aper's Secret

Gwendolyn A. Gram never stopped working.

She had spent her first week at the Academy moving into her classroom and spreading sweet scents and treats. She had to go shopping for more decorations though because someone kept taking them down. Being unfamiliar with London, she had enlisted Mr. Chad's help as her guide. Mr. Chad had complained aloud to his students about the ordeal, but had not been able to suppress the twinkle in his eyes when he mentioned her. When Rollie and his classmates entered the classroom late Monday morning, they found Miss Gram tightening a screw in a bookshelf she had just assembled. She used a screwdriver tied with a pink ribbon.

“Fa-la-la, boys and girls!” she sang. “You'll find a newspaper page on each of your desks. You know the Monday routine: read the news and write a summary paragraph.” She returned her screwdriver to a pink toolbox full of tools with matching pink ribbons.

Miss Gram rummaged through her pink toolbox as the children unfolded their pages. “Dear me! Boys and girls, has anyone seen my hammer? It has a pink ribbon and is engraved with my initials, just like the rest of my tools. No? How very peculiar! I always return my tools to the box. I must have misplaced it. Well, if anyone finds it, please return it to me. Carry on.”

Rollie studied her, trying to see through the ‘trimmings', as Mr. Chad called wigs and other facial disguises. As always, she was flawless, and while most everyone found her beautiful, Rollie felt unnerved by how excellent her disguise was—assuming she was in disguise. He wished he had taken more notes of Herr Zilch's secretary back before she disappeared to compare her with Miss Gram. He went back to skimming his newspaper. He had a page from the business section of the
Daily Telegraph
, which he found quite dull. He glanced at Cecily's page; she had entertainment from the
Gazette
. Eliot had the cartoon section, his face was red and scrunched up in attempts not to laugh aloud. Rollie wished he had gotten a more interesting page. As a dutiful student, he made the most of it and scanned the pie charts and stock quotes. Stifling a yawn, he was about to flip the page over when a tiny figure next to a bar graph caught his eye.

He studied the figure closer. It was a pencil drawing of a tiny stick figure, its arms up at an angle and its legs spread out as if dancing. Strange that someone would draw a dancing stick figure randomly on a newspaper page. Interested, Rollie scanned the rest of the page. To his surprise, he spotted a second miniature stick figure in a slightly different pose wedged between two sentences. His flutter quickening, he searched for more dancing figures, and found one more at the bottom of the page. He flipped the page over and found three more figures hidden within the newspaper articles.

He was sure they were from the Dancing Men code. He recognized an L and an E, but could not remember the other figures. Who had drawn them? Was finding them part of Gwendolyn's assignment? He needed to know.

“Cecily,” he whispered, leaning over to her. “Did you find anything unusual on your pages?”

Cecily shook her head. “Did you?”

Rollie pointed to the tiny stick figures on his page.

Her brow furrowed. “Are those Dancing Men again?”

“I think so,” Rollie whispered. “You didn't find any?”

Cecily checked her pages and shook her head. “How come mine didn't have any?”

Rollie shrugged. “Maybe mine's the only page with them. Weird, huh?” He pulled out his pocket notepad and hastily copied down the figures to translate later. Maybe they did not mean anything, but they still piqued his curiosity.

Ding-ding.

Gwendolyn rang a dainty bell for attention. “Boys and girls, I must collect your pages and return them to the teacher's lounge before Mr. Notch misses his crossword puzzle.”

On route to the roof for lunch, Rollie spoke with Cecily about the figures.

“Remember my page had them last week, too?” she said. “What do you think they mean?”

“I haven't memorized the whole code, so I can't remember some of the figures.”

“Eliot's memorized it already. Ask him to decode it.”

Rollie grimaced. “Thanks, but I'd rather not hear about the proper rules to solving a mystery.”

“Have him write down the alphabet for you,” Cecily suggested as they found seats. “And decode it yourself.”

Once he and his friends were settled with cheese sandwiches, Rollie brought up the subject of the newspapers.

“Notice anything interesting?” he asked.

“Yes,” Eliot answered. “Cartoon characters look nothing like real people.”

“They're supposed to look funny,” Cecily said.

“Oh, they look funny all right.”

“Eliot, is it true you already memorized the Dancing Men code?” Rollie questioned.

“That's true information. Why?”

“Could you write the alphabet for me so I can work on memorizing it? I don't want to lug my textbook around.”

Eliot eyed Rollie suspiciously. “Are you up to something mysterious?”

Rollie returned Eliot's gaze. “The code doesn't come as easily to me as it does to you. I need extra practice.”

“It does come pretty easily to me. I'll help you. Do you have any paper on you?”

Rollie pulled out his pocket notepad and stubby pencil. He finished eating his sandwich as Eliot listed the stick figures with their corresponding letters. Rollie glanced over it.

“You're sure they're all correct?” asked Rollie.

“That's insulting. I told you I've learned it. It's correct.”

“Sorry, just double-checking.”

“Now will you do something for me?” Eliot slid a clipboard and pencil across to him. “Sign my petition to bring back the maids and janitors. This place will become a pig sty without them, mark my words.”

“Headmaster will bring them back when he sees fit,” Rollie countered.

“He will be forced to when he feels pressure from the student body. Our concerns must be heard! Sign it!”

Rollie relented and scribbled his name on the list. Cecily and Tibby added theirs also.

“Since when is there a teacher's lounge?” Cecily wondered aloud, changing the subject. “Lady Gram mentioned it.”

“I think it's the extra room on the first floor,” Tibby replied. “The room where we met for orientation in August. I saw Lady Gram and Mr. Chad go in there during recess.”

“I bet Lady Gram turned it into a lounge,” Cecily guessed. “She's changed a lot around here for the better.”

Rollie did not agree it was for the better, but kept this opinion to himself. While his friends left to burn energy before class, he sat at the table and decoded the newspaper's message.

He stared at the word, baffled:
TUNNEL.
Maybe the word meant nothing. Maybe someone had doodled in the word for fun, or practice, or . . .

Unlikely.

While he did not know what he had discovered, Rollie suspected it was important. But important to whom or for what—he had no idea. He felt the same way about those holes in the walls. On his way to class, he stopped to take a look at the hole on the second floor again. Who or what had made them, and why? The more he studied it, the more convinced he was that a person had made it. There was no trace of animal claw marks. The culprit must have used a tool, perhaps a . . .

“Hammer,” Rollie breathed to himself.

Was it a coincidence that Miss Gram's hammer was missing at the same time holes were being knocked in the walls? One thing Rollie had learned long ago from Holmes was that events were rarely coincidences, especially when crimes were afoot. Rollie did not know if the missing hammer and the holes were linked, and he still did not know the relevance of either. He grunted in frustration and hurried to Observation class.

* * * *

When Thursday afternoon rolled around again, Wesley invited Rollie to join the study group. Rollie agreed and met the older boys in the library. They sat in a circle on the floor with books in laps and pencils in hand. They worked silently for a good fifteen minutes before Wesley looked up at Rollie.

“Are you going home for the weekend?” he asked.

“I go home every weekend,” said Rollie. “Don't you?”

“Only when my parents are home. They travel a lot. This weekend my father and mother are on a business trip to Belgium. So I'll be staying here.”

Todd yawned and stretched. “Wish I could keep you company, but my mum would kill me if I stayed. She acts like I've been gone a month when I go home every weekend. She's mad at Headmaster's new rules about using the telephone. ‘I can never get a hold of you!' she screams.”

Jimmy snorted.

“Watch it. My mummy loves me,” Todd teased.

“My mum loves me too—when she remembers,” Jimmy joked. “She's so absentminded. She calls me Jolly all the time.”

The older boys laughed together.

“Who's Jolly?” Rollie wanted to know.

“Our bulldog,” Jimmy replied between laughter.

Rollie thought Jimmy rather resembled a bulldog, being squat with pudgy cheeks and a flat nose. He did not dare voice this opinion.

“What's your family like, Rollie?” Wesley inquired.

“Big and loud. I have older twin brothers and younger twin sisters.”

“Really? That's peculiar!” Todd commented.

“They are peculiar.” Rollie nodded.

“Can you stay the weekend?” asked Wesley. “We could hang out.”

“That would be fun!” Rollie agreed. “What do you do around here?”

“We sleep in, play games, go on outings with Mr. Chad. Nothing much.”

Rollie's brown eyes widened. “Nothing much? Sounds like fun!”

“Actually it is.”

“Stop rubbing it in,” Todd grunted.

“Can you?” Wesley repeated.

“I'll ask Headmaster if I can phone my parents,” promised Rollie.

Before dinner Rollie went to the headmaster's office to telephone his parents about staying the weekend. After making the call, which lasted longer than Rollie had anticipated because his older twin brothers kept cutting in with stupid detective jokes, Rollie lingered a minute longer.

“Headmaster, sir?” he started. “I have a lead on Zilch's mole.”

Yardsly's eyes brightened. “REALLY!”

“Rupert.”

Yardsly's face fell. “Rupert?”

“He's always missing class and disappearing then showing up,” rattled Rollie, trying to recall everything mysterious about his roommate. “Oh! And last week he said that he had an important assignment to get to. He's our chief suspect at this point.”

Yardsly leaned his elbows on his desk. “No, he's not.”

Rollie was taken aback. “But what about being absent and what if he really does have an assignment and—”

“All those facts about Rupert are true,” agreed Yardsly. “But for other reasons. NOPE. Keep looking.” He waved his pupil to the door. “Oh, one more thing: IS work.”