Partners in Crime (9780545463119) (2 page)

One
week later, we were in Mrs. Feldman's class a few minutes before the bell, setting up for our big presentation. I stood stiffly in front of all the empty desks, trying to look confident. But the note cards in my hands were trembling. My stomach felt like I'd just stumbled off one of those looping roller coasters.

It didn't help that Darcy was on her hands and knees, snarling and mumbling something about a cheap cable. She grabbed her backpack and pulled another wire out. My eyes went to the wall clock. Two minutes. If we couldn't get the website to come up, we had nothing to show for our presentation. We might fail!

Just as I was wondering if we should have gone the
simple route like everyone else, Darcy waved her fist in the air and said, “Yes!”

“Are we all set?” I whispered. A few kids had already rolled in and were seated and waiting.

“Yep. We're all connected. After you introduce the company, I'll flip the projector on.”

Fiona Fanning, fashionista of the seventh grade, strolled into the room. She wore a stylish pink dress and gray wedges, and carried her little pink notebook under one arm. Fiona may look like she just walked off the cover of a teen magazine, but she has the brains of a doorknob. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of Darcy with her laptop. “I guess it's Taco Day,” she sneered, and the other kids chuckled.

This little joke stemmed from the time Darcy hacked into the school's system and changed the monthly lunch menu so that every day was Taco Day. For thirty days.

Darcy likes tacos.

Mrs. Feldman clapped her hands loudly to get the attention of the class. “I'm sure you've all worked very hard on your team projects, and I'm excited to see what you've come up with. Norah and Darcy have
asked to go first since their presentation requires equipment. So take it away, Norah and Darcy!”

She attempted to lead the class in an enthusiastic round of clapping, but half of them were already falling asleep.

I cleared my throat and began to speak. “For our assignment …” My voice was too quiet. I tried again, louder and stronger. “For our assignment, we decided to create a website to advertise our small business.”

I glanced at Darcy, who nodded and flipped the switch on the projector. The website lit up the big screen on the wall. “Presenting … Partners in Crime. A detective agency!” she said.

The class sat up a bit straighter and actually — gasp — started paying attention. This gave me a little jolt of confidence. I smiled and straightened my shoulders. “As you can see, we created a website and a logo for our business. We have a page about what the company does. And a contact page so people can ask the detective agency for help.”

The home page was black and white with our logo in the center. Darcy had wanted two girls holding handcuffs. I thought that was a bit over the top, so I'd
suggested a magnifying glass. She gave me directions to the nearest old folks' home in response. So we compromised with an image of a fingerprint and the words
Partners in Crime
underneath. I thought it looked pretty cool up there.

The
ABOUT US
page featured a list of the types of cases the agency would take on. Things like surveillance, missing persons, theft investigations, and background checks. (We'd watched a few episodes of Darcy's favorite crime show and took notes to get the words right.)
CONTACT US
led to a form Darcy had built in with white boxes for name, e-mail, and reason for contacting.

All in all, I thought we did a great job. I talked about how the agency would help people, and before I knew it, my required three minutes were up. I didn't even need to glance down at my note cards because I'd practiced it ten thousand times with Darcy.

Mrs. Feldman applauded when we finished. “Wonderful work, Norah and Darcy! I actually wish your small business
was
real.”

Back at our desks, Darcy held out her fist and I bumped it. Then I breathed a sigh of relief. This whole project was done.

My racing heart slowed back to normal as the rest of the teams presented their work. Maya Doshi and Slade Durkin had come up with a pet-sitting business. Maya was the smallest and quietest girl in class. She had just moved to town this year when her parents opened up a popular Indian restaurant. She stood behind the desk and shyly held up the poster board advertising the business. The only part of her showing was the bump of her high ponytail. Her partner, Slade, was the loudest kid. He often burped the alphabet and farted with his armpit at inappropriate times. Normally, I'd feel bad for Maya, since she got partnered with him. (Assigning partners alphabetically had worked out for Darcy and me.) But it may have made the presentation easier on her since Slade was more than willing to do all the talking.

I kind of spaced during the next couple of presentations, until Zane Munro stood up. He walked to the front of the class all alone because his partner was sick. I straightened in my seat and gave him a smile to try to put him at ease. He returned it with a nervous grin and, even though he had a mouth full of braces, he was still so cute. Zane has sandy brown hair and
wears T-shirts every day, even in winter when I wear long-sleeve thermals under my sweaters.

As he started talking about his business — a soccer program for little kids — it was obvious that he felt as nervous as I had up there. I didn't know what was shaking more, his voice or his hands. I thought there was a distinct possibility that his presentation would end with him puking on his shoes.

To make matters worse, Hunter Fisk kept making faces at him. Hunter did this disgusting thing where he flipped his eyelids inside out. And, of course, poor Zane couldn't concentrate and kept losing his place in his presentation.

I tapped Hunter's shoulder with my pencil. “That's rude,” I said. “Stop it.”

But Hunter enjoys being mean as much as Darcy enjoys tacos, so Zane's presentation ended with a spitball to his forehead. Carefully timed by Hunter to a moment when Mrs. Feldman's back was turned, of course.

Unbeknownst to the rest of us, though, Darcy had crept down to Hunter's feet like a stealth ninja, untied his right shoe, and retied the shoelace to the chair. So
when the bell rang and Hunter stood up, he took his chair with him, tripped, and landed on his face.

Darcy held her fist out.

I gave it a bump.

 

After
school, we hung in my room as usual. Darcy flopped onto a beanbag and opened her laptop. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my folder.

“What homework are you doing first?” I asked.

“I don't have any,” Darcy said, tapping her fingers while waiting for her computer to start up.

“What about the book report?” I asked.

“Done.”

“Math?”

“Calculated.”

“Spanish?”

“Translated.”

“You haven't even opened your backpack yet, Darcy. How is all your homework already done?”

She counted off on her fingers. “I did the book report during math class, my math in Spanish, and my Spanish in English.”

I sighed and slid out my first assignment.

“I can just give you my math and you can copy it,” Darcy said, smirking because she already knew what I was going to say. I'd never cheat. I was about to remind her of that fact, but she suddenly sat up straight, stared at her screen, and said, “Whoa.”

“What?” I asked.

She looked up from the computer and met my eyes. “The website we created for our fake detective agency just got an e-mail about a real case.”

My
heart started pounding. A
real
case? I thought the contact form was just boxes on the website page. I didn't think it actually worked.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“When I created the form on the contact page, it needed to lead to a real e-mail address. So I just had it forwarded to mine.” Darcy shrugged as if this was nothing.

“And someone actually used the form and sent us a message about a case?”

Darcy nodded, grinning. “Isn't it awesome?”

“That depends,” I said, feeling slightly nervous. “What does the message say?”

Darcy spun the laptop around to face me. “See for yourself.”

I squinted at the screen. The e-mail address looked fake.
happypanda4444?
Seriously, who would choose that? The space for the name was blank. My eyes shot down to the message, and goose bumps sprang up all over my arms. It was only one line:

I gasped. “What does that mean?”

“It means this person has a twin who's missing, and he or she wants us to find her,” Darcy replied sarcastically.

“Obviously.” I rolled my eyes. “But was she kidnapped? Did she run away? Were they separated somehow? ‘Find my sister' could mean a whole bunch of things.”

Darcy tapped her chin with a black-painted fingernail. “True, that.” A slow smile spread across her face. “We'll have to write back.”

I grabbed her hand before she could start typing. “What are you going to say?”

“That we need more information before we can agree to take the case.” She pulled her hand away and raised it over the keyboard.

Take on the case?!
“Wait, Darcy,” I said.

The website was only supposed to be a school project. We'd do the work, get the grade, and move on to the next thing. I never intended to get involved in a real mystery!

Darcy, of course, felt no hesitation. Her eyes were practically glowing. “Come on, Norah,” she said, flexing her fingers like they were itching to start typing.

“We're not real detectives,” I argued. “We're — not, you know, qualified.”

“Whoever wrote this
knows
that,” Darcy explained. “No one outside of our social studies class — well, outside of our school — could have seen this website.”

I raised my eyebrows in suspicion. “If it's on the Internet, anyone could have seen it.”

“Well …” Darcy looked up at the ceiling. She always has trouble with eye contact when she's busted doing something bad. “I didn't want to pay for web hosting, so I sort of … hacked into the school's server and used their space. So it's only up on the school's intranet. Nowhere else.”

“The what?” I said.

“In-TRA-net. It's like a private network that the school uses, and you can only access it there.”

Although Darcy didn't ask permission before she stole school server space, I wasn't interested in lecturing her now. I wanted to figure out what was going on.

“Hmm,” I said. “That does narrow down the list of who could've sent the message.” But still … us? Solving a
real
case? That was crazy. “I don't know if we should get involved.”

Darcy said, “This person needs help, and our presentation gave them the idea to turn to us. To put their trust in us. You
do
want to help a classmate in need, don't you?” Darcy smiled. She knew what buttons to press on me.

I did enjoy a challenge. And if someone really did need help …

I stared up at the plastic stars on my ceiling. Darcy and I were both only children. I thought about what it would be like to have a sibling — let alone a twin — and then have them … disappear. If that's what even happened. It must be maddening to have a sister and not know where she is. And to ask for the
help of two seventh graders, the person must be … desperate. My heart went out to whoever he or she was.

“Okay,” I said. “Write back. Ask for more info.”

Darcy's fingers flew over the keyboard as she typed.

Who are you?

What happened to your sister?

We might help ….

She paused for a moment, then hit
SEND
.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now,” Darcy said, lacing her hands behind her head, “we wait.”

After a couple minutes of sitting in stunned silence, I decided to get back to my homework. There was a chance the mystery e-mailer wouldn't write back at all. I couldn't sit around forever waiting for a —

Ding!

My eyes widened. “Is that what I think it is?”

A devilish look came over Darcy's face. “I have new mail.”

I scrambled off the beanbag and over to Darcy's side as quickly as I could. She clicked on the message.

It listed a name, a birth date, and the line
Find her.

“Bailey Ann Banks, Bailey Ann Banks.” I repeated
the name a few times. It meant nothing to me. I eyeballed Darcy.

She shrugged. “Never heard of her.” She frowned at the screen. “And this doesn't really answer the two questions I asked.”

“Maybe that's the only information the person has,” I said.

A thousand questions darted through my head. Who was Bailey? Why was she missing? Had she lived here in town? Why was our e-mailer staying anonymous? Why did he or she contact us instead of the police? I didn't even know where to begin.

“But whose twin could she be?” Darcy said, looking frustrated. “There's no one with the last name Banks in our social studies class. Or even our
grade
.”

I squinted at the screen. “Maybe the name was changed or something,” I mused out loud. “Or maybe it's someone in a different grade.”

“But check out her birthday,” Darcy said.

“April fourth. So?”

Darcy pointed. “The
year
.”

I blinked quickly as I realized it. “She's our age.” A shiver went down my back.

“Yeah.” Darcy nodded. “Since this person is looking for their twin, it means this person
has
to be in our grade.”

“What do we do now?” I asked, scratching my head.

Darcy picked at the paint on her thumbnail. “I think the first thing we need to figure out is who our mystery e-mailer is.”

I nodded, and flipped to a fresh page in my notebook. “Maybe we should make a list of suspects?” Darcy and I like making lists.

Darcy was staring at me, her eyes sparkling. “So you're saying we should take the case?”

I took a deep breath, wondering if we were ready for all this. “I think so.”

Darcy nodded eagerly. “I agree, Detective.”