The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue (2 page)

M
y name is Jeff Bunter, and I’m the chief, first, and number one Goofball on the planet.

My best friends, Brian Rooney, Kelly Smitts, and Mara Lubin, are the other Goofballs.

They’re also on the planet (except it’s sometimes hard to tell with Brian).

Together, we solve mysteries.

Goofball mysteries.

Like the one yesterday. It was huge. You could even call it the Crime of the Century!

And it all happened at our school.

It was also our goofiest mystery so far. There was a smelly scrap of paper. A word too long to say. A chunk of cheese. A pet badger. And Brian’s favorite pants.

But hold on. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Which can hurt. Because when I stop, Brian, Kelly, and Mara bump into me, and we all end up on the floor like a pile of sandbags.

Oh, right. Sandbags.

They were part of the mystery, too.

So let me begin at the beginning. Or rather at the end. The end of the school day.

Because that’s when the mystery started.

We were all in homeroom, talking about the huge party that evening.

Badger Point School was having its 100th anniversary. A statue of the school’s first principal would be unveiled. Because we had no mystery to solve, the other Goofballs and I had spent the whole week putting up decorations.

All of a sudden—
Krrkkkk! Pppppp! Zzzzzt!

No, it wasn’t Mara blowing her nose.

It was the public-address system, making noise like firecrackers exploding in a radio. Trust me, I know what that sounds like. Brian did that once.

When the crackling ended, everyone hushed. Then came the announcement.

“Jeff Bunter, Brian Rooney, Kelly Smitts, and Mara Lubin, please report after school to the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium!”

Because Badger Point is a small school, they combined the cafeteria, the auditorium, and the gymnasium into one room. They even give golf lessons to grown-ups there on Saturdays. That’s a long list of stuff to do in one room, so they had to find a long name for it.

Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium!

It’s where the big party was going to be.

Kelly twirled her blond curls. “I wonder if we need to put up more decorations.”

“Or test the refreshments!” said Mara, who loves to eat but is as skinny as a stick.

BRRRRRNG!
The dismissal bell rang. The halls filled with kids racing out of school, and the four of us headed down to the big room.

Banners were hung on the walls of the hallways. Streamers in purple and white, the school colors, hung from the ceiling.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Kelly. “I love parties. But it’s been days since our last mystery. My detection skills are getting rusty.”

“I hardly feel goofy anymore!” said Brian.

“You still look pretty goofy,” said Mara.

Brian grinned. “Thanks. I try.”

My heart skipped. “What if we’re being called to the Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium to solve a mystery? My cluebook is totally ready!”

My cluebook is what I call a small notebook I carry with me everywhere. I write down anything that looks, smells, sounds, feels, or tastes like a clue. Private detectives do this all the time. It helps us solve mysteries.

“If it’s a mystery, I can use my cool stuff,” said Brian, patting his bulging pockets.

Because Brian is an inventor, his pockets are always packed with weird junk. Too bad his mystery-solving inventions never really work.

“We can wear new disguises!” said Mara.

Mara is the queen of goofy disguises. On our last case, we dressed up as plants. Before that, we were lumps of pizza dough. Before that, we were big fluffy rats. We’ll dress up as anything to solve a mystery.

The school was pretty empty by the time we entered the final corridor. Then we saw Billy Carlson, a boy from our homeroom. He was picking something up from the floor.

“Hey, Billy,” said Kelly.

“It’s not me,” he said. Then he ran as fast as he could down the hall the opposite way.

“
That
was mysterious,” whispered Kelly.

“And I’m writing it down,” I said.

We turned one last corner, and there it was.

The Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium.

It was the biggest room in the school. It had everything—basketball nets, climbing ropes, bleachers, and cafeteria tables.

It even had a ramp up to a stage. But when we stepped in, we knew something wasn’t right.

Kelly froze. “A man is
lurking
behind the curtain!
He
did it!” she whispered.

We didn’t know if
anyone
had done
anything
yet, but Kelly was right about one thing. A man
was
lurking behind the curtain.

Lurking
is a detective word. You use it to describe someone who looks like he is sneaking around. And Kelly thinks pretty much everybody looks sneaky. She’s not always right. But she is great at solving mysteries. I wrote it down.

“Sneak up on him,” I said. “Be stealthy.”

Stealthy
is another detective word. It means silent and careful. But I guess Brian was out the day we learned that word. Because he tripped on his shoelaces and fell with a thud.

“What—?” the lurking man said with a gasp.

“What—?” we gasped back.

“ P
rincipal Higgins?” I said to the man lurking behind the curtain.

“Shhh!” whispered Principal Higgins, his face wrinkled in a frown. “I’m hiding!”

“But we see you right there,” said Kelly.

“I’m not hiding from
you
,” he said.

We went totally quiet. No one breathed. No one moved. Finally, the principal’s shoulders sank and he sighed a big sigh. “Oh, dear …”

“Sir,” said Mara, “please tell us—
in your own words
—exactly what’s wrong.”

Principal Higgins sighed again. “It’s a calamity, a misadventure of cataclysmic proportions, a tragic and devastating debacle—”

The thing with Principal Higgins is that his own words are not the same as our own words.

But one thing I
did
understand. Principal Higgins was upset. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “Tell us what’s wrong—in
normal
words.”

I had my cluebook open and ready.

Principal Higgins drew the curtain and crossed the stage to a tall shape covered with a white cloth. “You know that Simon Plunkett was Badger Point School’s first principal one century ago?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Mara. “The anniversary party tonight is all about Simon Plunkett. We can’t wait to see the new statue of him!”

Principal Higgins frowned. “This afternoon was very busy for me,” he said. “A student asked to leave early. I had to count the special gifts to be given out to everyone tonight. I ordered the refreshments. Mrs. Bookman, the librarian, brought me a book. I had to write my speech. A thousand things—”

“Wait!” I said, scribbling all that down.

“Okay, go on,” I said.

The principal put his hand on the cloth. “But when I came to make sure that the new statue was ready, look what I found!”

He pulled the cloth away, and the “statue” looked just like a pile of chairs stacked up on each other as tall as a person.

“Chairs?”
said Mara. “Simon Plunkett was a bunch of
chairs
?”

“Of course not,” Principal Higgins said.

“Did he
invent
chairs?” Brian asked.

“No, no, you’re not following me,” the principal said.

“You’re not going anywhere,” said Kelly.

Principal Higgins shut his eyes and got red in the face. “What I am trying to say is that the statue of our first principal, Principal Plunkett, the statue to be unveiled at our celebration tonight—has been
stolen
!”

We all gasped.

Then I wrote it down.

Of course,
stolen
is one of the most important detective words of all. Many times it’s the reason there is a mystery in the first place.

“This crime,” said the principal, “is the worst thing that has happened at Badger Point School in one hundred years.”

“It’s the Crime of the Century!” said Brian.

“It is!” said the principal. “And now I must cancel the party and call the police! I wanted to tell you first, since you were in charge of all the wonderful decorations.”

I felt dizzy. “No!” I said.

“I have no choice,” he said. “We have only two hours before the celebration, and our statue has vanished without a trace!”

And that’s the difference between normal people and Goofballs.

“There is
always
a trace,” I said slowly.

“And we’ll find that trace,” said Mara. “Let
us
find the statue. We can do it. Please?”

“You? Oh, I don’t know …,” he started.

“Sir,” Kelly began, “the Goofballs are famous. We ended the Totally Incredible Pizza Disaster. We found Randall Crandall’s missing pony. We figured out who threw the Flying First Grader. We even solved the case of the stolen statue! Oh, wait. That’s
this
case. But we
will
solve it, I promise!”

“We all promise!” said Mara. Principal Higgins looked doubtful.

“Sir,” I said, “this is a job for the experts.”

“But I thought it was a job for us,”said Brian.

I looked at him.

“Oh, wait. We
are
the experts.”

Principal Higgins paced the stage. He looked at the chairs, then out at the empty Cafeteri-Audi-Nasium. Finally, he said, “I suppose two hours won’t make a difference. Go ahead. Do your Goofball best.”

I started to write that in my cluebook when footsteps squeaked suddenly behind us.

Kelly spun around. “
He
did it!” she cried, even before seeing who it was.

But it was only the custodian, Mr. Wick.

Except that
only
is wrong, because Mr. Wick does way more than clean. He teaches art. He coaches sports. He drives a bus. He cooks in the kitchen. He even directs school shows.

Maybe
he
should have a longer name, too!

Like Mr.Wickercleanerteachercooker-drivercoach!

“I just came to say that I found a visitor scratching to get in,” Mr. Wick said, and a dog with tall ears and no tail galloped over.

“Sparky!” I said. “Come here, boy!”

Sparky is my corgi, the official Goofdog and a valued member of our mystery-solving team.

“A dog in our school?” asked the principal.

“He’s part of the Goofball crew,” I told him.

“Goof! Goof!” Sparky barked.

Principal Higgins sighed one last time. “I’ll call your parents and tell them you are here.”

Then he left the room with Mr. Wick.

“If we solve an official school mystery, our fame will spread everywhere!” said Kelly.

“Like warm peanut butter,” added Mara.

I stepped to the podium and tapped the microphone. “Goofballs, your attention, please. You know the drill. What’s first?”

“First, we each take a wall!” said Mara.

“Second, we put our noses to the floor!” said Brian.

“Third, we hope there’s nothing stinky down there,” said Kelly as she watched Brian unfold a “laser” helmet of earmuffs, tiny mirrors, and a scuba mask with no glass in it.

I nodded. “And what’s fourth?”

Everyone was too busy gawking at Brian’s goofy invention to answer.

“Goofballs!” I cried. “I said,
what’s
fourth?”

“We search for clues!” they all said.

And that’s just what we did.